“Mono!” he called sharply. “Dang it, where in thunderation are you?”
“Good evening, Captain,” a soft voice said, and Mono stepped out from behind a curtain which separated his section from the captain’s.
MONO was small and slight, with the typical greenish skin of his planet, and a habitually blank expression which was peculiarly his own.
He stood at attention and saluted.
Captain Ebenezer returned the salute solemnly.
The relationship between the two sole members of the garbage scow’s crew was unbendingly formal half of the time, and the other half it would have been difficult to tell who was in command.
“We’re ready to leave,” Captain Ebenezer announced, “is everything in order?”
“Everything has been checked, sir,” Mono said. “The ship is set on course and the propulsion charges have been lowered into the aft rocket tubes. Is there anything else, sir?”
Ebenezer scratched his scraggly chin. If Mono said things were ready that was that. Still, as the master, he had to make a bluff of excercising a careful supervision over the destiny of the ship.
“Checked everything, eh?” he asked.
“Everything, sir.”
Captain Ebenezer pulled a thoughtful frown over his face for an instant, then he beamed.
“Well, let’s goin’ you sleepy son-of-a-gun,” he chortled. “Blast away! I’ll be up in the bridge watching the harbor marker lights go by. Snap to it!”
CAPTAIN Ebenezer could feel the rhythmic throbbing of the rocket exhausts shuddering through the ship, as he climbed the short flight of steps that led to the glassicade bridge.
The small bridge-room was dark, except for the light over the chart table and the silvery glow of the visi-screen.
Everything was spick and span, clean and ship-shape, and Captain Ebenezer’s eyes delighted in the order and neatness. This was his haven, his recluse, his paradise.
As he stepped forward into the room to inspect the charted route of the trip, two things happened.
The Sweet Pea blasted off, void-bound, with a deep satisfying roar from her old, laboring rockets, and—a heavy, powerful hand fell on his shoulder, jerking him about with a neck-twisting snap.
“What in thunderation!” he exploded furiously.
Then his eyes widened incredulously as he recognized the huge shape that faced him from the dark corner of the bridge-room.
The drunken Martian who had thrown him out of the waterfront dive a few hours before chuckled deep in his throat. The sound was not reassuring.
“So lucky for me,” the Martian said, “that I happen to be going by your way.”
Captain Ebenezer’s first amazed shock faded away leaving him explosively angry. Never in his command of the Sweet Pea had anyone but Mono set foot on the bridge, and to have this hallowed spot desecrated now by this lumbering, drunken Martian was nothing short of sacrilegious.
Ebenezer drew himself up to his full five feet, four inches. Confidence flooded through him as he felt the familiar objects of his little kingdom lending him inanimate but nevertheless moral support.
“Take your hands off me,” he snapped at the Martian, “I’m in command here and you’re breaking about sixty five space regulation laws by trespassing in my chart room. If you want me to be lenient when we get back to harbor you’d better do as I say and be lively about it.”
The Martian grinned evilly and his powerful, banana-thick fingers tightened on Ebenezer’s shoulders until he almost fainted with the pain.
“You do like I tell you,” he said. “When you meet the Jupiter I board her while you take on the slop, Captain Stinky.”
“You’re crazy,” Captain Ebenezer gasped, so astounded that he hardly noticed the offensive nick-name. “They’ll catch you sure.”
The Martian smiled.
“No. I know the Jupiter. Many trips I make with her. I know where to hide for the time it takes to reach Jupiter. There I be safe. The space police from earth want me but they will never find me on that big planet. It’s the only place I can go, and this is the only way I can get on the ship, Jupiter. I have no papers, no passport. If I stay back on the station they will find me in a little while, so I do not stay. I go with you!”
“What are you wanted for?” Captain Ebenezer demanded.
“What difference it make?” the huge Martian scowled and shook the little captain like a terrier shaking a rat. “You ask too damn many questions. Maybe I kill a man. If you don’t shut up damn soon maybe I kill another.”
HE opened his mouth and spat a thick stream of dirty gray leeka juice onto the immaculate floor of the bridge.
“One more makes no difference,” he chuckled.
Captain Ebenezer was forced to do the only possible thing under the circumstances.
“All right,” he grumbled. “But take your meat hooks offa my shoulder. How’d you expect me to run my ship?”
The Martian released him with a grin.
“You sensible,” he said.
For the next two hours Ebenezer pored over the chart, kept a close eye on the visi-screen, and the Martian stood directly behind him, only turning his head to squirt an occasional mouthful of leeka juice to the floor.[*]
At the end of the two hour stretch the great liner Jupiter was visible on the visi-screen, and fifteen minutes later it could be seen by the naked eye, a long gleaming oblong in relief against the eternal night of the void.
She was standing by for her meeting with the Sweet Pea and the mighty signal beacons on top her upper structure were pointing long fingers of light through the blackness of space.
“Why is that?” the Martian growled suspiciously.
He had pulled a heat-ray gun from his belt and was jabbing it nervously into Ebenezer’s spine.
“Signalling,” Captain Ebenezer answered.
“What she say?”
“They’re giving us their exact position,” Ebenezer explained ungraciously, “and they want the Sweet Pea to lock against refuse chute number one on the starboard side. I gotta answer ’em and tell ’em I got the message.”
“No answer,” the Martian growled. “Don’t make lights at all. You try trick me and I break your head open.”
“If I don’t answer,” Captain Ebenezer said, “they’ll surely be suspicious.”
The Martian shoved the gun into his back viciously.
“No try tricks,” he said savagely. “Tell Jupiter Okay. If you signal any more I kill you. What is signal for ‘O’ ?”
“Two blue flashes.”
“One red.”
“Good. Send message,” the Martian snarled.
CAPTAIN Ebenezer sighed despairingly. With the heat-ray gun almost jabbing through him there was nothing else he could do. He flashed the message twice and the Martian’s small eyes watched every motion intently.
In a matter of minutes the Sweet Pea was sliding alongside the mighty space giant, Jupiter, and when the pneumatic locks clamped the tiny garbage scow into place at refuse chute number one, she looked like a barnacle clinging to the side of a sea going ship.
The heat-ray gun was digging into Ebenezer’s back again.
“We go below,” the Martian said. “I know what to do now. At the top of the Jupiter’s garbage chute is storeroom where I can hide. After you take on garbage I slip up the chute. You understand?”
Ebenezer understood perfectly. After the garbage had been collected the Martian would leave, but he certainly wasn’t going to leave any witnesses behind. The Jupiter’s automatic ejector apparatus would hurl the Sweet Pea clear of the gravitational attraction of the bigger ship, and Ebenezer had no doubt that the crew of the Sweet Pea would be dead by that time. The Martian would burn him and Mono into ashes before leaving, and then when the Sweet Pea was set adrift, the Martian would be perfectly safe.
Captain Ebenezer felt a slight tremor travel through his body. Prospects weren’t exactly pleasant.
In silence he led the way to the hold. Mono wa
s standing at the wide side doors through which the garbage was transferred from the liner. When he looked up and saw the Martian and saw the gun that swung slightly to cover him, his face remained blankly expressionless, but a slightly worried glint touched his pale eyes.
“Is everything all right, sir?” he asked quietly of Ebenezer.
“Do they look all right, you silly simpleton,” Captain Ebenezer exploded. “Do you think this ape with the gun is a new mascot I picked up?”
“Shut—up!” The Martian spoke each word separately with a flat deadly emphasis on each syllable.
Keeping the gun trained on them the Martian lumbered to the panel doors of the garbage chute. The doors of the Sweet Pea had already slid back and the gleaming hull of the Jupiter was visible.
“When the doors open, I go,” the Martian said. “You stay here with the garbage, Captain Stinky. And you too,” he growled at Mono, “both of you stay with the garbage.”
“Yes, sir,” Mono said meekly.
The gleaming metal chute doors of the Jupiter opened suddenly with a metallic click. The Martian swung about expectantly.
Captain Ebenezer tensed himself for the searing bolt he knew would come—then a sudden triumphant howl broke from his lips.
FOR from the darkness of the garbage chute three husky Earth spacemen suddenly appeared, and before the huge Martian could raise his gun they dove at him in an avalanche of efficient concerted action.
Two landed on his back and the other hit him at the knees with a savage swipe.
With an enraged bellow the Martian shook his massive shoulders, dumping two of the spacemen to the floor.
His big fist descended like a mallet on the other spacemen as he twisted to bring his heat-ray gun around on the two men who were crawling back to their feet.
It was at that stage of the affair that Captain Ebenezer entered the fray.
He had grabbed a heavy iron spike from the floor at the first second of the attack, and now he sprang forward, an anemic avenger, driven to heroic heights by his long repressed rage.
“Captain Stinky, is it?” he screamed.
With all the strength in his skinny arms he brought the heavy spike down on the Martian’s big head.
“Spit leeka juice on the floor of my bridge, will you?” he howled. “Take that! And that!”
One—two—three!
The three blows put an end to things. The Martian’s knees sagged and he fell heavily forward on his face.
Captain Ebenezer almost fell on top of him, but his righteous indignation sustained him. The spike fell from his limp hand and he stood panting heavily, legs spread wide.
“Captain Stinky, eh?” he gasped.
With poetic revenge he pursed his lips and sprayed a stream of honest tobacco juice over the sprawled body of the Martian . . .
VICE ADMIRAL Hartman, master of the Jupiter, received Captain Ebenezer of the Sweet Pea in his sumptuously furnished office. Rising, the Vice-Admiral saluted, then shook hands gravely.
“It’s a privilege to have you aboard, Captain,” he said. “Permit me to congratulate you on your splendid work. There might have been serious repercussions if we had allowed the Martian to make an illegal entry on Jupiter. When you answered my signal with ‘O.K.’, I was instantly suspicious. In the years our ships have been meeting I have always been happy to note that your signal replies are always according to explicit regulations. This informality tonight put me on the alert and I sent three of my men down to board your ship and make sure that everything was ship-shape.”
Captain Ebenezer scratched his beard and felt a twinge of conscience. The irregularity of answering ‘O.K.’ hadn’t occurred to him until now. He had been so mad when the Martian sprayed leeka juice over the floor of his bridge that he could hardly see straight, let alone think straight.
Still, there was no sense mentioning that now.
He straightened and looked the Admiral square in the eye.
“Thank you, Admiral,” he said. “After all, us masters has a certain responsibility toward each other. Any way you look at it we all depend on each other.”
The Vice-Admiral nodded gravely.
“My sentiments exactly,” he said.
He shook hands again with Captain Ebenezer, the two men saluted stiffly, and Ebenezer marched from the splendor of the Admiral’s office, wearing a ten tooth grin, his numerical best.
[*] Leeka Juice: A berry native to Venus and possessing highly narcotic qualities. It was widely used by many of the degenerate tramps and human derelicts of the universe.
TINK TAKES A FLING
First published in the June 1942 issue of Fantastic Adventures.
Tink got himself into a lot of trouble when he fell in love with Jing, the music fairy!
CENTRAL PARK was alive with the first touch of spring. A soft balmy breeze skipped gaily through the green shrubbery and the sun that splashed extravagantly and gloriously over the wide lawns transformed the emerald heart of Manhattan into a beautiful fairyland.
A robin sang, leaves frisked over the gravelled walks and nature’s general air of happy contentment was reflected in the faces of the starry-eyed couples strolling through the park.
One of these couples sauntered slowly past a bubbling drinking fountain, completely unaware that they were the subject of a rather bitter argument.
“Disgusting!” Nastee said peevishly.
Tink glanced at the passing couple and sighed.
“It’s not disgusting,” he said dreamily, “it’s wonderful. They’re in love.”
“Bah!” Nastee said.
The couple in question strolled on, completely unaware that their rapturous state had started another of the arguments that went on interminably between Tink and Nastee, the city-dwelling Leprechauns.
The two tiny people were lying on the concrete rim of the bubbler looking lazily up at the sky when their eternal argument resumed. Now, Nastee swung himself to a sitting position and stared moodily at the glinting water that bubbled up from the fountain.
“Love,” he said. “Bah! It’s stupid and silly. I don’t like it.”
A man stopped and bent over for a drink and Nastee, knowing ordinary humans couldn’t see him, amused himself by kicking a spray of water into his eyes.
“Damn these crazy fountains!” the man snarled, groping for his handkerchief. Swearing eloquently he strode angrily away.
Tink closed his eyes and a dreamy smile touched his lips.
“Love is the most glorious thing in the world,” he said.
Nastee looked at him exasperatedly.
“Stop saying that over and over again,” he said. “Anyway, how do you know?”
Nastee’s sharp eyes caught the sudden flush in Tink’s cheeks.
“I just know, that’s all,” Tink said defensively.
“So that’s it,” Nastee said with a sly grin. “You’ve fallen in love yourself.”
Tink reddened in confusion.
“Of course not. You’re being absolutely silly. How could I be in love? I’ve only seen her once.”
“Oho!” chortled Nastee. “Who is she?”
Tink sat up and put his chin in his hand. A worried frown was on his face.
“That’s just it,” he said, “I don’t know her name or anything about her. I just got a glimpse of her through a window while she was working.” He sighed tragically. “She’s glorious.”
Nastee’s curiosity got the better of him.
“What’s she like?” he asked. “What does she do?”
“Well,” Tink said eagerly, “she’s pretty as a rose and she works for a composer.”
“She must be smart,” Nastee said grudgingly.
“Naturally, she’s smart,” Tink said. “I could tell at a glance that she was the only one in the bunch with brains and beauty.”
“Bunch?” Nastee said in surprise. “Was it a harem?”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Tink said frostily. “She is the end girl in a chord. There are three other
girls assigned to this particular composition, but none of them compare with mine.”
“Mine!” Nastee jeered. “Do you think she’ll bother with you?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Tink said gloomily. “Anyway I’m going to see her again and try to talk with her.”
“When?” Nastee demanded.
“Right away,” he said.
“I think I’ll go along,” Nastee said. Tink stopped. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“You can’t stop me,” Nastee said. “There’s no wall safe here to lock me in like you did the last time. Anyway I’ll be good.”[1]
“Is that a promise?” Tink demanded. Nastee smiled slyly.
“Of course,” he said.
THE young man at the piano was concentrating on his work with almost fierce intentness. A shock of unruly black hair fell over his pale forehead as his fingers pounded out dramatic, thunderous chords, but he only shook it from his eyes impatiently and continued playing.
Occasionally he stopped long enough to pencil in a few notes on the unfinished score before him, then his fingers returned to the keyboard to draw forth harmony and melody that swelled through the small, plainly furnished room with magic beauty.
Finally he stopped and ran both hands wearily through his untidy hair. His face was drawn with tiny lines of fatigue, but an unquenchable flame of inspiration burned in his eyes.
He was about to return to his work when a slim girl appeared in the doorway that led to the apartment’s tiny kitchen. She wore a brightly colored apron and there was a smudge of flour on her nose. Her smile was gay.
“Would New York’s finest composer care to stop for a cup of coffee?” she asked.
The young man at the piano grinned at her and stretched luxuriously.
“Sounds like a good idea,” he said. “I’m getting a bit tired. Will the wife of New York’s finest composer join me?”
“I certainly will,” the girl answered. “Come on.”
The young man sighed and his face became serious.
“Ann,” he said suddenly, “how do we know this music is any good? How do we know Mr. Hummert will use it for his revue even if I do finish it by Friday?”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 106
