Out of the corner of his eye, Fraden saw one of the Confederal ships burst into flame as a laser beam hit its power plant and begin to spiral crazily down beyond the horizon out of control. But he kept his eye on that which mattered; Valdez’s ship, the rockets now guttering as it touched down.
“Bully for our side, Chrome-dome!” he heard Sophia say sardonically. He understood, this time. What was it with Willem that he gave a damn for one very minor victory in a war already irrevocably lost?
As the two remaining Confederal ships turned tail, space-suited men were already wheeling toward Valdez’s ship on powered dollies to transfer the precious cargo to the starship, which sat, a comparatively large silver ovoid, at the other end of the field. Home free! Fraden thought.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get to the airlock. We can leave now. Say good-by to the Belt Free State, It was a good thing while it lasted.”
“So is a mescbinge,” said Sophia O’Hara. “But oh, What a morning after!”
Bart Fraden leaned forward in the copilot’s seat of the small starship, stared at the maze of gauges, screens, dials, and controls before him, and said, “Damn good thing these newer models virtually fly themselves.”
Willem Vanderling looked up from the check-out panel of the computopilot, a board of amber lights that one by one were turning green as the computopilot went through its check-out cycle, each light announcing, as it went green, that the air supply, or the auxiliary rockets, or the stasis-drive generator, or any one of the 178 other factors necessary for a safe lift-off and voyage had been automatically checked but and were go.
Vanderling looked at Fraden narrowly. “I can con this thing manually, without the computopilot, if I have to,” he said, “Thinking of ditching me somewheres, Bart?”
That’s Willem, Fraden; thought, still doesn’t trust me an inch. I wonder if I have any business trusting him… But then, who trusts anyone? The only real trust is when you’ve got something the other cat needs. So I can trust him.
“You’re not thinking again, Willem,” Fraden said. “If I wanted to dump you, I could do it right here on Ceres without lifting more than my little finger. I need you, and you need me. Once we pick us a planet and get a revolution going, we’ll—”
“And just how in hell do you expect to finance another revolution?” Vanderling said, turning back to the check-out panel. “At least when we started in the Belt, we had my two ships, twenty men and all that loot you had from your term as governor of Great New York. Now all we have is our brains, this ship, and a big-mouthed chick with expensive tastes.”
“You’re forgetting the crates from Valdez’s ship. The crates that cost a hundred million Confedollars…”
“Yeah, I sure am,” Vanderling said surlily. “Ten damn crates that couldn’t weigh more than a couple hundred pounds, and you risked our necks for ’em. Suppose you tell me what’s in those crates that’s worth about four hundred thousand a pound.”
“Three hundred pounds of assorted drugs,” Fraden said smugly. “LSD, Omnidrene, herogyn, opium, hashish, huxleyon… you name it, we got it.”
“What?” Vanderling roared. “You blow a hundred million on a load of drugs? I know you got expensive vices, man, but this is too much!”
“For crying out loud, Willem, even you can’t really be that dense! We’ve got mere drugs in the hold than have ever left Earth in one lump before. Don’t forget, most of ’em are dependent on ingredients like opium or peyote that won’t grow on any other planet. Which means that any other planet in the Galaxy that wants these drugs has to import them from Earth, which is, of course, strictly verboten, Those drugs are money, Willem. They’re better than money because they’re worth money anywhere. Can you think of anything else that’s universally valuable that we could carry a hundred million Confedollars worth of in this crummy little ship?”
“No…” Vanderling muttered dubiously. “But we’ll be awfully hot wherever we try to peddle the stuff. What are you going to do about that? We escape the Solar System and get grabbed for pushing drugs. That doesn’t make one hell of a lot of sense.”
“You’re learning, Willem, you’re learning,” Fraden said. “You have just pointed out the reason why we’re going to pick a planet where our first and best customer will be the planetary government itself.”
“That makes sense,” Vanderling admitted. “You know a planet like that?”
“Nope,” said Fraden. “But I’m sure the computopilot does.”
CHAPTER TWO
As the ship drifted dead in space, somewhere beyond Pluto, Bart Fraden sat in the Spartan ship’s mess, glumly watching Sophia O’Hara wolf down great quantities of eggs, bacon, coffee, and toast with real cow butter.
Still intent on the food, Sophia, without looking up, said: “Just how long do we sit here in the tag-end of nowhere playing with ourselves?”
Fraden winced, not at what she said, but at the rate she was consuming the ship’s meager store of decent, Earth-grown food, “Soph,” he said, “if you keep eating like there’s no tomorrow, we’ll be out of the good stuff and on S-rations within a week.” Ugh! The thought of eating the wretched synthetic glop that passed for Space-Rations did something to Fraden that losing the Belt Free State could not. That damned computopilot had better complete the program quick!
“I see you’ve managed to avoid answering my question,” Sophia reminded him, swabbing up egg yolk with a piece of toast—her fourth of the meal. “And for your information, I’m doing us a big favor by gobbling up the goodies. The sooner we run out, the sooner your delicate gut will start to rumble, and the sooner you’ll pick us a planet and get us the hell out of here, you miserable, degenerate, lazy—”
“So if I’m such a lout,” Fraden said with a smile, “why didn’t you head for Earth instead of tagging along? The Confederation couldn’t care less about you, The party was over, and you could—”
“Oh, shut up, idiot! You’re the only man I’ve ever met who thought with something besides his stomach and his crotch, albeit at distressingly infrequent intervals. You’ve almost got a brain, Bart Fraden. I intend to stick light to you, whether you like it or not, and see to it that you use it.”
Fraden looked across the table and his gaze met Sophia’s green eyes. Her face softened for a moment and she leaned across the table and kissed him on the lips, touching him lightly on the ear with a fingertip, and Bart Fraden was reminded once again that this was the only human being in the universe who really cared whether he lived or died.
Then the moment passed. Sophia went back to her food and said, “Why don’t we just head for the nearest inhabited planet? If we stay cooped up in this sardine can with Bullethead Vanderling much longer, I’m afraid I’ll contract hydrophobia.”
“Aw, come one, Willem is no prize, but he’s not that bad.”
“Isn’t he? He’s a shaved ape, a thug who bathes regularly, or at least I assume he does. The man has no vices. He risks his life, but not because he likes to eat well or take expensive drugs or keep a high-priced item like me around. A man who fights hard without supporting expensive tastes is doing it just for kicks. He’s a latent sadist. I just do not have eyes for being confined in the same ship with him when he stops being latent. Therefore, I suggest we make tracks for the nearest glob of mud that calls itself an inhabited planet.”
“It’s not as simple as all that,” Fraden said. “We’ve got very specific and rather hard-to-fill requirements. That’s what I spent the last three hours working on. I set up a program for Willem to feed into the computopilot. We need an inhabited planet that’s out of the way, preferably one that doesn’t get visitors. The population shouldn’t be too large. The local government should be such that they’ll be interested in the drugs. Most important, it must be a planet with a high revolutionary potential.”
“Now wait a minute! I can dimly understand that that mechanical moron can come up with a list of planets of a given size or population or even form of government. Are you try
ing to tell me that it’s a mechanical Machiavelli that can measure ‘revolutionary potential,’ whatever that may be?”
“Hardly,” Fraden said. “The computopilot has data on every inhabited planet in the Galaxy, strictly objective data. But there are certain objective criteria of revolutionary potential—dictatorial government, economic setup, rigid class lines with high social tension, and about a hundred others. I simply constructed a schema listing the factors. Willem programs the schema into the computopilot, the computer cross-correlates the factors with the data in its memory unit and prints out a list of planets in order of degree of correlation. I do the thinking. The computopilot just looks things up like a coolie librarian.”
“Science marches on!” Sophia said dubiously.
“Think I’ll go see how far it’s marched by now,” Fraden said. “Care to join me?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
When they reached the control room, Vanderling was fumbling with a long ribbon of print-out paper.
“That the list?” Fraden asked. “It looks awfully long.”
“Well, you had me program the thing to give us the revolutionary potential of every planet in the damn Galaxy, whether you realized it or not,” Vanderling said. “However, seems like there’s only four planets in the whole Galaxy with potentials better than fifty per cent.”
Fraden shrugged. It was about as he had expected. But after all, one planet would be quite sufficient “Let’s have a data print-out on those four,” he said.
Vanderling fiddled with the computopilot console. In about a minute, the printer rattled off about two feet worth of data. Vanderling tore off the paper and handed it to Fraden.
Fraden scanned the list. Sundown, Yisroel, Sangre, Cheeringboda. Never heard of any of ’em, Fraden thought. Which means hardly anyone else has either. So far, so good. Hmmm… Sundown looked good: .8967 Earth-normal, population ten million, mixed Sino-Russian population… Uh, oh. Population about evenly divided between both groups. Good revolutionary potential either way you played it Which meant that you’d have a chronic revolutionary situation that you could never eliminate. An easy planet to conquer, but impossible to hold. Scratch Sundown!
Yisroel… 0.9083 Earth-normal. Population, nine million. First settled by ultra-orthodox Jews in ’94. Later generally Jewish migration. Now ruled by Chief Rabbi. Rumors of unrest by descendants of later migrants… Hmmm… looks promising. Huh? Standard English unknown on planet. Classical Hebrew official and only language… Two down!
“Well?” said Sophia. “By the look of your face, it’s not so good.”
“Too bad none of us speaks Hebrew…” Fraden muttered, still scanning the data sheet.
“Hebrew? Have you been hitting the drugs in the hold?”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Fraden exclaimed, his face brightening. “I think we’ve hit the jackpot! Listen to this. Sangre: .9321 Earth-normal… population, fifteen million humans, indeterminate number of semi-intelligent natives… Semi-intelligent? That sounds impossible.”
“Some of my best friends are semi-intelligent,” Sophia observed.
“Yeah, sure…” Fraden muttered abstractedly. “… originally settled three hundred years ago by religious splinter-group known as the Brotherhood of Pain ejected from the Tau Ceti system on charges of murder and ritual torture which were never proved… Believed to have taken slaves from the Lost Colony of Eureka, which was found gutted fifty years later… Hey, dig this! No officially verified off-worlder touchdowns on Sangre for 220 years. Last suspected contact in 2308 when looted ship was found on trajectory that would’ve brought it within a light-year of Sangre. Ship believed to have contained illicit shipment of herogyn for Balder… And that’s all that’s pointed-out on Sangre. That and two asterisks. What in hell does that mean, Willem?”
“One asterisk means that a planet should only be touched down on in case of dire emergency,” Vanderling said. “Two, I guess means the same thing, only in spades.”
“It sounds like the Black Hole of Calcutta,” Sophia said.
“Exactly!” replied Fraden. “In other words, it sounds great! Sounds like there’s a nice tight little oligarchy of nuts running the place, maybe even with a slave-population. Couldn’t ask for a better revolutionary situation if I designed it myself. And a good indication that the people who’re running the show have a more than passing interest in drugs. Sangre it is!”
“You’re the boss,” Vanderling said, without much enthusiasm. “Just wish we knew something more about the place.”
“I can tell you one more little piece of gossip,” Sophia said. “Sangre is the Old Spanish word for blood.”
The stasis-drive, by encysting the ship in a bubble of subjective time independent of the objective time of the outside universe, enabled it to reach the vicinity of Sangre in three weeks, instead of an Einsteinian ninety-three yearn. There were times during the voyage, though, when Bart Fraden was certain that the Drive was out and that they wouldn’t get to Sangre in centuries. One of those times was when the real food ran out, ten days out of Earth, and they were reduced to living off the loathsome S-rations. And any time when he was in the same room with Sophia and Vanderling together, minutes seemed like hours. If Vanderling wasn’t bitching about Sophia’s appetite, Sophia was bitching about Vanderling’s supposed sadistic personality, or his stupidity, or if she had nothing better to grouse about, the unsightliness of his shining “chrome-dome.”
Thus, by the time they made orbit around Sangre, Fraden didn’t care what the planet was like—Sangre was it. Another week of this, he told himself, as they gathered in the control room, and I’ll be chewing on the nearest rug.
“Welcome to Mudball, Jewel of the Galaxy,” Sophia said, eyeing the planet in the ship’s main viewscreen with a sour sneer. “And what can you tell us about this planetary paradise that we don’t already know?”
Vanderling studiously buried bis face in the series of aerial photos that the ship’s drone missiles had taken during the twelve hours they had been in orbit around Sangre.
“Not one hell of a lot,” Fraden admitted. “Only the eastern half of one continent seems inhabited. Nothing strange about that on a planet with only fifteen million people. Mostly a lot of very small towns, or farms with a central complex of buildings every hundred square miles or so. Hard to tell which. One big city, couple hundred thousand or so, which seems to have something that looks like a spaceport. And that’s about all we can reasonably expect to learn about Sangre from orbit.”
“So what now, Peerless Leader?” Sophia said.
“Now,” said Bart Fraden, “we’ve done all the planning we can for a while. Now we play it by the seat of our pants. Willem, see if you can raise that spaceport oh the radio.”
Vanderling fiddled with the radio while Fraden sucked at a tooth in a peculiar fashion.
“Something stuck in your teeth?” Sophia asked.
“Might say so,” Fraden replied. “I’ve replaced a filling with a microminitransmitter. Clever little jobbie, works off body electricity and bone conduction. A little piece of insurance, as you’ll see once we—”
“We’re getting something, Bart,” Vanderling said. “Wait a minute…” There was a series of hisses, whines, and crackles as Vanderling adjusted the radio, and then, abruptly, a voice came in loud and clear.
“… unidentified ship. Calling unidentified ship. You will give co-ordinates at once, or be destroyed. Calling unidentified ship. You will give your co-ordinates at once or be destroyed…”
There was a peculiar quality to the voice, a kind of manic assurance, paradoxically mixed with what sounded like laconic indifference.
“Now there’s a nice cheery welcome,” said Sophia.
“There’s a nice pure bluff,” said Bart Fraden. “If they had the hardware to destroy us, they’d certainly have the gear to track our signal back to the ship. They certainly wouldn’t be asking us for our co-ordinates and thereby admitting that they can’t locate us the
mselves. Two points for our side.”
Fraden took the microphone. “This Is Bart Fraden, President in exile of the Belt Free State. This is the President of the Belt Free State Government-in-Exile. We formally request political asylum. Put me in touch with your head-of-government or chief of state immediately.”
There was a long pause. Apparently, Fraden thought, these bozos never heard of a government in exile. All the better…
Finally the Sangran voice said blandly, with that same weirdly laconic ferocity, “Report your coordinates at once, or leave the system. You are ordered to report your co-ordinates at once or leave the system.”
Progress of a sort, Fraden mused. “Willem,” he asked, “could you rig one of the lifeboats to explode and make like a missile, if you had to?”
“I suppose so. They have atomic power plants of course, and I could rig a delayed timer to pull the rods. But it wouldn’t be very accurate.”
“Wouldn’t have to be,” Fraden said. He picked up the microphone. “Listen, sonny,” he said, “this is President Fraden again, and I’m not accustomed to dealing with flunkies. You get your ruler on this radio, and you do it in five minutes, or we’ll put a nice medium-sized A-bomb right in the middle of your crummy little burg. Minus five minutes and counting.”
The response was totally unexpected. Fraden heard a few moments of what sounded like very heavy breathing, then suddenly the voice on the radio was screaming, “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“What in the blue—?”
There was a click, a moment of silence, then another voice, strangely like the first said, “You will state your business with the Prophet of Pain.”
“If this Prophet is your ruler, then you can give your buddy his rabies shot and tell the big cheese that I want to talk to him pronto and that if I don’t have him on the radio in three minutes and sixteen seconds, he’ll have an A-bomb in his lap. Three minutes three seconds and counting.”
The Men in the Jungle Page 2