The Eleventh Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by F. L. Wallace

  The wail burst forth with renewed vigor.

  The robot rotated its head and the alert look flashed on and off. It stuttered, “I know w-what I’m doing. But I—I can tell only what has happened to my charge, n-never what will!” The Sitta rumbled bewilderedly. “Anticipation is beyond my capacity. The child is hurt and hungry. Please come in and help me.”

  Triumphantly, Amantha followed the robot into the house toward the nursery. She whispered to Ethan, “Sittas ain’t smart. I reckon he never heard a bunch of babies together. If one cries, they all do.”

  The Sitta barred the path. “You seem sincere and are obviously an expert. But before you go in, understand this—attempt no harm to the being in there. I’m linked.”

  “You’ll be unlinked if you don’t stop acting balky,” warned Amantha. She ducked under his arm and darted toward the crib.

  “By linked, I mean that if anything happens that I require aid to handle, an alarm rings in Sittas Circle and help is on the way. Meanwhile, I can put out fires or carry him unharmed through concrete walls.”

  “Go ahead, run through a wall,” invited Amantha abstractly, snatching up the child. “The darling’s wet, too. Fetch me a diaper.”

  The robot fetched at her command. And when the child was quiet, even cooing, but with a sharp undertone of protest, Amantha settled back. “Now we’ve got to feed him.”

  “They didn’t give me special instructions and I can’t originate. If you hadn’t come, I’d have had to contact a doctor.”

  Amantha handed the child to Ethan. “You hold him.” She went into the kitchen.

  Ethan tossed the child up. “Here we go,” he bellowed. “Free fall. Got to start early to make a spaceman out of you.” The Sitta stared at them, puzzled, as the infant shrieked with fear or joy. “Now if only Jimmy was here to see us,” said Ethan, grinning proudly.

  Jimmy didn’t come back soon enough. The police arrived first.

  * * * *

  Ethan wandered to the window. The ground was far below. He didn’t want to think of what was outside the door.

  “Don’t mind jail myself—been in a few.” He looked at Amantha. “Just for raising hell. Never thought I’d be responsible for putting you behind bars.”

  “It wasn’t you,” said Amantha, her back straightening. “Curious about it myself.” Wisps of hair straggled over her face. “I mean why didn’t we think of it on Mars? Didn’t we know what they’d do?”

  “I guess we didn’t.” Ethan cracked his knuckles contemplatively. “Did it occur to you?”

  “No. I can’t understand.” She frowned, but it didn’t help clarify what she was thinking about.

  “We’re criminals,” said Ethan soberly. “Thieves.”

  “I don’t mind for us. Jail’s not much worse than the home for Retired Citizens. It’s our grandson I’m thinking of.”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t do a thing to him.” His eyes widened and he wiped off the sweat. “Oh. I see what you mean.”

  “Jailbirds,” said Amantha. “We’ll still be in here when he grows up. It’s a fine way to help your kin. They’ll never trust him with us in his family.”

  “Jailbirds,” repeated Ethan mournfully. By some magic, his face cracked along the wrinkles and broke into a smile. “But once we flew,” he whispered to himself.

  The door opened and an official of some sort came in. Outside, Ethan caught a brief glimpse of guards.

  Marlowe, chief training director of space pilots for Interplanet Transport, Inc., walked in silence across the room and eased tiredly into a chair behind the desk. He’d gotten the news late at night, having been the first one contacted. The ship that had been lost had showed up in the atmosphere. There couldn’t be a mistake. No other flight was scheduled for months.

  “Follow it,” he had ordered and the trackers had kept it on the screen, flashing a message to the police as soon as they located where it landed. It was logical that it should go where it did, but he didn’t think that anything about this flight was susceptible to a rational approach.

  Marlowe’s eyelids felt lined with sand, but that was as nothing compared to his mental irritation. The two oldsters were dead and the ship was vaporized in the Sun. But, of course, it wasn’t true and he had to figure out why.

  Others would be here to help him unravel the mystery, from Demarest on down. Meanwhile, he was first. There was a lesson to learn if he could figure out what it was. Damn these senile incompetents.

  “Ethan and Amantha Huntley?” he asked. They didn’t fit in with his preconceived picture.

  “You the judge?” said Ethan. “I demand to see a lawyer. We’ve got our rights.”

  “Why don’t you let our son in?” Amantha protested. “I know he’s been dying to see us. You can’t keep us locked up like this.”

  “Please! I’ve just come from a consultation with your son. You’ll see him soon. As for being detained, you’ve been well treated. Most of the time, doctors have been examining you. Isn’t that true?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” challenged Ethan. “Never been sick a day in my life. Sure, my back hurts, and now and then my knees swell up. But it’s nothing. We didn’t ask for a doctor. Got our own on Mars. Young fellow, fifty or sixty.”

  * * * *

  Facts contradicted each other. They were what Marlowe expected and yet they weren’t. It was hard to determine. Records showed that if the old couple were not actually senile incompetents, they were close to it. Now that they’d returned the ship in good condition, legal action against them would be dangerous. Everyone had grandparents and knew that they were sometimes foolish. It was a spot to get out of as gracefully as the company could.

  It was as training director for Interplanet Transport, however, that he was interested in them.

  “You were in space for nearly four months,” he said. “Few people take that much exposure to radiation at one time. We had to determine the state of your health. The evaluation isn’t complete, but I think we can say you’re in no immediate danger.”

  Did they understand? It was doubtful. No one else would have stolen the ship and attempted to bring it to Earth. But, damn it, they had done so, landing the ship on the outskirts of the little town, unobserved in the gathering storm.

  The facts were painfully fresh in his mind.

  “I’d like to know something of your background,” said Marlowe. “What’s your experience with spaceships?”

  “Went to Venus in one,” Ethan answered. “Also took a trip to Mars. Stayed there.”

  The old man had haunted the control compartment, watching how it was done. Some people did. But that was not a substitute for experience.

  “That was long ago and you were a passenger. Anything more recent?”

  “Nope. Except for this last trip.”

  That was what didn’t make sense.

  “Are you sure? Be honest. Check your memory.”

  The old man had once piloted jets. But it was not the same.

  “No other experience,” said Ethan. “Had training, though.”

  Marlowe knew it. Without training, no one could manage takeoff and landing. Somehow, the official search had failed to uncover this vital information. “Where did you take it?”

  “Forget the name. Remember every word of it, though.”

  Marlowe nodded. It was often the case. Early memories were fresh and clear while later events blew over the enfeebled mind and left no trace. “But you didn’t tell me where.”

  “Don’t remember that part of it. It was a mighty good course. Wasn’t accepted, even though I passed, after paying for my lessons in advance. They said I was too old.”

  Air lodged in his throat—Marlowe doubled over. If he’d heard rightly.… Good God, there were angels and correspondence courses that watched over the aged! No—give the credit to angels.

  “I realized I wasn’t as spry as I used to be,” continued Ethan seriously. “Can’t shoot off a planet or slam down on one the way your pilots d
o. We were at the far end of the field, quite a ways off. Everybody was busy with the pilot who was running around. They were trying to help him.

  “Guess they didn’t see us. They’d have laughed if they did. We went up slow, kind of wobbly. But we got off.”

  * * * *

  The old man was beaming, proud of it. He didn’t know it wasn’t skill but the built-in safety factor, all the stabilizing mechanisms coming into play at once. Demarest, the chief of construction, had seen to it that the ships were well designed. Marlowe would have to commend him when he got here.

  A thought occurred to the training director. If the stabilizing mechanisms were there, why not use them always? Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Interplanetary ship stabilizers weren’t effective at high speed.

  Another thought crowded in. Why such high speed? That was something over which there was no choice. The protective atmosphere had to be left swiftly. The speed was added to at every opportunity. It was possible to slow down only at the last moment. Otherwise.…

  Otherwise what?

  There was no escape from the conclusion—otherwise heredity was altered and mutations would result. Marlowe sat back. This was true without exception. It was the biggest factor that controlled the conditions of interplanetary flight. But—

  They’d had their children!

  Marlowe’s pulse increased. As training director, he’d learned not to leap at things that merely looked good. He had to examine them carefully. But—well, it was a new approach, though he couldn’t really expect anything from it. There was more to a crew than a pilot, more to space flight than one incredible lucky voyage, for angels took vacations, too.

  “You weren’t on duty at all times,” Marlowe pointed out. “Then there’s navigation.”

  “Don’t sleep much,” said Ethan. “Catnap once in a while.” He thought it over. “When I did sleep, ’Mantha helped out.” He looked at her. “I’m not the expert on navigation. You’d better ask her.”

  “No!” cried Marlowe.

  “Why not? Just because I’m a woman?” Her eyes were bright.

  “But who taught you navigation?”

  Amantha sniffed. “Look here, young man, don’t tell me what I can learn.” She closed her eyes and imagination carried her back to the ship. “Lots of dials and gadgets—but I used to have near as many in my kitchen before they said I was too old to cook. Anyway, you don’t have to figure it out on paper. If you look at things just right, you sort of know where you are.”

  * * * *

  Amantha folded her hands. “First, you take a big handful of the Sun’s attraction and mix it with a bigger scoop of the gravitation of the planet you happen to be on. For us, that was Mars. Then you add a pinch of acceleration. That’s what makes you rise. When you get out a ways, you decrease Mars and add more Earth and another pinch of Sun, stirring it around in your mind each day until it feels just right.”

  She smiled. “I never did hold with too much measuring.”

  The muscles in Marlowe’s chest felt cramped from holding his breath in. While she spoke, he could almost believe she knew what she was doing, that she had a knack for it. Perhaps she did—brief flashes of clarity swept over her senile, beclouded mind. And the same with the old man. These instances of sanity—and luck—had pulled them through.

  The ship was back, unharmed. He shouldn’t ask for more. And yet—they had made it to Earth.

  The chute in the desk clattered noisily and ejected a packet. Marlowe looked at it—it was for him. The full medical report; it had been slow in coming. But this was a small town. The doctor who had looked them over was good, though. Marlowe made certain of that.

  He opened the report and read. When he finished, he knew that though luck and angels had been with them on takeoff and part of the passage—along with dimly remembered fragments of unrelated skills that had somehow coalesced into a working knowledge of how to run a ship—it wasn’t the whole story. When they landed on Earth, it was no miracle. They had known what they were doing.

  “What is it?” asked Ethan. “Habeas corpus?”

  “No,” said Marlowe. But in one sense it was, though of a kind that no mere judge could return a verdict on. He read the report again.

  “No evidence of mental senility,” it said in part. “Micro-samples of brain cells seem to be taken from someone about forty or fifty. Physical reactions are slow but firm and consistent. There are puzzling aspects. Certain obscure functions apparently are those of septuagenarians. Others are in keeping with the mental age. The weakest organs govern, of course; they should live another thirty years, as if they really were in their seventies. However, locomotion and judgment should not be impaired until the very end. Query: Are you sure these are the people I was supposed to examine? I couldn’t find that deep, inoperable, though non-malignant tumor the man was supposed to have.”

  Marlowe folded and refolded the report. Radiation could kill. But it could also cure. It was a standard treatment. But never so drastic and not on the aged for this purpose. He had come at once on two monumental discoveries, both by accident. How many discoveries were accidental?

  These two wouldn’t live longer, but they would have a better life and in full possession of their senses.

  “Sure, we borrowed—stole the ship,” said Ethan abruptly, interrupting Marlowe’s thoughts. “You got it back, but that don’t change things. We’ve got money. We might have enough to pay for most of the fuel.”

  “It’s not necessary. We’ll charge it off as an experiment.” Marlowe tried to frown. Perhaps he succeeded. “In return for not prosecuting, I want you to abandon your pension and go to work for Interplanet Transport.”

  Ethan’s joints creaked as he sat up eagerly. “Work it off? Sounds fair.” There were wrinkles on his face and there never would be any less, but they weren’t as deep as they had been, not when they formed the network of a smile. “I can sweep out a ship. Maybe you’d even let me go on a trip once in a while. I could be a cabin boy.”

  They had been considered useless and incapable for so long that they still didn’t realize what he was saying. They weren’t childish, but they thought they were. Re-education would have to proceed slowly.

  “I had a trip in mind for you,” said Marlowe. “And Amantha will have to go to work, too.”

  “Young man, it’s been a long time since I cooked anything but one canalberry shortcake, but you just watch what I can stir up.”

  “I’ve got just the place for you,” Marlowe answered. “One more stipulation—don’t talk about your experiences. If reporters come around, and I think they will, say merely that we traced the ship and, after conferring with you, decided to drop all charges. Understand?”

  Amantha nodded. “Look bad for you, wouldn’t it? Not guarding the ships any better than that, I mean.”

  He was thankful their minds had merely been resharpened, that they would never regain their original edge. She was right—it would look bad. Also, the company had competitors. And by the time they got wind of it, he wanted to have a head-start. Only a few of the aged would fit in with his plans, though the rest would benefit, and by more than a change of status.

  Marlowe nodded. “That’s it. Report tomorrow and we’ll go over your assignments.”

  “Guess you don’t know what we’re like,” said Ethan. “We’ve hardly seen our littlest grandson yet. What do you suppose we stole—experimented with the ship for?”

  Marlowe watched them go and, as the door closed, began to write hurriedly. The others would be here soon. He wanted to have it summarized by the time they arrived.

  Half an hour later, he looked at what he’d put down. It was on the back of the medical report.

  “Memo: Change the design of our lastest ship. Instead of a heavy-hulled, superfast rocket, requiring the utmost in bodily coordination and stamina, reverse every specification. Permeability to radiation no objection.”

  He chuckled. Demarest would threaten to resign. It violated every precept he had
ever learned. But the engineer would change his mind when he saw the rest of it.

  * * * *

  Marlowe read on: “Top speed need not be high. Emphasis should be placed on safety. Must be maneuverable by operators whose reactive time is not fast, but whose judgment and foresight are trustworthy. Stress simplicity.

  “Memo No. 2: Inaugurate another class of service. In addition to fast speedy passages when planets are close, a freight system that can operate continuously is now possible. The planets will open up faster if a steady supply route can be maintained. Older passengers will be a mainstay, especially since therapeutic value is sure to be disclosed. Estimated time to prepare for first run—one year minimum.

  “Memo No. 3: Recruiting. Do not overlook the most unlikely skill. It may indicate undisclosed ability of high order.

  “Training: Blank. Improvise as you go along!”

  Marlowe got up. He thought he heard planes overhead. If so, he had something for them. He’d have to argue, but he felt up to it. The sand had disappeared from his eyes. His step was lighter, too.

  And that was because of another item he hadn’t written down. He wouldn’t forget.

  He was in the mid-forties and would have to begin learning. It was the awkward age—too old—too young. He couldn’t hope to pilot the murderously fast ships currently in use. And he couldn’t take his place in the clumsy tubs that would soon be swinging between the planets, opening up space to commerce. He would have to wait, but what he learned now would be useful some day. It would be better integrated for having been long buried in his memory.

  A vintage aspiration.

  When he was immune to the mutating effects of radiation, old and nearly sleepless, he could retire from this career—into a better one.

  SECOND LANDING

  Originally published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, January 1960.

  Earth was so far away that it wasn’t visible. Even the sun was only a twinkle. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines compiled dictionaries and grammars and began translating the major languages. The history of the planet was tabulated as facts became available.