Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Okay," I said, "beam the full Companies and try to get one more. Mandasiva's Sirian boys would be good. We'll split the fee three ways."

  Yuan Saltario said, "Thanks, Red."

  I said, "Thank me later, if we're still around."

  We beamed the Companies and in twenty minutes they were on their way. Straight into the biggest trouble we had had since the War of Survival. I expected trouble, but I didn't know how much. Pete Colenso tipped me off.

  Pete spoke across the light years on our beam. "Mandasiva says okay if we guarantee the payment. I've deposited the bond with him and we're on our way. But, Red, something's funny."

  "What?"

  "This place is empty. The whole damned galaxy out here is like a desert. Every Company has moved out somewhere."

  "Okay," I beamed, "get rolling fast."

  There was only one client who could hire all the Companies at one time. United Galaxies itself. We were in for it. I had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would need it.

  They came at dawn on the second day. We were deployed across five of the dead planets of Menelaus XII in a ring around Nova-Maurania. They came fast and hard, and Portario and his men had at least ten hours work left before they could fire their reactors and pray. Until then we did the praying. It didn't help.

  Mandasiva's command ship went at the third hour. A Lukan blaster got it. By the fourth hour I had watched three of my sub-command ships go. A Sirian force beam got one, an Earth fusion gun got another, and the third went out of action and rammed O'Hara's command ship that had been leading their attack against us. That third ship of mine was Pete Colenso's. Old Mike would have been proud of his boy. I was sick. Pete had been a good boy. So had O'Hara. Not a boy, O'Hara, but the next to the last of old Free Companion from Earth. I'm the last, and I said a silent good-bye to O'Hara. By the sixth hour Rajay-Ben had only ten ships left. I had twelve. Five thousand of my men were gone. Eight thousand of Rajay-Ben's Lukans. The Sirians of Mandasiva's O Company were getting the worst of it, and in the eighth hour Mandasiva's second in command surrendered. It would be over soon, too soon. And the dream would be over with the battle. I broke silence.

  "Red Stone calling. Do you read me? Commander Stone calling. Request conference. Repeat, request conference."

  A face appeared on the inter-Company beam screen. The cold, blank, hard-bitten face of the only Free Company Commander senior to me now that O'Hara was gone, Jake Campesino of the Cygne Black Company. "Are you surrendering, Stone?"

  "No. I want to speak to my fellow Companions."

  Campesino's voice was like ice. "Violation! You know the rules, Stone. Silence cannot be broken in battle. I will bring charges. You're through, Stone."

  I said, "Okay, crucify me later. But hear me now."

  Campesino said, "Close silence or surrender."

  It was no good. We'd had it. And across the distance of battle Rajay-Ben's face appeared on the screen. The colored lights that were a Lukan's face and I knew enough to know that the shimmering lights were mad. "The hell with them, Red, let's go all the damned way!"

  And a new face appeared on the screen. A face I knew too well. First Councillor Roark. "Stone! You've done a lot in your day but this is the end, you hear me? You're defending a madman in a Council crime. Do you realize the risk? Universal imbalance! The whole pattern of galaxies could be destroyed! We'll destroy you for this, Stone. An ionic project without Council authorization."

  I said to Campesino, "Five minutes, Commander. That's all."

  * * * * *

  There was a long blank on the screen, then Campesino's cold face appeared. "Okay, Red, talk. I don't like civilian threats. You've got your five minutes, make it good."

  I made it good. I told them of a handful of people who had a dream. A handful of people who wanted their home back. A few lost souls who would rather die trying to live the way they wanted to live than go on living in a world they did not want. And I told them of the great United Galaxies, that had been created to protect the dreams of everyone in it and had forgotten why it had been created. I told them that it did not matter who was right or wrong, because when a man can no longer dream something has gone wrong in the Universe. When I finished, Campesino's face was impassive.

  Campesino said, "You heard Commander Stone, men. Close off, Stone, give me a minute to get the vote."

  I waited. It was the longest minute of my life.

  "You win, Red," Campesino said. He was smiling at me. "Go home, Councillor, battle's over."

  The Councillor went. He said there would be hell to pay, and maybe there will be, but I don't think so, they still need us. We lost thirty thousand good men in all the Companies. But when the next dawn came Nova-Maurania was gone. I don't know where they went, or what happened to them. Here in my stronghold I sometimes imagine them safe and rebuilding a green world where they can smoke pipes and live their own lives. And sometimes I imagine them all dead and drifting out there in the infinity of space. I don't think they would mind too much, either way.

  * * *

  Contents

  TEST ROCKET!

  By Jack Douglas

  It's amazing how much you can learn about absolute strangers if you just stop to think about the kind of an animal they'll put in a ...

  Captain Baird stood at the window of the laboratory where the thousand parts of the strange rocket lay strewn in careful order. Small groups worked slowly over the dismantled parts. The captain wanted to ask but something stopped him. Behind him Doctor Johannsen sat at his desk, his gnarled old hand tight about a whiskey bottle, the bottle the doctor always had in his desk but never brought out except when he was alone, and waited for Captain Baird to ask his question. Captain Baird turned at last.

  "They are our markings?" Captain Baird asked. It was not the question. Captain Baird knew the markings of the Rocket Testing Station as well as the doctor did.

  "Yes," the doctor said, "they are our markings. Identical. But not our paint."

  Captain Baird turned back to the window. Six months ago it had happened. Ten minutes after launching, the giant test rocket had been only a speck on the observation screen. Captain Baird had turned away in disgust.

  "A mouse!" the captain had said, "unfortunate a mouse can't observe, build, report. My men are getting restless, Johannsen."

  "When we are ready, Captain," the doctor had said.

  It was twelve hours before the urgent call from Central Control brought the captain running back to the laboratory. The doctor was there before him. Professor Schultz wasted no time, he pointed to the instrument panel. "A sudden shift, see for yourself. We'll miss Mars by a million and a quarter at least."

  Two hours later the shift in course of the test rocket was apparent to all of them and so was their disappointment.

  * * * * *

  "According to the instruments the steering shifted a quarter of an inch. No reason shows up," Professor Schultz said.

  "Flaw in the metal?" Doctor Johannsen said.

  "How far can it go?" Captain Baird asked.

  Professor Schultz shrugged. "Until the fuel runs out, which is probably as good as never, or until the landing mechanism is activated by a planet-sized body."

  "Course? Did you plot it?" The doctor asked.

  "Of course I did," Professor Schultz said, "as close as I can calculate it is headed for Alpha Centauri."

  Captain Baird turned away. The doctor watched him.

  "Perhaps you will not be quite so hasty with your men's lives in the future, Captain?" the doctor said.

  Professor Schultz was spinning dials. "No contact," th
e professor said, "No contact at all."

  That had been six months ago. Three more test rockets had been fired successfully before the urgent report came through from Alaskan Observation Post No. 4. A rocket was coming across the Pole.

  The strange rocket was tracked and escorted by atomic armed fighters all the way to the Rocket Testing Station where it cut its own motors and gently landed. In the center of a division of atomic-armed infantry the captain, the doctor, and everyone else, waited impatiently. There was an air of uneasiness.

  "You're sure it's not ours?" Captain Baird asked.

  The doctor laughed. "Identical, yes, but three times the size of ours."

  "Perhaps one of the Asian ones?"

  "No, it's our design, but too large, much too large."

  Professor Schultz put their thoughts into words. "Looks like someone copied ours. Someone, somewhere. It's hard to imagine, but true nevertheless."

  They waited two weeks. Nothing happened. Then a radiation-shielded team went in to examine the rocket. Two more weeks and the strange rocket was dismantled and spread over the field of the testing station. The rocket was dismantled and the station had begun to talk to itself in whispers and look at the sky.

  Captain Baird stood now at the window and looked out at the dismantled rocket. He looked but his mind was not on the parts of the rocket he could see from the window.

  "The materials, they're not ours?" the captain asked.

  "Unknown here," the doctor said.

  The captain nodded. "Those were our instruments?"

  "Yes." The doctor still held the whiskey bottle in a tight grip.

  "They sent them back," the captain said.

  * * * * *

  The doctor crashed the bottle hard against the desk top. "Ask it, Captain, for God's sake!!"

  The captain turned to face the doctor directly. "It was a man, a full grown man."

  The doctor sighed as if letting the pent-up steam of his heart escape. "Yes, it is a man. It breathes, it eats, it has all the attributes of a man. But it is not of our planet."

  "Its speech ..." the captain began.

  "That isn't speech, Captain," the doctor broke in, breaking in sharply, "It's only sound." The doctor stopped; he examined the label of his bottle of whiskey very carefully. A good brand of whiskey. "He seems quite happy in the storeroom. You know, Captain, what puzzled me at first? He can't read. He can't read anything, not even the instruments in that ship. In fact he shows no interest in his rocket at all."

  The captain sat down now. He sat at the desk and faced the doctor. "At least they had the courage to send a man, not a mouse. Doctor, a man."

  The doctor stared at the captain, his hand squeezing and unsqueezing on the whiskey bottle. "A man who can't read his own instruments?" The doctor laughed. "Perhaps you too have failed to see the point? Like that stupid general who sits out there waiting for the men from somewhere to invade?"

  "Don't you think it's a possibility?"

  The doctor nodded. "A very good possibility, Captain, but they will not be men." The doctor seemed to pause and lean forward. "That rocket, Captain, is a test rocket. A test rocket just like ours!"

  Then the doctor picked up his whiskey bottle at last and poured two glasses.

  "Perhaps a drink, Captain?"

  The captain was watching the sky outside the window.

  * * *

  Contents

  NEW HIRE

  By Dave Dryfoos

  Very admirable rule: Never do tomorrow what you can put off until after the age of forty!

  One thing about an electronic awakener: no matter how elaborate its hookup, melodious its music, and important its announced reminders, when it goes on in the morning you can always turn it off again. Boswell W. Budge always did exactly that.

  But there's no turning off one's kids, and thus, on the most important morning of his life, February 30, 2054, Bozzy arose, much against his will, promptly at 0800.

  His Sophie, eight and ladylike, merely shook the bed with a disdainful gesture. But Howard, six, masculine, and athletic, climbed right up and sat on Bozzy's stomach. Baby Ralph, of the golden smile, gave Bozzy a big kiss, and Bozzy thus shared the gold, which was egg.

  "Did your mother send you in here?" Bozzy demanded, gazing suspiciously around with one eye open.

  "We came because we love you," Sophie answered.

  That opened Bozzy's other eye. "Thank you, dear," he said. "You're very sweet or very clever. Now if you'll coax Howard off my stomach--"

  "I don't have to be coaxed," Howard announced, sliding to the floor with all the covers. "From now on, you just order me, Daddy. Because you'll be a Senior Citizen tomorrow."

  Bozzy didn't want to think of that just then. "Tell your mother I'm up," he said. "And get out so I can bathe and dress."

  Sophie minced, Howard ran, Ralph toddled.

  Bozzy rose, a pudgy man slightly under average height at six feet two, with blue eyes and thinning brown hair. He was exactly thirty-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days old.

  And that was the point. At forty, he would have to go to work. This was his day for job-taking.

  He dreaded it.

  * * * * *

  He put the coming ceremonies out of his mind and concentrated on his supersonic bath, the depilatory cream, the color of his outer clothing. It took time to achieve the right shade of purple in the bathroom plastic-dispenser, but no time at all to pour, solidify, and cut the sheet-like robe required for the occasion.

  In it, he was the sensation of the breakfast room, handsome as a male bird in spring plumage. Kate, his slender wife, who had been up and at work for an hour, looked moth-eaten by comparison, as if their nest had been lined with her plucked-out down.

  "You look very attractive this morning, Kate," Bozzy told her. He gave her an extra-warm kiss.

  "Well!" she said. "Quite the gallant today, aren't we? Just be sure you're on time today, darling. Remember what Mr. Frewne had to say about promptness."

  Frewne. That overinflated windbag. The obesity who was about to become his boss. Without having worked a day in his life, Bozzy found he hated the idea of having a boss.

  "Let's think of something pleasant," he grunted, and thought of breakfast.

  He took his place at the table. Kate and the kids had already eaten, so Kate served, while the kids, attracted by his finery, stood off and watched him swallow a vitamin pill, a thyroid pill, and a Dexedrine pill.

  Solemnly, he opened the three eggs Kate brought. Each was guaranteed by her to have been irradiated for exactly two minutes and fifty-five seconds, and guaranteed by the grocer to have been enriched by feeding the hens three kinds of mold.

  His mouth was full of the third and last one when Sophie asked, "Why do you have to go to work, Daddy?"

  The reminder choked him. Gulping, he said, "To support us all, honey. My pension stops tomorrow."

  "Yes, but I read in a book where people used to go to work when they were young."

  He was tempted to say, "I am young!" but thought better of it. "That was long ago, dear."

  "Were people different then?"

  "No, but society was. Our Senior Citizens used to be pensioned off, while younger people worked. But when science improved the Seniors' health, they got tired of sitting in corners on pensions and, besides, a lot of them died soon after they stopped working. When it got so that more than half of all voters were between forty and seventy years old, the Seniors voted their pensions to the young, to get educated and raise families on, and nobody's allowed to work till he's forty. Now do you see?"

  "Forty is awful old," said Sophie.

  * * * * *

  Howard had meanwhile taken his mother's hand. "You're not going to work, are you, Mommy?" he asked.

  "Not for ten years, dear. I'll be here when you want me, so why don't you go play on the balcony? I've got to get Daddy off and give Ralph his bath."

  "I'll bathe him," Sophie volunteered. "You help, Howie. We can make lik
e we're young."

  "Don't drop him," Kate warned.

  "Clean up the bathroom afterward," added Bozzy.

  "Yes, sir," said Howard, for the first time in his life.

  The children left, and Kate came close to pour Bozzy his cup of Daystart. He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed convulsively.

  "Darling!" she said, stroking his bald spot. "You're positively trembling!"

  "Wouldn't you be, if you had to take over from somebody you like as well as I like Mr. Kojac? And for no good reason, except he's seventy-five and I'll soon be forty."

  Kate pushed away from him, frowning. "Sometimes you're so silly, it scares me. You know perfectly well that if you don't take Mr. Kojac's job, someone else will. He'd rather have it in your hands than in a stranger's, and I'd rather live on his income than on a laborer's. So stop moping and drink your Daystart, while I call a cab."

  No help in that quarter, Bozzy decided as she left. All Kate could think of was that she'd soon be the wife of a big-shot: the manager--that is, controls setter--of a furniture factory.

  Bozzy had never told her how simple the job really was, though he supposed she knew.

  You first ordered designs, and then you ordered a poll taken on the designs. A computer tabulated the poll's results and pointed out the design most likely to sell.

  You then fed economic data into the same computer, and found out how many units the market could take. You called in the engineers to set up the machines, and the maintenance men to keep them running. In brief, you were errand boy to a bunch of gadgets, with nothing to do but look important.

  He was practicing his important look when Kate bustled in and spoiled it by sitting on his lap.

  "You're going to do fine today," she said, "and you're going to get off to a good start. I made them show me your cab. It's one of their brand-new battery-electric ones, a sort of mauve that will go with your purple robe. You'll look swell in it."