The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (78 page)

Somehow it seemed natural that the chuck and Beasly should
be sitting there together—the two of them, it appeared to Taine, might have a
lot in common.

And it was a good beginning—that a man and an alien creature
from this other world should sit down companion ably together.

He tried to envision the setup of these linked worlds, of
which Earth now was a part, and the possibilities that lay inherent in the fact
of linkage rolled thunder through his brain.

There would be contact between the Earth and these other
worlds and what would come of it?

And come to think of it, the contact had been made already,
but so naturally, so undramatically, that it failed to register as a great,
important meeting. For Beasly and the chuck out there were contact and if it
all should go like that, there was absolutely nothing for one to worry over.

This was no haphazard business, he reminded himself. It had
been planned and executed with the smoothness of long practice. This was not
the first world to be opened and it would not be the last.

The little ratlike things had spanned space—how many
light-years of space one could not even guess—in the vehicle which he had
unearthed out in the woods. They then had buried it, perhaps as a child might
hide a dish by shoving it into a pile of sand. Then they had come to this very
house and had set up the apparatus that had made this house a tunnel between
one world and another. And once that had been done, the need of crossing space
had been canceled out forever. There need be but one crossing and that one
crossing would serve to link the planets.

And once the job was done the little ratlike things had
left, but not before they had made certain that this gateway to their planet
would stand against no matter what assault. They had sheathed the house inside
the studdings with a wonder-material that would resist an ax and that,
undoubtedly, would resist much more than a simple ax.

And they had marched in drill-order single file out to the
hill where eight more of the space machines had rested in their cradles. And
now there were only seven there, in their cradles on the hill, and the ratlike
things were gone and, perhaps, in time to come, they'd land on another planet
and another doorway would be opened, a link to yet another world.

But more, Taine thought, than the linking of mere worlds. It
would be, as well, the linking of the peoples of those worlds.

The little ratlike creatures were the explorers and the
pioneers who sought out other Earthlike planets and the creature waiting with
Beasly just outside the window must also serve its purpose and perhaps in time
to come there would be a purpose which man would also serve.

He turned away from the window and looked around the room
and the room was exactly as it had been ever since he could remember it. With
all the change outside, with all that was happening outside, the room remained
unchanged.

This is the reality, thought Taine, this is all the reality
there is. Whatever else may happen, this is where I stand—this room with its
fireplace blackened by many winter fires, the bookshelves with the old thumbed
volumes, the easy chair, the ancient worn carpet—worn by beloved and
unforgotten feet through the many years.

And this also, he knew, was the lull before the storm.

In just a little while the brass would start arriving—the
team of scientists, the governmental functionaries, the military, the observers
from the other countries, the officials from the U.N.

And against all these, he realized he stood weaponless and
shorn of his strength. No matter what a man might say or think, he could not
stand off the world.

This was the last day that this would be the Taine house.
After almost a hundred years, it would have another destiny.

And for the first time in all those years there'd be no
Taine asleep beneath its roof.

He stood looking at the fireplace and the shelves of books
and he sensed the old, pale ghosts walking in the room and he lifted a hesitant
hand as if to wave farewell, not only to the ghosts but to the room as well.
But before he got it up, he dropped it to his side.

What was the use, he thought.

He went out to the porch and sat down on the steps.

Beasly heard him and turned around.

"He's nice," he said to Taine, patting the chuck
upon the back. "He's exactly like a great big teddy bear."

"Yes, I see," said Taine.

"And best of all, I can talk with him."

"Yes, I know," said Taine, remembering that Beasly
could talk with Towser, too.

He wondered what it would be like to live in the simple
world of Beasly. At times, he decided, it would be comfortable.

The ratlike things had come in the spaceship, but why had
they come to Willow Bend, why had they picked this house, the only house in all
the village where they would have found the equipment that they needed to build
their apparatus so easily and so quickly? For there was no doubt that they had
cannibalized the computer to get the equipment they needed. In that, at least,
Henry had been right. Thinking back on it, Henry, after all, had played quite a
part in it.

Could they have foreseen that on this particular week in
this particular house the probability of quickly and easily doing what they had
come to do had stood very high?

Did they, with all their other talents and technology, have
clairvoyance as well?

"There's someone coming," Beasly said.

"I don't see a thing."

"Neither do I," said Beasly, "but Chuck told
me that he saw them."

"Told you!"

"I told you we been talking. There, I can see them,
too."

They were far off, but they were coming fast—three dots that
rode rapidly up out of the desert.

He sat and watched them come and he thought of going in to
get the rifle, but he didn't stir from his seat upon the steps. The rifle would
do no good, he told himself. It would be a senseless thing to get it; more than
that, a senseless attitude. The least that man could do, he thought, was to
meet these creatures of another world with clean and empty hands.

They were closer now and it seemed to him that they were
sitting in invisible easy chairs that traveled very fast.

He saw that they were humanoid, to a degree at least, and
there were only three of them.

They came in with a rush and stopped very suddenly a hundred
feet or so from where he sat upon the steps.

He didn't move or say a word—there was nothing he could say.
It was too ridiculous.

They were, perhaps, a little smaller than himself, and black
as the ace of spades, and they wore skin-tight shorts and vests that were
somewhat oversize and both the shorts and vests were the blue of April skies.

But that was not the worst of it.

They sat on saddles, with horns in front and stirrups and a
sort of a bedroll tied on the back, but they had no horses.

The saddles floated in the air, with the stirrups about
three feet above the ground and the aliens sat easily in the saddles and stared
at him and he stared back at them.

Finally he got up and moved forward a step or two and when
he did that the three swung from the saddles and moved forward, too, while the
saddles hung there in the air, exactly as they'd left them.

Taine walked forward and the three walked forward until they
were no more than six feet apart.

"They say hello to you," said Beasly. "They
say welcome to you."

"Well, all right, then, tell them—Say, how do you know
all this!"

"Chuck tells me what they say and I tell you. You tell
me and I tell him and he tells them. That's the way it works. That is what he's
here for."

"Well, 111 be-" said Taine. "So you can
really talk to him."

"I told you that I could," stormed Beasly. "I
told you that I could talk to Towser, too, but you thought that I was
crazy."

"Telepathy!" said Taine. And it was worse than
ever now. Not only had the ratlike things known all the rest of it, but they'd
known of Beasly, too.

"What was that you said, Hiram?"

"Never mind," said Taine. "Tell that friend
of yours to tell them I'm glad to meet them and what can I do for them?"

He stood uncomfortably and stared at the three and he saw
that their vests had many pockets and that the pockets were all crammed,
probably with their equivalent of tobacco and handkerchiefs and pocketknives
and such.

"They say," said Beasly, "that they want to
dicker."

"Dicker?"

"Sure, Hiram. You know, trade."

Beasly chuckled thinly. "Imagine them laying themselves
open to a Yankee trader. That's what Henry says you are. He says you can skin a
man on the slickest—"

"Leave Henry out of this," snapped Taine.
"Let's leave Henry out of something."

He sat down on the ground and the three sat down to face
him.

"Ask them what they have in mind to trade."

"Ideas," Beasly said.

"Ideas! That's a crazy thing—"

And then he saw it wasn't.

Of all the commodities that might be exchanged by an alien
peope, ideas would be the most valuable and the easiest to handle. They'd take
no cargo room and they'd upset no economies—not immediately, that is—and they'd
make a bigger contribution to the welfare of the cultures than trade in actual goods.

"Ask them," said Taine, "what they'll take
for the idea back of those saddles they are riding."

"They say, what have you to offer?"

And that was the stumper. That was the one that would be
hard to answer.

Automobiles and trucks, the internal gas engine—well,
probably not. Because they already had the saddles. Earth was out of date in
transportation from the viewpoint of these people.

Housing architecture—no, that was hardly an idea and,
anyhow, there was that other house, so they knew of houses.

Cloth? No, they had cloth.

Paint, he thought. Maybe paint was it.

"See if they are interested in paint," Taine told
Beasly.

"They say, what is it? Please explain yourself."

"O.K., then. Let's see. It's a protective device to be
spread over almost any surface. Easily packaged and easily applied. Protects
against weather and corrosion. It's decorative, too. Comes in all sorts of
colors. And it's cheap to make."

"They shrug in their mind," said Beasly.
"They're just slightly interested. But they'll listen more. Go ahead and
tell them."

And that was more like it, thought Taine.

That was the kind of language that he could understand.

He settled himself more firmly on the ground and bent
forward slightly, flicking his eyes across the three dead-pan, ebony faces, trying
to make out what they might be thinking.

There was no making out. Those were three of the deadest
pans he had ever seen.

It was all familiar. It made him feel at home. He was in his
element.

And in the three across from him, he felt somehow subconsciously,
he had the best dickering opposition he had ever met. And that made him feel
good, too.

"Tell them," he said, "that I'm not quite
sure. I may have spoken up too hastily. Paint, after all, is a mighty valuable
idea."

"They say, just as a favor to them, not that they're
really interested, would you tell them a little more."

Got them hooked, Taine told himself. If he could only play
it right-He setded down to dickering in earnest

Hours later Henry Horton showed up. He was accompanied by a
very urbane gentleman, who was faultlessly turned out and who carried beneath
his arm an impressive attache case.

Henry and the man stopped on the steps in sheer
astonishment.

Taine was squatted on the ground with a length of board and
he was daubing paint on it while the aliens watched. From the daubs here and
there upon their anatomies, it was plain to see the aliens had been doing some
daubing of their own. Spread all over the ground were other lengths of
half-painted boards and a couple of dozen old cans of paint.

Taine looked up and saw Henry and the man.

"I was hoping," he said, "that someone would
show up."

"Hiram," said Henry, with more importance than
usual, "may I present Mr. Lancaster. He is a special representative of the
United Nations."

"I'm glad to meet you, sir," said Taine. "I
wonder if you would—"

"Mr. Lancaster," Henry explained grandly,
"was having some slight difficulty getting through the lines outside, so I
volunteered my services. I've already explained to him our joint interest in
this matter."

"It was very kind of Mr. Horton," Lancaster said.
"There was this stupid sergeant—"

"It's all in knowing," Henry said, "how to
handle people."

The remark, Taine noticed, was not appreciated by the man
from the U.N.

"May I inquire, Mr. Taine," asked Lancaster,
"exactly what you're doing?"

"I'm dickering," said Taine.

"Dickering. What a quaint way of expressing—"

"An old Yankee word," said Henry quickly,
"with certain connotations of its own. When you trade with someone you are
exchanging goods, but if you're dickering with him you're out to get his
hide."

"Interesting," said Lancaster. "And I suppose
you're out to skin these gentlemen in the sky-blue vests—"

"Hiram," said Henry, proudly, "is the
sharpest dickerer in these parts. He runs an antique business and he has to
dicker hard—"

"And may I ask," said Lancaster, ignoring Henry
finally, "what you might be doing with these cans of paint? Are these
gentlemen potential customers for paint or—"

Taine threw down the board and rose angrily to his feet.

"If you'd both shut up!" he shouted. "I've
been trying to say something ever since you got here and I can't get in a word.
And I tell you, it's important—"