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

by John W. Campbell

  It took a bit of work. Buried deep in all the information was one single tie. To the mathematician. His new job was a promotion, one she didn’t feel he deserved. She had studied under him, and he had refused to grant her a degree, saying she was sloppy. She moved to engineering, and graduated, although not with honors, and not in a way that gave her any currency in any job. She would’ve needed more education for that.

  She had boarded that ship with a plan to follow him to Ansary, maybe destroy his career there. Or maybe kill him. But she didn’t.

  Trista died because she had seen the murder, and she planned to do something about it. Lysa had never planned for Trista’s body to be discovered. She probably thought the fire would’ve been found sooner. By the time someone had found it, the entire ship went into a panic. Which, if Richard thought about it, meant that her calculations had been off.

  Professor Grove, the mathematician had been right about her after all. Her math skills hadn’t been up to the task.

  Then Agatha Kantswinkle and Susan Carmichael had seen Lysa in that area, and if there were an investigation, they might’ve mentioned her. She didn’t want to risk it. So she planned the last two murders, and might’ve gotten away with all of it, if Hunsaker hadn’t moved Carmichael out of her room.

  What Richard couldn’t figure out was why she killed Remy Demaupin.

  “I didn’t,” Lysa snarled. They had tied her up and moved her to the bar, along with all the other passengers. No one wanted to be alone any longer. They all worried that Richard and Hunsaker and Carmichael had caught the wrong person, even though Lysa had made it pretty clear from the moment she got tied up that they hadn’t.

  “What do you mean you didn’t kill Remy,” Carmichael said. “We know you did.”

  Lysa shook her head. “He killed himself,” she said. “In fact, he inspired me. I figured everyone would look for a connection between him and Professor Grove. Then we would have the emergency and everyone would forget and…”

  She lowered her head. Richard watched her, realized he’d met her type before. The type that imagined what they’d do, then did it, and wondered why nothing quite worked the way they’d planned.

  “You should’ve just shoved him out of an airlock,” Richard said.

  Everyone looked at him. He realized he’d said too much.

  He shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn’t entirely feel.

  “What I mean is that had you done something simple, no one would’ve thought twice about it. All this elaborate stuff was your downfall.”

  That still sounded bad. He sounded like one killer giving advice to another. Which, in fact, he was.

  Hunsaker crossed his arms, watching Richard, a slight frown on his face. Anne Marie stood in the back of the room, listening. The captain was still at his table, drowning himself in drink. Carmichael kept checking the time, hoping that her father’s ship would get here soon.

  Everyone else sat very far away from Lysa, as if her particular brand of insanity was catching.

  Richard didn’t stay that far away though. For all her brand of insanity, her elaborate kills, and her mistakes, she was what a murderer should be.

  Someone who had a reason to do what she did—not a bloodless reason. A personal reason. An important reason. Something that was, to her, life and death. So she acted, in a life-or-death manner.

  And he found that both inspirational and appropriate.

  He didn’t ask her any more. Carmichael’s father could take them all in his various ships. Somewhere Lysa would get prosecuted for what she had done. Not that this was a happy ending for anyone.

  The captain would probably lose his job. Carmichael was going back to a situation that she clearly didn’t want to be in.

  And Richard would have no way to get to Ansary.

  Not to mention all the people who had died. Their families would never be the same.

  He walked back to Anne Marie Devlin. Pretty woman. Or she would’ve been if she weren’t a depressive and a drunk. She was sober right now, but he could see the tendencies. She was the kind who didn’t want to change because she saw no point in it.

  Besides, change was hard. That was becoming clearer to him, each and every day.

  The ships arrived in fifteen hours, not eighteen, and they took everyone away. Once Hunsaker realized who Carmichael’s father was—he truly was a mucky-muck of high muck who had a lot of mucking money—he made noises about the damage to his resort and how embarrassing it would be if it ever came out that his daughter had been a target.

  When that hadn’t moved her father, Hunsaker added that it would also be embarrassing for people to know that his daughter had been fleeing from him when all of this occurred.

  Hunsaker got a tidy payout, enough to renovate the entire resort if he felt like it. And he felt like it. He wanted this place as tamper proof as possible. He didn’t ever want to be in this situation again.

  Ilykova hadn’t left with the rest. He wasn’t going to testify either, no matter how much everyone pleaded with him. He sat in the bar these days and watched Anne Marie drink, which was a sight to behold. He didn’t seem miserable, but he didn’t seem happy either.

  He was waiting for the next ship, for a way out. Although he clearly didn’t know where he was going.

  And Hunsaker had been thinking about it. The station was a world unto itself. Technically, anything that happened here was prosecuted in the Commons System, but no prosecution had ever happened.

  Hunsaker wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if Ilykova hadn’t been here. Ilykova wasn’t big or burly and he didn’t seem tough. But he had experience.

  And he had no qualms about doing what it took to keep the peace.

  You should’ve just shoved him out of an airlock.

  Hunsaker couldn’t’ve done that to anyone. Ever. But he could pay someone to do it while he looked the other way.

  That wouldn’t’ve worked in this circumstance, of course. But it might in future circumstances.

  And if Hunsaker had learned anything from this experience, he had learned it was better to be prepared.

  If he had been prepared, none of this would’ve happened.

  The doors would’ve locked properly, the environmental controls would’ve been up-to-date, and all the rooms would’ve been cleaned.

  Woulda coulda shoulda

  He wasn’t going to have any regrets. He was going to move forward.

  He squared his shoulders and walked to the bar. He paused for a brief jealous moment when he saw how close Ilykova was sitting to Anne Marie. Then he saw the look of disgust on Ilykova’s face, and realized that the man would never be interested in her.

  So Hunsaker sat down at their table, and offered Ilykova a job.

  No one was surprised when Ilykova said yes.

  THE WORLD WITH A THOUSAND MOONS by Edmond Hamilton

  CHAPTER 1

  Thrill Cruise

  Lance Kenniston felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling moons.

  He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one, for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac—a big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were ruined!

  A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston’s side. It was Holk Or, the Jovian who had been waiting for him.

  “What luck?” asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper.

  “It’s hopeless,” Kenniston answered heavily. “There isn’t a small cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small ships here.”

  “The devil!” muttered Holk Or, dismayed. “What are we going to do? Go on to Earth and get a cruiser there?”

  “We can’t do that,” Kenniston answered. “You know
we’ve got to get back to that asteroid within two weeks. We’ve got to get a ship here.”

  Desperation made Kenniston’s voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak with knowledge of disastrous failure.

  The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonslight his battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across the busy spaceport.

  “That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing,” Holk Or muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. “It would hold all the stuff we’ve got to take; and with robot controls we two could run it.”

  “We haven’t a chance to get that craft,” Kenniston told him. “I found out that it’s under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring, heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party.”

  The Jovian swore. “Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids are using it for thrill-hunting!”

  Kenniston had an idea. “It might be,” he said slowly, “that they’re tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think I’ll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl.”

  “Sure, let’s try it anyway,” Holk Or agreed.

  The Earthman looked at him anxiously. “Oughtn’t you to keep under cover, Holk? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long time. If you happened to be recognized—”

  “Bah, they think I’m dead, don’t they?” scoffed the Jovian. “There’s no danger of us getting picked up.”

  Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city.

  The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness, even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded.

  Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet. Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge.

  The Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block, especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort of its patrons.

  Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder atmospheres.

  “Miss Gloria Loring?” repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston’s shabby space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. “I am afraid—”

  “I’m here to see her on important business, by appointment,” Kenniston snapped.

  The clerk melted at once. “Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring’s party is now in The Bridge. That’s our cocktail room—top floor.”

  Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance.

  The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer planets.

  It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of the navigating bridge of a spaceship. The orchestra played behind a phony control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists.

  “Some crowd!” muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. “What a place to loot!”

  “Shut up!” Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner.

  There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine, except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky.

  One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely.

  “I’m Gloria Loring,” she drawled. “What did you want to see me about?”

  She was dark and slim, and surprisingly young. There were almost childish lines to the bare shoulders revealed by her low golden gown. Her thoroughbred grace and beauty were spoiled for Kenniston by the bored look in her clear dark eyes and the faintly disdainful droop of her mouth.

  The chubby, rosy youth beside her goggled in simulated amazement and terror at the battered green Jovian behind Kenniston. He set down his glass with a theatrical gesture of horror.

  “This Martian liquor has got me!” he exclaimed. “I can see a little green man!”

  Holk Or started wrathfully forward. “Why, that young pup—”

  Kenniston hastily restrained him with a gesture. He turned back to the table. Some of the girls were giggling.

  “Be quiet, Robbie,” Gloria Loring was telling the chubby young comedian. She turned her cool gaze back to Kenniston. “Well?”

  “Miss Loring, I heard down at the spaceport that you are the charterer of that small cruiser, the Sunsprite,” Kenniston explained. “I need a craft like that very badly. If you would part with her, I’d be glad to pay almost any price for your charter.”

  The girl looked at him in astonishment. “Why in the world should I let you have our cruiser?”

  Kenniston said earnestly, “Your party could travel just as well and a lot more comfortably by liner. And getting a cruiser like that is a life-or-death business for me right now.”

  “I’m not interested in your business, Mr. Kenniston,” drawled Gloria Loring. “And I certainly don’t propose to alter our plans just to help a stranger out of his difficulties.”

  Kenniston flushed from the cool rebuke. He stood there, suddenly feeling a savage dislike for the whole pampered group of them.

  “Beside that,” the girl continued, “we chose the cruiser for this trip because we wanted to get off the beaten track of liner routes, and see something new. We’re going from here out to Jupiter’s moons.”

  Kenniston perceived that these bored, spoiled youngsters were out here hunting for new thrills on the interplanetary frontier. His dislike of them increased.

  A clean-cut, sober-faced young man who seemed older and more serious than the rest of the party, was speaking to the heiress.

  “Unhardened space-travellers like us are likely to get hit by gravitation paralysis out in the outer planets, Gloria,” he was saying to the heiress. “I don’t think we ought to go farther out than Mars.”

  Gloria looked at him mockingly. “If you’re scared, Hugh, why did you leave your nice safe office on Earth and come along with us?”

  The chubby youth called Robbie laughed loudly. “We all know why Hugh Murdock came along. It’s not thrills he wants—it’s you, Gloria.”

  They were all ignoring Kenniston now. He felt that he had been dismissed but he was desperately reluctant to lose his last hope of getting a ship. Somehow he must get that cruiser!

  A stratagem occurred to him. If these spoiled scions wouldn’t give up their ship, at least he might induce them to go where he wanted.

  Kenniston hesitated. It would mean leading them all into the deadliest k
ind of peril. But a man’s life depended on it. A man who was worth all these rich young wastrels put together. He decided to try it.

  “Miss Loring, if it’s thrills you’re after, maybe I can furnish them,” Kenniston said. “Maybe we can team up on this. How would you like to go on a voyage after the biggest treasure in the System?”

  “Treasure?” exclaimed the heiress surprisedly. “Where is it?”

  They were all leaning forward, with quick interest. Kenniston saw that his bait had caught them.

  “You’ve heard of John Dark, the notorious space-pirate?” he asked.

  Gloria nodded. “Of course. The telenews was full of his exploits until the Patrol caught and destroyed his ship a few weeks ago.”

  Kenniston corrected her. “The Patrol caught up to John Dark’s ship in the asteroid, but didn’t completely destroy it. They gunned the pirate craft to a wreck in a running fight. But Dark’s wrecked ship drifted into a dangerous zone of meteor swarms where they couldn’t follow.”

  “I remember now—that’s what the telenews said,” conceded the heiress. “But Dark and his crew were undoubtedly killed, they said.”

  “John Dark,” Kenniston went on, “looted scores of ships during his career. He amassed a hoard of jewels and precious metals. And he kept it right with him in his ship. That treasure’s still in that lost wreck.”

  “How do you know?” asked Hugh Murdock bluntly.

  “Because I found the lost wreck of Dark’s ship myself,” Kenniston answered. He hated to lie like this, but knew that he had no choice.

  He plunged on. “I’m a meteor-miner by profession. Two weeks ago my Jovian partner and I were prospecting in the outer asteroid zone in our little rocket. Our air-tanks got low and to replenish them, we landed on the asteroid Vesta. That’s the big asteroid they call the World with a Thousand Moons, because it’s circled by a swarm of hundreds of meteors.

  “It’s a weird, jungled little world, inhabited by some very queer forms of life. In landing, my partner and I noticed where some great object had crashed down into the jungle. We discovered it was the wreck of John Dark’s ship. The wreck had drifted until it crashed on Vesta, almost completely burying itself in the ground. No one was alive on it, of course.”