Iron Head: Science Fiction Mystery Tales

by E. C. Tubb

  “Sure, the big round-Phobos event in five days’ time.” He winked at me. “I’m an old rocket-jockey and I get all the straight news. Fifty credits will buy you the name of the winner.”

  He was lying, of course, and his pitch was older than time itself. Still, it says much about human nature that he was still in operation. I didn’t waste time on asking the obvious questions, such as, if he knew who the winner would be why didn’t he rob a bank put the proceeds on his sure thing, then buy himself out of trouble with the winnings’ Instead I winked at him am gave a grin.

  He stared at me in a hopeless kind of way.

  “Not interested?”

  “No. What’s your name?’

  “Slim. Slim Murphy Why?”

  “No reason.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Dribble. Dusty Dribble, the best damn sales man who ever set up a pitch. Maybe you’ve heard of me?’ He hadn’t, Mars is a long way from my stamping grounds on Earth, but I didn’t give him much time to think about it. Slim, though he didn’t know it yet, was going to pay for my coffee.

  He paid for more than that, and, by the time I’d wiped my plate and settled back with a full meal inside of me, we were partners.

  Partners, that is, in that he was going to provide the essential cash while I provided the brains and selling ability for the one thing all Mars was crying out to obtain.

  The De-Fumer.

  Maybe you’ve heard of it? Maybe you’ve actually seen or used one? If you have you’ll know just how good a line it was for a stink-hole like Mars. Even Slim, after I’d finished my build-up, was eager to get into production.

  “When can we start, Dusty?”

  “Just as soon as we find a chemist willing to knock up a batch on a delayed-payment basis. We can get the labels printed and find someone to provide us with some bottles.” I stared at my partner. “I’ll handle the selling angle. You’d better let me have a few credits to hire a stand and for general expenses.”

  “Sure, Dusty. How much do you need?”

  “As much as you can spare.” I grinned at his expression. “Look, this thing is big. Once we sell one all Mars will be lining up with their money in their hand to buy more. We’ll charge a hundred credits a time. The cost of production shouldn’t run to more than twenty, and we can snowball our original investment up to the sky.” I shrugged. “Of course, if you don’t want to buy in, that’s up to you. Go and peddle your tips and don’t blame me if you starve.”

  “Mason might string along with us,” Slim said slowly. He’s a chemist of sorts and can get the stuff cheap. I haven’t got any money myself, though, not what you’d call real money.”

  If he only knew!

  I shrugged and made appropriate noises and then got in quick and hard. “You’ve things you can pawn, haven’t you? Stuff you can sell? Well then, sell it. Raise a stake or I’ll find myself another partner.”

  It worked, as I knew it would. I’ve never had trouble selling myself, not when it’s to a money-hungry character, eager to get rich quick. Offer them the Sun and they’ll be so blinded that they won’t see the flaws and snags. One of the prime basics of selling is that if you’re going to lie, then make the lie as big as you can. If you make a promise, the same applies. Optimism pays off, pessimism gets you nothing but a kick in the rear.

  Slim swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker and, within a few hours, I was talking to the chemist with the comforting knowledge of cash in my pocket and the biggest money-spinner on Mars in my sole control.

  Mason proved awkward.

  “There’s something wrong with this formula,” he said, and squinted at the scribble I had written down from memory. “What’s it supposed to do?”

  “That’s my business. Can you make it?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Some of the things aren’t too plentiful, but I can handle it.” He sucked in his breath. “It’ll work out at a hundred credits the litre.”

  He was robbing me and I knew it, but as he’d agreed to wait for his money, I nodded and gave him the go-ahead. Slim had fixed up with a printer and found someone to supply the bottles and, that night, we sat up until dawn filling the bottles with the goo and sticking on the labels. I did a quick calculation and figured that selling them at a hundred credits a time, I’d be making four hundred per cent, profit.

  It was while filling the bottles that Slim first noticed the effect. He sniffed the air and looked at me, his eyes wide.

  “It works!”

  “Of course it works,” I said sternly. “The De-Fumer will kill all and every odour. It sweetens the air and destroys lurking bacteria which might cause infection and illness. It...” I broke off, staring at him. “What’s the matter?”

  “No bacteria on Mars,” he said. He drew air through his nostrils, and frowned. “Funny, it seems as if there’s something wrong.”

  “You can’t smell anything,” I pointed out, and I spoke the simple truth. The De-Fumer doesn’t kill odours as such; it works much more efficiently than that. What it really does is to numb the olfactory nerves so that it’s impossible to smell anything at all. Cabbage or carnations, drains or detergents, perfume or rotten eggs. It isn’t selective and, in that, lies its greatest charm as a demonstrable line. Give a customer a sniff of ammonia, then, when he’s recovered, let him smell the De-Fumer and try again. Proof positive.

  I didn’t want to tell Slim all this because some people have funny ideals about things which affect their normal physiology. Instead, I concentrated on the selling aspect.

  “The stuff is volatile,” I explained. “One bottle won’t last long and then they’ll have to come back for more. I tell you, man, we simply can’t lose!”

  “I don’t like it,” he said suddenly, and sniffed again. “It seems as though something is missing.”

  He was right.

  I’m not often wrong and I rarely overlook anything, but I’d made a slip with the De-Fumer on Mars. On Earth they sold well, but not here. I shouted myself hoarse and lied and promised, and went through the demonstrations until my throat was sore, and I was just a quivering bundle of tension, but I only sold two De-Fumers, and one of those was to an old man who thought that it was good for lumbago.

  So, as I should have done at the start, I sat down and thought about it.

  And then I could have kicked myself to Phobos and back again. Slim was right. The Martians had become so used to the smell that they no longer noticed it. I, a fresh arrival, hadn’t been able to believe that. What happened was that the Martians, when they could no longer smell their air, grew worried and upset, on the same principle as the ticking clock. You can go to sleep with a clock ticking in your room, but not if it isn’t there. Subconsciously you’ve grown so used to the sound that it isn’t noise any more. All I was doing with my demonstrations was to arouse antagonism and that is as bad as insulting the pitch, and for the same reason. No one will buy from you if they hate you or your product.

  And I was far from being popular.

  For a while I had the desperate notion of spreading the stuff around, waiting until the effects wore off, and then taking advantage of the newly-created demand for something to abolish the smell. I didn’t do it, first because there were laws against spreading chemicals through the domes, and second because it would have taken a lot of money. The second reason was the one which stopped me.

  I was getting desperate when I remembered Slim’s original pitch.

  Selling tips is a waste of time. I had found that out long ago, and so I soon talked him out of that. There are only two ways to make money on racing. One is to sell tips on a contingent basis. You give the sucker the name of the winner and ask him to give you ten per cent, of his winnings. Quite a lot of people fall for this gag because they hope to get other winners and you don’t pass out the tips until they’ve come across. The trouble with that system is it requires time and an inexhaustible supply of new customers. With a ten-rocket race, for example, you lose ninety per cent, of your original list because, of course,
you’ve got to tip each entry as a winner in order to cover the field.

  The second way is to open a book.

  “I don’t like it, Dusty,” protested Slim. “What if we lose?”

  “We won’t lose,” I promised. “Leave that to me. You go out to the field and find out all you can. I’ll set up and begin to take in the bets.” I noticed his worried expression. “Look, you want to get your money back, don’t you? The De-Fumer’s a washout and we’ve got to do something in order to stay solvent.”

  I said “we” but I really meant “I”. Slim was a native of Mars, and the worst that could happen to him would be that they’d put him to work at forced labour. They would do that to me, too, but Slim was used to it, I wasn’t. Anyway, the education would be good for him.

  I set up business and began to take in the bets. All bets. Every bet offered—and there were quite a lot of them. The main reason for that, I think, was that my odds were twice that of any other bookmaker. The punters must have thought that I was crazy, but I knew better. The only crazy people on Mars were the ones who were trusting me with their money.

  Not that they lost every time. The preliminaries, the nursery races they were called, started two days before the main event and, by careful juggling, information from Slim, and the offer to let any winnings ride on a double-or-quits basis until the main event, I managed to stay in business. I even managed to pay off my fine and recover my passport. And just as a precaution, I found a man who was willing to let me ride as passenger in his sand-car on a trip to Shyller, the second main city of Mars.

  I had a long talk with Slim the night before the main event.

  “I’d say that Samuals will win,” said Slim thoughtfully. “Thorne’s not bad, and Quesco is good, but I’d give Samuals the place as favourite.” He looked at me. “Better lay off the bets on those three, Dusty. We can’t pay if they win and you know what happens to welchers, don’t you?”

  I didn’t.

  “They lynched the last one who tried that,” explained Slim. “The time before they tied the bookie to a rocket and took off so hard his head came off. That was after they had warned everyone the time they dumped three welchers in the desert without any airsuits.” He looked at me. “What’s wrong? You look ill.”

  “The police.” I managed to moisten my lips sufficient to make intelligible sounds. “You don’t mean to tell me that you can get away with murder like that?”

  “A welcher’s an outlaw,” said Slim. He looked at me and turned white. “Dusty! You haven’t..?”

  I forced myself to grin but he wasn’t convinced.

  “You have,” he groaned. “Dusty, they’ll flay us for sure. Mars law isn’t Earth law. We don’t stand for anything like that, and there’s nothing the police can do about it. They don’t even try. If you’re caught welching they’ll roast you in a rocket blast.”

  “Us,” I corrected. “We’re partners, remember?”

  “Not any more we’re not.” He backed away from me as though I were diseased. “You took the bets and you can take the penalty. I want nothing to do with it.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed him before he could get away. “Listen. Are you sure that Samuals will win?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll take all the money I can on him, as he’s favourite, and I’ll offer high odds—that should be simple. Then, when he doesn’t win, we’ll be safe.”

  “Why not back him to win yourself?”

  “With the odds at three to one on?” I shook my head. “No. My way is the best. Come to think of it, it would be a better idea for neither of the three favourites to win at all. If an outsider comes in we’ve nothing to worry about.”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” reminded Slim. “Me, I’m finished. I’m dis-solving our partnership as from now.” He held out his hand. “Pay me what you owe me and we’ll call the whole thing off.”

  We argued for a while, but he was stubborn and it took all my time to persuade him to take the De-Fumers instead of cash. I even signed a paper giving him full rights in the stuff. Not that it made any difference; the formula was common property back on Earth, but it revealed the type of man he was. Greedy, like all of his kind and class. Greedy and selfish, and afraid to take a chance. Personally, I’ve little time for such people, and I wouldn’t have given him what I had if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had to keep him quiet until after the race.

  After he had gone I scowled down at what was left. I was living in with him to save paying double rent, and the cramped apartments served both as living quarters and warehouse for the De-Fumers. I waited until it was really late, then, slipping on an airsuit, I loaded my pockets with bottles of the De Fumer and went out to the rocket field.

  What I did then I’m not proud of and I would never have done it had there been any other way out of my difficulties. In short, I spiked the fuel tanks of the three favourites with a half-litre of De-Fumer each. I didn’t know what it would do, but I could guess. Racing rocket fuel is a careful blend and a closely guarded secret. I’d adulterated it with, I hoped, the inevitable result that they would lose the race.

  Then I set to work to collect as many bets as possible in the time I had left. By the time take off had arrived I was fairly well loaded and. as the rockets screamed upwards from the field, I closed my book and got ready to either run or pay out.

  I had to run.

  I still don’t understand it, and probably never shall. Mason was to blame, of course; he had obviously varied my formula, and the stuff I’d tipped into the tanks had worked in a way I’d never dreamed possible.

  Anyway, I was well on the journey to Shyller by the time all three favourites landed in a dead heat and, as far as I know, the punters are still looking for me.

  Slim Murphy isn’t though.

  I’d signed over full rights to the new formula, the one which had increased the rocket thrust by ten per cent., and it didn’t take him long to make some tests and discover what had happened.

  I read about it in the papers.

  I should be shot.

  CHAPTER 5

  VENUS FOR NEVER

  Most of the time I hate the sordid, never-ending lust for money which seems to dominate almost everyone I meet. There is something slightly immoral in the spectacle of everyone in the universe grabbing with both hands at any credit note in sight. Men and women will do the most incredible things for tokens which, when you come down to it, aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

  The trouble is that you can’t live without them.

  I was thinking about money from the moment I landed on Venus. Funny place, Venus. For a long time people thought that it was a jungle-planet, then science did some more speculating and turned it into a dust-bowl with a formaldehyde atmosphere. Finally they got round to actually visiting the place and found it somewhere in between. The reason is the crazy set-up of the cloud layers, that and the winds. Anyway, there is a region of breathable air close to the surface and a fair-sized farming community has been established in the centre of the main continent.

  So much for Venus.

  I wasn’t thinking about science as I waited my turn to enter the immigration shed. I was thinking about food, lots of food, and I could hardly wait as the officer stamped my passport and handed it back to me with a polite smile.

  “You’ve arrived in good time, Mr. Dribble,” he said. “It’s market day.”

  “Call me Dusty,” I said. It always pays to be on a friendly footing with the local authorities. “Market day?”

  “That’s right. Very interesting it is, too. Next please?”

  I took the hint and passed out of the shed. I wasn’t troubled with luggage problems. My suitcase held all that I considered essential, and, after spending some of my shrinking capital on a meal, I hired a room, dropped the bag, and had a look at the market.

  I was never so disappointed in my life.

  I’m not one of these smart-aleck city-types
who sneer at the yokels. The yokels have proved themselves to be other than dumb by the money they manage to hang onto, but even at that I couldn’t get interested in the buying and sale of livestock. I wandered around for a long time trying to find something familiar, a demonstrator selling the old standbyes such as De-Fumers, Hydratic Dusters, Wonder Polish, Miracle Sharpeners, Insect Killers and Sonic Protectors, but I couldn’t see a single one.

  True, there was one old boy dressed up in a dirty sheet with a towel wrapped around his head who was selling lucky charms and fortunes. Trying to sell them, rather, and he looked as miserable as a rocket pilot whose ship is heading into the Sun. I stopped before him and gave him a credit for good luck.

  “Aye, Sahib,” he whined. “May the Gods of the East smile upon you and yours. Here I have a rare charm compounded of exotic spices and dried mummy from the tombs of the long-dead. For ten credits...”

  “Stow it,” I said, rudely. “I’m no sucker. What’s the pitch around here?”

  “Lousy.” His whine dropped from him as he reverted to type. “These hicks hang onto their money as if it were glued to them.”

  “No good, eh?” I glanced around the market and I could see what the old boy meant. The natives were hen for business, not pleasure, and they went about it as though their lives depended on it. How could I tell? Simple. Few women and no children. The women and children are always to be found in a decent market, that is one where they have a little spare money to spend, but this collection of bearded farmers looked as though they had their pockets sewed really tight.

  Well, almost.

  I wandered around a little longer then stopped close to a man who sat behind a small table. That man was busy. A line of farmers stretched away from the table, all of them with a crate, and as each one reached the table he opened the crate and passed out what seemed to be balls of fluff.

  The man—he was an old, withered, bald-headed man with a face like a prune— picked up the balls, looked at them, and dropped them into one of two containers. When he had finished the farmer picked up the two containers, put them into his crate and reached for his money.