Norton, Andre - Anthology (2 page)

 
          
 
One of the most common plots in science
fiction is that of monstrous aliens invading earth. From the day when H. G.
Wells wrote of octopus-like Martians clanking about in long-legged machines in
his War of the Worlds, the reader has been presented with a wide variety of
such threats to our peace of body and mind. But a combination of circumstances
such as the author of Shape envisions might defeat invaders before they even
become known to those endangered on this world of ours.

 
          
 
Pid
the Pilot slowed
the ship almost to a standstill. He peered anxiously at the green planet below.

 
          
 
Even without instruments, there was no mistaking
it. Third from its sun, it was the only planet in this system capable of
sustaining life. Peacefully, it swam through its gauze of clouds.

 
          
 
It looked very innocent. And yet something on
this planet had claimed the lives of every expedition the Glom had sent.

 
          
 
Pid
hesitated a
moment before starting irrevocably down. He and his two crewmen were as ready
now as they would ever be. Their compact Displacers were stored in body
pouches, inactive but ready.

 
          
 
Pid
wanted to say
something to his crew but wasn't sure how to put it.

 
          
 
The crew waited. Ilg the Radioman had sent the
final message to the Glom planet. Ger the Detector read sixteen dials at once
and reported, "No sign of alien activity." His body surfaces flowed
carelessly.

 
          
 
Pid
noticed the flow
and knew what he had to say. Ever since they had left Glom, Shape-discipline
had been disgustingly lax. The Invasion Chief had warned him; but still, he had
to do something about it. It was his duty, since lower castes such as Radiomen
and Detectors were notoriously prone to Shapelessness.

 
          
 
"A lot of hopes are resting on this
expedition," he began slowly. "We're a long way from home now."

 
          
 
Ger the Detector nodded. Ilg the Radioman
flowed out of his prescribed shape and molded himself comfortably to a wall.

 
          
 
"However,"
Pid
said sternly, "Distance is no excuse for promiscuous shapelessness."

 
          
 
Ilg flowed hastily back into proper Radioman's
shape.

 
          
 
"Exotic shapes will undoubtedly be called
for,"
Pid
went on. "And for that we have a
special dispensation. But remember—any shape not assumed strictly in the line
of duty is a device of The Shapeless One!"

 
          
 
Ger's body surfaces abruptly stopped flowing.

 
          
 
"That's all,"
Pid
said, and flowed into his controls. The ship started down, so smoothly
coordinated that
Pid
felt a glow of pride.

 
          
 
They were good workers, he decided. He just
couldn't expect them to be as shape-conscious as a high-caste Pilot.

           
 
Even the Invasion Chief had told him that.

 
          
 
"Pid," the Invasion Chief had said
at their last interview, "We need this planet desperately."

 
          
 
"Yes sir,"
Pid
had said, standing at full attention, never quivering from Optimum Pilot's
Shape.

 
          
 
"One of you," the Chief said
heavily, "must get through and set up a Displacer near an atomic power
source. The army will be standing by at this end, ready to step through."

 
          
 
"We'll do it, sir,"
Pid
said.

 
          
 
"This expedition has to succeed,"
the Chief said, and his features blurred momentarily from sheer fatigue.
"In strictest confidence, there's considerable unrest on Glom. The miner
caste is on strike, for instance. They want a new digging shape. Say the old
one is inefficient."

 
          
 
Pid
looked properly
indignant. The Mining Shape had been set down by the ancients fifty thousand
years ago, together with the rest of the basic shapes. And now these upstarts
wanted to change it!

 
          
 
"That's not all," the Chief told
him. "We've uncovered a new Cult of Shapelessness. Picked up almost eight
thousand
Glom,
and I don't know how many more we
missed."

 
          
 
Pid
knew that
Shapelessness was a lure of The Shapeless One, the greatest evil that the Glom
mind conceived of. But how, he wondered, did Glom fall for His lures?

 
          
 
The Chief guessed this question.
"Pid," he said, "I suppose it's difficult for you to understand.
Do you enjoy Piloting?"

 
          
 
"Yes, sir,"
Pid
said simply. Enjoy Piloting! It was his entire life! Without a ship, he was
nothing.

 
          
 
"Not all Glom feel that way," the
Chief said. "I don't understand it either. All my ancestors have been
Invasion Chiefs, back to the beginning of time. So of course I want to be an
Invasion Chief. It's only natural, as well as lawful. But the lower castes
don't feel that way." He shook his body sadly.

 
          
 
"I've told you this for a reason,"
the Chief went on. "We Glom need more room. This unrest is caused purely
by crowding. All our psychologists say so. Another planet to expand into will
cure everything. So we're counting on you,
Pid
."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir,"
Pid
said, with a glow of pride.

 
          
 
The Chief rose to end the interview. Then he
changed his mind and sat down again.

 
          
 
"You'll have to watch your crew," he
said. "They're loyal, no doubt, but low-caste. And you know the lower
castes."

 
          
 
Pid
did indeed.

 
          
 
"Ger, your Detector, is suspected of
harboring Altera-tionist tendencies. He was once fined for assuming a
quasi-Hunter shape. Ilg has never had any definite charge brought against him.
But I hear that he remains immobile for suspiciously long periods of time.
Possibly, he fancies himself a Thinker."

 
          
 
"But, sir,"
Pid
protested, "If they are even slightly tainted with Alterationism or
Shapelessness, why send them on this expedition?"

 
          
 
The Chief hesitated before answering.
"There
are
plenty of Glom I could trust," he
said slowly, "but those two have certain qualities of resourcefulness and
imagination that will be needed on this expedition." He sighed. "I
really don't understand why those qualities are usually linked with
Shapelessness."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir,"
Pid
said.

 
          
 
"Just watch them."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir,"
Pid
said again, and saluted, realizing that the interview was at an end. In his
body pouch he felt the dormant Displacer, ready to transform the enemy's power
source into a bridge across space for the Glom hordes.

            
"Good luck," the Chief
said. "I'm sure you'll need it."

 
          
 
The ship dropped silently toward the surface
of the enemy plant. Ger the Detector analyzed the clouds below, and fed data
into the Camouflage Unit. The Unit went to work. Soon the ship looked, to all
outward appearances, like a cirrus formation.

 
          
 
Pid
allowed the ship
to drift slowly toward the surface of the mystery planet. He was in Optimum
Pilot's Shape now, the most efficient of the four shapes alloted to the Pilot
Caste. Blind, deaf, and dumb, an extension of his controls, all his attention
was directed toward matching the velocities of the high-flying clouds, staying
among them, becoming a part of them.

 
          
 
Ger remained rigidly in one of the two shapes
allotted to Detectors. He fed data into the Camouflage Unit, and the descending
ship slowly altered into an alto-cumulus.

 
          
 
There was no sign of activity from the enemy
planet.

 
          
 
Ilg located an atomic power source and fed the
data to
Pid
. The Pilot altered course. He had reached
the lowest level of clouds, barely a mile above the surface of the planet. Now
his ship looked like a fat, fleecy cumulus.

 
          
 
And still there was no sign of alarm. The
unknown fate that had overtaken twenty previous expeditions still had not shown
itself.

 
          
 
Dusk crept across the face of the planet as
Pid
maneuvered near the atomic power installation. He
avoided the surrounding homes and hovered over a clump of woods.

 
          
 
Darkness fell, and the green planet's lone
moon was veiled in clouds.

 
          
 
One cloud floated lower.

 
          
 
And landed.

 
          
 
"Quick, everyone
out!"
Pid
shouted, detaching himself from
the ship's controls. He assumed the Pilot's Shape best suited for running and
raced out of the hatch. Ger and Ilg hurried after him. They stopped fifty yards
from the ship and waited.

 
          
 
Inside the ship a circuit closed. There was a
silent shudder, and the ship began to melt. Plastic dissolved, metal crumpled.
Soon the ship was a great pile of junk, and still the process went on. Big
fragments broke into smaller fragments and split and split again.

 
          
 
Pid
felt suddenly
helpless, watching his ship scuttle itself. He was a Pilot of the Pilot Caste.
His father had been a Pilot, and his father before him, stretching back to the
hazy past when the Glom had first constructed ships. He had spent his entire
childhood around ships, his entire manhood flying them.

 
          
 
Now, shipless, he was naked in an alien world.

 
          
 
In a few minutes there was only a mound of
dust to show where the ship had been. The night wind scattered it through the
forest. And then there was nothing at all.

 
          
 
They waited. Nothing happened. The wind
sighed, and the trees creaked. Squirrels chirped, and birds stirred in their
nests.

 
          
 
An acorn fell to the ground.

 
          
 
Pid
heaved a sigh of
relief and sat down. The twenty-first Glom expedition had landed safely.

 
          
 
There was nothing to be done until morning, so
Pid
began to make plans. They had landed as close to
the atomic power installation as they dared. Now they would have to get closer.
Somehow, one of them had to get very near the reactor room in order to activate
the Displacer.

 
          
 
Difficult.
But
Pid
felt certain of success. After all, the Glom
were
strong on ingenuity.