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The Haters - William Morrison, ebook, Temp

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THE HATERS
BY WILLIAM MORRISON
They flung themselves across light years of space to show the world their
hatred and contempt. And out among the stars, they learned at last what hatred
could really mean to them and what they hated!
"We'll show them," said Kerman.
Grayson didn't answer. Kerman was more than half crazy, and he had been talking about showing
them ever since coming on board. Grayson had got used to him, just as he had got used to all the others.
After all, you couldn't expect to hire a crew that was exactly normal, not for a trip like this. You simply
picked up what you could get and took these characters in your' stride, and when they started talking in
their different peculiar ways, you didn't pay attention.
Still, if ever Kerman's remark had been appropriate, it was at a time like this. Here was a planet that
would everything they were looking for. And nobody to stop them from taking it.
McGant, who acted as first mate, came over to him and said, "We're all set to land, Captain."
"Hold off for awhile," replied Grayson. "I'm checking our observations."
"There's nothing to check," commented McGant sourly.
"
Oxygen, temperature, gravity; air
presssure—everything's in the right range. Radioactivity's a little high, but that's the way we want it. Not
enough to hurt, but high enough to be promising."
"I'm not sure about the inhabitants," Grayson said.
McGant looked at him oddly. You didn't get respect from a crew like this, thought Grayson. Some
were slavish, but in general you were lucky if you got grudging obedience, and didn't have to dodge a
knife in the back. McGant, now, was not exactly half crazy, but he was a good quarter of the way gone.
And here he was looking at Grayson as if he considered the latter the one who was weak in the head.
Maybe he had something there at that, thought Grayson.
"There's no danger from them," said McGant. "Only one intelligent species, and not many specimens
of them around. And they're still in the ape-man stage."
"I'm not so sure."
"By Pluto, Captain, it's obvious enough. Not a building, not a boat, not a canal in the place. No sign
that they've ever heard of the use of tools. No sign that they grow their own plant food or use weapons
to kill their prey. What more do you want of them, an I. Q. test?"
"That would help," said Grayson. "For lack of it, I'm taking another look at some of these telescopic
films we made."
"I've gone through them. They don't show any danger."
"I tend to agree with you. But it doesn't pay to be careless."
"Anything you say, Captain," replied McGant in a respectful voice, managing to convey his contempt
by facial expression alone.
"Somebody
on every ship has to be careful, just as somebody has to be the
ship's clown. But I'll lay two to one that you're only wasting our time. An hour from now we'll be coming
in for the landing we should be making right now."
"I don't doubt it," returned Grayson coldly, He didn't like that remark about the clown.
"And then, by Pluto, we'll start collecting the stuff. We'll, show the dirty so-and-so's, Captain."
"You have restricted objectives," said Grayson. McGant's dirty so-and-so's, of course, were the
inhabitants of his native Mars. Kerman's "them" were the officers of the Interplanetary Transport Service,
who had fired him for perfectly justifiable reasons.
Grayson himself wasn't so petty. The "them" that he was going to show was nothing less than the
entire human race.
He studied the films, running them through three more times, looking for any clue that might hint at an
advanced but concealed state of civilization, for any sign that the intelligence of the highest race, the
 A-race, was above what he called the ape-man stage. There was nothing.
The intelligent ones were not particularly impressive-looking. They were about five feet high, rather
slender in build, and not at all humanoid in appearance. They looked like walking lizards, which they
were not. Their jaws protruded and their foreheads receded, as if they relied more upon their teeth than
upon their brains. And Grayson had learned that in an enemy you had to fear brains more than anything
else.
Completely sane or not, McGant was right. After an hour, Grayson gave the signal, and the ship
spiralled in for a landing. It settled down on a smooth grassy plot that was red and gray
with small
growing plants.
They got out, their weapons ready, and looked around them. There was nothing startling, and
Grayson wondered why he couldn't shake off the feeling of danger. The plants were unusual, of course,
but no more unusual than those of a planet like Venus, for instance. Tall gray trees, red and gray bushes,
blue grass. They were fixed where they grew, as plants should be, and Grayson saw no reason to fear
them. Still, tests had to be made.
A couple of the men, directed by McGant, were already gathering samples to make them. They took
specimens of the air, the soil, they took the leaves and bark of different plants. In the ship itself, Stratton,
the biochemist, who was a very kindly and gentle person except when he took a notion that the Universe
was persecuting him, fed the materials through the electrono-chemical tester system. This read off their
important characteristics in no more than the time that a human analyst would have taken to focus a
microscope.
"No poisons and no very bad skin irritants," he reported, "except on one of the larger species of
trees, and I don't think there'll be much trouble, Captain, in getting an antitoxin to control that. Some of
the grasses produce mild allergens, but our drugs should handle them."
No danger from that source then. As for the animals—Grayson heard the click of a gun going off,
and saw a blue animal leap out of the grass and lie still. Kerman and a couple of others were assembling
specimens of the larger species. Another crew was collecting the planetary equivalent of insects. Soon
they would get together numerous representative types of animal life, study how the creatures reacted,
find out how easy they were to kill. Another electronic analyzer would dissect them and report all their
important characteristics to the waiting men.
An hour later, the summarized reports began to come in. By the end of the afternoon, a hundred
small species and a dozen of the larger ones had been analyzed. There was nothing to be afraid of.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had not been idle. Under Grayson's direct orders, a dozen of them
were scouting at low levels in their one-man helicopters. If the planet was as rich in the different metals as
it seemed to be, they should have located enough ores to make fortunes for the entire crew in a single
day of mining.
When the reports began to come in over the radio, Grayson knew that he was right. Their fortunes
would be made.
"We'll show them," grinned Kerman, almost drooling at the idea of the money he was going to have.
This time Grayson nodded. He dreamed of what the money would do for him, and the bitter smile he
habitually wore slowly hardened. What a showing that was going to be.
They operated on a twenty-four hour day, although the period of rotation of the planet was closer to
thirty. It was still dark when the morning wake-up bell out and began to get the mining sounded, and the
men tumbled machinery ready for operation. A technician, relatively sane but surly, tested the electron
filters in banks, replaced one that was faulty, gave the mechanical parts a quick once-over, and reported,
"Shipshape, Captain."
"Start mining." Grayson had made a map, showing the different ore-rich areas listed in the preceding
day's explorations. He pointed out Area 1 and said, "Try that first."
The man nodded. "Could use more equipment."
"We'll get along this trip. And next trip we'll have enough equipment to go ten times as fast."
The 'copter with the mining group flew into the surrounding darkness, its glowlights lighting up the
trees for a distance of a thousand feet ahead. Things were settling down to a routine, thought Grayson.
 Everything quiet, everything in order. Absolutely no danger.
McGant came out of the inside of the ship and grinned at him. "No trouble, Captain?"
"None so far."
"It's like I expected. That A-race isn't dangerous at all. And as for brains—well, they've got just
enough to keep out of our way."
"We didn't run across any yesterday?"
"There don't seem to be many around. One of the men came across a single specimen. He shot at it,
but the thing was quite a way off, and he missed."
"Tell the men not to kill them. We'll see if we can tame them and get some use out of them."
But he wasn't actually counting on that. It was enough, he told himself, to know that the race was
harmless. From now on, the only thing that counted was the rate at which the metal could be mined and
brought to the ship.
All the same, he experienced a feeling of uneasiness later, when he overheard two of the men talking.
One of them was jeering, "Don't tell me you missed him, Fernald. Why, I thought you could hit a target
with that gun of yours from ten miles away."
"I can. But I'm not used to the air here, and my range-finder doesn't work the way it does on Earth
or Mars."
Then the two men became aware that Grayson was near them, and they slouched to attention and
saluted sloppily. What did the man miss? Grayson asked himself. An animal at which he was shooting, of
course. But what sort of animal? One of the A-race?
Discipline was bad enough without letting the men know that he had overheard part of their
conversation and wanted to hear the rest of it. He passed by them, and noticed that they resumed talking
in low voices when he was out of earshot.
The incident annoyed him, and the next day he himself went out with one of the hunting parties. The
animals had learned caution now, and were in no hurry to show themselves. One of the men had to flush
them out of their hiding places with a strong ultrasonic beam, which he swept in all directions, and even
then they moved so swiftly that they were not easy to kill. By the time you aimed at them they had
changed color and taken refuge in their next hideout. And then you had to go through the whole process
all over again.
It was an hour before Grayson himself got a shot. When he did let loose finally it was at a small
lizard-like animal only a foot high that came placidly out of a burrow thirty feet away and stood there, as
if oblivious of the irritation of the ultrasonic beam, examining the men with interest.
Grayson's blast had more power in it than he would have wanted to use on so small a creature. It
caught the lizard full in the middle, and knocked it back. For a moment Grayson was afraid that he had
torn the thing to pieces.
He hadn't. As he watched in amazement, the animal picked itself up, completely unhurt, and moved
slowly into its burrow again.
One of the men laughed uneasily. "You didn't catch it head on, Captain. You just sideswiped it."
Grayson said firmly, "I hit it head on."
"Besides," said another of the men, "even a glancing shot with that much power should have killed it."
"It should have," agreed Grayson. "Has anybody here killed one of these things before?"
"I aimed at one yesterday, Captain, but I missed."
It was Fernald who spoke. Captain Grayson said sharply, "Sure you missed?"
"Not now I ain't, Captain. But I thought so at the time."
"Prentiss," said Grayson, "flush that thing out with the ultrasonic beam again. I want another look at
it."
The ultrasonic beam rose to full power. Nothing came out of the burrow.
Grayson's forehead was damp. He said, "Somebody toss a grenade down there. That should get it
out, in pieces if need be."
They stepped back and Fernald tossed the grenade. Fernald liked to toss grenades. The clumps of
dirt shot up and out in all directions, and left a hollow a dozen feet across. At the bottom of the hollow
 they could see the small lizard looking up at them. It seemed annoyed that its privacy had been disturbed,
but otherwise not particularly upset. Grayson stared at it more, closely than before. The thing helped him
by standing up on its hind legs so that he could get a better look at it.
The jaws protruded, the forehead receded. It looked like al small-scale, slightly altered edition of the
members of the A-race. "Probably an earlier and smaller form," he thought. "It must have the same
evolutionary relation to the A-race as monkeys have to men."
The thing looked at him and opened its jaws. Grayson heard the thinnest of squeaks. Most of the
sound, he realized, must be in the ultrasonic range.
Another small lizard popped out of a burrow close by; and disregarding the presence of the men a
couple of dozen feet away, the two things held a squeaky conversation. Then both turned and moved
calmly into the second burrow.
"Want me to open that one too?" asked Fernald eagerly.
"Don't bother." Fernald was too anxious. Better keep him under control, or he'd let his passion for
throwing grenades g the better of him.
"I got something a little better than a grenade, Captain," said one of the other men. "Midget-sized
nuclear bomb. We'll have to back up, though, if we want to use it."
"We'll try that," said Grayson.
The man moved cautiously to the burrow and planted the bomb. Then they all moved back. When
the bomb went off, the explosion could be felt a half mile away. Dirt and rocks flew into the air, and with
them the two small lizard things.
When the men approached once more, the two beasts had their heads together again, squeaking
away as before. Apparently they had been unharmed by the explosion.
Grayson looked at his men and they looked back at him, and nobody spoke. Finally, Fernald, now
no longer fingering a grenade, suggested, "There seems to be nothin' much we can do to those things,
Captain. And it would be too bad if they came after us. Maybe we better leave them alone."
"I'm afraid we'd better. Back to the ship, everyone."
He spoke calmly, but inside he wasn't at all calm. He had been right from the first, there was danger
here, terrible danger. So far, by some miracle, the little lizards had shown no inclination to harm them. But
what if the bombing of their burrows had aroused their anger?
The next day he learned that the small lizards were not invulnerable.
They had set a trap a half mile from the ship, and when the alarm went off, Captain Grayson looked
at the visor to see what he had caught. It was a big lizard this time, a member of the A-race. The thing
stood on its hind legs within the smooth hard walls of transparent metal and gazed around it, as if
wondering what had happened. It made no sudden motion, showed no sign of panic. It simply examined
the situation in what seemed to Grayson a very human way.
Something moved at the edge of the visor screen, and Grayson perceived that a small lizard was
inspecting its larger relative through the transparent metal wall. Half a dozen additional small lizards joined
the first, and for a few seconds they stared placidly at the large creature inside the trap.
Then the large one acted. Its paws swiped at the metal wall, and the wall tore. A second later the
large one was out of the trap, attacking the small creatures which surrounded it.
The walls must have caved in completely then, for the visor screen blanked out. Grayson swore in
frustration, and then barked, "McGant, Fernald! Get a couple of men with midget nuclear bombs and
come with me! I want to see what's going on there!"
Two minutes later they were in a 'copter, flying over the place where the broken remains of the trap
lay. McGant looked out and said, "All quiet now, Captain."
"We'll land and look around. You fellows keep your bombs ready for use. They don't seem to hurt
the beasts, but at least they'll blow them out of the way."
As they eased the 'copter off the ground, Grayson sprang out and ran over to what seemed to be a
torn rag. It was what was left of one of the small lizards. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment, aware
that his heart was pounding with fear. He found it hard to believe.
Fernald said gloomily, "We couldn't make a dent on that thing, Captain, but the big one seems to
 have torn it to pieces in no time at all. Absolutely no time at all."
"What'll happen to us if the big one comes after us?" asked McGant.
Grayson shook his head. "Better not talk about it. So far we've been lucky enough to have it avoid
us. God help us if it ever acquires a fondness for our company,
"
he told them.
Fernald pointed. "Here's another little one, dead as a door nail. Looks like it's been burned."
The skin seemed to have been scorched. Grayson said, "That must be one of the pair we caught with
our midget nuclear, bomb."
"So the bomb had an effect after all," observed McGant.
"Not enough. If we had a full sized one—"
"Which we haven't, Captain.'
"Which we haven't. But if we had, we might protect ourselves. As it is—" He hesitated. "As it is,
we're getting off this planet."
"No, Captain!" exclaimed McGant. "By Pluto, we were all going to get rich here and go back and
show them. You can't go off now, leaving all that valuable metal untouched."
Grayson's lips tightened. "In the 'copter, you fools," he ordered. "We're going back to the ship, and
once we get there we're leaving the planet. If you don't like the idea, McGant, you can stay here with
these lizard beasts. And you can keep any man who wants to stay here with you."
The others shook their heads and Fernald spoke for them "Not us, Captain. Not after what we've
seen them do."
The flight back to the ship was made in swift silence. Grayson got out and saw Kerman gaping
foolishly at him. "All quiet, Kerman?"
"All quiet, Captain."
"Get back on the ship. Have Sparks send out a message recalling all reconnaissance and mining
crews. We're leaving in fifteen minutes. Anybody not on board in that time stays behind on this planet."
He ran down the corridor and threw open the door to his office. In the doorway he stood as if
paralyzed. One of the A-beasts was there near his desk, staring at him. A hole torn in the metal floor
showed how the beast had entered.
His hand swung to the weapon at his belt and then dropped away. Explosive weapons were useless.
The only thing that could save him was his head, his human brain, the great brain of a race which had set
out to conquer the universe.
A crewman came running down the corridor to him and shouted, "Captain! They've torn a hole in the
side! And they're ripping out the engine!"
Another A-beast suddenly opened the storeroom door and looked out at him. It was at this moment
that Grayson almost realized the full hopelessness of their situation. But not quite. He knew that the ship
could not take off without extensive repairs, and that he and the other crew members were prisoners at
the mercy of the A-race. What he did not realize was the most important fact of all.
There came the burst of an explosion from an adjoining corridor, then screams of panic. There must
have been at least half a dozen guns blasting, thought Grayson. All, he knew, were useless, completely
useless. Not one of them could harm the big lizard-like things. They could only excite them, enrage them,
inspire them to revenge.
He peered around the corner and saw what was happening. Very gently, two of the A-race were
advancing upon a dozen cowering crew members. Like nurses removing dangerous toys from children
who might hurt themselves, they were taking away the guns and grenades which the latter had been
using.
It was at that moment that the full truth burst upon Grayson. The A-beasts were not averse to killing.
The way in which one of them had slaughtered the smaller creatures of his own planet showed that. If
they were caring for the human beings it was for one reason alone—that the human beings were valuable
to them, that the human beings knew things that they needed to know.
And if they could acquire knowledge from the human beings, that meant that they themselves were
intelligent, highly intelligent. That was the horrible truth, the stupendous danger that paralyzed Grayson's
mind. His knees buckled under him, and he sank back against a wall and gasped for breath. For the first
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