The E. Hoffmann Price Fantasy & Science Fiction

by E. Hoffmann Price

  “I, Walter Carson, know all this to be true. I, Walter Carson, have plans for space-navigation, and the search for a more abundant life.”

  CHAPTER 2

  He had picked an appeal which would stir the Standard Citizen. As an in-law of an obscure cousin of the ruling clan, whose ancient name won it a ninety-percent majority at every election, Carson could not well be locked up in the Psychopathic Center; such would imply that Flora had been sub-caliber in marrying him. And that would prove awkward if, one day, she were called upon to campaign in favor of some equally obscure-kinsman when he ran for the office of Supreme Bureaucrat.

  It was necessary that an obscure member of the clan occasionally hold office—not only to promise new and splendid benefits, but to prove that even the most strongly-entrenched must finally fall beneath a landslide of votes.

  The Political Bureau, however, had an answer for Carson’s case; they made a scientist-hero of him. They assigned him to command the Hyperion III. She was to be refitted with power-tubes of the sort he had designed. Exploration bonds were issued; there were drives. The Supreme Bureaucrat appeared with Carson, on the truncated pyramid, and asked the official hero to recant his recantation; Carson recanted, and the electronic vocalizers sang the national anthem.

  The Hyperion III was a splendid cruiser. Her beryllium shell had been armored with chromium alloys, tough and hard enough to resist the fragments which swarmed in the asteroid belt. “This intrepid explorer of Trans-Martian space,” the thought-projectors announced, “will conserve fuel by driving through the asteroid belt, instead of rising above its orbit. He will avoid burning out tubes and injectors; this will reduce the running time to the necessary minimum. Conservation of fuel will permit the return trip.

  “There will be applause and demonstration whenever Walter Carson appears in public.”

  * * * *

  Carson then met the Bureaucrats in council, privately. “Gentlemen, this is strictly confidential. I shall consider it so, if you grant the request.”

  “Anything you want, Walter, old boy!” The Supreme Bureaucrat regarded him with unfeigned admiration. “You’ve opened our eyes with your daring and drastic approach; we believe in you.”

  “For a crew, I want those spacemen and space admirals you have locked up in Dakota. This is a dangerous cruise; until I have experts to man the Hyperion, I have not a Lunarian’s chance of returning.”

  “Now, listen, old man. I am awfully sorry—we are awfully sorry—most profoundly and intensely sorry—but proving that you are sane and entirely right, after your original recantation, was difficult. Thought-Control does have its limits; it would not be democratic, having the Hyperion manned by high brass.”

  “Your Excellency,” Carson retorted, “I don’t know what would be more democratic than having space captains putting on hot suits to crawl into slag-blocked tubes at 3000° Centigrade, and reaming them out in flight. I can’t think of a sweatier slug than wearing lead-alloy armor while doing a trick on the thorium-reduction stage. The thorium ore you put into the bunkers for this flight is messy stuff; it will take good men to handle it.”

  “No, Walter; you do not understand. There has to be a Citizen crew—Standard Citizens; the norm of Democracy. You will be the only Ten-Percenter aboard.”

  “Damn it, I won’t take off with dopes and zombis!”

  “You’d take off in a Lunarian jetoglide if you had the chance. And don’t push your luck too far; you know, you could lose you in-law immunity. There are ways. Now be a good fellow before we get tough with you.”

  The other Excellencies nodded affirmation. Carson knew, now, that he had underestimated the politicos from the start.

  * * * *

  By the time take-off day had arrived, the crew members were so hopped up with thought-blasts that they went aboard willingly. Carson did not like their faces; no sooner was the Hyperion in full flight when he quit the bridge and went to his cabin. He thrust a four-by-six centimeter record-block into the microvox, punched off the index number of each crew man, and snapped the key. The microvox, selecting from the 50,000,000 dossiers in the record, gave him the history of each man.

  When the machine was silent, Carson sat back and let out a deep breath. “Thieves, pimps, cut-throats, and scum of the earth,” he summed up and rapped smartly on the bulkhead. “All right, Alec, we’re clear.”

  Alec Tweed, the Ten-Percenter he had smuggled aboard, was about Carson’s build. The difference was in the china blue eyes, coffin-shaped face, and straw-colored cowlick. His teeth were stained from chewing Venusian tarol. He grinned, spat a greenish jet at the bulkhead, and hitched his belt. “Bad a crew as you figured?”

  “Worse. I wouldn’t sign up such trash to man a grocer-pickup on a clear day.” He stepped into the locker from which Tweed had emerged, and took a gunbelt from the peg. “Won’t have any mutiny till we’re past the Martian base, but no harm keeping strict watch now.”

  Tweed knifed a chunk of tarol from his plug, studied it, and fitted it behind his molars. The stuff was strong; stained saliva, creeping down the bulkhead, was cutting the lacquer. “Might maroon those bugger-luggers in the Martian desert,” he suggested, “and get a native crew. They’re good mechanics; brains haven’t been addled by thought-control. Don’t see anything immoral about doing a day’s work, or taking an order.”

  Carson thrust another record block into the microvox. The voice recited from the “Terrestrain Penal Code, Title VII,” It is expressly forbidden to put a Standard Citizen Spaceman ashore anywhere except in his home port, notwithstanding that he may have refused duty, or is incompetent. The owner and/or commander responsible shall suffer death by disintegration, and in addition, shall forfeit all social security.

  Carson punched other keys. The voice resumed, Arbitrary, harsh, or unreasonable commanders may, by vote of the crew, be provisionally marooned and the ship navigated to the nearest port by the Senior Standard Citizen aboard. But if the investigating commission finds that this authority has been unreasonably exercised, the said Senior Standard Citizen will be deprived of ten days social-seniority, and fined ten pazoors. These penalties shall be increased by fifty percent if the provisionally marooned commander and/or officers do not survive.

  Tweed yawned. “I had all that read to me at the Space Academy.”

  “I thought maybe you’d slept through the reading.” Then, “You know why our course was ordered to lead through the asteroid zone?”

  “Certainly,” Tweed answered. “To make sure we’ll not get through; that’ll dispose of you. Flora will be the widow of a hero. She’ll hand out high decorations to the nearest of kin of all these tramps that would have faced the disintegrator-squad long ago, if they hadn’t been politically right. Hell, Walt, I knew all that before I came aboard; the only question is, how’ll we carry on?”

  Carson countered, “Notice those faces?”

  Tweed nodded. “Punchy from thought-jolts; don’t know the danger yet. All they’re thinking of is how soon they’ll be back to retire on double pay. As long as there’s nothing messy like reaming and drifting a propulsion-tube, there’ll be only ordinary sloppiness to contend with.”

  Carson frowned. “Unless they get griped with the recreation facilities, or don’t like the snack bar.”

  “One thing I forgot to ask.”

  “What?”

  “How are you going to account for me?”

  Carson lifted the bench-cover, exposing a good-sized locker. It was comfortably upholstered and well-ventilated. The under side of the cover had a viewing screen; this was tied into the televisiphone intercom hookup. “Cramped, but no worse than the bunks of the old X-43’s.” He dipped into a sub-compartment and got out a uniform and a plastic mask. “Put these on.”

  The mask was a perfect replica of Carson’s face. “So far,” he continued, “they’ve had no real chance to become sure of my voice; they
don’t know yours. They’ll hear first one, then the other, right from the start, so won’t pay attention to any difference they might notice.”

  Tweed grimaced appreciatively. “It’ll be fun, watching them wonder when the skipper sleeps. What chance of the steward catching me coming in or out of my hideout?”

  “The cabin door answers to a single equation, but it can be set to open only to a pair of equations. One more thing. Quit chewing tarol.”

  “Too bad, skipper.” Tweed dipped into his kit. “Here’s a plug; you better start chewing. Easier to get your teeth greenish than to bleach mine.”

  “Oh, all right—but I think I’d rather have mutiny,” Carson grumbled, as he went to the bridge.

  * * * *

  Theodolites were trained on Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. Electronic calculators converted the data into triaxial coordinates. The helmsman scanned a radar screen, alert for meteorites, space-craft, and uncharted derelicts. Carson glanced at the progress-graph; already, the moon loomed up larger.

  He went below, making the rounds, inspecting signal-devices and space-rafts. All was well in the propulsion-tube compartment. The low grade fuel was burning clean; the blast of the port and starboard tubes made a purple-white wake some ten miles long. Intermittent, the directional-deflector jets flared, nudging her back on her course. The very smoothness of everything, the smoothest performance Carson had ever seen, infuriated him: speed, low fuel consumption, tight control combined with flexibility, owed little or nothing to him.

  A few of the finishing touches were his, no doubt about that—but the basic equations had come from the scribblings of men in the Psychopathic Center. But for the politicos, all this could have been achieved years ago—and by the men who had had the first vision of it all.

  The First Officer, Garrett, might do in a pinch. He had smuggled Martians to Venus, and political rightness had got him off with a suspended sentence for a payroll-holdup. Yet Garrett had rebelled, even if only against the ethical codes of the Thought-Control; in some respects, only his basic dishonesty kept him from being a Ten-Percenter.

  * * * *

  By the time Mars loomed up, with its rust-red hills and its scraggly, red vegetation, officers and crew were surly. For several days, they had resorted to every subterfuge to find out when the skipper slept. When they learned that there was not a single complete hour in the twenty four in which a man could get away with anything, they felt that they were being oppressed.

  Space-guards put out to meet the Hyperion. Signal-lights blinked; braking-tubes flared. Slowly, she sank to the landing port, to be made fast to the latticework mooring columns. The mayor of Galgorra offered the keys of the city to the skipper who, after inspection and refitting, would venture into further space.

  “Go out and meet him,” Carson said to Tweed. “Give everyone ground leave. I’m staying aboard, just in case of sabotage.” And after a pause, “Oh, by the way, Alec!”

  “Yes?”

  “Come back drunk,—but not as drunk as you appear to be!”

  CHAPTER 3

  When Tweed came back from the reception, Carson asked, “How was it? What’s the crew doing?”

  “The usual official muck. We’re Argonauts of space, and such like journalese nonsense. But the morale—speaking of the crew, now—seems OK. Once it was over, they all got busy fraternizing… You look as if you’d been thinking yourself into knots.”

  “There is this,” Carson said, frowning. “When the thought-jamming wears off, standard notions will come to the surface and then we are likely to smell hell. I’m going on the prowl now.” Carson indicated the screen. “I made some changes in the intercom system. It will work with infra-red rays; none of the crew knew about it. That way, you can look into every compartment and without visible light. Handy in case of sabotage in the dark.”

  “You’re going to do some fraternizing now?”

  Carson nodded. He took a plastic mask from the locker and fitted it once. Once Tweed had got a good look, Carson took it off again. “When I am out of the space port,” he explained, “this will make me look like any Terrestrian space tramp.”

  * * * *

  At the entrance of the port, Carson hailed one of the surface-shells recently imported from Terra. He had been too busy refitting the Hyperion to have had any time for personal vehicles. There was scarcely a hum when the chauffeur activated the repulsors.

  “Licensed to leave the lanes?”

  The Martian driver grinned over his shoulder, and pointed at the card fixed above the instrument panel. “Unlimited, mister.”

  Carson made an elbow-bending gesture. “Know any good spots?”

  “Only the best. Galgorra’s a dump, compared to Askala; you wait.”

  Red earth. Mountains eroded to mere hummocks. Fields of reddish vegetation. Lakes, mineral-tinged, watered the farm settlements. Each year, there was further extension of the red-spined tamarisks which made windbreaks to check soil-erosion; this planet was so old that reviving it was a pioneer’s feat. The Martians were getting into the spirit of things nicely. Their status would be improved, materially; but they’d become dependents of the government.

  Far off, the metal towers of an opencast mine twinkled in the sinking sun. Long trains of sleds, loaded with low grade fuel-ore, snaked over the plain to a processing plant. This was old stuff to Carson—but this time it was new. Always before, Mars had been a destination, not a jumping-off place.

  Some of the low ridges had forms that could hardly be geological; he saw domes with a metallic luster peeping up from dunes. As he neared these traces of what were reputed to be ruins of antiquity, it became ever more difficult to distinguish them from outcroppings of rock.

  Here and there were metal constructs, caked with a glistening film of oxide: alloys that prospectors from Terra had not yet considered worthy of salvaging, because the refractory stuff did not suit any known process or purpose.

  “I’d swear that’s what’s left of a rocket ship, over there.”

  “Could be,” the chauffeur agreed. “Want a look? Hardly any of you Terrans bother with stuff like that, just to be looking.”

  “For the fun of it; idle down and circle it slowly.”

  The chauffeur lifted the canopy. Sand, driven by the whining wind, made a dry rustling sound; fine grains stung Carson’s cheeks like the first tingle of sunburn.

  The repulsor slacked off and the shell went into a slow glide. The great metal cylinder, half-burned in sand, had been gutted. Instead of whistling, the wind which played through it made deep drumming and booming sounds. The metal was dotted with irregular dark chunks, which had hit so hard that there had been melting and alloying at the point of contact. As far as Carson could see, the hull had not crashed; it had apparently lain for ages, abandoned, outmoded, unneeded.

  “Always been there,” the chauffeur volunteered, and swung back on the run to Askala. “You see them here and there, sticking up out of the sand, until they’re buried again by the next moves of the dunes. Where’d you say you wanted to go when you got to Askala?”

  “Where do the crews usually go? This is my first trip.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Sinking to the slow lane, he idled down into the glow of vapor-tubes which became momentarily more conspicuous as darkness closed in to take possession of the red planet. Setting her down, the driver handed Carson a card. “Put in a call for Igor when you’re ready to go back. Now, right across from the parking stand—see the sign—that’s the Spaceways Rendezvous. Reasonable. Over there, that’s the Silver Palace, and Luna Tavern. Show ’em my card, and they’ll treat you right. Cash your checks without any trouble. Nice people. There’s some of the crowd that landed today—think they’re bound for Jupiter—maybe they are.”

  Crossing the street, Carson had no difficulty in avoiding three crewmen of the Hyperion. The varied colors of the glow-tubes
hampered observation. Stepping into a darkened doorway, he slipped on the skin-textured plastic mask which had the effect of skillfully applied makeup. It was film-thin, except where it changed the contour of nose and cheekbone and chin.

  Disguised, he stepped into Luna Tavern after the three spacemen. Voices and electronic music shook the resort; the sing-song tones of Martian competed with the nasal speech of Terrans, and the sibilant subtleties of Venusian speech.

  Terrans from the ships, the mines, and the trading-posts crowded the place. Terrestrian women were scarce. The travelers, however, found no shortage of amiable Martians.

  Carson got a booth adjoining the one which the trio from the Hyperion had selected—Landis, Roswell, Parker—drinking, but not drunk.

  “How does it all stack up, so far?” Landis demanded, when they had been served, and the waiter left them to approach Carson.

  “Everyone’s a bit too nice to us,” Roswell grumbled.

  “You’d gripe if they were hanging you with a brand new rope.”

  “They don’t expect us back,” Landis said.

  “Who says so?” Parker demanded.

  “Well…no one, not in so many words,” Landis answered. “It’s the way they look at us. And the voices.”

  “Come to think about it,” Parker admitted, “it has been different this time.”

  Roswell got back in. “I don’t know enough of this lingo to talk it, but I caught words that just now begin to fit together.”

  “Such as?”

  “We’ll get hammered to junk, out in the asteroid belt.”

  “Oh, the hell we will! We’re equipped for that… How’d these monkeys know, anyway?”

  “They act as if they did.”

  “No Martian ever acted as if he knew anything.”

  “This was a she—the mayor’s secretary.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Something about an old-time yarn about how the natives used to fly to Jupiter, thousands of years ago. Then it became a lost art.”

  “You know…the more I think of it, the more I’m for jumping ship.”