by Various
But then the second pirate swooped down in an unexpected dive. "Look out!" Preston yelled helplessly--but it was too late. Beams ripped into the hull of Mellors' ship, and a dark fissure line opened down the side of the ship. Preston smashed his hand against the control panel. Better to die in an honest dogfight than to live this way!
It was one against one, now--Gunderson against the pirate. Preston dropped back again to take advantage of the Patrol ship's protection.
"I'm going to try a diversionary tactic," Gunderson said on untappable tight-beam. "Get ready to cut under and streak for Ganymede with all you got."
"Check."
Preston watched as the tactic got under way. Gunderson's ship traveled in a long, looping spiral that drew the pirate into the upper quadrant of space. His path free, Preston guided his ship under the other two and toward unobstructed freedom. As he looked back, he saw Gunderson steaming for the pirate on a sure collision orbit.
He turned away. The score was two Patrolmen dead, two ships wrecked--but the mails would get through.
Shaking his head, Preston leaned forward over his control board and headed on toward Ganymede.
* * * * *
The blue-white, frozen moon hung beneath him. Preston snapped on the radio.
"Ganymede Colony? Come in, please. This is your Postal Ship." The words tasted sour in his mouth.
There was silence for a second. "Come in, Ganymede," Preston repeated impatiently--and then the sound of a distress signal cut across his audio pickup.
It was coming on wide beam from the satellite below--and they had cut out all receiving facilities in an attempt to step up their transmitter. Preston reached for the wide-beam stud, pressed it.
"Okay, I pick up your signal, Ganymede. Come in, now!"
"This is Ganymede," a tense voice said. "We've got trouble down here. Who are you?"
"Mail ship," Preston said. "From Earth. What's going on?"
There was the sound of voices whispering somewhere near the microphone. Finally: "Hello, Mail Ship?"
"Yeah?"
"You're going to have to turn back to Earth, fellow. You can't land here. It's rough on us, missing a mail trip, but--"
Preston said impatiently, "Why can't I land? What the devil's going on down there?"
"We've been invaded," the tired voice said. "The colony's been completely surrounded by iceworms."
"Iceworms?"
"The local native life," the colonist explained. "They're about thirty feet long, a foot wide, and mostly mouth. There's a ring of them about a hundred yards wide surrounding the Dome. They can't get in and we can't get out--and we can't figure out any possible approach for you."
"Pretty," Preston said. "But why didn't the things bother you while you were building your Dome?"
"Apparently they have a very long hibernation-cycle. We've only been here two years, you know. The iceworms must all have been asleep when we came. But they came swarming out of the ice by the hundreds last month."
"How come Earth doesn't know?"
"The antenna for our long-range transmitter was outside the Dome. One of the worms came by and chewed the antenna right off. All we've got left is this short-range thing we're using and it's no good more than ten thousand miles from here. You're the first one who's been this close since it happened."
"I get it." Preston closed his eyes for a second, trying to think things out.
* * * * *
The Colony was under blockade by hostile alien life, thereby making it impossible for him to deliver the mail. Okay. If he'd been a regular member of the Postal Service, he'd have given it up as a bad job and gone back to Earth to report the difficulty.
But I'm not going back. I'll be the best damned mailman they've got.
"Give me a landing orbit anyway, Ganymede."
"But you can't come down! How will you leave your ship?"
"Don't worry about that," Preston said calmly.
"We have to worry! We don't dare open the Dome, with those creatures outside. You can't come down, Postal Ship."
"You want your mail or don't you?"
The colonist paused. "Well--"
"Okay, then," Preston said. "Shut up and give me landing coordinates!"
There was a pause, and then the figures started coming over. Preston jotted them down on a scratch-pad.
"Okay, I've got them. Now sit tight and wait." He glanced contemptuously at the three mail-pouches behind him, grinned, and started setting up the orbit.
Mailman, am I? I'll show them!
* * * * *
He brought the Postal Ship down with all the skill of his years in the Patrol, spiralling in around the big satellite of Jupiter as cautiously and as precisely as if he were zeroing in on a pirate lair in the asteroid belt. In its own way, this was as dangerous, perhaps even more so.
Preston guided the ship into an ever-narrowing orbit, which he stabilized about a hundred miles over the surface of Ganymede. As his ship swung around the moon's poles in its tight orbit, he began to figure some fuel computations.
His scratch-pad began to fill with notations.
Fuel storage--
Escape velocity--
Margin of error--
Safety factor--
Finally he looked up. He had computed exactly how much spare fuel he had, how much he could afford to waste. It was a small figure--too small, perhaps.
He turned to the radio. "Ganymede?"
"Where are you, Postal Ship?"
"I'm in a tight orbit about a hundred miles up," Preston said. "Give me the figures on the circumference of your Dome, Ganymede?"
"Seven miles," the colonist said. "What are you planning to do?"
Preston didn't answer. He broke contact and scribbled some more figures. Seven miles of iceworms, eh? That was too much to handle. He had planned on dropping flaming fuel on them and burning them out, but he couldn't do it that way.
He'd have to try a different tactic.
Down below, he could see the blue-white ammonia ice that was the frozen atmosphere of Ganymede. Shimmering gently amid the whiteness was the transparent yellow of the Dome beneath whose curved walls lived the Ganymede Colony. Even forewarned, Preston shuddered. Surrounding the Dome was a living, writhing belt of giant worms.
"Lovely," he said. "Just lovely."
Getting up, he clambered over the mail sacks and headed toward the rear of the ship, hunting for the auxiliary fuel-tanks.
Working rapidly, he lugged one out and strapped it into an empty gun turret, making sure he could get it loose again when he'd need it.
He wiped away sweat and checked the angle at which the fuel-tank would face the ground when he came down for a landing. Satisfied, he knocked a hole in the side of the fuel-tank.
"Okay, Ganymede," he radioed. "I'm coming down."
He blasted loose from the tight orbit and rocked the ship down on manual. The forbidding surface of Ganymede grew closer and closer. Now he could see the iceworms plainly.
Hideous, thick creatures, lying coiled in masses around the Dome. Preston checked his spacesuit, making sure it was sealed. The instruments told him he was a bare ten miles above Ganymede now. One more swing around the poles would do it.
He peered out as the Dome came below and once again snapped on the radio.
* * * * *
"I'm going to come down and burn a path through those worms of yours. Watch me carefully, and jump to it when you see me land. I want that airlock open, or else."
"But--"
"No buts!"
He was right overhead now. Just one ordinary-type gun would solve the whole problem, he thought. But Postal Ships didn't get guns. They weren't supposed to need them.
He centered the ship as well as he could on the Dome below and threw it into automatic pilot. Jumping from the control panel, he ran back toward the gun turret and slammed shut the plexilite screen. Its outer wall opened and the fuel-tank went tumbling outward and down. He returned to his control-panel seat and looked
at the viewscreen. He smiled.
The fuel-tank was lying near the Dome--right in the middle of the nest of iceworms. The fuel was leaking from the puncture.
The iceworms writhed in from all sides.
"Now!" Preston said grimly.
The ship roared down, jets blasting. The fire licked out, heated the ground, melted snow--ignited the fuel-tank! A gigantic flame blazed up, reflected harshly off the snows of Ganymede.
And the mindless iceworms came, marching toward the fire, being consumed, as still others devoured the bodies of the dead and dying.
Preston looked away and concentrated on the business of finding a place to land the ship.
* * * * *
The holocaust still raged as he leaped down from the catwalk of the ship, clutching one of the heavy mail sacks, and struggled through the melting snows to the airlock.
He grinned. The airlock was open.
Arms grabbed him, pulled him through. Someone opened his helmet.
"Great job, Postman!"
"There are two more mail sacks," Preston said. "Get men out after them."
The man in charge gestured to two young colonists, who donned spacesuits and dashed through the airlock. Preston watched as they raced to the ship, climbed in, and returned a few moments later with the mail sacks.
"You've got it all," Preston said. "I'm checking out. I'll get word to the Patrol to get here and clean up that mess for you."
"How can we thank you?" the official-looking man asked.
"No need to," Preston said casually. "I had to get that mail down here some way, didn't I?"
He turned away, smiling to himself. Maybe the Chief had known what he was doing when he took an experienced Patrol man and dumped him into Postal. Delivering the mail to Ganymede had been more hazardous than fighting off half a dozen space pirates. I guess I was wrong, Preston thought. This is no snap job for old men.
Preoccupied, he started out through the airlock. The man in charge caught his arm. "Say, we don't even know your name! Here you are a hero, and--"
"Hero?" Preston shrugged. "All I did was deliver the mail. It's all in a day's work, you know. The mail's got to get through!"
THE END
* * *
Contents
THE MOST SENTIMENTAL MAN
by EVELYN E. SMITH
Once these irritating farewells were over with, he could begin to live as he wished and as he'd dreamed.
Johnson went to see the others off at Idlewild. He knew they'd expect him to and, since it would be the last conventional gesture he'd have to make, he might as well conform to their notions of what was right and proper.
For the past few centuries the climate had been getting hotter; now, even though it was not yet June, the day was uncomfortably warm. The sun's rays glinting off the bright metal flanks of the ship dazzled his eyes, and perspiration made his shirt stick to his shoulder blades beneath the jacket that the formality of the occasion had required. He wished Clifford would hurry up and get the leave-taking over with.
But, even though Clifford was undoubtedly even more anxious than he to finish with all this ceremony and take off, he wasn't the kind of man to let inclination influence his actions. "Sure you won't change your mind and come with us?"
Johnson shook his head.
The young man looked at him--hatred for the older man's complication of what should have been a simple departure showing through the pellicule of politeness. He was young for, since this trip had only slight historical importance and none of any other kind, the authorities had felt a junior officer entirely sufficient. It was clear, however, that Clifford attributed his commandership to his merits, and he was very conscious of his great responsibility.
"We have plenty of room on the ship," he persisted. "There weren't many left to go. We could take you easily enough, you know."
Johnson made a negative sign again. The rays of the sun beating full upon his head made apparent the grey that usually blended into the still-thick blond hair. Yet, though past youth, he was far from being an old man. "I've made my decision," he said, remembering that anger now was pointless.
"If it's--if you're just too proud to change your mind," the young commander said, less certainly, "I'm sure everyone will understand if ... if ..."
Johnson smiled. "No, it's just that I want to stay--that's all."
But the commander's clear blue eyes were still baffled, uneasy, as though he felt he had not done the utmost that duty--not duty to the service but to humanity--required. That was the trouble with people, Johnson thought: when they were most well-meaning they became most troublesome.
Clifford lowered his voice to an appropriately funeral hush, as a fresh thought obviously struck him. "I know, of course, that your loved ones are buried here and perhaps you feel it's your duty to stay with them...?"
At this Johnson almost forgot that anger no longer had any validity. By "loved ones" Clifford undoubtedly had meant Elinor and Paul. It was true that Johnson had had a certain affection for his wife and son when they were alive; now that they were dead they represented an episode in his life that had not, perhaps, been unpleasant, but was certainly over and done with now.
Did Clifford think that was his reason for remaining? Why, he must believe Johnson to be the most sentimental man on Earth. "And, come to think of it," Johnson said to himself, amused, "I am--or soon will be--just that."
The commander was still unconsciously pursuing the same train of thought. "It does seem incredible," he said in a burst of boyish candor that did not become him, for he was not that young, "that you'd want to stay alone on a whole planet. I mean to say--entirely alone.... There'll never be another ship, you know--at least not in your lifetime."
Johnson knew what the other man was thinking. If there'd been a woman with Johnson now, Clifford might have been able to understand a little better how the other could stick by his decision.
Johnson wriggled, as sweat oozed stickily down his back. "For God's sake," he said silently, "take your silly ship and get the hell off my planet." Aloud he said, "It's a good planet, a little worn-out but still in pretty good shape. Pity you can't trade in an old world like an old car, isn't it?"
"If it weren't so damned far from the center of things," the young man replied, defensively assuming the burden of all civilization, "we wouldn't abandon it. After all, we hate leaving the world on which we originated. But it's a long haul to Alpha Centauri--you know that--and a tremendously expensive one. Keeping up this place solely out of sentiment would be sheer waste--the people would never stand for the tax burden."
"A costly museum, yes," Johnson agreed.
How much longer were these dismal farewells going to continue? How much longer would the young man still feel the need to justify himself? "If only there were others fool enough--if only there were others with you.... But, even if anybody else'd be willing to cut himself off entirely from the rest of the civilized universe, the Earth won't support enough of a population to keep it running. Not according to our present living standards anyway.... Most of its resources are gone, you know--hardly any coal or oil left, and that's not worth digging for when there are better and cheaper fuels in the system."
He was virtually quoting from the Colonial Officer's Manual. Were there any people left able to think for themselves, Johnson wondered. Had there ever been? Had he thought for himself in making his decision, or was he merely clinging to a childish dream that all men had had and lost?
"With man gone, Earth will replenish herself," he said aloud. First the vegetation would begin to grow thick. Already it had released itself from the restraint of cultivation; soon it would be spreading out over the continent, overrunning the cities with delicately persistent green tendrils. Some the harsh winters would kill, but others would live on and would multiply. Vines would twist themselves about the tall buildings and tenderly, passionately squeeze them to death ... eventually send them tumbling down. And then the trees would rear themselves in their places.
Year after year the leaves would wither and fall and decay. Rock would cover them. And some day ... billions of years thence ... there would be coal and oil--and nobody to want them.
"Very likely Earth will replenish herself," the commander agreed, "but not in your time or your children's time.... That is, not in my children's time," he added hastily.
The handful of men lined up in a row before the airlock shuffled their feet and allowed their muttering to become a few decibels louder. Clifford looked at his wrist chronometer. Obviously he was no less anxious than the crew to be off, but, for the sake of his conscience, he must make a last try.
"Damn your conscience," Johnson thought. "I hope that for this you feel guilty as hell, that you wake up nights in a cold sweat remembering that you left one man alone on the planet you and your kind discarded. Not that I don't want to stay, mind you, but that I want you to suffer the way you're making me suffer now--having to listen to your platitudes."
The commander suddenly stopped paraphrasing the Manual. "Camping out's fun for a week or two, you know, but it's different when it's for a lifetime."
Johnson's fingers curled in his palms ... he was even angrier now that the commander had struck so close to home. Camping out ... was that all he was doing--fulfilling childhood desires, nothing more?
Fortunately Clifford didn't realize that he had scored, and scuttled back to the shelter of the Manual. "Perhaps you don't know enough about the new system in Alpha Centauri," he said, a trifle wildly. "It has two suns surrounded by three planets, Thalia, Aglaia, and Euphrosyne. Each of these planets is slightly smaller than Earth, so that the decrease in gravity is just great enough to be pleasant, without being so marked as to be inconvenient. The atmosphere is almost exactly like that of Earth's, except that it contains several beneficial elements which are absent here--and the climate is more temperate. Owing to the fact that the planets are partially shielded from the suns by cloud layers, the temperature--except immediately at the poles and the equators, where it is slightly more extreme--is always equable, resembling that of Southern California...."