by Hank Davis
And from the insides of the thing a lever speared forward. A spoon was welded to the fore end, and it carried a heaping load of mushy something-or-other.
Walt blinked and tried to duck, but his bindings wouldn’t permit too much freedom of motion. The spoon hit him on the cheek, cutting him and spilling the food on his chest. The spoon disappeared back into the machine.
It reappeared on the other side and sliced toward Christine, who screamed in fright. The spoon entered her opened mouth, and the stuff it hurled into her throat nearly strangled her. It came again at Walt, who miscalculated slightly and received a cut lip and a mouth full of heavy gruel.
“You have to get set just so,” explained Kingman, “then you’ll not be cut.”
“Damn you—Glub!” Walt snapped.
Christine waited and caught the next spoonful neatly.
And then the thing accelerated. The velocity of repetition increased by double—then decreased again—and then started on random intervals. They could never be certain when the knifing spoon would come hurtling out of the machine to plunge into the position where their mouths should be. They were forced to swallow quickly and then sit there with mouth wide open to keep from getting clipped. With the randomness of interval there came another randomness. One spoonful would be mush; the next ice cream; followed by a cube of rare steak. The latter was tough, which demanded jaw-aching rapid chewing to get set for the next possible thrust.
“A balanced diet,” chortled Kingman, rolling his eyes in laughter. He held his stomach at the sight.
“You—glub!—devil!—glub!”
“It won’t be long now,” said Kingman. “Your cold room is down to almost absolute zero now. You know what that means?”
“—glub!—you—”
“When the metal reaches absolute zero, as it will with the thermal beam, the spread of cooling will accelerate. The metal will become a superconductor—which will superconduct heat as well as electricity. The chill area is spreading rapidly now, and once this cold-room section reaches absolute zero, the chill will spread like wildfire and the famous Venus Equilateral Relay Station will experience a killing freeze.”
Walt glared. There was nothing else he could do. He was being fed at a rapid rate that left him no time for other occupations. It was ignominious to be so treated, but Walt consoled himself with the fact that he was being fed—even though gulps of scalding-hot coffee drenched spoons of ice cream that came after mashed potatoes (with lumps, and where did Kingman get that duplicator recording?). The final blow was a one-inch tube that nearly knocked their teeth out in arriving. It poured a half-pint of Benedictine and brandy down their throats which made them cough—and which almost immediately left them with their senses reeling.
Kingman enjoyed this immensely, roaring with laughter at his “feeding machine,” as he called it.
Then he sobered as Walt’s eyes refused to focus. He stepped to a place behind Walt and unbound him quickly. Walt tried to stand, but reeled, and Kingman pointed his heavy rifle at Walt from a very safe distance and urged him to go and enter the small metal house. Walt did. Then Kingman transferred Christine to the house in the same way.
He sealed the only door with the duplicator and, from a small opening in the wall, he spoke to them.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “You’ll find everything in there to set up light housekeeping but food and heat. There’ll be no heat, for I’ve removed the heating plant. You can see it through this hole, but the hole will soon be closed by the feeding machine, which I’m fixing so that you can eat when hungry. I’d prefer that you stay alive while you slowly freeze. Eventually your batteries will give out, and then—curtains. But I’ve got to leave because things are running my way and I’ve got to be in a place to cash in on it. I’ll be seeing you.”
Keg Johnson greeted Don warmly. Then he said, “I knew you’d do it sooner or later,” with a grin.
Don blinked. “The last time you said that was in the courtroom in Buffalo, after we wrecked the economic system with the matter duplicator. What is it this time?”
“According to the guys I’ve had investigating your coupled-crystal effect, it is quite simple. The effect will obtain with any crystalline substance—so long as they are absolutely identical! It took the duplicator to do it right to the atomic lattice structure. You’ll get any royalties, Channing, but I’m getting all my ships talking from ship to ship direct, and from Canalopsis direct to any ship. You’ve just invented Venus Equilateral out of business!”
“Good!” exclaimed Don.
“Good?”
Don nodded. “Venus Equilateral is fun—and always has been. But, damn it, here we are out here in space lacking the free sky and the fresh natural air. We’d never abandon it so long as Venus Equilateral had a shred of necessity. But now we can all go home to man’s natural environment: a natural planet.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Furnish the communications stations at Northern Landing, at Canalopsis, and on Terra with coupled-crystal equipment. Then we abandon Venus Equilateral in one grand celebration.”
Arden smiled. “Walt and Christine will be wild. Serves ’em right.”
Farrell shrugged. “Going to tell ’em?”
“Nope. For one thing, they’re honeymooning no one knows where. And so we’ll just leave quietly and when they come back, they’ll find that Venus Equilateral is a large empty house. Run off on us, will they!”
“Making any public announcements?” asked Keg.
Don shook his head. “Why bother?” he asked. “People will know sooner or later, and besides, these days I’d prefer to keep the coupled-crystal idea secret as long as possible. We’ll get more royalty, because once it is known, the duplicators will go crazy again. So long as Venus Equilateral—the generic term—maintains interplanetary communications, that’s all that is necessary. Though Venus Equilateral as an identity is no more, the name of the Interplanetary Communications Company shall be known as Venus Equilateral as a fond tribute to a happy memory of a fine place. And—”
“And now we can haul off and have a four-alarm holiday brawl,” said Arden.
Farrell noted the thermometers that measured the temperature of the cold room. “About all we’d have to do is to hold the door open and Venus Equilateral will have its first snowstorm.”
“Just like Mars,” said Jim. “No wonder Christine eloped with Walt. Bet they’re honeymooning on Venus.”
“Well,” said Channing, “turn up the gain on that ice cream freezer of Walt’s, and we’ll have our winter snowstorm. A white Christmas, by all that’s good and holy!”
Farrell grinned widely and reached up to the servo panel. He twisted the master control dial all the way clockwise and the indicators read high on their scales. Imperceptibly, the recording thermometers started to creep downward—though it would take a day or so before the drop became evident.
“Get everything in motion,” said Channing. “Arden, make plans to clean out about an acre of former living space—make a one-room apartment out of it. Get the gals a-decorating like mad. Wes, get someone to make a firebrick and duplicate it into enough to build a fireplace. Then make enough fireplaces to go around to all as wants ’em. For draft, we’ll tie the chimneys together and let it blow out into space at fourteen pounds per square inch of draft. Better get some good dampers, too. We’ll get some crude logs—duplicate us a dozen cords of wood for firewood. Tell the shopkeepers down on the Mall that the lid is off and the Devil’s out for breakfast! We’ll want sleds, fur coats, holly and mistletoe by the acres. And to hell with the Lucite icicles they hang from the corridor cornices. This year we have real ones.
“Oh,” he added, “better make some small heating units for living rooms. We can freeze up the hall and ‘outdoor’ areas, but people want to come back into a warm room, shuck their earmuffs and overcoats, and soak up a cup of Tom and Jerry. Let’s go, gang. Prepare to abandon ship! And let’s abandon ship with a party that will go down in history—and m
ake every man, woman, and child on Venus Equilateral remember it to the end of their days!”
“Poor Walt,” said Arden. “I wish he could be here. Let’s hope he’ll come back to us by Christmas.”
For the ten-thousandth time, Walt inspected the little metal house. It was made of two courses of metal held together with an insulating connector, but these metal walls had been coupled with water now, and they were bitter cold to the touch.
Lights were furnished from outside somewhere, there was but a switch in the wall and a lamp in the ceiling. Walt thought that he might be able to raise some sort of electrical disturbance with the lighting plan, but found it impossible from the construction of the house. And obviously, Kingman had done the best he could to filter and isolate any electrical fixtures against radio interference that would tell the men in Venus Equilateral that funny work was afoot. Kingman’s duplicator had been removed along with anything else that would give Walt a single item that he could view with a technical eye.
Otherwise, it was a miniature model of a small three-room house; not much larger than a “playhouse” for a wealthy child, but completely equipped for living, since Kingman planned it that way and lived in it, needing nothing.
“Where do we go from here?” Walt asked in an angry tone.
Christine shuddered. “What I’m wondering is when these batteries will run out,” she said.
“Kingman has a horse-and-buggy mind,” said Walt. “He can’t understand that we’d use miniature beam energy tubes. They won’t give out for about a year.”
“But we can’t hold out that long.”
“No, we damn well can’t,” grunted Franks unhappily. “These suits aren’t designed for anything but a severe cold. Not a viciously killing kind. At best, they’ll keep up fairly well at minus forty degrees, but below that they lose ground degree for degree.”
Christine yawned sleepily.
“Don’t let that get you,” said Walt nervously. “That’s the first sign of cold adaptation.”
“I know,” she answered. “I’ve seen enough of it on Mars. You lose the feeling of cold eventually, and then you die.”
Walt held his forehead in his hands. “I should have made an effort,” he said in a hollow voice. “At least, if I’d started a ruckus, Kingman might have been baffled enough to let you run for it.”
“You’d have been shot.”
“But you’d not be in this damned place slowly freezing to death,” he argued.
“Walt,” she said quietly, “remember? Kingman had that gun pointed at me when you surrendered.”
“Well, damn it. I’d rather have gone ahead, anyway. You’d have been—”
“No better off. We’re still alive.”
“Fine prospect. No one knows we’re here; they think we’re honeymooning. The place is chilling off rapidly and will really slide like hell once that room and the original tube reaches absolute zero. The gang below us don’t really know what’s going on because they left the refrigerator tube to my care—and Channing knows that I’d not go rambling off on a honeymoon without leaving instructions, unless I was certain without a doubt that the thing would run without trouble until I returned. I’m impulsive, but not forgetful. As for making any kind of racket in here—we’re licked.”
“Can’t you do something with the miniature power tubes that run these suits?”
“Not a chance—at least nothing that I know I can do between the removal of the suit and the making of communications. They’re just power-intake tubes tuned to the big solar-beam jobs that run the station. I—”
“Walt, please. No reproach.”
He looked at her. “I think you mean that,” he said.
“I do.”
He nodded unhappily. “But it still obtains that it’s my fault.”
Christine put cold hands on his cheeks. “Walt, what would have happened if I’d not been along?”
“I’d have been trapped alone,” he told her.
“And if I’d come alone?”
“But you wouldn’t have—”
“Walt, I would have. You couldn’t have kept me. So, regardless of whether you blame yourself, you need not. If anybody is to blame, call it Kingman. And Walt, remember? I’ve just found you. Can you imagine—well, put yourself in my place—how would you feel if I’d walked out of your office and dropped out of sight? I’m going to say it once and only once, because it sounds corny, Walt, but I’d rather be here and knowing than to be safe and forever wondering. And so long as there is the breath of life in us, I’ll go on praying for help.”
Walt put his arms around her and held her gently.
Christine kissed him lightly. “Now I’m going to curl up on that couch,” she said. “Don’t dare let me sleep more than six hours.”
“I’ll watch.”
“And I’ll measure time for you. Once we start sleeping the clock around, we’re goners.”
Christine went to the couch and Walt piled the available covers on after he checked the operation of the power tube that furnished heat for her suit. He turned it up a bit, and then dimmed the light.
For Walt there was no sleep. He wandered from room to room in sheer frustration. Given anything of a partially technical nature, and he could have made something of it. Given a tool or two or even a few items of kitchen cutlery, and he might have quelled his restlessness in working toward some end. But to be imprisoned in a small house that was rapidly dropping toward zero degrees Kelvin without a book, without a knife or fork or loose bit of metal anywhere, was frustration for the technical mind.
Mark Kingman, of course, had been quite afraid of just that and he had skinned the place bare of everything that could possibly be used. Kingman even feared a loose bit of metal, because metal struck against metal can produce sparks that will light a fire.
There was nothing at all but himself—and Christine. And Walt knew that it would take only a few more days before that, too, would end.
For the metal of the house was getting to the point where he stuck to it if he touched it. The suits kept them warm—to take them off would have been sheer folly.
So from kitchenette to bathroom to living room prowled Walt. He swore at the neat little shower—the water was frozen, even had anybody wanted to take a bath.
Kingman entered the conference room of the Interplanetary Communications Commission with confidence. He knew his ground and he knew his rights, and it had been none other than he who had managed to call this meeting together. With a bland smile, Kingman faced the members of the commission.
“I wish to state that the establishment known as Venus Equilateral has forfeited its license,” he said.
This was intended to be a bombshell, and it did create a goodly amount of surprise on the part of the commission.
The chairman, Lewis Hollister, shook his head in wonder. “I have this morning received a message from Mars.”
“It did not go through Venus Equilateral,” stated Kingman.
“I’m not acquainted with the present celestial positions,” said Hollister. “However, there are many periods during which time the communications are made direct from planet to planet—when Terra and Mars are on line-of-sight to Venus and one another.”
“The celestial positions are such that relay through Venus Equilateral is necessary,” said Kingman.
“Indeed?”
Kingman unrolled a chart showing the location of the planets of the inner Solar System: Mars, Terra, Venus—and Venus Equilateral. According to the lines-of-sight drawn on the map, the use of the relay station was definitely desirable.
“Conceded,” said Hollister. “Now may I ask you to bring your complaint?”
“The Research Services Corporation of Northern Landing, Venus, have for years been official monitors for the Interplanetary Communications Commission,” Kingman explained. “I happen to be a director of that corporation, which has research offices on Terra and Mars and is, of course, admirably fitted to serve as official monitor. I make t
his explanation because I feel it desirable to explain how I know about this. After all, an unofficial monitor is a lawbreaker for making use of confidential messages to enhance his own position. As an official monitor, I may observe and also make suggestions pertaining to the best interests of interplanetary communications.
“It has been reported along official channels that the relaying of messages through the Venus Equilateral Relay Station ceased as of twelve hundred hours Terran mean time on twenty December.”
“Then where are they relaying their messages?” asked Hollister. “Or are they?”
“They must,” said Kingman. “Whether they use radio or the subelectronic energy bands, they cannot drive a beam direct from Terra to Mars without coming too close to the sun. Ergo, they must be relaying.”
“Perhaps they are using their ship beams.”
“Perhaps—and of course, the use of a secondary medium is undesirable. This matter of interrupted or uninterrupted service is not the major point, however. The major point is that their license to operate as a major monopoly under the Communications Act insists that one relayed message must pass through their station—Venus Equilateral—during every twenty-four-hour period. This is a safety measure, to ensure that their equipment is always ready to run—even in periods when relaying is not necessary.”
“Venus Equilateral has been off the air before this.”
Kingman cleared his throat. “A number of times,” he agreed. “But each time that discontinuance of service occurred, it was during a period of emergency—and in each instance this emergency was great enough to demand leniency. Most of the times an explanation was instantly forthcoming; the other times were after seeking and receiving permission to suspend operations during the emergency period. This, gentlemen, is twenty-three December and no message has passed through Venus Equilateral Relay Station since noon on twenty December.”
“Your statements, if true, indicate that Venus Equilateral has violated its license,” Hollister nodded. “However, we are inclined to be lenient with them because they have been exemplary in the past and—”