Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol IX

by Various

  It was Sheilah.

  Wayne turned and saw her floating at the doorway pointing a long, tubular metal object at him, her finger poised on a protruding lever.

  "What's that?" Wayne asked.

  Sheilah said, "It's a gun I found after lookin' all over the damn ship. I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to kill your Cirissin friends. You're nothing but a dirty traitor, and I wouldn't seduce you if--I never did trust you scientists. Maybe I'll be killed, too, but I don't care." She was close to tears.

  "You're going to kill me?" Wayne said. "With that? How do you know it's even a gun? Looks more like a fire extinguisher to me. Aw, you poor little imbecile, I haven't had a chance to explain yet, but--"

  Sheilah said, "You make me sick." She pulled the trigger.

  The object was not a fire extinguisher, after all. It was quite obviously a weapon of some kind.

  Also it seemed obvious that Sheilah had been pointing the wrong end of the weapon toward Wayne.

  One more obvious fact that Wayne had time to comprehend was that the weapon was not a recoilless type.

  But by then Sheilah had gone limp and the gun had rebounded from her grasp and was sailing at Wayne's head.

  He ducked but not fast enough. The object whacked him solidly on top of his head.

  His brain exploded into a display of dazzling lights, excruciating pain and deafening noise.

  Then the lights went out and a long, dense silence set in.

  When Wayne fought through the layers of renewed pain and opened his eyes, he was still floating near his makeshift radio equipment in the laboratory.

  Sheilah still hung limply in mid-air near the door. The tubular weapon wavered near the ceiling. The radio transmitter was still open.

  It was just as though he'd been unconscious no more than a few minutes. But Wayne had a strong feeling that it had been more than that.

  Therefore he was only shocked, rather than stunned, when a glance at his wristwatch indicated six hours and forty minutes had elapsed.

  He held his head tightly in both hands to keep it from flying off in all directions at once, and he tried to think.

  He knew it was important to think--fast and straight.

  Six hours and forty minutes.

  That was too long to be unconscious from a simple blow on the head, and his head didn't really hurt that bad.

  Probably the weapon had still been firing whatever mysterious ammunition it used when it struck him; and when it bounced off his head it had turned, and he'd been caught in its blast.

  But that didn't matter. That wasn't the important thing.

  Six hours and forty minutes he'd been out.

  Seven hours!

  The Defense Department official he'd spoken to had told him seven hours.

  And thank God it wasn't five hours or six, as he'd been urging them to make it.

  Anyway he had only twenty minutes now. Possibly a little more, but just as likely less.

  That realization should have spurred him to instantaneous and heroic action, but instead it paralyzed him for several minutes. He couldn't think what to do. He couldn't get his muscles and nerves functioning and coordinated.

  The absence of gravity didn't help. He thrashed about futilely.

  But at last, almost by accident, his feet touched a metal support beam, and he pushed himself toward Sheilah. He grabbed her around the waist with one arm and with his free hand pulled both of them through the door.

  It seemed a long, long time before he got Sheilah to the reconnaissance ship. By then the twenty minutes were up. His life was going into overtime.

  Sheilah was conscious but still disorganized and limp, struggling weakly and ineffectually. Wayne fumbled with the door, got it open and shoved her inside.

  Then he pulled himself in and closed the door.

  They might make it yet. They still had a chance.

  He studied the control board, deciding on the proper button to push.

  From behind him Sheilah screamed, "The bomb! You've got the bomb and you're going to--Well, you're not!"

  Her body slammed against his shoulders and her arms encircled his neck. Her fingers clawed at his eyes.

  Wayne struggled, not to free himself, but only to get one hand loose, to reach the control board. When he did get a hand free, they had floated too far from the controls.

  "Stop it, you stupid bitch!" Wayne snarled. "You're going to kill us both!"

  Wayne said, "Listen, there's a guided missile from earth heading straight for this ship, and it has a hydrogen bomb warhead. It'll get here any minute now and when it--"

  His words were broken off by the tremendous roar and concussion of the hydrogen bomb.

  Wayne's last thought before oblivion swallowed him was that they wouldn't have had time to escape, anyway.

  But that wasn't the end. Wayne woke up enough to refuse to believe he was alive, and O'Reilly was somewhere near, telling him:

  "Cirissins full of grate your forts. Radio eggulant blan. Thankel normous. Rid of earth now. Blasted away. Givish good high dragon bump. Yukon gome now."

  Wayne groaned. The meaning of O'Reilly's words was trying to get through to his brain, and he was trying desperately to keep the meaning out.

  O'Reilly's voice receded into a thick gray fog. "Keep shib. Shores. Presirent felpings. Gluck."

  Metal slammed against metal. Wayne slammed against something hard. And darkness closed in once again.

  But this time it wasn't so smothering and didn't last nearly so long.

  When he opened his eyes his head was clear. He wasn't floating. He was lying on something hard--a floor surface of the Cirissin landing ship. He didn't ache anywhere.

  All in all he felt pretty good.

  For the first few seconds.

  Then he started remembering things, and he wished he hadn't bothered to wake up.

  Sheilah was standing by the control panel, her back to him. She blocked the view screen, but Wayne didn't want to see it anyway. He wasn't even curious.

  Sheilah turned, saw him, smiled broadly.

  She said, "Gee, mister, I guess you're a hero. I dunno how you done it, but you made 'em go away, and you made 'em turn us loose." Wayne could detect no mockery or bitterness in her voice.

  "Aw, shut up," he growled.

  "You still mad at me cause of what I done? Well, gee, I'm sorry. I didn't get whatcha were up to. I guess I still don't, but ... Oh, hell, let's don't fight about it. It don't matter now, does it?"

  Wayne shook his head wearily. "No," he agreed. "It doesn't matter now."

  Sheilah moved away from the control board and came toward him. In her filmy, transparent costume, she was the quintessence of womanly allure.

  Wayne gasped and stared, but not at her.

  The view screen had become visible when she'd moved.

  It showed earth.

  Or a curved, cloud-veiled slice of earth. Intact, serene and growing steadily larger.

  "What the hell! Why, I thought ..." Wayne jumped to his feet, brushed past Sheilah and peered more closely at the view plate. There was no mistaking it. Earth.

  "What's a matter with you, mister?" Sheilah asked.

  Wayne felt dizzy. O'Reilly had said, "Earth blasted away," hadn't he? And the H-bomb hadn't destroyed the Cirissin ship. Therefore ... Well, therefore what?

  In the first place what O'Reilly had actually said was, "Rid of earth now. Blasted away." It wasn't quite the same as ...

  O'Reilly had never said anything about destroying earth.

  Quite a sizeable re-evaluation project was taking place in Wayne's mind. It took several minutes for all the pieces to fall into their proper places. But once he was willing to realize that the Cirissins had known what they were doing, everything seemed obvious.

  "Oh, good Gawd!" he muttered. "What utter idiots!"

  "The Cirissins?" Sheilah asked.

  "No, I mean us. Me. Good Lord, just because O'Reilly's English wasn't perfect! What did I expect for only three
weeks? Hummm. The atomic structure of the entire ship must be uniformly charged to ... Damn! High dragon bump!"

  "I don't getcha," Sheilah said. "What's with this high dragon bump business? I thought they wanted a hydrogen bomb to destroy earth, and I thought you'd agreed to help 'em, and so I thought ..."

  "Oh, never mind," Wayne said. "I know what you thought, and you weren't any more stupid than I was. We were both wrong.

  "Look, the Cirissins must have been stalled--out of gas, sort of. Something had gone wrong with their nuclear drive units. They had some emergency fuel, but they didn't want to use it. Like having a can of kerosene in the car when the tank runs dry, I suppose. It will work, but it messes up the engine. You understand so far?"

  "Sure."

  "Okay then. They happened to be close to earth, so they went into an orbit around it and studied it for a while on radio and TV bands, and realized they might be able to get help without using their emergency fuel--uranium, incidentally, not kerosene.

  "So they grabbed us. Me, I suppose because they'd seen my TV science program. They must have gotten the idea from some stupid spy show that scientists have to be seduced into revealing information. That's why they picked up you."

  Sheilah interrupted, "But what did they want? I thought ..."

  Patiently, Wayne said, "Just what they said. A high dragon bump. A bump, not a bomb. A boost, a push. Not to blast away earth, but to blast away from earth. That's all."

  END

  * * *

  Contents

  LARSON'S LUCK

  By Gerald Vance

  Larson couldn't possibly have known what was going on in the engine room, yet he acted....

  "We moor in ten minutes," I said.

  We were flying at reduced speed because of the heavy fog we had run into at the outer fringe of Earth's atmosphere. But I knew we were within forty or fifty miles of the Trans-Space base. I had counted the miles on this particular trip because of the load of radium we were carrying from the Venusian mines. I wouldn't draw a completely relieved breath until we were down and the stuff was in the hands of the commerce agents.

  I eased my position slightly to relieve the pressure on my broken flipper and grinned at the pilot, Lucky Larson, the screwiest, most unpredictable void trotter who had ever flown for dear old Trans-Space.

  "You've been too good to be true this trip," I said, "and it's a good thing. The chief told me that if you so much as thought about clowning around or stunting he was going to clip your wings for good."

  Lucky grinned, an impish, devil-may-care grin that lightened up his freckled face and bunched the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Then with characteristic abruptness he scowled.

  "That grandmother," he said disgustedly. "Who does he think I am, anyway? Some crazy irresponsible madman who hasn't got enough brains to stay on a space beam?"

  "That's just what he does think," I grinned, "and you've given him plenty of reason to think it. You can't bring your crate in to the base without stunting around and showing off and risking your damn neck. That's why he sent me along with you this trip. Just to see that you act like a pilot--instead of circus acrobat."

  "A lot of good you'd do," Lucky mumbled. "You got a broken arm. The only reason he sent you is because he didn't want to pay you while you was in the hospital so he cooks up this trip to get his money out of you. And say," he turned to me belligerently, "when did I ever crack up a ship? When did I ever even dent one of the babies?"

  "You haven't," I was forced to admit, "but that's just because of that screwy luck of yours. But it won't last forever and one of these days it's going to run out just when you need it. So just remember--no stunting this trip or you'll be out of the strata for the rest of your natural life."

  "Aw, that's the trouble with this racket," Lucky grumbled, "a guy can't have no fun no more. Back when I was with the Space circus--"

  "Okay, okay," I cut in, "I've heard that before. Just fly your ship, now, and forget about the deep dark plot of the company to take all the joy out of your life. I'm going to take a look-see at the atomic floats and get the passengers bundled together."

  I stood up and crawled over him and opened the door leading to the body of the ship. I could still hear him grumbling as I slid the light chrome-alloy door shut. I chuckled to myself and headed up the aisle to the baggage compartments. Lucky Larson was a legend as space pilots go. An unpredictable, erratic screwball but one of the finest rocket riders who ever flashed through the void.

  Company regulations and interplanetary commissions were the bane of his existence. He made his own rules and regulations and got by with it. That is he had gotten by with it. Now they were cracking down on him. He had been grounded twice and the chief had threatened to set him down for life if any more infractions were charged to him. I shook my head gloomily. He was a great guy, the last of a great and gallant army of space adventurers, but he was on the way out. The rules were necessary, vital to safe space travel and the Lucky Larsons would have to live up to them, or else.

  * * * * *

  My mind was a long way away from the cabin of the space ship and maybe that's why I got what I did. I didn't see it coming. One minute I was walking through the aisle, thinking about Lucky Larson and the next second something slammed into the back of my head knocking me to my knees.

  Through a haze of red and white lights I heard a voice bark, "Toss him into a chair and grab that good arm of his."

  I wasn't out. Just damn sick. Something like a cold hand seemed to have closed over my stomach and for an awful moment I gagged and tried to retch. But the moment passed and I forced open my eyes and focused them on two tough-looking, hard-eyed gents who stood in front of me. Another unpleasant-looking little man knelt along side of me, twisting my good arm behind my back.

  "Okay," I gritted, "what's the gag?"

  The tallest of the three, evidently their leader, smiled at me. "It's no gag," he murmured calmly, "we happen to need the radium you're carrying. We're going to take it. Any objections?"

  "You'll never get away with this," I snapped, "your names and descriptions are registered with the passenger office. You'll be tracked down in twenty-four hours."

  I was bluffing, of course, and I knew from their contemptuous smiles that they knew it, too. They probably had given fictitious names, and the descriptive information which the bureau required consisted of a few generalities, such as height, weight and the like. I cursed myself for a stupid, careless fool. The three men had been the only passengers from Venus and they had kept to themselves the entire trip. Once or twice I had wondered at their reticence and quietness but I had not been suspicious enough to make a check-up.

  One of the men laughed shortly. "Let us worry about that. We've covered every angle that could possibly come up. With the help of your friend up front, this ship will be flown to a certain deserted asteroid where a few friends of ours are to meet us with another ship. How you come out afterward will depend on how you co-operate now. Clear enough?"

  It was clear enough all right. Lucky and I wouldn't last long after we served our purpose.

  The tall man turned from me and nodded significantly to the man standing next to him and then pointed to the closed door to the pilot's chambers.

  "Take care of the pilot," he murmured, "and tell him if he isn't obliging we'll take the cast off his friend's arm and--" he smiled at me, "massage it a bit."

  I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead.

  The thug grinned wolfishly at me and then winked at his leader. "I'll tell him, boss." He dug his hand into his pocket and drew out a stubby atomic pistol. "If he won't listen to me maybe this'll persuade him."

  Still grinning he turned and headed up the aisle, the gun clenched in his huge fist.

  * * * * *

  I glanced at the tall figure standing in front of me and saw that he was watching the retreating figure of his henchman with a saturnine smile on his face. I thought swiftly. If I could yell a warning to Lucky, he cou
ld bolt the door of the pilot's chamber and then set the ship down at the Trans-Space base. It was the only way to save Lucky and the radium. I wasn't very optimistic about my own chances. I knew they were zero.

  I opened my mouth, took a deep breath and then, before I could scream the words that would warn Lucky, it happened. The ship shuddered for an instant and then zoomed upward, the smooth hum of the rocket motors crescendoing to a roaring song of power and speed.

  The sudden jolting acceleration hurled me to the tail of the ship and I saw, like an image in a kaleidoscope, the tangled thrashing figures of the space bandits as they were tossed to the floor, a dazedly struggling mass of arms and legs.

  The ship was lying over on its back in a few seconds, and before I could catch a breath it suddenly whipped over and blasted toward Earth in a screeching, hissing power-dive.

  It was terrific punishment even for this type of space crate but it was worse for human beings. The three bandits were clutching at their stomachs as if they were afraid of losing them. Their faces were mottled and blotchy and their eyes were rolling beseechingly.

  I didn't mind the erratic convolutions the ship was making but my arm was burning as if it were on fire. Numbing waves of pain were coursing up and down my entire body.

  I tried to crawl to my knees but the floor rolled under me as the ship whipped over in a twisting spiral and I crashed forward on my face. Then everything dissolved into inky blackness....

  * * * * *

  When I came to, I heard a great commotion, then a sudden shot and then a babble of voices booming around me. I remember thinking fleetingly of crooks, Lucky Larson and a mountain of radium and then--because nothing made sense--I passed out again.

  * * * * *

  The next time I opened my eyes I found myself stretched out on a cot in the chief's office. I turned my head slightly and saw Lucky Larson, the chief and a half dozen other guys staring down at me.

  "It's not very original," I said, "but where the hell am I?" That was silly of me because I knew where I was, so I said: "Never mind that but please tell me what the hell happened?"