Little Harry came around the corner and headed for the old man. “What you doing, grandpa?” he demanded.
“Nothin’,” Gramp told him.
The boy climbed onto the bench. “Tell me about the war,” he begged.
“You go on and play,” Gramp told him.
“Aw, grandpa, tell me about that big battle you was in!”
“The battle of Ganymede?” asked Gramp.
Harry nodded. “Uh-huh, that’s the one.”
“Well,” said Gramp, “I can remember it just as if it was yesterday. And it was forty years ago, forty years ago the middle of next month. The Marshies were gettin’ their big fleet together out there on Ganymede, figurin’ to sneak up on us when we wasn’t expectin’ ’em around—”
“Who was the Marshies?” asked the boy.
“The Marshies?” said Gramp. “Why that’s what we called the Martians. Kind of a nickname for ’em.”
“You was fighting them?”
Gramp chuckled. “You’re dog-gone right we fit ’em. We fit ’em to a stand-still and then we licked ’em, right there at Ganymede. After that the peace was signed and there hasn’t been any war since then.”
“And that’s where you are going?” demanded the boy.
“Sure, they’re havin’ a big reunion out on Ganymede. First one. Maybe they’ll have one every year or two from now on.”
“And will the Martian soldiers that you whipped be there, too?”
Gramp scowled fiercely. “They been asked to come,” he said. “I don’t know why. They ain’t got no right to be there. We licked ’em and they ain’t got no right to come.”
“Harry!” came the voice of the boy’s mother.
The boy hopped off the bench and trotted toward the house.
“What have you been doing?” asked his mother.
“Grandpa’s been telling me about the war.”
“You come right in here,” his mother shouted. “If your grandpa don’t know better than to tell you about the war, you should know better than to listen. Haven’t I told you not to ask him to tell you about it?”
Gramp writhed on the bench.
“Dog-gone,” he said. “A hero don’t get no honor any more at all.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Garth Mitchell, salesman for Robots, Inc., assured Pete Dale, secretary for the Ganymede Chamber of Commerce. “We make robots that are damn near alive. We can fill the bill exactly. If you want us to manufacture you a set of beasts that are just naturally so ornery they will chew one another up on sight, we can do it. We’ll ship you the most bloodthirsty pack of nightmares you ever clapped your eyes on.”
Pete leveled a pencil at the salesman.
“I want to be sure,” he said. “I’m using this big sham battle we are planning for a big promotion. I want it to live up to what we promise. We want to make it the biggest show in the whole damn system. When we turn those robots of yours out in the arena, I want to be sure they will go for one another like a couple of wildcats on top of a red-hot stove. “And I don’t want them to quit until they’re just hunks of broken-down machinery. We want to give the reunion crowd a fight that will put the real Battle of Ganymede in the shade.”
“Listen,” declared Mitchell, “we’ll make them robots so mean they’ll hate themselves. It’s a secret process we got and we aren’t letting anyone in on it. We use a radium brain in each one of the robots and we know how to give them personality. Most of our orders are for gentle ones or hard workers, but if you want them mean, we’ll make them mean for you.”
“Fine,” said Pete. “Now that that’s settled, I want to be sure you understand exactly what we want. We want robots representing every type of ferocious beast in the whole system. I got a list here.”
He spread out a sheet of paper.
“They’re from Mars and Earth and Venus and a few from Titan out by Saturn. If you can think of any others, throw them in. We want them to represent the real beasts just as closely as possible and I want them ornery mean. We’re advertising this as the greatest free-for-all, catch-as-catch-can wild animal fight in history. The idea is from the Roman arenas way back in Earth history when they used to turn elephants and lions and tigers and men all into the same arena and watch what they did to one another. Only here we are using robots instead of the real article, and if your robots are as good as you say they are, they’d ought to put on a better show.”
Mitchell grinned and strapped up his brief case.
“Just forget about it, Mr. Dale,” he counseled. “We’ll make them in our factory on Mars and get them to you in plenty of time. There’s still six weeks left before the reunion and that will give us time to do a fancy job.”
The two shook hands and Mitchell left.
Pete leaned back in his chair and looked out through the yard-thick quartz of the dome which enclosed Satellite City, Ganymede’s only place of habitation. That is, if one didn’t consider Ganymede prison, which, technically speaking, probably was a place of habitation. Other than for the dome which enclosed Satellite City and the one which enclosed the prison, however, there was no sign of life on the entire moon, a worthless, lifeless globe only slightly smaller than the planet Mars.
He could see the top of the prison dome, just rising above the western horizon. To that Alcatraz of Space were sent only the most desperate of the Solar System’s criminals. The toughest prison in the entire system, its proud tradition was that not a single prisoner had escaped since its establishment twenty years before. Why risk escape, when only misery and death lurked outside the dome?
The Chamber of Commerce offices were located in the peak of the city’s dome and from his outer office, against the quartz, Pete had a clear view of the preparations going forward for the reunion which was to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Ganymede.
Far below, at the foot of the magnetically anchored dome, work was progressing on the vast outdoor arena, which would be enclosed in a separate dome, with heat and atmosphere pumped from the larger dome.
On one of the higher snow-swept hills, a short distance from the arena, reared a massive block of marble, swarming with space-armored sculptors. That was the Battle Monument, to be dedicated in the opening ceremonies.
Drift snow, driven by the feeble winds which always stirred restlessly over the surface of this satellite from which the atmosphere was nearly gone, swept over the brown, rolling hills and eddied around the dome. It was cold out there. Pete shivered involuntarily. Down close to 180 degrees below, Fahrenheit. The snow was frozen carbon dioxide.
An inhospitable place to live, but Satellite City was one of the greatest resorts in the entire System. To it, each year, came thousands of celebrities, tens of thousands of common tourists. The guest lists of the better hotels read like the social register and every show house and cafe, every night club, every concession, every dive was making money.
And now the Ganymede reunion!
That had been a clever idea. It had taken some string-pulling back in London to get the Solar Congress to pass the resolution calling the reunion and to appropriate the necessary money. But that had not been too hard to do. Just a little ballyhoo about cementing Earth-Mars friendship for all eternity. Just a little clever work out in the lobbies.
This year Satellite City would pack them in, would get System-wide publicity, would become a household word on every planet.
He tilted farther back in his chair and stared at the sky. The greatest sight in the entire Solar System! Tourists came millions of miles to gaze in wonder at that sky.
Jupiter rode there against the black of space, a giant disk of orange and red, flattened at the poles, bulging at the equator. To the right of Jupiter was the sun, a small globe of white, its searing light and tremendous heat enfeebled by almost 500 million miles of space. Neither lo nor Europa were in sight, but against the velvet c
urtain of space glittered the brilliant, cold pin-points of distant stars.
Pete rocked back and forth in his chair, rubbing his hands gleefully.
“We’ll put Ganymede on the map this year,” he exulted.
II
“But I don’t want to go to Ganymede,” protested Senator Sherman Brown. “I hate space travel. Always get sick.”
Izzy Newman almost strangled in exasperation.
“Listen, senator,” he pleaded, “don’t be a damn fool all your life. We’re running you for president two years from now and you need them Martian votes. You can pick up plenty of them by going out to Ganymede and dedicating this battle monument. You can say some nice things about the Martians and then, quick, before the Earth boys get mad at you, you can say something nice about the Earth. And then you can praise the bravery of the men who fought in the battle and then, just to quiet down the pacifists, praise the forty years of peace we’ve had. And if you do that you’ll make everybody happy and everyone will think you are on their side. You’ll get a lot of votes.”
“But I don’t want to go,” protested the senator. “I won’t go. You can’t bulldoze me.”
Izzy spread his hands.
“Listen, senator,” he said. “I’m your manager, ain’t I? Have I ever given you the wrong steer yet? Have I ever done anything but good for you? Didn’t I take you out of a one-horse county seat and make you one of the biggest men of your day?”
“Well,” said the senator, “I have done well by myself, if I do say so. And part of the credit goes to you. I hate to go to Ganymede. But if you think I should make—”
“Fine,” said Izzy, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll fix it all up for you. I’ll give the newspaper boys some interviews. I’ll have the best ghost writer fix you up a speech. We’ll get a half million votes out of this trip.”
He eyed Senator Brown sternly.
“There’s just two things you’ve got to do,” he warned.
“What’s that?”
“Learn your speech. I don’t want you forgetting it like you did the time you dedicated the communications building on the moon. And leave that damn candid camera at home.”
Senator Brown looked unhappy.
Ganymede was plunging into Jupiter’s shadow. For a time “night” would fall upon the satellite. Part of the time Europa would be in the sky, but Europa’s light would do little more than make the shadows of the surface deeper and darker.
“Spike” Cardy waited for Ganymede to swing into the shadow. For Spike was going to do something that no man had ever done before. He was going to escape from Ganymede prison, from this proud Alcatraz of Space, whose warden boasted that no man had ever left its dome alive until his time was served.
But Spike was leaving before his time was served. He was going to walk out the northwest port and disappear into the Ganymedean night as completely as if he had been wiped out of existence. It was all planned. The planning had been careful and had taken a long time. Spike had waited until he was sure there was no chance for a slip-up.
The plan had cost money, had called for pressure being exerted in the right spots, had called for outside assistance that was hard to get. But what others had failed to do, Spike Cardy had done. For was he not the old Spike Cardy of space-racket fame? Had he not for years levied toll upon the interplanetary lines? Were not his men still levying toll on the ships of space? Spike Cardy was tops in gangdom and even now his word was law to many men.
Spike waited until the guard paced past his cell. Then he moved swiftly to his bunk, mounted it and grasped the almost invisible wire of thin spun glass which was tied to one of the ventilator grids. Swiftly, but carefully, he hauled in the wire, taking care to make no noise. At the end of the wire, where it had hung down the ventilator pipe, was a flame pistol.
Like a cat stalking for a kill, Spike moved to the heavily barred cell door. He thrust the pistol inside his shirt and slumped against the bars. He heard the guard returning on his beat.
Spike whimpered softly, as if he were in great pain. The guard heard the sound, his footsteps quickened.
“What’s the matter, Cardy? You sick?” asked the guard.
The gangster chief reached a feeble hand through the bars, clutching wildly at the guard’s shoulder. The guard leaned nearer. Cardy’s left hand moved like a striking snake, the steel fingers closing around the man’s throat. At the same instant the flame pistol, its charge screwed down to low power and a pencil point in diameter, flashed across the space between Cardy’s shirt and the guard’s heart. Just one little burst of white-hot flame, expertly aimed. Just one little chuckle out of the heat gun, like a man might chuckle at a joke. That was all.
The guard slumped closer against the bars. The death-clutch on his throat had throttled down his outcry. Anyone looking at the scene would have thought he was talking to the prisoner.
Cardy worked swiftly. It was all planned out. He knew just what to do.
His right hand tore the ring of keys from the dead man’s belt. His fingers found the correct key, inserted it in the lock. The cell door swung open.
Now was the one dangerous point in the whole plan. But Cardy did not falter.
Swiftly he swung the door open and dragged the guard inside. He would have to take the chance no one would see.
Working deftly, he stripped the dead man’s trousers off, slipped them on; ripped the coat from his back and donned it. The cap next and the guard’s flame pistol.
Cardy stepped outside, closed and locked his cell door, walked along the cell-block cat-walk. His heart sang with exultation. The hard part was over. But his lips were set in grim, hard lines; his eyes were squinted, alert for danger, ready for action.
Only by stern iron will did he keep his pace to a walk. The guard in the next block saw him, looked at him for a moment and then whirled about and started his march back along the block again.
Only when the guard was out of sight did Spike quicken his pace.
Down the flight of stairs to the ground floor, across the floor and out of the cell sections into the exercise yard and to the northwest port.
A dim light burned in the guard house at the port.
Cardy rapped on the door.
The guard opened the door.
“A space suit,” said Cardy. “I’m going out.”
“Where’s your pass?” asked the guard.
“Here,” said Cardy, leveling a flame gun.
The guard’s hand darted toward the holster at his side, but he didn’t have a chance. Spike’s gun flared briefly and the guard slumped.
Scarcely glancing at the body, Spike lifted a space suit from its hanger, donned it, and stepped out to the port. Inside the port, he closed the inner lock behind him, spun the outer lock. It swung open and Spike stepped outside.
In great, soaring leaps, thankful for the lesser gravity, he hurried away. To the east he saw the shining dome of Satellite City. To the northwest loomed the dark, shadow-blackened hills.
Spike disappeared toward the hills.
III
Senator Sherman Brown was happy. Also slightly drunk.
He had eluded Izzy Newman and now here he was, squatting on the floor in the Jupiter Lantern, one of the noisiest night clubs in all of Satellite City, taking pictures of two old veterans engaged in an argument over the Battle of Ganymede.
A crowd had gathered to take in the argument. It was one that stirred imagination and there was always a chance it might develop into a fight.
Senator Brown plastered the view-finder of his candid camera against his eye and worked joyfully. Here was a series of pictures that would do justice to his albums.
Gramp Parker pounded the table with his fist.
“We fit you and we licked you,” he yelled, “and I don’t give a ’tarnal dang how we come to do it. If your generals had been so all-fi
red smart, how come we licked the stuffin’ out of you?”
Jurg Tec, a doddering old Martian, pounded the table back at Gramp.
“You Earthians won that battle by pure luck,” he squeaked, and his squeak was full of honest rage. “You had no right to win. By all the rules of warfare you were beaten from the start. Your strategy was wrong. Your space division was wrong, your timing was wrong. Alexander, when he brought his cruisers down to attack our camp, should have been wiped out.”
“But he wasn’t,” Gramp yelped.
“Just luck,” Jurg Tec squeaked back. “Fight that battle over again and the Martians would win. Something went wrong. Something that historians can’t explain. Work it out on paper and Mars wins every time.”
Gramp pounded the table with both fists. His beard twitched belligerently.
“But dang your ornery hide,” he screamed, “battles ain’t fit on paper. They’re fit with men and ships and guns. And men count most. The men with guts are the ones who win. And battles ain’t fit over, neither. There ain’t no second chance in war. You either win or lose and there ain’t no rain checks handed out.”
The Martian seemed to be choking with rage. He sputtered in an attempt to find his voice.
Gramp gloated like a cat that has just polished off a canary.
“Same as I was tellin’ you,” he asserted. “One good Earthman can lick ten Marshies any time of day or night.”
Jurg Tec sputtered in helpless anger.
Gramp improved upon his boast. “Any time of day or night,” he said, “blindfolded and with one hand tied behind him.”
Jurg Tec’s fist lashed out without warning and caught Gramp square on the beard. Gramp staggered and then let out a bellowing howl and made for the Martian. The crowd yelled encouragement.
Jurg Tec, retreating before Gramp’s flailing fists, staggered over the kneeling Senator Brown. Gramp leaped at him at the same instant and the three were tangled on the floor in a flurry of lashing arms and legs.
“Take that,” yelled Gramp.
The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Two Page 17