They Also Serve Read online

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  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  THEY ALSO SERVE

  By DONALD E. WESTLAKE

  Illustrated by Douglas

  _Why should people hate vultures? After all, a vulture never kills anyone..._

  The launch carrying the mail, supplies and replacements eased slowlyin toward the base, keeping the bulk of the Moon between itself andEarth. Captain Ebor, seated at the controls, guided the ship to therocky uneven ground with the easy carelessness of long practice, thencut the drive, got to his walking tentacles, and stretched. Donninghis spacesuit, he left the ship to go over to the dome and meetDarquelnoy, the base commander.

  An open ground-car was waiting for him beside the ship. The driver,encased in his spacesuit, crossed tentacles in a sloppy salute, andEbor returned the gesture quite as sloppily. Here on the periphery,cast formalities were all but dispensed with.

  Ebor stood for a moment and watched the unloading. The cargo crew,used to working in spacesuits, had one truck already half full. Thereplacements, unused to spacesuits and, in addition, awed and a bitstartled by the bleakness of this satellite, were moving awkwardlydown the ramp.

  Satisfied that the unloading was proceeding smoothly, Ebor climbedaboard the ground-car, awkward in his suit, and settled back heavilyin the seat to try to get used to gravity again. The gravity of thisMoon was slight, of course--barely one-sixth the gravity of the HomeWorld or most of the colonies--but it still took getting used to,after a long trip in free-fall.

  The driver sat at the controls, and the car jerked into motion. Ebor,looking up, noticed for the first time that the dome wasn't there anymore. The main dome, housing the staff and equipment of the base, justwasn't there.

  And the driver, he now saw, was aiming the car toward the nearbycrater wall. Extending two of his eyes till they almost touched theface-plate of his helmet, he could see activity at the base of thecrater wall, and what looked like an air-lock entrance. He wonderedwhat had caused the change, which had obviously been done at topspeed. The last time he'd been here, not very long ago, the dome hadstill been intact, and there had been no hint of any impending moveunderground.

  The driver steered the car into the open air lock, and they waiteduntil the first cargo truck had lumbered in after them. Then the outerdoor closed, the pumps were turned on, and in a minute the red lightflashed over the inner door. Ebor removed the spacesuit gratefully,left it in the car, and walked clumsily through the inner door intothe new base.

  A good job had been done on it, for all the speed. Rooms and corridorshas been melted out of the rock, the floors had been carpeted, thewalls painted, and the ceiling lined with light panels. All of thefurnishings had been transferred here from the original dome, and theresult looked, on the whole, quite livable. As livable as the dome hadbeen, at least.

  But the base commander, Darquelnoy, waiting for his old friend Ebornear the inner door of the lock, looked anything but happy with thearrangement. At Ebor's entrance he raised a limp tentacle in wearygreeting and said, "Come in, my friend, come in. Tell me the new jokesfrom home. I could use some cheering up."

  "None worth telling," said Ebor. He looked around. "What's happenedhere?" he asked. "Why've you gone underground? Why do you needcheering up?"

  Darquelnoy clicked his eyes in despair. "Those _things_!" he cried."Those annoying little creatures on that blasted planet up there!"

  Ebor repressed an amused ripple. He knew Darquelnoy well enough toknow that the commander invariably overstated things. "What've theybeen up to, Dar?" he asked. "Come on, you can tell me over a hot cupof restno."

  "I've been practically living on the stuff for the last two dren,"said Darquelnoy hopelessly. "Well, I suppose another cup won't killme. Come on to my quarters."

  "I've worked up a fine thirst on the trip," Ebor told him.

  * * * * *

  The two walked down the long corridor together and Ebor said, "Well?What happened?"

  "They came here," Darquelnoy told him simply. At Ebor's shocked look,he rippled in wan amusement and said, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as itmight have been, I suppose. It was just that we had to rush around sofrantically, unloading and dismantling the dome, getting this placeready--"

  "What do you mean, they _came_ here?" demanded Ebor.

  "They are absolutely the worst creatures for secrecy in the entiregalaxy!" exclaimed Darquelnoy in irritation. "Absolutely the worst."

  "Then you've picked up at least one of their habits," Ebor told him."Now stop talking in circles and tell me what happened."

  "They built a spaceship, is the long and the short of it," Darquelnoyanswered.

  Ebor stopped in astonishment. "No!"

  "Don't tell me no!" cried Darquelnoy. "I _saw_ it!" He was obviouslyat his wit's end.

  "It's unbelievable," said Ebor.

  "I know," said Darquelnoy. He led the way into his quarters, motionedEbor to a perch, and rang for his orderly. "It was just a littleremote-controlled apparatus, of course," he said. "The fledglingattempt, you know. But it circled this Moon here, busily takingpictures, and went right back to the planet again, giving us all aterrible fright. There hadn't been the slightest indication they wereplanning anything _that_ spectacular."

  "None?" asked Ebor. "Not a hint?"

  "Oh, they've been boasting about doing some such thing for ages,"Darquelnoy told him. "But there was never any indication that theywere finally serious about it. They have all sorts of militarysecrecy, of course, and so you never know a thing is going to happenuntil it does."

  "Did they get a picture of the dome?"

  "Thankfully, no. And before they had a chance to try again, I whippedeverything underground."

  "It must have been hectic," Ebor said sympathetically.

  "It was," said Darquelnoy simply.

  The orderly entered. Darquelnoy told him, "Two restno," and he leftagain.

  "I can't imagine them making a spaceship," said Ebor thoughtfully. "Iwould have thought they'd have blown themselves up long beforereaching that stage."

  "I would have thought so, too," said Darquelnoy. "But there it is. Atthe moment, they've divided themselves into two camps--generallyspeaking, that is--and the two sides are trying like mad to outdo eachother in everything. As a part of it, they're shooting all sorts ofrubbish into space and crowing every time a piece of the other side'srubbish malfunctions."

  "They could go on that way indefinitely," said Ebor.

  "I know," said Darquelnoy gloomily. "And here we sit."

  Ebor nodded, studying his friend. "You don't suppose this is all awaste of time, do you?" he asked, after a minute.

  Darquelnoy shook a tentacle in negation. "Not at all, not at all.They'll get around to it, sooner or later. They're still boastingthemselves into the proper frame of mind, that's all."

  Ebor rippled in sympathetic amusement. "I imagine you sometimes wishyou could give them a little prodding in the right direction," hesaid.

  Darquelnoy fluttered his tentacles in horror, crying, "Don't even_think_ of such a thing!"

  "I know, I know," said Ebor hastily. "The laws--"

  "Never mind the laws," snapped Darquelnoy. "I'm not even thinkingabout the laws. Frankly, if it would do any good, I might evenconsider breaking one or two of the laws, and the devil with myconditioning."

  "You _are_ upset," said Ebor at that.

  "But if we were to interfere with those creatures up there," continuedDarquelnoy, "interfere with them in any way at all, it would beabsolutely disast
rous."

  The orderly returned at that point, with two steaming cups of restno.Darquelnoy and Ebor accepted the cups and the orderly left, making asloppy tentacle-cross salute, which the two ignored.

  * * * * *

  "I wasn't talking necessarily about attacking them, you know," saidEbor, returning to the subject.

  "Neither was I," Darquelnoy told him. "We wouldn't have to attackthem. All we would have to do is let them know we're here. Not even_why_ we're here, just the simple fact of our presence. That would beenough. _They_ would attack _us_."

  Ebor extended his eyes in surprise. "As vicious as all that?"

  "Chilling," Darquelnoy told him. "Absolutely chilling."

  "Then I'm surprised they haven't blown themselves to pieces longbefore this."

  "Oh, well," said Darquelnoy, "you see, they're cowards, too. They haveto boast and brag and shout a while before they finally get to clawingand biting at one another."

  Ebor waved a tentacle. "Don't make it so vivid."

  "Sorry," apologized Darquelnoy. He drained his cup of restno. "Outhere," he said, "living next door to the little beasts day after day,one begins to lose one's sensibilities."

  "It has been a long time," agreed Ebor.

  "Longer than we had originally anticipated," Darquelnoy said frankly."We've been ready to move in for I don't know how long. And instead wejust sit here and wait. Which isn't good for morale, either."

  "No, I don't imagine it is."

  "There's already a theory among some of the workmen that the blow-upjust isn't going to happen, ever. And since that ship went circlingby, of course, morale has hit a new low."

  "It would have been nasty if they'd spotted you," said Ebor.

  "Nasty?" echoed Darquelnoy. "Catastrophic, you mean. All that crowd upthere needs is an enemy, and it doesn't much matter to them who thatenemy is. If they were to suspect that we were here, they'd forgettheir own little squabbles at once and start killing us instead. Andthat, of course, would mean that they'd be united, for the first timein their history, and who knows how long it would take them beforethey'd get back to killing one another again."

  "Well," said Ebor, "you're underground now. And it can't possibly takethem _too_ much longer."

  "One wouldn't think so," agreed Darquelnoy. "In a way," he added,"that spaceship was a hopeful sign. It means that they'll be sending amanned ship along pretty soon, and that should do the trick. As soonas one side has a base on the Moon, the other side is bound to getthings started."

  "A relief for you, eh?" said Ebor.

  "You know," said Darquelnoy thoughtfully, "I can't help thinking I wasborn in the wrong age. All this scrabbling around, searchingeverywhere for suitable planets. Back when the Universe was younger,there were lots and lots of planets to colonize. Now the old problemof half-life is taking its toll, and we can't even hope to keep upwith the birth rate any more. If it weren't for the occasional planetslike that one up there, I don't know what we'd do."

  "Don't worry," Ebor told him. "They'll have their atomic war prettysoon, and leave us a nice high-radiation planet to colonize."

  "I certainly hope it's soon," said Darquelnoy. "This waiting gets onone's nerves." He rang for the orderly.

  THE END