World Without War

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  World Without War

  BY E. G. VON WALD

  _Illustrated by Ed Emsh_

  _Cooperation was all right back in the dark ages but this was an era of super culture and hi-psi intelligence. And love was no laughing matter. People who cooperated, even biologically, were unlawful and...._

  * * * * *

  Mark knew he shouldn't stop. He was already late for Jennette'sbirthday party, but the sight of three people out in the open likethis was too much.

  He pulled around and hovered over the undulating flow of glassy magma,frozen on its way to the long, dry Potomac river bed, with its shallowcaverns and fascinating mile-wide potholes. Just under an overhangingcliff of half-vitrified soil were two cars, obviously damaged. Thethree men were standing beside them.

  Mark laughed out loud. It was not often that one found three people atonce. And so close to each other. The scene there, with the long,slanting rays of milky sunlight glancing off the ribbing of the flatsand sparkling through the million brittle shards of collapsed debris,filled him with a certain poetic exultation.

  "By the stars," he murmured to himself happily.

  Bubbling with good humor, he slipped down a little closer to the hole,staying up hard against the overhanging cliff. He was feeling toocheerful to use his rightful advantage over them, and decided to use ahandgun, since they had nothing better.

  This was a mistake, of course. He was only moving along at a hundredmiles an hour now. Too slow for safe shooting, particularly with thebumpy air in the hole. But he happily disregarded this, as he pushedopen a view port and blazed away with a zuzz pistol.

  Almost immediately the ship lurched in the uneven air, and he couldsee the tiny thin trace of violet as it swept up and away off thetargets. One of the men went down, sliced cleanly in two. But theothers had seen him.

  Mark cursed mildly, some of his high good humor gone, and pulled thecar about for another run. The chronometer pinged warningly at him,notifying him that he was now a full hour late for Jennette's birthdayparty, but the code required the second try.

  There was nothing that required handweapons for this, however, and heslipped his strong young hands around the main gun control. A singleburst of violet, and one of the men vanished in a puff of steam. Goodand clean, he told himself with satisfaction. But the last man openedhis pistol onto broad-beam, burning a red flare of general destructionat him.

  Mark veered around and bore down sharply for the last burst. He had toget it over with and on to Jennette. But the deadly broad beam sweptbelow the car, evacuating the air and throwing the vehicle momentarilyout of control. Close behind, the cliff became suddenly alive as thebeam engaged it, bubbling and spewing out huge gouts of molten rock.The aircar burst into a brief, brilliant, sodium-colored fire andfell, with Mark burning inside of it, yelling and screaming in pain.

  ]

  It took almost five seconds before the charred brain of Mark's bodystopped functioning. Then it released him.

  He was conscious of the humming of his transmitter. Almost immediatelythe remembered pain brought perspiration running down inside thehelmet into his eyes. He reached up and removed the headpiece withunsteady hands, groaning softly.

  It had been some decades since he had last been involved in troublelike this. Killed, yes--but in a painless, fair fight. Being burned todeath was no joke. And that body had been one of his best, with thefinest reflex sensory system manufactured.

  The machine purred softly beside him. He thought suddenly and emptilyof Jennette, and stood up.

  "Damn," he muttered, crossing the floor, feeling the pleasant warmthof the soft plastic under his feet. "Damn, damn, damn." He stoppedbefore the transparent cover of a storage cabinet, gazing sourly atits contents.

  Eleven humanoid forms were stiffly erect behind the cover, all broadlyresembling him in feature, and differing only in such minor things asheight, hair, perhaps the color of the eyes. Each bore the scars ofsome past clumsiness or accident.

  "Damn," Mark said again. "That was the only decent body I had to wear.Now what do I do?"

  He went into the next room and bathed himself in the tepid perfumedmist that fell perpetually from its domed ceiling. If it were anybodybut Jennette, there would be no problem. He just would have to shootoff a quick RT, explaining the situation and excusing himself. Nobodywould have minded, least of all himself. Particularly a no-fightaffair like this one was supposed to be.

  But not Jennette. Ohhh, Jennette.

  Mark grinned and rubbed the pleasant fluid over his well-cared-forskin. Oh yes, Jennette. There was something about Jennette that hecould not quite put his finger on, but it was good. It was wonderouslygood. Like the bodies she wore. No matter what it was, it was alwaysperfect. She just had the knack of dressing well.

  Idly he wondered what her protobody was like. There must be someresemblance, of course. That was the law. Identification was veryimportant, and few manufacturers would violate that, even as a simplematter of good taste. But there still would be considerabledifference.

  As he thought about it, he got a strange wistful feeling that he didnot quite understand. There was a sort of sadness about it. Jennetteseemed oddly different from other people. He liked her much too much.

  Guiltily he brushed the thoughts aside. Anyway, it didn't matter, hetold himself. Due to his carelessness in that last fight, he probablywouldn't even see her tonight, since he had nothing to wear.

  He stalked out of the shower and gazed again at the bodies in thestore room. The only halfway decent one there was that six foot blackfellow with the little ears. It used to be his favorite, until he gotit smashed one night during a party at his nearest neighbor's. A halfsmile tugged at Mark's lips as he recalled the incident. That had beena no-fight party, too; but he had managed to smuggle in a small bomb,and set it off right in the middle of the main bedroom. There were atleast ten couples there, since it was a big party, and none of themlived. The trouble was, Mark had been pretty badly smashed up himself,and just managed to get away without losing his body.

  Now the thing was all scarred up and practically useless for anythingexcept manual labor.

  Mark shook his head disgustedly. There was nothing to do but send offthe RT to Jennette.

  But this was her birthday--

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection from his transmitterhousing and automatically straightened his shoulders a little, thenlaughed at his image.

  Then he stopped and contemplated himself further. There was one thinghe could do. Many years before, he had an exact duplicate of himselfproduced, when the vogue for copper colored bodies was at its height.Since then the fashion had changed back to the pink, but that old jobmust still be around somewhere.

  He hated to do it, though. He had never liked that body. It had beenjust too accurate, and every time he wore it, it embarrassed him. Ithad been almost as if he were going outside in his protobody. Which,of course, nobody did. People used their own bodies hundreds of yearsago, but it was most uncivilized. Besides, it was tiring, anddangerous, too. Yet--was it more fun? He wondered.

  He simply had to make Jennette's party. Otherwise he wouldn't see herfor months at least, and the thought of that made him feel funny inhis stomach.

  Mark grinned again, admiring her image in his mind, and set
about hiscatalogue to find the fundamental frequency of that old copy ofhimself. Fuse it, he told himself resolutely. Nobody would know it wasan exact duplicate.

  He located the data and set it up in the transmitter. He had no ideawhere the body was, but that would take care of itself if it werestill in good shape. Placing the helmet on his head, he punched thecontrols and relaxed back on the table.

  * * * * *

  Two levels below, under a pile of dust-covered trash, the body becamesuddenly conscious. Mark opened his eyes and looked around,recognition slowly returning. He had forgotten all about this oldroom, but then--one could hardly remember everything about a fullshelter system, what with the hundreds of compartments, endlessautomatic equipment and innumerable connecting passages. Whoever itwas who built this one sure had liked complexity.

  He bathed and carefully braided the long, blueblack hair, simulatingsomewhat the fashion of the day, and spent some time adjusting apurple scarf over his left shoulder. The purple scarf was sort of atrade mark with him, and Jennette