The PLANET of SHAME

By BRUCE ELLIOTT

Illustrated by FINLAY

One day, James Comstock's father took James
aside and started to tell him the facts of life. Which
was not so unusual—except that James was 35.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories May and June 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

AT THE END....

The three who had endured so much sat and waited. Their reward was in sight. When you have fought for so long against forces strong beyond imagining, when you have struggled in despair, lived without hope, success when it finally comes, is almost anti-climactic. Despite the traps, the violence, the hurts, the fear, they were now where they had wanted to be.

They sat quietly, their hands folded, and if any feeling of triumph was in them, it was so muted as not to be observable. At that precise moment, when they sat in the ante-room, waiting for their reward, waiting to become part of the Board of Fathers, working directly under The Grandfather, the only common emotion they shared was that they had fought the good fight. Fought as hard as it is in a person to fight for what they consider right....

The door opened and The Grandfather was in the room. His visage was marked by a high hooked nose, broad high forehead, and deep set harsh blue eyes, focussed on the middle distance. His strong old hands were crossed on his stomach just below his patriarchal beard.

It was hard to believe.

Hard to believe that they, or anyone below the rank of Father would ever actually behold Him in the flesh.

When he spoke his voice was all the things they had known it would be. Deep as an organ bass, calm, full of authority, stern yet with a leavening of those other things that make up the whole man, his voice was almost gentle as he said, "Follow me, please."

They rose and feeling like children, followed his tall spare back out of the ante-room, into that other room where the Board waited for them.

There was no fear in them now as there would have been a year ago. For they were not coming before the Board for judgment, but to be rewarded.

The Grandfather said, "These three are the ones...."

There was silence.

"They have come to join us," The Grandfather said.

The silence expanded.

"Gentlemen, Fathers all, these are the three new Fathers." The Grandfather's voice faded away and there was no other sound. None of the ten men who made up the Board of Fathers said a word.

But the three who had fought their way up to this eminence stood in silence and looking about them, examined the ten men with whom they would now share the control of their whole world.

This was the moment of their triumph.

CHAPTER 1

When the first space ship landed on that pleasant world (the only pleasant planet of which Alpha Centauri could boast) the crew was so happy to get rid of the passengers that they took off the moment they could. Not even the interminable boredom of the return trip was enough to make them want to stay in anything like proximity with the thirty men and thirty women who had been sentenced to be marooned as far from earth as was humanly possibly.

There had been maximum security prisons in the past. But this was the ultimate maximum. When the ship took off, the prisoners were isolated as no human beings ever had been in the recorded history of men.

It was part of a plan of course. Earth did want the planet inhabited just as earlier powers had wanted Mars colonized. But when no volunteers appeared despite the cleverest high pressure advertising campaigns, the alternative became clear. If no one wanted to go to the new planet, to New Australia, then someone would have to be forced to go there.

It was just too bad for the exiles, but they could not protest too loudly, since they had long since forfeited any claim on anyone's sympathy. A little back eddy of intransigent inner-directed people, fanatics in a world of other-directed humans, positive that they, and they alone, knew what was good and what was evil; the world heaved a communal sigh of relief when they were taken away. Attempting, as these sixty had, to turn back the clock, to bring back into being the dark days of the twenty-second century, was such a horrid crime as to merit even so harsh a sentence as they received.

The first hundred and fifty years on New Australia were, in a way, difficult. But not too difficult. To these inner-directed people fighting for existence on a new planet was precisely the kind of crusade which to them was worth living.

Five hundred years after they established themselves, their last scientist managed to set up a system of protective devices which prevented any communication with Mother Earth at all. No earth ship landed or took off, and no other means of communication had yet been devised that would work in interstellar space.

A thousand years later even the memory of earth had faded and grown dim. There were mentions of it of course in old books, but they were not the kind of books that these people read.

Their sun rose and set, their erratic moon rose when it seemed to feel like it, and sank seemingly just as randomly, their days were full and to them worth living.

All sixty of the first settlers had married. Sixty humans, thirty family names. They were, to these people, good names, and therefore there had never been felt any need for new patronymics.

The planet's sprawling surface now contained millions of people but all of them shared thirty last names. It was nothing for anyone to question since to them this had always been the case. Science as such was an unknown word. It was one of the things that the original sixty settlers had fought against. When they made their brave new world, science was one of the earth things that was jettisoned. This, of course, led to some strange circumstances....

James Comstock 101 had reached maturity. At thirty-five he felt that the time had come for him to leave the home nest and go out on his own. His mother, as was to be expected, fought against his plans. But dad came through, as good old dad would.

Dad had said, "Now mother, admittedly Jimmy is still a little boy, but even little boys have a right to strike out for themselves."

"But Father," mother only called him that when something serious was under discussion, for after all, "Father" was a term of ... Jimmy didn't know quite what to think of it as ... power? Awe? It was, in any event, a word that one did not bandy about.

"But Father," mother had become embarrassed, and surely that was a blush on her cheeks, "did you ... have you ever ... that is ... what about ... oh, you know."

Father had looked very serious. He had said, his voice deep in his chest, "You're right, of course. Come, son."

Then had come that conversation which had stunned Jimmy, opened up vistas unheard of, unthought of, really. So that was where babies came from.... If anyone but his Father had told him about it he'd have struck them, perhaps killed them. To think that his mother had suffered through such an abysmal, horrible experience ... and the results of that experience.... Tremors swept through him in retrospect.

But that had been five years previously and Jimmy had become a man then under his father's aegis. That first time had been cataclysmically awful. The whole atmosphere of that place had been so foreign to him that it was only because he knew that his father was waiting downstairs in the parlor, waiting for a good report from the fallen woman that enabled Jimmy to go through with it at all. Not that the woman had waxed very enthusiastic, but then, a creature like that....

His monthly visits to the brothel were now part of his being and although he still did not relish going, he forced himself to, for after all it was part of the duty of a man. He did so wish, however, that it was not necessary. Life would be so much simpler if he could just skip the whole unsavory thing.

Sighing, he pressed the button on the door. Inside the curtained window the brash lights of the place, red as sin, shone on his weakly handsome face. The tinkle of the piano droned on.

Swinging the door wide, the fat madame said jovially, "Jimmy my boy. Come on in and let joy be unrefined."

Shuddering delicately and wishing that the madame would not be quite so robust, Jimmy inched his way into the parlor. The red plush chairs and the dingy lights were just as they always were. At the piano the little man looked up, said, "Hi-ya, Jimmy, how's every little thing?"

"Pretty good, professor, pretty good." The whole conversation was as stereotyped as the act which would follow it. Sometimes Jimmy wished that just once the madame would sneer at him, or the professor be grouchy, but they never were.

Lydia came down the stairs, her wrapper as dirty and unkempt as it always was. He wondered if she had a succession of these wrappers all equally dilapidated, or if she owned just one which she managed to keep looking the same way all the time.

Jimmy wished too, that Lydia were a little older. It seemed somehow a little indecent for her to be only forty. A child like that should not be forced to make a living the way she had to, but then they were all about her age. Jimmy had shopped around, tried to find an older woman but had been forced back into Lydia's arms. After all, she had been the one Father selected for him and good old dad knew best.

She said, "Come on upstairs honey lamb."

He followed her dolefully, averting his eyes from her full breasts which were altogether too prominent through the tight cloth of the wrapper.

Her room looked as if it had not been cleaned since the previous month. Stuck to the mirror was the picture of The Grandfather that always embarrassed him. The stern old eyes should not be forced to look down on the scenes in this room. Jimmy had tried to turn the picture to the wall one time, but Lydia had become hysterical and he had given up. As a matter of fact it was only after a long argument and an increase in fee that Jimmy had been able to force her to turn out the light in the room when they did—what they did.

The old brass bed jingled just as embarrassingly as ever when he sat down on the edge of it to remove his shoes. It was only by keeping his eyes on his stockinged feet that he was able to avoid looking at Lydia who had dropped her wrapper to the floor and was now shamelessly considering herself in front of the mirror that lined the whole wall.

That had been the main reason he had insisted on the light being extinguished. The combination of the wall of mirror, the ceiling mirror and the searching eyes of The Grandfather were just more than he could bear.

There was no use, he knew, in asking Lydia not to look at her n..e body. She had told him many times that she enjoyed doing it; there was no law against it and what was he going to do about it?

Of course there was a law against women admiring themselves in any way, let alone n..e and in front of a mirror, but the law, of course, did not apply to p.........s.

Whistling gaily, Lydia dropped onto the bed next to him and wound her arms about him. Almost dying with embarrassment he mumbled, "Lydia, the light ... you promised."

Grumbling, she switched off the light. Then it began, again.

But this time, right in the middle, a lancing pain unlike anything he had ever experienced shot through his heart. The hurt was so great that he cried out in agony.

Lydia, unknowing, said cheerfully. "Attaboy. That's what I like to hear."

It was only after he gasped, "Don't ... stop ... my heart ... I think I'm going to die ..." that she finally stopped and turned on the light. His face was whiter, much whiter than the grey pillow case under his head. His lips were purple. He still felt what he could only visualize as iron fingers pressing into his heart.

Racing out of bed the girl ran towards the door. She gasped. "I'll call the madame, get a doctor...."

Crouched on the bed in agony, his hand pressing deep into the center of the pain, he was still able to retain the presence of mind to call weakly, "Put on your wrapper, Lydia, you can't go out that way."

Then the pain became so great that he passed out.

When he opened his eyes he was in bed but it was another bed, with crisp white linen on it. The pain, he was grateful to find, had eased up.

The adult woman in the nurse's uniform, who must have been a pleasant sixty-five, bent over him and whispered, "There, there, you'll feel much better now."

"The doctor?" he whispered.

"Coming." Her sweet face was wreathed in an angelic smile. Her buxom body was omnipresent. Wondering what kind of perverted monster he was, he found that he was fantasying her in Lydia's bed. If only fallen women were mature, like this one, so many of his problems would be easier of solution. He guessed he just did not like young chits and that was all there was to it.

Luckily the doctor entered the room before the fantasy could go too far. Feeling mentally defiled, he greeted the doctor anxiously, glad of the interruption. "Doctor, do you know what's wrong with me?"

"Yes son," the white-haired elderly man was slow of speech, he considered each syllable before he allowed it to leave his thin lips. His sunken cheeks and hollow eyes were so typical of the whole medical profession that Jimmy found himself wondering, as he had before, what there was about doctoring that made men look like this.

"What do I have, doctor?" Jimmy's voice was tremulous.

"I've got bad news for you, son." It must have taken three minutes for the single sentence to be articulated by the doctor.

Sweating, Jimmy wondered what he had ever done, what commandment he could have unconsciously broken that was now punishing him for his sin.

"What is the cure, doctor?"

"First," the doctor said, "we must consider the disease."

Jimmy wasn't the least bit interested in what disease he had, there were cures for all known diseases. But he waited with bated breath to be told what terrible, what terrifying thing he would have to do in order to be cured.

"You have," the doctor said even more slowly, "angina pectoris."

Scrambling through his memory, Jimmy tried to remember what heart patients had to do. All he could think of at the moment was the treatment for arterio-sclerosis. It was so awful that he found himself saying a little prayer of thankfulness to The Grandfather, that he did not have to indulge in that cure. Adultery was the only known cure for hardening of the arteries and the prospect of what he would have had to go through made Jimmy almost glad that he had angina. Imagine, he kept thinking, "I'd have had to get married and then be untrue to my wife...."

His gratitude faded a little when the doctor's droning voice went on, "As you may or may not know, son, the only cure for what you've got is drunkenness. We'll have to make you into an alcoholic, boy. I'm sorry."

The world reeled.

Jimmy had seen drunks, who hadn't, but the thought of having to share their disgraceful conduct was more than he could bear. He gasped, "I won't do it. I'd rather die."

"Ummm ..." the doctor said, "a lot of them say that ... but remember, boy, suicide is what you're talking about!"

Suicide, Jimmy thought sickly, the sin against The Grandfather!

Horrible as the cure for his disease was, he'd have to go through with it. But what would mother think when he came reeling home, singing songs, consorting with ... he retched. No more seeing Lydia once a month, he'd have to consort with fallen women all the time....

Thank Grandfather, he thought dully, that dad is dead. It was the only thing for which he could feel grateful at the moment.

"Cheer up," the grey-faced doctor said and his voice was if anything more doleful than before, "be grateful you don't have cancer."

That was another thing for which to be grateful. The cure for cancer was the only thing he had ever heard of that was more horrible than that awful cure for arterio-sclerosis.

"Of course," the doctor said, "before we release you, we'll test you for all the known diseases."

Grandfather above, he thought despairingly, suppose something else is wrong with me!

CHAPTER 2

His heart condition was all the doctor found. Jimmy thought the medical man was a little grudging in the admission that nothing else was discernibly wrong, but gratitude that he was not worse off made him feel a little better.

Leaving the hospital with the lovely, elderly nurse holding him by one arm, and the doctor on the other side of him, Jimmy looked around him, at the street, at the people, at the mauve trees with their lovely puce foliage. It was night and the pale green moon moving in its eccentric path cast just the faintest tone over the whole scene. Admirably dressed women, their beautiful shapeless clothes hanging loosely so that nothing of their bodily contours could be seen, walked sedately along the black plastic street, their dresses barely avoiding dragging on the eternal surface with which the last scientists, so many years ago, had covered the roads and the streets.

Perpetua, it was called, and seemingly it was correctly named. Striving madly to forget that which awaited him, Jimmy thought wildly about the street covering, about, in short, everything but the saloon that he was being escorted to ... would the doctor and the nurse take him through the swinging doors? Or would he have to make that brave first step all by himself?

The doctor cleared his throat. "We're almost there, son. Be brave."

Be brave! A fine thing to say. It was easy for the doctor to make speeches, but he, Jimmy Comstock 101, was the one who was going to have to enter the foul place!

And then, despite the slowness of his steps, they were finally there. He realized, looking at the saloon, that he had never really looked at one of these dens of iniquity before. He had always, in the past, gone by them with averted eyes.

He reeled, and the lovely nurse, her exquisitely wrinkled face showing her concern, grabbed at him just in time to prevent him from falling to his face.

"There, there, Jimmy boy," her cracked voice was so ... soothing and at the same time so exciting ... he found himself beginning to fantasy about her again, and it was only this that gave him the bravado necessary to step through the swinging door.

A gust of beery air hit him in the voice. His throat closed up in revulsion at the disgusting odor. Behind him he could hear the nurse say, "Grandfather be with you now!"

And then she and the doctor were gone, and he was alone. Alone in the moiling turmoil, the frightful, frightening atmosphere of that which he must become. To the right, the left, everywhere he looked there were fellow heart disease patients. All of them were treating their disease. Some seriously, some seeming even to enjoy it, which Jimmy found impossible of comprehension. One of the ones who seemed to be enjoying the treatment of his disease staggered up to him with a fog of alcohol preceding him.

"Hi chum!" The drunk was small and young and seemingly very happy.

Jimmy gulped. "Hello, there, how are you? I'm James Comstock 101. Who are you?"

"Danny Grundy 112. C'mon kiddo, wancha to meet an old buddy of mine."

The drunk had him by the arm and there was no escape. Grundy pulled him through the welter of men and women who lined the bar and gulped or sipped their poisonous yet beneficial potions.

Behind the bar a tremendously fat man, a white apron pulled tight around the huge circumference of what Jimmy thought of as his tummy, said, "What'll it be? What's your pleasure?"

Jimmy turned to his new found friend and asked, "How can I get drunk the fastest, easiest way?"

"Leave it to me, old buddy, old sock," Grundy said.

"Maxwell, mix up three of your super-double extra strong corpse revivers, will you like a pal?"

"Surest thing you know," Max busied himself with bottles containing oddly colored liquors.

Rather than look at the terrible thing he was going to have to drink, Jimmy asked, "Where is the man you wanted me to meet?"

A howl of laughter from a nearby group drowned out his words, forcing him to repeat himself. Grundy looked at the group and said, "There he is. I'll bring him over."

The man he dragged to meet Comstock was equally young, no more than thirty-eight, with an unformed face, and the barest amount of white hair at the temples. He had some pictures in his hand and as he was introduced to Jimmy he held out the photos.

Grundy said, "Tony Bowdler 131, wancha to meet my oldest friend, Jimmy—what was your name, old sock?"

Jimmy identified himself and as he turned his eyes to look at the pictures, Bowdler mumbled, "Do' wancha to think I'm unner the affluence of inkohol, but lemme know how you like them feelthy pictures."

The man's voice was blurred and Jimmy could not quite comprehend what he was saying. That was the only reason he looked at the top picture. All the blood drained out of his head. There, on the picture, brazenly posed for anyone to see, were a man and a woman. Good looking people too. The woman was real s..y. Almost seventy, with exciting white hair, and a deeply wrinkled face, she was even more desirable than the nurse.

How then had she ever allowed a despicable picture like this one to be taken? It was beyond Jimmy, completely beyond him. Frozen in the glossy eternity of the picture, her loose dress lifted so that her ankle showed, she was allowing the man in the picture to k..s her hand.

The picture blurred in front of Jimmy's dazed eyes. This was a kind of perversion beyond his reckoning. How could people allow such a thing?

Grundy said, "You think that's hot, boy, lay a glim on some of the others! Here, look at these," he spread them out one at a time and giggled inanely, "This last picture is a real killer! Take a peek!"

Comstock shook his head no, but his new found friend paid no attention to him. Pointing to the foul pictures lined up on the bar he picked up the last one and held it right under Jimmy's nose. Just before he forced his eyes closed, the picture was engraved on his sickened brain.

The people were the same as the ones in the other picture, but, oh the depth of depravity, oh poor lost souls, the man was actually k...ing the woman full on the m...h!

The bartender said, "Hey, what's wrong with the Johnny-come-lately? Looks like he's going to faint. Better get some medicine in him fast!"

Bowdler grabbed Jimmy's one arm, Grundy the other, while the stout bartender poured the drink down Comstock's slack mouth. Gagging, half spitting, he still swallowed enough so that he could feel what he thought was liquid fire going down his aching throat.

"How's that feel, ol' pal?" Bowdler asked anxiously.

"Awful," Jimmy said, but he sipped more of it anyhow. This was his curse, this was his cure, he had to take it, so he took it.

The bartender went back to his other customers, and the trio raised their glasses. Jimmy's new found friends were teaching him how to make a toast.

"Here's to heart trouble," Grundy said, "thank Grandfather I didn't get cancer!"

"Tha's the boy. Drink her down.... Bottoms up...." Bowdler put his hand over his mouth. "Mus' 'pologize," he said, "reelize don't know you well enough to talk that way. Ve'y sorry, ole man."

Comstock gagged again, but this time not from the drink, but as a conditioned reflex. At that moment he could again taste the soap his mother had used to wash out his mouth that time when he was but a lad of twenty-nine, and he had slipped and said something about the b....m of a well. The drink helped to wash out the long enduring soap taste.

"Yeah," Grundy was saying. "I don't care how drunk a man gets, a gentleman never uses dirty words."

"You're righ' ole pal, ole pal. I'm sorry...." Bowdler hung his head in shame. As though to change the subject he picked up his pornographic pictures and looked through them lovingly. At last, pausing over one that Thompson could see showed a man and woman in the last stages of reckless abandon, (they were holding hands) Bowdler said, "Y'know if I din' like gettin' drunk so much I'd be sorry I din't have tuberculosis so I could pose for feelthy pix like these."

"Y'know," Grundy had his arm wrapped lovingly around Jimmy's neck by now and they were on their second set of corpse revivers, "y' know I've known fallen women who told me they were kina glad they had diabetes. Don't seem possible, does it?"

"No." Jimmy's face was set sternly. "I cannot imagine snuch a ting. I mean I cannot magine uch a sting...." He rubbed his mouth. It felt a little strange.

Bowdler ordered another round. Nearby a particularly abandoned looking woman who must have been in the last stages of coronary thrombosis if the amount of liquor she had imbibed was any indication, waved to Jimmy.

He turned his head away quickly, hoping no one else had seen what the woman did. He was instantly sorry he had done so for suddenly the room swirled.

When it stopped, he turned to Grundy and said, "Shay, how offen doesa room do that?"

"Do what?" Grundy asked, his mouth slack.

"How offen do they make it go roun' and roun' like that?"

Evidently he had said something highly amusing for his new friends went off in gales of laughter. They had to whack each other on the back before they could make their giggles subside.

Grundy said, finally, "If you think this room is movin' wait'll you see your bedroom move tomorrow morning!" Then he and Bowdler went off into helpless laughter again.

Comstock tried to explain that there was no special mechanism in his room which would allow it to spin in any fashion at all, but the combination of the peculiar trouble he was having in articulating and the roars of laughter from Bowdler and Grundy made him finally desist. Perhaps this was some joke that he would have explained at some future time.

The fourth drink, Comstock found must have had some different ingredients in it although he had watched the bartender carefully and seemingly the same constituents went into the making of it, but, on sipping it, he found that the taste was different. He no longer felt as if he was going to die in agony when he swallowed. Instead, a rather pleasant kind of warmth went all through him.

He gazed at his new friends. New? How dare he consider them that? These were his pals. Why ... he'd cut off his right arm for either of them.

He felt a desire to explain this sudden feeling of camaraderie, but that odd thing affected his speech again and the words did not come out quite as he had expected they would. He wondered if a stutter or a stammer was part of angina pectoris, but that did not seem likely somehow.

The sixth drink he never had any remembrance of downing. As a matter of fact, the following morning when he woke up he had all he could do to figure out how, when and who had installed the merry-go-round mechanism in his room. Apparently the saloon was not the only place so equipped. Lying in bed, looking about him he at first wondered if he were in some strange place, but second thought reassured him. He was home, in his own bed. The colored portrait of Grandfather looked down at him ... he hoped that the picture did not reflect any disapproval on Grandfather's part. He mumbled, "I can't help it ... I'm sick ... the doctor made me...."

Then he held onto the sides of the bed for dear life and prayed that whoever was making the room turn around would stop sooner or later, preferably sooner.

On one of the circling trips the room seemed to slow down a tiny bit and he was able to crawl out of bed onto the floor. The floor was bigger and he lost the fear he had had in bed that he was going to fall out. At least there was no place to fall now.

When his mother entered the room he was curled up peacefully on the rug, sound asleep.

She woke him gently and gave him a glass of milk.

Jimmy eyed his mother in horror. How could he ever have loved a woman who could do such a terrible thing? The milk seemed to be fastened directly to his stomach. Racing from the room he found that there are more than a few problems connected with being a drunk.

When he came back and fell into his bed, his mother moved around the room, opening the curtains letting in the sunlight, as she had every day of his life.

He said, "Mother, will you please take those hobnails out of your shoes? And whatever you're doing to those curtains, stop it. The racket's enough to rouse the dead."

"They wouldn't let me come to the hospital, dear," she said.

"Was it very bad for my little boy?"

"Very bad. Did you get the report on me?"

She nodded. "But do I really have to give you that poison they recommended for your mornings?"

"What poison?" If she'd only stop yelling.

"Coffee!"

At that moment he knew he would have sold his soul for a cup of coffee. Aloud he said, "Bring it ... fast! And get that sickening glass of milk out of here. It's leering at me."

Shaking her head, she left.

If the inside sweats would only stop a moment, he thought, he'd be able to take time out to feel sorry for her. After all she hadn't raised her son to be a drunkard ... it must be very difficult for her. But a question rose large in his mind. How had those bats gotten into his insides? Looking down at it, feeling what the bats were doing to the wall of his stomach, he called it a belly for the first time in his life.

"My belly," he said to himself, "hurts." And he didn't even feel the soap sensation in his mouth. But then the taste that was already there was so much like the inside of a parrot's cage that perhaps the psychic soap was just lost in the other, more horrible, taste.

Curiously he found that the steaming, jet black coffee made him feel better. How had he known it would? Perhaps Grundy ... or Bowdler had told him about it....

His mother watched him drink the dread potion silently. Then she said, "My poor, poor boy. When do you have to do this terrible thing again?"

He lifted his head and found that he could endure the sunlight. In some lost cavern in the back of his head he heard Bowdler's drunken voice saying, "And if you think you're gonna die, buddy boy, remember, a hair of the dog will fix you up."

The idea of eating a dog's hair almost made him run for the bathroom again, but he conquered the feeling.

Then he considered his mother's question. When must he get drunk again? Why ... right now. This minute. Besides, he wanted to find out more about these puzzles that baffled him, from his buddies. He smiled remembering the good feeling of fellowship that had been his when he had sung some old song with Bowdler and Grundy.

How did the words go?

His startled mother raised her eyebrows when her poor sick boy lurched to the side of his bed and began to hum, "For he's a jolly good fellow...."

Yep.

Back to the saloon.

That's where he belonged.

Rising slowly from some subterranean depth was the dawning realization that he was beginning to enjoy his ailment....

Good old Grundy.... Good old Bowdler ... they were indeed the salt of the planet.

CHAPTER 3

"'The portions of a woman's anatomy,'" Grundy was singing when Jimmy entered the bar, "'that appeal to man's depravity, are fashioned with considerable care....'" He broke off his song when he saw Comstock. "Buddy boy!"

Bowdler rushed over and threw his arms around Jimmy, "How's the old kid?"

"Fine, just fine. How about a drink?" Comstock found himself asking, just as though he'd been a bar-room habitue all his life.

The corpse revivers served their functions admirably, Jimmy found. In fact in just short of an hour, he was high on a cloud, feeling no pain.

That was when Grundy, whom Jimmy had thought was quite drunk, had drawn Bowdler and Comstock to a quiet table in the back of the saloon. Carrying their drinks they joined him. Jimmy was puzzled, for suddenly Grundy had become very serious. Bowdler seemed to know what was in the wind.

When they were seated comfortably and Jimmy was sipping happily at his drink, Grundy looked around conspiratorially before he whispered, "Jimmy, how old is The Grandfather?"

The question was a double shocker. First because Jimmy was positive that this was the first time that holy name had ever been mentioned in such unhallowed precincts, and second because the veriest infant knew the answer. He said, "The Grandfather was, is and always will be."

Grundy grinned. "How do you know that to be true?"

Comstock's world stopped spinning. His breath froze in his lungs. Then he felt a heart attack coming on. He fell face forward onto the floor.

Bowdler said, "Now see what you've done! You should have led up to it more gradually."

"Let's see if we can revive him." Grundy's normally jolly face was set and strained.

When Comstock opened his eyes and felt consciousness return he found that his friends had him propped up in his chair and were pouring liquor down his throat. Gasping, he spluttered, "All right, all right. I'm okay now."

There was a pause, then Comstock asked, "What happened to me?"

The two other men avoided his eyes. Bowdler said at long last, "I guess you're not quite drunk enough."

He ordered another round of drinks and as they waited for the elderly waitress to bring them to the table Jimmy found himself remembering what had happened.

The only thing that prevented his passing out again was that the s..y waitress returned with their corpse revivers. He took a big slug, considered her bent back as she walked away and said, "I ... seem to remember your asking me something about...."

"I did." Grundy's face was set with determination. "Now hold onto yourself, laddy boy. How do you know that The Grandfather has always been and always will be?"

The traumatic shock was strong again but he had drunk some more and so was able to hold on while all the blood drained out of his head. He finally managed to say weakly, "Because everyone knows that to be true." Life without Grandfather was inconceivable. Who would look after them? Protect them? To whom could a man turn if not to The Grandfather?

Grundy and Bowdler exchanged meaningful glances. "If He always was, how come there's no record of His having made the trip from Earth?"

A trifle drunkenly, Comstock considered the question. Earth? Oh, yes that was the fable, the children's tale that his people had emigrated from some other planet. He had dismissed the whole thing as the usual kind of Father Goose story that kiddies were told. Aloud he asked, "You mean you two think there really is another inhabited planet?"

"Think?" Both men spoke simultaneously, but it was Grundy who continued. "We know it. Look, Jimmy, we're risking a great deal, and before we go on, we'll have to swear you to secrecy. Whether you join us in what we have in mind, or not, you must swear on your father's memory that you will be silent as the grave...."

They waited, poised on the edge of their chairs with nervousness.

When he deliberated so long that their nerves were jangling, Bowdler said, "Look, Jimmy, do you want to have to live and die as a drunk, just because it's the only known cure for your disease?"

Things were popping too fast for Comstock to be able to grapple with them intelligently. He mumbled, "Nothin' wrong with being a drunk. I like it fine."

Grundy sprang to the attack. "That's too bad, old man, because it means the cure won't work. You should know that, the doc should have told you! The vice must be distasteful or the cure doesn't work!"

Looking back on the Comstock of yesterday, Jimmy could see why the doctor had not felt it necessary to make this point. It certainly had been unpredictable that he'd enjoy drinking. But it was his new friends who had made it fun.... Had they done it deliberately? Too much to grapple with ... he'd better wait and see what they had in mind. He said, "I swear to keep silent."

Bowdler said, "Go ahead, Grundy, it's your story." Parenthetically, he explained to Jimmy, "You know, or I guess maybe you don't, that before Bowdler here, got sick, he was Head Genealogist."

"No kidding!" Comstock was amazed. Head Genealogist! Whew ... that was a post that almost ranked with being a Father! Bowdler was ... or had been, a big man!

"As part of my job," Bowdler said, "I went back to the beginning. I checked the passenger list on the Bon Aventure, the space ship that brought the original Thirty to this planet from Earth."

Gulping down his drink, hurriedly Comstock ordered another round. To mention the Thirty ... it was almost as blasphemous as talking about The Grandfather! These two were dangerous men. He'd listen to what they said, but then he must, literally must, report them to the authorities! He was sorry for them for he liked them, but blasphemy like this had to be punished.

Bowdler went on, "That was the first time the thought occurred to me to wonder about ole Grandpop!"

Grandpop! Blasphemy piled on blasphemy. Comstock could feel his ears burning.

"And you know something," Bowdler lowered his voice to the veriest whisper of communicable sound, "There was no record of His having made the trip! None at all!"

The silence dragged itself out. Comstock was in a condition bordering on insanity. Although he managed to keep his face still. The temerity of these two ... apostates!

"As a matter of cold brutal fact," Bowdler said broodingly, "there is no record of The Grandfather at all until about five hundred years ago! I checked, I read books that no one, absolutely no one has even looked at for centuries ... and by Grandpop himself, there's not even a mention of Him, till about a hundred years after they killed off the last scientists."

No one had ever before discussed these things openly, or covertly, with Comstock. A new emotion was beginning to make itself felt. He was becoming interested. The last scientists ... he remembered all about them from school. The monsters! It was a good thing they had been wiped out. But even so it was exciting hearing it talked about. He leaned forward on the table and sipped his drink more slowly. There was plenty of time to report Bowdler and Grundy. After all, the authorities would want as much information as he could get.

Grundy spoke for the first time in a long time. He said, "That's where I come in. I used to be custodian of the hall of records."

Jimmy felt a little better. After all, a janitor! His job before he'd become ill had been better than that. He had been a law clerk at the Bureau of Commandments ... it didn't compare with the office that Bowdler had held, and yet it was certainly a lot better than.... But Grundy was speaking. He said, "Bowdler got his heart attack when he began to wonder about where The Grandfather had come from. I got mine when I was ordered by the Board of Fathers...." "Oops," Comstock thought, a janitor working for the Fathers was nothing to be sneezed at, he'd better wait and see what was coming.

Grundy went on, "The only reason I even looked at the record I was supposed to burn was because I had glanced at it and had seen a G. I wondered if it had something to do with my family...." He put his hands to his forehead. "If only I hadn't ... I'd still be happily at work ... with no heart trouble ... and with no need to drink this stuff...." He gulped down some of his drink.

"Buck up, old man," Bowdler said. "What's done is done."

"You're right. I must be a man." He shook his head dolefully. "It wasn't about my family at all. It was about the Gantrys ... and you know how powerful that blood line is. I don't have to tell you! Ever since Elmer the First, they've been on top of the heap!"

Comstock nodded. As if any sane person would even question the qualifications of the Gantrys to be leaders! These two men were even more dangerous than he had suspected. It was up to him to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, by The Grandfather it was!

The furrows in Grundy's forehead were deeper now. His elbows on the table, his head in his hands, he looked off into the middle distance. He said, and he was almost speaking to himself, his voice was so low, "It was only when I examined the records that I began to wonder if it was truly ordained that the Gantrys were the leaders and would be the leaders, under The Grandfather's eagle eye. Funny," he mused, "all it takes is the tiniest notion to question these eternal verities, and then without your even being aware of it, the questions begin to demand answers...."

Bowdler broke in. "That was the mood Grundy was in when he and I met here in the saloon. Two men, both possessed of a tiny bit of knowledge not shared by anyone else on New Australia, and by chance we met here...."

Jimmy drained his glass and the action of tilting his head back brought the level of his eyes higher than it had been. That was the only reason he saw the face that was framed in a little window at the back of the bar-room.

His breath shot out of his lungs as though he had been hit by the hind legs of an astrobat. He gulped, "Grundy! Bowdler!"

Their heads swivelled and they too saw what had frightened him.

"One of the Father's Right Arms!" Bowdler said. Then, with a visible attempt to keep his voice down and his face from showing the fear that gripped all three of them, he said, "This is what we had to be prepared for; are you with us, Comstock?"

Now was the moment for decision. If, Jimmy thought, he were to act bravely, throw himself on the two apostates and wait for the R.A. to get to them, he could then explain what horrors the two evil men had been discussing. But, and the canker of indecision gnawed at him, but, what after all had he really learned? Only that these two men were questioning the eternal verities. There was more to it, much more, of that he was convinced.

There was perhaps an inch of liquor left in Jimmy's glass. Draining it, he made the decision which he was instantly to regret. He said, "I'm with you two. What shall we do?" Better, he had decided, to go along with Grundy and Bowdler and pretend to be part of their horrid scheme, that was the only way that later on he could report fully to the Fathers.

Grundy and Bowdler smiled at each other. Grundy said, "He's with us! Let's go!"

All this time the R.A. had been watching them, his little eyes preternaturally alert, his gaunt hand steadily holding the gun that pointed straight at them, his attention completely focussed on the trio.

Bowdler leaned forward on the table till his head was close to Jimmy's. He whispered, "When I say three, duck to the floor. Stay there till I grab you."

All around the three men the life of the saloon went on blithely. The other heart disease patients were drinking; some solemnly, some gaily, the aged waitresses were busy with their Hebe-like duties, the bartenders were mixing drinks, but to Jimmy, the whole of life ... and perhaps death were contingent upon the next three seconds.

"One." Bowdler's voice whispered.

Jimmy could see Grundy bunching his heavy muscles for some kind of action.

"Two."

Watching the R.A. out of the corner of his eyes, Jimmy wondered if it was just his imagination or if he had really seen the R.A.'s trigger finger tighten on the stungun's trigger.

"Three!"

CHAPTER 4

Later, looking back on the scene that followed, Jimmy was never quite sure just what had happened in just what order. For the first thing that erupted was the table. Grundy had suddenly tilted back in his chair throwing his heavy body over backwards. His legs, under the table, served to catapult the heavy object straight up towards the little spy window where the R.A. waited.

Bowdler had thrown his own empty glass straight at the eternally lit little bulb that had supplied the only illumination.

Darkness, then the crash of the table, then Comstock had obeyed orders and thrown himself flat on the floor. Next to him he had heard Bowdler land heavily.

The second crash as the table fell to the floor was the signal for Bowdler to grab Comstock by the arm and whisper, "Crawl after me."

Darkness and silence.

None of the other heart patients in the saloon had uttered a sound. That was not surprising of course, as anything unusual that ever happened was always the result of the action of the R.A.'s and it ill behooved anyone to interfere with them....

The only sign of light was the little flicker that came from the R.A.'s halo.

The sight of it was enough to make Comstock's blood run cold. Hopelessly he wished for a heart attack that would make him hors de combat, but for once that organ seemed impregnable.

Then, crawling on his hands and knees, crawling after the unseen bulk of Bowdler, with fear in him like a live thing, Comstock died a thousand deaths. In the darkness a bulky body had bumped into him, and for a moment his heart had seemed to stop completely but then he realized it was only Grundy. The man had whispered, "Not far now."

Most frightening of all had been the moment when his head had touched the solid wall of the back room of the saloon. That had not been frightening in itself, but what had happened next was the worst of all, for suddenly the solid wall was no longer solid.

Frozen immobile, he had waited till Grundy had said, "Go on ... hurry up."

Behind him Bowdler had pushed him, hard.

There was no choice. He went through the no longer solid wall.

Then there was another terrible period of darkness and silence and crawling along on all fours.

Bowdler finally spoke and he no longer whispered. He said, and his voice was harsh and loud, "It's all right now. We can stand up."

Then a light had flooded them.

And so here he was, Comstock thought dully, his brain feeling about as perceptive as a plate of liver as he stood in the small room that had no right to be where it was. Not that he knew where that was, but he knew that The Grandfather would certainly not approve of a hideout, and there could be no doubt that he was in such a place.

Grundy and Bowdler looked at him and enjoyed his manifest surprise.

Jimmy asked, "What, where, how, I mean...."

"We're not exactly fools, you know, Comstock old boy," Grundy said. "We knew that the R.A.'s had us under observation. We knew, too, that it was only a question of time before they came after us."

"But the saloon wall, how did we go through that?"

"Trap door, old sock, just a trap door." Bowdler grinned.

"And the tunnel we went through?" Comstock asked and then, looking around at the sybaritic furnishings of the little room, he asked, "This room, what is it?" Never in his life had he seen a room with such over-stuffed chairs, such soft warm colors, such a concern for creature comforts.

"Evidently," Bowdler said with an evil smirk, "Elmer Gantry 104 does not really believe in the Spartan virtues that he preaches so loudly."

"You mean this belongs to a Gantry?" Earlier, the very idea of being in a room that belonged to a Gantry would have made Comstock swoon, but his experiences were evidently toughening him, for aside from a certain feeling of breathlessness, and the knowledge that all the blood had left his face, and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, the blasphemous information did not affect Comstock at all.

Bowdler was standing with his back to Comstock, his hands linked behind his back, as he teetered back and forth from heels to toes and looked at some three dimensional pictures that hung on Gantry's walls.

Only the fact that the n..e women in the round, true-color pictures were young, between twenty and thirty years old, kept Comstock from a heart attack. If they had been older, the obscenity of their n....y would surely have made him pass out. He could not help wondering how Bowdler could seem to enjoy looking at the young women. It was incredibly revolting to Comstock's sense of the rightness of things.

"Sit down," Grundy said, "let's have a council of war."

Sitting on the very edge of the too-soft chair, keeping his back rigid, Comstock kept his attention glued on Grundy and Bowdler. Now perhaps, he would pick up some information of real value to the Fathers.

He noticed with some dismay that the other two men slouched back in their chairs and seemed to be enjoying the ease of their surroundings.

He asked uneasily, "Is there no chance that the R.A. will follow us here? Don't they know about this retreat?"

"Would any R.A. dare to contaminate a Gantry's home with his presence? Relax, Jimmy." Bowdler sprawled out, his large t...h hanging over one arm of the over-stuffed chair. "The only chance we're taking is that Gantry may come here. I checked and found that he is conferring with the Fathers today."

How easily these two men spoke the terrible words. It made Comstock sit ever straighter on the very edge of the chair he occupied.

The cool air of the room which seemed to have been washed and cleansed before entering the sacrosanct area was pleasant on Jimmy's heated face even while he wondered how a windowless room could be so aired.

"I gather," Bowdler said as he smiled at Jimmy's obvious consternation, "that you have never been in a home of one of the Thirty before?"

Dully, Jimmy shook his head no.

"You'll find, laddy boy, that this is a strange world we live in with many paradoxes that to Grundy and me, demand an explanation. It wasn't too long ago that we were like you and found only elderly ladies attractive. But you know, as soon as we found out that the Thirty like their women young, we too began to find something vastly exciting in youth."

So alarmed that he dare not continue to look at Bowdler, Jimmy looked around the room trying to find something to change the subject, some object on which to focus. On a book shelf nearby he saw one of his childhood favorites, and grabbed it with a feeling of relief.

It was a copy of Father Goose. He ran his eye over the first poem and drew from the verse of Jack and Jill the knowledge that the world had not gone insane. There, it was just as he remembered it,

"Jack and Jill went up the hill

To ..... a .... of water.

Jack fell down and broke his .....

And Jill came ........ after."

He riffled through the pages as Bowdler went on talking. On page ten was another favorite,

"Little Polly Flinders