The 13th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack

by Lester Del Rey

  Vic nodded. It came as a shock to him that the creature could probably handle the whole station by itself, as it obviously did, and quite efficiently, with that size and set of tentacles. He stated the problem quickly.

  The Looech, as it called itself, scratched its stomach with a row of tentacles and pondered. “I’d like to help you. Oh, the empress would have fits, but I could call it an accident. We engineers aren’t really responsible to governments, after all, are we? But it’s the busy season. I’m already behind, since my other engineer got in a duel. That’s why the pup was tending while I slept. You say the field spreads out on continuous transmit?”

  “It does, but it wouldn’t much, if there isn’t too long a period of operation.”

  “Strange. I’ve thought of continuous transmittal, of course, but I didn’t suspect that. Why, I wonder?”

  Vic started to give Ptheela’s explanation of unbalanced resonance between the vacuum of the center and the edges in contact with matter, but dropped it quickly. “I’ll probably know better when I can read the results from the instruments.”

  The Looech grumbled to itself. “I suppose you wouldn’t send me the readings—we’re about on a Galactic level, so it wouldn’t strain the law too much.”

  Vic shook his head. “If I can’t complete the chain, there won’t be any readings. I imagine you could install remote cutoffs fairly easily.”

  “No trouble, though nobody ever seemed to think of them. I suppose it could be covered under our emergency powers, if we stretch them a little. Oh, blast you. Now I won’t sleep for worrying about why it spreads. When will you begin?”

  Vic grinned tightly as they arranged the approximate time and let the Looech carry him back to the capsule. He flashed through Ecthinbal and climbed out of the Chicago transmitter to find Pat looking worriedly at the capsule, summoned by the untended call announcer.

  “You’re right, Pat,” he told her. “Engineers run pretty much to form. Tell Flavin we’ve got Ee.”

  But there were a lot of steps to be taken still. He ran into a stumbling block at Noral, and had to wait for a change of shifts, before a sympathetic engineer cut the red tape to clear him. And negative decisions here and there kept Flavin jumping to find new routes.

  They almost made it, to find a decision had been reversed on them by some authority who had gotten word of the deal. That meant that other authorities would probably be called in, with more reverses, in time. Once operating, the engineer could laugh at authority, since the remote cutoff could be easily hidden. But time was running out. There were only twenty-seven minutes left before the bombs would be finally ordered dropped, and it would take fifteen to countermand their being dropped.

  “Give me that,” Flavin ordered, grabbing the phone. “There are times when it takes executives instead of engineers. We’re broken at Seloo. Okay, we don’t know where Seloo ships.” His Galactic Code was halting, but fairly effective. The mechanical chirps from the Seloo operator leaped to sudden haste. A short pause was followed by an argument Vic was too tired to catch until the final sentence of assent. Then Pat took over, to report shortly to Flavin. “Enad to Brjd to Teeni clear.”

  “Never heard of Brjd,” Vic commented.

  Flavin managed a ghost of a swagger. “Figured our lists were only partial and we could stir up another link. Here’s the final list. I’ll get in touch with President Wilkes—now that we’ve got it, he’ll hold off until we see how it works.”

  It was a maze, but the list was complete; from Earth to Ecthinbal, Ee, Petzby, Noral, Szpendrknopalavotschel, Seloo, Brjd, Teeni, and finally through Plathgol to Earth. Vic whistled the given signal and the acknowledgments came through. It was in operation. And Flavin’s nod indicated Wilkes had confirmed it and held off the bombs.

  Nothing was certain, still; it might or might not do the trick. But the tension dropped somewhat. Flavin was completely beaten. He hadn’t had decent exercise for years, and running from communications to routing had been almost continual. He flopped over on a shipping table. Ptheela bent over him and began massaging him with deft strokes of her arms. He grumbled, but gave in, then sighed gratefully.

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  She managed an Earth giggle. “Instinct. My ancestors were plants that caught animals for food. We had all manner of ways to entice them—not just odor and looks. I can feel exactly how your body feels in the back of my head. Umm, delicious!”

  He struggled at that picture, his face changing color. Her arms moved slowly, and he relaxed. Finally he reached for a cigar. “I’ll have nightmares, I’ll bet—but it’s worth it. Oh-oh, some of the rulers are catching on, and don’t like it!”

  The minimum staff left in Bennington was reporting by normal televisor contact, but while things seemed to be improving, they couldn’t get near enough to be sure. The tornado around the city was abating, they thought, but Earth’s weather patterns were slow to change, once thoroughly upset. The field was apparently collapsing as the air was fed inside it, but very slowly.

  Ptheela needed no sleep, but Flavin was already snoring. Pat shook her head as Vic started to pull himself up on a table. She led him outside to the back of one of the sheds, where a blanket lay on a cot, apparently used by one of the supervisors. She pushed him toward it. As he started to struggle at the idea of using the only soft bed, she dropped onto it herself and pulled him down.

  “Don’t be silly, Vic. It’s big enough for both, and it’s better than those tables.”

  It felt like pure heaven, narrow through it was. But his body was too tired to respond properly. The tension remained, reminding him that nothing was sure yet. Beside him, Pat stirred restlessly. He rolled over, pulling himself closer to her, off the hard edge of the cot, his arm over and around her.

  For a moment, he thought she was protesting, but she merely turned over to face him, settling his arm back. In the half-light, her eyes met his, wide and serious. Her lips trembled briefly under his, then clung firmly. Her body slid against him, drawing tighter, and his own responded, reaching for the comfort and end of tension hers could bring.

  It was automatic, almost unconscious, and yet somehow warm and personal, with an edge of tenderness all the cloudiness of it could not dull. Then she lay relaxed in his arms while his own muscles released themselves to the soft comfort of the cot. She smiled faintly, pushing his hair back.

  “I’m glad it’s you, Vic,” she said softly. Then her eyes closed as he started to answer, and his own words disappeared into a soft fog of sleep.

  The harsh rasp of a buzzer woke him, while a light blinked on and off near his head. He shook some of the sleep confusion out of his thoughts and made out an intercom box. Flavin’s voice came over it sharply as he nipped the switch.

  “Vic—where the hell are you? Never mind. Wilkes just woke me with his call. Vic, it’s helped—but not enough. The field is about even with the building now. But it’s stopped shrinking, and we’re still losing air. There’s too much loss at Ecthinbal, and at Ee—the engineer there didn’t get the portals capped right, and Ecthinbal can’t do anything. We’re getting about two thirds of our air back. And Wilkes can’t hold the pressure for bombing much longer! Get in here!”

  VI

  “Where’s Ptheela?” Vic asked as he came into the communication and transmitter room. She needed no sleep and should have been taking care of things.

  “Gone—back to Plathgol, I guess. Said something about an appeal. She was flicking out by the time I really woke up. Rats deserting the sinking ship, seems to me—though I had her figured different. It just shows you can’t trust a plant.”

  Vic swept his attention to the communicator panel. The phones were still busy. They were still patient—even the doubtful ones were now accepting things; but it couldn’t last forever. Even without the risk, the transmitter banks were needed for regular use. Many did not have inexhaustible power sourc
es, either.

  A new note cut in over the whistling now, and he turned to the Plathgol phone, wondering what Ptheela wanted. The words were English. But the voice was different.

  “Plathgol calling. This is Thlegaa, Wife of Twelve Husbands, Supreme Plathgol Teleport Engineer, Ruler of the Council of United Plathgol, and Hereditary Goddess, if you want the whole routine. Ptheela just gave me the bad news. Why didn’t you call on us before—or isn’t our air good enough for you?”

  “Hell, do you all speak English?” Vic asked, too surprised to care whether he censored his thoughts. “Your air always smelled good to me. Are you serious?”

  The chuckle this time wasn’t a mere imitation. Thlegaa had her intonation down exactly. “Sonny, up here we speak whatever our cultural neighbors do. You should hear my French nasals and Hebrew rough-breathings. Now that you know we can speak, there’s no point in keeping the law against free communication. And I’m absolutely on the level. We’re pulling the stops off the transmitter housing. We run a trifle higher pressure than you, so we’ll probably make up your whole loss. But I’m not an absolute ruler, so it might be a good idea to speed things up. You can thank me later. Oh—since she broke the law before it was repealed, Ptheela’s been exiled. So when you get your Bennington plant working, she’ll probably be your first load from us. She’s packing now.”

  Flavin’s face held too much relief. Vic hated to disillusion him as the man babbled happily about knowing deep down all along that the Plathgolians were swell people. But he knew the job was a long ways from solved. With Plathgol supplying extra air, the field would collapse back to the inside of the single transmitter housing, and there should be an even balance of ingoing and outcoming air, which would end the rush of air into the station and make the circular halls passable, except for eddy currents. But getting into the inner chamber, where the air formed a gale between the two transmitters, was another matter.

  Flavin’s chauffeur was asleep at the wheel of the car as they came out of the Bennington local office, but instinct seemed to rouse him, and the car cut off wildly for the Interstellar station. Vic had noticed that the cloud around it was gone, and a mass of people were grouped nearby. The wind that had been sucked in and around it to prevent even a tank getting through was gone now, though the atmosphere would probably show signs of it in freak weather reports for weeks after.

  Pat had obviously figured out the trouble remaining, and didn’t look too surprised at the gloomy faces of the transmitter crew who were grouped near the north entrance. But she began swearing under her breath, as methodically and levelly as a man. Vic was ripping his shirt off as they drew up.

  “This time you stay out,” he told her. “It’s strictly a matter of muscle power against wind resistance—and a man has a woman beat there.”

  “Why do you think I was cursing?” she asked. “Take it easy, though.”

  The men opened a way for him. He stripped to his briefs and let them smear him with oil to cut down air resistance a final fraction. Eddy currents caught at him before he went in, but not too strongly. Getting past the first shielding wasn’t too bad. He found the second entrance port through the middle shield and snapped a chain around his waist.

  Then the full picture of what must have happened on Plathgol hit him. Chains wouldn’t have helped when they pulled off the coverings from the entrances—the sudden rush of air must have crushed their lungs and broken their bones—or whatever supported them—no matter what was done. Imagine volunteering for sure death to help another world! He had to make good on his part.

  He got to the inner portal, but the eddies there were too strong to go farther. Even sticking his head beyond the edge almost sucked him into the blast between the two transmitters. Then he was crawling out again.

  Amos met him, shaking a gloomy head. “Never make it, Vic. Common sense. I’ve been partway in there three times with no luck. And the way that draft blows, it’d knock even a tractor plumb out of the way before it could reach that glass.”

  Vic nodded. The tanks would take too long, anyhow, though it would be a good idea to have them called. He yelled to Flavin, who came over at a run, while Vic was making sure that the little regular office building still stood.

  “Order the tanks, if we need them,” he suggested. “And get them to ship in a rifle, some hard-nosed bullets, an all-angle vise big enough to clamp on a three-inch edge, and two of those midget telesets for use between house and field—quick.”

  Amos stared at him, puzzled, but Flavin’s car was already roaring toward Bennington, with a couple of cops leading the way with open sirens. He was back with everything in twenty minutes.

  Vic motioned to Amos questioningly and received an answering nod. The man was old, but he must be tough to have made three tries inside. Pat was setting the midget pickup in front of the still-operating televisor between the transmitter chamber and the little office. Vic picked up the receiver and handed the rest of the equipment to Amos.

  It was sheer torture fighting back to the inner entrance port, but they made it, and Amos helped to brace him with the chain while Vic clamped the vise to the edge of the portal and locked the rifle into it, somehow fighting it into place. In the rather ill-defined picture on the tiny set’s screen, he could see the shard of glass, out of line from either entrance, between two covering uprights. He could just see the rifle barrel, also. The picture lost detail in being transmitted to the little office and picked up from the screen for retransmittal back to him, but it would have to do.

  The rifle was loaded to capacity with fourteen cartridges. He lined it up as best he could and tightened the vise, before pulling the trigger. The bullet ricocheted from the inner shield and headed toward the glass—but it missed by a good three feet.

  He was close on the fifth try—not over four inches off. But clinging to the edge while he reset the vise each time before he pulled the trigger was getting harder, and the wind velocity inside was tossing the bullets off course.

  He left the setting and fired four more shots in succession before he had to stop to rest. They were all close, but scattered. That could keep up all day, seemingly.

  “Better let me try, Vic,” Amos shouted over the roar of the wind inside. “Been playing pool, making bank shots, more than thirty years. And I had a rifle in my hands long before that.”

  He pulled himself into place, made a trifling adjustment on the vise setting, and squeezed the trigger. Then he leaned against the rifle stock slightly, took a deep breath, let it out, and fired again. There was no sound over the roar of the wind—and then there was a sound, as if the gale in there had stopped to cough.

  A blast of air struck them, picking them up and tossing them against the wall. Vic had forgotten the lag before the incoming air could be cut! And it could be as fatal as the inrush alone.

  But it was dying as he struck. His flesh was bruised from the shock, but it wasn’t serious. Plathgol had managed to make their remote control cut out almost to the microsecond of the time when the flow to them had stopped, or the first pressure released—and transmitter waves were supposed to be instantaneous.

  He tasted the feeling of triumph as he crawled painfully back. With this transmitter off and the others remotely controlled, the whole business was over. Ecthinbal had keyed out automatically when Earth stopped sending. And from now on, every transmitter would have a full set of remote controls, so the trouble could never happen again.

  He staggered out, unhooking the chain, while workmen went rushing in. Pat came through the crowd with a towel and a pair of pants, to begin wiping the oil off him while he tried to dress. Her grin was a bit shaky, and he knew it must have looked bad when the final counterblast whipped out.

  Amos was busy cleaning himself off, and Vic grinned at him. “Good shooting, Amos. I guess it’s all solved.”

  The old man nodded. “Sure. Took a little common sense, that’s all.”

/>   From the crowd, the Galactic Envoy shoved through, holding out his hands to them and smiling. “Co-operative sense, you mean, and that’s not as common as it should be on any world. And, Amos, you’ll be glad to know you’re not under suspicion any longer. I have been able to furnish your government with a list of the real saboteurs, and they’re all in custody. As I told you, I’m only an observer—but a very good observer of all that goes on!”

  “Figured I’d be on the list. Common sense when I was closest to the accident and got away,” Amos said. He shrugged. “You going to let the guys who did it get regular Earth trials?”

  “Certainly,” the Envoy answered. “It looks better. Nice work, Pat, Vic, Amos—you, too, Flavin. I wasn’t sure you had it in you. You solved it—by finding you could co-operate with other worlds, which is the most mature way you could have solved it. So I consider that Plathgol and Earth have passed the final test, and are now full members, under Ecthinbal’s tutelage. We’re a little easier at lending a hand and passing information to proven planets. Congratulations! But you’ll hear all about it in the news when I make the full announcement. See you around—I’m sure of that.”

  He was gone, barely in time for Ptheela to come trooping up with six thin, wispy versions of herself in tow. She chuckled. “They promoted me before they banished me, Pat. Meet my six strong husbands. Now I’ll have the strongest seed on all Earth. Oh, I almost forgot. A present for you and Vic.”

  Then she also was gone, leading her husbands toward Flavin’s car while Vic stared down at a particularly ugly tsiuna in Pat’s hands. He grinned a bit ruefully.

  “All right. I’ll learn to eat the stuff,” he told her. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. Pat, will you marry me?”

  She dropped the tsiuna into Amos’ hands us she came to him, her lips reaching up for his. It wasn’t until a month later that he found tsiuna tasted slightly better than chicken.