We’ll be the most powerful people who ever lived! It’s sure lucky for us that you won the toss of the coin and we stopped here.”
“But don’t you see that the Oracle will destroy Earth?”
“Bushwah. You heard it say it can only destroy people who aren’t civilized. It said that it’s a spaceship, so I’ll bet we can get it to come back to Earth with us, and tell us how we can be the only ones who can use it.”
“We’ve got to leave here right away—without asking it any more questions.”
Bates shook his head. “Quit clowning.”
“I never meant anything more in my life. Once we start using that machine—if we ask it even one question to gain advantage for ourselves—Earth’s civilization is doomed. Can’t you see that’s what happened to those other planets we visited? Can’t you see what is happening to this planet we’re on now?”
“No, I can’t,” answered Bates stubbornly. “The Oracle said there are only a few thousand like him. You could travel through space for hundreds of years and never be lucky enough to find one. There can’t be an Oracle on every planet we visited.”
“There wouldn’t have to be,” said Farnum. “There must be hundreds of possible patterns—all of them destructive in the presence of greed and laziness and lust for power. For example, a planet—maybe this one—gets space travel. It sets up colonies on several worlds. It’s expanding and dynamic. Then it finds an Oracle and takes it back to its own world. With all questions answered for it, the civilization stops being dynamic and starts to stagnate. It stops visiting its colonies and they drift toward barbarism.
“Later,” Farnum went on urgently, “somebody else reaches the stars, finds the planet with the Oracle—and takes the thing back home. Can you imagine what will happen to these people on this world if they lose their Oracle? Their own learning and traditions and way of life have been destroyed—just take a look at their anarchic clothing and architecture. The Oracle is the only thing that keeps them going—downhill—and makes sure they don’t start back again.”
“It won’t happen that way to us,” Bates argued. “We won’t let the Oracle get into general use, so Earth won’t ever learn to depend on it. I’m going to find out from it how to make it work for the two of us alone. You can come along and share the gravy or not, as you choose. I don’t care. But you aren’t going to stop me.”
Bates turned and strode out of the ship.
*
Farnum pounded his fist into his palm in despair, and then ran to a locker. Taking out a high-power express rifle, he loaded it carefully and stepped out through the airlock. Bates showed clearly in his telescopic sights, still walking toward the Hall of the Oracle. Farnum fired at the legs, but he wasn’t that good a shot; the bullet went through the back.
Farnum jittered between bringing Bates back and taking off as fast as the ship could go. The body still lay there, motionless; there was nothing he could do for the Oracle’s first Earth victim—the first and the last, he swore grimly. He had to speed home and make them understand the danger before they found another planet with an Oracle, so that they could keep clear of its deadly temptations. The Magellanic race could be outwitted yet, in spite of their lethal cleverness.
Then he felt a sudden icy chill along his spine. Alone, he could never operate the spaceship—and Bates was dead. He was trapped on the planet.
For hours, he tried to think of some way of warning Earth. It was imperative that he get back. There had to be a way.
He realized finally that there was only one solution to his problem. He sighed shudderingly and walked slowly from the spaceship toward the Hall of the Oracle, past Bates’ body.
“One question, though,” he muttered to himself. “Only one.”
Dumbwaiter
By James Stamers
Antimony IX divers can’t be seen, of course ... but don’t have anything in mind when one of them is around you!
*
The man ahead of me had a dragon in his baggage. So the Lamavic boys confiscated it. Lamavic—Livestock, Animal, Mineral and Vegetable, International Customs—does not like to find dragons curled up in a thermos. And since this antipathy was a two-way exchange, the Lamavic inspectors at Philadelphia International were singed and heated all ways by the time they got to me. I knew them well.
“Mr. Sol Jones?”
“That’s right,” I said, watching the would-be dragon smuggler being marched away. A very amateur job. I could have told him. There are only two ways to smuggle a dragon nowadays.
“Any livestock to declare, Mr. Jones?”
“I have no livestock on my person or in my baggage, nor am I accompanied by any material prohibited article,” I said carefully, for I saw they were recording.
The little pink, bald inspector with a charred collar looked at his colleague.
“Anything known?”
His colleague looked down at me from six feet of splendid physique, smiled unpleasantly, and flipped the big black record book.
“‘Sol Jones,’” he read, “‘Lamavic four-star offender. Galactic registration: six to tenth power: 763918. Five foot ten inches, Earth scale. Blue eyes, hair variable and usually nondescript brown, ear lobes and cranial....’ You’re not disputing identity, Mr. Jones?”
“Oh, no. That’s me.”
“I see. ‘Irrevocable Galactic citizenship for services to family of Supreme President Xgol in matter of asteroid fungus, subsequent Senatorial amnesty confirmed, previous sentences therefore omitted. Lamavic offenses thereafter include no indictable evidence but total twenty-four minor fines for introducing prohibited livestock onto various planets. Suspected complicity in Lamavic cases One through Seventy-six as follows: mobile sands, crystal thinkers, recording turtle, operatic fish, giant mastodon.’ Mr. Jones, you seem to have given us trouble before.”
“Before what?”
“Before this—er—”
“That,” I said, “is an Unconstitutional remark. I am giving no trouble. I have made a full declaration. I demand the rights of a Galactic citizen.”
He apologized, as he had to. This merely made both inspectors angry, but they were going to search me anyway. I knew that. Certainly I am a smuggler, and I had in fact a little present for my girl Florence—a wedding present, I hoped—but they would never find it. This time I really had them fooled, and I intended to extract maximum pleasure from watching their labors.
*
I saw the Lamavic records once. The next leading offender has only two stars and he’s out on Ceres in the penal colony. My four stars denote that I disapprove of all these rules prohibiting the carrying of livestock from one planet to another. Other people extend the Galactic Empire; I extend my Galactic credit. You want an amusing extraterrestrial pet to while away the two-hour work week, I can provide one. Of course, this pet business was overdone in the early days when any space-hopper could bring little foreign monsters back to the wife and kiddies. Any weird thing could come in and did.
“You are aware, Mr. Jones, that you have declared that you are not trying to bring in any prohibited life-form, whether animal, mineral, vegetable, or any or all of these?”
“I am,” I said.
“You are further aware of the penalties for a false declaration?”
“In my case, I believe I could count on thirty years’ invigorating work on a penal planet.”
“You could, Mr. Jones. You certainly could.”
“Well, I’ve