"It's so different, Bill So very different. What they taught us in the Academy doesn't seem quite true up there. I mean--" he struggled to form the right phrase, "--it's not that they're going against doctrine...it's just that things aren't black and white up there--as they said they'd be when I was in the Academy--they're grey now. They don't start the morning bombardments on time, they drink coff when they should be posting, and--and--"

He stopped abruptly, and a hardness came into the set of his head. He jerked quickly, and bent to his drink.

"N-nothing," he murmured, princ.i.p.ally to himself.

Donnough looked disturbed.

"What happened, Wayne? You flinch-out when the barrage came over?"

Ma.s.saro lifted his eyes in a shocked and startled expression. "You aren't kidding, are you?"

Donnough leaned back further, and the formfit closed about him like a womb. "No, I suppose I wasn't. I know you better than that, known you too long."

There was a great deal of respect and friendship in his words. Each man sat silently, holding his drink to his lips. as a barricade to conversation for the moment. Filtered memories of shared boyhoods came to them, and talk was not right at that moment.

Then Ma.s.saro lowered the gla.s.s and said, "That jato raid came off pretty badly didn't it?" The subject had been altered.

Donnough nodded ruefully, "Yeah, wouldn't you know it. Oh, h.e.l.l, it was all the fault of that gravel-brained Colonel Levinson. He didn't even send over a force battery cover. It was suicide. But then, what the h.e.l.l, that's what they're paid for."

Ma.s.saro agreed silently and took a final pull at the tea-laced highball. "Uh. Good. More, daddy, morel"

Donnough waved a hand at the circle-dial of the robot bartender set into the recreation unit against the wan.

"Dial away, brother frat man. I'm too comfortable to move."

A gaggle of female giggles erupted from the kitchen, and Yolande Donnough's voice came through the grille in the ceiling. "Okay you two heroes...dinner's on. Let's go." Then: "Bill, will you call the kids from downstairs?

"Okay, Yo."

Bill Donnough walked to the dropshaft at one corner of the living room, and slid his fingernail across the grille set into the wall beside the empty pit. Downstairs, in the lower levels of the house--sunk fifty feet into the Earth--the Donnough children heard the rasp over their own speakers, and waited for their father's words.

"Chow's on, monsters. Updecks on the double!"

The children came tumbling from their rooms and the play area, and threw themselves into the sucking force of the invisible riser-beam that lived in the dropshaft. In a second they were whisked up the shaft and stepped out in the living room: First came Polly with her golden braids tied atop her round little head in the Swedish style. Her hands were clean. Then Bartholemew-Aaron, whose nose was running again, and whose sleeves showed it. Verushka came next, her little face frozen with tears, for Toby had bitten her calf on the way upshaft; then Toby himself, clutching his side where Verushka had kicked him in reflex.Donnough shook his head in mock severity, and slapped Polly on the behind as he urged them to the table for dinner. "Go on you beasts, roust!"

All but Verushka, the children ran laughing to the dining hall which ran parallel to the tiled front hall of the house. Dark-haired Verushka clung to her daddy's hand and walked slowly with him. "Daddy, are you goin' to the moon tomorra'?"

"That's right, baby. Why?"

"Cause Stacy Garmonde down the block says her old ma--"

"Father, not old man!" he corrected her.

"--her father's gonna shoot you good tomorra'. He says all Blacks is bad, and he's gonna shoot you dead.

Tha's what Stacy says, an' she's a big old stink!"

Donnough stopped walking and kneeled beside the wide, dark eyes. "Honey, you remember one thing, no matter what anybody tells you: "Blacks are good. Whites are bad. That's the truth, sweetie. And n.o.body's going to kilt daddy, because he's going to rip it up come tomorrow. Now do you believe that?"

She bobbled her bead very quickly.

"Blacks is good, an' Whites is big stinks."

He patted her head with affection. "The grammar is lousy, baby, but the sentiment is correct. Now. Let's eat."

They went in, and the children were silent with heads only half-bowed--half staring at the hot dishes that o- popped out of the egress slot in the long table--while Donnough said the prayer: "Dear G.o.d above, thank you for this glorious repast. and watch over these people, and insure a victory where a victory is deserved. Preserve us and our state of existence...Amen. "

"Amen." Ma.s.saro.

"Amen." Lotus Ma.s.saro.

"Aye-men!" the children.

Then the forks went into the food, and mouths opened and dinner was underway. As they sat and discussed what Was what, and who had gotten his, and wasn't it wonderful how the moon was the battlefield, while the Earth was saved from more destruction such as those 20th Century barbarians had dealt it.

"Listen, Bill," Ma.s.saro jabbed the fork into the air, punctuating his words, "next Sunday you and Yo and the kids come on over to our hovel. It'll cost you for a robositter next week. We're sick of laying out the credits."

They smiled and nodded and the dinner date for next Sunday was fumed up.

MONDAY.

The commuter platforms. The ships racked one past another, pointed toward the faint light they could not see. The light of the dead battlefield. Moon. The Blacks in their regal uniforms queueing up to enter the vessels, the Whites in splendid array, about to board ship.

A Black ship lay beside a White one.

Bill Donnough boarded one as he caught a glance at the ship beside. Ma.s.saro was in line there.

"Go to h.e.l.l, you White b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he yelled. There was no friendliness there. No camaraderie.

"Die, you slob-creepin' Black! Drop!" he was answered.

They boarded the ships. The flight was short. Batteries opened that day--the five thousand and fifty-ninth day of the war--at 0550. Someone had chopped down the eagerbeaver.

At 1149 precisely, a blindbomb with a snooper attachment was launched by 2/Lt William Larkspur Donnough, BB XO in charge of strafing and collision, which managed to worm its devious way through the White defense perimeter force screens. The blindbomb--BB--fell with a skit-course on the bunkerdome housing a firebeam control center, and exploded the dome into fragments.

Later that evening, Bill Donnough would start looking for another home to attend, the following Sunday.

Who said war was h.e.l.l? It had been a good day on the line.The pun, a sadly-misunderstood delicacy in the confectionary of humor, holds for me the same kind of infectious hilarity as a vision of three brothers named Marx, chasing a turkey around a hotel room, or wiry Lenny Bruce retelling his hazards and horrors on a two-week gig in Milwaukee, or Charlie Chaplin, caught among the gears of mechanized insanity in "Modern Times." Humor comes packaged every which way, and profundities about its various guises and motivations do nothing whatsoever to explain why one man's chuckle is another's chilblain. In science fiction, with the notable exception of the work of Kuttner, when he was wry and wacky, the pun and humor in general have come of} rather badly. Perhaps "funny" and "science fiction" are incompatible, or perhaps the fantasist takes himself, his Times, and its problems too seriously. Whatever the reasons, from time to time I have tried to make sport of the established genres of science fantasy, as in this fable called

Deal From The Bottom

There was really quite a simple reason for Maxim Hirt's presence in the death cell. He had bungled the murder badly. The reason for his bungling was even simpler. Maxim Hirt was awfully stupid.

He had fancied himself an actor, and for a while, had even managed to convince a few people that such was the case. Then came the advent of television, and he had taken a healthy swing at appearing weekly in the homes of the nation. The paucity of his talent was painfully apparent to anyone viewing Clipper Ship, his series (where. in he played a clipper ship pilot for hire, the networks being anxious to avoid the hackneyed soldier-of-fortune for hire theme) for a famous beer concern.

It was only after the first thirteen weeks, when signs of sponsors on the horizon were dim, very dim, for renewal, that Maxim Hirt took to the telephones, to call the critics.

"h.e.l.lo, Sid?"

"Who's this?"

"Max, Sid. Old Maxie Hirt, out in Coldwater Canyon."

"Yeah, Max. What can I do ya?"

"Just wanted to call, let you know my new series, y'know Clipper Ship--"

"Yeah, Max, I know."

"--let you know it's got a real winger comin' up this Thursday night. Filmed it down in Balboa. Real coo- coo, see it's about this broad, she's got an uncle who found a cache of diam--"

"What is it ya want, Max? A plug? So all right, so I'll give you a plug. Now...anything else, Max, I'm busy."

"No, no, nothing else, Sid. Just thanks a lot. I, uh, I need this plug, Sid."

"So okay, Maxie, okay, so take it easy. G'bye."

The review, ghosted by a writer of true action adventures for the hairy-chested men's magazines, read: We caught Maxim Hirt's new series Clipper Ship last night. Somehow we got the impression it was about a rugged, handsome guy who rents his plane and his talent to the highest bidder. Now that the light from the idiot box has faded, we don't know where we could have gotten that idea, because the paunchy, punchy b.u.mbling of Hirt indicates no talent whatsoever. With luck, this abomination will not see renewal and Hirt can fold his tent...

Etcetera. The use of the word "b.u.mbling" seemed almost mandatory when speaking of Maxim Hirt. Which was the reason, when he killed Sidney Gross, the columnist (after Clipper Ship folded its chocks and silently so forth), that he was apprehended. It was also the reason he managed to bungle away his lawyer's defense, and talked himself right into the death house.

Where he now sat, pad and pencil in hand, jotting down notes on what he would like for his last supper.

Maxim, being what he was, and being basically stupid, had managed to jot only one delicacy for that final repast. Baked beans.

He was sitting on the hard-tick mattress, doodling, trying to think of something else for dinner, when the air just beyond his nose shivered, shimmered and solidified into the form of a medium-sized man. The man wore a pair of tight jeans, a black turtleneck sweater and thong sandals. His beard had a definitely Mephistophalean point to it.

"Aaargh!" aaarghed Maxim as the tail which protruded from a slash in the seat of the jeans whipped across his legs.

"Oh, sorry, man," said the bearded one. "Reflex, like a shiver, every time I get summoned. Wildsville, y'know, man."

Maxim Hirt was not very bright, but he knew a devil when he saw one. Even one who looked as beat as this item. "Y -y-y-yough, " Maxim pontificated."Oh, excuse the far out garb, daddy-cool. I just came from a set with a Tin Pan Alley song plugger. He wanted a hit, y'know. h.e.l.l, his soul ain't worth much, but then, business is business."

"I--I d-didn't summon y-y-you..." Maxim warbled heavily.

"Sure ya did. The doodle there," he pointed a sharp, dirty fingernail at the pad, "that's the sacred symbol, man. Like the hippest."

"But I was just d-d-doodling," Maxim argued.

"Cuts no ice, Father," said the devil. "The song plugger didn't know he was summoning, either. You'd be surprised how close to the ancient runes some of them rock n' roll lyrics get."

Maxim Hirt felt sweat coolly crawling. "What do you want from me?"

The turtled neck went up and down. "Me? Man, I don't want nothin'. I mean, like you invited me to the pad.

What do you want?"

Maxim Hirt fed a bitter laugh to his lips. "There's not much you can do for me...by the way, do you have a name? Are you...are you Satan?"

The bearded one doubled with laughter, fell to the concrete floor and flopped about helplessly, his tail thrashing the walls, floor and bunk with terrible cracks. Finally he settled to rest, leaned his feet against the wall and mumbled, "Oh, man, you gas me. Satan; Satan, yet! h.e.l.l, we retired the old man aeons ago. Kicked him downstairs to a desk job. h.e.l.l, you'd never catch him out in the field. Thinks he's too good; shows you what a good press agent can do. Makes a personality out of a cat, next thing you know he's holding you up for elevator clauses, the whole schlepp."

"But who're you'!" Hirt persisted. (The madness of it all hadn't really caught up with him yet.) "Oh, man, if you must hang a tag, lay it on me like Skidoop. You dig'!"

"Y-yes, I suppose so."

"Now, like I've made the scene, Pops, so what do you want'! You name it, I frame it. Swing."

"Like I was saying," Hirt squeezed his hands together in anguish, "there isn't anything you can do for me, unless you can get me out of here. Otherwise I go to the gas chamber tomorrow morning."

Skidoop shook his head, and looked ceilingward. "No skin, man. I can do almost anything, but not that. It involves your destiny, and that's His bailiwick." He pointed at the ceiling. "Got the whole d.a.m.ned market on destinies cornered. Got there first. "

"Well, then what good are you?"

Skidoop looked pained. "Man, I'm beginning to feel you are very unhip. Come to think of it, you dig Camus, Goethe, Kerouac, Rexroth, the rest of the boppers'!"

"Uh..." Hirt began.

"I figured. You're so far out you'd have to masquerade to get back in. But like my uncle Moishe keeps tellin' me, biz is biz. So what can I do for you, right?"

"Yes. What can you do for me'!"

"Well, we can always introduce an extenuating circ.u.mstance, that's cool. No rules against that; I introduce the e.c. and you change your own destiny. How's that swing'!"

"Fine, but how can you do it'!"

Skidoop fingered his beard, muttered something about getting a bellows and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g it with a pair of wire cutters, and jubilantly replied, "There! You're writing down your last meal. So okay, so I give you the ability to eat.

To eat and eat and eat, just keep feeding your face, without any debilitating physical side-effects, and they never gas you."

"They never gas me'! Why not'!"

"Who ever heard of killing a guy when he's eating his last meal'! It can't be done. It's barbaric. A cincheroonie."

Maxim Hirt's commercially handsome face sloughed into an expression connoting thought. A look of guile overcame his features. "You guarantee it'll work? I can keep eating indefinitely and it won't hurt me at all?"

The bearded one waved a negligent palm. "Not a bit."

"I've heard about deals with you people," Hirt noted. "I'd have to have immortality along with it. You might fix it so I'd eat myself to death. Can you give me immortality with it?"

Skidoop thought for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "Well, we'd have to put in a clause about that.

Contingent on whether or not they avoid frying you. If they don't, you get the immortality. But if they do, why should I waste valuable life-force on you, since His destiny ruling would come first, anyhow, and they'd gas you anyway."

"I get immortality if this extenuating circ.u.mstance works, right?"