Watch The Sky
It's one thing to try to get away with what you
believe to be a lie and be caught at it—
and something different, and far worse
sometimes, to find it isn't a lie ...
by James H. Schmitz
Illustrated by Hortens
■ Uncle William Boles' war-batteredold Geest gun gave the impressionthat at some stage of its constructionit had been pulled out of shape andthen hardened in that form. Whatremained of it was all of one piece.The scarred and pitted twin barrelswere stubby and thick, and the vacantoblong in the frame behind themmight have contained standard energymagazines. It was the stockwhich gave the alien weapon its curiousappearance. Almost eighteeninches long, it curved abruptly to theright and was too thin, knobbed andindented to fit comfortably at anypoint in a human hand. Over half acentury had passed since, with thewebbed, boneless fingers of its originalowner closed about it, it last spatdeadly radiation at human foemen.Now it hung among Uncle William'sother collected oddities on the wallabove the living room fireplace.
And today, Phil Boles thought,squinting at the gun with reflectivelynarrowed eyes, some eight years afterUncle William's death, the old warsouvenir would quietly become a keyfactor in the solution of a colonialplanet's problems. He ran a fingerover the dull, roughened frame, bentcloser to study the neatly lettered inscription:GUNDERLAND BATTLETROPHY, ANNO 2172, SGT.WILLIAM G. BOLES. Then, catchinga familiar series of clicking noisesfrom the hall, he straightened quicklyand turned away. When Aunt Beulah'sgo-chair came rolling back intothe room, Phil was sitting at the lowtea table, his back to the fireplace.
The go-chair's wide flexible treadscarried it smoothly down the threesteps to the sunken section of theliving room, Beulah sitting jauntilyerect in it, for all the ninety-six yearswhich had left her the last survivor ofthe original group of Earth settlers onthe world of Roye. She tapped herfingers here and there on the chair'sarmrests, swinging it deftly about,and brought it to a stop beside thetea table.
"That was Susan Feeney calling,"she reported. "And there is somebodyelse for you who thinks I have to betaken care of! Go ahead and finishthe pie, Phil. Can't hurt a husky manlike you. Got a couple more bakingfor you to take along."
Phil grinned. "That'd be worth thetrip up from Fort Roye all by itself."
Beulah looked pleased. "Not muchelse I can do for my great-grandnephew nowadays, is there?"
Phil said, after a moment, "Haveyou given any further thought to—"
"Moving down to Fort Roye?" Beulahpursed her thin lips. "Goodness,Phil, I do hate to disappoint youagain, but I'd be completely out ofplace in a town apartment."
"Dr. Fitzsimmons would bepleased," Phil remarked.
"Oh, him! Fitz is another old worrywart. What he wants is to get meinto the hospital. Nothing doing!"
Phil shook his head helplessly,laughed. "After all, working a tuparanch—"
"Nonsense. The ranch is justenough bother to be interesting. Theappliances do everything anyway, andSusan is down here every morning fora chat and to make sure I'm still allright. She won't admit that, of course,but if she thinks something should betaken care of, the whole Feeney familyshows up an hour later to do it.There's really no reason for you to besending a dozen men up from FortRoye every two months to harvest thetupa."
Phil sh