John Rackham

by We The Venusians

  "Your jacket, Tone," he said, tossing the warm dry garment across, "and good luck, from Luigi." Then he fed coins into the slot, dialed the destination from Harper's card, and sat back as the cab growled into smooth motion. "This is a crazy night, all right," he said. "Who said 'easy money'? Been thinking about you, Tone. There's only one way to handle it, so far as I can see. Harper wants you. Why, that's his business. But so long as he wants, he's going to get. So the only thing you can do is make him stop wanting, stop fancying you. Like making a fumble or two on the old keys, eh, boy? Hit a few sour notes. Make like an amateur, you know?"

  That just had not occurred to Anthony. It couldn't get into his mind now, even though it was plain enough, and obvious. All he had to do was make discordant hash of a piece, where Harper could hear. But the mere thought of it was a pain, was a kind of death. Take away music, his ability to play . . . and there was nothing left. He was still thrusting away the suicidal thought as the cab stopped, and Hartford was scrambling out. Anthony went into a hazy shadow world, divorced from reality, where his body moved and did as it was told without reference to the shriveled thing that his ego had become. Bright lights and warmth, thick sponge underfoot, obsequious attendants and imperious voices impinged on him through a fog.

  Someone took his arm, gently but firmly, directing him to an aseptic whiteness with hot scented steam. Deferent hands tugged at his sodden clothes, tearing them despite the

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  care. Paper-disposals were meant to last a day, or two days, at most. He had been making his last a week. The rain had finished them completely. The shower was good, luxury and clean smells. The towel and the hot-air blast were good, too. Then new, clean, dry clothing, and he returned to reality with sudden urgency, stared into the dull eyes of a uniformed servant. "My wallet? What have you . . ."

  "Your personal effects are on the dressing-table, sir. There was no money. Mr. Harper desired me to inform you that you may have anything you need. A meaL perhaps, and something to drink?"

  The servant was male, of indeterminate age, wooden-faced, a nothing. A life, in a uniform, an automaton. Anthony stared, and remembered what Hartford had said. A "Stupid." Cross Harper the wrong way, and that was what they could do to you. Then he thought of something else.

  "What time is it?"

  "Twenty-two fifteen, sir. Is there anything you want?"

  Anthony went across to the dressing table, caught up his wallet, and checked. Identity card; National Income card; one fifty-credit note . . . and, secreted in a pouch in the lining, one foil-wrapped tablet of anti-tan, and an unbroken strip, tight-coiled, holding a dozen. Hiding the torn foil in his palm, he approached the servant again.

  "I'd like a drink of something. Fruit-juice, no alcohol. Without sugar. And—" he struggled with embarrassment—"can you get me a packet of anti-tan?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. Nothing like that, not in this hotel!" The faint emphasis was not lost. Anthony stifled a twinge of terror. Of course they wouldn't, not here. In theory, in open speech, there was no color-bar any more. It would have been impossible, when a tablet of anti-tan a day would bleach the blackest skin to a golden tan. But the bar was still there, on a deeper layer. You could rationalize, on the surface, just as you could buy, from any chemist, the stuff to give you that "pale and interesting look" ... on the surface. But, deep down inside, no one was deceived. And there could be no anti-tan in this hotel. Naturally.

  "Just the drink, then," he said, passing it off. "No sugar, mind." The servant turned away, obediently, and, as he

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  opened the door, noise flooded through. An irate voice, kept coldly in check. Harper's voice.

  "I said a piano. A grand piano, a Steinway. I don't care if you have to go to China for it. I want it, here in my suite, quickly."

  Anthony shut the door, turned and put his back to it. Harper was insane, perhaps, but he was getting his own way. And Hartford had suggested a way of escape. The thought, as it came back, hurt just as much as it had the first time. Discords, errors, wrong notes. . . . His eyes fell on a slim bright thing, on the dressing-table . . . stirred memories. He went across, put out his hand to touch the bright chrome-steel "key." It must have puzzled the servant, he thought. A box-spanner is hardly the sort of thing one is likely to carry about. There came a peremptory rap on the door and the click as it opened. Anthony swung to see Harper standing there, head up and alert in his silver-gray cloak.

  "Ah, our pianist, clean and wholesome again. What's that?"

  Anthony tried to hide the spanner but Harper was much too quick in crossing the floor. "It's a Tcey.' For tuning . . . a piano."

  "Indeed! You know, Taylor, I had doubts about you. To me, you and Miss Merrill, and one other, represent a hell of a gamble, the longest and slimmest chance any man ever took. So, I had doubts. But this"—he gave back the key—"almost convinces me. Ill have a piano for you, in no time at all. If you can play it as well as I think you can, 111 give it to you, as a present when I'm done with you. Now why do you look like that, eh?" The steel-gray eyes narrowed, bored into Anthony's own as he went back a step. "What are you afraid of, Taylor? That 111 expose you as a fake, a show-off?"

  "No!" Anthony threw that back at him, instantly.

  "All right, then. All I want from you is that you come with me to Venus. You, the little lady next door, and one more person, who will be here by morning. I want you to come, and perform, for my friends on Venus. You will be treated like royalty. You will be paid more money than you have ever dreamed of. I guarantee you absolutely safe conduct there and back. Put it down in writing and I'll sign it.

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  I can't speak more fair than that. You think about it." He spun, abruptly, as there came a rumble of noise beyond the door, a discreet knock, and then an mquiring, harassed face.

  "Mr. Harper, the piano is here."

  "Good! Come on, Taylor, this is your moment. Either you can play the thing, and you're the man I want ... or you can't, you're a fake, and I will see to it that you never touch an instrument of any kind, in public, ever again!" The voice was gentle, but crisp, and deadly serious.

  Anthony almost cried out at sight of the piano. It was old. It had been frantically dusted, but the finger-marks of age were not to be so simply disguised. It stood, forlornly, in the middle of a room that was glitteringly modem, functional and soulless. It looked as lost as he felt at that moment. The top groaned as he lifted it, propped it up. Ancient smells of varnish and dust came to his nostrils. He slapped the dusty stool, sat, and felt out a chord . . . and his teeth stood on edge. Harper had moved round to where he could watch Anthony's face.

  Now he asked, "Out of kilter, is it?"

  "You wanted a piano!" the starch-fronted manager protested. "This is the very best we could get. From an antique dealer. Genuine!"

  Harper brushed his interruption away. "Can it be fixed, Taylor?"

  "Oh yes. It's just out of tune. Hasn't been touched in years . . ." He ran his fingers delicately up the keyboard, came down again in a cascade of double octaves, listening. "Lovely tone ... a better one than Luigi's."

  "That's all I wanted to know." He waved a dismissing hand at the manager. "Fix it up, Taylor. It's yours."

  "Don't you want to hear me play?"

  "Oh yes, certainly. But I'm convinced already. I was watching your face. You want to understand a man, you don't listen to what he says, you watch what he does. I'm no musician, Taylor. I know a little. That sounds fine to me, but I could tell it didn't, to you. That's good enough. But you square it up. I'll go and see how Miss Merrill's getting along."

  The servant came back with a tall glass, wheeled a table to Anthony's elbow, hovered until Anthony sent him away. Then, gulping the tablet and drowning it with the drink,

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  which tasted shockingly different from any Juice Anthony had previously had, he carried on with the loving detail of adjusting the sounds of strings, matching them to that "standard" which was built into his whole persona
lity. It was a wonderful instrument, solid and strong, with a depth of tone that was a chest-shaking growl in the lower register, and a shrill, pure yelp in the upper strings, with never a chatter or a jangle in the whole range. By the time he had balanced the whole into harmony, all thought of betraying his love had vanished as if it had never been suggested.

  Slipping the key back into his pocket, he began sounding chords and trills at random, caught the tail end of an old favorite as it welled up in his mind, and settled down to play it properly. Liszt again—the man who had gained the whispered reputation of being "diabolic" in his own life-time; who had composed deliberately for complexity, so that even Busoni, contemplating some of the works, had said, "The maestro himself would have to rehearse these carefully." This, 'La Campanella,' began with an innocently simple tinkling theme for the right hand, and a steady striding left hand accompaniment. It was meticulous, precise, but pleasing, at first. Then, as the theme ran out, and started all over again, that leaping right hand motif was knotted over on itself and doubled, but just as clean and crisp ... a swashbuckling conceit. And then, incredibly, the third time doubled in complexity and speed everything that had gone before, while preserving the innocently simple underlying theme, and one wondered how it was possible. It was sheer technical virtuosity for the sake of it, Anthony thought, as if from a distance, watching his hammering, leaping, jumping fingers . . . but good, tool

  The great stamping, finishing chords echoed through the room, faded into echoing silence, and he realized he had an audience. Harper stood by a door, smiling like a man who has just won a bet with himself. By him, Martha Merrill stood breathless and agape, her violet eyes huge.

  "That was wonderful . . . but nasty, too," she said. "A sort of clever sneer at everyone. Like a genius bragging."

  "He was a genius," Anthony mumbled, "and he was showing off. And he was sneering, because people didn't understand him, I suppose."

  "Never mind explaining it," Harper came forward. "You

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  play like that, where we're going, and 111 be satisfied. More than satisfied. Now, my dear, I'd like to hear you sing something..."

  Anthony slept very little that night, for all the fine room and the comfortable bed. What sleep he did get was torn and smeared with screaming nightmares of staring faces and pointing fingers, and running, frantically, with his hands over his face. Morning found him sore-eyed, with a thick tongue and a foul mouth, and more than ever determined that he would not go to Venus.

  "Why not?" Harper demanded, across the breakfast table. "Taylor, I don't understand you. There isn't time to have you psycho-ed out of whatever it is that's gnawing at your subconscious, so I'm going to pressure you, one way or another. I get what I want, and I want you. You can face that, and make it easy for yourself, or fight it, and me, and lose. It will be rough on you, but I'm going to have my way."

  "Are you afraid of space-flight?" Martha asked. "Is that it? I am, too, but they have tranquils and stuff, for that, don't they, Mr. Harper?"

  "They certainly do," Harper nodded, then snapped his head round as an attendant approached him. "What?"

  "A Mr. Austin Willers for you, sir."

  "Oh, yes, good. Bring him right up here." The attendant went away and Harper swung his steely gaze on Anthony. "Here comes a man," he said, "who has been flying all night to get here, on my say-so. A tenor, your style, Miss Merrill. I heard him in the United States. He has a trick memory and a freak voice. That's the way he has been handling it. And scraping a living in hole-and-comer clubs. Like you, Taylor. Hell be here in a moment. You have that long to make up your mind. I want all three of you, with me, for Venus. All three, or none. It's up to you, Taylor. Throw me down on this and I wash my hands of all of you . . . and I leave it to you to explain, to the other two, how they lost the chance-in-a-lifetime, because of you. Here he comes, now, Taylor. The next word is yours. Do you come to Venus with me ... or not?"

  Anthony stared at the stark tragedy of Martha's face, dragged his eyes away and looked to the door, to the tall, gangling, anxious-faced man who stood there, bare-headed

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  and wondering. And something inside of him shrank to a needle-point ache, then found a hole and hid itself. "All right," he mumbled. "Ill come."

  He sat, alone, in the view-room, looking at nothing. The screens were dead, here. Venus was to be seen from the ventral view-room. That's where the others were. Anthony knew that nemesis was creeping up on him, and the knowledge was enough. He didn't want to sit and look at it. The seat fell away beneath him, momentarily, and he clutched an arm-rest. Someone juggling With the anti-gravs, getting ready to come alongside the satellite-platform. Any minute now the alarms would sound. Venus was out there, somewhere, and getting closer by the minute. The idea hung over him like a weight.

  Clang . . . the gong snapped him into a leap of fright. Clang . . . that pitch was chosen to catch the nerves. Clang ... he scrambled up from his chair, sweating . . . clang . . . into the passage and chrome-railed companionway.

  "One minute to course-correction and rendezvous," an impersonal voice warned him. "Passengers will secure to cabins, at once."

  At the end of the companionway he almost collided with Martha, and Willers, and that infernal gong began again . . . clang.

  "Let me help you," she said, and put a hand . . . clang ... on his arm. He threw it off, savagely, hardly sane in his . . . clang . . . terror, and the pounding in his skull . . . clang . . .

  "Let me alone!" he choked. "Let me alonel If it hadn't been for you . . . clang ... I wouldn't be here. Damn you!" He was almost speechless with . . . clang . . . with the effort of holding in his fear. There was . . . clang . . . shock on her face. He fended himself away . . . clang . . . from the bulkhead, and Willers grabbed at his arm. CLANG.

  "Just a minute!" he growled. "You can't . . . CLANG . . . talk to a lady like that!" Without thinking about it . . . CLANG . . . Anthony balled his fist and flung it . . . CLANG . . . against Willers' jaw, saw him reel. Then he tore loose . . . CLANG . . . and went retching down the passage to his own . . . CLANG . . . cabin. There, sobbing for breath . . . CLANG ... he slammed the door shut and threw

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  himself on his . . . CLANG . . . bunk. The automatic mechanism sighed and clicked, the side-wall folded down in a comforting grip of sponge-plastic, holding him safely. The steady clanging was far away, now. After a while it stopped. Strange forces and strains tugged him, physically and mentally. He broke through something inside, and went down into a hot darkness of shame and degradation. He wallowed in fear and humiliation until there was no more left of it, until it had all been boiled out of his system, leaving him dully indifferent.

  Everything had gone, his interests and curiosities along with his fears and resentment, leaving him curiously lightheaded and uncaring. He was distantly aware that the ship had come alongside the orbital satellite, that various items of value were being unloaded, and that he was one of the items. In a far-off-way, that bit of information was almost amusing. If it had mattered, he would have laughed at it, as they waited for the shuttle-rocket to come fire-tailing up from the planet below and get them. He was still microscopically intrigued by the thought as he sat where Harper told him to, and watched, through a port, the surface of the planet reaching up to engulf him.

  Willers had an angry red bruise along his left cheek-bone. That planet down there wasn't fleecy white clouds, after all, but a seething, mottled greenish-gray, like some gross glob of yeast. Harper was looking at him oddly. Willers was whispering, but Anthony could hear every word, as if his hearing had been tuned up to maximum response.

  "I tell you, he's a hop. Nobody acts that way, normal. And you can see the glassy glitter in his eyes. Doped to the ear-lobes, I'll bet . . ."

  Willers was obviously much taken with Martha. And why not? She was very attractive, even if she was . . . Anthony's thought-stream dried up, there. Harper was talking, now, like a tourist-guide, and by some freak of the mind,
Anthony heard his "now" words laid over all the mixed-up snippets of information Harper had passed on, in odd moments, during the trip . . . the "then" words. Two streams of ideas, related and intertwined, yet distinct, just as brass, woodwind and strings combine to make one "sound" yet each is distinct.

  Down there, under that writhing scum were three domes,

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  each a mile in diameter, fifteen miles apart from each other at the comers of an equilateral triangle. Each had capacity for one hundred "residents," in sybaritic comfort. And such was the freakish atmosphere and surface that, apart from arduous physical journeying from one to the other, there was no contact. Each dome was an island universe in itself. That was "Harper-strings," all sweet hormony. "Harper-brass" had sounded a somber note. The domes were under-com-plement. You could "buy in," if you had enough real money to purchase one threehundredth share of Bu-Bean. But you had to be the right "type," or you'd be wasting your money, and the right "types" were rare. Harper had not been able to define "type" as he used it, but he had mentioned a motto ... a code ... in Latin. Sic uteretuo ut non alienum laedas—"Be as free as you wish, just so long as you stop short of interference with others, or endangering the genera] safety." It sounded rational enough.

  "Harper-now" was all bright woodwind information. "That atmosphere . . . astronomers wrangled about it . . . probes gave contradictory answers ... it remained a mystery until manned explorations were able to make physical checks. And then they discovered that it is not, in the usual sense, an atmosphere at all. It's alivel" Willers, and Martha, gave the appropriate gasps of wonder. Anthony listened.

  "Yes, it is alive, in constant turbulence, apparendy boiling. It's an ever-shifting sea of microscopic fungal spores. Mushroom soup, you might say. The fine spores ride up on thermals, reach sunlight. They grow, clump, multiply, become too heavy to go on floating. They sink down to the surface, just as endless masses of plankton sink into the sea, providing food for fish life, on Earth. A steady, fine rain of food. And light, too. As you will see, it is not gloomy dark, down there, but glowing with light . . . bio-lumines-cense. And you will find, too, that it is hot, and damp, but quite breathable. In its own way, it's beautiful, what little we know . . ."