Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “No. It has been returned to the Vitesse fleet. Why?”

  “Is there any other way we can get out of here?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Yes,” Duernie said. “I have my own flivver here.”

  Kernel knew from his pilot training at the academy that a flivver was a Mercurian land vehicle. “Can we get away from here in it?”

  “Yes, I think so. But it won’t be easy.”

  “Let’s give it a try,” Kemal said, getting up to go.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked, laying a hand on his arm to stop him.

  “You said yourself I ought to see the Dancers’ life before selling out their liberties.” Duernie nodded, and they made their way from the lounge.

  12

  The flivver was parked in one of the storage sheds on Vitesse’s lowest level. It was about thirty meters long by twenty wide, and it sat on high, fat, balloon tires. The two-person driver’s cab was topped by a bulbous plastic dome that gave 360-degree visibility. No streamlining was required on Mercury’s airless surface. The vehicle slightly resembled pictures Kemal had seen in military classes of the ironclad Monitor, the “cheesebox on a raft” that had spelled the end to the age of sail during Earth’s American Civil War.

  Duernie put her wrist to the door panel, which read her body signature and opened. She and Kemal got into the cab. The instrument panel wrapped around the sides of the cab and was completely covered with dials, gauges, switches, and readout devices. The instruments glowed with a pale, nonradioactive luminescence. The back of the vehicle was equipped with living quarters. Duernie found two pressure suits and gave one to Kemal. They suited up, leaving their helmets open, and breathed the slightly chemical-smelling air from the flivver’s air supplies.

  “What do you want me to do?” Kemal asked, unconsciously whispering.

  “Can you operate a stennis gun?”

  “No problem.”

  She tapped the gun’s controls with one finger. “I don’t think we want anyone to stop us.”

  “No.”

  Kemal checked out the gun and its range finder system, while Duernie fired up the flivver’s huge engine. It coughed softly into life, hesitated for a few moments, then settled into a regular rhythm.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to take you to Eben Mulhouse, leader of the Dancers. He can explain our position better than anyone.”

  “Let’s go,” Kemal said.

  Duernie engaged the drive gears and turned on the headlights and running lights. The flivver crept slowly down the storage facility’s middle aisle.

  13

  They got out of the storage facility and down a kilometer-long corridor to the main concourse. Then Duernie was able to turn off and take a branch that led to the city’s outskirts. They were at the periphery, where the spur access road connected through a gasketed exit port in the bare rock of Maccabbee Cavern, before they were challenged at a police checkpoint. The flivver was many times larger than the largest vehicle normally used within Vitesse. A police sergeant called for them to stop.

  “Orders from Holton Zac,” Duernie told him. “I am to take the Gavilan prince to a rendezvous with his people.”

  “I have received no such instructions.”

  “Check with your superiors. The order was cut less than an hour ago.”

  “Park until I can give you clearance.”

  “Like hell,” Duernie said. “I’m under orders to proceed. If you want me, you won’t have any trouble finding me.”

  She kept on going. The police sergeant didn’t like it, but he didn’t have orders to fire at them. They left him frantically stabbing his telephone console, trying to find instructions.

  Once outside the city, the flivver quickly traversed t he tunnels and came to the rocky plain that sloped upward to the entrance of the Maccabbee Caverns, and Duernie was able to increase speed. Far ahead of them Kemal could make out a line of brilliant sun-light. Duernie told him it marked the entrance to the Maccabbee Caverns. The radio crackled, and a loud, officious-sounding voice ordered them to stop. At the same time, Kemal could see, in the rearview mirrors, the running lights of three police vehicles in pursuit.

  Duernie radioed to them, “I’m under official orders to take the Gavilan prince to his people.”

  “Like hell you are,” came Holton Zac’s voice on the radio. “I give the orders here. You are to stop at once and return to Vitesse.”

  Duernie said, “The Dancers are not yours to command.”

  “But they are,” Zac replied. “We have come to an agreement with Kallag and Mercury Prime.”

  “But not with the Dancers!”

  “Duernie!” Zac said. “Don’t be foolish. You are taking the prince away from his own people. There will be severe punishment! It will go hard with the Dancers if you don’t return him at once.”

  Kemal took the microphone. “This is Kemal Gavilan. I have decided to make a tour of Dancer civilization. Stop hindering me. Tell my uncle that I need to see the people whose rights I am to dispose of.”

  Duernie looked at him, alarmed. “You would still give away our rights?”

  Kemal put his hand over the microphone. “I had to tell them something. Now, get going.”

  She nodded, but the expression in her pale eyes was less than trusting. Checking the rearviews, she could see the pursuing vehicles gaining on them.

  14

  Minutes later, the flivver and its pursuers came out of the cavern’s gloom and into the brilliance of the planet’s bright side. The dazzling landscape of Mercury lay ahead.

  The cavern debouched onto a wide, flat plain. It was like an enormous lunar crater, and scattered randomly across it were boulders and rock fragments, ranging from gravel to steep-sided bronze-colored behemoths the height of buildings.

  Kemal saw at once that Duernie was running an obstacle course in which she dodged around some rocks and rode over others. It required great judgment to be able, in an instant, to decide at fifty kilometers an hour what rock formations the flivver could handle and what formations would overturn it. Kemal faced backward, ready with the stennis gun. Seven Vitessan vehicles, lined abreast in a hundred-meter band behind the flivver, still gained. Kemal fought with the gun, trying to bring its range finders to train on the wildly turning vehicles. Then two of I lie pursuers were gone by their own bad luck, one smashing into a whale-sized escarpment, the other riding onto a rising ridge of rock that capsized it.

  The five remaining vehicles began firing. Kemal assumed that their optical sights were set for intra-cavern warfare, because the shots whirled harmlessly away. A harpooner missile was a more serious problem, though. It arced into the sky behind the flivver and locked onto its heat signature.

  There was no way to shake it.

  “Hold this thing steady!” Kemal shouted. Duernie reduced speed and straightened course. Kemal was able to sight and get off two quick shots, both of which went wide. The missile grew behind him. Kemal then remembered that he hadn’t allowed for refraction, made the calculation in his head, and fired again. He scored a direct hit, blowing away the missile’s nose cone.

  Another pursuer broke through a salt crust and plunged twenty meters down. The Vitessan pursuers, cave dwellers, were now learning the hazards of surface travel the hard way. There were four left.

  In the heat of battle, Kemal had ignored how hot the flivver’s cabin had become. He was barely able to breathe. Then he realized that Duernie was shouting at him, her words muffled by the roar of the flivver’s engine. He understood, however: Button up your faceplate and go to full refrigeration and rich oxygen. He clapped his faceplate into place, and Duernie did likewise. Peering ahead, over her shoulder, Kemal could make out a dark line cutting at an angle across the horizon. They were racing for the terminator!

  There were a few moments’ relief as the refrigerated air pumped through his armor’s circulation system. But it began heating up almos
t immediately. Faint wisps of smoke floated up from the suit’s motors, and insulation started to burn.

  Then they were across the line into the terminator’s dim twilight and moderate temperatures. Duernie turned to the right so as not to run out of the temperate zone, which was no more than a dozen or so kilometers wide at that point. The pursuers filed behind each other as Duernie completed her turn. The lead vehicle was fast, a low-slung scout vehicle with a bazooka mounted on the front.

  Kemal could no longer fire the stennis. The intense heat had shorted out the gun’s sighting mechanism. The scout vehicle came racing up on the flivver’s left. In a tanker’s gesture he’d learned in school, Kemal slapped Duernie’s left shoulder. She saw the scout moving beside her and turned left into the vehicle’s path. It turned away from her and encountered a long ridge that lifted its right wheels into the air.

  Kemal slapped again. Duernie turned again and managed to nudge the scout over onto its side.

  They had an increasing lead over the remaining three vehicles. Duernie drove her flivver hard, flying with four fat wheels in the air over a ridge, came down the other side—and skidded to a stop.

  There, in a line across their path, were five armored ground cars painted in the yellow, black, and gold of the House of Gavilan.

  Behind those was a low, domelike building with more vehicles parked behind it.

  The cars from Vitesse drove over the ridge and stopped.

  The flivver was caught between the armor of Vitesse and that of Mercury Prime. Low but unclimbable cliffs blocked the sides.

  “What now?” Duernie asked.

  “I think it’s time I had a talk with them,” Kemal said.

  15

  He entered the domed structure, followed by Duernie. The interior was like a field camp. Gordon Gavilan sat in the only comfortable chair. Dalton, on a stool beside him and dressed in full battle armor, smirked unpleasantly. Armed guards stood behind them, weapons at the ready.

  “Welcome, Nephew,” Gordon said, once more jovial. “How nice of you to drop by our little outpost. Guards! Stools for my nephew and his driver.”

  Kemal mentally kicked himself for allowing the Vitessan pursuers to corral the flivver into what might possibly be “a slaughterhouse.” He accepted a stool and sat. Duernie remained standing by the door.

  “You neglected to tell me, Uncle,” Kemal said boldly, “that I was the hereditary representative of the Dancers.”

  “My boy, I had my reasons. And remember, I paid in advance.”

  “What is he talking about?” Duernie asked.

  “He said he’d release my father’s inheritance to me as soon as I signed the treaty. There was no time to tell you,” Kemal told her.

  “Exactly my situation,” Gordon said. “Real politics, my boy, is the art of the expedient. Your father never understood that. He was an idealist. I loved him, Kemal, and I was desolate at his death, but he was not practical. And to rule, you must be practical. I tried to remedy that in you. I sent you to the John Carter Military School to give you an education and to instill in you the discipline that Ossip never had.”

  “We weren’t taught at John Carter to sign away people’s rights!”

  “Weren’t you told to obey the orders of your superior officers?”

  “Of course, but you—”

  “I am the head of a ruling family. You are my brother’s son. I support you and educate you and take you into our inner councils. How can a ruling family operate, except by obedience to the orders of its head?”

  “If they are lawful orders!”

  “And what is unlawful about demanding your signature on my treaty? Unless, of course, I am not the head of the family. Are you the head, Kemal?”

  “Of course not,” Kemal said. “Nor do I care to be.”

  “That’s nice.” Gordon’s grin showed he would not have accepted any other answer. “Then I am head of the family. Just as I had suspected. Eh, Dalton?”

  “That’s what I suspected, too,” Dalton said, with his own unpleasant smirk.

  “Kemal,” Gordon said, “I know that it is a little difficult for you. The woman would be quite attractive if she could stop scowling. No doubt you had good dalliance with her. Or wish you had, eh? Never mind. Let me assuage your conscience about the Dancers and their spurious claims. They are a disorganized scum that came to Mercury from many worlds to work in the mines of Kallag. They began to develop self-sufficiency upon the planet and thought that gave them the right to call themselves free. But all they are is a weak mob that, by luck, struck it rich along the terminator. They have no fixed abodes and no property except their vehicles. They have no territory, since the surface of Mercury is the property of us all.”

  “Yes,” Kemal said. “But they actually live on the surface.”

  “That is an unimportant detail. Kemal, you can see it our way, can’t you?”

  “The only thing I can see,” Kemal said, “is that I am their representative, and you need my signature on that treaty.”

  “A formality, nothing more,” Gordon said.

  “Oh, then it would make no difference if I didn’t sign it?” Kemal asked, calling his uncle’s bluff.

  Gordon looked suddenly cross. “It would make a great deal of difference. The Dancers have had the gall to petition the Free Corps and other organizations such as NEO, Earth’s motley group of terrorists, for pity’s sake. If their hereditary representative does not sign, there could be questions, perhaps even outside interference. We don’t want that here. I’ll have my own way in any event, but I prefer to take the easier way. As a Gavilan, you can understand that, can’t you, Kemal?”

  “Perfectly,” said the prince.

  “Good fellow!” Gordon turned to his son. “Dalton, give me the treaty.”

  “I have it right here,” Dalton said, taking a folded plastic envelope, identical to the one Kemal had brought to Vitesse, out of his pouch.

  “What about Kallag’s representative?” Dalton asked. “He has to sign, too, I believe. Might that be him arriving now?”

  Gordon also heard the heavy rumble of approaching vehicles. “I expect it is. Sign for us now, Kemal, and let’s get our part over with. Then we’ll get the Kallag signature and be on our way back to Mercury Prime, a hot shower, and a decent meal.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Kemal dourly.

  “Glad you see it our way, Nephew,” said Gordon, confident in the day’s outcome. “Your father’s estate comes to a considerable sum. It is yours immediately upon our return. You have my word on it, the word of a Sun King of Mercury. Here, use my stylus.”

  “There’s just one thing,” Kemal said.

  “What’s that, dear boy?”

  “If I sign that thing, how the hell do you expect to get out of here alive?”

  Gordon’s face fell as he looked at Kemal, then he went to the window. Outside he could see the vehicles from Vitesse, drawn up in a ring. Behind them, forming a greater ring, with guns trained, was a large collection of vehicles. They were worn but well-working machines, all different sizes and shapes. They had in common, however, the fact that they were all armed and looked exceedingly dangerous.

  “How did you know it was the Dancers?” Gordon asked.

  “I inferred it from the sound of the engines. They’re much smoother than Vitessan vehicles. The Dancers have more at stake in their vehicles’ upkeep, and they seem very good at it. You have to give them that.”

  “My fleet will be here shortly and will bomb that mob out of existence.”

  “I doubt that,” Kemal said, “as long as you are in the middle of the bombing zone.”

  Gordon grunted. “True enough. So what do you propose?”

  “Duernie,” Kemal said, “is the flivver ready?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Then let’s go. Kill anyone who tries to stop us. You have a weapon handy, I assume?”

  “Always.”

  He saw that she had a small but efficient-looking laser pi
stol in her hand. He backed to the door, and Duernie followed him, watching Gordon and his guards.

  “Kemal,” Gordon said, “don’t be stupid about this. Mercury is a cooperative venture. We can’t let these people hog all the wealth from the surface.”

  “You and the arcologies have wealth enough,” Kemal said. “Let the Dancers keep what they risked their lives to get. Good-bye, Uncle.”

  “This isn’t the end of it, Kemal.”

  “I suppose not,” he said, knowing that he’d have to watch his back for the rest of his—or Gordon’s—life.

  Kemal went out the door and slammed it shut behind him. He and Duernie got into the flivver. Soon they were well past the perimeter, with the open plains of Mercury ahead of them.

  “You are going to live with us?” Duernie asked.

  Kemal nodded. “For a while, at least. But I’ll need a vehicle.”

  “There are several spares that Amos Herder keeps,” Duernie told him. “I suppose you could buy one. Or perhaps he would give you one for your service to the Dancers.” She hesitated. “Or you could save yourself the expense and ride with me.”

  Kemal looked at her. She wasn’t exactly smiling, but she definitely wasn’t frowning.

  Epilogue

  Kemal Gavilan stayed with the Dancers for several Earth years, leading them to develop a strong internal political council, and renewing the optimism and unity they had enjoyed during his father’s reign.

  His economic and social strategy included strengthening ties with other oppressed political and ethnic groups. Although he loved the Dancers—they were the first “family” he had ever known, and he wanted more than anything to help them maintain their growth—he was not truly one of them. His personal goal had always been to participate in some global cause, one that would benefit the Dancers and all of the solar system’s inhabitants.

  It was natural then, with his aspirations, political connections, and innate piloting abilities developed during his time with the Dancers, that he would one day meet his counterpart in the New Earth Organization, a fiery redhead named Wilma Deering. Soon after, NEO had its newest recruit.