(1/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  "Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast normal to a system?"

  "It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are much thicker here--we're in the center somewhere--than around Sol. The probability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less than point four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. I haven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"

  "Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."

  "So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an Earth-type planet?"

  "Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."

  "That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially since we can't use more than one point----"

  "One point zero gravities," Jones put in.

  "Over the long pull--and the women--you're right," Deston agreed, and took out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ... velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"

  "Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.

  "Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it," and all nine survivors went to work.

  Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the others except Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. He barely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jones ask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years of advanced study before either of them could understand the simplest material on the doctor's tapes.

  III.

  The tremendous engines of the Procyon were again putting out their wonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on course at one gravity. The lifecraft were in their slots, but the five and the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressive emptiness that the ship itself now was. And socially, outside of working hours, the two groups did not mix.

  Clean-up was going nicely, at the union rate of six hours on and eighteen hours off. Deston could have set any hours he pleased, but he didn't. There was plenty of time. Eleven months in deep space is a fearfully, a tremendously long time.

  "Morning," "afternoon," "evening," and "night" were, of course, purely conventional terms. The twenty-four-hour "day" measured off by the brute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee, expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity.

  One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in the main room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and Moose Mordan, were playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size; compact rather than slender; built of rawhide and spring steel. Lithe and poised, he was the epitome of leashed and controlled action. Moose was six-feet-four and weighed a good two-forty--stolid, massive, solid. Ferdy and Moose; a tiger and an elephant; both owned in fee simple by Vincent Lopresto.

  The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had many vitriolic arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.

  "Play it my way and we've got it made, I tell you!" Newman pounded the table with his fist. "Seventy million if it's a cent! Heavier grease than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even heard of! I'm as good an astrogator as Jones is, and a damn sight better engineer. In electronics I maybe ain't got the theory Pretty Boy has, but at building and repairing the stuff I've forgot more than he ever will know. At practical stuff, and that's all we give a whoop about, I lay over both them sissies like a Lunar dome."

  "Oh, yeah?" Lopresto sneered. "How come you aren't ticketed for subspace, then?"

  "For hell's sake, act your age!" Newman snorted in disgust. Eyes locked and held, but nothing happened. "D'ya think I'm dumb? Or that them subspace Boy Scouts can be fixed? Or I don't know where the heavy grease is at? Or I can't make the approach? Why ain't you in subspace?"

  "I see." Lopresto forced his anger down. "But I've got to be sure we can get back without 'em."

  "You can be damn sure. I got to get back myself, don't I? But get one thing down solid. I get the big peroxide blonde."

  "You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellowhead a lot better."

  Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: "And don't think for a second you can make me crawl, you small-time, chiseling punk. Rub me out after we kill them off and you get nowhere. You're dead. Chew on that a while, and you'll know who's boss."

  After just the right amount of holding back and objecting, Lopresto agreed. "You win, Newman, the way the cards lay. Have you ever planned this kind of an operation or do you want me to?"

  "You do it, Vince," Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the qualities of a leader. "Besides, you already have, ain't you?"

  "Of course. Ferdy will take Deston----"

  "No he won't! He's mine, the louse!"

  "If you're that dumb, all bets are off. What are you using for a brain? Can't you see the guy's chain lightning on ball bearings?"

  "But we're going to surprise 'em, ain't we?"

  "Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give him an even break. You wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you've got the brains of a louse you know it."

  "O. K., we'll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see who----"

  "I can draw twice to your once, but I suppose I'll have to prove it to you. I'll take Jones; you will gun the professor; Moose will grab the dames, one under each arm, and keep 'em out of the way until the shooting's over. The only thing is, when? The sooner the better. Tomorrow?"

  "Not quite, Vince. Let 'em finish figuring course, time, distance, all that stuff. They can do it a lot faster and some better than I can. I'll tell you when."

  "O. K., and I'll give the signal. When I yell 'NOW' we give 'em the business."

  Newman went to his cabin and the muscle called Moose spoke thoughtfully. That is, as nearly thoughtfully as his mental equipment would allow.

  "I don't like that ape, boss. Before you gun him, let me work him over just a little bit, huh?"

  "It'll be quite a while yet, but that's a promise, Moose. As soon as his job's done he'll wish he'd never been born. Until then, we'll let him think he's Top Dog. Let him rave. But Ferdy, any time he's behind me or out of sight, watch him like a hawk. Shoot him through the right elbow if he makes one sour move."

  "I get you, boss."

  * * * * *

  A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: "You're worried, Babe, and everything's going so smoothly. Why?"

  "Too smoothly altogether. That's why. Newman ought to be doing a slow burn and goldbricking all he dares; instead of which he's happy as a clam and working like a nailer ... and I wouldn't trust Vincent Lopresto or Ferdinand Blaine as far as I can throw a brick chimney by its smoke. This whole situation stinks. There's going to be shooting for sure."

  "But they couldn't do anything without you two!" Bernice exclaimed. "It'd be suicide ... and with no motive ... could they, Ted, possibly?"

  Jones' dark face did not lighten. "They could, and I'm very much afraid they intend to. As a crew-chief, Newman is a jack-leg engineer and a very good practical 'troncist; and if he's what I think he is----" He paused.

  "Could be," Deston said, doubtfully. "In with a mob of normal-space pirate-smugglers. I'll buy that, but there wouldn't be enough plunder to----"

  "Just a sec. So he's a pretty good rule-of-thumb astrogator, too, and we're computing every element of the flight. As for motive--salvage. With either of us alive, none. With both of us dead, can you guess within ten million bucks of how much they'll collect?"

  "Blockhead!" Deston slapped himself on the forehead. "I never even thought of that angle. That nails it down solid."

  "With the added attraction," Jones went on, coldly and steadily, "of having two extremely desirable female women for eleven months before killing them, too."

  Both girls shrank visibly, and Deston said: "Check. I thought that was the main feature, but it didn't add up. This does. Now, how will they figu
re the battle? Both of us at once, of----"

  "Why?" Barbara asked. "I'd think they'd waylay you, one at a time."

  "Uh-uh. The survivor would lock the ship in null-G and it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel. Since we're almost never together on duty ... and it won't come until after we've finished the computations ... they'll think up a good reason for everybody to be together, and that itself will be the tip-off. Ferdy will probably draw on me----"

  "And he'll kill you," Jones said, flatly. "So I think I'll blow his brains out tomorrow morning on sight."

  "And get killed yourself? No ... much better to use their own trap----"

  "We can't! Fast as you are, you aren't in his class. He's a professional--probably one of the fastest guns in space."

  "Yes, but ... I've got a ... I mean I think I can----"

  Bernice, grinning openly now, stopped Deston's floundering. "It's high time you fellows told each other the truth. Bobby and I let our back hair down long ago--we were both tremendously surprised to know that both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are. Perhaps even more so."

  "Oh ... so you get hunches, too?" Jones demanded. "So you'll have plenty of warning?"

  "All my life. The old alarm clock has never failed me yet. But the girls can't start packing pistols now."

  "I wouldn't know how to shoot one if I did," Bernice laughed. "I'll throw things I'm very good at that."

  "Huh?" Jones asked. He didn't know his new wife very well, either. "What can you throw straight enough to do any good?"

  "Anything I can reach," she replied, confidently. "Baseballs, medicine balls, cannon balls, rocks, bricks, darts, discus, hammer, javelin--what-have-you. In a for-real battle I'd prefer ... chairs, I think. Flying chairs are really hard to cope with. Knives are too ... uh-uh, I'd much rather have you fellows do the actual executing. I'll start wearing a couple of knives in leg-sheaths, but I won't throw 'em or use 'em unless I absolutely have to. So who will I knock out with the first chair?"

  "I'll answer that," Barbara said, quietly. "If it's Blaine against Babe, it'll be Lopresto against Herc. So you'll throw your chairs or whatever at that unspeakable oaf Newman."

  "I'd rather brain him than anyone else I know, but that would leave that gigantic gorilla to ... why, he'd ... listen, you'll simply have to go armed."

  "I always do." Barbara held out her hands. "Since they don't want to shoot us two--yet--these are all the weapons I'll need."

  "Against a man-mountain like that? You're that good? Really?"

  "Especially against a man-mountain like that. I'm that good. Really," and both Joneses began to realize what Deston already knew--just how deadly those harmless-seeming weapons could be.

  Barbara went on: "We should have a signal, in case one of us gets warning first. Something that wouldn't mean anything to them ... musical, say ... Brahms. That's it. The very instant any one of us feels their intent to signal their attack he yells 'BRAHMS!' and we all beat them to the punch. O. K.?"

  It was O. K., and the four--Adams was still hard at work in the lounge--went to bed.

  * * * * *

  And three days later, within an hour after the last flight-datum had been "put in the tank," the four intended victims allowed themselves to be inveigled into the lounge. Everything was peaceful; everyone was full of friendship and brotherly love. But suddenly "BRAHMS!" rang out, with four voices in absolute unison; followed a moment later by Lopresto's stentorian "NOW!"

  It was a very good thing that Deston had had ample warning, for he was indeed competing out of his class. As it was, his bullet crashed through Blaine's head, while the gunman's went harmlessly into the carpet. The other pistol duel wasn't even close! Lopresto's hand barely touched his gun.

  Bernice, even while shrieking the battle-cry, leaped to her feet, hurled her chair, and reached for another; but one chair was enough. That fiercely but accurately-sped missile knocked the half-drawn pistol from Newman's hand and sent his body crashing to the floor, where Deston's second bullet made it certain that he would not recover consciousness.

  Barbara's hand-to-hand engagement took about one second longer. Moose Mordan was big and strong; and, for such a big man, was fairly fast physically. If he had had time to get his muscles ready, he might have had a chance. His thought processes, however, were lamentably slow; and Barbara Warner Deston was almost as fast physically as she was mentally. Thus she reached him before he even began to realize that this pint-sized girl actually intended to hit him; and thus it was that his belly-muscles were still completely relaxed when her small but extremely hard left fist sank half-forearm-deep into his solar plexus.

  With an agonized "WHOOSH!" he began to double up, but she scarcely allowed him to bend. Her right hand, fingers tightly bunched, was already boring savagely into a selected spot at the base of his neck. Then, left hand at his throat and right hand pulling hard at his belt, she put the totalized and concentrated power of her whole body behind the knee she drove into his groin.

  That ended it. The big man could very well have been dying on his feet. To make sure, however--or to keep the girl from knowing that she had killed a man?--Deston and Jones each put a bullet through the falling head before it struck the rug.

  Both girls flung themselves, sobbing, into their husband's arms.

  The whole battle had lasted only a few seconds. Adams, although he had seen almost everything, had been concentrating so deeply that it took those few seconds for him actually to realize what was going on. He got up, felt[2] of Newman's head, then looked casually at the three other bodies.

  [2] Transcriber's note: As in original.

  "Oh, I killed him, Carl!" Barbara sobbed, convulsively. "And the worst of it is, I really meant to! I never did anything like that before in my whole life!"

  "You didn't kill him, Barbara," Adams said.

  "Huh?" She raised her head from Deston's shoulder; the contrast between her streaming eyes and the relief dawning over her whole face was almost funny. "Why, I did the foulest things possible, and as hard as I possibly could. I'm sure I killed him."

  "By no means, my dear. Judo techniques, however skillfully and powerfully applied, do not and can not kill instantly. Bullets through the brain do. I will photograph the cadavers, of course, and perform the customary post-mortem examinations for the record; but I know already what the findings will be. These four men died instantly of gunshot wounds."

  * * * * *

  With the four gangsters gone, life aboardship settled down quickly into a routine. That routine, however, was in no sense dull. The officers had plenty to do; operating the whole ship and rebuilding the mechanisms that were operating on jury rigging or on straight "bread-board" hookups. And in their "spare" time they enjoyed themselves tremendously in becoming better and better acquainted with their wives. For Bernice and Jones, like Barbara and Deston, had for each other an infinite number of endless vistas of personality; the exploration of which was sheerest delight.

  The girls--each of whom became joyously pregnant as soon as she could--kept house and helped their husbands whenever need or opportunity arose. Their biggest chore, however, was to see to it that Adams got sleep, food, and exercise. For, if left to his own devices, he would never have exercised at all, would have grabbed a bite now and then, and would have slept only when he could no longer stay awake.

  "Uncle Andy, why don't you use that Big Brain of yours?" Barbara snapped at him one day. "For a man that's actually as smart as you are, I swear you've got the least sense of anybody I know!"

  "But it's necessary, my dear child," Adams explained, unmoved. "This material is new. There are many extremely difficult problems involved, and I have less than a year to work on them. Less than one year; and it is a task for a team of specialists and all the resources of a research center."

  To the officers, however, Adams went into more detail. "Considering the enormous amounts of supplies carried; the scope, quantity, and quality of the safety devices employed; it is improbable that we are the fi
rst survivors of a subspace catastrophe to set course for a planet."

  After some argument, the officers agreed.

  "While I cannot as yet detect it, classify it, or evaluate it, we are carrying an extremely heavy charge of an unknown nature; the residuum of a field of force which is possibly more or less analogous to the electromagnetic field. This residuum either is or is not dischargeable to an object of planetary mass; and I'm virtually certain that it is. The discharge may be anything from an imperceptible flow up to one of such violence as to volatilize the craft carrying it. From the facts: One, that in the absence of that field the subspace radio will function normally; and Two, that no subspace-radio messages have ever been received from survivors; the conclusion seems inescapable that the discharge of this unknown field is in fact of extreme violence."

  "Good God!" Deston exclaimed. "Oh ... that was what you meant by 'fantastic precautions,' back there?"

  "Precisely."

  "But what can we do about it?"

  "I don't know. I ... simply ... do ... not ... know." Adams lost himself in thought for over a minute. "This is all so new ... I know so little ... and am working with such pitifully inadequate instrumentation--However, we have months of time yet, and if I am unable to arrive at a conclusion before arrival--I don't mean a rigorous analysis, of course, but merely a stop-gap, empirical, pragmatic solution--we will simply remain in orbit around that sun until I do."

  IV.

  The Procyon bored on through space, at one unchanging gravity of acceleration. It may not seem, at first glance, that one gravity would result in any very high velocity; but when it is maintained steadily for days and weeks and months, it builds up to a very respectable speed. Nor was there any question of power, for the Procyon's atomics did not drive the ship, but merely energized the "Chaytors"--the Chaytor Effect engines that tapped the energy of the expanding universe itself.

  Thus, in less than six months, the Procyon had attained a velocity almost half that of light. At the estimated mid-point of the flight the spaceship, still at one gravity of drive, was turned end-for-end; so that for the ensuing five-and-a-fraction months she would be slowing down.