Clifford Simak - Dusty Zebra - And Other Stories

Sometime soon he should sight the smoke of the Earthmen’s camp. Any ridge, the next ridge, each succeeding hummock in the winding trail, he had assured himself, would bring him upon the camp itself. He would reach higher ground and there the camp would be, spread out in front of him, with the semicircle of white canvas gleaming in the fading light and the thin trail of smoke rising from the larger cook tent where Bat Ears Brady would be bellowing one of his obscene songs.

But that had been an hour ago when the sun still stood a good two hands high. He remembered now, standing on the ridge-top, that he had been a little nervous, but not really apprehensive. It had been unthinkable, then, that a man could get himself lost in an hour’s walk out of camp.

Now the sun was gone and the cold was creeping in and the wind had a lonely sound he had not noticed when the light was good.

One more rise, he decided. One more ridge, and if that is not the one, I’ll give up until morning. Find a sheltered place somewhere, a rock face of some sort that will give me some protection and reflect a campfire’s heat—if I can find anything with which to make a campfire.

He stood and listened to the wind moaning across the land behind him and it seemed to him there was a whimper in the sound, as if the wind were anxious, that it might be following on his track, sniffing out his scent.

Then he heard the other sound, the soft, padding sound that came up the hill toward him.

Ira Warren sat at his desk and stared accusingly at the paperwork stacked in front of him. Reluctantly he took some of the papers off the stack and laid them on the desk.

That fool Falkner, he thought. I’ve told them and I’ve told them that they have to stick together, that no one must go wandering off alone.

A bunch of babies, he told himself savagely. Just a bunch of drooling kids, fresh out of college, barely dry behind the ears and all hopped up with erudition, but without any common sense. And not a one of them would listen. That was the worst of it, not a one of them would listen.

Someone scratched on the canvas of the tent.

“Come in,” called Warren.

Dr. Morgan entered.

“Good evening, commander,” he said.

“Well,” said Warren irritably, “what now?”

“Why, now,” said Dr. Morgan, sweating just a little. “It’s the matter of the serum.”

“The serum?”

“The serum,” said Dr. Morgan. “It isn’t any good.”

“What do you mean?” asked Warren. “I have troubles, doctor. I can’t play patty-cake with you about your serum.”

“It’s too old,” said Morgan. “A good ten years too old. You can’t use old serum. You see, it might …”

“Stop chattering,” commanded Warren, sharply. “The serum is too old, you say. When did you find this out?”

“Just now.”

“You mean this very moment?”

Morgan nodded miserably.

Warren pushed the papers to one side very carefully and deliberately. He placed his hands on the desk in front of him and made a tent out of his fingers.

“Tell me this, doctor,” said Warren, speaking cautiously, as if he were hunting in his mind for the exact words which he must use, “how long has this expedition been on Landro?”

“Why,” said Morgan, “quite some time, I’d say.” He counted mental fingers. “Six weeks, to be exact.”

“And the serum has been here all that time?”

“Why, of course,” said Morgan. “It was unloaded from the ship at the same time as all the other stuff.”

“It wasn’t left around somewhere, so that you just found it? It was taken to your tent at once?”

“Of course it was,” said Morgan. “The very first thing. I always insist upon that procedure.”

“At any time in the last six weeks, at any given moment in any day of that whole six weeks, you could have inspected the serum and found it was no good? Isn’t that correct, doctor?”

“I suppose I could have,” Morgan admitted. “It was just that…”

“You didn’t have the time,” suggested Warren, sweetly.

“Well, not that,” said Morgan.

“You were, perhaps, too pressed with other interests?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“You were aware that up to a week ago we could have contacted the ship by radio and it could have turned back and took us off. They would have done that if we had let them know about the serum.”

“I know that.”

“And you know now that they’re outside our radio range. We can’t let them know. We can’t call them back. We won’t have any contact with the human race for the next two years.”

“I,” said Morgan, weakly, “I…”

“It’s been lovely knowing you,” Warren told him. “Just how long do you figure it will be before we are dead?”

“It will be another week or so before we’ll become susceptible to the virus,” Morgan said. “It will take, in certain stubborn cases, six weeks or so for it to kill a man.”

“Two months,” said Warren. “Three, at the outside. Would you say that was right, Dr. Morgan?”

“Yes,” said Morgan.

“There is something that I want you to tell me,” Warren said.

“What is it?” Morgan asked.

“Sometime when you have a moment, when you have the time and it is no inconvenience to you, I should like to know just how it feels to kill twenty-five of your fellow men.”

“I,” said Morgan, “I…”

“And yourself, of course,” said Warren. “That makes twenty-six.”

Bat Ears Brady was a character. For more than thirty years now he had been going out on planetary expeditions with Commander Ira Warren, although Warren had not been a commander when it started, but a second looey. Today they were still together, a team of toughened planet-checkers. Although no one on the outside would have known that they were a team, for Warren headed the expedition and Bat Ears cooked for them.

Now Warren set out a bottle on his desk and sent for Bat Ears Brady.

Warren heard him coming for some time before he finally arrived. He’d had a drink or two too many and he was singing most obscenely.

He came through the tent entrance walking stiff and straight, as if there were a chalked line laid out for him to follow. He saw the bottle on the desk and picked it up, disregarding the glasses set beside it. He lowered the bottle by a good three inches and set it back again. Then he took the camp chair that had been placed there for him.

“What’s the matter now?” he demanded. “You never send for me unless there’s something wrong.”

“What,” asked Warren, “have you been drinking?”

Bat Ears hiccupped politely. “Little something I cooked up.”

He regarded Warren balefully. “Use to be we could bring in a little something, but now they say we can’t. What little there is you keep under lock and key. When a man gets thirsty, it sure tests his ingen … ingen … ingen …”

“Ingenuity,” said Warren.

“That’s the word,” said Bat Ears. “That’s the word, exactly.”

“We’re in a jam, Bat Ears,” said Warren.

“We’re always in a jam,” said Bat Ears. “Ain’t like the old days, Ira. Had some he-men then. But now…”

“I know what you mean,” said Warren.

“Kids,” said Bat Ears, spitting on the floor in a gesture of contempt. “Scarcely out of didies. Got to wipe their noses and…”

“It isn’t that kind of a jam,” said Warren. “This is the real McCoy. If we can’t figure this one out, we’ll all be dead before two months are gone.”

“Natives?” asked Bat Ears.

“Not the natives,” Warren told him. “Although more than likely they’d be glad to do us in if there was a chance.”

“Cheeky customers,” said Bat Ears. “One of them sneaked into the cook tent and I kicked him off the reservation real unceremonious. He did considerable squalling at me. He didn’t like it none.”