Piper in the Woods

the stream a small bridge led over to the other side, and a few patients were standing on the bridge, wrapped in their bathrobes, looking aimlessly down at the water.

It took Harris several minutes to find Westerburg. The youth was not with the other patients, near or around the bridge. He had gone farther down, past the cedar trees and out onto a strip of bright meadow, where poppies and grass grew everywhere. He was sitting on the stream bank, on a flat grey stone, leaning back and staring up, his mouth open a little. He did not notice the Doctor until Harris was almost beside him.

'Hello,' Harris said softly.

Westerburg opened his eyes, looking up. He smiled and got slowly to his feet, a graceful, flowing motion that was rather surprising for a man of his size. 'Hello, Doctor. What brings you out here?'

'Nothing. Thought I'd get some sun.'

'Here, you can share my rock.' Westerburg moved over and Harris sat down gingerly, being careful not to catch his trousers on the sharp edges of the rock. He lit a cigarette and gazed silently down at the water. Beside him, Westerburg had resumed his strange position, leaning back, resting on his hands, staring up with his eyes shut tight.

'Nice day,' the Doctor said.

'Yes.'

'Do you come here every day?'

'Yes.'

'You like it better out here than inside.'

'I can't stay inside,' Westerburg said.

'You can't? How do you mean, 'can't'?'

'You would die without air, wouldn't you?' the Corporal said.

'And you'd die without sunlight?'

Westerburg nodded.

'Corporal, may I ask you something? Do you plan to do this the rest of your life, sit out in the sun on a flat rock? Nothing else?'

Westerburg nodded.

'How about your job? You went to school for years to become a Patrolman. You wanted to enter the Patrol very badly. You were given a fine rating and a first-class position. How do you feel, giving all that up? You know, it won't be easy to get back in again. Do you realize that?'

'I realize it.'

'And you're really going to give it all up?'

'That's right.'

Harris was silent for a while. At last he put his cigarette out and turned toward the youth. 'All right, let's say you give up your job and sit in the sun. Well, what happens, then? Someone else has to do the job instead of you. Isn't that true? The job has to be done, your job has to be done. And if you don't do it someone else has to.'

'I suppose so.'

'Westerburg, suppose everyone felt the way you do? Suppose everyone wanted to sit in the sun all day? What would happen? No one would check ships coming from outer space. Bacteria and toxic crystals would enter the system and cause mass death and suffering. Isn't that right?'

'If everyone felt the way I do they wouldn't be going into outer space.'

'But they have to. They have to trade, they have to get minerals and products and new plants.'

'Why?'

'To keep society going.'

'Why?'

'Well—' Harris gestured. 'People couldn't live without society.'

Westerburg said nothing to that. Harris watched him, but the youth did not answer.

'Isn't that right?' Harris said.

'Perhaps. It's a peculiar business, Doctor. You know, I struggled for years to get through Training. I had to work and pay my own way. Washed dishes, worked in kitchens. Studied at night, learned, crammed, worked on and on. And you know what I think, now?'

'What?'

'I wish I'd become a plant earlier.'

Doctor Harris stood up. 'Westerburg, when you come inside, will you stop off at my office? I want to give you a few tests, if you don't mind.'

'The shock box?' Westerburg smiled. 'I knew that would be coming around. Sure, I don't mind.'

Nettled, Harris left the rock, walking back up the bank a short distance. 'About three, Corporal?'

The Corporal nodded.

Harris made his way up the hill, to the path, toward the hospital building. The whole thing was beginning to become more clear to him. A boy who had struggled all his life. Financial insecurity. Idealized goal, getting a Patrol assignment. Finally reached it, found the load too great. And on Asteroid Y-3 there was too much vegetation to look at all day. Primitive identification and projection on the flora of the asteroid. Concept of security involved in immobility and permanence. Unchanging forest.

He entered the building. A robot orderly stopped him almost at once. 'Sir, Commander Cox wants you urgently, on the vidphone.'

'Thanks.' Harris strode to his office. He dialed Cox's letter and the Commander's face came presently into focus. 'Cox? This is Harris. I've been out talking to the boy. I'm beginning to get this lined up, now. I can see the pattern, too much load too long. Finally gets what he wants and the idealization shatters under the—'

'Harris!' Cox barked. 'Shut up and listen. I just got a report from Y-3. They're sending an express rocket here. It's on the way.'

'An express rocket?'

'Five more cases like Westerburg. All say they're plants! The Garrison Chief is worried as hell. Says we must find out what it is or the Garrison will fall apart, right away. Do you get me, Harris? Find out what it is!'

'Yes, sir,' Harris murmured. 'Yes, sir.'

By the end of the week there were twenty cases, and all, of course, were from Asteroid Y-3.

Commander Cox and Harris stood together at the top of the hill, looking gloomily down at the stream below. Sixteen men and four women sat in the sun along the bank, none of them moving, none speaking. An hour had gone by since Cox and Harris appeared, and in all that time the twenty people below had not stirred.

'I don't get it,' Cox said, shaking his head. 'I just absolutely don't get it. Harris, is this the beginning of the end? Is everything going to start cracking around us? It gives me a hell of a strange feeling to see those people down there, basking away in the sun, just sitting and basking.'

'Who's that man there with the red hair?'

'That's Ulrich Deutsch. He was Second in Command at the Garrison. Now look at him! Sits and dozes with his mouth open and his eyes shut. A week ago that man was climbing, going right up to the top. When the Garrison Chief retires he was supposed to take over. Maybe another year, at the most. All his life he's been climbing to get up there.'

'And now he sits in the sun,' Harris finished.

'That woman. The brunette, with the short hair. Career woman. Head of the entire office staff of the Garrison. And the man beside her. Janitor. And that cute little gal there, with the bosom. Secretary, just out of school. All kinds. And I got a note this morning, three more coming in sometime today.'

Harris nodded. 'The strange thing is—they really want to sit down there. They're completely rational; they could do something else, but they just don't care to.'

'Well?' Cox said. 'What are you going to do? Have you found anything? We're counting on you. Let's hear it.'

'I couldn't get anything out of them directly,' Harris said, 'but I've had some interesting results with the shock box. Let's go inside and I'll show you.'

'Fine,' Cox turned and started toward the hospital. 'Show me anything you've got. This is serious. Now I know