Science Fiction - Daily Short Stories

They Also Serve - Donald E Westlake

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Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 31 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. They also serve by Donald E. Westlake. Why should people hate vultures? After all, a vulture never kills anyone. The launch carrying the mail, supplies, and replacements eased slowly in toward the base, keeping the bulk of the moon between itself and Earth. Captain E. Bors seated at the controls guided the ship to the rocky, uneven ground with the easy carelessness of long practice. Then cut the drive, got to his walking tentacles, and stretched. Donning his spacesuit, he'd left the ship to go over to the dome and meet Darkwall Noie, the base commander. An open ground car was waiting for him beside the ship. The driver encased in his spacesuit crossed tentacles in a sloppy salute, and E. Bors returned the gesture quite as sloppily. Here on the periphery, cast formalities were all but dispensed with. E. Bors stood for a moment and watched the unloading. The cargo crew used to working in spacesuits had one truck already half full. The replacements, unused to spacesuits, and in addition, awed and a bit startled by the bleakness of this satellite were moving awkwardly down the ramp. Satisfied that the unloading was proceeding smoothly, E. Bors climbed aboard the ground car, awkward in his suit, and settled back heavily in the seat to try and get used to gravity again. The gravity of this moon was slight, of course, barely one-sixth the gravity of the homeworld or most of the colonies, but it still took getting used to after a long trip in free fall. The driver sat at the controls and the car jerked into motion. E. Bors, looking up, noticed for the first time that the dome wasn't there anymore. The main dome, housing the staff and equipment of the base, just wasn't there. And the driver, he now saw, was aiming the car toward the nearby crater wall, extending two of his eyes till they almost touched the faceplate of his helmet he could see activity at the base of the crater wall and what looked like an airlock entrance. He wondered what had caused the change, which had obviously been done at top speed. The last time he'd been here, not very long ago, the dome had still been intact and there had been no hint of any impending move underground. The driver steered the car into the open airlock and they waited until the first cargo truck had lumbered in after them. Then the outer door closed, the pumps were turned on and in a minute the red light flashed over the inner door. E. Bors removed the space suit gratefully, left it in the car and walked clumsily through the inner door into the new base. A good job had been done on it for all the speed. Rooms and carters had been melted out of the rock, the floors had been carpeted though walls painted and the ceiling lined with light panels. All of the furnishings had been transferred here from the original dome and the result looked on the hole quite livable, as livable as the dome had been at least. But the base commander, Darkwellnoy, waiting for his old friend E. Bors near the inner door of the lock looked anything but happy with the arrangement. At E. Bors entrance he raised a limp tentacle in weary greeting and said, "Come in my friend, come in. "Tell me the new jokes from home I could use some cheering up." "None worth telling," said E. Bors. He looked around. "What's happened here?" he asked. "Why have you gone underground? "Why do you need cheering up?" Darkwellnoy clicked his eyes in despair. "Those things," he cried, "those annoying little creatures on that blasted planet up there." E. Bors repressed an amused ripple. He knew Darkwellnoy well enough to know that the commander invariably overstated things. "What have they been up to, Dar?" he asked. "Come on, you can tell me over a hot cup of rest, no." "I've been practically living on the stuff for the last two dren," said Darkwellnoy hopelessly. "Well, I suppose another cup won't kill me. Come on to my quarters." "I've worked up a fine thirst on the trip," E. Bors told him. The two walked down the long corridor together and E. Bors said, "Well, what happened?" "They came here," Darkwellnoy told him simply. At E. Bors shocked, look, he rippled in one amusement and said, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as it might have been. I suppose it was just that we had to rush around so frantically unloading and dismantling the dome, getting this place ready." "What do you mean they came here?" demanded E. Bors. "They are absolutely the worst creatures for secrecy in the entire galaxy," exclaimed Darkwellnoy in irritation. "Absolutely the worst." "Then you've picked up at least one of their habits," E. Bors told him. He kept talking in circles and tell me what happened. "They built a spaceship is the long and short of it," Darkwellnoy answered. E. Bors stopped an astonishment. "No." "Don't tell me, no," cried Darkwellnoy. "I saw it." He was obviously at his wit's end. "It's unbelievable," said E. Bors. "I know," said Darkwellnoy. He led the way into his quarters, motioned E. Bors to a perch and rang for his orderly. It was just a little remote-controlled apparatus, of course, he said. The fledgling attempt, you know. But it circled this moon here, busily taking pictures and went right back to the planet again, giving us all a terrible fright. There hadn't been the slightest indication they were planning anything that spectacular. "None?" asked E. Bors. "Not a hint?" "Oh, they've been boasting about doing some such things for ages," Darkwellnoy told him. But there was never any indication that they were finally serious about it. They have all sorts of military secrecy, of course, and so you never know a thing is going to happen until it does. Did they get a picture of the dome? Thankfully no, and before they had a chance to try again I whipped everything underground. "It must have been hectic," E. Bors said sympathetically. "It was," said Darkwellnoy simply. He utterly entered. Darkwellnoy told him two rest-note, and he left again. "I can't imagine them making a spaceship," said E. Bors thoughtfully. "I would have thought they'd have blown themselves up long before reaching that stage." "I would have thought so too," said Darkwellnoy, "but there it is. At the moment they've divided themselves into two camps, generally speaking, that is, and the two sides are trying like mad to outdo each other in everything. As a part of it they're shooting all sorts of rubbish into space and crowing every time a piece of the other side's rubbish malfunctions. They could go on that way and definitely," said E. Bors. "I know," said Darkwellnoy gloomily. "And here we sit," E. Bors nodded, studying his friend. "You don't suppose this is all the waste of time, do you?" he asked after a minute. Darkwellnoy shook a tentacle in negation. "Not at all. Not at all. They'll get around to it sooner or later. They're still boasting themselves into the proper frame of mind. That's all." E. Bors rippled in sympathetic amusement. "I imagine you sometimes wish you could give them a little prodding in the right direction," he said. Darkwellnoy fluttered his tentacles in horror, crying, "Don't even think of such a thing." "I know, I know," said E. Bors hastily, "the laws." "Never mind the laws," snapped Darkwellnoy. "I'm not even thinking about the laws. Frankly, if it would do any good, I might even consider breaking one or two of the laws and the devil with my conditioning." "You are," upset, said E. Bors at that. "But if we were to interfere with those creatures up there," continued Darkwellnoy, "interfear with them in any way at all, it would be absolutely disastrous." The orderly returned at that point with two steaming cups of rest-know. Darkwellnoy and E. Bors accepted the cups and the orderly left, making a sloppy tentacle cross-solute, which the two ignored. "I wasn't talking necessarily about attacking them, you know," said E. Bors, returning to the subject. "Neither was I," Darkwellnoy told him. "We wouldn't have to attack them. All we would have to do is let them know we're here. Not even why we're here, just the simple fact of our presence. That would be enough. They would attack us." E. Bors extended his eyes in surprise. "As vicious as all that?" "Chilling," Darkwellnoy told him. "Absolutely chilling." "Then I'm surprised they haven't blown themselves to pieces long before this." "Oh, well," said Darkwellnoy, "you see they're cowards, too. They have to boast and brag and shout a while before they finally get to clawing and biting at one another." E. Bors waved a tentacle. "Don't make it so vivid." "Sorry," apologized Darkwellnoy. He drained his cup of rest-know. Out here, he said, living next door to the little beasts day after day one begins to lose one's sensibilities. It has been a long time, agreed E. Bors. Longer than we had originally anticipated, Darkwellnoy said frankly. "We've been ready to move in for, I don't know how long, and instead we just sit here and wait, which isn't good for morale, either." "No, I don't imagine it is." "There's already a theory among some of the workmen that the blow-up just isn't going to happen, ever, and since that ship went circling by, of course, morale has hit a new low." "It would have been nasty if they'd spotted you," said E. Bors. "Nasty," echoed Darkwellnoy, "catastrophic, you mean. All that crowd up there needs is an enemy, and it doesn't much matter to them who that enemy is. If they were to suspect that we were here, they'd forget their own little squabbles at once and start killing us instead. And that, of course, would mean that they'd be united for the first time in their history. And who knows how long it would take them before they'd get back to killing one another again?" "Well," said E. Bors, "you're underground now, and it can't possibly take them too much longer." One wouldn't think so, agreed Darkwellnoy. "In a way," he added, "that spaceship was a hopeful sign. It means that they'll be sending a manned ship along pretty soon, and that should do the trick. As soon as one side has a base on the moon, the other side is bound to get things started." "A relief for you, eh?" said E. Bors. "You know," said Darkwellnoy thoughtfully, "I can't help thinking I was born in the wrong age. All this scrabbling around, searching everywhere for suitable planets, back when the universe was younger, there were lots and lots of planets to colonize. Now the old problem of half-life is taking its toll, and we can't even hope to keep up with the birth-rate any more. If it weren't for the occasional planets like that one up there, I don't know what we'd do." "Don't worry," E. Bors told him. "They'll have their atomic war pretty soon, and leave us a nice high radiation planet to colonize." "I certainly hope it's soon," said Darkwellnoy. This waiting gets on one's nerves. He rang for the orderly. "End of, they also serve, by Donald E. Westlake." Owning a rental property sounds like a dream, until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. Determine a competitive rent price, market the property, schedule the showing screen, tenants drop out the lease at a rent collection, handle maintenance request, maintain communication. Whew! Sound complicated? 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