Is That What People Do? Read online

  “Morton,” he said in a husky voice, “I’m only a Third Degree Adept, you know. My parents were very poor. They couldn’t send me to The University.”

  “I know,” the boy said in a whisper.

  “I want you to have all the things I never had. Morton, you can be a First Degree Adept.” He shook his head wistfully. “It’ll be difficult. But your mother and I have a little put away, and we’ll scrape the rest together somehow.”

  Morton was biting his lip and turning the pencil rapidly in his fingers.

  “How about it, son? You know, as a First Degree Adept, you won’t have to work in a store. You can be a Direct Agent of The Black One. A Direct Agent! What do you say, boy?”

  For a moment, Dee thought his son was moved. Morton’s lips were parted, and there was a suspicious brightness in his eyes. But then the boy glanced at his accounting books, his little abacus, his toy adding machine.

  “I’m going to be an accountant,” he said.

  “We’ll see!” Mr. Dee shouted, all patience gone. “You will not be an accountant, young man. You will be a wizard. It was good enough for the rest of your family, and by all that’s damnable, it’ll be good enough for you. You haven’t heard the last of this, young man.” And he stormed out of the room.

  Immediately, Morton returned to his accounting books.

  Mr. and Mrs. Dee sat together on the couch, not talking. Mrs. Dee was busily knitting a wind-cord, but her mind wasn’t on it. Mr. Dee stared moodily at a worn spot on the living room rug.

  Finally, Dee said, “I’ve spoiled him. Boarbas is the only solution.”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Dee said hastily. “He’s so young.”

  “Do you want your son to be an accountant?” Mr. Dee asked bitterly. “Do you want him to grow up scribbling with figures instead of doing The Black One’s important work?”

  “Of course not,” said Mrs. Dee. “But Boarbas—”

  “I know. I feel like a murderer already.”

  They thought for a few moments. Then Mrs. Dee said, “Perhaps his grandfather can do something. He was always fond of the boy.”

  “Perhaps he can,” Mr. Dee said thoughtfully. “But I don’t know if we should disturb him. After all, the old gentleman has been dead for three years.”

  “I know,” Mrs. Dee said, undoing an incorrect knot in the wind-cord. “But it’s either that or Boarbas.”

  Mr. Dee agreed. Unsettling as it would be to Morton’s grandfather, Boarbas was infinitely worse. Immediately, Dee made preparations for calling up his dead father.

  He gathered together the henbane, the ground unicorn’s horn, the hemlock, together with a morsel of dragon’s tooth. These he placed on the rug.

  “Where’s my wand?” he asked his wife.

  “I put it in the bag with your golf clubs,” she told him.

  Mr. Dee got his wand and waved it over the ingredients. He muttered the three words of The Unbinding, and called out his father’s name.

  Immediately a wisp of smoke arose from the rug.

  “Hello, Grandpa Dee,” Mrs. Dee said.

  “Dad, I’m sorry to disturb you,” Mr. Dee said. “But my son—your grandson—refuses to become a wizard. He wants to be an—accountant.”

  The wisp of smoke trembled, then straightened out and described a character of the Old Language.

  “Yes,” Mr. Dee said. “We tried persuasion. The boy is adamant.”

  Again the smoke trembled and formed another character.

  “I suppose that’s best,” Mr. Dee said. “If you frighten him out of his wits once and for all, he’ll forget this accounting nonsense. It’s cruel—but it’s better than Boarbas.”

  The wisp of smoke nodded, and streamed toward the boy’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Dee sat down on the couch.

  The door of Morton’s room was slammed open, as though by a gigantic wind. Morton looked up, frowned, and returned to his books.

  The wisp of smoke turned into a winged lion with the tail of a shark. It roared hideously, crouched, snarled, and gathered itself for a spring.

  Morton glanced at it, raised both eyebrows, and proceeded to jot down a column of figures.

  The lion changed into a three-headed lizard, its flanks reeking horribly of blood. Breathing gusts of fire, the lizard advanced on the boy.

  Morton finished adding the column of figures, checked the result on his abacus, and looked at the lizard.

  With a screech, the lizard changed into a giant gibbering bat. It fluttered around the boy’s head, moaning and gibbering.

  Morton grinned, and turned back to his books.

  Mr. Dee was unable to stand it any longer. “Damn it,” he shouted, “aren’t you scared?”

  “Why should I be?” Morton asked. “It’s only grandpa.”

  Upon the word, the bat dissolved into a plume of smoke. It nodded sadly to Mr. Dee, bowed to Mrs. Dee, and vanished.

  “Goodbye, Grandpa,” Morton called. He got up and closed his door.

  “That does it,” Mr. Dee said. “The boy is too cocksure of himself. We must call up Boarbas.”

  “No!” his wife said.

  “What, then?”

  “I just don’t know any more,” Mrs. Dee said, on the verge of tears. “You know what Boarbas does to children. They’re never the same afterwards.”

  Mr. Dee’s face was hard as granite. “I know. It can’t be helped.”

  “He’s so young!” Mrs. Dee wailed. “It—it will be traumatic!”

  “If so, we will use all the resources of modem psychology to heal him,” Mr. Dee said soothingly. “He will have the best psychoanalysts money can buy. But the boy must be a wizard!”

  “Go ahead then,” Mrs. Dee said, crying openly. “But please don’t ask me to assist you.”

  How like a woman, Dee thought. Always turning into jelly at the moment when firmness was indicated. With a heavy heart, he made the preparations for calling up Boarbas, Demon of Children.

  First came the intricate sketching of the pentagon, the twelve-pointed star within it, and the endless spiral within that. Then came the herbs and essences; expensive items, but absolutely necessary for the conjuring. Then came the inscribing of the Protective Spell, so that Boarbas might not break loose and destroy them all. Then came the three drops of hippogriff blood—

  “Where is my hippogriff blood?” Mr. Dee asked, rummaging through the living room cabinet.

  “In the kitchen, in the aspirin bottle,” Mrs. Dee said, wiping her eyes.

  Dee found it, and then all was in readiness. He lighted the black candles and chanted the Unlocking Spell.

  The room was suddenly very warm, and there remained only the Naming of the Name.

  “Morton,” Mr. Dee called. “Come here.”

  Morton opened the door and stepped out, holding one of his accounting books tightly, looking very young and defenseless.

  “Morton, I am about to call up the Demon of Children. Don’t make me do it, Morton.”

  The boy turned pale and shrank back against the door. But stubbornly he shook his head.

  “Very well,” Mr. Dee said. “BOARBAS!”

  There was an earsplitting clap of thunder and a wave of heat, and Boarbas appeared, as tall as the ceiling, chuckling evilly.

  “Ah!” cried Boarbas, in a voice that shook the room. “A little boy.”

  Morton gaped, his jaw open and eyes bulging.

  “A naughty little boy,” Boarbas said, and laughed. The demon marched forward, shaking the house with every stride.

  “Send him away!” Mrs. Dee cried.

  “I can’t,” Dee said, voice breaking. “I can’t do anything until he’s finished.”

  The demon’s great horned hands reached for Morton; but quickly the boy opened the accounting book. “Save me!” he cried.

  In that instant, a tall, terribly thin old man appeared, covered with worn pen points and ledger sheets, his eyes two empty zeroes.

  “Zico Pico Reel!” chanted Boarbas, turning to grapple with the newcom
er. But the thin old man laughed, and said, “A contract of a corporation which is ultra vires is not voidable only, but utterly void.”

  At these words, Boarbas was flung back, breaking a chair as he fell. He scrambled to his feet, his skin glowing red-hot with rage, and intoned the Demoniac Master-Spell: “VRAT, HAT, HO!”

  But the thin old man shielded Morton with his body, and cried the words of Dissolution. “Expiration, Repeal, Occurrence, Surrender, Abandonment and Death!”

  Boarbas squeaked in agony. Hastily he backed away, fumbling in the air until he found The Opening. He jumped through it and was gone.

  The tall, thin old man turned to Mr. and Mrs. Dee, cowering in a corner of the living room, and said, “Know that I am The Accountant. And Know, Moreover, that this Child has signed a Compact with Me, to enter My Apprenticeship and be My Servant. And in return for Services Rendered, I, THE ACCOUNTANT, am teaching him the Damnation of Souls, by means of ensnaring them in a cursed web of Figures, Forms, Torts and Reprisals. And behold, this is My Mark upon him!”

  The Accountant held up Morton’s right hand, and showed the ink smudge on the third finger.

  He turned to Morton, and in a softer voice said, “Tomorrow, lad, we will consider some aspects of Income Tax Evasion as a Path to Damnation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Morton said eagerly.

  And with another sharp look at the Dees, The Accountant vanished.

  For long seconds there was silence. Then Dee turned to his wife.

  “Well,” Dee said, “if the boy wants to be an accountant that badly, I’m sure I’m not going to stand in his way.”

  A WIND IS RISING

  Outside, a wind was rising. But within the station, the two men had other things on their minds. Clayton turned the handle of the water faucet again and waited. Nothing happened.

  “Try hitting it,” said Nerishev.

  Clayton pounded the faucet with his fist. Two drops of water came out. A third drop trembled on the spigot’s lip, swayed, and fell. That was all.

  “That does it,” Clayton said bitterly. “That damned water pipe is blocked again. How much water we got in storage?”

  “Four gallons—assuming the tank hasn’t sprung another leak,” said Nerishev. He stared at the faucet, tapping it with long, nervous fingers. He was a big, pale man with a sparse beard, fragile-looking in spite of his size. He didn’t look like the type to operate an observation station on a remote and alien planet. But the Advance Exploration Corps had discovered, to its regret, that there was no type to operate a station.

  Nerishev was a competent biologist and botanist. Although chronically nervous, he had surprising reserves of calm. He was the sort of man who needs an occasion to rise to. This, if anything, made him suitable to pioneer a planet like Carella I.

  “I suppose somebody should go out and unblock the water pipe,” said Nerishev, not looking at Clayton.

  “I suppose so,” Clayton said, pounding the faucet again. “But it’s going to be murder out there. Listen to it!”

  Clayton was a short man, bull-necked, red-faced, powerfully constructed. This was his third tour of duty as a planetary observer.

  He had tried other jobs in the Advance Exploration Corps, but none had suited him. PEP—Primary Extraterrestrial Penetration—faced him with too many unpleasant surprises. It was work for daredevils and madmen. But Base Operations was much too tame and restricting.

  He liked the work of a planetary observer, though. His job was to sit tight on a planet newly opened by the PEP boys and checked out by a drone camera crew. All he had to do on this planet was stoically endure discomfort and skillfully keep himself alive. After a year of this, the relief ship would remove him and note his report. On the basis of the report, further action would or would not be taken.

  Before each tour of duty, Clayton dutifully promised his wife that this would be the last. After this tour, he was going to stay on Earth and work on the little farm he owned. He promised....

  But at the end of each rest leave, Clayton journeyed out again, to do the thing for which he was best suited: staying alive through skill and endurance.

  But this time, he had had it. He and Nerishev had been eight months on Carella. The relief ship was due in another four months. If he came through alive, he was going to quit for good.

  “Just listen to that wind,” Nerishev said.

  Muffled, distant, it sighed and murmured around the steel hull of the station like a zephyr, a summer breeze.

  That was how it sounded to them inside the station, separated from the wind by three inches of steel plus a soundproofing layer.

  “It’s rising,” Clayton said. He walked over to the wind-speed indicator. According to the dial, the gentle-sounding wind was blowing at a steady 82 miles an hour—

  A light breeze on Carella.

  “Man, oh, man!” Clayton said. “I don’t want to go out there. Nothing’s worth going out there.”

  “It’s your turn,” Nerishev pointed out.

  “I know. Let me complain a little first, will you? Come on, let’s get a forecast from Smanik.”

  They walked the length of the station, their heels echoing on the steel floor, past compartments filled with food, air supplies, instruments, extra equipment. At the far end of the station was the heavy metal door of the receiving shed. The men slipped on air masks and adjusted the flow.

  “Ready?” Clayton asked.

  “Ready.”

  They braced themselves, gripping handholds beside the door. Clayton touched the stud. The door slid away and a gust of wind shrieked in. The men lowered their heads and butted into the wind, entering the receiving shed.

  The shed was an extension of the station, some thirty feet long by fifteen feet wide. It was not sealed, like the rest of the structure. The walls were built of openwork steel, with baffles set in. The wind could pass through this arrangement, but slowed down, controlled. A gauge told them it was blowing 34 miles an hour within the shed.

  It was a damned nuisance, Clayton thought, having to confer with the natives of Carella in a 34-mile gale. But there was no other way. The Carellans, raised on a planet where the wind never blew less than 70 miles an hour, couldn’t stand the “dead air” within the station. Even with the oxygen content cut down to the Carellan norm, the natives couldn’t make the adjustment. Within the station, they grew dizzy and apprehensive. Soon they began strangling, like a man in a vacuum.

  Thirty-four miles an hour of wind was a fair compromise-point for human and Carellan to meet.

  Clayton and Nerishev walked down the shed. In one corner lay what looked like a tangle of dried-out octopi. The tangle stirred and waved two tentacles ceremoniously.

  “Good day,” said Smanik.

  “Good day,” Clayton said. “What do you think of the weather?”

  “Excellent,” said Smanik.

  Nerishev tugged at Clayton’s sleeve. “What did he say?” he asked, and nodded thoughtfully when Clayton translated it for him. Nerishev lacked Clayton’s gift for language. Even after eight months, the Carellan tongue was still an undecipherable series of clicks and whistles to him.

  Several more Carellans came up to join the conversation. They all looked like spiders or octopi, with their small centralized body and long, flexible tentacles. This was the optimum survival shape on Carella, and Clayton frequently envied it. He was forced to rely absolutely on the shelter of the station; but the Carellans lived directly in their environment.

  Often he had seen a native walking against a tornado-force wind, seven or eight limbs hooked into the ground and pulling, other tentacles reaching out for further grips. He had seen them rolling down the wind like tumbleweed, their tentacles curled around them, wickerwork-basket fashion. He thought of the gay and audacious way they handled their land ships, scudding merrily along on the wind....

  Well, he thought, they’d look damned silly on Earth.

  “What is the weather going to be like?” he asked Smanik.

  The Care
llan pondered the question for a while, sniffed the wind and rubbed two tentacles together.

  “The wind may rise a shade more,” he said finally. “But it will be nothing serious.”

  Clayton wondered. Nothing serious for a Carellan could mean disaster for an Earthman. Still, it sounded fairly promising.

  He and Nerishev left the receiving shed and closed the door.

  “Look,” said Nerishev, “if you’d like to wait—”

  “Might as well get it over with,” Clayton said.

  Here, lighted by a single dim overhead bulb, was the smooth, glittering bulk of the Brute. That was the nickname they had given to the vehicle specially constructed for transportation on Carella.

  The Brute was armored like a tank and streamlined like a spheric section. It had vision slits of shatterproof glass, thick enough to match the strength of its steel plating. Its center of gravity was low; most of its twelve tons were centered near the ground. The Brute was sealed. Its heavy diesel engine, as well as all necessary openings, were fitted with special dustproof covers. The Brute rested on its six fat tires, looking, in its immovable bulk, like some prehistoric monster.

  Clayton got in, put on crash helmet and goggles, and strapped himself into the padded seat. He revved up the engine, listened to it critically, then nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, “the Brute’s ready. Get upstairs and open the garage door.”

  “Good luck,” said Nerishev. He left.

  Clayton went over the instrument panel, making sure that all the Brute’s special gadgets were in working order. In a moment, he heard Nerishev’s voice coming in over the radio.

  “I’m opening the door.”

  “Right.”

  The heavy door slid back and Clayton drove the Brute outside.

  The station had been set up on a wide, empty plain. Mountains would have offered some protection from the wind; but the mountains on Carella were in a constant restless state of building up and breaking down. The plain presented dangers of its own, however. To avert the worst of those dangers, a field of stout steel posts had been planted around the station. The closely packed posts pointed outward, like ancient tank traps, and served the same purpose.