The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

"If they did come," Trigger said, "I guess we'd take them anyway. We've taken everything else like that that came long. And besides--"

  Her voice trailed off thoughtfully. She studied the table top for a moment. Then she looked up at Pilch.

  "Well," she said, smiling, "any other questions?"

  "A few," said Pilch, passing up the "and besides--" She considered. "Did you ever actually see him make contact with you?"

  "No," Trigger said. "I was always asleep, and I suppose he made sure I'd stay asleep. They're built sort of like a leech, you know. I guess he knew I wouldn't feel comfortable about having something like that go oozing into the side of my neck or start oozing out again. Anyway, he never did let me see it."

  "Considerate little fellow!" said Pilch. She sighed. "Well, everything came out very satisfactorily--much more so than anyone could have dared hope at one time. All that's left is a very intriguing mystery which the Hub will be chatting about for years.... What happened aboard Doctor Fayle's vanished ship that caused the king plasmoid to awaken to awful life?" she cried. "What equally mysterious event brought about its death on that strangely hideous structure it had built in subspace? What was it planning to do there? Etcetera." She smiled at Trigger. "Yes, very good!"

  "I saw they camouflaged out what was still visible of the original substation before they let in the news viewers," Trigger remarked. "Bright idea somebody had there!"

  "Yes. It was I. And the Devagas hierarchy is broken, and the Ermetynes run out of Tranest. Two very bad spots, those were! I don't recall having heard what they did to your friend, Pluly."

  "I heard," Trigger said. "He just got black-listed by Grand Commerce finally and lost all his shipping concessions. However, his daughter is married to an up and coming young businessman who happened to be on hand and have the money and other qualifications to pick up those concessions." She laughed. "It's the Inger Lines now. They're smart characters, in a way!"

  "Yes," said Pilch. "In a way. Did you know Lyad Ermetyne put in for voluntary rehabilitation with us, and then changed her mind and joined the Service?"

  "I'd heard of it." Trigger hesitated. "Did you know Lyad paid me a short visit about an hour before you got here this morning?"

  "I thought she would," Pilch said. "We came in to Maccadon together."

  Trigger had been a little startled when she answered the doorchime and saw Lyad standing there. She invited the Ermetyne in.

  "I thought I'd thank you personally," Lyad said casually, "for a recording which was delivered to me some months ago."

  "That's quite all right," Trigger said, also casually. "I was sure I wasn't going to have any use for it."

  Lyad studied her face for a moment. "To be honest about it, Trigger Argee," she said, "I still don't feel entirely cordial toward you! However, I did appreciate the gesture of letting me have the recording. So I decided to drop by to tell you there isn't really too much left in the way of hard feelings, on my part."

  They shook hands restrainedly, and the Ermetyne sauntered out again.

  "The other reason she came here," Pilch said, "is to take care of the financing of Mantelish's expedition."

  "I didn't know that!" Trigger said, surprised.

  "It's her way of making amends. Her legitimate Hub holdings are still enormous, of course. She can afford it."

  "Well," Trigger said, "that's one thing about Lyad--she's wholehearted!"

  "She's that," said Pilch. "Rarely have I seen anyone rip into total therapy with the verve displayed by the Ermetyne. She mentioned on one occasion that there simply had to be some way of getting ahead of you again."

  "Oh," said Trigger.

  "Yes," said Pilch. "By the way, what are your own plans nowadays? Aside from getting married."

  Trigger stretched slim tanned arms over her head and grinned. "No immediate plans!" she said. "I've resigned from Precol. Got a couple of checks from the Federation. One to cover my expenses on that plasmoid business--that was the Dawn City fare mainly--and the other for the five weeks special duty they figured I was on for them. So I'm up to five thousand crowns again, and I thought I'd just loaf around and sort of think things over till Quillan gets back from his current assignment."

  "I see. When is Major Quillan returning?"

  "In about a month. It's Captain Quillan at present, by the way."

  "Oh?" said Pilch. "What happened?"

  "That unwarranted interference with a political situation business. They'd broadcast a warning against taking individual action of any kind against the plasmoid station. But when he got there and heard the Commissioner was in a kind of coma, and I wasn't even on board, he lost his head and came charging into the station after me, flinging grenades and so on around. The plasmoids would have finished him off pretty quick, except most of them had started slowing down as soon as Repulsive turned off the main one. The lunatic was lucky the termites didn't get to him before he even reached the station!"

  Pilch said, "Termites?"

  Trigger told her about the termites.

  "Ugh!" said Pilch. "I hadn't heard about those. So they broke him for that. It hardly seems right."

  "Well, you have to have discipline," Trigger said tolerantly. "Ape's a bit short on that end anyway. They'll be upgrading him again fairly soon, I imagine. I might just be going into Space Scout Intelligence myself, by the way. They said they'd be glad to have me."

  "Not at all incidentally," remarked Pilch, "my Service also would be glad to have you."

  "Would they?" Trigger looked at her thoughtfully. "That includes that total therapy process, doesn't it?"

  "Usually," said Pilch.

  "Well, I might some day. But not just yet." She smiled. "Let's let Lyad get a head start! Actually, it's just I've found out there are so many interesting things going on all around that I'd like to look them over a bit before I go charging seriously into a career again." She reached across the table and tapped Pilch's wrist. "And I'll show you one interesting thing that's going on right here! Take Mantelish's big tree out there!"

  "The sequoia?"

  "Yes. Now just last year it was looking so bad they almost talked the professor into having it taken away. Hardly a green branch left on it."

  Pilch shaded her eyes and looked at the sequoia's crown far above them. "It looks," she observed reflectively, "in fairly good shape at the moment, I'd say!"

  "Yes, and it's getting greener every week. Mantelish brags about a new solvent he's been dosing its roots with. You see that great big branch like an L turned upward, just a little above the center?"

  Pilch looked again. "Yes," she said after a moment, "I think so."

  "Just before the L turns upward, there's a little cluster of green branches," Trigger said.

  "I see those, yes."

  Trigger picked up the field glasses and handed them to her. "Get those little branches in the glasses," she said.

  Pilch said presently, "Got them."

  Trigger stood up and faced up to the sequoia. She cupped her hands to her mouth, took a deep breath, and yelled. "Yoo-hoo! Reee-pul-sive!"

  Down in the garden, Mantelish straightened and looked about angrily. Then he saw Trigger and smiled.

  "Yoo-hoo yourself, Trigger!" he shouted, and turned back to his spading.

  Trigger watched Pilch's face from the side. She saw her give a sudden start.

  "Great Galaxies!" Pilch breathed. She kept on looking. "That's one for the book, isn't it?" Finally she put the glasses down. She appeared somewhat stunned. "He really is a little green man!"

  "Only when he's trying to be. It's a sort of sign of friendliness."

  "What's he doing up there?"

  "He moved over into the sequoia right after we got back," Trigger said. "And that's where he'll probably stay indefinitely now. It's just the right kind of place for Repulsive."

  "Have you been doing any more--well, talking?"

  "No. Too strenuous both ways. Until a few days before we got back here, there wasn't even a sign from him. He jus
t about knocked himself out on that big plasmoid."

  "Who else knows about this?" asked Pilch.

  "Nobody. I would have told Holati, except he's still mad enough about having been put into a coma, he might go out and chop the sequoia down."

  "Well, it won't go into the report then," Pilch said. "They'd just want to bother Repulsive!"

  "I knew it would be all right to tell you. And here's something else very interesting that's going on at present."

  "What's that?"

  "The real hush-hush reason for Mantelish's expedition," Trigger explained, "is, of course, to scout around this whole area of space with planetary plasmoid detectors. They don't want anybody stumbling on another setup like Harvest Moon and accidentally activating another king plasmoid."

  "Yes," Pilch said. "I'd heard that."

  "It was Mantelish's idea," said Trigger. "Now Mantelish is very fond of that sequoia tree. He's got a big, comfortable bench right among its roots, where he likes to sit down around noon and have a little nap when he's out here."

  "Oh!" said Pilch. "Repulsive's been up to his old tricks, eh?"

  "Sure. He's given Mantelish very exact instructions. So they're going to find one of those setups, all right. And they won't come back with any plasmoids. But they will come back with something they don't know about."

  Pilch looked at her for a moment. "You say it!"

  Trigger's grin widened. "A little green woman," she said.

  * * *

  Contents

  EMPIRE

  A Powerful Novel of Intrigue and Action in the Not-So-Distant Future

  by Clifford D. Simak

  CHAPTER ONE

  Spencer Chambers frowned at the space gram on the desk before him. John Moore Mallory. That was the man who had caused so much trouble in the Jovian elections. The trouble maker who had shouted for an investigation of Interplanetary Power. The man who had said that Spencer Chambers and Interplanetary Power were waging economic war against the people of the Solar System.

  Chambers smiled. With long, well-kept fingers, he rubbed his iron-gray mustache.

  John Moore Mallory was right; for that reason, he was a dangerous man. Prison was the place for him, but probably a prison outside the Jovian confederacy. Perhaps one of the prison ships that plied to the edge of the System, clear to the orbit of Pluto. Or would the prison on Mercury be better?

  Spencer Chambers leaned back in his chair and matched his fingertips, staring at them, frowning again.

  Mercury was a hard place. A man's life wasn't worth much there. Working in the power plants, where the Sun poured out its flaming blast of heat, and radiations sucked the energy from one's body, in six months, a year at most, any man was finished.

  Chambers shook his head. Not Mercury. He had nothing against Mallory. He had never met the man but he rather liked him. Mallory was just a man fighting for a principle, the same as Chambers was doing.

  He was sorry that it had been necessary to put Mallory in prison. If the man only had listened to reason, had accepted the proposals that had been made, or just had dropped out of sight until the Jovian elections were over... or at least had moderated his charges. But when he had attempted to reveal the offers, which he termed bribery, something had to be done.

  Ludwig Stutsman had handled that part of it. Brilliant fellow, this Stutsman, but as mean a human as ever walked on two legs. A man utterly without mercy, entirely without principle. A man who would stoop to any depth. But a useful man, a good one to have around to do the dirty work. And dirty work sometimes was necessary.

  Chambers picked up the spacegram again and studied it. Stutsman, out on Callisto now, had sent it. He was doing a good job out there. The Jovian confederacy, less than one Earth year under Interplanetary domination, was still half rebellious, still angry at being forced to turn over its government to the hand-picked officials of Chambers' company. An iron heel was needed and Stutsman was that iron heel.

  SO the people on the Jovian satellites wanted the release of John Moore Mallory. "They're getting ugly," the spacegram said. It had been a mistake to confine Mallory to Callisto. Stutsman should have thought of that.

  Chambers would instruct Stutsman to remove Mallory from the Callisto prison, place him on one of the prison ships. Give instructions to the captain to make things comfortable for him. When this furor had blown over, after things had quieted down in the Jovian confederacy, it might be possible to release Mallory. After all, the man wasn't really guilty of any crime. It was a shame that he should be imprisoned when racketeering rats like Scorio went scot-free right here in New York.

  A buzzer purred softly and Chambers reached out to press a stud.

  "Dr. Craven to see you," his secretary said. "You asked to see him. Mr. Chambers."

  "All right," said Chambers. "Send him right in."

  He clicked the stud again, picked up his pen, wrote out a spacegram to Stutsman, and signed it.

  Dr. Herbert Craven stood just inside the door, his black suit wrinkled and untidy, his sparse sandy hair standing on end.

  "You sent for me," he said sourly.

  "Sit down, Doctor," invited Chambers.

  * * *

  Craven sat down. He peered at Chambers through thick-lensed glasses.

  "I haven't much time," he declared acidly.

  "Cigar?" Chambers offered.

  "Never smoke."

  "A drink, then?"

  "You know I don't drink," snapped Craven.

  "Doctor," said Chambers, "you're the least sociable man I've ever known. What do you do to enjoy yourself?"

  "I work," said Craven. "I find it interesting."

  "You must. You even begrudge the time it takes to talk with me."

  "I won't deny it. What do you want this time?"

  Chambers swung about to face him squarely across the desk. There was a cold look in the financier's gray eyes and his lips were grim.

  "Craven," he said, "I don't trust you. I've never trusted you. Probably that's no news to you."

  "You don't trust anyone," countered Craven. "You're watching everybody all the time."

  "You sold me a gadget I didn't need five years ago," said Chambers. "You outfoxed me and I don't hold it against you. In fact, it almost made me admire you. Because of that I put you under a contract, one that you and all the lawyers in hell can't break, because someday you'll find something valuable, and when you do, I want it. A million a year is a high price to pay to protect myself against you, but I think it's worth it. If I didn't think so, I'd have turned you over to Stutsman long ago. Stutsman knows how to handle men like you."

  "You mean," said Craven, "that you've found I'm working on something I haven't reported to you."

  "That's exactly it."

  "You'll get a report when I have something to report. Not before."

  "That's all right," said Chambers. "I just wanted you to know."

  Craven got to his feet slowly. "These talks with you are so refreshing," he remarked.

  "We'll have to have them oftener," said Chambers.

  Craven banged the door as he went out.

  Chambers stared after him. A queer man, the most astute scientific mind anywhere, but not a man to be trusted.

  * * *

  The president of Interplanetary Power rose from his chair and walked to the window. Below spread the roaring inferno of New York, greatest city in the Solar System, a strange place of queer beauty and weighty materialism, dreamlike in its super-skyscraper construction, but utilitarian in its purpose, for it was a port of many planets.

  The afternoon sunlight slanted through the window, softening the iron-gray hair of the man who stood there. His shoulders almost blocked the window, for he had the body of a fighting man, one, moreover, in good condition. His short-clipped mustache rode with an air of dignity above his thin, rugged mouth.

  His eyes looked out on the city, but did not see it. Through his brain went the vision of a dream that was coming true. His dream spun its fragile net about t
he planets of the Solar System, about their moons, about every single foot of planetary ground where men had gone to build and create a second homeland--the mines of Mercury and the farms of Venus, the pleasure-lands of Mars and the mighty domed cities on the moons of Jupiter, the moons of Saturn and the great, cold laboratories of Pluto.

  Power was the key, supplied by the accumulators owned and rented by Interplanetary Power. A monopoly of power. Power that Venus and Mercury had too much of, must sell on the market, and that the other planets and satellites needed. Power to drive huge spaceships across the void, to turn the wheels of industry, to heat the domes on colder worlds. Power to make possible the life and functioning of mankind on hostile worlds.

  In the great power plants of Mercury and Venus, the accumulators were charged and then shipped out to those other worlds where power was needed. Accumulators were rented, never sold. Because they belonged at all times to Interplanetary Power, they literally held the fate of all the planets in their cells.

  A few accumulators were manufactured and sold by other smaller companies, but they were few and the price was high. Interplanetary saw to that. When the cry of monopoly was raised, Interplanetary could point to these other manufacturers as proof that there was no restraint of trade. Under the statute no monopoly could be charged, but the cost of manufacturing accumulators alone was protection against serious competition from anyone.

  Upon a satisfactory, efficient power-storage device rested the success or failure of space travel itself. That device and the power it stored were for sale by Interplanetary... and, to all practical purposes, by Interplanetary only.

  Accordingly, year after year, Interplanetary had tightened its grip upon the Solar System. Mercury was virtually owned by the company. Mars and Venus were little more than puppet states. And now the government of the Jovian confederacy was in the hands of men who acknowledged Spencer Chambers as their master. On Earth the agents and the lobbyists representing Interplanetary swarmed in every capital, even in the capital of the Central European Federation, whose people were dominated by an absolute dictatorship. For even Central Europe needed accumulators.