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Title: The untouchable adolescents
Author: Ellis Hart
Release date: April 19, 2024 [eBook #73433]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Headline Publications, Inc, 1956
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNTOUCHABLE ADOLESCENTS ***
THE UNTOUCHABLE ADOLESCENTS
By ELLIS HART
_illustrated by_ KELLY FREAS
The aliens wouldn't accept help, though their world was
about to explode. They were adolescents. Adolescence is
the time when you aren't smart enough to ask for help....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Super-Science Fiction February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The planet Diamore, hung round and gaudy in the view-plates. As
colorfully unchanging as it had been every day for the two weeks since
the _Wallower_ had plopped out of inverspace near it.
Captain Luther Shreve started violently as the whine of the
Stress-Potential banks died away. They had been a constant noisemaker
during the past two weeks; their continual dull rhythm had come to seem
companionable. Now the keening discordancy was ended, and he knew they
had finished estimating the planet in the plates.
He sat very still, staring at the energy dials building their reserves
back up. The banks had used much extra power.
He sat very still, waiting for them to bring him the plates. He didn't
want to see them. He was a full Captain in the Merchant Arm of the
Commercial Navy, and he found the tough outer shell of himself that had
formed during thirty years in that service suddenly disintegrating.
He was afraid of what those plates would say.
The tube glowed behind him and Teller--slightly overweight, slightly
florid, slightly balding and a brilliant Psych Officer--stepped off the
plate, into the control room.
Teller slumped onto the copilot's couch, extended the sheaf of plate
readings. Luther Shreve tipped his cap back on his head with a
practiced thumb and shuffled the plates in silence.
From time to time his pink tongue washed across his lips. Finally he
sighed and rubbed weary fingers across the bridge of his nose. He
closed his eyes and slowly sank back against the cushions.
With eyes still closed, he voiced the final possibility. "Any room for
error?"
He had tried to keep the tenseness from his voice, but it somehow
doubled in the faintly resonating confines of the control room.
Teller shook his head. "They tell me no, Luther. I ran the plates up
for them, mainly because they were all afraid to be here when you saw
the sad news. You terrorize those poor backroom boys, Luther."
Teller looked across, saw the odd set to Shreve's face, and realized
his jibes were annoying the other. He swung his short legs over the
side of the couch with a thump, clasped his hands in his lap as though
about to recite.
"They have somewhere less than five months. Then the Big Push comes.
The eruptions will wipe out nine-tenths of the centers of community."
He leaned across and pulled one sheet from the stack Shreve held. "Here
is the position map." He indicated with quick, short jabs of his finger
where the first earthquakes would hit, and followed blue lines to their
terminuses.
He extended his hands, palms upward, in a movement of futility and
sadness.
Shreve sat forward, sharply. He swept the cap from his head with one
hand, ran the other through stringy, brown hair. He pursed his lips,
muttered, "We've got to do something! It's more than just business
potential ruined. There are people down there, Karl! Millions of them.
We can't let them die!"
"True," Teller stated simply, looking at his clasped hands. "But," he
added, "what about the itinerary? They'll scream bloody blazes back
there if you break schedule." He cocked a thumb toward the rear of the
ship--toward Earth.
"Karl, I've been pushing one of these cans for MerchArm over thirty
years. I'll be thirty-one in August. I've never broken a schedule in my
life--but this is ... this is something more important than bills of
lading and sales curves!" His face had tightened, the character lines
about his mouth standing forth.
"We've got to save them, Karl. We've got to help those people down
there!"
Teller exhaled heavily. "All right, Luther. It's your choice. But you'd
better produce something from those natives down there, or MerchArm
might get unpleasant."
Shreve nodded, his face sagged into weariness momentarily. Then he
straightened and depressed the public-address stud on the couch arm.
His orders were brief and direct.
An hour later, ship-time, the great Wallower fired away with
directional rockets, and began to fall toward the multi-colored sphere
of Diamore.
* * * * *
High jungle surrounded the ship. Deep-red stringers of climbing vine
meshed with the purple and green and blue of exotic tree-forms. From
the edge of the dead path the Wallower had burned in settling, the
patchwork melange of colored growth reared and spread.
The analyzers were just completing their spore-counts when the
Diamoraii burst from the jungle, thundered onto the charred ground of
the clearing.
They rode tall on the backs of their mounts, whooping and wailing in
a minor key. The outside receivers, which had been left on in various
parts of the _Wallower_, rattled tinnily at the noise. Men clasped
hands to their ears and hurried to depress studs to shut out the
din. Shreve and Teller whirled from their calculations and stared
fascinated at the sight in the plates.
The Diamoraii's huge, loping animals closely resembled Terrestrial
giraffes. The beasts were pitch-black and ran with a gait beautifully
adapted to the jungle. They came on with a liquid, side-stepping
motion. They neatly leaped the twisted tree-trunks, swayed out of the
path to avoid a cluster of high-pile blossoms, and trampled to a stop
fifty yards in front of the _Wallower_.
"Stations!" Shreve yelled into the p-a mike. He turned back to the
view-plate, staring at the black beasts.
There were twelve of them, each with a depression in its back in which
a Diamorai sat, clutching the flanks of the thin, black animal with
his knees. Twists of pliant material looped through the beast's noses
served both as bridle and reins.
The twelve Diamoraii leaped agilely from their mount's backs, began
looking at each other with indecision. They milled about the stomping
animals for a minute, then each went to a bulky pouch slung across his
beast's back-depression. They fumbled in the pouches.
Shreve turned the plates up to higher magnification, whistling through
his teeth. "Wheeew! What magnificent creatures! Did you see the way
they ran that jungle like broken-field quarterbacks?"
From beside him the agreeing mutter of the pudgy psych officer blended
with the busy clicking of the analyzers, totaling their counts.
"Those look to be the people we have to contact, Karl," Shreve added,
motioning toward the Diamoraii who were dragging objects from their
pouches.
"A young people," Teller mused, his face flushed. "A young and a virile
people. Shouldn't have any trouble getting through to them." He turned
a plate knob to sharper register.
The Diamoraii had advanced on the ship. They were almost humanoid.
Tall--almost six and a half feet each with very long legs and boney,
knobbed knees. Their legs seemed to represent almost half their bodies.
Wide-shouldered, V-shaped chests; obviously large-lunged. Otherwise,
despite the wide-spaced, large-irised eyes, they were almost humanoid.
As Shreve and Teller watched, they each donned a hideous devil-mask.
* * * * *
"Ugh!" Shreve blurted, his face drawing up into a picture of agony.
"What ghastly greeting cards _those_ are! If that's a sample of their
demonology, I'd hate to see them exorcising one of the poor devils:
probably frighten the thing to life!"
Teller was leaning closer to the screen, his small eyes watching the
twelve with undisguised fascination. He was talking more to himself
than his superior. "Must be religious symbols of some sort. Must have
put on their Prayer-day best just to come see us."
Shreve looked at Teller sharply. "You don't suppose they think we're
gods or something?"
Shaking his head in annoyance, Teller replied, "No, no, certainly not.
You can tell they don't! They haven't prostrated themselves or offered
up sacrifices or such, as the typical superstitious aborigine would.
No, I'm quite certain they don't deify us. Probably just insuring that
evil spirits don't try to interfere with their mission--whatever that
might be. But," he added, "it doesn't appear to be dangerous, whatever
it is."
The twelve were now capering and turning handsprings directly under the
plate's hull-pickups. Shaking their masks into the cameras. They seemed
unaware that anyone might be watching.
"Ritual," murmured Teller.
As though his identification of it had tired them of their actions,
they sat--almost as one. Cross-legged, arms akimbo, expressions
stolidly hidden by the grotesque shapes of their devil-masks, they
waited. Again, almost to the second, they removed their hands from
their hips and folded them across their massive chests.
Shreve looked at the tight semi-circle of aliens, then at Teller. He
licked his lips anxiously. It was apparent he was happier, now that he
had landed and felt he could help the Diamoraii.
"Well, what should we do, Karl? This is more in your line. Should we
go out and talk to them, or bring them inside? Do you think they're
aware of the coming eruptions?" The questions had come out on top of
one another, with an almost childlike anxiety.
It was odd to hear such a tone from the otherwise stolid Shreve. Teller
looked up in surprise. He smiled slowly.
The psych officer flipped his plate off, turned, crossing his arms as
the aliens had done, and sat on the dead console.
"I don't think they know what's happening down there, Luther. At
least," he amended, "they didn't appear to be preparing for evacuation
in the threatened areas when we went over them. So I rather suspect
they're waiting for us to come out and chat." He shrugged his
shoulders, staring at Shreve. "And that, my Captain, is it."
Shreve looked back at the aliens in his plate. He nodded his head
with determination, and his face lit up with purpose. Teller had seen
the look once or twice before--never on routine commercial ventures,
however. He had labeled it missionary zeal.
The Diamoraii were still sitting in cross-legged squats, their knees up
about their mask's pointed ears and horned temples.
"Well, then I suppose we'd better go out and chat. The sooner we set up
the Stress Rectifiers, the better." He got up, stepped toward the shaft.
"Oh," he said, stopping and turning back to the psych officer, "I'd
like you to come out with me, Karl. No orders, you understand, but I'd
appreciate it."
The short psychologist looked at him for a moment, nodded his head
in acceptance. Shreve stepped into the shaft and sank down through
the floor as the tube glowed. Teller looked at the empty shaft for a
moment. As the platform slipped back into place he flipped Shreve's
plate off.
Stepping onto the platform he threw a glance over his shoulder at the
now-grey plate.
"You're a very young race," he whispered, disappearing through the
floor.
* * * * *
They dropped the few inches to the ground, bouncing a bit more than
they'd allowed for, in the lessened gravity of Diamore. All around them
the screams of the jungle meshed into one primal roar.
Shreve ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek. The medic had
flatly refused to allow their exit, unless they submitted to the six
shots he felt were minimum safety precaution.
With the feel of the electro-syringe still in his cheeks, Shreve
stepped away from the monstrous plug-port, raising his arms in
friendship. Behind him, Teller did the same.
They moved slowly toward the Diamoraii. The twelve sat immobile, yet
seeming to be looking from each other to the Earthmen, and back, in
sharp, jerking motions. It was all illusion, but disquieting.
As they stepped toward the aliens, Shreve felt the nerves in his
teeth begin to twitch. He had been about to say something soothing in
English, but the words never came out.
_Who are you?_
The question appeared in his head full-blown, inquisitive, without
sense of direction or distance. He knew immediately from where it had
come, of course, yet he could not quite believe it. Shreve stopped
dead, the pain in his jaws mounting. He glanced quickly at Teller.
The shorter man was clutching his jaws with both hands, biting his
lower lip and rocking back and forth, eyes half-closed.
"Karl," Shreve's tongue stumbled over the words in his pain,
"they're--migod, Karl--they're _telepathic_!"
They stood rooted in their tracks, staring at the twelve impassive
aliens in their grotesque masks.
Teller stared in open fascination, still clutching his head. "The
first," he murmured in awe. "The very first! They always said someday
we'd meet them, and now, by God, we have!" His voice died off to a
whisper and he stared unblinking at the dark-skinned Diamoraii.
The words appeared in their minds once more--this time more firm,
tinged with impatience:
_Who are you?_
Shreve seemed unable to respond. He had thought them ignorant savages,
on the verge of disaster, who would be jubilant at the offer of aid.
Instead, he was faced with making contact; contact with the first
mind-reading race Humanity had met racing through the stars. His throat
tightened up, he could not speak.
* * * * *
Finally, he took a step forward, extended his hands in peace to the
aliens. "Friends. We've come to help you. Friends."
He was certain they couldn't understand the spoken words. Whether or
not they could decipher the thoughts--that was something else. Later,
the Earthmen could bring out the communicators if the need arose. But
for now, he wanted only the soothing good will in his voice to win them.
If they knew the Earthmen were protected by stat-fields, and that a
dozen gun-blisters were trained on them, they gave no indication.
_We don't want your help._
There was a tone of anger, a driving odor of fear, in the feel of
the thoughts. The Earthmen felt their teeth jump as the thoughts
materialized. Shreve realized suddenly that the toothaches must be a
by-product of the psi power.
Shreve turned to Teller. The psych officer was staring back at him,
his eyes wide, his hands still clutching his jaw. They both recognized
something they had missed when the telepathy first became known to them.
It was not an entering of the mind; they could not reach into the
deepest recesses of the Diamoraii's minds and get whole pictures. It
was like a mental radio transmission.
They could send and receive, with inflection and depth, but they had to
do it in darkness.
Teller said nothing, but he stepped closer to the aliens. Shreve could
tell he was thinking at them, but _what_ he was thinking was impossible
to guess. If the aliens understood, they gave no indication. The
transmission did not work between the Earthmen, obviously.
When Teller had fallen back, Shreve asked, "What did you say?"
"I told them we were here because volcanic eruptions were going to
rip up their planet within five months. I told them the quakes and
volcanos would kill off ninety-five percent of their people. I told
them we could help them to--"
The aliens rose slowly, and one stepped forward. He looked down at the
two Earthmen.
_Hear this you are not the first strangers to come here once before
strange men came to us from the sky they called themselves the Kyben
and they told us they wanted to trade but they did not trade they ate
away our land and burned our jungle and took our women and killed our
young warriors._
It came as a blast of pure thought. All at once, as though spurted out
whole from the mind. The inflection was there--the meaning--the depth
of bitterness. Shreve felt his mouth dry out at the calibre of agony in
the thoughts.
Teller shrugged his shoulders as though he wanted no more part in the
matter, and retreated a few steps, massaging his throbbing jaws.
The alien stream ceased, and the Diamorai drew back. He seemed to rise
up on his toes, as though he wanted to strike the Earthman, but was
restraining himself through the movement.
* * * * *
Shreve felt a desperation mounting in him. He _had_ to save these
people, _had_ to make them realize their danger. "But you can read our
minds--you can _see_ we're telling the truth!" he argued. He found his
stomach muscles had tightened, hands had clenched.
The alien thought reverberated in his head: _What makes you think you
cannot lie with telepathy?_
Then the thoughts flowed again. This time cold, dispassionate, merely
information.
_We have been as you think burned once and we do not wish to be burned
again we cannot say whether or not these things you warn us of really
exist but we will take our own destinies in our hands and treat them if
they come we have seen no such indications of eruptions and we do not
believe you._
The thoughts ceased. Then one word alone: _Go_.
Shreve cursed the limitations of the psi faculty. Of what use was
a mind-reading ability if it merely told you what another person
thought--not whether it was true or not?
He stepped toward them again. He looked up at the fearsome masks and
felt the sinking of his stomach. He realized they were a young and
headstrong people, Teller had made that clear to him. Their arrogance
was the false front of a people frightened by the unknown. But were
they so young that they could not realize when they needed help?
"Look," he found himself speaking, "you don't seem to understand." The
aliens moved back as Shreve approached. They didn't seem to want him
near them. "Your planet is a young one. There are internal stresses
that are going to rip open your continents. We can set up machines that
will re-direct these eruptions--into the ocean, back in the jungle
where it's uninhabited--so your people won't die. We--"
_Did you see the blood pits near the Great Ocean?_
Shreve caught the thought, and knew there was more to it than the
Diamorai had thought at first. The thought was laden with blast-furnace
hatred and a deadly bitterness.
He remembered the planet-circling landing the _Wallower_ had made.
He remembered the single body of water, the Great Ocean, stretching
yellow and rippling across a third of Diamore. The picture completed
itself in his mind and he saw the monstrous gouges ripped into the
land, near the shore of that ocean. Pits of fused, crimson soil; bare,
gaping wounds, nothing but emptiness and dead plants surrounding them
for miles.
_Those are the ones_, the thought came. _Those were the cities of
Golamoor, Nokrosch and Huyt on the shores of the Great Ocean we
resisted the Kyben when they wanted to drill out our ceremonial grounds
for their soils they said were radioactive we would not let them drill
and they sent down death to our cities._
Tinged with such emotion, the words were so boldly put, their meaning
was all too clear. These people would never reverse their decision.
They hated all outsiders. Shreve wondered whether they could be blamed.
"But you _need_ our help! You've got to believe me! You can read my
thoughts--can't you see I'm telling the truth!"
_We could read the Kyben thoughts, too._
Silence in their minds for an instant, then:
_Have you seen the blood pits?_
* * * * *
Luther Shreve felt as though he were being dragged down into a
whirlpool. He didn't know why it was suddenly so important to him that
he help the Diamoraii. There was certainly no sense of brotherhood with
the aliens. But he knew, on a level that defied all doubt, that he must
save these people, or never feel at peace with himself again.
Behind him, Shreve heard Teller snort in disgust. The psych officer
took two quick steps forward, jerked his head toward the massive bulk
of the _Wallower_. "Children! That's all they are. They think those
masks protect them from evil, they think their blind arrogance will
protect them if trouble comes! They think they know better than us!
They don't know when they need help. Come on, Luther, leave them if
that's what they want!" He turned to go, his face flushed in anger.
Shreve looked back at the aliens. He searched the blank and grotesque
masks for some evidence of willingness to reason. There was none.
Shreve gritted his teeth in frustration; he _wanted_ to help, he
_wanted_ to save them--but they wouldn't _let_ themselves accept his
help. The aliens didn't _want_ to be saved. They stood there, tall,
impassive, the thought radiating unendingly:
_Go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go._
Luther Shreve stepped toward them, anger boiling hot in his brain. "All
right, damn you! If you're too stupid, or too swollen up with your own
importance to realize you need help, we'll help you despite yourselves!"
_Why do you think the Kyben left Diamore?_
Shreve's words stopped before they could be spoken. His fury checked
itself. He hadn't considered that. Why _had_ another race, one that
could decimate a planet as the blood pits indicated they could, leave
when they seemed to be on the verge of getting what they wanted?
_We are not defenseless we can stop you we will hurt you go._
Teller's sharp laugh interrupted before Shreve could get an answer
out. "Fools! Pompous adolescents! What makes you think your primitive
warriors with their bogey masks can harm us? Look!" He stepped toward
the alien. The Diamorai backed up. Teller stepped quickly, coming into
sharp contact with the alien's body. The Diamorai leaped back, the
short hairs on his body standing straight out. He thought something at
his brothers. It was incomprehensible to the Earthmen.
"That's a stat-field. And there are a dozen guns pointed at you from
the ship. We'll set up the machines and save you whether you like it or
not." He turned away with a low chuckle, adding ruefully, "Though why
you want to bother with such a bunch of arrogant children is beyond me,
Luther." He walked toward the ship.
Casting nervous glances at one another, the aliens leaped to the backs
of their mounts, reined in and turned to leave. Shreve stood and
watched them as they loped to the jungle's edge.
The ebony giraffe-things drew up short, and the leader's reared up as
the alien turned to stare at Shreve.
_Go or we will hurt you._
In an instant they were gone, melting into the colored riot of the
jungle, the beasts' hoofs beating ever more faintly as they moved away.
Shreve turned back to the ship. He should have felt no temperature
changes within his stat-field, yet somehow he had grown chilled in a
few seconds.
* * * * *
Night had descended quickly, dropping like a sea of ink over Diamore.
The robomechs had set out the floodlamps, almost to the edges of the
jungle, and the _Wallower_ was bathed in white light, sharply outlining
her plate construction, and the clean transparency of the conning
bubbles.
Paul Jukovsky, Roboexec, jg, stood behind his control console in the
construction bubble, watching the thirty ton robomech carrying its
burden. The sixteen-wheeled robomech rolled off the extended cargo
hatch ramp, sinking just a bit into the springy ground of Diamore.
Jukovsky grinned at his foresight in spreading a primary hardener over
the surface before the big boys went to work.
He two-fingered a cigarette out of his lapel pocket, stifling a belch.
"Damn that cookie," he muttered. "If he doesn't stop putting cayenne
in the salad...." He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, lipping it
irritably for a second. He withdrew it, spitting out a loose bit of
tobacco. Satisfied, he inserted it again, began to scratch it alight
with his fingertip.
He moved a calibrated knob on the board three clicks. The lumbering
monster outside revolved its head, the huge drilling plate it carried
on its flattened and magnetized top moving also. "Like an old woman
carrying a water urn on her head," he chuckled, puffing the cigarette.
The robomech neared phosphorescent markings laid out on the ground,
where the fibreglass base plate should be planted. Stress Rectifiers
would be magno-clamped to the base plate, then would begin their
search-position-drilling.
He moved to press the release button that would cause the robomech to
set its burden down lightly.
Paul Jukovsky's teeth suddenly began to ache with terrible intensity.
He clutched at his face wildly, burning the palm of his hand on the
cigarette.
A strangled sob began to form, ended in a gurgling half-scream. His
eyes rolled upwards and a trickle of blood emerged from the corner of
his mouth.
Stone-dead he fell across the control console, depressing all studs.
The thirty ton robomech whirled twice and burst toward the edge of
the jungle. It struck the boles of three huge intertwined trees with
a resounding clang; the base plate bounced from its head and crashed,
shattering, onto a projecting rock spear. The robot struggled for a
moment more, driving into the jungle, knocking trees from its path in
blind fury.
The smell of cordite soaked through the clearing, and a wisp of smoke
issued from the service box. An instant later its chambers fused their
baffles and the robomech exploded with a terrifying burst of heat,
impossible light, and the scream of ripping metal.
* * * * *
"His brains were fused," Teller said.
The psych officer looked Shreve directly in the eyes, trying to
find meaning in the captain's closed expression. Teller's face was
unnaturally white, his usually drooping lips thinned to a black line.
"The autopsymen were shaking like loose bolts when they reported to me,
Luther. They swore they'd never seen anything like it before. It was as
if someone had taken that boy's brains in his red-hot hands and molded
them like clay."
Shreve's jaw muscles worked in a strange rhythm. His voice was cold and
determined. "We are going to get those Rectifiers set up. Better stay
in your cabin, Karl; I've got to put men on it."
When Teller had left, the odd stare he had cast still haunting Shreve,
the captain sank onto his couch. He pressed the p-a stud and crisped
his orders, naming men and leaving no room for argument.
He felt the tremors through the soles of his boots as the men began
unchocking their mechs. His balled fist found its way into his mouth.
He was not aware his hand was bleeding till several minutes after the
teeth had pierced the skin.
After the sixth death--all of them with their brain-pans charred and
their grey matter stuck together--Shreve broke down.
He threw a blanker over the shaft and sat there swearing. His body
shook and heaved as he mumbled into his hands. In one stride he was off
the couch and had smashed his fist full into the reflecting metal of
the console face. It left a shallow dent, and he didn't seem to notice
the angry inflammation of his knuckles. Teller stood across the room,
keeping very still, shaking his head slowly, and thinking soft sounds.
After a while Shreve stopped, and collapsed onto the couch, his face
red and swollen. "Sorry, Karl," he said.
"Why don't you try crying, it's easier on the metabolism," he suggested.
Shreve gave a bitter laugh, thin and short. "Last time I cried I was
eating cream cheese and jelly sandwiches and didn't know where little
babies come from." Teller didn't smile. He knew Shreve was covering
up. He had never seen the man break as he had today, and he knew the
knowledge should go no further.
"But why? _Why?_" Shreve pounded his fist into the yielding couch. "We
came to help them, why won't they let us?"
"Luther, Luther," Teller soothed him, sitting down beside him on the
couch, "don't you see? They're adolescents. They don't know when to
call for help. They've been hurt, and with the single-minded purpose of
the immature they're bound not to let it happen again. You can't blame
yourself for what's happened.
"You had no way of knowing about this power of theirs. Why don't we
leave right now. If we lay on all power we can make the schedule still
pretty close."
Shreve stood up, flicked on the view-plates. He stared into them a
moment, seeing nothing but tangled jungle. He drew up a bit, laid his
hands flat on the console. "I've got to talk to them once more. To beg
them again."
* * * * *
_We warned you_ came the cold, hard tones. _The group-mind is
infinitely stronger than our individual power now that you have seen
our strength will you go?_
"I've come to beg you once more," Shreve pleaded, looking up at the
masked Diamoraii, astride their mounts. He had made certain all outside
pickup mikes were off. "We only want to help you. Won't you let us
re-direct the coming eruptions. Please!" Shreve had plumbed the depths
of his mind in an attempt to find reasons for sacrificing such efforts
to save the Diamoraii. The only reasons he had found he had not been
able to translate--yet there was a sense of identification with the
long-legged and stubborn aliens. _He wanted to save them!_
"Can't you read my thoughts?" he said, projecting truth, projecting
honesty and sincerity. "Can't you see I want to help you, help your
people?"
They did not even bother answering. He knew their acquaintance with
the truth that men of other worlds had offered. To be defeated because
those who need your help had been spoiled by another race!
The bitterness, the hatred, the distrust, washed over him, as the
Diamorai leaned across his beast's neck, thought one snarled word: _Go_.
Shreve felt the futility of everything he had done, suddenly caving in
on him. He looked up into the blank stares of the masked aliens, said
slowly, "We will hang above your atmosphere till you call us."
He walked back to the _Wallower_. The huge plug-port closed behind him.
The aliens sat astride their beasts, staring at the ship.
Their minor-key whoops of victory rang and bounced in the jungle's
treetops as they swung their mounts roughly, dug boney knees into their
sides, and careened into the multi-colored vastness.
The Diamoraii had won again!
* * * * *
The _Wallower_ spun slowly in space, the eternal dust of the universe
lapping at her ports. Below her, enveloped by clouds of steam, the
planet Diamore blasted and erupted and screamed and belched and tore
itself apart.
Luther Shreve sat before the control console, staring with almost
hypnotized attention at the view-plates. He watched the world die.
His face was hard and unyielding. He had refused entrance even to
Teller, barring everyone from the control room.
At every eruption, with each fissure that opened wide enough to be seen
from that fantastic height, he felt a strange sinking in his heart. His
throat was dry, and there was an odd pressure behind his eyes.
He watched silently, every once in a while letting the thought _They
didn't know when to ask for help_ filter through his mind.
* * * * *
The Group of Deciders huddled in the blasted Council Hall. The
floor--what was left of the inlaid tiles--shivered and heaved. Beyond
the twisted lattices of the windows they could hear the mighty rending
of the planet as it opened and swallowed all that stood.
Within an hour of the first eruptions, so quickly and with such fury
that there had been no time for preparation, almost three-fifths of
their race had been decimated.
The cities Kes and Uykvabask and Laylor had gone under with roaring
flames and the scraping of stone against flesh. The Great Ocean had
exploded with a red-hot bubbling and roared onto the land, washing
everything before it. The lava flows raced Eastward to the Ceremonial
Grounds and Westward to the Hunting Preserve. Everywhere the ground
opened without warning or reason, and life sank beneath the earth.
_Wrong_, the Group of Deciders admitted in their last refuge. _We were
wrong we have been foolish we have rejected our only salvation we must
prepare the group-mind send our plea for aid into space speak to the
outsiders ask them to help us._
They thought their instructions away from themselves, to their kin
across Diamore's blasted face. _Prepare! Join! Speak to the outsiders!_
And when they had gathered together every last Diamorai, with more
dying as they joined the chain, with the feel of agony radiating
through the group-mind, the message weakly rose. Tentatively it probed
at the inner surface of Diamore's atmosphere.
The power was, perhaps, insufficient to reach the spaceship.
Three-fifths of the Diamoraii were lost to the group-mind.
The group-mind struggled, frantically beaming, in hopelessness trying
to get through to the Earthmen who rode above them.
The men who rode above them--waiting for a signal from the Diamoraii.
* * * * *
Shreve turned away from the plates, flicking them off. "I can't stand
it, Karl! How senseless! Because one race dealt them unfairly, they
closed their eyes to help from anyone else."
Teller crossed his legs as he sat on the couch. He did not appear to be
disturbed by the sight from below.
"Luther, you can't go on destroying yourself. You did everything you
could. You were as resourceful as any man could have been.
"Now you'd better get back to the schedule. We're over four and a
half months due at our next landfall." He saw his words were having
no effect. "Look, Luther, I've been in this business almost as long
as you. I've seen this time and again. When you come up against an
adolescent race, that doesn't know when it's got something too big to
handle, there's nothing you can do but back off and let them handle it
themselves. If they don't get smart enough to know when to call the
fireman--that's their agony. Not _yours_!"
"What's the next stop on our itinerary?" he asked the last almost
jauntily, consciously trying to take Shreve's mind off the cinder that
spun below the _Wallower_. He rose and stretched, as though from a
profound sleep.
For a moment he stared in wonder. Then he stepped into the shaft and
quietly left the control room.
He had never thought he'd see the day when Luther Shreve cried like a
child.
THE END
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