The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack Read online

  A collective gasp interrupted his lecture. As Thaddeus realized that the students were all staring at his chest, he glanced downward to see a red dot glowing on his white shirt. The professor next noticed, in the back row of the hall, a young man who seemed to be aiming some sort of pistol at him. The would-be sniper’s hand seemed to shake in unison with the wobbling of the red spot.

  The young man was not enrolled in the Introduction to Physics class, yet he looked somehow familiar to Thaddeus. Perhaps it was the angle at which he cocked his head, or the shock of bright red hair, or the piercing green eyes. In a rush of _presque vu_ Thaddeus recognized a version of himself.

  The modernistic handgun with its (laser?) sight, the anachronistic clothes, the look of fanaticism…it suddenly all clicked. “My grandson, I presume.”

  His visitor nodded.

  “It can’t be done. _Something_ must cause such an attempt to fail.” His spine tingling despite his heartfelt conviction, Thaddeus’s eyes resumed their standard lecture-hall sweep. “Class, as I was saying .…”

  Two loud shots rang out almost as one. The noises released the students from their paralyzed shock. As they wrestled his assailant to the floor, Thaddeus realized that the first shot had been the backfire of a passing vehicle, and that the unexpected noise had startled his grandson enough to throw off his aim. A hole in the chalkboard showed that causality had needed only inches of deviation to protect itself.

  A soft “pop” emerged from the pile-up of students who had tackled the time traveler. The pile collapsed, as if its central support had vanished. As confused students gradually untangled themselves, it became clear that Thaddeus’ grandson had, in fact, disappeared.

  * * * *

  Thaddeus’ early afternoon lecture started little different from his morning session. The hall was perhaps slightly warmer; the music from the quad was now by the Everly Brothers. The fluorescent hum was occasionally submerged by the buzz of students discussing the morning’s excitement.

  “Imagine that I had the technology with which to visit my grandfather in his youth. Once there, what is to stop me from killing him before he’d had the opportunity to reproduce? But if I did succeed, who was it who had traveled backward .…”

  A large pigeon chose that moment to fly through an open window into the hall. Its stately path abruptly veered downward, and it thumped, flapping feebly, to the auditorium floor. Thaddeus had just noticed what appeared to be the handle of large throwing knife when a mob of enraged students rushed the returned, red-haired attacker.

  Once more, the time traveler disappeared from the pile of bodies to the accompaniment of a pop.

  * * * *

  Word of mouth had filled Thaddeus’ third lecture of the day to overflowing. The crowd warmed the hall to an uncomfortable degree; expectant muttering masked any music that might have been playing on the quad.

  “Imagine that I had the technology with which to visit my grandfather in his youth. Once there, what is to stop me from killing him before he’d had the opportunity to reproduce? But if I did succeed, who was it who had traveled backward .…”

  Thaddeus’ now all too familiar look-alike appeared in the aisle behind the last row of lecture seats. Moments later, an ovoid object came hurtling towards the professor.

  Mid arc, the grenade disappeared with a pop. His grandson vanished with a second pop.

  * * * *

  Order eventually returned to the lecture hall. Students took their seats. All eyes turned questioningly to the professor.

  “I believe that we’ve seen the last of our troublesome visitor,” said Thaddeus.

  He paused. He shrugged. He smiled.

  “I’ve decided that I’ll never have children.”

  TO ERR IS INHUMAN, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  An opaque blot against the colorless glare of eternal sunlight, the ship of the R’rin circled silently in free orbit, just beyond the topmost limits of atmosphere. Hundreds of miles below, a small spinning planet trailed its cone of shadow, oblivious to the menace overhead.

  Inside the ship, in the lounge common to the crew, two men sprawled on cushioned couches, comfortable under synthetic gravity, their capable bodies carelessly disposed in attitudes of relaxation. And yet, a careful observer could have noticed a slight, tense constraint that gave the lie to their superficial ease.

  Ostensibly they ignored one another. The eyes of one were fastened on a small viewing-screen, while the other fingered the intricate links of a shimmery, semi-invisible metal puzzle. At length the man with the puzzle stretched long legs and arms, and inquired, with an elaborate yawn, “What’s the Truth from the rest of the fleet, Alath?”

  * * * *

  His companion turned away from the screen. “Not much,” he said, “Two ships have been destroyed in the fighting in the Fifth Sector, near…” he named a star at the edge of the Galaxy, “…and aboard the Star of Home, Captain Thillian has been replaced.”

  “Replaced?” questioned the first.

  “Degraded,” Alath explained briefly, and the other, whose name was Ketil, sighed.

  “I knew Thillian at the Academy. I never thought him very stable. Which reminds me,” he drew himself upright, discarding his puzzle, “I suppose I ought to take another took at the-former-Narth.”

  “Poor fellow,” Alath murmured. “I’ll come along, if you don’t mind.”

  “All right.” Ketil covered a yawn with his hand. The men, leaving the lounge, strolled down a corridor along the central axis of the ship; at the far end of the living-quarters, a steel gating barred further progress, and Ketil, sliding aside a moving panel, peered cautiously through the opening.

  The room behind the grating was carefully padded with foam-soft material; but was bare of any further furnishing, other than rude sanitary conveniences. Naked on the padding, a man sprawled in an attitude of exhaustion and despair; but as he caught sight of the two regarding him through the opening, he sprang up, and his features contorted themselves into a horrible travesty of humanity.

  “Alath…! Ketil!” His voice held supplication, “Let me out of here, get me out, do something! You’re my friends, you’ll listen to me, won’t you? I didn’t—I’m not what they said—I made a mistake, I tell you. I counted wrong, it was a slip of the tongue…”

  Ketil stepped backward, his lip curling up in instinctive distaste, but Alath’s voice was compassionate. “Hold on, old fellow, hold on. Perhaps when we’re back in Galactic Center…”

  “Alath,” the man in the cell implored, “You don’t believe…”

  “Belief has nothing to do with it,” said Alath primly, receding somewhat from the prisoner, who leaped forward, seizing the bars, clutching and rattling them with desperate force.

  Narth’s voice was a hoarse furnace of blistering hate. “Just wait! Just wait, just wait,” he threatened. “Some day it will happen to you! Some day you’ll know…”

  Ketil put a hand on Alath’s shoulder. “Come along,” he advised, “We can’t help him, Alath, and I’m supposed to make sure no one hangs around the Cells.”

  “Just one minute—Narth, are you comfortable, old man? Getting enough to eat? Is there anything I can…”

  Narth spat a furious obscenity, and both men shuddered. Alath sighed as Ketil slid the aperture closed again. “Poor fellow,” he repeated.

  “Poor fellow, nothing,” Ketil snorted, “why in the name of the blazing radioactive suns of Thetti did he have to crack up now, when we’re already so short-handed that it hurts to think of what might happen if we’re ordered to attack that ball of dirt down there!”

  “We are shorthanded,” Alath admitted, “the whole fleet is short-handed. But I do feel sorry for Narth—do you think we will attack the planet, Ketil?”

  “No telling, until the other scout ships get back,” Ketil grunted, “but I don’t know why we shouldn’t. When I took the pickup down, I didn’t see any evidence that they were anything more than a low-grade technological society. By all appearanc
es, they’re still running on atomics…no sign of photo n-converters anywhere. No spaceports. Of course, I didn’t land, or even go down under the cloud layer…” He broke off, aware that he was being diverted from the original topic. “As for Narth,” he grimaced “he’s just a pervert like any other pervert, and I wouldn’t waste sympathy on him. You didn’t know it, Alath. I was there when be spoke the…” his voice dropped to a hollow mutter, “…the un-Truth!”

  Alath looked at the rivets in the floor, as Ketil went on, “I was there when he said—said it deliberately, Alath—that there were ten unopened rations-bins in the storage, when we’d counted eleven together!”

  “He may not have seen the other one,” Alath suggested without enthusiasm.

  “You psychologists!” Ketil snapped, “You can always find an excuse to defend any kind of filth, can’t you! You know…”

  “I know,” Alath said hastily, “To err is inhuman. Truth distinguishes the Human. Still, there is a chance…”

  “All your fancy words can’t make it anything but perversion,” Ketil said with an uncompromising frown.

  “Still, the punishment seems cruel,” mused Alath, as they returned to the common lounge.

  “Cruel; but necessary,” Ketil said. He picked up his puzzle and slid it back and forth in his hands for a few seconds, then flung it away. He paced the lounge for minutes, then turned to Alath, as if defending his own stand. “You must understand me, Alath,” he pleaded, “I liked Narth—what was Narth—too! Humanity, he’s been my bunkmate for five trips! That’s one reason I’m so repelled—how would you feel if you discovered you’d been bunking with a pervert who embraced un-Truth?”

  Alath bent and fiddled with a dial on the viewing-screen before he answered slowly, “Ketil, no one but a licensed psych-prob can prove it was Perversion. It may have been merely Error. Yes, I know…” he forestalled Ketil’s interruption with a patient gesture, “.…to err is inhuman, and it’s quite true that Narth—the-former-Narth,” he corrected himself—“has forfeited his humanity, whether error or perversion. Still, you have no right to call him a pervert before a psych-prob verifies his intent, Ketil. And to deny that I pity him would be un-Truth!”

  Ketil bowed his head. “To your Truth,” he said in the formal phrase, “your privilege, Alath.” He turned away, took up his puzzle again, then flung it petulantly away. “Get an-other newsreel,” he snapped, “how can we amuse ourselves in this fallible old hulk?”

  Alath did not turn or look at him. “Do it yourself,” he retorted; “I dislike you now! To your Truth!” and he slammed out of the lounge.

  Ketil remained behind, not turning on the viewing-screen, but his hands were not steady, and spurting anger surged up in him. He tried to pull himself together. Humanity, this waiting, waiting, waiting for attack was getting on his nerves! He must be on the very edge of a crackup himself, if he could be so furious at Alath’s Truth! But the fact remained that he and Alath had been friends for a long time, too; and the cold statement of dislike hurt him like a blow.

  He ought to follow Alath and make up the quarrel. It was his own fault. He’d insisted on talking about Narth; Alath had tried to change the subject. It wasn’t any wonder if Alath was nervous and edgy, either; the fleet was alarmingly short-handed. Ketil knew that much in spite of the censorship; and Alath, as junior psychologist—the only licensed Psych-prob in the Fleet had been Degraded last year—presumably had access to the top-Secret Fallibility Statistics, which were kept restricted for reasons of morale.

  Yes; he owed Alath an apology. But Humanity! That would come dangerously close to perversion. He had spoken Truth to Alath and if he took it back now it would be un-Truth…but had he spoken truth when he said he did not pity Narth? Shaking, Ketil collapsed, rather than sat, into the closest seat, perilously close to hysteria. He was coming to pieces—he was going insane—his mouth trembled as he tried to repeat the First Truth:

  “Humanity is infallible. To doubt the infallibility of Humanity is inhuman. To state that man is fallible is error, and to err is inhuman. Therefore the fallible man can be proven, by logical demonstration, not to be a Man at all.”

  Yes; even if Narth had not deliberately perverted Truth, he had proven himself fallible and therefore forfeited his claim to be called human. But still…

  * * * *

  With a furious, gesture, Ketil snapped on the viewing-screen, then turned it off again. He was tired of newsreels; tired of puzzles. He had read all the fact-accumulation micros on board, and he was weary to death of this waiting! The presence of Narth—naked and insane in his cell—was un-nerving, too; hating himself for a superstitious fool, Ketil made an obsolete gesture toward his lips and whispered half-aloud “Guard us from inhuman error, 0 Greatest Truth…”

  Blazing space! Where was Alath? He would not stay alone in here! Down at the end of the corridor, Narth was weeping aloud in great blubbering sobs, his hold on reason quite loosed; it prompted Ketil to the superstitious gesture again, but instead he straightened his back and bellowed “Alath!”

  Alath thrust his head out of the bunk-cubby he shared with Luss—now absent on the scouting mission—and Ketil said “Come in here!”

  Alath scowled. “Is that an expression-of-a-wish, or is it an order?” he inquired stiffly.

  Ketil looked at the floor. “Its an expression-of-a-wish,” he mumbled. “I regret making you angry. I spoke in my Truth, but I don’t like to be alone and I dislike your anger.”

  “To your Truth,” Alath said politely, but added nothing to the formal phrase. Then, advancing into the lounge, he said—still, Ketil noticed, not answering—“I sighted one of the scout ships. Soon we should know whether an attack is practical.”

  * * * *

  One after another, the miniature reconnaissance ships matched velocities with the mother ship, and the crew of the R’rin ship, after the briefest of intervals for necessary refreshment, gathered in the common lounge.

  Ketil—who had been the first to return, having had the simplest mission—pulled himself together and related what he had seen in the small detector ship, repeating what he had told Alath. “The planet is rich,” he added. “Plenty of heavy minerals, no serious radioactivity, no oxygen-deterioration, no trace of previous exploitation. Low-order non-space civilization, presumably less than ten Galactic Aeons from savagery. Pending a report from the surfacing ships, my vote is definitely cast to summon the fleet and invade.”

  The captain, Rudan, hemmed and hawed. “Of course, you didn’t go down to the surface,” he mused. “Luss, you had the bio-detector scout-ship. What did you find?”

  “I didn’t surface, either,” Luss said. Alath’s bunkmate, he was a burly, cheerful man past middle age, and now his mouth was curled up with faintly ribald humor. “First of all, I’ll relieve the mind of our psychologist,” he said, with a pleasant nod. “The dominant race is human.”

  A shout of laughter went up all over the cabin at Alath’s exaggerated look of chagrin; it was one of the few standing jokes that had survived the long cruise in space—the psychologist’s desire to find a non-human intelligent race.

  When Luss could speak with a straight face again, he went on. “Dirty jokes aside,” he said, “the bio-detectors confirm Ketil’s report; no sign of photon conversion. I won’t give you technical details now, but I have soil, air, water and protoplasm samples. Gravity is a bit low. The atmosphere is high in oxygen; pending a professional report from Alath, I’d hazard a careful guess that the civilization would be mildly euphoric, potentially unstable, with a high level of intuitive intelligence and a very low level of decadent or primitive morality.”

  Rudan nodded, slowly and carefully. “A cautious report,” he said mildly, “but a satisfactory one. Still, everything depends on the report from the surface crew.”

  Ketil frowned with impatience; Rudan always staged this slow, carefully impressive, suspenseful build-up. Were they, or weren’t they, going to invade? That was what was important!

&
nbsp; “Fordill,” Rudan said, “You went down to the surface with the mission of securing artifacts. Did you…”

  Fordill nodded. He was a cocky young man, to whom dangerous missions were the breath of life, but he looked a little subdued, a little pallid. “Captain,” he said, “With your permission—I’m afraid we won’t be able to invade.”

  * * * *

  Rudan scowled and looked with curt impatience at Fordill, but Ketil, watching, knew that Fordill was enjoying this, even more than Rudan. He would tell his story in his own way, and he wouldn’t be hurried.

  “We had no trouble in landing,” Fordill reported, “and without attracting any undue attention, we made our way to what appeared to be a city…” then, to everybody’s astonishment, Fordill suddenly sighed, broke off, and held out a thin bundle of sheets, loosely bound together. “Here, Captain, look at these,” he said tiredly, “We managed to secure some of what appear to be a primitive form of fact-accumulators; they resemble the old fact-books which predated the modern micros.”

  Rudan held the alien artifacts limply in his hand. Ketil could see, from where he was, that they were covered with pictures and fine alien printing. Fordill spoke with only a shadow of his usual cocky self.

  “Naturally, without report from Luss and Ketil, we didn’t dare to stay down too long. You could almost say that we grabbed these artifacts and ran. But I’m afraid they speak for themselves.”

  Rudan, in bewilderment, fingered the thin pages. He turned and caught Ketil’s eye. “Here,” he said. “You’re our technical expert—what is this stuff?”

  Ketil leaned over the captain’s shoulder and peered closely at one of the fact-books. “I believe it’s a plastic preparation of some pulped wood-fabric. Their civilization can’t be at a very high level, or they wouldn’t be using anything as fragile as this for fact-accumulation.” He shredded the edge of a page between his fingers.

  “Their civilization is higher than it appears,” warned Fordill. “Don’t take a chance on Error, Ketil.”