Look Out For Space (Seven For Space)

by William F. Nolan

  "If you touch that alarm you'll find out how much harm I can do!"

  He smiled. And turned to the alarm.

  I fired. The beamblast tore off his right arm. Which didn't stop him. With his left, he pressed the alarm stud.

  The building keened with sirens.

  I gaped at Curd. His right arm was charred metal. Oil dripped from it.

  "Naturally, I sent a robot in my place," he said. "To be certain you'd cooperate. My caution was well justified."

  I fired again, ripping him apart. Not that it did me any good.

  A dozen guards were on top of me.

  I couldn't shoot my way free of the cellblock.

  Whether I liked it or not, I was still very much a part of the Program.

  * * *

  They gave me Z-15.

  Then I was taken to Curd's CBT (Creature Body Testing) layout and put through every physical and mental test in or out of the medbooks. I was spun around, turned upside down, bumped and thumped, prodded and jabbed; my body fluids were analyzed, I was put through a T-ray machine, got a full body skincheck from the pore scanners, and was brain-tapped.

  When it was all over, Curd had me brought to his office.

  He sat in a tall throne chair made from the iridescent tailskin of a Martian ikup behind a nearoak desk the size of a hockey field. The walls were lined with faxfiles and framed tridim photos of Curd posing grandly with intergalactic bigwigs.

  The guard shut the door behind me and I was alone with the old man.

  "Are you another robot?" I asked him, advancing to the desk.

  "No, Mr. Space, I am the real flesh and blood Jeremiah Elijah Curd."

  "How come you trust me alone in here with you?"

  "The answer to your question will become self-evident as you continue to approach me," he said.

  I bumped into a wall. But there was nothing in front of me. "Ouch," I said.

  "Invisible force shield," chuckled the old turkey. "It completely surrounds my desk. I allow no one to touch my body."

  "Then it wasn't you who met me at the rocketport when I arrived here?"

  "No, that was another of my machine duplicates. I always send one to welcome a new Volunteer."

  I sat down in a T-shaped floatsofa facing him. "What was all the testing about? What do you plan on doing to me?"

  "Well, first I shall tell you what we are not going to do with you, Mr. Space." And he gave me a deadman's ivory grin. "We are not going to remove your brain. It shall remain in your skullcase."

  "That's nice to hear," I said.

  "The Program's experiments are divided cleanly between brain subjects and body subjects. After extensive tests we decide how each Volunteer may best serve out scientific needs." He leaned back in the throne chair, tiny and fragile. But I knew I was looking at a tough old bird. "Frankly, your neural patterns did not measure out to our minimum requirements."

  "Meaning I'm a lamebrain."

  "That's a harsh way to phrase it, but in terms of the Program, it's quite accurate."

  "So where does that leave me?"

  "Physically, you are a solid, acceptable specimen. I think you'll serve quite well as a regen."

  "What's that mean?"

  "You'll learn all about the Program soon enough, Mr. Space," he said, standing up. "I thought it wise to have this brief face to face confrontation prior to your assignment. I want you to know that we value you highly, my boy, as we do all our Volunteers. You shall be under my constant observation. For now, however, I leave you in the hands of my capable associates. Bon soir!"

  And he dropped through a hole in the floor. Some kind of chute. One second here, gone the next.

  "C'mon, Space," a guard's voice muttered behind me. "Time for beddy-bye."

  And I felt a hypo dig into my left buttock.

  The office swirled into a milky haze in front of my dimming eyes.

  Beddy-bye.

  Twenty-One

  I woke up buried in white.

  I was wearing a white robe and sitting in a white holdchair in a large white chamber surrounded by Curd's glum-faced trio who all wore white lab smocks.

  "Look, fellas," I said, trying for lightness, "I'd like to take a rain-check on this Volunteer routine."

  "Raincheck?" the first of the trio said, looking puzzled.

  "Yeah. I've changed my mind. About Volunteering. I want to withdraw from the Program. Frankly guys, I'm not even curious about it. You can keep your little secrets."

  All three shook their heads. It was like a puppet act.

  "Impossible," said the first one.

  "Too late," said the second.

  "Disallowed," said the third.

  I started to get up, but the chair grabbed me and held me tight.

  "Okay, okay," I sighed. "So tell me what you've got planned. I hate surprises."

  "Release him," one of them said to the chair.

  It did.

  I stood up and the white robe flowed around my feet, which I saw were encased in soft white skinshoes.

  "Follow us, Mr. Space."

  We walked down a short connecting hallway into a nightmare.

  That's how I tagged this "Room of Volunteers." More than a hundred experimental cages were ranked along the four walls. Each cage contained a Volunteer.

  Many were armless.

  Others legless.

  Some were both.

  And at least a dozen were entirely bodyless — just pink and graybrains with wires and cables sprouting out of them, floating in transparent soup bowls.

  "You people are butchers!" I said, shocked and shaken. "You make Jack the Ripper look like Dr. Kildare!"

  They stared blankly at me. Then one of them said, "We promote growth, not destroy it. If you'll observe the limbless Volunteers more carefully, Mr. Space, you will discover that the limbs we removed are slowly growing back again."

  I peered closer. He was right! New arms and legs were beginning to grow from the stumps … tiny buds of pink flesh duplicating the originals.

  "These are all regens. As you soon will be."

  I jumped back. "Hey, now, I want the arms and legs I've already got. I'm very fond of 'em!"

  One of the trio actually smiled. "Oh, we're going into a new phase of the Program with you. We'll allow you to retain your limbs."

  "That's good news," I said, meaning it.

  "No, it's just your nose and ears that we'll be snipping off," said another of Curd's boys. "And they'll grow back. That's the whole aim of the Regen Program. We've solved the problems of regrowth, the regeneration of body tissue."

  "Then if you've solved it, why are you still chopping up guys like me?"

  "Our concern now is with the time it takes to regrow limbs," said the first.

  "At present, we have narrowed it to five years," said the second.

  "But we're hoping to better that time with ears and noses," said the third.

  "I actually have an inferior nose," I said, with sincerity in my tone."And my ears are runty … slow growing."

  "They'll do fine," said the first.

  I was backing away from them when I bumped one of the big soup bowls.

  "You may be wondering about the floating brains," said the second of Curd's men.

  "These are all tellies," said the third.

  "Telepaths," said the first. "In order to study them properly, we were forced to discard the parent bodies."

  I gulped.

  "Would you care to communicate with a telly?"

  "What I'd really like to do," I said shakily, "is to go back and scoop juice. Exchanging hellos with some floating protoplasm is not my idea of …"

  I stopped myself in mid-sentence. Because the Idea had come to me. Sure I wanted to communicate with a tellie. I wanted very much to communicate with one!

  "How?" I asked.

  "Simply place your hand against the surface of the tank," said the first.

  "Then concentrate," said the second.

  "With tactile contact establishe
d, you will be able to exchange thoughts with this Volunteer," said the third.

  I did as they instructed and latched onto a floater.

  Greetings, you poor sod! rasped a voice inside my head. Welcome to the monkey house.

  Who are you? I asked.

  Schpet Stoker, space pirate, replied the floater. I used to knock off Luna tubs till the Federation cops grabbed me. But I was too smart for my own good. It was a matter of brain over brawn.

  How long have you been like this?

  Three Earthyears. Like a beanbag in a bowl of mush.

  Look … can these Curd characters 'hear' us?

  Not unless they palm the bowl and tune in.

  What's your sending range?

  Come again?

  How far can you project?

  There's no limit to it. Not when I get into 'High Stasis.' A kind of mental top gear.

  Could you send a message into my System?

  Sure. I'll need an exact location. Planet, city and postal coordinates. Each location has its own vibration thought field. Just a matter of tuning in. What's the message and who's it for?

  I told him. How long will it take?

  Gimme ten minutes and I'll be beaming.

  You're a pal, I told him, patting the bowl. I couldn't think of anything else to do.

  This whole exchange between Stoker and me took only a second or two; that's how fast brains communicate when you don't have to bother about yapping out loud. So none of Curd's boys suspected anything.

  I gave them a grin.

  "Did you make contact?" asked the first.

  "Yep," I said.

  "Perhaps you are beginning to appreciate the true worth of our Program," said the second.

  "I sure am," I said.

  "And you are no longer concerned about losing your nose and ears?" asked the third.

  "Nope," I grinned.

  They all nodded. Then they hustled me to a table in the next room and strapped me down.

  I'd quit grinning. I hadn't figured them doing the job on me this fast. Stoker needed his full ten minutes to reach High Stasis, and when three geeks are coming at you with laserknives, ten minutes is like a century!

  "This won't take but a moment," said the first.

  "Be over before you know it," said the second.

  "Snip! Snip!" said the third, raising the laserknife.I was helpless. I shut my eyes. Goodbye nose. Goodbye ears. I'm going to miss you.

  Twenty-Two

  I opened my eyes. I was looking up past a melon swell of suited belly to flowing double chins and pink-cheeked jowls."Thanks, Nate," I said. I was sitting on the floor of Nathan Oliver's lab under the Chicago Art Institute on Earth. My old buddy was standing above me, looking sad. His pink jowls quivered. He seemed miserable.

  "You don't look very happy to see me," I said. "How come?"

  "It's your head," Nate told me.

  Yikes! I figured Nate hadn't been fast enough to save my nose and ears. "What about it?"

  "It's on backwards," he said.

  I looked down and let out a yelp. He was right. I was staring at my own buttocks!

  Nate helped me stand up, which isn't as easy as it should be when your nog is reversed.

  "What the hell happened?" I wanted to know.

  "My snapper malfunctioned," he lamented, wringing his pudgy hands.

  "It got me off Curd's planet.

  ""That part went as expected," he said, "but something nutso occurred in your Earth re-entry."

  I paced his lab in anger, feeling silly. I could see where I'd been, but not where I was going.

  "Maybe my head's okay. Maybe it's just that my body is on backwards."

  "Comes to the same thing," sighed Nate.

  I matched his sigh with one of my own. "I just don't get it," I said. "The last time you used your whatsis on me, it time snapped me away from the Robot King's dragon on Mercury without a hitch."

  "True enough, Sam. But I've made improvements since then. And whenever I improve one of my inventions, I get some wacko results."

  I glared at him. "Then why improve 'em?"

  "Progress, Sam! Science must never stand still. We must plunge on into the dark sea of infinite knowledge."

  "Well, thanks to you, I'm plunging there ass-backwards!"

  "I deeply regret snapping you back to Earth in this awkward physical condition," Nate told me.

  "It's not that I'm ungrateful," I said. "I'd be out two ears and a nose if you hadn't snapped me away from Curd's boys." I grinned at him. "And it is good to see your fat mug again!"

  "Thanks, Sam," he mumbled, and a tear rolled down one of his Santa-red cheeks. "Life offers many commodities — but true friendship cannot be purchased at any price."

  I let that one pass and looked around the lab at a maze of new Oliver inventions.

  "Which one of these will set my nog straight?"

  Nate pursed his puffy pink lips and shrugged. "If it were a simple matter, say, of turning you inside out, I could use my pig-reversal machine. I've got that one in jimdandy shape. Turned three big porkers inside out just last week."

  "No good," I said. "Not for me."

  "Also," he went on, "if you needed to grow fur on your stomach I've got a fab little fur-growing gizmo to do that job."

  "My belly's fine."

  "Or, if you wanted to breathe underwater, I'm working on a gill machine that's almost …"

  "You turned me into a bird once, and I had to lay eggs," I reminded him. "I wouldn't go near one of your fish machines on a bet."

  "I can get to work right away on a head reverser," he declared. "Shouldn't be too tough." He brightened. "Offers quite a challenge as a matter of fact. I think I'll enjoy working on it."

  "So how long will I have to walk around ass-backwards?"

  He sat down at a closetable and made some rapid calculations."Actually, I think I can adapt my machine for turning pigs inside out to include head reversals."

  I wanted to know how long it would take to rewire his porker rig, but he wasn't sure.

  "I can take a crack at it right away, if you'd care to wait."

  "I've got a master criminal to catch," I told him. "I can't sit around here in your lousy lab staring at my own ass!"

  "I can appreciate your need to continue your career as an effective enemy of lawbreakers," he said. "And I wish I could remedy your unfortunate condition instantly, but I'm afraid you'll just have to proceed in your present state of reversal for the time being. I'll leave word with your answering service the moment I'm sure I've found a way to turn your head around."

  He was giving it to me straight.

  "Okay, Nate, if that's how it has to be. Thanks for saving my ears."

  "And your nose," he reminded me.

  We shook hands. Blindly, in my case. But when he embraced me in an emotional farewell hug his head was on my side and I could see another tear roll down his cheek.

  Nate Oliver was always a very sentimental eccentric, as eccentrics go.

  I left Earth on an express warper for the Fat Marble.

  I had a mouse to meet.

  * * *

  When I got to Jupiter I was in a hurry. I grabbed a jumper direct to Mouse Headquarters, where I demanded to see Lt. Pennington.

  "He's not available," said the cute little recept rodent at the front desk.

  "To me, he is," I said, stepping over her.

  "Brash tactics based on your commanding size won't accomplish anything in this instance," she assured me. My head was still facing her desk as I walked away from her. I stopped walking.

  "You mean, he isn't in his office?"

  "Exactly, Mr. Space. You have put all of my clues together and, in your deductive brilliance, have arrived at the proper conclusion. He … is … out."

  "Out where?" I glared down at her. "I need to know."

  "For what reason?"

  "We're working an important case together." I flashed my ID. "He needs info I have, and I need to know what he's found out."

/>   "I can tell you that the Lieutenant is on special duty. Which is normal." She furrowed her mousey brow. "But what isn't normal …"

  "Spill it, sister. If there's a kink in Pennington's rope, I need to know."

  "Well," she said, "he hasn't reported in for several worksegs."

  "Is he supposed to? Even on special duty?"

  "Absolutely. Regulations require a vid report every second workseg. No exceptions."

  "Maybe he got boxed. Couldn't reach a vid."

  "That's possible," she agreed.

  "Do you remember where his last vid report came from?"

  "That is official police information. I shouldn't be telling you."

  "But you will, won't you?"

  She let out a tiny sigh. "Dendive. Called the Painpit. Near GooberHeights."

  "Thanks," I said, heading for the door. "You're a pip."

  She called me back. "I have question I'm dying to ask."

  "Which is?"

  "Why is your head on backwards?"

  "That's a long, sad story, sugar. I'll tell you all about it sometime. Right now, I'd better jump out to the Painpit. There's a mouse that may need my help." I gave her my best grin. "Keep your whiskers clean!"

  My head was still grinning at her as the rest of me walked out.

  Twenty-Three

  The Painpit crawled with lowlife: slugbellies from Callisto, sponge-weeders from Ursa Major, seedy multipeds from Capella, Saturnian squeakers with grimed tentacles …

  Despite my freakish condition I didn't rate a second glance here; in this kind of slimeden, nobody cared if your head was on backwards. The dusky odor of fried punk mixed with the sharp aroma of raw peetliquor assailed my nostrils. I leaned my back against the bar and ordered a "house double."

  The barkeep laid out the shot and I reached for it awkwardly, cursing Nate Oliver under my breath. How long would I have to go around with my head reversed? I'd vidbuzzed my service on my way to the Painpit: no word from Chicago yet. Nate was still fiddling with his damned invention.

  I put away the shot, almost retching. Foul stuff, strong enough to melt the hull of a Moon freighter.

  "A copmouse was in here not so long ago," I said to the barkeep. "Named Pennington. I'll pay to find him."