Hellflower (1957)

by George O. Smith

  Eventually they “soloed” him. Donaldson sat in the easy chair in the salon below talking to Clevis and he could hear them discussing problems unrelated to him. Their voices came over the squawk-box clear enough to understand. It gave Farradyne confidence. He took the Lancaster Eighty-One into the sky and circled Mercury for a landing, and for a moment relived that black day in his past, vividly.

  He had called the spaceport, “Semiramide calling North Venus Tower.”

  “Aye-firm, Semiramide, from North Venus Tower.”

  “Semiramide requesting landing instructions, give with the dope, Tower.”

  “Tower to Semiramide. Beacon Nine at one hundred thousand feet, Landing Area Twelve. Traffic is One Middleton Seven-Six Two at thirty thousand taking off from Beacon Two and one Lincoln Four-Four landing at Beacon Seven. Keep an eye peeled for a Burbank Eight-Experimental that’s been scooting around at seventy-thousand. That’s all.”

  “Aye-firm, Tower.”

  Then had come the voice of a woman behind him. Just a murmur, perhaps a sigh of wonder from a woman who had just been shown for the first time in her life the intricacies of rack and panel, of meter and gage and lever and shining device that surround the space pilot to demand every iota of his attention during take-off or landing. In Farradyne’s recollection, there were two kinds of people; one kind stood in the center of such an array and held their hands together for fear of upsetting something, and the other kind couldn’t keep their hands off a button or a lever if it meant their own electrocution.

  There were thirty-three people aboard, thirteen of them women and Farradyne wondered which of them it was. He didn’t care. “Get the hell below,” he snarled over his shoulder.

  The man who had brought her up made some sound. Farradyne was even shorter with the man. A woman might wander up, interested, but a man should know that this was a deadly curiosity. “Take her below, you imbecile,” he snapped.

  An older man chimed in with something that sounded like an agreement with Farradyne’s order. There was a brief three-way argument that lasted until one of them had fallen for the lure of a dark pilot lamp and an inviting pushbutton. The Semiramide bucked like a wasp-stung colt and the silver-dull sky over Venus Spaceport whirled …

  Farradyne was shocked out of this vivid daydream by the matter-of-fact voice of the Mercury Port’s dispatcher, “Lancaster from Tower, you are half a degree off landing course. Correct.”

  Farradyne responded, “Instructions received, Tower. Will correct. Will correlate instruments after landing.”

  “Aye-firm, Lancaster Eighty-One.”

  Farradyne’s remembrances ended and his solo landing was firm and easy; almost as good as he used to do in the days before…

  He put it out of his mind and went below to Clevis and Donaldson. The latter asked him what had been the matter with the course.

  “I hit a daydream of the Semiramide,” admitted Farradyne.

  “Better forget it,” suggested Clevis, drily.

  “I came out of it,” said Farradyne shortly.

  “Okay?” Clevis looked at Donaldson. The pilot nodded. “Okay, Farradyne, you’re ready. This is your ship; you’re cleared to Ganymede on speculation. You’ll play it from there. There’s enough money in the strong-locker to keep you going for a long time on no pickups at all; you’ll get regular payment for the Pluto run. Play it flat, and help us out Just remember, no shenanigans.”

  “No games,” promised Farradyne.

  Clevis stood up. “I hope you mean that,” he said earnestly. “If nothing else remember that your—er,—misfortune on Venus four years ago may have put you in a position to be a benefactor to the mankind you hate at the moment I hope you’ll find that they are as quick to applaud a hero as to condemn a louse. Don’t force me to admit that my hope of running down the hellblossom outfit was based on a bum hunch. Don’t let me down, Farradyne.”

  Clevis left then, before Farradyne could find words. Donaldson left with him, but stopped at the spacelock to hurl one sentence. “Pilots are a proud lot, Farradyne. Luck, fella.”

  An hour later Farradyne was a-space between Mercury and Ganymede. On his own in space for the first time in four long, aching years. Not quite a free man, but at least no prisoner. He took a deep breath once he was out of control-range and could put the Lancaster on the autopilot Gone were the smells and the rotting filth of the fungus fields and here were the bright, clear stars in the velvety sky. Here was freedom—freedom of the body, at least. Maybe even freedom of the soul. But not freedom of the intellect yet. He had a tough row to hoe and the tougher row of his innocence to turn up into the light of day. But for the first time since he was thrown flat on his face he felt he had a chance.

  Eventually he hit the sack…

  Ganymede was in nightfall and Jupiter was a half-rim over the horizon when he landed. He checked in at the Operations Office and listed his Lancaster as available for a pickup job. The clerk that took his license to make the listing raised a mild eyebrow at the big rubber stamp reading “Reinstated” across the face of the card, but made no comment. Farradyne’s was not the only one so stamped and Farradyne knew it. Pilots had been suspended for making a bounce-landing with an official aboard or coming in too slantwise instead of following a beacon down vertically.

  He folded the leather case and slipped it back in his pocket He looked at the pickup list which was not too long. Farradyne knew that he had a fair chance of picking up a job here, and if he did it would add to whatever backlog Clevis had left him. The space business was an odd one and Farradyne found himself able to figure his chances as though he had not spent his time digging mushrooms on Venus. His chances were excellent; the pilot that owned his own ship outright was a rare one. The rest were mortgaged to the scuppers and it was a touch and clip job to make the monthly payments. Some pilots never did get their ships paid off but managed to scratch out a living anyway. A pilot with a clear ship could eventually start a string of his own. This was the ultimate goal which so many aimed at but so few achieved. With no mortgage to contend with, Farradyne could loaf all over space and still make out rather well, picking up a job here, a job there.

  He waved a hand at the registry clerk and went out into the dark of the spaceport Rimming the edge of the field were three distant globs of neon, all indicating bars. One was as good as the next, so Farradyne headed toward the nearest. He entered it with the air of a man who had every right to land his ship anywhere he pleased and head for the nearest bar. He waggled a finger at the barkeep, called for White Star Trail, and dropped a ten-spot on the bar with a gesture indicating that he might be there long enough for a second.

  Then he turned and hooked one heel in the brass rail, leaned back on the mahagony with his elbows and surveyed the joint like a man with time and money to spare, looking for what could be found.

  Appropriately, it was called The Spaceman’s Bar even though the name indicated a lack of imagination, for there were about sixteen hundred Spaceman’s Bars rimming spaceports from Pluto to Mercury. The customers were about the same, too. There were four spacemen playing blackjack for dimes near the back of the room. Two women were nursing beers, hoping for someone to come and offer them something more substantial. Two young fellows were agreeing vigorously with one another about the political situation which neither of them liked. One character should have gone home eighteen drinks earlier and was earning a ride home on a shutter with a broken nose by needling a man who showed diminishing patience. A woman sat in a booth along the wall, dressed in a copy of some exclusive model. The copy had neither the material nor the workmanship to stand up for much more than the initial wearing, and it looked now as though she had worn it often. The woman herself had the same tired, overworked look as her dress. She was too young to have that look, but she had it and Farradyne wondered how she had earned it He looked away, disinterested. He favored the vivacious brunette who sat gayly across the table from a young spaceman and enticed him with her eyes.

  F
arradyne shrugged, the girl had eyes for no one else and she probably couldn’t have been pried away from her young man by any means, fair or foul. It occurred to Farradyne from the way she was acting, that if some other guy slipped her a love lotus, the girl would take a deep breath, get bedroom eyed, and then leave the guy to go looking for her spaceman. Farradyne grinned at the idea; the hapless spendthrift who bought the love lotus would probably go roaring back to the seller raising hob about being rooked on the deal because the lotus hadn’t worked.

  He finished his drink and then turned back to the bar for a refill. As he turned to face the road again he saw that a man had come in and was standing just inside the door, blinking at the light. He was eyeing the customers with a searching look.

  Eventually he addressed the entire room, “Who owns the Lancaster Eighty-One that just came in?”

  “I do,” said Farradyne. “Are you free?”

  “Until the third of August”

  “Terran, I see.”

  “Right. Anything wrong in being Terran?”

  “Not at all. Just an observation. I’m Timothy Martin of the Martian Water Commission and I’d like to hire you for a trip to Uranus.”

  “My name is Charles Farradyne and maybe we can make a deal. What’s the job, Mr. Martin?” Farradyne eyed the room furtively, wondering if the mention of his name would ring any cracked bells among the spacemen. It didn’t seem to, and Farradyne did not know whether to be gratified at man’s forgetfulness or depressed.

  “Only three of us and some instruments,” said Martin.

  “That’s hiking all the way to Uranus empty, you know.”

  “I know, but this is of the utmost importance. Government business.”

  “It’s up to you; I’ll haul you out there on a three passenger charter, since you probably haven’t enough gear to make it a payload. Okay?”

  “It’s a bit high,” objected Martin, “but this is necessity. Can you be ready for an early morning hop off?”

  “You be there with your gear and we’ll hike it at dawn.” He turned to the barkeep and wagged for a refill, then indicated that Martin be served. The government man took real bourbon but Farradyne stuck to his White Star Trail. The two of them clinked glasses and drank. Farradyne was about to say something when he felt a touch against his elbow. Her glazed eyes were small and glittering, and her face was hardened and thin-lipped.

  “You’re Charles Farradyne?” she asked in a flat voice. Beneath the tone of dislike and distrust the voice had what could have been a pleasant throatiness if it had not been strained.

  Farradyne nodded.

  “Farradyne—of the Semiramide?”

  “Yes.” He felt a peculiar mixture of gratification and resentment He had been recognized at last, but it should have come from a better source.

  She shut him out by turning to Martin. “Do you know whom you’ve hired?” she asked in the same flatness of tone. Profile-wise, she was not much more than a girl. Maybe twenty-three at the most Farradyne could not explain how a woman that young could possibly have crammed into the brief years all the experience that showed in her face.

  Martin fumbled for words. “Why, er—” he started, lamely.

  “This rum-lushing bum is Charles Farradyne, the hot-rock that dumped his spacer into The Bog.”

  “Is this true?” demanded Martin of Farradyne.

  “I did have an accident there,” said Farradyne. “But—”

  The woman sneered. “Accident, you call it. Sorry, aren’t you? Reeking with remorse. But not so grief stricken that you’ll not take this man out and kill him the way you killed my brother.”

  Farradyne grunted. “I don’t know you from Mother Machree,” he said. “I’ve had my trouble and I don’t like it any more than you do.”

  “You’re alive, at least,” she snarled at him. “Alive and ready to go around skylarking again. But my brother is dead and you—”

  “Am I supposed to blow out my brains? Would that make up for this brother of yours?” demanded Farradyne angrily. Some of the anguish of the affair returned. He recalled all too vividly his own mental meanderings and the feeling that suicide would erase that memory. But he had burned himself out with those long periods of self-reproach.

  “Blow your brains out,” advised the girl, sharply. “Then the rest of us will be protected against you.”

  “I suppose I’m responsible for you, too?” he asked bitterly.

  Timothy Martin gulped his drink down. “I think I’d better find another ship,” he said hurriedly.

  Farradyne nodded curtly at Martin’s back. He looked down at the girl. He felt again the powerful impulse to plead his case, to explain. But he knew that this was the wrong thing to do. Martin had refused the job once Farradyne had been identified. This might be the start of the game that Clevis wanted. Farradyne could louse it up for fair by saying the wrong thing here and now. So instead of making some appeal to the woman, Farradyne eyed her coldly.

  There was something incongruous about her. She looked like the standard tomato of the spacelanes; she dressed the part and she acted it. The rough-hewn language and the cynical bitterness were normal enough but her acceptable grammar and near-perfect diction were strange. He had catalogued her as a drunken witch but she was neither drunk nor a witch. Nor was she a thrill-seeking female out slumming for the fun of it. She belonged in the “Spaceman’s Bar” but not among the lushes.

  He caught it then. He had been too far from it for too long. The glazed, bored eyes, the completely blase attitude gave it away first; then the fact that she had become animated at the chance to start a scene. Dope is dope and all of it works the same way. The first sniff is far from dangerous, but the second must be larger, and the third larger still until the body craves a massive dose. In some dope it is physical, in others the effect is mental. With the love lotus it was emotional. The woman had been on an emotional toboggan; her capacity for emotion had been dulled to such an extent that only a scene of real violence could cut through the emotional scars to give her a reaction. Someone had slipped the girl a really topnotch dose of hellflower. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Norma Hannon,” she snapped. “And I don’t suppose you remember Frank Hannon at all.”

  “Never met him.”

  “You killed him.”

  Farradyne felt a kind of hysteria, he wanted to laugh and he knew that once he started he could not stop easily. Then the feeling went away and he looked around the room.

  Every eye in the place was on him, but as he looked at them and met their eyes, they looked down or aside. He knew the breed, they were spacemen, a very strange mixture of high intelligence and hard roughness; Farradyne knew that to a man they understood that the most damaging thing they could do to him was to deny him the physical satisfaction of a fight. He could rant and roar and in the end he would be forced to leave the joint. It would be a lame retreat, a defeat He looked back at the girl. She stood there in front of him with her hands on her hips, swaying back and forth and relishing the emotional stimulus of hatred. She wanted more, he could see. Farradyne wanted out of here; the girl had done her part for him and could do no more. To take her along as a possible link to the hellblossom operators was less than a half-baked idea. She would only make trouble because trouble was what she relished.

  “I’ve got it now,” she blurted. Her voice rose to a fever-pitch, her face cleared and took on the look of someone who is anticipating a real thrill. Norma Hannon was at that stage in addiction where bloody, murderous butchery would thrill her only to the same degree as a normal woman being kissed goodnight at her front door. “I’ve got it now,” she said, and her voice rang out through the barroom. “The only kind of a rascal that could dump a spacer and kill thirty-three people and then turn up with another spacer, is a big-time operator. You louse!” she screamed at him. Then she turned to the rest of the room.

  “Fellows, meet Charles Farradyne, the big-time hellflower operator!”

  Farradyne’s n
erves leaped. He knew his spacemen. A louse they could ignore but a dope-runner they hated viciously. Their faces changed from deliberate non-recognition of him to cold and calculated hatred, not of Farradyne, but of what he represented. Farradyne knew that he had better get out of here quickly or he would leave most of his skin on the floor.

  Something touched him on the shoulder, hard. He snapped his head around. The bartender had rapped him with the muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun.

  “Get the hell out of here, Farradyne,” said the barkeep between narrowed lips. “And take your rotten money with you!”

  He scooped up the change he had dropped beside Farradyne’s glass and hurled the original ten-dollar bill at him. It went over the bar and landed in a spittoon between the brass rail and the bar.

  “Pick it up,” growled the barkeep coldly. He waved the shotgun and forced Farradyne to retrieve the soggy bill. “Now get out—quick!” Then his voice rose above the growing murmur of angry men. “Sit down, God dammit! Every bloody one of you sit the hell down! We ain’t going to have no trouble in here!” He covered the room with the shotgun.

  Farradyne left. It was an ignominious retreat but it kept him a whole skin. He burned inwardly, be wanted to have it out, but this was the game Clevis wanted him to play and it was the price of his freedom from the fungus fields. So he left, burning mad. He took it on the run to his Lancaster, knowing that the barman would hold the room at bay only until a bare escape was made.

  He took the ship up as soon as the landing ramp had been retracted and only then did his nerves calm down. He looked at the whole affair—he seemed to have started with a bang. If Clevis wanted a decoy, what better decoy than to make a noise like a small guy muscling in on a big racket? The word would travel from bar to bar, from port to port until it reached the necessary person.