by Jerry
“That—was a lousy thing to do!”
“We had no choice. We didn’t use it except as a last resort.”
“I don’t know of any girl who would have done such a thing, no matter what your reasons, if she was in love with a guy like Chapman,” Dahl said.
“There was only one who would have,” Eberlein agreed. “Ginny Dixon. She understood what we were trying to tell her. She had to; her brother had died up here.”
“Why was Chapman so important?” Dahl burst out. “What could he have done that I couldn’t have done—would have done if I had had any guts?”
“Perhaps you could have,” Eberlein said. “But I doubt it. I don’t think there were many men who could have. And we couldn’t take the chance. Chapman knows how to live on the Moon. He’s like a trapper who’s spent all his time in the forest and knows it like the palm of his hand. He never makes mistakes, he never fails to check things. And he isn’t a scientist. He would never become so preoccupied with research that he’d fail to make checks. And he can watch out for those who do make mistakes. Ginny understood that all too well.”
“How did you know all this about Chapman?” Dahl asked.
“The men in the First told us some of it. And we had our own observer with you here. Bening kept us pretty well informed.”
EBERLEIN stared at the bunker thoughtfully.
“It costs a lot of money to send ships up here and establish a colony. It will cost a lot to expand it. And with that kind of investment, you don’t take chances. You have to have the best men for the job. You get them even if they don’t want to do it.”
He gestured at the small, blotchy globe of blue and green that was the Earth, riding high in the black sky.
“You remember what it was like five years ago, Dahl? Nations at each other’s throats, rearming to the teeth. It isn’t that way now. We’ve got the one lead that nobody can duplicate or catch up on. Nobody has our technical background. I know, this isn’t a military base. But it could become one.”
He paused.
“But these aren’t even the most important reasons, Dahl. We’re at the beginnings of space travel, the first bare, feeble start. If this base on the Moon succeeds, the whole human race will be Outward Bound.” He waved at the stars. “You have your choice—a frontier that lies in the stars, or a psychotic little world that tries and fails and spends its time and talents trying to find better methods of suicide.
“With a choice like that, Dahl, you can’t let it fail. There’s too much at stake.”
Eberlein hesitated a moment and when he started again, it was on a different track. “You’re an odd bunch of guys, you and the others in the groups, Dahl. Damn few of you come up for the glamor, I know. None of you like it and none of you are really enthusiastic about it. You were all reluctant to come in the first place, for the most part. You’re a bunch of pretty reluctant heroes, Dahl.”
The captain nodded soberly at the bunker. “I, personally, don’t feel happy about that. I don’t like having to mess up other people’s lives. I hope I won’t have to again. Maybe somehow, someway, this one can be patched up. We’ll try to.” He started the mechanism that closed the port of the rocket. His face was a study of regret and helplessness. He was thinking of a future that, despite what he had told Dahl, wasn’t quite real to him.
“I feel like a cheap traitor,” Eberlein said.
THE very young man said, “Do they actually care where they send us? Do they actually care what we think?”
The older man got up and walked to the window. The bunkers and towers and squat buildings of the research colony glinted in the sunlight. The colony had come a long way; it housed several thousands now.
The Sun was just rising for the long morning and farther down shadows stabbed across the crater floor. Tycho was by far the most beautiful of the craters, he thought.
It was nice to know that the very young man was going to miss it. It had taken the older man quite a long time to get to like it. But that was to be expected—he hadn’t been born on the Moon as the young man had.
“I would say so,” he said. “They were cruel, that way, at the start. But then they had to be. The goal was too important. And they made up for it as soon as they could. It didn’t take them too long to remember the men who had traded their future for the stars.”
The young man said, “Did you actually think of it that way when you first came up here?”
The older man thought for a minute. “No,” he admitted. “No, we didn’t. Most of us were strictly play-for-pay men. The Commission wanted men who wouldn’t fall apart when the glamor wore off and there was nothing left but privation and hard work and loneliness. The men who fell for the glamor were all right for quick trips, but not for an eighteen-month stay in a research bunker. So the Commission offered high salaries and we reluctantly took the jobs.
“Oh, there was the idea behind the project, the vision the Commission had in mind. But it took a while for that to grow.”
A woman came into the room just then, bearing a tray with glasses on it. The older man took one and said, “Your mother and I were notified yesterday that you had been chosen to go. We would like to see you go, but of course the final decision is up to you.”
He sipped his drink and turned to his wife. “It has its privations, but in the long run we’ve never regretted it. Have we, Ginny?”
[*] Copyright by Bregman, Vocco &Conn, Inc.
SHANGHAIED INTO SPACE!
Les Owen
I HAVE to laugh when I hear you talking about how tough a spaceman’s life is. You lads don’t know what toughness is. Man and boy, for fifty years I’ve rocketed through the system and I can tell you some tales that’ll make your blood run cold. Fifty years ago when I first went into deep-space as a lad fresh out of engineering school, there was no atomic rive. Chemical rockets—flimsy tin-cans, we called ‘em—shot us through the System. Accidents and deaths were so frequent that you couldn’t get men with engineering qualifications to ship aboard them—and you had to have technical men. And when piracy and gangsterism were rife with the opening of the Martian uranium mines, you had to shanghai a crew. I remember because I was shanghaied and that was an experience I’ll never forget.
I can still see the old bar on Crawford Street. It was a dingy hole, only a few blocks from White Sands Field and Goddard Place. A half dozen of us had graduated that day and had decided to make the rounds for a roaring time before the ceremonies the next day. Naturally we had too much to drink—we were loaded to the ears. I was sitting at a table in the comer, I remember talking with a fascinating blonde witch. She was drinking with me—and seemingly keeping up. A half dozen men in a group came into the bar. They were black uniformed and husky.
I mumbled something about “looking like policemen.” The blonde gave me a knowing wink. “Don’t worry about ‘em, honey,” she said in liquid tones, “they won’t bother us.”
We had another drink and everything began to get hazy. At the moment I thought I’d lust had too much to drink and was passing out normally. I was even happy about it. I had a foolish vacuous grin on my face and I even patted the pocket where I’d stuck my certificate showing my degree. Then everything went black. I’d blanked out.
When I came to, it was in a small metallic room. There was a steady roaring, hissing sound, and over the dullness in my mind and the bad taste in my mouth, I knew almost instantly where I was. I came alert in a hurry. I’d been shanghaied aboard a rocket!
I pounded with futile rage against the cubicle’s door. I shouted and yelled. The door suddenly opened and a black bearded face met mine.
“Shut up,” the face growled, “or I’ll smash your head in, sonny.” The black clad figure of the spaceman brandished a wooden club in my face. I shut up. I was tired, hung-over, weak,—and scared.
They let me in the room for what seemed to be an eternity. By that time I’d come to my senses. I wanted out—but I knew there was nothing I could do. The same man who’d quiet
ed me so effectively appeared again.
“O.K. punk,” he said. “Come along with me. The captain wants to see you.”
He followed me through the small metal corridors—almost tubes they were—in the cramped interior of the space craft. When we reached the navigation room, I saw two other young men. Like me they looked beaten.
The captain was instantly recognizable.
He looked us up and down with no trace of amusement at our bedraggled appearance.
“You men should know you’re aboard the Ceres 77,” he said calmly. “You’re signed as navigator—” he pointed a finger at one, “and you’re engine gang—and you’re—” this was me, “—assistant to Scotty on the engines.”
Simultaneously we opened our mouths to protest.
“Shut up,” he said jabbing a finger at us. “Use your heads. You’ve been pressed aboard, I’ll admit. There’s nothing you can do about it. If you raise hell and refuse to cooperate and learn. I’ll dump you at the first Jovian port where you’ll rot. They sympathize with spacemen—in apace ports away, from Terra. If you do, on the other hand, play it sensibly and cooperate with me, you’ll learn a hell of a lot, and when you return to Terra you’ll have full-fledged engineering and rocket tickets. Now which way’s it going to be?”
I had to admire the man’s directness. And I realized my own position. I’d planned to go into Rocket Chemicals Ltd. on graduation. Instead I was in deep space. I shrugged.
“We’re trapped, Captain,” I said, “but I’ll go along. The others nodded, agreed too. We had to. What else could we do.
When we got together later we talked about how we’d raise hell with the consul at that Jovian port—but gradually we came to accept our lot. The work was so interesting, that we made the adjustment with no trouble at all.
And that was the beginning. Ever since, I’ve spent most of my time as rocket officer aboard a space-can. I’ve been through the system a hundred times and you can’t name the planet, satellite, asteroid or what have you that I haven’t seen. I’ve been pirated, shanghaied (as I’ve told) wrecked on Mercury, beaten-up in half a dozen ports, fought in a dozen bitter battles, lost in a space suit off Phobos—you name it, I’ve done.
You youngsters with your atomic drive will never know the excitement and thrills of we old-timers—you lucky dogs . . .!
“A” AS IN ANDROID
Milton Lesser
The dancing girls fit the descriptions of androids, and that settled it, so far as Carmody was concerned. It also settled Carmody . . .
IT WAS ONE hell of a place for a nightmare. But then, Saturn’s seventh moon, Hyperion, would be a hell of a place for just about anything. Oh, Government had done wonders—and spent fortunes—giving tiny Hyperion a warm, breathable atmosphere and earth-norm gravity. Outside of that, the jumble of rocky crags and powdered pumice might have been the space side of Pluto. I know, because I’ve been there.
Now I heard the anxious stirring among the tough spacehands and miners as they waited for the first wonder of the Saturnian System—Hyperion’s Dancing Girls. You couldn’t blame them. Girls were girls, Andies or not, and the female of the species was about as common out here as an aardvark.
But frankly, I was more than a little sore at the over-patriotic deckhand who had reported the existence of the Dancing Girls to Tycho City on Luna. It meant I had to traipse almost a billion miles to collect the tax. If the Dancing Girls were androids; if their maker had the money; if someone didn’t put an end to the whole affair by deciding that a knife in my back might be distinctly better than paying a hundred bucks per head . . .?
I saw those Dancing Girls. Let me tell you about them briefly. No, I won’t go into detail. I remember they got my mind off all those morbid thoughts out in Hyperion City, and I don’t want my mind to stray now, not while I’m trying to tell you this story.
They came out, about a dozen of them, and they danced. There wasn’t a sound in the Hyperion Club. Not even music. Not even breathing. I’ve never seen anything like it. And it took me a while before I realized just why those tall slim girls were so graceful. Well, graceful isn’t quite the word, but then, no word exists in any language I know which can describe the something-more-than-grace which those girls had. They danced. All other dancing was mere walking, stumbling, clumsy tripping.
They had long legs. Not so you’d say they were nice long-stemmed chicks, but really long. Half again as long as they should be, or maybe more. But on them it looked good.
That clinched it. They were Andies, a dozen untaxed androids. I sighed and hoped the owner had his tax money. I didn’t want to impound these Andies for the government, not these dancers.
WHEN IT WAS OVER I didn’t hear a sound. No clapping, no roaring, no stamping of feet. Not even shouts for an encore. Anything would have been superfluous.
I got up. I took my time walking across the now empty dance floor to a door which was marked, quite plainly, Keep Out.
I didn’t. I walked right on through and a big guy with a seamy face stood in front of me, shaking his head slowly.
“Move, friend,” he said; “can’t you read signs?”
I told him that although I was not a college boy I could read, and would he please get out of my way because I had official business with the owner of the Hyperion Club. All he knew how to do was shake his head, but when I showed him the card in my billfold with the big letter A on it, the motion of his head changed. Now the seamy face bobbed up and down, but it looked worried. There’s one thing about being in the Android Service—it sure can open doors for you.
Seamy Face ushered me through a corridor and down a flight of stairs. He only paused long enough outside a metal door to knock, and then I followed him inside.
The card on the desk said, Mr. Tuttle: Manager, and behind his thick-rimmed glasses Mr. Tuttle looked like he had insomnia. A little guy, and tired. He just wasn’t cut out for the frontier. Maybe he should have had a curio shop in Marsport.
Seamy Face said, “This guy’s from Android Service, Mr. T.”
Tuttle looked up unhappily. He waved me over to a chair and I sat down, taking out my card again. “Carmody’s the name,” I said. “That’s a nice act you have out there, Mr. Tuttle. Very nice. In fact, I’ve never seen anything like it. Androids?”
He didn’t answer the question, not right away. Instead, he said in his tired voice: “A lot of people think so. Orders are beginning to pour in from all over the outworlds. There’ll be thousands—”
I cleared my throat. “Andies will cost you exactly a hundred dollars a head, Mr. Tuttle. You know that, of course. What I want to know is this: why didn’t you report the manufacture of your androids to the government? There’s a reason for it, and for the tax, too. It isn’t legal to upset the balance like this.”
Tuttle sounded so tired I thought he’d fall right over into a deep sleep any moment. He said, “Who told you anything about androids? What makes you think they’re androids?”
I smiled. “No stilts,” I said. “Don’t tell me they’re wearing stilts. It’s either that or androids, Mr. Tuttle.”
Tuttle didn’t answer that one either. Instead, he asked a question of his own. “How would you like to earn five thousand dollars, Mr. Carmody?”
I told him that was my year’s salary, exactly, and I’d love it. Only I had a funny suspicion that whatever the offer was, I’d have to turn it down. Maybe we honest guys are fools; maybe ten years from now I’d still be earning exactly five thousand, but at least I’d be able to live with myself. I’m no saint, but I’ve got a conscience.
“All you have to do,” Tuttle said, “is this. Go back where you came from and say my dancers are not androids—for five thousand dollars, utterly no strings attached.”
I asked him what I thought was purely a rhetorical question. “Are they androids, Mr. Tuttle?”
He was always answering a question with one of his own. “Define your term, Mr. Carmody. What is an android?”
I felt a litt
le silly, and I said: “Why don’t you ask your friend here?”
Seamy Face brightened. He said, “Well, an Andie is kinda like a person, only it’s made in a laboratory, not born. You know—chemistry, not biology.” Seamy Face was very proud of his answer.
“Does that satisfy you?” Tuttle wanted to know.
I told him it did, and he said: “In that case, Mr. Carmody, I can assure you that Hyperion’s Dancing Girls are not androids.”
I JUST SAT THERE, hardly hearing Tuttle repeat his five thousand dollar offer. It didn’t sound like he was lying, yet the whole situation smelled fishy. “Maybe you ought to let me see one of the—uh, girls,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t advise it, Mr. Carmody.”
“Nah,” Seamy Face agreed. “Better stay happy, friend.”
“I’m stupid,” I said. “I don’t know when I’m well off. I want to see one of them.”
Tuttle shrugged, pressed a button on his desk. “Tara, that you? Will you come in, please?”
I didn’t have long to wait. In a few moments the door swung in, and the Dancing Girl closed it softly behind her.
She wore a pair of big gold earrings, with her long hair swept back and hanging halfway down to her waist. She had on one of those flimsy garments popular with the dancers these days, dark red and oddly metallic, with a bright gold sash. A lot of flesh showed, especially with those overlong legs. Android flesh, I was sure. She had an innocent face.
“What is it, Tuttle?” Nice voice, neither friendly nor hostile. Just plain nice. But no respect at all for Tuttle, the man who evidently had manufactured her.
Tuttle was sad, and afraid. “This man is from the Android Service,” he told her. “I mentioned the Android Service to you, Tara. A matter of tax—”
“Why don’t you pay the tax, Tuttle?” Even less respect this time. Still a nice voice, but haughty.
“I can’t. You know I’m in debt, and I’ve been paying; I haven’t got the money.”
“Stupid of you,” she told him, still in her nice innocent voice. “You!” She turned in my direction, almost languidly.