“All right,” he said. “Turn it down.”
If the tough guy objected to that, then—
The bartender cut the volume to about half of what it had been. Then he said, “There’s only another minute or two of that crap and then a newscast comes on. I think it’s the newscast Gardin wanted me to turn it on for anyway. So what the hell.”
Crag agreed, so what the hell.
He glanced toward the other end of the bar and had no difficulty in picking out which of the several men there was the one the bartender had called Gardin. There was only one of them who looked hard enough to scare a bartender. The others were space kids, cadets barely in their twenties. Gardin was more nearly like Crag, medium in size but compact, almost stocky but with a subtle suggestion of grace as well as strength. He was a little younger than Crag but not much, and he had black hair as against Crag’s blond. Like Crag, he was a criminal, but the stamp of criminality showed much more obviously on him than it ever had on Crag.
The newscast came on but Crag, thinking his own thoughts, didn’t hear the first part of it. But then, whether he wanted to or not, he found himself unable not to listen when the words “the new planet” penetrated his consciousness.
“…still shrouded in clouds of dust, but they seem to be thinning. However, Admiral Yates has forbidden any attempt at landing until the surface is visible from space. The landing expedition is standing by, ready, but it may be weeks before…many mysterious features, not least of which is the fact that the amount of heat radiation is entirely too high for a planet so far out from the sun; the new planet will have approximately the same temperatures and seasons as Earth, despite the fact that it is more than twice Earth’s mean distance from the sun. The difference, most scientists believe, is from internal heat generated by the impact of the asteroids when they came together…. All asteroids have now crashed into and become part of this new body; there is no loose matter of any size revolving in what was once the orbit of the asteroids and is now the orbit of the new planet.
“Current estimate of its diameter is six thousand miles, about halfway between the diameter of Mars and that of Earth. Density about five times that of water, almost the same as the density of Earth. Its gravity will be a little less than Earth’s…definitely revolving but exact rate of revolution cannot be determined until the dust clouds settle and observations can be made of a fixed point on its surface…
“Pardon me for a second. I am being handed a bulletin…
“Big news, friends. The new planet has been named. Bellini of Luna Observatory, who was by acclamation of his fellow astronomers given the privilege of naming the new planet, has just announced his choice. He explains that he did not adopt a name out of mythology, since just about every mythological name was used up in naming the thousands of asteroids large enough to have been named, and he does not believe it a good idea to name the new body as a whole after any one of the smaller bodies which came together to comprise it.
“He chose therefore an arbitrary but euphonious combination of syllables, and has named the new planet—here it comes folks—Cragon. Spelled C-r-a-g-o-n—Cragon…”
Crag was leaning backward, holding onto the edge of the bar, roaring with laughter. It was the loudest, most sincere laughter he’d ever had since—since he could remember. The little devil, he thought. The little devil got into an astronomer’s mind and named himself after me. He thinks he’s going to get me that way!
There was a light tap on his shoulder and he quit laughing and turned around.
Gardin stood there, his face impassive but managing to look like a tightly coiled spring. He said, “Were you laughing at me, friend?”
Crag’s laughter subsided, but he still chuckled slightly. “No,” he said, “I wasn’t. But I’ll be glad to if you want me to, if it can lead to fun and games.”
Gardin gestured to the bartender. “Shut it off,” he said. And the radio, which was now playing music, clicked into silence.
“What were you laughing at?” Gardin asked gently.
Crag’s eyes cooled, but not too cold. He said, “Something that’s my business and too complicated to explain. But—say something funny, will you?”
Suddenly Gardin laughed too. “There isn’t anything funny, is there? All right, I was off base. Forget it.”
Crag said, “Unless you want to go outside, for laughs—”
“You had your laugh, whatever it was. I’ll get by without. How’s about a drink instead?”
“Sure,” Crag said.
And he’d made a friend, or as near to a friend as he’d ever allowed himself to have.
He never learned anything about Gardin’s past, but of course Gardin didn’t learn anything about Crag’s either. They didn’t trust one another that far. At first they didn’t trust one another at all, but time took care of that. Time and the fact that mounting evidence convinced each that the other wasn’t on the make, at the moment. If Gardin had been broke….
But Gardin obviously wasn’t broke; there was plenty of evidence for that. He was holing up, enjoying and spending a big haul. And being restless about it, too. Wanting action.
He knew these things about Gardin, as he knew Gardin knew these things about him. Oh, there were differences too; they weren’t peas from a pod. Crag thought he was stronger, physically and mentally. But they never tested, or thought of testing, their physical strength. And mental strength—or will power or guts or whatever you want to call it—is something that only unexpected emergency or danger tests.
And in another way Gardin was different. He had a woman. He never mentioned whether she was his wife or not—which wouldn’t have mattered to Crag in any case—but from things said from time to time, Crag gathered that they’d been together for several years. Her name was Bea, and she was a big brassy blonde. Crag found himself able to get along with her because she was so definitely someone else’s property and so definitely a one-man woman. She left Crag strictly alone, the times the three of them were together. Whether this was because she was afraid of Gardin Crag didn’t know, and didn’t care; he did take care not to find out by ever being with her when Gardin wasn’t around.
When Bea was with the two of them, Crag could almost forget that she was a woman. She drank and swore with them on equal terms, dressed modestly—for Mars City—and never coquetted, even with Gardin, when Crag was around. What they did when he wasn’t around he managed not to think about.
Mostly Crag and Gardin wandered alone, although occasionally Bea went with them. Neither of them asked the other where he lived, or cared. There were places where they came to frequent when they felt like seeing one another, and that was enough.
For a while they found enjoyment—or surcease—in gambling with one another, head-to-head poker, maraja, and other games that two can play with a borrowed deck of cards in a quiet back room of a bar with no kibitzers. For a while the games ran even, and got higher. But then, as they got higher, Crag found himself winning more and more often. He knew Gardin well enough by then to be able to read subtleties of expression and manner well enough to know when to be cautious and when to plunge.
And suddenly he had about eighty thousand dollars of Gardin’s money in front of him and suddenly he knew by the tiny signs that showed through the calm outwardness of Gardin’s face, that Gardin was hurting, was going broke. And that quite likely the stake Gardin and Bea were living on was more likely in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand than half a million. And Crag didn’t want their money; he had enough troubles of his own. Carefully he started losing, not so suddenly as to be obvious and not all in one game. But when they were back about even, several games later, he lost interest in gambling. And so did Gardin. After that they played only occasionally and then for relatively small stakes at games in which the skill and fun of beating your opponent is more important than the amount you win.
And bets, of course. They were constantly killing time by making bets on ridiculous and irrelevant things, usually five or
ten dollar bets, but once in a while going higher when the thing they were betting on wasn’t pure luck but was something on which they held divergent opinions. If they were alone in a bar, for instance, they’d sit in the middle and bet ten dollars on whether the next customer to enter it would go to the bar at the right or the left side of them. Whether the next customer to enter would be barefoot or wearing sandals—arguing over odds according to the weather and the time of day. If it had ever rained on Mars they would have bet on which raindrop of two would first reach the bottom of a pane. Ridiculous things, but the betting gave them something to talk about, for neither ever talked about himself, and talking about irrelevant things helped kill time.
Time was the enemy, although that was something neither of them talked about.
Once Crag took Gardin to his suite at the Luxor. Gardin had looked about him and whistled. “Where’s the button you push for the dancing girls?” he wanted to know, and when Crag didn’t answer, he asked, “You’re a woman-hater, aren’t you?” And when Crag didn’t answer that, he let the subject drop.
Gardin wandered around the suite, hands in his pockets until he discovered the pornography room. Then he took his hands out of his pockets to look at the books and run a few of the tapes. Crag heard him chuckling to himself and saw a look on his face that disgusted him. “Come on out,” he said. “Take some of those damn things home with you if you want, keep ’em, but don’t read ’em here.”
Gardin came out. His face was ugly now. “Pretty bluenose, aren’t you?” he asked.
Crag shrugged. “What do you want to drink?”
“Woji. Unless you’ve got some nephthin around—wouldn’t mind trying that once. No, I’m kidding.”
Crag opened two woji bottles and handed one to Gardin with a glass.
Gardin poured himself a drink and put the bottle down by the chair he was sitting in. In a changed voice he said, “I’m feeling lousy, Crag. What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re getting soft.”
“Soft?” Gardin stood up quickly. “Bet you a grand I can take you, here and now.”
Crag grinned and for a moment something leaped inside him. Then he said, “No bet, Gardin. Sit down and drink your drink. I don’t play Queensberry rules and you don’t either. Once we got started if I didn’t kill you you’d kill me. Let’s not get into that, for a lousy grand bet or any other bet.”
Gardin sat down but his face turned sullen. “Quit needling me then.”
“I’m not needling you, just told you the truth. Hell, it’s true about me too. I’m getting soft.” But Crag didn’t really believe it about himself.
Gardin was pacing around the suite again. He opened the double door that hid the six-by-eight video screen and whistled at the sight of it. “Boy, a big one. And that reminds me. Know what today is?”
“What?”
“Day they’re going to land on Cragon. Been following the newscasts?”
“Not since yesterday. What gives?”
“The dust is gone. Didn’t seem to settle, just to vanish all at once. And—this is impossible, but they say it’s true—it’s a finished planet.”
Crag puffed a cigarette into flame. “What do you mean, a finished planet?”
“Not a raw one. Vegetation—trees and everything. Pretty much like Earth except it’s mostly land instead of mostly ocean. But there are lakes and rivers—fresh water, and that doesn’t make sense.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“Streams and rivers get that way after rains, making channels for themselves over thousands of years of runoff from higher ground. Damn it, the planet’s only two weeks old. How could the planet have formed river beds already?”
“Maybe it’s precocious,” Crag said.
“Whatever it is, it’s not natural. Kid about it if you like, Crag, but even the toughest of the scientists are beginning to admit that this is something that couldn’t happen naturally. Some of them are frank about saying they’re scared stiff.”
“Of what?”
“They don’t know, and that’s what scares them.” Gardin turned back to the video screen. “I’d forgotten till I saw this, but it’s about time for them to make a ’cast on that landing. Let’s watch it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Crag said. Gardin turned the switch and the big screen leaped into color and sound, an almost naked Amazonian woman singing of the joys of a certain unmentionable perversion.
“Shut the damn tiling off,” Crag said.
“Okay, but it’s only for a minute—” Gardin reached for the switch but before he could turn it the song ended and the picture faded.
And on the big screen flashed the distant picture of a planet seen from space. A planet that, except for the contour of the continents, could have been Earth. Blue oceans, continents mottled green and brown, white polar regions.
“We show you Cragon,” said an unctuous voice, “newest planet of the sun. The view of it that you see is being ’cast from the flagship Dorai, and is from two hundred thousand miles out. We shall maintain this position until a report has been received from the scoutship Andros, which is even now proceeding down to make the first landing on the surface. In a few minutes—it will be at least another twenty before the Andros enters the atmosphere of Cragon—we will switch you to the scoutship so you can be with them at the very moment of landing. The scoutship is manned by Captain Burke and Lieutenant Laidlaw. We regret that the scoutship is too small to carry transspace video equipment so the view upon your screen will continue to be broadcast from here, from the flagship. But let us introduce you via tridi photos to the two men aboard the scoutship while we contact them for you by radio. Captain Burke.”
A tridi still of a middle-aged man with hard eyes but a weak chin flashed on the screen. “Are you ready, Captain?” The lips of the photograph didn’t move but a voice said, “Yes, Burke reporting, sir.”
“Anything to report yet?”
“Only that we are descending slowly and cautiously, in accordance with instructions. We are a hundred miles up, still well above the outer reaches of the atmosphere.”
“Good. Then there is time for you to introduce your companion. Please put Lieutenant Laidlaw on.”
Another tridi still flashed on. A very handsome young man with curly black hair. You would have expected his voice to be effeminate, and it was. “Lieutenant Laidlaw, sir.”
“You are the one assigned to do the reporting while your captain navigates, Lieutenant. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then please remain at the microphone.” The tridi photograph changed again to the distant view of a world revolving in space. “Have you chosen a point for your landing, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. Approximately in the center of the day side, which is at the moment approximately in the center of the largest continent. Near the shore of a large lake—I think I can tell you which one. We have a monitor set here and are receiving your picture. Do you see a lake, almost exactly in the middle of your picture, that is roughly triangular in shape?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“Well, we plan on landing near the bottom point—the southern point of that triangle. You’ll notice that a stream, or what looks like one, enters the lake at that point. And the area around the stream is green, but only a short distance from it is the edge of a large brown area. We figure that should be a good central point of observation. We can check the water of the stream and the water of the lake. And we can see what kind of vegetation makes up the green area and whether the brown area is sand or rock or what. Also our thermocouple observations indicate a temperature of about seventy degrees Fahrenheit, a nearly optimum temperature. We’ve got to land somewhere, and that looks like as good an all-around spot as any.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. And your altitude now?”
“A little under eighty miles. We’re settling slowly, under antigrav.”
Crag chuckled.
The Lieutenant’s voice said, “Of course we’ll
make final observations before we make actual planetfall. We’re now descending on automatics set to stop us at five miles. From there our telescopes will give us a very close view of the terrain. And by that time, we’ll be within the atmosphere and can make a thorough check that will tell us whether it’s breathable or whether we’ll have to wear our suits.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Laidlaw. And now we will have a word from Admiral of the Grand Fleet Johnson, who is right here beside me aboard…”
Crag was chuckling again and Gardin turned away from the screen to look at him. “What’s funny?” he wanted to know.
“The whole thing,” Crag said. “They aren’t going to land—or if they do they’ll never take off again.”
“Why not?”
“Not invited. Just watch.”
Gardin grinned. “There’s an old phrase—put your money where your mouth is. How much you want to bet?”
Crag shrugged. “You name it. But you’ll lose.”
Gardin was fumbling through bills. “Getting a little short, but I’ll take a thousand of that. Or were you kidding?”
For answer Crag took a thousand-dollar bill out of his pocket and dropped it on the floor between them. Gardin covered it with ten hundreds.
The bulldog face of the admiral was on the screen. “…seems no danger whatsoever, but the fleet takes no chances. Before those men leave the scoutship, the area will have been surveyed for every possible danger. It seems impossible that a newly formed planet could possibly harbor life, inimical or otherwise, yet the possibility will not be overlooked. There are mysteries to which we do not have the answer—especially the mystery of how Cragon was formed and how it could so incredibly quickly have acquired atmosphere, a well-developed topography and, especially in so short a time, what is almost certainly vegetation. It is because of these mysteries that we shall not land a big ship and risk the lives of thousands.
“Captain Burke and Lieutenant Laidlaw have volunteered for this mission and know they are risking their lives, even though no risk seems apparent. But a new planet always is an unknown quantity and this applies doubly in the current case, when the details of its formation are so mysterious, so sudden that one might almost think it was the deliberate act of an intelligent entity.
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