Free The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner Page A

others he rob. Right for officer to say, no? Your food not for soldiers, for poor starve devils in town! So he took that axe and hit me, see? Oh, but it hurts!”
    “Let me get bandages!” Lucy cried, but he seemed not to hear. Large, staring, his eyes were fixed on nowhere. He tightened his grip and words poured out frantically, his careful European syntax giving way to the grammar of his own language.
    “No, not go! Gone crazy, say! Shout the town is full ghosts, ghosts everywhere, shoot at them, fire guns all time at shadow, anything! Say kill ghosts, kill ghosts, kill kill ghosts!”
    Outside there were footsteps. Lucy tried again to release her hand so she could close the door, failed, and thought at least of switching off the flashlight so that would not attract a mad prowler. What Obou had said made no sense, but the firing was louder and closer and through the open door she could see that more and still more flames were springing up, as though the town were turning into a volcano.
    Footsteps again. Nearer. And her .22 was out of reach and Obou’s gun was empty. At first gently, then in growing panic, she fought to make him let go. A new bright light shone in the doorway. The instant before it dazzled her she saw a white man in a white shirt holding a pistol; the instant after, she realized what the torch-beam would show—a white girl in the grip of a black man, her thighs apart and smeared with blood, a case of rape.
    She started to shout, “Don’t—!”
    And was too late. The gun exploded. The bullet spattered her with bits of Obou.

    Later someone kept trying to say to her—it was the Swedish doctor, Bertil—“But we didn’t know you were here! When the trouble started we saw Maua and she swore you weren’t in the house. We went down into the town, and all these madmen came at us with guns and hatchets, screaming that we were evil ghosts, kill the ghosts!”
    I heard that before. Listless, Lucy rocked back and forth, eyes shut, right hand mechanically rubbing the spot on her left arm where she had been given some sort of injection, the two rhythms crisscrossing the lilt of Bertil’s accent.
    “Be glad you didn’t see what we saw: the whole town gone insane, looting and burning and killing!”
    The person I saw killing was you. You shot a nice man. I was going on leave with him. I liked his smile. He had a round dark face with funny stripes on his cheeks. He’s dead. You killed him.
    She moaned and fell to the floor.

JANUARY

    MARCHING ORDERS

    “Go ye and bring the Light
    To savage strands afar.
    Take ye the Law of Right
    Where’er the unblest are.

    °“Heathens and stubborn Jews,
    Lovers of Juggernaut,
    Give them the chance to choose
    That which the Saviour taught.

    “Go where the gentle Lord
    Is still as yet unknown,
    There where the tribes ignored
    Strive in the dark alone.

    “Arm ye to face the foe,
    Carib and cannibal,
    Men who must live as low
    As any animal

    °“Cover the naked limb,
    Shoe ye the unshod foot,
    Silence the pagan hymn,
    Conquer the godless brute.

    “Tell them the news of Love,
    Preach them the Prince of Peace,
    Tear down their pagan grove,
    Give them divine release.”

    —“The Sacred Sower: Being a Collection of Hymns and Devout Songs Adapted to the Use of Missionary Societies”, 1887; verses marked ° may be omitted if desired.

    ABOVE THE SOUND OF SPEED
    RM-1808, out of Phoenix for Seattle, had reported acute catting—clear air turbulence—in the vicinity of Salt Lake City. Hearing of this, the navigator of TW-6036, the Montreal-Los Angeles direct SST, punched the keys of his computer and passed a course-correction to the pilot. Then he leaned back to resume his snooze.
    They would be super for over a thousand miles yet.

    SNOW JOB
    Disregarded, the twenty-nine-inch color TV displayed images of today’s violence. The camera lingeringly swept the gutters of far-off Noshri, pausing occasionally at corpses. A dog, miraculous survivor of the period last summer