TIME IN THE ROUND
By FRITZ LEIBER
Illustrated by DILLON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction May 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Poor Butcher suffered more than any dictator
in history: everybody gave in to him because
he was so puny and they were so impregnable!
From the other end of the Avenue of Wisdom that led across the PeacePark, a gray, hairless, heavily built dog was barking soundlessly atthe towering crystal glory of the Time Theater. For a moment, theeffect was almost frightening: a silent picture of the beginning ofcivilization challenging the end of it. Then a small boy caught upwith the dog and it rolled over enthusiastically at his feet and thescene was normal again.
The small boy, however, seemed definitely pre-civilization. He studiedthe dog coldly and then inserted a thin metal tube under its eyelid andpoked. The dog wagged its stumpy tail. The boy frowned, tightened hisgrip on the tube and jabbed hard. The dog's tail thumped the cushionypavement and the four paws beat the air. The boy shortened his gripand suddenly jabbed the dog several times in the stomach. The stifftube rebounded from the gray, hairless hide. The dog's face split in anupside-down grin, revealing formidable ivory fangs across which a longblack tongue lolled.
The boy regarded the tongue speculatively and pocketed the metal tubewith a grimace of utter disgust. He did not look up when someonecalled: "Hi, Butch! Sic 'em, Darter, sic 'em!"
A larger small boy and a somewhat older one were approaching across theluxurious, neatly cropped grass, preceded by a hurtling shape that,except for a black hide, was a replica of Butch's gray dog.
Butch shrugged his shoulders resignedly and said in a bored voice:"Kill 'em, Brute."
The gray dog hurled itself on Darter. Jaws gaped to get a hold on necksso short and thick as to be mere courtesy terms. They whirled like afanged merry-go-round. Three more dogs, one white, one slate blue andone pink, hurried up and tried to climb aboard.
Butch yawned.
"What's the matter?" inquired Darter's master. "I thought you liked dogfights, Butch."
"I do like dog fights," Butch said somberly, without looking around. "Idon't like uninj fights. They're just a pretend, like everything else.Nobody gets hurt. And look here, Joggy—and you, too, Hal—when youtalk to me, don't just say Butch. It's the Butcher, see?"
"That's not exactly a functional name," Hal observed with thejudiciousness of budding maturity, while Joggy said agreeably: "Allright, Butcher, I suppose you'd like to have lived way back when peoplewere hurting each other all the time so the blood came out?"
"I certainly would," the Butcher replied. As Joggy and Hal turned backskeptically to watch the fight, he took out the metal tube, screwedup his face in a dreadful frown and jabbed himself in the hand. Hesqueaked with pain and whisked the tube out of sight.
"A kid can't do anything any more," he announced dramatically. "Can'tbreak anything except the breakables they give him to break on purpose.Can't get dirty except in the dirt-pen—and they graduate him from thatwhen he's two. Can't even be bitten by an uninj—it's contraprogrammed."
"Where'd you ever get so fixated on dirt?" Hal asked in a gentle voiceacquired from a robot adolescer.
"I've been reading a book about a kid called Huckleberry Finn,"