by J F Bone
He went over to the roulette wheel and played straight red and black. He won there too. And after awhile he went back to the dice table. I cashed in. Two thousand was fair enough and there was no reason to make myself unpopular. But I couldn’t help staying to watch the fun. I could feel it coming—a sense of something impending.
Redman’s face was flushed a dull vermilion, his eyes glittered with ruby glints, and his breath came faster. The dice had a grip on him just like cards do on me. He was a gambler all right—one of the fool kind that play it cozy until they’re a little ahead and then plunge overboard and drown.
“Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen,” the diceman droned. “Eight is the point.” His rake swept over the board collecting a few munit plaques on the wrong spots. Redman had the dice. He rolled. Eight—a five and a three. “Let it ride,” he said,—and I jumped nervously. He should have said, “Leave it.” But the diceman was no purist. Another roll—seven. The diceman looked inquiringly at Redman. The big man shook his head, and rolled again—four. Three rolls later he made his point. Then he rolled another seven, another seven, and an eleven. And the pile of munits in front of him had become a respectable heap.
“One moment, sir,” the diceman said as he raked in the dice. He rolled them in his hands, tossed them in the air, and handed them back.
“That’s enough,” Redman said. “Cash me in.”
“But—”
“I said I had enough.”
“Your privilege, sir.”
“One more then,” Redman said, taking the dice and stuffing munits into his jacket. He left a hundred on the board, rolled, and came up with a three. He grinned. “Thought I’d pushed my luck as far as it would go,” he said, as he stuffed large denomination bills into his pockets.
I sidled up to him. “Get out of here, buster,” I said. “That diceman switched dice on you. You’re marked now.”
“I saw him,” Redman replied in a low voice, not looking at me. “He’s not too clever, but I’ll stick around, maybe try some more roulette.”
“It’s your funeral,” I whispered through motionless lips.
He turned away and I left. There was no reason to stay, and our little talk just might have drawn attention. They could have a probe tuned on us now. I went down the strip to Otto’s and waited. It couldn’t have been more than a half hour later that Redman came by. He was looking over his shoulder and walking fast. His pockets, I noted, were bulging. So I went out the back door, cut down the serviceway to the next radius street, and flagged a cab.
“Where to, mister?” the jockey said.
“The strip—and hurry.”
The jockey fed propane to the turbine and we took off like a scorched zarth. “Left or right?” he asked as the strip leaped at us. I crossed my fingers, estimated the speed of Redman’s walk, and said, “Right.”
We took the corner on two of our three wheels and there was Redman, walking fast toward the south airlock, and behind him, half-running, came two of Abie’s goons.
“Slow down—fast!” I yapped, and was crushed against the back of the front seat as the jock slammed his foot on the brakes. “In here!” I yelled at Redman as I swung the rear door open.
His reflexes were good. He hit the floor in a flat dive as the purple streak of a stat blast flashed through the space where he had been. The jockey needed no further stimulation. He slammed his foot down and we took off with a screech of polyprene, whipped around the next corner and headed for the hub, the cops, and safety.
“Figured you was jerking some guy, Cyril,” the jockey said over his shoulder. “But who is he?”
Redman picked himself off the floor as I swore under my breath. The jockey would have to know me. Abie’d hear of my part in this by morning and my hide wouldn’t be worth the price of a mangy rat skin. I had to get out of town—fast! And put plenty of distance between me and Marsport. This dome—this planet—wasn’t going to be healthy for quite a while. Abie was the most unforgiving man I knew where money was concerned, and if the large, coarse notes dripping from Redman’s pockets were any indication, there was lots of money concerned.
“Where to now, Cyril?” the jockey asked.
There was only one place to go. I damned the greed that made me pick Redman up. I figured that he’d be grateful to the tune of a couple of kilomunits but what was a couple of thousand if Abie thought I was mixed up in this? Lucky I had a spaceship even if she was an unconverted Centaurian. I could stand the cramped quarters a lot better than I could take a session in Abie’s back room. I’d seen what happened to guys who went in there, and it wasn’t pretty. “To the spaceport,” I said, “and don’t spare the hydrocarbons.”
“Gotcha!” the jock said and the whine of the turbine increased another ten decibels.
“Thanks, Wallingford,” Redman said. “If you hadn’t pulled me out I’d have had to shoot somebody. And I don’t like killing. It brings too many lawmen into the picture.” He was as cool as ice. I had to admire his nerve.
“Thanks for nothing,” I said. “I figured you’d be grateful in a more solid manner.”
“Like this?” he thrust a handful of bills at me. There must have been four thousand in that wad. It cheered me up a little.
“Tell me where you want to get off,” I said.
“You said you have a spaceship,” he countered.
“I do, but it’s a Centaurian job. I might be able to squeeze into it but I doubt if you could. About the only spot big enough for you would be the cargo hold, and the radiation’d fry you before we even made Venus.”
He grinned at me. “I’ll take the chance,” he said.
“Okay, sucker,” I thought. “You’ve been warned.” If he came along he’d damn well go in the hold. I could cut the drives after we got clear of Mars and dump him out—after removing his money, of course. “Well,” I said aloud, “it’s your funeral.”
“You’re always saying that,” he said with chuckle in his voice.
We checked out at the airlock and drove out to the spaceport over the sand-filled roadbed that no amount of work ever kept clean. We cleared the port office, drew spacesuits from Post Supply, and went out to my yacht. Redman looked at her, his heart in his eyes. He seemed overwhelmed by it.
“Lord! she’s beautiful!” he breathed, as he looked at the slim polished length standing on her broad fins, nose pointed skyward.
“Just a Starflite-class yacht,” I said.
“Look, Cyril,” he said. “Will you sell her?”
“If we get to Venus alive and you still want to buy her, she’ll cost you—” I hesitated, “twenty-five thousand.”
“Done!” he said. It came so fast that I figured I should have asked for fifty.
“The fuel will be extra,” I said. “Fifty munits an ounce. There’s maybe ten pounds of it.”
“How far will that take me?”
“About ten light-years at cruising speed. Gold is economical.”
“That should be far enough,” he said with a faint smile.
We drew the boarding ladder down and prepared to squeeze aboard. As I figured it, we had plenty of time, but I hadn’t counted on that nosy guard at the check station, or maybe that character at the south airlock of the dome, because I was barely halfway up the ladder to the hatch when I heard the howl of a racing turbine and two headlights came cutting through the night over the nearest dune. The speed with which that car was coming argued no good.
“Let’s go,” I said, making with the feet.
“I’m right behind you,” Redman said into my left heel. “Hurry! Those guys are out for blood!”
I tumbled through the lock and wiggled up the narrow passageway. By some contortionist’s trick Redman came through the hatch feet first, an odd looking gun in his hand. Below us the turbo screeched to a stop and men boiled out, blasters in hand. They didn’t wait—just started firing. Electrostatic discharges leaped from the metal of the ship, but they were in too much of a hurry. The gun in Redman’s fist
steadied as he took careful aim. A tiny red streak hissed out of the muzzle—and the roof fell in! A thunderous explosion and an eye-wrenching burst of light filled the passageway through the slit in the rapidly closing hatch. The yacht rocked on her base like a tree in a gale, as the hatch slammed shut.
“What in hell was that?” I yelped.
“Just a low yield nuclear blast,” Redman said. “About two tons. Those lads won’t bother us any more.”
“You fool!—you stupid moronic abysmal fool!” I said dully. “You’re not content to get Abie on our heels. Now you’ve triggered off the whole Galactic Patrol. Don’t you know that nuclear weapons are banned—that they’ve been banned ever since our ancestors destroyed Earth—that their use calls for the execution of the user? Just where do you come from that you don’t know the facts of life?”
“Earth,” Redman said.
It left me numb. Any fool knew that there was no life on that radioactive hell. Even now, spacers could see her Van Allen bands burning with blue-green fire. Earth was a sterile world—a horrible example, the only forbidden planet in the entire galaxy, a galactic chamber of horrors ringed with automatic beacons and patrol ships to warn strangers off. We Martians, Earth’s nearest neighbor, had the whole history of that last suicidal war drummed into us as children. After all, we were the cradle of Galactic civilization even though we got that way by being driven off Earth—and feeling that almost any place would be better than Mars. Mars iron built the ships and powered the atomics that had conquered the galaxy. But we knew Earth better than most, and to hear those words from Redman’s lips was a shock.
“You’re a damn liar!” I exploded.
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Redman said, “but you should know the truth when it is told to you. I am from Earth!”
“But—” I said.
“You’d better get out of here,” Redman said, “your Patrol will be here shortly.”
I was thinking that, too. So I wiggled my way up to the control room, braced myself against the walls and fired the jets. Acceleration crushed me flat as the ship lifted and bored out into space.
As quickly as I could, I cut the jets so the Patrol couldn’t trace us by our ion trail, flipped the negative inertia generator on and gave the ship one minimal blast that hurled her out of sight. We coasted at a few thousand miles per second along the plane of the ecliptic while we took stock.
Redman had wedged himself halfway into the control room and eyed my cramped body curiously. “It’s a good thing you’re a runt,” he said. “Otherwise we’d be stuck down there.” He laughed. “You look like a jack in the box—all coiled up ready to spring out.”
But I was in no mood for humor. Somehow I felt that I’d been conned. “What do I get out of this?” I demanded.
“A whole skin—at least for awhile.”
“That won’t do me any good unless I can take it somewhere.”
“Don’t worry,” Redman said. “They don’t give a damn about you. It’s me they want, turn on your radio and see.”
I flipped the switch and a voice came into the control room—“remind you that this is a Galactic emergency! The Patrol has announced that an inhabitant of Earth has been on Mars! This individual is dangerously radioactive. A reward of one hundred thousand Galactic munits will be paid to the person who gives information leading to his death or capture. I repeat,—one hundred thousand munits! The man’s description is as follows: Height 180 centimeters, weight 92 kilograms, eyes reddish brown, hair red. A peculiarity which makes him easily recognized is the red color of his skin. He is armed with a nuclear weapon and is dangerous. When last seen he was leaving Marsport spacefield. Starflite class yacht, registration number CY 127439. He has a citizen with him, probably a hostage. If seen, notify the nearest Patrol ship.”
I looked at Redman. The greed must have shone from me like a beacon. “A hundred grand!” I said softly.
“Try and collect,” Redman said.
“I’m not going to,” I said and turned three separate plans to capture him over in my head.
“They won’t work,” Redman said. He grinned nastily. “And don’t worry about radioactivity. I’m no more contaminated than you are.”
“Yeah?—and just how do you live on that hotbox without being contaminated?” I asked.
“Simple. The surface isn’t too hot in the first place. Most of the stuff is in the Van Allen belts. Second, we live underground. And third we’re protected.”
“How?”
“Where do you think this red skin comes from? It isn’t natural. Even you should know that. Actually we had the answer to protection during the Crazy Years before the blowup when everybody talked peace and built missiles. A bacteriologist named Anderson discovered it while working with radiation sterilized food. He isolated a whole family of bacteria from the food that not only survived, but lived normally in the presence of heavy doses of radiation. The microbes all had one thing in common—a peculiar reddish pigment that protected them.
“Luckily, the military of his nation—the United States, I think they called it, thought that this pigment might be a useful protective shield for supplies. Extracts were made and tested before the Blowup came, and there was quite a bit of it on hand.
“But the real hero of protection was a general named Ardleigh. He ordered every man and woman in his command inoculated with the extract right after the Blowup—when communications were disorganized and commanders of isolated units had unchallengeable power. He was later found to be insane, but his crazy idea was right. The inoculations killed ten per cent of his command and turned those who lived a bright red, but none of the living showed a sign of radiation sickness after they received the extract.
“By this time your ancestors—the Runners—had gone, and those who stayed were too busy trying to remain alive to worry much about them. The “Double A” vaccine—named for Anderson and Ardleigh—was given to every person and animal that could be reached, but it was only a small fraction of the population that survived. The others died. But enough men and animals remained to get a toe-hold on their ruined world, and they slowly rebuilt.
“We had forgotten about you Runners—but it seems you didn’t forget us. You sealed us off—forced us to remain on Earth. And by the time we were again ready for space, you were able to prevent us. But we will not be denied forever. It took an entire planet working together to get me on Mars to learn your secrets. And when I got here, I found that I wouldn’t have time to learn. We had forgotten one simple thing—my skin color. It isn’t normal here and there is no way of changing it since the extract combines permanently with body cells. So I had to do the next best thing—obtain a sample of your technology and bring it to Earth. I planned at first to get enough money to buy a ship. But those creeps in Marsport don’t lose like gentlemen. I damn near had to beat my way out of that joint. And when a couple of them came after me, I figured it was all up. I could kill them of course, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Since I can’t fly one of your ships yet, I couldn’t steal one—and I wouldn’t have time to buy one because I was pretty sure the Patrol would be after me as soon as the rumors of a red man got around. You see—they know what we look like and its their job to keep us cooped up—”
“Hmm,” I said.
“Why do they do it?” Redman asked. “We’re just as human as you are.” He shrugged. “At any rate,” he finished, “I was at the end of my rope when you came along. But you have a ship—you can fly—and you’ll take me back to Earth.”
“I will?” I asked.
He nodded. “I can make it worth your while,” he said.
“How?” I asked.
“Money. You’ll do anything for money.” Redman looked at me soberly. “You’re a repulsive little weasel, Cyril, and I would distrust you thoroughly except that I know you as well as you know me. That’s the virtue of being human. We understand each other without words. You are a cheap, chiseling, doublecrossing, money-grabbing heel. You’d kick your m
other’s teeth out for a price. And for what I’m going to offer you, you’ll jump at the chance to help us—but I don’t have to tell you that. You know already.”
“What do you mean—know already?” I said. “Can I read your mind?”
“Do you mean to tell me—” Redman began. And then a peculiar smile crossed his face, a light of dawning comprehension. “Why no,” he said, “why should you be telepathic—why should you? And to think I kept hiding—” he broke off and looked at me with a superior look a man gives his dog. Affectionate but pitying. “No wonder there were no psych fields protecting that dice game—and I thought—” he started to laugh.
And I knew then why the Patrol had sealed Earth off. Mutated by radiation, speeded up in their evolution by the effects of the Blowup, Earthmen were as far ahead of us mentally as we were ahead of them technologically. To let these telepaths, these telekinetics—and God knows what else—loose on the Galaxy would be like turning a bunch of hungry kelats loose in a herd of fat sloats. My head buzzed like it was filled with a hive of bees. For the first time in years I stopped thinking of the main chance. So help me, I was feeling noble!
“Just take it easy, Cyril,” Redman said. “Don’t get any bright ideas.”
Bright ideas! Ha! I should be getting bright ideas with a character who could read me like a book. What I needed was something else.
“If you cooperate,” Redman said, “you’ll be fixed for life.”
“You’re not kidding,” I said. “I’d be fixed all right. The Patrol’d hound me all the way to Andromeda if I helped you. And don’t think they wouldn’t find out. While we can’t read minds, we can tell when a man’s lying.”
“Have you ever heard of Fort Knox?” Redman asked.
Fort Knox—Fort Knox—fourknocks! the thought staggered me.
“The gold I had came from there,” Redman said.
