Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XII

by Various

  He cocked an eye up toward the transparent dome. Phobos had moved across the sky into Capricorn since he last saw her. His memory automatically ticked off the satellite's orbital speed: 1.32 miles a second; speed in relation to planetary motion....

  Why go over that again? One had to have fuel first. Meanwhile, the Radiant Hope lay idle on Phobos and its crew whiled away the hours at the space station inside the moon, their feet spinning faster than their heads ... no, that wasn't true on Phobos, because it didn't have a spin to impart artificial gravity, like the space stations around Earth.

  He sat up suddenly. Deveet looked at him in surprise. Jonner's lips moved silently for a moment, then he got to his feet.

  "Where can we use a radiophone?" he asked.

  "One in my office," said Deveet, standing up.

  "Let's go. Quick, before Phobos sets."

  They turned in their rods, Deveet collecting the credits for his fish, and left the Recreation Center.

  When they reached the Atom-Star Company's Martian office Jonner plugged in the radiophone and called the Phobos space station. He got T'an.

  "All of you get aboard," Jonner ordered. "Then have Qoqol call me."

  He signed off and turned to Deveet. "Can we charter a plane to haul our Earthbound cargo out of Marsport?"

  "A plane? I suppose so. Where do you want to haul it?"

  "Charax is as good as any other place. But I need a fast plane."

  "I think we can get it. Marscorp still controls all the airlines, but the Mars government keeps a pretty strict finger on their planetbound operations. They can't refuse a cargo haul without good reason."

  "Just to play safe, have some friend of yours whom they don't know, charter the plane in his name. They won't know it's us till we start loading cargo."

  "Right," said Deveet, picking up the telephone. "I know just the man."

  * * * * *

  Towmotors scuttled across the landing area at Marsport, shifting the cargo that had been destined for the Radiant Hope from the helpless G-boat to a jet cargo-plane. Nearby, watching the operation, were Jonner and Deveet, with the Marsport agent of Mars Air Transport Company.

  "We didn't know Atom-Star was the one chartering the plane until you ordered the G-boat cargo loaded on it," confessed the Mars-Air agent.

  "I see you and Mr. Deveet are signed up to accompany the cargo. You'll have to rent suits for the trip. We have to play it safe, and there's always the possibility of a forced landing."

  "There are a couple of spacesuits aboard the G-boat that we want to take along," said Jonner casually. "We'll just wear those instead."

  "Okay." The agent spread his hands and shrugged. "Everybody at Marsport knows about you bucking Marscorp, Captain. What you expect to gain by transferring your cargo to Charax is beyond me, but it's your business."

  An hour later, the chartered airplane took off with a thunder of jets. Aboard was the 20-ton cargo the Radiant Hope was supposed to carry to Earth, plus some large parachutes. The Mars-Air pilot wore a light suit with plastic helmet designed for survival in the thin, cold Martian air. Jonner and Deveet wore the bulkier spacesuits.

  Five minutes out of Marsport, Jonner thrust the muzzle of a heat-gun in the pilot's back.

  "Set it on automatic, strap on your parachute and bail out," he ordered. "We're taking over."

  The pilot had no choice. He went through the plane's airlock and jumped, helped by a hearty boost from Jonner. His parachute blossomed out as he drifted down toward the green Syrtis Major Lowland. Jonner didn't worry about him. He knew the pilot's helmet radio would reach Marsport and a helicopter would rescue him shortly.

  "I don't know what you're trying to do, Jonner," said Deveet apprehensively over his spacehelmet radio. "But whatever it is, you'd better do it fast. They'll have every plane on Mars looking for us in half an hour."

  "Let 'em look, and keep quiet a while," retorted Jonner. "I've got some figuring to do."

  He put the plane on automatic, took off the spacesuit handhooks and scribbled figures on a scrap of paper. He tuned in the plane's radio and called Qoqol on Phobos. They talked to each other briefly in Martian.

  The darker green line of a canal crossed the green lowland below them.

  "Good, there's Drosinas," muttered Jonner. "Let's see, time 1424 hours, speed 660 miles an hour...."

  Jonner boosted the jets a bit and watched the terrain.

  "By Saturn, I almost overran it!" he exclaimed. "Deveet, smash out those ports."

  "Break out the ports?" repeated Deveet. "That'll depressurize the cabin!"

  "That's right. So you'd better be sure your spacesuit's secure."

  Obviously puzzled, Deveet strode up and down the cabin, knocking out its six windows with the handhooks of his spacesuit. Jonner maneuvered the plane gently, and set it on automatic. He got out of the pilot's seat and strode to the right front port.

  Reaching through the broken window, he pulled in a section of cable that was trailing alongside. While the baffled Deveet watched, he reeled it in until he brought up the end of it, to which was attached a fish-shaped finned metal missile.

  Jonner carried the cable end and the attached missile across the cabin and tossed it out the broken front port on the other side, swinging it so that the 700-mile-an-hour slipstream snapped it back in through the rearmost port like a bullet.

  "Pick it up and pass it out the right rear port," he commanded. "We'll have to pass it to each other from port to port. The slipstream won't let us swing it forward and through."

  In a few moments, the two of them had worked the missile and the cable end to the right front port and in through it. Originating above the plane, it now made a loop through the four open ports. Jonner untied the missile and tied the end to the portion which came into the cabin, making a bowline knot of the loop. Deveet picked up the missile from the floor, where Jonner had thrown it.

  "Looks like a spent rocket shell," he commented.

  "It's a signal rocket," said Jonner. "The flare trigger was disconnected."

  He picked up the microphone and called the Radiant Hope on Phobos.

  "We've hooked our fish, Qoqol," he told the Martian, and laid the mike aside.

  "What does that mean?" asked Deveet.

  "Means we'd better strap in," said Jonner, suiting the action to the words. "You're in for a short trip to Phobos, Deveet."

  Jonner pulled back slowly on the elevator control, and the plane began a shallow climb. At 700 miles an hour, it began to attain a height at which its broad wings--broader than those of any terrestrial plane--would not support it.

  "I'm trying to decide," said Deveet with forced calm, "whether you've flipped your helmet."

  "Nope," answered Jonner. "Trolling for those fish in Mars City gave me the idea. The rest was no more than an astrogation problem, like any rendezvous with a ship in a fixed orbit, which Qoqol could figure. Remember that 6,000-mile television cable the ship's hauling? Qoqol just shot the end of it down to Mars' surface by signal rocket, we hooked on and now he'll haul us up to Phobos. He's got the ship's engine hooked onto the cable winch."

  The jets coughed and stopped. The plane was out of fuel. It was on momentum--to be drawn by the cable, or to snap it and fall.

  "Impossible!" cried Deveet in alarm. "Phobos' orbital speed is more than a mile a second! No cable can take the sudden difference in that and the speed we're traveling. When the slack is gone, it'll break!"

  "The slack's gone already. You're thinking of the speed of Phobos, at Phobos. At this end of the cable, we're like the head of a man in the control section of a space station, which is traveling slower than his feet because its orbit is smaller--but it revolves around the center in the same time.

  "Look," Jonner added, "I'll put it in round numbers. Figure your cable as part of a radius of Phobos' orbit. Phobos travels at 1.32, but the other end of the radius travels at zero because it's at the center. The cable end, at the Martian surface, travels at a speed in between--roughly 1,200 miles
an hour--but it keeps up with Phobos' revolution. Since the surface of Mars itself rotates at 500 miles an hour, all I had to do was boost the plane up to 700 to match the speed of the cable end.

  "That cable will haul a hell of a lot more than twenty tons, and that's all that's on it right now. By winching us up slowly, there'll never be too great a strain on it."

  Deveet looked apprehensively out of the port. The plane was hanging sidewise now, and the distant Martian surface was straight out the left-hand ports. The cable was holding.

  "We can make the trip to Earth 83 days faster than the Marsward," said Jonner, "and they have only about 20 days' start. It won't take us but a few days to make Phobos and get this cable and the rest of the cargo shot back to Mars. Atom-Star will get its franchise, and you'll see all spaceships switching to the atomic drive within the next decade."

  "How about this plane?" asked Deveet. "We stole it, you know."

  "You can hire a G-boat to take it back to Marsport," said Jonner with a chuckle. "Pay Mars-Air for the time and the broken ports, and settle out of court with that pilot we dropped. I don't think they'll send you to jail, Deveet."

  He was silent for a few minutes.

  "By the way, Deveet," said Jonner then, "radio Atom-Star to buy some flonite cable of their own and ship it to Phobos. Damned if I don't think this is cheaper than G-boats!"

  * * *

  Contents

  EVIL OUT OF ONZAR

  By Mark Ganes

  The orphan system of Onzar was fuming under its leader's driving, paranoid megalomania. For there was a prize. A vast, grand prize within a parsec of this ambitious domain--the major warp-lines of space crossing the Galaxy between the Allied Worlds and the Darzent Empire. Skyward, hungry legions!

  Roger Thane had, of course, heard of these meetings. The stories of his acquaintances in Liaison had been graphic enough but they didn't begin to do the scene justice. It was, well, jarring.

  Through the one-way glass panel built into one side of the vast meeting hall of the space station, Thane looked directly across at the delegation from Onzar, though "delegation" was hardly the word. All top gold from the Onzar group was there, and it was easy to tell their rank--fleet marshals, the technical advisors, the interpreters--by the amount of gold that encrusted their helmets, coruscated from their shoulder boards, and crept and crawled in heavy filigree around their uniforms. In that assembly it was easy to pick out Candar. Shorter than the average Onzarian, with shaven head, his uniform was quite plain except for small, double-headed platinum shagells on the collar.

  And Candar was doing all the talking. When he had started one hour and fifteen minutes ago his voice had been harsh and low. Now it had increased in pitch and volume and he was striding back and forth, showing his scorn for the Allied Systems in every gesture. Thane glanced at the "absolute" dial of his watch and wondered how long it would keep up.

  "... we have come to deal with you in good faith and again you seek to exploit us. You would, if you could, take all we produce and give nothing in return. This you shall not do. Onzar is young, but already its power encompasses five suns. Each day we grow stronger. We do not need your shoddy goods in exchange for our treasure."

  As Candar's voice became louder and more shrill Thane noticed that a technician to his left kept adjusting the recorder dials. In an hour or so the speech would be broadcast through Onzar, three and a half light years from this meeting place in space. Candar was choosing words to inflame the already fanatical nationalism of his expanding system. "You would take our discoveries, the fruits of our genius and industry. You would even take our young men into slavery. But this Candar will prevent. We are a warrior race, and what we need, we take. Our day approaches."

  The last three words were his trademark, his invariable sign-off. So that was that. Candar strode from the room followed by the marshals, the advisors, the interpreters. Thane looked over to Garth who had slumped a bit in his conference chair on the Allied Systems side of the room, and was lighting a cigar. Thane had never particularly liked Garth, but, now, he felt a touch of sympathy with him. Garth took two long puffs on his cigar and then slowly shrugged his shoulders as if to put a final period to the scene.

  Back in the Allied Systems naval cruiser, Garth was getting out of his reserve marshal's uniform. He glanced across at Thane, strapping his couch belts at the other side of the compartment. "I wanted you to see Candar in operation. Figured you might as well as long as this show was scheduled anyway. Could be that it will be of use to you in your new assignment."

  The navigator's voice came over the intercom, "Prepare for finite acceleration, twenty seconds absolute."

  * * * * *

  Garth zipped up his civilian coveralls and dropped to the couch, slipping the stub of his cigar into the converter tube. "This conference was about like the rest. It makes the sixth, now, that I've sat through with Candar. You remember he was full of cooperation right at the start while we were renewing the gold-trade agreement. After that was settled there was nothing more in it for him except the chance to make another speech."

  Thane looked over at Garth. "I noticed that. But why? There was certainly plenty of gold splashed over everyone in the Onzar delegation, but what is it that makes the stuff so important to them?"

  Garth looked over in surprise. "You don't know? Well, of course you wouldn't. You've been working on specialized stuff on the other side of the Galaxy. I'll give you some of the background on the way back to Liaison. The sleep-trainer will fill in there."

  Garth stopped. Everything stopped as the acceleration began. Both of them were over-braced for the acceleration was light and even. It was only 5000 KM to the nearest warp-line.

  As acceleration slacked off for the five-minute coast into the warp, Garth lit another cigar and began. "Onzar was one of those relatively distant systems which were colonized back in the days when all they had was the finite drive. Of course, it took them a generation or so to get out there, at just under the speed of light. And when they got there, the best guess is that their ship was too damaged for further flight. Otherwise, considering the planet, they wouldn't have stayed."

  Thane flipped through a systems manual to the geographical data for Onzar IV. He readily agreed that they wouldn't have stayed if it had been possible for them to get away. Onzar IV was cold, bitterly cold. Hurricane winds were common. The mountains went up to forty and fifty kilometers, and the land between them was largely barren desert.

  "They couldn't get back into space," Garth continued, "so they stayed in splendid isolation for about 1500 years. Not another ship touched the system till the warp-lines were discovered."

  Thane looked up. "I suppose they went through the usual reversion of the orphan systems?"

  Garth grunted. "A lot worse than usual. Of course, our version of their history is largely guesswork because the Onzarians have never allowed any research. But it's clear that the immigration crew, or their first-generation descendants, put on a very effective little war between themselves. By the time they were finished Onzar IV was back in the age of ox-carts, without the ox."

  The intercom sounded again. "Five seconds to warp-line." There was a pause, then the familiar shummer and they were on the warp-line drive. As usual, the shummer had put out Garth's cigar. He re-lit it and went on. "When we began using warp-line travel we hit Onzar in the first fifty years of exploration. Practically had to. It's only a parsec from the confluence of nine lines running between our part of the Galaxy and the Darzent Empire. Right on the main road, right in the middle of the next war." He stared in silence at Thane for a moment. "That's one reason I've called you in on this."

  For most of the rest of the trip to Liaison, Garth continued to explain the strange orphan system of Onzar. In the religion, as Garth described it, the whole priesthood was female, and gold had magical value. All the men wore gold, the amount strictly in line with their rank. They despised the women but were in superstitious dread of them because only the church could san
ctify and give power to their gold symbols of rank. At first, the men had lived in warring tribes, the women in religious groups. They came together each spring and fall for the ceremonies of gold consecration.

  Still, they did make considerable technical progress, partially because of their interest in mining. By the time the first warp-line ship reached them, the Onzarians had the internal combustion engine, nation-states, mass production, planet-wide wars.

  "Of course," Garth went on, "in the early days of warp-line exploration we weren't as careful as we are now. The Onzarians picked up enough to put on a real atomic war within fifty years. After that they expanded through their own system, and even took over nearby suns. They certainly had the motive for conquest, too. Gold was running out on their own planet, and they'd go to any lengths to get it."

  Thane glanced at his watch and got back onto his couch. "About time for deceleration," he said. Garth also began fastening his straps. Thane glanced over, with curiosity. "Sounds like the usual story, with some interesting variations. Where do I come in?"

  "The thing that makes Onzar uniquely important," Garth said, "is its position. Space fleets from Darzent or from the A.S. will have to pass within a parsec of Onzar, because of the confluence of warp-lines in that part of the system. Whoever controls Onzar can win the war for the Galaxy when it comes."

  Garth paused as they went through the shummer and the beginnings of deceleration, and then went on. "We were doing fairly well till Candar's revolt and seizure of power. He is leaning toward Darzent. Apparently he thinks he can keep his own independence even if Darzent wins the decision. He's going along with us just enough to assure his supply of gold. But you noticed his own lack of gold ornamentation. His eventual aim is undoubtedly to dominate and destroy the religion because it's about the only independent force left on Onzar, and Candar is not going to tolerate any independent forces."

  Garth looked steadily at Thane. "The rest of the details, the language, and your own mission will be made clear to you in the sleep trainer. And it is no exaggeration to say that you will be responsible for the future of the Galaxy."