Robert Sheckley - Off-Limits Planet

"WHAT a mess!" Gik said, gazing mournfully over the once-beautiful Game Preserve.

The repair crew nodded, and began to sort their tools.

Gik looked around nostalgically. The Game Preserve planet had been one of the show places of the Central Galaxy, a scenic wonderland drawing tourists even from the distant Ktong Universe. Now the place was all but destroyed.

Gik could tell at a glance that many species of animal life, gathered especially for the Preserve, had been obliterated. Whole clans of birds had disappeared. Whole orders of insects were missing, and rare plants had been choked out of existence.

"What's done is done," said Gik. Now he had all the work of reconstruction in front of him. But where to begin? Reforestation?

Utilizing his glyge sense, Gik saw that the damage ran all the way down to the bowels of the Game Preserve Planet.

"And to think," Gik said aloud, "That this whole mess was the work of four madmen!"

The repair crew looked up immediately. They were dull-witted construction workers recruited from Lis. That little planet lay at the extreme East end of the Central galaxy, where news travels slowly.

"Four madmen, sir?" one asked, with typical Lissic impertinence.

"Two madmen, and two madwomen," Gik said. "You can morigaze the rest while you work."

But Lis was a backward planet, and none of its inhabitants knew how to morigaze a complete story from two disconnected though casually related facts.

"You'll hear about it when you get home, then," Gik said.

The workers protested. The destruction of a Game Preserve was shocking, even to their dull sensibilities. They demanded to know how it happened.

"No," said Gik.

"Sir," said a worker, "we will work better if we know."

"What makes you think so?" Gik asked.

"Sir, it has been shown that inducement motives increase geometrically when the gross finite causes of any irreversible action are—"

"None of your damned Hyploxian psychology," Gik growled. It was maddening, to be lectured at by morons! Besides, their terminology was hopelessly jumbled.

But the repair crew clustered around him, showing no interest in the task ahead, their cloddish faces eager for information. "Well," Gik said, "I'll tell you the beginning and you can vorsatize the rest. Agreed?"

IT started quite some time back, when two psychiatrists named Olg and Loom were piloting their ship back to the Asylum at North Edge. They had a cargo of four psychotics—two madmen and two madwomen—and were conducting them to four safely padded cells.

It was a long hot trip, through the blazing galactic center. The psychiatrists had to thread their way through clusters of blazing white supergiants, dull red dwarfs, and sizzling blue giants.

The four psychotics were resting quietly, since the psychiatrists had drugged them.

Both psychiatrists were tired and thirsty. Therefore, they were sorely tempted when a convenient Refreshery hove in sight, moored to a dark star.

"Asylum work comes first," Olg said.

"True," Loom agreed, several of his tongues hanging out. "But one quick one—"

It didn't take much argument. Their madmen were safely stupefied, and, because of their amazingly short life spans, the psychotics would probably die before they could reach the Asylum in distant North Edge. It seemed that a few minutes would make no appreciable difference.

Accordingly they anchored and hurried into the Refreshery. Inside, they had two drinks of Vish apiece, and came back out.

Although they had been gone a very short time, as Olg and Loom counted time, ship and psychotics were gone.

"Oh, no," Loom murmured.

"Oh, yes," Olg sighed. He realized that he hadn't taken into account the psychotics' high metabolic rate, a concommittant of short life span. The few moments that Olg and Loom had been gone could have been months to their charges; enough time to recover from the drug, master the controls, and roar away.

"We must find them at once," cried Loom. "Before they land on some civilized world!"

"No need to worry," Olg said. "Any civilized world will return them or their corpses to the Asylum."

"Of course they will," Loom said. " If they detect them! Remember, psychotics are capable of almost limitless cunning. They might land at night and conceal themselves, and do—why, they'd do anything! They'd blow up a planet, if they could!"

"And they could," Olg said.

"But let's not get excited." He hurried back into the Refreshery, had another drink of Vish, and commandeered the proprietor's ship. The two psychiatrists got in, then looked at each other hopelessly.

All around them lay the suns of the Central galaxy, millions of stars with tens of millions of planets.

"Think," Olg said. "What would you do first, if you were a psychotic?"

"I'd slalang," Loom said promptly.

"Let's try it, then." Quickly they slalanged the ship into monoradic space, which, in its entire extent, is only eighty yards long by twenty wide, well-lighted, and affording no place to hide.

Annoying enough, the psychotics weren't there.

"Too bad," Loom said. "It would have been so easy to find them here."

"Well have to search all the planets in this vicinity of space," Olg said.

"I know one way we'll be able to detect their presence," Loom said.

"How's that?" Olg asked.

"When they blow up a planet, we're bound to see the flash."

They set the ship's controls for top speed, in defiance of all galactic speed laws, and headed for Ptis, the nearest inhabited world.

"THAT'S enough," Gik said to his workers. "You can vorsatize the rest. Now to work." He glyged the surface of the Game Preserve.

What he saw there was not heartening. The minerals had been blasted from the ground. The waters were polluted, the forests destroyed, the land masses chopped up.

"You and you," Gik said. "Take that iron ore down four thousand feet and spread it around. Build up to the surface with lighter ores. Let's get rolling now."

Most of the workers had vorsatized the rest of the story. Smiling sadly, they began to work.

"Sir," another worker said, "Some of us can't vorsatize."

"Why not?" Gik asked.

"We're very stupid," the worker said humbly.

"That I can see," Gik said. "But everyone can vorsatize!" ,

"We can't," the worker said miserably.

"Well, I'll tell you some more. Then you can induct the rest. You can induct, can't you?"

The workers nodded. Gik looked around to make sure the minerals team was working, and went on.

THE Ptis world reported no sign of psychotics. Search parties on Klish and Yegl didn't find anything. Nor was there any report from the Maverni planets, nor from the Calden sun, nor from the Hyboxu Confederation.

"So far, no good," Loom said.

"At least we've established that they're not hiding in the immediate neighborhood," Olg said. "Now we'll pin it down a step farther. Let me see the report on the psychotics."

"It was in our ship," Loom said.

"Fine! Do you remember their classification?"

Loom concentrated deeply. "They were bipeds," he said.

"Oh."

"Yes. I'm sure of it. Bipeds with a 224 metabolism and a fecundity rate high in the 005's."

"That's very bad," Olg said.

"Extremely short life span," Loom said. "Quite possibly they died in space. But we can't take any chances."

"Of course not. Call Galactic Center and get me a list of all biped worlds."

While Loom was getting the list Olg did some serious thinking.

Psychotic bipeds were a great danger.

The biped worlds, because of their short life spans, were usually left alone by Center. Quiet, ingenious beings, the bipeds were known for their peace-loving, friendly ways.