The Sun Saboteurs

THE SUN SABOTEURS

by

DAMON KNIGHT

(Also published as The Earth Quarter)

Produced by ReAnimus Press

Other books by Damon Knight:

Creating Short Fiction

The Futurians

The Best of Damon Knight

CV

The Observers

A Reasonable World

In Search of Wonder

The World and Thorinn

Hell's Pavement

Beyond the Barrier

Masters of Evolution

A for Anything

The Rithian Terror

Mind Switch

The Man in the Tree

Why Do Birds

Humpty Dumpty: An Oval

Far Out

In Deep

Off Center

Turning On

Three Novels

World Without Children and The Earth Quarter

Rule Golden and Other Stories

Better Than One

Late Knight Edition

God's Nose

One Side Laughing: Stories Unlike Other Stories

Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction

1939 Yearbook of Science, Weird and Fantasy Fiction

Charles Fort, Prophet of the Unexplained

Clarion Writers' Handbook

Faking the Reader Out

© 2020 by Damon Knight. All rights reserved.

https://ReAnimus.com/store?author=Damon+Knight

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Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I

The sun had set half an hour before. Now, through the window of Laszlo Cudyk’s garret, the alien city shone frost-blue against the black sky: the tall hive-shapes that no man would have built, glowing with their own light.

Nearer, the slender drunken shafts of lampposts marched toward him down the street, each with its prosaic yellow globe. Between them and all around, the darkness had gathered: darkness in angular shapes, the geometry of squalor.

Cudyk liked this view, for at night the blackness of the Earth Quarter seemed to merge with the black sky, as if one were a minor extension of the other—a fist of space held down to the surface of the planet. He could feel, then, that he was not alone, not isolated and forgotten; that some connection still existed across all the light-years of the galaxy between him and what he had lost.

And, at the same time, the view depressed him, for at night the City seemed to press in upon the Quarter like the walls of a prison.

The Quarter: sixteen square blocks, two thousand three hundred human beings of three races, four religions, eighteen nationalities; the only remnant of the human race nearer than Capella.

Cudyk felt the night breeze freshening. He glanced upward once at the frosty blaze of stars, then pulled his head back inside the window. He closed the shutters, turning to the lamp-lit table with its clutter of unread books, pipes, papers.

Cudyk was a man of middle height, heavy in shoulders and chest, blunt-featured, with a shock of graying black hair. He was fifty-five years old; he remembered Earth.

A drunk stumbled by in the street below, cursing monotonously to himself; paused to spit explosively into the gutter, and faded out of hearing.

Cudyk heard him without attention. He stood with his back to the window, looking at nothing, his square fingers fumbling automatically for pipe and tobacco. Why do I torture myself with that look out the window every night? he asked himself. It’s a juvenile sentimentalism. But he knew he would not give it up.

Other noises drifted up to his window, faint with distance. They grew louder. Cudyk cocked his head suddenly, turned and threw open the shutters again. That had been a scream.

He could see nothing down the street; the trouble must be farther over, on Kwang-Chowfu or Washington. The noise swelled as he listened: the unintelligible wailing of a mob.

Footsteps clicked hurriedly up the stairs. Cudyk went to the door, made sure it was latched, and waited. There was a light tapping on the door.

Who is it? he said.

Lee Far.

He unlatched the door and opened it. The little Chinese blinked at him, his upper lip drawn up over incisors like a rodent’s. Mr. Seu say please, you come. Without waiting for an answer, he turned and tapped his way down into darkness.

Cudyk picked up a jacket from a wall hook, paused for a moment to glance at the locked drawer in which he kept an ancient .32 automatic and two full clips. He shook his head impatiently and went out.

Lee was waiting for him downstairs. When he saw Cudyk emerge, he set off down the street at a dog-trot.

Cudyk caught up with him at the corner of Athenai and Brasil. They turned right for two blocks to Washington, then left again. A block away, at Rossiya and Washington, there was a small crowd of men struggling in the middle of the street. They didn’t seem to be very active; as Cudyk approached, he saw that only a few of the rioters were still fighting, and those without a great deal of spirit. The rest were moving aimlessly, some wiping their eyes, others bent almost double in paroxysms of sneezing. A few were motionless on the pavement.

Three slender Chinese were moving through the crowd. Each had a white surgeon’s mask tied over his nose and mouth; each carried a plastic bag from which he took handfuls of dark powder and flung them with a motion like a sower’s. Cudyk could see now that the air around them was heavy with floating particles. As he watched, the last two fighters in the crowd each took a half-hearted swing at the other and then, coughing and sneezing, moved away in separate directions.

Lee took his sleeve for a moment. Here, Mr. Cudyk.

Seu was standing in the doorway of Town Hall, his bulk almost filling it. He saluted Cudyk with a lazy, humorous gesture of one fat hand.

Hello, Min, Cudyk said. You’re efficient, as always. Pepper again?

Yes, said Mayor Seu Min. I hate to waste it, but I don’t think the water buckets would have been enough this time. This could have been a bad one.

How did it start?

A couple of Russkies caught Jim Loong sneaking into Madame May’s, the fat man said laconically. His shrewd eyes twinkled. I’m glad you came down, Laszlo. I want you to meet an important visitor who arrived on the Kt-I’ith ship this afternoon. He turned slightly, and Cudyk saw that there was a man behind him in the doorway. Mr. Harkway, may I present Mr. Laszlo Cudyk, one of our leading citizens? Mr. Cudyk, James Harkway, who is here on a mission from the Minority People’s League.

Cudyk shook hands with the man. Harkway had a pale, scholarly face, not bad looking, with dark intense eyes. He was young, probably under twenty-five; Cudyk automatically classified him as second generation.

Perhaps, said Seu, as if the notion had just occurred to him, you would not mind taking over my duties as host for a short time, Laszlo? If Mr. Harkway would not object? This regrettable occurrence...

Of course, Cudyk said. Harkway nodded and smiled.

Excellent. Seu edged past Cudyk, then turned and put a hand on his friend’s arm, drawing him closer. Take care of this fool, he said under his breath, and for God’s sake keep him away from the saloons. Rack is in town too. I’ve got to make sure they don’t meet. He smiled brightly at both of them and walked away. Lee Far appeared from somewhere and trailed after him.

A young Chinese, with blood streaming brightly from a gash in his cheek, was walking dazedly past. Cudyk stepped away from the doorway, turned him around and pointed him down the street, to where Seu’s young men were laying out the victims on the pavement and administering first aid.

Cudyk went back to Harkway. I suppose Seu has found you a place to stay.

Yes. He’s putting me up in his home. Perhaps—I don’t want to be in the way—

You won’t be in the way. What would you like to do?

Well, I’d like to meet a few people, if it isn’t too late. Perhaps we could have a drink somewhere, where people meet...? Harkway glanced interrogatively down the street to a phosphorescent sign that announced in Russian and English: THE LITTLE BEAR. WINES AND LIQUORS.

Not there, said Cudyk. That’s Russky headquarters, and I’m afraid they may be a little short-tempered right now. The best place would be Chong Yin’s Tea Room, I think. That’s just two blocks up, near Washington and Ceskoslovensko.

All right, said Harkway. He was still looking down the street. Who is that girl? he asked abruptly.

Cudyk glanced that way. The M.D.’s, Moskowitz and Pereira, were on the scene, sorting out the most serious cases to be carted off to the hospital, and so was a slender, dark-haired girl in nurse’s uniform.

That’s Kathy Burgess, he said. Daughter of one of our leading citizens. I’d introduce you, but now isn’t the time. You’ll probably meet her tomorrow.

She’s very pretty, said Harkway, and suffered himself to be led off up the street. Married?

No. She was engaged to one of our young men, but her father broke it off.

Oh? said Harkway. Political differences?

Yes. The young man joined the activists. The father is a conservative.

That’s very interesting, said Harkway. After a moment he asked, Do you have many of those here?

Activists or conservatives? Or pretty girls?

I meant conservatives, said Harkway, coloring slightly. I know the activist movement is strong here—that’s why I was sent. We consider them dangerous in the extreme.

So do I, said Cudyk. No, there aren’t many conservatives. Burgess is the only real fanatic. If you meet him, by the way, you must make certain allowances.

Harkway nodded thoughtfully. Cracked on the subject would you say?

You could put it that way, Cudyk told him. He said after a moment, He has convinced himself, in his conscious mind at least, that we are the dominant species on this planet; that the Niori are our social and economic inferiors. He won’t tolerate any suggestion that it isn’t so.

Harkway nodded again, looking very solemn. A tragedy, he said. But understandable, of course. Some of the older people simply can’t adjust to the reality of our position in the galaxy.

Not many people actually like it.

Harkway looked at him thoughtfully. He said, Mr. Cudyk, I don’t want you to take this as a complaint, but I’ve gathered the impression from your remarks that you’re not in sympathy with the Minority Peoples’ League.

No, said Cudyk.

May I ask what your political viewpoint is?

I’m neutral, said Cudyk. Apolitical.

Harkway said politely, I hope you won’t take offense if I ask why? It’s evident, even to me, that you’re a man of intelligence and ability.

Everything is evident to you, Cudyk thought wearily, except what you don’t want to see. I don’t believe our particular Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again, Mr. Harkway.

Harkway looked at him intently, but said nothing. He glanced at the signboard over the lighted windows they were approaching. Is this the place?

Yes.

Harkway continued to look at the sign. Above the English CHONG YIN’S TEA ROOM, and the Chinese characters, was a legend that read:

That’s a curious alphabet, he said. It’s a very efficient one. It’s based on the design of an X in a rectangle—like this. Cudyk traced it with his finger on the wall. "Counting each arm of the cross as one stroke, there are eight strokes in the figure. Using only two strokes to a character, there are twenty-eight possible combinations. They use the sixteen most graceful ones, and add twenty-seven three-stroke characters to bring it up to forty-three, one for each sound in their language. The written language is completely phonetic, therefore. But