Iron Head: Science Fiction Mystery Tales

by E. C. Tubb

  My eyes bulged as I saw the amount passed across the table.

  It took me a while to discover that the balls of fluff were alive. It took me a little while longer to guess what the old man was doing. It took me no time at all to decide that this was one racket I just had to get into. I waited until he had a slack period and then smiled down at him.

  “Busy?”

  “Always busy on market days.” Automatically he thrust his last take into his pocket. He had trouble getting the notes in, his pocket was so full. I forced myself to look away from that wonderful sight.

  “I’ve been looking around,” I said. “You don’t seem to have any competition.”

  “Nope.” He grinned and showed me his new dentures. “Took me twenty years to learn how to sex a Gru. Reckon it’s about time those years began to pay off.” He slapped his pocket and grinned again.

  I nodded. At a hundred credits a time the old crow was making it hand over fist. I hung around for a while longer and did my best to get him interested in a partner, but Abe (that was his name) didn’t want to know. I used all the arguments, too, told him that he deserved a rest; that he could work faster if he had someone to collect the money, even hinted that a strong combination might be able to jack the price but all he did was to sit there and grin and shake his head.

  But I wouldn’t admit defeat.

  Not with a gold-mine at my fingertips, and my knowledge of human psychology. And it wasn’t going to take me twenty years of training, either.

  First I bought a length of thin, nylon string and cut it into sections about a foot long. Then I purchased the entire stock of lucky charms from the phoney Indian. I could have used anything, but they were the right size, the right shape, and looked a lot better than they actually were. Also—and this was important—they were slightly radioactive. Nothing in that, of course, everything ferried by rocket gets that way, but a lot of people don’t know that, and they still think that anything which can make a Geiger click is something special.

  Next market day—they had one a week—found me all ready to do business.

  I set up a small table and on it I placed a cardboard box full of my stock-in-trade. I didn’t shout, or yell, or do anything to attract custom. Instead, I merely sat down and, resting my elbow on the table, held one end of a piece of nylon string. At the other I’d fastened one of the charms and I just sat there, letting it hang at the end of its string.

  Naturally, I attracted a crowd.

  1 say naturally because I’d sized up the populace and knew just what not to do. Shouting and noise would have frightened them off, but they were attracted by the spectacle of a man sitting alone playing with a piece of string with a weight on one end.

  Recognise it?

  That’s right. The oldest parlour game there is. The old sex-indicator. Years ago they used to play it with cotton and a wedding ring but neither is essential, and my product looked much better than any such crudity. Basically it is simple. You suspend the weight over a male or female and it will either swing in a line or make a circle according to the sex of the subject. What really happens, of course, is that the operator controls the movement by thinking hard on line or circle. Involuntary muscular reaction does the rest.

  I looked up at the bearded faces surrounding me and went into my demonstration.

  I spoke slowly, quietly, almost with a sob in my voice, and sincerity oozed out of every pore. I was sincere, too. Another two weeks and I’d be searching the garbage cans for my next meal.

  “Gentlemen,” I said. “Allow me to introduce you to the latest marvel of modern sci-ence. Suspended from this special cord I have what is probably the smallest and most efficient engine yet devised. Powered by the atom and capable of assessing the different radiation emitted by the male and female organism, it will register without fail the sex of any living creature over which it is suspended.” I broke off the patter and gave them a dem. I held it over my hand, thought hard of a line, and, sure enough, the little charm began swinging pendulum-wise over my hand.

  The crowd hunched closer.

  I gave them some more talk. I stressed the radioactivity and offered to let them test it. I demonstrated on a couple of kittens I’d borrowed from the hotel, I could tell the sex of those, and then I called for a volunteer to make his own test.

  They fidgeted, shuffled, then a burly man with arms as thick as trees stepped forward.

  “Take one end of the thread, sir,” I instructed. “Firmly but lightly, that’s it. Now, sir, remember. A line for a male and a circle for a female. Now, what do you wish to test?”

  Grus, naturally. I’d known that from the first moment, but I’d been very careful not to mention that at all. I’d asked about the Grus and everyone assured me that it was impossible to tell their sex in less than two months from hatching. Then something triggered their glands and they betrayed full sexual characteristics. Only an expert like old prune-face could tell male from female earlier than that.

  I waited while the farmer made his test.

  He carried the usual crate and he dived into it and produced a ball of fluff. He suspended the indicator over it and everyone held their breath until the little weight began to move in a widening circle. Female! The sound of their exhalation was music to my ears.

  He tried again with the same result. A third try produced a male, a fourth female, a fifth male again. He straightened with a pleased grin.

  “It works! By cracky, it works just like he said!”

  Of course it worked. The character already knew the sex of his Grus and so, un-consciously, he had directed the swinging of the pendulum. I got in quick while they were still impressed.

  My price was one hundred credits and I’d given it a lot of thought. One hundred credits was the price old Abe charged to sex each Gru. If they paid that for my indicator they could sex as many Grus as they wanted to and would save thousands. They thought that, too, and I was kept busy passing out the indicators and pocketing the cash. As they had cost me about two credits each, counting expenses, I felt that I was doing all right.

  I was, too.

  I couldn’t sell them fast enough. I ran out of charms and had to sit up half the night making more. In between making and selling the indicators I was kept full-time counting my money and changing it into larger bills. I hate a lot of bulk when I’m travelling. In my spare time I had some fun going out of my way to meet old Abe and grinning at him. I did this for a reason. Not because I wanted to crow over him but because I was hoping that he’d offer to buy me out. Sooner or later I was going to saturate the market and, when every farmer and his dog had a couple of the indicators, my business would be finished. I wanted to sell out before that happened but, to my surprise, old Abe didn’t seem upset at all. He just grinned straight back at me as though someone had told him the joke of the century.

  I found out why about two months after I’d first started business.

  A man staggered into the market place and everyone turned to look at him. He was worth looking at. His clothes were almost ripped from his back, he was covered with scratches and bruises and he carried a gun.

  “Where is he?” he shrieked. “Where is that no-good son of a...”

  I didn’t hear the rest. Something—it may have been the way he clutched an indicator in his other hand—told me that he was referring to me. I didn’t know why he was so upset but I wasn’t going to stay to find out. Not from a semi-lunatic with a gun and the obvious desire to use it.

  Abe met me just as I was about to enter the hotel.

  “I’ve got your stuff,” he said curtly. “Quick, come with me.”

  I didn’t argue. Behind me the howling of a mob was beginning to vibrate the aluminium walls of the buildings and I followed the old man as if my life depended on it.

  He led me to a shack at the edge of the spaceport and hid me under a clutter of boxes and containers. I crouched there while the mob went howling through the settlement and up to the spaceport. They even entered the sha
ck and I heard one of them talking to Abe.

  “We’re going to lynch him,” the man gritted. “We’re going to string him up and leave him to kick. Sam’s in hospital with three broken ribs and Fred had his nose torn off. Mrs. Edwards got clawed something awful and most of the boys were lucky to escape with their lives. I tell you Abe, we’re going to get him for this.”

  “Bad, eh?” Abe made sympathetic noises while I tried to hold my breath and stop my heart beating. The man wasn’t joking. He said something, swore, and became coherent.

  “We’re watching the space port and there’s no other way he can leave the planet. When I think of the damage he’s done...” He swore again. “Two years’ work ruined! The fences down and the flocks running wild. Damn it, Abe! Why did it have to happen?”

  “Well,” said Abe thoughtfully. “I don’t reckon to add to your misery, but if you’d have stuck to me...”

  “So we made a mistake,” said the man bitterly. He sounded as though he were almost crying with rage. “We won’t make another one. Just wait until we get our hands on that slicker. Just let him wait!”

  I stayed where I was for a long time after he’d gone, and when I finally crawled out from under the boxes I was duly grateful.

  Abe waved my thanks aside and stared at me. “I guess you know what happened, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said, and I meant it. “Why they should blame me I can’t imagine. How can I help it if their flocks run wild?”

  “You sexed ’em,” he reminded. “You or that gadget of yours, which is the same thing.” He stared harder at me. “Don’t you know about Grus?”

  I didn’t and he told me. It seems that the female is calm, placid, docile, and a heavy layer of the valuable eggs. Not so the male. The cock is filled with hate and fury and, when the glandular reaction triggers off, he grows a comb overnight, spurs in half that time, and sets out to make himself master of as many hens as he can. Two cocks in a compound act like crazy. Three or more can rip down the fences and attack anything which gets in their way.

  They grow big, too, three feet high, and the miraculous thing about the entire episode was that no one had got killed.

  No one yet, that is. They had slated me for that pleasure.

  I shivered as I thought about it, and when I thanked Abe again I was sincere. So sincere that I offered, him a thousand credits for his trouble, if he would hide me until the rocket landed and I could sneak aboard.

  The shock came when he refused to take it.

  “Go on,” I urged. “Take it. It’ll leave me pretty flat, but what the hell? My neck’s worth that much to me.”

  “That’s what I reckoned,” he said, and something about the way he said it made me thrust the money back into my pocket and thrust out my empty hand instead.

  “Abe,” I said. “You are a gentleman. Not many men would have saved me as you have done without thought of reward. Allow me to shake you by the hand.” He ignored my gesture.

  “I’ve lost a lot of money because of you,” he said pointedly. “If I’m caught hiding you they’ll skin me for sure.” He made a hateful gesture with his thumb and forefinger. “I reckon a man in your position would be willing to pay high for safe lodging.”

  And there it was.

  Greed again. The horrible money-grabbing complex which affects everyone I know. I pleaded with the man and appealed to his humanity, but I was wasting my time. He even made me strip and almost found the folded bill I managed to hide in my mouth.

  I doubt if anyone has ever paid so dearly for three days crummy lodging beneath a pile of boxes and the dubious pleasure of being smuggled aboard a spaceship disguised as a box of Gru eggs.

  One thing I’m certain about. I’m never going back to Venus again.

  It’s too primitive.

  CHAPTER 6

  ASTEROIDS

  Don’t ever talk to me about the Asteroids. You know the things I mean, all those little pieces of rock circling the Sun in a rough orbit beyond Mars. Some of them are pretty big, and a few, like Ceres and Eros, even have domes fitted and repair yards for the rocket scooters the miners use to travel about on. But most of them are very small, a few hundred tons of stone and minerals, jagged and splintered, and to all intents and purposes, quite useless.

  Well, almost. Some of them have veins of minerals, and a few are really worth-while because of the radioactives buried in them, but the majority ate about as valuable as a bucket of sand on Mars, which is worth just a little less than a block of ice at the Arctic. They are so plentiful and valueless that no one owns them, and no one bothers about them until someone has landed and set up a radio marker. Then they can claim the rock as their property and file a claim in the regular way but, until that happens, the Asteroids are anyone’s property.

  Which is why I was selling them at Shyller, the second largest city on Mars.

  I didn’t want to sell them— real estate isn’t really my line—but I’d met the owner of the joint and he’d pitched me a hard-luck story which almost touched my heart.

  “It’s my little girl, Dusty,” he said, and took time out to dab his eyes. “I’m all she’s got left, and you know how it is.”

  I didn’t, but I was looking for a pitch and, as things were, the Asteroid selling racket seemed as good as any. I looked sympathetic and mentally cut his asking price down by at least a half.

  “Mr. Dribble,’ he said, when I mentioned what I thought was a fair figure, “you are a hard man, sir.”

  “Mr. Skelton,” I said. “You’ve heard my price. Take it or leave it and, just to remind you, I can open an office right next door and undercut you like hell.”

  “You need a licence to operate,” he said, and looked hard at me. “You buy registered claims and sell them for what you can get. I trust that you understand that?”

  “You don’t have to teach me business ethics,” I snapped. “I am an honest man and intend remaining that way. Well? Yes or no?”

  “Yes,” he said. “For your price in cash and for a quick sale. Here are the assets.”

  The assets comprised a half dozen assorted claims, not one of them worth the paper they were printed on. The only other thing was a framed certificate of a claim made way back, and I stopped the old man as he was taking it down from the wall.

  “Leave it, it’s mine.”

  “Not this one,” he said. “This is a genuine claim. I made it myself. A good, big Asteroid, loaded with high-grade radioactives. It’s worth a lot more than you’re offering for the rest of the business.”

  “Leave it,” I repeated, and riffled a sheaf of credit notes. “Leave it, or it’s no deal.”

  He left it. Maybe his little girl had something to do with it, or maybe it was the sound of money, I wouldn’t know. But I happened to bump into him shortly after, and it turned out that his ‘little girl’ was about twenty-five and would have weighed around ten stone on Earth. She was in proportion and carried herself well, and I learned afterwards that she’d worked at a local burlesque as a stripper. Still, compared to the old man, I suppose she could be classed as a ‘little girl’. Young girl, anyway.

  The business mine, I made some drastic alterations. I altered the sign; it was one of those small, discreet things, invisible; from a couple of hundred yards away. I paid out half of what I had left and got a sign painter to do me one guaranteed visible for at least a mile. Then I installed a continuous player, fitted to external speakers, and plastered the walls with facsimilies of genuine claims. I also found a printer who would run me off some forms which looked as near to the real thing as he could get away with, and still stay inside the law. I bought a big map of the Asteroid belt, a boxful of coloured pins, a geiger counter, which I fixed so that it registered ten times higher than it should have done, and I was all set to clean up.

  At first business was slow. People kept bothering me with claims which they wanted to sell, and became annoyed when I gave them the cold shoulder. I wasn’t interested in buying claims; I wanted to sell Aste
roids, the more the better, and I wanted to start selling them fast.

  I made my first touch to a youngster who should have had more sense.

  He came into the office and stared with awe at the photostat-plastered walls. I busied myself with scribbling notes on a pad, then when I figured that he’d seen enough to make him eager, looked up with a polite, half-bored expression.

  There was a good reason for that expression. Selling, no matter what, depends a lot on psychology. In the market place, or its modern equivalent, the Exhibitions, I always wore a cheerful smile, as if I was so pleased at handling the product that I couldn’t contain myself. I also used a lot of patter designed solely to make the pitch forget what I was saying and to fill out time for purposes of the demonstration. But here, in a sleek office, redolent of easy money and success, I could afford to be bored and offhand. Correction, I couldn’t afford not to be. Try and shove a thing like an Asteroid down a customer’s throat and he will gag immediately. The trick in selling something like that is to make them want you to sell. Once you can do that the rest comes easy.

  “Yes?” I pitched my voice just right and used my best English. “Can I help you?”

  “I…” He swallowed and sat down in the customer’s chair. “I’m looking for a good Asteroid, one with plenty of mineral and radioactives; you know the sort of thing I mean.”

  I did, indeed. He only wanted what half the Universe was looking for; the other half was looking for those who had already found it, but I nodded as though his request was perfectly reasonable.

  “Such an Asteroid will come expensive,” I warned. “A claim of such nature is obviously more valuable than an uncharted rock.” We dealers in Asteroids called them ‘rocks’ and the charted ones ‘claims’. I was careful not to get the terms mixed up. I was also careful to switch on the recorder beneath my desk so as to have later evidence if he should ever complain.

  “I realise that,” he said, and so help me if he didn’t blush. “I should explain that I want to strike it rich pretty soon because I want to get married. You can see how it is.”