The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  “That’s true.”

  “Then why the interest?”

  “You’re tall,” she said. “Tough, a good-looker. For most girls that would be reason enough. But they would want something. I don’t. Instead, I can offer you the biggest thing you’ve ever met in your life. A chance at the jackpot. Money enough to set you up on Earth, a farm on Mars, a dome on Venus—you name it and it’s yours.”

  Durgan was ironic. “Sure—and all I have to do is to give you a stake so you can go and collect the lost treasure of Ma Kalah. Bury it, girl! You’re talking to the wrong man!”

  “And you’re jumping to conclusions.” Her hand lifted, caught his wrist as he lifted the glass, twisted so that the zulack fell in a glinting stream to the surface of the table. “What are you, a sponge? Has that stuff rotted your mind and blocked your ears? I’m talking, Brad, can’t you even listen?”

  “To what?”

  “A proposition. A trip to Callisto—all expenses paid, and a bonus for wasted time if you turn down the offer.”

  “And that is?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes were frank. “I was sent to collect you, and that’s all. But it’s something big, that at least I know. Agree and we can leave within the hour.”

  Durgan shook his head.

  “You’re turning me down?”

  “No,” he said. “But we can’t leave until tomorrow. I’ve got money owing and I want to collect.”

  Distances are relatively unimportant in the Jovian system, only time is of value. Time to skirt the mammoth globe of the primary, to edge along the trap of its gravity well, to juggle speed and direction so as to reach where you wanted to go. Other things were minor but ever-present hazards: the threat of solar flares, trapped debris that added to the multiple moons, wandering fragments of interstellar rubbish which had been snared by the giant planet.

  Durgan slept the major part of the journey, waking hours before landing, joining the girl in the compact lounge of the inter-moon transport. She had changed and now wore a short dress of glittering fiber; matching boots clung high on her thighs, a belt of synthetic gems accentuating the swell of her hips. Her hair, groomed and curled, hung like a curtain of shimmering gold on the rounded smoothness of her shoulders.

  To his questions she said, “Wait. You’ll get all the answers after we land.”

  Callisto wasn’t Ganymede, though both had much the same mass and bulk. Here the big companies had established their franchises, terraforming the globe with imbedded devices, setting up domed cities of sterile glass and plastic which reared in startling contrast to the gaping pits of tremendous workings.

  Durgan watched as they landed, seeing men tending machines, antlike in their ordered confusion, slave-like in their dependence on one or the other of the great combines which owned the satellite and permitted grudging entry to those unattached. Yet despite their control, some freedom remained. The freedom to range outside the cities and workings, to starve for want of employment, to die unnoticed and ignored.

  In a small room in one of the featureless buildings, Durgan met the man who held all the answers.

  He was a small, wrinkled, shrewd-eyed man with a suit of expensive fiber and a heavy ring, which winked with flashing colors as he moved his hand. He nodded to the girl, and she left; then he gestured towards a table loaded with a dozen kinds of liquor.

  “You are a drinking man, Mr. Durgan. What is your pleasure?”

  “Brandy,” said Durgan and added, “The real stuff. From Earth.”

  “A test, Mr. Durgan?” The man smiled. “If it is, I can pass it. My name, by the way, is Creech. I take it that you are interested in my proposition?”

  “I can tell you that when I’ve heard what it is.” Durgan tasted his brandy, finding it insipid after zulack. “But, of course, you know how much I was told. Your messenger was most discreet.”

  “Not without reason.” Creech took a chair, waited until his guest was seated and then said, “How are your nerves, Durgan?”

  “Good enough.”

  “Good enough for what? Could you ride a bucket boat again?”

  Could he dip once more into hell? Durgan leaned back, eyes veiled, listening again to the screaming threnody of Jupiter’s atmosphere tearing at the skin of his boat, seeing the swirl and twist of vapor against the screens, feeling the bucking confusion and horrible disorientation. Each ride had been a gamble. Every trip had meant running the gauntlet with death waiting a hairsbreadth away. To ride a stream of fire down into the tremendous gaseous envelope, to level out at a selected depth, to trip the opening of the bucket, the huge plastic envelope trailing after the vessel, to cram it full of compressed gases—ammonia, methane, hydrogen even—a slew of elements waiting to be gathered—to seal the bucket and then to drag it up and out of the atmosphere and back to the depot on Amalthea.

  Could he do it again?

  “They said I was past it. That my reflexes had grown too slow. They ended my contract on three days’ notice.”

  Creech leaned forward. “Did you agree with them?”

  “No.”

  “But there was more, wasn’t there? The last trip you took. You returned empty. Why?”

  “I hit a bad spot. The convection currents were all to hell. When I tried to level out, I couldn’t hold the boat steady enough to open the bucket. Had I tried, it would have dragged me out of control. So I gave up and got out.”

  “Right out.” Creech bit thoughtfully at his lower lip. “I’ve read the psych-reports, and they say you lost your nerve. That you turned coward. That you aborted the dip without really giving yourself a chance. Are they wrong?”

  Durgan looked at his brandy then set aside the glass.

  “They weren’t down there,” he said. “They didn’t feel what I felt. All they had to go on was the relayed instrument-readings, and they aren’t to be trusted. I could have taken a gamble and probably died because of it. I figured that it was better to be a live coward than a dead hero. Alive, I could try again. Dead, they would have lost the boat.”

  “And so they kicked you out. You went to Ganymede and lived as a harvester.” Creech picked up the glass of brandy and handed it back to Durgan. “Drink it. It may be your last for some time.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’ve got a job for you. I’ll say it quick. I want you to drop down to the bottom. To hit the core of Jupiter. Right down through the envelope until you reach solid ground.”

  “No,” said Durgan.

  “You mean you won’t do it?”

  “I mean that it can’t be done. Can you even begin to realize what the pressure is like down there? The bottoms of terrestrial oceans would be a vacuum in comparison. Down there hydrogen and nitrogen would be compressed into liquid ammonia, the—”

  “I know about the pressure,” interrupted Creech. “And about the gravity, two and a half Earth normal, but it can be done and I have the vessel to do it. All I need is a pilot with guts enough to handle it. Guts and experience so that he can ride the winds and stay in one piece. In return, I’ll make that man rich for life.”

  Durgan looked at his glass, at the brandy it contained. A bottle of the stuff would cost more than he could harvest in a week. The girl hadn’t lied, she had shown him the jackpot; from now on, it was up to him if he hoped to collect.

  Quietly he said, “When do I learn the rest?”

  “You don’t. Not unless you agree to ride all the way. Bucket riders are scarce. Most of them die young and the rest are broken. You didn’t break. The fact that you managed to survive on Ganymede proves that. That’s why I sent for you. Are you with me?”

  “You’ve got yourself a pilot,” said Durgan. And swallowed the brandy.

  It was an old and familiar dream. A hand was pressing him down hard against the ground, and it kept on pressing. His chest collapsed, the broken ends of shattered ribs lacerating his lungs, his intestines squashed into a messy pulp. The bones of his skull began to yield, but still the giant hand kept press
ing, pressing, grinding against skin and bone until he was nothing but a red smear on the dirt. And still the hand kept pressing until there was nothing but a liquid trace, cells imploding, molecules crumpling, elements forced together to make new compounds.

  And the worst part was that he was still alive, still aware and able to feel.

  It wouldn’t be like that, Durgan knew. If the hull was breached, death would be instantaneous, a blast of pressure which would paste him against the metal before he would have time to even guess at what was happening. But the cold knowledge brought little comfort. Imagination still continued to haunt him with speculations of what might happen, what would happen if something went wrong.

  The others didn’t appear to be worried.

  Nanset was the engineer, a quiet, scholarly-looking man who wore contact lenses and spoke in a voice barely more than a whisper. Pendris was different, a tough veteran of the Jovian moons, a hard man with calculating eyes and the muscles of a bull. His job was to operate the waldoes.

  Creech made the introductions, then retreated to stand beside a screen. Sheila took a position beside a projector, a warm touch of color in the otherwise spartan furnishings of the room.

  “Now that we have all met, I want to brief you on what has to be done.” Creech’s dry, emotionless voice was swallowed by the soundproofing of the chamber. “As you know, we are going to send a vessel down to the solid core of Jupiter. Nanset has assured me that his force-field will provide ample protection against the pressure and, as his own neck will be involved, I tend to believe him. Aside from that, the vessel has been reinforced with multiple hulls to allow for a cascade accumulation against external pressure. To adjust the build-up will be Pendris’s job. Durgan, naturally, will be the pilot. The nature of the operation is basically simple. We are going to salvage a lost cargo.”

  He snapped his fingers as light and color glowed from the screen, flight paths traced in strands of white, red dots moving to illustrate his explanation.

  “A few months ago, a ship of the United Combines set out for Earth. Unfortunately, it was hit by a scrap of uncharted debris that contained sufficient velocity to throw the vessel towards Jupiter. The heat-energy generated by the impact fused the drive-system and, helpless, the ship fell into the atmosphere. Before being destroyed the crew managed to arrange a continuous-message broadcast, and the descent of the stricken vessel was monitored all the way down to just before the final landing. The cargo was, and is, extremely valuable. Recovery will ensure that we all gain rich rewards.”

  Put like that, it was simple, idiotically so. Durgan glanced from one to the other of his crew, and when neither mentioned the obvious, he did so himself.

  “Jupiter isn’t a small place. You’re talking of something which has close to twenty-five thousand million square miles of solid surface area.”

  Creech turned from the screen. “I know that.”

  “Radio transmissions from the planet aren’t reliable. If you’re hoping that cross-bearings determined the crash-point, then you’re hoping for too much.”

  “I realize that also.” Creech was unflustered. “Fortunately, we don’t have to depend on dead-reckoning, radio fixes, or educated guesses. The entire descent of the vessel was computerized and the probable crash-point has been determined to within five square miles.” He snapped his fingers before Durgan could say more. The picture on the screen changed to that of a spaceship.

  “The Archimedes,” said Creech. “The vessel that crashed. You will note that it is a normal interplanetary transport with capabilities for carrying both cargo and passengers. No passengers were carried on its last journey. A special cargo container was fitted within the hull and occupied this space.” His hand tapped the screen. “I think it safe to presume that the vanes carrying the guiding jets would have been ripped from the structure within a short while after entering the atmosphere. I think we can also assume that the crash with the meteor weakened the rear so that too would have been torn free. The remainder, together with the cargo container, most probably fell as a single unit, perhaps disintegrating on landing.”

  He paused as if expecting objections and, when he received none, continued.

  “It may be necessary to cut free the cargo container, and the salvage vessel has been provided with means to do so. You will also be provided with power-assisted suits to enable you to move in the high gravity. Continuous scrambled-beam radio transmission will be maintained during the entire flight. Miss Moray will take care of communications. Have any of you any questions?’

  Pendris lifted his voice. “Do we get a chance of some training? If I’m to handle unfamiliar devices in a hostile environment, I’d like to check them out before we start.”

  “This is only a preliminary briefing. You will have ample time to do as you suggest.”

  Durgan said, “I’m not happy about the crash-point area. It’s too large. Five square miles is a lot of territory when you’re relying on naked-eye vision—and in the soup, you don’t see far at the best of times. Is there any way of narrowing the field?”

  “There is. I will tell you about it later.”

  “All right, I’ll accept that, but what about the computerized landing? Down low, conditions are unknown. How could a machine have determined the correct flight-path?”

  “It did. You must take my word for it.”

  Nanset whispered, “This cargo. Supposing the container has burst and scattered the contents. How will we recognize it?”

  “I’ll tell you that just before you leave.” Creech nodded to the girl, and the screen went blank as she turned off the projector. “From now on, you stay together. You talk to no one and you go nowhere without my permission. Is that perfectly clear?”

  “In other words, we’re prisoners,” said Durgan grimly.

  “You object?”

  “I object to a lot of things, and one of them is putting my head on a block. But making a fortune is something I like. For that I’m prepared to play along, but I like to know what the rewards are.”

  Creech met his eyes. “I promised you all that you will be rich for life.”

  “Rich is just a word, and for me it isn’t good enough. How about some figures?”

  “Five million,” said Sheila from where she stood behind the projector. “Five million for each of you. Good enough?”

  Pendris whistled. “For me, yes.”

  Nanset blinked. Durgan turned to face the girl and met her cool stare.

  “The jackpot,” she said. “That’s what I promised, and that’s what you’ll get. Any more questions?”

  “One,” said Durgan. “Where is the ship?”

  “On Europa.” Creech stepped from the screen. “We’ll be there in three days time.”

  Europa, half the mass of Luna, almost half a million miles from the heart of Jupiter, a place of eroded stone and crumbling rock. A small place with sheds and workshops, electric furnaces burning their way into the metallic heart, atomic engines spewing out heat and light and slugs of fuel for the engines that sent the ships across the void.

  A rough place with the great disc of Jupiter filling the sky at night and the sun a pinpoint at day. Airless, barren, a disposal dump for unwanted scrap. An ideal place in which to convert a ship in privacy.

  Durgan checked that ship inch by inch.

  It was an adapted bucket boat, the massive hull reinforced by four extra sets of plating, each removed from the other by thick stanchions. The engines had been removed, the cabin space reduced, the bucket controls and housing sealed. In the increased space, new engines had been fitted which gave three times the original power. Sheathed in external housings, the waldo attachments broke the smooth contours. The stubby wings to grip and ride the atmosphere were like the feathers on an arrow.

  As he worked, Durgan brooded. The ship had cost money, the conversions more. Whatever the cargo was that Creech hoped to salvage, it must be of immense value. Something to justify the essential investment of equipment. He spoke about
it to the girl.

  “It’s none of your business,” said Sheila. “Believe that, Brad. Just do the job you’ve contracted to do and forget the rest.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? Are you so rich you can afford to throw away five million?”

  “What five million?” They were sitting beneath a dome of transparent plastic, drinking coffee imported from the Inner Worlds, listening to music recorded a century before. The glow of Jupiter-light cast colored shadows on the pale contours of her face, touched her hair with transient gleams. “You can’t lose what you’ve never had so what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Forget it, Brad. Take what life brings and stop arguing. Look on it as just another job.”

  “Is that what you think it is?” He looked up at the glowing face of the planet. Tonight the Red Spot was unusually bright. “Look at it. All you can see is the upper limits of the atmosphere, but try to imagine what it’s like lower down. Or, if you can’t do that, go and see some of the bucket boat riders. You’ll find them in the psycho wards, scared of a shadow, unable to stand even the pressure of a sheet. That’s the way it gets you in the end.”

  “So what?”

  “So I want to know what all this is about. Where Creech comes in. What part you have in it all. And don’t tell me that you’re just a messenger. That worked once, but it won’t work again. Give, girl, or look for another pilot!”

  “He’ll kill you,” she said emotionlessly. “If you back out now Creech will have you gunned down.”

  “Maybe.” Durgan was grim. “He can try—but if he doesn’t make it the first time, he’ll never get a second chance. And you’ll still need a pilot.” The music changed, the thrumming beat of rock smoothing into the strumming melody of cadenza, achingly poignant with the thin wail of pipes, the repetitious beat of drums. On the far side of the dome, a woman began to shiver in sympathetic response.

  Sheila drank the last of her coffee. “Would you really back out, Brad?”

  “Quit playing!” He was getting angry, his own nervous responses reacting to the emotional throb of the music. “I’m not a kid to be fed on promises of candy. What is this deal, anyway? Straight salvage—or a straight steal?”