The First Science Fiction Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  So, slowly, I started getting the stuff distributed around. I managed to slip half the package to Doug Enderby, the steward, with instructions to get it to the black gang. I met Chief Garrity ’tween decks, and gave him some for his engine room crew. Todd took a piece, wondering, reluctant, but put it in his mouth when I signalled him to do so. Me? Sure, I had some, too. After all, it tasted good. And a man might as well check out with a clean taste in his mouth.

  The only man I couldn’t slip a piece to at any time was Cap Hanson. Runt Hake had the old eagle eye on the Skipper. Matter of fact, Hake had the eagle eye on all of us. He didn’t miss a trick, that murderous little squirt. Just before dinner was served he made my heart miss a beat when he asked, “What are you chewing on, Sparks? Gum?”

  He gave me the fright and the out at the same time. I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. Then, fearful not to ask, “You want a piece?”

  He shuddered delicately. “Barbarian custom. I do not want a piece.”

  Boy, was that a break for our side!

  * * * *

  So, like I said, Biggs donged out the dinner call, and we all went into the mess hall. Talk about irony! Here we were, a score of honest, hard-working spacemen and an equal number of pirates, sitting down to the same table, eating the same meal.

  Screwy? Sure—but that was Hake for you. As Mr. Biggs had said, he was a showoff. But don’t think he took any chances. We were unarmed, his men were walking hardware stores. As for the conviviality of that banquet, that was strictly on the stinko! To outward appearances, we were all palsy-walsy at the banquet table; actually we of the Saturn were being fattened for the slaughter to follow.

  Still—well, you know the old gag. “The condemned man ate a hearty meal.” That’s what I did, and that’s what most of the other fellows did, too. Because Mr. Lancelot Slops had come up with another Q.E.D. that cooking is, after all, nothing but applied chemistry.

  We had, just to make you drool a little, chilled consommé with a light sherry. Then a tempting wisp of baked whiting, served with Moselle Erdener Treppchen, and was the Old Man fuming! (He’d been saving that for his golden anniversary). Then a chicken sauté Florentine.

  They were the preludes. The main drag-’em-out was a saddle of lamb accompanied by peas in mint, potatoes Parisienne, and served along with Pommard, 1974. The salad was a Salad Alma; the dessert was something which Biggs told me later was Plombière a l’Havane Friandises (pineapples, bananas, frozen custard, and not a damn bit of tapioca in it!)

  This came along with the Piper Heidsieck, ’65. A demi-tasse was next, then liqueurs—

  It was here that Runt Hake called a halt. “We’ll transfer the beverages,” he said, “to our own ship. We want no drunkenness aboard while we—ah—do that which is now necessary. Captain Hanson?”

  He nodded significantly toward the turret room. I rose, so did Todd. Surprisingly, Biggs joined our group as we moved up deck. Hake said, with a malevolent regretfulness I shall never forget, “We have enjoyed our banquet exceedingly, Captain. But you understand I can allow nothing to stand in the way of my next—ah—duty. So—”

  Hanson said stonily, “You will give us a lifeskiff before scuttling the Saturn, Hake?”

  Hake lied, “Captain, I had planned to do that very thing. But a most unfortunate accident…it seems that some of my men were so careless as to blast holes in each of the skiffs. Of course if you’d still like to take your chances in the damaged craft—?”

  Oh, he was a whipper, that Hake! I looked at Todd and saw the same thought mirrored in his eyes that I was thinking. This was our last chance. If we didn’t get Hake now, it would be too late. I tensed myself. If we could grab the pirate chieftain, maybe his men would not dare do anything for fear of hurting him. And Hake, quick as he was on the trigger, might not get us both before—

  Then once again Lancelot Biggs intervened. To me he barked, “No! No, Sparks!” And to Hake, quietly, almost tenderly, “Why, Mr. Hake—it’s all a big mistake, isn’t it? These rough, nasty old men think you want to hurt them! And you don’t at all. Aren’t they the old meanies?”

  * * * *

  And then—hold your hats, folks!—and then Runt Hake’s soft mouth began to twitch! Yes, twitch! It pursed up like the mouth of a kid, his eyes wrinkled, and he began to blubber!

  “Hurt them?” he complained. “Me hurt them? Why, I wouldn’t do a thing like that! I love them! They’re my pals.” And he tossed his pierce gun away, reached out and patted Biggs’ cheek!

  Beside me I heard Lt. Todd whisper hoarsely, “Good gods of Greece, what is this?” I myself was stunned for a moment. But I had sense enough to stoop down and get Runt Hake’s gun before this crazy interlude had passed. “He’s blown his fuses!” I squalled. “Grab him, Todd! Mr. Biggs, come with me! You and I will round up his crew—”

  But Biggs said quietly, “Take your time, Sparks. There’s no hurry. See?”

  He stepped to the wall; flicked on the visiplate that showed the interior of the mess hall. And there, where a moment before, a grim-faced score of space pirates had maintained watch over our crew, now our crew were standing staring with blank, uncomprehending faces at twenty men who looked and acted for all the world like affectionate puppies!

  They were hugging each other, patting each other’s arms and faces, murmuring soft words of endearment. It was stupefying. More than that—it was embarrassing! Off in one corner a bearded, one-eyed outlaw dandled a companion on his knee. Another burly bruiser, big enough to tear a man in half with his bare hands, was playing piggy-back with a buddy!

  I gulped and stared and gulped again. I choked, “But, what—what—”

  Biggs said suddenly, “Sparks! You didn’t give the Skipper a piece of that pepsin!”

  “I didn’t get a chance. But how—”

  Then I saw. The Skipper and Runt Hake were sitting in the same chair, murmuring soft words of tenderness at each other, stroking each other’s hair fondly. Just as I looked, the Old Man leaned forward and gave the pirate a big, juicy kiss on the forehead!

  And just then there came a welcome interruption. The audio throbbed to electric life; a brusque voice rasped, “Calling the Saturn! Saturn, ahoy! S.S.C.B. Cruiser Iris calling. Stand by! We’ll come alongside you in twenty minutes…”

  * * * *

  Afterward, when Runt Hake and his pirates, still babbling incoherent protestations of endearment, had been removed to the patrol ship and taken back toward the Venusian prison that had long awaited them, we held a confab in my radio room. Todd was there, and Chief Garrity, and Lancelot Biggs and myself. Also a very foggy-eyed, befuddled Captain Hanson who seemed to be having a hard time keeping from saying we were all “dear, sweet boys”—as he had told us quite a few times in the past hour or so.

  I couldn’t make head or tail of it. So I asked Biggs bluntly, “But what was it, Mr. Biggs? We all-know it was something you put in the food. Something from which the pepsin saved us. But what? Surely no drug would make a man act like that.”

  Biggs grinned, his Adam’s-apple jerking amiably. “No, not a drug. But a chemical. Prolactin, to be exact. If you’ll remember, I started to tell you we were carrying a load of it to earth.”

  “Prolactin?” said Todd. “What’s that?”

  “An extract of the pituitary gland; the hormone that governs human affections. Prolactin is the hormone that is responsible for all acts of parental love. It causes roosters to brood and set on eggs, tomcats to give milk and milk-deficient females to become normal. It is commonly known as the ‘mother-love’ crystal.”

  “And we,” I. said, “were carrying a load of it. I still don’t understand, though, why we had to chew the pepsin. And why it failed to turn all of us into bunny-huggers like—”

  I glanced at the Old Man, then glanced away again. He looked at me fondly.

  “Well,
you see,” explained Biggs, “prolactin happens to be a pure protein. And pure proteins are insoluble in most things, alcohol, water, anything you might normally take in your diet.

  “I cooked Hake’s banquet, and his goose, with liberal sprinklings of prolactin. But, as you had previously pointed out, I had to find some way of keeping our men from being affected by the hormone that disrupted their morale. Pepsin was the answer. Pepsin breaks down pure proteins into soluble peptones. That is why it is commonly used as a digestive agent.”

  “Drwstbynlvy—” mumbled the Skipper soothingly.

  “Eh?” I demanded, “What’s that?”

  Biggs looked embarrassed. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I think he’s saying, ‘You’re a dear sweet baby and I love you very much!’ Er—Sparks—I think maybe we’d better put him to bed until it wears off…”

  So that was that. And maybe I shouldn’t have told you all this; I don’t know. Because the Skipper, recovered now from his spell of “maternal affection” is rather sensitive on the subject. And I’m still clicking the bug on the Saturn.

  Anyhow, now you know. But if you ever tell Cap Hanson I told you, it’s going to be just too bad for I may have to catch the next express for Pluto and points west. Me and Biggs both. There’s not much “mother love” in Cap Hanson’s right cross!

  SENTIMENT, INC., by Poul Anderson

  He was twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, full of life and hope, and all set to conquer the world. Colin Fraser happened to be on vacation on Cape Cod, where she was playing summer stock, and went to more shows than he had planned. It wasn’t hard to get an introduction, and before long he and Judy Sanders were seeing a lot of each other.

  “Of course,” she told him one afternoon on the beach, “my real name is Harkness.”

  He raised his arm, letting the sand run through his fingers. The beach was big and dazzling white around them, the sea galloped in with a steady roar, and a gull rode the breeze overhead. “What was wrong with it?” he asked. “For a professional monicker, I mean.”

  She laughed and shook the long hair back over her shoulders. “I wanted to live under the name of Sanders,” she explained.

  “Oh—oh, yes, of course. Winnie the Pooh.” He grinned. “Soulmates, that’s what we are.” It was about then that he decided he’d been a bachelor long enough.

  In the fall she went to New York to begin the upward grind—understudy, walk-on parts, shoestring-theaters, and roles in outright turkeys. Fraser returned to Boston for awhile, but his work suffered, he had to keep dashing off to see her.

  By spring she was beginning to get places; she had talent and everybody enjoys looking at a brown-eyed blonde. His weekly proposals were also beginning to show some real progress, and he thought that a month or two of steady siege might finish the campaign. So he took leave from his job and went down to New York himself. He’d saved up enough money, and was good enough in his work, to afford it; anyway, he was his own boss—consulting engineer, specializing in mathematical analysis.

  He got a furnished room in Brooklyn, and filled in his leisure time—as he thought of it—with some special math courses at Columbia. And he had a lot of friends in town, in a curious variety of professions. Next to Judy, he saw most of the physicist Sworsky, who was an entertaining companion though most of his work was too top-secret even to be mentioned. It was a happy period.

  There is always a jarring note, to be sure. In this case, it was the fact that Fraser had plenty of competition. He wasn’t good-looking himself—a tall gaunt man of twenty-eight, with a dark hatchet face and perpetually-rumpled clothes. But still, Judy saw more of him than of anyone else, and admitted she was seriously considering his proposal and no other.

  He called her up once for a date. “Sorry,” she answered. “I’d love to, Colin, but I’ve already promised tonight. Just so you won’t worry, it’s Matthew Snyder.”

  “Hm—the industrialist?”

  “Uh-huh. He asked me in such a way it was hard to refuse. But I don’t think you have to be jealous, honey. ‘Bye now.”

  Fraser lit his pipe with a certain smugness. Snyder was several times a millionaire, but he was close to sixty, a widower of notably dull conversation. Judy wasn’t—Well, no worries, as she’d said. He dropped over to Sworsky’s apartment for an evening of chess and bull-shooting.

  * * * *

  It was early in May, when the world was turning green again, that Judy called Fraser up. “Hi,” she said breathlessly. “Busy tonight?”

  “Well, I was hoping I’d be, if you get what I mean,” he said.

  “Look, I want to take you out for a change. Just got some unexpected money and dammit, I want to feel rich for one evening.”

  “Hmmm—” He scowled into the phone. “I dunno—”

  “Oh, get off it, Galahad. I’ll meet you in the Dixie lobby at seven. Okay?” She blew him a kiss over the wires, and hung up before he could argue further. He sighed and shrugged. Why not, if she wanted to?

  They were in a little Hungarian restaurant, with a couple of Tzigani strolling about playing for them alone, it seemed, when he asked for details. “Did you get a bonus, or what?”

  “No.” She laughed at him over her drink. “I’ve turned guinea pig.”

  “I hope you quit that job before we’re married!”

  “It’s a funny deal,” she said thoughtfully. “It’d interest you. I’ve been out a couple of times with this Snyder, you know, and if anything was needed to drive me into your arms, Colin, it’s his political lectures.”

  “Well, bless the Republican Party!” He laid his hand over hers, she didn’t withdraw it, but she frowned just a little.

  “Colin, you know I want to get somewhere before I marry—see a bit of the world, the theatrical world, before turning hausfrau. Don’t be so—Oh, never mind. I like you anyway.”

  Sipping her drink and setting it down again: “Well, to carry on with the story. I finally gave Comrade Snyder the complete brush-off, and I must say he took it very nicely. But today, this morning, he called asking me to have lunch with him, and I did after he explained. It seems he’s got a psychiatrist friend doing research, measuring brain storms or something, and—Do I mean storms? Waves, I guess. Anyway, he wants to measure as many different kinds of people as possible, and Snyder had suggested me. I was supposed to come in for three afternoons running—about two hours each time—and I’d get a hundred dollars per session.”

  “Hm,” said Fraser. “I didn’t know psych research was that well-heeled. Who is this mad scientist?”

  “His name is Kennedy. Oh, by the way, I’m not supposed to tell anybody; they want to spring it on the world as a surprise or something. But you’re different, Colin. I’m excited; I want to talk to somebody about it.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You had a session already?”

  “Yes, my first was today. It’s a funny place to do research—Kennedy’s got a big suite on Fifth Avenue, right up in the classy district. Beautiful office. The name of his outfit is Sentiment, Inc.”

  “Hm. Why should a research-team take such a name? Well, go on.”

  “Oh, there isn’t much else to tell. Kennedy was very nice. He took me into a laboratory full of all sorts of dials and meters and blinking lights and os—what do you call them? Those things that make wiggly pictures.”

  “Oscilloscopes. You’ll never make a scientist, my dear.”

  She grinned. “But I know one scientist who’d like to—Never mind! Anyway, he sat me down in a chair and put bands around my wrists and ankles—just like the hot squat—and a big thing like a beauty-parlor hair-drier over my head. Then he fiddled with his dials for awhile, making notes. Then he started saying words at me, and showing me pictures. Some of them were very pretty; some ugly; some funny; some downright horrible.… Anyway, that’s all there was t
o it. After a couple of hours he gave me a check for a hundred dollars and told me to come back tomorrow.”

  “Hm.” Fraser rubbed his chin. “Apparently he was measuring the electric rhythms corresponding to pleasure and dislike. I’d no idea anybody’d made an encephalograph that accurate.”

  “Well,” said Judy, “I’ve told you why we’re celebrating. Now come on, the regular orchestra’s tuning up. Let’s dance.”

  They had a rather wonderful evening. Afterward Fraser lay awake for a long time, not wanting to lose a state of happiness in sleep. He considered sleep a hideous waste of time: if he lived to be ninety, he’d have spent almost thirty years unconscious.

  * * * *

  Judy was engaged for the next couple of evenings, and Fraser himself was invited to dinner at Sworsky’s the night after that. So it wasn’t till the end of the week that he called her again.

  “Hullo, sweetheart,” he said exuberantly. “How’s things? I refer to Charles Addams Things, of course.”

  “Oh—Colin.” Her voice was very small, and it trembled.

  “Look, I’ve got two tickets to H. M. S. Pinafore. So put on your own pinafore and meet me.”

  “Colin—I’m sorry, Colin. I can’t.”

  “Huh?” He noticed how odd she sounded, and a leadenness grew within him. “You aren’t sick, are you?”

  “Colin, I—I’m going to be married.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. I’m in love now; really in love. I’ll be getting married in a couple of months.”

  “But—but—”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.” He heard her begin to cry.

  “But who—how—”

  “It’s Matthew,” she gulped. “Matthew Snyder.”

  He sat quiet for a long while, until she asked if he was still on the line. “Yeah,” he said tonelessly. “Yeah, I’m still here, after a fashion.” Shaking himself: “Look, I’ve got to see you. I want to talk to you.”