Half past Alligator by Donald Colvin (warren buffett book recommendations txt) 📕

By DONALD COLVIN

Illustrated by BARTH

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction September 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It takes sportsmanship to make a ball team ...
and foul play to get a backward race civilized!

Bill Bradley shooed away the group of Quxas that had surged over the first-base line. With broad grins on their flat, piebald faces, they moved away—in the wrong direction, of course—and squatted in a smiling semicircle around Pat Reed, who was playing third. This was bad, because Reed was a fifty-fifty player: It was an even chance whether he got the ball or the ball got him. One of the half-domesticated thrags broke loose and cantered across the outfield with its peculiar five-legged gait. In the hubbub, Ray Bush stole second. Nobody seemed to notice.

Sighing heavily, Bill returned to the mound and whiplashed in a fast one, tight across the letters. The hitter got only a small piece of it; a pop fly sauntered toward left field. Judging it to a nicety, Gust Mustas came racing in, evaded a tethered thrag, leaped a hole some Quxa had dug and forgotten, and made a shoestring catch, retiring the side. The Quxas cheered deliriously.

Bill trotted off the mound. For a moment, the thrill of the game held him. This was the way things should be: The feel of smoothly flowing muscles, the thudding sound of horsehide hitting a leather glove, the weight of a bat in your hands in your first ball game after clambering over and scrabbling in an unexplored planet for fourteen months.

Then he caught sight of Candace Mathews, walking among the pneuma-huts that served as the outpost camp for the expedition. Gloom enveloped him again, surrounding him like a dank fog.

For fourteen long months, Bill had feasted on the memory of Candy Mathews, on his recollection of her turquoise eyes and cascading brown hair, on the remembrance of her soft lips on his last night under the four moons of Vensor III.

Today she had arrived with the seventy-odd men and women who comprised the appraisal unit, the final group of the planet's explorers. He had looked forward like a schoolboy to her coming. And, like a schoolboy, he had suffered black despair when his dreams were shattered.

For the Candy Mathews who got off the shuttlebug at Camp Outpost was not the Candy Mathews who had said soft words on Vensor III. She was, instead, a self-assured young woman, somehow harder, who felt only an indifferent tolerance toward a tall young man named Bill Bradley, and an all-consuming, hero-worshipping infatuation for a newcomer, a dapper walking brain, Vance Montgomery, one of the council's smart boys, with the title of planet evaluator.

"He's simply wonderful," she had said. And the joy of life had gone out of Bill Bradley.

The appraisal group brought in athletic equipment and Bill's men spontaneously declared a holiday, their first on the planet. Baseball was the order of the afternoon and they shanghaied a not unwilling Bill to pitch. He should, he knew, be laying out reports for Montgomery to study. He did not particularly want to be with Montgomery.

Bill sat on the xetal log that served as a bench.

One Quxa was bent over, examining first base. He made a colorful sight. The first baseman slapped him jovially on the loin cloth to move him.

The owner of the thrag caught up to it and was struggling manfully to lead it away. The five-legged beast defied his efforts, rearing and dragging him. A dozen Quxas stood nearby. Their sympathies were obviously with their fellow-Quxa, but they made no move to help him.

Reed was on the bench next to Bill. He had come in with the appraisal group.

"Your vivid friends," he said, cocking a thumb at the Quxas, "don't appear too bright."

"They're smart enough," said Bill. "Almost as intelligent as we are. It's just that they've never risen above a herd culture."

"Look," said Reed. "I'm a silviculturist. Give me a hunk of wood and I can tell how long it took to grow, what it's good for, where it can be raised and how much board and profit can be made out of it. But this kind of talk throws me. Try another wave-length."

"Socially, they're like the seals or penguins back on Earth. They like to gather in groups. The things they can do individually, they do well. But they don't know how to help each other. That's beyond them."

"Don't understand the meaning of cooperation?"

"The word isn't even in their language. I've seen forty of them standing around, fretting and stewing, while the horals killed off one of their fellows."

"What are horals?"

"The other dominant life-form here. Nasty brutes, like big upright ants with tentacles. Stand about as high as my chest. Most malignant things I've seen. One Quxa can handle any horal, maybe even two or three. But the horals hunt in packs. Good-by Quxa."

"Killing them off, are they?"

"This is the last big concentration the Quxas have left. In another hundred years, there'll be no more Quxas."

They looked again at the natives. The Quxas were something to see—human in form, although somewhat shorter than Earthmen; their skins were blotched and dashed with patches of vivid colors. Antiquarians talked of their resemblance to the ancient circus clowns, a likeness furthered by their broad, flat faces and habitual grins.

"Sort of hate to see them disappear," Bill said glumly. "They're happy, good-natured creatures. In their whole race, I know only one who's mean. We've done our best to help them. But if they won't cooperate even in a matter of life and death, what incentive can you offer them?"

An elbow dug into him.

"Up to the platter, dream boy," said Gust Mustas. "A hit means two runs."

Selecting a bat, Bill made his way to the plate. In the middle distance, Vance Montgomery emerged from a hut. Candy went to him eagerly, put a hand on his arm. A deep rage engulfed Bill.

The first pitch was a curve that failed to break. As it came fatly over the plate, Bill swung angrily. The ball rocketed up and away, past the infield, over the head of the desperately running left-fielder and dropped toward a sure home run.

Then a curious thing happened. One of the Quxas darted away from the gabbling group along the foul line, his short legs churning over the uneven ground. As the ball sank, he dove, plucked it out of the air with one broad hand, turned a somersault and came up with it, grinning. It was an impossible catch and the Earthmen joined the Quxas in applause. Still clinging to the ball, the Quxa made little bobbing bows of acknowledgment.