Fantastic Vignettes

by Jerry

  This thought drove the technicians—and Johnny superbly trained, but with no time for trial flight—rat a furious pace. L-hour came and went. To Johnny it was an instant, and it wasn’t until he realized that the surging acceleration had decreased to one G that he was space-borne. The enormity of the thought that he was the first man—American—in space didn’t even occur to him. He had one thing to do and one thing only. The beauty and awesomeness of the flight were like thoughts in somebody else’s mind. Only one clear, crystalline idea obsessed him. He had to destroy the satellite—even return seemed hazy.

  Johnny sat in-.the bucket seat and surveyed the pin-studded blackness before him, one eye through the port, the other on the ’scope. Radar would locate the satellite and servos would guide him to it, but the planting of the bombs into it would be strictly a human and personal matter.

  At plus-seven hours he got the first pulse. He was on strict radio silence, so as not to give the Soviets warning, and he was praying that they’d have no radar detectors, reasonable prayer, since the Soviets relied on surprise and secrecy for that daring plan.

  He took over control. His plan was simple and he put it into execution. The ’scope showed only two thousand miles to go. Keeping the pip centered, he played with finger studs, the Hope moving to rendezvous with the satellite.

  The technicians had built well, if simply, and the nose of the Hope was studded with twelve vicious gleaming cylinders, rockets laden with two hundred pounds of RDX, one of which was enough to shatter the flimsy structure of a satellite or space ship to nothingness if its proximity fuse were triggered within fifty feet.

  At last the satellite came into visual observation, a mere thirty miles. With nose jets, Johnny had killed his velocity until he was approaching the satellite at a mere five miles a minute, slowly enough for him to make sure of the kill. He could observe the satellite clearly now, and with each minute it grew. From one side of the wafer-like cylinder protruded a cylindrical shape and Johnny knew this was a supply rocket.

  At five miles Johnny knew he’d been detected. The powerful optical ’scopes showed that, but there was simply nothing the Soviets could do now. Softly saying “Lorraine, Lorraine”, over and over again, senselessly, Johnny started his firing run. The rockets went, one, two, three . . . a dozen.

  Nothing happened for a while. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, there was a flare, and the satellite seemed to explode, pieces flying in all directions. The Soviet rocket disintegrated as it took three projectiles amidships. It was over that simply and quickly.

  Johnny didn’t think about the men. . . . it’s not good to. He broke radio silence. The danger was over. “Nailed satellite and rocket . . . scratched them both . . . shall I await second supply rocket and destroy it . . . ?”

  “. . . Return at once . . . congratulations . . . second rocket crashed on take-off with bombs . . . peace assured . . . wife informed . . . Wilson, C.I.C. Rockets, signing off. Good luck, Johnny. . . .”

  Miners in the Sky

  Charles Recour

  THEY’RE THINNING out, the miners are, because the Atomic Piles are beginning to produce the rarest elements in quantity, and the prices are going down. Not even Asteroid miners can compete with atomics, but they’re by no means a dead breed yet and you can still see them outfitting in a half dozen Martian settlements. They can still drag a living from salvaging chunks of the Rare Earths or occasionally a big strike of Uranium or Polonium, but for the most part that’s rare. Still the miners exist.

  Look at that big fellow there, standing quietly and contempatively. He looks as tough as they come and yet there’s something to his serene manner that says he isn’t just a run-of-the-mill miner. Notice the quiet, positive air about him? You wouldn’t think he was blind, would you? But he is. He’s in a world of perpetual darkness, but there’s not the slightest trace of bitterness about him. In a-minute you’ll see why. Ah, there she is!

  That’s the reason why MacLaurin looks so happy. See, the way she takes his arm, how tenderly she touches him? Notice the look-on her face? See the-way she smiles. They’re more than just a husband and wife; though they’re welded into an inseparable one. He can’t get along without her—and he wouldn’t if he could—and she. wouldn’t think of leaving him. It’s love all right, it’s love which started in hate—and that happens often enough too! You see, MacLaurin is blind because of that girl, his wife. She did it—she blinded him!

  Oh they’re settled down now; occasionally they rake a ’roid run just because people who have been in space once always want to go to get the feeling of it once again. All MacLaurin can sense is free-fall, but that’s enough.

  It happened four years ago, when MacLaurin was one of the hundreds of hard-r bitten men—and a few women—who knocked around the ’roids in little ships hardly bigger than life-boats, testing checking and latching onto pieces of pay-dirt, forty kilos of platinum here, a metric ton of iridium there, and occasionally a few kilos of Uranium or Polonium. . . .

  MacLaurin hunched his six-foot bulk closer into the seat before the packed panel of the ‘boat. His work was tedious and hard and yet he loved it. There was always the thrill of a possible lucky catch waiting—and then there were hundreds of disappointments, compensating in boredom for it. Still, he wouldn’t have given it up for the world.

  He’d put the boat into free, a constant velocity; occasionally using a dyne here or a dyne there to correct his course; when his miner’s sixth sense told him, he’d bring the little craft to a likely chunk of rock, set her down, lock her with a jet while he went out in spacesuit and put an anchor hole down. Once the boat was secured he could take samples, bring them back into the craft and give them a quick chemical or spectroscopic check. If he had pay-dirt, he’d know it. It was grubby, dirty, dangerous, nasty work. Like all miners, he wouldn’t trade it for any other.

  He spotted a particular ’roid, brought the ’boat in, and anchored it. A quick sampling and the suited figure was back in the ship.

  It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to realize that he’d made a lucky find; this was it. He was sitting on at least two thousand cubic meters of very pure iridium, enough noble metal to settle him for the rest of his life if he were so inclined.

  Back out the lock again, this time with a legal marker’. He used his blaster to put down a meter hole. Then he jammed the shaft of the legal marker into it, welded it down with a touch of the blaster, and grinned.” The red and white-ball at the end of the shaft held, his legal credentials. This ‘roid was his. He’d staked his claim. Now he had to check the surrounding ’roids to make sure he wasn’t in the middle of a pack. If he was he’d be damned sure to get down more of them!

  He left the ’roid, took his coordinates with optical shots, star-shots, and went about the business of checking the hear-by “property”. Two hours’ work proved it all dud stuff and a waste of time and energy. He headed for his find, figuring to take big samples and then come back with large-scale equipment to cut it up. It was a common-enough procedure.

  The ’roid was long and flat like a piece of shale and he approached it from his marker side. Gleefully he put down, suited himself and went through the airlock. There was his marker standing vertically, a ball-topped rod that showed his squatter’s rights.

  He glanced at it casually—and then looked closer. Somebody had nicely tagged it with a paper note and a piece of wire. Angrily he ripped the paper away and read it.

  “You have inadvertently, I hope (it said) jumped a prior. acquisition. Please remove your marker and get. Signed A. Branding.”

  That was all.

  MacLaurin cursed fluently and in detail. This was the oldest gag in the game. Somebody had spotted this chunk light after him and decided to do a little jumping of his own. MacLaurin laughed. Like hell he was going to get. A Patrol court would settle this if necessary. But he was a ’roid miner, and ’roid miners frequently settle things away from courts.

  He turned to get sampling equipment from th
e lock after crumpling the paper and shoving it in his pocket.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” his headphones said clearly and tinnily. “Let’s talk before you go anywhere.”

  MacLaurin whirled at the sound of the voice and found himself facing a suited figure, sun-mask down, calmly pointing an ordinary automatic pistol at him.

  “live had this claim since—MacLaurin rattled off coordinates and time like a spitting blaster.

  “You’re just twenty minutes too late,” the other answered. “If you’d taken the trouble to check the other side of this chunk of rock you’d have seen my marker—with time and coordinates.” The figure gestured with the pistol. “I guess that’s all. You can go how or wait. I’ve pulsed through to control. A patrol ship is coming out for confirmation. That way we won’t have any trouble.”

  MacLaurin didn’t lose his head easily. Subconsciously he knew the stranger could have been right. But the thing seemed so coincidental that there was an element of the unreal about it. A sudden incoherent, consuming rage swept him. The figure was only ten feet away. He swept up the flame-cutter, the blaster at his side in one swooping motion.

  The instant he moved, he saw he’d made a mistake. And that was the last thing MacLaurin ever saw. The world seemed to vanish in pain and he knew the stranger’d fired. . . .

  MacLaurin came to consciousness in a haze of fire and pain. His chest felt as if he’d been kicked by a mule and he knew, at once that that shot had vented his suit. Somebody’d moved fast to get him into a lock. He tried-to open his eyes to see, but then he fainted.

  When he came to again he heard a woman’s voice and thought he was at a base. “I’m sorry,” the voice Said in, far-away tones, “I’m Alice Branding—and I shot you.”

  That’s all there was to it. She nursed him back to health, of course, even after she actually did poise the patrol and they came in and picked them. up. MacLaurin didn’t prefer charges even when he learned that he was blinded. When he knew he couldn’t see again, his hatred was almost a physical thing, but the woman never left him and time healed even that wound.

  You see, the ’roid miners are tough. No tragedy could have affected MacLaurin more deeply, but as you see him standing there with that woman, looking so serene and peaceful, you wouldn’t think that their bonds could have been forged on a hate-charged asteroid and welded by the stupid acts only humans can perform. . . .

  The Changeling

  Mort Daly

  EVER SINCE, the Walk, I’ve been different. It was the Walk. I know it. I see differently and I sense things oddly. There is a heightened awareness that I feel in every waking moment. Colors are not the same, things feel peculiar to my tactile sense, and I hear all sorts of things. But these are minor changes. What really matters is what goes through my mind—and other minds!

  I lecture in the make-shift classroom, but only part of my attention is devoted to what I’m saying. It’s as if I had two minds, one of which was occupied with the immediate present and the other of which—well, it reaches and probes and touches. I catch their thoughts. I know what goes through their minds. I don’t even have to look—I will the effort and, like a tentacle, a line seems to link our minds. And yet they are unaware of it—some are unpleasant—horrible. Extrasensory perception is not to be taken lightly. I wonder what I shall do with it? I’ve told no one yet—in fact few people know that I even took the Walk. And why tell them? Why tell them about this gift of mine? It would only make them uncomfortable to know I was probing into their minds. And really I can’t control it as I would wish. It seems outside me and often I make a great effort of will to wrench my consciousness back to concrete reality. I feel at times like a predatory animal, looking into minds this way. It is not healthy, normal or ethical. I think I shall have to talk this over, with someone. I dare not even tell Louise, though. She wouldn’t understand. Why am I complaining about this magnificent faculty instead of enjoying the advantages it can give me? Why do I feel so wretched about it . . .?

  . . . and Professor Hale was found dead, definitely a suicide. It was known that he had been behaving peculiarly, and a good friend revealed that he had taken the forbidden Walk through the radioactive Twins of Chicago . . .

  1953

  Space Problem

  E. Bruce Yaches

  THE LUNAR STATION radio room bore the silence of the tomb. Lanton’s face was a mask of concentration. He sat in a crouching position before the equipment, looking like a gnome as his trained fingers toyed with the buttons and the dials. The phones clamped against his ears added to the illusion. Disgustedly he pulled them from his head and flung them on the bench.

  “Take a crack at it, Larry,” he said to the other operator who had been watching him, “see if you can raise the Clarion.” Larry shrugged: “O.K. But if you can’t, what’s the use. They simply aren’t transmitting.”

  “The hell they aren’t. No ship ever fails to pulse out right on the dot; if they have to burn out a generator.” Lanton slammed the desk with his fist. “There are twenty families for the Colony aboard,” he said softly.

  Larry motioned him to be silent as he slipped the phones over his ears. His fingers turned the dial—the indicator slid across the band. Suddenly he stopped. His hand shot to “amplify” on the console. He listened tensely for three minutes. Finally he let out his breath in a sigh of relief. “O.K.” he said, turning to Lanton, “they just pulled through an electric storm” . . .

  A scene very like that may someday take place if what scientists now suspect is true. With radio-telescopes probing deep into Solar and inter-stellar space, it is suggested that terrific electrical storms must tear at the very fabric of space to cause the generation of radio signals which are detected, apparently not emanating from stars!

  Naturally only speculation can be set forth here because until rockets are out in space no real data can be gathered. Nevertheless, there is good reason, through this radio investigation, to suspect that there are tremendous electrical disturbances in space which make our thunder-storms look like child’s play.

  The reaction of a space ship to an electrical storm may take one of two forms. If the storm is of the same general nature as those found in the atmosphere, essentially purely electrical phenomena, then the spaceship will come through without any difficulty at all since it is at the same potential or voltage as the space itself. Aircraft today go through gigantic electrical storms none the worse for the wear.

  “Tiny Tim” Comes Through

  Sandy Miller

  HOW TIMOTHY BLANE became communications officer of the Patrol cruiser Meander was a mystery to everyone. That he was a competant technician of course had something to do with it, but as for every other quality demanded by the Patrol—he lacked them all. He was tall and gangling, carrot-thatched, a caricature of the too-rapidly-bloomed adolescent, and it was inevitable that he should become “Tiny-Tim” at once—and not too much effort was made to conceal that name behind his back.

  He had a penchant, for secretiveness, it seemed, probably more shyness than anything, for his relations with his fellow officers were fleeting, casual, and confined strictly to duty. The bull sessions in the mess weren’t for him, and when he wasn’t on duty, in Comshack, he was in his tiny cubicle with projector or book. An omnivorous reader and student, his nose was forever buried in technical treatises of one kind or another, mostly heavily mathematical.

  Portside, he was never seen roistering with the gang—riot that he might not have, but simply because his personality seemed so negative that, his shipmates were rarely aware of his existence. Captain Brenstrom observed privately “that there must have been a shortage of Com officers the day he was commissioned, but the Captain never had any occasion to criticize Tiny Tim’s work.

  In short, Tiny Tim was everything that a Patrol officer ordinarily isn’t.

  He was, however, everything that an officer should be with tools and symbols, and consequently he was an asset. Brenstrom didn’t carry free-loaders—he shot m
ore than one right back to Base faster than he’d arrived aboard . . .

  The Meander was on conventional Titanian greater planets orbital when the message was brought into mess by the assistant Com officer. Brenstrom read it aloud:

  “Neander . . . acknowledge and act . . . O.N.747773 . . . passenger ship Clairault, forty aboard down on Saturn . . . coordinates below . . . last pulse call received 2440 SST . . .”

  Brenstrom glanced around at his silent officers.

  “Well,” he said finally, “we’ve got to do something suggestions.”

  “I suggest taking down a radar rescue boat,” Tiny Tim’s voice broke the silence. “I’d put everything on search with a good chance of finding them. If they’re not locked in methane I’d jam the boat full. There’d be room enough for a sardine pack if the extra accummulators were torn out of the number two boat, the. biggest.”

  “I see,” Captain Brenstrom said. “Thank you. I’m glad we have a thinking officer,” he added a bit. sarcastically.

  “Attention, gentlemen,” he said. “This has to be a one-man proposition. What can two or three do better than one? In addition, I don’t propose to pour half my crew into the planet. You know Regulations.”

  Tiny Tim took the number two boat a half hour later after everything loose had been torn from the cabin. Radar was checked and he blasted immediately Saturnwards.

  The automatic pulser aboard the Clairault would put out a strong pulse as long as power held out, although it would be sadly enfeebled by the energy-absorbing atmosphere of “icy-hell”, as Saturn was commonly known among spacemen. Tiny Tim’s job would be to cruise around, avoiding the freeze waves and hoping to catch a feeble beat of the pulser in his directionfinding equipment. Once he picked up a pulse lie could ride the beam down and thus locate the ship.