Skin Deep

"What's the score?"

"Let's see..." Stark sighed and studied the clipboard. "Eight moons explored. Of these, five support sentient life. Of the five, three are benevolent, two malignant." He hung the clipboard above the control panel. "That leaves three moons to go."

Croydon asked, "Want to knock off for the day?"

Stark thoughtfully massaged the stubble on his face. "No, they're small moons. Let's get 'em out of the way."

"I'm game." Croydon guided the ship toward Moon Nine. "Eleven moons--that's a lot to cover in two days."

Stark nodded, then stretched and yawned widely. "A lot. But we'll never be too fast for the Colonial Bureau. They have a list of prospective settlers a mile long. We barely get a chance to clear a planet before the first colony starts to spring up. Moons are always a pain in the neck. Gravel, I call 'em. They really slow up the report."

Croydon frowned and studied the shifting lights of his navigation chart. "I'll say they do," he replied. "It drives me crazy trying to keep track of them in their orbits. Just look at the way they shuffle around. Damn!"

"'Swear not at the inconstant moon,'" misquoted Stark, the poetic line coming incongruously from his leathery, space-hardened face.

"What?" asked Croydon.

"Nothing, forget it. It's a line from some ancient play."

"Never figured you for a scholar, Stark."

"I'm not. Just an old spaceman. But the pioneer ships didn't have expensive film libraries like today. Any entertainment we had was dog-eared reading matter donated by kind old ladies. On my first trip it was a tossup between going nuts or wading through a set of plays by some forgotten poet. So I waded. Read every single one of 'em. Some of the lines still stick in my head."

"You've been doing this for a long time, haven't you, Stark?"

Stark grunted. "Thirty years. I was eighteen when I started. The pay was almost as bad then as it is now."

"Ever explore a planet with 11 moons before?"

"Hell, I was assigned to the planet Orestes in System K when I was a kid. It's got 20 moons! And back then we didn't have this gadget to help us." His pressure suit hung within reach and he tapped the insectlike antennae on the helmet.

"The Probe certainly saves a lot of time," Croydon agreed. "As well as lives."

He brought the ship to a smooth landing on Moon Nine. The two men pulled on their pressure suits and stepped out. Moon Nine was small, with little gravity. Automatically, their suits adjusted to the situation and supplied enough artificial gravity to make up for the lack.

Their heavy-booted feet sank into spongy soil. Croydon dug up a piece of it and put it in his sample case. "Couldn't grow anything here, I'm afraid," he mumbled.

Stark heard him over his helmet-phones and growled, "Not a chance. But the fools will come here and live in pressure cabins and irrigate the whole damn moon with chemicals and try to raise a few weeds just the same. They're crazy. Just because they can buy a moon for a few hundred bucks they think they're lords of creation. Of course," he added, "if a man were lucky enough to buy himself a moon loaded with precious rock..."

"Look!" said Croydon.

Stark looked. Perched on a mound of the spongelike soil was a woman. She was smiling and flexing a richly curved naked body. Her eyes flashed with unmistakable invitation.

Stark heard his young companion chuckle, "I'd pay a couple of hundred for this moon any day: it has a built-in harem!" Croydon started to walk toward her.

"Don't be a fool, lad," Stark said sharply. "Turn on your Probe." Both men touched buttons on their helmets and felt their minds go out to the delicious siren and burrow into her thoughts. What they found there made them stop suddenly.

They felt first an overwhelming hostility. Then hunger: a strong, raging hunger for flesh.

Stark pulled out his blaster and burned a hole through the smiling charmer's chest. The thing that thrashed in agony on the ground was a slimy obscenity with no eyes and monstrous jaws that gaped but did not smile. Another blast and it was dead.

"Chalk up another moon with malignant inhabitants," said Stark.

Croydon's voice was unsteady: "Let's go back to the ship."

Inside the ship, they climbed out of their suits. Croydon's face was pale.

"What's wrong, kid?" Stark laughed. "You've had close shaves before."

"But not like this. A beautiful girl one second, a monster the next..." He shuddered.

Stark said, "'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"Horatio? What's that -- more of that ancient gibberish?"

"Yeah. In other words, when you've been ploughing space as long as I have, you'll stop being surprised at the disguises these critters can get into. The one out there had a special knack for assuming the shape of the opposite sex of any species that crossed its path. If we were girls, it would have changed into a Greek god without benefit of fig leaf. If we were, say, tomcats, it would have become a momcat. Don't let it throw you. Just thank your Probe for letting you see beyond the sugar coating." Stark made a notation on the clipboard and Croydon drove the ship up and away, into space, toward the next satellite on their schedule.

When Moon Ten began to fill their viewplate, they donned their suits again -- in advance of landing, to save time. Croydon brought the ship down with a sharp roll that threw them to the deck.

"You all right, Stark?"

"Sure, it'll take more than a bumpy landing to kill me off. How are you?"

"Dented my helmet, but I'm fine."

"Then let's go."

Croydon stepped out first. Moon Ten was a rocky world punctuated infrequently with scraggly trees. From behind one of these, a swarm of spidery, fist-sized creatures skittered out and crawled on his legs. Revolted, he brushed them off with quick panicky strokes and reached for his blaster.

Stark said, "Hold off. They're friendly little beggars. What do you want to blast them for?"

"Friendly?" Croydon played with the button of his Probe. "I'm not getting a thing from them, Stark. My Probe's dead."

"Must have damaged it when you bumped your head. Don't worry about it. Mine's OK. That's the great thing about these Probes, kid -- not only do they see through appealing disguises, they see through ugliness, too. In the old days, we would have blasted these critters just because of their crawly looks. Ugliness is only skin deep."

The "spiders" followed them like faithful dogs as they trod the hard rock of Moon Ten. Stark chiseled a piece of the rock and dropped it in his sample case. Immediately, his helmet-phones began to cluck like laying hens. A hoarse cry burst from his lips.

"What is it?" asked Croydon.

"My sample case is going crazy. This hunk of gravel is hot, boy! Radioactive as hell."

"Why, that's great!"

"I'll say it's great. If the rest of the moon is even half as hot as this, it's worth billions!" His voice dropped to a whisper. "And it's ours."

Croydon said, "This news will go over big with the Colonial Bureau."

Stark snorted. "The Colonial Bureau! That's not what I mean when I say ours. I mean you and me, Croydon. Think of it: a moon worth billions of dollars and it's ours -- if we play our cards right."

"How?"

"First thing we do is list this moon along with those having hostile inhabitants. We say nothing about these cheerful little spiders. And we say nothing about the radioactive deposits. Absolutely nothing."

"Why? We can enter a claim to the moon when we make our report..."

"Yeah? And have them up the ante because it's hot? Or tie it up with red tape? Or pull some legal shenanigans to grab it as government property? Not on your life!"

"But, Stark--"

"Listen, kid. I've been blazing space trails for a long time and I've seen the Bureau pull some pretty fancy tricks. Take my word for it. The less they know, the better. If we keep quiet about the (concluded on page 182)Skin Deep(continued from page 92) ore and scare settlers away with stories of malignant life -- why, we'll be able to get this hunk of gravel for a song!"

"We can't do that, Stark. What's the use of having men like us doing this work if we're going to grab all the best planets for ourselves?"

"Oh," groaned Stark, "don't get idealistic on me. Don't tell me you're in this crumby job just for the fun of it."

"Well..." The younger man searched for words. "Yes. Yes, in a way I am. Only I guess I wouldn't exactly call it fun. Exciting, maybe. And it's important work -- that's what counts."

"What counts, youngster-- as you'll learn when you grow up and get the star dust out of your eyes -- is money. You'll feel plenty 'excited' when you're wading waist-deep in money!"

"Then, why are you working for the Bureau?"

"Not for the paycheck, believe me. For a chance like this. We're the first to really see new planets, the first to find out which are valuable and which are garbage. Well, it's been a long time coming -- thirty years! -- but it's come at last and I'm not going to let it slip away. Understand?"

"Sure. But count me out, Stark."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean my report is going to be as full as I can make it. Friendly spiders, radioactive ore, the works. Maybe that makes me a dumb yokel, but I'm sorry. I happen to think this is an important job."

Stark's voice roared over the helmet-phones. "I have to pass up the chance of a lifetime because of a harebrained kid--"

His voice stopped abruptly.

From a branch above them, a long black snake uncoiled leisurely and blinked at them with ruby eyes.

Stark's hand moved to his blaster as Croydon asked, "Is it friendly?"

Stark felt the snake's malignancy roll over him in waves. He delved into its mind and felt the joy it took in the crushing power of its mighty body. But he conquered the terror in his voice and replied, "Sure. Like a kitten. It wants to be stroked, don't you, Tabby?"

Croydon laughed with relief and stroked the black, glittering length of the creature's body.

Stark walked backward, slowly, the frisky "spiders" making way for him. He watched the snake wrap itself around Croydon...

"Stark -- is it all right? It's just a form of caress, isn't it?"

"Just a hug. It loves you."

"Maybe it doesn't know its own strength. Maybe you ought to scare it away with your blaster."

"No, it might get frightened and squeeze too hard."

Croydon's voice rose suddenly in mortal fear: "Blast it, Stark!"

"Sure."

"Stark!"

Croydon's scream rasped in the helmet-phones. Stark waited until his body hung limp and broken in the snake's coils. Then he blasted. The snake uncoiled, dropped Croydon, then slid to the ground and died beside him.

Stark acted quickly. He dragged Croydon's body toward the ship, ignoring the scampering "spiders" that swarmed playfully around his legs, sending warm waves of friendliness over him.

He pulled the corpse into the ship and sealed the airlock. A few "spiders" followed him in and inspected the ship with childlike curiosity.

Stark let them rub against his legs while he wrote on the clipboard: "Moon Ten infested with malignant life akin to Terran boa constrictor. John Croydon killed by same in line of duty. Soil hard, rocky, unsuitable for--"

The clipboard fell from his hand. He felt a sharp pain in his ankles. Looking down, he saw two of the "spiders" had cut through his suit and punctured his skin. He reached for his blaster, but hesitated. He could not kill them without blasting his own legs.

Now horror shook him. Two more of the friendly creatures had jumped to his wrists, another to his throat. My blood, he realized: they're sucking my blood...

He yelled. A wave of cheerful benevolence answered him. He tried to brush them off, but they clung tenaciously, their furry bodies swelling with his blood.

He grew dizzy and ranted. "But...I Probed their thoughts...they're benevolent...they can't act like this...it's not possible..." The line from the ancient play flashed through his mind... There are more things in heaven and earth...

And he knew, too late, what form of disguise the friendly "spiders" used...a Probe-proof mental disguise...a masquerade of doglike devotion...a psychic smoke screen of good cheer that masked the bloodthirsty thoughts beneath...

Stark's mind fogged and he sank weakly to the deck. Something was trying to struggle through to his consciousness...something that might have warned him had he only remembered it before...something from deep in his mind. Just before the end, it broke through. Another line from the same old play:

One may smile...and smile...and be a villain.

Stark slid into a dark pool of loving-kindness and death.