Clifford Simak - I Am Crying All Inside - And Other Stories

“Nellie!” yelled Mackenzie.

A bulky shadow loomed in the darkness.

“Yeah, chief, it’s me,” said Nellie. “I brung you something.”

She dumped Wade across the doorway.

Wade rolled over and groaned. There were skittering, flapping sounds as two fluttering shapes detached themselves from Wade’s shoulders.

“Nellie,” said Mackenzie, harshly, “there was no need to beat him up. You should have brought him back just as he was and let me take care of him.”

“Gee, boss,” protested Nellie. “I didn’t beat him up. He was like that when I found him.”

Nicodemus was clawing his way to Mackenzie’s shoulder, while Smith’s life blanket scuttled for the corner where his master lay.

“It was us, boss,” piped Nicodemus. “We laid him out.”

“You laid him out?”

“Sure, there was two of us and only one of him. We fed him poison.”

Nicodemus settled into place on Mackenzie’s shoulders.

“I didn’t like him,” he declared. “He wasn’t nothing like you, boss. I didn’t want to change like him. I wanted to stay like you.”

“This poison?” asked Mackenzie. “Nothing fatal, I hope.”

“Sure not, pal,” Nicodemus told him. “We only made him sick. He didn’t know what was happening until it was too late to do anything about it. We bargained with him, we did. We told him we’d quit feeding it to him if he took us back. He was on his way here, too, but he’d never have made it if it hadn’t been for Nellie.”

“Chief,” pleaded Nellie, “when he gets so he knows what it’s all about, won’t you let me have him for about five minutes?”

“No,” said Mackenzie.

“He strung me up,” wailed Nellie. “He hid in the cliff and lassoed me and left me hanging there. It took me hours to get loose. Honest, I wouldn’t hurt him much. I’d just kick him around a little, gentle-like.”

From the cliff top came the rustling of grass as if hundreds of little feet were advancing upon them.

“We got visitors,” said Nicodemus.

The visitors, Mackenzie saw, were the conductors, dozens of little gnomelike figures that moved up and squatted on their haunches, faintly luminous eyes blinking at them.

One of them shambled forward. As he came closer, Mackenzie saw that it was Alder.

“Well?” Mackenzie demanded.

“We came to tell you the deal is off,” Alder squeaked. “Delbert came and told us.”

“Told you what?”

“About what you do to trees.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

“But you made the deal,” Mackenzie told him. “You can’t back out now. Why, Earth is waiting breathless—”

“Don’t try to kid me,” snapped Alder. “You don’t want us any more than we want you. It was a dirty trick to start with, but it wasn’t any of our doing. The Encyclopedia talked us into it. He told us we had a duty. A duty to our race. To act as missionaries to the inferior races of the Galaxy.

“We didn’t take to it at first. Music, you see, is our life. We have been creating music for so long that our origin is lost in the dim antiquity of a planet that long ago has passed its zenith of existence. We will be creating music in that far day when the planet falls apart beneath our feet. You live by a code of accomplishment by action. We live by a code of accomplishment by music. Kadmar’s Red Sun symphony was a greater triumph for us than the discovery of a new planetary system is for you. It pleased us when you liked our music. It will please us if you still like our music, even after what has happened. But we will not allow you to take any of us to Earth.”

“The monopoly on the music still stands?” asked Mackenzie.

“It still stands. Come whenever you want to and record my symphony. When there are others we will let you know.”

“And the propaganda in the music?”

“From now on,” Alder promised, “the propaganda is out. If, from now on, our music changes you, it will change you through its own power. It may do that, but we will not try to shape your lives.”

“How can we depend on that?”

“Certainly,” said Alder. “There are certain tests you could devise. Not that they will be necessary.”

“We’ll devise the tests,” declared Mackenzie. “Sorry, but we can’t trust you.”

“I’m sorry that you can’t,” said Alder, and he sounded as if he were.

“I was going to burn you,” Mackenzie said, snapping his words off brutally. “Destroy you. Wipe you out. There was nothing you could have done about it. Nothing you could have done to stop me.”

“You’re still barbarians,” Alder told him. “You have conquered the distances between the stars, you have built a great civilization, but your methods are still ruthless and degenerate.”

“The Encyclopedia calls it a formula of force,” Mackenzie said. “No matter what you call it, it still works. It’s the thing that took us up. I warn you. If you ever again try to trick the human race, there will be hell to pay. A human being will destroy anything to save himself. Remember that—we destroy anything that threatens us.”

Something swished out of the tractor door and Mackenzie whirled about.

“It’s the Encyclopedia!” he yelled. “He’s trying to get away! Nellie!”

There was a thrashing rustle. “Got him, boss,” said Nellie.

The robot came out of the darkness, dragging the Encyclopedia along by his leafy topknot.

Mackenzie turned back to the composers, but the composers were gone. The grass rustled eerily towards the cliff edge as dozens of tiny feet scurried through it.

“What now?” asked Nellie. “Do we burn the trees?”

Mackenzie shook his head. “No, Nellie. We won’t burn them.”

“We got them scared,” said Nellie. “Scared pink with purple spots.”

“Perhaps we have,” said Mackenzie. “Let’s hope so, at least. But it isn’t only that they’re scared. They probably loathe us and that is better yet. Like we’d loathe some form of life that bred and reared men for food—that thought of Man as nothing else than food. All the time they’ve thought of themselves as the greatest intellectual force in the universe. We’ve given them a jolt. We’ve scared them and hurt their pride and shook their confidence. They’ve run up against something that is more than a match for them. Maybe they’ll think twice again before they try any more shenanigans.”

Down in the Bowl the music began again.

Mackenzie went in to look at Smith. The man was sleeping peacefully, his blanket wrapped around him. Wade sat in a corner, head held in his hands.

Outside, a rocket murmured and Nellie yelled. Mackenzie spun on his heel and dashed through the door. A ship was swinging over the Bowl, lighting up the area with floods. Swiftly it swooped down, came to ground a hundred yards away.

Harper, right arm in a sling, tumbled out and raced toward them.

“You didn’t burn them!” he was yelling. “You didn’t burn them!”

Mackenzie shook his head.

Harper pounded him on the back with his good hand. “Knew you wouldn’t. Knew you wouldn’t all the time. Just kidding the chief, eh? Having a little fun.”

“Not exactly fun.”

“About them trees,” said Harper. “We can’t take them back to Earth, after all.”

“I told you that,” Mackenzie said.

“Earth just called me, half an hour ago,” said Harper. “Seems there’s a law, passed centuries ago. Against bringing alien plants to Earth. Some lunkhead once brought a bunch of stuff from Mars that just about ruined Earth, so they passed the law. Been there all the time, forgotten.”

Mackenzie nodded. “Someone dug it up.”

“That’s right,” said Harper. “And slapped an injunction on Galactic. We can’t touch those trees.”