Gilmer picked up a box-like instrument to which was attached a set of headphones.
“Borrowed these from Appleman down in the sound laboratory,” he said. “The vibrations had me stumped at first. Couldn’t determine their nature. Then I hit on sound. These things are a toy of Appleman’s. Only half-developed yet. They let you ‘hear’ ultrasonics. Not actual hearing, of course, but an impression of tonal quality, a sort of psychological study of ultrasonics, translation of ultrasonics into what they would be like if you could hear them.”
He handed the head-set to Woods and carried the box to the glass cage. He set it on the cage and moved it slowly back and forth, trying to intercept the ultrasonics emanating from the little Martian animal.
Woods slipped on the phones, sat waiting breathlessly.
He had expected to hear a high, thin sound, but no sound came. Instead a dreadful sense of loneliness crept over him, a sense of bafflement, lack of understanding, frustration. Steadily the feeling mounted in his brain, a voiceless wail of terrible loneliness and misery—a heart-wrenching cry of home-sickness.
He knew he was listening to the wailing of the little Martian animal, was “hearing” its cries, like the whimperings of a lost puppy on a storm-swept street.
His hands went up and swept the phones from his head.
He stared at Gilmer, half in horror.
“It’s lonesome,” he said. “Crying for Mars. Like a lost baby.”
Gilmer nodded.
“It’s not trying to talk to anyone now,” he said. “Just lying there, crying its heart out. Not dangerous now. Never intentionally dangerous, but dangerous just the same.”
“But,” cried Woods, “you were here all afternoon. It didn’t bother you. You didn’t go insane.”
Gilmer shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I didn’t go insane. Just the animals. And they would become immune after a while with this one certain animal. Because Fur-Ball is intelligent. His frantic attempts to communicate with some living things touched my brain time and time again … but it didn’t stay. It swept on. It ignored me.
“You see, back in the ship it found that the human brain couldn’t communicate with it. It recognized it as an alien being. So it didn’t waste any more time with the human brain. But it tried the brains of monkeys and elephants and lions, hoping madly that it would find some intelligence to which it could talk, some intelligence that could explain what had happened, tell it where it was, reassure it that it wasn’t marooned from Mars forever.
“I am convinced it has no visual sense, very little else except this ultrasonic voice to acquaint itself with its surroundings and its conditions. Maybe back on Mars it could talk to its own kind and to other things as well. It didn’t move around much. It probably didn’t have many enemies. It didn’t need so many senses.”
“It’s intelligent,” said Woods. “Intelligent to a point where you can hardly think of it as an animal.”
Gilmer nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe it is just as human as we are. Maybe it represents the degeneration of a great race that once ruled Mars. …”
He jerked the cigar out of his mouth and flung it savagely on the floor.
“Hell,” he said, “what’s the use of speculation? Probably you and I will never know. Probably the human race will never know.”
He reached out and grasped the tank of carbon monoxide, started to wheel it toward the glass cage.
“Do you have to kill it, Doc?” Woods whispered. “Do you really have to kill it?”
Gilmer wheeled on him savagely.
“Of course I have to kill it,” he roared. “What if the story ever got out that Fur-Ball killed the boys in the ship and all those animals today? What if he drove others insane? There’d be no more trips to Mars for years to come. Public opinion would make that impossible. And when another one does go out they’ll have instructions not to bring back any Fur-Balls—and they’ll have to be prepared for the effects of ultrasonics.”
He turned back to the tank and then wheeled back again.
“Woods,” he said, “you and I have been friends for a long time. We’ve had many a beer together. You aren’t going to publish this, are you, Jack?”
He spread his feet.
“I’d kill you if you did,” he roared.
“No,” said Jack, “just a simple little story. Fur-Ball is dead. Couldn’t take it, here on Earth.”
“There’s another thing,” said Gilmer. “You know and I know that ultrasonics of the thirty million order can turn men into insane beasts. We know it can be controlled in atmosphere, probably over long distances. Think of what the war-makers of the world could do with that weapon! Probably they’ll find out in time—but not from us!”
“Hurry up,” Woods said bitterly. “Hurry up, will you. Don’t let Fur-Ball suffer any longer. You heard him. There’s no way we can help him. Man got him into this—there’s only one way man can get him out of it. He’d thank you for death if he only knew.”
Gilmer laid hands on the tank again.
Woods reached for a telephone. He dialed the Express number.
In his mind he could hear that puppyish whimper, that terrible, soundless cry of loneliness, that home-sick wail of misery. A poor huddled little animal snatched fifty million miles from home, among strangers, a hurt little animal crying for attention that no one could offer.
“Daily Express,” said the voice of Bill Carson, night editor.
“This is Jack,” the reporter said. “Thought maybe you’d want something for the morning edition. Fur-Ball just died—yeah, Fur-Ball, the animal the Hello Mars IV brought in—Sure, the little rascal couldn’t take it.”
Behind him he heard the hiss of gas as Gilmer opened the valve.
“Bill,” he said, “I just thought of an angle. You might say the little cuss died of loneliness … yeah, that’s the idea, grieving for Mars. … Sure, it ought to give the boys a real sob story to write. …”
Gunsmoke Interlude
The last of Cliff’s fourteen known Westerns to be published, “Gunsmoke Interlude” is cut from a different kind of literary cloth than the others—which leads one to wonder whether it might not have been written as a farewell to the genre. Still, it’s difficult to say just when this story was written, since no story by the name of “Gunsmoke Interlude” appears in Cliff’s admittedly sporadic notes. Originally appearing in 10 Story Western Magazine in 1952, the story might well have been written years earlier; those same notes seem to hint that more than one Simak story sold in the late forties went unpublished. At any rate, this one reads very, very differently from the outpouring of Westerns that Cliff produced during and just after World War II.
It’s a story about redemption.
The great black horse was lame and Clay was half asleep in the saddle when they came to Gila Gulch. It was no place nor time to stop, for the border was just a day ahead and John Trent just a day behind. But there was no choice. The horse would not last another day and Clay needed food and sleep and that last day’s ride would be the worst of all the nightmare flight, for it went through a tortuous mountain spur where the going would be neither fast nor easy.
In front of the livery barn, Clay slid from the saddle, led the horse inside.
“Give him the works,” he told the livery man. “He’s earned it.”
Clay’s eyes went over the three horses in the stall.