Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XI

by Various

  "I'm getting to be a first-class liar," he remarked wryly to himself as he turned back to the temporary quarters he was occupying at the station. "And the bad thing about it is that I'm actually enjoying it."

  A few weeks ago an admission like that would have been inconceivable. It was odd, he thought, how one thing led to another and produced an end that could not be foreseen. Now he could lie and dissemble with the best. He had no compunction about falsifying a requisition, or stealing what he could not obtain with apparent honesty. His character had sunk to an all-time low, he reflected with grim humor as he walked into the shadow of the main building. Neither Blalok's nor Jordan's frequent visits bothered him. Both men were creatures of habit and both were married. They stayed home at night -- and it was nighttime that he worked on the spacer. The project afforded him a perfect cover and it was only minutes by jeep away from the crater.

  Even so, the double duty was an appalling task. And it would have been impossible if it wasn't for Copper. Her quick fingers, keen eyesight, and uncanny memory made the work seem simple, and neither the tediousness of repairing miles of circuitry nor the depressing environment of Olympus Station seemed to bother her. While he worked with the men on the project she restored and reassembled circuits in his quarters and at night they replaced them in the old ship. And the God-Egg was rapidly becoming operational.

  Kennon wondered what it was about Copper that made her so different from the rest. Olympus didn't bother her at all. In fact she seemed to thrive on the depressing atmosphere that filled the Station. Perhaps it was because she had violated the tabu about the God-Egg so often that ordinary superstition had no effect upon her. He shrugged. He had troubles enough without worrying about Copper's motivations, and not the least of these was taking the God-Egg into space.

  Kennon looked forward to blast-off with distinct misgivings. There was too much about the ancient spacer that was strange -- and too much that was terrifying.

  Basically the ship was an ion-jet job with atomic primaries and a spindizzy converter that might possibly take her up as high as middle yellow Cth -- far enough to give her a good turn of speed, but not enough to compensate for timelag. Her screens were monstrosities, double polyphase lattices that looked about as spacetight as so many sieves. There were no acceleration dampers, no temporal compensators, no autopilot, no four-space computer, and the primaries operated on nuclear rather than binding energy. The control chairs weren't equipped with forcefields, but instead had incredibly primitive safety webs that held one in place by sheer tensile strength. Taking a ship like that into space was an open invitation to suicide. A man needed a combination of foolhardy bravery and incredible fatalism to blast off in a can like this. He had the stimulus, but the knowledge of what he would face troubled him more than he cared to admit. More and more, as he understood the ship, he was amazed at the courage of the ancients who had blithely leaped into hyperspace in these flying coffins with no more motivation than to see what was beyond the nearest star. And in ships more primitive than this men had swept through the star systems nearest Earth in the outward expansion of the First Millennium.

  He sighed. The breed of man must have been tough in the old days -- and he'd soon be finding out if any of that ancient toughness remained.

  He opened the door to his quarters.

  Copper was sitting in his favorite chair, a pile of completed assemblies neatly stacked beside her, and a disorderly file of crumpled cloth at her feet. Her face was sullen as she looked up at him. "I've had about all of this I'm going to take," she said mutinously as she stirred the heap of cloth with a bare foot. "Not even you are going to make me wear those -- things!"

  Kennon sighed. It was the same old story. For months he had been trying patiently to indoctrinate Copper with a minimum of civilized habits, but she was quite literally a savage. In her entire lifetime she had never worn clothing, and to encase her body in hose, kilts, blouse, and sandals was a form of torture. She scratched, wiggled, and twisted at the garments until she looked as bad as she felt, and would usually finish a session by tearing off the offending clothes and sulking. She was doing it now.

  "You must act like a civilized human being," Kennon said mildly. "You're simply going to have to learn to wear these clothes properly."

  "Why? I'm more comfortable as I am."

  "That's not the point. You are going to be living in human society and you must act human. The only planet where you could get away with nudity is Santos, and we're not going there."

  "Why not?"

  "I've explained it time and again. We'll have to go to Beta. That's the only place I know where you'll have a fair hearlng. And on Beta people wear clothes. They have to. It's cold, even in summer, and in the wintertime, there's snow."

  "What's snow?"

  "Ice crystals that fall like rain, but I've told you this before."

  "And I still don't believe it."

  "Believe it or not you're going to wear those things. Now put them on!"

  She looked at him with mutiny on her face. "All right, slave driver," she muttered as she picked up the clothing, "but I hope you'll itch someday and be unable to scratch."

  "And try to wear those garments more gracefully. You make them look like a sack."

  "They feel like one. I keep thinking that all I need is a tag around my neck."

  "You haven't much time to get used to them," Kennon said. "We're leaving this week."

  "So soon?"

  "Yes -- and you'll wear those things to the ship, into the ship, and all the time we're on the ship. You'll keep wearing clothing until it looks right."

  "Slave driver!" Copper hissed.

  "Slave," Kennon answered equably.

  Copper giggled. The sound was utterly unexpected, and completely incongruous. That was the wonder of her, Kennon reflected. Her mercurial temperament made life something that was continually exciting She was a never-ending delight.

  CHAPTER XVII

  It was the last trip. Kennon loaded the jeep with the last-minute items he would need. The four reactor cores in their lead cases went aboard last and were packed inside a pile of lead-block shielding.

  He helped Copper in and looked back without regret as the bulk of Olympus Station vanished below him in the dusk. The last of the work crew had left that afternoon. The station was ready for occupancy. His assignment had been completed. He felt an odd pleasure at having finished the job. Alexander might not be happy about his subsequent actions, but he could have no complaint about what he did while he was here.

  "Well -- say good-bye to Flora," he said to Copper.

  "I don't want to," she said. "I don't want to leave."

  "You can't stay. You know that."

  She nodded. "But that doesn't make me any less regretful."

  "Regretful?"

  "All right -- scared. We're going to try to make the God-Egg fly again. Not only is it sacrilege, but as you've often said, it's dangerous. I have no desire to die."

  "You have two courses---"

  "I know -- you've pointed them out often enough," Copper said. "And since you decided to go I'd go with you even though I knew the Egg would blow up."

  "You're quite a girl," Kennon said admiringly. "Did I ever tell you that I love you?"

  "Not nearly often enough," Copper said. "You could do it every day and I'd never get tired of hearing it."

  The jeep settled over the lava wall. "We'll leave it in the passageway when we're through," Kennon said. "Maybe it will survive blast-off."

  "Why worry about it?" Copper asked.

  "I hate destroying anything needlessly," Kennon said.

  "And since we have plenty of time, we might as well be neat about our departure."

  He was wrong, of course, but he didn't know that.

  * * *

  Douglas Alexander checked the radarscope and whistled in surprise at the picture it revealed. "So that's where he's going," he said softly to himself. "Cousin Alex was right as usual." He grimaced unpleasantl
y. "He's up to something -- that's for sure." His face twisted into an expression that was half sneer, half triumph. "This is going to be fun." He moved the control, and his airboat, hovering silently at five thousand meters, dropped toward the ground in free fall as Douglas loosened the Burkholtz in the holster at his waist. "But what is he doing?" he muttered. The question hung unanswered in the still air of the cabin as the airboat dropped downward.

  Douglas hadn't been impressed with Blalok's attempt at a delaying action. Normally he might have been, but his fear of his cousin was greater than his respect for Blalok. The superintendent had only succeeded in accomplishing something he had not intended when he had tried to dissuade Douglas from visiting Kennon. He had made Douglas cautious. The airboat and long-range surveillance had been the result. For the past two nights Douglas had hung over Olympus Station, checking the place -- to leave at dawn when the new day's work began. For two nights Kennon had been lucky. He had departed for the Egg shortly before Douglas took up his station, and had returned after the watcher had called it a night and had returned home. But this last night, Kennon left late -- and his departure was noted.

  "Wonder who's the girl with him?" Douglas said as the boat plunged down. "Well, I'll be finding out in a minute."

  Kennon's head jerked upward at the sound of air whistling past the airboat's hull, and a wave of icy coldness swept through his chest. There was no question that he was discovered. His shoulders sagged.

  "Well -- it was a good try," he said bitterly as Copper looked at him with sudden terror on her face.

  "I don't want to die," she wailed.

  "You won't -- not if I can help it," Kennon said. "Move away from me -- quickly!"

  "But--"

  "Do as I say!" Kennon's voice was sharp. "And keep that hood over your face."

  The airboat settled softly on the ash in front of him, the door snapped open and Douglas dropped to the ground, Burkholtz jutting from his pudgy fist.

  "My, my," Douglas said, "what have we here? Dr. Kennon and a woman! I thought better of you than that, Doctor. And all dressed up in antiradiation suits. This is interesting. Just what are you doing up here on the mountain so late at night -- prospecting?"

  "You might call it that," Kennon said. His body sagged with relief. Douglas thank Ochsner it was Douglas! He was running true to form -- talking when he should have been shooting.

  Douglas jerked his head toward Copper, standing a few feet to his left. "Who is she?"

  "None of your business," Kennon snapped, hoping that his outburst covered Copper's gasp of surprise and fear, and knowing that it didn't.

  "I'm making it my business. There's something funny going on around here."

  Kennon blinked. Could it be that Douglas didn't know? Had he been watching them on radar? Durilium was radar-transparent. It absorbed and dissipated electromagnetic waves rather than reflecting them. For a second he felt a tiny surge of hope.

  "Stand where you are," Douglas said as he stepped over to the half-paralyzed Copper and jerked the hood back from her face. For a moment he looked puzzled. "Just who are you?" he demanded. "I don't recall seeing you before." And then recognition dawned. "Old Doc's Lani!" he gasped.

  "She works for me now," Kennon said.

  Douglas laughed. It wasn't a nice sound. "All dressed up?" he asked. "Nice work."

  "That's my fault," Kennon said.

  "You know the rules," Douglas said. "I could blast you both."

  "Go ahead," Kennon said, "but if you do, you'll never find out what we're doing up here."

  Douglas hesitated. Kennon's voice was flat and filled with utter conviction.

  "There's a reason why Copper's wearing that suit," Kennon continued, "and you won't know that either."

  The Burkholtz swiveled around to point at Kennon's belly. "I've had about enough of this. Let's have it. Tell me what you're doing here!"

  "I'll do better than that," Kennon said promptly. "I'll show you. You'll be surprised at what we've uncovered." He made his muscles relax, and forced himself to speak naturally. Copper, he noted, was still rigid with terror. The Alexanders -- any of them -- were everything he had said they were. They were the masters here. And despite Copper's boast, she was as susceptible to their influence as any other Lani.

  "All right," Douglas said, "show me this thing I'd never be able to find without your help." He half turned to Copper. "Stay where you are, Lani," he said. "Don't move until I come back."

  "Yes, Man Douglas," Copper replied. Her voice was flat, colorless, and submissive.

  Kennon shuddered. He had never heard precisely that tone from her before. One word from Douglas and she had become a zombie -- a mindless muscle preparation that existed only to obey. Anger filled him -- anger that one he loved could be ordered by someone who wasn't worth a third of her -- anger that she obeyed -- anger at his own impotence and frustration. It wasn't a clean anger. It was a dark, red-splashed thing that struggled and writhed inside him, a fierce unreasoning rage that seethed and bubbled yet could not break free. For an instant, with blinding clarity, Kennon understood the feelings of the caged male Lani on Otpen One. And he sympathized.

  "Follow me," he said and started around the ship.

  "Stay -- no -- go ahead," Douglas said, "but remember, I'm right behind you."

  Kennon walked straight up to the pit and pointed down at the dark bulk of the Egg., concealed in the shadows of the bottom.

  "That's it" he said.

  "What? I don't see anything," Douglas said suspiciously.

  "Here -- I'll shine a light." Kennon reached for his belt.

  "No you don't! I know that trick. You're not going to blind me. Take that torch loose carefully -- that's it -- now hand it to me." Douglas' hand closed over the smooth plastic. Cautiously he turned on the beam and directed it downward.

  "A spacer!" he gasped. "How did that get here?" He leaned forward to look into the pit as a dark shadow materialized behind him.

  Kennon choked back the involuntary cry of warning that rose in his throat. Copper! His muscles tensed as her arm came up and down -- a shadow almost invisible in the starlight. The leaning figure of Douglas collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly released. The torch dropped from his hand and went bouncing and winking down the wall of the pit, followed by Douglas -- a limp bundle of arms and legs that rotated grotesquely as he disappeared down the slope. Starlight gleamed on the Burkholtz lying on the lip of the crater, where it had fallen from his hand.

  "I told you that not even Man Alexander could order me since I gave my love to you," Copper said smugly as she peered over the edge of the pit, a chunk of lava gripped in one small capable hand. "Maybe this proves it."

  "Douglas isn't Alexander," Kennon said slowly as he picked up the blaster, "but I believe you."

  "Didn't I act convincingly?" she said brightly.

  "Very," he said. "You fooled me completely."

  "The important thing was that I fooled Douglas."

  "You did that all right. Now let's get him out of that pit."

  "Why?"

  "The jet blast will fry him when we take off."

  "What difference would that make?"

  "I told you," Kennon said, "that I never destroy things unnecessarily -- not even things like Douglas."

  "But he would have destroyed you."

  "That's no excuse for murder. Now go back to the jeep and fetch a rope. I'll go down and get him out."

  "Do we have to bother with him?" Copper asked, and then shrugged. It was an eloquent gesture expressing disgust, resignation, and unwilling compliance in one lift of smoothly muscled shoulders.

  "There's no question about it," Kennon said. "You're becoming more human every day."

  He chuckled as he slid over the edge of the pit following the path Douglas had taken a moment before. He found him sitting on a pile of ashes, shaking his head.

  "What happened?" Douglas asked querulously. There was fear in his voice.

  "Copper hit you on th
e head with a rock," Kennon said as he bent over and retrieved the torch, still burning near Douglas' feet.

  "The Lani?" Douglas' voice was incredulous.

  "Not a Lani," Kennon corrected. "She's as human as you or I."

  "That's a lie," Douglas said.

  "Maybe this spacer's a lie too. Her ancestors came in it -- a pair of humans named Alfred and Melissa Weygand. They were Christian missionaries from a planet called Heaven out in Ophiuchus Sector. Went out to convert aliens and landed here when their fuel ran out." Kennon paused. "That was about four millennia ago. Their descendants, naturally, reverted to barbarism in a few generations, but there's enough evidence in the ship to prove that the Lani were their children.''

  "But the tails -- the differences -- the failure of the test," Douglas said.

  "Mutation," Kennon replied. "Those old spindizzy converters weren't too choosy about how they scattered radiation. And they had come a long way." He paused, looking down at Douglas, feeling a twinge of pity for the man. His world was crumbling. "And there was no other human blood available to filter out their peculiarities. It might have been done during the first couple of generations, but constant inbreeding fixed the genetic pattern."

  "How did you discover this?" Douglas asked.

  "Accident," Kennon said briefly.

  "You'll never be able to prove they're human!" Douglas said.

  "The ship's log will do that."

  "Not without a humanity test -- they can't pass that."

  "Sorry to disappoint you. Your grandfather used the wrong sort of sperm. Now if there had been a Betan in the crew--"

  "You mean she's pregnant!"

  Kennon nodded. "There's been mutation on Beta," he said. "And it's apparently a similar one to hers. Betan-Lani matings are fertile."

  Douglas's shoulders sagged, and then straightened. "I don't believe it," he said. "You're just a damned sneaking spy. Somehow or other you got a spacer in here after you wormed your way into Cousin Alex's confidence -- and now you're going to space out with the nucleus of a new farm. Just wait. When Alex learns of this the galaxy'll be too small to hold you."