Collected Fiction

by Theodore R. Cogswell

  “The Patrol doesn’t like cop-killers. There’s ten thousand on his head, payable on delivery across the thousand-mile-limit. And no questions asked. Interested?”

  Bull thought for a moment and then gestured toward the well-armed bouncers who were spotted at strategic spots throughout the gambling room. “And what are his guns going to be doing while we’re trying to talk the boss into taking a little trip?”

  Windy chuckled. “I got it all worked out. And it’s foolproof. You get down to the Pelican tomorrow morning, help me get her tidied up for blast off, and I’ll fill you in on the details.”

  Bull wandered around the salvage lot at the far edge of the spaceport for half an hour before he finally found the Pelican. She was a small rusty ship with a bulging belly that gave her the appearance of an adolescent but very pregnant whale. He sighed and climbed in through her open port. Inside she was even worse. Unshielded wire festooned from her bulkheads, half the instruments were gone from her control panels, and padding from the pilot’s seat hung down in long streamers like Spanish moss.

  Bull found the old man in the engine room tinkering with the bank of equipment that amplified the images picked up by the fore and aft scanners and then piped them into the big vision plate in the control room.

  “Be with you in a second,” he said as he plugged in the two scanner input leads and then ran a quick check on the test panel. “Wanted to be sure I didn’t have those mixed up.” He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he surveyed his work. “Looked for a while as if we were going to have to fly blind. The screen magnification control up forward is burned out but I jury-rigged up a widget so that it can be operated from down here. What do you think of her?” He made an expansive gesture that took in the whole ship.

  “Why don’t you sell her to a museum? This is a collector’s item.”

  “She’s not as bad as she looks,” Windy said complacently. “A mite of tinkering here and there and she’ll be fit as a fiddle and ready for work. Why don’t you go forward and check out the main controls? I’ll come up as soon as I finish grinding the main drive tube injectors . . .

  Half an hour later Windy came up to the control room and slumped contentedly into the copilot’s seat.

  “Everything all right at your end?” he asked.

  “As right as she’ll ever be,” said Bull unhappily. “You keep the main drive going and I’ll fly her somehow. What’s next on the list?”

  “Getting you briefed.” Windy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and quickly sketched a rough map. “The back of the Rotunda butts right up against the spaceport fence. Between eleven and eleven-forty both moons are down and it’s pitch black. While you’re busy inside, I’ll drift the Pelican over on her anti-gravs and steering jets and set her right down on the roof.” He turned the piece of paper over and began to sketch again.

  “Here’s the inside layout. Big Head’s office opens off the back of the main gambling room. There’s another door to it that leads into a small corridor that runs along here.” His finger moved across the paper. “At the far end is a narrow stairway leading up to the roof. There’s a third party involved who will see all the doors are unlocked. He hesitated, “The reward money’s going to have to be split three ways. You don’t mind, do you? We couldn’t swing this without help from inside.”

  “Seems fair enough,” said Bull. “What have you got up your sleeve for me?”

  “A pair of aces.” Windy gave a wicked grin and pulled a battered metal box out from under the copilot’s seat. When he poured its contents out on the navigator’s table Bull saw a jumbled pile of odd bits of junk: a few strange coins, a fused pebble, a tarnished medal, an obsolete Arnett wrist radiation detector . . .

  “Isn’t much to show for fifty years of shipping out,” said the old man, ‘but to me it all means something. It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a diary.” While he spoke his fingers wandered from bit to bit and finally pulled out a small chamois bag. “Knew I had them here someplace,” he said, and shook out a pair of dice. “These come from Big Head’s own private stock. Here, give ’em a try.”

  Bull rolled them out across the table several times and then looked up questioningly. “They look all right to me.”

  “They are . . . now. But watch.” Windy scooped up the cubes, placed the sides containing single dots carefully together, and then slowly so Bull could see what he was doing, squeezed rhythmically three times.

  “Now try them,” he said.

  Bull did. Seven. He rolled once more. Again seven.

  “Get the idea?” said Windy. “That’s how you got taken.”

  Bull nodded and then looked down at the dice dubiously. “I get it, but if Big Head is the operator you say he is, I can’t see him sitting still while an outsider rings in a pair of loaded dice on him.” He picked up the dice and prepared to roll them again. Windy grabbed his hand.

  “Easy does it, son. I did a little microengineering on those—sort of gimmicked the gimmick. Once they’re turned on they’re only good for seven passes.”

  “And then?”

  When Windy finished his explanation Bull didn’t seem overly enthusiastic. “The whole deal seems pretty ‘iffy’ to me,” he said. “What if they don’t work the way they’re supposed to?”

  Windy made a cheerful hands-out gesture and gave Bull a fatherly smile. “If I hadn’t stopped you from trying to shoot up the Rotunda last night you’d have got killed anyway.”

  Bull felt more nervous than he liked to admit when he stopped in a little bar a half a block from the Rotunda, ordered a quick drink, and carefully spilled half of it down the front of his space jumper. When he went into the Rotunda there was a slight roll to his walk. Ignoring the complicated gambling machines that lined the front of the place, he went straight back to one of the dice tables and tossed a bill of sale for the Pelican out on the green felt.

  “How much on this?” He slurred his words slightly.

  The house man picked up the title, looked at it disdainfully, and then tossed it back.

  “This is a cash game. We ain’t running no antique shop.”

  Bull jutted his chin aggressively. “That’s as good as cash. What kind of a piker joint is this?” He let his voice rise to an angry bellow. “You take my roll and then you won’t give me a chance to get even.”

  Three rugged-looking characters swinging paralizers materialized from nowhere. The house man jerked his thumb toward the door. “On your way, spacer!”

  As the bouncers closed in, Bull vaulted up on top of the dice table and jerked out his blaster.

  “Action stations!” he shouted.

  The spaceman’s trouble cry brought every off-worlder in the place to his feet. The bouncers started to come after him, hesitated as Bull’s blaster swung toward them, and then looked to the house man for instructions.

  “I got cleaned in here last night,” Bull’s voice boomed out across the suddenly quiet room. “Now that I ask for a chance to get it back, they’re trying to toss me out. What kind of a clip joint is this? I ain’t crying about what I lost. All that I want is a fighting chance to get even.”

  The crowd began to growl. Most of them were spacemen and their sympathies were obviously with Bull. Several of the rougher and drunker of them began to edge toward the table as they scented a free-for-all. Bull pulled himself down into a fighting crouch, his gun trained on the bouncers.

  The house man made a restraining gesture to the crowd and whispered softly into a tiny microphone concealed in his lapel. Head cocked he listened to an inaudible reply.

  “Easy does it,” he said to Bull. “Let’s see that title again.”

  Bull kept his gun pointing toward the bouncers and tossed it down. The house man smoothed it out and examined it again, then whispered in his mike again, and waited.

  “The Boss says a thousand is as high as he’ll go on a junk heap this old. Take it or leave it.”

  Bull hesitated for a moment and then holstered his weapon and jumped do
wn from the table.

  “OX,” he growled, I’ll take it.”

  The house man picked up his dice from the table. “Want fast action? I’ll roll you double or nothing.”

  “Suits me. My roll though.”

  The other silently handed him the dice. Bull tossed them back. “This time I brought my own.”

  “Don’t you trust ours?” There was an edge in the house man’s voice.

  “Last time they didn’t work so well for me. Don’t you trust mine?” The gambler took a quick look at the circle of hard-faced spacemen who had closed in around the table and then shrugged.

  “Sure . . . once I’ve given them a fast check.”

  “Check away,” said Bull with an indifference he didn’t feel. The other rolled them out several times, noted that a random pattern came up, and then took them to a cabinet at the far comer of the room where he subjected the cubes to an exhaustive shaking, weighing, and measuring. As a final test he threw them forcefully against the hard floor, noted the combination that came up and then rolled them again. When they didn’t repeat, he grunted, came back to the dice table, and handed them over to Bull.

  “Guess they’re all right,” he said grudgingly.

  Bull breathed a silent prayer that the rough treatment hadn’t damaged whatever it was that was concealed inside the dice, scooped them up, and surreptitiously gave them the three rhythmic squeezes that were supposed to trigger off their internal mechanisms. He made the obligatory invocation and spun the dice across the table.

  “Seven come eleven!”

  Seven!

  Bull felt a wave of relief wash over him. They were working as they should. Impassively the house man slid ten blue chips across to him.

  “Let ‘em ride,” said Bull, and rolled again.

  Seven.

  More chips were added to the pile at the edge of the table and Bull rolled again.

  Seven!

  The house man’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything. Bull rolled again, conscious as he did so that the three bouncers had pressed in close behind him.

  “Please, babies,” he prayed silently as the white cubes spun out across the white table, “don’t act up now.”

  Seven!

  “I quit!” he said hurriedly. He reached for the dice with one hand and the chips with the other. The house man was ahead of him. He scooped up the dice and snapped, “Hold it, Mac!”

  Bull started to lunge forward but froze suddenly as he felt the sharp nose of a small blaster jab into his back. His own gun was jerked from its holster. The house man eyed him coldly and then rolled the dice out with an experienced flip.

  Seven.

  He rolled them again. Again they sevened. This time when he spoke into his lapel mike he didn’t bother to whisper.

  “Take him into the back office,” he said a moment later. “Big Head wants to have a little talk with him.”

  Big Head McCall, the owner of the Rotunda, was a thin-faced man with a crew cut, a disarming smile, and as far as Bull could make out, a normal-sized cranium. When Bull was marched into his office he gave him a slap on the back and waved one hand at the small bar that was built into the far wall.

  “Have a drink on the house, old man. I’ve got a hunch you’re going to need it.”

  Bull shook his head and stood waiting tensely as the house man passed his gun and the dice over to the owner. Big Head examined the dice negligently and smiled unpleasantly.

  “You’re obviously short on brains, but you must be long on guts. Trying to take me with a pair of my own dice is one for the books. All of which brings up the interesting question of how you happened to get hold of them. Feel like talking?”

  Bull shook his head sullenly.

  Big Head shrugged. “It’s a minor matter.” He turned to the three hulking gunmen. “Take him out the back way and dispose of him. And when you blast him, let him have it in the stomach. It takes longer that way. Once the word gets around it will have a salutary effect on his colleagues.”

  Bull suddenly felt himself grabbed and hustled toward the rear door of the office. He fought down a momentary impulse to panic. If Windy was waiting on the other side of the door as he was supposed to be, they’d cut him down. He made a sudden lunge for the gun that was sitting on Big Head’s desk but the three were too quick for him. He was caught and thrown violently to the floor. Pain lanced through him as a heavy boot slammed into his chest.

  “Don’t,” he gasped. “There’s nothing wrong with those dice. I swear it.”

  “Is that so?” said Big Head softly. He thought for a moment and then showed white teeth in a mirthless grin. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, spacer. I’ll roll you for your life. These things have sevened six times straight and the odds against seven in a row are astronomical. That fair enough?”

  Bull got slowly to his feet and watched tensely as the gambler rolled the dice out across his glass-topped desk. Every pair of eyes in the room—with one exception—was fixed on them as they spun across die desk top.

  The first cube wavered for a minute and then dropped over on one side, exposing a single black dot. The second was spinning on one corner like a top. Slowly it began to wobble, finally tumbled to a stop. Before the watchers could make out the one dot on the top of die second die, both cubes exploded. A sudden soundless flood of actinic light flashed out like the nova of a small sun, and then the office echoed to howls of pain as hands were futilely clapped against seared eyeballs.

  Bull quickly locked the door that led into the gambling room and then scooped up his blaster from the desk. A soft whistle came from behind him. He spun around. Windy was standing in the other doorway, grinning in delight as he watched Big Head and his three henchmen moaning and stumbling blindly around the room. Beside him stood the redheaded waitress. She held a tiny needle gun in her right hand.

  “Meet the silent partner,” Windy said. “The Pelican’s waiting on the roof. You two haul Big Head up and get him stowed away. I’ll keep things under control down here.”

  The Pelican’s converters stuttered uneasily as Bull meshed the anti-gravs into lift. He cautiously eased the control lever forward another notch. The ship seemed to hunch herself and then with a sudden jerk was airborne. Up, up, fifty feet, a hundred, five hundred, and then after a stutter that dropped them a score of yards, her lifters settled down into a warm contented hum. The ship swayed gently as the night breeze carried her out over the dark spaceport.

  He was reaching for the hand throttle when the redheaded girl came into the control room.

  “Windy says everything is set aft. You can blast when you want to.” She slid into the copilot’s seat and began to adjust the acceleration harness with practiced hands.

  “Need any help?”

  She eyed him coolly. “Not the kind you’ve got in mind.”

  Bull grinned. “I’m still looking for that variation,” he said. “Hold your hat.” He set the hand throttle at one-tenth normal and hit the firing stud. The cabin lights dimmed and there was a chatter of circuit breakers as the main switches threw open under overload.

  “What’s going on back there?” he yelled into the intercom.

  “Guess back pressure is damping the starting arcs,” said Windy’s voice from the speaker. “Looks like I didn’t get those injectors as clean as I thought I did.”

  “That’s nice,” said the girl dryly. “What now?”

  “I could try to blow the injectors clean.” There was a note of worry in Bull’s voice. “If I build enough pressure, something’s got to give.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, the injectors might blow themselves clean. And then again, the mixing chamber might give out first. It’s a toss-up.”

  “What happens if the mixing chamber goes?”

  “You won’t feel a thing. It’ll happen too fast.”

  The girl pulled a quarter-credit piece out of a pocket and flipped it. “Heads,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “Go it is.” He pulled
the throttle out to two-thirds power. When the circuit breakers let loose this time, it sounded as if the whole aft end of the ship was tearing itself loose. A stench of scorching insulation came drifting forward.

  Bull felt large wet patches growing under his arms. “You know something, Red?” he said. “I’m scared.” And he slammed the throttle all the way over into the red zone.

  “Here goes something!” He punched the firing stud again.

  There was a splintering roar as die plugged injectors blew clean and die Pelican scrabbled toward die heavens on a boiling pillar of flame. They were two hundred miles out before Bull, barely conscious, was able to inch an enormously heavy hand toward the cut-off activator and kill the screaming planetary drive. The redhead was unconscious, but she seemed all right.

  “Everything all right aft?” he said into the intercom.

  “Big Head’s got a nosebleed,” Windy’s voice came back. “Real blood too, not ice water the way I figured. Aside from that everything’s fine. I told you there wasn’t anything wrong with the old girl that a little tinkering wouldn’t take care of.”

  Bull shook his head groggily. Tuning the Pelicans detection gear to maximum sensitivity, he scanned a broad arc behind them. There were no tell-tale blips to indicate pursuing ships.

  “Okay so far,” he said to the girl as she pulled herself painfully out of the acceleration harness.

  “Whew!” she said with a crooked smile. “That was rough.”

  Bull nodded soberly. “I’m going down to check on Windy and our prize cargo. If anything shows up on the screen you let out a howl over the intercom. Here, I’ll switch it on for you.” When he did a familiar voice came booming through the speaker.

  “. . . and there I was with them three redheaded identical triplets on my hands. First thing I did was to try and set up some sort of a rotation system, but they wasn’t having none of it. They said it had been share and share alike since they was born and they didn’t see no reason for changing now.”

  Bull quickly switched the speaker off and the girl just as quickly switched it on.

  “Sounds interesting,” she said.