"Hey, yourself," Herl turned from the tower and strode toward the
copter. "Did you come for me?"
"Sure," yelled the Commissioner. Turning to look up and wave at the
tower, he called, "It's all right, Alco. This is my guest." He halted
and waited for Herl to come up with him.
"Bill phoned me," began Crawford apologetically, "that he'd had the
word about Agnes and dashed back to straighten out the driving job so
someone else could take over." The two men walked side by side to the
copter. "That was a very decent thing for him to do, even if it did
leave you stranded out here ... so I came out for you. Find everything?"
"Oh I found everything, all right," Herl grinned wryly. "Did Bill tell
you about Abigail?"
"Abigail?" asked Crawford. "I don't seem to remember the name."
"She saved me from getting hurt during the landing. A goddess. Bill was
probably embarrassed to mention it. It was my own stupid fault."
Herl went around the copter to get in.
Crawford edged in behind the controls. "Bill probably wanted you
to keep out of trouble. He knows that we are apt to look with
considerable suspicion on people who have to be saved from their own
foolish mistakes by superhuman agencies. That doesn't apply to you,
of course, unless you're planning to settle and raise kids here." The
'perish-the-thought' tone was obvious.
"Frankly, as an outsider," Herl said, "it seems to me that these gods
and goddesses could be a very useful mechanism. I didn't mind missing a
bad fall at all."
"And frankly, as a local citizen and an ordinary one at that, I think
you were very lucky. You might even say that down underneath I'm just a
bit jealous." The copter slid through the upper air. "I sometimes dream
of having a chance to rescue some female not a tenth as luscious as a
goddess."
* * * * *
Herl was surprised to hear the Commissioner snigger at his own remark.
Surprised but not disgusted. Females less perfect than goddesses seemed
to call for sniggers.
"Goddesses are only goddesses, but women are women," Herl commented
dryly.
"Oh! You found that out already, did you?" Crawford looked admiringly
at his companion. "You're a quick worker."
Hard bitterness surged through Herl. "I found out a lot of things.
They're nothing, absolutely nothing but mechanism. I wonder you people
haven't learned to use them in place of copters and television. They're
probably even capable of sorting your population in infancy so you
wouldn't have to go to the trouble of inventing a dozen new kinds of
red tape a day which must annoy your normal citizens even while it
screens the adults."
"No ... no ... no...." Crawford's descending cadence was oddly
reminiscent of some other falling cadence of no's. "You've got both
the gods and us all wrong, Captain Hofner. I don't know what you think
you found out from this Abigail, but you must have misinterpreted it
somewhere."
"Indeed?"
"Oh yes indeed. Mechanisms are made ... made for somebody's use. Our
best minds have never been able to find any use for gods. We can even
use natural phenomena like rain and heat and wind and gravity and such
because those things are governed by observable natural laws ... but
the gods? No. Absolutely random in appearance; absolutely unpredictable
in action. Whatever they are, it's not machines. Although," he added
curiously, "I shall be most interested to learn how and why you think
we could use them."
"Maybe I should sell you the secret. Selling is my business," suggested
Herl.
"The commissioners will be most willing to buy ... if you have anything
to sell," Crawford replied smoothly.
"You could use that childhood or prenatal screening, couldn't you?"
"Yes and no," answered Crawford. "That's another mistaken idea you have
about us. What you think of as red tape invented purely for screening
purposes is not so at all. It's an integral part of civilized life
and social responsibility. We'd all be pleased to spare a portion of
our children the strains of such a life if we could, but we have no
intention of reverting to savagery ourselves just to avoid filling out
a few miserable blanks at a few stated times."
"Oh, you like it?" Herl asked facetiously.
"We like having cars and living in houses and driving in comparative
safety and eating enough and not having people we've cheated or
oppressed or maimed in unnecessary accidents whining around on our
doorsteps making us feel guilty and miserable. We even like having
occasional strangers like you around so we can tell them all about it
and keep the beauties of civilization clear before our eyes, so to
speak."
"You win," Herl laughed. "I don't know whether there's a galactic
destiny ahead of your people, but as long as you're enjoying it so
much, that hardly matters."
"I hoped you'd see it that way," the Commissioner said genially. "And
as for the destiny, that'll take care of itself. Did you have quite a
talk with the goddess?" he added curiously.
"Quite a talk, but brief. I've had some training in cybernetics ...
that's how I was able to ask the right questions to find out that she
was a machine."
Crawford smiled to himself. "Then," he said slyly, "our experts must
have asked the right questions to find out that she wasn't."
Herl bit his tongue. "Maybe," he admitted. There was no object in
telling Crawford all about his method or his discoveries, or he'd have
nothing to sell. Not that he'd make the profit from such a sale but
somebody in coordination would appreciate his cleverness in selling a
planet something it already had and still being able to peddle the idea
to somebody else. If he were really clever, he could take a few gods on
with him to the places where they could do the most good. He certainly
would enjoy looking at Abigail, for instance, for a few months before
he unloaded her on a planet less fortunate than Delight. And, if he
were sorry to leave her behind, she'd stay there the more gladly. If
she wouldn't tell him what to do, obviously she would have to do what
he told her.
* * * * *
The gray air of the planet seemed to be thickening as they landed
and drove back toward the Civil Building. A few more heavy-coated
pedestrians were hastening along the walks, and a solid stream of
small, lighted vehicles poured along the street in the opposite
direction. As Crawford's slowed automatically for an intersection, Herl
noticed flakes of snow in the air.
"Is this early spring or late fall?" he asked without enthusiasm.
"This is the way it always is at this altitude," Crawford replied,
surprised. "I've read about seasons, of course, but we don't have them
here. Our foodstuff is mostly grown further south. Around here and to
the north is mostly grazing and pelt land on the surface above the
mines."
At this moment the vehicle pulled to a stop in the middle of a
residential block; and Crawford growled, "What the...?"
Herl noticed that the opposing traffic had also halted. Then the air
was split with the deafeningly raucous hooting of some great signal
horn.
"Power's off! Emergency warning," Crawford shouted in Herl's ear.
"Sit tight and see what happens!" He gestured to the line of opposing
traffic from which passengers were popping out to run confusedly to the
sidewalk. "They know better than that," he fumed.
Herl looked at the crowd gathering on his side of the carpter, then
suddenly beyond it to the nearest house. Smoke was pouring out of two
of the front windows. Some of the people from the vehicles were running
toward the house, while the front door was flung open and two men and a
woman came running out. Herl grabbed Crawford's arm. "Fire!" he yelled.
Crawford leaned across Herl to look. "Can't be serious," he bellowed.
"Those places are practically fireproof. Inspected every two months."
Then he sounded puzzled and alarmed. "Where the devil are those three
going?" and he pointed to the people who had run from the house and who
were still running fleetly along the edges of lawns in the direction
faced by Crawford's carpter.
Herl opened the door and leaned out to watch. People were coming out of
houses further down the street, a few at a time, to follow or precede
the first three in the direction of the heart of the city.
Cries of "Fire!" could be heard on down the street. Flames showed
through the windows of other houses. The people who had got to the
sidewalks from their abandoned vehicles were moving hesitantly toward
the houses, apparently confused by the flight of those within.
A man appeared in the doorway of the house from which the first three
had come. "Hey!" he shouted at those stragglers nearest him, "some of
you come in here and help me put out the fire!" Several men ran into
the house behind him.
A few more single individuals ran by in the direction of the business
district. Herl turned to his companion.
"It looks as though those first three set the fire and ran off," he
shouted, puzzled. "What's up?"
Crawford put his hand on the door and shook his head. "Don't know, but
I recognized one of those fellows who just passed us. Eyefer named
Hanston. Used to be a clerk of mine. I'm going on down the line and see
what's doing."
"Not without me," Herl stated. "I can't operate one of these things,"
he waved his hand at the carpter, "and you may need help." Commissioner
Crawford hardly looked in condition for a long run.
"What about your things? Don't you want to keep an eye on them?"
"They'll be all right," Herl said flatly, knowing that he should never
let them out of his sight outside his own ship ... that they would be
impossible to replace without returning to Earth.
The older man slid out of his seat and jogged off down the middle of
the street till the younger caught up with him. Together they ran
toward the city.
* * * * *
Between the lined-up cars they could see fires in many of the houses
they passed, and groups of people standing helplessly on sidewalks and
lawns. None of the houses appeared to be actually on fire, but window
draperies or something near the windows were blazing merrily. Through
some casements, people could be seen aiming fire extinguishers at the
flames or throwing water on them.
Crawford lumbered along rather slowly. Herl matched his pace. A young
man running rapidly passed them from behind.
"Going to the Civil Building to see the fun?" he panted out as he
passed.
"Sure," returned Herl, speeding up a little. "What's it all about?"
The young man looked back at Herl, seeming to notice the red tunic and
drum cap for the first time. "If you don't know ..." he gasped out,
"you'd better stay back. It's the Eyefer Plan." He sprinted on and Herl
turned back to wait for the Commissioner.
"It's something about the Eyefers," he told the trotting man as he fell
into step beside him. "He said he was going to the Civil Building to
see the fun, and he called it 'the Eyefer Plan.'"
"Can't imagine what ... that ... is," Crawford blurted out. "Keep
going."
They passed dark shops and closed warehouses. The lines of cars were
solid here and a tide of hurrying pedestrians on the sidewalks swept
toward town. Runners threaded among them, men in shabby clothes,
forlorn looking women pushing and stumbling ahead a little faster than
the general pace. The center of the street where Herl and Crawford
jogged on between the cars was almost deserted.