“Mad!” the mayor whispered, as he saw the shocked faces, “The man’s man’s demoralised—completely! That’s what space does to you, I suppose.”
* * * *
Despite the misgivings of the mayor the captain turned up two hours later in the vast banqueting hall, companions on either side of him. In evening-dress he looked like a civilised west African, but from the way he ranted and expounded there were some who wondered if he were even civilised. He addressed all his remarks to his associates. The tables might have been empty except for them. Only when the mayor stood up to make a speech of thanks did Tyme look to the head of the table.
“In the past,” the mayor said shakenly. “we have paid tribute to men and women who have conquered the air, the sea, the mountains, and the stratosphere. But here we have a man—nay, men—of surpassing courage, men who braved the abysses of space to prove one can reach another world and come back alive. I give you the greatest hero in the world to date—Mark Tyme.”
Tyme sat in silence whilst the toast was drunk, then he was on his feet again, hitching at a belt that wasn’t there.
“I’m obliged for this welcome,” he bellowed; then suddenly realising something he moderated his voice. “Sorry, friends: I got that way from shouting in the Venusian jungles. Anyway, there isn’t really much to tell. You’ll read the full reports and see the films we took. Venus has heat that makes Death Valley seem like the Yukon in mid-winter. I could tell you of life that lives in trees; of weird animals just waiting to finish you. I could tell you the kind of guts a man needs to battle with such things, and get back to Earth alive. And for what?” Tyme looked around him. “To talk to a lot of frozen faces belonging to people who are mighty jealous I ever got away with it.”
There was a gentle clearing of throats, then a bewhiskered gentleman asked a question:
“Tell me, Captain, is Venus populated?”
“Yes,” Tymc nodded. “By a race of bipeds like us. They represent the ‘civilisation’ of Venus, and their social scale is about on a line with our cannibals. Cunning devils, worshiping pagan gods and bartering in old stones. I sold ’em a pair of broken field glasses for a handful of pebbles.”
“Perhaps,” said a hatchet-faced woman who represented the World Enlightenment League, “we might be able to educate these poor souls in the amenities of life?”
“You might—if you call it one of the amenities of life to sit around in evening-dress and eat burned meat.”
“I was thinking of the value of them learning Latin,” the hatchet-faced woman retorted. “Such an uplift! I must put the matter before my committee.”
“Well,” Tyme said, into the uneasy silence which dropped, “I’ve one more thing to say, then I’m going outside to grab a chestful of air. If any of you folks is interested in starting a new type of drink see me tomorrow. I’ve brought a chemical back from Venus which, when mixed with water, will knock your head backwards. I’d also be glad to see anybody who runs a flower shop. I’ve some Venusian roots, which give flowers shaped like dumb-bells. They smell of hundred per cent carnation. On Venus there’s a hundred-mile carpet of them, and you can take it from me the whole place around there just stinks.”
The Mayor coughed unnecessarily. Tyme glanced at him.
“Mr. Mayor, did I understand you to say that the rooms in this building are mine until I set off into space again?”
“Certainly, Captain. You have the freedom of the city.”
“I don’t want the city; only the rooms. Just so as you folks who want to do a spot of business will know where to find me. Make it tomorrow morning. And now,”—Tyme kicked his chair backwards forcibly—“I’m going to have a walk and plant my feet on God’s solid Earth for an hour or two. Thanks for the feast.”
He nodded briefly, glanced around him with his startling eyes, then went on his way. The mayor gave a sickly smile as he beheld the astonished faces around him.
“We must forgive the Captain’s eccentricities,” he mumbled. “Venus, you know! After all, great achievement.”
Nobody made any direct comment. The party began to break up, dividing into little groups to discuss the departed guest of honour. Fifteen minutes later Mark Tyme burst in again, attired in open-necked sports jersey and heavy tweed pants.
“Where’s my blasted hat?” he demanded, drooping a menacing eyelid.
“H-hat?” the mayor gulped, staring. “What hat?”
“My topee, of course! I always wear it. Worn it for five years. And don’t tell me it isn’t conventional—because I don’t give a hoot for convention. Somebody’s taken it! It was on the table by the door—”
Tyme paused and glared as a youngish woman emerged from the crowd of guests and looked at him demurely.
“I—I took it, Captain!” Her confession was humble. “I’ve always admired you. In your pictures and things, I mean. We wanted a souvenir!” she finished boldly.
“We?” Tyme bellowed. “Who the heck’s ‘we’?”
“The Mark Tyme Teenagers’ Association. I’m Monica Verity, the president. My father’s Dudley Verity, the banking—”
“I don’t want your history, girl; I want my hat! And what’s the Mark Tyme Teenagers’ Association? I never heard of it.”
“You won’t have,” Monica ventured nearer to the sun-blackened giant. “We formed it whilst you were away. Five hundred girls between fifteen and twenty-five. Of course, over twenty isn’t strictly teenage, but we’re not that particular. I took your hat because you had worn it. Venusians have touched it. It is something sacred! Whilst you were upstairs with that manservant of yours I watched my chance, bobbed in your room, and took it. See?”
“Where,” Tyme asked thickly, “is the hat now?”
“Enshrined!”
“’Struth!”
“Yes, enshrined! Our headquarters are a room in Talford Building, three-hundredth floor. Your hat is there. I gave it to my best friend to take away quickly. She was waiting. Right now, captain, your hat will be under a glass dome on top of a little pedestal. Now we can all bow down to it. You don’t mind, do you? There are plenty of sun helmets, but only one we can cherish… I want you to come and address us girls. We’d like to have our hero to ourselves for an hour.”
“Five hundred teenagers? Me?” Tyme was visibly shaken. “If you don’t mind, Miss Verity, just keep the hat… Best thing I can do is step out and buy me a new lid.”
He vanished into the hall then looked at the commissionaire.
“Can you beat it?” he demanded, “A kid pinches my hat and puts it under a glass cover so she and a lot of other kids can worship it. Shows what fame can do to you, doesn’t it?”
The commissionaire reflected. “I seem to remember my old lady kept cheese under a cover too,” he mused.
Tyme clenched his fists, then changed his mind. Big though he was the commissionaire was even bigger. For once in his life the great explorer chose discretion.
* * * *
The following morning Tymes slammed down a newspaper on the breakfast table and gave a snort of snort of wrath.
“Barrett, I don’t like these headlines! One says ‘Is Tymc a Nut?’ and another describes me as the ‘Admirable Piecan.’ Still another seems to think ir’s hellish funny to have a topee under a glass dome three hundred floors from the ground. Do you think it’s funny?”
“Let us say—er—a trifle unusual, sir,” Barrett murmured. “After all, you know what newspapers are! Jealous of the great…”
It was not by accident that Barrett had kept his job with Tyme for fifteen years.
“Sooner we take off on another expedition the better I’ll like it,” Tyme muttered. “All a matter of getting the money to do it. We’ve got to sell those plants and minerals, Barrett.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, you could make a vast fortune if you cared to sell the formula for your spaceship fuel and the unique design of the ship itself. You—”
“And have governments strangling each other to fly into space
and clean up the planets? Not if I know it! I’m the only man with the key to the void at the moment and it stays my property.”
Barrett’s haggard look showed he was thinking, then at a sudden tap he turned to the door. In came a tall, elegant individual with hair matching his French grey suit.
“Ah, Captain!” He held out his hand. “I am Cornelius Vanhart, President of the International Beverage Corporation. I was at the banquet last night when you mentioned a chemical drink.”
“Right enough. Grab a seat.”
When Vanhart had complied Tyme paced slowly around the room. Barrett, understanding mystic signals, vanished in the neighbouring room and came back with a phial of salts and a glass of water.
“Here we are, sir!” Tyme swept them up and nearly spilt the water on the immaculate trousers. “Fizzwater of the gods!”
The water boiled like a devil’s brew as the salts were emptied into it. “There, drink that! It’s dynamite. If you buy the formula you’ll have every other fizzwater king by the ears.”
Vanhart sipped experimentally, smiled fatuously, and sipped again. He ignored the bubbles falling and exploding on his beautiful pants. He took longer sips—gulps—then complete drainage. After he had handed the glass back he slapped his thighs.
“I think I’m flying,” he decided at length.
“A bottle full of this and you’d believe yourself a rocket,” Tyme grinned.
“Amazing stuff, Captain— Ah, the telephone!”
“That’s no telephone; just bells in your ears. You’re dead drunk, and yet you’re not. Thät’s the advantage. What’s more, the more you have the more you want. Business without end!”
“And when this supply of chemical is exhausted?”
“It will never be exhausted. Basically, it’s carbon and on Earth here you can duplicate its make-up any time you want. It just happened to form in that combination on Venus and you’d work a million years here before you’d hit the right setup. I am willing to sell this chemical, and your own chemists can soon work out the formula. I’ve a rough formula made out by my own men which I’ll sell as well.”
“For how much?”
“A million pounds, and you can afford it. If you’re not interested I know plenty who will be.”
Vanhart smiled all over his face. “A million it is: I’m in no mood to argue. Pleasure! That’s my idea—give pleasure to everybody… Get me the rest of the mineral.”
Tyme pushed the phial into the swaying hand and Barrett retreated to return with a hastily written formula. In another five minutes the transaction was complete and a loudly singing Vanhart took his departure.
“So far, so good,” Tyme commented. “All legal and above board. We only need a bit more money, then we can get away. The public in general seems to have forgotten all about me—except to refer to me as a borderline case—”
Apparently, however, Tyme was wrong. Later that day he was asked to receive a deputation from the exhibitors handling his film of Venusian life. Would he make a personal tour with the film? A stratospherical fee would be paid. Would he mind being in full kit even to the portable stove?
Tyme agreed. Complete with three belts, shorts, khaki shirt, and several hundred-odd pounds of accoutrements—the old original, in fact, except for his topee—he appeared that night at the Astoria and was responsible for the first-aid men having to treat thirty-six young women for fainting. The moment the film was over he got back to his hotel by a quiet route, but before he could even shut the door of his suite Monica Verity came in slowly. At the back of her in the corridor were—presumably—four hundred and ninety-nine wide-eyed and sniggering girls.
Tyme glanced helplessly at Barrctt, then back to the girls. Automatically his gaze moved to Monica Verity’s hat. Now he came to ponder it he realised it was a topee—a small, ridiculously shapcd topee perched on one side of her blonde head. He just could not take his eyes off it.
“Captain, we wanted to express our appreciation for tonight.” Monica snuggled up to him gently and it made him wish he were a younger man. “You were divine—eyen more interesting than your film, marvellous though it was.”
Tyme laughed rather throatily. “Oh, it was nothing—”
“Oh, but it was! You looked so wonderful! We saw you sneak away so we decided to come and thank you privately. And there is something else. I’m—er—a sort of fashion-plate, and what I wear is usually copied. This hat, for instance, modelled after yours. All the girls will wear one soon. Wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Better than the usual soapdishes and poached eggs you girls usually put on,” Tyme agreed. “You mean all the Association girls will wear baby topees?”
“Oh, not just the Association—every girl and woman in the world, probably. We’ve done our part to commemorate you, so there is nothing for you to do but sign this letter.”
“Letter?”
Monica produced a typewritten sheet from her handbag. Tyme read it. It was similar to many others he’d signed for socks, suspenders, cigarettes and shirts…
“I think Topee hats are the last word and no smartly-dressed woman can afford to be without one. The fashion has my full and complete approval.”
(Signed)
“Simple, isn’t it?” Monica gave him a coy smile.
Tyme nodded, sighed, and added his signature. This done, Monica went out again with a wistful glance over her shoulder and the giggling, chattering teenagers followed her.
“Odd young lady, sir,” Barrett commented. “I wonder if—”
“You might well wonder!” A languid figure strolled through the still open doorway and pushed up his soft hat. “I’m Taylor of the ‘Voice,’ Captain. I’d like a personal angle on your reactions to Earth. And say, you know who that girl is, don’t you? That Monica Verity?”
“A socialite, or something.”
Taylor grinned. “In a way she is, but she’s also the chief buyer for a big millinery establishment. Always hunting for new ideas.”
“But she’s only a kid!” Tyme exploded. “A kid with a bad hero-complex.”
“Twenty-five years of kid,” Taylor said. “Bluntly, Captain, I’d say you gave her the exclusive right of using your hat for a model by signing that letter. Now you can sit back and watch the hat designers cross-eyed trying to keep up with things.”
“It’s an outrage!” Tyme exploded. “I won’t have my hat worn by women! It’s effeminate! I’ll force that girl to—”
“You can’t.” Taylor shook his head. “We’ve got laws. You signed away your hat and the admiration routine was just a stunt. There isn’t such a thing as the Mark Tyme Association. The girls are probably staff workers.”
Tyme sat down heavily, until the ironmongery he was carrying forced him to sit upright again.
“There ain’t no justice,” he muttered. “Now I come back to Earth I’m made a fool of.”
“Look, Cap I’m prepared to give you a break. I want to show the world the man, not the loud-voiced buffoon the world thinks you are—”
Tyme rose, his jaw set like a rock. “What did you say?” he asked, with frightening calm.
Taylor moved hastily. “That’s what the world thinks Cap—”
“Get out!” Tyme breathed.
“But I—”
Tyme’s hands shot out. Before he could get to the doorway Taylor found himself lifted by pants and collar and hurled outside like a cannonball. He crashed into the midst of the officials and scattered people who had gathered in the passage. Tyme himself appeared in the doorway a moment later.
“Well, what in heck do you people want?”
“You remember me?” A woman with a hatchet fare and gleaming eyeglasses squirmed out of the gathering. “The World Enlightenment League? We wondered if you would finance an expedition of ten spaceships to carry us to Venus. My committee agree that the Venusian natives need to learn civilised ways and means.”
“On how to trick an honest man doing his best for progress?” Tyme asked sourly. “Listen to
this, Florence Nightingale! I wouldn’t finance a row of salmon tins, never mind spaceships, for you and your outfit. What’s more, if you were a man I’d kick you downstairs! Now get out! The whole two-faced lot of you!”
The effect of this was to send most of the gathering scurrying, Hatchet-Face included—but one remained, a smallish man with a huge flower in his buttonhole. He had floppy cheeks and eyes like a Peke. Tyme surveyed him and hitched his belts.
“Maybe you didn’t hear what I said?” he asked sweetly.
“Yes, I heard you, but I’ve come to talk business. Here’s my card.”
Tyme scowled at the pasteboard:
FORTESQUE J. GILLIBRAND
Horticulturist, Times Square, London
“You mentioned a plant at the banquet. I’d like to know all about it—and buy it if possible.”
Tyme hesitated briefly and then nodded. “Okay, Mr. Gillibrand. Come in, and I’ll show you everything…”
* * * *
To Tyme there was something repulsive about the way Fortesque Gillibrand finnicked around the flowerpot containing the Venusian weed. With hands like a manicurist he flicked the little tendrils, toyed with the delicate buds. He sniffed, squinted, and meditated—then said:
“One hundred pounds.”
Tyme laughed derisively.
“Well, a hundred and fifty—”
“One thousand, and not a penny less!” Tyme snapped. “Don’t you realise that this plant will grow like a grape vine in earthly soil? This is Venusian swamp soil in this pot, but put these roots in earthly loam and they’ll spread like chain lightning. I proved that on Venus when I transplanted some into a box of earth soil. Something to do with nitrates.”
“But a thousand pounds! A thousand for a weed!”
“Orchids and edelweiss are weeds, but their rarity makes them valuable. Compared to this stuff in the pot edelweiss is as plentiful as clover. For the exclusive right of using Venus dumb-bells I want a thousand pounds. And if I bring any more back you can have ’em free. Nobody else—just you. Take it or leave it.”
The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack Page 6