Keep Your Shape, Page 2

follow orders.

  They waited. But midday came, and there was still no sign of Ilg.

  "We can't wait any longer," Pid said, and they started through thewoods. Pid wondered if Ilg _had_ tried to get through the gates on hisown. Those quiet types often concealed a foolhardy streak.

  But there was nothing to show that Ilg had been successful. He wouldhave to assume that the Radioman was dead, or captured by the Men.

  That left two of them to activate a Displacer.

  And he still didn't know what had happened to the other expeditions.

  * * * * *

  At the edge of the woods, Ger turned himself into a facsimile of aDog. Pid inspected him carefully.

  "A little less tail," he said.

  Ger shortened his tail.

  "More ears."

  Ger lengthened his ears,

  "Now even them up."

  They became even.

  Pid inspected the finished product. As far as he could tell, Ger wasperfect, from the tip of his tail to his wet, black nose.

  "Good luck," Pid said.

  "Thanks." Cautiously Ger moved out of the woods, walking in thelurching style of Dogs and Men. At the gate the guard called to him.Pid held his breath.

  Ger walked past the Man, ignoring him. The Man started to walk over.Ger broke into a run.

  Pid shaped a pair of strong legs for himself, ready to dash if Ger wascaught.

  But the guard turned back to his gate. Ger stopped runningimmediately, and strolled quietly toward the main door of thebuilding.

  Pid dissolved his legs with a sigh of relief ... and then tensedagain.

  The main door was closed!

  Pid hoped the Radioman wouldn't try to open it. That was _not_ in thenature of Dogs.

  As he watched, another Dog came running toward Ger. Ger backed awayfrom him. The Dog approached and sniffed. Ger sniffed back.

  Then both of them ran around the building.

  That was clever, Pid thought. There was bound to be a door in therear.

  He glanced up at the afternoon sun. As soon as the Displacer wasactivated, the Grom armies would begin to pour through. By the timethe Men recovered from the shock, a million or more Grom troops wouldbe here, weapons and all. With more following.

  The day passed slowly, and nothing happened.

  Nervously Pid watched the front of the plant. It shouldn't be takingso long, if Ger were successful.

  Late into the night he waited. Men walked in and out of theinstallation, and Dogs barked around the gates. But Ger did notappear.

  Ger had failed. Ilg was gone. Only he was left.

  And _still_ he didn't know what had happened.

  * * * * *

  By morning, Pid was in complete despair. He knew that the twenty-firstGrom expedition to this planet was near the point of complete failure.Now it was all up to him.

  He saw that workers were arriving in great number, rushing through thegates. He decided to take advantage of the apparent confusion, andstarted to shape himself into a Man.

  A Dog walked past the woods where he was hiding.

  "Hello," the Dog said.

  It was Ger!

  "What happened?" Pid asked, with a sigh of relief. "Why were you solong? Couldn't you get in?"

  "I don't know," Ger said, wagging his tail. "I didn't try."

  Pid was speechless.

  "I went hunting," Ger said complacently. "This form is ideal forHunting, you know. I went out the rear gate with another Dog."

  "But the expedition--your duty--"

  "I changed my mind," Ger told him. "You know, Pilot, I never wanted tobe a Detector."

  "But you were _born_ a Detector!"

  "That's true," Ger said. "But it doesn't help. I always wanted to be aHunter."

  Pid shook his entire body in annoyance. "You can't," he said, veryslowly, as one would explain to a Gromling. "The Hunter shape isforbidden to you."

  "Not here it isn't," Ger said, still wagging his tail.

  "Let's have no more of this," Pid said angrily. "Get into thatinstallation and set up your Displacer. I'll try to overlook thisheresy."

  "No," Ger said. "I don't want the Grom here. They'd ruin it for therest of us."

  "He's right," a nearby oak tree said.

  "Ilg!" Pid gasped. "Where are you?"

  * * * * *

  Branches stirred. "I'm right here," Ilg said. "I've been Thinking."

  "But--your caste--"

  "Pilot," Ger said sadly, "why don't you wake up? Most of the people onGrom are miserable. Only custom makes us take the caste-shape of ourancestors."

  "Pilot," Ilg said, "all Grom are born Shapeless!"

  "And being born Shapeless, all Grom should have Freedom of Shape,"Ger said.

  "Exactly," Ilg said. "But he'll never understand. Now excuse me. Iwant to Think." And the oak tree was silent.

  Pid laughed humorlessly. "The Men will kill you off," he said. "Justas they killed off all the other expeditions."

  "No one from Grom has been killed," Ger told him. "The otherexpeditions are right here."

  "Alive?"

  "Certainly. The Men don't even know we exist. That Dog I was Huntingwith is a Grom from the twelfth expedition. There are hundreds of ushere, Pilot. We like it."

  Pid tried to absorb it all. He had always known that the lower casteswere lax in caste-consciousness. But this was preposterous!

  This planet's secret menace was--freedom!

  "Join us, Pilot," Ger said. "We've got a paradise here. Do you knowhow many species there are on this planet? An uncountable number!There's a shape to suit every need!"

  Pid ignored them. Traitors!

  He'd do the job all by himself.

  So Men were unaware of the presence of the Grom. Getting near thereactor might not be so difficult after all. The others had failed intheir duty because they were of the lower castes, weak andirresponsible. Even the Pilots among them must have been secretlysympathetic to the Cult of Shapelessness the Chief had mentioned, orthe alien planet could never have swayed them.

  What shape to assume for his attempt?

  Pid considered.

  A Dog might be best. Evidently Dogs could wander pretty much wherethey wished. If something went wrong, Pid could change his shape tomeet the occasion.

  "The Supreme Council will take care of all of you," he snarled, andshaped himself into a small brown Dog. "I'm going to set up theDisplacer myself."

  He studied himself for a moment, bared his teeth at Ger, and lopedtoward the gate.

  * * * * *

  He loped for about ten feet and stopped in utter horror.

  The smells rushed at him from all directions. Smells in a profusionand variety he had never dreamed existed. Smells that were harsh,sweet, sharp, heavy, mysterious, overpowering. Smells that terrified.Alien and repulsive and inescapable, the odors of Earth struck himlike a blow.

  He curled his lips and held his breath. He ran on for a few steps, andhad to breathe again. He almost choked.

  He tried to remold his Dog-nostrils to be less sensitive. It didn'twork. It wouldn't, so long as he kept the Dog-shape. An attempt tomodify his metabolism didn't work either.

  All this in the space of two or three seconds. He was rooted in histracks, fighting the smells, wondering what to do.

  Then the noises hit him.

  They were a constant and staggering roar, through which every tiniestwhisper of sound stood out clearly and distinct. Sounds uponsounds--more noise than he had ever heard before at one time in hislife. The woods behind him had suddenly become a mad-house.

  Utterly confused, he lost control and became Shapeless.

  He half-ran, half-flowed into a nearby bush. There he re-Shaped,obliterating the offending Dog ears and nostrils with vicious strokesof his thoughts.

  The Dog-shape was out. Absolutely. Such appalling sharpness of sensesmight be fine for a Hunter such as G
er--he probably gloried in them.But another moment of such impressions would have driven Pid the Pilotmad.

  What now? He lay in the bush and thought about it, while gradually hismind threw off the last effects of the dizzying sensory assault.

  He looked at the gate. The Men standing there evidently hadn't noticedhis fiasco. They were looking in another direction.

  ... a Man?

  Well, it was worth a try.

  * * * * *

  Studying the Men at the gate, Pid carefully shaped himself into afacsimile--a synthesis, actually, embodying one characteristic ofthat, another of this.

  He emerged from the side of the bush opposite the gate, on his handsand knees. He sniffed the air, noting that the smells the Man-nostrilspicked up weren't unpleasant