Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  For one thing, it was a small, but dense world, with a surface gravity of one point two standard gees--not enough to be disabling, but enough to make a man feel sluggish. For another, its main export was farm products: there were very few large towns on Viornis, and no center of population that could really be called a city. Even here, at the spaceport, the busiest and largest town on the planet, the population was less than a million. It was a "new" world, with a history that didn't stretch back more than two centuries. With the careful population control exercised by the ruling Execs, it would probably remain small and provincial for another half millennium.

  The Guesser moseyed down one of the streets of Bellinberg probably named after the first Prime Executive of the planet--looking for a decent place for a spaceman to have a drink. It was evening, and the sinking of the yellow primary below the western horizon had left behind it a clear, star-filled sky that filled the air with a soft, white radiance. The streets of the town itself were well-lit by bright glow-plates imbedded in the walls of the buildings, but above the street level, the buildings themselves loomed darkly. Occasionally, an Exec's aircar would drift rapidly overhead with a soft rush of air, and, in the distance, he could see the shimmering towers of the Executive section rising high above the eight- or ten-storyed buildings that made up the majority of Bellinberg.

  The streets were fairly crowded with strollers--most of them Class Four or Five citizens who stepped deferentially aside as soon as they saw his uniform, and kept their eyes averted from him. Now and then, the power car of a Class Three rolled swiftly by, and The Guesser felt a slight twinge of envy. Technically, his own rank was the equivalent of Class Three, but he had never owned a groundcar. What need had a spaceman of a groundcar? Still, it would be nice to drive one just once, he thought; it would be a new experience, certainly.

  Right now, though, he was looking for a Class Three bar; just a place to have a small, quiet drink and a bite to eat. He had a perfect right to go into a lower class bar, of course, but he had never felt quite comfortable associating with his inferiors in such a manner, and certainly they would feel nervous in his presence because of the sidearm at his hip.

  No one below Class Three was allowed to carry a beamgun, and only Ones and Twos were allowed to wear the screening fields that protected them from the nerve-searing effects of the weapon. And they, being Execs, were in no danger from each other.

  Finally, after much walking, he decided that he was in the wrong part of town. There were no Class Three bars anywhere along these streets. Perhaps, he thought, he should have gone to the Spacemen's Club at the spaceport itself. On the other hand, he hadn't particularly wanted to see any of the other minor officers of his own class after the near-fiasco which had damaged the Naipor. Being a Guesser set him apart, even from other Threes.

  He thought for a moment of asking a policeman, but he dismissed it. Cops, as always, were a breed apart. Besides, they weren't on the streets to give directions, but to preserve order.

  At last, he went into a nearby Class Four bar and snapped his fingers for the bartender, ignoring the sudden silence that had followed his entrance.

  The barman set down a glass quickly and hurried over, bobbing his head obsequiously. "Yes, sir; yes, sir. What can I do for you, sir? It's an honor to have you here, sir. How may I serve you?"

  The man himself was wearing the distinctive clothing of a Five, so his customers outranked him, but the brassard on his arm showed that his master was a Two, which afforded him enough authority to keep reasonable order in the place.

  "Where's the nearest Class Three bar?" The Guesser snapped.

  The barman looked faintly disappointed, but he didn't lose his obsequiousness. "Oh, that's quite a way from here, sir--about the closest would be Mallard's, over on Fourteenth Street and Upper Drive. A mile, at least."

  The Guesser scowled. He was in the wrong section of town, all right.

  "But I'd be honored to serve you, sir," the barman hurried on. "Private booth, best of everything, perfect privacy--"

  The Guesser shook his head quickly. "No. Just tell me how to get to Mallard's."

  The barman looked at him for a moment, rubbing a fingertip across his chin, then he said: "You're not driving, I suppose, sir? No? Well, then, you can either take the tubeway or walk, sir...." He let the sentence hang, waiting for The Guesser's decision.

  The Guesser thought rapidly. Tubeways were for Fours and Fives. Threes had groundcars; Ones and Twos had aircars; Sixes and below walked. And spacemen walked.

  Trouble is, spacemen aren't used to walking, especially on a planet where they weigh twenty per cent more than they're used to. The Guesser decided he'd take the tubeway; at the Class Three bar, he might be able to talk someone into driving him to the spaceport later.

  But five minutes later, he was walking in the direction the bartender had told him to take for finding Mallard's on foot. To get to the tubeway was a four-block walk, and then there would be another long walk after he got off. Hoofing it straight there would be only a matter of five blocks difference, and it would at least spare him the embarrassment of taking the tube.

  * * * * *

  It was a foolish thing to do, perhaps, but once The Guesser had set his mind on something, it took a lot more than a long walk to dissuade him from his purpose. He saw he was not the only spaceman out on the town; one of the Class Five taverns he passed was filled with boisterous singing, and he could see a crowd of men standing around three crewmen who were leading them in a distinctly off-color ballad. The Guesser smiled a little to himself. Let them have their fun while they were on-planet; their lives weren't exactly bright aboard ship.

  Of course, they got as much as was good for them in the way of entertainment, but a little binge gave them something to look forward to, and a good nerve-burning would sober them up fast enough if they made the mistake of coming back drunk.

  Nerve-burning didn't really bother a Five much, after all; they were big, tough, work-hardened clods, whose minds and brains simply didn't have the sensitivity to be hurt by that sort of treatment. Oh, they screamed as loud as anyone when they were in the burner, but it really didn't have much effect on them. They were just too thick-skulled to have it make much difference to them one way or the other.

  On the other hand, an Exec would probably go all to pieces in a burner. If it didn't kill him outright, he'd at least be sick for days. They were too soft to take even a touch of it. No Class One, so far as The Guesser knew, had ever been subjected to that sort of treatment, and a Two only got it rarely. They just weren't used to it; they wouldn't have the stamina to take it.

  His thoughts were interrupted suddenly by the familiar warning that rang in his mind like a bell. He realized suddenly, as he became blazingly aware of his surroundings, that he had somehow wandered into a definitely low-class neighborhood. Around him were the stark, plain housing groups of Class Six families. The streets were more dimly lit, and there was almost no one on the street, since it was after curfew time for Sixes. The nearest pedestrian was a block off and moving away.

  All that took him but a fraction of a second to notice, and he knew that it was not his surroundings which had sparked the warning in his mind. There was something behind him--moving.

  What had told him? Almost nothing. The merest touch of a foot on the soft pavement--the faintest rustle of clothing--the whisper of something moving through the air.

  Almost nothing--but enough. To a man who had played blindfold baseball, it was plenty. He knew that someone not ten paces behind him had thrown something heavy, and he knew its exact trajectory to within a thousandth of a millimeter, and he knew exactly how to move his head to avoid the missile.

  He moved it, at the same time jerking his body to one side. It had only been a guess--but what more did a Guesser need?

  From the first hint of warning to the beginning of the dodging motion, less than half a second had passed.

  He started to spin around as the heavy object went by him,
but another warning yelped in his mind. He twisted a little, but it was too late.

  Something burned horribly through his body, like a thousand million acid-tipped, white-hot needles jabbing through skin and flesh and sinking into the bone. He couldn't even scream.

  He blacked out as if he'd been a computer suddenly deprived of power.

  II

  Of course, came the thought, a very good way to put out a fire is to pour cold water on it. That's a very good idea.

  At least, it had put out the fire.

  Fire? What fire? The fire in his body, the scalding heat that had been quenched by the cold water.

  Slowly, as though it were being turned on through a sluggishly turning rheostat, consciousness came back to The Guesser.

  He began to recognize the sensations in his body. There was a general, all-over dull ache, punctuated here and there by sharper aches. There was the dampness and the chill. And there was the queer, gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  At first, he did not think of how he had gotten where he was, nor did he even wonder about his surroundings. There seemed merely to be an absolute urgency to get out of wherever he was and, at the same time, an utter inability to do so. He tried to move, to shift position, but his muscles seemed so terribly tired that flexing them was a high-magnitude effort.

  After several tries, he got his arms under his chest, and only then did he realize that he had been lying prone, his right cheek pressed against cold, slimy stone. He lifted himself a little, but the effort was too much, and he collapsed again, his body making a faint splash as he did so.

  He lay there for a while, trying to puzzle out his odd and uncomfortable environment. He seemed to be lying on a sloping surface with his head higher than his feet. The lower part of his body was immersed in chill, gently-moving water. And there was something else--

  The smell.

  It was an incredible stench, an almost overpowering miasma of decay.

  He moved his head then, and forced his eyes open. There was a dim, feeble glow from somewhere overhead and to his right, but it was enough to show him a vaulted ceiling a few feet above him. He was lying in some sort of tube which--

  And then the sudden realization came.

  He was in a sewer.

  The shock of it cleared his mind a little, and gave added strength to his muscles. He pushed himself to his hands and knees and began crawling toward the dim light. It wasn't more than eight or ten feet, but it seemed to take an eternity for him to get there. Above him was a grating, partially covered with a soggy-looking sheet of paper. The light evidently came from a glow-plate several yards away.

  He lay there, exhausted and aching, trying to force his brain into action, trying to decide what to do next.

  He'd have to lift the grating, of course; that much was obvious. And he'd have to stand up to do that. Did he have the strength?

  Only one way to find out. Again he pushed himself to his hands and knees, and it seemed easier this time. Then, bracing himself against the curving wall of the sewer, he got to his feet. His knees were weak and wobbly, but they'd hold. They had to hold.

  The top of the sewer duct was not as far off as it had seemed; he had to stoop to keep from banging his head against the grating. He paused in that position to catch his breath, and then reached up, first with one hand and then with the other, to grasp the grating.

  Then, with all the strength he could gather, he pushed upwards. The hinged grate moved upwards and banged loudly on the pavement.

  There remained the problem of climbing out of the hole. The Guesser never knew how he solved it. Somehow, he managed to find himself out of the sewer and lying exhausted on the pavement.

  He knew that there was some reason why he couldn't just lie there forever, some reason why he had to hide where he couldn't be seen.

  It was not until that moment that he realized that he was completely naked. He had been stripped of everything, including the chronometer on his wrist.

  With an effort, he heaved himself to his feet again and began running, stumbling drunkenly, yet managing somehow to keep on his feet. He had to find shelter, find help.

  Somewhere in there, his mind blanked out again.

  * * * * *

  He awoke feeling very tired and weak, yet oddly refreshed, as though he had slept for a long time. When his eyes opened, he simply stared at the unfamiliar room for a long time without thinking--without really caring to think. He only knew that he was warm and comfortable and somehow safe, and it was such a pleasant feeling after the nightmare of cold and terror that he only wanted to enjoy it without analyzing it.

  But the memory of the nightmare came again, and he couldn't repress it. And he knew it hadn't been a nightmare, but reality.

  Full recollection flooded over him.

  Someone had shot him with a beamgun, that nasty little handweapon that delivered in one powerful, short jolt the same energy that was doled out in measured doses over a period of minutes in a standard nerve-burner. He remembered jerking aside at the last second, just before the weapon was fired, and it was evidently that which had saved his life. If the beam had hit him in the head or spine, he'd be dead now.

  Then what? Guessing about something that had happened in the past was futile, and, anyway, guessing didn't apply to situations like that. But he thought he could pretty well figure out what had happened.

  After he'd been shot down, his assailant had probably dragged him off somewhere and stripped him, and then dumped him bodily into the sewer. The criminal had undoubtedly thought that The Guesser was dead; if the body had been found, days or weeks later, it would be unidentifiable, and probably dismissed as simply another unsolved murder. They were rather common in low-class districts such as this.

  Which brought him back again to the room.

  He sat up in bed and looked around. Class Six Standard Housing. Hard, gray, cast polymer walls--very plain. Ditto floor and ceiling. Single glow-plate overhead. Rough, gray bedclothing.

  Someone had found him after that careening flight from the terror of the sewer and had brought him here. Who?

  Who?

  The sense of well-being he had felt upon awakening had long since deserted him. What he felt now was a queer mixture of disgust and fear. He had never known a Class Six. Even the lowest crewman on the Naipor was a Five.

  Uneasily, The Guesser climbed out of the bed. He was wearing a sack-like gray dress that fell almost to his knees, and nothing else. He walked on silent bare feet to the door. He could hear nothing beyond it, so he twisted the handle carefully and eased it open a crack.

  And immediately he heard low voices. The first was a man's.

  "... Like you pick up dogs, hey." He sounded angry. "He bring trouble on high, that'n. Look, you, at the face he got. He no Sixer, no, nor even Fiver. Exec, that's what. Trouble."

  Then a woman's voice. "Exec, he?" A sharp laugh. "Naked, dirty-wet, sick, he fall on my door. Since when Execs ask help from Sixer chippie like I? And since when Execs talk like Sixer when they out of they head? No fancy Exec talk, he, no."

  The Guesser didn't understand that. If the woman was talking about him--and she must be--then surely he had not spoken the illiterate patois of the Class Six people when he was delirious.

  The woman went on. "No, Lebby; you mind you business; me, I mind mine. Here, you take you this and get some food. Now, go, now. Come back at dark."

  The man grumbled something The Guesser didn't understand, but there seemed to be a certain amount of resignation in his voice. Then a door opened and closed, and there was a moment of silence.

  * * * * *

  Then he heard the woman's footsteps approaching the partially opened door. And her voice said: "You lucky Lebby have he back to you when you open the door. If he even see it move, he know you wake."

  The Guesser backed away from the door as she came in.

  She was a drab woman, with a colorlessness of face that seemed to match the colorlessness of her clothing. Her hair
was cropped short, and she seemed to sag all over, as though her body were trying to conform to the shapelessness of the dress instead of the reverse. When she forced a smile to her face, it didn't seem to fit, as though her mouth were unused to such treatment from the muscles.

  "How you feel?" she asked, stopping just inside the room.

  "I ... uh--" The Guesser hardly knew what to say. He was in a totally alien environment, a completely unknown situation. "I'm fine," he said at last.

  She nodded. "You get plenty sleep, all right. Like dead, except when you talk to yourself."

  Then he had spoken in delirium. "How ... how long was I out?"

  "Three days," she said flatly. "Almost four." She paused. "You ship leave."

  "Leave?" The Guesser said blankly. "The Naipor? Gone?" It seemed as if the world had dropped away from his feet, leaving him to fall endlessly through nothingness. It was true, of course. It didn't take more than twenty-four hours to unload the ship's holds, and, since there had been no intention of reloading, there was no need to stay. He had long overstayed the scheduled take-off time.

  It created a vacuum in his mind, a hole in his very being that could never be filled by anything else. The ship was his whole life--his home, his work, his security.

  "How did you know about the ship?" he asked in a dazed voice.

  "A notice," she said. She fished around in one of the big pockets of the gray dress and her hand came out with a crumpled sheet of glossy paper. She handed it to him silently. It was a Breach of Contract notice.

  WANTED for BREACH OF CONTRACT

  JAIM JAKOM DIEGO

  AGE: 35 HEIGHT: 185 cm WEIGHT: 96 kg HAIR: black EYES: blue COMPLXN: fair

  Jaim Jakom Diego, Spacetech 3rd Guesser, broke contract with Interstellar Trade Corporation on 3/37/119 by failing to report for duty aboard home merchantship Naipor on that date. All citizens are notified hereby that said Jaim Jakom Diego is unemployable except by the ITC, and that he has no housing, clothing, nor subsistance rights on any planet, nor any right to transportation of any kind.