E. S. P. Worm Read online

  The gravball went like a meteor. Pow! and Crog’s tag-light disappeared.

  That broke the ice. I knew I could score, now, and it wouldn’t take me so much concentration again. I had to operate from far back in the court, but I had the game in hand.

  Crog made his round-mouthed gesture. It was about all that he was capable of in the way of facial expression. He must have thought I would miss from this range. Or be so frightened of him that I would not be able to shoot at all.

  Quickly he fielded the ball and bopped it back at a tag-light. Toward my left, and I a right-hander.

  Now I wished I had both poles, but I transferred the single one to my left hand and managed clumsily to stop this missile. The important thing was to keep it on my own side and in my own backcourt, except when shooting.

  I bopped it against the wall, stopped it again with the pole, and started lining things up.

  Terrible screams and mind-blasts of indignation came from the audience. I was taking plenty of time, letting myself recover fully from the brief spate of exertion. Time-taking and resting were not routine, it seemed. Too bad for them; I was not going to mess up my game by rushing it.

  PLAY GRAVBOP! Crog thought at me.

  “Patience, frozen-face,” I said. “By and by I’ll play a game that will knock your wooden block off.”

  I was rewarded by a mental wash of fury. He was mad now— really mad, not play-acting mad like yesterday. Good.

  Three tag-lights floated just right. I designated them Mercury, Jupiter and Earth, and tried for a triple-slam.

  And made it! Great slippery moonbeams, was I hot!

  POW!

  I ducked just enough to avoid Crog’s bean ball. The hairs of my head vibrated with the nearness of its passing. I was playing a dangerous game, and not just gravbop, for he was mighty fast and accurate with that ball. But I was on to his tricks and strategy now.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Frog—I mean Crog,” I said as I batted the ball against the backstop a couple of times in order to bring it down to managable velocity. So long as he stayed mad, he’d fire at me instead of the lights, and that was what I wanted. “You scrotch-sodden, bugfaced, wormlike excuse for a humanoid.”

  The power of his mental retort made me wince, but I braced myself and aimed carefully. “Try to bop my skull, will you?” I said. “Why, you wouldn’t know a Prunian from a naked ant-queen, lover boy.”

  Hell itself could not be more diabolic than the vision he blasted at my mind. I waited for my synapses to cool, and fired.

  Two more tag-lights! Six to one in my favor. These Strumbermians had become so enamored of the head-splitting propensities of the game that they had forgotten the advantage of sheer skill.

  I sensed Nancy and Qumax cheering me. Lot I cared for that now. They had predicted I’d lose. I didn’t need them.

  Crog missed a swipe and tried another. He seemed remarkably clumsy; how had he ever risen to the championship? Must be breaking down under the sheer strain of losing, the big sissy. The gravball flew, but wobbly. It was an even worse serve than my own first faltering attempts.

  The ball hit the wall on my side, bounced against the net, rebounded, slowed, stopped. It floated four feet above the floor, ten feet in front of me. I stepped toward it, keeping a wary eye on my opponent. I did not want to get within reach of his pole!

  Stop, Harold Prodkins!

  I froze, caught with one foot not quite down. That was Qumax’s itchy message! Overcautious worm! I looked at Crog and judged him to be just over twenty feet away. I could afford one more step, then a lunge for the ball. Otherwise, Crog would recover the initiative, and I could not count on him to give it back. I took the step.

  At that moment a flare went off. Crog’s entire body was outlined in a bright purple nimbus. A bolt of energy struck me broadside. I could have sworn sparks radiated from my hair. I had twin hotfoots: the soles of my shoes were melting.

  A second passed in agony. Two seconds. Two hours? Two eternities. I stood frozen/burning, immobilized. I thought the fillings in my teeth were roasting, my eyeballs frying. Forever times infinity, it continued.

  Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the nimbus ceased. Crog seemed smaller, depleted. But he moved up to the net.

  I stumbled backwards. Crog reached over the net, trying to hook the gravball. I collapsed flat on the court, seeking to die there and sift down through the cracks into peace. How I could still be conscious I didn’t know. Perhaps there was something to the notion that you could become partially immune to the effects of low-voltage shocks. Or maybe my composition soles had alleviated the effect.

  Get up, Harold! Get up!

  That was Nancy’s thought. I would have hated any female for it.

  Hurry, Harold!

  When had she mastered mindtalk? I struggled to my feet, wishing I could belt her one.

  Crog retrieved the ball. He bopped it—hard. His prior ineptitude had been a ruse. To lure me within range of—this.

  Dully I watched it zip by my nose and knock off two of my tag-lights. So the ape could make sophisticated shots when he tried! I raised my pole as the ball bounced from the wall and headed for my face. Sphere collided with pole and bounced near net. Crog retrieved.

  YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET, MOBILE-FACE!

  So now Crog was bragging, hamming it up.

  BIFF!

  Incredulously I watched the ball pick off one, two, three of my tag-lights, and barely miss a fourth! Had Crog only been toying with me all along? The ball rebounded from the wall and drifted toward the net.

  Harold, stop that ball! Nancy’s thought came. Stop it this instant!

  But Crog already had it. He bopped it without even seeming to aim, but I knew that shot would finish the game. The ball passed through my seventh light, ricocheted off the back wall, and sped unerringly for my eighth.

  I threw myself desperately in front of my last bastion.

  I stopped the ball. Right in the belly.

  I fell down with a terrible whoof of expelled air, but even as I toppled my left hand clasped the ball to my gut.

  Shoot, Harold! You’ve got to shoot!

  Pesty female! Give me time and I’d fix her!

  Lights whirled—few of them tag-lights. My stomach was agony, and I feared that a splinter of bone was grinding into one lung.

  I had the cue-ball. I focused on the nearest light, lining up ball and pole, calculating, aiming, for I would not get another shot. I tensed—

  No!

  My cue jerked, ruining my shot. The ball skidded a few feet sideways. That had been Qumax’s itch!

  “Which side are you on, worm-brat?” I demanded.

  That was your own tag-light!

  I snapped alert. He was right!

  I corralled the ball again—fortunately it had drifted away from Crog—and set up properly. There were two lights over on his side. Neptune sphere and Pluto sphere, I designated them. I put the ball out in the air ahead of me, lifted my cue, and aimed it from where I sat.

  There were crowd noises. Part of the audience did not like my taking so much time. Bug you! I thought at them.

  Neptune sphere occluded Pluto sphere. Shoot! I told myself. SHOOT!

  I froze. Had that been my thought? Why wasn’t Crog lambasting me?

  My head cleared a little more. That last suggestion had been Crog’s, not mine. He was poised, ready to intercept the ball, then bat it back at my own light before I could get up again. Even if I got one of his, I would lose.

  I stood up, walked around the ball once, made a feint at the occluded lights, twisted—and let fly with a surprise shot directly at Crog’s head, putting all my power into it.

  He ducked reflexively, O-mouthed. The ball caromed off the back wall. I set up as it returned to me and swung without waiting for it to stop: a baseball hit.

  The gravball cleared the net. A trifle off course. But only a trifle. Crog, seeing what I had done, lurched to his feet and dived for it . . . too late.

/>   B-Bop! No more Neptune sphere.

  Pause.

  BOP-P! No more Pluto sphere.

  Victory.

  I had just made my greatest shot ever—and knew I would never duplicate it.

  Crowd noises. Crowd thoughts. Some cheered me for winning. Others thought my slow tactics should disqualify me.

  Nancy and Qumax left the side of Commander Phug and came out on the floor. Nancy took my arm before I sat down from sheer relief and letdown. Suddenly all my pains returned in full force. I groaned and held my stomach where the ball had punched. I didn’t mind Nancy’s touch at all, now.

  Crog faced his superior. A concession speech?

  MOBILE-FACED CREATURE HAS NOT WON. GRAVBOP ALWAYS PLAYED FAST. EARTHIAN TOO SLOW. HE CHEATED!

  Oh, come now! I thought privately. How could I be accused of cheating when there were no fouls in gravbop? If braining your opponent was fair, so was teasing him, and so was taking proper time for shots.

  Phug stroked his chin, and I knew he was going to reprimand his subordinate for his poor sportsmanship.

  YOU RIGHT, CROG. EARTHIAN’S STRATEGY TRICKY LIKE BUG. UNWORTHY OF HUMANOID.

  What?

  “No!” Nancy cried. “Harold won fairly, according to your rules, Strumbermian Big Shot Commander!”

  SILENCE, FEMALE EARTHIAN!

  I picked up a swell of agreement from the crowd. Agreement with Phug, not Nancy. I saw the lay of it now.

  “Don’t interfere, Nancy,” I said. They’re just trying to pretend they didn’t lose. Strumbermians can’t face facts.

  Phug pondered. I knew my mental crack had scored. If he declared Crog victor now, everyone present would know he had backed off from an accusation of fixing the fight.

  Phug stroked his granite chin again. WE PLAY MORE GRAVBOP. THIS TIME FAST. CROG, EARTHIAN—THREE MORE TAG-LIGHTS.

  “He won’t do it,” Nancy said, and I was too weak to protest. I had to admit, though, that she looked and sounded much better than she had half an hour ago. It was as though all the striving and banging had resettled my synapses. “Commander Phug, Harold Prodkins refuses to gravbop again.”

  Phug rose from his stool. EARTHIAN WISH TO BE SAME AS BUGS AND WORMS? NOT TRUE HUMANOID? BE OUR ENEMY?

  “Yes!” Nancy cried.

  Phug shook his head ponderously. FOOLS! LEADER CROG, RETURN PRISONERS TO CELL. TREAT BAD— THEY NOT TRUE HUMANOIDS!

  Crog looked sadistically delighted. I looked at Nancy as the giant tore open the net and approached with leveled finger. “Now you’ve done it!” I said.

  “You aren’t sorry, are you, Harold?”

  “I—” Was I? To gravbop on Phug’s terms would be to lose. Earth would become part of the crusade because of the terms I’d made. Did I really want that? To lose to Crog and see my home world become another Strumbermia? Earth—what would it be, New Strumbermia Six-O-Six? Confusion made my head whirl.

  Crog towered over us, grimacing toothily.

  Then: STRUMBERMIANS AND EARTHIANS! STRUMBERMIANS AND EARTHIANS AND JAMBORANGO INFANT! an amplified thought intruded. THIS IS THE GALACTIC POLICE! THIS IS THE GALACTIC POLICE!

  My right hand clutched Nancy’s left. There were startled and dismayed thoughts. Then no one in the room was communicating.

  The entire overhead dome became transparent. In the beau-tiful—well, impressive—black sky were hundreds, possibly thousands, of needle-shaped starcraft.

  A wailing thought went up from Phug, chilling because so un-Strumbermian: DEFEAT, DEFEAT, DEFEAT!

  “We not even have combat,” Crog said, a huge tear running down his pallid cheek, and I almost felt sorry for him. “Not even know. Bugs come while we absorbed with contest. We trapped.”

  SPOKESMAN FOR STRUMBERMIANS, the police thought demanded. TO AVOID IMMEDIATE ANNIHILATION YOU MUST SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY. NOW.

  Phug thought-quavered his craven capitulation. I was amazed at how readily these bold pirates caved in when they lost the advantage. True Humanoids, indeed!

  SPOKESMAN FOR EARTHIANS?

  I hesitated. “Hurry!” Qumax said. “They have quivery trigger-tendrils.”

  Taking a good grip on my mixed emotions, I thought loudly: I Harold Prodkins, Minister etc. of Earth, do hereby officially and unconditionally surrender all inhabitants of the planet Earth on New Strumbermia Six-O-Five to the lawfully constituted authority of the Galactic Police.

  SPOKESMAN FOR—

  “Me too!” Qumax cried.

  Chapter 12

  At the directive of some distant Galactic Police officer, Nancy, Qumax and I returned to the landing field. Crog, expressing no resentment whatever, drove us in the landcrab.

  Watching the dark alien landscape jerk by, and the perpetual blast of sleet and nauseous atmospheric mucous, I wondered what I had seen in this planet before. I hoped Jamborango would be better, or at least warmer. Then I wondered if we’d really be going to Jamborango, and if it were really Jams who had captured new Strumbermia Six-O-Five. Or Imbibels, or whatever. I thought a few terse questions at Qumax.

  “Harold Prodkins,” he replied, “there is no other force in the galaxy powerful enough to take this planet.”

  “You bet,” Crog mumbled.

  “Did they take it? Seems to me that with the Strumbermians adept at mind communications—well, why wasn’t there a warning?”

  “Because the police did not allow one.”

  “But—”

  “It would take you many years to understand, Harold Prodkins,” the brat said smugly. “They have ways. They dampen out thoughts and deactivate weapons. When they make themselves known with a surrender demand, the wise criminal knows he is already defeated.”

  “And the police are Jams?”

  “The police are Inner-Galactics. The one who actually communicated with us happened to be a Jamborang.”

  “So we’ll be taken to Jamborango?”

  “Of course!”

  “But I still don’t see how they found this hideout!”

  “I can explain, Harold Prodkins. You remember the cruiser that shot at the raider? And intentionally missed?”

  “I remember them missing. . . .”

  “And that heroic fight I had in the control room?”

  “I remember them beating you,” I said. As he deserved, I thought privately.

  “The Strums could have found out from my mind, but they are the most arrogant creatures this side of Earth. They thought me too young to have any information of value to them.”

  I shrugged. Who would blame them for that? “What could they have learned from your mind?”

  “The communications equipment has a pattern-disguiser. During ship-to-ship communications it scrambles the out-going electrical patterns in such a way that they cannot be followed. Everything has its characteristic pattern, from the tip of my tail or your forefinger to the most powerful trans-galactic transmitter. Such patterns are left in residue form wherever a thing has been in space. These residues, shadows, traces can be detected by sensitive equipment and followed to their source. The process—”

  “Spare me the physics, Qumax. I never did understand that slop.”

  “You asked me how the police found this planet.”

  I saw that he was determined to have his lecture session. “Keep it short,” I said.

  “Now at one time a pattern-disguiser had to be off for an appreciable length of time before the police could record and analyze the pattern it disguised. But there have been recent advances that the outlying species have not found out about—notably the Strumbermians. So when, in the course of my supposed frenzy, I flicked off the disguiser for a fraction of a second—”

  The vehicle swerved. WHY, YOU—YOU WORM! Crog thought, almost mentally speechless with fury. Then he remembered his place and shut up.

  “Qumax, you saved all our lives!” Nancy said.

  The oversized larva didn’t answer. Two large tears formed in his eyes. I noted the drooping antenna. I didn’t get it.

 
“Aren’t you glad to be going home?” Nancy asked. Qumax looped tentacles around both our shoulders. He made his irritating screech-crying noise.

  Nancy held her ears. “It shouldn’t be too bad, Qumax,” she said, trying to comfort him. The crybaby. “Your Swarm Tyrant will welcome you—I’m sure be will. He may punish you a little for playing hooky, but surely it won’t be that bad.”

  “It isn’t—screech—my punishment I’m concerned about.”

  We both waited until he got his tears under control. “Whose, then?” I asked.

  “Yours.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to laugh. “My—punishment?”

  “Scre-e-e-e-ch,” Qumax, or sounds to that effect. I waited again. When he settled down I asked: “What am I guilty of? My mission on behalf of Earth undertaken without what some arrogant Jam thinks is adequate reason?”

  “No, Harold Prodkins.”

  “Incurring too much in passenger fares, at Jam expense? Getting captured by Strums? Walking on the grass? Make sense, worm!”

  “More serious. Much more serious. You are in deep trouble for making a deal with the Strumbermians. For wagering with them in gravbop.”

  “But I WON, Qumax. Besides, I had no choice.”

  “You thought you had no choice. You are a representative of your world, and yet you let fear dominate your reasoning. You agreed to gravbop and in fact suggested it as a way out. Does that seem like worthy thinking?”

  “Since I was prepared to win, I think it very worthy!”

  “There’s the landing field,” Nancy said.

  “I see the landing field. Qumax, are you accusing me of cowardice, you bug-eyed worm?”

  “There’s one of the police craft,” Qumax said.

  Qumax, you answer me!

  “It will be you who will have to answer, Harold Prodkins— and not to me. If you’re sure of your answers, perhaps you can convince yourself and maybe then you can convince . . . but leave me alone.”

  “I’ll leave you alone, worm!” I was furious, yet as soon as I had expressed myself I felt ashamed for it. I decided to say something more civilized. “This planet—it’s only one of the Strumbermians’, isn’t it?”