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

by John W. Campbell

  “How heavy shots, Clee?” James asked. He and Lola were getting into their scanners. “Wouldn’t take as much as a kiloton equivalent, would it?”

  “Half a kilo is plenty, but no use being too fussy about precision out here.”

  Garlock and Belle were already bombing; James and Lola began. Slow and awkward at first, Lola soon picked up the technique and was firing blast for blast with the others. No more loaded transport vessels left the moon. No empty one, returning toward the moon, reached there. In much less than the three hours Garlock had mentioned, every Ozobian transport craft had been destroyed.

  “And now the real job begins,” Garlock said, as James dropped the starship down to within a few miles of the moon’s surface.

  That surface was cratered and jagged, exactly like that of the half always facing Clamer. No sign of activity could be seen by eye, nor anything unusual. Even the immense trap-doors, all closed now, matched exactly their surroundings. Underground, however, activity was violently intense; and, now, confused in the extreme.

  “Why, there isn’t a single adult anywhere!” Lola exclaimed. “I thought the whole place would be full of ’em!”

  “So did I,” Belle said. “However, by hindsight, it’s plain enough. Their job done, they were killed and eaten. Last meal, perhaps.”

  “I’m afraid so. Whatever they were, they had hands and brains. Just look at those shops and machines!”

  “What do we do, boss?” James asked. “Run a search pattern first?”

  “We’ll have to, I guess, before we can lay the job out.”

  It was run and Garlock frowned in thought. “Almost half the moon covered—honeycombed. We’ll have to fine-tooth it. Around the periphery first, then spiral into the center. This moon isn’t very big, but even so this is going to be a hell of a long job. Any suggestions, anybody? Jim?”

  “The only way, I guess. You can’t do it hit-or-miss. I’m damn glad we’ve got plenty of stuff in our Op field and plenty of hydride for the engines. The horses will all know they’ve been at work before they get the field filled up again.”

  “So will you, Junior, believe me.… Ready, all? Start blasting.”

  Then, for three hours, the Pleiades moved slowly—for her—along a plotted and automatically-controlled course. It was very easy to tell where she had been; the sharply-cut, evenly-spaced, symmetrical pits left by the Galaxian’s full-conversion blasts were entirely different from the irregularly-cratered, ages-old original surface.

  “Knock off, Brownie,” Garlock said then. “Go eat all you can hold and get some sleep. Come back in three hours. Jim, cut our speed to seventy-five percent.”

  Lola shed her scanner, heaved a tremendous sigh of relief, and disappeared.

  Three silent hours later—all three were too intensely busy to think of anything except the work in hand—Lola came back.

  “Take Belle’s swath, Brownie. Okay, Belle, you can lay off. Three hours.”

  “I’ll stay,” Belle declared. “Go yourself; or send Jim.”

  “Don’t be any more of a damn fool than you have to. I said beat it.”

  “And I said I wouldn’t. I’m just as good.…”

  “Chop it off!” Garlock snapped. “It isn’t a case of being just as good as. It’s a matter of physical reserves. Jim and I have more to draw on for the long shifts than you have. So get the hell out of here or I’ll stop the ship and slap you even sillier than you are now.”

  Belle threw up her head, tossing her shoulder-length green mop in her characteristic gesture of defiance; but after holding Garlock’s hard stare for a moment she relaxed and smiled.

  “Okay, Clee—and thanks for the kind words.”

  She disappeared and the work went on.

  And finally, when all four were so groggy that they could scarcely think, the job was done and checked. Clamer’s moon was as devoid of life as any moon had ever been.

  Lola pitched her scanner at its rack and threw herself face-down on a davenport, sobbing uncontrollably. James sat down beside her and soothed her until she quieted down.

  “You’d better eat something, sweetheart, and then for a good, long sleep.”

  “Eat? Why, I couldn’t, Jim, not possibly.”

  “Let her sleep first, I think, Jim,” Belle said, and followed with her eyes as Jim picked his wife up and carried her into the corridor.

  “We’d better eat something, I suppose,” Belle said, thoughtfully. “I don’t feel like eating, either, but I never realized until this minute just how much this has taken out of me and I’d better start putting it back in.… She did a wonderful job, Clee, even if she couldn’t take it full shift toward the last.”

  “I’ll say she did. I hated like the devil to let her work that way, but…you knew I was scared witless every second until we topped off.”

  Exhausted and haggard as she was, Belle laughed. “I know damn-blasted well you weren’t; but I know what you mean. Fighting something you don’t know anything about, and can’t guess what may happen next, is tough. Seconds count.” Side by side, they strolled toward the alcove.

  “I simply didn’t think she had it in her,” Belle marveled.

  “She didn’t. She hasn’t. It’ll take her a week to get back into shape.”

  “Right. She was going on pure nerve at the last—nothing else…but she did a job, and she’s so sweet and fine.… I wonder, Clee, if…if I’ve been missing the boat.…”

  “You have not.” Garlock sent the thought so solidly that Belle jumped. “If you’d just let yourself be, you’d be worth a million of her, just as you stand.”

  “Yes? You lie in your teeth, Cleander, but I love it.… Oh, I don’t know what I want to eat—if anything.”

  “I’ll think up yours, too, along with mine.”

  “Please. Something light, and just a little.”

  “Yeah. Sit down. Just a light snack—a two-pound steak, rare; a bowl of mushrooms fried in butter; French fries, french dips, salad, and a quart of coffee. The same for me, except more of each. Here we are.”

  “Why, Clee, I couldn’t possibly eat half of that.…” Then, after a quarter of it was gone, “I am hungry, at that—simply ravenous. I could eat a horse and saddle, and chase the rider.”

  “That’s what I thought. I knew I could, and figured you accordingly.”

  They ate those tremendous meals slowly, enjoying every bite and sip; in an atmosphere of friendliness and good fellowship; chatting on a wide variety of subjects as they ate. Neither was aware of the fact that this was the first time they had ever been on really friendly terms. And finally every dish and container was empty, almost polished clean.

  “One hundred percent capacity—can chew but can’t swallow,” Garlock said then, lighting two cigarettes and giving Belle one. “How’s that for a masterly job of calibration?”

  “Me, too. It’ll pass.” Belle sighed in repletion. “Your ability to estimate the exact capacity of containers is exceeded only by your good looks and by the size of your feet. And now to hit the good old sack for an indefinite but very long period of time.”

  “You chirped it, birdie.” Still eminently friendly, the two walked together to their doors. Belle put up a solid block and paused, irresolute, twisting the toe of one slipper into the carpet.

  “Clee, I… I wonder…if.…” Her voice died away.

  “I know what you mean.” He put his arms around her gently, tenderly, and looked deep into her eyes. “I want to tell you something, Belle. You’re a woman, not in seven thousand million women, but in that many planets full of women. What it takes, you very definitely and very abundantly have got. And you aren’t the only one that’s pooped. I don’t need company tonight, either. I’m going to sleep until I wake up, if it takes all day. Or say, if you wake up first, why not punch me and we’ll have breakfast together?”

  “That’s a thought. Do the same for me. Good night, Clee.”

  “Good night, ace.” He kissed her, as gently as he had been holding her,
opened her door, closed it after her, and stepped across the corridor into his own room.

  “What a man!” Belle breathed to herself, behind the solid screens of her room. “He thought I was too tired, not just scared to death too. What a man! Belle Bellamy, you ought to be kicked from here to Tellus.…” Then she threw back her head, drove a hard little fist into a pillow, and spoke aloud through clenched teeth. “No, damn and blast it, I won’t give in. I won’t love him. I’ll take the Project away from him if it’s the last thing I ever do in this life!”

  She woke up the next morning—not morning, either, since it was well after noon—a little before Garlock did, but not much. When she went into his room he was shaved and fully dressed except for one shoe, which he was putting on.

  “Hi, boss! Better we eat, huh? Not only am I starving by inches, but if we don’t eat pretty quick we’ll get only one meal today instead of three. Did you eat your candy bar?”

  “I sure did, ace.”

  “Oh, I’m still ‘ace’? You can kiss me, then,” and she raised her face toward his.

  He kissed her, still tenderly, and they strolled to and through the Main and into the alcove. James and Lola, the latter looking terribly strained and worn, had already eaten, but joined them in their after-breakfast coffee and cigarettes.

  “You’ve checked, of course,” Garlock said. “Everything on the beam?”

  “Dead center. Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody’s full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we’re ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we’ll wind up thistime.”

  “I’m glad you said that, Jim.” Garlock said. “It gives me the nerve to spring a thing on you that I’ve been mulling around in my mind ever since we landed here.”

  “Nerve? You?” James asked, incredulously. “Pass the coffee-pot around again, Brownie. If that character there said what I heard him say, this’ll make your hair stand straight up on end.”

  “On our jumps we’ve had altogether too much power and no control whatever.…” Garlock paused in thought.

  “Like a rookie pitcher,” Belle suggested.

  “Uh-uh,” Lola objected. “It couldn’t be that wild. He’d have to stand with his back to the plate and pitch the ball over the center-field stands and seven blocks downtown.”

  “Cut the persiflage, you two,” Garlock ordered. “Consider three things. First, as you all know, I’ve been trying to figure out a generator that would give us intrinsic control, but I haven’t got any farther with it than we did back on Tellus. Second, consider all the jumps we’ve made except this last one. Every time we’ve taken off, none of us has had his shield really up. You, Jim, were concentrating on the drive, and so were wide open to it. The rest of us were at least thinking about it, and so were more or less open to it. Not one of us has ever ordered it to take us to any definite place; in fact, I don’t believe that anyone of us has ever even suggested a destination. Each one of us has been thinking, at the instant of energization of the fields, exactly what you just said, and with exactly the same emphasis.

  “Third, consider this last jump all by itself. It’s the first time we’ve ever stayed in the same galaxy. It’s the first time we’ve ever gone where we wanted to. And it’s the first time—here’s the crux, as I see it—that any of us has been concentrating on any destination at the moment of firing the charge. Brownie was willing the Pleiades to this planet so hard that we all could taste it. The rest of us, if not really pushing to get here, were at least not opposed to the idea. Check?”

  “Check.” “That’s right.” “Yes, I was pushing with all my might,” came from the three listeners, and James went on:

  “Are you saying the damn thing’s alive?”

  “No. I’m saying I don’t believe in miracles. I don’t believe in coincidence—that concept is as meaningless as that of paradox. I certainly do not believe that we hit this planet by chance against odds of almost infinity to one. So I’ve been looking for a reason. I found one. It goes against my grain—against everything I’ve ever believed—but, since it’s the only possible explanation, it must be true. The only possible director of the Gunther Drive must be the mind.”

  “Hell’s blowtorches—Now you’re insisting that the damn thing’s alive.”

  “Far from it. It’s Brownie who’s alive. It was Brownie who got us here. Nothing else—repeat, nothing else—makes sense.”

  James pondered for a full minute. “I wouldn’t buy it except for one thing. If you, the hardest-boiled skeptic that ever went unhung, can feed yourself the whole bowl of such a mess as that, I can at least take a taste of it. Shoot.”

  “Okay. You know that we don’t know anything really fundamental about either teleportation or the drive. I’m sure now that the drive is simply mechanical teleportation. If you tried to ’port yourself without any idea of where you wanted to go, where do you think you’d land?”

  “You might scatter yourself all over space—no, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t move, because it wouldn’t be teleportation at all. Destination is an integral part of the concept.”

  “Exactly so—but only because you’ve been conditioned to it all your life. This thing hasn’t been conditioned to anything.”

  “Like a new-born baby,” Lola suggested.

  “Life again,” James said. “I can’t see it—too many bones in it. Pure luck, even at those odds, makes a lot more sense.”

  “And to make matters worse,” Garlock went on as though neither of them had spoken. “Just suppose that a man had four minds instead of one and they weren’t working together. Then where would he go?”

  This time, James simply whistled; the girls stared, speechless.

  “I think we’ve proved that my school of mathematics was right—the thing was built to operate purely at random. Fotheringham was wrong. However, I missed the point that if control is possible, the controller must be a mind. Such a possibility never occurred to me or anyone working with me. Or to Fotheringham or to anybody else.”

  “I can’t say I’m sold, but it’s easy to test and the results can’t be any worse. Let’s go.”

  “How would you test it?”

  “Same way you would. Only way. First, each one of us alone. Then pairs and threes. Then all four together. Fifteen tests in all. No. Three destinations for each set-up; near, medium, and far. Except Tellus, of course; we’d better save that shot until we learn all we can find out. Everybody not in the set should screen up as solidly as they can set their blocks—eyes shut, even, and concentrating on something else. Check?”

  James did not express the thought that Tellus must by now be so far away that no possible effort could reach it; but he could not repress the implication.

  “Check. I’ll concentrate on a series of transfinite numbers. Belle, you work on the possible number of shades of the color green. Lola, on how many different perfumes you can identify by smell. Jim, hit the button.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Since the tests took much time, and were strictly routine in nature, there is no need to go into them in detail. At their conclusion, Garlock said:

  “First: either Jim alone, or Lola alone, or Jim and Lola together, can hit any destination within any galaxy, but can’t go from one galaxy to another.

  “Second: either Belle or I, or any combination containing either of us without the other, has no control at all.

  “Third: Belle and I together, or any combination containing both of us, can go intergalactic under control.

  “In spite of confession being supposed to be good for the soul, I don’t like to admit that we’ve put gravel in the gear-box—do you, Belle?” Garlock’s smile was both rueful and forced.

  “You can play that in spades.” Belle licked her lips; for the first time since boarding the starship she was acutely embarrassed. “We’ll have to, of course. It was all my fault—it makes me look like a damned stupid juvenile deli
nquent.”

  “Not by nineteen thousand kilocycles, since neither of us had any idea. I’ll be glad to settle for half the blame.”

  “Will you please stop talking Sanskrit?” James asked. “Or lep it, so we two innocent bystanders can understand it?”

  “Will do,” and Garlock went on in thought. “Remember what I said about this drive not being conditioned to anything? I was wrong. Belle and I have conditioned it, but badly. We’ve been fighting so much that something or other in that mess down there has become conditioned to her; something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk.”

  “Oh, hell!” James snorted. “Talk about gobbledygook! You are still saying that that conglomeration of copper and silver and steel and insulation that we built ourselves has got intelligence, and I still won’t buy it.”

  “By no means. Remember, Jim, that this concept of mechanical teleportation, and that the mind is the only possible controller, are absolutely new. We’ve got to throw out all previous ideas and start new from scratch. I postulate, as a working hypothesis drawn from original data as modified by these tests, that that particular conglomeration of materials generates at least two fields about the properties of which we know nothing at all. That one of those properties is the tendency to become preferentially resonant with one mind and preferentially non-resonant with another. Clear so far?”

  “As mud. It’s a mighty tough blueprint to read.” James scowled in thought. “However, it’s no harder to swallow than Sanderson’s Theory of Teleportation. Or, for that matter, the actual basic coupling between mind and ordinary muscular action. Does that mean we’ll have to rebuild half a million credits’ worth of…no, you and Belle can work it, together.”