Journey to Infinity - [Adventures in Science Fiction 02]

by Edited by Martin Greenburg

  Lee stared down at the table top for a few seconds. He said softly: “Nothing in this world would keep me out of space, brother. Nothing!”

  Shane Brent asked: “And what if you had control of a modern job and had orders to take it so far that Central Astro couldn’t give you a tape?”

  Lee grinned. “That’d be O. K., too. I hate those smug characters sitting there in their ivory tower and supplying little strips of plastic to do the job that good pilots should be doing.”

  Shane Brent looked rueful. “Well, I guess you’ve licked me, Hiram. This will be the first time I’ve ever had to report back a complete failure.”

  “Do them good back there,” Lee said, grinning. He stared curiously at Brent. ‘You know, Brent, you don’t look like a guy who’d get much of a bang out of all this investigation junk. Why don’t you take a break? I’ll get you a gang of Harids. These Solaray people are O. K. to work for. Stick around. On Saturday we’ll hit the Strip. There’s a little gal dancing at Brownie’s. A Seattle gal. Blonde. She won’t even give me the right time, but you just might manage to—”

  Brent grinned. “I better think that one over. Sorry to have taken so much of your time, Lee. See you around.”

  Shane Brent stood at the window and watched Hiram Lee walk off in the direction of the drying sheds. Already the thick heat had put a sheen of perspiration across the broad muscular shoulders of Lee. He walked with the carefree swing of an independent man of strength and courage. Shane Brent sighed, walked out into the heat and headed for the Solaray Communications Building.

  He showed his credentials to the pretty clerk and said: “I’ll need a private screen and a closed circuit and the usual guarantee of secrecy. It will be a charge to Central Assignment.”

  He went into the small room she had indicated, and opened the switch under the dead screen. A muted hum filled the room.

  “Central Assignment,” he said.

  Thirty seconds later a clear feminine voice said: “Central Assignment.”

  “Brent calling. Give me Allison, please.”

  Allison’s face suddenly filled the screen. He was a white-haired man with a florid face and an air of nervousness and vitality.

  “Hello, Shane,” he said quietly. “Closed circuit?”

  “Of course, Frank. I’ve got a report on Hiram Lee.”

  “Good! Let’s have it. I’ve got the recorder on.”

  “Here goes. Memorandum to F. A. Allison. From Shane Brent. Subject: Personnel for Project 81—Pilot Investigation. Case of Hiram Lee. Hiram Lee has been carefully investigated and it is recommended that permission be given the undersigned to approach Lee with an offer to join Project 81. Lee is alert, capable, strong, dependable to a sufficient degree. His training is excellent. He will need little indoctrination. Quinn is to be commended for recommending him to Central Assignment. It is believed that the probable seven-year duration of the trip will not discourage Lee. It is also believed that the calculated risk of one in four of returning from the Project flight will not deter Lee. Permission is requested to contact Lee and furthermore to sound him out on becoming a colonist, dependent, of course, on his finding a suitable woman to accompany him.”

  Allison, who had been listening with interest, said: “Good work! You have the authority you request.”

  “Have you got a line on the executive officer for Project 81 yet, Frank?”

  Allison frowned. “Not yet, Shane. But something will turn up. Foster and Brady have filled most of the remaining slots. Denvers will go along as head physicist for the refinement of the drive brick for the return. Central Astro had given us the takeoff date as, let me see, ninety-three days from today.”

  “Pushing us, hey?”

  “Can’t be helped. It’s either then or about three years from then. Say, Shane, instead of returning right away, see what you can find there in the line of an executive officer. Report if you get a line on anybody. Good-by, Shane.”

  “Good-by, Frank.”

  As the screen went blank, Shane sighed, cut the switch and walked out. At the front exit he went up the stairs to the platform, stepped into the waiting monorail suspension bus, found an empty seat. He felt drained and weary. Frank Allison was a difficult taskmaster. His personal affection for Allison made the job no easier.

  At the scheduled time the bus slid smoothly away from Solaray, and braked to a stop in Allada seventy miles away in fifteen minutes. Shane Brent realized with a tight smile that it was the first time he had made any trip on Venus without paying any attention to the lush bluish-black vegetation below. The vegetation had standards of vitality and growth completely different from Earth vegetation. If the port city of Allada hadn’t been originally constructed on a vitrified surface, thousands of laborers would have been required to slash the tendrils which would have grown each day. In fact, when the spot for Allada had been originally vitrified, it had only been done to a two-foot depth. Tendrils broke through on the third day, heaving and cracking the surface. After that experience, spaceships had hung, tail down, over the Allada site for ten days. When the molten rock had finally cooled, the experts had estimated that the black soil was vitrified to a depth of sixty feet. No plant life had broken through since that time. The electrified cables surrounding Allada constantly spit and crackled as the searching vine tips touched them.

  Shane Brent went up to his room in Hostel B, shut the door wearily, listlessly pushed the News button under the wall screen and watched the news of the day with little interest as he slowly undressed. Crowds demonstrating in Asia-Block against the new nutrition laws. Project 80, two years out said to be nearing Planet K. Skirts once again to be midway between knee and hip next season. The first bachelor parenthood case comes up to decide whether a child born of the fertilization of a laboratory ovum can legally inherit. Brent frowned. Soon a clear definition of the legal rights of “Synthetics” would have to be made. He stopped suddenly as he had an idea. He decided to submit it to Frank. Why not get Inter-Federal Aid for a project to develop Synthetics to fill personnel requirements for future project flights? But would humanity agree to colonization by Synthetics? It still wasn’t clearly understood whether or not they’d breed true.

  He turned off the news, took a slow shower and dressed in fresh clothes. It was a nuisance changing the insignia. He wadded up the clothes he had removed and shoved them into the disposal chute.

  At five o’clock he got on the call screen and got hold of the general manager at Allada. The man recognized him immediately. “What can I do for you, Brent?”

  “As soon as Hiram Lee gets off duty, send him in to see me at Hostel B.”

  “I hope you don’t steal him away from us, Brent. He’s the best man we’ve got with the Harids. He doesn’t scare easy.”

  Brent grinned. “I’ll try to scare him away from me, sir.”

  He walked away from the screen, went into the shower room and examined the drinkmaster. It was one of the older type. No choice of brands. He set the master dial to one ounce. He pushed the gin button three times, the dry vermouth button once. He turned the stir lever and held it on for a few seconds before he turned it off. He looked in the side compartment and found no lemon, no olives, no pickled onions. That was the trouble with Central Assignment only approving the second-class places. He took the right size glass off the rack, put it under the spout and lifted it until the rim tripped the lever. The Martini poured smoothly into the glass, beading the outside of it with moisture. Down in the lobby the centralized accounting circuit buzzed and the price of the Martini was neatly stamped on his bill.

  He walked back into the other room, sat in the deep chair and sipped the Martini, thinking it odd that with all the scientific experimentation in taste effects, no one had yet come up with any substitute for the delicacy and aroma of a dry Martini.

  Hiram Lee arrived as he was sipping his third.

  Twenty minutes later Hiram Lee stood at the windows, his lips compressed, pounding his fist into his palm in monotonous
rhythm.

  He turned suddenly. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for, Shane. Yes! Count me in. When do we leave?”

  “Hold up there, boy. You’ve got to go to school for a while. And how about the colonization angle. Will you want to stay?”

  Lee grinned. “If I could talk that little Seattle blonde into going along, three years would be a short, short trip.”

  “Providing she could pass.”

  “Oh, sure. I think she’d pass. But she’s too smart to tie up with me. Maybe. At least I’ll give it a try. When have I got to tell you about whether or not I want to stay on this brand new world you boys have located?”

  “Let me see. Ninety-three days from now is takeoff. Thirty days would be needed to approve and train a woman. You have sixty-three days to convince this blonde of yours that you’re a very attractive guy. And then you’ll have to talk her into taking a little three-year trip and settling down in the brush with you.”

  Lee looked at him curiously. “You knew all this early this afternoon and you gave me that song and dance with a straight face.”

  “That’s my profession, Hiram.”

  “You’re good at it, but I still have got an urge to bust you one.”

  “We’ll arrange that some time. Right now I’m looking for recommendations for somebody to fill the slot of executive officer aboard the Project flight. Any ideas?”

  Lee frowned. “None of those boys at Solaray will do. I can tell you that quick. They’re either slowly congealing in their own juice or they’re making too good a thing out of their job. Better hunt around in the other plantations. There’s a guy named Mosey over at Factri-grown on the other side of Allada that has a good reputation.”

  “I’ll take a look. And by the way, Hiram. All this is under the hat.”

  “Natürlich, mein herr. May I respectfully recommend that we embark on an evening of wine and song? I hold out little hope for the other ingredient.”

  One big meal and two hours later, Shane Brent and Hiram Lee walked into the club on the strip—the club called Brownie’s.

  The air was chilled, thinned and scented with the crispness of pine. The place was lighted by glowing amber disks set into the walls. It was packed with the usual type of crowd. Bug-eyed tourists trying to pretend that it was old stuff to them; hard-drinking, hard-fisted men from the plantations; neat, careful kids from the ship crews in Allada port; the odd-job drifters who had become parasites on the social structure of Allada; a big party of Allada politicos, wining and dining two inspectors from Asia-Block.

  By luck they found an empty table for two not far from the dance floor. Hiram Lee was on hard liquor and Brent, feeling his limit near, had shifted to beer.

  Lee said, slurring his words: “You’re smart to get over onto beer, friend. You got to drink in this climate quite a while before you pick up a good head for the stuff.” He glanced at his watch. “Floor show in ten minutes. Then you can see my blondie.”

  Shane Brent felt the artificial gaiety draining out of him. He looked around at the other tables, seeing suddenly the facial lines of viciousness and stupidity and greed. He remembered his reading of history and guessed that there must have been faces just like these in the early days of the American West. California in 1849 and 1850. Easy money attracted those who had been unable to make a proper adjustment to their accustomed environment. Actually it was the result of exploitation. The Harids, with their ant culture, had put up suicidal defense until General Brayton had discovered the wave length of the beamed thought waves which directed the Harids of each colony. Science had devised stronger sending devices than the colony waves and suddenly the Harids were servants.

  Each foreman, such as Hiram Lee, carried one of the wave boxes and directed his crew. Central Economics had proven that the use of Harids in the culture—picking and drying of the herbs—was cheaper than any mechanical devices which could be set up.

  Several couples danced to the music which came directly from New York. The oversize screen, a special three-dimensional job with good color values, covered most of the wall beyond the dance floor, showed a full orchestra. Brent guessed that when the floor show came on the management would either use live music or cut off the New York program and feed recordings into the screen.

  The second guess proved right. The screen darkened and the couples left the floor. It brightened again, showing a canned vision of a small group completely equipped with electrical instruments. The M.C. walked out as the spot came on. He carried a small hand mike. After the initial fanfare, the music gave him a soft background and he said: “This show costs a lot of money to put on. All you folks drinking beer kindly turn your chairs around with your backs toward the floor. It is my pleasure to present a young lady who doesn’t belong out here on Venus, wasting her time and talents on you space-burnt wanderers. On the other hand, Venus is a very appropriate spot for her to be. I give you Caren Ames and her famous Dance of a New World!” He grinned and backed out of the spot which widened until it covered most of the small dance floor.

  The music shifted into a low, throbbing beat, an insistent jungle rhythm. Brent smiled cynically at the build-up, thought it was pretty fancy for what would probably turn out to be an aging stripper.

  She backed slowly onto the floor, staring into the shadows from which she backed. Brent’s breath caught in his throat. She was a faintly angular girl who should have had no grace. She wore a stylized version of the jungle clothes of the foremen on the plantations. Across her shoulder was slung a glittering replica of one of the thought boxes. She carried in her right hand a shining knife of silver.

  She moved with such an intense representation of great fear that Brent felt the uneasy shifting of the crowd. The music was a frightened heartbeat. Her grace was angular, perfect and beautiful. Her face was a rigid mask of fear, her blond hair a frozen gout of gold that fell across one shoulder.

  The throng gasped as the thing followed her into the middle of the floor, stood weaving, with its eyes on her. At first glance Brent thought that it was actually one of the Harids, but then he realized that it was a clever costume, worn by a rather small person. It had all the swaying obscenity of one of the tiny praying mantis of Earth. The swollen abdomen, the little triangular head, the knotted forearms held high—all of it covered with the fine soft gray scales of a Harid. The three digits of each hand waved aimlessly about like the antennae of a mammoth insect.

  The expanding spot showed a small bush covered with the blue-black oily foliage of Venus. The girl stood her ground, lifted the thought box to her lips. She swayed slightly in rhythm with the Harid and her shoulders straightened as the Harid turned away from her, went over toward the bush. It began to pluck at the leaves with the perky, incredibly fast motions of the genuine Harid. Her dance of fear turned slowly into a dance of joy of release from fear. The tempo of the music increased and she danced ever closer to the squat form of the Harid, the knife in her hand cutting joyous sparkling arcs in the flood of tinted light.

  She danced ever faster, and Brent said to Lee out of the corner of his mouth: “What is she doing here? She’s wonderful!”

  “I told you she was, boy.”

  A movement to Brent’s right caught his eye. A bulky man from one of the plantations, very drunk, wavered on his chair as he watched the dance with slitted eyes. The lines around his mouth were taut. Brent felt wonder that the girl’s artistry could have such an effect on one of the hardened foremen.

  The music increased to a crescendo, and suddenly stopped. The girl stood motionless, her arms widespread. A very slow beat began. The Harid began to sway its head slowly from side to side in time with the beat. A woman in the darkness screamed softly. Head swaying, the Harid turned slowly and faced the girl. Her face once again became a face of fear. The knotted arms of the thing lifted high. The girl took a slow step backward. The tension was a physical thing—it could be felt in the utter silence of the audience.

  At that moment the man whom Brent had noticed earlier r
oared, and jumped to his feet. There was a knife in his hand. He started for the mock Harid. Shane Brent left his chair in a quick smooth motion. His shoulder slammed against the thick thigh of the man with the knife and the two of them fell and slid across the polished floor. The room was in an uproar. The foreman bounded up, his drunken face twisted with rage. He drew the knife hand back to slash at Brent. Brent fell inside the thrust and struck the man a hammer blow across the side of his throat with the edge of his palm. The lights came on as the man dropped heavily onto his face. No one had thought of the music. It continued on. The mock Harid stood up and turned into a pale slight man who held the head portion of his costume in his hand. His pale lips trembled. He said, with great wonder: “That fellow would have cut my head off!”

  The M.C. came out and said to the girl: “Want to try again from scratch, Miss Ames?”

  Her eyes were still wide with shock. “No ... I couldn’t. Not right now. The next show maybe.”