Citizen in Space ssc-2

by Robert Sheckley

  He found it. There were four small vents in the deck and each of them was feeding a smooth, even flow of oil.

  Agee punched the stud that opened his door and found that it remained sealed. Refusing to grow panicky, he examined the door with care.

  It should open.

  It didn't.

  The oil was almost up to his knees.

  He grinned foolishly. Stupid of him! The pilot room was sealed from the control board. He pressed the release and went back to the door.

  It still refused to open.

  Agee tugged at it with all his strength, but it wouldn't budge. He waded back to the control panel. There had been no oil when they found the ship. That meant there had to be a drain somewhere.

  The oil was waist-deep before he found it. Quickly the oil disappeared. Once it was gone, the door opened easily.

  "What's the matter?" Barnett asked.

  Agee told him.

  "So that's how he does it," Barnett said quietly. "Glad I found out."

  "Does what?" Agee asked, feeling that Barnett was taking the whole thing too lightly.

  "How he stands the acceleration of takeoff. It bothered me. He hadn't anything on board that resembled a bed or cot. No chairs, nothing to strap into. So he floats in the oil bath, which turns on automatically when the ship is prepared for flight."

  "But why wouldn't the door open?" Agee asked.

  "Isn't it obvious?" Barnett said, smiling patiently. "He wouldn't want oil all over the ship. And he wouldn't want it to drain out accidentally."

  "We can't take off," Agee insisted.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I can't breathe very well under oil. It turns on automatically with the power and there's no way of turning it off."

  "Use your head," Barnett told him. "Just tie down the drain switch. The oil will be carried away as fast as it comes in."

  "Yeah, I hadn't thought of that," Agee admitted unhappily.

  "Go ahead, then."

  "I want to change my clothes first."

  "No. Get this damned ship off the ground."

  "But, Captain —"

  "Get her moving," Barnett ordered. "For all we know, that alien is planning something."

  Agee shrugged his shoulders, returned to the pilot room and strapped in.

  "Ready?"

  "Yes, get her moving."

  He tied down the drain circuit and the oil flowed safely in and out, not rising higher than the tops of his shoes. He activated all the controls without further incident.

  "Here goes." He set minimum acceleration and blew on his fingertips for luck.

  Then he punched the blast-switch.

  With profound regret, Kalen watched his ship depart. He was still holding the thetnite bomb in his hand.

  He had reached his ship, had even stood under her for a few seconds. Then he had crept back to the alien vessel. He had been unable to set the bomb. Centuries of conditioning were too much to overcome in a few hours.

  Conditioning — and something more.

  Few individuals of any race murder for pleasure. There are perfectly adequate reasons to kill, though, reasons which might satisfy any philosopher.

  But, once accepted, there are more reasons, and more and more. And murder, once accepted, is hard to stop. It leads irresistibly to war and, from there, to annihilation.

  Kalen felt that this murder somehow involved the destiny of his race. His abstinence had been almost a matter of race-survival.

  But it didn't make him feel any better.

  He watched his ship dwindle to a dot in the sky. The aliens were leaving at a ridiculously slow speed. He could think of no reason for this, unless they were doing it for his benefit.

  Undoubtedly they were sadistic enough for that.

  Kalen returned to the ship. His will to live was as strong as ever. He had no intention of giving up. He would hang onto life as long as he could, hoping for the one chance in a million that would bring another ship to this planet.

  Looking around, he thought that he might concoct an air substitute out of the skull-marked cleanser. It would sustain him for a day or two. Then, if he could open the kerla nut.

  He thought he heard a noise outside and rushed to look. The sky was empty. His ship had vanished, and he was alone.

  He returned to the alien ship and set about the serious business of staying alive.

  As Agee recovered consciousness, he found that he had managed to cut the acceleration in half, just before passing out. This was the only thing that had saved his life.

  And the acceleration, hovering just above zero on the dial, was still unbearably heavy! Agee unsealed the door and crawled out.

  Barnett and Victor had burst their straps on the takeoff. Victor was just returning to consciousness. Barnett picked himself out of a pile of smashed cases.

  "Do you think you're flying in a circus?" he complained. "I told you minimum acceleration."

  "I started under minimum acceleration," Agee said. "Go read the tape for yourself."

  Barnett marched to the control room. He came out quickly.

  "That's bad. Our alien friend operates this ship at three times our acceleration."

  "That's the way it looks."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Barnett said thoughtfully. "He must come from a heavy planet — a place where you have to blast out at high speed, if you expect to get out at all."

  "What hit me?" Victor groaned, rubbing his head.

  There was a clicking in the walls. The ship was fully awake now, and its servos turned on automatically.

  "Getting warm, isn't it?" Victor asked.

  "Yeah, and thick," Agee said. "Pressure buildup." He went back to the control room. Barnett and Victor stood anxiously in the doorway, waiting.

  "I can't turn it off," Agee said, wiping perspiration from his streaming face. "The temperature and pressure are automatic. They must go to 'normal' as soon as the ship is in flight."

  "You damn well better turn them off," Barnett told him. "We'll fry in here if you don't."

  "There's no way."

  "He must have some kind of heat regulation."

  "Sure — there!" Agee said, pointing. "The control is already set at its lowest point."

  "What do you suppose his normal temperature is?" Barnett asked.

  "I'd hate to find out," Agee said. "This ship is built of extremely high melting-point alloys. It's constructed to withstand ten times the pressure of an Earth ship. Put those together.»

  "You must be able to turn it off somewhere!" Barnett said. He peeled off his jacket and sweater. The heat was mounting rapidly and the deck was becoming too hot to stand on. "Turn it off!" Victor howled.

  "Wait a minute," Agee said. "I didn't build this ship, you know. How should I know —"

  "Off!" Victor screamed, shaking Agee up and down like a rag doll. "Off!"

  "Let go!" Agee half-drew his blaster. Then, in a burst of inspiration, he turned off the ship's engines.

  The clicking in the walls stopped. The room began to cool. "What happened?" Victor asked.

  "The temperature and pressure fall when the power is off," Agee said. "We're safe — as long as we don't run the engines."

  "How long will it take us to coast to a port?" Barnett asked. Agee figured it out. "About three years," he said. "We're pretty far out."

  "Isn't there any way we can rip out those servos? Disconnect them?"

  "They're built into the guts of the ship," Agee said. "We'd need a full machine shop and skilled help. Even then, it wouldn't be easy."

  Barnett was silent for a long time. Finally he said, "All right."

  "All right what?"

  "We're licked. We've got to go back to that planet and take our own ship."

  Agee heaved a sigh of relief and punched a new course on the ship's tape.

  "You think the alien'll give it back?" Victor asked. "Sure he will," Barnett said, "if he's not dead. He'll be pretty anxious to get his own ship back. And he has to leave our ship to get
in his."

  "Sure. But once he gets back in this ship.»

  "We'll gimmick the controls," Barnett said. "That'll slow him down."

  "For a little while," Agee pointed out. "But he'll get into the air sooner or later, with blood in his eye. We'll never outrun him."

  "We won't have to," Barnett said. "All we have to do is get into the air first. He's got a strong hull, but I don't think it'll take three atomic bombs."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Agee said, smiling faintly.

  "Only logical move," Barnett said complacently. "The alloys in the hull will still be worth something. Now, get us back without frying us, if you can."

  Agee turned the engines on. He swung the ship around in a tight curve, piling on all the Gs they could stand. The servos clicked on, and the temperature shot rapidly up. Once the curve was rounded, Agee pointed Endeavor II in the right direction and shut off the engines.

  They coasted most of the way. But when they reached the planet, Agee had to leave the engines on, to bring them around the deceleration spiral and into the landing.

  They were barely able to get out of the ship. Their skins were blistered and their shoes burned through. There was no time to gimmick the controls.

  They retreated to the woods and waited.

  "Perhaps he's dead," Agee said hopefully.

  They saw a small figure emerge from Endeavor I. The alien was moving slowly, but he was moving.

  They watched. "Suppose," Victor said, "he's made a weapon of some kind. Suppose he comes after us."

  "Suppose you shut up," Barnett said.

  The alien walked directly to his own ship. He went inside and shut the locks.

  "All right," Barnett said, standing up. "We'd better blast off in a hurry. Agee, you take the controls. I'll connect the piles. Victor, you secure the locks. Let's go!"

  They sprinted across the plain and, in a matter of seconds, had reached the open airlock of Endeavor I.

  Even if he had wanted to hurry, Kalen didn't have the necessary strength to pilot his ship. But he knew that he was safe, once inside. No alien was going to walk through those sealed ports.

  He found a spare air tank in the rear and opened it. His ship filled with rich, life-giving yellow air. For long minutes, Kalen just breathed it.

  Then he lugged three of the biggest kerla nuts he could find to the galley and let the Cracker open them.

  After eating, he felt much better. He let the Changer take off his outer hide. The second layer was dead, too, and the Changer cut that off him, but stopped at the third, living layer.

  He was almost as good as new when he slipped into the pilot's room.

  It was apparent to him now that the aliens had been temporarily insane. There was no other way to explain why they had come back and returned his ship.

  Therefore, he would find their authorities and report the location of the planet. They could be found and cured, once and for all.

  Kalen felt very happy. He had not deviated from the Mabogian ethic, and that was the important thing. He could so easily have left the thetnite bomb in their ship, all set and timed. He could have wrecked their engines. And there had been a temptation.

  But he had not. He had done nothing at all.

  All he had done was construct a few minimum essentials for the preservation of life.

  Kalen activated his controls and found that everything was in perfect working order. The acceleration fluid poured in as he turned on the piles.

  Victor reached the airlock first and dashed in. Instantly, he was hurled back.

  "What happened?" Barnett asked.

  "Something hit me," Victor said.

  Cautiously, they looked inside.

  It was a very neat death trap. Wires from the storage batteries had been hooked in series and rigged across the port.

  If Victor had been touching the side of the ship, he would have been electrocuted instantly.

  They shorted out the system and entered the ship.

  It was a mess. Everything movable had been ripped up and strewn around. There was a bent steel bar in a corner. Their high-potency acid had been spilled over the deck and had eaten through in several places. The Endeavor's old hull was holed.

  "I never thought he'd gimmick us!" Agee said.

  They explored further. Toward the rear was another booby trap. The cargo hold door had been cunningly rigged to the small starter motor. If anyone touched it, the door would be slammed against the wall. A man caught between would be crushed.

  There were other hookups that gave no hint of their purpose.

  "Can we fix it?" Barnett asked.

  Agee shrugged his shoulders. "Most of our tools are still on board Endeavor II. I suppose we can get her patched up inside of a year. But even then, I don't know if the hull will hold."

  They walked outside. The alien ship blasted off.

  "What a monster!" Barnett said, looking at the acid-eaten hull of his ship.

  "You can never tell what an alien will do," Agee answered.

  "The only good alien is a dead alien," Victor said.

  Endeavor I was now as incomprehensible and dangerous as Endeavor II.

  And Endeavor II was gone.

  Something For Nothing

  But had he heard a voice? He couldn’t be sure. Reconstructing it a moment later, Joe Collins knew he had been lying on his bed, too tired even to take his waterlogged shoes off the blanket. He had been staring at the network of cracks in the muddy yellow ceiling, watching water drip slowly and mournfully through. It must have happened then. Collins caught a glimpse of metal beside his bed. He sat up. There was a machine on the floor, where no machine had been. In that first moment of surprise, Collins thought he heard a very distant voice say, “There! That does it!” He couldn’t be sure of the voice. But the machine was undeniably there. Collins knelt to examine it. The machine was about three feet square and it was humming softly. The crackle-grey surface was featureless, except for a red button in one corner and a brass plate in the centre. The plate said, CLASS-A UTILIZER, SERIES AA-1256432. And underneath, WARNING! THIS MACHINE SHOULD BE USED ONLY BY CLASS-A RATINGS! That was all. There were no knobs, dials, switches or any of the other attachments Collins associated with machines. Just the brass plate, the red button and the hum.

  “Where did you come from?” Collins asked. The Class-A Utilizer continued to hum. He hadn’t really expected an answer. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he stared thoughtfully at the Utilizer. The question now was — what to do with it? He touched the red button warily, aware of his lack of experience with machines that fell from nowhere. When he turned it on, would the floor open up? Would little green men drop from the ceiling? But he had slightly less than nothing to lose. He pressed the button lightly. Nothing happened. “All right — do something,” Collins said, feeling definitely let down. The Utilizer only continued to hum softly. Well, he could always pawn it. Honest Charlie would give him at least a dollar for the metal. He tried to lift the Utilizer. It wouldn’t lift. He tried again, exerting all his strength, and succeeded in raising one corner an inch from the floor. He released it and sat down on the bed, breathing heavily.

  “You should have sent a couple of men to help me,” Collins told the Utilizer. Immediately, the hum grew louder and the machine started to vibrate. Collins watched, but still nothing happened. On a hunch, he reached out and stabbed the red button. Immediately, two bulky men appeared, dressed in rough work-clothes. They looked at the Utilizer appraisingly. One of them said, “Thank God, it’s the small model. The big ones is brutes to get a grip on.”

  The other man said, “It beats the marble quarry, don’t it?” They looked at Collins, who stared back. Finally the first man said, “Okay, Mac, we ain’t got all day. Where you want it?”

  “Who are you?” Collins managed to croak.

  “The moving men. Do we look like the Vanizaggi Sisters?”

  “But where do you come from?” Collins asked. “And why?”

  “We come fro
m the Powha Minnile Movers, Incorporated,” the man said. “And we came because you wanted movers, that’s why. Now, where you want it?”

  “Go away,” Collins said. “I’ll call for you later.” The moving men shrugged their shoulders and vanished. For several minutes, Collins stared at the spot where they had been. Then he stared at the Class-A Utilizer, which was humming softly again. Utilizer? He could give it a better name.

  A Wishing Machine. Collins was not particularly shocked. When the miraculous occurs, only dull, workaday mentalities are unable to accept it. Collins was certainly not one of those. He had an excellent background for acceptance. Most of his life had been spent wishing, hoping, praying that something marvellous would happen to him. In high school, he had dreamed of waking up some morning with an ability to know his homework without the tedious necessity of studying it. In the army, he had wished for some witch or jinn to change his orders, putting him in charge of the day room, instead of forcing him to do close order drill like everyone else. Out of the army, Collins had avoided work, for which he was psychologically unsuited. He had drifted around, hoping that some fabulously wealthy person would be induced to change his will, leaving him Everything. He had never really expected anything to happen. But he was prepared when it did.

  “I’d like a thousand dollars in small unmarked bills,” Collins said cautiously. When the hum grew louder, he pressed the button. In front of him appeared a large mound of soiled singles, five and ten dollar bills. They were not crisp, but they certainly were money. Collins threw a handful in the air and watched it settle beautifully to the floor. He lay on his bed and began making plans. First, he would get the machine out of New York — upstate, perhaps — some place where he wouldn’t be bothered by nosy neighbours. The income tax would be tricky on this sort of thing. Perhaps, after he got organised, he should go to Central America, or …

  There was a suspicious noise in the room. Collins leaped to his feet. A hole was opening in the wall, and someone was forcing his way through.