Alien Harvest (a) Read online

  Alien Harvest

  ( Aliens )

  Robert Sheckley

  This time the humans are taking the offensive! Stan Myakovsky is a once-famous scientist fallen on hard times. Now he dodges spaceship repo men and dreams of the marketability of his cybernetic ant. Then a woman named Julie Lish walks into his life. She is beautiful, mysterious, and totally amoral. She is also skilled in the arts of thievery and Oriental self-defense. What's more, she has a plan so outrageous there might be one chance in a million to pull it off.

  Together Stan and Julie become the most unlikely pair of pirates in the universe. With a hijacked spaceship and a crew of hardcase misfits, they’re searching for the ultimate pot of gold at the end of a bloody intergalactic rainbow: royal jelly from an alien hive. The only problem is that the fortune lies on the universe’s most godforsaken planet. And once they get their hands on it, they’ll have to fight their way past the aliens to get off the planet alive.

  Alien Harvest

  by Robert Sheckley

  To my wife, Gail, with all my love

  Captain Hoban's Prologue

  I was in the middle of the whole thing with Stan and Julie.

  I guess almost everybody on Earth knows how it ended. But they don't know how it began.

  I've been putting together everything I know about it. I figure it started the morning Stan got the summons.

  1

  That morning Stan had to go downtown to the Colonial Mercantile Building on Vesey Street. The day before there had been a ring at his doorbell. Stan hadn't been doing much when it came. He had several experiments going in his cellar laboratory. The lab took up most of the space in the old frame house on Gramercy Park that he had inherited from his father. Stan hadn't been feeling well lately, and although he tried to tell himself it wasn't anything, some little voice within him kept on intruding, telling him, “This could be very serious….”

  He had been avoiding his doctor for a while, but now he called up and made an appointment with Dr. Johnston at the Fifty-ninth Street clinic for the next day. That was when the doorbell rang.

  The man standing outside was tall and thin, and dressed in a badly pressed gray business suit.

  “Are you Professor Myakovsky?”

  “I am,” Stan replied.

  “Are you the Stanley Myakovsky who wrote the book about Ari the ant?”

  “Yes, I am,” Stan repeated. He was starting to feel a little better. This guy seemed to be someone who had read his book, was probably a fan, maybe even wanted an autograph. “What can I do for you?”

  “I got a summons for you,” the man said, taking a folded paper out of his pocket and slapping it briskly into Stan's hand. “You are served. Have a nice day, Doctor.” He turned and left.

  Stan went back inside and looked over the summons. He had no idea what it was about and the document itself didn't enlighten him. It simply said he was to appear in Courtroom B at 311 Vesey Street the following day, or face the consequences.

  Have a nice day.

  What a laugh.

  It had been so long since Stan had had a nice day, he couldn't remember what one looked like.

  The next day he left early for Vesey Street. The Broadway trolley was running again, rumbling past the newly restored buildings of midtown. It was a bright day outside, and despite his depression, Stan started to feel just the slightest lift to his spirits.

  That lasted until he got to Vesey Street.

  Vesey Street was filled with city and federal buildings, some of them quite old, dating from before the time of the aliens, miraculously unburned during the anarchic days when the aliens ruled. Some of the buildings in this area were brand-spanking-new. There had been a lot of rebuilding since those days. Stan would have liked to have been part of the first days after humans reoccupied their own planet. It must have been exhilarating, reoccupying your own country, having a future again on your own planet. Now, of course, it was business as usual….More or less.

  Times were pretty good. America was experiencing a boom. Business was strong. A lot of people were making a lot of money. Some people, of course, were losing a lot of money. It had to come from somewhere.

  So it came from people like Stan.

  He mounted the stone steps of the Criminal Courts Building. Within, he found a clerk who checked his summons and directed him up a flight of stairs to the correct courtroom.

  He walked in. It was a small room with a half-dozen chairs facing a raised desk. The sign on the door had said judge Jacob Lessner, presiding. Behind the desk sat a small man in black robes. He said, “Dr. Stanley Myakovsky?”

  “Yes,” Stan replied.

  “Come in. I suppose you know what this is about?”

  “No, I don't.”

  Judge Lessner frowned. “Your lawyer really should keep you better informed.”

  Stan nodded, although he knew very well he hadn't been answering his lawyer's calls over the last few days.

  “Well, this is a pretty simple matter.” The judge searched among the papers on his desk until he found what he was looking for. “This is a government order seizing your spaceship.”

  “The Dolomite?” Stan asked.

  The judge searched his paper until he found it. “Yes, of course, that's the name of your ship. You may no longer go aboard.”

  “But why?”

  “You were sent a notice a month ago advising you of the government's decision to take action against your unpaid bills.”

  Stan thought the paper must be somewhere among the unopened mail on his desk. He had been too depressed of late to open any of it. Most of the letters had something bad to say: how this investment or that was sliding to hell on him, or how his patents weren't earning as expected. And even more papers about all his back taxes.

  He felt a wave of hopelessness engulf him. He tried to struggle out of it. “They are not allowed to do that. My spaceship is one of the few ways I have of conducting business. If they take that, how am I supposed to pay them what they say I owe?”

  “That is not my concern,” the judge stated flatly. “You should have taken that into consideration when you fell so deeply into arrears. In any event, I am hereby notifying you of the government's decision to take your ship. If you have any difficulty with this, you or your lawyer can file a complaint with the clerk down the hall.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Stan said bitterly, and left the court room. A few blocks away he found a park bench to sit on. He needed to collect himself. His heart was beating wildly and he was sweating, though it was a mild day. At least, he thought, maybe my bad news for the day is over. I've had my share.

  That was before his doctor's appointment, of course.

  Dr. Johnston of the Fifty-ninth Street clinic came to the dressing room just as Stan finished knotting his tie.

  “How did my tests work out?” Stan asked.

  The doctor looked uncomfortable. “Not so good, I'm afraid.”

  “But I was here a year ago; you said I was fine!”

  “A lot can happen in a year,” the doctor said.

  Stan wanted to say, Sure, tell me about it, but he held back.

  “Exactly what is the matter?” he asked.

  Dr. Johnston answered, “I might as well give it to you straight, Dr. Myakovsky. You were correct in your surmise about those black marks on your chest and back. They are indeed cancers.”

  Stan sat down. He needed a moment to think about this. He couldn't believe what he had heard. And yet he had suspected it for months.

  Finally he asked, “Is my condition terminal?”

  “Yes.” The doctor nodded gravely. “In fact, you don't have much time left. A matter of months. I'm sorry, but it's best to give you the news straight. The condition, as I'm sur
e you know, is incurable. But its progress can be slowed, and we can ease some of the symptoms. I've already made out a prescription for the medicine we prescribe for such cases.” He handed Stan a folded slip of paper. “And there is also this.”

  The doctor held out a small plastic box. Within it, packed in foam rubber, were a dozen ampoules of a bluish liquid.

  “This is Xeno-Zip. Have you heard of it?”

  Stan nodded. “If memory serves, it is produced from the royal jelly of alien females.”

  “That is correct,” Dr. Johnston said. “I must tell you it's no cure for what you have. But it should relieve the symptoms. The stuff's illegal and I shouldn't be giving you this … but it could be just what you're looking for.”

  “Does it have much in the way of side effects?” Stan asked.

  The doctor smiled grimly. “It has indeed. That's why it hasn't received government approval yet, though many people still use it. Indeed, it has become the most-sought-after consciousness-altering substance in existence. Although the effect is not invariable, it does give most people an intense feeling of well-being and competence. Others experience levels of their own being not normally perceived. Still others have an orgasm that seems to go on forever.”

  “At least I'm going to die happy.” Stan wasn't smiling as he spoke.

  2

  It was cold that night. Wind demons seemed to chase up and down the streets of New York, wailing at the high-flying moon like all of the banshees of Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

  The block that Stan's house stood upon had once been genteel, a part of Gramercy Park. Now, armed citizens patrolled the streets night and day. Insurrection and disorder were rife all over the city, brought on by the breakdown of law and order since the troubles with the aliens. Some people could remember the coming of the aliens, and the many deaths that had resulted from their macabre practices. Their effect on New York had been to make it seem a much older city than it in fact was, one of those ancient cities like Baghdad or Babylon. Now, after the aliens, the city felt like it had seen unimaginable evil, and was resting, a little exhausted, waiting for the good life to start up again.

  After making himself a light dinner from an InstaPac protein ration, Stan went to the living room and started a fire in the fireplace. He sat down in a rocking chair and stared morosely into the flames, listening to the wind whistling outside the window and thinking of how little time he had left.

  It was strange how, upon hearing that your life had an imminent termination date, you began to think of suicide. Stan had never before understood Schopenhauer's saying that he got through many a long night with thoughts of suicide, but now it made sense. To kill himself might even be a triumph; it would rob the cancer of its victory. No longer would he dance to death's tune. No longer could the pain curl him up and make him beg for relief. He could get out of it, laugh at it all, and, as Hamlet had said, “Make his quietus with a bare bodkin.“

  From the plate of apples near his chair he picked up a short, keenly edged knife and looked at it like he'd never seen one before. Where in his body should he put it in? Should it be done hara-kiri style? Or was there another manner more appropriate for a Westerner?

  And yet, tempting as the thoughts of suicide were, they were mainly interesting when considered in the abstract. He didn't really want to kill himself. He wanted to do something. But he didn't know what it was.

  These were long, sad winter thoughts he was thinking, and he was startled out of his reverie when he heard the front door chimes.

  Stan looked up in surprise. He wasn't expecting anyone. He was a lonely man as he had been a lonely boy. He had gotten used to his solitary condition early in life, and had learned there was no sense struggling against it. He felt that it was written somewhere that he should be alone. This was his fate. He had no girlfriends — in fact, no real friends at all. No one came to take him to the movies or a concert, or for an evening's drinking. Since his parents' death four years ago in a traffic accident, he had become even less sociable. Sometimes he talked with colleagues at the laboratory, but even among people who should have been his own kind, his macabre and ironic sense of humor kept him apart. Stan lived alone in the house. He had set up a laboratory in the basement, and as far as possible, he did his experiments, wrote his papers, and lived his life at home, in solitude, among familiar things.

  It was here that he had written Cyberantics, his children's book about a cybernetic ant named Ari, based on an ant he had actually constructed himself. In fact, Ari was in the room with him now, perched on a small box on the mantel. The ant could see Stan as he hesitated a moment at the door.

  The chimes rang again. He arose and went to answer the summons. The front door creaked in his hand, almost as if it were reluctant to open. Stan peered out, his nearsighted eyes blinking behind his thick glasses.

  A young woman stood under the porch light and the first thing Stan noticed was the sheen of copper on her dark chestnut-red hair. She was tall and slender, and had masses of hair pushed back and tied behind her neck with a white ribbon. She wore a dark belted trench coat, severely cut, but not severe enough to hide the fact that she had a very good figure.

  Her face was oval and attractive, lightly made up. An old scar, now almost completely faded but visible even in the darkness of the porch, ran from the outside corner of her left eye to the corner of her full lips. It looked like an old dueling scar, such as they had once sported in places like Heidelberg some centuries earlier. Could it really be a dueling scar? Did people still fight duels? Some accident, perhaps. But then why hadn't she had it surgically removed? One thing was certain; the scar seemed to enhance her beauty, just as ancient people believed that scarification increased a woman's charm.

  “Dr. Myakovsky?” the woman said. “I am Julie Lish. I have a matter of considerable importance to discuss with you. May I come in?”

  Stan had been staring at her hard, as if she were a lab specimen. Now he came back to himself with a start.

  “Oh certainly; please. Come in.”

  He escorted Julie Lish inside and led her through the gloomy hallway to the well-lighted room where he had been staring into the flames of a dying fire. He picked up a poker now and stirred the fire up, then indicated a pair of matching armchairs just a comfortable distance from the flames. She took one and he seated himself in the other, then quickly got up again.

  “May I get you something to drink?”

  She smiled at him, amused by his bumbling eagerness. “You don't even know what I've come for.”

  “It doesn't really matter…. I mean, whatever it is, you are a guest in my house. Perhaps I could bring you a fruit drink? I'm afraid I have no alcohol to mix with it. Alcohol has an adverse effect on my can — my condition.”

  “A glass of fruit juice would be nice,” Julie said. “I am well aware that you do not drink, Dr. Myakovsky.”

  Stan had already begun pouring from a pitcher on a sideboard near the two armchairs. He looked up.

  “Well aware? Why?”

  “I've made it a point to find out about you,” Julie said. “I am always careful to research my future partners.”

  Stan stared at her, his lips slightly parted, trying to make sense out of all this. Was she laughing at him? Girls were such unfathomable creatures! Although he was fascinated by them, Stan had always kept his distance, conscious that he was not the athletic, glib, casual sort of man that women liked. And here was this beautiful and exotic creature already talking about becoming partners with him?

  “Please explain,” Stan said, with what he hoped was dignity. “You say you've studied me?”

  “Probably better than you've studied yourself,” Julie stated. “For example, I know about your first date. You were fifteen.”

  “Do you know what was special about it?” Stan asked.

  “I do indeed,” Julie replied. “You never showed up for it. You got cold feet at the last moment. And that, Doctor, could be said to characterize all your dealings with the
opposite sex.”

  Stan remembered the incident. He wondered if he had revealed it in some memoir he might have published at the invitation of a computer magazine. How else could she have found out? And what did she want to know that sort of thing for, anyhow?

  “I don't get this.” Stan looked at her. “What have you come here for? What do you want?”

  “Stan,” Julie said, “I'll make it short and sweet. I'm a thief. A good one. No, I'm a lot better than just good. I'm one of the best who ever lived. Unfortunately I can't bring you press clippings. Really good thieves don't get written up. You'll just have to take my word for it.”

  “All right, let's say I accept it,” Stan said. “So?”

  “I've made a lot of money in some of my enterprises,” Julie went on, “but not as much as I'd have liked. Stan, I want to be rich.”

  Stan laughed without humor. “I suppose a lot of people want that.”

  “Certainly, but they don't have my qualifications. Or my desire.”

  Stan acknowledged this. “I take it you have some ideas on how to realize that goal?”

  She nodded. “I have thought of a way you and I could make a fortune.”

  “A fortune,” Stan mused. “How much is that in dollars?”

  “Don't laugh at me,” Julie said. “I don't know exactly how much it would be. But it would come to millions of dollars, perhaps even billions, and we'd neither of us lack for anything ever again.”

  “Nothing?” Stan asked, looking at her and thinking how pretty she was.

  “We'd have it all,” she told him. “That's worth something, isn't it?”

  She slipped off the severe trench coat. Beneath it she wore a nylon, military-style jumpsuit. The tight-fitting clothes set off her well-shaped bosom and fine shoulders to advantage. Stan thought she looked great. He wondered if Julie was one of the things he'd also have if he made a deal with her. He liked the idea but kept that thought to himself as well. Although he was extremely susceptible to beauty, he had cultivated a brusque manner around women so they would never think he was coming on to them and then reject him. He had had a lot of rejection in his life, and he wasn't going to have any more if he could avoid it.