The Huddlers
By William Campbell Gault
Illustrated by Ernie Barth
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of ScienceFiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
That's what we always called them, where I come from, huddlers.Damnedest thing to see from any distance, the way they huddle. They hadone place, encrusting the shore line for miles on one of the land bodiesthey called the Eastern Seaboard. A coagulation in this crust containedeight million of the creatures, eight million.
They called it New York, and it was bigger than most of the others, buttypical. It wasn't bad enough living side by side; the things builtmounds and lived one above the other. Apartments they called them. Whatmonstrosities they were.
We couldn't figure this huddling, at first.
All our attention since Akers' first penetration into space had beendirected another way in the galaxy, and though I'll grant you unifiedand universal concentration may be considered unwise in some areas, it'sbeen our greatest strength. It's brought us rather rapidly to the front,I'm sure you'll agree, and we're not the oldest planet, by a damnedsight.
Well, by the time we got to the huddlers, Akers was dead and Murten wasjust an old man with vacant eyes. Jars was handling the Department,though you might say Deering ran it, being closer to most of the gang.Jars was always so cold; nobody ever got to know him really well.
They divided on the huddling. Fear, Jars said, and love, Deering said,but who could say for sure?
As Deering said to me, "What could they fear? They've got everythingthey need, everything but knowledge and their better specimens aregetting closer to that, every day."
In the laboratory, Deering said this, and how did we know old Jars wasin a corner, breaking down a spirigel?
"They fear each other," Jars said, as though it was an officialannouncement, as though any fact is permanent. "And they fear nature.It's the most fear ridden colony of bipeds a sane mind could imagine."
Deering looked at me, and winked.
Jars went back to the spirigel.
Deering said, "Love, love, love. All they sing about, all they writeabout, all they talk about, love, love, love."
Jars was just tracing a z line on the spirigel and he put down hislegort at that. "Rather superficial thinking, from a scientist," he saidquietly. "Surface manifestations to be considered as indicative. Oraland verbal camouflage to be accepted as valid. Deering, old thing,please—"
Deering shrugged. "So I am—what do they call it, a Pollyanna. Isn'tthat a pretty word? So, I'm a Pollyanna."
"I rather think that describes you partially," Jars said, "and with thisparticular planet we're discussing, it can be a dangerous attitude."
"So?" Deering said, nudging me. "And could I ask why?"
"Ask it."
"I ask."
"You've recorded the state of their development. They have, among otherthings, achieved nuclear fission."
"So? In the fourth grade we are teaching nuclear fission."
"We are a scientific people. They haven't been, until very, veryrecently. You have noted, I hope, their first extensive use of this newdiscovery?"
"Hero—Helo—" Deering shrugged. "My memory."
"Hiroshima," Jars supplied. "Love—, my friend?"
"I have noted it," Deerin