Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol IX

by Various

"Not yet, Nagor," he said. "Her boy friend knows. I'll find out. I'll make her listen to him."

  "Well," Nagor said doubtfully. "All right. But hurry. We haven't much time at all."

  "I'll hurry," Riuku promised. "I'll be back with you tonight."

  That night after work Pete Ganley was waiting outside the gate again. Alice spotted his copter right away, even though he had the lights turned way down.

  "Gee, Pete, I didn't think...."

  "Get in. Quick."

  "What's the matter?" She climbed in beside him. He didn't answer until the copter had lifted itself into the air, away from the factory landing lots and the bright overhead lights and the home-bound workers.

  "It's Susan, who else," he said grimly. "She was really sounding off today. She kept saying she had a lot of evidence and I'd better be careful. And, well, I sure didn't want you turning up at the bar tonight of all nights."

  He didn't sound like Pete.

  "Why?" Alice said. "Are you afraid she'll divorce you?"

  "Oh, Alice, you're as bad as--look, baby, don't you see? It would be awful for you. All the publicity, the things she'd call you, maybe even in the papers...."

  He was staring straight ahead, his hands locked about the controls. He was sort of--well, distant. Not her Petey any more. Someone else's Pete. Susan's Pete....

  "I think we should be more careful," he said.

  Riuku twisted his way through her thoughts, tried to push them down.... Does he love me, he's got to love me, sure he does, he just doesn't want me to get hurt....

  And far away, almost completely out of phase, Nagor's call. "Riuku, another ship's gone. You'd better come back. Bring what you've learned so far and we can withdraw from the system and maybe piece it together...."

  "In a little while. Just a little while." Stop thinking about Susan, you biological schizo. Change the subject. You'll never get anything out of that man by having hysterics....

  "I suppose," Alice cried bitterly, "you've been leading me on all the time. You don't love me. You'd rather have her!"

  "That's not so. Hell, baby...."

  He's angry. He's not even going to kiss me. I'm just cutting my own throat when I act like that....

  "Okay, Pete. I'm sorry. I know it's tough on you. Let's have a drink, okay? Still got some in the glove compartment?"

  "Huh? Oh, sure."

  She poured two drinks, neat, and he swallowed his with one impatient gulp. She poured him another.

  * * * * *

  Riuku prodded. The drink made his job easier. Alice's thoughts calmed, swirled away from Susan and what am I going to do and why didn't I pick up with some single guy, anyway? A single guy, like Tommy maybe. Tommy and his spot welder, over there by the Restricted Area. The Restricted Area....

  "Pete."

  "Yeah, baby?"

  "How come they let so much voltage loose in the plant, so we can't even go over in the Restricted Area?"

  "Whatever made you think of that?" He laughed suddenly. He turned to her, still laughing. He was the old Pete again, she thought, with his face happy and his mouth quirked up at the corner. "Voltage loose ... oh, baby, baby. Don't you know what that is?"

  "No. What?"

  "That's the control panel for one of the weapons, silly. It's only a duplicate, actually--a monitor station. But it's tuned to the frequencies of all the ships in this sector and--"

  She listened. She wanted to listen. She had to want to listen, now.

  "Nagor, I'm getting it," Riuku called. "I'll bring it all back with me. Just a minute and I'll have it."

  "How does it work, honey?" Alice Hendricks said.

  "You really want to know? Okay. Now the Corcoran field is generated between the ships and areas like that one, only a lot more powerful, by--"

  "It's coming through now, Nagor."

  "--a very simple power source, once you get the basics of it. You--oh, oh!" He grabbed her arm. "Duck, Alice!"

  A spotlight flashed out of the darkness, turned on them, outlined them. A siren whirred briefly, and then another copter pulled up beside them and a loudspeaker blared tinnily.

  "Okay, bud, pull down to the landing lane."

  The police.

  Police. Fear, all the way through Alice's thoughts, all the way through Riuku. Police. Earth law. That meant--it must mean he'd been discovered, that they had some other means of protection besides the Shielding....

  "Nagor! I've been discovered!"

  "Come away then, you fool!"

  He twisted, trying to pull free of Alice's fear, away from the integration of their separate terrors. But he couldn't push her thoughts back from his. She was too frightened. He was too frightened. The bond held.

  "Oh, Pete, Pete, what did you do?"

  He didn't answer. He landed the copter, stepped out of it, walked back to the other copter that was just dropping down behind him. "But officer, what's the matter?"

  Alice Hendricks huddled down in the seat, already seeing tomorrow's papers, and her picture, and she wasn't really photogenic, either.... And then, from the other copter, she heard the woman laugh.

  "Pete Ganley, you fall for anything, don't you?"

  "Susan!"

  "You didn't expect me to follow you, did you? Didn't it ever occur to you that detectives could put a bug in your copter? My, what we've been hearing!"

  "Yeah," the detective who was driving said. "And those pictures we took last night weren't bad either."

  "Susan, I can explain everything...."

  "I'm sure you can, Pete. You always try. But as for you--you little--"

  Alice ducked down away from her. Pictures. Oh God, what it would make her look like. Still, this hag with the pinched up face who couldn't hold a man with all the cosmetics in the drugstore to camouflage her--she had her nerve, yelling like that.

  "Yeah, and I know a lot about you too!" Alice Hendricks cried.

  "Why, let me get my hands on you...."

  "Riuku!"

  Riuku prodded. Calm down, you fool. You're not gaining anything this way. Calm down, so I can get out of here....

  Alice Hendricks stopped yelling abruptly.

  "That's better," Susan said. "Pete, your taste in women gets worse each time. I don't know why I always take you back."

  "I can explain everything."

  "Oh, Pete," Alice Hendricks whispered. "Petey, you're not--"

  "Sure he is," Susan Ganley said. "He's coming with me. The nice detectives will take you home, dear. But I don't think you'd better try anything with them--they're not your type. They're single."

  "Pete...." But he wouldn't meet Alice's eyes. And when Susan took his arm, he followed her.

  "How could you do it, Petey...." Numb whispers, numb thoughts, over and over, but no longer frightened, no longer binding on Riuku.

  Fools, he thought. Idiotic Earthmen. If it weren't for your ridiculous reproductive habits I'd have found out everything. As it is.... "Nagor, I'm coming! I didn't get anything. This woman--"

  "Well, come on then. We're leaving. Right now. There'll be other systems."

  Petey, Petey, Petey....

  Contact thinned as he reached out away from her, toward Nagor, toward the ship. He fought his way out through the Shielding, away from her and her thoughts and every detestable thing about her. Break free, break free....

  "What's the matter, Riuku? Why don't you come? Have the police caught you?"

  The others were fleeing, getting farther away even as he listened to Nagor's call. Contact was hard to maintain now; he could feel communication fading.

  "Riuku, if you don't come now...."

  He fought, but Alice's thoughts were still with him; Alice's tears still kept bringing him back into full awareness of her.

  "Riuku!"

  "I--I can't!"

  The Shielding boost, that had integrated him so completely with Alice Hendricks, would never let him go.

  "Oh, Petey, I've lost you...."

  And Nagor's sad farewell slipped completely out of ph
ase, leaving him alone, with her.

  The plant. The Restricted Area. The useless secret of Earth's now unneeded weapon. Alice Hendricks glancing past it, at the spot welding machine, at Tommy.

  "How's the love life?"

  "You really interested in finding out, Alice?"

  "Well--maybe--"

  And Riuku gibbered unheard in her mind.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE GHOST WORLD

  By Sewell Peaslee Wright

  I was asleep when our danger was discovered, but I knew the instant the attention signal sounded that the situation was serious. Kincaide, my second officer, had a cool head, and he would not have called me except in a tremendous emergency.

  "Hanson speaking!" I snapped into the microphone. "What's up, Mr. Kincaide?"

  "A field of meteorites sweeping into our path, sir." Kincaide's voice was tense. "I have altered our course as much as I dared and am reducing speed at emergency rate, but this is the largest swarm of meteorites I have ever seen. I am afraid that we must pass through at least a section of it."

  "With you in a moment, Mr. Kincaide!" I dropped the microphone and snatched up my robe, knotting its cord about me as I hurried out of my stateroom. In those days, interplanetary ships did not have their auras of repulsion rays to protect them from meteorites, it must be remembered. Two skins of metal were all that lay between the Ertak and all the dangers of space.

  I took the companionway to the navigating room two steps at a time and fairly burst into the room.

  Kincaide was crouched over the two charts that pictured the space around us, microphone pressed to his lips. Through the plate glass partition I could see the men in the operating room tensed over their wheels and levers and dials. Kincaide glanced up as I entered, and motioned with his free hand towards the charts.

  One glance convinced me that he had not overestimated our danger. The space to right and left, and above and below, was fairly peppered with tiny pricks of greenish light that moved slowly across the milky faces of the charts.

  From the position of the ship, represented as a glowing red spark, and measuring the distances roughly by means of the fine black lines graved in both directions upon the surface of the chart, it was evident to any understanding observer that disaster of a most terrible kind was imminent.

  * * * * *

  Kincaide muttered into his microphone, and out of the tail of my eye I could see his orders obeyed on the instant by the men in the operating room. I could feel the peculiar, sickening surge that told of speed being reduced, and the course being altered, but the cold, brutally accurate charts before me assured me that no action we dared take would save us from the meteorites.

  "We're in for it, Mr. Kincaide. Continue to reduce speed as much as possible, and keep bearing away, as at present. I believe we can avoid the thickest portion of the field, but we shall have to take our chances with the fringe."

  "Yes, sir!" said Kincaide, without lifting his eyes from the chart. His voice was calm and businesslike, now; with the responsibility on my shoulders, as commander, he was the efficient, level-headed thinking machine that had endeared him to me as both fellow-officer and friend.

  Leaving the charts to Kincaide, I sounded the general emergency signal, calling every man and officer of the Ertak's crew to his post, and began giving orders through the microphone.

  "Mr. Correy,"--Correy was my first officer--"please report at once to the navigating room. Mr. Hendricks, make the rounds of all duty posts, please, and give special attention to the disintegrator ray operators. The ray generators are to be started at once, full speed." Hendricks, I might say, was a junior officer, and a very good one, although quick-tempered and excitable--failings of youth. He had only recently shipped with us to replace Anderson Croy, who--but that has already been recorded.[2]

  [Footnote 2: "The Dark Side of Antri," in the January, 1931, issue of Astounding Stories.]

  These preparations made, I glanced at the twin charts again. The peppering of tiny green lights, each of which represented a meteoritic body, had definitely shifted in relation to the position of the strongly-glowing red spark that was the Ertak, but a quick comparison of the two charts showed that we would be certain to pass through--again I use land terms to make my meaning clear--the upper right fringe of the field.

  The great cluster of meteorites was moving in the same direction as ourselves now; Kincaide's change of course had settled that matter nicely. Naturally, this was the logical course, since should we come in contact with any of them, the impact would bear a relation to only the difference in our speeds, instead of the sum, as would be the case if we struck at a wide angle.

  * * * * *

  It was difficult to stand without grasping a support of some kind, and walking was almost impossible, for the reduction of our tremendous speed, and even the slightest change of direction, placed terrific strains upon the ship and everything in it. Space ships, at space speeds, must travel like the old-fashioned bullets if those within are to feel at ease.

  "I believe, Mr. Kincaide, it might be well to slightly increase the power in the gravity pads," I suggested. Kincaide nodded and spoke briefly into his microphone; an instant later I felt my weight increase perhaps fifty per cent, and despite the inertia of my body, opposed to both the change in speed and direction of the Ertak, I could now stand without support, and could walk without too much difficulty.

  The door of the navigating room was flung open, and Correy entered, his face alight with curiosity and eagerness. An emergency meant danger, and few beings in the universe have loved danger more than Correy.

  "We're in for it, Mr. Correy," I said, with a nod towards the charts. "Swarm of meteorites, and we can't avoid them."

  "Well, we've dodged through them before, sir," smiled Correy. "We can do it again."

  "I hope so, but this is the largest field of them I have ever seen. Look at the charts: they're thicker than flies."

  * * * * *

  Correy glanced at the charts, slapped Kincaide across his bowed, tense shoulders, and laughed aloud.

  "Trust the old Ertak to worm her way through, sir," he said. "The ray crews are on duty, I presume?"

  "Yes. But I doubt that the rays will be of much assistance to us. Particularly if these are stony meteorites--and as you know, the odds are about ten to one against their being of ferrous composition. The rays, deducting the losses due to the utter lack of a conducting medium, will be insufficient protection. They will help, of course. The iron meteorites they will take care of effectively, but the conglomerate nature of the stony meteorites does not make them particularly susceptible to the disintegrating rays.

  "We shall do what we can, but our success will depend largely upon good luck--or Divine Providence."

  "At any rate, sir," replied Correy, and his voice had lost some of its lightness, "we are upon routine patrol and not upon special mission. If we do crack up, there is no emergency call that will remain unanswered."

  "No," I said dryly. "There will be just another 'Lost in Space' report in the records of the Service, and the Ertak's name will go up on the tablet of lost ships. In any case, we have done and shall do what we can. In ten minutes we shall know all there is to know. That about right, Mr. Kincaide?"

  "Ten minutes?" Kincaide studied the charts with narrowed eyes, mentally balancing distance and speed. "We should be within the danger area in about that length of time, sir," he answered. "And out of it--if we come out--three or four minutes later."

  "We'll come out of it," said Correy positively.

  I walked heavily across the room and studied the charts again. Space above and below, to the right and the left of us, was powdered with the green points of light.

  * * * * *

  Correy joined me, his feet thumping with the unaccustomed weight given him by the increase in gravity. As he bent over the charts, I heard him draw in his breath sharply.

  Kincaide looked up. Correy looked up. I looked up. The glance of each
man swept the faces, read the eyes, of the other two. Then, with one accord, we all three glanced up at the clocks--more properly, at the twelve-figured dial of the Earth clock, for none of us had any great love for the metric Universal system of time-keeping.

  Ten minutes.... Less than that, now.

  "Mr. Correy," I said, as calmly as I could, "you will relieve Mr. Kincaide as navigating officer. Mr. Kincaide, present my compliments to Mr. Hendricks, and ask him to explain the situation to the crew. You will instruct the disintegrator ray operators in their duties, and take charge of their activities. Start operation at your discretion; you understand the necessity."

  "Yes, sir!" Kincaide saluted sharply, and I returned his salute. We did not shake hands, the Earth gesture of--strangely enough--both greeting and farewell, but we both realized that this might well be a final parting. The door closed behind him, and Correy and I were left together to watch the creeping hands of the Earth clock, the twin charts with their thick spatter of green lights, and the two fiery red sparks, one on each chart, that represented the Ertak sweeping recklessly towards the swarming danger ahead.

  * * * * *

  In other accounts of my experiences in the Special Patrol Service I feel that I have written too much about myself. After all, I have run my race; a retired commander of the Service, and an old, old man, with the century mark well behind me, my only use is to record, in this fashion, some of those things the Service accomplished in the old days when the worlds of the Universe were strange to each other, and space travel was still an adventure to many.

  The Universe is not interested in old men; it is concerned only with youth and action. It forgets that once we were young men, strong, impetuous, daring. It forgets what we did; but that has always been so. It always will be so. John Hanson, retired Commander of the Special Patrol Service, is fit only to amuse the present generation with his tales of bygone days.

  Well, so be it. I am content. I have lived greatly; certainly I would not exchange my memories of those bold, daring days even for youth and strength again, had I to live that youth and waste that strength in this softened, gilded age.