Clifford D. Simak - The Civilisation Game 04 - Masquerade

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Masquerade

Clifford D. Simak

Old Creepy was down in the control room, sawing lustily on his screeching

fiddle.

On the sun-blasted plains outside the Mercutian Power Centre, the Roman

Candles, snatching their shapes from Creepy's mind, had assumed the form of

Terrestrial hill-billies and were cavorting through the measure of a square

dance.

In the kitchen, Rastus rolled two cubes about the table, crooning to them,

feeling lonesome because no one would shoot a game of craps with him.

Inside the refrigeration room, Mathilde, the cat, stared angrily at the

slabs of frozen beef above her head, felt the cold of the place and meowed

softly, cursing herself for never being able to resist the temptation of

sneaking in when Rastus wasn't looking.

Up in the office, at the peak of the great photocell that was the centre,

Curt Craig stared angrily across the desk at Norman Page.

One hundred miles away, Knut Anderson, encased in a cumbersome photocell

spacesuit, stared incredulously at what he saw inside the space warp.

The communications bank snarled warningly and Craig swung about in his

chair, lifted the handset off the cradle and snapped recognition into the

mouthpiece.

"This is Knut, chief," said a voice, badly blurred by radiations.

"Yes," yelled Craig. "What did you find?"

"A big one," said Knut's voice.

"Where?"

"I'll give you the location."

Craig snatched up a pencil, wrote rapidly as the voice spat and crackled at

him.

"Bigger than anything on record," shrilled Knut's voice. "Space busted wide

open and twisted all to hell. The instruments went nuts."

"We'll have to slap a tracer on it," said Craig, tensely. "Take a lot of

power, but we've got to do it. If that thing starts to move —"

Knut's voice snapped and blurred and sputtered so Craig couldn't hear a

word he said.

"You come back right away," Craig yelled. "It's dangerous out there. Get

too close to that thing. Let it swing toward you and you —"

Knut interrupted, his voice wallowing in the wail of tortured beam.

"There's something else, chief. Somthing funny. Damn funny —"

The voice pinched out.

Craig shrieked into the mouthpiece. "What is it, Knut? What's funny?"

He stopped, astonished, for suddenly the crackle and hissing and whistle of

the communications beam was gone'.

His left hand flicked out to the board and snapped a toggle. The board

hummed as tremendous power surged into the call. It took power - lots of

power, to maintain a tight beam on Mercury. But there was no answering hum -

no indication the beam was being restored.

Something had happened out there! Something had snapped the beam.

Craig stood up, white-faced, to stare through the ray filter port to the

ashy plains. Nothing to get excited about. Not yet, anyway. Wait for Knut to

get back. It wouldn't take long. He had told Knut to start at once, and those

puddle jumpers could travel.

But what if Knut didn't come back? What if that space warp had moved?

The biggest one on record, Knut had said. Of course, there always were a

lot of them one had to keep an eye on, but very few big enough to really worry

about. Little whirlpools and eddies where the spacetime continuum was wavering

around, wondering which way it ought to jump.

Not dangerous, just a bother. Had to be careful not to drive a puddle

jumper into one. But a big one, if it started to move, might engulf the plant

. . .

Outside, the Candles were kicking up the dust, shuffling and hopping and

flapping their arms. For the moment they were mountain folk back in the hills

of Earth, having them a hoe down. But there was something grotesque about them

- like scarecrows set to music.

The plains of Mercury stretched away to the near horizon, rolling plains of

bitter dust. The Sun was a monstrous thing of bright-blue flame in a sky of

inky black, ribbons of scarlet curling out like snaky tentacles.

Mercury was its nearest to the Sun a mere 29,000,000 miles distant, and

that probably explained the warp. The nearness to the Sun and the epidemic of

sunspots. Although the sunspots may not have had anything to do with it.

Nobody knew.

Craig had forgotten Page until the man coughed, and then he turned to the

desk.

"I hope," said Page, "that you have reconsidered. This project of mine

means a lot to me."

Craig was suddenly swept with anger at the man's persistence.

"I gave you my answer once," he snapped. "That is enough. When I say a

thing, I mean it."

"I can't see your objection," said Page flatly. "After all, these Candles

"You're not capturing any Candles," said Craig. "Your idea is the most

crackpot, from more than one viewpoint, that I have ever heard."

"I can't understand this strange attitude of yours," argued Page. "I was

assured at Washington —"

Craig's anger flared. "I don't give a damn what Washington assured you.

You're going back as soon as the oxygen ship comes in. And you're going back

without a Candle."

"It would do no harm. And I'm prepared to pay well for any services you —"

Craig ignored the hinted bribe, levelled a pencil at Page.

"Let me explain it to you once again." he said. "Very carefully and in

full, so you will understand.

"The Candles are natives of Mercury. They were here first. They were here

when men came, and they'll probably be here long after men depart. They have

let us be and we have let them be. And we have let them be for just one reason

- one damn good reason. You see, we don't know what they could do if we

stirred them up. We are afraid of what they might do."

Page opened his mouth to speak, but Craig waved him into silence and went

on.

"They are organisms of pure energy. Things that draw their life substance

directly from the Sun -just as you and I do. Only we get ours by a roundabout

way. Lot more efficient than we are by that very token, for they absorb their

energy direct, while we get ours by chemical processes.

"And when we've said that much - that's about all we can say. Because

that's all we know about them. We've watched those Candles for five hundred

years and they still are strangers to us."

"You think they are intelligent?" asked Page, and the question was a sneer.

"Why not?" snarled Craig. "You think they aren't because Man can't

communicate with them. Just because they didn't break their necks to talk with

men.

"Just because they haven't talked doesn't mean they aren't intelligent.

Perhaps they haven't communicated with us because their thought and reasoning

would have no common basis for intelligent communication with mankind. Perhaps

it's because they regard Man as an inferior race - a race upon which it isn't

even worth their while to waste their time."

"You're crazy," yelled Page. "They have watched us all these years. They've

seen what we can do. They've seen our space ships - they've seen us build this

plant - they've seen us shoot power across millions of miles to the other

planet."

"Sure," agreed Craig, "they've seen all that. But would it impress them?

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