Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  He did not worry about his own position. That was well enough established, whether or not he could again hold up his head before the purple-scaled people who had been so generous to him.

  Even if they had been aroused to a rage by the killing, Kinton told himself, he would not have been concerned about himself. He had reached a fairly ripe age for a spaceman. In fact, he had already enjoyed a decade of borrowed time.

  But they were more civilized than that wanton murderer, he realized.

  He straightened up, forcing back his early-morning weariness.

  "We must get into the air immediately," he told Klaft. "Perhaps we may see him before he reaches--"

  He broke off at the word "spaceship" but he noticed a reserved expression on Klaft's pointed face. His aide had probably reached a conclusion similar to his own.

  They climbed back into the cabin and Klaft gave brisk orders to the lean young pilot. A moment later, Kinton saw the ground outside drop away.

  Only upon turning around did he realize that two armed Tepoktans had materialized in time to follow Klaft inside.

  One was a constable but the other he recognized for an officer of some rank. Both wore slung across their chests weapons resembling long-barreled pistols with large, oddly indented butts to fit Tepoktan claws. The constable, in addition, carried a contraption with a quadruple tube for launching tiny rockets no thicker than Kinton's thumb. These, he knew, were loaded with an explosive worthy of respect on any planet he had heard of.

  To protect him, he wondered. Or to get Birken?

  The pilot headed the craft back toward Kinton's town in the brightening sky of early day. Long before the buildings of Kinton's institute came into view, they received a radio message about Birken.

  "He has been seen on the road passing the dam," Klaft reported soberly after having been called to the pilot's compartment. "He stopped to demand fuel from some maintenance workers, but they had been warned and fled."

  "Couldn't they have seized him?" demanded Kinton, his tone sharp with the worry he endeavored to control. "He has that spear, I suppose; but he is only one and injured."

  Klaft hesitated.

  "Well, couldn't they?"

  The aide looked away, out one of the windows at some sun-dyed clouds ranging from pink to orange. He grimaced and clicked his showy teeth uncomfortably.

  "Perhaps they thought you might be offended, George," he answered at last.

  Kinton settled back in the seat especially padded to fit the contours of his Terran body, and stared silently at the partition behind the pilot.

  In other words, he thought, he was responsible for Birken, who was a Terran, one of his own kind. Maybe they really didn't want to risk hurting his feelings, but that was only part of it. They were leaving it up to him to handle what they considered his private affair.

  He wondered what to do. He had no actual faith in the idea that Birken was delirious, or acting under any influence but that of a criminally self-centered nature.

  "I shouldn't have told him about the ship!" Kinton muttered, gnawing the knuckle of his left thumb. "He's on the run, all right. Probably scared the colonial authorities will trail him right down through the Dome of Eyes. Wonder what he did?"

  He caught himself and looked around to see if he had been overheard. Klaft and the police officers peered from their respective windows, in calculated withdrawal. Kinton, disturbed, tried to remember whether he had spoken in Terran or Tepoktan.

  Would Birken listen if he tried reasoning, he asked himself. Maybe if he showed the man how they had proved the unpredictability of openings through the shifting Dome of Eyes--

  An exclamation from the constable drew his attention. He rose, and room was made for him at the opposite window.

  * * * * *

  In the distance, beyond the town landing field they were now approaching, Kinton saw a halted ground car. Across the plain which was colored a yellowish tan by a short, grass-like growth, a lone figure plodded toward the upthrust bulk of the spaceship that had never flown.

  "Never mind landing at the town!" snapped Kinton. "Go directly out to the ship!"

  Klaft relayed the command to the pilot. The helicopter swept in a descending curve across the plain toward the gleaming hull.

  As they passed the man below, Birken looked up. He continued to limp along at a brisk pace with the aid of what looked like a short spear.

  "Go down!" Kinton ordered.

  The pilot landed about a hundred yards from the spaceship. By the time his passengers had alighted, however, Birken had drawn level with them, about fifty feet away.

  "Birken!" shouted Kinton. "Where do you think you're going?"

  Seeing that no one ran after him, Birken slowed his pace, but kept walking toward the ship. He watched them over his shoulder.

  "Sorry, Kinton," he shouted with no noticeable tone of regret. "I figure I better travel on for my health."

  "It's not so damn healthy up there!" called Kinton. "I told you how there's no clear path--"

  "Yeah, yeah, you told me. That don't mean I gotta believe it."

  "Wait! Don't you think they tried sending unmanned rockets up? Every one was struck and exploded."

  Birken showed no more change of expression than if the other had commented on the weather.

  Kinton had stepped forward six or eight paces, irritated despite his anxiety at the way Birken persisted in drifting before him.

  Kinton couldn't just grab him--bad leg or not, he could probably break the older man in two.

  He glanced back at the Tepoktans beside the helicopter, Klaft, the pilot, the officer, the constable with the rocket weapon.

  They stood quietly, looking back at him.

  The call for help that had risen to his lips died there.

  "Not their party," he muttered. He turned again to Birken, who still retreated toward the ship. "But he'll only get himself killed and destroy the ship! Or if some miracle gets him through, that's worse! He's nothing to turn loose on a civilized colony again."

  * * * * *

  A twinge of shame tugged down the corners of his mouth as he realized that keeping Birken here would also expose a highly cultured people to an unscrupulous criminal who had already committed murder the very first time he had been crossed.

  "Birken!" he shouted. "For the last time! Do you want me to send them to drag you back here?"

  Birken stopped at that. He regarded the motionless Tepoktans with a derisive sneer.

  "They don't look too eager to me," he taunted.

  Kinton growled a Tepoktan expression the meaning of which he had deduced after hearing it used by the dam workers.

  He whirled to run toward the helicopter. Hardly had he taken two steps, however, when he saw startled changes in the carefully blank looks of his escort. The constable half raised his heavy weapon, and Klaft sprang forward with a hissing cry.

  By the time Kinton's aging muscles obeyed his impulse to sidestep, the spear had already hurtled past. It had missed him by an error of over six feet.

  He felt his face flushing with sudden anger. Birken was running as best he could toward the spaceship, and had covered nearly half the distance.

  Kinton ran at the Tepoktans, brushing aside the concerned Klaft. He snatched the heavy weapon from the surprised constable.

  He turned and raised it to his chest. Because of the shortness of Tepoktan arms, the launcher was constructed so that the butt rested against the chest with the sighting loops before the eyes. The little rocket tubes were above head height, to prevent the handler's catching the blast.

  The circles of the sights weaved and danced about the running figure. Kinton realized to his surprise that the effort of seizing the weapon had him panting. Or was it the fright at having a spear thrown at him? He decided that Birken had not come close enough for that, and wondered if he was afraid of his own impending action.

  It wasn't fair, he complained to himself. The poor slob only had a spear, and a man couldn't blame him for wanting
to get back to his own sort. He was limping ... hurt ... how could they expect him to realize--?

  Then, abruptly, his lips tightened to a thin line. The sights steadied on Birken as the latter approached the foot of the ladder leading to the entrance port of the spaceship.

  Kinton pressed the firing stud.

  Across the hundred-yard space streaked four flaring little projectiles. Kinton, without exactly seeing each, was aware of the general lines of flight diverging gradually to bracket the figure of Birken.

  One struck the ground beside the man just as he set one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, and skittered away past one fin of the ship before exploding. Two others burst against the hull, scattering metal fragments, and another puffed on the upright of the ladder just above Birken's head.

  * * * * *

  The spaceman was blown back from the ladder. He balanced on his heels for a moment with outstretched fingers reaching toward the grips from which they had been torn. Then he crumpled into a limp huddle on the yellowing turf.

  Kinton sighed.

  The constable took the weapon from him, reloaded deftly, and proffered it again. When the Terran did not reach for it, the officer held out a clawed hand to receive it. He gestured silently, and the constable trotted across the intervening ground to bend over Birken.

  "He is dead," said Klaft when the constable straightened up with a curt wave.

  "Will ... will you have someone see to him, please?" Kinton requested, turning toward the helicopter.

  "Yes, George," said Klaft. "George...?"

  "Well?"

  "It would be very instructive--that is, I believe Dr. Chuxolkhee would like to--"

  "All right!" yielded Kinton, surprised at the harshness of his own voice. "Just tell him not to bring around any sketches of the various organs for a few months!"

  He climbed into the helicopter and slumped into his seat. Presently, he was aware of Klaft edging into the seat across the aisle. He looked up.

  "The police will stay until cars from town arrive. They are coming now," said his aide.

  * * * * *

  Kinton stared at his hands, wondering at the fact that they were not shaking. He felt dejected, empty, not like a man who had just been at a high pitch of excitement.

  "Why did you not let him go, George?"

  "What? Why ... why ... he would have destroyed the ship you worked so hard to build. There is no safe path through the Dome of Eyes."

  "No predictable path," Klaft corrected. "But what then? We would have built you another ship, George, for it was you who showed us how."

  Kinton flexed his fingers slowly.

  "He was just no good. You know the murder he did here; we can only guess what he did among my own ... among Terrans. Should he have a chance to go back and commit more crimes?"

  "I understand, George, the logic of it," said Klaft. "I meant ... it is not my place to say this ... but you seem unhappy."

  "Possibly," grunted Kinton wrily.

  "We, too, have criminals," said the aide, as gently as was possible in his clicking language. "We do not think it necessary to grieve for the pain they bring upon themselves."

  "No, I suppose not," sighed Kinton. "I ... it's just--"

  He looked up at the pointed visage, at the strange eyes regarding him sympathetically from beneath the sloping, purple-scaled forehead.

  "It's just that now I'm lonely ... again," he said.

  * * *

  Contents

  FEE OF THE FRONTIER

  By H. B. Fyfe

  From inside the dome, the night sky is a beautiful thing, even though Deimos and Phobos are nothing to brag about. If you walk outside, maybe as far as the rocket field, you notice a difference.

  Past the narrow developed strip around the dome, the desert land lies as chilled and brittle as it did for eons before Earthmen reached Mars. The sky is suddenly raw and cruel. You pull your furs around your nose and check your oxygen mask, and wish you were inside something, even a thin wall of clear plastic.

  I like to stand here, though, and look out at it, just thinking about how far those ships grope out into the dark nowadays, and about the men who have gone out there on a few jets and a lot of guts. I knew a bunch of them ... some still out there, I guess.

  There was a time when nearly everything had to be rocketed out from Earth, before they organized all those chemical tricks that change the Martian crops to real food. Domes weren't fancy then. Adequate, of course; no sense in taking chances with lives that cost so much fuel to bring here. Still, the colonies kept growing. Where people go, others follow to live off them, one way or another. It began to look like time for the next step outward.

  Oh, the Asteroids ... sure. Not them. I did a bit of hopping there in my own time. In fact--on account of conditions beyond my choice and control--I spent too much time on the wrong side of the hull shields. One fine day, the medics told me I'd have to be a Martian for the rest of my life. Even the one-way hop back to Earth was "not recommended."

  So I used to watch the ships go out. I still remember one that almost missed leaving. The Martian Merchant. What joker thought that would be a good name for an exploring ship I can't imagine, but it always happens that way.

  I was starting my cross-country tractor line then, and had just made the run from Schiaparelli to Asaph Dome, which was not as nice as it is now but still pretty civilized for the time. They had eight or ten bars, taverns, and other amusements, and were already getting to be quite a city.

  One of the taverns near the western airlock was named the Stardust, and I was approaching, measuring the sand in my throat, when these spacers came out. The first one in sight was a blocky, dark-haired fellow. He came rolling through the door with a man under each arm.

  Just as I got there, he made it to his feet somehow and cracked their heads together exactly hard enough to bring peace. He acted like a man used to handling things with precision. He glanced quickly at me out of a square, serious face, then plunged back through the splintered door toward the breakup inside.

  * * * * *

  In a moment, he came out again, with two friends who looked the worse for wear. The tall, lean youngster wore a junior pilot's bands on the sleeves of his blue uniform. His untidy hair was rumpled, as if someone had been hanging onto it while in the process of giving him the shiner.

  The other one was shorter and a good deal neater. Even with his tunic ripped down the front, he gave the impression of making it his life business to be neat. He was turning gray at the temples and growing a little bulge under his belt, which lent a dignity worthy of his trim mustache and expression of deferential politeness. He paused briefly to hurl an empty bottle at someone's head.

  "Better take the alley there," I told the blocky one, on impulse. "It'll bring you out at the tractor lot and I'll give you a lift to your ship."

  He wasted no time on questions, just grabbed his friends and disappeared before the crowd came out. I walked around a couple of corners and back to my tractor bus. This lot was only a clear space inside the Number Four Airlock. At that time, two or three tractors came in every day from the mines or other domes. Most of the traffic was to and from the spaceport.

  "Who's that?" asked a low voice from the shadows.

  "Tony Lewis," I answered.

  The three of them moved into the dim light from the airlock guardpost.

  "Thanks for the steer," said the blocky one, "but we can stay till morning."

  He seemed as fresh as if he had just landed. His friends were a trifle worn around the edges.

  "Keep playing that rough," I said, "and you may not make it to morning."

  He just grinned. "We have to," he said, "or the ship can't blast off."

  "Oh, you three make the ship go, huh?"

  "Just about. This is Hugh Konnel, the third pilot; the gent with the dignified air is Ron Meadows, the steward. I'm Jim Howlet, and I look after the fuel system."

  I admitted that the ship could hardly do without them. H
owlet's expression suggested that he was searching his memory.

  "Lewis ..." he murmured. "I've heard of Tony Lewis somewhere. You a spacer?"

  "Used to be," I told him. "Did some piloting in the Belt."

  Young Konnel stopped fingering his eye.

  "Oh, I've heard of you," he said. "Even had to read some of your reports."

  * * * * *

  After that, one thing led to another, with the result that I offered to find somewhere else to relax. We walked south from the airlock, past a careless assortment of buildings. In those days, there was not much detailed planning of the domes. What was necessary for safety and for keeping the air thicker and warmer than outside was done right; the remaining space was grabbed by the first comers.

  Streets tended to be narrow. As long as an emergency truck could squeeze through at moderate speed, that was enough. The buildings grew higher toward the center of the dome, but I stopped while they were still two stories.

  The outside of Jorgensen's looked like any other flimsy construction under the dome. We had just passed a row of small warehouses, and the only difference seemed to be the lighted sign at the front.

  "We can stop at the bar inside while we order dinner," I said.

  "Sounds good," said Howlet. "I could go for a decent meal. Rations on an exploring ship run more to calories than taste."

  The pilot muttered something behind us. Howlet turned his head.

  "Don't worry about it, Hughie," he retorted. "It'll be all over the dome by tomorrow anyway."

  "But they said not to--"

  "Mr. Lewis won't say anything, and he's not the only spacer who'll guess it."

  * * * * *

  It was easy to figure out. Ships did little exploring in the Belt now--plenty of untouched rocks there but nothing really unknown. "Exploring" could only mean that a hop to Jupiter was in the works at last. There had already been rumors about a few wide swings outside the Belt.

  Well, it was just about time.

  I would have liked to go too, and it was more than just a spacer's curiosity. To my mind, man had to move out in space. Being only halfway in control of his own planetary system was no state to be found in by the first interstellar visitors.