Takeoff!

by Randall Garrett

  Fesswick took nearly seven minutes more to deliver his report of the happenings of the past twenty-four hours as they had been recorded on the special instruments concealed within the depths of Castle Curvert. They had been reporting their data precisely since they had been built into the castle, six hundred years before, and they would go on doing so until they were shut off-or destroyed.

  All in all, everything was quite normal.

  Lord Curvert sat down behind his desk and sighed gently. “Rather dull, isn’t it, Fesswick? I mean, we haven’t had any real excitement since that squadron of Mizarian ships got off course and tried to land, back in ‘47.” He gazed reminiscently at the ceiling. “Had the devil’s own time with them for a while, there.”

  “A masterful piece of work on your part, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you,” his lordship said absently. “Fesswick, has it occurred to you that our work may soon be completed on this planet?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind, my lord.”

  “They’ve come up fast, Fesswick. In another half century, they may be ready to go to the stars, and a hidden Observer will no longer be necessary. Still, it’s been interesting, hasn’t it?”

  “Very interesting, my lord.”

  There was a note in Fesswick’s voice that made Lord Curvert look curiously at his butler. He had always regarded Fesswick as—well, as part of the machinery. He was simply there. He had always been there. To imagine Castle Curvert without Fesswick was to imagine Egypt without the pyramids. And yet

  “You’ve been with the family for a long time, haven’t you, Fesswick?”

  Instead of answering immediately, Fesswick turned to look at the shield on the wall, upon which was emblazoned the Curvert arms—Vert, on a pale or, a heart of the field.

  There was pride in Fesswick’s voice when he spoke. “In a sense, my lord, I have only been with the family four generations. I was sent in as a new model to replace my predecessor in the year 1155, shortly after your great-grandfather was created the first Baron du Coeur Vert by Henry II for his services following the overthrow of the unhappy usurper, Stephen. Those were exciting times, my lord.” He turned to face his master again.

  “In another sense, my lord,” he went on, “I have been with the family much longer. Since all the pertinent memories were transferred from the brain of my predecessor to my own, I have a sense of continuity that goes back to the establishment of the Observership, more than eight thousand years ago.”

  Lord Curvert, who had scarcely entered his twelfth decade, felt suddenly humble before the majesty of eighty centuries of time.

  There was a rap at the door. “Charles!” The door opened before either Fesswick or Lord Curvert could answer, and Lady Curvert swept in. “ Ah, there you are. Good morning, Fesswick. Charles, I have arrived at a full intuition. The Thregonnese. We should investigate at once.”

  “The metamorphs of Thregonn? Good heavens, you don’t say so”‘ Lord Curvert stood up from his chair. “But how could they have come here?”

  Lady Curvert shook her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  His lordship looked at Fesswick. “How about that, Fesswick, old man? Could a spaceship have landed recently without registering on the detectors?”

  “Highly unlikely, my lord.”

  Lord Curvert looked back at his wife. “Fesswick says it’s highly unlikely, my dear.”

  “My intuition is never wrong, Charles, “ Lady Curvert replied with dignity.

  “That’s true, eh, Fesswick?”

  “Quite true, my lord. Her ladyship has never been known to err in matters of intuition.”

  “Very well, then; given the datum that there are Thregonnese on the planet, the question is: how did they get here? That seems to me to be logically deducible, which puts it in your department.”

  “I shall endeavor to give satisfaction, my lord.” His high speed robotic brain was capable of working such problems in minute fractions of a second, so he continued without a pause: “It is obvious, my lord, that, in order to get from Thregonn, the metamorphs must have come by interstellar vessel. The only way such a vessel could have entered the Solar System without registering on the detectors would be to utilize a screen that would prevent the telltale wake from the drive energies from reaching us.”

  “But there is no such screen, Fesswick,” Lady Curvert objected.

  “With all due apologies, my lady,” said Fesswick, “there is such a screen. The Sun itself. Interstellar drive energies cannot penetrate through the core of a star without absorption.”

  “Then their ship must have entered the Solar System by coming in from the opposite side of the Sun from Earth?” Lady Curvert said.

  “Precisely so, my lady .”

  “But look here, Fesswick,” said his lordship, “that’s all very well for getting them into the Solar System, but it doesn’t answer at all for getting them to Earth itself. So far, you’ve gotten them a hundred million miles from Earth, with the Sun between us. The question is: How did they get here?”

  “The Viper, my lord,” said Fesswick imperturbably.

  “The Viper?”

  “Exactly, my lord. The Venus Interplanetary Probe ElectroRocket. It was, if you will recall, an unmanned automatic probe rocket designed to make an orbit close to Venus, take photographs, and return to Earth-an orbit which necessitated its being, for a time, on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember seeing the photographs in the Times. Quite good ones they were, too,” Lord Curvert said musingly. “Then, while the Viper was on the other side of the Sun, the Thregonnese simply attached a capsule to the side of it and rode it back to Earth.”

  “Exactly, my lord. It could have been done in no other way.”

  “The timing is exactly right, too,” said Lord Curvert thoughtfully. “Naturally, we had no reason to suspect anything at the time; it was simply another American rocket returning home. It landed in the Pacific, as I recall, and the American Navy didn’t find it for nearly an hour-plenty of time for the Thregonnese to detach their capsule and be on their way. Probably used a distorter to foul up the Navy’s radar a bit, so that it would take more time to find the Viper.

  “Without doubt, my lord,” Fesswick agreed.

  “Very ingenious of them,” said his lordship. “Very. But you see what this implies, don’t you? They have been on Earth for nearly a year—for what purpose we have, as yet, no notion. And now, suddenly, they advertise their presence almost blatantly.

  “Their very method of entry shows that they are aware of the presence of a Galactic Observer on this planet, so one would think that they would do their best to remain in concealment.”

  “Do you fear a trap, Charles?” Lady Curvert asked calmly.

  “Let us say that, at the very least, they are attempting to draw the attention of the Galactic Observer, and that they have succeeded. Why? They want to find out who the Galactic Observer is; they want to be able to put their finger on me, as it were.

  “On the other hand, this is almost too blatant to be. a trap. They not only advertise their presence, but practically tell me how they got here. It’s almost as if they wanted me to recognize it as a trap. Still, that seems a little too much, doesn’t it? We don’t have all the data as yet, and, as a chap I used to know once remarked, ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgement.’”

  “Shall I begin preparations, my lord?” asked Fesswick.

  “Immediately. That’s where they’ve baited their hook very nicely, you see; we have no choice but to investigate. However, we shall take every precaution.” He frowned suddenly. “By the by, Fesswick, I am scheduled to address the House of Lords tomorrow. We’ll have to send a proxy. Fortunately, I’ve already written the speech.”

  “Shall I attend to it personally, my lord?”

  “By no means! I want you here-at the controls.”

  “Certainly, my lord. I’ll send Elsie, the up
stairs maid; she should be able to carry out the deception competently.”

  “Quite. Now, let’s get with it, Fesswick. The game, as my friend used to remark, is afoot.”

  During the reign of Queen Victoria, when the British Empire was at its peak, Lord Curvert had had the opportunity of chuckling inwardly-though deploring outwardly-when he was told of the horrible fate that might face an Englishman stationed in some far-off place. Accompanied by a sad shake of the head, the story usually went something like this: “Terrible thing about Lord Greystoke. Hadn’t you heard? Greystoke’s gone native. Africa, you know. Deplorable. Doesn’t even dress for dinner any more, so I hear.”

  What caused Lord Curvert’s inward mirth was, of course, that the first thing a Galactic Observer did when stationed on a planet was to “go native.” One not only had to blend in, one had to change with the times. One had to age one’s appearance slowly and bring up “children”—parts played by one or more of the robots—and then, at the right time, one became one’s own son while a robot played the older man and finally “died.” Such things required a chameleon-like ability to adapt, to change one’s personality as one might change one’s hat.

  Thus it is not to be considered remarkable that Ben and Cordelia Holler, who stepped out of a dark alley near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, bore no resemblance whatever to Lord and Lady Curvert, either in appearance or manner.

  “Do we make the scene here for a bit,” Cordelia asked, “or do we cut out for New York soonest?”

  “We cut out for N.Y., chick,” Ben said. “Those squares might have pegged us if we’d used a teleporter into the Village, but they won’t dig the G.O. making it on a jet plane. Let’s get this wild gig going, chicky.”

  They walked out into the fog-filled light that spilled from the street lamps.

  Ben chuckled. “Let’s grab a cab. I mean, like we got bread to blow, so let’s blow it.”

  She grinned up at him. “Crazy, man! I mean, real crazy!”

  A few hours later, they were in Manhattan. The roundabout method of arrival had been absolutely necessary. If Fesswick, at the controls of the teleportation projector, had put them directly in New York, there was a slight chance that the Thregonnese detectors might have registered the activity of the materialization field. On the other hand, it was necessary to get into the United States without going through the formality of passing through Immigration and Customs.

  “First thing, baby,” Ben said as they came out of the subway exit at Waverly Place, “is to tag us a pad. Dig? Then we make the scene at the Kettle and a couple of the other cool spots for kicks.”

  Ben and Cordelia made the scene in the Village for seven days before they went anywhere near the Venus Club. They didn’t want to seem anxious, so they played it cool. They strolled into the Venus Club late one Friday evening, and the joint was really swinging. The kookiest-looking quartet this side of an H-kick nightmare were blowing out a beat crazy enough to make any cat flip his gasket.

  Ben and Cordelia sat down, ordered a couple espressos, and kept playing it cool, just digging the whole bit.

  The four musicians were hot; there was no question of that. And cool at the same time. But both Ben and Cordelia could tell at a glance that they were not-definitely not-human beings dressed up in fancy suits. They varied in color from pale pink to deep purple-a drummer, a trumpeter, a clarinetist, and a bass viol player. The lips of the trumpeter and the’ clarinetist formed the instruments they played. The bass player’s belly formed the sounding box of his instrument, with the strings running from his nose to a point below where his navel should have been. The drummer’s belly ballooned out like a kettledrum, with a flat drumhead just below his sternum.

  It was easy to see why they had been able to pass themselves off as dressed-up humans; the “costumes” looked too outré, too artificial to be real. But the dead giveaway was the drummer.

  He had four arms.

  Try that with a costume sometime!

  “Frantically cool,” said Cordelia.

  Ben scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “I’m hip,” he agreed.

  They were Thregonnese, all right. There was no other race in the known Galaxy that could change the shape of their bodies that way.

  The bass player stepped out from the others and began chanting in time to the music. At first, it seemed to be nothing but nonsense syllables of the rooty-ooty-yeek-yeek-boo-da-da type, then both Ben and Cordelia recognized that he was chanting in a jazzed-up version of Basic Galactic, the lingua franca of space.

  “Hey, Observer, give us a buzz!

  We’re in trouble like never was!

  Every night we sing this bit,

  Hoping you’ll be digging it.

  Listen, G.O., to our moan;

  Kindly call us on the phone!

  Listen to our wailing yelp;

  What we mean is: Man, like—help!”

  There was a long wailing note on the trumpet and a little flurry of sobs from the coronet, and the piece ended with a teeth-rattling roll from the drum.

  “Cool,” said Cordelia, crushing out her cigarette.

  “Frantically cool,” agreed Ben. He looked at his wristwatch. “Time to cut out now, but we will definitely have to make this scene tomorrow.”

  They finished their coffee and strolled out. By then, the musicians had left the bandstand and were nowhere to be seen.

  Cordelia waited until they were a full block away before she spoke. “Do we give them a buzz? What kind of crazy hassle do you figure they’re hung up in?”

  “You got no hunch?”

  “Man, like I dig them the least. Can it hurt to phone?”

  “Don’t know, chick. Maybe we ought to—”

  He thought it over for a minute. Which would be best-to sneak up on them quietly, without letting them know he was anywhere around, and hit all four of them fast-or to take them at their word and call them on the phone?

  The trouble was that it was impossible to trust a Thregonnese any farther than you could throw a bonfire by the smoke. The metamorphs of Thregonn weren’t vicious, but they were characterized by a low sense of humor and a way of thinking that was definitely weird by human standards.

  He decided he’d chance it. He said, “Come on, chick,” and went into a drug store on the next corner. He got the number of the Venus Club and dialed it.

  “Venus Club,” said a voice.

  “You are under arrest,” said the Observer in clipped Galactic.

  “Are you the Observer?” asked the voice in the same language.

  “That’s right. And you know you’re not supposed to be on this planet. It’s still under quarantine.”

  “Believe me,” said the other, “I wouldn’t be here at all if I could get away. None of us would. For a while, there, we were afraid maybe you’d never notice us.”

  “So far,” said the Observer, “you haven’t attracted the attention of the local authorities, but if you do, I’ll slap a charge against you that will—”

  “Hey, now!” the Thregonnese interrupted. “We know the law! This was only a misdemeanor. Landing for refueling without authorization, is all.”

  “I’ll tell you what the law is,” the Observer said. “Now, what’s all this fuss about, anyhow?”

  “Well, first of all, it started out as a joke. You know?”

  “Sure. I know all about it,” the Observer said sarcastically. “That’s why I’m spending my time asking you questions. What the hell happened?”

  “Well, there was this bet, see. Lubix, Forbin, Alisnokine, and I had bet some friends of ours that we could come in here, land, pick up a—uh—a souvenir, and come back without your catching us. Without even knowing we’d been here. See?”

  “So far, yes,” said the Observer in a very cold voice.

  “Well, the guys we were betting against must’ve got cute,” the Thregonnese went on. “They bollixed up our space capsule, and we couldn’t take off again. And now that the U.S. Navy has the capsule, we ca
n’t do anything about it at all.”

  “The U.S. Navy? Now wait a minute; you can’t…”

  Then he heard sudden loud noises from the phone, a voice in English said, “Chiggers! The cops!” and the line went dead.

  Cordelia, who had been standing near the doorway of the drugstore, where she could watch the door of the Venus Club, walked over to the phone booth and said, in a low voice, “Like, some cops just went in. Wonder what they’re bugged about?”

  “I hope,” Ben said fervently, “that those cats don’t goof now. Otherwise, we’ll all be in the soup!”

  Lord Curvert glared at his copy of the New York Daily News in a medium dudgeon. There, looking out from the front page with idiotic grins, were four of the most disreputable-looking men his lordship had ever had the misfortune to gaze upon.

  “At least,” he said grudgingly, “they managed to metamorphose into reasonably human shape before they were arrested. I hate to think what might have happened if the police had arrested them while they were still in the outlandish shapes they were wearing when we saw them last.”

  Lady Curvert sipped at her tea and looked at the headlines.

  VENUS CLUB OWNERS NABBED IN

  NARCOTICS RAID

  $10,000 Heroin Cache Found in Coffee House

  “It’s ridiculous,” said her ladyship rather peevishly. “It makes no sense at all! Why should four Thregonnese want to do anything so silly as use or sell heroin? They couldn’t have become addicted to it, could they, Charles?”

  “I think not. Incompatible metabolism, eh, Fesswick?”

  Fesswick placed more buttered toast on the small tray next to the marmalade pot. “Quite incompatible, my lord. Heroin would kill a Thregonnese within three minutes if injected into the bloodstream. Sniffing it, as I believe is often done by addicts, would cause unconsciousness very rapidly.”

  “Then why should they do anything so silly?” her ladyship repeated.

  “I confess, my lady, that I am thus far unable to deduce the machinations lying behind these highly peculiar circumstances,” Fesswick admitted.