[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science
Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _He was a reporter from Venus with an assignment on Earth. He
got his story but, against orders, he fell in love--and therein lies
this story._]
That's what _we_ always called them, where I come from, huddlers.
Damnedest thing to see from any distance, the way they huddle. They had
one place, encrusting the shore line for miles on one of the land bodies
they called the Eastern Seaboard. A coagulation in this crust contained
eight million of the creatures, _eight million_.
They called it New York, and it was bigger than most of the others, but
typical. It wasn't bad enough living side by side; the things built
mounds and lived one above the other. Apartments they called them. What
monstrosities they were.
We couldn't figure this huddling, at first.
All our attention since Akers' first penetration into space had been
directed another way in the galaxy, and though I'll grant you unified
and universal concentration may be considered unwise in some areas, it's
been our greatest strength. It's brought us rather rapidly to the front,
I'm sure you'll agree, and we're not the oldest planet, by a damned
sight.
Well, by the time we got to the huddlers, Akers was dead and Murten was
just an old man with vacant eyes. Jars was handling the Department,
though you might say Deering ran it, being closer to most of the gang.
Jars was always so cold; nobody ever got to know him really well.
They divided on the huddling. Fear, Jars said, and love, Deering said,
but who could say for sure?
As Deering said to me, "What could they fear? They've got everything
they need, everything but knowledge and their better specimens are
getting closer to that, every day."
In the laboratory, Deering said this, and how did we know old Jars was
in a corner, breaking down a spirigel?
"They fear each other," Jars said, as though it was an official
announcement, as though any fact is permanent. "And they fear nature.
It's the most fear ridden colony of bipeds a sane mind could imagine."
Deering looked at me, and winked.
Jars went back to the spirigel.
Deering said, "Love, love, love. All they sing about, all they write
about, all they talk about, love, love, love."
Jars was just tracing a _z_ line on the spirigel and he put down his
legort at that. "Rather superficial thinking, from a scientist," he said
quietly. "Surface manifestations to be considered as indicative. Oral
and verbal camouflage to be accepted as valid. Deering, old thing,
please--"
Deering shrugged. "So I am--what do they call it, a Pollyanna. Isn't
that a pretty word? So, I'm a Pollyanna."
"I rather think that describes you partially," Jars said, "and with this
particular planet we're discussing, it can be a dangerous attitude."
"So?" Deering said, nudging me. "And could I ask why?"
"Ask it."
"I ask."
"You've recorded the state of their development. They have, among other
things, achieved nuclear fission."
"So? In the fourth grade we are teaching nuclear fission."
"We are a scientific people. They haven't been, until very, very
recently. You have noted, I hope, their first extensive use of this new
discovery?"
"Hero--Helo--" Deering shrugged. "My memory."
"Hiroshima," Jars supplied. "Love--, my friend?"
"I have noted it," Deering said. "We spoke, a while ago, of surface
manifestations."
"We shall continue to. You have witnessed the mechanical excellence of
their machines, in some ways beyond ours, because of their greater
element wealth. You have noted the increased concentration of their
better minds, their scientific minds. How long do you think it will be,
friend, before they are ready for us?"
"Ready, ready--? In what way, ready?"
"The only way they know, the only thing they seem to have time
for--ready for war."
"War--," Deering said, and sighed. "Oh, Jars, they will be beyond war,
certainly, before they are cognizant of us. They are no tribe of
incompetents; they grow each day."
"They--?" Jars' smile was cynical. "Their scientists grow. Are their
scientists in command, sir?"
That "sir" had been unnecessary; Jars was the senior mind, here. Deering
didn't miss it, and he flushed.
Jars said softly, "I apologize. It was not a thing to say. I have spent
too much time in the study of these--monsters."
They had gone to school, together, those two, and the bond was there and
the respect, but they were different, mentally, and each knew it.
"You have a sharp tongue," Deering said, "but a sharper mind. I believe
I can stand it." He smiled. "Love, fear, hate--what does it matter to
us, except as phenomena?"
"It matters to us, believe me, please. It concerns us very much, Arn."
When Jars got to first names, he was emotionally wrought. I looked at
him in surprise. And so did Deering. We weren't ever going to warm up to
him, but he was our best mind and there wasn't a man in the department
who didn't appreciate that.
We stared at him, and he sat down on the high bench near the Maling
converters. He looked old and he was tired, we could see. "Evil," he
said quietly. "Fear, hate, evil--which of the three is the father and
which are the sons? I suppose fear is the father."
"I'd always thought so," Deering said, "though my education was almost
completely confined to the technical. I'm rather skimpy on the
humanities."
"And I," Jars said, and now looked at me. "But not you, Werig."
"I don't know them, sir," I said. "Surface manifestations, as we've said
before today. It would need a closer study. Their huddling is what
intrigues me the most."
One of the rare smiles came to Jars' lined face as he looked at Deering.
"Huddling, the lad says. If you don't say it, I won't, Arn."
Deering smiled in return. "We'll change the routine, this time; you say
'love' and I'll say 'fear'. But seriously, Jars, you fear
these--people?"
"I fear them," Jars said. "Scientifically, perhaps, they are tyros, but
mechanically they are not. They have discovered forces and developed
machines which they do not understand, and yet, have achieved efficiency
with them. I fear any monster that powerful even though it is blind."
"And you think there is a possibility of their becoming--aware of us
within any determinable time?"
"I do. You will remember how quickly the Algreans developed, once they
achieved unity? You will remember how quickly they became a threat?"
"Yes," Deering said quietly, "and I have been trying a long time to
forget what we did to that planetoid."
"It was necessary for survival," Jars said simply. "I think, by any
standards, we would be the ones chosen to survive."
Deering's smile was cynical. "At least, by _our_ standards. We had a
closer communication with them. About the huddlers, we know only what we
convert from their stronger video broadcasts. It is a device they seem
to use more for entertainment than for information."
Jars nodded, and stood up. "And love is their major entertainment,
perhaps. Love and war. But we gabble. I had a plan in mind, a plan to
put before the assembly."
* * * * *
He had a plan, all right, and I was part of it. The humanities had been
no major with me, but they didn't want a scholar, they wanted a
reporter, anyway. Or perhaps I could be called a recorder.
Jars talked and the assembly listened. They always do, when Jars talks.
And I was their boy, and went into a concentrated and complete briefing.
They put me under the lucidate and poured it to me, night and day, all
the information we had on the huddlers and all the theories based on
that information.
They put me into a space sphere, and said "good luck" and do our people
proud, young man. Oh, yes. And don't fall in love. Oh, no. They'd pick
me up, again, when they got a signal. They didn't expect to wait too
long for that, I guess, at the time.
The sphere was a relic of the Algrean business, and Algrea hadn't been
this much of a trip. But Mechanics said it would do, and it did.
I landed in the Pacific, about three-quarters of a mile off the Santa
Monica yacht basin, and let the sphere float north for a while until I
reached a secluded spot. In a small curve of the shore line, a few miles
above Santa Monica, I beached her, and opened the dissolving cocks.
I watched her melt into the surging water, and turned to face the red
and green light almost immediately overhead. I walked up from the beach
to the road, not even knowing what they looked like. Their evolution
should have matched ours, but who could be sure?
For all I knew, I might be a freak to them. I should have thought of
that before dissolving the ship.
Above, the light changed from red to green and across the street, I saw
a sign. This was Sunset Boulevard, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This
was open country, but Los Angeles.
Along the Coast Highway, a pair of lights were bearing down on me, and
they seemed to waver, as though the machine were under imperfect
control.
I moved back, out of the way, and the light overhead turned to red. The
car stopped about even with me, its motor running.
I couldn't see the occupants nor the driver. The light changed, the car
jerked, and the motor stopped.
"Damn," somebody said. It was a female voice.
There was a grinding noise, and another damn, and then a head appeared
through the open window on my side of the road.
It was a blond head, and what I could see of the face looked attractive.
"Are you sober?" she asked.
"Not always," I answered. "Some times I'm quite cheerful. But I'm some
distance from home, and have nothing to be cheerful about, at the
moment."
"Try not to be a Cerf," she said angrily. "What I mean is, are you--have
you been drinking?"
"Not recently, though I could use some water." I could see her face more
clearly now, and it was like the faces of our women, only prettier than
most, I thought.
[Illustration: _I could see her face more clearly now, and it was like
the faces of our women, only prettier than most, I thought._]
"Look," she said, "I'm drunk. Could you drive this thing? Could you
drive me home?"
"I'd be glad to," I answered, "if you will tell me where you live."
She gave me an address on Sunset, and this was Sunset, this lateral
street, ending at the ocean. So, quite obviously, it was an address I
could find.
I went over to climb in behind the wheel. There were two smells in that
pretty car with the canvas top. One smell was of gasoline, the other was
of alcohol.
"There's obviously alcohol in the gasoline," I said, "though that
shouldn't prevent it from igniting."
"A funny, funny man," she said. "Keep the dialogue to a minimum, will
you, Bogart? I'm not exactly sharp, right now."
I depressed the starter button, and the motor caught. I swung left onto
Sunset, and started up the hill.
The car was clearly a recent model, but Jars had been wrong about the
mechanical excellence of these huddlers. The machine simply had no life,
no zest.
* * * * *
We drove past a shrine and around two curves, climbing all the while,
past some huddled houses on the left, and the whole shining sea spread
out on the right.
The woman said, "If you know a place where the coffee is drinkable,
stop."
"I have no money," I said. Diamonds I had, a bagful of them, for we knew
that huddlers treasured diamonds. But no money.
"I've got money," she said. "I've got a hell of a lot more money than I
have sense. Have you ever been in love, Bogart?"
"Never," I said.
We were coming into a small huddled area, now. A sign read, _Pacific
Palisades_.
"I have," she said. "I still am. Isn't it a miserable rotten world?"
"This one?" I asked, and then said quickly, "I mean--this part of it?"
"Any part of it," she said. "I've seen most of it, and any part where
there's men is bad, Bogart."
"My name," I told her, "is not Bogart. My name is Fred Werig."
"A pleasure, Fred," she said. "My name is Jean Decker. And I'm beginning
to feel better."
"It couldn't be my company," I said, "so it must be the air. I haven't
seen any coffee places that are open."
I caught a flare of light from the corner of my eye, and turned to see
her applying flame to something in her mouth. I remembered from our
history; she was smoking. It was a habit long dead where I came from.
And then I remembered what she'd said about being drunk, and knew that,
too, as one of our long disused vices. What was it Akers had said about
'being directed'? A theory, but discredited now, since our scientific
advance. But this almost parallels evolution?
"Cigarette?" she said, and I said, "No, thanks. I--don't smoke."
"You're the only thing in Los Angeles that doesn't," she said bitterly.
"Where are you from, Fred?"
"New York," I said. "Where are you from, Jean?"
"Believe it or not, I was born here," she said. "I'm one of the three
people in this town who was born here."
"It's a big town, isn't it?" I said. "Less huddled than the others."
"Huddled," she said, and laughed. "Huddled. I like that. They huddle,
all right, and not just the football teams. The gregarious instinct,
Freddy boy."
"Well, yes," I agreed, "but why, Jean? Why haven't they outgrown it? Is
it--fear?"
"You would have to ask somebody bright," she said. "When you get to
Bundy, turn over toward Wilshire. We'll find an eating place that's
open."
"You tell me when I get to Bundy," I said. "I'm not exactly familiar
with this part of town."
She told me, and we got to Wilshire, eventually, and on Wilshire there
were many eating places.
We went into one; it was too cold to eat outside. And it was bright in
there, and I got my first really clear look at the face and figure of
Jean Decker.
Well, it was ridiculous, the attraction that seemed to emanate from her.
It actually made me weak.
And she was staring at me, too.
"If you're hungry," she said finally, "get a sandwich. You won't find me
stingy.... What in the world is that material in that suit, Fred?"
"I don't know," I said. "You are beautiful, Jean."
She smiled. "Well, thanks. You can have a piece of pie, too, for that.
That certainly is a fine weave in that material. What did your tailor
call it?"
We were next to a sort of alcove, furnished with a table and two
high-backed benches, and she sat down. I sat across from her.
[Illustration]
"I don't have a tailor," I said. "Your lips are so red, Jean."