by Don Wilcox
“I didn’t think anything. When I came out of my daze I was walking, that’s all.”
“You’re still in a daze.” He didn’t say it maliciously. He was sounding me out, and I guessed that I was a disappointment to him. “There’s only wilderness ahead. Wilderness and hungry rikits. You’re lucky I followed you. I was looking for someone else.
Who are you?”
Even that question wasn’t easy. The shock hadn’t stopped pressing down on me. Instead of saying, “I think I’m Senator Pollard,” I gave him my billfold. He turned through the identifying cards.
“Oh! This is better than I thought, your honor. Glad to know you, Senator.” He handed the billfold back to me and watched my nervous fingers as I placed it in my pocket. I was conscious that my frayed, burned clothing made me look more like a comic tramp than a member of the United States Senate. But this lad was not only respectful, he was kindly. He introduced himself as Bill—“Bill Rambler, they call me. How long has it been since you’ve eaten, Senator?”
More questions I couldn’t answer!
He touched the rikit in the ribs and I rolled up onto the beast’s back effortlessly. We started down over the trail at an easy gait. When the way grew steep I caught onto Bill Rambler’s belt, and this caused him to glance back with a smile.
“You needn’t be afraid of slipping off. Tan-Jack will hold you on.”
Tan-Jack gave a proud toss of his savage looking head to hear his name mentioned. He was a clean smelling creature. His slick tawny coat was strangely fragrant, like a slick furniture display room. Yes, curious but true, the old boy smelled like furniture polish. I was fascinated by the action of his rubbery suction cups that lined the undersides of his legs and his belly. He was a climber, built for the canyons of Mars. When he descended over a vertical wall of rock I thought, Oh-ho, here’s where we take a header! But those suction cups snapped onto the surfaces like glue, and we stuck like glue, and down we went, swift and sure and safe.
Then we leveled off and went trotting at a good pace—bumpety bump—right hip, left hip—
Tan-Jack cast an ugly look over his shoulder.
“He’s hungry for a bite of Senator,” I suggested.
“You worry him because you won’t relax, that’s all. He can read your mood.”
“How?”
“The same as people do, only he’s more sensitive. You don’t know much about rikit-land do you?”
I confessed that I had never heard of rikits until Vedo and Vorumuff had introduced me to theirs. Bill Rambler wasn’t surprised. The native Martians who had dwelt for countless centuries in these virtually impenetrable canyons rarely showed their secrets to the outside world. They and their rikits had come down through the ages together, he said.
“You know this country,” I observed. “You must have lived here for some time.”
No, Bill Rambler said, he hadn’t seen much of it. He was stationed at one of the American signal towers, and that was where he was taking me now. He said, with a tinge of irony, that he was a third-class worker there.
“As a senator, I think you’ll want to see what goes on at the tower. Menniker’s Empire, if you please. That’s confidential. The fact is, I was looking for Menniker when I followed your trail. The tower sent me out to make sure he wasn’t on the Blue Palace when it crashed. I soon learned that he was. He may have been killed with several hundred others. The wreck was scattered over three miles of canyon. Or he may be straying around.”
The suggestion stirred a certain tension within me. If Menniker had been killed, life would be much simpler for me. If not, it might take on some new and bitter complications.
“How many were killed?”
“About half of the thousand aboard.”
“What about the Martian woman, Vedo?”
“She’s down there handling the rescue work, with native help.”
“Thank the gods!” I mumbled. When I thought how near she had come, to a violent death on board the Blue Palace, ice froze in my spine. (And the rikit knew it and gave me a backward look, seeming to say, relax, will you? You couldn’t even think your own private thoughts around that sensitive denizen of Mars.)
“What about the musical couple, Bobby and Betty Bell. Do you know whether they lived through?”
“Yes. They were caring for an old lady late last night.”
“Oh—um. Was she—er—dying?” I must have said it with the wrong expression, for both Bill and the rikit gave me a look.
“She was in excellent energy,” Bill lifted a sly eyebrow, “and I’ll have to hand it to that old woman, she sure knows how to cuss. Come to think about it, she was giving a certain Senator Pollard the devil, along with Vedo and a few others.”
I wasn’t surprised. The talk returned to the subject of Menniker. Bill was on edge, not knowing whether Menniker would be found alive. If he was, Bill said, there’d be plenty of hell to pay for this crash. Menniker might have tolerated the crash of some cargo ships—that was all to the good. But passenger ships—a mistake, definitely. And a ship that Menniker himself was riding—well, that cost someone his neck.
This talk was bewildering, and even the rikit was showing signs of nervousness.
“How do you control this damned four-legged go-buggy?”
“Tan-Jack is easier than most. He’s a piece of luck from a Martian friend. There’s an art to handling them—”
“Martian friends, or rikits?”
Bill Rambler smiled. “Well, both, for that matter. I guess you already know something about dealing with Vedo. Vorumuff was Americanized so he was easier to understand. But these rikits—well, you just have to learn.” The signal tower came into view, rising from an elevation that had grown out of the unfolding curves of mountain walls. I was glad to know I could get a view of the wreck from here—later.
“Here we come, Senator Pollard. Be on your toes when we ride into the presence of the officers here. I may have to plaster up a few facts to get you in.”
“I don’t know what I’m getting into.”
“I know something about your Washington record, Senator.” There was a steady light in Bill’s blue eyes that held no sham. He and I were coming to an unspoken understanding. It was as if we had known each other before. There was something familiar about him. “I know you want to see the inside of this set-up, and this is your chance. I’ll do the talking on the start.”
“Sure, it’s all yours.”
“No, you be ready to play the role I give you. They won’t know you, even if you are prominent in Washington. The technicians will play into your hands fast. We’ll be all right if Menniker doesn’t show up. I’ll tell them he wasn’t aboard. That will give us a chance—the chance I’ve been living for.”
There were eight or ten other workers at work on the grounds inside the high-voltage fence that surrounded the base of the tower. Probably third-class or fourth-class, I decided. They showed the proper curiosity at my approach. They had been wondering whether it would be Menniker, and when they saw it was a stranger I knew they were whispering the good news. At least it wasn’t the big boss.
At the arched gateway we slid off the back of Tan-Jack. Bill gave him a pat, and the happy beast bounded off for some pasture or feed bin.
Passing under the arched sign that warned, in Martian as well as American, of DANGER, HIGH VOLTAGE, NO TRESPASSING, we strode to the square-cut entrance of the concrete building at the base of the tower.
Someone met us there who had evidently seen us coming, for he had a pair of blue trousers and a short blue coat ready for me to put on.
Bill said, “Report to Jattleworth that Menniker wasn’t aboard.”
“Jattleworth is waiting, Bill. Does your guest wish to wash and refresh himself first? This way, please.”
Elegant service, to say the least.
After a quick bath, some liniment, and a change of clothes I felt like a new man. The attendants—also third-class workers—apologized for not having tailoring service a
t my beck and call. For the present, if I didn’t mind, I could wear these garments of the first-class worker. They would at least be comfortable. Later I would be fixed up in style.
Again I sensed that these workers were relieved to know I was not Menniker, whoever I might be. The crash of that passenger ship had been an awful blunder on someone’s part, and the whole camp was shaking in its boots.
Had Menniker been aboard? That was the question they all asked Bill. He lied to them right down the line, and I trembled with each lie. Bill was getting in deep. As a third-class worker, he was apparently trusted, and was given special responsibilities because he had adopted a rikit to ride.
Menniker would soon hear of this crash, they knew. Then any or all of them would be called on the carpet.
I buckled the metallic gravity shoes and turned to Bill, who had been waiting for me. “All right, Rambler, what next?”
“Jattleworth is waiting. I haven’t reported to him yet. If we can get past him, you’re in. Then you can see everything for yourself. Watch everything. We may have to work fast.”
We walked into a chromium-plated office on the fourth level. The power mechanisms vibrated with a barely audible hum from somewhere down in the basement rooms. Up here it was quiet, cool; the view was almost startling—a world of gold and copper and brass mountain peaks ablaze with the last rays of sunset. The silhouette of a husky, thick-necked man crossed the window and turned toward us. He switched on a light. He motioned to Bill to come on in.
We passed a row of switchboards and half a roomful of electrical apparatus crackling with bold purple electric arcs. The “Danger—High Voltage” sign was superfluous, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t feel comfortable with six-foot sparks jumping past me.
I felt less comfortable as I met Jattleworth, eye to eye. His black mustache and curly hair fairly bristled as he looked me over. I judged he had reason to be suspicious of every stranger. I remembered Bill’s warning—he would do the talking on the start. If we could get by Jattleworth—
“I didn’t find Menniker, Mr. Jattleworth,” Bill was saying. “They tell me he wasn’t aboard, fortunately. However, here’s a senator from the capitol at Washington.”
Jattleworth’s features tightened. “Senators aren’t welcome here. You know that.”
“But this,” Bill lied boldly, “is Senator McCune, the one you’ve always wanted to meet.”
“McCune!” The glowering man’s features relaxed into something eager, if not actually friendly. “Senator McCune!”
He thrust his hand toward me.
McCune! McCune had been murdered—and I almost said so before I thought. So I was to be McCune! Well, I would see the inside!
CHAPTER XIII
The Invisible Hand
Night and day were all the same to Jattleworth when he had a distinguish visitor like “Senator McCune.” There were many things in the power plant that I must see at once. Later we would have dinner in his office.
“Don’t you run out on us, Bill. I want to watch you. You’ve been running around a lot,” Jattleworth said sharply. “You and your borrowed rikit.”
The three of us took in the wonders of the vast basement hall of turbines and generators and other equipment that was strange to me. My host gloried in his oratory. Moreover, I saw that he was taking special pains to forestall any complaints I might offer.
“You have a stake in all this, Senator,” he would repeat from time to time. “We want you to know we’re doing the very best job that can be done. Of course there’s always the human factor. There will be slips. And these more complicated mechanisms that
reach up to magnetize the ships—their controls are imperfect. We must make up our minds to it, there will be—er—”
“Unplanned crashes?”
“Well, yes—to use a very blunt phrase.” He gave me a sidewise glance. “Unplanned crashes.”
He went into some elaborate explanations. I breathed in the smells of oil and concrete and the dank odors of deeper mines that furnished the raw materials and fuel for this unusual power plant. When he led the way down a narrow stairs into other parts of the establishment, Bill and I had just a moment to exchange a few words in private.
“You and I are on the spot,” I said. “Didn’t you know about McCune? I can’t be McCune.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was murdered.”
“Ugh. Tell me more later.”
Here were the roots of the towering electromagnets that did the trick. The radar controls were located on the fourth floor in connection with Jattleworth’s office, and from that point the deadly deeds were executed. But I must admit that it gave me a feeling of awe to look upon a few million windings of wire that had a part in sending an invisible hand into the sky to pidl down spaceships.
“A mere flick of the switch on fourth floor, I presume,” I commented.
“Nothing so simple as that,” said Jattleworth, annoyed by my feeble efforts to understand. “To do the job right demands a higher grade of talent than playing the most difficult musical instrument. No two operations are the same. You know we’ve had our share of disasters. There’s no point in hiding it. To try to bring down the ships the way we want to bring them down calls for practice, practice, practice. There’ll be a long experimental period before we can draw them down perfectly—crash them lightly and save all the cargo. But we’ll do it. You and Romanoff and Menniker must have faith. We’re gaining.”
I was still stuck on his words, save the cargo. What did they expect would happen to the pilots and crew?
I didn’t ask, outright, because Senator McCune would know already. But I got my answer indirectly. They meant to crash the ships in order to get the cargo. If pilots and crew were killed that was quite all right. If they lived, they would be given a chance to join the Menniker Empire.
“If they join up and cooperate, like Bill Ramble and several of the other third-class workers, we’ll give them a share in the Empire,” Jattleworth said, aside to me. “That was your idea, Senator McCune, and it’s working.”
I nodded, trying to look proud over being the author of such a plan. If Jattleworth had known how well it was working in the case of Bill—but I didn’t dare think of that.
“If they don’t join up and cooperate?” I asked.
“If they don’t, there’s no harm done. They’re allowed to stray away and try to find their way to the Marshington Spaceport. But they never get there.”
“You mean—”
“Rikits.”
“Oh.”
“You knew that, didn’t you, Senator? Hasn’t Menniker been passing the reports on to you? We’ve disposed of several crew pick-ups—some of them crippled beyond recovery. We don’t know definitely that the rikits got them. Some of the native Martians might have taken them in. But that’s all right. They’ll never come back to make us any trouble.”
Jattleworth studied me for further reactions. I felt that I didn’t dare say much more. I was on thin ice. My conversation had revealed rather too little familiarity with things I was supposed to have known.
Fortunately for me, Jattleworth was called to his office just then for some special business. He stepped onto the elevator and left Bill Rambler and me waiting in the sub-basement.
“That murder of McCune,” Bill said. He was perspiring, waiting for a chance to hear more. “How did it happen?”
“A mad engineer stormed in on seven of us, sitting in a committee, and shot McCune and Romanoff down in cold blood.”
“A mad engineer?”
“He must have known about McCune’s part in this Menniker set-up. You see, he’d lost a son in one of these crashes—”
I broke off, startled out of my voice by the way Bill was looking at me. Then I continued, and my feeling for Patchy Black was in my voice.
“He’d lost a son. He himself was a spaceship mechanic. They called him Patches Black. He happened to be a fellow I’d known years ago in school. Swell guy, too. But th
is thing got under his skin, and he used bad judgment.”
“So Romanoff and McCune were murdered by—”
“By Patchy. I was there. I was one of the seven. You must have known Patchy. Weren’t you a pilot? What’s the matter? You’re white as a sheet.”
“I knew Patches Black,” was all Bill said. His blue eyes were half closed and I knew he was not seeing me or the generators, or the walls of the sub-basement, but something else far away that I might never know anything about.
CHAPTER XIV
Unexpected Guests
I dined with several officers. They accepted me as McCune and they talked freely. They flattered me. McCune would have been proud, for they had a high regard for his talent for treachery.
They were tense, on their guard, trying to hold me off. They expected me to open up at any moment and give them a verbal lashing for pulling down the Blue Palace. But Jattleworth had got by me (he thought) and his confidence helped to put them at their ease.
Three sharp phone calls cut into our dinner. Something was happening in one of the storage houses. The troubled party on the other end of the line was trying to get through to Jattleworth.
“Tell him not to bother us, we’re having dinner,” Jattleworth said. “Prowling Martians? Tell him to chase them off.”
A few minutes later the second call came.
“What? Again?” Jattleworth growled when the message was relayed to him. “Ask him what the hell’s the matter, are all the guards asleep? . . . What if they are on rikits—tell the fool to use guns on them. They’ll scatter.”
When the phone rang again Jattleworth’s boots thumped across the floor and he almost tore the phone out of the wall. I began to know something about his talent for being ugly.
“By the devil, haven’t you settled their hides yet? What? They’re into the storerooms? They’ve got firearms? Stealing our weapons under your very noses, eh? Why, you damned louts, you ought to be horsewhipped. You better get that deal under control before I get down there . . . I’m coming right down!”