Another week crawled by, and then in desperation, they discovered that a supertranquilizer pill, several tins of which were in the emergency chest, not only stopped them from worrying how long the delay would last, but also solved the problem. It stopped them from feeling any perceptible want or desire, natural or induced, at all. Once they took the pill, they were as good as vegetables for the next four to six hours.
“O.K.,” said Roberts. “Now, how are we going to work this?”
Morrissey said, “We’ll take apart the want-generator, and make a communicator, then I’ll tell the technicians we’ve got some extra guns, ammunition, protective suits, and so on, to trade. I’ll ask for circuit components, and also some things we don’t especially want, so we have a little leeway in trading. Before they get here, we’ll make the circuit back into a want-generator. When they land, I’ll take a pill, and turn the want-generator on them.”
“We’ll need to be very sure it’s on the right setting,” said Roberts.
Morrissey nodded. “Don’t worry about that. I’d probably turn it on low, and then gradually step up the power, so they don’t notice it. Meanwhile, you and Ham will have taken pills—”
Hammell objected, “The trouble with that is, we won’t be able to react right. We’re going to act like zombies.”
Morrissey thought it over.
“When I set up the meeting, I can say we’ve been knocking ourselves out, can’t think of any solution, and so on. They’ll expect us to look depressed.”
Roberts nodded. “That ought to help, anyway.”
Hammell said, “What about when they leave?”
“Before that, I’ll start to cut down the power. After they leave, I’ll step it up again, so they don’t come to their senses the minute they get out of the clearing. If we work it right, and try to make reasonably decent trades with them, they may never guess a thing.”
Roberts nodded. “Just so they don’t skin us.”
It was just a few days later that the technicians came, in two medium-sized skimmers. They were bearded, bristling with guns, and gave the impression of watching in every direction at once.
As soon as the skimmers dropped into the clearing, Roberts and Hammell each dutifully chewed up his pill. They’d scarcely swallowed the last gritty bits when a layer of glass seemed to slide down over the world. They could see through the glass, but nothing out there really meant anything, ever had meant anything, or probably ever would mean anything. So there was no point getting excited about nothing.
Tranquilized into two-legged vegetables, Roberts and Hammell trudged outside, while Morrissey bent at the set.
The technicians climbed out of their skimmers.
Roberts and Hammell shambled across the clearing. Morrissey dropped out the hatch, and drifted after them.
The technicians stared at them, looking bemused.
“Poor guys,” said one.
“Yeah, you can sure see they’ve been clobbered.”
“Remember what it was like for us last winter? It’s hit them already.” Roberts and Hammell listlessly raised a hand in greeting.
A burly giant with a bristling red beard, said, “Ah, fellows, we’re all in the same boat. Do we have to trade with these poor guys?”
The rest of the men shifted their guns in embarrassment.
“After all,” suggested a small wiry technician with a rifle in his hand, a knife on his belt, and a pistol butt protruding from under his armpit, “we’re all human.”
“Sure, why be greedy?”
Someone mumbled, with a catch in his voice. “They’ll have trouble enough, anyway, no matter what we can do for them.”
Roberts had the impression of looking out through a glass wall, and sensing invisible forces that beat powerfully on the other side.
A technician with a scar down the side of his face, and a tough, no-nonsense cast of countenance, suddenly shut his eyes. Tears ran streaming down his cheeks.
Roberts’ brain sluggishly added up two and two. He reached back and shook Morrissey by the arm.
“Turn it down.”
Morrissey nodded listlessly, and headed back for the tender.
The technicians were now choking, trembling and struggling to keep control of themselves. Roberts said nothing, because the technicians were clearly too choked up to talk.
Morrissey disappeared into the tender.
The red-bearded giant thrust his right hand out, palm up. He began, “Anything we can do—”
Roberts, through the dull placidity imposed by the supertranquilizer, sensed a sudden lessening of force outside the glass wall. Suddenly there was no force there at all.
The red-beard frowned. “Within reason, of course—”
Another of the technicians wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “After all, we have to live, too, you know.”
Roberts glanced around.
Morrissey was just coming out of the tender.
The scarred technician said flatly, “Those that are fit to survive, survive.” He eyed Roberts and Hammell. “Nature weeds out the incompetent.”
By now, every eye amongst the technicians was drying fast.
“These supplies weren’t easy to get,” growled the red-bearded giant. “If you have something to trade, we’ll be willing to consider—”
Morrissey paused, halfway out from the tender, with a strange expression on his face. Then he turned around, and plodded back again.
The small wiry technician shifted his gun around, and alertly watched Morrissey go back into the tender.
“What’s he doing?”
Roberts struggled to get some kind of idea through the glass wall.
“He . . . he’s got indigestion.”
Hammell, with a look of painful effort, said carefully, “Can’t keep anything down.”
“Could be ten-day fever. Has he got spots on the backs of his hands?”
The air outside the glass wall seemed to suddenly thicken again, then get thicker yet by graduated stages.
Tranquilizer or no tranquilizer, it came through to Roberts that Morrissey was botching the job.
Tears were spurting out of the technicians’ eyes. The short, wiry technician rushed forward and emotionally offered Roberts his gun. The giant red-beard, weeping uncontrollably, clasped Hammell like a brother. Before Roberts could figure out what to do, he found himself surrounded by piled-up supplies, with the technicians wringing their hands tearfully; and then, apparently unable to bear their emotion, they all piled into one of the skimmers.
“We’ll be back! We’ll bring you more axes, and seeds, and everything. Just tell us what you need! We really want to help!”
The skimmer shot up over the trees, and vanished.
* * *
Morrissey, watching at the personnel hatch, faded back inside. A moment later, the air seemed to thicken like glue. Roberts still felt no emotion, but he found it hard to think or move.
Hammell, carrying a gun in each hand, looked stuporously at Roberts.
“Wait till they get out of range—not that it matters, of course.”
“Nothing matters.”
“No.”
Hammell dully picked up more of the supplies. “Probably we ought to take in everything we can carry.”
Roberts took an armful, and followed Hammell. Just as they reached the hatch, the swirling thickness outside the glass wall let up.
Out beyond the clearing, there was an outburst of snarling, thrashing noises.
It occurred to Roberts that if the device affected the local animals, there could have been half-a-dozen predators out there, taking mercy on their prey.
But that was all meaningless. Roberts climbed in, set own his load beside Hammell’s, then stood waiting, sunk in blank tranquility. Finally, they roused themselves long enough to go into the control room and sit down, torpid and stupefied, till the pills wore off. By that time, it was starting to grow dark outside, and Roberts and Hammell were asleep, unaware of the opening and shutting of the hatch, and the sound of a pair of feet traveling back and forth past them.
* * *
Early next morning, as the first glow of dawn began to light the portholes of the control room, Roberts came awake.
A blaze of light was pouring through the slightly opened door of the general-purpose room between the control room and the inner air lock to the cargo compartment. It was in that general-purpose room that Morrissey was working on the communicator.
Roberts, feeling almost fresh for a change, sat up, stretched, peered at the lighted doorway, and asked himself what Morrissey was doing.
Roberts got up, opened the door wide, and looked in.
A wooden frame, made apparently of odd scraps from the cargo compartment, met Roberts’ gaze. On different levels of the frame sat a variety of electrical circuits, connected by loops of wire. Roberts could recognize three separate circuits that looked like the want-generator.
Morrissey straightened, bemused.
“Those technicians brought along a good selection.”
Roberts looked at the frame. “What have we got here?”
“Why, I wondered if it would be possible to make two or three of these sets, and get them to reinforce each other. There were more than enough components out there, so I tried it, using very low power, and trying first one set, then two, then three together.”
“What happened?”
“Well, with two, I seemed to get less than twice the effect, and with three, there was no effect at all.”