Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Sorry, sir. I'll speak to him at once." He bowed again as Jasperson strode on.

  "Then could we--" Tom began.

  Davis whirled with an impatient frown. "What? Are you still here? Surely I made it clear that there's nothing I can do, Mr. Hall?"

  "But couldn't you at least move us to another table?"

  "I regret that you are dissatisfied with our arrangements. All table space was allocated before we took off from Y-port."

  "But you've put us with such noisy people!" said Tom stubbornly. "They keep talking about how much money they made in deutonium, and they refer to us, right in front of us, as the babes in the woods. They may be rich, but they haven't the manners of a six-year old. We can't stay at that table."

  "Mr. Hall, I can't waste any more time with you. If all our passengers were to demand special privileges--" He shrugged his shoulders.

  * * * * *

  Dorothy Hall whispered shyly, "Ask him, then, what about that man?" and she nodded her head slightly to the right.

  "Yes," said Tom. "You say there isn't enough room, but what about that table over there? It's made to seat two, and there's just that one man who eats alone."

  Davis glanced over. "Oh, yes. But that's Mr. Jasperson! He likes to be by himself."

  "Who's Mr. Jasperson?"

  "A very important man."

  "And I'm not?"

  Alan broke in. "Excuse me, Mr. Hall. I am Dr. Chase. Won't you join my table? Three of the people assigned places there are Almazanians, a diplomatic mission, I think, and they naturally prefer to have their own cuisine in their own cabins, so we have room for three more."

  "How about it, Steward," said Tom. "Any objections?"

  Shrugging his shoulders, Davis strolled away.

  Tom glared at the retreating back. "That guy has the face of a murderer. He can't be decent to anybody with less than a million credits."

  Dorothy laughed. "Never mind, Tom. Someday you'll be the most famous lawyer in the Interstellar courts, and maybe you'll get a chance to prosecute him for arson or treason."

  Alan led them to the rear of the dining room, where his two table companions were finishing the last sips of their coffee, and lighting the first cigarette of the morning.

  "Miss Taganova, may I present Tom and Dorothy Hall, who would like to share our table."

  Tanya lifted her beautiful auburn head and smiled a welcome. Professor Larrabee stood up, his pink cheeks crinkling with pleasure as he shook hands with Tom.

  "Young people make the best companions," he said, "especially on long journeys."

  Alan sat down and reached for the vitamin dispenser. "These particular young people want privacy. They're on their honeymoon, and would hardly shed a tear if all the rest of the world suddenly ceased to exist."

  "It's not quite like that, Dr. Chase," said Tom, his face reddening, "but those people at our other table were just out of our class, one way or another. The men talked all the time about their bank accounts, and the women clawed at each other about which one had the biggest house, and the biggest pearls and diamonds and emeralds, until we began to feel smothered in a blanket of credits and diamonds."

  "Credits and diamonds must be very nice things to have," said Tanya. "I've never managed to collect many of either."

  "I've nothing against them in themselves," said Tom, "but right now they don't seem to matter very much. We had to wait five long years to be married, five years for me to finish my law training, and for Dorothy to wear out her family's opposition. They didn't want her to throw herself away on a penniless lawyer."

  "As if I were a child who didn't know her own mind," said Dorothy. "Well, I wanted Tom, penniless or not; and anyway, in a few years he's going to be the finest lawyer in the Interstellar Courts."

  "I hope you'll always be as happy as you are now, children." The professor's eyes were misty as he stood up. "Come, Miss Tanya. Take a stroll with me, and bring back to an old man a brief illusion of youth."

  "But you'll never be old!" she said affectionately. "You're still the most fascinating man on the ship."

  Like every other man in the room, Alan watched with envious eyes as Tanya took the professor's arm and sauntered to the door, the heavy taffeta skirts of her pearl-gray gown swishing and rustling as she walked.

  * * * * *

  Within the sealed hulk of the Star Lord the twenty-four Piles silently did their work, out of sight, out of the thoughts of the passengers. Driving the ship through the unknowable infinities of hyperspace, they held her quiet, steady, seemingly without motion. They behaved as they were intended to, their temperatures remained docilely within the normal limits of safety, and the ship sped on.

  The technicians and maintenance men, the navigators, the nucleonics men, all kept aloof from the social eddies frothing at the center of the ship. They lived in another world, a world of leashed power, in which the trivial pursuits of the passengers were as irrelevant as the twitterings of birds.

  In the central tiers occupied by the passengers, each morning the walls of the lounges and dining rooms resumed their daily routine of simulating the panorama of earth's day. Lights glowed into a clear sunrise, brightened into a sunny sky across which light clouds scudded.

  Children played in the nurseries, grownups idled through the hours, eating the delicious food, taking a dip in the priceless pool, attending the stereodrams, and playing games. At the cocktail hour, the orchestra played jaunty tunes, old-fashioned polkas, waltzes, mazurkas; at dinner, it shifted to slower, muted melodies, suitable background for high feminine voices, deep male laughter, and the heavy drone of talk.

  In the walls, the sun set, twilight crept in, and the stars came out. After the stars had been advancing for several hours, people finished their dancing and card games, walked out of the theaters, had a final drink at the Bar, paused at the bulletin board which detailed the ship's daily progress, and went to bed.

  Dr. Alan Chase followed his own routine. Each morning and each evening he geigered his cabin and found the radiation still below the earth normal. He was surprised to find that he was holding his own, physically, instead of becoming progressively weaker, as he had expected, and he began to feel hopeful that he might quickly regain his health on the inert atmosphere of Almazin III. He was not strong enough, however, to take part in the active games of the passengers, and had not enough energy to try to make friends, except for the people at his dining table--particularly Tanya.

  Of all the lovely women on board, he thought Tanya Taganova the loveliest. He knew he was not alone in this, for the arresting planes of her face, the dramatic color of her rustling taffeta gowns, attracted many followers. He would sit in the lounge at night and watch her dancing, and then realize, suddenly, that she had disappeared, long before the evening was over. She was an elusive creature, as unpredictable as a butterfly.

  Wandering listlessly about the ship, one afternoon he stepped through the open door of the Library. In the almost empty room he saw the auburn head of Tanya, bent over so as to hide her face and show him only her glowing hair. She raised her head as he approached.

  "Are you looking for a book, Dr. Chase?"

  "No, I just wondered what was interesting you so much."

  * * * * *

  She shifted her seat, to let him see a large sheet of rough drawing paper covered with a chalk sketch of a desolate gray marsh over which green waves swirled from the sea, behind them loomed rose-colored granite hills.

  "I'm a scene designer, you know. But at home, somehow, I never have time to myself. People will never believe I'm serious, and when I want to get some real work done, I run away on a trip, by myself. Right now I'm sketching out a set for a new stereodrama we're staging next autumn. This particular one is for a melancholy suicide on Venus. I've several more here." She pointed to a scattered heap of drawings.

  The soft chime of the library telephone interrupted them. Tanya rose and moved to the desk.

  "Yes? Not now, youngster. I'm working. Yes, maybe tom
orrow."

  Alan had been examining her drawings. "Is this what you do during the hours when you disappear?".

  "Usually. Sometimes I drop into the playroom to chat with the children. They're more interesting than their parents, for the most part, and nobody ever seems to pay much attention to them."

  "But do you have to work at night, too? When you disappear in the middle of the evening, everybody misses you. The men all watch for you to come back, their wives sigh with relief, and old man Jasperson toddles around and searches the dance floor and bleats, 'Where's Miss Tanya? She was here just a little while ago, and now I can't find her anywhere!'"

  "I know. But one dance an evening with him is about all I can stand. I don't really like the man."

  "But why? He's a little stupid, but he seems a harmless sort of duck. In a financial deal, of course, I can see that he'd be sharp and ruthless--that's how men like him become millionaires--but he can't knife anybody on shipboard."

  Tanya slashed a heavy black line across her drawing, bearing down so hard that she broke the chalk, and threw the pieces to the floor.

  "He's a coward! Haven't you ever noticed the way he bullies the waiters? How he patronizes Professor Larrabee, and ignores the young Halls? And to hear him tell it, you'd think only his advice makes it possible for Captain Evans to run the ship! I'm afraid of men like that. They're cowardly and boastful, and in a crisis they are dangerous!"

  "What an outburst over a fat little bald-headed man! Aren't you letting your dramatic sense run away with you?"

  Laughing, Tanya picked up her chalk and resumed sketching. "Probably, but after all, I earn my living with my imagination."

  "Then you aren't just a rich young woman dabbling in the theater?"

  "No indeed. If you could see my bank account! No, I'm going to Almazin III to make authentic sketches of the landscape. We may do a show set in that locale, next year."

  "I wish I could see some of the shows you stage."

  "When we get home, I'll send you a pass."

  He did not answer. Suddenly the melancholy Venusian scene she was creating depressed him, as if it had been a reflection of his own barren life.

  "Or don't you like the theater, Dr. Chase?"

  "It's not that," he said hastily. "Only--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Something about this ship, I suppose. Home seems so very far away."

  "Have you felt that too? I've had the feeling, sometimes, that earth isn't there any more, and that this ship is the only reality."

  * * * * *

  By the end of the third week out, Burl Jasperson was afflicted by an almost intolerable tension. He prowled the ship like a tiger, for he could think of nothing more to do. For the moment there were no more improvements to suggest to the Star Line, no more brilliant financial deals to execute, and each empty minute seemed to swell into an endless hour. He tried to relax by viewing the dramas on the stereoscreen, but he was always too uneasy to sit through an entire performance, and would leave in the middle to resume his pacing of the corridors.

  At his private table in the dining room he stared at the empty chair across from him, munching his food mechanically, seething with unrest. He could see Tanya's gleaming head across the room, with Alan Chase's beside her, and he tortured himself with imagining the light laughter, the friendly talk which must be taking place there. Never, before this trip, had he been made to feel so unnecessary, so much an outsider. Wasn't he a lord of finance, a master of industry, the kind of a man to be respected and admired? Of course, less successful men called him ruthless, he realized, but he was not ruthless--only realistic. He was an able man, and if he expected people in general to take orders from him, it was only because he was more intelligent and more capable than the people to whom he gave his orders. Nothing wrong with that.

  But these miserable empty days were beginning to frighten him. He felt lost. The ship ran by herself, without needing his help, and there was no doubt at all that she would win the Blue Ribbon. Although he questioned Captain Evans sharply, and checked every day on the minutest data of the voyage, so far he had found nothing to criticize--except the coldness of Josiah Evans' manner.

  He ground his teeth through a stalk of celery in a vicious bite. After all, wasn't he Chairman of the board of directors of the Star Line? Wasn't it his right, even his duty, to make sure that everything was going well?

  The crowd of diners had grown thin, now, and he could see clearly the little group at Tanya's table. They were laughing, and he could see the delightful animation which always disappeared whenever he tried to talk to her.

  Steward Davis sidled up, a deferential smile on his long face.

  "Is everything all right, Mr. Jasperson?"

  "Um."

  "Looks like we'll get the Blue Ribbon this trip, doesn't it, sir?"

  "Um."

  "If you should ever want any special dishes, sir, any little delicacies not available to everyone, I should be glad to speak to the chef."

  Jasperson pushed his plate away. "I'll remember, Davis." Throwing down his napkin he stood up. His waiter came running.

  "Dessert, sir?"

  * * * * *

  Without answering, he strode across the room, trying to compose his mouth into a smile as he reached his goal.

  "Miss Taganova, would you care to join me in the bar for a drink?"

  They all looked up at him in astonishment.

  "But I've just finished dinner," she said.

  He waited, uncertainly. At last Professor Larrabee pointed to the unoccupied chair.

  "Perhaps you'd care to join us, instead?"

  No one else spoke, and he sat down nervously. Conversation had stopped, and at last he broke out with explosive force.

  "I wish Captain Evans would speed up this ship. It feels as if we'd been on the way forever. And still three weeks to go!"

  "Do you find three weeks so long a time?" asked the professor.

  "It seems like eternity. I wish something would happen. Why can't we have a little excitement?"

  "Couldn't you find any more banks to break today?" Alan drawled. "No gambles on the stock exchange?"

  The professor broke in soothingly. "Now, there's an idea! You're obviously a gambling man, a man of action. Do you play poker? Why don't you get up a little game among your friends? That ought to provide you with excitement for one evening at least."

  "Would you join the game?"

  "No, no, my dear Mr. Jasperson! You and I do not move in the same circles. I confess, I enjoy the delightful uncertainties of poker, but I could never afford to play for your stakes."

  "Then we'll make the stakes what you can afford. Each raise limited to five credits?"

  "In that case, I might consider it."

  "You, Dr. Chase?"

  "Too exciting for an invalid, I'm afraid."

  "You, Mr. Hall?"

  Tom squeezed Dorothy's hand under the table. "No, thank you, Mr. Jasperson. My wife and I, we have other plans."

  "If it's money, young fellow, I'll stake you, and you can have a year to pay me back."

  Tom grinned. "You're very generous. But what makes you so sure you'd be the winner?"

  "I always win. Will you join the game, Miss Taganova?"

  He accepted her silent head-shake without protest.

  "Then I'll try to round up two or three others. We don't want a big crowd--too many people make me nervous. Perhaps Willoughby will play, and I'll get Captain Evans. He doesn't like the game, but he'll sit in if I insist. See you in my suite in half an hour."

  * * * * *

  The poker game had been in progress for more than an hour when Captain Evans entered the parlor. Frowning, Jasperson looked up.

  "You're late, Josiah. I told you we'd begin at nine."

  "Sorry, Burl. I was delayed."

  Jasperson paused in the act of raking in the pot, and looked up sharply.

  "Anything wrong?"

  "No, all serene."

  "Anything you need my advice on?"

&nbs
p; "No, just a routine conference with the navigator."

  "Then pull up a chair and get in the game."

  Nearly half the chips were piled in front of Jasperson, and across from him a modest heap sat before the professor. At his right the baggy-eyed only son of a deutonium millionaire fingered his dwindling pile indifferently, and on his left Dr. Willoughby stared unbelievingly at his few remaining chips, three blues and a couple of whites.

  "I'll just watch," said the Captain. "You know I'm not much of a gambler. Chess is my game."

  "Oh, come on, Josiah. I insist that you play. Prove that you've got red blood in your veins."

  Evans hesitated, but remained standing. "I'd rather just look on."

  "Now look here, Captain. Doesn't the Star Line always try to please its passengers? Well, I'm a passenger. Or is it just your native caution that makes you afraid of losing?" His laugh did not entirely disguise the irritation in his voice.

  "All right, anything to oblige," said Evans wearily, pulling up a chair. "What stakes are you playing for?"

  The Captain lost, slowly and steadily. Mechanically he went through the motions of dealing, discarding, drawing, and betting, but it was obvious that his mind was not on the game. Jasperson rarely lost a hand, if he had stayed at all, while Professor Larrabee's luck was unpredictable, the pile of chips before him fluctuating, growing or diminishing with startling swiftness.

  They were interrupted once when a waiter came in with a tray of bottles and glasses. The Captain refused.

  "But one drink won't do you any harm," said Jasperson.

  "I never drink in space. For one thing, the rules of the Star Line explicitly forbid it, as you should know."

  "Yes, I helped make that rule. That means I can release you from it."

  But Evans was firm. "I never drink in space," he repeated. "I'll take two cards--no, make it three."

  The professor surveyed his hand with his customary sprightly air.

  "I'll play these," he said.

  Jasperson discarded. "I'll take one."

  Captain Evans languidly opened the betting, but after the first round he dropped out, and only Jasperson and the professor remained. Each raised the other persistently, and while Jasperson grew more and more excited, the professor smiled as usual, his eyes glinting with amusement.