The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04 Page 9

  Galt laughed shortly.

  "Police methods ain't changed much in fifty years, Miss Carlyle. When we used t' want to find out things in a hurry, we persuaded people t' tell us."

  "You mean scopolamine-the truth serum?"

  "No, ma'am. That ain't always reliable. We used to use a rubber hose 'cause it didn't leave no marks. Science has give us gadgets like the psycho-probe that beat the old hose all hollow. They don't leave no marks, either, but they sure get the truth out of a man."

  Trevelyan's eyes held a horrified look of dawning comprehension.

  "You can't third-degree me"' he shouted. "It's unlawful! I won't —"

  Galt clapped his powerful fingers across the man's mouth.

  "Okay by you, Miss Carlyle?"

  Gerry nodded. She was a woman who had lived with blood and death and wasn't the one to quail before a little necessary brutality. When there might be lives at stake, the lives of her own men, she could be as Hard as any man.

  "Shoot the works, Barney. We'll use the back office. The walls are Vacuum-Brik with mineral fluff insulation, so we won't disturb anyone. And don't worry about the law. If anything happens, all the influence of the London Interplanetary Zoo will back you up."

  Galt grinned ominously at the trembling Trevelyan.

  "My buddy'll have a hemorrhage when he finds out what he missed!" And they grimly forced Trevelyan into the tiny inner room, locked the door behind.

  It was mid-morning when those three staggered out of that little black chamber. Galt and Gerry Carlyle were drawn and haggard, red-eyed from lack of sleep, grim-faced from the things they had had to do to break Trevelyan down. Trevelyan himself could scarcely stand. There was not a mark on his body; physically he was unharmed. Trevelyan had been a tough nut to crack, but Galt had done it. They had the story. The end had justified the means.

  It wasn't a pleasant tale to hear-a recounting of ugly passion, jealousy, treachery, hate. Under the American university system, for fifty years increasingly the centers of ultra-conservatism and reactionary tendencies, Trevelyan, in common with many underlings, had had no chance to express his own theories or receive credit for his own calculations and inventions. The silly and unjust ruling that required all papers to be published-and all discoveries to be announced-by the department heads only, regardless of who in the department might have been responsible, had stifled Trevelyan's restless soul too long. He couldn't stand by and see fools like Lunde take credit for scientific advances with which they had nothing to do. It galled him.

  So he had planned to discredit Lunde completely, have him ousted, and take what he felt was his rightful place as professor of physics at Plymouth University. If someone as famous as Gerry Carlyle tried out a Lunde "invention" and found it a failure, with probable loss of life, public indignation would ruin him. Then Trevelyan, turning up with the genuine paralysis ray and a story of Lunde's blind stupidity and the fact that he had refused to take advice from subordinates, would easily ride into office. So he had egged the professor, into saddling Gerry with the paralysis ray.

  The only thing Trevelyan didn't foresee was meeting an old-time copper like Barney Galt, who wouldn't hesitate to go any length to wrest the truth from a man he suspected.

  Gerry picked up a visiphone and called the space-port.

  "Put Mr. Strike on, please," she asked the attendant who appeared on the screen.

  "Mr. Strike, miss? I'm sorry. He left with The Ark for Jupiter at eight o'clock this morning."

  "For Jupiter!" she cried. "That's impossible. He promised to wait until I okayed everything!"

  "Well, miss, Mr. Strike and the crew were all ready to leave several hours ago. He became impatient and tried to get in touch with you two or three times. Finally I heard him say everything must be all right and you'd gone home to bed, and anyhow he wasn't going to wait while some er — '

  "I know. 'While some woman spoiled his fun.' Go on from there."

  "Uh-exactly, miss. While some woman stalled around thinking up excuses to spoil the trip. And off he went." The attendant's face twisted slightly but remained heroically stolid.

  "All right. Don't stand there like a dummy!" Gerry snapped. "Plug me into the radio communications bureau!" Once the connection was made, she told the operator to get in touch with The Ark at once. Minutes passed. At intervals the operator cut in to say,

  "Sorry, Miss Carlyle. The Ark does not answer. We'll keep trying."

  After ten minutes of this, Gerry suggested they call some other ship nearby and have her contact The Ark.

  "We've already done so, Miss Carlyle. The Martian freighter Phobos is in the same sector as The Ark. The Phobos' signals are not answered, either."

  Gerry hung up abruptly as comprehension dawned on her.

  "That louse Trevelyan!" she cried aloud, wishing momentarily Galt hadn't taken the fellow away so she'd have something more satisfying than the desk to pound. "He wrecked the radio receiver, too. If Tommy tests the ray apparatus before reaching Jupiter, that reckless guy will be so far along on the trip that he won't want to come back."

  Quickly Gerry got busy on the phone, calling the major spaceports of the Earth, asking the same question over and over:

  "When does your next ship leave for the vicinity of Jupiter?"

  Luck was against her. Every passenger clipper in service was either out along the spaceways or undergoing repairs. Frantically, then, Gerry got in touch with those private concerns that had ships comparable in speed and power to The Ark. There were only a few-one or two utility companies, the big exploitation concerns. Again she failed. Sudden fear loosed ice in her veins. The fact had to be faced: nowhere on Earth was there a ship available to overtake Tommy.

  Gerry wasted no tears over spilt milk. She did the next best thing, buying passage at a fabulous price on a fast freighter leaving for Ganymede within the hour. She barely had time to see Lunde and explain what had happened, bully him into parting with the only remaining model of the paralysis ray — a miniature low-power set for small-scale experimentation — rush to the port in an air-taxi and dash through the freighter's air-lock ten seconds before deadline.

  Only when she was safely ensconced in one of the foul-smelling holes these freight lines used for cabins was Gerry able to relax and give vent to a wholehearted blistering of every one and everything connected with this ghastly game.

  Chapter XI.

  Outpost of Forgotten Men

  On Ganymede, fourth satellite outward from Jupiter, is the strangest community in the System, the center, in a way, of the vast mining activities that go on throughout practically every Jovian satellite, except Five, large and small.

  It would be impractical for the freighters which periodically bring supplies and take away the accumulated ores and concentrates to make the rounds of each individual satellite, scattered about Jupiter in different positions as they are. So a single base was established on Ganymede. Earth freighters stop only there to leave supplies and equipment; and all shipments are brought to the Ganymede depot by a local transport system.

  And the pilots of these local transport ships compose this unique village. Not ordinary pilots, these men and women, but the toughest, most bard-bitten crew of rocket-busters who ever spat into the teeth of Death herself. Gutter scrapings, many of them, society's outcasts-men with ugly blots on their records such as drunkenness on duty that cost the lives of passengers-criminals, murderers.

  There is a reason for this: the job these people do requires that they take their lives in their hands every time they leave the rocky soil of Ganymede. The terrible iron fingers of Jupiter's gravity threaten every instant to drag their puny ships down, down, to plummet into the heart of that pseudo-sun. Great magnetic storms tower high above the limits of Jovian atmosphere, the slightest breath of which would ruin the firing system of a rocket ship and leave it to spin disabled to destruction. Unrelaxing vigilance and incredible reserves of fuel is the price of survival.

  Wages are high here, but none but t
hose who have little to live for consider the job. The law shuts its eye to criminals who take refuge there, because they are doing valuable work. Besides, just as surely as if they had been sentenced in a tribunal of law, they are men and women condemned.

  Yet this lonely outpost with its heavy-fisted, bragging, hard-drinking ruffians held Gerry Carlyle's only hope of reaching Strike in time to help him. When, after several restless days and sleepless nights during which the so-called "fast freight" seemed to crawl among the stars, it finally reached Ganymede, Gerry was first out of the ship. The place was unprepossessing, simply a barren landing field pitted and scarred from rocket blasts. The thin air was bitterly cold, and ugly yellow Jupiter-glow lighted the scene badly.

  While the crew unloaded the cargo, Gerry turned to a young under-officer.

  "Looks like this place was wiped out by the plague. Where is everyone?"

  The officer smiled.

  "Pretty self-important bunch, these bums. Act as if they were lords of creation and us ordinary mortals are only born to cater to their vanity. Here come a few of them now."

  There was a cluster of three or four barracks in the near distance. Out of the most pretentious of them, a half dozen sauntered casually. They were hard-faced, dressed in furs.

  The officer met them halfway.

  "Got a passenger for you this time. Wants to see your chief."

  One of the pilots, a huge hulk of a fellow, grinned.

  "You don't say! We ain't got any chief. We're all equals here; everybody's just as good as everybody else."

  The freighter officer bit his lip indecisively, but before he could speak, Gerry's temper slipped its leash a trifle.

  "Nonsense!" she cried sharply. "A blind man could see that you and this bunch of down-at-heel underlings aren't equal to anything. You must have a leader, someone to tell you what to do. Without a chief you wouldn't know enough to come in out of a meteor shower!"

  There was dumfounded silence as the pilots all gathered close for a good view of this phenomenon.

  "Well, split my rocket-tubes if I ain't seen her on the news!" one woman exploded.

  "I'm Gerry Carlyle," she announced imperiously, "and I'm in a very great hurry. I insist upon seeing your chief at once!"

  The giant opened his mouth to bellow in Gerry's face, but something changed his mind at the last instant. He shut his mouth, scratched his chin in bewilderment.

  "Maybe we better let Frenchy figure this one out," one of the others suggested.

  There was general assent, and the party moved across the field to the pilots' living quarters. A blast of warm air struck their faces as the door opened, and everyone shucked off his furs. There were four more women and men inside and one of them, a man with black spade beard and dark, flashing eyes, was obviously French.

  "Hey, Frenchy, there was a passenger landed today," the big man said.

  The Frenchman was busy with something in his hands and did not look up.

  "So, my good Bullwer? And this passenger, what is it that he wishes?"

  "Wants to see our chief. Ain't that a laugh?" Bullwer looked around and saw it was no laugh. It was obvious everyone in that room accepted the mild-looking little Frenchman as nominal leader.

  The latter looked up, handling Bullwer with his eyes. "So you bring this passenger to see Louis Duval, is it not?" Bullwer squirmed.

  "Okay. No need to get sore. The passenger's here, but it's just a dame."

  Duval looked around, startled, saw Gerry. For a moment of breathless silence he stared as if it had been given to him to see a vision. Then he sprang to his feet.

  "A dame, yes!" he breathed. "But a dame of the most magnificent, is it not? Louis Duval, Mademoiselle, at your service!" And he bowed low over Gerry's hand.

  Suddenly Duval glared about him.

  "Swine!" he roared. "Take off your hats! A chair for the lady! Refreshments! Vite! Vite!"

  But Gerry was not to be swerved from her purpose.

  "Monsieur Duval," she said tensely, "I'm here for a reason. Every minute that passes may mean the difference between life and death to many men. I must, at the earliest possible moment, get to Satellite Five. The only men and women in the System with the courage and skill to get me there in time are right in this room. Will you aid me?"

  The pilots, who had lounged about in interested silence while Duval held the floor, now burst into concerted, ironic laughter.

  "The dame don't want much," one said. "Just a mass suicide!"

  "Satellite Five!" ejaculated a second. "There ain't two dozen ships in the System could make Five. And they ain't none of em anywheres near this dump of a Ganymede!"

  Duval's eyes darkened with genuine regret.

  "Mademoiselle," he declared earnestly, "there is nothing on this world or any world we would not do for you gladly-if it can be done. But the journey to Satellite Five-it is not possible."

  He took Gerry gently by the arm, led her to a window.

  "Look. There is one of the vehicles so splendid in which we make our trips regular to the other satellites."

  Gerry stared. The ship was an ancient iron hull. Its rocket exhausts were badly corroded; the plates were warped and buckled, roughened by the relentless pelting of thousands of wandering meteorites. A far cry from The Ark's streamlined power which would take it anywhere in the System.

  "That wreck!" Gerry ejaculated. "Why that's a condemned crate if I ever saw one! That thing wouldn't last thirty minutes in space! It'd fall apart!"

  "Frequently they do fall apart, Mademoiselle. For example, Scoffino is two days overdue from Io. Soon we will drink the toast."

  Gerry's eyes followed Duval's to a shelf which ran across the rear of the room. On it were ranged a row of shattered goblets; etched in acid across each was a name.

  "Great heavens!" Gerry was indignant. "That's criminal!"

  "But no one can blame the company. They would be very foolish to risk ships valuable, costing many thousands of dollars, on these routes hazardous. Besides, there is genius — I, Duval, admit it-among the mechanics. They continue to patch and to patch and somehow most of us we manage to return alive with our cargoes. But to journey to Five — ' Duval hunched his shoulders in the inimitable shrug with which a Frenchman can express so little or so much.

  Something rose suddenly in Gerry's throat, chokingly. Was it to be failure this time? And what about Tommy Strike, facing some alien horror with empty weapons? He was so quixotically reckless that be would never consent to turn tail and flee, even when his own life was in danger. Was he, too, to die with succor so near at hand because she couldn't dig up transportation to bridge a little gap of a few hundred thousand miles of space?

  Not while the strongest in Gerry's arsenal of weapons was yet unused. She had a hypodermic tongue, and the knack of injecting caustic, rankling remarks. She whirled on the group of lounging pilots, fire in her eye.

  "That's a laugh!" she cried in piercing tones. "That's a real laugh! My fiance is down there on Satellite Five right now, fighting it out with some monstrous thing no man has ever seen 'to tell of. There's nothing the matter with his insides; he's got what it takes. But because of a scheming rat back in New York, he's out there defenseless with a weapon that won't work. I have the real one, and I came to the only place in the entire System where I could find men and women supposedly with the skill and guts to pilot me to Satellite Five.

  "And what do I find? A bunch of no-good tramps, half-baked defeatists playing cribbage for matches! Telling each other how tough they really are, living perpetually in the shadow of death! Dramatizing themselves! Breaking a two-bit goblet every time one of their worthless carcasses takes a dive into Jupiter-the cheapest kind of theatrics! If the whole lot of you were laid end to end, it would be a darned good job! All told, you couldn't muster up the courage of a sick rabbit!"

  It was a cruel, bitter indictment, completely unjust; but it was the last trump in Gerry's hand. If it failed to take the trick, she was through. With a final sweeping gl
ance of unutterable scorn, she strode out of the barracks and slammed the door behind her.

  There was thick silence in the pilots' quarters after Gerry left, broken finally by sheepish stirrings and a muttered, "Whew!"

  Of all the people gathered there, Gerry's denunciation affected Duval most poignantly. He had all the Frenchman's traditional romanticism and chivalry and love of beauty. For three seemingly endless years he had been a lonely exile on Ganymede, far from the beloved Gascony of his birth.

  Paris was a dim memory; he had not seen a cultured woman in years.

  All the ideals in his romantic soul had become magnified to an unnatural extent. Despite the fact that be dominated this hardy crew, he was a misfit. By nature he was cut out to be a reincarnation of the chevalier Bayard,sans peur et sans reproche ; cruel circumstance had made him — what he was. And now this flame of a young woman had poured salt on his wounds. Boy and girl in love, and in need. It meant everything such a situation means to any Frenchman, a hundred times keener. And he with opportunity to make his worthless life meaningful again.

  Purposefully Duval strode to a cupboard, yanked out a handful of charts, pored over them. He sat down with pencil and calculator, muttering to himself, figuring.

  "Name of a pipe," he whispered presently. "It might be done."

  Duval hurried out after Gerry and found her by the freighter, which was now taking on its load of ore concentrates, trying bitterly and hopelessly to argue its commander into attempting to make Satellite Five.

  "Mademoiselle!" called Duval breathlessly. "Mademoiselle, I believe there is a possibility of the faintest —"

  "Duval!" Gerry cried, her face lighting like a torch from within. "You mean you'll try it? Oh, that's marvelous! And I'll see you're properly rewarded, too. I have influence. Plenty. I don't know what you did back home, but if it can be fixed —"

  Duval brushed this aside.

  "We have perhaps one chance in the hundred to arrive safely. After that is time to talk of the rewarding. Fortunately, the Satellite Five is almost directly opposite Ganymede, on the other side of Jupiter —"