WORLD IN A MIRROR
BY ALBERT TEICHNER
It was a backward world, all right—in
a special and very deadly manner!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
God knows I didn't want Hacker in the preliminary delegation right fromthe start. I wasn't thinking, either, of the screwball ways history cango about poetically repeating itself sometimes. I just knew that anuppity, smart-alecky kid of fifty could only cause trouble.
He already had.
Rayna had been our earlier landfall on the First InterstellarExpedition. It possessed a fairly intelligent form of life, even ifthe Raynans were oviparous and technologically retarded. Hacker hadtaken over the bulldozer to clear the area around our craft, Terra I,and he had been repeatedly told to stay very close to it. But no, heinsisted on flattening out the peat-like top of the nearest hill too.Unfortunately that hilltop was an incubation bed for Raynan fledglings.The massacre involved not only a vast number of hatching eggs but fiveadult females, and we had to get away pronto while thousands of paperlimbs waved threateningly at the murderers from Earth.
I'm only the Science Chronicler of this expedition but Dr. Barnes isChief Medical Officer. His protests should have mattered where minedidn't. "I'm a hundred per cent behind Johnson," he told CaptainWeber. "That kid's no damned good. The three of us will go into townwith these Newtaneans and, sure as I'm standing here, Hacker will dosomething wrong."
Captain Weber, looking worried as usual, tried to explain. "He'lljust do the chauffeuring." But he got off that tack immediately whenhe saw we were not following along. "Look, I know he's a pest. Butthis is a political matter, for the good of the Space Corps. Hisgreat-great-uncle is President of the World Council. For all I know theold man hates his guts, won't listen to a word he says, but let's nottake any chances. We're going to need plenty of these expeditions. Andhyper-drive craft take an awful lot out of the economy."
The upshot of the matter was that we patriotically agreed to the setup.The captain gave Hacker a good chewing-out about respecting the rightsof the Newtaneans.
The kid turned out to be surprisingly amenable on that score. "They'rehuman!" he said, and I could see he was very sincere about it. "Iwouldn't do anything to hurt them, sir. What's more, they must bealmost as smart as we are and I'm not about to commit suicide."
So the three of us got into the jeep and rolled out of Terra I ontoNewtane's soil.
I still felt uncomfortable about Hacker, though. He had tasted bloodon Rayna and the effect of that on him had been unusually bad; he hadacquired a reckless attitude toward the rights of intelligent life,his own included.
As if to prove me wrong, he drove very carefully over the specialroad the Newtaneans had laid out overnight from our landing areato the highway a mile or so away. The three carloads of scowlingplenipotentiaries up ahead looked appealingly funny. While theNewtaneans were remarkably, even handsomely, like us (except for acertain closeness of the eyes and a reversed ordering of their fingers)their facial muscles carried different emotional convictions. On ourlanding ten hours before those officials had thought our smiling facesindicated angry aggressiveness and we had been equally uncertain