The Early Pohl

by Frederik Pohl

  The destruction of the dome was complete.

  Nolan turned away. "Quite a sight," he said slowly. "They deserve to die, of course. . . ."

  "Steve."

  Nolan's eyes narrowed suddenly. He looked at Petersen. "Yes?"

  Petersen, for once, seemed almost at a loss for words. He licked his lips before he spoke. "Steve—there are one or two other things. Did you know that Ailse wasn't Woller's daughter by blood?"

  Nolan looked at him unbelievingly. "Not his daughter?"

  Petersen shook his head. "Woller married a widow. A wealthy one, with a daughter. They didn't get along too well. The woman died. Some people thought it might be suicide."

  The quick joy flooded up in Nolan. Petersen saw it and his face grew somber. "That's one of the things, Steve," he said. "The other one—Hell, this is hard to say."

  Nolan stood up and the joy was gone from his face. "Damn you, Pete," he said emotionlessly. "Don't break things gently to me."

  Petersen shrugged. "Ailse wasn't anywhere we could find her—and we know a lot of places to look in. The ship left to come here. She was at Woller's home till just before then. Woller sent men to bring something from his apartment to the ship. I thought it was papers at the time—but it could have been a girl. So—where does that leave Ailse?"

  Where? Nolan stood rocklike as the thought trickled through the automatic barrier his mind had set up. Where did it leave Ailse?

  A charred fragment of what had once been beauty. A castoff target for TPL's searching pyros.

  "I'll say it again, Steve. You know what was at stake. If the Junta had time—Well, we didn't know what kind of weapons they had there. That was one reason why I was sent ahead in that crazy disguise. If I had had time to scout around it might have been possible to do things less bloodily. I didn't have time. We couldn't take chances."

  There was no anger in Nolan, no room for it. He sat there, waiting for Petersen to start the jets and send them back to the dome. He knew how he would scour the ashes, hoping against hope. And he knew what he would find.

  It would have been better, he thought, almost to have died under Woller's pyro, or the TPL ships'. If he'd stayed behind—if Woller had put him in the sleep-box as Vincennes had suggested, and he had shared obliteration with her. . . . The sleep-box! The casket!

  It took Petersen a full second to recover from his surprise when the frozen face of Nolan suddenly glowed with hope, when he leaped up and dashed into the cargo hatch. It took him minutes to follow him. Minutes spent in making the difficult decision of whether or not he should prevent a man from taking his own life.

  The decision was wasted, he found. Behind the scattered boxes of pyro shells, wedged into a corner of the hold, Nolan knelt beside a long, narrow casket. Fiber shock-wrapping was scattered about. Nolan's fumbling fingers were working the latch of the casket, lifting the lid. . . .

  The shout that left his lips was deafening in the small hold. Petersen looked closer, tiptoed up—

  And all the way back to the waiting ships of the TPL Petersen was grinning to himself. Though his hands guided the ship skillfully as ever, though his gaze was outward at the flowing terrain beneath, he saw but one thing.

  The tableau as he had approached the casket and seen Nolan, face indescribably tender, shutting off the sleep currents, reaching for the ampoule of stimulant that would revive the unconscious dark-haired girl within.

  The trouble with Enid was that once again I was beginning to feel guilty about being safe and warm in Oklahoma, while people I knew were getting killed in Italy, North Africa and the Pacific. When the final battle came along, I wanted to be in it. My 201 file bulged with letters requesting reassignment overseas. My CO kept forwarding them with approving endorsements, and higher echelons kept ignoring them.

  So in the early part of 1944, when a circular came through asking for volunteers for Arctic service, I signed up instantly. Shortly thereafter I was on my way to Buckley Field, Colorado, for training.

  Buckley Field was just outside of Denver, the home of a science-fiction writer named Willard E. Hawkins. Denver was also where the Colorado Writers' Association was about to have their annual dinner, and Willard was pleased to invite me to be their featured speaker. I accepted with pleasure.

  Unfortunately the Air Force had other plans. I was a non-com by then, but Buckley Field was thick with non-coms. Stripes carried no exemption from shit details, and I was put on KP for the night I was supposed to speak.

  It seemed to me that there was a way out of that. I went hunting for the base Public Relations Officer, in order to let him know what bad public relations it would be to disappoint the Colorado Writers because their featured speaker was pushing tin trays through the steam jets.

  He saw the argument at once and got me off. However, he could not do that until I found him, and that took all day. By the time I had got off KP I had just seconds to change into ODs and catch the bus to Denver. By the time I reached the banquet hall dinner was over and Willard Hawkins was just rising to introduce me. He said a few gracious words. I got up in front of all those friendly, expectant faces. And it occurred to me right then, for the very first time, that in all the turmoil I hadn't got around to thinking of anything to say to them.

  I don't know how long I stood there in silence, stolid and stunned, brother to the ox. It may have been a week. It felt longer. At some point Willard perceived I was in trouble, so he rose to ask me a question. I answered that easily enough, and then I was going.

  But those first endless minutes are burned into my brain. I've talked to a lot of audiences in the thirty-odd years since and there have been disasters now and then—but, after that, nothing ever seemed really bad again.

  A nice thing about Buckley Field was that it was easy to get a weekend pass to Denver. I used the weekends mostly for writing. I checked into a hotel with my lavender Remington #5 portable that I carried all through the war.* I would get up in the morning, call for coffee and orange juice from room service, set up the typewriter and start banging away. It didn't always work out. In one hotel I was kept awake all night by raucous noises from the other rooms. It wasn't until dawn that I got to sleep, and not until I got back to the base that I discovered the hotel was a full-scale whorehouse. God knows what the desk clerk thought I was there for, with my lavender typewriter and my innocent face.

  Double-Cross was written in one of those hotel rooms. It appeared in Planet Stones for Winter 1944.

  The Colorado interlude didn't last very long. What I remember most about it was interminable discussions with Air Force shrinks about the perils of isolation on the icecaps. That, and one long, evil day in a dentist's chair, while they pulled out all the old fillings in my teeth and replaced them with new ones, scientifically designed to be proof against the Arctic cold.

  Then they sent me to Italy.

  * It was a twelfth-birthday present from my mother and I didn't retire it until I was in my thirties. Whatever became of typewriters like that?

  Double-Cross

  JAMES MacCREIGH

  The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock. There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioning perfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all the same. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the open lock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. He turned.

  "Everything shipshape, I take it!" he commented.

  The OD nodded. "I'll have a blank log if this keeps up," he said. "Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, drivers ready to lift as soon as they come back."

  The Exec tossed away his cigarette. "If they come back."

  "Is there any question?"

  The Exec shrugged. "I don't know, Lowry," he said. "This is a funny place. I don't trust the natives."

  Lowry lifted his eyebrows. "Oh? But after all, they're human beings, just like us—"

  "Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were
. Lord, they don't even look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them."

  "Acclimation," Lowry said scientifically. "They had to acclimate themselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough."

  The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were the outskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-present Venusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards from the Earth ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashioned proton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazing wonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line of guards.

  "Of course," Lowry said suddenly, "there's a minority who are afraid of us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives. They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that we know Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry underground group that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive the native Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, that is—right down into the mud. Well—" he laughed—"maybe they will. After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of—"

  The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallic voice rasped: "Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments reports a spy ray focused on the main lock!"

  Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back and stared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sure enough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. He snatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it. "Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party!" But even while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenly and went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec.

  The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, "You see!"

  "You see?"

  Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The five others in the room looked apprehensive. "You see?" Svan repeated. "From their own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right."

  The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, in spite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on her head. "Svan, I'm afraid," she said. "Who are we to decide if this is a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will be trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood."

  Svan laughed harshly. "They don't think so. You heard them. We are not human any more. The officer said it."

  The other woman spoke unexpectedly. "The Council was right," she agreed. "Svan, what must we do?"

  Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. "One moment. Ingra, do you still object?"

  The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked around at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visibly convinced by Svan.

  "No," she said slowly, "I do not object."

  "And the rest of us? Does any of us object?"

  Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture of assent.

  "Good," said Svan. "Then we must act. The Council has told us that we alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the Earth ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not return."

  An old man shifted restlessly. "But they are strong, Svan," he complained. "They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay."

  Svan nodded. "No. They will leave. But they will never get back to Earth,"

  "Never get back to Earth?" the old man gasped. "Has the Council authorized—murder?"

  Svan shrugged. "The Council did not know what we would face. The Councilmen could not come to the city and see what strength the Earth ship has." He paused dangerously. "Toller," he said, "do you object?"

  Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice was dull. "What is your plan?" he asked.

  Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his feet, held up a shiny metal globe. "One of us will plant this in the ship. It will be set by means of this dial—" he touched a spot on the surface of the globe with a pallid finger—"to do nothing for forty hours. Then—it will explode. Atomite."

  He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grin faded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty, irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leaves off a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made a mark on one of them, held it up.

  "We will let chance decide who is to do the work," he said angrily. "Is there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think. . . ."

  No answer. Svan jerked his head. "Good," he said. "Ingra, bring me that bowl."

  Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm of her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a few left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it with his hand, offered it to the girl. "You first, Ingra," he said.

  She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slip and held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svan himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their slips.

  Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them. "This is the plan," he said. "We will go, all six of us, in my ground car, to look at the Earth ship. No one will suspect—the whole city has been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we can find. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation. The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the car—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. The guards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough, after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is to it. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the side of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the dark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away from the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed."

  There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw . . . but still that uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: "Look at the slips!"

  Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled. Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over, striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing. . . .

  And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second's glance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance. Almost he was disappointed.

  Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was looking up now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosen one to announce it—a second, ten seconds. . . .

  Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconscious whispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw their indecision magnified, became opposition.

  Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was a coward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any might be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting every one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractions of a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision. Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftly beneath the table, marked his own slip.

  In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked in secret. His voice was very tired as he said, "I will plant the bomb."

  The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along the main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the entrance to the town's Hall of Justice.

  "Good," said Svan, observing them. "The delegation is still here. We have ample time."

  He half turned in the broad front seat next the driver, searching the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered. Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men?

  The right answer leaped up at him. They all are, he thought. Not one of them understands what this mean
s. They're afraid.

  He clamped his lips. "Go faster, Ingra," he ordered the girl who was driving. "Let's get this done with."

  She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in her eyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsy car jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quite dark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them, illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of the jungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. The present shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall off again, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done.

  A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silence that followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: "Halt!"

  The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on the brakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on them from the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again.

  "Where are you going?" he growled. Svan spoke up. "We want to look at the Earth ship," he said. He opened the door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. "We heard it was leaving tonight," he continued, "and we have not seen it. Is that not permitted?"

  The guard shook his head sourly. "No one is allowed near the ship. The order was just issued. It is thought there is danger."

  Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. "It is urgent," he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in a complicated gesture. "Do you understand?"

  Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced by a sudden flare of understanding—and fear. "The Council!" he roared. "By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—" He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like nails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage . . . and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had ruthlessly pounded it against the road.