“We ought to be more careful,” said Riley. “This don’t look like a good setup to me.”
“He won’t be expecting us,” said Jason. “He’ll only be looking for the cat. It goes to him every night that it can get free and comes back in the morning.”
The trio of gunmen were silent, but their dislike of following a wild cat through the wet jungle night was obvious. The night sounds and the constant drip of water from foliage above them set their nerves on edge. And Jason’s careless crashing through the jungle produced a constant fear in them that hordes of unseen enemies would be firing at them momentarily.
When they had covered four of the estimated five miles, Wilson’s nerves were near hysteria. He suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “You guys are crazy if you go any farther. We don’t know where we’re going—and we’ll all end up by getting killed. I’m going back whether you guys are or not.”
The only answer was a sudden shot from Jason’s gun and the flash of a burning ray that lit the night long enough to see the crumpled body of Wilson lying in the jungle muck.
“This is important,” said Jason evenly. “We’re going to get Robert.”
Silence marked assent as he deliberately turned his back on the others and continued on the way. He knew the breed from which the gunmen sprang. They wouldn’t have the nerve to shoot him in the back and retreat.
He would not have been so sure if he could have read the mind of Reamond. The private policeman’s finger tensed on the release of his gun, but something within him kept him from killing Jason. Through the dark hours he had fought it, but in vain. He knew that he was about to see the close of an age in man’s history, and surely it deserved some better ending than a traitorous shot in the back.
Jason was through. He was a dead man and didn’t know it, but Reamond wanted to see the fight he would make for survival. He wanted to see Jason’s face when be realized the fact that imperialism was dead, and that Jason, the last of the great imperialists, was dead with it.
Undoubtedly he was risking his own neck, but he had to see the end of the Age of Imperialism in this phase of history. Reamond lowered his gun.
They had gone nearly another mile without seeing anything when Stacy uttered a warning. “Hold it. I think there’s something ahead of us there.”
The party halted. “I don’t see anything,” said Reamond.
“Come on. We’re almost there,” said Jason, The cat was pulling frantically now as it lunged to escape.
* * * *
At that moment a torrent of Venusians burst from the trees on their left. The party froze in immobility.
“Can you get any of that stuff?” Jason demanded of Reamond.
“Yes, I understand it well. They want us to lay down our arms and come with them.”
“Tell them to go back and tell Robert we’re coming for him. They must be some of his look-outs.”
Reamond spoke. Then from the jungle depths came the answering flame of a modern tube gun. The men flattened themselves on the padding of grasses and leaves overlaying the muck.
“What did you tell them?” demanded Jason.
“I asked what would happen if we refused.”
Jason swore and cursed. “I’ll show the dirty — ” Before the others could stop him he sent a stream of fire into the darkness.
Instantly, it was answered. And a piercing scream burst from Jason’s lips. In the white light of the flames, they saw him crumple and crash to the path at their feet.
Reamond stared numbly into the darkness. He might have known that Jason would lose all sense of craftiness. That was the way of a man like Jason when he was trapped. He tried to win with the blind arrogance that had brought him to his knees. But you couldn’t load a tube gun with arrogance. Reamond had risked his neck to see a turn in the history of the universe. And this was it. A man lying mortally wounded in the jungle muck of Venus.
Reamond called out. There was silence for a moment, then diminutive forms came forward cautiously and pushed aside the thick growth.
“Take us to your master,” Reamond said in a voice thin with resignation.
Silently, the Venusians picked up the groaning, struggling form of Jason and carried him skillfully through the jungle. It was only a matter of minutes until they broke out into a small clearing and came in sight of a lighted hut. The Venusians continued forward and entered after a warning knock.
The Earthmen found themselves entering directly into a small but efficient-looking laboratory. A slim, middle-aged man with glasses and laboratory smock was present, but be paid no attention to them. He was bending over an object strapped to a table.
Then be moved and straightened and a shining instrument was in his hand.
Jason saw him through pain-glazed eyes. “So I was right, Robert. It was you who betrayed me—you and your robot cat.”
“Betrayed, Jason? I would hardly call it that. Salvation—for a whole world—would be better. But robot, did you say?” The scientist laughed suddenly. “I’m afraid Old Tom resents that.”
The cat had risen now as Robert Cartwright released the straps. Its back arched at the sight of Jason’s face. He snarled and clawed the air. “You must have mistreated Old Tom. He doesn’t like you.”
Jason’s eyes grew wilder. “You mean he isn’t a robot? Then, how—No! Robert, I’ll never believe you tricked me into coming here with merely a live cat. My office was spied upon, my secret papers … and the Xrays — “
“Yes, Old Tom did it all right,” said Robert. “But he’s still no robot. He’s alive. I knew a long time ago that I would have to be the one to destroy you, Jason. I knew that all it would require would be an exposure of your own life. That would speak for itself and spell ruin for you. But the question was how to spy upon you.
“I found the answer in our boyhood pet. As you say, the cat is symbolic. Symbolic of the life you chose—symbolic, too, of the life I chose—The cat symbolizes all that you ever took from your fellow men by trickery and lies. And it symbolizes that the science that I chose shall in the end triumph over all your lies and schemes, for it has brought your downfall.”
“How did you do it?”
“It wasn’t simple, but the Venusians figured it out after I showed them what I wanted. The useless parts of the cat’s brain were removed as were other nonessential organs or portions of organs. In their place were built tiny masterpieces of electronic equipment. To the cat’s optic nerves were connected visual recorders, to his ears, audio instruments. And all that he saw and heard was impressed upon infinitesimal records. See, I have just removed one.
It is taken out just below his ribs on the right side with a large size hypodermic needle, and a new record inserted in its place. The operation is practically painless to Old Tom. The only other thing needed was a means of guiding him here by radio control when he was safely out of the field of your screens. It was easy to direct him here by inciting a small amount of pain or discomfort in certain nerves when he moved in any direction but the one required to bring him here. The records I obtained were distributed where they would do the most good. They saved Bridgeman and Lotta. Wallace’s warning helped add to your unnerving.
“You were done for long ago, Jason,” Robert continued. “You’re an anachronism that somehow managed to live on beyond your time. You are like the last dinosaur must have been, bellowing and thrashing its way about a world that had no need of it. You are the last of the great imperialists. It would not have been worth while to combat you except that you were impeding progress and causing death and misery to millions of Venusians, not to mention what you were doing to the Jovians and Martians by inciting them to war.
“You thought that you blocked the Venusians when you prevented my serum from reaching them. You see how they have solved the problem for themselves. I didn’t even know they had done it. They are outstripping Earthmen fast.
Eventually, when they catch up on their lost evolution, they may surpass us by far.
“But, as
for you, the police will want to know all about your manufacture of distorters. And so the great Cartwright Enterprises are finished. You’re finished, Jason, and another age of imperialism has come to an end.”
Suddenly, the cat broke away from Robert’s hold, and leaped to where Jason lay. But Jason made no move. He was dead.
ALARM REACTION
CHAPTER I
He had to be at the party. Everyone in the Base above the rank of lieutenant j.g. had to attend Commander Kendricks’ parties unless sick or on duty, But no one could force him to have a good time and Glenn Baird was damned if he’d make the attempt on his own.
He saw Nancy coming toward him and sauntered out through the wide glass doors into the garden. He still had a cocktail glass in his hand where it had been for the last half hour. He had never yet been able to get rid of one decently at Kendricks’.
Now he gave this one a hasty toss into the thick foliage beside the door and moved on to a garden seat in a secluded nook. He could imagine how Caroline Kendricks had coyly designed this for a lovers’ rendezvous. Maybe he was getting old, he reflected, or perhaps his trousers were just worn thin in back but that cement slab was damned cold for romance.
Of one thing he was certain—it was not that being married to the same woman for almost six years had taken it out of him. Nancy, coming toward him with the moonlight behind her, was easily good for a ten-point, jump in his blood pressure.
She sat down close to him “What’s the matter, Glenn? Aren’t you having a good time?”
“Oh, cut it out, Nan. Has Kendrick got to the jump he made at ninety thousand feet on his first round-the-world nonstop attempt?”
“No, darling.” Nancy laughed. “He’s only to the one about swimming fourteen miles through the crocodile-infested waters of — “
“That means he’s on his sixth cocktail. Two more and he’ll be so fuzzy we can go home. Be a good girl and go in and keep score for me.”
* * * *
She moved suddenly and sat on his lap. “Seat’s cold,” she said. Her white arms lay on his shoulders and he could smell the clean fragrance of her flesh, unobscured by the heavy fashionable perfumes that made the room inside as oppressive as a tropical greenhouse.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t stay?” she said. “These parties are just as important as good work at the Base in getting ahead. I’m learning Navy awfully fast, darling. You’ve got to be Kendricks’ kind of man to get ahead here.”
“Then I’ll stay right where I am,” Glenn said bitterly. “I’ll see the whole Navy go to hell before I’ll be John Kendricks’ kind of man.”
“It’s only a step on your way up—but Kendricks can keep you in it for the rest of your life if you don’t play things just a little his way. Being nice at his parties doesn’t take much out of you.”
Nancy slid to her feet as Glenn stood up. “You’ll never know,” he said. “You’ll never really know how much it takes out of me—hanging around for two or three hours while Kendricks spouts off and all the kid lieutenants and their giggly wives cluster around. It takes one hell of a lot out of a man.”
“Then let’s leave it, Glenn! We don’t have to stay. If it isn’t turning out to be what you hoped for let’s put in for a transfer from Pacific Base! I don’t care where they send us as long as we can stay together and be happy. Let’s go to Ceres again if that will make you happy.”
She clung tightly to his arm as they moved toward the noise and smoke and sticky lighting of the house. He smiled down at her small, earnest face, the moonlight full upon it. He bent down and kissed her quickly before they came into view of the doorway.
“No, I won’t take you back to Ceres.” They had spent the first two years of their marriage there—then almost four years on the Moon. He had promised himself he would never take her away from civilization again.
“It was kind of fun out there,” said Nancy. “Only of course there’s Jimmy now and school — “
“Sure, we’ve got a family to look after. We won’t go to Ceres—or any other place like it. I’m not running away from Kendricks. That would be just what he’d like. Then he could put his son-in-law in my place and maybe make it stick this time. Anyway I’m old fashioned enough to believe that you can get somewhere by honest effort—even in a military organization.”
“Oh, darling, then you are old fashioned! I’ve learned more about the Navy in three months at Pacific Base than you have in your whole ten-year career.”
He wished she wouldn’t talk like that.
She said it only because she actually didn’t understand the petty deadly intrigue of Navy officialdom. It bothered him more than if she had been one of the clever old-in-service Navy wives who used rank like a rapier.
Nancy had never known what home base life was until now. Glenn had seen plenty of it before they were married. He’d tried to explain the difference between Pacific Base and the other places they’d been. But she didn’t know what, he was talking about.
She didn’t know about rank. She didn’t know that home base wives flaunted rank like any land-locked Admiral. She couldn’t understand that it wasn’t like Ceres, where the Commander’s wife had midwifed the birth of Jimmy when the base surgeon and every assistant were called away because a lock port blew during a cruiser take-off.
Nancy didn’t understand how absurd it was for her to offer to care for the Kendricks’ youngest during the Commander’s three-week vacation—an exclusive camp had been planned for him.
That was when they first came to the Base and some of the women finally explained with kindness some of these details when they saw that Nancy was merely innocent of intrigue, that her naive behavior was not some clever campaign to beat their game.
So Nancy thought she understood now. But she didn’t. She still didn’t understand that it was more than some stupid kind of play acting, a feminine counterpart of military foppery. She could not comprehend how utterly serious, how completely deadly, was the little tight society of Pacific Base.
And so she came up with bizarre remarks such as saying that Glenn was old fashioned for believing that hard work alone would win advancement.
Bizarre—like a child having come upon a glittering dagger, fascinated by its brilliance, not knowing its proper use.
* * * *
Caroline Kendricks fluttered up as they came to the doorway. “I should have known where you two would be,” she said with sly insinuation that made Glenn shudder. “Anyone would think you were just engaged. But, Captain—Commander Kendricks has been looking for you. Something very urgent at the Base, it seems. He’ll see you in the library.”
Glenn frowned. He gave Nancy’s hand a squeeze and moved away. “Excuse me, darling. I’ll see what it is.”
The “library” was a small office in the front of the house, where Commander Kendricks kept a desk and a telephone. On the walls were paintings of the space-ships he had commanded. On the desk were six or eight volumes of Navy Regulations. These constituted the library.
Glenn knocked and was ordered in.
“Mrs. Kendricks said you were looking for me.”
The Commander nodded, managing to convey an implication of displeasure that Glenn had not been at his, side the moment he was needed.
There was no sign of liquor in Kendricks’ face now. He wore his normal space tan and his hands and eyes were steady. Glenn had the impression that he always ordered uniforms a trifle small to emphasize his own great bulk. Now he sat stiffly behind the desk as if momentous happenings were beneath his jurisdiction.
“Central Headquarters just notified Base that a stranger in distress is on the way in,” said Kendricks. “She’s not a member of the Galactic Council but has references from Paramides. She asks use of our repair facilities. Central gave permission. I’ve notified Base. You will report there at once and see that proper facilities are provided”
“Yes, sir. When is she due in?’ Kendricks made no answer. His round hard face remained set. In such a pose the lin
es began to show in definite depth.
“Is that all you have to say, Captain? ‘When is she due in?’ Is that the only chord of response this information strikes in you?”
Glenn flushed. He had grown used to baitings these past three months—sometimes he felt capable of anticipating them. But the suppressed rebellion against the unwritten law that required his presence at the party,, the inescapable inanity of small talk he had heard ten thousand times before—these had shut off all rational processes in his mind tonight.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said evenly. “I understood your information to be that a stranger in distress has been granted haven, that —
“
And then he had it. Knew what cue he had missed.
“We will, of course, alert every member of the Analysis Crew to the possibility of a Fourth Order drive,” he finished lamely.
“I trust so—I trust so. You have not been with us very long, Captain. Perhaps you cannot be expected to understand the importance of this prime objective. It may underline it for you ff I point out that the only reason for allowing a completely unidentified stranger into this base is the possibility of subsequently finding ourselves in possession of a Fourth Order drive. Do you understand that clearly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It remains to be seen.” Kendricks glanced at the six dialed chronometer on his wrist. “Half an hour at the most. He was in the thirty-thousand-mile orbit when Central called. You’ll have to hurry.”
Glenn saluted and turned to the door.
“I notified Dr. Gibbs, also,” said Kendricks. “You’ll likely need him. The stranger indicated illness aboard but not the extent. He could communicate only by Galactic Code obtained at Paramides.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER II
The way to the car with Nancy Glenn felt the cool wash of ocean breezes upon his face. He inhaled deeply to get the scent of stale heavy perfume and liquor vapor out of his lungs.
Sunday is Three Thousand Years Away and Other SF Classics Page 10