Norton, Andre - Anthology (13 page)

 
          
 
"What about
your
Encyclopedia? You're taking it along, surely?"

 
          
 
Mr. Bittering glanced away. "I'll come
get it next week."

 
          
 
They turned to their daughter. "What
about
your
New York dresses?"

 
          
 
The bewildered girl stared. "Why, I don't
want them any more."

 
          
 
They shut off the gas, the
water,
they locked the doors and walked away. Father peered into the truck.

 
          
 
"Gosh, we're not taking much," he
said. "Considering all we brought to Mars, this is only a handful!"

 
          
 
He started the truck.

 
          
 
Looking at the small white cottage for a long
moment, he was filled with a desire to rush to it, touch it, say good-by to it,
for he felt as if he were going away on a long journey, leaving something to
which he could never quite return, never understand again.

 
          
 
Just then, Sam and his family drove by in
another truck.

 
          
 
"Hi, Bittering! Here we go!"

 
          
 
The trucks swung down the ancient highway out
of town. There were sixty others traveling the same direction. The town filled
with a silent, heavy dust from their passage. The canal waters lay blue in the
sun, and a quiet wind moved in the strange trees.

 
          
 
"Good-by, town!" said Mr. Bittering.

 
          
 
"Good-by, good-by!" sang the family,
waving to it.

 
          
 
They did not look back again.

 
          
 
Summer burned the canals dry. Summer moved
like flame upon the meadows. In the empty Earth settlement, the painted houses
flaked and peeled. Rubber tires upon which children had swung in back yards
hung suspended like stopped clock pendulums in the blazing air.

 
          
 
At the metal shop, the rocket frame began to
rust.

 
          
 
In the quiet autumn, Mr. Bittering stood, very
dark now, very golden-eyed, upon the slope above his villa, looking at the
valley.

 
          
 
"It's time to go back," said Cora.

 
          
 
"Yes, but we're not going," he said
quietly. "There's nothing there any more."

 
          
 
"Your books," she said.
"Your fine clothes."

 
          
 
"Your lies and your fine ior uele rreT
she said.

 
          
 
"The town's empty. No one's going
back," he said. "There's no reason to, none at all."

 
          
 
The daughter wove tapestries and the sons
played songs on ancient flutes and pipes, their laughter echoing in the marble
villa.

 
          
 
Mr. Bittering gazed at the Earth settlement
far away in the low valley. "Such odd, such ridiculous houses the Earth
people built."

 
          
 
"They didn't know any better," his
wife mused.
"Such ugly people.
I'm glad they've
gone."

 
          
 
They both looked at each other, startled by
all they had just finished saying. They laughed.

 
          
 
"Where did they go?" he wondered. He
glanced at his wife. She was golden and slender as his daughter. She looked at
him, and he seemed almost as young as their eldest son.

 
          
 
"I don't know," she said.

 
          
 
"We'll go back to town maybe next year,
or the year after, or the year after that," he said, calmly. "Now—I'm
warm. How about taking a swim?"

 
          
 
They turned their backs to the valley. Arm in
arm they walked silently down a path of clear running spring
water
...

 
          
 
Five years later, a rocket fell out of the
sky. It lay steaming in the valley. Men leapt out of it, shouting:

           
 
"We won the war on Earth! We're here to
rescue you! Hey!"

 
          
 
But the American-built town of cottages, peach
trees, and theaters was silent. They found a half-finished rocket frame,
rusting in an empty shop.

 
          
 
The rocket men searched the hills. The captain
established headquarters in an abandoned saloon. He was drinking whisky when
his lieutenant came back to report.

 
          
 
"The town's empty, but we found native
life in the hills, sir.
Dark people.
Yellow eyes.
Martians.
Very friendly.
We talked a bit, not much. They learned
English fast. I'm sure our relations will be most friendly with them,
sir."

 
          
 
"Dark, eh?" mused the captain.
"How many?"

 
          
 
"Six, eight hundred, I'd say, living in
those marble ruins in the hills, sir.
Tall, healthy as hell.
Beautiful women."

 
          
 
"Did they tell you what became of the men
and women who built this Earth settlement, Lieutenant?"

 
          
 
"They hadn't the foggiest notion of what
happened to this town or its people."

 
          
 
"Strange." The captain swallowed his
drink meditatively. "You think those Martians killed them?"

 
          
 
"They look surprisingly peaceful. Chances
are a plague did this town in, sir."

 
          
 
"Perhaps."
The captain poured another drink. "Drink up, Lieutenant. I suppose this is
one of those mysteries we'll never solve. One of those mysteries you read
about."

 
          
 
The captain looked at the room, the dusty
windows, the
blue mountains
rising beyond, the canals
moving in the light, and he heard the soft wind in the air. He shivered. Then,
recovering, he tapped a large fresh map he had thumbtacked to the top of an
empty table.

 
          
 
"Lots to be done,
Lieutenant."
His voice droned on and quietly on as the sun sank
behind the blue hills.
"New settlements.
Mining sites, minerals to be looked for.
Bacteriological
specimens taken.
My God—the work, all the work.
And the old records were lost. We'll have a job of remapping to do, renaming
the mountains and rivers and such.
Calls for a little
imagination.

 
          
 
"What do you think of naming those
mountains the Lincoln Mountains, this canal the Washington Canal, those
hills—hell, we can name those hills for you, Lieutenant.
Diplomacy.
And you, for a favor, might name a town for me.
Polishing the
apple.
And why not make this the Einstein Valley, and further over ...
are you listening, Lieutenant?"

 
          
 
The lieutenant snapped his gaze from the blue
color and the quiet mist of the hills far beyond the town.

 
          
 
"What? Oh, yes, sir!"

            
Terran
settlers on alien worlds is
another well-tried and well-liked subject on
which to speculate, consider, and dream. But in our own day and world lie the
seeds of future disaster, born of unconsidered and heedless actions and thoughts
now. These could defeat the future when we reach the stars, unless, as the
family in The Plague, we are ready to defend what we have worked to win.

            
The man faced the
monster at a distance of twenty feet. Dr. Reed Nolan, khaki-clad, gray-haired,
compactly built, dark-tanned by the big sun of the world called Kaka Nine, hardly
would have been recognized by his former colleagues at the university where he
had spent the earlier decades of his life.

            
The creature
confronting him would have been even less

familiar
. Massive as a rhino, horned, fanged like a
warthog, with a mottled hide and slim, curiously jointed legs, the tusker
lowered its head and gouged at the turf.

 
          
 
"Well, Emperor," Nolan said
genially, "you're here early this year. That's fine; I have a lush crop of
pestweed for you. I guess the herd's not far behind you." He plucked a
stalk of wild-growing leatherplant, stripped off the tough husk, offered the
succulent pith to the beast. The native omnivore ambled forward, accepted the
offering, regarding the man with the same tolerance it did any other
nonnutritive substance.

 
          
 
At their first encounter, three years before,
Nolan had had a few bad moments when the tusker herd had arrived like a sudden
plague, charging down from the hills. The big beasts had sniffed at his heels
where he roosted in the only perch available: a stunted tree from which the
monsters could have plucked him easily had they been so minded. Then they had
passed on. Now, better educated, Nolan was deeply appreciative of the thoroughness
with which the big animals rooted out the native plant and rodent life from his
fields and the scrupulous care with which they avoided any contact with the
alien Terrestrial crops. As self-maintaining cultivators, weeding machines, and
fertilizer spreaders, the tuskers left little to be desired.

 
          
 
The communicator at Nolan's wrist buzzed
softly.

 
          
 
"Reed, there's a surface boat in the
lagoon," a woman's voice said, rather excitedly.
"Quite
a big boat.
Who do you suppose it could be?"

 
          
 
"In our lagoon,
Annette?
Beats me.
I'm in the high pasture,
over beyond North Ridge. I'll buzz over and have a look. By the way, Emperor's
here; the herds ought to be along in another week."

 
          
 
Nolan remounted his soft-wheeled range cart
and trundled upslope to a point from which he had a wide view of the planted
fields and seedling orchards sweeping down toward the mile-distant beach and
the island-dotted sea beyond. The boat was a few hundred yards offshore,
obviously making for the landing wharf Nolan had completed the previous month.
It was a big, wide, gray-painted vessel, clumsy but powerful looking,
riding
low in the water. Annette heard his grunt of
surprise.

 
          
 
"Maybe we're on the tourist routes now.
Take it easy, girl. Don't start rushing around making sandwiches. It's probably
some kind of official survey party. I can't think of anyone else who'd have an
interest in our homestead."

 
          
 
"What are they doing out here, twelve
hundred miles from Toehold? The Bureau's never paid us any attention
before."

 
          
 
"For which we're duly grateful. Never
mind; I'm on my way down. Maybe it will be nice to talk to strangers, after
three years."

 
          
 
It was a fifteen-minute trip down from the
heights to the hedge line delineating the limits of the tilled acreage. The
perfume of the force-grown gardenias was sweet on the air. For all their
beauty, the imported plants were no luxury; Nolan had discovered early that
their fragrance was an effective deterrent to the tuskers. The hedge system had
been laid out with care to channel the big animals' seasonal migration—stampede
might be a better word, Nolan reflected —as they swept down from the winter
heights to graze their traditional meadows along the shore—meadows now under
intensive cultivation. The herds, Nolan admitted to himself, had probably made
the difference between bare survival and the success of the plantation.

 
          
 
Timmy, Nolan's twelve-year-old son, met him on
the path above the house. Nolan let him hop aboard.

 
          
 
"They're tying up at the pier, Dad,"
the boy said excitedly. "Who do you s'pose they are?"

           
 
"Probably
some
junketing
bureaucrats, Timmy.
Taking a census, or
something of the sort."

 
          
 
There were men down on the pier now, making
cables fast. The sound of a turbine started up. A tracked vehicle, bright
yellow in color, was trundling down the gangplank.

 
          
 
Annette, a petite brunette, emerged from the
house to meet her husband and son.

 
          
 
"They look awfully busy," she said,
glancing toward the shore. "Reed, did you order any equipment that I don't
know about?"

 
          
 
"Nothing.
Someone's
made a navigational error, I suspect."

 
          
 
"Dad, look!" Timmy pointed.

 
          
 
A deck broom, probing in an open hatch, had
lifted a laden pallet,
swung
it over the side to
deposit it on the dock. A fork lift picked up the pallet, advanced along the
length of the pier; it rolled off onto the grassy shore, gouging deep parallel
ruts through the planted turf as it went.

 
          
 
"Dad, we spent all spring getting that
grass to grow—"

 
          
 
"Never mind, Timmy, we can replace it.
You two stay here," Nolan said to Annette. "I'll go down and see what
this is all about."

 
          
 
"Aren't you going to wash up, Reed?
They'll think you're the hired man."

 
          
 
"Don't I wish I had one," he said as
he headed for the dock.

 
          
 
The path down from the crest where he had
built the house led close under a dense stand of blue-needled sprucelike trees.
Native wildflowers in many shades of yellow grew in profusion here; a stream
splashed down across gold-mossed rocks. The Terrestrial birds that Nolan had
released —and fed daily—had thrived: mockingbirds, robins, and parakeets
chirped and twittered comfortingly in the alien shade of the forest. Next year,
he might be able to bring in a few dozen seedlings of pine and cedar to
supplement the native woods, since this year's crops would, for the first time,
show a handsome profit.

 
          
 
As Nolan emerged from the shelter of the
trees, the vehicle he had seen earlier was churning briskly across the grass in
his direction. It halted, and a bulky bundle tumbled from it to the ground. The
machine drove on, dropped a second package fifty feet from the first. It
continued on its way, depositing the loads at regular intervals across the wide
lawn. Nolan angled across to intercept the vehicle as it stopped again. Two
men, one youngish, with a thinning crew cut, the other middle-aged and bald,
both dressed in badly cut but new-looking coveralls, looked down at him without
visible interest.

 
          
 
"Better hold it, fellows," Nolan
called. "There's been some mistake. That cargo doesn't belong here."

 
          
 
The men exchanged glances. The elder of the
two turned and spat carelessly past Nolan.

 
          
 
"Ha," he said. The vehicle moved on.

 
          
 
Nolan walked over to the nearest bundle. It
was a tailored plastic casing, roughly cubical, two feet on a side. Markings
stenciled on the side read:

 
          
 
SHELTER, PERSONNEL (MALE)

 
          
 
cat567/09/alO
CAP 20.
APSC.
CL II.

 
          
 
Nolan continued down to the pier. Vehicles
were rolling off it in a steady stream, some loaded with men, others with
equipment. The growl of turbines filled the air, along with an acrid stink of
burned hydrocarbons. A small, slender man in sub-executive coveralls stood amid
the confusion, clipboard in hand. He looked around sharply as Nolan came up.

           
 
"Here," he snapped, "what are
you doing here, fellow? What's your crew and unit number?" He riffled the
papers on the clipboard as if the answer to his question was to be found there.

 
          
 
"I was about to ask you the same
thing," Nolan said mildly. "What you're doing here, I mean. I'm
afraid you're in the wrong place. This is—"

 
          
 
"None of your
impertinence, now!
Stand over there; I'll get to you presently."
The small man turned his back to Nolan.

 
          
 
"Where can I find the man in
charge?" Nolan asked. The man ignored him. He turned toward the boat: the
little man shouted after him, but he went on.

 
          
 
At the pier, a harassed-looking fellow with a
tight, office-pale face stared him up and down.

 
          
 
"In charge?" he echoed Nolan's
inquiry. "Don't worry about it. Get back to your crew."

 
          
 
"I'm not a crew member," Nolan said
patiently. "I'm—"

 
          
 
"Don't argue with me!" the man
snapped, and motioned to a bigger man overseeing the maneuvers of the fork
lift. "Grotz, take his number." He turned away.

 
          
 
"All right, you, let's have that
number," Grotz demanded tiredly.

 
          
 
"Number one," Nolan said.

 
          
 
"One what?
One
ten?"

 
          
 
"If you say so."

 
          
 
"All right."
Grotz jotted. "They were looking for you, one-ten. Better get busy before
I dock you."

 
          
 
"I think I'll do just that," Nolan
said, and left the pier.

 
          
 
Back at the house, he went directly to the
study, switched on the callbox.

 
          
 
"Some kind of official snafu," he
told Annette. "I'll have to place a call to Toehold and see what they know
about it."

 
          
 
"Reed—that's so expensive
.. ."

 
          
 
"Can't be helped.
They seem to be too busy to talk to me," Nolan looked up the code for the
Office of Colonial Affairs, punched it out.

 
          
 
"Reed," Annette said from the
window. "They're putting up some big tents on the lawn!"

 
          
 
"I know . . ." An operator came on
the line; another minute passed before Nolan reached the OCA.

 
          
 
"Nolan, you say?" a harassed
official voice said. "Oh, yes, I recall the name ..."

 
          
 
Briefly, Nolan outlined the situation.
"Someone's apparently got his coordinates confused," he finished.
"If you'd put a call through on the IC band to whoever's in charge—"