Art - Eddie Mendoza

Art - Eddie Mendoza 

2099

Atlas Plaza

Dr Octopus

Electric Dreams

Hydroponix

Information Age

For more by Eddie Mendoza, check out his artstation page here

The Short History of Dogs by Howard Loring

 

How It All Started

Or

The Short History of Dogs

by Howard Loring

The young upright man, in reality still only a boy, had smelled the cooking meat from quite a distance. It was compelling. The wafting aroma was mesmerizing, faint at first but unmistakable, growing only stronger with each tentative step that he took, tearing away at his empty stomach, forcing him ever forward.

Finding himself in unfamiliar territory, the youngster was understandably leery, but also being very hungry he continued through the thick underbrush with a determined purpose, in an unending quest. He knew he had to find nourishment or he would die. Then who would tell his strange story?

He’d eaten little the day before, too agitated by the gathering to come, for it was the first such endeavor that he’d ever been permitted to accompany. Due to his age, before this his never-ending chores of toting water from the river, or dragging tree limbs for the ever-present fire had always been in close proximity to his clan’s current, well-defended enclosure. No excitement there, to be sure.

Of course, the youth had often longed to join in one these gatherings, seemingly a hopeless wish, given his tender years. Still, he dreamed of the day for it was his undeniable path, as it was for each of the clan’s boys. His time would come.

Then, on one of his last wood collecting expeditions he’d found a heavy branch that made for him, with little augmentation, a fine club. All of the mature upright men had admired this new weapon, hefting and swinging it, testing its strength and balance. Each had been impressed by the unexpected discovery.

His uncle, headman of the clan, was most pleased, taking the find as an omen predicting a plentiful gathering. As a consequence, he allowed his nephew to join the upcoming venture. Sadly, this snap assessment had proved a mistake.

All gatherings were, and always had been unpredictable things, the outcomes ever in doubt. Still, the clan’s most recent location was extremely bountiful and of late all such expeditions had indeed been successful. Each time the upright men had returned from them both cheerful and fully laden with meat.

The gathering party took to the great river before dawn, paralleling its meandering path, following the clan’s standard operating procedure. Several times along the way the uprights noticed promising footprints of the four legs at the water’s edge, an event that engendered much excited interest. However, nothing came of them as they petered out once the ground became firmer inland from the river’s bank, and so the determined party had returned each time to its previous route.

Gathering from the four legs was the best possible scenario for they could be beaten off their kill with little trouble. Often this kill was a large animal. The four legs were formidable, always hunting in numbers that employed coordinated attack, and this strategy was highly effective in bringing almost anything down.

Yet, if they were attacked with sufficient preparation, successfully employing the tactics of surprise and overwhelming forces, the four legs would quickly relent and run off. The gathering party would then divide their efforts. Some would butcher while the others stood guard, encircling the kill, protecting the periphery of the grisly action.

The four legs always took a dim view of this, of course. They never retreated very far at first, but hung at a distance growling and snapping at each other in their displeasure over losing their kill. At some point though, compelled by hunger, they would be off in search of more game, and often this occurred before the meaty prize had been hacked into smaller pieces suitable for transport.

Other hunters in the area, such as the deadly long claws, were not so obliging. They were to be avoided at all times, for backing down and running away wasn’t in their fierce nature. No, they attacked to protect their kill, and they were much larger, highly aggressive and so more dangerous than the four legs were.

Fortunately, their deeply resonate growl and loud, piercing cries could be heard at great distance and usually the ferocious creatures could be given a wide berth. Of course, this was not always possible and chance meetings sometimes occurred. When they did, the standard outcome never favored the upright men.

The long claws had very long teeth, too.

The clan’s ancestors had learned all these hard-earned lessons well, ages ago in the olden times. They hadn’t been forgotten in the great interim since. Many well-known and oft repeated stories told of such horrifying encounters.

No, the four legs were clearly the best choice and the clan always preferred gathering from them, but where were they now?

Late in the day and far from home, the weary upright men turned a sharp bend in the river only to find there a large horned one lying dead on the bank. Nothing seemed to be near it, although it was evident that the fresh carcass had been fed upon. The group advanced with alacrity to investigate, but only when they were up on the beast did the shocking truth become known.

Behind it, shielded by its very size, rested two sleeping cubs of the terrifying great one of the forest. This was a most surprising turn having frightening consequences, for before the upright men could react, the cubs’ mother broke from the nearby scrub. Very large and bristling, she was already snarling in anger at this intrusion, berserk now in her attempt to protect her young ones.

The startled group of gatherers was no match for her massive claws and great bulk. Several of them were immediately mauled before they could move away, and more were quickly run down and dispatched as her cubs, awakened by the unknown sounds, began crying loudly in fear. This event propelled their mother into a true frenzy, and she viciously lashed out unhindered by any thought, fueled only by her terrible rage.

The young upright boy, proudly clutching his fine new club, had been among the first gatherers to reach the dead horned one. Soon he was caught with a tremendous, backhanded blow from the giant, swinging paw of the great one of the forest, who was madly thrashing about consumed by her impassioned slaughtering. It was as if a tree had hit him, and he was thrown unceremoniously into the great river.

This alone had saved him.

Of course, the youth couldn’t swim, none of the upright men could. The always churning and never-ending river was very much viewed as a mystical thing by the clan, and so they had yet to even learn how to fish. But the boy, stunned, had nevertheless somehow floated to a passing log that bore him downstream, and thus away from the horrid carnage still viciously transpiring on the now overly-bloodied and gory bank.

After some time of desperately clutching about the log, he was rudely deposited ashore after his transport was beached while traversing a long bend in the river. The exhausted youngster had pulled himself further up on the bank and collapsed in a heap. It was then that he smelled the cooking meat in the distance.

Naturally the boy was unsure of his location, but that didn’t matter. He had to eat soon or he would never live to find his way home, if that were even possible now. He began to move, honing in on the enticing scent of roasting flesh.

Evening was near, and approaching swiftly. Soon he wouldn’t be able to discern anything in the quickly growing gloom. Next, however, he saw the piercing light of a fire in the distance, shrouded by the surrounding forest.

The calling aroma was strong now. It turned his empty stomach into knots. He crept closer taking care to move as quietly as he could, always forward towards the illumination beyond, which at this point was enveloped by the deepening darkness.

At last he could see the entire scene through the underbrush. A fine campsite had been laid in a small clearing rimmed by huge boulders. A giant fire, blazing away, cast flickering shadows against the rocks and shrubbery around them.

He saw no one about. It seemed the whole area was deserted. He did see the meat though, sizzling on a spit very near the fire, a huge hunk dripping tasty fat.

Who would leave such a treasure unattended?

Instinctively he reached for his sharpened butchering stone, a most valued object that everyone carried during a gathering, a highly-prized implement carefully chiseled with precision to fit the owner’s hand. He found it missing as was, of course, his fine new club. He should have realized that the unforgiving waterway had already swallowed both of his precious tools.

The young upright man next judged himself not only lost and alone, which he was, but now totally weaponless as well.

Yet here he was wrong.

His finest instrument, possessed by every member of his clan as well as those scattered about like them, had been minutely honed through time itself, from the very beginnings of his kind. It was a natural development unique to the now fully defined species, and no other living thing possessed it. Nothing came close, not even the lumbering, flat-headed men in the area who were generally so similar in other ways to the uprights.

This singular, superior weapon, at present being furiously employed to assess the situation, was his very large human brain.

This particular circumstance, however, was difficult to understand. Where was the owner of the meat, he wondered? And why had they left such an item unprotected?

Upright men cooked their food, of course, but they weren’t the only ones to do so. The flatheads had fire as well, and they, according to the clan’s ancient lore, were the ones who’d first unlocked its hidden secrets. And they could be fearsome.

At last he could stand it no longer. He broke through the brush and dashed to the spit, thinking only at first of grabbing the roasting meat and beating a hasty retreat. Yet, after laying hands on the greasy haunch, he instead had a much better idea.

The boy sank to his knees and bit into the still sizzling flesh. Nothing had ever tasted so good to him, and he moaned in delight as the succulent juices dripped down his face. Despite his earlier trepidation, he sat by the fire and ate with gusto, unconcerned now with what might happen next.

After savoring several mouthfuls he reconsidered, thinking again of dashing off with his purloined meal, but he didn’t. He was so exhausted he found that he couldn’t move, only concentrate on the task at hand. He reasoned if the food’s owner did return and killed him, well at least by then he’d die with a full stomach.

While munching away, he heard movement in the brush, the sound of someone approaching. The youngster, still chewing as fast as he could, sat in place and awaited his fate. At this stage, no other viable option was left open to him.

An upright man then appeared, but unlike any that he’d ever seen before. He was very tall, as tall as a flathead, but unlike them he was thin and dressed in a bizarre fashion. He wore no stitched animal skins but some kind of covering that aside from his hands and face totally wrapped him, clinging tightly to his body.

“Welcome,” he said, but the boy didn’t respond.

The newcomer then held out his arms, his palms open and pointed toward the youngster, who had stopped his mastication at the action. After a few seconds, the strange upright man dropped his hands. Then he smiled.

“Welcome,” he said again, and this time the interloper replied.

“I’m hungry,” the young boy related, as if that would explain everything. It did. The upright man smiled again, and then sat on a large stone at the edge of the firelight.

“I know,” he answered. “I cooked it for you. I knew that you’d make your way here, to this clearing, tonight.”

The boy’s eyes opened widely as he considered this. Could it be so? Then with a shrug he commenced his meal, knowing now that no immediate danger awaited him.

Yet, after swallowing his latest mouthful, he asked, “How?”

Now the sitting man considered. He rearranged himself and, crossing his long legs, he leaned forward. After a bit he answered.

“I know much,” he stated as a fact. “I know that today was your first gathering, and I know the result. This adventure will make for you a fine story to tell.”

At this the boy only grunted. How would he ever get back to his clan, and how would he tell his story if he didn’t? He knew not.

Again he sunk his teeth into the roast but without frenzy now, in a slower and more deliberate pace, still thinking.

The stranger spoke no more, for the present only waiting for the boy to finish his meal. He understood that the youngster’s mind was racing, trying to comprehend. He was content to sit and let him try.

Soon enough the upright boy was satiated, his stomach now overly full. Still chewing his last bite, he stared down at the meat in his hands. Then he held it out to the stranger, offering the leftovers but the man shook his head, declining.

“Take it with you, on the morrow,” he said. “Just head back to the river and follow its bank, but moving against the current this time. You’ll be home by nightfall.”

The boy nodded. It made sense. He would do so.

Then he thought of something else.

“What of the others?” he asked. Of course, this question referred to the ambushed gathering party. Here the man, while giving no answer, answered all by his silence.

The boy sighed, already knowing the truth. He’d reflected on the horrific episode while clinging to the log in the river. The great one of the forest was the most fearsome thing known, and the females were ever tenacious when their cubs were involved.

He thought first of his uncle, and then the others, the best uprights in his clan, each gone. Who would gather now? How would they ever survive this horrible loss?

The strange man understood his concerns. He felt sorry for the boy, but only in a peripheral, disconnected fashion. He had to remain above the fray, so to speak.

After all, time does march on, and always it will have its due.

“Other clans would welcome you,” he said, in a comforting tone. “Your women and children are a wonderful asset, and greater numbers help insure the future. You must lead them, your clan, to another clan, and so save them.”

The young upright was rendered speechless by this bold suggestion. How could he lead them, or what was left of them? He was just a boy, lost and helpless.

“You now have a powerful story,” instructed the man, “for there’s a grander purpose behind it. It has meaning beyond the event itself, a lesson to be learned. So they will listen and agree with your assessment, why wouldn’t they?”

“What purpose?” asked the incredulous youth, who certainly saw none. The whole thing was senseless as far as he could judge, the gathering nothing but a colossal failure. He boldly looked the man in the face, awaiting an answer.

“You must change the way you gather meat,” calmly said the stranger, as if it were only a foregone conclusion. “Another way must be found. A better way.”

A moment went by, the boy deep in thought.

“How?” he asked for a second time.

The strange man then slowly stood and, after holding out his hands in reassurance, he stepped over and sat closer to the boy.

“Why do you always chase the four legs away?” he quietly asked. “They are the ones that find your meat, after all. Do you not have to go out and waste your time locating them all over again, when the next gathering is needed?”

Now the youngster was really confused. How could you not chase them away? The hard-earned carcass was their prize and they didn’t give it up freely, without some sort of altercation.

He began to answer as such, but the man cut him off by continuing, “Why not instead give them some of the kill? It’s easily done for they never run far, and you know this to be true. You could just throw them some of the meat.”

“Why?” blurted the boy. “It’s our food then. Why give it away?”

Again, the stranger smiled, understanding the boy’s perplexed state. Change once made could take hold quickly, but embracing this choice often required great amounts of time to accomplish. Yet, small steps were still forward progress.

“But if you gave them some they would stick close by,” he explained, “and they’d gladly follow you home if you fed them along the way. Then you wouldn’t have to find them when the meat was gone. Once you stop feeding them they’d just go off in search of more, yet you could then follow them, is this not so?”

“But they are killers,” said the boy, now the one trying to explain. How, he marveled, could such an absurd thing even be contemplated? This was not the established way.

“But do they kill,” asked the man, “after they’re chased off? Do they attack you as you butcher the carcass, as the long claws would? No, they just get angry and then move on.”

The boy shook his head. This was too much. It was unheard of.

“That’s never done,” he stated flatly, as if it closed the subject.

Again, the stranger paused. Another approach was needed now, that much was evident. He held one in reserve, of course.

He leaned in some and quietly asked, “How did the upright men first come by fire, I wonder? There was a distant age, long ago, when you had none, is this not true? Many stories from the olden times say as much, do they not?”

The boy had to admit that this was so. Everyone knew that the uprights had stolen fire from the flatheads, for they were the only ones who knew how to make it. As such, keeping the fire lit was always a prime concern for the clan.

Sometimes it did go out, of course, a big problem. Other clans had to share then, but they only did so after some price had been paid. Finding fire in the forest was always possible, it had happened before, but it wasn’t very likely and the more prudent course was to make sure that it never died in the first place.

But the boy, young as he was, had made this vital connection. Things change. Even the oldest of established ways must have been new once, he currently saw.

Yes, now he understood that change was very real, and perhaps inevitable. The day’s bizarre events had proved as much. And he certainly didn’t wish to repeat that particular change if he could help it, not if it could be avoided, that is.

So, he mused after reflection, “Perhaps this would be better.”

Then the young boy causally made another, most crucial connection. It was one that went beyond the moment at hand, critical as it turned out, to the very future of his entire species. And this simple train of thought would soon beget profound historic ramifications, for the conception easily defined by example the most important, pertinent tenant of humanity itself.

“Well,” he said at last, “I guess I’ll never know unless I try.”

It turned out that he did try, and he succeeded, too. Once his decimated clan had effectively joined with another, the novel procedure was instigated and it proved most advantageous. The four legs indeed followed the gathering uprights home, and they hung close by until the meat was gone, as predicted.

Gatherings then became hugely profitable. After the clan took to the forest, almost at once the four legs would find a scent and, with little trouble they would then run some prey aground. Abundant meat was thus found every day.

There were also other benefits to the new arrangement.

The four legs were wonderful sentries. Nothing in the night could creep up on them or, by extension, the clan. They still kept their distance, but the animals inherently understood the advantages too, and they protected them. Living near the upright men supplied a safe environment in which to raise their young. True, their kill was taken from them, but the meat they were always given was enough, and this was their main concern. They stayed.

There were only five of them at first, a small pack consisting of an alpha couple and three juveniles, two males and one female. Soon enough more pups followed. This event was viewed as a good omen by the clan, and it was.

Then, after several seasons had passed, the four legs one night raised a cry in the dark. The hair-raising shrieks of the long claws were soon heard in the distance. A loud altercation then ensued, very brief but brutal, then all was quiet.

The next morning the boy, who was now a strapping teenager, found at some distance a dead four legs, lacerated by the long claws. Her pack was nowhere to be seen, having run off in angry pursuit in order to harass the retreating perpetrator. The boy was unconcerned by this as they often ran off and, he knew from experience that they would soon return, demanding more meat.

It was then that he discovered the pups, newly orphaned and whimpering in the grass. They were young, hardly weaned, and almost without thinking he took them inside the clan’s fortified enclosure. They became instant celebrities.

Again they were five, four brothers and a sister. They snapped and growled much, but due to their tiny size they posed no real problems. That soon changed.

The two largest males, angling for dominance, became a danger because they consistently wished to demonstrate their fierceness. Within weeks the boy, again without a thought, clubbed them both. That left two males and the female.

These pups grew and in time joined the pack outside the upright’s base. While not really tame, at a distance they interacted much more with the clan, and were even permitted entry into their enclosure if they wished. They were easily tolerated there, if not provoked by being approached too closely or quickly.

Once the young female bore pups, being proud, she brought them in for inspection, and they became instant celebrities, too.

Again the boy, now a man in earnest, clubbed the most vicious babies, and the offspring of the tamer survivors were more tolerant still. This now, entrenched protocol continued unabated. By the fifth generation, taking less than ten full seasons, the newest born pups, while hunting every day in the forest, stayed every night within the enclosure, content if still irascible at times.

The boy, currently a fully mature man, realized they now preferred the company of the uprights to their wilder kin, still ensconced at the encampment’s edge.

Ten more seasons came and went. The boy, having lived nearly thirty years, was now an old man. He had many good dogs by then, and they all loved him.

One day he sat on the great river’s broad bank. The scene was idyllic, shaded with the air neither hot nor cold, but he was thinking of another instance along the water’s edge. That particular time, he recalled, had not been so pleasant.

He was remembering the day it had all started.

Then he heard someone approaching and the strange, upright man appeared, stepping from the brush. He looked exactly the same, as if the passing seasons had no hold on him. They didn’t, of course, for he was a time traveler.

“Well, my friend,” the man said to the one who was once only a lost and hungry boy, “you have done much good work. I knew that you would. Does it please you?”

The old one, pausing to consider, reached over and scratched the ear of his nearest companion, which wagged its tail in response to the tender action. Then the upright realized that none of his dogs, before ever vigilant, had reacted in the least to the stranger’s advance. Yet upon short reflection, given the context, the upright man knew this wasn’t a surprising circumstance.

“I am content,” he announced at last, “for the clan has much meat. And I’m amazed that the dogs now love and protect us. So yes, I’m very pleased that a change was made, and that it was you who found me in the forest so long ago.”

This sentiment caused the time traveler to laugh aloud. He sat near to the upright, as he had done the last time. Then he caressed the dog stretched prone between them.

Again the animal wagged its tail, thumping slowly this time.

“But you were the one who found me,” the tall man pointed out. “You could have given up in the river, or at its bank. Yet you didn’t relent, only bravely pushed on.”

The old man hunched his shoulders, replying, “I was hungry.”

They both enjoyed this banter, each chuckling some.

After a time the old man asked, “What will happen now?”

“More change,” was the time traveler’s answer. “It is always so. It will always be so, forever.”

The old man nodded, knowing it was true.

“But how?” he probed, wishing clarification. “What new changes come? What will happen next?”

The stranger leaned in, again as he had done at their last encounter, and after a bit he answered with, “The upright man is a strong animal, and he thinks. Now he can hunt, not just gather. So, he can provide for, and protect himself well.”

The old one nodded.

“But when an upright man takes himself a family,” came next, “he will always protect them, too.”

The old one nodded again, adding, “Yes.”

“The families of his kin are also his family,” the stranger next explained, “for they are related, and when many such families join they become a clan, as yours did. Each member of this clan is now also his kin, for they are all connected in some way. So a man will protect his clan as well as his own, for they are the same.”

“Yes,” the old one said once more.

“Now,” the man said, “you have dogs in your family, and they will protect you too, for they are a true part of your clan, as well. Because of them, your clan will become much stronger. Other clans will do this also, and then all clans will grow stronger.”

“I see it,” nodded the old one, but next he saw something else. It was another correlation. He didn’t like its portent, but still he understood it well enough.

“They will squabble with each other for the best meat,” he predicted. “They will fight over the finer ground that has it. And soon they will club each other to acquire it, in order to provide for, and so protect their family.”

“Yes,” the stranger concurred, but then he added, “Yet, at some point certain clans will join together, forming a tribe, and things become very different then.”

The upright man was surprised by this assertion.

“These new tribes, they will not fight each other?” he asked.

“No, they will fight,” was the answer, “that’s not my meaning. I mean that tribes fight for a different reason, a new reason. Tribe members will do battle for those not related to them, for in tribes there are many that aren’t connected by family ties.”

This new concept once more took the old one aback. Who would fight for those who weren’t related? Then he thought of his beloved dogs, so different from the upright men and he understood, again making the proper connection.

Next, once seeing the consequences, the old man expanded upon them. Yes, he easily sensed the broader implications involved. His very large human brain, ancient by current standards still worked, and it worked very well.

“Such new tribes, after growing ever stronger, will then band together?” he asked of the stranger.

“In the far future, yes,” was the answer. “Tribes become states, and states become mighty nations. The strongest of these nations will grow further still, becoming vast empires.”

The old man was amazed by this insightful declaration. It was a great vision, no doubting that. He was humbled.

The stranger slowly stood, and added, “All because of the dogs, my friend. It will happen because you made this vital connection and took them in. Everything now changes because you tried something different by thinking in a new and unexpected way.”

The astounded upright sighed after this lofty pronouncement. He turned to look at the time traveler before him. Again he hunched his shoulders, adding a wistful smile.

“I was hungry,” he reiterated, as if that explained everything.

It did, and the tall stranger then walked away for the last time.

HOWARD LORING creates EPIC FABLES on the ELASTIC LIMIT of TIME.

These exciting time travel books encompass universal human themes,

often employing real history.

For more information you can check out his amazon page here.

And his website here 

The Hunted Heroes by Robert Silverberg

 

The Hunted Heroes

by Robert Silverberg

"Let's keep moving," I told Val. "The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up." I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Through the glassite of the mask, I could see her face contorted in an agony of fatigue.

And she probably thought the failure of the sandcat was all my fault, too. Val's usually about the best wife a guy could ask for, but when she wants to be she can be a real flying bother.

It was beyond her to see that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault – whoever it was who had failed to fasten down the engine hood. Nothing but what had stopped us _could_ stop a sandcat: sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine.

But no; she blamed it all on me somehow: So we were out walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd been walking a good eight hours.

"Can't we turn back now, Ron?" Val pleaded. "Maybe there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching out here!"

I started to tell her that the UranCo chief had assured me we'd hit something out this way, but changed my mind. When Val's tired and overwrought there's no sense in arguing with her.

I stared ahead at the bleak, desolate wastes of the Martian landscape. Behind us somewhere was the comfort of the Dome, ahead nothing but the mazes and gullies of this dead world.

"Try to keep going, Val." My gloved hand reached out and clumsily enfolded hers. "Come on, kid. Remember – we're doing this for Earth. We're heroes."

She glared at me. "Heroes, hell!" she muttered. "That's the way it looked back home, but, out there it doesn't seem so glorious. And UranCo's pay is stinking."

"We didn't come out here for the pay, Val."

"I know, I know, but just the same –"

It must have been hell for her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter. And the geigers had been obstinately hushed all day, except for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises.

Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of Earth's, I was starting to tire, and I knew it must have been really rough on Val with her lovely but unrugged legs.

"Heroes," she said bitterly. "We're not heroes--we're suckers! Why did I ever let you volunteer for the Geig Corps and drag me along?"

Which wasn't anywhere close to the truth. Now I knew she was at the breaking point, because Val didn't lie unless she was so exhausted she didn't know what she was doing. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of radioactives-starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us.

No, we had decided together to come to Mars – the way we decided together on everything. Now she was turning against me.

* * * * *

I tried to jolly her. "Buck up, kid," I said. I didn't dare turn up her oxy pressure any higher, but it was obvious she couldn't keep going. She was almost sleep-walking now.

We pressed on over the barren terrain. The geiger kept up a fairly steady click-pattern, but never broke into that sudden explosive tumult that meant we had found pay-dirt. I started to feel tired myself, terribly tired. I longed to lie down on the soft, spongy Martian sand and bury myself.

I looked at Val. She was dragging along with her eyes half-shut. I felt almost guilty for having dragged her out to Mars, until I recalled that I hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. I wished there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back into the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join the Geigs.

Twelve steps later, I decided this was about as far as we could go.

I stopped, slipped out of the geiger harness, and lowered myself ponderously to the ground. "What'samatter, Ron?" Val asked sleepily. "Something wrong?"

"No, baby," I said, putting out a hand and taking hers. "I think we ought to rest a little before we go any further. It's been a long, hard day."

It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside me, curled up, and in a moment she was fast asleep, sprawled out on the sands.

Poor kid, I thought. Maybe we shouldn't have come to Mars after all. But, I reminded myself, someone had to do the job.

A second thought appeared, but I squelched it:

Why the hell me?

I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form, and thought of our warm, comfortable little home on Earth. It wasn't much, but people in love don't need very fancy surroundings.

I watched her, sleeping peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. But I knew I'd do it again, if I had the chance. It's because we wanted to keep what we had. Heroes? Hell, no. We just liked our comforts, and wanted to keep them. Which took a little work.

* * * * *

Time to get moving. But then Val stirred and rolled over in her sleep, and I didn't have the heart to wake her. I sat there, holding her, staring out over the desert, watching the wind whip the sand up into weird shapes.

The Geig Corps preferred married couples, working in teams. That's what had finally decided it for us – we were a good team. We had no ties on Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we volunteered.

And here we are. Heroes. The wind blasted a mass of sand into my face, and I felt it tinkle against the oxymask.

I glanced at the suit-chronometer. Getting late. I decided once again to wake Val. But she was tired. And I was tired too, tired from our wearying journey across the empty desert.

I started to shake Val. But I never finished. It would be so nice just to lean back and nuzzle up to her, down in the sand. So nice. I yawned, and stretched back.

* * * * *

I awoke with a sudden startled shiver, and realized angrily I had let myself doze off. "Come on, Val," I said savagely, and started to rise to my feet.

I couldn't.

I looked down. I was neatly bound in thin, tough, plastic tangle-cord, swathed from chin to boot-bottoms, my arms imprisoned, my feet caught. And tangle-cord is about as easy to get out of as a spider's web is for a trapped fly.

It wasn't Martians that had done it. There weren't any Martians, hadn't been for a million years. It was some Earthman who had bound us.

I rolled my eyes toward Val, and saw that she was similarly trussed in the sticky stuff. The tangle-cord was still fresh, giving off a faint, repugnant odor like that of drying fish. It had been spun on us only a short time ago, I realized.

"Ron –"

"Don't try to move, baby. This stuff can break your neck if you twist it wrong." She continued for a moment to struggle futilely, and I had to snap, "Lie still, Val!"

"A very wise statement," said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up and saw a helmeted figure above us. He wasn't wearing the customary skin-tight pliable oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded, bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his back as expected, though. They were strapped to the back of the wheelchair in which he sat.

Through the fishbowl I could see hard little eyes, a yellowed, parchment-like face, a grim-set jaw. I didn't recognize him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him.

What shocked me most was that he had no legs. The spacesuit ended neatly at the thighs.

He was holding in his left hand the tanglegun with which he had entrapped us, and a very efficient-looking blaster was in his right.

"I didn't want to disturb your sleep," he said coldly. "So I've been waiting here for you to wake up."

I could just see it. He might have been sitting there for hours, complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he must be totally insane. I could feel my stomach-muscles tighten, my throat constrict painfully.

Then anger ripped through me, washing away the terror. "What's going on?" I demanded, staring at the half of a man who confronted us from the wheelchair. "Who are you?"

"You'll find out soon enough," he said. "Suppose now you come with me." He reached for the tanglegun, flipped the little switch on its side to MELT, and shot a stream of watery fluid over our legs, keeping the blaster trained on us all the while. Our legs were free.

"You may get up now," he said. "Slowly, without trying to make trouble." Val and I helped each other to our feet as best we could, considering our arms were still tightly bound against the sides of our oxysuits.

"Walk," the stranger said, waving the tanglegun to indicate the direction. "I'll be right behind you." He holstered the tanglegun.

I glimpsed the bulk of an outboard atomic rigging behind him, strapped to the back of the wheelchair. He fingered a knob on the arm of the chair and the two exhaust ducts behind the wheel-housings flamed for a moment, and the chair began to roll.

Obediently, we started walking. You don't argue with a blaster, even if the man pointing it is in a wheelchair.

* * * * *

"What's going on, Ron?" Val asked in a low voice as we walked. Behind us the wheelchair hissed steadily.

"I don't quite know, Val. I've never seen this guy before, and I thought I knew everyone at the Dome."

"Quiet up there!" our captor called, and we stopped talking. We trudged along together, with him following behind; I could hear the crunch-crunch of the wheelchair as its wheels chewed into the sand. I wondered where we were going, and why. I wondered why we had ever left Earth.

The answer to that came to me quick enough: we had to. Earth needed radioactives, and the only way to get them was to get out and look. The great atomic wars of the late 20th Century had used up much of the supply, but the amount used to blow up half the great cities of the world hardly compared with the amount we needed to put them back together again.

In three centuries the shattered world had been completely rebuilt. The wreckage of New York and Shanghai and London and all the other ruined cities had been hidden by a shining new world of gleaming towers and flying roadways. We had profited by our grandparents' mistakes. They had used their atomics to make bombs. We used ours for fuel.

It was an atomic world. Everything: power drills, printing presses, typewriters, can openers, ocean liners, powered by the inexhaustible energy of the dividing atom.

But though the energy is inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't.

After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty machine that was Earth's industry had started to slow down.

And that started the chain of events that led Val and me to end up as a madman's prisoners, on Mars. With every source of uranium mined dry on Earth, we had tried other possibilities. All sorts of schemes came forth. Project Sea-Dredge was trying to get uranium from the oceans. In forty or fifty years, they'd get some results, we hoped. But there wasn't forty or fifty years' worth of raw stuff to tide us over until then. In a decade or so, our power would be just about gone. I could picture the sort of dog-eat-dog world we'd revert back to. Millions of starving, freezing humans tooth-and-clawing in it in the useless shell of a great atomic civilization.

So, Mars. There's not much uranium on Mars, and it's not easy to find or any cinch to mine. But what little is there, helps. It's a stopgap effort, just to keep things moving until Project Sea-Dredge starts functioning.

Enter the Geig Corps: volunteers out on the face of Mars, combing for its uranium deposits.

And here we are, I thought.

* * * * *

After we walked on a while, a Dome became visible up ahead. It slid up over the crest of a hill, set back between two hummocks on the desert. Just out of the way enough to escape observation.

For a puzzled moment I thought it was our Dome, the settlement where all of UranCo's Geig Corps were located, but another look told me that this was actually quite near us and fairly small. A one-man Dome, of all things!

"Welcome to my home," he said. "The name is Gregory Ledman." He herded us off to one side of the airlock, uttered a few words keyed to his voice, and motioned us inside when the door slid up. When we were inside he reached up, clumsily holding the blaster, and unscrewed the ancient spacesuit fishbowl.

His face was a bitter, dried-up mask. He was a man who hated.

The place was spartanly furnished. No chairs, no tape-player, no decoration of any sort. Hard bulkhead walls, rivet-studded, glared back at us. He had an automatic chef, a bed, and a writing-desk, and no other furniture.

Suddenly he drew the tanglegun and sprayed our legs again. We toppled heavily to the floor. I looked up angrily.

* * * * *

"I imagine you want to know the whole story," he said. "The others did, too."

Valerie looked at me anxiously. Her pretty face was a dead white behind her oxymask. "What others?"

"I never bothered to find out their names," Ledman said casually. "They were other Geigs I caught unawares, like you, out on the desert. That's the only sport I have left – Geig-hunting. Look out there."

He gestured through the translucent skin of the Dome, and I felt sick. There was a little heap of bones lying there, looking oddly bright against the redness of the sands. They were the dried, parched skeletons of Earthmen. Bits of cloth and plastic, once oxymasks and suits, still clung to them.

Suddenly I remembered. There had been a pattern there all the time. We didn't much talk about it; we chalked it off as occupational hazards. There had been a pattern of disappearances on the desert. I could think of six, eight names now. None of them had been particularly close friends. You don't get time to make close friends out here. But we'd vowed it wouldn't happen to us.

It had.

"You've been hunting Geigs?" I asked. "Why? What've they ever done to you?"

He smiled, as calmly as if I'd just praised his house-keeping. "Because I hate you," he said blandly. "I intend to wipe every last one of you out, one by one."

I stared at him. I'd never seen a man like this before; I thought all his kind had died at the time of the atomic wars.

I heard Val sob, "He's a madman!"

"No," Ledman said evenly. "I'm quite sane, believe me. But I'm determined to drive the Geigs--and UranCo--off Mars. Eventually I'll scare you all away."

"Just pick us off in the desert?"

"Exactly," replied Ledman. "And I have no fears of an armed attack. This place is well fortified. I've devoted years to building it. And I'm back against those hills. They couldn't pry me out." He let his pale hand run up into his gnarled hair. "I've devoted years to this. Ever since – ever since I landed here on Mars."

* * * * *

"What are you going to do with us?" Val finally asked, after a long silence.

He didn't smile this time. "Kill you," he told her. "Not your husband. I want him as an envoy, to go back and tell the others to clear off." He rocked back and forth in his wheelchair, toying with the gleaming, deadly blaster in his hand.

We stared in horror. It was a nightmare – sitting there, placidly rocking back and forth, a nightmare.

I found myself fervently wishing I was back out there on the infinitely safer desert.

"Do I shock you?" he asked. "I shouldn't--not when you see my motives."

"We don't see them," I snapped.

"Well, let me show you. You're on Mars hunting uranium, right? To mine and ship the radioactives back to Earth to keep the atomic engines going. Right?"

I nodded over at our geiger counters.

"We volunteered to come to Mars," Val said irrelevantly.

"Ah – two young heroes," Ledman said acidly. "How sad. I could almost feel sorry for you. Almost."

"Just what is it you're after?" I said, stalling, stalling.

"Atomics cost me my legs," he said. "You remember the Sadlerville Blast?" he asked.

"Of course." And I did, too. I'd never forget it. No one would. How could I forget that great accident--killing hundreds, injuring thousands more, sterilizing forty miles of Mississippi land--when the Sadlerville pile went up?

"I was there on business at the time," Ledman said. "I represented Ledman Atomics. I was there to sign a new contract for my company. You know who I am, now?"

I nodded.

"I was fairly well shielded when it happened. I never got the contract, but I got a good dose of radiation instead. Not enough to kill me," he said. "Just enough to necessitate the removal of –" he indicated the empty space at his thighs. "So I got off lightly." He gestured at the wheelchair blanket.

I still didn't understand. "But why kill us Geigs? We had nothing to do with it."

"You're just in this by accident," he said. "You see, after the explosion and the amputation, my fellow-members on the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor risk as Head of the Board, and they took my company away. All quite legal, I assure you. They left me almost a pauper!" Then he snapped the punchline at me.

"They renamed Ledman Atomics. Who did you say you worked for?"

I began, "Uran–"

"Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman Atomics, but not quite as much heart, wouldn't you say?" He grinned. "I saved for years; then I came to Mars, lost myself, built this Dome, and swore to get even. There's not a great deal of uranium on this planet, but enough to keep me in a style to which, unfortunately, I'm no longer accustomed."

* * * * *

He consulted his wrist watch. "Time for my injection." He pulled out the tanglegun and sprayed us again, just to make doubly certain. "That's another little souvenir of Sadlerville. I'm short on red blood corpuscles."

He rolled over to a wall table and fumbled in a container among a pile of hypodermics. "There are other injections, too. Adrenalin, insulin. Others. The Blast turned me into a walking pin-cushion. But I'll pay it all back," he said. He plunged the needle into his arm.

My eyes widened. It was too nightmarish to be real. I wasn't seriously worried about his threat to wipe out the entire Geig Corps, since it was unlikely that one man in a wheelchair could pick us all off. No, it wasn't the threat that disturbed me, so much as the whole concept, so strange to me, that the human mind could be as warped and twisted as Ledman's.

I saw the horror on Val's face, and I knew she felt the same way I did.

"Do you really think you can succeed?" I taunted him. "Really think you can kill every Earthman on Mars? Of all the insane, cockeyed –"

Val's quick, worried head-shake cut me off. But Ledman had felt my words, all right.

"Yes! I'll get even with every one of you for taking away my legs! If we hadn't meddled with the atom in the first place, I'd be as tall and powerful as you, today – instead of a useless cripple in a wheelchair."

"You're sick, Gregory Ledman," Val said quietly. "You've conceived an impossible scheme of revenge and now you're taking it out on innocent people who've done nothing, nothing at all to you. That's not sane!"

His eyes blazed. "Who are you to talk of sanity?"

* * * * *

Uneasily I caught Val's glance from a corner of my eye. Sweat was rolling down her smooth forehead faster than the auto-wiper could swab it away.

"Why don't you do something? What are you waiting for, Ron?"

"Easy, baby," I said. I knew what our ace in the hole was. But I had to get Ledman within reach of me first.

"Enough," he said. "I'm going to turn you loose outside, right after –"

"Get sick!" I hissed to Val, low. She began immediately to cough violently, emitting harsh, choking sobs. "Can't breathe!" She began to yell, writhing in her bonds.

That did it. Ledman hadn't much humanity left in him, but there was a little. He lowered the blaster a bit and wheeled one-hand over to see what was wrong with Val. She continued to retch and moan most horribly. It almost convinced me. I saw Val's pale, frightened face turn to me.

He approached and peered down at her. He opened his mouth to say something, and at that moment I snapped my leg up hard, tearing the tangle-cord with a snicking rasp, and kicked his wheelchair over.

The blaster went off, burning a hole through the Dome roof. The automatic sealers glued-in instantly. Ledman went sprawling helplessly out into the middle of the floor, the wheelchair upended next to him, its wheels slowly revolving in the air. The blaster flew from his hands at the impact of landing and spun out near me. In one quick motion I rolled over and covered it with my body.

* * * * *

Ledman clawed his way to me with tremendous effort and tried wildly to pry the blaster out from under me, but without success. I twisted a bit, reached out with my free leg, and booted him across the floor. He fetched up against the wall of the Dome and lay there.

Val rolled over to me.

"Now if I could get free of this stuff," I said, "I could get him covered before he comes to. But how?"

"Teamwork," Val said. She swivelled around on the floor until her head was near my boot. "Push my oxymask off with your foot, if you can."

I searched for the clamp and tried to flip it. No luck, with my heavy, clumsy boot. I tried again, and this time it snapped open. I got the tip of my boot in and pried upward. The oxymask came off, slowly, scraping a jagged red scratch up the side of Val's neck as it came.

"There," she breathed. "That's that."

I looked uneasily at Ledman. He was groaning and beginning to stir.

Val rolled on the floor and her face lay near my right arm. I saw what she had in mind. She began to nibble the vile-tasting tangle-cord, running her teeth up and down it until it started to give. She continued unfailingly.

Finally one strand snapped. Then another. At last I had enough use of my hand to reach out and grasp the blaster. Then I pulled myself across the floor to Ledman, removed the tanglegun, and melted the remaining tangle-cord off.

My muscles were stiff and bunched, and rising made me wince. I turned and freed Val. Then I turned and faced Ledman.

"I suppose you'll kill me now," he said.

"No. That's the difference between sane people and insane," I told him. "I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth."

"No!" he shouted. "No! Anything but back there. I don't want to face them again – not after what they did to me –"

"Not so loud," I broke in. "They'll help you on Earth. They'll take all the hatred and sickness out of you, and turn you into a useful member of society again."

"I hate Earthmen," he spat out. "I hate all of them."

"I know," I said sarcastically. "You're just all full of hate. You hated us so much that you couldn't bear to hang around on Earth for as much as a year after the Sadlerville Blast. You had to take right off for Mars without a moment's delay, didn't you? You hated Earth so much you had to leave."

"Why are you telling all this to me?"

"Because if you'd stayed long enough, you'd have used some of your pension money to buy yourself a pair of prosthetic legs, and then you wouldn't need this wheelchair."

Ledman scowled, and then his face went belligerent again. "They told me I was paralyzed below the waist. That I'd never walk again, even with prosthetic legs, because I had no muscles to fit them to."

"You left Earth too quickly," Val said.

"It was the only way," he protested. "I had to get off –"

"She's right," I told him. "The atom can take away, but it can give as well. Soon after you left they developed atomic-powered prosthetics – amazing things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of the Sadlerville Blast were given the necessary replacement limbs free of charge. All except you. You were so sick you had to get away from the world you despised and come here."

"You're lying," he said. "It's not true!"

"Oh, but it is," Val smiled.

I saw him wilt visibly, and for a moment I almost felt sorry for him, a pathetic legless figure propped up against the wall of the Dome at blaster-point. But then I remembered he'd killed twelve Geigs – or more – and would have added Val to the number had he had the chance.

* * * * *

"You're a very sick man, Ledman," I said. "All this time you could have been happy, useful on Earth, instead of being holed up here nursing your hatred. You might have been useful, on Earth. But you decided to channel everything out as revenge."

"I still don't believe it – those legs. I might have walked again. No – no, it's all a lie. They told me I'd never walk," he said, weakly but stubbornly still.

I could see his whole structure of hate starting to topple, and

decided to give it the final push.

"Haven't you wondered how I managed to break the tangle-cord when I kicked you over?"

"Yes – human legs aren't strong enough to break tangle-cord that way."

"Of course not," I said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. "Look," I said. I pointed to my smooth, gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. "I was in the Sadlerville Blast, too," I said. "But I didn't go crazy with hate when I lost my legs."

Ledman was sobbing.

"Okay, Ledman," I said. Val got him into his suit, and brought him the fishbowl helmet. "Get your helmet on and let's go. Between the psychs and the prosthetics men, you'll be a new man inside of a year."

"But I'm a murderer!"

"That's right. And you'll be sentenced to psych adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you, but there'll be a new--and sane--Gregory Ledman." I turned to Val.

"Got the geigers, honey?"

For the first time since Ledman had caught us, I remembered how tired Val had been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly – me, with my chromium legs and atomic-powered muscles. No wonder she was ready to fold! And I'd been too dense to see how unfair I had been.

She lifted the geiger harnesses, and I put Ledman back in his wheelchair.

Val slipped her oxymask back on and fastened it shut.

"Let's get back to the Dome in a hurry," I said. "We'll turn Ledman over to the authorities. Then we can catch the next ship for Earth."

"Go back? Go back? If you think I'm backing down now and quitting you can find yourself another wife! After we dump this guy I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then we're going back out there to finish that search-pattern. Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be happy quitting in the middle like that." She smiled. "I can't wait to get out there and start listening for those tell-tale clicks."

I gave a joyful whoop and swung her around. When I put her down, she squeezed my hand, hard.

"Let's get moving, fellow hero," she said.

I pressed the stud for the airlock, smiling.

Robert Silverberg is one of the masters of sci-fi. If you are unfamiliar with his work, check out the amazon page here and his Wikipedia page here.

For an interview with Rober Silverberg click here

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Amazing Stories September 1956. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).