Nomad (1944)

by Wesley Long; George O. Smith

  He found a chair that had a minute scratch on one leg and seated himself. He wanted a cigarette, but there was no ash tray nearby and so he stifled the want. He was seated in the chair stiffly when Laura returned with the gardenia in her hair. She was smoking a cigarette and as she passed through the room she flicked the ash negligently at a large ash tray. Some of the ash missed and landed on the deep carpet. Laura didn’t notice.

  “My,” she said. “You look slightly formal, Guy.”

  “Relax, Guy,” her mother told him as she entered just behind Laura. “Andrew was telling me of a few of your ideas. Too bad you can’t tell us more. We’re interested.”

  “I’d like to tell you, Mrs. Greggor,” said Guy shyly. “But I’m under strict orders not to disclose—” “Pooh, orders,” said Laura. “Oh well, you can have your silly secrets.

  I want to know, Guy; did you miss me?”

  “Quite a bit,” he answered, thinking that this was no time to ask a question like that. Her mother’s presence took the fine edge off of his anticipated answer.

  “I’d like to go out in a Patrol ship,” said Laura. “This normal traveling on the beaten path doesn’t seem like much fun to me.”

  “It’s no different,” said Guy. “It’s the same sky, the same sun, and the same planets. They remain the same no matter what you’re doing.”

  “Yes, but they’re in different places—I mean that you aren’t always going Venusward or Terra-ward. You change around.”

  “It’s still similar.”

  “Don’t be superior,” Laura said. “You’re just saying that because you’re used to traveling in a Patrol ship.”

  “No,” said Guy earnestly. “It is still the same sky whether you look at it from a destroyer or a luxury liner.”

  “Some day I shall see for myself,” said Laura definitely.

  A faint, male roar called Mrs. Greggor’s attention to the fact that her husband had mislaid his shirt studs. “I shall have to leave,” she said. “Please pardon me—?”

  “Certainly,” responded Guy, jumping to his feet.

  She smiled at him and left immediately.

  “Laura,” he said. “I’ve brought —” and he opened the little fiat plastic box and held out his senior executive’s insignia.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Father told me you were being raised in rank.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” he answered, a little let down that all of his surprises were more or less expected. “You’ll do me the honor?”

  “I’d be angry if I weren’t permitted,” said Laura casually. “Stand close, Guy. You’re quite tall, you know.”

  His eyes were level with the top of her head as she stood before him, removing the junior executive’s insignia from his coat lapels. She worked deftly, her face warmly placid. She placed the old, plain stars on the table beside her and picked up the rayed stars of the senior executive.

  Quickly she fixed them in his lapels, and then stood back a step. She gave him a soft salute, which he returned. Then she stepped forward and kissed him chastely.

  “Ah, fine!” boomed the voice of Andrew Greggor from the doorway. “The old ritual! That makes you official, Guy. Like the old superstition about a ship that is launched without a proper christening, no officer will succeed whose insignia is not first pinned on by a woman. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Guy, taking the extended hand.

  “Now,” said Greggor, “dinner is served. Come along, and we’ll toast my loss of a fine secretarial assistant. Your swivel-chair command is over, Guy.”

  “We’re not sorry,” said Laura. “After all, what glory is there in doing space hopping in a desk-officer’s job?”

  “None,” agreed her father.

  “He’ll get some now,” Laura assured the men.

  “If those experiments turn out correct,” said Greggor to Guy Maynard over Laura’s head, “you sure will. Funny, though, I still considered you as my assistant until they handed you the senior’s rank.”

  “Still had your brand on him?” laughed Laura.

  “Sort of,” said Greggor. His real meaning was not lost on Guy, who knew that the girl’s father was only establishing the official facts of his adventure.

  The dinner was excellent, and the wines tended to loosen Guy’s tongue slightly. He forgot his stiffness and began to enjoy himself. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed this sort of thing in the year among the Ertinians. They treated him fine, but he missed the opportunity of mingling with people who spoke his language. He looked at the clock. There’d be dancing later—if he could’ break away, and he hadn’t danced in a solid year.

  Marian Greggor said: “You’ve been gone a long time, Guy. Can you tell me the tiniest thing of your adventures?”

  “They were not adventures,” said Guy.

  “Nonsense!” boomed Malcolm Greggor. “Some of them will be out in the open soon. I’ll tell you one.”

  “Why can’t he?” asked his wife.

  “He’s had his fun—I’m going to have mine,” said Greggor, winking at Guy. “He’s developed a means of making Pluto a livable place.” “No!” breathed Laura.

  “Indeed. Our trouble there has always been the utter cold. Pluto is rich in the lighter metals—lithium, beryllium, and the like. It has been a veritable wonderland for the light-metal metallurgist. But it has been one tough job to exploit. But Guy has invented a barrier of energy that prevents any radiation from leaving outward and passes energy inward. That’ll heat Pluto excellently—with the unhappy result that Pluto will be hard to find save by sheer navigation.”

  “Oh, wonderful.”

  “There’s another angle to that,” said Guy. “It’ll make Pluto harder to find for the Martians, too. Since the radiation passes inward, die incoming ship may signal with a prearranged code, and the shield may be opened long enough for the ship to get a sight on Pluto. The barrier offers no resistance to material bodies.”

  “Hm-m-m. We’ll score another one for Guy,” said Malcolm Greggor. “That’ll be a nice nail in the ladder of success, young man. There’s one more thing—are you thinking what I’m thinking?” “Perhaps. May I speak?”

  “Go ahead. Marian and Laura will not repeat it. Their interests are clear, and their trust has been accepted by the Patrol. All officials’ wives are cleared to the Patrol’s satisfaction since we know it is impossible to prevent us from mentioning small things from time to time.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Marian. “Living with a man for years and years as we do, it would be hard to keep from knowing things. We hear a hint today, another next week, and a third a month from now. Adding them to something we heard last month, and we have a good idea of what the man is thinking of.” “That’s not all,”, laughed Greggor. “Wives have some sort of lucky mental control. Mine, confound it, can almost read my mind —and most of them can almost read their husbands’ minds. So go ahead and speak.”

  “I was thinking of a cruiser equipped with the barrier.”

  “Is the equipment small enough?” “Certainly. The size of the barrier dictates the size of the equipment—within limits. Anything from a lifeship—say fifty feet long —to a super battlecraft like the Orionad—twelve hundred feet long —can be equipped.”

  “Fine. And now as to this barring of radiation? How would the drive work?”

  “I don’t know, not having had the opportunity of trying it out. I doubt that it will work.”

  “Then the idea is not so good.”

  “I think it fair enough for a trial.”

  “But a ship without a drive is useless.”

  “It has limitations. But it is not useless. Battle conditions may be developed to take the limitations as they may exist. Look. The course of the target is determined—or wait, we must determine the course of the target first. The course of the target is found by lying in wait with detectors. The ship is concealed in the barrier-screen, and the target can not see or detect the subcruiser, but the detecto
rs catch the target. The subcruiser must remain in the shell, so to speak, until the target is out of detection range. This gives plenty of time to plot the course of the target. Once out of range, the shell is opened and the subcruiser takes off on a tangent course at high acceleration. It exceeds the speed of the target, and then turns to intercept the course of the target at some distant spot—calculated on the proposition of the subcruiser driving powerless, or coasting. The shell is re-established, and the target and the subcruiser converge. At point-blank range, the subcruiser lets fly with interferers and torpedoes, and continues on and on until it is out of range once more.

  “The target is either demolished; or missed, requiring a second try. At worst, the target knows that from out of the uninhabited sky there has come a horde of interferers and torpedoes, and there is nothing to shoot at. They still do not know which way the blast will come from next. Follow?”

  “Sounds cumbersome,” said Greggor. “But it may work.”

  “Is that what you’ve been working on?” asked Laura.

  “Yes,” said Guy.

  “Sounds as though we have genius in our midst,” she answered, flashing Guy a glance that made his heart leap.

  “Oh, I—” started Guy, and then remembered the whole talc again. He couldn’t really take credit for this. It wasn’t truly his idea; that had come from Ertene. The application of the light-shield had been his, but they were giving him credit for the whole thing.

  That was not fair—and yet he knew that he must take false credit or betray not only himself but Ertene, too. And now that his die was cast, he must never waver from that plan. To do so would bring the wrath of the Board of Investigation for his not telling all upon his arrival.

  So he stopped the deprecatory sentence and merely smiled.

  “—don’t think it is too wonderful. It is, or was, but a matter of time before someone else struck the same idea.”

  “But you were first!” said Laura. “And we’re going to celebrate. Mind if I run off with him-?” she asked her parents.

  She drew him from the dining room without waiting for an answer.

  VII.

  From Sahara Base to New York is a solid, two-hour flight for the hardiest driver. Maynard was no tyro at the wheel of a sky-driver, and he drove like fury and made it in slightly over the two-hour mark. He let the flier down in New Jersey and they took the interurban tube to the heart of Manhattan.

  Guy was proud. Very proud and very happy. The rayed stars on his lapels gave him a lift that acted as a firm foundation’ for the presence of Laura Greggor, whose company always lifted him high.

  Her hand was at his elbow in a slightly possessive manner, and he was deliriously happy at the idea of belonging to Laura Greggor. They swept into the Silver Star, and though he was unknown, the rayed stars of the senior executive gained him quite a bit more deference than he had ever known as a junior. He’d been in the Silver Star before; usually it was too rich for his blood, but he had one year’s salary-in his wallet, and the increase in rank warranted shooting the whole wad.

  He palmed a twenty solar note into the head waiter’s hand, and the head waiter led them to a ringside table and removed the “Reserved” sign.

  As they settled, Guy said: “ ‘Reserved’? For whom?”

  “What?” asked Laura.

  “Nothing,” said Guy cynically. A great truth had dawned upon him. Before, he had been refused the better tables because they were reserved. Now he knew that they were reserved for the ones who could pay for them. “Dance?”

  I Aura was peering into the haze of cigarette smoke and answered absently: “Not now. I want a cigarette first.”

  Maynard handed over the little cylinder and snapped his lighter. Laura drew deeply, and then turned to scan the crowd once more. She satisfied herself, and then smoked the cigarette down to the last drag before consenting to dance.

  “I’m a little rusty,” he apologized.

  “We don’t do much dancing in a destroyer.”

  “I’m afraid not,” answered Laura.

  “You are as light as ever,” he told her, He didn’t like the inference; obviously she had been dancing long and often while he was gone.

  “Forget it,” said Laura, catching his thought. She put her forehead against his chin and sent his pulse racing.

  Too soon the dance was over, and he followed her to their table. Guy offered Laura another cigarette, and as he was lighting it, a young man in evening clothes came over and greeted them with a cheery “Hello!”

  Maynard went to his feet, but the stranger draped himself indolently into a chair which he lifted from a vacant table adjoining. Maynard shrugged, and sat down, feeling slightly overlooked.

  “Hi, Laura, what brings you here?”

  “He does,” said Laura, nodding across the table to Guy. “Guy Maynard, this is Martin Ingalls.”

  Greetings were exchanged, and each man took the other’s measure. “Senior executive, hey?” smiled Ingalls. “That’s something!”

  “Oh,” said Maynard cheerfully, “they think I’ve been useful.”

  “Keep ’em thinking that,” suggested Ingalls, “and you’ll get along fine.”

  “He’ll get along fine,” offered Laura. “But what are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Timmy and Alice hauled me in for dinner. They’re over there.”

  “Well! Let’s join them!”

  Maynard swallowed imperceptibly. He wanted Laura to himself. And here was a young man faultlessly attired in evening clothing who came to a place like the Silver Star for dinner.

  He nodded dully, and followed to another table where a couple sat waiting. The man known as Timmy handed over a twenty solar bill and said, laughingly: “All right, Mart. You win.”

  “What was the bet?” asked Laura.

  “I bet Mart that he couldn’t get you over here.”

  “That was a foolish bet,” said Laura. “I’m always happy to be with friends.”

  “We know,” said Alice. “But your friend has a brand new set of rayed stars on, and I told both of these monkeys that it looked like a celebration to me—and lay off.”

  “Yeah, but if there’s any celebrating to be done, we can do it better,” laughed Martin Ingalls.

  “You aren’t here alone?” asked Laura.

  “I am a recluse tonight,” answered Ingalls. “Nobody loves me.”

  “Liar!” said Timmy. “He didn’t bother to call anyone.”

  “So he’s alone,” added Ingalls ’ “And where do we go from here?”

  “Let’s go to Havana,” suggested Alice. “I've been needing some blood pressure.” To Maynard she added: “If you know a better way to get high blood pressure without hatred, let me know. Do you?” “Better than what?” asked Guy. “Dice. I crave excitement.” “But we just came,” objected Maynard.

  “You can leave,” said Ingalls. “After all, the Silver Star is nothing to get wrought up over.” “Who’s to drive?” asked Alice. “We’ll take Mart’s junk,” said Timmy. “It’ll hold the five of us with ease.”

  “Mine is in New Jersey—we could follow,” said Maynard.

  “Now I know we’ll take mine,” said Martin. “It’s on the roof. We’ll waste no time dragging all the way to New Jersey.”

  Maynard settled up with the waiter, and within five minutes found himself seated in the rear seat with Martin Ingalls, and Laura Greggor between them. The run to Havana was made during a running fire of light conversation. And from there on, the night became lost to Guy Maynard.

  He followed. He did not lead, not for one minute. They led him from place to place, and he watched them hazard large sums of money on the turn of a pair of dice. He joined them, gingerly, hiding his qualms, and played cautiously. He won, at first, and permitted himself to enjoy the play as long as he was playing with the other party’s money. Then he lost, and tried to buck up his loss with shrewdness. But skill and shrewdness never prevail against an honest pair of dice, and these were strictly honest. S
o Maynard played doggedly, and his financial status remained the same.

  He was a couple of hundred solars behind the game.

  He missed the others, and went to look for them and found them dancing. He stood on the side line for a few minutes, until Laura spied him. She broke from Martin’s arms and came to him, leading him on to the floor for the rest of the dancing.

  The excitement had done its work on Laura. Her eyes were bright, and her hair was ever-so-slightly mussed, which removed the showcase perfection and made her, to Maynard, a glamorous and wonderful thing. His arm tightened about her waist, and she responded gently.

  “Like this?” he asked her quietly.

  Her head nodded against his cheek. Maynard took a deep breath. “You’re lovely,” he said.

  Laura caressed his cheek with her forehead. “It’s been a wonderful evening,” she said. “But I’m getting tired. Let’s go home?”

  Guy lifted his left hand from hers and stroked her hair. “Anything you want,” he promised.

  “You’re a grand person,” she said.

  The music stopped, and Maynard felt that the spell of the evening stopped with it. They found Alice, Timmy, and Martin at the bar, and Martin called for drinks for them. “A final nightcap,” he said, “to a perfect evening.”

  They agreed to his toast.

  “And now,” said Martin practically. “As to getting home.”

  “Yes, indeed. Who lives where?”

  “We are in Florida,” said Timmy. “We can catch us a cab.”

  “The rest of us—at least Guy and I are from Sahara Base,” said Laura. “But Guy’s flier is in New Jersey.”

  “Shame to make you travel all that way,” said Martin. “Should have thought of that when I demanded that we all take my crate. I’m deucedly sorry, Guy.”

  “Forget it,” said Maynard with a wave of his hand.

  “I can do this much for you, though,” offered Ingalls. “It’s past dawn at Sahara now, and since you folks live by the sun, I can imagine that Laura is about asleep on her feet. Look, Maynard, you’re used to a rigorous life; you can take this sort of thing. Laura can’t. I live by New York time and am therefore several hours better off than she for sleep. I’ll run her across the pond, and you traipse up to New Jersey for that flier of yours. That way Laura will get to bed an hour sooner. What say?”