by Various
"So Wayne Jackson's in the front car," Phil said. "Now let's see what they do." He returned the light to its place behind the door and came out again, standing about twelve feet to one side of Celia. The aircars vanished inland, came back at treetop level a few minutes later. One settled down quietly between the cabin and the edge of the cliff, the other following but dropping to the ground a hundred yards away, where it stopped. Phil glanced over at Celia, said softly, "Watch that one!" She nodded almost imperceptibly, right hand buried in her jacket pocket.
The near door of the car before them opened. Major Wayne Jackson, hatless and in hunting clothes, climbed out, staring at them. He said, "Anyone else here?"
"Just Celia and myself," Phil said.
Jackson turned, spoke into the car and two men, similarly dressed, came out behind him. Phil recognized Ronald Black and Sanford. The three started over to the cabin, stopped a dozen feet away.
Jackson said sardonically, "Our five other previous Earthside partners are in the second car. In spite of your insistence to meet the whole group, they don't want you and Celia to see their faces. They don't wish to be identifiable." He touched his coat lapel. "They'll hear what we're saying over this communicator and they could talk to you, but won't unless they feel it's necessary. You'll have to take my word for it that we're all present."
"That's good enough," Phil said.
"All right," Jackson went on, "now what did you mean by forcing us to take this chance? Let me make it plain. Colonel Thayer hasn't been accused of collaborating in the Roye gun hoax, but he got a black eye out of the affair just the same. And don't forget that a planet with colonial status is technically under martial law, which includes the civilians. If Silas Thayer can get his hands on the guilty persons, the situation will become a lot more unpleasant than it already is."
* * *
Phil addressed Ronald Black, "Then how about you two? When you showed up here again on a transfer list, Thayer must have guessed why."
Black shook his head. "Both of us exercised the privilege of changing our names just prior to the outtransfer. He doesn't know we're on Roye. We don't intend to let him find out."
Phil asked, "Did you make any arrangements to get out of Roye again?"
"Before leaving Earth?" Black showed his teeth in a humorless smile. "Boles, you have no idea of how abruptly and completely the government men cut us off from our every resource! We were given no opportunity to draw up plans to escape from exile, believe me."
Phil glanced over at Celia. "In that case," he said, a little thickly, "we'd better see if we can't draw some up together immediately."
Jackson asked, staring, "What are you talking about, Phil? Don't think for a moment Silas Thayer isn't doing what he can to find out who put that trick over on him. I'm not at all sure he doesn't suspect me. And if he can tie it to us, it's our neck. If you have some crazy idea of getting off the planet now, let me tell you that for the next few years we can't risk making a single move! If we stay quiet, we're safe. We--"
"I don't think we'd be safe," Phil said.
On his right, Celia Adams added sharply, "The gentleman in the other car who's just started to lower that window had better raise it again! If he's got good eyesight, he'll see I have a gun pointed at him. Yes, that's much better! Go on, Phil."
"Have you both gone out of your minds?" Jackson demanded.
"No," Celia said. She laughed with a sudden shakiness in her tone, added, "Though I don't know why we haven't! We've thought of the possibility that the rest of you might feel it would be better if Phil and I weren't around any more, Wayne."
"That's nonsense!" Jackson said.
"Maybe. Anyway, don't try it. You wouldn't be doing yourselves a favor even if it worked. Better listen now."
"Listen to what?" Jackson demanded exasperatedly. "I'm telling you it will be all right, if we just don't make any mistakes. The only real pieces of evidence were your duplicator and the original gun. Since we're rid of those--"
"We're not rid of the gun, Wayne," Phil said. "I still have it. I haven't dared get rid of it."
"You ... what do you mean?"
"I was with Beulah in the Fort Roye hospital when she died," Phil said. He added to Ronald Black, "That was two days after the ship brought the seven of you in."
Black nodded, his eyes alert. "Major Jackson informed me."
"She was very weak, of course, but quite lucid," Phil went on. "She talked a good deal--reminiscing, and in a rather happy vein. She finally mentioned the Geest gun, and how Uncle William used to keep us boys ... Wayne and me ... spell-bound with stories about the Gunderland Battle, and how he'd picked the gun up there."
Jackson began, "And what does--"
"He didn't get the gun there," Phil said. "Beulah said Uncle William came in from Earth with the first shipment of settlers and was never off Roye again in his life."
"He ... then--"
Phil said, "Don't you get it? He found the gun right here on Roye. Beulah thought it was awfully funny. William was an old fool, she said, but the best liar she'd ever known. He came in with the thing one day after he'd been traipsing around the back country, and said it looked 'sort of' like pictures of Geest guns he'd seen, and that he was going to put the inscription on it and have some fun now and then." Phil took a deep breath. "Uncle William found it lying in a pile of ashes where someone had made camp a few days before. He figured it would have been a planetary speedster some rich sportsmen from Earth had brought in for a taste of outworld hunting on Roye, and that one of them had dumped the broken oddball gun into the fire to get rid of it.
"That was thirty-six years ago. Beulah remembered it happened a year before I was born."
There was silence for some seconds. Then Ronald Black said evenly, "And what do you conclude, Boles?"
Phil looked at him. "I'd conclude that Norm Vaughn was right about there having been some fairly intelligent creatures here once. The Geests ran into them and exterminated them as they usually do. That might have been a couple of centuries back. Then, thirty-six years ago, one of their scouts slipped in here without being spotted, found human beings on the planet, looked around a little and left again."
He took the Geest gun from his pocket, hefted it in his hand. "We have the evidence here," he said. "We had it all the time and didn't know it."
Ronald Black said dryly, "We may have the evidence. But we have no slightest proof at all now that that's what it is."
"I know it," Phil said. "Now Beulah's gone ... well, we couldn't even prove that William Boles never left the planet, for that matter. There weren't any records to speak of being kept in the early days." He was silent a moment. "Supposing," he said, "we went ahead anyway. We hand the gun in, with the story I just told you--"
Jackson made a harsh, laughing sound. "That would hang us fast, Phil!"
"And nothing else?"
"Nothing else," Black said with finality. "Why should anyone believe the story now? There are a hundred more likely ways in which a Geest gun could have got to Roye. The gun is tangible evidence of the hoax, but that's all."
Phil asked, "Does anybody ... including the cautious gentlemen in the car over there ... disagree with that?"
There was silence again. Phil shrugged, turned towards the cliff edge, drew his arm back and hurled the Geest gun far up and out above the sea. Still without speaking, the others turned their heads to watch it fall towards the water, then looked back at him.
"I didn't think very much of that possibility myself," Phil said unsteadily. "But one of you might have. All right--we know the Geests know we're here. But we won't be able to convince anyone else of it. And, these last few years, the war seems to have been slowing down again. In the past, that's always meant the Geests were preparing a big new surprise operation.
"So the other thing now--the business of getting off Roye. It can't be done unless some of you have made prior arrangements for it Earthside. If it had been possible in any other way, I'd have been out of this p
lace ten years ago."
Ronald Black said carefully, "Very unfortunately, Boles, no such arrangements have been made."
"Then there it is," Phil said. "I suppose you see now why I thought this group should get together. The ten masterminds! Well, we've hoaxed ourselves into a massive jam. Now let's find out if there's any possible way--any possibility at all!--of getting out of it again."
A voice spoke tinnily from Jackson's lapel communicator. "Major Jackson?"
"Yes?" Jackson said.
"Please persuade Miss Adams that it is no longer necessary to point her gun at this car. In view of the stated emergency, we feel we had better come out now--and join the conference."
* * *
FROM THE RECORDS OF THE TERRITORIAL OFFICE, 2345 A.D.
... It is generally acknowledged that the Campaign of the 132nd Segment marked the turning point of the Geest War. Following the retransfer of Colonel Silas Thayer to Earth, the inspired leadership of Major Wayne Jackson and his indefatigable and exceptionally able assistants, notably CLU President Boles, transformed the technically unfortified and thinly settled key world of Roye within twelve years into a virtual death trap for any invading force. Almost half of the Geest fleet which eventually arrived there was destroyed in the first week subsequent to the landing, and few of the remaining ships were sufficiently undamaged to be able to lift again. The enemy relief fleet, comprising an estimated forty per cent of the surviving Geest space power, was intercepted in the 134th Segment by the combined Earth forces under Admiral McKenna's command and virtually annihilated.
In the following two years ...
* * *
Contents
DEATH WISH
By Robert Sheckley
Compared with a spaceship in distress, going to hell in a handbasket is roomy and slow!
The space freighter Queen Dierdre was a great, squat, pockmarked vessel of the Earth-Mars run and she never gave anyone a bit of trouble. That should have been sufficient warning to Mr. Watkins, her engineer. Watkins was fond of saying that there are two kinds of equipment--the kind that fails bit by bit, and the kind that fails all at once.
Watkins was short and red-faced, magnificently mustached, and always a little out of breath. With a cigar in his hand, over a glass of beer, he talked most cynically about his ship, in the immemorial fashion of engineers. But in reality, Watkins was foolishly infatuated with Dierdre, idealized her, humanized her, and couldn't conceive of anything serious ever happening.
On this particular run, Dierdre soared away from Terra at the proper speed; Mr. Watkins signaled that fuel was being consumed at the proper rate; and Captain Somers cut the engines at the proper moment indicated by Mr. Rajcik, the navigator.
As soon as Point Able had been reached and the engines stopped, Somers frowned and studied his complex control board. He was a thin and meticulous man, and he operated his ship with mechanical perfection. He was well liked in the front offices of Mikkelsen Space Lines, where Old Man Mikkelsen pointed to Captain Somers' reports as models of neatness and efficiency. On Mars, he stayed at the Officers' Club, eschewing the stews and dives of Marsport. On Earth, he lived in a little Vermont cottage and enjoyed the quiet companionship of two cats, a Japanese houseboy, and a wife.
* * * * *
His instructions read true. And yet he sensed something wrong. Somers knew every creak, rattle and groan that Dierdre was capable of making. During blastoff, he had heard something different. In space, something different had to be wrong.
"Mr. Rajcik," he said, turning to his navigator, "would you check the cargo? I believe something may have shifted."
"You bet," Rajcik said cheerfully. He was an almost offensively handsome young man with black wavy hair, blasé blue eyes and a cleft chin. Despite his appearance, Rajcik was thoroughly qualified for his position. But he was only one of fifty thousand thoroughly qualified men who lusted for a berth on one of the fourteen spaceships in existence. Only Stephen Rajcik had had the foresight, appearance and fortitude to court and wed Helga, Old Man Mikkelsen's eldest daughter.
Rajcik went aft to the cargo hold. Dierdre was carrying transistors this time, and microfilm books, platinum filaments, salamis, and other items that could not as yet be produced on Mars. But the bulk of her space was taken by the immense Fahrensen Computer.
Rajcik checked the positioning lines on the monster, examined the stays and turnbuckles that held it in place, and returned to the cabin.
"All in order, Boss," he reported to Captain Somers, with the smile that only an employer's son-in-law can both manage and afford.
"Mr. Watkins, do you read anything?"
Watkins was at his own instrument panel. "Not a thing, sir. I'll vouch for every bit of equipment in Dierdre."
"Very well. How long before we reach Point Baker?"
"Three minutes, Chief," Rajcik said.
"Good."
The spaceship hung in the void, all sensation of speed lost for lack of a reference point. Beyond the portholes was darkness, the true color of the Universe, perforated by the brilliant lost points of the stars.
Captain Somers turned away from the disturbing reminder of his extreme finitude and wondered if he could land Dierdre without shifting the computer. It was by far the largest, heaviest and most delicate piece of equipment ever transported in space.
He worried about that machine. Its value ran into the billions of dollars, for Mars Colony had ordered the best possible, a machine whose utility would offset the immense transportation charge across space. As a result, the Fahrensen Computer was perhaps the most complex and advanced machine ever built by Man.
"Ten seconds to Point Baker," Rajcik announced.
"Very well." Somers readied himself at the control board.
"Four--three--two--one--fire!"
* * * * *
Somers activated the engines. Acceleration pressed the three men back into their couches, and more acceleration, and--shockingly--still more acceleration.
"The fuel!" Watkins yelped, watching his indicators spinning.
"The course!" Rajcik gasped, fighting for breath.
Captain Somers cut the engine switch. The engines continued firing, pressing the men deeper into their couches. The cabin lights flickered, went out, came on again.
And still the acceleration mounted and Dierdre's engines howled in agony, thrusting the ship forward. Somers raised one leaden hand and inched it toward the emergency cut-off switch. With a fantastic expenditure of energy, he reached the switch, depressed it.
The engines stopped with dramatic suddenness, while tortured metal creaked and groaned. The lights flickered rapidly, as though Dierdre were blinking in pain. They steadied and then there was silence.
Watkins hurried to the engine room. He returned morosely.
"Of all the damn things," he muttered.
"What was it?" Captain Somers asked.
"Main firing circuit. It fused on us." He shook his head. "Metal fatigue, I'd say. It must have been flawed for years."
"When was it last checked out?"
"Well, it's a sealed unit. Supposed to outlast the ship. Absolutely foolproof, unless--"
"Unless it's flawed."
"Don't blame it on me! Those circuits are supposed to be X-rayed, heat-treated, fluoroscoped--you just can't trust machinery!"
At last Watkins believed that engineering axiom.
"How are we on fuel?" Captain Somers asked.
"Not enough left to push a kiddy car down Main Street," Watkins said gloomily. "If I could get my hands on that factory inspector ..."
Captain Somers turned to Rajcik, who was seated at the navigator's desk, hunched over his charts. "How does this affect our course?"
Rajcik finished the computation he was working on and gnawed thoughtfully at his pencil.
"It kills us. We're going to cross the orbit of Mars before Mars gets there."
"How long before?"
"Too long. Captain, we're flying out of the Solar System like the
proverbial bat out of hell."
* * * * *
Rajcik smiled, a courageous, devil-may-care smile which Watkins found singularly inappropriate.
"Damn it, man," he roared, "don't just leave it there. We've got a little fuel left. We can turn her, can't we? You are a navigator, aren't you?"
"I am," Rajcik said icily. "And if I computed my courses the way you maintain your engines, we'd be plowing through Australia now."
"Why, you little company toady! At least I got my job legitimately, not by marrying--"
"That's enough!" Captain Somers cut in.
Watkins, his face a mottled red, his mustache bristling, looked like a walrus about to charge. And Rajcik, eyes glittering, was waiting hopefully.
"No more of this," Somers said. "I give the orders here."
"Then give some!" Watkins snapped. "Tell him to plot a return curve. This is life or death!"
"All the more reason for remaining cool. Mr. Rajcik, can you plot such a course?"
"First thing I tried," Rajcik said. "Not a chance, on the fuel we have left. We can turn a degree or two, but it won't help."
Watkins said, "Of course it will! We'll curve back into the Solar System!"
"Sure, but the best curve we can make will take a few thousand years for us to complete."
"Perhaps a landfall on some other planet--Neptune, Uranus--"
Rajcik shook his head. "Even if an outer planet were in the right place at the right time, we'd need fuel--a lot of fuel--to get into a braking orbit. And if we could, who'd come get us? No ship has gone past Mars yet."
"At least we'd have a chance," Watkins said.
"Maybe," Rajcik agreed indifferently. "But we can't swing it. I'm afraid you'll have to kiss the Solar System good-by."
Captain Somers wiped his forehead and tried to think of a plan. He found it difficult to concentrate. There was too great a discrepancy between his knowledge of the situation and its appearance. He knew--intellectually--that his ship was traveling out of the Solar System at a tremendous rate of speed. But in appearance they were stationary, hung in the abyss, three men trapped in a small, hot room, breathing the smell of hot metal and perspiration.