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SCIENCE FICTIONJULY 1957

35*

IIAIURING

Ml DEATHS OFBEN BAXTER

ByROBERTSHECKLEY

*

HE MOONONTRACT

IT EXISTSRIGHT NOW

ByILLY LEY

A WORLDCALLED

MAANEREKBy

POULANDERSON

ANDOTHER STORIES

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GALAXY NOVEL # 29

by L Ron Hubbard

To Be Published SoonWatch for it on Your

Newsstand

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JULY, 1957 OalaxySCIENCE FICTION

VOL. 14, NO. 3

ALL ORIGINAL STORIES NO REPRINTSCONTENTS

NOVELETSA WORLD CALLED MAANEREK by Poul Anderson 8HELP I AM DR. MORRIS GOLDPEPPER

by Avram Davidson 72THE DEATHS OF BEN BAXTER by Robert Sheckley 112SHORT STORIESA WIND IS RISING by Finn O'Donnevan 46GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY by Charles V. de Vet 91

SCIENCE DEPARTMENTFOR YOUR INFORMATION by Willy Ley 61

The Moon ContractFEATURES

EDITOR'S PAGE by M. L Gold 4FORECAST 45GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF by Floyd C. Gale 108

Cover by GAUGHAN Showing WHEN METEORITES STRIKEROBERT M. GUINN, Publisher H. L. GOLD, Editor

WILLY LEY, Science EditorW. I. VAN DER POEl, Art Director JOAN J. De MARIO, Production Manager

GALAXY Science Fiction is published monthly by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. Main offices:421 Hudson Street, New York 14, N. Y. 35c per copy. Subscription: (12 copies) $3.50 peryear in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. Possessions.Elsewhere $4.50. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, New York, N. Y. Copyright,New York 1957, by Galaxy Publishing Corporation, Robert M. Guinn, president. All rights, includ-ing translations reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed stampedenvelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories printed inthis magazine are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actual persons is coincidental.

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YOU WERE SAYING?A LONG with complimentary** and critical mail, editors re-

ceive letters that roil their trou-bled sleep, as if their sleepneeded roiling. Like this one, forinstance

I enjoyed your editorial onpossible life-forms. You pointedout that vegetation lives off soiland air, herbivores live off vege-tation, and carnivores live off her-bivores. Well, here is a little foodfor thought: what lives off carni-vores? Judith L. Burgess, Carni-vore.The obvious answer is soil and

air, so that the whole thing comesfull circle. But that's dodging; soiland air do not live off anything.The omnivore does, Miss Bur-gess, and you must be an uncom-fortable date if you devour meatand won't touch vegetables anddesserts. As an omnivore, I de-clare with justifiable pride thatthis is the highest category in thegastronomical scale of evolution.The fact that we share the dis-tinction with bears, pigs and theraccoon family in no way miti-gates my pride. I can't imaginewhat, if anything, can possiblysurpass our all-purpose gullet.

Miss Burgess and others maydispute the statement with Oscar

and they and Mr. Wilde mustthen be prepared to depriveEskimos and Orientals frommembership in the human race.Not sharing our silly prejudices,these admirable peoples carryomnivoraciousness to its utterlylogical extreme. They may notlike fox, may consider it greatlyinferior to raw wolverine orPooch Cantonese Style, but anyfox they harpoon or snare isgoing to be eaten, doggedly orotherwise.

If the need ever be, Miss Bur-gess, you and the rest of us can and will eat every carnivoreclean off the planetThen there's the letter fromthe worried chap whose obviouslyalien wife says such things as:The washee pot needs cough-ing. In a recent communique, headded nervously: My wife justtold me, 'If you don't know howto be nice, don't be at all.' So, ifyou fail to hear from me, you'llknow what happened. Whatmakes him believe I will? I thinkI'd like to know, but I'm not real-ly sure.

Another deponent to the caseproving that There Are AliensAmong Us writes:The indications are that theseWilde's description of English fox aliens come from planets with ex-

hunting as The unspeakable in treme temperatures. In the sum-pursuit of the uneatable, but she (Continued on page 6)

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r'.Y^3&mwm mmm .

EACH MARK MeaHours of Good Reading Enjoyment

te*

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ISINISTER BARRIER by nc Frank Russell SOLD OUT2LEGION OF SPACE by Jack Williamson SOLD OUT3-PRELUDE TO SPACE by Arthur C. Clarke SOLD OUT4THE AMPHIBIANS by S. Fowler Wright SOLD OUT5THE WORLD BELOW by S. Fowler Wright6THE ALIEN by Raymond F. Jones7EMPIRE by Clifford D. Simak SOLD OUT8ODD JOHN by Olaf S.tapeidon SOLD OUT9FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE by William F. Temple10RAT RACE by Jay. Franklin SOLD OUTIICITY IN THE SEA by Wilson Tucker12HOUSE OF MANY WORLDS by Sam Merwin. Jr.13SEEDS OF LIFE by John Taine14PEBBLE IN THE SKY by Isaac Asimov15THREE GO BACK by J. Leslie MitchellUTHE WARRIORS OF DAY by James Blish17WELL OF THE WORLDS by Louis Padgett18-CITY AT WORLD'S END by Edmond Hamilton19JACK OF EAGLES by James Blish20BLACK GALAXY by Murray Leinster21THE HUMANOIDS by Jack Williamson22KILLER TO COME by Sam Merwin, Jr.SOLD OUT23MURDER IN SPACE by David V. Reed24LEST DARKNESS FALL by L. Spraque de Camp

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A WORLD CALLEDMAANEREKBy POUL ANDERSONWhat were the forgotten memories that ate at

*

the rim of his mind? Were they why he lookedand felt so unlike his people? He knew therewere answers . . . but they were not inside himl

Illustrated by TURPIN

TorrekHE GLIDER followed theslope of Kettleback Fell,caught an updraft rising

from Brann's Dale and swung to-

clouds. Above the cold whitebrawl of Skara River there lay achill hazy air mass which suckedit down again.

Vilyan's hands were brieflyfrantic on the controls. Then he

ward a blued-silver sky of twilit had crossed the river and was8 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

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'

once more upborne, until pres-ently he went above the timber-line.We are close now, oath-brother, he said. Best you makeready.

Torrek nodded, left his seat

and crawled down the narrowlength of the fuselage. He feltthe light fabric, oiled cloth drawntight on a frame of hollow canes,shiver to his touch. It was verysilent; somehow, the great boom-ing winds did not penetrate.

A WORLD CALLED MAANEREK

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Reaching the little trapdoor, hepeered through its glass inset,down at a savage barrennessstreaked with snowfields. He

*

tested his arrangements thecoiled rope knotted to a crossbar,the three knives sheathed at hiswaist, the net which bound hislong yellow hair to keep it fromhis eyes. Otherwise he wore onlya loincloth, for he dared weighno more than he must on thislethal errand.

TJE WAS a big and supple-*--* young man, with a harshbony cast to his face that madehim an alien among the hand-some people of Dumethdin. Andthe name they had given him,Torrek, meant more than simplystranger it hinted at a degreeof monstrousness, for he alone ofall folk under the Rings could noteven guess at his parentage. Nev-ertheless, Clan and Lodge em-blems were tattooed on his face.

feet of cold sky, there was raisedan enormous, disorderly heap ofbranches, welded with the decayof centuries into one fortressmass. As far back as tradition re-membered, krakas had nestedhere.

Certain Elders, far down inDiupa, thought it an unholy workto slay the kraka, for she hadbeen there so long, and her moth-ers and grandmothers before her,reaving the valleys below. If thekraka sat no longer on the SkaraMan's Hat, menace brooding overFenga Fjord, there would be anemptiness in the sky.

Folk whose livestock and smallchildren had been carried up tothese unclimbable heights thoughtotherwise.

Vilyan's dark reckless face splitin a sudden grinning tautness.There she comes herself, oath-brother

Good, grunted Torrek.May Ellevil and the MoonThere's the nest Sweat Lady ward you n

Hold her steady now, Torrekinterrupted harshly.One who did not know himmight have been offended at suchsurliness, even when death beatupwinfl to meet him, but in Diupathey thought they understoodth^r changeling. You could not

now they were slipping along that look for ease, or mirth, or even

leaped out on Vilyan's forehead,ipearling the blue symbol etched

there, the sign of Sea Bear Lodgein which he found sworn brother-hood with Torrek. His handsjerked, a bare trifle, on the sticks,and the glider shuddered.They had climbed high, untilgaunt dark mountaintop calledthe Skara Man's Hat. On a windy

much courtesy, from one whoselife had been so hideously up-

crag overlooking three thousand rooted. His brain, they thought,

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must still be plowed with thescars of memory torn loose, fiveyears ago.

Therefore Vilyan only nodded.But when Torrek had left theglider and Vilyan was bringing itback toward the fisher town forhe could not hover in this homeof the warring winds he sangthe Long Faring Song for thosewho have gone away to battleand are not likely to return.

rpORREK opened the little-*- door, threw out the rope andslid down its length. One of hisdaggers was gripped between histeeth.For long, ghastly minutes, he

swung like a bell clapper, morethan a mile above the fjord. Nowhe could hear the wind, a hugehollow roaring through the bluedusk. Its force streamed himahead at the rope's end.The challenge of the kraka cutthrough to him. She came thresh-ing upward from her nest, blindwith murder, for at this time ofyear she had young in the nestand that thing of stiff wings daredfly over them Almost, she hurledherself straight at the glider her mother had thus crashed one,a man's lifetime ago. But then, asTorrek had planned, she saw himdangling like bait on a fish hook,and she veered and plunged to-ward him.

of nerve and muscle. His eyesseemed to gain an ultimate clar-ity, his ears to be whetted untilthey heard the crashing of SmokyFalls where Skara plunged downthe Steeps, time to slow until theonrushing kraka poised in midairand he could count the stripes onher tawny hide after each giantwingbeat. But he was not afraid.In a bare five years of remem-bered life, there is small time tolearn the habits called fear.Then the kraka struck.She was a little smaller than

he, discounting the thirty-footspan of leathery wings and thelong rudder-shaped tail. But herfour feet ended in talons whichhad been known to split men atone blow and her muzzle heldsaber teeth. Few people, hangingone-handed from a cord, couldhave kept from pitching down-ward to escape.

Torrek drew himself up, at thelast instant, into a ball. As thewinged thunderbolt shot belowhim, he let go. His legs closedaround the lean belly, his leftarm around the neck, and hisright hand thrust a dagger intoher throat.

She screamed.For a few wild seconds, she

threshed and bucked and writhedin the air, seeking to hurl him off.His knife was torn from his graspand sparkled meteoric downward.

The man felt a final tightening He needed both arms and every

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draining drop of strength to keephis place.Then his weight became toomuch for her and they slid down

the wind toward the sterile slopes.Her wings, flailing the sky, slowedthat fall somewhat, turned it intoa long glide . . . and meanwhileTorrek had drawn another knifeand was slashing methodically ather vitals.He felt no pity for this mostsplendid of animals there weretoo many small bones up onSkara Man's Hat. But he had amoment in which to think thatshe was brave.And a moment, incredibly highin the air, to look over the mistywoods and the green depths ofBrann's Dale, across Smoky Fallsand the narrow fields that menhad plowed between the cliffs andthe fjord, to Diupa town.More : he could acrossFenga Fjord to Holstok and theWhite River Delta, a low richland fair for the harvest. He couldsee the narrow end of the bayand follow its windings north-ward between sheer rock to themouth. There, where the Roostfoamed with an incoming tide, laythose guardian islands called theMerrv Men; and Torrek thoughthe could even see the grim wallsof Ness, the fort on Big Ulliwhich watched lest the beast-hel-meted pirates of Illeneth descendagain on Dumethdin.

UT now the kraka was weak-ening, her blood spattering

the blue twilight air, and as herwings beat less frantically, herfall became the faster. Clench-jawed, Torrek thought she wouldhave her revenge by painting hisflesh on the Steeps of Skara nextto her own.

Then, with a wobbling convul-sion, she staggered eastwardagain, and the updraft from thewarmer plowed fields gave her afinal helping hand, and it was thefjord into which she plunged.

Torrek dived from her just be-fore she struck. He split the waterwith a force that drove him downand down into greenish depthsuntil his eardrums popped theirprotest and a coraloid spearraked his flank. When he had fi-nally struggled back to the sur-face, his lungs seemed ready toexplode. It was a long time beforehis gasping ceased.The kraka floated not far

away, upborne by her enormouswingsdead. And the early lampsof Diupa glimmered within easydistance.

Well, old girl, panted Torrek,that was friendly of you. Nowwait here and be so good as notto let the ollenbors find you andclean your bones I want thatstriped hideHe strode out for the town,wearily at first, but his strengthcame back with the swiftness he

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knew to be abnormal. Sometimes,alone with his own truncated soulat night, Torrek wondered if hewere human ... or what?

There were canoes putting outfrom the pier. His landing hadbeen dimly espied by the towns-folk. Lean outriggered shapesclove murmurous waves, a hun-dred paddles struck the water inunison, and the colored paperlanterns hung at the stem postswere like seeking eyes.

*

Ohoyohoa A conch lowedafter the cry, and the brass throbof gongs took up an underlyingrhythm. Ohoyohoa May the seagive you up, O my beloved Maythe sea surrender you living,ohoyohoa

Here I am called Torrek un-ceremoniously.The nearest boat veered. Mus-

cular hands drew him up andsoon the conches and gongs andvoices roared victory.By the time the fleet had comeback, dragging the slain krakaand bearing Torrek on a captain'sdais, the Diupa people had allswarmed to the dock.Masked and feather-cloaked,

shaking their rattles and theirweapons crossbows, axes, war-mattocks, halberds, blowpipes the young men of Sea Bear Lodgedanced out the pride he had giventhem. Grave in their embroidered

der glowing lanterns. Between thelong, low, airy houses, of paintedoilcloth and carved wood panelsand peaked shingle roofs, the chil-dren and the maidens strewedflowers for him.Even the humblest farmers, ar-

tisans, fishermen, with no morefinery than a bast loincloth and afeather headdress, lifted their tri-dents and shouted his honor whenhe stepped among them.

H IGH over the mountains, thethin evening clouds brokeapart. The sun was down, thoughit would not be dark for hoursyet, here in the warm latitudes ofthe World Called Maanerek. Butthe sky showed an infinite clearblue, with two of the moons rid-ing high, nearly full. And enor-mous to the south lifted the rain-bow arch of the Rings, most holybridge.

It was the usual thing that theclouds of the long warm day forty hours while the sun strodeover the Islands should disperseas evening cooled toward night.Yet Torrek, with the fjord's chillkiss still tingling on his skin, im-agined that all kindly Rymfarmust be with him, to draw thecurtain from the sky just as hestepped ashore to his people.

His people. Now, for the firsttime, he felt a thawing in himself.

robes of scarlet and blue, his These lithe, dark, high-cheeked

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when they found him speechlessand helpless in, the fields, hadtaught him with the same patientkindliness they showed their chil-

idren, had forgiven him the blun-ders and breaches inevitable toone not raised from birth in theirways.

In return, he had sailed in theircanoes yes, fished and huntedand plowed the fields, had foughtin ther lines when the robbers ofIlleneth forced the Roost andentered Dumethdin.And the folk had given himrank according to his growingabilities, so that now he ratedPilot.But he had still been the waif.He had not truly bought back his

life from them . . . until today.Drink, said Elder Yensa,

{landing him the ancient silverCup of Council.

Torrek went to one knee anddrained the thin spiced wine.

Let your name be written onthe scroll of Harpooners, saidScribe Glamm, and when nextthe Fleet goes forth after the seasnakes, may you wield a goodlyspear and be rewarded with theshare due to your work.

Torrek bowed. I am unwor-thy, Reverend Uncle, he said.

In fact, he knew very well hedeserved the elevated rank. Hehad expected to gain it, if helived. Now He straightened and his eyes

went to the young women, re-spectfully waiting on the edge oflantern light.

Sonna saw him and lookeddown. A slow flush crept up hercheeks. She lowered her head un-til the long dark garlanded hairhid the small face from him.

Reverend Uncle, said Torrek,bowing to the gray man of Ko-rath Clan who watched him fromshrewd eyes, a Harpooner is ofrank sufficient to speak as friendswith the child of a Captain. Is itnot so?

It is so, agreed Baelg.Then have I your consent to

go into the mountains with yourdaughter Sonna?

If she is willing, that is mywill, said Baelg. A grin twitchedhis short beard. And I believeshe is. But you must rest yourselffirst.

I will rest in the mountains,Reverend Uncle.

A mighty man indeed saidBaelg, while the young menflashed teeth in admiration. Go,then, and if the will of you twobe later for marriage, I shall notlook askance.

SILENTLY Torrek bowed tothe Elders, to the Scribe, to

the Councilors of Diupa and theViceroy of the King of Dumeth-din. Sonna fell behind him,matching his long strides. In afew minutes, they were beyond

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the town, on a road which woundthrough fields up into the moun-tains. r

I could have stayed for thefeasting, Sonna, if you wished,he said awkwardly. Perhaps Iwas too hasty.

You were not too hasty forme, she answered with an enor-mous gentleness. I have beenwaiting a long time for thisnight.

*The road became a narrowtrail winding upward betweengreat cool fronds, under soughingleaves. There was a damp greensmell in the air and a rushingnoise of waterfalls. Here manycaves were found, and a youngman and woman could lie in theirshelter on beds of gathered blos-soms, eating wild fruits and split-ting the hard-shelled skalli nuts,

*through all the long light night ofthe World Called Maanerek.As their trail, a ledge which

tumbled down through a deepen-ing purple twilight, led thembriefly out of the forest, Torrekand Sonna saw the Inner Moonrise and go hurtling across thesky. There were four outer moonsvisible now among the few softstars, as well as the shudderingbands of the Rings, and they builtsharded bridges of light on FengaFjord and across the ocean be-yond.

Distantly, inaudibly from here,a lacy curtain of white spray

broke around the Merry Men, asone of the tidal bores whichguarded Dumethdin and chal-lenged her sailors came roaring inthrough the Roost.

Sonna sighed and took his arm.Wait a little, she said quietly.I have never seen it so beautifulbefore.A curious, angry emotion stirredin Torrek. He stood stiff and sa-vored the bitterness of it until heknew what it was: a resentfuljealousy of others who had trodthis path with her.

But that was a crazy, ugly thingto feel, he told himself in bewil-derment considering a woman,an unwed girl who had pledgedherself to no man as yet, to beproperty: to rage when she actedlike a free human creature, as hemight rightly rage at someonewho used his personal flensingtoolsHe bit off the insane feelingand spat it out, but the after-tasteremained, a gray doubt of him-self.Who am I?There is grief in you, Torrek,

murmured Sonna.It is nothing, he answered.Why am I?No ... I can feel it in you.

Your arm became suddenly likewood. Her fingers stroked downits muscled length, tickling thegold hairs which also set him offfrom the brown smooth men of

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Dumethdin. It is not right that unheard-of. Sonna was a woods-you should know grief.

Let us choose a cave, he saidin a voice that grated like a hullon a rocky reef.No, wait, Torrek. She searched

his moonlit face with dark obliqueeyes. I will not spend a nightwith rage and sorrow up here . . .not beside you.

TTE FELT a dizziness. In spite- - of Baelg's words, it had beentoo much to hope that Sonnawould ever

Ever wed a nameless man,he mumbled without thinking.

She smiled, a smile of victory,but stepped past the main issueto say: Not nameless. You arefully adopted, Torrek. You knowthat. And after today's work -

It is not enough, he said inreturning despair. I will alwaysbe the one without roots, the tor-rek whom they found in theplowed fields five years ago,speechless, kinless, memoryless. Imight be a child of hill trolls, forall I will ever know

Or a child of the Rymfar,said Sonna, or of the black Flit-ters they tell of among the moun-tain tribes. What of it? You areyourself and only yourself.He was shocked. The idea ofa human existing as a single crea-ture, self-sufficient, part of no

*Clan or Lodge or Nation, andwith no need to be a part, was

witch to voice itAnd then, as if a bolt hadclicked home, he understood therightness of the idea. It was notthat he lost his wistfulness hewould always long for a bloodkinship that had been denied him but his lonely status was nolonger a monstrosity. He was dif-ferent, yes, even crippled in away, but he was not unnatural.For another slow moment, he

stood wondering why Sonna'scarelessly tossed-off words, whoseimplications she could not reallyhave grasped, should so bite intohim. It was almost as if she hadtouched and awakened a memoryof-No more he exclaimed,

laughing aloud. The night is notso long that we can stand herewasting it.

No, breathed Sonna demure-ly. Her hand stole into his.There came a humming in the

sky.Briefly, Torrek was puzzled.Then as the noise grew, and he

heard the whine of sundered airbehind it, the hair stood up alonghis back.He had only brought his re-maining knife for weapon. Itjumped into his hand. He shovedSonna roughly against the cliffwall and stood in front of her,peering upward. Moonlight daz-zled him.

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The black shape crossed the recent mumble among the inlandRings and slid down an invisiblewire, and one end of the wire waspegged to him. It came too fastfor thought, too fast for a dashback into the woods. Torrek hadnot yet grasped the size of thething, twice the length of a long-boat, when it halted by the ledge.

It hung there and speared him.[VTO OTHER word -he was-* ^ held, pressed against the cliffby a rubbery force he could notsee. When he roared and hurledall the weight and strength heowned against that net, it threwhim back onto Sonna with a furythat knocked a gasp from her.

Torrek, she whispered. Herhands groped at his waist, blindlyin the pitiless unreal moonlight.Torrek, do you knowHe did not. He had no memoryof this lean, dully black fish shape. . . and yet it did not quite seema thing from nightmare, not quitethe vengeful ghost of the kraka.Somehow, he could accept it, ashe might accept a new and dead-ly kind of animal.

It's not a glider, he saidthrough clenched jaws. No wings.But it's been forged or cast metal.

The Flitters. Her voice shook.He gave it some thought, stand-ing there pinned in the racking

barbarians. This had been seen,that had happened, strange fly-ings and curiously dressed men . .A circular door opened in theflank of the ship? Beyond itwas a similar one which alsoopened. A metal gangway pro-truded, tongue-fashion, to theledge.

Torrek could not see inside,but the light that spilled forthwas hellishly brilliant. It sostunned his eyes that those whowalked over the gangway becameno more than shadows.When they reached him andstood staring, he could see a littlebetter. They were big men, withsomething of himself in their fea-tures and coloring. But they werewrapped from boots to neck indrab one-piece garments and theywore massive round helmets.

Behind him, Sonna whimpered.The men talked to each other.

It was a language Torrek had notheard, a choppy unmusicaltongue, but there was no greatexcitement in the tones. Thesemen were doing a routine job.Through a haze of anger, Tor-

rek saw them reach some kind ofdecision it seemed to involveSonna rather than him and goto work. They cast supple cordsinto the unseen force-mesh, noosesthat closed on him and were

earthquake of his own heart. The drawn taut until he was trussedFlitters were a tale, a rumor, a up like a wooly for slaughter.

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NE of them waved an arm insignal. Torrek fell to the rock

as the force died away. Sonnasprang past him, spitting her fury.A man grinned, side-stepped herrush and grabbed an arm, whichhe forced behind her back. Shewent to her knees with a cry andwas quickly bound.What are they doing? she

cried in alarm. Torrek, beloved,what do they want?

I don't know, he said.He was slowly overcoming hisown helpless wrath, forcing it to

the ground as if it were his op-ponent in a wrestling match. Agreat chill watchfulness rose inits place.O my dearest wept Sonna.It cracked across Torrek's

heart. He mumbled some mean-ingless comfort or other. Inward-ly, he thought of knives for thesegrinning, chattering bandits inhideous clothes. He thought ofhanging their heads in Diupa'ssmokehouse.

the alienness of furnishingsaround him. Even when the shiprose noiselessly into the sky, andthe highest peaks fell out of sight,and Sonna's courage broke in araw scream, Torrek remainedwatching the view.But when the stars harshened

and came forth in their hundreds,when the great bowl of the worldturned into a ringed shield daz-zling against darkness, and Sonnaclenched her eyes and would notlook ... he had an eerie sense ofhomecoming.

Almost, he knew the monstermother ship would be waitingthere and would draw this little

*boat into herself.Was it only the speculations ofDiupa's philosophers, or did heremember as a fact that theWorld Called Maanerek wasmerely a single one of uncount-ably many?He shivered at a ghostlythought, a thin frightened wisp of recollection? of how cruel

Sonna writhed and tried to bite and alien those worlds could be.when they picked her up andtook her inside the ship. It earnedher nothing but a stunning cuff.Torrek conserved his strength,watching the metal bleaknessthrough which he was borne.

Lashed in a chair, he had aview of the sky and the Steepsthrough a kind of no, not win-dow, nor telescope image-mak-er? He focused on that, ignoring

TTORREK whirled, in the nar-* rowness of the cell wherethey had caged him. One handsnatched for his knife. When heremembered it was gone, his teethclicked together, as if closing in athroat.Sonna caught his arm. No,she said.He came back to humanness

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your friends. We are, in fact, yourpeople, and you are about to begiven back your rightful heri-tage.As from an immense distance,

Torrek heard Sonna's indrawngasp. He himself felt no greatshock. The knowledge had beengrowing within him since thatsky-boat came through darknessto grip him fast. In part, it wasthat he looked like these folk. Butin a deeper part, lying beyond allwords, this was something he sim-ply knew.

It was a cold and poisonedknowledge.

Well, what have you to sayfurther? he demanded curtly.

If you will come with us, wewill take you to a place where itcan better be explained.

I will do so, provided thiswoman come with me.No, it is best she stay. There

would be too much trouble; evenwithout her, it will be hardenough to make things clear to

youLet it be so, my dear one,

mumbled Sonna. There was abeaten weariness about her. Shehad seen and suffered too muchin too short a time.

Torrek saw how the unhuman-

a wrestler, to crack his spineacross a knee.He choked back his rage andthe icy wariness that replaced itwas so unlike Dumethdin's warmfolk it branded him so sharplyas one of this witch-race thathe slumped and grew saddened.

Let us go, he said.As he followed Horlam down a

glaring bare corridor, with Smitand Smifs weapon at his back, heturned over his last glimpse ofSonna: a small figure at thebarred door, all alone in a cage.

T WAS not to a room wherehe could look out on the arro-

gant stars and the cool ringedshield which was his home thatthey took him. Their walkingended down in the guts of theship, in a great chamber whichwas a flashing, blinking, quiver-ing, humming wilderness of philo-sophic apparatus.

Sit down, Torrek, invitedSmit.The Diupa man crouched back

from the chair, for it was an uglything of wires, instruments andshackles.On the floor, perhaps not in

that, he answered.You will sit in that chair,

ly stiff manner of Coan Smit, a Smit told him, hefting his weapon,manner of metal, broke open ashis eyes drifted down the girlwhere she stood. Almost, then,Torrek seized Smit in the grip of

and permit yourself to be boundinto it. Whether you do so freelyor let me knock you out with thisgun is your affair.

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Torrek snarled at him. Smitwas standing too far, too ready,for a leap. Therefore Torrekyielded. As Horlam closed thesteel bands which locked him bywrists, waist and ankles to thechair, his lips moved, invoking thenine evils on Coan Smit.Horlam lowered a grid of wires

onto Torrek's head and began ad-justing it in various ways. Smitpulled up a chair for himself,sheathed his gun and crossed hislegs.

Well, he said, this will take alittle time to adjust the circuits,I mean so I may as well tellyou what you wish to know. Hegrinned wryly. It is hard to fig-

*ure where to begin. Some nationsof men understand that the worldis a round ball spinning about thesun and that the stars are othersuns. I do not know if in yourcountry

I have heard such tales,grunted Torrek.

i

Till now, the imaginings ofDiupa's learned men had notseemed very plausible to him. Butnow he knew beyond all reason,without needing as proof the factof this ship that Smit spoke thetruth. But why did he know it sosurely?

Very well, then, said Smit. Itis a great distance from sun tosun, greater than men can trulyunderstand. And there are more

suns than have ever been fullycounted. Nevertheless, menlearned how to cross such dis-tances in ships like this, overcom-ing the barriers of space, time,heat, cold, weightlessness, air-lessness. Spreading from oneworld, very long ago, they strewedtheir seed on thousands of other

and less comprehensible things worlds.Then the Empire went down

in wreck and men forgot, Smitcontinued. On planets like yours,far removed from the old centersof civilization, thinly populated atthe time of the disaster on suchworlds, hardly a memory remainsof the Empire and its fall.nPORREK shivered. It was not* alone the weirdness of thetale, but this sense of having beentold it once before, in some for-gotten dream.He said slowly: There are leg-ends concerning those who ex-isted Before the Rymfar.

Smit nodded. Of course. Notall knowledge was lost On someworlds, a kind of civilization sur-vived. But only slowly, throughnumberless agonies, has it strug-gled back. The Empire has notyet been rebuilt; there are manyseparate nations of planets. Mostof the Galaxy is still an unex-plored wilderness But I amtalking beside the point.

All right. This is a scout shipof a certain nation, your nation,

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which lies an enormous distanceaway. We have been cruisingthrough this region of space for anumber of years, mapping, study-ing . . . preparing the ground, ina way. Five years ago, we discov-ered your planet and tested a newprocedure.You are Korul Wanen, an offi-

cer of this ship. Your memories all your memories of your entirelife were stripped from you.You were left to be picked up bythe Island folk. Now we are tak-ing you back.Smit turned and waved an im-perious arm at one of the gray-robed men who stole meeklyabout, serving the switches anddials of the great machine. He letTorrek sit there with sweat spurt-ing out on the skin, while he gavean order. Then he faced back,grinning.You don't like it, do

Korul Wanen? he said.It's a lie croaked Torrek.How could you have found me

if-A good question. But I fear it

will not disprove my assertions.You see, a small radiating sig-naling unit, drawing its powerfrom your own body, was im-planted in a bone of yours, be-fore you were put down. Wecould locate you from many milesaway.

But no one would be so stu-pid roared Torrek. I might

you,

have died The folk you say youleft me with might have beencannibals and eaten me Whatthen could you possibly havegained?

Nothing, said Smit. But nei-ther would we have lost anything

22 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

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except one expendable unit ofthe crew.

HPHERE was a certain avidness* in Smit's pale eyes. He wasnot telling this because there wasany special need to, Torrek saw.

He was telling it because hewanted to watch his prisonersquirm.

Torrek stiffened. It was hard toremain calm, when his heart beatso heavily and his mouth was sodry.

A WORLD CALLED MAANEREK 23

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Why, he thought, in a remote,astonished part of his brain, / amafraid This is what it feels likeThe gray-robed person cameback with a black cylinder thesize of a man's forearm and gaveit to Smit, who handled it as onehandles heavy objects.He smiled at Torrek. In here,he said, is the ghost of KorulWanen.

Torrek clamped lips together.He would not askHe will live again in his ownbody, said Smit. But first, of

course, Torrek must be rubbedout.That drew a howl. NoYes, said Smit eagerly.He passed the cylinder to Hor-

lam, who fitted it into the ma-chine next to another one.You might turn over yourmemories one last time, Torrek.They will soon be nothing but ascribing in a tube.

Torrek struggled, uselessly, un-til he thought his muscles wouldburst. If they but would, heprayed in anguish, if he couldonly know clean deathAs the dizziness and the dark-

ness closed in on him, the ma-chine screaming inside his headuntil he felt it must rack his brainapart, he saw Smit lean closer topeer at him. The last thing ofwhich Torrek the Harpooner hadawareness was Smifs look of en-joyment.

Korul Wanen

HE HEFTED the cylinder.Five years he murmured.Oh, it could hold several cen-

turies' worth of experience, myboy, said Dr. Frain Horlam.When you use individual mole-cules to store informationWanen looked up from the cyl-inder, across the desk to the agingpsychologist. He was not certainhow to act. On the one hand, theold fellow was a non-Cadre civil-ian; as such, he rated scant re-spect from a lieutenant in theAstro service. On the other hand,Horlam was in charge of the ma-jor scientific undertaking of thisexpedition, and on an exploratorytrip, such work was subordinateonly to the gathering of militech-nic data.

Therefore Wanen said with acarefully noncommittal courtesy:The theory of this never was ex-plained to me. As long as youonly wish me to make conversa-tion, with no subject assigned,perhaps you would be kindenough to instruct me.

Horlam's gray head lifted. Ina rough way, if you like, he said.He leaned back and took out acigar. Smoke?

No Wanen collected himself.You know I am an Academyman and therefore conditionedagainst vice.

Why? Horlam tossed the

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question off so casually, betweenpuffs on his own cigar, thatWanen answered without think-ing:

In order to serve the Hegem-ony and the Cadre which guidesit more efficiently He jarredto a halt. You're deliberatelybaiting me

If you say so.These are not joking matters.

Don't make me report you.This ship is a starvish long

way from home, said Horlam,with no obvious relevance. Sevenyears now since we left. Nobodyback there knows where we are we didn't know ourselves justwhere we were going. The starshave changed position so muchthat the old Imperial astro dataare no use at all, and space is sobig, and there are so many stars if we don't come back, it willbe hundreds of years, probably,before another Hegemony shipchances to come exploring aroundthis way again.Wanen's uneasy puzzlement

grew. It might only be the linger-ing strangeness of his experience.He had wanted to report for dutyas soon as he awoke in the sick-bay cot, but they had made himrest for a while and then sent himto Horlam's office. An informaltalk was to probe his restored selfand make certain he was onceagain fit to serve. But this wastoo informal

w.1W7HY do you say thesethings? Wanen asked ina very low, controlled voice.They're platitudes, but your tone. . . somehow, it all borders ondeviationism.

For which I could be givenanything on the scale of correc-tions, from a reprimand, upthrough death, to lobotomy ormemory erasure eh? Horlamsmiled around his cigar. Nevermind, boy. You must also knowthat there aren't any secret policeaboard to whom I could be re-ported. The reason I'm saying allthis is that there are certainthings I must tell you. I want tocushion the shock. This is yourfirst deep-space voyage, isn't it?

Yes.And you only had two years

of it. Then you were mind-blanked and deposited on thatplanet. The rest of us have beenbatting around this part of theGalaxy for five years more.Things change under such condi-tions. There has to be a certainadjustment a loosening of disci-pline, a letdown of idealism.You'll see it for yourself. Don'tbe unduly shocked. The Cadreknows the phenomenon well, al-lows for it.Wanen realized suddenly thatthis was why deep-space mennever returned to the homeworlds of the Hegemony. Whenyou had made your first really

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long voyage, you were never al-lowed closer to the Inner Starsthan a year's journey; your homebecame the great naval bases.You knew this in advance, andwere told it was a matter ofquarantine, and accepted the sac-rifice as a small offering to make

*for the Cadre.Now he saw that the disease hemight conceivably be carrying,against which the people of theInner Stars must forever be pro-tected, was not a physical one.Very well, he said, smiling hisrelief. I understand.

plex protein whose molecules areselectively distorted to record thescanned data. But that's detail.Whatever can be scanned canalso be selectively heterodyned,canceled, rubbed out call itwhat you like leaving the adultbody a memoryless, mindlesshulk. But such a body relearnswith astonishing speed; it be-comes a new, wholly functioningpersonality in less than a year.

If these new memories, such asthose you acquired in the pastfive years, are scanned and can-celed, the recording of the old

Glad to hear it, said Hor- ones can be 'played back/ so tolam. Makes things that mucheasier.Wanen laid the cylinder on thedesk, But we were discussingthis, were we not?

Uh, yes. I was explaining thefundamental idea. Horlam drewa breath and set forth on a lec-ture. Memory patterns, includingthe unconscious habit patterns,are taken to be synaptic path-ways 'grooved' into the nervoussystem if I may speak veryloosely. The personality at anyinstant is a function of basic he-redity, physical constitution health, diet and so on and theaccumulated total of these synap-tic paths. Now the paths, beingphysical, can be scanned, and, ofcourse, whatever is scanned canbe recorded.

speak reimposed on your ner-vous system. And thus Lieuten-ant Korul Wanen returns to life.

HE young man scowled. Iknow all that, he protested.You explained it to me yourselfwhen I got this assignment . . .but perhaps you've forgotten. Aft-er all, to you it happened fiveyears ago. What I was interestedin now were the more technicaldetails: the type of signal used,for instance.

I can't tell you much, saidHorlam regretfully.

Classified? I'm sorry I asked.It's not that classified. No, first

is the fact that you would haveto learn three new sciences forme to make sense to you. Second,it's an ancient Imperial technique,

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An exploratory ship found awrecked machine and a set ofhandbooks in the ruins of a cityon Balgut IV, about thirty yearsago. Slowly and painfully, the re-search unit to which I belong hasrebuilt the psychalyzer, as we callit, and learned a few things aboutit. But we're still mostly gropingin the dark.

This record here Wanennodded at the cylinder, whichstood on the desk like some crudeidol you intend to study it, Iimagine?

Yes, but as an electronic phe-nomenon, not as a set of memo-ries per se, which it could onlybecome by being reimposed ona living brain, which I suspectcould only be your brain. Butwith our apparatus, we can makea point-by-point comparison ofthis record with the record wehave of yourself as Wanen runstatistical analyses and so on. I'mespecially interested in trying tofind out precisely what patternsin the recording correspond to thelearned elements of personality.

This was a totally new kindof experiment, you understand.Never before has the same bodyexperienced two totally differentcultures. Now we can really sepa-rate out the significant factors.Give my computers and me a few years to chew all the dataand I may actually begin to know

brain. Yes, youVe performed areal service to science.

I hope it is also a service tothe Hegemony, said Wanen.

Oh, it is. Consider what mightbe done about deviationism. Atpresent, the psychalyzer can onlywipe out the total memory of anon-loyal unit. The process of re-education from the ground up isslow and costly; lobotomy and re-duction to low civilian rank is awaste of good human potential. Ifwe knew how, deviant tendenciescould be corrected much moreneatly, without sacrificing the de-viant's skills and experience. Infact, perhaps conditioning couldbe made so thorough that no onewould be physically able to havenon-loyal thoughts.

It was such a splendid visionthat Wanen jumped to his feetand blurted: Thank you Thankyou for letting me serveHorlam knocked the ash off his

cigar and nodded in a slow, some-how old fashion. You're allright, he said in a dry voice.You may report for duty.i^OAN SMIT had changed in^* five years. He was no longerquite the steel-hard, steel-proudAcademy youngster who had for-ever left the Inner Stars in order

Ito serve them more fully.Wanen grew only slowly awareof it, in the course of hours when

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Five boat launcher, as they haddone so many times before. Smitwas still deft, crisp, neat. If hisface had darkened, that was anhonorable badge, given him bythe sun and wind of the ringedplanet. Wanen himself, after all,was even more deeply tanned,and added thereto was a barba-rian tattoo.But Smit was not absolutely

nerve-pulsing and worse. But thatnot have been necessary

... or should it?Wanen sighed in confusion.They raised you from birth toserve his mind recited the com-forting Hierarchy : The unit whichis called I serves the unit calledthe Ship, which serves the Fleet,which is an arm of the almightyHegemony and of the Cadre that

Academy; the creases in his uni- guides us all toward the New Em-pire; there are no other loyalties.You were bred and raised forone purpose only, like all units

below Cadre level. Your particu-lar purpose was to serve in theOuter Fleet. And that, of course,was right and good; but it was anarrow education that did notprepare you for the sudden im-pact of strangeness.For two years, while the Seekerhurtled through unmapped hun-dreds of parsecs, he had seen alittle of the otherness which is

form were merely knife-edged, hisboots did not blind the eye. Hestood properly straight, but with-out actually straining his muscles.He walked with the regulationpace, but was there the faintesthint of a swagger?When they were finally re-lieved, Smit yawned in a mostun-Astro fashion. Good to seeyou again, Lieutenant, he said.Thank you, Lieutenant, saidWanen formally.Let's get a cup of coffee. I

want to talk to you.Their hard heels clacked on

metal as they went down the pas-sage toward the junior officers'wardroom. Wanen found himselfnoticing the enlisted men hepassed. They had grown sloppierthan the officers, not outrageous-ly so, but it was there; and whenthey saluted his insignia, hesensed an air of cringing.Many punishments must havebeen ordered aboard the Seekerin the last five years: sweatbox,

deep space just a little. Thenfive years dropped from his lifeand here he was again, in a shipwhich for half a decade had hadthe cold wild otherness seepingthrough her armor and

HEY entered the small ward-room. No one else was pres-

ent. Smit dialed for coffee and,when it came, sat cradling the hotcup in his hands for a while, as ifhe were chilled.

I saw you, of course, a good

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many hours ago, he said finally.But you wouldn't remember that.You were still Torrek then.

Torrek? Wanen raised hisbrows inquiringly.

That was your name, you said.Oh, you were a proper savage, Ican tell you Smit chuckled.Beautifully easy to bait, too. Ihope you don't HeyWanen yanked himself backbarely in time. His hands werestill crooked claws. He looked atthem numbly and it came to himthat they had curved to fit aman's throat.What are you doing? gasped

Smit.I don't know. Wanen sat down

again heavily and stared beforehim. All of a sudden, a derange-ment. I wanted to kill you.Hm. Smit recovered with therapidity of disciplined nerves. Hesat a little farther away, but hisface grew calm again. After amoment, he said in a thoughtfultone: Some underlying disturb-anceyes, I suppose that's it. Aresidual effect of the transforma-tion you've undergone. Heshrugged. Well, why not? This isa new kind of experiment. You'dbest see Horlam again, but Idon't imagine it's anything too

serious.Yes. Wanen stood up.Not now, you idiot Relax.

Drink your coffee. I want to dis-cuss matters with you. It's impor-

tant to our whole mission.That brought Wanen back into

his chair. Proceed, he said. If hisheart still shivered, he kept it un-der control.

I hope the doctors can get thatugly tattoo off your face, com-plained Smit. It bothers every-body.

It's no worse than combatscars, said Wanen huffily.

Oh, yes, it is. It stands forsomething different somethingnone of us want to be remindedof. Smit glowered into his coffeefor a little while longer before re-suming: You recall that wefound only two inhabited planets,both of them the usual wretched,uninteresting places, before com-ing on Ring here. That's the nick-name the crew have given it:Ring. It's important and excitingenough to rate a pet name.You must also remember that

our preliminary scoutings showedit to be an unusually fertile planetwith a human population whichhad lost all traces of Empirecivilization but had, on theother hand, built up a rich varietyof cultures for themselves. Thehighest society, technologicallyspeaking, is in the Islands, the bigsubtropical archipelago. They'rejust on the verge of printing andchemical explosives, and couldeasily come up with a scientific-industrial revolution. That's thepeople we dropped you among.

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Yes, said Wanen. I remem-ber seeing it from the air. Theytold me that was the place Hisvoice ran on, almost as if anothermind were musing aloud. Therewas a deep fjord, and towns alongit, and mountains with long val-leys like green fingers reachingdown to the water and No, I'mnot sure, He rubbed his eyes.Did I see clouds floating undera high peak? There was some-thing about a peak, like victory.No, I can't recall.

HE GREW aware that Smitwas regarding him oddly,but the sense of exaltation re-mained within him.

Continue, Wanen said. Youwere bringing me up to date.

It works pretty well with societiesthat know there are other nations'beyond the horizon,' but don'tknow exactly what they're like.

Whafs a Boats man doing inethnic survey?

You're Boats, too, Lieutenant.That's different. There were

certain physical qualificationsneeded for the experiment, to givethe blanked man a chance of sur-vival, and training was, of course,irrelevant. But you-A bleakness crossed Smit's face.We're short of ethnic specialists,he said, and war boats aren'tneeded hereabouts. I had to fillin. So did a number of others.

High casualties elsewhere?Yes.But from primitives? Wan-

Yes. I was. Well, then, we left en was startled. I thought theyRing and for nearly five yearsmore we've been prowling thispart of the spiral arm.

What did you find?Planets. Some with people on

them. Nothing to compare withRing. About six months ago, there-fore, we came back. I and someothers went down on ethnic sur-vey in the Island region. I sup-pose you've heard somethingabout the techniques. Kidnap anative, use accelerine and hypno-sis to get the language and basiccultural information from him ina hurry, then dispose of him andgo out yourself. Claim to be a for-

weren't even supposed to knowthere were observers among them let alone get unnecessarily an-tagonized let alone kill our menwith with spears

All those things happened,said Smit grimly. The loss ofquality competence, adjusted-ness, efficiency, even loyalty thedecay of the entire crew was in-credible. In the case of the ethnicmen, it was disastrous. See here,Lieutenant -r- half the casualtiesamong survey terms were due toour having to shoot the men our-selves for radical deviationism.. Wanen sat as if struck on the

eigner from some other country, head. No, he whispered.

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ures were for the good of the bar-barians, too, since the procedure

SMIT bared his teeth. It wasnot a smile, nor quite a snarl.

Yes. I've felt the tendencies in was obviously essential to the ex-myself. What did you expect?Seven years of metal walls andcelibacy

But we have Antisex. We haveloyalty rallies Mere suppression of overt

symptoms. Frustration continuesto build up underneath, until itbreaks loose in sheer destructionand negativism. Even a lifetime'sconditioning can't survive thatkind of pressure.

But this can't be the firsttime

Of course not. It always hap-pens on a really long voyage.When the first troubles arose, thecaptain explained the phenome-non to all us officers.

pansion of the Hegemony and theHegemony would come at last toinclude all mankind everywherein the Galaxy.

Nevertheless, he could hardlyget the words out: So Ring hasbeen picked?

No, said Smit. The tensionrelease I spoke of took placemonths ago, on the last planet westopped at.A second's inexplicable reliefwas followed by a new tightnessof soul. Then why are we stillhere?

Problems A dilemmaSmit shoved his empty cup

away, got up and started pacingthe floor. It was not the act of anWell, then Wanen leaned Academy man, taught never to

back, sighing his relief. So theremust be a procedure in the Classi-fied Manuals.

There is, agreed Smit. Aftercasualties due to such causes ex-ceed a certain percentage, theship is to find a backward planet.A certain small area is to be oc-cupied. Built-up aggressions maythen be freely vented on its menand children. Antisex is discon-tinued and the local women madegenerally available.Wanen felt a curious, sick re-luctance within himself. He

couldn't understand it. Even froman altruistic viewpoint, such meas-

show uncertainty to the world.You see, the Classified Man-uals further recommend that aship return to base immediatelyafter such release has been ef-fected. Otherwise well, just con-sider the ordinary insignificant lit-tle enlisted man, the faceless unitamong hundreds of other inter-changeable units. For a fewweeks, he has been a conqueror,killing, whipping, flaying, burning,raping, drinking himself stupidevery night. Resuming ship disci-pline and Antisex isn't easy. Infact, if he isn't pointed back to-ward normal surroundings at

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once, the Cadre alone knows whatdeviationism can arise.wANEN said, Having recov-ered me, why don't we gohome?

We've got to occupy Ring,said Smit shakily. Not for the -the previous purpose. For mili-technic reasons.

What? But I thought this wasonly a survey.

Oh, it is. Or was. But look. Theaverage backslid planet is a pret-ty miserable affair. It's just natu-rally so hostile to human life thatwhen the Empire broke up and

were destroyed, or rusted away,civilization went to maximumentropy in an obscene hurry. Onmost planets, Man simply becameextinct. In the cases where adap-tation was possible, the normaloutcome was savagery.

Ring, though, is a world wheremen can really feel at home.They've flourished There aremillions of them and they includesome extremely able, sophisti-cated races. It's almost as good aconquest as a unified planet withfull industrial culture.And remember, Lieutenant,

we have mortal enemies. The Re-all the artificial gadgets and props public, the Libertarian League,

GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

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the Royal Brotherhood, the HighEarls of Morlan there are adozen other civilizations spread-ing into space, each with its ownidea of what the New Empireshould be like. We don't dare letone of their scouts stumble onRing. Whoever garrisons it firsthas got possession of it, at thisdistance from all naval bases.

Easy now said Wanen. What are the odds of their findingRing? A hundred billion stars inthe Galaxy and this one to find years to get home a year to or-among them all.

spiral arm, and we know thereare League ships mapping it, too.It's a finite chance, certainly Iknow that-but one we dare nottake. We must plant a garrisondown there; it's in the Manuals.Then we head back to base, re-port our find and have a taskforce sent which can take overthe entire planet, fortify it prop-erly, civilize the inhabitants, andso on.

But it'll take us nearly two

And the GO stars are alwaysinvestigated first, Smit said, andthey're not too common in this

ganize the task force, probablytwo more years to come back Five years Can we trust agarrison for five years?

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ORLAM began unclippingthe electrodes from Wanen'sand body. His lips wereand he frowned, thinking.

Well? exclaimed Wanen. On-after half a minute of silencehe realize how un-Astro itbeen for him to reveal emo-before a non-Cadre civilian.was wrong with him?

Well, said Horlam presently,to every known ence-

and neurographicyou have no survivingof your stay on Ring.

Are you certain? insistedThere must be some-

to account for for LookHe forced the words out,by one. On my way to your

I looked out at the planet.have never seen anything so

in my life. I loved it asought to love only the Cadre.had to run from there before

tears came. He felt pain inhands and unclenched them;nails had bitten into the

Something about the ex-must have changed me.

deviant.See here, said Horlam pa-

it's my specialty, notto know what memory is.

a permanent alteration of pro-as the result of a stimu-The memory patterns are all

the brain, except for a few hab-which are synaptic patterns in

run a comparison of the Wanenrecord we have, your cylinder,with the Wanen record in yourown nervous system. This is anabsolutely objective process, atracing out of electronic patternsof flow, resistance it makes anelectronic map of your entire ner-vous system.He finished releasing theyounger man, sat down on a cor-ner of his workbench and took outa cigar. The difference betweenthe two patterns, my friend, is insignificant a few additionaltraces caused by your experiencessince your normal personalitywas reimposed. You've been telling yourself an old-time y]\o:Astory, with lingering traces olyour Torrek memories in pln< of the ghost. Now forget it. I t\sure you that there are no iUChtraces.

But then what's making mehave these fits? Wanen fell himself almost cringing back.

I'm not certain, shi nji < IHorlam. I told you psychalyiis still a half-science fumblmp. Inthe dark. But at least I've provedyour trouble is nothing very l>a\ivoice coming in over the radio. From time to time, he heard a

crash. Pebbles, propelled by thehurricane wind, were cannonadingagainst the Brute. They shatteredharmlessly against the thick

I'm opening the door.Right.The heavy door slid back and

Clayton drove the Brute outside.The station had been set up on

a wide, empty plain. Mountainswould have offered some protec-tion from the wind; but the moun-tains on Carella were in a con-stant restless state of building upand breaking down. The plainpresented dangers of its own,however. To avert the worst ofthose dangers, a field of stoutsteel posts had been plantedaround the station. The closelypacked posts pointed outward,like ancient tank traps, andserved the same purpose.

Clayton drove the Brute downone of the narrow, winding chan-nels that led through the field ofposts. He emerged, located thepipeline and started along it. Ona small screen above his head, awhite line flashed into view. Theline would show any break or ob-struction in the pipeline.A wide, rocky, monotonousdesert stretched before him. Anoccasional low bush came intosight. The wind was directly be-hind him, blanketed by the soundof the diesel.He glanced at the windspeedindicator. The wind of Carellawas blowing at 92 miles an hour.He drove steadily along, hum-

armor.Everything all right? Neri-

shev asked over the radio.Fine, Clayton said.In the distance, he saw a Carel-

lan land ship. It was about fortyfeet long, he judged, and narrowin the beam, skimming rapidly oncrude wooden rollers. The ship'ssails were made from one of thefew leaf-bearing shrubs on theplanet.The Carellans waved their ten-

tacles as they went past. Theyseemed to be heading toward thestation,

Clayton turned his attentionback to the pipeline. He was be-ginning to hear the wind now,above the roar of the diesel. Thewindspeed indicator showed thatthe wind had risen to 97 miles anhour.

Somberly he stared throughthe sand-pocked slit-window. Inthe far distance were jagged cliffs,seen dimly through the dust-blown air. More pebbles rico-cheted off his hull and the soundrang hollowly through his ve-hicle. He glimpsed another Carel-lan land ship, then three more.They were tacking stubbornlyinto the wind.

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Carellans were moving toward thestation. He signaled to Nerishevon the radio.How are you doing? Nerishevasked.

I'm close to the spring and nobreak yet, Clayton reported.Looks like a lot of Carellansheading your way.

I know. Six ships are mooredin the lee of the shed and moreare coming.

We've never had any troublewith the natives before, Claytonsaid slowly. What does this looklike?

They've brought food withthem. It might be a celebration.

Maybe. Watch yourself.Don't worry. You take care

and hurryI've found the break Speak

to you later.HPHE break showed on the

screen, glowing white. Peeringout the port, Clayton saw wherea boulder had rolled across thepipeline, crushing it, and rolledon.He brought the truck to a stopon the windward side of the pipe.It was blowing 113 miles an hour.Clayton slid out of the truck, car-rying several lengths of pipe,some patches, a blowtorch and abag of tools. They were all tiedto him and he was secured to theBrute by a strong nylon rope.

Outside, the wind was deafen-

ing. It thundered and roared likebreaking surf. He adjusted hismask for more oxygen and wentto work.Two hours later, he had com-pleted a fifteen-minute repair job.His clothing was shredded andand his air extractor was com-pletely clogged with dust.He climbed back into theBrute, sealed the port and lay onthe floor, resting. The truck wasstarting to tremble in the windgusts. Clayton ignored it.Hello? Hello? Nerishev calledover the radio.

Wearily, Clayton climbed backinto the driver's seat and ac-knowledged.

Hurry back now, Clayton Notime to rest The wind's up to138 I think a storm is comingA storm on Carella some-thing Clayton didn't even want tothink about. They had expe-rienced only one in eight months.During it, the winds had goneover 160 miles an hour.

I He nosed the truck around andstarted back, driving directly intothe wind. At full throttle, hefound he was making very littleprogress. Three miles an hour wasall the heavy diesel would doagainst the pressure of a 138-milewind.He stared ahead through theslit-window. The wind, outlined

by long streamers of dust andsand, seemed to be coming

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straight at him, funneled out oftan infinitely wide sky to the tiny

point of his window. Windbornerocks sailed at him, grew large,immense, and shattered againsthis window. He couldn't stop him-self from ducking each time onecame.The heavy engine was begin-

ning to labor and miss.Oh, baby, Clayton breathed,

don't quit now. Not now. GetPapa home. Then quit. PleaseHe figured he was about tenmiles from the station, which laydirectly upwind.He heard a sound like an ava-lanche plummeting down a moun-tainside. It was made by a boul-der the size of a house.. Too bigfor the wind to lift, it was rollingat him from windward, digging afurrow in the rocky ground as itcame.

Clayton twisted the steeringwheel. The engine labored, andwith infinite slowness the truckcrept out of the boulder's path.Shaking, Clayton watched theboulder bearing down. With onehand, he pounded on the instru-ment panel.

Move, baby, moveOOMING hollowly, the boul-der rolled past at a good

thirty miles an hour.Too close, Clayton said tohimself. He tried to turn theBrute back into the wind, toward

the station. The Brute wouldn'tdo it.The diesel labored and whined,

trying to turn the big truck intothe wind. And the wind,, like asolid gray wall, pushed the truckaway.The windspeed indicator stoodat 159 miles an hour.How are you doing? Nerishevasked over the radio.

Just great Leave me alone,I'm busy.

Clayton set his brakes, un-strapped and raced back to theengine. He adjusted timing andmixture, and hurried back to thecontrols.

Hey, Nerishev That engine'sgoing to conk out

It was a full second beforeNerishev answered. Then, verycalmly, he asked, What's wrongwith it?

Sand Clayton said. Particlesdriven at 159 miles an hour sand's in the bearings, injectors,everything. I'm going to make allthe distance I can.

And then?Then I'll try to sail her back,

Clayton said. I just hope themast will take it.He turned his attention to thecontrols. At windspeeds like this,the truck had to be handled likea ship at sea. Clayton picked upspeed with the wind on his quar-ter, then came about and slammedinto the wind.

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The Brute made it this time him, he could roll in. But, ofand crossed over onto the othertack.

It was the best he could do,Clayton decided. His windwarddistance would have to be madeby tacking. He edged toward theeye of the wind. But at full throt-tle, the diesel couldn't bring himmuch closer than forty degrees.

For an hour, the Brute forgedahead, tacking back and forthacross the wind, covering threemiles in order to make two. Mi-raculously, the engine kept onrunning. Clayton blessed themanufacturer and begged thediesel to hold out a little whilelonger.Through a blinding screen of

wsand, he saw another Carellanland ship. It was reefed down andheeled precariously over. But itforged steadily to windward andsoon outdistanced him.Lucky natives, Clayton thought 165 miles of wind was a sailing

breeze to themThe station, a gray half-sphere,

came into sight ahead.I'm going to make it Claytonshouted. Break out the rum,Nerishev, old man Papa's gettingdrunk tonightThe diesel chose that moment

to break down for good.

tin.

course, it had to be in front.What are you going to do

now? Nerishev asked.I'm going to sit here, Clayton

said. When the wind calms downto a hurricane, I'm going to walkhome.The Brute's twelve-ton mass

was shaking and rattling in thewind blasts.You know, Clayton said, I'm

going to retire after this tour.That so? You really mean it?Absolutely. I own a farm in

Maryland, with frontage on Ches-apeake Bay. You know what I'mgoing to do?

What?TJ

i^1 LAYTON swore violently as^ he set the brakes. What lousyluck If the wind were behind

I'm going to raise oysters. Yousee, the oyster Hold it.The station seemed to bedrifting slowly upwind, away

from him. Clayton rubbed hiseyes, wondering if he were goingcrazy. Then he realized that, inspite of its brakes, in spite of itsstreamlining, the truck was beingpushed downwind, away from thestation.

Angrily he shoved a button onhis switchboard, releasing the

1port and starboard anchors. Heheard the solid clunk of the an-chors hitting the ground, heardthe steel cables scrape and rattle.He let out a hundred and seventyfeet of steel line, then set thewinch brakes. The truck washolding again.

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I dropped the anchors,* Clay-ton said.

Are they holding?So far. Clayton lighted a ciga-

rette and leaned back in hispadded chair. Every muscle in hisbody ached from tension. His eye-lids were twitching from watchingthe wind-lines converging on him.He closed his eyes and tried torelax.

ithrough the truck's steel plating.The wind howled and moaned,tugging at the truck, trying to finda hold on the smooth surface. At169 miles an hour, the ventilatorbaffles blew out. He would beblinded, Clayton thought, if heweren't wearing sealed goggles,choked if he weren't breathingcanned air. Dust swirled, thickand electric, within the Brute'scabin.

Pebbles, flung with the velocityof rifle bullets, splattered againstthe hull. They were strikingharder now. He wondered howmuch more force they'd need be-fore they started piercing thearmor plating.

T TIMES like this, Claytonfound it hard to maintain a

calm, still air of Earth. If he evergot back ...

Are you all right? Nerishevasked.

Making out just great, Clay-ton said wearily. How are thingsat the station?

Not so good. The whole struc-ture's starting sympathetic vibra-tion. Enough wind for long enoughand the foundations could shat-The sound of the wind cut ter.

And they want to put a fuelstation here Clayton said.

Well, you know the problem.This is the only solid planet be-tween Angarsa III and the SouthRidge Belt. All the rest are gasgiants.

They better build their stationin space.

The cost -Hell, man, it'll cost less tobuild another planet than to tryto maintain a fuel base on thisone Clayton spat out a mouth-ful of dust. I just want to get onthat relief ship. How many na-tives at the station now?

About fifteen, in the shed.Any sign of violence?No, but they're acting funny.How so?I don't know, said Nerishev.

common-sense attitude. He was I just don't like it.painfully aware of the vulnera-bility of human flesh, appalled atthe possibilities for violence in theUniverse. What was he doing outhere? Man's place was in the

Stay out of the shed, huh?You can't speak the language,anyhow, and I want you in onepiece when I come back. Hehesitated. If I come back.

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You'll be fine, Nerishev said.Sure I will. I - oh, LordWhafs it? Whafs wrong?Boulder coming down Talk to

you laterClayton turned his attention to

the boulder, a rapidly growingblack speck to windward. It washeading directly toward his an-chored and immobilized truck.He glanced at the windspeed in-dicator. Impossible 174 milesan hour And yet, he remindedhimself, winds in the stratosphericjet stream on Earth blow at 200miles an hour.The boulder, large as a house,

still growing as it approached,was rolling directly his way.

Swerve Turn Clayton bel-

AS THE boulder rolled up,-* Clayton twisted the steeringwheel hard to the left. The trucktilted over precariously, swerved,fishtailed on the hard ground,and tried to turn itself over. Hefought the wheel, trying to bringthe Brute back to equilibrium. He

Ithought: Tm probably the firstman who ever jibed a twelve-tontruckThe boulder, looking like a

whole city block, roared past. Theheavy truck teetered for a mo-ment, then came to rest on its sixwheels.

Clayton What happened? Areyou all right?

Fine, Clayton gasped. But Ihad to slip the cables. I'm run-

lowed at the boulder, pounding ning downwind.the instrument panel with his fist.The boulder was coming athim, straight as a ruler line, roll-ing right down the wind.With a yell of agony, Clayton

touched a button, releasing bothanchors at the cable end. Therewas no time to winch them in,even assuming the winch couldtake the strain. Still the bouldergrew.

Clayton released his brakes.The Brute, shoved by a wind

of 178 miles an hour, began topick up speed. Within seconds, hewas traveling at 38 miles an hour,staring through his rear-visionmirror at the boulder overtakinghim.

Can you turn?Almost knocked her over, try-ing to.How far can you run?

Clayton stared ahead. In thedistance, he could make out thedramatic black cliffs that rimmedthe plain.

I got about fifteen miles to gobefore I pile into the cliffs. Notmuch time, at the speed I'm trav-eling. He locked his brakes. Thetires began to scream and thebrake linings smoked furiously.But the wind, at 183 miles anhour, didn't even notice the dif-ference. His speed over theground had picked up to 44 milesan hour.

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Try sailing her out Nerishevsaid.

She won't take it.Try, man What else can you

do? The wind's hit 185 here. Thewhole station's shaking Bouldersare tearing up the whole post de-fense. I'm afraid some bouldersare going to get through and flat-ten -

Stow it, Clayton said. I gottroubles of my own.

I don't know if the station willstand Clayton, listen to me. Trythe -The radio suddenly and dis-

mayingly went dead.Clayton banged it a few times,

then gave up. His speed over theground had reached 49 miles anhour. The cliffs were alreadylooming large before him.

So all right, Clayton said.Here we go. He released his lastanchor, a small emergency job. Atits full length of 250 feet of steelcable, it slowed him to 30 milesan hour. The anchor was breaking

|

and ripping through the groundlike a jet-propelled plow.Clayton then turned on the sail

mechanism. This had been in-stalled by the Earth engineersupon much the same theory thathas small ocean-going motor boatscarry a small mast and auxiliarysail. The sails are insurance, incase the engine fails. On Carella,a man could never walk homefrom a stranded vehicle. He had

to come in under power.The mast, a short, powerfulsteel pillar, extruded itself througha gasketed hole in the roof. Mag-netic shrouds and stays snappedinto place, supporting it. From themast fluttered a sail made of link-woven metal. For a mainsheet,Clayton had a three part flexible-steel cable, working through awinch.The sail was only a few square

feet in area. It could drive atwelve-ton monster with its brakeslocked and an anchor out on 250feet of line

Easily with the wind blowing185 miles an hour.i^LAYTON winched in the^-^ mainsheet and turned, takingthe wind on the quarter. But aquartering course wasn't goodenough. He winched the sail instill more and turned further intothe wind.With the super-hurricane on his

beam, the ponderous truck heeledover, lifting one entire side intothe air. Quickly Clayton releaseda few feet of mainsheet. The met-al-link sail screamed and chat-tered as the wind whipped it.

Driving now with just the sail'sleading edge, Clayton was able tokeep the truck on its feet andmake good a course to windward.Through the rear-vision mirror,he could see the black, jaggedcliffs behind him. They were his

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lee shore, his coast of wrecks. Buthe was sailing out of the trap.Foot by foot, he was pulling away.

That's my baby Claytonshouted to the battling Brute.

His sense of victory snappedalmost at once, for he heard anear-splitting clang and somethingwhizzed past his head. At 187miles an hour, pebbles were pierc-ing his armor plating. He was un-dergoing the Carellan equivalentof a machine-gun barrage. Thewind shrieked through the holes,trying to batter him out of hisseat.

Desperately he clung to thesteering wheel. He could hear thesail wrenching. It was made outof the toughest flexible alloysavailable, but it wasn't going tohold up for long. The short, thickmast, supported by six heavycables, was whipping like a fish-ing rod.

His brake linings were wornout, and his speed over theground came up to 57 miles anhour. ,He was too tired to think. Hesteered, his hands locked to thewheel, his slitted eyes glaringahead into the storm.The sail ripped with a scream.

The tatters flogged for a moment,then brought the mast down.Wind gusts were approaching 190miles an hour.The wind now was driving him

back toward the cliffs. At 192

miles an hour of wind, the Brutewas lifted bodily, thrown for adozen yards, slammed back on itswheels. A front tire blew underthe pressure, then two rear ones.Clayton put his head on his armsand waited for the end.

Suddenly, the Brute stoppedshort. Clayton was flung forward.His safety belt checked him fora moment, then snapped. Hebanged against the instrumentpanel and fell back, dazed andbleeding.HE LAY on the floor, half con-scious, trying to figure outwhat had happened. Slowly he

*pulled himself back into the seat,foggily aware that he hadn'tbroken any limbs. His stomachwas one great bruise. His mouthwas bleeding.

At last, looking through therear-vision mirror, he saw whathad happened. The emergencyanchor, trailing at 250 feet ofsteel cable, had caught in a deepoutcropping of rock. A fouled an-chor had brought him up short,less than half a mile from thecliffs. He was saved

For the moment, at least.But the wind hadn't given up

yet. The 193-mile-an-hour windbellowed, lifted the truck bodily,slammed it down, lifted it again,slammed it down. The steel cablehummed like a guitar string. Clay-ton wrapped his arms and legs

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around the seat. He couldn't hold him into the station's dead air.on much longer. And if he let go,the madly leaping Brute wouldsmear him over the walls liketoothpaste

If the cable didn't part first andsend him hurtling into the cliffs.He held on. At the top of oneswing, he caught a glimpse of thewindspeed indicator. The sight ofit sickened him. He was through,finished, done for. How could hebe expected to hold on throughthe force of a 187-mile-an-hourwind? It was too much.

You didn't break anything ex-cept a couple of teeth, said Neri-shev. But there isn't an un-bruised inch on you.We came through it, Claytonsaid.

Just. Our boulder defense iscompletely flattened. The stationtook two direct hits from bouldersand barely contained them. I'vechecked the foundations; they'rebadly strained. Another blow likethat -

-and we'd make out some-It was 187 miles an hour? how. Us Earth lads, we come

That meant that the wind wasdroppingHe could hardly believe it atfirst. But slowly, steadily, the dialhand crept down. At 160 miles anhour, the truck stopped slammingand lay passively at the end of itsanchor line. At 153, the windveered a sure sign that the blowwas nearly over.When it had dropped to 142miles an hour, Clayton allowedhimself the luxury of passing out.

ARELLAN natives came outfor him later in the day.

Skillfully they maneuvered twobig land ships up to the Brute,fastened on their long vines which tested out stronger thansteel and towed the derelicttruck back to the station.They brought him into the re-

ceiving shed and Nerishev carried

through That was the worst ineight months. Four months moreand the relief ship comes Buckup, Nerishev. Come with me.

Where are we going?I want to talk to that damnedSmanikThey came into the shed. It

was filled to overflowing withCarellans. Outside, in the lee ofthe station, several dozen landships were moored.

Smanik Clayton called.What's going on here?It is the Festival of Summer,

Smanik said. Our great yearlyholiday.

Hm. What about that blow?What did you think of it?I would classify it as a moder-

ate gale, said Smanik. Nothingdangerous, but somewhat unpleas-ant for sailing.

Unpleasant I hope you get

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your forecasts a little more accu-rate in the future.

One cannot always outguessthe weather, Smanik said. It isregrettable that my last forecastshould be wrong.

Your last? How come? Whafsthe matter?These people, Smanik said,

gesturing around him, are my en-tire tribe, the Seremai. We havecelebrated the Festival of Sum-mer. Now summer is ended andwe must go away.

Where to?

They are two weeks' sail fromhere. We will go into the cavernsand live there for three months.In that way, we will find safety.

Clayton had a sudden sinkingfeeling in his stomach. Safetyfrom what, Smanik?

I told you. Summer is over. Weneed safety now from the winds the powerful storm winds of win-ter.

What is it? Nerishev said.In a moment. Clayton thought

very quickly of the super-hurri-cane he had just passed through,which Smanik had classified as amoderate and harmless gale. Hethought of their immobility, theruined Brute, the strained foun-dations of the station, the wreckedboulder barrier, the relief shipfour months away. We could gowith you in the land ships, Sma-nik, and take refuge in the cav-

erns with you be protectedOf course, said Smanik hos-

pitably.No, we couldn't, Clayton an-

swered himself, his sinking feelingeven lower than during the storm.We'd need extra oxygen, our ownfood, a water supply -

What is it? Nerishev repeatedimpatiently. What the devil didhe say to make you look likethat?

He says the really big windsare just coming, Clayton replied.The two men stared at each

To the caverns in the far west, other.Outside, a wind was rising. FINN O'DONNEVAN

Are YOU Using An VOld-Fashioned-Bridge Score Pad ?

THEN TRY THE NEW

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Makes Bridge Scoring Easier & MoreAccurateFaster & More Legible4 for *1 00

Including PostageSend Check or Money Order

(No Coin or Stamps)KENVUE PRODUCTS49 East 41st St.New York 17, N. Y. *

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HAVE just had to checkback to see when my bookThe Conquest of Space first

appeared, because the date hassome bearing on this story. Well,the copyright note says FirstPublished in