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diff --git a/78738-h/78738-h.htm b/78738-h/78738-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8792397 --- /dev/null +++ b/78738-h/78738-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,484 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The Watchers | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} +.f15 {font-size: 1.5em;} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe110_9375 {width: 110.9375em;} + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78738 ***</div> + + + +<figure class="figcenter illowe110_9375" id="cover"> + <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + Transcribed from Universe Science Fiction, March 1954 (Vol. 1, No. 4.). + </figcaption> +</figure> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<h1> +The Watchers +</h1> + + +<p class="center f15">by <strong>Jan Smith</strong></p> +<p class="center">[Pseudonym of <strong>George H. Smith</strong>]</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + +<blockquote> +<p>Many stories have been written about the problems of dealing with alien +races, of wars between mankind and bems. But maybe that won’t be a +serious problem after all; we’d probably have no use for planets suited +to alien life-forms, our troubles may be with life-forms similar to +us—oxygen-breathing bipeds, looking for Earth-type planets, like the +Rumi. It’s then that we’ll have need for</p> +<p class="center"><b>The Watchers</b></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div> + + +<p>Man had been happy back in his little two-by-four system. Happy but +not contented. So he had invented himself a stellar drive and had +burst out of his nice safe little system into a galaxy that he wasn’t +really ready for. A galaxy where there just wasn’t enough of him to +go around and where other races were on the move, some of them races +that also wanted oxygen planets.</p> + +<p>That’s why there was a Space Frontier +Watcher Service—just as if there could be any frontiers in space. Man +was spread so wide and far between that sometimes he was only a rumor. +But always out on the periphery of his empire was the Watcher Service; +The Watchdogs of Space, they called us. That’s why I was sprawled in +front of my fire on a tiny hunk of moon they called Thirty which wound +its way around a worthless molten planet named Nestrond in a system +you probably never heard of on the other side of Wolfe 359.</p> + +<p>Thirty +was a small, jagged planet with just enough gravity to hang on to a +breathless atmosphere, the thirtieth out among Nestrond’s huge litter +of moons. There were nights on Thirty when the big planet hung overhead +like a bloated pumpkin, the bulges in its gaseous mass lending an +impossibly grotesque appearance to its face. Sometimes I would watch it +as it came peeping over the ragged edge of Thirty; it seemed so close +that you held your breath for fear it would puncture itself. There were +other nights when Nestrond was eclipsed by clouds of gaseous matter and +by the nearer moons and then I’d lie there and listen to the stars +whispering—whispering the same age old stories that were always new, the +stories that lured man to Luna, then to Mars and finally right out of +the Solar System itself.</p> + +<p>But mostly I watched the screens +in my underground bunker, watched the space search radar screens and +listened to the robot patrol rockets as they reported back, their +mechanical voices reeling off the endless series of numbers that were +their only language. Numbers that were punched into cards and fed into +interpreters as fast as the information came over the hyperwave radio.</p> + +<p>They picked you out for this Service because your mother and father +and their mothers and fathers had been Watchers. The training course +was your whole life up to the time you were graduated to the tune of +speeches and cheering. Then they pinned a little gold radarscope on +your collar and assigned you to your first six months of lonely vigil +somewhere away off from everywhere. You ate and you slept and you were +bored and you were lonely but you watched.</p> + +<p>And then one day you weren’t +bored anymore. You were excited and maybe just a trifle scared because +the keys of the translators were pounding out a report from one of +your brood of robots, a report that meant that something was coming +in from outside. A fleet of somethings and a fleet could mean only +one thing—a Rumi raid.</p> + +<p>Man had managed to get along with the flying +squid from Sirius, with intelligent plants on Varga but never with the +Rumi. They were just too much alike. Two races of oxygen-breathing +bipeds in one Galaxy were about one too many.</p> + +<p>This was why I was here +on a moon in a deserted system that had been ignored by men until the +Space Patrol had learned that Rumi raiders sometimes passed through it +on their sporadic raids on the colonial worlds of Wolfe 359. Now they +were coming and I had only to wait and watch my radar screens until +they were in range, count them and press the red labeled button that +activated the hyperwave General Alarm Radio, a radio buried deep in the +solid granite of Thirty. A radio which would keep broadcasting even if +the Rumi should blast my bunker off the face of the moon and sear it +from end to end.</p> + +<p>Then the Rumi squadron came onto my screen. Man and +Rumi had fought a five year war, a war without a fleet action or a +general battle. A war of slashing cruiser raids, of surprise and trap. A +war of sudden raids in the night, of atomic torpedoes smashing into the +hulls of ships, of men dying in suddenly airless compartments. A war of +blasted frontier towns and brief, flaming battles over distant worlds. A +war of attrition in which the heavy Terran battlefleet could never quite +bring its full weight to bear on the light Rumi forces. It was always a +city blasted here or a convoy cut to pieces someplace else.</p> + +<p>Slowly the beeps on the screen drew closer, dividing themselves into +half-a-dozen pencil-thin cruiser shapes. With a quick leap across the +room I pressed the general alarm stud and started the hyperwave signals +on their way. The warnings would alert every Terran cruiser squadron +within range and would give the teeming cities of Asgard and Olympia +a few hours notice before the disruptor bombs of the Rumi rained down +on them. Then, my purpose on Thirty accomplished. I settled back to +watch, my excitement fading away; fading away and then suddenly flaring +up again as a seventh object came on the screen, an object that showed +as a red dot which meant a Terran ship. An unarmed, private craft, +for a warship would have shown as orange on the IFF screen.</p> + +<p>The Rumi +had picked up the Terran craft also, because even as I watched one of +the alien cruisers peeled off and headed toward it. The Terran craft +was aware of its danger now and had changed course and was heading +directly toward the Nestrond system.</p> + +<p>My eyes glued to the spacescope +I watched as the two ships came within visual range. The long black +Rumi cruiser with its bulging blaster turrets was closing in quickly on +a small Terran Crossley 18 of a type used mostly for private yachts. +I watched as the Terran ship went into what must have been a body +wracking turn in a desperate attempt to throw off the cruiser. The +pilot of the Crossley was good but not good enough. A disruptor beam +from the raider caught the Earth ship in the port tubes and it fell away +spiraling into the gravity of Thirty, with flames engulfing its after +portion as it reached atmosphere.</p> + +<p>With only a few hundred feet to spare +the damaged spacer pulled out of its fall with a flare of landing +rockets, slowly leveled off into a wobbly glide and headed for a fairly +level plateau about twenty miles from my bunker. Then the Rumi ship was +coming back, orbiting just outside atmosphere and finally plunging into +it to pass over my concealed post with the heavy beat of ion rockets. +The big ship filled my whole vision screen for a few moments and I +would have given my ears for a pair of six-inch blasters in turret +mounting. But I didn’t even have as much as a sidearm; Watchers were +supposed to watch and warn, not fight.</p> + +<p>The raider swept across the +bow of the crippled Terran ship and poured everything she had into it at +point blank range. I could see that she had been holed repeatedly but +was still not finished, she had a pair of jets in action and someone at +the controls who knew his business. The one thing that the automatics +can’t do is to set a spacer down in one piece; the intricate business +of landing takes a pilot, not exactly a superman but the closest thing +to homo superior in reflexes and know-how you could +find. And setting a damaged ship down on a pillar of fire with only +half your jets in action just can’t be done. The guy in this ship came +close, though. He was at tree top level now, shaving off trees like +blades of grass and splashing flame about like a Martian fire dancer, +fighting the ship all the way. He just couldn’t keep her level and the +ship nosed over and smashed itself into a ball of smoke and flame in a +dry river bed. The odds against anyone surviving that crack-up seemed +overwhelming but with my scanner trained for close range I thought I +saw a space-suited figure stumble, fall and then crawl away from the +ship just before the fuel tanks let go with a blast that shook every +instrument in my station.</p> + +<p>The raider had swung up out of Thirty’s +atmosphere and was turning its nose outward but it had launched a life +boat which was circling down for a landing. Those cat-faced devils +never miss a trick. That landing force was to make sure that no one +had survived to send a possible warning.</p> + +<p>If those catmen thought +someone had survived that crash, maybe I thought so too. My orders +were very specific about not leaving my bunker and about not taking +any chances of my whereabouts being discovered but something within +me was just as specific about not leaving an injured human being to +the Rumi’s none too tender mercies. In a matter of minutes I was into +my outer clothing and hurrying up the ramp from my bunker.</p> + +<p>The cold +on Thirty was unlike the cold anyplace else. It seemed to have the +ability to seep its way through the thickest clothing or the stoutest +walls. Even hurrying as I was through the gathering hoar frost, I could +feel it creeping into my flesh. I hoped fervently that I would be back +in the warmth of the bunker by the time the sun set because then it +really got cold.</p> + +<p>To travel a mile on Thirty you have to climb twenty +up and down. It was hard going all the way and my breath was coming +in heavy, gasping pants by the time I reached a ledge over the dry +river bed in which the wrecked spacer lay. It took me only one look +to see that I was too late. Beside the twisted mass of the ship sat a +small gleaming object, the spaceboat from the Rumi cruiser. Six of the +raiders were gathered about the space-suited figure of a human being. +In a few minutes they would either have loaded the injured person into +their ship and taken off or they would have done away with him. My +first thought was to try to get to their ship but since it lay only a +few hundred feet away from where they stood that was impossible. If I +only had some sort of weapon, I thought, I would be in an ideal spot +to pick them off one by one. The closest I could come to a weapon was +a small pocket magnesium flare for signalling purposes.</p> + +<p>If I was to do anything before it was too late I realized that I would +have to get closer. Dropping down on my stomach, I began to crawl +inch by inch down among the rocks and scrub growth toward where the +Rumi were busying themselves over the supine human figure.</p> + +<p>After ten +minutes of crawling and slithering through underbrush that ripped my +clothing and scratched me badly about the face, I had worked my way to +within twenty feet of the Rumi. I had been careful to keep downwind +of them for I wasn’t sure how strong their animal sense of smell was. +Certainly the musty odor of them floated down on the wind so strongly +that I could make my way around them without having to risk looking +until I reached what I took to be a safe spot in a clump of brush on +the bank of the river almost above their heads.</p> + +<p>When I did look I saw +that the Rumi had finished taking the spacesuit off the prisoner and +had gotten her—for the survivor of the Terran yacht was a girl—to her +feet. Behind them I could see clearly the wreck of the Crossley with +the name <i>Star Lady</i> on her bow. Even I had heard of the yacht <i>Star Lady</i> +and her owner Charles Thomson, millionaire explorer. Without a doubt +the girl was Thomson’s daughter. The Rumi hadn’t killed her immediately +so they probably intended to hold her for ransom as they did so many +of their prisoners.</p> + +<p>The girl was fighting and kicking as two of the +raiders dragged her back toward their ship. I knew that if I didn’t act +quickly they would have her aboard and far beyond any help I could give +her. There was only one thing I could do and that was to delay them +until I could think of some way of getting her out of their hands. If +they thought there was someone else on the satellite, they might make an +attempt to get me too before they left. I shoved with my foot and sent +a small avalanche of rocks and gravel down into the river bed. They were +after me instantly, three of them bounding along in my direction with +their flamers out. By the time they had scrambled up the bank, I was +crashing away into the undergrowth and out of sight. Now I knew they +wouldn’t leave, not without tracking me down first and I had an idea +it would turn out to be quite a job. Even with their catlike ability +for following a spoor, I intended to give them a run for their money +and if they caught me at least one or two of them might regret it. I +knew my satellite and I was confident that my training would give me +an advantage over them on its rugged surface. If I could get them to +split up, the odds against me might even come down a little.</p> + +<p>Running, +climbing, crawling, I kept them always upwind of me and always the +sickening big cat odor warned me that they weren’t +far behind, that big cat odor that anyone who has ever visited a zoo +or lion farm is familiar with. Occasionally when I stopped to catch a +few breaths I would hear them pounding along tirelessly and I would +be on my feet again and plunging ahead.</p> + +<p>A few hours before it was +time for the sun to set, they split up. We had been crossing one of +the few level spots on the planet, a great stretch of grassland. The +tall, hardy grass reached almost over my head. The Rumi were a good +bit taller than I, so much taller in fact that I could see their heads +above the grass when they still could not see me. I watched them split +up in an attempt to cut me off from the hills which they took to be my +destination. Half an hour after they split up, I killed the first of +them and doubled back in the direction of the river bed. Now I had a +weapon, one of those deadly Rumi heat rays called flamers. They wear +them strapped to their forepaws because of their lack of a grasping +hand. As I put on an extra burst of speed I wasn’t much worried about +the other two. They had gotten well off the scent in their attempt to +head me off and by the time they realized that they had lost me, night +would have closed in and I didn’t put much store in the ability of +those jungle cats to survive a night on Thirty. There were still three +of them left back at the wreck and they would either have returned +to their lifeboat or made a camp—I hoped it would be the latter.</p> + +<p>My +luck was still holding for when I reached the river bed I found them +huddled about a fire in the shelter of the wrecked Terran ship. An +officer and two others made perfect targets against the firelight but +I couldn’t fire because the figure of the girl sat in the circle of +light near them. With such an unfamiliar and widely destructive weapon, +I would be almost certain to cut her down as well as her captors.</p> + +<p>Once +more I took advantage of a downwind position to work my way around +their camp and in among the wreckage of the <i>Star Lady</i>. The feel of the +magnesium flare in my pocket had given me an idea. If I could just +panic them and spread them out where the girl wouldn’t be in my line +of fire, I would have a good chance of picking them off. As silently +as possible I climbed up on what remained of the fore section of the +craft and dragged myself to a spot that was almost directly over their +heads. In the leaping light of the fire, I looked almost squarely into +the narrow, fur-covered faces of the raiders and could also see the +pale, pretty face of the girl framed in blond hair. Quietly but with my +heart pounding, I edged forward even closer—I had to be close—I couldn’t +afford to miss. If any of them looked up now they couldn’t miss seeing +me. Slowly I worked the flare out of my pocket and let +it roll off the edge of the wreck. An intense white light shot upward +temporarily blinding the Rumi. Two of them did just what I had hoped, +they stumbled off in the direction of their lifeboat. The officer did +what I had hoped they wouldn’t do, he grabbed the girl and pulled her +back out of the light.</p> + +<p>Even with that strange weapon, I knew I couldn’t +miss those two running Rumi. I cut them down with three quick blasts +and then slid quickly from the top of the ship as the officer poured +a stream of fire at me, fire that splashed and roared over my head. As +I fell to the ground, I caught a quick glimpse of the girl. She had +broken away from her captor and was darting into the undergrowth. He +sent one burst of flame after her and then had to leap for cover as +I sent a steady stream of fire in his direction. Then I was running, +dodging and twisting behind boulders and rocks and firing as I ran +until my gun clicked empty. I cursed myself for having forgotten to +take the extra clips of ammo from the creature I had killed. As my +quarry almost got my range, I plunged headlong into some brush and +lay for a minute getting my bearings in the rapidly fading light from +the flare. Carefully now and with more deliberate air, the Rumi tried +to burn me. As quietly as I could I moved toward him in the heavy +undergrowth. The light was almost gone and I didn’t think that even +his cat eyes would be much good in the ebony dark Thirty night. I could +smell him, clearly in my nose was that musty smell and no matter how +still he might lie or how silently he might creep about on those padded +feet of his, I could follow him. I stalked him in the darkness and he +knew he was being stalked. He blazed away at every shadow, at every bush +that moved in the cold wind that whistled along the river bed.</p> + +<p>He was +afraid now and his scent was stronger. Then he was running, trying to +get to the lifeboat and I was after him. He was stumbling and sobbing +now, occasionally turning to fire back along the way he had come. But +I had already bounded around ahead of him and was coming in to attack. +He turned, his paw with the flamer darting upward. He was quick but +not quick enough. My hurtling body struck him before the gun could fire +and we went down in a struggling heap. The Rumi rolled over trying to +regain his feet but he couldn’t break my grip. The heat gun had fallen +into the undergrowth and he was trying desperately to recover it and to +fight me off at the same time. Unable to find the gun he turned his +full attention to me.</p> + +<p>We fought body to body, the musky smell of him +almost choking me at such close quarters. At the same time it sent a +hot flood of rage surging through me. He clawed vainly for the knife in +his belt. He was big and had the muscles of a wildcat but +he had evolved too far up the scale of evolution for a battle of fang +and claw. I found his throat and he screamed wildly like the big jungle +cats his ancestors had been, screamed and thrashed about until I found +his jugular vein. Then he lay still and his cat blood was all over me.</p> + +<p>A few hours later I found the girl. She had been running in circles for +hours and had finally settled down near a small fire she had started +with a Rumi flamer. She was all hunched over with her arms wrapped +about her as I stepped out into the circle of light. I came as near to +dying then as I had at any time that night.</p> + +<p>Miss Thomson screamed +at first sight of me and her heat gun leaped upward. I saw her finger +tighten on the firing pin—then she relaxed and ran toward me.</p> + +<p>“Thank God! You’re not a raider, are you? Come here, doggie! Nice doggie!”</p> + +<p>I nuzzled +her hand as she patted my head. Later I might tell her that I came from +a race of mutant dogs with I.Q.’s in the 200’s, developed by man to +aid him in guarding the far boundaries of his space frontiers ... later +I might tell her all about the watchdogs of space ... but right now I +felt like having my ears scratched.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note: + </h2> + +<p>This etext was produced from Universe Science Fiction, March 1954 (Vol. 1, +No. 4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> + +<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor +inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78738 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78738-h/images/cover.jpg b/78738-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..14d67ba --- /dev/null +++ b/78738-h/images/cover.jpg |
