Piper in the Woods Read online

almost beside him.

  "Hello," Harris said softly.

  Westerburg opened his eyes, looking up. He smiled and got slowly to hisfeet, a graceful, flowing motion that was rather surprising for a man ofhis size. "Hello, Doctor. What brings you out here?"

  "Nothing. Thought I'd get some sun."

  "Here, you can share my rock." Westerburg moved over and Harris sat downgingerly, being careful not to catch his trousers on the sharp edges ofthe rock. He lit a cigarette and gazed silently down at the water.Beside him, Westerburg had resumed his strange position, leaning back,resting on his hands, staring up with his eyes shut tight.

  "Nice day," the Doctor said.

  "Yes."

  "Do you come here every day?"

  "Yes."

  "You like it better out here than inside."

  "I can't stay inside," Westerburg said.

  "You can't? How do you mean, 'can't'?"

  "You would die without _air_, wouldn't you?" the Corporal said.

  "And you'd die without sunlight?"

  Westerburg nodded.

  "Corporal, may I ask you something? Do you plan to do this the rest ofyour life, sit out in the sun on a flat rock? Nothing else?"

  Westerburg nodded.

  "How about your job? You went to school for years to become a Patrolman.You wanted to enter the Patrol very badly. You were given a fine ratingand a first-class position. How do you feel, giving all that up? Youknow, it won't be easy to get back in again. Do you realize that?"

  "I realize it."

  "And you're really going to give it all up?"

  "That's right."

  * * * * *

  Harris was silent for a while. At last he put his cigarette out andturned toward the youth. "All right, let's say you give up your job andsit in the sun. Well, what happens, then? Someone else has to do the jobinstead of you. Isn't that true? The job has to be done, _your_ job hasto be done. And if you don't do it someone else has to."

  "I suppose so."

  "Westerburg, suppose everyone felt the way you do? Suppose everyonewanted to sit in the sun all day? What would happen? No one would checkships coming from outer space. Bacteria and toxic crystals would enterthe system and cause mass death and suffering. Isn't that right?"

  "If everyone felt the way I do they wouldn't be going into outer space."

  "But they have to. They have to trade, they have to get minerals andproducts and new plants."

  "Why?"

  "To keep society going."

  "Why?"

  "Well--" Harris gestured. "People couldn't live without society."

  Westerburg said nothing to that. Harris watched him, but the youth didnot answer.

  "Isn't that right?" Harris said.

  "Perhaps. It's a peculiar business, Doctor. You know, I struggled foryears to get through Training. I had to work and pay my own way. Washeddishes, worked in kitchens. Studied at night, learned, crammed, workedon and on. And you know what I think, now?"

  "What?"

  "I wish I'd become a plant earlier."

  Doctor Harris stood up. "Westerburg, when you come inside, will youstop off at my office? I want to give you a few tests, if you don'tmind."

  "The shock box?" Westerburg smiled. "I knew that would be coming around.Sure, I don't mind."

  Nettled, Harris left the rock, walking back up the bank a shortdistance. "About three, Corporal?"

  The Corporal nodded.

  Harris made his way up the hill, to the path, toward the hospitalbuilding. The whole thing was beginning to become more clear to him. Aboy who had struggled all his life. Financial insecurity. Idealizedgoal, getting a Patrol assignment. Finally reached it, found the loadtoo great. And on Asteroid Y-3 there was too much vegetation to look atall day. Primitive identification and projection on the flora of theasteroid. Concept of security involved in immobility and permanence.Unchanging forest.

  He entered the building. A robot orderly stopped him almost at once."Sir, Commander Cox wants you urgently, on the vidphone."

  "Thanks." Harris strode to his office. He dialed Cox's letter and theCommander's face came presently into focus. "Cox? This is Harris. I'vebeen out talking to the boy. I'm beginning to get this lined up, now. Ican see the pattern, too much load too long. Finally gets what he wantsand the idealization shatters under the--"

  "Harris!" Cox barked. "Shut up and listen. I just got a report from Y-3.They're sending an express rocket here. It's on the way."

  "An express rocket?"

  "Five more cases like Westerburg. All say they're plants! The GarrisonChief is worried as hell. Says we _must_ find out what it is or theGarrison will fall apart, right away. Do you get me, Harris? Find outwhat it is!"

  "Yes, sir," Harris murmured. "Yes, sir."

  * * * * *

  By the end of the week there were twenty cases, and all, of course, werefrom Asteroid Y-3.

  Commander Cox and Harris stood together at the top of the hill, lookinggloomily down at the stream below. Sixteen men and four women sat in thesun along the bank, none of them moving, none speaking. An hour had goneby since Cox and Harris appeared, and in all that time the twenty peoplebelow had not stirred.

  "I don't get it," Cox said, shaking his head. "I just absolutely don'tget it. Harris, is this the beginning of the end? Is everything going tostart cracking around us? It gives me a hell of a strange feeling to seethose people down there, basking away in the sun, just sitting andbasking."

  "Who's that man there with the red hair?"

  "That's Ulrich Deutsch. He was Second in Command at the Garrison. Nowlook at him! Sits and dozes with his mouth open and his eyes shut. Aweek ago that man was climbing, going right up to the top. When theGarrison Chief retires he was supposed to take over. Maybe another year,at the most. All his life he's been climbing to get up there."

  "And now he sits in the sun," Harris finished.

  "That woman. The brunette, with the short hair. Career woman. Head ofthe entire office staff of the Garrison. And the man beside her.Janitor. And that cute little gal there, with the bosom. Secretary, justout of school. All kinds. And I got a note this morning, three morecoming in sometime today."

  Harris nodded. "The strange thing is--they really _want_ to sit downthere. They're completely rational; they could do something else, butthey just don't care to."

  "Well?" Cox said. "What are you going to do? Have you found anything?We're counting on you. Let's hear it."

  "I couldn't get anything out of them directly," Harris said, "but I'vehad some interesting results with the shock box. Let's go inside andI'll show you."

  "Fine," Cox turned and started toward the hospital. "Show me anythingyou've got. This is serious. Now I know how Tiberius felt whenChristianity showed up in high places."

  * * * * *

  Harris snapped off the light. The room was pitch black. "I'll run thisfirst reel for you. The subject is one of the best biologists stationedat the Garrison. Robert Bradshaw. He came in yesterday. I got a good runfrom the shock box because Bradshaw's mind is so highly differentiated.There's a lot of repressed material of a non-rational nature, more thanusual."

  He pressed a switch. The projector whirred, and on the far wall athree-dimensional image appeared in color, so real that it might havebeen the man himself. Robert Bradshaw was a man of fifty, heavy-set,with iron grey hair and a square jaw. He sat in the chair calmly, hishands resting on the arms, oblivious to the electrodes attached to hisneck and wrist. "There I go," Harris said. "Watch."

  His film-image appeared, approaching Bradshaw. "Now, Mr. Bradshaw," hisimage said, "this won't hurt you at all, and it'll help us a lot." Theimage rotated the controls on the shock box. Bradshaw stiffened, and hisjaw set, but otherwise he gave no sign. The image of Harris regarded himfor a time and then stepped away from the controls.

  "Can you hear me, Mr. Bradshaw?" the image asked.

  "Yes."

  "What is your nam
e?"

  "Robert C. Bradshaw."

  "What is your position?"

  "Chief Biologist at the check-station on Y-3."

  "Are you there now?"

  "No, I'm back on Terra. In a hospital."

  "Why?"

  "Because I admitted to the Garrison Chief that I had become a plant."

  "Is that true? That you are a plant."

  "Yes, in