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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c27d200 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68410 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68410) diff --git a/old/68410-0.txt b/old/68410-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3ade25f..0000000 --- a/old/68410-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1147 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Deny the Slake, by Richard Wilson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Deny the Slake - -Author: Richard Wilson - -Illustrator: GAUGHAN - -Release Date: June 26, 2022 [eBook #68410] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENY THE SLAKE *** - - - - - - DENY THE SLAKE - - By RICHARD WILSON - - Illustrated by GAUGHAN - - Those couplets held - (unless they lied) - The reason why - a world had died! - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Infinity, April 1957. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -The skipper looked at what Ernest Hotaling had scribbled on the slip of -paper. - - _The color of my true love's cheek - Will turn to gray within a week._ - -The skipper read it and exploded. "What kind of nonsense is this?" - -"Of course it wouldn't rhyme in a literal translation," Ernest said -mildly. "But that's the sense of it." - -"Doggerel!" the skipper exclaimed. "Is this the message of the ages? Is -this the secret of the lost civilization?" - -"There are others, too," Ernest said. He was the psychologist-linguist -of the crew. "You've got to expect them to be obscure at first. They -didn't purposely leave any message for us." - -Ernest sorted through his scraps of paper and picked one out: - - _They warn me once, they warn me twice. - Alas! my heedn't turns me spice._ - -"There seems to be something there," Ernest said. - -The skipper snorted. - -"No, really," Ernest insisted. "An air of pessimism--even doom--runs -all through this stuff. Take this one, for instance: - - "_Music sings within my brain: - I think I may go mad again._" - -"Now that begins to make some sense," said Rosco, the communications -chief. "It ties in with what Doc Braddon found." - -The skipper looked searchingly at his technicians, as if he suspected a -joke. But they were serious. - -"All right," the skipper said. "It baffles me, but I'm just a simple -spacefaring man. _You're_ the experts. I'm going to my cabin and -communicate with the liquor chest. When you think you've got something -I can understand, let me know. 'I think I may go mad again.' Huh! I -think I may get drunk, myself." - - * * * * * - -What the technicians of the research ship _Pringle_ were trying to -learn was why the people of Planetoid S743 had turned to dust. - -They had thought at first they were coming to a living, if tiny, world. -There had been lights on the nightside and movement along what seemed -to be roads. - -But when they landed and explored, they found only powder in the places -where there should have been people. There were heaps of fine-grained -gray powder in the streets, in the driving compartments of the small -cars--themselves perfectly preserved--and scattered all through the -larger vehicles that looked like buses. - -There was powder in the homes. In one home they found a heap of the -gray stuff in front of a cookstove which was still warm, and another -heap on a chair and on the floor under the chair. It was as if a woman -and the man for whom she'd been preparing a meal had gone _poof_, in an -instant. - -The crew member who'd been on watch and reported the lights said later -they could have been atmospherics. The skipper himself had seen the -movement along the roads; he maintained a dignified silence. - -It had been a highly developed little world and the buildings were -incredibly old. The weather had beaten at them, rounding their edges -and softening their colors, but they were as sturdy as if they'd been -built last week. - -All the cities on the little world were similar. And all were dead. The -_Pringle_ flew over a dozen of them, then returned to the big one near -the plain where the ship had come down originally. - -The tallest building in each city was ornate out of all proportion to -the rest. The researchers reasoned that this was the palace, or seat of -government. Each of these buildings had a network of metal tubing at -its peak. Where there were great distances between cities, tall towers -rose from the plains or sat on tops of mountains, each with a similar -metal network at the apex. - -The communications chief guessed that they were radio-video towers but -he was proved wrong. There were no radio or television sets anywhere, -or anything resembling them. - -Still, it was obvious that they were a kind of communications device. - -Doc Braddon got part of the answer from some of the gray dust he'd -performed an "autopsy" on. - -The dust had been found in a neat mound at the bottom of a large metal -container on the second-story of a medium-sized dwelling. Doc theorized -that one of the people had been taking some sort of waterless bath in -the container when the dust death came. The remains were thus complete, -not scattered or intermingled as most of the others were. - -Doc sorted the particles as best he could and found two types, one -definitely inorganic. He conferred with Rosco on the inorganic -residue. Rosco thought this might be the remains of a tiny pararadio -transceiver. Possibly each of the people had carried one around with -him, or built into him. - -"We're only guessing that they were people," Doc said cautiously, -"though it would seem safe to assume it, since we've found dust -everywhere people could be expected to be. What we need is a whole -corpse." - -While patrols were out looking for bodies Rosco tested his theory by -sending a radio signal from one of the towers and watching a feeble -reaction in the dust. - -"If we can assume that they were people," Rosco said, "they apparently -communicated over distances by personalized radio. Maybe through a -mechanism built into the skull. Would that mean there wouldn't be any -written language, Ernest?" - -Ernest Hotaling shrugged. "Not necessarily. I should think they'd have -kept records of some kind. They could have been written, or taped--or -chipped into stone, for that matter." - -He asked the lieutenant to enlarge his search. "Bring me anything that -looks like a book, or parchment, or microfilm, or tape. If it's chipped -in stone," he added with a grin, "I'll come to it." - -Meanwhile they ran off the film that had been grinding away -automatically ever since the planetoid came within photoradar range of -the ship. The film confirmed what the lookout reported--there had been -lights on the nightside. - -Furthermore, one of the sensitized strips at the side of the film -showed that signals, which had been going out from the tower tops in a -steady stream, increased furiously as the _Pringle_ approached. Then, -as the ship came closer, they stopped altogether. At the same instant -the lights on the nightside of the planetoid went out. The film showed -that the road movement the skipper had seen stopped then, too. - -Ernest tried to analyze the signals reproduced on the film. He had -small success. If they represented a language, it would take years -before he could even guess what they meant. The only thing he was sure -of was that the signals, just before they died, had become a thousand -times more powerful. - -"Maybe that's what killed them," Rosco said. - -"Possibly," Ernest said. "It begins to look as if the people were -deliberately killed, or committed suicide, all at once, when we hove -into sight. But why?" - -"You tell me," Rosco said. "That sounds like your department." - -But Ernest could tell him nothing until after the lieutenant came back -with a long slender cylinder enclosing a seemingly endless coil of fine -wire. The lieutenant also brought a companion cylinder, apparently a -means of playing back what was recorded on the coil. - -Ernest experimented until he learned how to operate it, then shooed -everybody out of his cabin and went to work. - - * * * * * - -Ernest Hotaling had joined the crew of the research ship _Pringle_ -on Ganymede as a replacement for Old Craddock, who'd decided on short -notice that thirty years of spacefaring were enough. It would be -another ten or twelve years before the _Pringle_ returned to Earth and -though Craddock was only seventy-eight his yearning to start a proper -bee farm became overwhelming. - -The others were not unhappy about his departure. The swarm he'd kept -in his cabin was small but the bees were gregarious and were as likely -to be found in the recreation room as in their hive. So when Craddock -and the paraphernalia he'd collected over the decades had debarked, -the rest of the crew sighed in collective relief and the skipper went -looking for a replacement. - -Ernest Hotaling, fresh out of Ganymede U., was the only man qualified, -on the record, for the job. He had the necessary languages and his -doctorate was in psychology, though his specialty was child therapy. - -The skipper puzzled through the copy of Ernest's master's thesis. The -lad--he was twenty-three then--had devoted it to children's folklore. -The skipper, admittedly a simple man, wasn't sure it contributed -profitably to the world's knowledge to spend a year in the study and -explanation of _Winnie the Pooh_, or _Step on a crack/Break your -mother's back_, or _The Wizard of Oz_. - -The skipper had gone to Space Prep at the age of fourteen and later to -the Academy itself and there were obviously wide areas of childhood -that had passed him by. He'd never heard of _Struwwelpeter_, for -instance, or _Ibbety bibbety gibbety goat_, and he wondered if a grown -man who immersed himself in this sort of thing was the one for the job. - -What was worse was that Hotaling, according to the University yearbook, -was a poet. - -But when the skipper interviewed Hotaling and found him to be a lean, -muscular young man who'd obviously had a haircut in the past week and -who laughed genuinely at one of the skipper's more purple stories, he -signed him on immediately. - -The skipper had one last thought. "You don't keep bees, do you?" - -"Not even in my bonnet," Ernest said. - -"Then we'll get along. Just keep your nursery rhymes to yourself." - -"Aye, aye, sir," said Ernest. - - * * * * * - -"Look," Ernest told the skipper, "I've studied their literature, if -that's what it is, until I'm saturated with it. Maybe it doesn't -make sense to you but I've worked out a sort of pattern. It's an -alien culture, sure, and there are gaps in it, but what there is fits -together." - -"All right," the skipper said. "I'm not questioning your findings. I -just want to know why it has to be in that ridiculous rhyme." - -"Because they were a poetic people, that's why. And it doesn't _have_ -to be in rhyme. I could give you the literal translation, but it was -rhymed originally and when I make it rhyme in English too you get a -more exact idea of the kind of people they were." - -"I suppose so," the skipper said. "As long as we don't have to report -to the Flagship in the sonnet form I guess I can put up with it. I just -don't want to become the laughing stock of the fleet." - -"It's no laughing matter," Ernest said. "It's pretty tragic, in -any number of ways. In the first place, as Rosco suspected, they -communicated by radio. But they had no privacy and couldn't hide -anything from anybody. They were always listened in on by the big boys -in the palace." - -"How do you know?" - -"By the coil I worked from. It's a listening-storing device. These -aren't official records I've transcribed; they're the everyday -expressions of everyday people. And every one of them had been taken -down and stored away, presumably so it could be used against the person -who expressed it, if it ever became necessary. - -"But they couldn't always get through to the person they wanted to -reach, even though they got through to the coil. Here's a sad little -lover's lament, for instance: - - "_My plea to her is lost, as though - The other three command the flow._" - -"Like a busy signal?" asked the skipper. - -"Very much like one," Ernest said, pleased by the skipper's -comprehension. "On the other hand, they always got the messages from -the palace. These took priority over all other traffic and were apt -to come at any time of the day or night. The people were just one big -captive audience." - -"What about the dust? That seems to be a recurring theme in those -jingles of yours." - -"It is." Ernest quoted: - - "_Dust is he and dust his brother; - They all follow one another._" - -"They're all dust now," the skipper said. "Did they have a revolution, -finally, that killed everybody off?" - -"Both sides--the rulers and the ruled, simultaneously? Maybe so." -Ernest sorted through his pieces of paper. "There's this one, with its -inference of the death of royalty along with that of the common man: - - "_Comes the King! O hear him rustle; - Falter, step, and wither, muscle._" - -The skipper was beginning to be exasperated again. - -"I'll be in my cabin," he said. "You seem to accomplish more when I -keep out of your way. But if you want to join me in a little whiskey to -keep the falters and withers at bay, come along." - - * * * * * - -The lieutenant knocked at Ernest's door in the middle of the night. -"Mister Hotaling!" he called urgently. - -Ernest fumbled into a pair of pants and opened the door. - -"One of the men found this thing," the lieutenant said. "We were going -to keep it locked up till morning but it's driving me crazy. Figured -you'd better have a look at it." - -The thing was a blue-green puppet of a creature wearing--or made of--a -kind of metallic sailcloth. It was about three feet tall, a caricature -of a human being. It hung limp by one arm from the lieutenant's grasp, -its head lolling on its shoulder. - -"What is it?" Ernest asked sleepily, "a doll?" - -"No; it's just playing dead now. It was doing a clog step in the cage -before." He gave the thing a shake. "The worst of it is, it hummed all -the time. And the humming seems to mean something." - -"Bring it in here," Ernest said. He was fully awake now. "Put it in the -armchair and stick around in case I can't handle it." - -The creature sat awkwardly where it was put. But then the eyes, which -a moment ago had seemed to be painted on the face, shifted and looked -squarely at Ernest. It hummed at him. - -"I see what you mean," he told the lieutenant. "It seems to be trying -to communicate. It's the same language as on the coils." He stared at -it. "I wish it didn't remind me of Raggedy Andy. Where did you find it?" - -"In the throneroom of the palace. One of the men on guard there grabbed -it as it came out of a panel in the wall. He grabbed it and it went -limp, like a doll." - -"Listen," said Ernest. - - "_Don't you cry, boys; don't you quiver, - Though all the sand is in your liver._" - -"What's that?" the lieutenant said. "Do you feel all right, Mister -Hotaling?" - -"Sure. That's what he said. Raggedy Andy here. I translated it--with a -little poetic license." - -"What does it mean?" - -"I don't think it's a direct message to us. More likely it's something -filed away inside his brain, or electronic storage chamber or whatever -he's got. The verse is in the pattern of the ones I translated the -other day. The question now is whether Andy has any original thoughts -in his head or whether he's just a walking record library." - -"How can you tell?" - -"By continuing to listen to him, I suppose. A parrot might fool you -into thinking it had intelligence of its own, if you didn't know -anything about parrots, but after a while you'd realize it was just a -mimic. Right, Andy?" - -The puppet-like creature hummed again and Ernest listened, gesturing -the lieutenant to be quiet. - -Finally Ernest said: - - "_Down the valley, down the glen - Come the Mercials, ten by ten._" - -"That makes as much sense as the one about the liver," the lieutenant -said. - -"Takes it a bit further, I think. No, seriously. 'Mercials' is a set of -syllables I made up, as short for 'commercials'--or the sand in their -craw, the thumb in their soup--all the things they had to put up with -as the most captive of all audiences." - -"That wasn't an original thought, then?" - -"Probably not. Andy may be trying me out with a few simple couplets -before he throws a really hard one. I wonder if he knows he's got -through to me." He laughed as the lieutenant looked at him oddly. "I -don't mean _he_, personally. I know as well as you do he's some kind of -robot." - -"I see. You mean, is somebody controlling him now, or is he just -reacting to a stimulus the way he was built to do?" - -"Exactly." Ernest frowned at the doll-like creature. "I suppose the -scientific way would be to dissect him--it. Take it apart, I mean. I've -got to stop thinking of it as a him. We'd better get Doc Braddon in on -this." - -He punched the 'com button to Doc's cabin. The sleepy voice that -answered became alert as Ernest explained. Doc arrived minutes later -with an instrument kit, looking eager. - -"So this is your new toy," he said. The creature, which had been -slumped listlessly in the chair, seemed to look at Doc with distaste. -It hummed something. Doc looked inquiringly at Ernest. "Have you two -established communication?" - -"It's a robot," Ernest said defensively. "The question is, could -we learn more by leaving it intact and pumping it for whatever -information is stored up inside it, or by taking it apart? For -instance, it just said: - - "_Uninterred beyond the hills - Lie never weres and never wills._" - -Doc became excited. "It really said that?" - -"Well, not in so many words. It said--" - -"I know, I know. Your poetic license hasn't expired. I mean, that _is_ -the gist of it? That somewhere back of the hills there's a charnel -heap--a dump of corpses, of miscarriages--something of the sort?" - -"You could put that interpretation on it," Ernest said. "I got the -impression of something abortive." - -"That's the best lead yet," Doc said. "If we could find anything other -than dust piles, no matter how embryonic--Lieutenant, your boys must -have been looking in the wrong places. How soon can you get a detail -out over the hills?" - -The lieutenant looked at his watch. "If I've got this screwy rotation -figured out, dawn's about half an hour off. That soon enough?" - -"It'll have to do." - -"What about Raggedy Andy here?" Ernest asked. "Do we keep him intact?" - -"Don't touch a hair of his precious head," Doc said. "He's earned a -stay of dissection." - -The creature, still quiet in the chair, its eyes vacant now, hummed -almost inaudibly. Ernest bent to listen. - -"Well?" Doc said. - -"Strictly a non-sequitur," Ernest told him: - - "_Here we go, lass, through the heather; - Naught to daunt us save the tether._" - -"It makes me sad," Doc said. He yawned. "Maybe it's just the hour." - - * * * * * - -Cook had accomplished his usual legerdemain with the space rations but -the breakfast table was less appreciative than usual. - -"The detail's been gone a long time," Doc Braddon said, toying with an -omelet. "Do you think it's a wild goose chase?" - -"Reminds me of a time off Venus," the skipper said. "Before any of you -were born, probably...." - -His juniors listened politely until the familiar narrative was -interrupted by the 'com on the bulkhead. They recognized the voice of -Sergeant Maraffi, the non-com in charge of the crew in the scout craft. - -"We found something. Looks like bodies. Well preserved but incomplete. -Humanoid." - -"Bring 'em back," the skipper said. "As many as you've got room for in -the sling." He added as an afterthought: "Do they smell?" - -"Who knows?" Maraffi said. "I sure don't aim to take off my helmet to -find out. They're not decomposed, though." - -The skipper grumbled to Doc: "I thought you checked the atmosphere." - -"There isn't any," Doc said, annoyed. "Didn't you read my report?" - -"All right," the skipper said, not looking at him. "I can't do -everything. I naturally assumed these people breathed." - -"If they did, it wasn't air," Doc said. - -"Bring back all you can, Maraffi," the skipper said. "But leave them -outside the ship. Everybody on the detail takes double decontamination. -And we'll put you down for hazard pay." - -"Aye, aye, sir. We're on our way." - - * * * * * - -"They're androids," Doc said. He'd gone out in a protective suit to the -grisly pile. "These must be the false starts." - -The other technicians watched him on a closed-circuit hook-up from -inside the ship. - -"Are they like us?" Ernest asked. "They look it from here--what there -is of them." - -"Damn near," Doc said. "Smaller and darker, though. Rosco, you were -right about the communication. There's a tiny transceiver built into -their skulls. Those that have heads, that is." - -"If that's the case," Rosco said, "then why weren't these--stillbirths, -whatever you want to call them--turned to dust like the others?" - -"Because they'd never been activated," Doc said. "You can't blow a -fuse if it isn't screwed in. Skipper, I've seen about all my stomach -can stand for now. I suppose I'm a hell of a queasy sawbones, but -these--things--are too much like human beings for me to take much more -of them at the moment." - -"Come on back," the skipper said. "I don't feel too sturdy myself." - - * * * * * - -Ernest Hotaling was writing verse in his cabin when the lieutenant -intercommed him. He had just written, in free translation: - - _A girl is scarcely long for the road - If passion'd arms make her corrode._ - -Ernest wasn't entirely satisfied with the rhyme, though he felt he'd -captured the sense of it. The lieutenant's call interrupted his -polishing. He touched the 'com and said: "Hotaling." - -"Patrol's back, Mister Hotaling. You'll want to see what they found." - -"Another heap of false starts? No, thanks." - -"Not this time. They found some people. Two live people." - -"Alive! Be right there." - -He raced down, then fretted as he waited for Doc to fumigate the people -as they came through the airlock. Ernest saw them dimly through the -thick glass. They were quite human-looking. But how had they survived -whatever had turned thousands of their fellows to dust? Or were -these--a man and a woman, elderly and fragile-looking--the rulers who -had dusted the others? - -"How much longer, Doc?" he asked. - -Doc grinned. "In about two quatrains and a jingle, Ernest." - - * * * * * - -They brought the couple to the main lounge and set them down at a long -table. The skipper took a seat at the far end. Apparently he planned to -listen but not take part in the questioning. That would be up to Ernest -Hotaling, if he could establish communication. - -He'd mastered the language to the extent that he'd been able to -transcribe the record-coils and understand the robot, but whether he -could speak it intelligibly enough so that these living--he almost -thought "breathing"--people would understand him was a question. - -Doc Braddon took a seat next to the couple. Rosco was on the other side -of them and Ernest opposite them, across the table. - -Up close, it was obvious that they were androids. But they had been -remarkably made. They had none of the jerkiness of movement or -blankness of expression that had characterized Earth's attempts along -the same lines. - -Ernest explained his doubts about his ability to make himself -understood and asked his shipmates to be patient with him. He smiled at -the couple and said to them in English: "Welcome to our ship." Then he -repeated it in their humming language. - -They returned his smile and the old woman said something to the man. -Rosco looked inquiringly at Ernest, who shook his head. - -Ernest made a face. "I forgot to put it in verse. I'll try again." - -This time the response was immediate. Both man and woman spoke at once. -Then the woman smiled and nodded to the man to talk for both of them. - -It was just a curious sing-song humming for the rest of them, but -Ernest listened with rapt attention and apparent comprehension, though -not without strain. - -Finally the man stopped. - -"What did he say?" Rosco demanded. - -"Let me get the rest of it first," Ernest said. He spoke to the man -briefly. His expression became grave as he listened to the reply. - -"Well, come _on_!" Doc said impatiently. "Give us a translation." - -"All right," Ernest said. He looked troubled. "These two are the -only ones left of their race. The rest are dead--de-activated. The -others--the other race--left the planetoid some time ago." - -Ernest spoke again to the man. Listening to his reply, he found -it difficult to think of him as non-human. There was a sadness, a -fatalism, in his eyes, yet a dignity that came only with humanity. Only -a hairline separated these two from mankind. - -The impatience of the others made Ernest interrupt, so he could give -them a resumé. - -"As I said, they're the last. They survived only because they'd made -a pilgrimage to a kind of underground shrine. The signals that killed -the others didn't reach them through the layers of rock. Apparently the -shrine had something to do with a planned revolt against the electronic -law that governed them. - -"It was an insidious law," Ernest went on, "with built-in enforcement. -Any infraction could be punished instantly from central control in -the palace. The infraction would trigger a shock wave, tuned to the -individual frequency of the offender. The intensity of the wave was -geared to the seriousness of the offense. Treason meant death from the -strongest wave of all--the one that turned them to dust." - -"Absolute rule," Doc said. "Pretty hopeless." - -"Yes, in one way. But paradoxically they had an infinite amount of -freedom of speech. You see that in their verses. No one was punished -for what he said--only for what he did. I suppose it had to be that -way, otherwise there'd have been wholesale slaughter." - -"Which there was, at the end," Doc pointed out. "Who do you think -exercised the control that killed all the others?" - -"We did," Ernest said. "We killed them." - - * * * * * - -"We killed them?" Doc said. "You're crazy!" - -"You'd better explain yourself, Hotaling," the skipper said. "Stop -talking in riddles." - -"Aye, aye, sir. When I say we killed them, I don't mean directly or -deliberately. And of course I don't mean killed, since they were all -androids. But we de-activated them by triggering some mechanism when -our ship came to the planetoid their masters had left." - -"Hold on," the skipper said. "Now you're going too fast. Since they -were androids, and were created, the important thing is to find out -where these creators went--and whether it was last month or ten -thousand years ago." - -Ernest spoke to the couple. - -"It was a long time before we came," he translated. "They don't know -how long--their feeling of time is vague. They kept no records of their -own and because there were no children they have no conception of -generations. They were created adults, in various stages of maturity. -As for who the others were--they were the Masters, with a capital M; -gods, almost, in their view, with absolute power over them." - -"Where did they go?" the skipper asked. "And why? Let's try to get more -facts and less philosophy." - -"They went looking for a better world, where conditions for life -would be more favorable. Whether that means for the Masters or for -their creations isn't clear. Nobody consulted them. They'd been -given experimental life, only it was more a loan than a gift, to be -foreclosed if they displeased the Masters or in any way threatened -their experiment. - -"The Masters were like themselves in appearance. Whether they were air -breathers isn't clear because these two have no conception of what -breathing is. The Masters did wear elaborate costumes but whether these -were breathing suits or merely the trappings of their superiority is a -question. - -"I asked if the Masters were trying to create a new set of bodies -for themselves, possibly because their own were breaking down or -were diseased. The answer to that, like the answer to so many other -questions, is that they simply don't know." - -There was a commotion at the doorway. The soldier on guard there made -a futile grab at something. The something was the puppet-like creature -Ernest had named Andy, which evaded him and ran into the room. It -jumped lightly to the table, faced the old couple and pointed both its -arms at them. - -Their expressions, as they regarded the puppet, were of sorrowful -resignation. The man clasped the woman's hand. - -The puppet spoke, in a brief piercing hum. There was an instant of -quiet, then the dullest of popping sounds. The couple, who one second -had seemed as alive as any of the Earthmen, the next second were little -mounds of gray powder on the chairs and under the chairs. - -The lieutenant burst in, followed by the sergeant. "The Andy doll got -out of the cage!" he cried. "Did it come in here?" - -"Did it come in here?" the skipper mimicked. "Get out, lieutenant, and -take your comic-opera soldiers with you." To the technicians at the -table he yelled: "Grab that obscene thing!" - -The doll, grabbed from several directions, was torn apart, spilling out -a reddish-brown spongelike substance. - -Something else came out, too: a perforated disk the size of a fist. -Rosco retrieved it as it rolled along the table, then quickly dropped -it in an ash tray. - -"The damn thing's hot," he said. - -Doc Braddon, still looking stunned, asked Ernest: "What did the doll -say to them before it destroyed them?" - -"It was a sort of law-enforcing robot. They told me about it. A kind -of custodian the Masters left behind to keep things in line." Ernest -stared dully at the empty chairs. - -"It said: - - "_You hid, and I - Now bid you die!_" - -Rosco toyed with the ash tray in which he'd put the disk. "There's -a clue to the Masters right in this gadget," he said. "Maybe it's -simply a servo-mechanism that was set once and has been functioning -automatically ever since. But on the other hand it may still be linked -directly to the Masters." - -"Good point," the skipper said. "Give it a run-through for what it's -worth. If it does give us a line on where they got to, I'll ask the -Flagship for permission to track them down." - -Doc Braddon said to Ernest: "You said the Masters were godlike. You're -not implying anything supernatural?" - -"No. That was the androids' view, not mine. As a race of almost-people -created in a laboratory they naturally held their creators in a certain -awe. They hoped for liberation, and even tried to do something about -it; but they knew it was futile. The Masters built them so they'd turn -to dust if they misbehaved and when they left they fixed it so the -vibrations of any spaceship other than their own would do the same -thing--presumably so their creations wouldn't fall into other hands. -The sad thing is that the almost-people knew it. One of their verses -went: - - "_If comes the ship to make us free, - It killeth you, it killeth me._" - -"Do you mean we could have saved them if we'd come in with engines -silent?" the skipper asked. - -"I don't know," Ernest said. "They certainly didn't think much of their -potential. There's a fatalism, a sense of thwarted destiny running all -through their literature. Their hope died on the vine, so to speak. If -you can stand one more of their verses, this one might sum up their -philosophy: - - "_This they give to us they make: - They give us thirst, deny the slake._" - - * * * * * - -The skipper was silent for a time, staring down at the little mounds of -gray dust. - -Then he said to his technicians: - -"You've done a good job, all of you. We'll send a coordinated report -to the Flagship tomorrow and stand by for orders. In the meantime, if -there's anyone here with an honest physical thirst, I'd be glad to have -him join me in slaking it in my cabin. No offense implied, Ernest." - -"None taken, sir." - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENY THE SLAKE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Deny the Slake</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Richard Wilson</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: GAUGHAN</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 26, 2022 [eBook #68410]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENY THE SLAKE ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>DENY THE SLAKE</h1> - -<h2>By RICHARD WILSON</h2> - -<p>Illustrated by GAUGHAN</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"> Those couplets held</div> - <div class="verse"> (unless they lied)</div> - <div class="verse">The reason why</div> - <div class="verse"> a world had died!</div> -</div></div> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Infinity, April 1957.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The skipper looked at what Ernest Hotaling had scribbled on the slip of -paper.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><i>The color of my true love's cheek</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Will turn to gray within a week.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<p>The skipper read it and exploded. "What kind of nonsense is this?"</p> - -<p>"Of course it wouldn't rhyme in a literal translation," Ernest said -mildly. "But that's the sense of it."</p> - -<p>"Doggerel!" the skipper exclaimed. "Is this the message of the ages? Is -this the secret of the lost civilization?"</p> - -<p>"There are others, too," Ernest said. He was the psychologist-linguist -of the crew. "You've got to expect them to be obscure at first. They -didn't purposely leave any message for us."</p> - -<p>Ernest sorted through his scraps of paper and picked one out:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><i>They warn me once, they warn me twice.</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Alas! my heedn't turns me spice.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"There seems to be something there," Ernest said.</p> - -<p>The skipper snorted.</p> - -<p>"No, really," Ernest insisted. "An air of pessimism—even doom—runs -all through this stuff. Take this one, for instance:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Music sings within my brain:</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>I think I may go mad again.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"Now that begins to make some sense," said Rosco, the communications -chief. "It ties in with what Doc Braddon found."</p> - -<p>The skipper looked searchingly at his technicians, as if he suspected a -joke. But they were serious.</p> - -<p>"All right," the skipper said. "It baffles me, but I'm just a simple -spacefaring man. <i>You're</i> the experts. I'm going to my cabin and -communicate with the liquor chest. When you think you've got something -I can understand, let me know. 'I think I may go mad again.' Huh! I -think I may get drunk, myself."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>What the technicians of the research ship <i>Pringle</i> were trying to -learn was why the people of Planetoid S743 had turned to dust.</p> - -<p>They had thought at first they were coming to a living, if tiny, world. -There had been lights on the nightside and movement along what seemed -to be roads.</p> - -<p>But when they landed and explored, they found only powder in the places -where there should have been people. There were heaps of fine-grained -gray powder in the streets, in the driving compartments of the small -cars—themselves perfectly preserved—and scattered all through the -larger vehicles that looked like buses.</p> - -<p>There was powder in the homes. In one home they found a heap of the -gray stuff in front of a cookstove which was still warm, and another -heap on a chair and on the floor under the chair. It was as if a woman -and the man for whom she'd been preparing a meal had gone <i>poof</i>, in an -instant.</p> - -<p>The crew member who'd been on watch and reported the lights said later -they could have been atmospherics. The skipper himself had seen the -movement along the roads; he maintained a dignified silence.</p> - -<p>It had been a highly developed little world and the buildings were -incredibly old. The weather had beaten at them, rounding their edges -and softening their colors, but they were as sturdy as if they'd been -built last week.</p> - -<p>All the cities on the little world were similar. And all were dead. The -<i>Pringle</i> flew over a dozen of them, then returned to the big one near -the plain where the ship had come down originally.</p> - -<p>The tallest building in each city was ornate out of all proportion to -the rest. The researchers reasoned that this was the palace, or seat of -government. Each of these buildings had a network of metal tubing at -its peak. Where there were great distances between cities, tall towers -rose from the plains or sat on tops of mountains, each with a similar -metal network at the apex.</p> - -<p>The communications chief guessed that they were radio-video towers but -he was proved wrong. There were no radio or television sets anywhere, -or anything resembling them.</p> - -<p>Still, it was obvious that they were a kind of communications device.</p> - -<p>Doc Braddon got part of the answer from some of the gray dust he'd -performed an "autopsy" on.</p> - -<p>The dust had been found in a neat mound at the bottom of a large metal -container on the second-story of a medium-sized dwelling. Doc theorized -that one of the people had been taking some sort of waterless bath in -the container when the dust death came. The remains were thus complete, -not scattered or intermingled as most of the others were.</p> - -<p>Doc sorted the particles as best he could and found two types, one -definitely inorganic. He conferred with Rosco on the inorganic -residue. Rosco thought this might be the remains of a tiny pararadio -transceiver. Possibly each of the people had carried one around with -him, or built into him.</p> - -<p>"We're only guessing that they were people," Doc said cautiously, -"though it would seem safe to assume it, since we've found dust -everywhere people could be expected to be. What we need is a whole -corpse."</p> - -<p>While patrols were out looking for bodies Rosco tested his theory by -sending a radio signal from one of the towers and watching a feeble -reaction in the dust.</p> - -<p>"If we can assume that they were people," Rosco said, "they apparently -communicated over distances by personalized radio. Maybe through a -mechanism built into the skull. Would that mean there wouldn't be any -written language, Ernest?"</p> - -<p>Ernest Hotaling shrugged. "Not necessarily. I should think they'd have -kept records of some kind. They could have been written, or taped—or -chipped into stone, for that matter."</p> - -<p>He asked the lieutenant to enlarge his search. "Bring me anything that -looks like a book, or parchment, or microfilm, or tape. If it's chipped -in stone," he added with a grin, "I'll come to it."</p> - -<p>Meanwhile they ran off the film that had been grinding away -automatically ever since the planetoid came within photoradar range of -the ship. The film confirmed what the lookout reported—there had been -lights on the nightside.</p> - -<p>Furthermore, one of the sensitized strips at the side of the film -showed that signals, which had been going out from the tower tops in a -steady stream, increased furiously as the <i>Pringle</i> approached. Then, -as the ship came closer, they stopped altogether. At the same instant -the lights on the nightside of the planetoid went out. The film showed -that the road movement the skipper had seen stopped then, too.</p> - -<p>Ernest tried to analyze the signals reproduced on the film. He had -small success. If they represented a language, it would take years -before he could even guess what they meant. The only thing he was sure -of was that the signals, just before they died, had become a thousand -times more powerful.</p> - -<p>"Maybe that's what killed them," Rosco said.</p> - -<p>"Possibly," Ernest said. "It begins to look as if the people were -deliberately killed, or committed suicide, all at once, when we hove -into sight. But why?"</p> - -<p>"You tell me," Rosco said. "That sounds like your department."</p> - -<p>But Ernest could tell him nothing until after the lieutenant came back -with a long slender cylinder enclosing a seemingly endless coil of fine -wire. The lieutenant also brought a companion cylinder, apparently a -means of playing back what was recorded on the coil.</p> - -<p>Ernest experimented until he learned how to operate it, then shooed -everybody out of his cabin and went to work.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ernest Hotaling had joined the crew of the research ship <i>Pringle</i> -on Ganymede as a replacement for Old Craddock, who'd decided on short -notice that thirty years of spacefaring were enough. It would be -another ten or twelve years before the <i>Pringle</i> returned to Earth and -though Craddock was only seventy-eight his yearning to start a proper -bee farm became overwhelming.</p> - -<p>The others were not unhappy about his departure. The swarm he'd kept -in his cabin was small but the bees were gregarious and were as likely -to be found in the recreation room as in their hive. So when Craddock -and the paraphernalia he'd collected over the decades had debarked, -the rest of the crew sighed in collective relief and the skipper went -looking for a replacement.</p> - -<p>Ernest Hotaling, fresh out of Ganymede U., was the only man qualified, -on the record, for the job. He had the necessary languages and his -doctorate was in psychology, though his specialty was child therapy.</p> - -<p>The skipper puzzled through the copy of Ernest's master's thesis. The -lad—he was twenty-three then—had devoted it to children's folklore. -The skipper, admittedly a simple man, wasn't sure it contributed -profitably to the world's knowledge to spend a year in the study and -explanation of <i>Winnie the Pooh</i>, or <i>Step on a crack/Break your -mother's back</i>, or <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>.</p> - -<p>The skipper had gone to Space Prep at the age of fourteen and later to -the Academy itself and there were obviously wide areas of childhood -that had passed him by. He'd never heard of <i>Struwwelpeter</i>, for -instance, or <i>Ibbety bibbety gibbety goat</i>, and he wondered if a grown -man who immersed himself in this sort of thing was the one for the job.</p> - -<p>What was worse was that Hotaling, according to the University yearbook, -was a poet.</p> - -<p>But when the skipper interviewed Hotaling and found him to be a lean, -muscular young man who'd obviously had a haircut in the past week and -who laughed genuinely at one of the skipper's more purple stories, he -signed him on immediately.</p> - -<p>The skipper had one last thought. "You don't keep bees, do you?"</p> - -<p>"Not even in my bonnet," Ernest said.</p> - -<p>"Then we'll get along. Just keep your nursery rhymes to yourself."</p> - -<p>"Aye, aye, sir," said Ernest.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Look," Ernest told the skipper, "I've studied their literature, if -that's what it is, until I'm saturated with it. Maybe it doesn't -make sense to you but I've worked out a sort of pattern. It's an -alien culture, sure, and there are gaps in it, but what there is fits -together."</p> - -<p>"All right," the skipper said. "I'm not questioning your findings. I -just want to know why it has to be in that ridiculous rhyme."</p> - -<p>"Because they were a poetic people, that's why. And it doesn't <i>have</i> -to be in rhyme. I could give you the literal translation, but it was -rhymed originally and when I make it rhyme in English too you get a -more exact idea of the kind of people they were."</p> - -<p>"I suppose so," the skipper said. "As long as we don't have to report -to the Flagship in the sonnet form I guess I can put up with it. I just -don't want to become the laughing stock of the fleet."</p> - -<p>"It's no laughing matter," Ernest said. "It's pretty tragic, in -any number of ways. In the first place, as Rosco suspected, they -communicated by radio. But they had no privacy and couldn't hide -anything from anybody. They were always listened in on by the big boys -in the palace."</p> - -<p>"How do you know?"</p> - -<p>"By the coil I worked from. It's a listening-storing device. These -aren't official records I've transcribed; they're the everyday -expressions of everyday people. And every one of them had been taken -down and stored away, presumably so it could be used against the person -who expressed it, if it ever became necessary.</p> - -<p>"But they couldn't always get through to the person they wanted to -reach, even though they got through to the coil. Here's a sad little -lover's lament, for instance:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>My plea to her is lost, as though</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>The other three command the flow.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"Like a busy signal?" asked the skipper.</p> - -<p>"Very much like one," Ernest said, pleased by the skipper's -comprehension. "On the other hand, they always got the messages from -the palace. These took priority over all other traffic and were apt -to come at any time of the day or night. The people were just one big -captive audience."</p> - -<p>"What about the dust? That seems to be a recurring theme in those -jingles of yours."</p> - -<p>"It is." Ernest quoted:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Dust is he and dust his brother;</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>They all follow one another.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"They're all dust now," the skipper said. "Did they have a revolution, -finally, that killed everybody off?"</p> - -<p>"Both sides—the rulers and the ruled, simultaneously? Maybe so." -Ernest sorted through his pieces of paper. "There's this one, with its -inference of the death of royalty along with that of the common man:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Comes the King! O hear him rustle;</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Falter, step, and wither, muscle.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>The skipper was beginning to be exasperated again.</p> - -<p>"I'll be in my cabin," he said. "You seem to accomplish more when I -keep out of your way. But if you want to join me in a little whiskey to -keep the falters and withers at bay, come along."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The lieutenant knocked at Ernest's door in the middle of the night. -"Mister Hotaling!" he called urgently.</p> - -<p>Ernest fumbled into a pair of pants and opened the door.</p> - -<p>"One of the men found this thing," the lieutenant said. "We were going -to keep it locked up till morning but it's driving me crazy. Figured -you'd better have a look at it."</p> - -<p>The thing was a blue-green puppet of a creature wearing—or made of—a -kind of metallic sailcloth. It was about three feet tall, a caricature -of a human being. It hung limp by one arm from the lieutenant's grasp, -its head lolling on its shoulder.</p> - -<p>"What is it?" Ernest asked sleepily, "a doll?"</p> - -<p>"No; it's just playing dead now. It was doing a clog step in the cage -before." He gave the thing a shake. "The worst of it is, it hummed all -the time. And the humming seems to mean something."</p> - -<p>"Bring it in here," Ernest said. He was fully awake now. "Put it in the -armchair and stick around in case I can't handle it."</p> - -<p>The creature sat awkwardly where it was put. But then the eyes, which -a moment ago had seemed to be painted on the face, shifted and looked -squarely at Ernest. It hummed at him.</p> - -<p>"I see what you mean," he told the lieutenant. "It seems to be trying -to communicate. It's the same language as on the coils." He stared at -it. "I wish it didn't remind me of Raggedy Andy. Where did you find it?"</p> - -<p>"In the throneroom of the palace. One of the men on guard there grabbed -it as it came out of a panel in the wall. He grabbed it and it went -limp, like a doll."</p> - -<p>"Listen," said Ernest.</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Don't you cry, boys; don't you quiver,</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Though all the sand is in your liver.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"What's that?" the lieutenant said. "Do you feel all right, Mister -Hotaling?"</p> - -<p>"Sure. That's what he said. Raggedy Andy here. I translated it—with a -little poetic license."</p> - -<p>"What does it mean?"</p> - -<p>"I don't think it's a direct message to us. More likely it's something -filed away inside his brain, or electronic storage chamber or whatever -he's got. The verse is in the pattern of the ones I translated the -other day. The question now is whether Andy has any original thoughts -in his head or whether he's just a walking record library."</p> - -<p>"How can you tell?"</p> - -<p>"By continuing to listen to him, I suppose. A parrot might fool you -into thinking it had intelligence of its own, if you didn't know -anything about parrots, but after a while you'd realize it was just a -mimic. Right, Andy?"</p> - -<p>The puppet-like creature hummed again and Ernest listened, gesturing -the lieutenant to be quiet.</p> - -<p>Finally Ernest said:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Down the valley, down the glen</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Come the Mercials, ten by ten.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"That makes as much sense as the one about the liver," the lieutenant -said.</p> - -<p>"Takes it a bit further, I think. No, seriously. 'Mercials' is a set of -syllables I made up, as short for 'commercials'—or the sand in their -craw, the thumb in their soup—all the things they had to put up with -as the most captive of all audiences."</p> - -<p>"That wasn't an original thought, then?"</p> - -<p>"Probably not. Andy may be trying me out with a few simple couplets -before he throws a really hard one. I wonder if he knows he's got -through to me." He laughed as the lieutenant looked at him oddly. "I -don't mean <i>he</i>, personally. I know as well as you do he's some kind of -robot."</p> - -<p>"I see. You mean, is somebody controlling him now, or is he just -reacting to a stimulus the way he was built to do?"</p> - -<p>"Exactly." Ernest frowned at the doll-like creature. "I suppose the -scientific way would be to dissect him—it. Take it apart, I mean. I've -got to stop thinking of it as a him. We'd better get Doc Braddon in on -this."</p> - -<p>He punched the 'com button to Doc's cabin. The sleepy voice that -answered became alert as Ernest explained. Doc arrived minutes later -with an instrument kit, looking eager.</p> - -<p>"So this is your new toy," he said. The creature, which had been -slumped listlessly in the chair, seemed to look at Doc with distaste. -It hummed something. Doc looked inquiringly at Ernest. "Have you two -established communication?"</p> - -<p>"It's a robot," Ernest said defensively. "The question is, could -we learn more by leaving it intact and pumping it for whatever -information is stored up inside it, or by taking it apart? For -instance, it just said:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Uninterred beyond the hills</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Lie never weres and never wills.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>Doc became excited. "It really said that?"</p> - -<p>"Well, not in so many words. It said—"</p> - -<p>"I know, I know. Your poetic license hasn't expired. I mean, that <i>is</i> -the gist of it? That somewhere back of the hills there's a charnel -heap—a dump of corpses, of miscarriages—something of the sort?"</p> - -<p>"You could put that interpretation on it," Ernest said. "I got the -impression of something abortive."</p> - -<p>"That's the best lead yet," Doc said. "If we could find anything other -than dust piles, no matter how embryonic—Lieutenant, your boys must -have been looking in the wrong places. How soon can you get a detail -out over the hills?"</p> - -<p>The lieutenant looked at his watch. "If I've got this screwy rotation -figured out, dawn's about half an hour off. That soon enough?"</p> - -<p>"It'll have to do."</p> - -<p>"What about Raggedy Andy here?" Ernest asked. "Do we keep him intact?"</p> - -<p>"Don't touch a hair of his precious head," Doc said. "He's earned a -stay of dissection."</p> - -<p>The creature, still quiet in the chair, its eyes vacant now, hummed -almost inaudibly. Ernest bent to listen.</p> - -<p>"Well?" Doc said.</p> - -<p>"Strictly a non-sequitur," Ernest told him:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>Here we go, lass, through the heather;</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Naught to daunt us save the tether.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"It makes me sad," Doc said. He yawned. "Maybe it's just the hour."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Cook had accomplished his usual legerdemain with the space -rations but the breakfast table was less appreciative than usual.</p> - -<p>"The detail's been gone a long time," Doc Braddon said, toying with an -omelet. "Do you think it's a wild goose chase?"</p> - -<p>"Reminds me of a time off Venus," the skipper said. "Before any of you -were born, probably...."</p> - -<p>His juniors listened politely until the familiar narrative was -interrupted by the 'com on the bulkhead. They recognized the voice of -Sergeant Maraffi, the non-com in charge of the crew in the scout craft.</p> - -<p>"We found something. Looks like bodies. Well preserved but incomplete. -Humanoid."</p> - -<p>"Bring 'em back," the skipper said. "As many as you've got room for in -the sling." He added as an afterthought: "Do they smell?"</p> - -<p>"Who knows?" Maraffi said. "I sure don't aim to take off my helmet to -find out. They're not decomposed, though."</p> - -<p>The skipper grumbled to Doc: "I thought you checked the atmosphere."</p> - -<p>"There isn't any," Doc said, annoyed. "Didn't you read my report?"</p> - -<p>"All right," the skipper said, not looking at him. "I can't do -everything. I naturally assumed these people breathed."</p> - -<p>"If they did, it wasn't air," Doc said.</p> - -<p>"Bring back all you can, Maraffi," the skipper said. "But leave them -outside the ship. Everybody on the detail takes double decontamination. -And we'll put you down for hazard pay."</p> - -<p>"Aye, aye, sir. We're on our way."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"They're androids," Doc said. He'd gone out in a protective suit to the -grisly pile. "These must be the false starts."</p> - -<p>The other technicians watched him on a closed-circuit hook-up from -inside the ship.</p> - -<p>"Are they like us?" Ernest asked. "They look it from here—what there -is of them."</p> - -<p>"Damn near," Doc said. "Smaller and darker, though. Rosco, you were -right about the communication. There's a tiny transceiver built into -their skulls. Those that have heads, that is."</p> - -<p>"If that's the case," Rosco said, "then why weren't these—stillbirths, -whatever you want to call them—turned to dust like the others?"</p> - -<p>"Because they'd never been activated," Doc said. "You can't blow a -fuse if it isn't screwed in. Skipper, I've seen about all my stomach -can stand for now. I suppose I'm a hell of a queasy sawbones, but -these—things—are too much like human beings for me to take much more -of them at the moment."</p> - -<p>"Come on back," the skipper said. "I don't feel too sturdy myself."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Ernest Hotaling was writing verse in his cabin when the lieutenant -intercommed him. He had just written, in free translation:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse"><i>A girl is scarcely long for the road</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>If passion'd arms make her corrode.</i></div> -</div></div> - - -<p>Ernest wasn't entirely satisfied with the rhyme, though he felt he'd -captured the sense of it. The lieutenant's call interrupted his -polishing. He touched the 'com and said: "Hotaling."</p> - -<p>"Patrol's back, Mister Hotaling. You'll want to see what they found."</p> - -<p>"Another heap of false starts? No, thanks."</p> - -<p>"Not this time. They found some people. Two live people."</p> - -<p>"Alive! Be right there."</p> - -<p>He raced down, then fretted as he waited for Doc to fumigate the people -as they came through the airlock. Ernest saw them dimly through the -thick glass. They were quite human-looking. But how had they survived -whatever had turned thousands of their fellows to dust? Or were -these—a man and a woman, elderly and fragile-looking—the rulers who -had dusted the others?</p> - -<p>"How much longer, Doc?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Doc grinned. "In about two quatrains and a jingle, Ernest."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They brought the couple to the main lounge and set them down at a long -table. The skipper took a seat at the far end. Apparently he planned to -listen but not take part in the questioning. That would be up to Ernest -Hotaling, if he could establish communication.</p> - -<p>He'd mastered the language to the extent that he'd been able to -transcribe the record-coils and understand the robot, but whether he -could speak it intelligibly enough so that these living—he almost -thought "breathing"—people would understand him was a question.</p> - -<p>Doc Braddon took a seat next to the couple. Rosco was on the other side -of them and Ernest opposite them, across the table.</p> - -<p>Up close, it was obvious that they were androids. But they had been -remarkably made. They had none of the jerkiness of movement or -blankness of expression that had characterized Earth's attempts along -the same lines.</p> - -<p>Ernest explained his doubts about his ability to make himself -understood and asked his shipmates to be patient with him. He smiled at -the couple and said to them in English: "Welcome to our ship." Then he -repeated it in their humming language.</p> - -<p>They returned his smile and the old woman said something to the man. -Rosco looked inquiringly at Ernest, who shook his head.</p> - -<p>Ernest made a face. "I forgot to put it in verse. I'll try again."</p> - -<p>This time the response was immediate. Both man and woman spoke at once. -Then the woman smiled and nodded to the man to talk for both of them.</p> - -<p>It was just a curious sing-song humming for the rest of them, but -Ernest listened with rapt attention and apparent comprehension, though -not without strain.</p> - -<p>Finally the man stopped.</p> - -<p>"What did he say?" Rosco demanded.</p> - -<p>"Let me get the rest of it first," Ernest said. He spoke to the man -briefly. His expression became grave as he listened to the reply.</p> - -<p>"Well, come <i>on</i>!" Doc said impatiently. "Give us a translation."</p> - -<p>"All right," Ernest said. He looked troubled. "These two are the -only ones left of their race. The rest are dead—de-activated. The -others—the other race—left the planetoid some time ago."</p> - -<p>Ernest spoke again to the man. Listening to his reply, he found -it difficult to think of him as non-human. There was a sadness, a -fatalism, in his eyes, yet a dignity that came only with humanity. Only -a hairline separated these two from mankind.</p> - -<p>The impatience of the others made Ernest interrupt, so he could give -them a resumé.</p> - -<p>"As I said, they're the last. They survived only because they'd made -a pilgrimage to a kind of underground shrine. The signals that killed -the others didn't reach them through the layers of rock. Apparently the -shrine had something to do with a planned revolt against the electronic -law that governed them.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"It was an insidious law," Ernest went on, "with built-in enforcement. -Any infraction could be punished instantly from central control in -the palace. The infraction would trigger a shock wave, tuned to the -individual frequency of the offender. The intensity of the wave was -geared to the seriousness of the offense. Treason meant death from the -strongest wave of all—the one that turned them to dust."</p> - -<p>"Absolute rule," Doc said. "Pretty hopeless."</p> - -<p>"Yes, in one way. But paradoxically they had an infinite amount of -freedom of speech. You see that in their verses. No one was punished -for what he said—only for what he did. I suppose it had to be that -way, otherwise there'd have been wholesale slaughter."</p> - -<p>"Which there was, at the end," Doc pointed out. "Who do you think -exercised the control that killed all the others?"</p> - -<p>"We did," Ernest said. "We killed them."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"We killed them?" Doc said. "You're crazy!"</p> - -<p>"You'd better explain yourself, Hotaling," the skipper said. "Stop -talking in riddles."</p> - -<p>"Aye, aye, sir. When I say we killed them, I don't mean directly or -deliberately. And of course I don't mean killed, since they were all -androids. But we de-activated them by triggering some mechanism when -our ship came to the planetoid their masters had left."</p> - -<p>"Hold on," the skipper said. "Now you're going too fast. Since they -were androids, and were created, the important thing is to find out -where these creators went—and whether it was last month or ten -thousand years ago."</p> - -<p>Ernest spoke to the couple.</p> - -<p>"It was a long time before we came," he translated. "They don't know -how long—their feeling of time is vague. They kept no records of their -own and because there were no children they have no conception of -generations. They were created adults, in various stages of maturity. -As for who the others were—they were the Masters, with a capital M; -gods, almost, in their view, with absolute power over them."</p> - -<p>"Where did they go?" the skipper asked. "And why? Let's try to get more -facts and less philosophy."</p> - -<p>"They went looking for a better world, where conditions for life -would be more favorable. Whether that means for the Masters or for -their creations isn't clear. Nobody consulted them. They'd been -given experimental life, only it was more a loan than a gift, to be -foreclosed if they displeased the Masters or in any way threatened -their experiment.</p> - -<p>"The Masters were like themselves in appearance. Whether they were air -breathers isn't clear because these two have no conception of what -breathing is. The Masters did wear elaborate costumes but whether these -were breathing suits or merely the trappings of their superiority is a -question.</p> - -<p>"I asked if the Masters were trying to create a new set of bodies -for themselves, possibly because their own were breaking down or -were diseased. The answer to that, like the answer to so many other -questions, is that they simply don't know."</p> - -<p>There was a commotion at the doorway. The soldier on guard there made -a futile grab at something. The something was the puppet-like creature -Ernest had named Andy, which evaded him and ran into the room. It -jumped lightly to the table, faced the old couple and pointed both its -arms at them.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Their expressions, as they regarded the puppet, were of sorrowful -resignation. The man clasped the woman's hand.</p> - -<p>The puppet spoke, in a brief piercing hum. There was an instant of -quiet, then the dullest of popping sounds. The couple, who one second -had seemed as alive as any of the Earthmen, the next second were little -mounds of gray powder on the chairs and under the chairs.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant burst in, followed by the sergeant. "The Andy doll got -out of the cage!" he cried. "Did it come in here?"</p> - -<p>"Did it come in here?" the skipper mimicked. "Get out, lieutenant, and -take your comic-opera soldiers with you." To the technicians at the -table he yelled: "Grab that obscene thing!"</p> - -<p>The doll, grabbed from several directions, was torn apart, spilling out -a reddish-brown spongelike substance.</p> - -<p>Something else came out, too: a perforated disk the size of a fist. -Rosco retrieved it as it rolled along the table, then quickly dropped -it in an ash tray.</p> - -<p>"The damn thing's hot," he said.</p> - -<p>Doc Braddon, still looking stunned, asked Ernest: "What did the doll -say to them before it destroyed them?"</p> - -<p>"It was a sort of law-enforcing robot. They told me about it. A kind -of custodian the Masters left behind to keep things in line." Ernest -stared dully at the empty chairs.</p> - -<p>"It said:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>You hid, and I</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>Now bid you die!</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>Rosco toyed with the ash tray in which he'd put the disk. "There's -a clue to the Masters right in this gadget," he said. "Maybe it's -simply a servo-mechanism that was set once and has been functioning -automatically ever since. But on the other hand it may still be linked -directly to the Masters."</p> - -<p>"Good point," the skipper said. "Give it a run-through for what it's -worth. If it does give us a line on where they got to, I'll ask the -Flagship for permission to track them down."</p> - -<p>Doc Braddon said to Ernest: "You said the Masters were godlike. You're -not implying anything supernatural?"</p> - -<p>"No. That was the androids' view, not mine. As a race of almost-people -created in a laboratory they naturally held their creators in a certain -awe. They hoped for liberation, and even tried to do something about -it; but they knew it was futile. The Masters built them so they'd turn -to dust if they misbehaved and when they left they fixed it so the -vibrations of any spaceship other than their own would do the same -thing—presumably so their creations wouldn't fall into other hands. -The sad thing is that the almost-people knew it. One of their verses -went:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>If comes the ship to make us free,</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>It killeth you, it killeth me.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<p>"Do you mean we could have saved them if we'd come in with engines -silent?" the skipper asked.</p> - -<p>"I don't know," Ernest said. "They certainly didn't think much of their -potential. There's a fatalism, a sense of thwarted destiny running all -through their literature. Their hope died on the vine, so to speak. If -you can stand one more of their verses, this one might sum up their -philosophy:</p> - -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"<i>This they give to us they make:</i></div> - <div class="verse"><i>They give us thirst, deny the slake.</i>"</div> -</div></div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The skipper was silent for a time, staring down at the little mounds of -gray dust.</p> - -<p>Then he said to his technicians:</p> - -<p>"You've done a good job, all of you. We'll send a coordinated report -to the Flagship tomorrow and stand by for orders. In the meantime, if -there's anyone here with an honest physical thirst, I'd be glad to have -him join me in slaking it in my cabin. No offense implied, Ernest."</p> - -<p>"None taken, sir."</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DENY THE SLAKE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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