Adventures on Other Planets Page 9

  "I guess I asked for it,” Mackenzie said.

  "I do not follow you.”

  “Slap it,” said Mackenzie.

  “The only trouble,” said the Encyclopedia, “is that you don’t know where you’re going.”

  "That’s what makes it so much fun,” Mackenzie told him. "Cripes, if we knew where we were going, there’d be no adventure. We’d know what was coming next, As it is, every corner that we turn brings a new surprise.”

  “Knowing where youre going has its advantages,” insisted the Encyclopedia.

  Mackenzie knocked the pipe bowl out on his boot heel, tramped on the glowing ash.

  “So you have us pegged,” he said.

  “No,” said the Encyclopedia. “Just impressions.”

  The music trees were twisted gray ghosts in the murky dawn. The conductors, except for the few who refused to let even a visit from the Earthmen rouse them from their daylight slumber, squatted like black imps on their podia.

  Delbert rode on Smith's shoulder, one clawlike hand entwined in Smith’s hair to keep from falling off. The Encyclopedia waddled along in the wake of the Earthman party. Wade led the way toward Alder’s podium.

  The Bowl buzzed with the hum of distorted thought, the thought of many little folk squatting on their mounds —an alien thing that made Mackenzie’s neck hairs bristle just a little as it beat into his mind. There were no really separate thoughts, no one commanding thought, just the chitter-chatter of hundreds of little thoughts, as if the conductors might be gossiping.

  The yellow cliffs stood like a sentinel wall and above the path that led to the escarpment, the tractor loomed like a straddled beetle against the early dawn.

  Alder rose from the podium to greet them, a disreputable-looking gnome on gnarly legs.

  The Earth delegation squatted on the ground. Delbert, from his perch on Smith’s shoulder, made a face at Alder.

  Silence held for a moment and then Mackenzie, dispensing with formalities, spoke to Alder. “We rescued Delbert for you,” he told the gnome. “We brought him back.”

  Alder scowled and his thoughts were fuzzy with disgust. “We do not want him back,” he said.

  Mackenzie, taken aback, stammered. “Why, we thought . . . that is, he’s one of you . . . we went to a lot of trouble to rescue him—”

  ‘He's a nuisance,” declared Alder. “He's a disgrace. He’s an no-good. Hes always trying things.”

 
  "You see,” said Alder to Mackenzie, "what he is like.” "Why, yes,” agreed Mackenzie, “but there are times when new ideas have some values. Perhaps he may be—” Alder leveled an accusing finger at Wade. “He was all right until you took to hanging around,” he screamed. “Then he picked up some of your ideas. You contaminated him. Your silly notions about music—” Alder’s thoughts gulped in sheer exasperation, then took up again. “Why did you come? No one asked you to? Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  Wade, red faced behind his beard, seemed close to apoplexy.

  “I've never been so insulted in all my life,” he howled. He thumped his chest with a doubled fist. “Back on Earth I wrote great symphonies myself. I never held with frivolous music. I never—”

  “Crawl back into your hole,” Delbert shrilled at Alder. “You guys don’t know what music is. You saw out the same stuff day after day. You never lay it in the groove. You never get gated up. You all got long underwear.”

  Alder waved knotted fists above his head and hopped up and down in rage. “Such language!” he shrieked. “Never was the like heard here before.”

  The whole Bowl was yammering. Yammering with clashing thoughts of rage and insult.

  “Now, wait,” Mackenzie shouted. “All of you, quiet downl”

  Wade puffed out his breath, turned a shade less purple. Alder squatted back on his haunches, unknotted his fists, tried his best to look composed. The clamor of thought subsided to a murmur.

  “You’re sure about this?” Mackenzie asked Alder. “Sure you don’t want Delbert back.” “Mister,” said Alder, “there never was a happier day in Melody Bowl than the day we found him gone/'

  A rising murmur of assent from the other conductors underscored his words.

  “We have some others we'd like to get rid of, too,” said Alder.

  From far off across the Bowl came a yelping thought of derision.

  “You see/' said Alder, looking owlishly at Mackenzie, "what it is like. What we have to contend with. All because this . . , this . . . this—”

  Glaring at Wade, thoughts failed him. Carefully he settled back upon his haunches, composed his face again.

  “If the rest were gone,” he said, we could settle down. But as it is, these few keep us in an uproar all the time. We can't concentrate, we can’t really work. We can’t do the things we want to do.”

  Mackenzie pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “Alder,” he declared, “you sure are in a mess.”

  “I was hoping,” Alder said, “that you might be able to take them off our hands.”

  “Take them off your hands!” yelled Smith. "I’ll say we’ll take them! We’ll take as many—”

  Mackenzie nudged Smith in the ribs with his elbow, viciously. Smith gulped into silence. Mackenzie tried to keep his face straight.

  “You can’t take them trees,” said Nellie icily. “It’s against the law.”

  Mackenzie gasped. "The law?”

  "Sure, the regulations. The company’s got regulations. Or don’t you know that? Never bothered to read them, probably. Just like you. Never pay no attention to the things you should.”

  "Nellie,” said Smith savagely, "you keep out of this. I guess if we want to do a little favor for Alder here—”

  "But it’s against the lawl” screeched Nellie.

  "I know,” said Mackenzie. "Section 34 of the chapter on Relations with Extiaterreodal Life. ‘No member of this company shall interfere in any phase of the internal affairs of another race"

  “That's it,” said Nellie, pleased with herself. “And if you take some of these trees, you'll be meddling in a quarrel that you have no business having anything to do with.” Mackenzie flipped his hands. “You see,” he said to Alder. “We'll give you a monopoly on our music,” tempted Alder. “Well let you know when we have anything. We won't let the Groomies have it and we'll keep our prices right.”

  Nellie shook her head. “No,” she said.

  Alder bargained. “Bushel and a half instead of two bushels.”

  “No,” said Nellie.

  “Its a deal,” declared Mackenzie. Just point out your duds and well haul them away.”

  “But Nellie said no,” Alder pointed out. “And you say yes. I don't understand/'

  “We'll take care of Nellie,” Smith told him soberly. “You won't take them trees,” said Nellie. “I won't let you take them. I’ll see to that.”

  “Don't pay any attention to her, Mackenzie said. “Just point out the ones you want to get rid of.”

  Alder said primly: “You've made us very happy." Mackenzie got up and looked around. “Where’s the Encyclopedia?” he asked.

  “He cleared out a minute ago,” said Smith. “Headed back for the car.”

  Mackenzie saw him, scuttling swiftly up the path toward the cliff top.

  It was topsy-turvy and utterly crazy, like something out of that old book for children written by a man named Carroll. There was no sense to it. It was like taking candy from a baby.

  Walking up the cliff path back to the tractor, Mackenzie knew it was, felt that he should pinch himself to know it was no dream.

  He had hoped—just hoped—to avert relentless, merciless war against Earthmen throughout the planet by bringing back the stolen music tree. And here he was, with other music trees for his own, and a bargain thrown in to boot.

 
There was something wrong, Mackenzie told himself, something utterly and nonsensically wrong. But he couldn't put his finger on it.

  There was no need to worry, he told himself. The thing to do was to get those trees and get out of there before Alder and the others changed their minds.

  "It’s funny,” Wade said behind him.

  "It is,” agreed Mackenzie. "Everything is funny here.”

  "I mean about those trees,” said Wade. "I’d swear Delbert was all right. So were all the others. They played the same music the others played. If there had been any faulty orchestration, any digression from form, I am sure I would have noticed it.”

  Mackenzie spun around and grasped Wade by the arm. "You mean they weren’t lousing up the concerts? That Delbert, here, played just like the rest?”

  Wade nodded.

  "That ain’t so,” shrilled Delbert from his perch on Smith’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t play like the rest of them. I want to kick the stuff around. I always dig it up and hang it out the window. I dream it up and send it away out wide.” “Where’d you pick up that lingo?” Mackenzie snapped. "I never heard anything like it before.”

  "I learned it all from him,” declared Delbert, pointing at Wade.

  Wade’s face was purple and his eyes were glassy.

  "It’s practically prehistoric,” he gulped. "They’re terms that were used back in the twentieth century to describe a certain kind of popular rendition. I read about it in a liistory covering the origins of music. There was a glossary of the terms. They were so fantastic they stuck in my mind.” Smith puckered his lips, whistling soundlessly. "So that’s how he picked it up. He caught it from your thoughts. S&me principle the Encyclopedia uses, although not so advanced.” "He lacks the Encyclopedia’s distinction,” explained

  Mackenzie. “He didn’t know the stuff he was picking up was something that had happened long ago.”

  “I have a notion to wring his neck,” Wade threatened. “You'll keep your hands off him,” grated Mackenzie. “This deal stinks to the high heavens, but seven music trees are seven music trees. Screwy deal or not, I’m going through with it.”

  “Look, fellows,” said Nellie, “I wish you wouldn’t do it.” Mackenzie puckered his brow. “What’s the matter with you, Nellie? Why did you make that uproar about the law down there? There’s a rule, sure, but in a thing like this it’s different. The company can afford to have a rule or two broken for seven music trees. You know what will happen, don’t you, when we get those trees back home. We can charge a thousand bucks a throw to hear them and have to use a club to keep the crowds away.”

  “And the best of it is,” Smith pointed out, “that once they hear thern^ they’ll have to come again. They’ll never get tired of them. Instead of that, every time they hear them, they’ll want to hear them all the more. It’ll get to be an obsession, a part of the people’s life. They’ll steal, murder, do anything so they can hear the trees.”

  “That,” said Mackenzie soberly, “is the one thing I’m afraid of.”

  “I only tried to stop you,” Nellie said. “I know as well as you do that the law won’t hold in a thing like this. But there was something else. The way the conductors sounded. Almost as if they were jeering at us. Like a gang of boys out in the street hooting at someone they just pulled a fast one on.”

  “You’re batty,” Smith declared.

  “We have to go through with it,” Mackenzie announced flatly. “If anyone ever found we’d let a chance like this slip through our fingers, they’d crucify us for it.”

  “You’re going to get in touch with Harper?” Smith asked. Mackenzie nodded. “He’ll have to get hold of Earth, have them send out a ship right away to take back the trees.”

  “I still think,” said Nellie, "there’s a nigger in the woodpile.”

  Mackenzie flipped the toggle and the visiphone went dead.

  Harper had been hard to convince. Mackenzie, thinking about it, couldn't blame him much. After all, it did sound incredible. But then, this whole planet was incredible.

  Mackenzie reached into his pocket and hauled forth his pipe and pouch. Nellie probably would raise hell about helping to dig up those other six trees, but she'd have to get over it. They'd have to work as fast as they could. They couldn't spend more than one night up here on the rim. There wasn't enough serum for longer than that. One jug of the stuff wouldn't go too far.

  Suddenly excited shouts came from outside the car, shouts of consternation.

  With a single leap, Mackenzie left the chair and jumped for the door. Outside, he almost bumped into Smith, who came running around the corner of the tractor. Wade, who had been down at the cliff's edge, was racing toward them.

  “It's Nellie,” shouted Smith. “Look at that robot!”

  Nellie was marching toward them, dragging in her wake a thing that bounced and struggled. A rifle tree grove fired a volley and one of the pellets caught Nellie in the shoulder, puffing into dust, staggering her a little.

  The bouncing thing was the Encyclopedia. Nellie had hold of his taproot, was hauling him unceremoniously across the bumpy ground.

  “Put him downl” Mackenzie yelled at her. “Let him go!”

  “He stole the serum,” howled Nellie. “He stole the serum and broke it on a rock!”

  She swung the Encyclopedia toward them in a looping heave. The intelligent vegetable bounced a couple of times, struggled to get right side up, then scurred off a few feet, root coiled tightly against its underside.

  Smith moved toward it threateningly. "I ought to kick the living innards out of you,” he yelled. “We need that serum. You knew why we needed it”

  “You threaten me with force,” said the Encyclopedia. “The most primitive method of compulsion.”

  “It works,” Smith told him shortly.

  The Encyclopedia’s thoughts were unruffled, almost serene, as clear and concise as ever, “You have a law that forbids your threatening or harming any alien thing.” “Chum,” declared Smith, “you better get wised up on laws. There are times when certain laws don't hold. And this is one of them.”

  “Just a minute,” said Mackenzie. He spoke to the Encyclopedia. “What is your understanding of a law?”

  “It is a rule you live by,” the Encyclopedia said. “It is something that is necessary. You cannot violate it.”

  “He got that from Nellie,” said Smith.

  “You think because there is a law against it, we won't take the trees?”

  “There is a law against it,” said the Encyclopedia. “You cannot take the trees.”

  “So as soon as you found that out, you lammed up here and stole the serum, eh?”

  “He's figuring on indoctrinating us,” Nellie explained. “Maybe that word ain’t so good. Maybe conditioning is better. Its sort of mixed up. I don't know if I’ve got it straight. He took the serum so we would hear the trees without being able to defend ourselves against them. He figured when we heard the music, we’d go ahead and take the trees.” “Law or no law?”

  “That’s it,” Nellie said. “Law or no law.”

  Smith whirled on the robot. “What kind of jabber is this? How do you know what he was planning?”

  “I read his mind,” said Nellie. “Hard to get at, the thing that he was planning, because he kept it deep. But some of it jarred up where I could reach it when you threatened him.”

  “You can't do thatl” shrieked the Encyclopedia. “Not youl Not a machine!”

  Mackenzie laughed shortly. "Too bad, big boy, but she can. She’s been doing it.”

  Smith stared at Mackenzie.

  "It's all right,” Mackenzie said. “It isn’t any bluff. She told me about it last night.”

  ‘‘You are unduly alarmed,” the Encyclopedia said. “You are putting a wrong interpretation—”

  A quiet voice spoke, almost as if it were a voice inside Mackenzie’s mind.

  “Don't believe a thing he tells you, pal. Don't fall for any of his lies.”

  “Nic
odemus! You know something about this?”

  “Its the trees,” said Nicodemus. “The music does something to you. It changes you. Makes you different than you were before. Wade is different. He doesn’t know it, but he is.”

  “If you mean the music chains one to it, that is true," said Wade. “I may as well admit it. I could not live without the music. I could not leave the Bowl. Perhaps you gentlemen have thought that I would go back with you. But I cannot go. I cannot leave. It will work the same with anyone. Alexander was here for a while when he ran short of serum. Doctors treated him and said he was all right, but he came back. He had to come back. He couldn’t stay away.”

  “It isn’t only that,” declared Nicodemus. “It changes you, too, in other ways. It can change you any way it wants to. Change your way of thinking. Change your viewpoints.” Wade strode forward. “It isn’t true,” he yelled, “I’m the same as when I came here.”

  “You heard things,” said Nicodemus, “felt things in the music you couldn’t understand. Things you wanted to understand, but couldn’t. Strange emotions that you yearned to share, but could never reach. Strange thoughts that tantalized you for days.”

  Wade sobered, stared at them with haunted eyes.

  “That was the way it was,” he whispered. “That was just the way it was.”

  He glanced around, like a trapped animal seeking escape. “But I don’t feel any different,” he mumbled. “I still am human. I think like a man, act like a man.”

  “Of course you do,” said Nicodemus. “Otherwise you would have been scared away. If you had known what was happening to you, you wouldn't let it happen. And you have had less than a year of it. Less than a year of this conditioning. Five years and you would be less human. Ten years and you would be beginning to be the kind of thing the trees want you to be.”

  "And we were going to take some of those trees to Earth!” Smith shouted. “Seven of theml So the people of the Earth could hear them. Listen to them, night after night. The whole world listening to them on the radio. A whole world being conditioned, being changed by seven music trees,” “But why?” asked Wade, bewildered.