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The Altruist
The Altruist
by Morton Klass
If altruism can be considered as a basis of intelligence, then…
An A\NN/A Preservation Edition.
Notes
JUDD HORTH came up out of unconsciousness slowly. For a long while he seemed to be floating gently in a black sea dotted here and there with yellow sparks. It wasn’t at all unpleasant, until the painful throbbing of his left leg intruded itself on his mind. He could have ignored it, though, if it hadn’t been for the soft, whining sounds, and the wet thing which kept touching his cheek insistently.
Wearily, he opened one eye and saw that the Atwoods’ dog was standing near his head, licking Judd’s face and whimpering. With a muffled curse, Judd slapped the dog across the spaceship’s deck over to one of the crumpled bulkheads.
The movement brought the ache in his leg into sharp focus, and he really came awake. He noticed the two smashed bodies lying silently in one corner. He tried to struggle upright and the pain in his leg brought tears to his eyes.
“Marooned!” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Marooned, on an uncharted planet! With a broken leg in the bargain, and no company but a damned mutt!”
The dog, brown and mostly Collie, perked its ears at the sound of Judd Horth’s voice and wagged its tail tentatively.
Judd cursed it again, then forgot about it as he remembered that the spaceship had been a rickety affair at best; after the smashing it had received, it might be expected to blow its atomic pile drive at any moment.
“Got to get out of here, fast!” Judd groaned, as he tried to drag himself across the sloping deck to a gap in the buckled hull. “The ship’s split wide open. Must be a decent atmosphere out there, or I’d be dead by now.”
He fell back to the deck when he’d covered about half the distance to the hull, gasping from the exertion and the pain.
“Never be able to make it. Must be close to two gravities,” he muttered, looking about him wildly. He saw the dog again; it was following him at a safe distance.
He snapped his fingers at it. “C’mere, mutt! I’m not gonna hurt ya. Nice doggie! Damn you, come here!” His voice rose in desperation as he strove to soften its tones.
The dog inched over to him, hindquarters dropping and tail wagging furiously.
When it was close enough, Horth reached out an arm and drew the animal close to him. The dog stiffened in alarm and Judd patted it awkwardly to reassure it.
After a moment, Horth turned the dog so that it was facing the opening in the hull. Placing one arm over the dog’s back and around under its throat, he pushed at the deck plates with his other hand and his good leg.
“Okay, mutt; let’s get out of here. Pull! Pull I say!”
It took a few seconds, but the dog got the idea. Its shoulder muscles bunched, strained against the man’s arm. The two moved slowly toward the opening.
The blue moss of the planet’s surface was only about a foot below the rip in the hull, but even that was almost too much for Horth. His broken leg came down painfully and he felt his consciousness slipping away.
Through the gathering haze, he kept his arm tightly around the dog and whispered fiercely, “Gotta keep going… away from the ship… explosion…don’t stop, mutt…”
Feeling the arm still tight about his body, the dog kept pulling, heading—fortunately for Horth—toward a clump of rubbery trees about twenty yards from the wrecked ship.
By the time they arrived at the trees, Horth was practically out cold. He had just enough strength to struggle behind one of the larger trees and collapse face down into the blue moss. As from a great distance, he heard the sound of the ship exploding; then, even more dimly, there was the shriek of lumps of metal hurtling by overhead. The black sea lapped at his mind, encompassed it…
WHEN HORTH awoke, the planet’s fiery red sun had moved closer to the horizon. He had no idea of the length of the planet’s day, or of how long he had been asleep, but he found himself extremely hungry. The pain in his leg had abated slightly.
Horth rolled over, groaning. He sat up, propping his back against the tree trunk. He opened the pouch at his side, the one he had taken from Atwood when the man had discovered Horth hiding on his ship. After a moment of fruitless rummaging, his hand touched something that brought a sigh of relief to his lips.
A food-concentrate container! If it were full, there’d be enough food in it to keep him alive for at least a week—maybe longer.
He brought it out of the pouch and opened it with trembling hands. It was full!
Greedily, he pulled out three of the crisp pellets and put them in his mouth. The dog, which had been lying quietly a short distance from Horth, got to his feet at the sound of mastication and came frisking through the blue moss to the man’s side.
Horth sent him sprawling with a well-placed blow. Flakes of pellet dripped from Horth’s mouth as he shouted after the retreating, whimpering dog, “Get away from me! Ain’t got half enough for m’self! Get your own food. Damned mutt!”
His gaze followed the dog as it slunk out of sight behind the trees. As he looked away from the spot where the dog had disappeared, he noticed the three orange ovals shimmering over the tree-tops. He stopped chewing and his jaw dropped; the ovals were translucent and hard to make out in the deepening twilight, but they were definitely there. Horth found their utter stillness menacing.
He dropped his hand to his side, felt for his knife. It was still there. His blaster had been left, forgotten, on the ship.
The orange ovals had not moved. Horth shrugged and began chewing again. The hell with ’em, he thought. If they’d been dangerous, they’d have tackled me while I was unconscious. He decided to forget about them.
He glanced around the side of his tree-trunk support. The spaceship was a heap of glowing embers in the center of the clearing. Horth grinned and turned back to the container of food. He decided against eating another pellet.
Things weren’t too bad, he thought. In fact, with any luck at all they might break just right for him. Once the spaceship had gotten out of control, the automatic distress signal must have gone on. It would have continued till the pile blew. By now, a patrol ship was probably on its way to investigate the call. A week at the outside, he decided, even for such an out-of-the-way sun. They’d detect the radioactive ruin and rescue him.
Horth grinned. When they found him, he’d tell them he was Atwood, James Atwood, colonist bound for Deneb II with his wife. There’d been a stowaway, a fight…then the crash. Horth would say he just managed to get out in time; his wife and the stowaway had been killed in the explosion.
He’d pretend to be slightly delirious; it would avoid too much questioning. If he watched his chance, he might get control of the patrol ship. They wouldn’t be expecting anything. Why should they be? Everything would seem normal enough. And even if he couldn’t seize the ship, once they reached an inhabited planet, he’d be able to make a break for it. There would be equipment on the patrol ship that would heal his leg in a matter of hours. It was highly improbable that news of his prison break had reached this neck of the woods in so short a time.
Horth relaxed against the trunk; he was set.
He was lucky he’d thought of changing clothes with Atwood when he’d come out of hiding. He went through the pockets of his jumper quickly and inspected the contents of the pouch. Lots of junk, but nothing that would indicate he wasn’t Atwood.
Damn that Atwood, anyway; it was his fault. Horth hadn’t intended to hurt his wife—not much, at any rate. Horth chuckled at the memory of her white, frightened face. Just because he’d put his hand on her, that damn fool Atwood had tried to jump him. Then, when Horth had blasted him, Mrs. Atwood had run screaming to the controls, yelling she was going to drive the ship into the nearest sun. Horth could have burned her down before she’d had a chance to do any damage, but that mangy cur had gotten between his legs, upsetting him. By the time he’d killed Mrs. Atwood, it was too late to do anything except veer slightly from the sun. Which meant getting sucked down by this planet. Horth hadn’t had much choice.
IT WAS GETTING dark rapidly now. Horth hoped the nights wouldn’t be too long or too cold. If they weren’t, his only other problem would be water, and he had been aware for some time of the sound of a running stream not too far to one side of him.
He decided to wait until the dog got back before drinking. If the dog drank from the stream, it would be safe for Horth to drink.
Horth noted, nervously, that the orange ovals were still floating in the same place he had last seen them. He shivered, then jumped, as something moved beside him. The dog had returned.
The sudden movement of his body had started his leg throbbing again. Horth cursed, raised his arm to strike the dog, then stopped. The dog had something in its mouth. It moved in front of Horth, dropped a six-legged, furry little animal at Horth’s feet, and stepped back. Tail wagging, the dog waited for approval.
Judd Horth ignored the dog and gingerly picked up the dead animal. He examined it. Something between an Earth rabbit and a Sirius IV Shmirt, he decided.
This wasn’t so good, he thought; if there were small animals here, there might be large, dangerous ones, too. Again he wished he hadn’t left the blaster behind.
On the other hand, nothing had made itself known, as yet, except for the thing the dog had caught. And the dog didn’t behave as if there was anything around to be afraid of. He even ignored the orange ovals.
Besides, in the few moments he had had before the ship crashed, Horth had scanned the surface of the planet looking for signs of life. He had seen nothing but blue moss prairies and small clumps of rubbery trees; nothing else. He’d have to go on that.
The dog sniffed, and turned in the direction of the stream. Horth dragged himself slowly across the ground after it. By the time he arrived, the dog was busily lapping the water. Horth watched for a moment, then cupped his hands and began drinking himself. The dumb animal certainly had its uses.
When he had satisfied his thirst, Horth sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and gazed around him. It was becoming quite dark.
He had dragged the six-legged animal along with him. The thing to do now was to build a fire; he should have thought of it while it was still light. A fire would not only cook the animal the dog had brought him, but it would help to keep him warm if the night grew cold. Besides, on the off chance that there were predatory beasts around, a fire would serve to keep them away.
Horth crawled about, collecting fallen twigs and branches from the rubbery trees. The wood—if it was wood—had a strange texture, and Horth hoped it would burn. The dog followed him for a few moments, watching his actions, then darted away to a spot behind some trees. He came back hauling the end of a medium-sized branch in his teeth.
Horth piled the wood in one place, breaking the longer branches into suitable lengths. He rummaged in the pouch and came up with a lighter and a folded piece of paper that bore an official stamp and a heading that began, Colonization Permit, Deneb II, North Continent…
The rubbery wood took a minute or two to catch fire, and then it burned with an eerie, green flame, but—it burned. Horth drew his knife and skinned and cleaned the animal. He was surprised at the amount of meat it contained. A bit of whittling, and one of the thinner twigs became a servicable spit. Two upright forked twigs on either side of the fire completed the job, and the meat was soon sizzling.
The dog squatted to one side of the fire and watched Horth’s operations with interest. When the meat was done, Horth debated whether or not to give the dog a share. He decided to do it; that way, the dog would continue to bring him fresh meat. And if the patrol ship were delayed, it would be a good idea to have the dog friendly. If Horth got hungry, he could always kill and eat the dog.
Horth cut off a section of the meat and threw it to the dog. The rest, he cut into sections with his knife, and began to wolf down, his mouth watering at the flavor.
So intent was Horth with his meal that he did not see the three orange ovals move from their position overhead, and swoop down on the feeding pair.
WHEN JUDD HORTH came awake this time, he found it impossible to tell where he was. He seemed to be lying on his back on something hard. Oddly, his leg had completely stopped paining, but he was unable to move, to turn over. He felt nothing restraining him, but his bodv appeared to be completely paralyzed. All about him was a thick, grey fog, through which he could make out nothing, and overhead—Horth’s heart contracted in fear; the orange ovals were floating close over his head!
There were four of them now, and Horth could see that they were almost four feet down their long axis.
A heavy, pounding thought smashed into his brain. …We have followed your instructions… both protoplasmic creatures have been studied… we have brought them here for disposal…
The thoughts ripped at the fabric of Horth’s mind, yet he was able to comprehend only parts of them.
A different-timbred thought sounded. …What are your conclusions…
The other …“voice”… Hard to tell…both extremely primitive…confused mental emanations…doubtful that both are intelligent…the four-footed one shows definite signs of altruism…this one must be lower order, completely selfish…many incomprehensible factors…
Horth tried to make a sound, but his throat choked with fear.
The second mind intoned deeply… Sufficient…altruism indication of intelligence…preserve the intelligent one…his fellows will probably come to rescue him…dissect the beast…
Horth had time for one bubbling shriek before his body twisted inside out.
The End.
Notes and proofing history
Scanned with preliminary proofing by A\NN/A
December 20th, 2007—v1.0
from the original source: Science Fiction Quarterly, August, 1951
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