Troubled Star

by George O. Smith

  Troubled Star

  Originally published in Startling Stories – February, 1953

  by George O. Smith

  They wanted to make a traffic light of Old Sol, but they got the red light from a green spaceman

  Contents

  Troubled Star

  FOREWARD—EN SAGA

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  FOREWARD—EN SAGA

  At least once in every generation there turns up a person who is embarrassing to the Custodians of History. With neither talent nor ambition, nor studious application nor admirable character, this person succeeds where the bright and the studious and the intellectually honest would have failed miserably. Stubborn, egocentric, vain—often stupid—our person blunders in where the wise and the sincere would not dare. His hide is thicker than that of the rhinoceros. He is not abashed to tell the surgeon where to ply his scalpel, or to instruct the statesman on a course of diplomacy. His little knowledge is a dangerous thing—for other people.

  His success is due to the law of averages.

  History holds many accounts where the brave and the brilliant have stepped in at the right time to avoid disaster. Yet there are more bums than geniuses, more cowards than heroes and more laziness than ambition in our human race, so it is not surprising that there should be occasions when a bum or a self-centered braggart should find that history has a special niche waiting for him.

  Chapter I

  They were parked on the dark side of Mercury, snug and comfortable in their hemisphere of force that kept out the cold and kept in the air. At one side where force met ground, a tall silvery spacecraft rose like a chimney.

  They were three:

  Chat Honger was tall, red-headed, and thin faced. He looked as though he were incapable of quieting down, but he was really the type of person who has an incredible amount of patience for things which cannot be performed in a hurry.

  Bren Fallow was shorter than Chat Honger, darker, stouter, more round of face and more amiable. Definitely, Bren was the methodical type.

  The third man was Scyth Radnor. Scyth was the kind of man who is quick to grasp a new idea and as quick to reduce it to practise. His failing was that he seldom looked deep or planned far ahead. Being quick of mind he preferred to play everything by ear because planning required study, and Scyth felt that study for the sake of study consumed too much time—time that could better be spent in the pursuit of fun and games.

  Teach them the language and drop them in Greater New York and they would be lost among Manhattan's millions. Better change their clothing, though. Striped shorts, Greek sandals, a Sam Browne belt across a bare chest, and a Roman toga of iridescent changing hues is not the kind of costume seen on Fifth Avenue.

  Aside from their costume they were human to the last detail. Even their speech, when translated, sounded like the human tongue. They used slang, elision, swearwords and poor grammar. They made bum jokes and puns. They sounded more like displaced earthmen than technicians from a culture that had been establishing galactic centers of population for thirty thousand years.

  "You're certain?" asked Bren.

  Scyth nodded. "Dead certain now. It was that last computation that sold me."

  "Then I'd better shut down."

  Chat Honger shook his head. "We've got a job to do. We're behind schedule now, fellows, because of this question. We've got a beacon to start here, I say let's get along with it and bedamned to the—"

  "You can't," said Bren. "The first time you put down in the log that this is a middle sequence flare-star, right smack-dab in the middle of Yalt Gangrow's Diagram, the Bureau of Colonization is going to ask you if you took a look for habitable planets. Then—then what, Scyth?"

  Scyth Radnor shrugged. "The answer is 'yes' we took a look and we found one, just at the right distance, the right size, and the right conditioning. To say nothing of upper atmosphere and other data made by observation. So Planet Three is about as habitable as Marandis itself."

  Chat grunted. "Looked for any signs of life?"

  Scyth nodded. "The phanobands are as dead as you-know-what. The machinus fields are all as dead as one might expect this far from any established route. There are a few bits and dabs of stuff on the radiomagnetic spectrum which show a recurrent pattern too fast to be anything of natural phenomena, however. I say we ought to take a look."

  Chat shook his head slowly. "I didn't expect to find it inhabited. But even knowing it is habitable is—"

  Bren said, "If mere habitability is all you're after we can go ahead and establish our beacon and leave Planet Three to be handled later. A beacon wouldn't ruin the planet itself, you know."

  Scyth said, "We'd better take a look-see anyhow. That last computation on the radiomagnetic stuff looked too much like man-made radiation to me."

  Bren Hallow smiled. "Look," he said slowly, "If this planet is inhabited, how come the Bureau of Colonization doesn't know about it. Not one case in the history of Marandis shows the discovery of an inhabited planet that—"

  Chat interrupted, sourly, "that didn't stem from Marandanian origin. But how about the several cases of spacewreck? Look what we're doing. We're setting up beacons along a rift through the galaxy from Marandis to the Spiral Cluster. We found this rift after years of hard work and galactic surveying and exploring, and both of you know just how fabulous it is. Well, suppose someone found it twenty thousand years ago and got marooned?"

  "So what do we do? Take a run to Planet Three and radiate machinus fields all over space? Not until we know. So, Scyth, can you ducky us up a high-sensitivity job out of one of the standard menslators"

  "I think so. D'you think it will work?"

  "If there is a primitive culture of the most low-grade organization there, there will also be one or more leading characters. A man of fame or power—or in fame and power—whose person will be in the active minds of a large number of hypothetical inhabitants. We should be able to get some sort of response even if the whole thing is primitive as all get-out. But let's take a look before we do anything that's likely to get us into trouble. We're late now, another few hours isn't going to hurt much more."

  The discussion in the dome on Mercury's dark side abated as the trio went to work. Scyth began to tinker with his menslators; Chat began to prowl the confines like a caged animal, thinking deeply, and Bren Hallow went back to his massive equipment that was designed to create a galactic beacon.

  – – –

  On this Third Planet of Sol there were still captains and kings and presidents and commissars and a couple of dictators and a new invention or two, all of which professed to be gentle guardians of the public rights. Only the names had changed, some in violence and some in peace. The names of places were about the same; a few had disappeared in the heat of ideology, but by and large things and people persisted despite atoms, politics and the cussedness of human nature. Youth was still going to hell—and old age was still fuddy-duddy.

  One apparent change might have been noticed by a man of the middle of the century, and even he would have expected it.

  The history of this change reads like this:

  A few years after Global War I, the manufacturer of a breakfast food product known as "Oatflakes" realized a rather monumental increase in the sale of his product. Conscientious investigation showed that this increase was not due to the public becoming addicted to oatmeal as a morning, noon and night diet (with a midnight snack tossed in) but entirely due to a new plaything called the "W
ireless." Wireless, it was found, required as a major component about a quarter of a mile of wire wound around the cylindrical box in which the oatflakes were packed.

  Some years later, when the first home-manufacture of radio sets slowed because of professional manufacture of commercial radio, the sale of Oatflakes dropped to normal. At this point the manufacturer of the food product realized that the pathway to high sales was not along the contents, but along the package. Let the public buy the stuff for the box, or the box-top. If he wants to eat the stuff on the inside, that's his business!

  So in the early-middle years of the century there arose a character called Hopalong Cassidy, who portrayed an Old West chivalry and heroic strength great enough to sell boxtops by the gross ton. He tied-in sales with toy and clothing makers until business reached the Law of Diminishing Returns. After selling spurs for roller skates the brains ran out of ideas and turned to new fields.

  Space travel was the coming thing, so the youth of the land turned to Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

  Tom Corbett's only trouble was the same as the difficulty encountered by one Frank Merriwell fifty years earlier. After twenty years, Tom Corbett became the oldest undergraduate in Space Academy, just as Merriwell became the oldest undergraduate at Yale. The youth of the race wanted a real spaceman, full fledged and heroic, and so they got it.

  Meet Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol ...

  The sleek spacecraft landed and the clouds of hot dust rose almost to the spacelock, driven up by the fierce reaction blast. A hundred yards from the Patrol cruiser lay the broken spacecraft of Roger Fulton, arch-fiend, cornered at last.

  The spacelock opened and Dusty Britton looked out through a wisp of the deadly radioactive dust. He was clad in the uniform of The Space Patrol: black breeches and dark blue whipcord shirt piped in gold. Calf-length black polished boots. His head was bare, and the collar-of his dress shirt was open wide enough to show the fine muscles of his upper chest and shoulders. He was blondish with a wide open face of the type that is associated with laughing-at-danger. His physique was almost marvelous, slender-waisted, broad-shouldered, long-legged, and agile-armed. His arms and hands and face were tanned from the radiations of Outer Space and there were the million little wrinkles about his eyes that were natural, not because of age, but because of the price one pays for being a Spaceman. At his hip swung the secret sidearm of The Space Patrol, a raygun far more deadly than the Colt .45 in the hands of him who knew its use.

  Dusty Britton took a step forward to the edge of the spacelock, took a deep breath, and then jumped down into the floating cloud of radioactive dust kicked up by the landing blast. Within seconds he was out of the cloud again and racing across the ground to the ship of Roger Fulton which had landed askew.

  His crew appeared in the spacelock and looked down, not daring to drop into that horror, knowing that they were not as fast as Dusty Britton and could not make it through in time to be safe.

  – – –

  Across to the wrecked spacer he went, boldly breaching the ruined spacelock. Along the corridor he went warily until he came to the control room. He kicked the door open and walked in, poised lightly on the balls of his feet, lithe and ready to spring like a stalking cat.

  Then Dusty Britton faced his archenemy, Roger Fulton. Roger Fulton wore a three-day beard, his clothing was stained and torn and his hair unkempt. Fulton watched Britton with cold, angry eyes.

  "Now," said Dusty Britton harshly, "Let's have it, Roger!"

  Very slowly and very carefully, Roger Fulton's hands found the buckle of his blaster-belt and unfastened it. He let it drop, putting out a leg so that belt and blaster slid easily to the floor. As it reached his toe, Roger Fulton kicked it to one side. He shook his head and sneered at Dusty Britton.

  "I should draw and fight the fastest man in The Space Patrol?" sneered Roger Fulton. "I surrender. You'll never blast an unarmed man, Britton!"

  Dusty tossed his head. Keeping one eye on Roger Fulton, Dusty sidled across the control room to where Barbara Crandall was tied to a chair. Her eyes were soft for Dusty as he stripped the gag from her mouth and untied her bonds with his left hand. She sat up, rubbing her wrists and working her mouth, trying to tell Dusty something important that would not come through the cramped muscles.

  Dusty turned to Roger Fulton. "I've waited for this moment," he said. Quickly he unbuckled his own blaster and tossed it aside. Then he stalked forward, poised to strike, his hands opening and closing at his sides. "Man to man, Fulton. That is, if there's enough man in you to fight!"

  Roger Fulton crowed, "Sucker!" and went into whirlwind action. His hand darted inside his shirt and came out with a tiny miniblast.

  There came the throbbing sound of raw energy and a flash that blinded. Yellowish smoke curled out and surrounded the scene. Barbara Crandall screamed and tried to get to her feet but the hours of being tied had numbed her muscles and she fell back into her chair helplessly. The yellowish cloud billowed higher in the control room and began to thin.

  Then out of the cloud walked Dusty Britton. He held his right hand by the wrist, shaking it with his left. "Stunned a bit," he smiled bravely.

  "But how—?"

  Dusty opened the fingers of his right hand and let a miniblast fall to the floor, its charge gone, its usefulness ended. "He tried the old hidden-gun trick," said Dusty. "But two can play that game. Roger Fulton will never menace honest spacemen again!"

  The music swelled as the scene faded out; a cheer from Dusty's crew finished off one more opus of Dusty Britton and The Space Patrol.

  It was a special occasion, this showing. It was Noon in New Mexico, but the showing had gone out across a worldwide instantaneous network no matter what time it was at the receiving end. In some places it was late in the morning, in some places early, others had this showing late at night. But people were watching back and forth across the face of the Earth.

  The film came to end, there was the white flash, then an intermittent flicker as cross-country synchronization took hold. (This flicker was done with an eye toward the dramatic; worldwide networks could latch in without a wink of the screen anywhere in the world) An announcer came on with the statement that everybody had been waiting for:

  "And now we take you to Dusty Britton in person, from White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico!"

  A flash and a thundering boom shattered the air and a sonorous voice announced: "X Minus Thirty Minutes!"

  – – –

  White Sands Spaceport was a broad flatland, ringed by thousands of people. In the middle stood a three-stage rocket, waiting; its distance making it look like a small model. In the foreground was a small reviewing stand, and on the stand stood Dusty Britton, resplendent in his Space Patrol uniform. He was extending a hand towards a youngster about twelve, dressed in a miniature Space Patrol uniform, complete with a miniature edition of the famous "Dusty Britton" blaster at his hip.

  The lad saluted Dusty; Dusty saluted back.

  Then from his shirt pocket Dusty took a small box and an engraved piece of paper.

  "Junior Spaceman Harold Dawson, it is my pleasure to award you this Medal of Spaceman's Honor.

  "I am informed that upon July Seventeen, at Thirteen Hundred Hours local time, you, Harold Dawson, Spaceman (Jg) full aware of the dangers that threatened, did without thought of your personal safety, wade deep into the shifting sands of Mudlark Lake and from that deadly quicksand return your smaller sister to safety. For valor and for gallantry, I present you with the Order of The Golden Heart!"

  With a flourish, Dusty pinned the decoration on the proud youngster's chest. The medal glittered there, a small heart of gold surrounded by rings like those of Saturn, carved in flat relief.

  Then with another exchange of salutes, Dusty Britton went down the steps and into a waiting spaceport jeep and while the crowd cheered wildly, Dusty was driven across the sands to the spacecraft.

  With tolerant parents permitting their young to watch this live, in-person show no
matter what time it was across the earth, it is not hard to believe that during these many minutes there were more people thinking about Dusty Britton than there had ever been people thinking about any other person at any one time in the course of history.

  And so Scyth Radnor, tinkering with his menslator on Mercury, trying to tune it to some response that would deliver definitive thought, caught much more than he anticipated. In fact, it nearly overloaded the device.

  "Any doubt?" he asked with a twisted smile.

  "Nope," from Bren.

  "I pass," added Chat.

  Scyth said, "So instead of being an uninhabited planet, we have a rather high culture, complete with space travel. This Dusty Britton must be quite a hero. But how in the name of the Great Space can they have space travel without machinus fields or some knowledge of phanoband radiation?"

  "Maybe their space travel is—er—"

  "Now look, you're not suggesting that people with a Space Patrol are riding ships with tailburners? Rockets? What a horrible thought."

  Bren shook his head. "Our forefathers lived through it."

  "Not many of them," grunted Scyth.

  Chat objected. "Read that history you dislike so much. You'll find that our ancestors went through hundreds of years wallowing across space to the planets in reaction-type spacecraft. Chemico-atomic rockets, if you please."

  "Let's stop the argument and get along with the main problem," said Bren. "What are we going to do about them?"

  "Well, we can't set up a beacon with them here. So we'll just have to take the proper measures."

  "That'll be quite a project. Whole colonies and—"