by H. B. Fyfe
“What do you mean?”
He looked at Fisher. “Are you asking as a friend or as a cop?”
“What difference does it make?” asked Fisher.
“Well, I don’t think you could have tracked me with your radar past the ringwall, so maybe I just went for a ride and a little stroll, huh? You didn’t see me bring back a shovel, did you?”
“No,” said Fisher, “I didn’t see you bring it back. But some people are going to get excited about this, Pete. Where did you bury her?”
“Blood-suckers!” said Dudley. “Let them get excited! Luna is full of mysteries.”
“All right,” said Fisher. “For my own curiosity, then, I’m asking as a friend.”
“I found a good place,” said Dudley. “I kind of forget where, in the middle of all those cliffs and rills, but it had a nice view of the stars. They’ll never find her to take her back! I think I owed her that much.”
“Ummm,” grunted Fisher.
As Dudley entered the shower, the other began to unwrap a new cigar, a not-displeased expression settling over his square, pudgy face.
Under the slow-falling streams of warm water, Dudley gradually began to relax. He felt the stiffness ease out of his jaw muscles. He turned off the bubbling water before he could begin imagining he was hearing a scared voice pleading again for passage to Mars.…
THE OUTBREAK OF PEACE
It was a great pity, Space Marshal Wilbur Hennings reflected, as he gazed through the one-way glass of the balcony door, that the local citizens had insisted upon decorating the square before their capitol with the hulk of the first spaceship ever to have landed on Pollux V.
A hundred and fifty years probably seemed impressive to them, amid the explosive spread of Terran colonies and federations. Actually, in the marshal’s opinion, it was merely long enough to reveal such symbols as more than antiquated but less than historically precious.
“I presume you plan to have me march past that heap!” he complained, tugging at the extremely “historical” sword that completed the effect of his dazzling white and gold uniform.
Commodore Miller, his aide, stiffened nervously.
“Around to the right of it, sir,” he gestured. “As you see, the local military are already keeping the route clear of onlookers. We thought it would be most impressive if your party were to descend the outer stairway from the palace balcony here…to heighten the importance of—”
“To draw out the pomp and circumstance of opening the conference?”
“Well, sir…and then across the square to the conference hall of the capitol, outside which you will pause for a few gracious words to the crowd—”
“And that will probably be my last opportunity to enjoy the morning sunlight. Oh, well, it seems much too bright here in any case.”
The commodore absently reached out to adjust a fold of his chief’s sky-blue sash, and the marshal as absently parried the gesture.
“I shall be hardly less than half an hour crossing the square,” he predicted sourly. “With the cheering throngs they have undoubtedly arranged, and the sunlight reflecting from all that imitation marble, it will be no place to collect one’s thoughts.”
He turned back to the huge chamber constituting the “office” of the suite supplied by his Polluxian hosts. The skeleton staff of men and women remaining occupied chairs and benches along only one wall, since the bulk of the delegation had been sent out to make themselves popular with the local populace.
Hennings presumed the bulk of the local populace to consist of Polluxians assigned to making themselves popular with his Ursan Federation delegation. His people would be listening politely to myriad reasons why the Polluxians had a natural right to occupy all the star systems from here to Castor, a dozen light-years farther from Terra. No one would mention the true motive—their illogical choice in naming themselves the Twin Empire.
“Well, now!” he said crisply. “Once more over the main points of the situation! No, commodore, not the schedule of experts that will accompany me to the table; I rely upon you to have perfected that. But have there been any unforeseen developments in the actual fighting?”
A cluster of aides, mostly in uniform but including a few in discreetly elegant civilian attire, moved forward. Each was somehow followed within arm’s reach by an aide of his own, so that the advance presented overtones of a small sortie.
Hennings first nodded to the first, a youngish man whose air suggested technical competence more than the assurance of great authority. The officer placed his brief case upon the glistening surface of a large table and touched a switch on the flap.
“It’s as well to be sure, sir,” the commodore approved. “Our men have been unable to detect any devices, but the walls may have ears.”
“They won’t scan through this scrambler, sir,” asserted the young officer.
Hennings accepted a seat at the table and looked up to one of the others.
“Mirelli’s Star,” an older officer reported briskly. “The same situation prevails, with both sides having landed surface troops in force on Mirelli II, Mirelli III, and Mirelli V, the fourth planet being inhabited by a partly civilized, nonhuman race protected under the Terran Convention.”
“Recent engagements?”
“No, sir. Maneuvering continues, but actual encounters have declined in frequency. Casualties are modest and evenly matched. General Nilssen on Mirelli III continues to receive Polluxian agents seeking his defection.”
“I never thought to ask,” murmured Hennings. “Is he really a distant connection of the Polluxian Nilssen family?”
“It is improbable, sir, but they are polite enough to accept the pretense. Of course, he rejects every offer in a very high-minded manner, and seems to be making an adequate impression of chivalry.”
He stepped back at Henning’s nod, to be replaced by another officer.
“One minor space skirmish in the Agohki system to report, sir. The admiral in command appears to have recouped after the error of two days ago, when that Polluxian detachment was so badly mauled. He arranged the capture of three of our cruisers.”
“Was that not a trifle rash?” demanded Hennings.
“Intelligence is inclined to think not, sir. The ships were armed only with weapons listed as general knowledge items. The crews were not only trained in prisoner-of-war tactics, but also well supplied with small luxuries. The Polluxian fleet in that system is known to have been in space for several months, so a friendly effect is anticipated.”
Hennings considered the condensed report proffered for his perusal. He noted that the Polluxians had been quite gentlemanly about notifying Ursan headquarters of the capture and of the complete lack of casualties. He also saw that while the message was ostensibly directed to the Federation flagship, it had been beamed in such fashion as to be conveniently intercepted at the secret Ursan Federation headquarters on Agohki VII.
“That was a bit rude of them,” he commented. “We have never dragged their secrets into the open.”
“On the other hand, sir,” the commodore suggested, “it may be an almost sophisticated method of permitting us to enjoy our superior finesse.”
“I am just as pleased to have the reminder,” said Hennings. “It will serve to alert us all the more when we sit down with them over there.”
An elegant civilian, a large man with patient, drooping features, stated that nothing had occurred to change the economic situation. Another reported that unofficial channels of information were holding up as well as could be expected. A uniformed officer summarized the battle situation in two more star systems.
“Those are positions we actually desire to hold, are they not?” Hennings asked. “Is action to be taken there?”
“Plans call for local civilian riots at the height of the conference, sir.”
“But…can we lay no groundwork so
oner than that? Sometime in the foreseeable future, at least! Take it up with Propaganda, Blauvelt! It seems to me that the briefing mentioned an indigenous race on one of these planets—”
Blauvelt dropped his eyes momentarily, equivalent in that gathering to a blush of intense embarrassment. Hennings coughed apologetically.
“Well, now, I should not pry into arrangements I must later be able to deny convincingly with a clear conscience. I can only plead, my dear Blauvelt, the tenseness of the past several days.”
The officer murmured inaudibly, fumbled with his papers, and edged to the rear rank. Someone, at Commodore Miller’s fluttering, obtained a vacuum jug of ice water and a glass for the marshal, but Hennings chose instead to produce a long cigar from a pocket concealed beneath his resplendent collection of medals.
“My apologies to all of you,” he said thoughtfully. “I fear that any of you who may expect contact with the local population had better see Dr. Ibn Talal about the hypnosis necessary to counteract my little indiscretion. And now—what remains?”
“Nothing but the prisoner exchange, sir,” Commodore Miller announced after collecting the eyes of the principal officers.
Hennings got his cigar going. He listened to confirmation of a previous report that a massive exchange of “sick and wounded” prisoners had been accomplished, and learned that the Ursans now suspected that they had accepted unknowingly about as many secret agents as they had sent the Polluxians.
“Oh, well!” he sighed. “As long as the amenities were preserved! We must be as friendly as possible about that sort of thing, or run the risk of antagonizing them.”
Seeing that the commodore was tense with impatience, the marshal rose to his feet. An aide deftly received the cigar for disposal, and the party drifted expectantly toward the balcony doors.
From among that part of the staff which would remain to man headquarters, an officer was dispatched to alert the Polluxian honor guard.
* * * *
One more touch before the die is cast, thought the marshal, as two young officers opened the balcony doors to admit the blare of trumpets.
Cheers rolled successively across the square, rising like distant waves from somewhere beneath the gigantic banner that draped the capitol opposite with fiery letters spelling out “PEACE CONFERENCE.”
With a dramatic gesture, Hennings held up the sheaf of reports they had just reviewed. Smiles disappeared in response to his own serious mien.
“So much for the hostilities!” he snapped. He tossed the reports to the officer who would remain in charge. “Now for the actual war!”
Pivoting, he led them smartly out to the ornate balcony stairway that curved down into the sea of cheering Polluxians.
FEE OF THE FRONTIER
From inside the dome, the night sky is a beautiful thing, even though Deimos and Phobos are nothing to brag about. If you walk outside, maybe as far as the rocket field, you notice a difference.
Past the narrow developed strip around the dome, the desert land lies as chilled and brittle as it did for eons before Earthmen reached Mars. The sky is suddenly raw and cruel. You pull your furs around your nose and check your oxygen mask, and wish you were inside something, even a thin wall of clear plastic.
I like to stand here, though, and look out at it, just thinking about how far those ships grope out into the dark nowadays, and about the men who have gone out there on a few jets and a lot of guts. I knew a bunch of them…some still out there, I guess.
* * * *
There was a time when nearly everything had to be rocketed out from Earth, before they organized all those chemical tricks that change the Martian crops to real food. Domes weren’t fancy then. Adequate, of course; no sense in taking chances with lives that cost so much fuel to bring here. Still, the colonies kept growing. Where people go, others follow to live off them, one way or another. It began to look like time for the next step outward.
Oh, the Asteroids…sure. Not them. I did a bit of hopping there in my own time. In fact—on account of conditions beyond my choice and control—I spent too much time on the wrong side of the hull shields. One fine day, the medics told me I’d have to be a Martian for the rest of my life. Even the one-way hop back to Earth was “not recommended.”
So I used to watch the ships go out. I still remember one that almost missed leaving. The Martian Merchant. What joker thought that would be a good name for an exploring ship I can’t imagine, but it always happens that way.
I was starting my cross-country tractor line then, and had just made the run from Schiaparelli to Asaph Dome, which was not as nice as it is now but still pretty civilized for the time. They had eight or ten bars, taverns, and other amusements, and were already getting to be quite a city.
One of the taverns near the western airlock was named the Stardust, and I was approaching, measuring the sand in my throat, when these spacers came out. The first one in sight was a blocky, dark-haired fellow. He came rolling through the door with a man under each arm.
Just as I got there, he made it to his feet somehow and cracked their heads together exactly hard enough to bring peace. He acted like a man used to handling things with precision. He glanced quickly at me out of a square, serious face, then plunged back through the splintered door toward the breakup inside.
In a moment, he came out again, with two friends who looked the worse for wear. The tall, lean youngster wore a junior pilot’s bands on the sleeves of his blue uniform. His untidy hair was rumpled, as if someone had been hanging onto it while in the process of giving him the shiner.
The other one was shorter and a good deal neater. Even with his tunic ripped down the front, he gave the impression of making it his life business to be neat. He was turning gray at the temples and growing a little bulge under his belt, which lent a dignity worthy of his trim mustache and expression of deferential politeness. He paused briefly to hurl an empty bottle at someone’s head.
“Better take the alley there,” I told the blocky one, on impulse. “It’ll bring you out at the tractor lot and I’ll give you a lift to your ship.”
He wasted no time on questions, just grabbed his friends and disappeared before the crowd came out. I walked around a couple of corners and back to my tractor bus. This lot was only a clear space inside the Number Four Airlock. At that time, two or three tractors came in every day from the mines or other domes. Most of the traffic was to and from the spaceport.
“Who’s that?” asked a low voice from the shadows.
“Tony Lewis,” I answered.
The three of them moved into the dim light from the airlock guardpost.
“Thanks for the steer,” said the blocky one, “but we can stay till morning.”
He seemed as fresh as if he had just landed. His friends were a trifle worn around the edges.
“Keep playing that rough,” I said, “and you may not make it to morning.”
He just grinned. “We have to,” he said, “or the ship can’t blast off.”
“Oh, you three make the ship go, huh?”
“Just about. This is Hugh Konnel, the third pilot; the gent with the dignified air is Ron Meadows, the steward. I’m Jim Howlet, and I look after the fuel system.”
I admitted that the ship could hardly do without them. Howlet’s expression suggested that he was searching his memory.
“Lewis…” he murmured. “I’ve heard of Tony Lewis somewhere. You a spacer?”
“Used to be,” I told him. “Did some piloting in the Belt.”
Young Konnel stopped fingering his eye.
“Oh, I’ve heard of you,” he said. “Even had to read some of your reports.”
* * * *
After that, one thing led to another, with the result that I offered to find somewhere else to relax. We walked south from the airlock, past a careless assortment of buildings. In those days, there was not much
detailed planning of the domes. What was necessary for safety and for keeping the air thicker and warmer than outside was done right; the remaining space was grabbed by the first comers.
Streets tended to be narrow. As long as an emergency truck could squeeze through at moderate speed, that was enough. The buildings grew higher toward the center of the dome, but I stopped while they were still two stories.
The outside of Jorgensen’s looked like any other flimsy construction under the dome. We had just passed a row of small warehouses, and the only difference seemed to be the lighted sign at the front.
“We can stop at the bar inside while we order dinner,” I said.
“Sounds good,” said Howlet. “I could go for a decent meal. Rations on an exploring ship run more to calories than taste.”
The pilot muttered something behind us. Howlet turned his head.
“Don’t worry about it, Hughie,” he retorted. “It’ll be all over the dome by tomorrow anyway.”
“But they said not to—”
“Mr. Lewis won’t say anything, and he’s not the only spacer who’ll guess it.”
* * * *
It was easy to figure out. Ships did little exploring in the Belt now—plenty of untouched rocks there but nothing really unknown. “Exploring” could only mean that a hop to Jupiter was in the works at last. There had already been rumors about a few wide swings outside the Belt.
Well, it was just about time.
I would have liked to go too, and it was more than just a spacer’s curiosity. To my mind, man had to move out in space. Being only halfway in control of his own planetary system was no state to be found in by the first interstellar visitors.
That is a meeting bound to happen sooner or later. It would be better for the human race to be able to do the visiting, I thought.
The inside of Jorgensen’s always surprised new visitors to Asaph Dome. It was different from anything on Earth, and yet not too much like the real Mars either. That way, Jorgensen hoped to catch both the sandeaters and the tourists. The latter came to rough it in local color, the former to dream of a better world.
