He found it was gratifying to notice people turning his way, edging in to listen.
“Let me make myself absolutely clear,” he went on loudly. “I don’t want to work for you. I don’t like the business you’re in. I know what you need a doctor for, and so does everyone else on Mars. If your boys over at Hop Heaven can’t keep their noses out of your marcaine, that’s not my worry. I don’t want to be resident physician in a narcotics factory. Stay away from me!”
The smirk had left Brenner’s face; it was ugly, contorted, and much too close. Tony realized, too late, that Brenner’s fist was even closer. Abruptly, he stopped feeling like a hero and began to feel like a fool.
Then, quite suddenly, Brenner’s fist was no longer approaching, and Brenner was flat on the ground. Tony tried to figure out what had happened. It didn’t make sense. He became aware of a ring of grinning congratulatory faces surrounding him, and of Tad next to him, giggling gleefully. He called to the boy curtly, turned on his heel, and walked back the few steps to his portable lab.
Nobody helped Brenner to his feet. He must have got up by himself, because when Tony looked back, out of the corner of his eye, Brenner was gone.
A shore man bustled up. “I heard that, Dr. Hellman. I didn’t see you hit him, but I heard you tell him off.” He pumped Tony’s hand delightedly.
“Hello, Chabrier.” That makes two of us, Tony thought—I didn’t see myself hit him either. “Look, I know it’s no use asking you not to talk about it, but go easy, will you? Don’t blow it up too much when you tell it.”
“It needs no amplification. You slap his face in challenge. He reaches for a weapon. You knock him unconscious with a single blow! You tell him: Hugo Brenner, there is not gold enough—”
“Knock off, will you?” begged the doctor. “He wanted me to work over at his place by Syrtis Major—Brenner Pharmaceuticals Corporation, whatever he calls it. You know all his people get a marcaine craving from the stuff that leaks out of his lousy machinery. He wanted me there to keep giving his boys cures. I said no and he offered me a lot of money and I got sore. I shot off my mouth. He started to sock me and—”
And what? Tony still hadn’t figured that out. He turned back to the box, still only half set up.
Chabrier said thoughtfully: “So you know that much, eh? Then you know it’s nothing new, this business of missing marcaine?”
TONY abruptly turned back to him, no longer uninterested. “Brenner said something about previous thefts. What’s it all about?”
“Only what you said yourself.” Chabrier shrugged. “What did he offer you? Three hundred thousand? Four?” He paused, and when Tony made no reply, went on: “You can get better than that. It would be cheaper than junking his plant and building a new one.”
“I know I can get better than that,” the doctor said impassively. “What do you know about the missing marcaine, Chabrier?”
“NOTHING all of Marsport doesn’t know. Was it in the neighborhood of half a million? That would be much less than the freight rates for new machines. He’s used to freight being only a small part of his overhead. He ships a concentrated product.” Chabrier chuckled happily. “How it must hurt when he thinks of importing plate and tubes and even, God forbid, castings. I tell you, a man doesn’t know what freight can mean until he’s handled liquor. Bulk is bad. Even just running the bulk liquor into the glass-lined tanks of the rocket ships is bad. It means that Mars ships water to Earth! Actually! But the foolish laws say we cannot dehydrate, let the water be added on Earth, and still label it Mars liquor.”
“Please,” said Tony wryly. “Please, Chabrier!”
The man shrugged. “So we take a little of the water out—fifty per cent, say. Water is water, they pour it in on Earth, nobody knows, nobody cares. Bulk shipment is still bad, very bad. But bottles f Dr. Hellman, there is no known way of dehydrating a glass bottle. We ship them in, we fill them, we ship them back. They break, people steal them here and aboard ship, and at the Earth rocket port. All so the label can say ‘Bottled on Mars’ !”
“Muffle your sobs, Chabrier. I happen to know that people pay for Mars liquor and pay a great deal for bottled-on-Mars. At least, you’re legal, and I understand you make good stuff.”
“I drink it myself,” said Chabrier righteously.
“To save the freight on Earthside rye?” Tony grinned, then asked seriously, “Listen, Chabrier, if you know anything about this marcaine business that we don’t, for God’s sake, spill it! We . . . I don’t have to tell you how hard this thing is hitting us out at Sun Lake. What does all of Marsport know?”
“Was it perhaps seven-fifty?” the other man asked blandly.
Fair exchange, Tony decided. “A million,” he said.
“So? This I do not understand! Why so much for a doctor, if he is to have a new plant?” Chabrier shook his head, shrugged, and went on more briskly: “I have told you already, if you understand: Brenner needs a new plant. His machines are no good. They leak. His men inhale the micron dust, they get the craving, and they start to steal the product. Soon they are no good for the work, and he sends them back to Earth. You see today how many new men he brings in? Then one day there is more marcaine missing. He . . .”
“One minute, Chabrier.” Tony turned and signaled Tad to take a break, then moved off a few steps, and motioned to the other man to follow him. “You think it’s a frameup?” he demanded in a low, intense voice.
“You would have me speak against our Commissioner Bell?” Chabrier asked with only the faintest trace of sarcasm showing. “Such a thing I will not do, but I beg of you to consider, if Sun Lake Colony should be bankrupt, their Laboratory must be sold at auction by the Commissioner, and such a plant would suit Mr. Brenner very well indeed. They say here in Marsport the machinery in this Laboratory is adaptable to many kinds of production. They say it is good, tight, well-built equipment, it will not leak. Till now it seemed quite clear.” The little man shook his head doubtfully. “Now I do not know. A plant? Yes. A doctor? Yes. But both . . . and he offered a million! This I do not understand, unless he plans to work both plants. There is a rumor which has some currency today . . .”
THE deep bass booming of the warning horn cut him off. People began edging away from the center of the field, terminating conversations, rejoining their own groups.
“You will excuse me now? I must go,” Chabrier said, when the horn died down enough to permit conversation again. “I have my place reserved, but they will not hold it . . .”
“Place?” Tony, still trying to catch up with the implications of the other man’s news, didn’t follow the quick shift. “What for? Oh, are you after Douglas Graham, too?”
“Of course. I understand he is—let us say, a drinker. If I can reach him before any of these other vultures . . . who knows? Maybe a whole chapter on Mars liquor!” He seized Tony’s hand in a quick grasp of friendship. “Good luck, Doctor Hellman,” he said, and dashed off, running ludicrously on his short legs to rejoin his own party before the landing.
Tony searched the sky; the rocket was not yet in sight. He got back to work, swiftly now, setting up his equipment. Chabrier had mentioned a rumor. Never mind, there was enough to think about.
The whole thing planned beforehand, to ruin Sun Lake. Maybe. Chabrier was notorious as a gossip and petty troublemaker. A frameup. Maybe. And how could they find out? Who was responsible? Who was innocent? Nealey, Nowton; Bell and Brenner; Chabrier with his fluid chatter and his shrewd little eyes. Nealey at least was a decent, competent man . . . Maybe. But how could you tell? How could you single them out?
Parasites! he thought bitterly, the cheerful Chabrier as much as the arrogant Brenner. Mars liquor brought fantastic prices because it was distilled, from mashes of Martian plants containing carbohydrates, instead of being distilled from mashes of Earth plants containing carbohydrates. And the friendly, plump little man got plumper on the profits culled from Earth’s neurotic needs. It wasn’t really much of an improvement on Brenner�
��s marcaine business. A minor difference in moral values, but all of them were parasites as long as they didn’t devote their time to the terrible problem of freeing Mars from the shadow of Earth’s dominance.
And what about our Lab? Unquestionably, it was better to concentrate radioactive methylene blue for the treatment of cancerous kidneys than it was to concentrate alkaloids for Earthside gow-heads, but that, too, was only a difference in moral values. Parasites, all . . .
“The rocket!” yelled Tad.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT LOOKED like a bit of the sun at first; that was its braking blasts seen from under. The monster settled swiftly, roaring and flaring in a teasing mathematical progression of successively shorter blasts more closely spaced. When you could see its silvery bulk in profile it was going pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, like a machine gun. It settled with a dying splutter and stood on the field some two hundred meters from the crowd like a remembered skyscraper.
Trucks raced out to meet it. Inside, the doctor knew, crewmen were walking around capstans that fitted over and unscrewed ten kilogram hex-nuts. The trucks slowed and crawled between the fins on which the rocket stood, directly under its exhaust nozzle. Drivers cut and filled to precise positions; then platforms jacked up from the crane trucks to receive the rim of the rocket’s throat. Men climbed the jacks to fasten them.
The captain must have radioed from inside the ship; the last of the first hex-nuts was off. Motor away! Slowly the platforms descended, taking the reaction engine with them. The crane trucks crawled off, two ants sharing an enormous burden.
The crew inside was busy again, dismantling fuel, tanks, while the trucks moved to the inspection and repair shed off the field. A boom lifted off the motor, and the drivers scuttled back to receive the first installment of the fuel tanks, the second, the third and the last.
“Now do the people come out?” asked Tad.
“If the rocket hasn’t got any more plumbing, they do,” Tony told him. “Yes—here we go.” Down between the fins descended a simple elevator, the cargo hoist letting down a swaying railed platform on a cable. It was jammed with people. The waiting port officer waved them toward the Administration Building. The crowd, which had overflowed gently past the broad white line on the field, drifted that way, too.
“Stanchions! Get stanchions out!” the port officer yelled. Two field workers broke out posts and a rope that railed off the crowd from the successive hoist-loads of people herded into the Administration Building for processing. There was a big murmur at the third load—Graham! The doctor was too far back to get a good look at the great man.
The loudspeaker on top of the building began to talk in a brassy rasp:
“Brenner Pharmaceuticals. Baroda, Schwartz, Hopkins, W. Smith, Avery for Brenner Pharmaceuticals,” it said. Brenner ducked under the rope to meet five men issuing from the building. He led them off the field, talking earnestly and with gestures.
“Pittco! Miss Kearns for Pittco Three!”
A pretty girl stepped through the door and looked about helplessly. A squat woman strode through the crowd, took the girl by the arm and led her off.
Radiominerals Corporation got six replacements; Distillery Mars got a chemist and two laborers; Metro Films got a cameraman who would stay and a pair of actors who would be filmed against authentic backgrounds and leave next week with the prints. A squad of soldiers headed by a corporal appeared and some of the field workers let out a cheer; they were next for rotation. Brenner got two more men; Kelly’s Coffee Bar got Mrs. Kelly, bulging with bricks of coffee and sugar.
“Sun Lake City Colony,” said the loudspeaker. “W. Jenkins, A. Jenkins, R. Jenkins, L. Jenkins, for Sun Lake.”
“Watch the box,” Tony called to Tad as he strode off.
HE PICKED up the identification and authorization slips waiting for him at the front desk inside, and examined them curiously. Good, he thought, a family with kids. The loudspeaker was now running continuously. Two more for Chabrier, three engineers for Pittco Headquarters in Marsport.
A uniformed stewardess came up to him.
“Dr. Hellman? From Sun Lake?” Her voice was professionally melodious. He nodded. “These are Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins.” She turned to the family group behind her. “And Bobby and Louise Jenkins,” she added, smiling.
The kids were about seven and four years old respectively. Tony smiled down at them, shook hands with their parents, and presented his authorizations to the stewardess.
“—Prentiss, Skelly and Zaretsky for Sun Lake,” the loudspeaker called.
“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Tony said and headed back to the desk.
They gave him more authorization slips. He riffled through the papers quickly as he headed back to find the Jenkinses and wait for the newcomers. All different names. Only one family, the rest singles. Too bad.
He hunted through his pockets and found two packets of peanuts, mutated beyond recognition into chewy objects with a flavor something like grape pop.
By the time Bobby and Lou had overcome their shyness enough to accept the gifts, another stewardess was bringing up the rest of the group destined for Sun Lake.
“Dr. Hellman?” Her voice was as much like the first stewardess as her uniform, but according to ancient custom this one was blonde and the other brunette. “Miss Skelly, Miss Dantuono, Mr. Graham, Mr. Prentiss, Mr. Bond, Mr. Zaretsky,” she said and vanished.
Tony nodded and shook hands all around.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “It’s quieter outside and I have to give you all a physical checkup, SO—”
“Again?” one of the men groaned. “We just had one on board.”
“I think I’ve had a million different shots since I started all this,” the other girl put in. What was her name? Dantuono? “Do we get more needles?”
“I’m afraid so. We have to be careful, you know.” Some day he would meet a rocket, and nobody—but nobody—would make that particular remark. Or perhaps that was too much to hope for. “Let’s get out of here,” Tony said again. He offered his hands to the children, and they started moving.
ii
BY THE time they reached Tad and the box that held the portable health lab, the crowd was already thinning out.
“We’ll get right to it,” the doctor addressed his group. “I’m sorry I can’t examine you indoors under more comfortable circumstances, but I have to make a quick check before we can even let you on board the ship. It won’t take long if we start right away.”
“Doesn’t the port have facilities for this sort of thing?” someone asked.
“Sure. They’ve got a beautiful setup right inside the Ad Building. Anybody can use it. Sun Lake can’t afford the price.”
He called them up one at a time, starting with the Jenkinses, parents and then children, so the kids wouldn’t have too much time to get apprehensive about the needles. His trained reflexes went through the business of blood and sputum tests, eye-ear-nose-and-throat, fluoroscopy, and nervous-and-mental, while he concentrated on getting acquainted.
Names began to attach themselves to faces. He finished with the two single girls, and started on the men. The big, red-faced one was Zaretsky; skinny little bookkeeper type was Prentiss. The talkative one was Graham.
“First name?” Tony was Filing in the reports while the samples went through analysis.
“Douglas.”
“Drop-in or shares?”
“Drop-in, I guess. On Earth we call it the working press.”
“Press?” Tony looked up sharply. “The Douglas Graham?”
“The This Is man. Didn’t you know I was coming out?” Tony hesitated, and Graham asked quickly, “Your place is open to the press, isn’t it?”
“Oh, sure. We just—well, frankly, we didn’t think you’d bother with us. Certainly didn’t think you’d come to us first. We’d have rolled out the red carpet.” He grinned and pointed to the array of planes at the other end of the field; for the first time, he became aware of the
curious and envious stares their small group was receiving from passersby. “Everybody else did. I guess we were about the only outfit on Mars that didn’t at least hope to bring you back home today.” He turned his attention to the checkup form. “Age?”
“Thirty-two.”
FROM appearance and general condition, Tony would have given the journalist ten more years; it was a shock to find that they were both the same age. He finished without further comment and went on to the next and last, a lanky blond youth named Bond. By the time he was done, the analyses and reaction tests were complete.
The doctor checked them over carefully. “You’re all right,” he announced to the group at large. “We can get started now.”
It was a slow trip. None of the newcomers were accustomed to the low gravity; they were wearing heavy training boots acquired on board the rocket. And all of them were determined to see everything that was to be seen in Marsport before they took off. Tony led them across the spaceport field, and down the main street of Marsport, a mighty boulevard whose total length was something under five hundred yards, the distance from the space-port to the landing strip.
He answered eager questions about the ownership and management of the hotels and office building that lined the block adjacent to the spaceport. These were mostly privately owned and privately built, constructed of glass brick. The native product had a sparkling multicolored sheen that created a fine illusion of wealth and high fashion—even when you knew that no building made of the stuff could possibly stand more than ten years: the same slightly different chemical content of Martian potash that produced the lustrous coloration of the bricks made them particularly susceptible to the damaging effects of wind and sand. Glass brick construction was, by far, more costly than the rammed-earth buildings at Sun Lake, or the scrap-shanties that characterized the Pittco camp across the Rimrock Hills from the Colony; but it was still much less expensive than the Earth-import steel and alumalloy used wherever strength and durability were important.
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