“Till I’m what myself?” the captain asked, becoming puzzled again.
“A witch, like us,” said Goth. “We got our rules. And that won’t be for four years, Karres time.”
“It won’t, eh?” said the captain. “What happens then?”
“That’s when I’m marriageable age,” said Goth, frowning at the jar of Wintenberry jelly. She pulled it towards her and inspected it carefully. “I got it all fixed,” she told the jelly firmly, “as soon as they started saying they ought to pick out a wife for you on Karres, so you could stay. I said it was me, right away; and everyone else said finally that was all right then—even Maleen, because she had this boy friend.”
“You mean,” said the captain, stunned, “this was all planned out on Karres?”
“Sure,” said Goth. She pushed the jelly back where it had been standing, and glanced up at him again. “For three weeks, that’s about all everyone talked about in the town! It set a perceedent—”
She paused doubtfully.
“That would explain it,” the captain admitted.
“Uh-huh,” Goth nodded relieved, settling back in her chair. “But it was my father who told us how to do it so you’d break up with the people on Nikkeldepain. He said it was in the blood.”
“What was in the blood?” the captain said patiently.
“That you’d break up with them. That’s Threbus, my father,” Goth informed him. “You met him a couple of times in the town. Big man with a blond beard—Maleen and the Leewit take after him.”
“You wouldn’t mean my great-uncle Threbus?” the captain inquired. He was in a state of strange calm by now.
“That’s right,” said Goth. “He liked you a lot.”
“It’s a small Galaxy,” said the captain philosophically. “So that’s where Threbus wound up! I’d like to meet him again some day.”
“We’ll start after Karres four years from now, when you learn about those things,” Goth said. “We’ll catch up with them all right. That’s still thirteen hundred and seventy-two Old Sidereal days,” she added, “but there’s a lot to do in between. You want to pay the money you owe back to those people, don’t you? I got some ideas—”
“None of those teleporting tricks now!” the captain warned.
“Kid stuff!” Goth said scornfully. “I’m growing up. This’ll be fair swapping. But we’ll get rich.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the captain admitted. He thought a moment. “Seeing we’ve turned out to be distant relatives, I suppose it is all right, too, if I adopt you meanwhile—”
“Sure,” said Goth. She stood up.
“Where you going?” the captain asked.
“Bed,” said Goth. “I’m tired.” She stopped at the hall door. “About all I can tell you about us till then,” she said, “you can read in those Regulations, like the one man said—the one you kicked off the ship. There’s a lot about us in there. Lots of lies, too, though!”
“And when did you find out about the communicator between here and the captain’s cabin?” the captain inquired.
Goth grinned. “A while back,” she admitted. “The others never noticed!”
“All right,” the captain said. “Good night, witch—if you get a stomachache, yell and I’ll bring the medicine.”
“Good night,” Goth yawned. “I will, I think.”
“And wash behind your ears!” the captain added, trying to remember the bedtime instructions he’d overheard Maleen giving the junior witches.
“All right,” said Goth sleepily. The hall door closed behind her—but half a minute later, it was briskly opened again. The captain looked up startled from the voluminous stack of “General Instructions and Space Regulations of the Republic of Nikkeldepain” he’d just discovered in one of the drawers of the control desk. Goth stood in the doorway, scowling and wide-awake.
“And you wash behind yours!” she said.
“Huh?” said the captain. He reflected a moment. “All right,” he said. “We both will, then.”
“Right,” said Goth, satisfied.
The door closed once more.
The captain began to run his finger down the lengthy index of K’s—or could it be under W?
OVER THE TOP
by Lester del Rey
THE SKY WAS LOUSY WITH STARS—NASTY LITTLE PINPOINTS OF COLD HOSTILITY that had neither the remoteness of space nor the friendly warmth of Earth. They didn’t twinkle honestly, but tittered and snickered down. And there wasn’t even one moon. Dave Mannen knew better, but his eyes looked for the low scudding forms of Deimos and Phobos because of all the romanticists who’d written of them. They were up there, all right, but only cold rocks, too small to see.
Rocks in the sky, and rocks in his head—not to mention the lump on the back of his skull. He ran tense fingers over his wiry black hair until he found the swelling, and winced. With better luck, he’d have had every inch of his three-foot body mashed to jelly, instead of that, though. Blast Mars!
He flipped the searchlight on and looked out, but the view hadn’t improved any. It was nothing but a drab plain of tarnished reddish sand, chucked about in ridiculous potholes, running out beyond the light without change. The stringy ropes of plantlike stuff had decided to clump into balls during the night, but their bilious green still had a clabbered appearance, like the result of a three days’ binge. There was a thin rime of frost over them, catching the light in little wicked sparks. That was probably significant data; it would prove that there was more water in the air than the scientists had figured, even with revised calculations from the twenty-four-inch lunar refractor.
But that was normal enough. The bright boys got together with their hundred-ton electronic slipsticks and brought forth all manner of results; after that, they had to send someone out to die here and there before they found why the sticks had slipped. Like Dave. Sure, the refractory tube linings were good for twenty-four hours of continual blast—tested under the most rigorous lab conditions, even tried on a couple of Moon hops.
So naturally, with Unitech’s billionaire backer and new power handling methods giving them the idea of beating the Services to Mars—no need to stop on the Moon even, they were that good—they didn’t include spare linings. They’d have had to leave out some of their fancy radar junk and wait for results until the rocket returned.
Well, the tubes had been good. It was only after three hours of blasting, total, when he was braking down for Mars, that they began pitting. Then they’d held up after a fashion until there was only forty feet of free fall left—about the same as fifteen on Earth. The ship hadn’t been damaged, had even landed on her tripod legs, and the radar stuff had come through fine. The only trouble was that Dave had no return ticket. There was food for six months, water for more by condensing and re-using; but the clicking of the air machine wouldn’t let him forget his supply of breathing material was being emptied, a trickle at a time. And there was only enough there for three weeks, at the outside. After that, curtains.
Of course, if the bright boys’ plans had worked, he could live on compressed air drawn from outside by the air lock pumps. Too bad the landing had sprung them just enough so they could barely hold their own and keep him from losing air if he decided to go outside. A lot of things were too bad.
But at least the radar was working fine. He couldn’t breathe it or take off with it, but the crystal amplifiers would have taken even a free fall all the way from mid-space. He cut the power on, fiddling until he found the lunar broadcast from Earth. It had a squiggly sound, but most of the words came through on the megacycle band. There was something about a fool kid who’d sneaked into a plane and got off the ground somehow, leaving a hundred honest pilots trying to kill themselves in getting him down. People could kill each other by the millions, but they’d go all out to save one spectacular useless life, as usual.
Then it came: “No word from the United Technical Foundation rocket, now fourteen hours overdue in reporting. Foundation men have g
iven up hope, and feel that Mannen must have died in space from unknown causes, leaving the rocket to coast past Mars unmanned. Any violent crash would have tripped automatic signalers, and there was no word of trouble from Mannen—”
There was more, though less than on the kid. One rocket had been tried two years before, and gone wide because the tubes blew before reversal; the world had heard the clicking of Morse code right to the end, then. This failure was only a secondhand novelty, without anything new to gush over. Well, let them wonder. If they wanted to know what had happened, let ‘em come and find out. There’d be no pretty last words from him.
Dave listened a moment longer, as the announcer picked up the latest rift in the supposedly refurbished United Nations, then cut off in disgust. The Atlantic Nations were as determined as Russia, and both had bombs now. If they wanted to blast themselves out of existence, maybe it was a good thing. Mars was a stinking world, but at least it had died quietly, instead of raising all that fuss.
Why worry about them. They’d never done him any favors. He’d been gypped all along. With a Grade-A brain and a matinee idol’s face, he’d been given a three-foot body and the brilliant future of a circus freak—the kind the crowd laughed at, rather than looked at with awe. His only chance had come when Unitech was building the ship, before they knew how much power they had, and figured on saving weight by designing it for a midget and a consequently smaller supply of air, water and food. Even then, after he’d seen the ad, he’d had to fight his way into position through days of grueling tests. They hadn’t tossed anything in his lap.
It had looked like the big chance, then. Fame and statues they could keep, but the book and endorsement rights would have put him where he could look down and laugh at the six-footers. And the guys with the electronic brains had cheated him out of it.
Let them whistle for their radar signals. Let them blow themselves to bits playing soldier. It was none of his worry now.
He clumped down from the observatory tip into his tiny quarters, swallowed a couple of barbiturates, and crawled into his sleeping cushions. Three weeks to go, and not even a bottle of whiskey on the ship. He cursed in disgust, turned over, and let sleep creep up on him.
It was inevitable that he’d go outside, of course. Three days of nothing but sitting, standing up, and sleeping was too much. Dave let the pumps suck at the air in the lock, zipping down his helmet over the soft rubber seal, tested his equipment, and waited until the pressure stood about even, outside and in. Then he opened the outer lock, tossed down the plastic ramp, and stepped out. He’d got used to the low gravity while still aboard, and paid no attention to it.
The tripod had dug into the sand, but the platform feet had kept the tubes in the open, and Dave swore at them softly. They looked good—except where part of one lining hung out in shreds. And with lining replacements, they’d be good—the blast had been cut off before the tubes themselves were harmed. He turned his back on the ship finally and faced out to the shockingly near horizon.
This, according to the stories, was supposed to be man’s high moment—the first living human to touch the soil outside his own world and its useless satellite. The lock opened, and out stepped the hero—dying in pride with man’s triumph and conquest of space! Dave pushed the rubbery flap of his helmet back against his lips, opened the orifice, and spat on the ground. If this was an experience, so was last year’s stale beer.
There wasn’t even a “canal” within fifty miles of him. He regretted that, in a way, since finding out what made the streaks would have killed time. He’d seen them as he approached, and there was no illusion to them—as the lunar scope had proved before. But they definitely weren’t water ditches, anyhow. There’d been no chance to pick his landing site, and he’d have to get along without them.
It didn’t leave much to explore. The ropes of vegetation were stretched out now, holding up loops of green fuzz to the sun, but there seemed to be no variation of species to break up the pattern. Probably a grove of trees on Earth would look the same to a mythical Martian. Possibly they represented six million and seven varieties. But Dave couldn’t see it. The only point of interest was the way they wiggled their fuzz back and forth, and that soon grew monotonous.
Then his foot squeaked up at him, winding up in a gurgle. He jumped a good six feet up in surprise, and the squeak came again in the middle of his leap, making him stumble as he landed. But his eyes focused finally on a dull brownish lump fastened to his boot. It looked something like a circular cluster of a dozen pine cones, with fuzz all over, but there were little leglike members coming out of it—a dozen of them that went into rapid motion as he looked.
“Queeklrle,” the thing repeated, sending the sound up through the denser air in his suit. It scrambled up briskly, coming to a stop over his supply kit, and fumbling hurriedly. “Queeklrle!”
Oddly, there was no menace in it, probably because it was anything but a bug-eyed monster; there were no signs of any sensory organs. Dave blinked. It reminded him of a kitten he’d once had, somehow, before his usual luck found him and killed the little creature with some cat disease. He reacted automatically.
“Queekle yourself.” His fingers slipped into the kit and came out with a chocolate square, unpeeling the cellophane quickly. “It’ll probably make you sick or kill you—but if that’s what you’re after, take it.”
Queekle was after it, obviously. The creature took the square in its pseudopods, tucked it under its body, and relaxed, making faint gobbling sounds. For a second, it was silent, but then it squeaked again, sharper this time. “Queeklrle!”
Dave fed it two more of the squares before the creature seemed satisfied, and began climbing back down, leaving the nuts in the chocolate neatly piled on the ground behind it. Then Queekle went scooting off into the vegetation. Dave grimaced; its gratitude was practically human.
“Nuts to you, too,” he muttered, kicking the pile of peanuts aside. But it proved at least that men had never been there before—humans were almost as fond of exterminating other life as they were of killing off their own kind.
He shrugged, and swung off toward the horizon at random in a loose, loping stride. After the cramped quarters of the ship, running felt good. He went on without purpose for an hour or more, until his muscles began protesting. Then he dug out his water bottle, pushed the tube through the helmet orifice, and drank briefly. Everything around him was the same as it had been near the ship, except for a small cluster of the plants that had dull red fuzz instead of green; he’d noticed them before, but couldn’t tell whether they were one stage of the same plant or a different species. He didn’t really care.
In any event, going further was purposeless. He’d been looking for another Queekle casually, but had seen none. And on the return route, he studied the ground under the fuzz plants more carefully, but there was nothing to see. There wasn’t even a wind to break up the monotony, and he clumped up to the ramp of the ship as bored as he had left it. Maybe it was just as well his air supply was low, if this was all Mars had to offer.
Dave pulled up the ramp and spun the outer lock closed, blinking in the gloom, until the lights snapped on as the lock sealed. He watched the pressure gauge rise to ten pounds, normal for the ship, and reached for the inner lock. Then he jerked back, staring at the floor.
Queekle was there, and had brought along part of Mars. Now its squeaks came out in a steady stream as the inner seal opened. And in front of it, fifteen or twenty of the plant things went into abrupt motion, moving aside to form a narrow lane through which the creature went rapidly, on into the ship. Dave followed, shaking his head. Apparently there was no way of being sure about anything here. Plants that stood rock steady on their roots outside could move about at will, it seemed—and to what was evidently a command.
The fool beast! Apparently the warmth of the ship had looked good to it, and it was all set to take up housekeeping—in an atmosphere that was at least a hundred times too dense for it. Dave started up the n
arrow steps to his quarters, hesitated, and cursed. It still reminded him of the kitten, moving around in exploratory circles. He came back down, and made a dive for it.
Queekle let out a series of squeals as Dave tossed it back into the air lock and closed the inner seal. Its squeaks died down as the pressure was pumped back and the outer seal opened, though, and were inaudible by the time he moved back up the ladder. He grumbled to himself halfheartedly. That’s what came of feeding the thing—it decided to move in and own him.
But he felt better as he downed what passed for supper. The lift lasted for an hour or so afterwards—and then left him feeling more cramped and disgusted than ever as he sat staring at the walls of his tiny room. There wasn’t even a book to read, aside from the typed manual for general care of the ship, and he’d read that often enough already.
Finally he gave up in disgust and went up to the observation tip and cut on the radar. Maybe his death notices would be more interesting tonight.
They weren’t. They were carrying speculations about what had happened to him—none of which included any hint that the bright boys could have made an error. They’d even figured out whether Mars might have captured the ship as a satellite, and decided against it. But the news was losing interest, obviously, and he could tell where it had been padded out from the general broadcast to give the Lunar men more coverage—apparently on the theory that anyone as far out as the Moon would be more interested in the subject. They’d added one new touch, though:
“It seems obvious that further study of space conditions beyond the gravitic or magnetic field of Earth is needed. The Navy announced that its new rocket, designed to reach Mars next year, will be changed for use as a deep-space laboratory on tentative exploratory trips before going further. United Technical Foundation has abandoned all further plans for interplanetary research, at least for the moment.”
The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology Page 64
