Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley (21 page)

“There aren't any others. Just me.” Danton looked at the ship and saw the faces of men and women at every port. “I gathered this stuff for you folks.” He waved his hand at the mound of fruit. “Thought you might want some fresh goods after being so long in space.”

A pretty girl with short, tousled blonde hair appeared in the hatchway. “Can't we come out now, Father?”

“No!” Simeon said. “It's not safe. Get inside, Anita.”

“I'll watch from here, then,” she said, staring at Danton with frankly curious eyes.

Danton stared back and a faint and unfamiliar tremor ran through him.

Simeon said, “We accept your offering. We will not, however, eat it.”

“Why not?” Danton reasonably wanted to know.

“Because,” said Jedekiah, “we don't know what poisons you people might try to feed us.”

“Poisons? Look, let's sit down and talk this over.”

“What do you think?” Jedekiah asked Simeon.

“Just what I expected,” the military leader said. “Ingratiating, fawning, undoubtedly treacherous. His people won't show themselves. Waiting in ambush, I'll bet. I think an object lesson would be in order.”

“Right,” said Jedekiah, grinning. “Put the fear of civilization into them.” He aimed his rifle at Danton's chest.

“Hey!” Danton yelped, backing away.

“But, Father,” said Anita, “he hasn't done anything yet.”

“That's the whole point. Shoot him and he
won't
do anything. The only good native is a dead native.”

“This way,” Jedekiah put in, “the rest will know we mean business.”

“It isn't right!” Anita cried indignantly. “The Council—”

“—isn't in command now. An alien landfall constitutes an emergency. During such times, the military is in charge. We'll do what we think best. Remember Lan II!”

“Hold on now,” Danton said. “You've got this all wrong. There's just me, no others, no reason to—”

A bullet kicked sand near his left foot. He sprinted for the protection of the jungle. Another bullet whined close and a third cut a twig near his head as he plunged into the underbrush.

“There!” he heard Simeon roar. “That ought to teach them a lesson!”

Danton kept on running until he had put half a mile of jungle between himself and the pioneer ship.

He ate a light supper of the local variety of bananas and breadfruit, and tried to figure out what was wrong with the Hutters. Were they insane? They had seen that he was an Earthman, alone and unarmed, obviously friendly. Yet they had fired at him—as an object lesson. A lesson for whom? For the dirty natives, whom they wanted to teach a lesson ...

That was it! Danton nodded emphatically to himself. The Hutters must have thought he was a native, an aboriginal, and that his tribe was lurking in the bush, waiting for a chance to massacre the new arrivals! It wasn't too rash an assumption, really. Here he was on a distant planet, without a spaceship, wearing only a loincloth and tanned a medium bronze. He was probably just what they thought a native should look like on a wilderness planet like this!

“But where,” Danton asked himself, “do they think I learned English?”

The whole thing was ridiculous. He started walking back to the ship, sure he could clear up the misunderstanding in a few minutes. But after a couple yards, he stopped.

Evening was approaching. Behind him, the sky was banked in white and gray clouds. To seaward, a deep blue haze advanced steadily on the land. The jungle was filled with ominous noises, which Danton had long ago found to be harmless. But the new arrivals might not think so.

These people were trigger-happy, he reminded himself. No sense barging in on them too fast and inviting a bullet.

So he moved cautiously through the tangled jungle growth, a silent, tawny shape blending into the jungle browns and greens. When he reached the vicinity of the ship, he crawled through the dense undergrowth until he could peer down on the sloping beach.

The pioneers had finally come out of their ship. There were several dozen men and women and a few children. All were dressed in heavy black cloth and perspiring in the heat. They had ignored his gift of local fruit. Instead, an aluminum table had been spread with the spaceship's monotonous provisions.

On the periphery of the crowd, Danton saw several men with rifles and ammunition belts. They were evidently on guard, keeping close watch on the jungle and glancing apprehensively overhead at the darkening sky.

Simeon raised his hands. There was immediate silence.

“Friends,” the military leader orated, “we have come at last to our long-awaited home! Behold, here is a land of milk and honey, a place of bounty and abundance. Was it not worth the long voyage, the constant danger, the endless search?”

“Yes, brother!” the people responded.

Simeon held up his hands again for silence. “No civilized man has settled upon this planet. We are the first, and therefore the place is ours. But there are perils, my friends! Who knows what strange monsters the jungle hides?”

“Nothing larger than a chipmunk,” Danton muttered to himself. “Why don't they ask me? I'd tell them.”

“Who knows what leviathan swims in the deep?” Simeon continued. “We
do
know one thing: There is an aboriginal people here, naked and savage, undoubtedly cunning, ruthless, and amoral, as aboriginals always are. Of these we must beware. We will live in peace with them, if they will let us. We will bring to them the fruits of civilization and the flowers of culture. They may profess friendship, but always remember this, friends: No one can tell what goes on in a savage heart. Their standards are not ours; their morals are not ours. We cannot trust them; we must be forever on guard. And if in doubt,
we
must shoot first! Remember Lan II!”

Everybody applauded, sang a hymn, and began their evening meal. As night fell, searchlights came on from the ship, making the beach bright as day. The sentries paced up and down, shoulders hunched nervously, rifles ready.

Danton watched the settlers shake out their sleeping bags and retire under the bulge of the ship. Even their fear of sudden attack couldn't force them to spend another night inside the ship, when there was fresh air to breathe outside.

The great orange moon of New Tahiti was half-hidden by high-flying night clouds. The sentries paced and swore, and moved closer together for mutual comfort and protection. They began firing at the jungle sounds and blasting at shadows.

Danton crept back into the jungle. He retired for the night behind a tree, where he would be safe from stray bullets. This evening had not seemed the time for straightening things out. The Hutters were too jumpy. It would be better, he decided, to handle the matter by daylight, in a simple, straightforward, reasonable fashion.

The trouble was, the Hutters hardly seemed reasonable.

In the morning, though, everything looked more promising. Danton waited until the Hutters had finished their breakfast, then strolled into view at the edge of the beach.

“Halt!” every one of the sentries barked.

“That savage is back!” called a settler.

“Mummy,” cried a little boy, “don't let the nasty bad man eat me!”

“Don't worry, dear,” the boy's mother said. “Your father has a rifle for shooting savages.”

Simeon rushed out of the spaceship and glared at Danton. “All right, you! Come forward!”

Danton stepped gingerly across the beach, his skin tingling with nervous expectation. He walked to Simeon, keeping his empty hands in sight.

“I am the leader of these people,” Simeon said, speaking very slowly, as if to a child. “I the big chief fella. You big fella chief your people?”

“There's no need to talk that way,” Danton said. “I can hardly understand you. I told you yesterday that I haven't any people. There's just me.”

Simeon's hard face grew white with anger. “Unless you're honest with me, you're going to regret it. Now—where is your tribe?”

“I'm an Earthman,” Danton yelled. “Are you deaf? Can't you hear how I talk?”

A stooped little man with white hair and great horn-rimmed glasses came over with Jedekiah. “Simeon,” the little man said, “I don't believe I have met our guest.”

“Professor Baker,” said Simeon, “this savage here claims he's an Earthman, and he says his name is Edward Danton.”

The professor glanced at Danton's
pareu
, his tanned skin and calloused feet. “You are an Earthman?” he asked Danton.

“Of course.”

“Who carved those stone statues up the beach?”

“I did,” Danton said, “but it was just therapy. You see—”

“Obviously primitive work. That stylization, those noses—”

“It was accidental, then. Look, a few months ago I left Earth in a spaceship—”

“How was it powered?” Professor Baker asked.

“By a GM subspatial torque converter.” Baker nodded, and Danton went on. “Well, I wasn't interested in places like Korani or Heil V, and Hedonia seemed too rich for my blood. I passed up the Mining Worlds and the Farming Worlds, and had the government ship drop me here. The planet's registered as New Tahiti, in my name. But I was getting pretty lonely, so I'm glad you folks came.”

“Well, Professor?” Simeon said. “What do you think?”

“Amazing,” Baker murmured, “truly amazing. His grasp of colloquial English bespeaks a fairly high level of intelligence, which points up a phenomenon frequently met with in savage societies, namely, an unusually well-developed power of mimicry. Our friend Danta (as his original, uncorrupted name must have been) will probably be able to tell us many tribal legends, myths, songs, dances—”

“But I'm an Earthman!”

“No, my poor friend,” the professor corrected gently, “you are not. Obviously you have
met
an Earthman. Some trader, I daresay, stopping for repairs.”

Jedekiah said, “There's evidence that a spaceship once landed here briefly.”

“Ah,” said Professor Baker, beaming. “Confirmation of my hypothesis.”

“That was the government ship,” Danton explained. “It dropped me off here.”

“It is interesting to note,” said Professor Baker in his lecturing voice, “how his almost-plausible story lapses into myth at various crucial points. He claims that the ship was powered by a ‘GM subspatial torque converter'—which is nonsense syllabification, since the only deep-space drive is the Mikkelsen. He claims that the journey from Earth was made in a matter of months (since his untutored mind cannot conceive of a journey lasting years), although we know that no space drive, even theoretically, can achieve that.”

“It was probably developed after you people left Earth,” Danton said. “How long have you been gone?”

“The Hutter spaceship left Earth one hundred and twenty years ago,” Baker replied condescendingly. “We are mostly fourth and fifth generation. Note also,” Baker said to Simeon and Jedekiah, “his attempt to think up plausible place-names. Words such as Korani, Heil, Hedonia appeal to his sense of onomatopoeia. That there are no such places doesn't disturb him.”

“There are!” Danton said indignantly.

“Where?” Jedekiah challenged. “Give me the co-ordinates.”

“How should I know? I'm no navigator. I think Heil was near Boötes, or maybe it was Cassiopeia. No, I'm pretty sure it was Boötes—”

“I'm sorry, friend,” said Jedekiah. “It may interest you to know that I'm the ship's navigator. I can show you the star atlases and charts. Those places aren't on them.”

“Your charts are a hundred years out of date!”

“Then so are the stars,” Simeon said. “Now, Danta, where is your tribe? Why do they hide from us? What are they planning?”

“This is preposterous,” Danton protested. “What can I do to convince you? I'm an Earthman. I was born and raised—”

“That's enough,” Simeon cut in. “If there's one thing we Hutters won't stand for, it's backtalk from natives. Out with it, Danta.
Where are your people?
”

“There's only me,” Danton insisted.

“Tight-mouthed?” Jedekiah gritted. “Maybe a taste of the blacksnake whip—”

“Later, later,” Simeon said. “His tribe'll come around for handouts. Natives always do. In the meantime, Danta, you can join that work gang over there, unloading the supplies.”

“No, thanks,” said Danton. “I'm going back to—”

Jedekiah's fist lashed out, catching Danton on the side of the jaw. He staggered, barely keeping his footing.

“The chief said
no backtalk!
” Jedekiah roared. “Why are you natives always so bone-lazy? You'll be paid as soon as we unload the beads and calico. Now get to work.”

That seemed to be the last word on the subject. Dazed and unsure, much like millions of natives before him on a thousand different worlds. Danton joined the long line of colonists passing goods out of the ship.

By late afternoon, the unloading was done and the settlers were relaxed on the beach. Danton sat apart from them, trying to think his situation through. He was deep in thought when Anita came to him with a canteen of water.

“Do
you
think I'm a native?” he asked.

She sat down beside him and said, “I really don't see what else you could be. Everyone knows how fast a ship can travel and—”

“Times have changed since your people left Earth. They weren't in space all that time, were they?”

“Of course not. The Hutter ship went to H'gastro I, but it wasn't fertile enough, so the next generation moved to Ktedi. But the corn mutated and almost wiped them out, so they went to Lan II. They thought that would be a permanent home.”

“What happened?”

“The natives,” said Anita sadly. “I guess they were friendly enough, at first, and everyone thought the situation was well in hand. Then, one day, we were at war with the entire native population. They only had spears and things, but there were too many of them, so the ship left again and we came here.”