Astounding British Edition, Vol. 6, No. 8 — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| al & : ae 36 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION had risen up from the tall grass. Ole Doc found he was shaking with the excitement and he disliked finding it so for he had often told himself that one should never get a thrill out of killing, that being a barbarous sort of joy and besides at the end’there it had been but five to one. He picked up his fallen pipe, jammed it into his mouth and took a drag. The slaves screamed and fell back from this smoking monster, the tobacco habit having been extinct most everywhere for hundreds of years. Hippocrates grunted with disgust. He had not been able to more than slew the 600 mm. into position and had not had the satisfaction of shooting even one round. He came out. Shrilly shrewish he said: “You ought to know better. I have told you and told you and told you and you ought to know better. You'll get hurt. I’ve said you'll get hurt and you will. You leave that _ to the bravos and buckos. It says right in your code that ‘Whosoever shall kill large numbers of people solely for satisfaction shall be given a hearing and shall be fined a week’s pay, it being the mission of this Society to preserve mankind in the galaxy—’ ” He brought up short. His terror for Ole Doc had brought him into an error of quoting the Parody Code. It actually said “. . . kill large numbers for experimenta- tion shall . . .” This fussed him so that he shut off the force screens and came down and would have carried Ole Doc straight back into the ship for a take-off had not his revered master been staring so hard, pipe again forgotten. Hippocrates took the pipe. He looked for the objection. He knocked out the bowl. He looked again, more wonder in his antennae waves, and slyly broke the pipe to bits. Still no objection. Hippocrates poaren out the contents of the pouch and heaved bits and leather_as far as his very powerful arms could throws Still no objection. Hippocrates walked all the way around Ole Doc and stared at him. His master was staring at the line of slaves. No, at the center of the line. And some- one there was staring as though hypnotized. “Oh,” moaned Hippocrates, seeing plenty of trouble. “A girl!” Now it was no plan of Ole Doc’s to inspect Arphon of Sun!®. He was on his - leisurely way to hand a deposition warrant to a System Chief over in Sub-Rim 18, 526°, that worthy having failed to respect Section 8, Paragraph 918 of Code 94 of the Universal Medical Society. And if Arphon has slaves like this, it was theoretically none of his medical? business. But she was staring at him. He flushed a little and looked down. But he was caped in gold and belted in Gare with metal wings on his yellow boot and was decent. Hippocrates sighed with the depth of resignation. He went over and chopped the girl out of the line with a simple twist of the iron links, bare-handed, Then he set her bodily to one side and to the rest made pushing motions with his hands. “Shoo! Shoo!” said Hippocrates. “You are free. Go!” “Nonsense,” said the girl in a voice which made tingles go up and down Ole Doc’s spine. “How can they go anywhere? They have no money to pay the air tax.” “The air—” Hippocrates gaped at her. She was just a human being to him. Personally he liked machines, “Nonsense yourself. The air’s here and the air’s free. Shoo! SHOO! You stay,” he added over one of his .shoulders to the girl. “Shoo!” And the slaves sank down and began to inch forward on their knees to the little slave. ““No, no,” they cried. “We cannot pay the tax. We have sickened already in our homes when the air was shut off. We cannot pay. We are re-possessed and on our way to remarketing. Don’t send us away! Help us! Money, money! You pay our tax and we will work—!” Ts “Master!” cried Hippocrates, scuttling back. For there were definite limits on his skills and when these were reached he had but one god, “Master!” But the slaves just came on, inching for- ward on their knees, hands pitifully upraised, begging and whining and Hippocrates fell hastily back again. “Air, air. Buy us air! You pay our tax. Don’t send us away!” ” ! “MASTER Ole Doc paid no heed to his slave now behind him, to the pathetic cries, to the creeping throng or to anything else on Arphon for that matter. He was still staring at the girl and now she blushed and pulled the rags of a robe around her. That did it. “Put her in the ship!” said Ole Doc. “The rest of you get out of here. Go back to your homes! Beat it!” But this relapse into the vernacular of his youth had no effect on the crowd. They had crept for- ward, leaving flattened grass behind them. Suddenly an old man with a ragged gray stubble and thin chest caught at his throat, rose up and with a wild scream cried, “Air! Air! Oh—” And down he went, full length into the grass. Two others shortly did the same thing. Ole Doc sniffed alertly. He looked at his third cloak button but it was still gold and so the atmosphere was all right. He sniffed again. “Test for air,” he said to Hippocrates. The little fellow leaped gladly into the Morgue and in his testing brought visibility back to the ship. He saw, through the port, that this startled half a dozen of the slaves out there into fits and the fact made him feel very superior. He, master of machinery, tested for air. And it was good. GOmichooksneo