Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn Volume II (30 page)

"How did they take it?"

"Startled at first. But it explained something they were very curious about and swept away an immense weight of ugly fear. Of course, they still die in the caves, to all intents and purposes. But they can see their lives as a perfect reproductive circle with the caves as a locus. And what a reciprocity they can work out—they are working out!"

"Reciprocity?" Donelli had almost moved to a sitting position.

Helena wiped his face with a soft cloth. "Don't you see? The burrowers were injuring the avian gardens by nibbling at the roots. They will now use only the roots of old, strong plants which the surface creatures will designate and set aside for them. They will also aid avian horticulture by making certain the roots have plenty of nourishing space in which to grow. In return, the avians will bring them surface plants which are not available to tunnel creatures, while the burrowers provide the surface with the products of their mines and labors underground. To say nothing of the intelligent rearing they can now give their young, though at a distance. And when the fluorescent light system that Dr. Ibn Yussuf worked out for them becomes universal, the avians may travel freely in the tunnels and guide the burrowers to the surface. The instinctual and haphazard may shortly be supplanted by a rich science."

"No wonder they broke their backs getting Q. And after working that out for them, all you did was repair the ship, fix me up, take off and set a course for the nearest traffic lane?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Dr. Blaine helped quite a bit with the take-off. This time, he remembered the buttons! By the way, as far as the record is concerned, he and I maneuvered the ship off the ground under your direct supervision."

"Oh, so?"

"Just so. Right, Dr. Blaine?"

The archaeologist looked up impatiently. "Of course. Of course! There has not been one moment, since the disaster aboard the
Ionian Pinafore
, when I have not been under Mr. Donelli's orders."

There was a pause in which Dr. Blaine muttered to Dr. Yussuf over the ax-head.

"How old are you, Helena?" Donelli asked.

"Oh—old enough."

"But too clever, eh? Too educated for me?"

She cocked her head and smiled at him out of a secret corner of her face. "Maybe. We'll see what happens after we get back to the regular traffic lanes. After we're rescued. After you get your third mate's ticket. Here—what are you laughing at?"

He rumbled the amusement out of his throat. "Oh, I was just thinking how we earned our Q. By teaching a bunch of caterpillars that butterflies bring babies!"

"A most singular case," mumbled Dr. Pertinnet, walking a dignified hop-scotch among the checkered tiles of the sanitarium waiting room. "Can't be unique, of course—nothing's ever unique: must have been someone like Hallock in medical history. Just never recorded."

Ransom Morrow sighed good-naturedly and heaved himself over to the little doctor. He reached down and plucked at a white sleeve.

"Hey, Doc, remember me? I've been recorded. Not in the
Psychiatrist's Weekly Monitor
, but in your appointment book. Nila said you wanted some help. And now that I managed to get on the subject of Nila, how is she and where is she? My expedition's trotting off to Uganda in a week, and I want to do my Christmas shopping early."

Dr. Pertinnet blinked at him until recognition widened his weak scholarly eyes. "Ransom, my boy! Glad to see you. Miss Budd is taking care of the patient. Hallock—you know, Hallock the explorer. She said you once worshipped him; her idea to call you."

"Hallock?
Wells W. Hallock?
" Morrow whistled a slow bar of recollection. "The greatest of them all. Before Peary, before Johnson, before Livingston. And for sheer dogged searching, before even old Ponce de Leon. Mom used to tear his books out of my hands; I had to read them at night under a blanket with a flashlight. He got me interested in broken cities and forgotten temples. Why, if it weren't for Hallock—"

He broke off and stared down at the old man. "What's the matter with him? And what can I do?"

"Trauma! Nothing definite, nothing we can name, but it is quite obviously driving him psychotic. And unlike most cases of this sort, he realizes it and wants help desperately. But he seems to feel that our help is worse than nothing at all; he keeps saying that psychiatry will complete the tragedy that curiosity began. He's resisted all our efforts so violently that we've been forced to resort to—well, to the straitjacket."

Ransom Morrow shook his head. Wells W. Hallock in a straitjacket! Huge, fearless Hallock, who had shot his way out of the underground temple in northern India where the original, primitive
Thuggee
was practiced, who penetrated to the vampire cult of Lengluana and took flashbulb photographs! Hallock, who had laughed at superstition and dream-fancies and roared his way into the inaccessible, twilit corners of the world!

An attendant was handing a white envelope and a sheet of beworded paper to Dr. Pertinnet. "That's the complete report, Doctor," he said. "We checked the original analysis as you requested, but the results were the same. No injurious substances—definitely
Phoenix dactylifera
, however. And we still haven't found the cat."

"Then find her. Find her!" The attendant backed out in a flurry of
sirs
and
buts
. "Valuable experimental animal like that—allowing it to escape and run around as if—"

"You still haven't told me how I can help."

The doctor stuffed the envelope and paper into a pocket of his gown. "Of course. Fact is, I don't know myself. Miss Budd mentioned your name to Hallock, told him it was his influence that started you exploring. Now, he insists on seeing you. Says only you can help him, understand him. Pretty usual fixation under the circumstances, except that he never heard of you before. Miss Budd suggested that we call you in any case. He might make a useful slip, if you can win his confidence. I don't see any harm in it, just so you don't get him overexcited."

They walked down a long, silent, antiseptic corridor. Dr. Pertinnet paused before a smooth door.

"Understand," he placed a friendly hand on Ransom's shoulder, "understand, we can't have any affectionate hijinks between you and Miss Budd in that room. This case is difficult enough, what with Dr. Risbummer—my predecessor in the case—suddenly taking it in his head to disappear without leaving a trace of his notes. And now the cat. We just can't have any more tomfoolery. Straight scientific investigation."

"Gotcha, Doc," the young man grinned. "I'll save my research on Nila for this evening. Meanwhile, lead on. I'm agape and agog but not aglow."

They entered a large, airy room that shrieked of hospital austerity. A screen, a night table, a small chair, and a large bed were its only furniture. Nila Budd, trim, blonde, and hygienically beautiful in her starched white uniform, sat on the chair doling spoonfuls out of a china bowl to a weather-beaten face.

She paused as they came in, and smiled briefly at Ransom. Then she dropped the spoon into the bowl and set it on the table near a tiny chest made of incredibly yellowed ivory. She walked up to them while the man lying on the bed watched her curiously out of great, deep-sunk eyes. He seemed strangely free, as if the buttoned sheets which restrained his immense body were somehow not significant, somehow didn't matter...

"I did as you suggested with the sedative, Doctor," she whispered. "He's been fairly docile all day, no trouble at all. Hello, Ran."

"Hi." He attempted a brief embrace, but she evaded him and walked over to where the doctor stood looking down at Hallock.

"I've brought you an old admirer," the doctor was saying. "This is Ransom Morrow. Your books inspired him to become an explorer. He's leaving for Uganda next week in search of—of—"

"Of a paleolithic Hamitic civilization around Lake Albert," Ransom finished, walking over to the bed. "I'm honored to meet you, sir."

Wells W. Hallock raised his head and stared at the younger man. His hair, cut long and free in the style affected by men of the old West, was no longer the shiny black of a thousand pictures; it was white, thin, and straggled. But his eyes were proud.

"And it's an honor to meet you, Mr. Morrow," he said at last, in a voice so hoarse that Ransom had to bend over the bed to catch the carefully shaped syllables. "I've heard of your work in North Africa and Ethiopia. But Dr. Pertinnet is very wrong when he says my books made you an explorer. It was curiosity that did it—divine, satanic curiosity—like the curiosity which brought me to this. Your curiosity, Mr. Morrow—it can save me, do you hear, it can save me! Only we must have weapons—an elephant rifle, machine guns, machetes, hand grenades—"

"Hallock!" The psychiatrist cut in on the sharply rising voice. "If you go on this way, I'll have to ask Mr. Morrow to leave. Now lie back and relax. That's right, rela-a-ax."

The explorer dropped his head to the pillow. "You had the
Fruit
analyzed, didn't you?" he asked suddenly.

Dr. Pertinnet was flustered. "Y-yes. We did. Surprisingly enough, it contains nothing that might be termed a drug." He set the envelope down on the ivory chest and unfolded the sheet of paper given him by the orderly. "Of course, it's difficult to be certain in its present dried condition, but it appears to be nothing more than a variety of
Phoenix dactylifera
. In other words, a date. Common, ordinary fruit of the date palm."

"Common, ordinary—"

The man on the bed tilted his chin at the ceiling and laughed soundlessly. "You call the
Fruit
a common, ordinary date! What would you call the Gates of Hell, Doctor—doors or railings? Would you look at them and say, 'Why, here's a fence that needs whitewashing?'" He coughed for a moment and continued his feverish whispering. "And what happened when you gave a bit to the cat? Have you found the cat yet?"

"Why, no. How did you know we gave a piece to a cat?" the doctor asked him suddenly. "Has she been in here? We've searched the hospital—Nurse, have you seen the cat?"

"No, Doctor," Hallock broke in before Nila could answer, "the nurse hasn't seen the cat. But I have. She's a badly frightened little pussy by now—if she isn't dead. You gave her a pretty large piece, you know. She won't be able to get back. And she hasn't seen any of the larger things yet, just the two-headed snake and the portions of the giant centipede and—"

The doctor leaned over and gripped the explorer's shoulder through the thick sheets. "Where is the cat, Hallock?" he asked in a soothing voice. "Where did you see her last?"

"Here," the man on the bed whispered. "Here. In my head. In my horrible brain. Where I go when you make me fall asleep. Where I meet Dr. Risbummer, cowering and gibbering to himself. Only he isn't Dr. Risbummer any more, but a poor, mad, crippled thing who clings to me for protection, who begs me not to have nightmares because he's tired of running, because he's afraid he'll fall and get caught sometime."

"Hopeless!" Dr. Pertinnet straightened. "Most unfortunate about Dr. Risbummer's disappearance. Not only don't we have his diagnosis available, but the whole affair has strengthened Hallock's hallucinations. Given them substance, as it were." He moved toward the door. "If we could only find Risbummer!"

"You can, damn it, you can!" Hallock strained against the sheets. "Give him a chance. Just don't stick any more of those needles into me, don't put me to sleep any more."

"I told you there would be no further hypodermics, unless you made them necessary. The sedative for tonight has already been administered; Miss Budd mixed it with the broth she fed you."

Ransom, licking his dry lips, decided he would never forget the look of furious horror that distended Hallock's eyes.

"You fool! You crazy, crazy,
crazy
fools!" He writhed on the solid bed as if he wanted to dissolve through it. "I begged—"

"Now, then, Mr. Hallock," Nila told him, "you do need sleep."

"Sleep!" The massive head dropped back to the pillow. "Oh, go away. Go away."

"Miss Budd," the doctor called as he pushed the door open. "I'd like to see you for a moment."

"Right with you, Doctor." She touched Morrow's arm before slipping after him. "I go off duty in an hour, Ran; hang around and say nice stuff to my patient."

Hallock watched the nurse leave. "Like her a lot?" he whispered.

"Yeah."

"She's a nice girl. And a good nurse. But she doesn't take to the idea of your wandering off to Uganda and similar points unknown?"

"That's right, sir. Calls it adolescence in longer pants." Morrow dropped to the chair. He was still finding difficulty in associating this heroic wreck with the Wells W. Hallock he had read about—crisp, cynical, fearless...

"She may be wrong. And she may be right. There are those among us who walk wide arcs around horror, who obey the simpler, more important precepts of their religion. And then, Morrow, there are the whistling fools who rush in where even fallen angels fear to tread. People like you and people like me, may the gentle God have mercy on us."

His voice was so hoarse that hardly one recognizable sound broke the rhythmic, rustling sentences. Ransom found himself leaning close to the tough, wrinkled face framed on three sides by long white hair.

"I'm sorry," the old explorer chuckled somewhere in his throat. "My voice
is
hard to hear. You see, I—well, I scream too much."

There was a brief silence while he breathed heavily and fidgeted his head about on the pillow. Down the hall, a clock ticked in regular hammer-strokes.

"You're an explorer because you have a curiosity that eats at your insides night and day. But how much curiosity do you really have, Ransom Morrow? Enough to wander willingly through a land that has never been mapped, through a land never meant to be mapped? A land filled with creatures that are unfortunately not inconceivable, whose greatest horror is that they
have
been conceived and exist in the mind of an imaginative, foolhardy idiot! Have you the curiosity to do that and come to the rescue of a pitiful hulk whom only you can save before the ministrations of kindly doctors and sympathetic nurses send him stumbling forever into the abyss of the unutterable?" He paused, coughed soundlessly, smiled. "I'm sorry. To leave out the drama, have you the curiosity to eat a slightly mildewed dried date?"