The Seventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by H. B. Fyfe

  “Hey! Look at the stars over the bar!” exclaimed Howlet.

  To begin with, the bar was of pinkish sandstone, smoothed and covered by a coating of plastic. Behind it, instead of less imaginative mirrors or bottle displays, Jorgensen had had some drifter paint a night desert: all dull pink and bronze crags smothering in sand under a black sky. The stars twinkled like glass beads, which they were. Lights were dim enough to hide the Martian austerity of the metal furnishings.

  “The Earth tourists spend a lot of time here,” I told the trio. “Seems they’d rather look at that sky than the real one outside the dome.”

  The dining room was for the souls of the locals, who could admire the desert more conveniently than find a good meal. It was mostly green and white, with a good deal of the white being crystal. In the corners stood fake pine trees which Jorgensen had repainted every month; but what drew the sandeaters was the little fountain in the middle of the room.

  Real water!

  Of course, it was the same gallon or two pumped around and around, but clear, flowing water is a sight on Mars. When the muddy trickles in the canals began to make you feel like diving in for a swim, you stopped in at Jorgensen’s to watch the fountain while his quiet, husky waiters served your dinner most efficiently.

  * * * *

  “Say, this is a cut or two above ship chow,” admitted Konnel when the food arrived. “What’s that? Music too?”

  “They have a trio that plays now and then,” I told him. “Sometimes a singer too, when not much is going on in the back room.”

  “Back room?” Howlet caught up the words.

  “Never mind. What would you do right now with a million? Assuming you could beat the wheel or the other games in the first place.”

  “Do they use…er…real money?” asked Meadows, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Real as you like,” I assured him. “It collects in these places. I guess lots of sandeaters think they might pick up a first-class fare back to Earth.”

  “Do they?” inquired Konnel, chewing on his steak.

  The string trio, which had been tuning up, eased into a quiet song as he spoke. We listened as the question hung in the air, and I decided that the funny feeling under my belt was homesickness, all the stranger because I owned three homes not too far from the Martian equator.

  “As far as I know,” I answered, “the luck seems to run to those who can’t go back anyway, for one reason or another. The ones just waiting for a lucky night to go home rich…are still waiting.”

  The door to the back room opened, letting through a blend of talk and small mechanical noises. It also emitted a strikingly mismatched couple.

  The girl was dark-haired and graceful, though not very tall. She wore a lavender gown that showed a good deal of trim back as she turned to walk toward the musicians, and what the gown overlooked the walk demonstrated. The man was fat enough to make him seem short until he approached. His face and baldish dome were desert-reddened, and his eyebrows were faded to invisibility. Jorgensen.

  Nodding casually to various diners, he noticed the new faces at our table. He ambled over lightly for one of his bulk, and it became apparent that he was far from being blubbery. His belly stuck out, but he could probably knock the wind out of you with it.

  “Hello, Tony!” he said in a wheezy tenor. “Introducing some friends to the best hamburger joint on Mars?”

  Then he leaned on the back of Konnel’s chair and told a couple of his old prospecting yarns to make sure everybody was happy, while the girl began to sing with the trio. She had hardly enough voice to be heard over Jorgensen’s stories. I noticed Konnel straining to listen.

  Finally, Jorgensen saw it too. Leaving Howlet and Meadows grinning at a highly improbable adventure, he slapped the boy on the shoulder.

  “I see you noticed Lilac Malone, boy. Like to buy her coffee?”

  “C-coffee?” stuttered Konnel.

  “Made with water,” I reminded him. “Awful waste here. Like champagne.”

  “I’ll tell her she’s invited,” said Jorgensen, waggling a finger at her.

  “The fellows are going out in the morning,” I tried to head him off. “They don’t have much time—”

  “All the more reason to meet Lilac while they can!”

  We watched her finish her song. She had rhythm, and the lavender dress swirled cutely around her in the Martian gravity; but, of course, Lilac would never have made a singer on Earth. Her voice was more good-natured than musical.

  She arrived with the coffee, said “hello” to me, waved good-bye to Jorgensen’s back, and set out to get acquainted with the others. Catching Howlet’s wink, and suspecting that he was used to getting Konnel back to space-ships, I relaxed and offered to show Meadows the back room.

  He muttered something about his gray hairs, but came along after an amused glance at Lilac and Konnel.

  * * * *

  Jorgensen’s gambling room was different from the bar and dining room as they were from each other. Decorations were simple. Drapes of velvety synthetic, dyed the deep green that Martian colonists like, covered the walls. Indirect lighting gave a pretty gleam to the metal gadgets on the tables. Because they used a heavier ball, roulette looked about the same as on Earth, and the same went for the dice games.

  “Interesting,” Meadows murmured, feeling in his pocket.

  He pointed a thumb at the planets table. It was round, with a small, rectangular projection for the operator’s controls and calculator. In the nine differently colored circular tracks, rolled little globes representing the planets. These orbits were connected by spirals of corresponding colors, symbolic of ship orbits swooping inward or outward to other planets.

  “You pick yourself two planets,” I explained. “For better odds, pick a start and a destination. The man throws his switch and each little ball is kicked around its groove by a random number of electrical impulses.”

  “And how do I win?”

  “Say you pick Venus-to-Saturn. See that silver spiral going out from Venus and around the table to the orbit of Saturn? Well, if Venus stops within that six-inch zone where the spiral starts and if Saturn is near where it ends, you scoop in the stardust.”

  Meadows fingered his mustache as he examined the table.

  “I…ah…suppose the closer you come, the more you win, eh?”

  “That’s the theory. Most people are glad to get anything back. It’s honest enough, but the odds are terrific.”

  A couple of spacers made room for us, and I watched Meadows play for a few minutes. The operator grinned when he saw me watching. He had a lean, pale face and had been an astrogator until his heart left him in need of Martian gravity.

  “No coaching, Tony!” he kidded me.

  “Stop making me look like a partner in the place!” I answered.

  “Thought one night you were going to be.… No winners, gentlemen. Next bets!”

  * * * *

  The spheres had come to rest with Pluto near one end of a lavender spiral and Mercury touching the inner end, but no one had had the insanity to bet that way. Meadows began to play inner planet combinations that occasionally paid, though at short odds. He made a bit on some near misses, and I decided to have a drink while he lost it.

  I found Howlet, Konnel, and Lilac Malone in the bar admiring the red-bronze landscape. When he heard about Meadows, Howlet smiled.

  “If it isn’t fixed, they better prepare to abandon,” he laughed. “People look at that face and won’t believe he always collects half the ship’s pay.”

  Lilac saw a chance to do her duty, and suggested that we all go in to support Meadows. I stayed with my drink until Jorgensen drifted in to have a couple with me and talk of the old days.

  After a while, one of his helpers came up and murmured something into his big red ear. He shrugged and waved his hand.

 
The next time it happened, about twenty minutes later, I was on the point of matching him with a story about a petrified ancient Martian that the domers at Schiaparelli dug out of a dry canal. Jorgensen lowered his faded eyebrows and strode off like a bear on egg-shells, leaving me there with the unspoken punch line about what they were supposed to have dug up with the Martian.

  Well, that build-up was wasted, I thought.

  * * * *

  Quite a number of sandeaters, as time passed, seemed to drift in and out of the back room. Finally, Howlet showed up again.

  “How’d you make out?” I asked when he had a drink in his hand.

  “I left my usual deposit,” he grinned, “but you ought to see Meadows! Is he ever plugging their pipes! He ran Mercury to Pluto, and it paid off big.”

  “It ought to; no one ever makes it.”

  “He did it twice! Plus other combinations. With him making out our daily menus, I’ll never know why I’m not lucky too. Know what he’s doing?”

  I lifted an eyebrow.

  “He’s lending money to every loafer that puts the beam on him. But the guy has to show a non-transferrable ticket for passage to Earth.”

  “Darn few can,” I grunted.

  “That’s why he keeps sending them out with the price of one and the promise to stake them when they get back. I never saw such expressions!”

  At that point, Jorgensen sailed through the curtained doorway between the bar and back room. A craggy, desert look had settled on his red moon-face. He introduced me to two men with him as if someone were counting down from ten.

  “Glad to meet you and Mr. Howlet,” said the one called McNaughton.

  I recognized “Mr. V’n Uh” as Van Etten, a leading citizen of the dome who had been agitating with McNaughton and others of the Operating Committee to form a regular police department. Jorgensen seemed to have something else on his mind.

  “Howlet, how about having a word with your shipmate?”

  “What’s he done wrong?” asked Howlet blandly.

  Jorgensen scowled at a pair of baggy-seated sandeaters who strode through the front door with pale green tickets clutched in their hands. They sniffed once at the bar, but followed their stubbled chins into the back room at max acc.

  “I don’t say it’s wrong,” growled Jorgensen, glaring after the pair. “It just makes the place look bad.”

  “Oh, it’s good advertising, Jorgy,” laughed McNaughton. “People were forgetting that game could be beaten. Now, Mr. Howlet—”

  Jorgensen talked him under.

  “It’s not losing a little money that I mind—”

  Some of the drink I was sneaking slipped down the wrong way.

  “Well, it’s not!” bellowed Jorgensen. “But if they all pick up the broadcast that this is where to get a free ride home, I’ll have just another sand trap here.”

  Howlet shrugged and put down his glass. Van Etten nudged me and made a face, so I got up first.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Being the one that took him in there, I’ll check.”

  Two more men came through the front door. The big one looked like a bodyguard. The one with the dazed look carried a small metal case that could be unfolded into a portable desk. He went up to Jorgensen and asked where he could set up a temporary ticket office for Interplanet.

  While I was watching over my shoulder, three or four sandeaters coming out of the back room shoved me aside to get at him. The last I saw before leaving was Van Etten shushing Jorgensen while McNaughton grabbed Howlet by the tunic zipper for a sales talk.

  Inside, after getting through the crowd at the planets table, I could see that a number of betters were following Meadows’ plays, making it that much worse for Jorgensen. Even Konnel had a small pile before him, although he seemed to be losing some of Lilac’s attention to Meadows. While the little spheres spun in their orbits, the steward counted out money into twitching palms, wrote names on slips of paper, and placed bets. Somehow, he hit a winner every five or six bets, which kept his stack growing.

  * * * *

  I joggled Lilac’s elbow and indicated Konnel.

  “How about taking him out for a drink so an old customer can squeeze in for a few plays?” I said.

  The money-glow faded gradually from her eyes as she focused on me. She took her time deciding; but from the way she snuggled up to Konnel to whisper in his ear, it looked as if she might really be stuck on him. He winked at me.

  Such a gasp went up as we changed places that I thought my cuff must have brushed Pluto, but it was just Meadows making a long-odds hop from Earth to Uranus. The operator no longer even flinched before punching the distances and bet on his little computer, and groping in his cash drawer to pay off.

  * * * *

  I stood there a few minutes, wondering if the game could be fixed after all. Still, the man who invented it also made encoding machines for the Earth space fleet. Meadows must be having a run of blind luck—no time to interrupt.

  On my way out, Howlet caught me at the door of the bar.

  “How about some coffee?” he asked. “We’ll have to start back soon. You’ll be surprised at the time. Dining room still open?”

  “Always. Okay, let’s sober up and watch the fountain.”

  Only two or three women and a dozen men sat in the restaurant now. The part-time musicians had disappeared for a few hours of sleep before their usual jobs. We ordered a thermos pot of coffee and Howlet asked me about McNaughton.

  “I guess it was on the level,” he said when I described the man’s Committee position. “He got a boost out of how they had to patch up some troublemaker he knew, after that bar fight we had. Wanted to make me chief cop here.”

  “Some domes have regular police forces already,” I confirmed.

  “So he said. Claimed a lot of police chiefs have been elected as mayors. Then he said that someday there will be a Martian Assembly, and men with a start in dome politics will be ready for it, and so on.”

  “He’s exactly right,” I admitted. “When do you figure to start?”

  “Maybe the next time I pass through.” He winked. “If it’s still open.”

  I relaxed and grinned at him. Somehow, I liked his looks just then.

  “You shouldn’t be gone too long. It’s a good spot to put your ladder down.”

  He helped himself to more coffee and stared into his cup. I knew—the watches near the end of a hop when you wondered about the dead, oily air, when the ones off watch kept watching the astrogator’s expression, when you got the idea it was time to come in out of the dark before you made that one slip.

  How many pick their landing? I thought. How many never know how close they come to making their mistake, or being a statistic in somebody else’s?

  “Why the double trance?” asked Meadows.

  He brought with him a vague memory of departing chatter and tramping feet in the background. Howlet shoved out a chair for him.

  “Everything okay?” asked Jorgensen, bustling up. “Buy anyone a drink?”

  “What have they got there…coffee?” asked Meadows, sniffing.

  “Jimmy!” yelled Jorgensen to a waiter. “Pot of coffee for Ron! Hot!”

  He slapped Meadows’ shoulder and took his glowing red face away.

  “What makes him your buddy?” I asked Meadows.

  “In the end, I missed Mercury by ten inches and they got most of it back!”

  Then was no answer to that. He must have been half a million ahead.

  “What about the sandeaters you promised to stake?” asked Howlet, grinning like a man who has seen it happen before but still enjoys it.

  “Some of them helped me lose it,” said Meadows. “Now they will all just have to use those tickets, I suppose. Where’s Hughie and his little friend? Coffee all around and we’ll get on course, eh?”

&
nbsp; “Thought he was with you,” answered Howlet.

  “I’ll look in the bar,” I volunteered, remembering the kid had left with more of a roll than Meadows had now.

  A casual search of the bar and back room revealed both nearly empty, a natural condition just before dawn. No one had seen Konnel, apparently, so I went outside and squinted along the dim, narrow street. Four or five drunks, none tall enough to be Konnel, were slowly and softly singing their way home. The door slid open behind me and the other two came out quickly.

  “Oh, there you are! I asked around too,” said Howlet in a low voice. “Can you trust that Jorgensen? They wouldn’t let me in the office behind the back room.”

  “He’s a better sport than he looks,” I said.

  “I wonder,” murmured Meadows. “He looked queer when I was so far ahead. Or maybe one of his huskies got ideas about keeping a handy hostage.…”

  Howlet suddenly looked dangerous. I gathered that he thought something of the boy, and was heating up to the door-smashing stage.

  “Let’s check one other place,” I suggested, “before we make a mistake.”

  * * * *

  My starting off fast up the street left him the choice of coming quietly or staying to wonder. They both came. I could feel them watching me.

  I turned right into a narrow street, went along it about fifty yards, and paused where it was crossed by a still narrower alley. Hoping I remembered the way, I groped along the lefthand branch of the alley. A trace of light had begun to soften the sky over the dome, but had not yet seeped down to ground level.

  Howlet’s soft footsteps trailed me. I knocked on what seemed to be the right door. There was no answer—only to be expected. I hammered again.

  “No one aboard, it would appear,” murmured Meadows.

  It was meant as a question. I shrugged in the darkness and banged longer and louder. Finally, listening at the flimsy panel, I detected muffled footsteps.

  The door opened a crack.

  “It’s Tony Lewis, Lilac.”

  * * * *