The Science-Fantasy Megapack: 25 Classic Tales from Fantasy Adventures

THE DILETTANTES, by E. C. Tubb

Artrui was admiring Bulem’s new nail varnish when Velenda joined them in the breakfast room. Listlessly, she sat down, punched the button for fruit juice, and scowled at the two men. Neither of them paid her the slightest attention.

“I like it,” said Artrui enviously. “There’s something quite fascinating about the way all those tiny flecks of color shimmer when you move your hands. Prador?”

“Yes.” Bulem moved his fingers and smiled at the result, “He is experimenting with photon-trapping compounds and sent me this as a sample. Neat, isn’t it?”

“Very.” Artrui glanced distastefully at his own emerald-tipped fingers then smiled as Marya entered the room. Marya was the latest addition to the composite group, and so was extremely popular. She sat down and punched for a full meal.

“What are we doing today?”

“I’ve no idea.” Artrui sat down beside her and, with blatant intimacy, sipped from her glass. “I suppose we could go over and see Tobol. They tell me that he’s worked up some wonderful new fabrics, gossamer with iridescent panels. He’s got some new models, too, from Atheon, I believe. Atheon or maybe Xenadath, some outlandish planet like that.”

“Yolande,” corrected Velenda. No one took any notice of her.

“I’ve seen Tobol’s collection,” protested Bulem. “He hasn’t anything really new, just reworks of his old ideas. I found them intensely boring.” He looked thoughtful. “We could go to the Stadium.”

“No,” said Marya decisively. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“No?” Bulem shrugged. “Well, I must admit that the spectacle of trained animals fighting each other to the death begins to pall after a while. What would you suggest?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Marya impatiently. “Can’t you think of anything?”

“The races?” Artrui sighed at her expression. “No?” He frowned, resting the tips of his fingers against his temples in an exaggerated gesture of concentration. “Calthin? He can usually be relied on to supply something interesting. Helstart? They say that his tingle-dreams are out of this universe. Malpiquet? He has some interesting exhibits in aborted mutation which should prove interesting if you like that sort of thing.”

“I don’t,” said Marya curtly.

“We could go underworld,” suggested Bulem. Like Artrui, he was worried by Marya’s lack of response. “From what I hear it would be most interesting.”

“Is that all you can think of?” Marya didn’t trouble to hide her impatience. “I’d rather be immolated than have to wear one of those awful suits. What’s the good of going to a place where you can’t do anything?” She stretched, lifting her slender arms until the sheer gossamer of the robe she wore fell back along their smooth perfection. “What I need is something novel and exciting. Maybe.…”

“A hunt,” said Bulem quickly, before she could finish what she was going to say. “We’ve never been on a hunt before. It should prove amusing.”

“Where?” Artrui sounded dubious.

“Alpace. The entire planet is a game reservation, and we should have some good sport.”

“Killing things, you mean?” Artrui still didn’t sound too eager.

“Yes.” Bulem warmed to the idea as he thought about it. “We can get guns and things from the Warden. How about it?”

“Well.…” Artrui looked at Marya. “It’s not such a bad idea at that. It would be novel, and might turn out to be amusing. Does the idea appeal to you, Marya?”

She yawned.

“We could ask Chendis and Ardella,” continued Bulem desperately. “They would be pleased to join us, and both are amusing company. Please say yes, Marya.”

The Warden was an old man from the Cappellian system and he had a proper awe of the stellar aristocrats. He received them in his office and awaited their pleasure as they wrangled among themselves.

“Well make this a proper expedition,” said Chendis. He was a coarse type and held peculiar theories of his own.

He consistently refused to wear nail varnish and accepted his social inferiority with a blatant carelessness which irritated rather than amused.

“That is why we are here,” said Marya coldly. She stared at the Warden. “Your advice?”

“I would suggest the hunting grounds close to the lodge.” He bowed as he spoke. Titles weren’t necessary when dealing with the stellar aristocrats, but abject politeness was. “There is easy sport there, small animals without fang or claw. They are harmless and easily killed. The grounds are within easy flying distance so that you could reside at the lodge during your stay.”

“We want none of that,” snapped Chendis decisively. “We came here for proper sport, not the emasculated version of your target ranges.” He looked at the others. “I suggest that we take some provisions and attendants, and have a heli drop us where there is some real game.” He bared his teeth.

“Big game. I want to hear something yell when I pull the trigger.”

“How revolting!” Marya accentuated a yawn with her ringed fingers. “Really, Chendis, must you be so primitive?”

“Why not? The whole idea behind a hunt is to go primitive.” He leered at her as he spoke. As he was not in the same composite as Marya, he saw no reason to pander to her whims, and he knew that he was too far down the social scale for his discourtesy to make the slightest difference.

He even winked at Velenda and she, responding to his friendship, winked back. They smiled at each other to Ardella’s annoyance and the pleased approval of the other two men.

With any sort of luck at all they might be able to persuade Chendis to take Velenda off their hands. Ardella, while no great acquisition, couldn’t possibly be as boring as Velenda.

Artrui mentally decided to sound Chendis out on the subject as soon as possible.

“I suppose that it would be safe enough,” said Bulem dubiously. As the hunt had originally been his suggestion, he was eager to see it work out to everyone’s satisfaction. “As you say, Chendis, half the fun is in getting away from luxury and really roughing it. You agree, Artrui?”

“What?” Artrui blinked. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”

“That’s settled then.” Bulem glanced at the Warden. “See to it.”

“At once.” The man hesitated. “You would have no objection to one of the attendants carrying weapons?”

Chendis looked annoyed. “Is that necessary?”

“The beasts are dangerous, sir. They have been especially bred so, for the benefit of seasoned hunters. The man, a warrior he is called, will be armed for the sole purpose of protecting you from harm.”

“I don’t like it,” said Chendis. “As the hunters, we should be the only ones to carry weapons.”

“It is merely a precaution, sir,” the Warden explained. He hesitated. “A party similar to yourselves went out shortly before my arrival here. They refused to take a warrior with them and were severely mauled. Two women died and two men are still undergoing plastic surgery. Naturally, the Warden responsible has been immolated, but the damage was done.”

“I see.” Chendis smiled with a touch of cruelty. “If we insisted, would you permit us to go out without this man, this warrior as you call him?”

“I could not prevent you, sir.” Sweat glistened on the Warden’s forehead. “But if anything should happen to you.…”

“Oh, leave the man alone,” snapped Velenda impatiently. “He’s only doing his job.” She ignored the Warden’s look of gratitude.

Among the rest of the party, the warrior looked like a crow in the midst of a flock of birds of paradise. Even the soft-footed attendant androids wore bright colors, usually to match the tints of their skins, but he alone wore somber black, relieved only by a simple golden insignia. He set up a small tent close to the sleeping quarters, and spent much time checking his equipment and odd-shaped weapon.

Chendis, always rather peculiar when it came to dealing with inferior races, found him a fascinating subject for study.

He waited until the others had retired and then went outside to talk to the warrior. He found him busy cleaning his weapon.

“Do you often do that?”

“Clean my gun? Sure.”

“Why?”

“So that it will work when I want it to.” The man stared at Chendis. “You aren’t a regular hunter, are you?”

“I’m a stellar aristocrat,” said Chendis. He was amused. “Do you realize what that means?”

“No.”

“It means that I and my race own almost the entire galaxy. It means that we have over two thousand subject races working solely for our benefit.”

“That’s nice.”

“You are supposed to call mc ‘sir’ when you address me,” reminded Chendis. He sighed. “Nice? Well, I suppose that it is, in a way. We don’t have to work because we can have anything we want when we want it. We have nothing to do but amuse ourselves and, because of that, we are bored all the time. Can you understand that?”

“I think so. Are the rest of you Aristocrats, too, sir?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Do all your menfolk paint their faces and hands? Sir.”

“You object?”

“Not me. We just don’t do it back home, that’s all. But you’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Sir,” reminded Chendis. He shrugged. “I suppose that it is in the records somewhere. Naturally, we can’t possibly remember the details of every new world we conquer.”

“Earth.”

“Earth?” Chendis frowned. “Did I hear something interesting about the conquest of that planet?” His face cleared. “Yes, I remember now. A backward world, but the resistance to our fleets was incredible. Incredibly stupid, that is. Naturally, you couldn’t possibly avoid conquest and assimilation.”

“You pretty near wiped us out,” said the warrior. “At least, so my great-Grandfather used to tell me.” There was no resentment in his voice. The conditioning he had received made it impossible for him ever to hate those with whom he came into contact. His idiom had been left as an amusing peculiarity. Chendis looked surprised.

“As long ago as that? I had the impression that the incident occurred only a short while ago. Probably you have an extremely short life span.” He yawned and moved towards his tent.

Hunting started at mid-morning and continued without a pause until mid-day. It was slaughter. The weapons used didn’t make a sound, but they killed just the same, and their silence was more than compensated for by the screams of disrupted animals.

The androids, emotionless flesh and blood robots, moved quietly about as they collected the bag. Once there was an argument between Ardella and Velenda as to who had killed a certain animal. And once Marya screamed with rage as she shot a careless android who had spattered the hem of her robe with blood. Other than that, the morning passed without incident.

Over the mid-day meal, Artrui talked about it. “This is real fun,” he said. “I never thought that killing things could be so amusing. Did you see how Bulem blew the back legs off that funny creature and it tried to run away?” He chuckled at the memory.

Chendis nodded.

“I’ve often thought that we miss a lot in not going primitive more often than we do. The feel of the wind against one’s face, the smooth precision of a weapon, the cunning needed to hit the target.” He sighed. “Our ancestors must have been great fighters to have left us such a heritage.”

“There is nothing clever about living in dirt,” snapped Marya. She had changed her robe, but the incident of the blood had annoyed her. “Surely even our ancestors knew that. They conquered other races and then made those races fight for them.” She yawned. “Must we talk of such things? History can be so tiresome.”

“History is what has made us,” reminded Chendis. He looked up as the somber figure of the warrior came towards them. “Yes? What is it?”

“I thought that I’d better warn you, sir,” said the warrior easily. “All that noise the animals have been making is going to attract some company. There are large animals in this forest, as well as small.”

“So?”

“So, I’d suggest that you give up hunting for the day, sir.”

“Insolence!” Artrui was on his feet before Chendis could reply. “How dare you address us so? I shall complain to the Warden! I.…” He broke off, his mouth still open. “What was that?”

“One of the big animals I was telling you about, sir.” The warrior unslung his weapon. “Hear it?”

They did. It was a kind of hissing roar coupled with the sound of a great body crashing through the undergrowth. All fell silent and, with the exception of the warrior, all seemed paralyzed with terror.

“No need to be scared,” said the warrior calmly. “Just get those guns of yours and shoot when you see it.” He paused, listening. “It’s getting close. You’d better hurry if you want to kill it.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Artrui, without waiting to see if anyone followed his example, turned and ran from the sound. Bulem followed him, knocking down Marya in his frantic hurry, closely followed by Ardella. Chendis stared wildly at Velenda, and Marya, who had regained her feet, screamed.

The cause was just before them. It was the largest animal they had faced, and yet it was little more than the height of a man. It had a round, furred head, glistening with fangs and, as it crouched ready to spring, its claws dug furrows in the ground. It hissed, staring at them with cold, yellow eyes, then tensed itself to charge.

The warrior shot it dead.

He lowered his weapon and stared somberly at the headless body before him. Next to him, Chendis was busy being very ill, and the two women had fainted at the sight of the beast. The others, human and android, were not to be seen.

Chendis, slowly recovering from his retching fear, knew that if it hadn’t been for the warrior the beast would have killed them all. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved our lives.”

“Nothing to it,” said the warrior calmly. “All you had to do was to stand and fire those guns of yours.” He seemed to remember something. “Sir.”

“We couldn’t.” For some reason Chendis felt it necessary to explain to this member of a conquered race why that was so. “We are a long way from the primitive,” he said, “and aren’t used to violence. The thought of death, our death, is horrible to us. We can’t help it. At the prospect of personal danger we suffer from a peculiar numbness that affects our reactions. I don’t know what it is.”

“Cowardice.”

“What?” The word was strange to Chendis. “What was that you said?”

“Nothing.” For a long moment the warrior stood and stared at Chendis. “You don’t have to explain. I understand all right…sir.” He slung his weapon and moved away from the dead beast. Chendis stared after him.

It was nothing really, nothing at all, and yet it disturbed him. Chendis, a Stellar Aristocrat, had met the members of many subject races during his long life, but never before had he met one with the expression this man of Earth had in his eyes.

Contempt.

He wondered why.