The Space Opera Megapack

by John W. Campbell

  Daav blinked—and again, as the numbers slid out of focus. As if from a distance, he heard his own voice ask, courteously, “Of your kindness, may I use the keyboard? Thank you.”

  Then his hands were on the keyboard. The equation on the screen—changed—in ways both subtle and definitive. He heard his voice again, lecturing:

  “The equations are only as good as the assumptions, of course. However, the basic math is sound. This factor here will have been much higher, for example, if weapons were being fired—missiles underway in particular would have altered the mass-balance of the system dynamically— and the acceleration of the destroyer — are there recordings of this incident that I may see? I believe there is a significant chance that your astrogator is correct. They may have been forced into Little Jump…”

  The equations danced in his head and on the screen, apart from, but accessible to himself. Moments later, when the acting commander played back the records she had of the encounter, Daav felt an unworldly elation, and watched again as his hands flew along the keypad, elucidating a second, more potent, equation.

  That done, there was a pause. He heard Aelliana sigh into his ear and found that his body was his own once more.

  He looked up from the monitor to meet the scout commander’s astonished eyes. She looked away from him, to the construct on the screen, then back to his face.

  “Are you,” she began. Daav raised his hand.

  “Pilot Caylon finds this a very worthy project, Commander. You will understand that Clonak is her comrade, as well.” He sighed and looked at the screen. The equation was—compelling, the sort of thing a pilot could make use of. He pointed.

  “Your astrogator is to be commended. As you see, we have several congruencies here. This one in particular, which relies on the orbits assumed by the destroyer’s fragments, gives us a probability cloud…”

  The hands on the keyboard were his own this time, the schematic he built from his own store of knowledge.

  “Very nearly we have two search bands,” he murmured; “one south and one north of the ecliptic, which of course are expanding as we speak. Clonak…Clonak is a very stubborn man.” He glanced up, meeting the commander’s speculative eyes.

  “If there is someone you may dispatch to the south, I will search north of the ecliptic.” He smiled, wryly. “We may yet retrieve your Scouts from holiday.”

  * * * *

  “Are you ready, Clonak?”

  “I am, Shadia.”

  “Your authorization?”

  “The ship is yours.”

  “As you say.”

  They’d managed to turn the ship and align it. The idea was simple. They were going to fire what in-system engines they had to decrease the size of their orbit and bring it closer to the more traveled ways of the system. The first time they’d tried, nothing happened, and Clonak had spent another two days tracing wires as Shadia refined the orbit-numbers.

  The other necessity was manning the radio, making certain that ship kept an antenna-side to the primary. They were on a round-the-clock talk-and-listen, and would be until—

  One of the more raspy bits of space debris in some time distracted them; it sounded almost as if it were rolling along the side of the hull. There was a ping then, and another.

  “If we’re in cloud of debris—”

  “It doesn’t sound too bad,” Clonak was saying untruthfully, just as a full-sized clank ran the hull. Then came more of the scratching sound, almost as if the hull were being sandpapered or—

  “Well,” Clonak said softly, and then, again. “Well.” He moved to the battery-powered monitor and waved his hand at the other Scout. “Come along, Shadia. Let’s have a look!”

  They crowded round the battery-powered monitor and Clonak once more turned it on and twisted the wiring until a connection was made.

  The view was altered strangely with a motley green-brown object…

  Belatedly, Shadia grabbed for the gimmicked suit radio and turned it on—

  “Please prepare to abandon ship. This is Daav yos’Phelium and Ride the Luck. If Scout ter’Meulen is aboard, it would be kind in him to answer—one’s lifemate is concerned for his health.”

  The hull rang, then, as it Ride the Luck had smacked them proper.

  “Breath’s duty, but you’ve the luck,” Daav yos’Phelium continued conversationally. “The hull is twisted into the engine back here… If I do not receive within the next two Standard Minutes an answer of some sort from the resident pilots, I shall have no choice but to force the hatch. Mark. Don’t disappoint me, I beg. You can have no idea of how often I’ve dreamed of forcing open the hatch of a—”

  Here, the pilot’s mannerly voice was drowned out by Clonak hammering the hull with one of his discarded pieces of piping.

  It was Shadia who thumbed the microphone on the makeshift radio and spoke: “We’re here, Pilot. Thank you.”

  SPAWN OF JUPITER, by E. C. Tubb

  Durgan heard the sound as he crested the rise. He froze, eyes narrowed to probe the dimness. Dimness, not dark, for it was never dark at night on Ganymede—the great ball of Jupiter filling the sky took care of that, the flaring mystery of the Red Spot seeming to look down like a watchful eye.

  The sound came again, a stirring, a scuffle as of a boot against vegetation, a movement of bulk.

  Durgan stepped from the path into the shadow of a clump of lee­tha bushes. Carefully he eased the bulging pack from his shoulders and rested it quietly on the ground. Picking up a handful of stones he threw one far down the trail in the direction from which he had come.

  “Listen!” The voice was a whisper. “Did you hear that?”

  Durgan threw another stone.

  “Someone’s coming. Get ready!”

  Two of them at least, but it was unlikely there would be more. Two men were enough to handle an unsuspecting harvester, and more would only lessen the individual share. They would be waiting on either side of the path, one lower down than the other, and would attack from both front and rear. If merciful, they might not actually kill him, but simply knock him unconscious and strip him of everything of value. But to be naked on Ganymede was to be dead.

  Durgan crept silently through the bushes, easing aside the lacey fronds and letting them spring back with a minimum of noise. A stone turned beneath his boot, and he almost fell, recovering his balance with a rustle of leaves.

  He sprang forward as a shape loomed suddenly upright. It was turning with a glimmer of whiteness from the face, and a brighter shine from the upraised knife.

  Durgan met the threat of the blade with a thrust of his own, the knife whipping from the top of his boot and lancing forward all in one smooth motion. The point hit the exposed column of the throat, ripped into flesh and muscle, cutting the great arteries and releasing a fountain of blood.

  Dying, the man fell, threshing, ugly sounds coming from his throat.

  “Jarl?”

  Durgan reached for his gun as the other man called from the shadowed dimness.

  “Jarl?”

  Durgan fired, the gout of flame traversing the path and impinging on the upright figure, searing and penetrating with a shaft of irresistible heat. The man screamed, his body a flaring pillar of fire as leatheroid crisped and burned. He fell with an odor of charred meat, his chest and lungs totally destroyed.

  For five minutes Durgan waited, crouched in the shadows beside the path, gun steady in his hand as his eyes searched the night. Then he holstered the weapon and looked at the first man he had killed.

  He was young, with the facial attributes of a wolf, teeth bared and snarling even in death. His clothing was filthy, his boots worn, and he had black crescents beneath his fingernails. He had no gun, no pack, only the knife and a thick club. His companion was much the same. Two scavengers who had sought one victim too many.

  Returning to the clump of leethan bushes, Durgan picked up his pack, shouldered it, and continued on his way.

  * * * *

  An hour la
ter, he reached Candara.

  The settlement was a ramshackle place, a maze of buildings, shacks, and hovels built of stone and dirt and plastic, looming warehouses and rundown tenaments. The streets were unpaved, thick with litter and filth, rutted and splotched with odorous puddles. To one side, the landing field rested beneath a continuous haze of light, the tall contours of the control tower spidery against the glowing disc of Jupiter.

  As he hit the edge of the settlement, a rykat barked a warning, the sharp, thin sound eerie in its haunting loneliness. A window slammed and a man called out.

  “I’ve got a gun. Try anything and I’ll shoot!”

  Durgan walked past, silent, hearing the rykat bark again, the man’s muttered cursing, and the slam of the closing window. Deeper into the maze of buildings, he heard the sound of music and laughter, the rattle of glasses, the unmistakable whirling noise made by a spinning wheel. Keeping to the center of the path, his hand resting on the butt of his holstered gun, he made his way to a tall building on the edge of the landing field: the trading post.

  “You’re late.” The factor, a thin-faced man with red-rimmed eyes and a thin, predatory nose, glared from behind his counter as Durgan entered. “I was just about to call it a day. Can’t it wait?”

  For answer, Durgan shrugged the pack from his shoulders and lifted it to the counter. Opening it, he produced a transparent plastic bag filled with grayish pods, each two inches long and a quarter wide. Raw kalsh, the vegetable compound which, when cleaned and refined, would fetch twice its weight in gold on Earth.

  The factor pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

  “Man! That’s some harvest! How long have you been out?”

  “Six weeks.” Durgan was curt. “I want to check it in. Weigh it, seal it, and give me a receipt. We can finish the deal later.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Just do as I say.”

  Durgan leaned against the counter as the factor busied himself with scales and seals. The overhead light illuminated the strong lines of Durgan’s face, the tall length of his body. It was a hard face and a muscular body both blurred a little now by fatigue, the eyes creped with tiny lines, the shoulders a trifle bowed. Six weeks in the Freelands was a long time for any one man to harvest.

  “You want some spending money?” The factor came to the counter, papers in his hands. “A couple of hundred, say?”

  Durgan nodded.

  “I thought so. Just sign here and put your thumb here.” The factor watched as Durgan followed instructions. “You know the old saying? Work hard and play hard? If you want some fun, Madam Kei’s got some new talent just arrived.”

  “No thanks,” said Durgan.

  “Each to his own poison,” said the factor. He reached out and touched a spot on Durgan’s tunic, frowning as he examined the carmine stain on his finger. “You have any trouble?”

  “Should I have had?”

  “You know better than me, mister. I just buy the stuff. Here’s your cash. Drop in tomorrow and we can finish the deal.” He looked at Durgan’s extended hand. “Something else?”

  “The receipt.”

  “Oh! Sure! I forgot.” The factor handed it over, looking at the name. “Hey! There’s something else slipped my mind. A dame’s been asking for you. Said she’d wait in the Purple Puppy. You know it?”

  “I know it. What did she want?”

  The factor shrugged. “That she didn’t say.”

  * * * *

  Durgan saw the woman the moment he stepped into the tavern. She sat alone at a table close to the stage, long legged, dressed in clean leatheroid, high boots, pants, blouse, and tunic. A holstered gun lay flat against her stomach. Blond hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail which rested on her left shoulder. Her face was round, full-lipped, with a determined jaw and eyes. She was a woman, but there was nothing soft about her, as there was nothing soft about Ganymede. She was, he guessed, about twenty-five, which made her five years younger than himself.

  To the bartender, he said, “Give me a bottle of zulack and a couple of glasses.” Paying he added, “The woman facing the stage. Who is she?”

  The man shrugged. “A drifter. Came in here about three weeks ago. Some of the boys tried their hand, but she soon made the position clear. One of them wouldn’t learn, so she burnt a hole in his stomach. No one’s bothered her since then.”

  Durgan nodded, picked up his bottle and glasses and headed towards where she sat, halting at the empty table at her side. As he sat, the floor show commenced, and he opened the bottle, threw away the top inch of liquor, and filled one of the glasses. Sipping, he watched the performance.

  Someone had imported a troupe of dancers, sleek, olive-skinned women with long, black hair and flounced skirts, who stamped and pirouetted to the blood-stirring rattle of castanets. Behind them a man lifted his voice in the undulating wail of a flamenco as his fingers danced over the strings of a guitar.

  It was an odd troupe to be found in such a place, for little of the Inner Worlds touched the Outer Planets, and Ganymede was used to cruder entertainment. Wejack birds, clipped and fitted with iron spurs, set to fight against each other to the death; broken singers on the last lap of their careers; jugglers, acrobats, mutants who swallowed fire, men who fought with spiked gloves to the screamed encouragement of their backers. These dancers brought a touch of Earth, of sun and sea and shining beaches, of grapes and scented air, of rainbows and gentle breezes.

  One day, perhaps, he would see it again. One day.

  He drank the zulack and refilled his glass. A hand caught his own as he made to set down the bottle.

  “You have two glasses,” said the woman. “Would one be for me?”

  “It might.”

  “Meaning that you are uncharitable?”

  “Meaning that I would rather not drink with strangers.” He met the coolness of the blue eyes. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves.”

  “You are Brad Durgan,” she said. “I am Sheila Moray. Now may I join you?”

  He nodded, pouring the second glass full as she took a chair, handing it to her, suddenly acutely aware of her femininity, the sensuous throb of the music.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “But, of course, you know that. The factor would have told you.”

  “He told me that a woman wanted to see me. He didn’t say who and he didn’t say why.” Durgan drank more of the zulack. It was a hundred proof spirit, flavored with kalsh-pods, a limpid green devil containing smoldering fires.

  Those fires burned away some of his fatigue and a few of his memories. The scent of charred flesh, of newly shed blood, of straining weeks of constant anxiety, of fear and failure, of a future which held no hope and little promise.

  “You drink too much,” she said as he refilled his glass. “Or shouldn’t I say that?”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Then let’s talk of something else. Of the dancers, perhaps. You like them?”

  “They’re different.”

  “They were heading for Callisto, on contract to the Ku Fung franchise, but their ship developed a split tube lining and they docked here for repairs.”

  “So?”

  “Callisto. Twice as far from Jupiter as we are now. A satellite almost the twin of Ganymede. You know about Callisto?”

  “I know.”

  “And Amalthea?”

  “A small moon, a hundred miles in diameter, a hundred and thirteen thousand miles from the center of Jupiter.” His hand tightened around his glass. “I know Amalthea.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “You would. It’s the bucket boat depot. Right?”

  He swallowed the zulack in a single gulp, refilling the glass as the dancers came to the end of their performance.

  Men rose, shouting, flinging a shower of coins onto the stage.

  One, bolder than the rest, sprang on the platform, his hands grabbing at a woman. He caught the shoulder-strap of her flounced gown, olive-skin glowing in the ligh
t as he ripped at the material. From the wings ran two men, hard-faced, armed. They clubbed down the intruder and stood, hands on guns, as the dancers left the stage.

  They were replaced by a weary comedian who thickened the air with the blueness of his painful jokes.

  “They clubbed the wrong man,” said Sheila dispassionately. “That creep should be put in a sack and left as bait for gizzards.”

  “He’s doing his best,” said Durgan. “We all do our best.”

  “And where does it get you? Home? Earth? Back to comfort and safety? How long does a man have to harvest before he hits the jackpot?” She reached forward and rested her hand on his own. It was slender, the skin smooth and uncalloused, the nails reflecting the light with a pearly sheen. “There’s blood on your tunic. This time you won; the next, who knows? Is that how you want to end? Meat for the scavengers?”

  He met her eyes.

  “You’re saying something, but what? And why are you interested in me? I’ve never seen you before.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then why the interest?”

  “You’re tall,” she said. “Tough, a good-looker. For most girls that would be reason enough. But they would want something. I don’t. Instead, I can offer you the biggest thing you’ve ever met in your life. A chance at the jackpot. Money enough to set you up on Earth, a farm on Mars, a dome on Venus—you name it and it’s yours.”

  Durgan was ironic. “Sure—and all I have to do is to give you a stake so you can go and collect the lost treasure of Ma Kalah. Bury it, girl! You’re talking to the wrong man!”

  “And you’re jumping to conclusions.” Her hand lifted, caught his wrist as he lifted the glass, twisted so that the zulack fell in a glinting stream to the surface of the table. “What are you, a sponge? Has that stuff rotted your mind and blocked your ears? I’m talking, Brad, can’t you even listen?”

  “To what?”

  “A proposition. A trip to Callisto—all expenses paid, and a bonus for wasted time if you turn down the offer.”

  “And that is?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes were frank. “I was sent to collect you, and that’s all. But it’s something big, that at least I know. Agree and we can leave within the hour.”