Latest Developments in the Controversial “Immortality Through Freezing" Plan REPORT ON THE SLOW FREEZE gi by R. C. W. Ettinger k
The Master Spy of Space CROWN OF STARS by tin Carter
A new “inside look" at science fiction by SAM MOSKOWITZ
Could you write for television?
ByMaxShulman
A rankly, I don’t know. But this I do know; when I was running the Dobie Gillis show, 1 often paid $2,500 and more for scripts turned out by people who should have been arrested for impersonating writers.
How such people got to be high-priced TV writers is not as mysterious as it seems. Television is an insatiable maw into which scripts must be fed at a rate unprecedented in the history of entertainment. It is a grate- ful producer indeed who consistently gets scripts which have been written with real understanding of television’s powers and limitations.
To help train new TV writers, I joined with Rod Serling (creator of The Twilight Zone, winner of five Emmy Awards) and ten other leading authors’* to start the Famous Writers School. We pooled every- thing we had learned in our long years in the business to devise four professional writing courses that men and women, seriously in- terested in writing, could take in their own homes in their free time.
story (or documentary or commercial) in quick, visual sequences ... the knack of thinking and writing with a lens!
Through a series of carefully planned assignments, you learn as you write— guided by our own specially organized textbooks. Your assignments are painstakingly edited and revised by our staff of instructors, them- selves all professional writers. Under our supervision, an instructor works with you by mail, much as a producer or editor works with an established writer.
Do you have an aptitude for writing?
To help you (and us) decide whether you've got the stuff' to be a writer, we have worked up a revealing aptitude test. The coupon below will bring you a copy, along with a 48-page School brochure. If your test indi- cates aptitude, you are eligible to enroll in the School. You are, however, under no ob- ligation to do so.
How to write “with a lens”
All four of our courses give you a solid foundation in basic writing skills. And three of them (Fiction, Non-Fiction and Adver- tising) give you training in the techniques of television. You learn to build interesting, believable characters; how to write dialogue that rings true; how to plot convincingly. Therf you develop the specialized approach that lV demands: the facility to tell your
•Hennett Cert, Bruce Catton, Faith Baldwin. Bergen Evans, Mignon G. Eberhart, John Caples. J. D. Ratclifl, Mark Wiseman, Rudolf Flesch, Red Smith
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Accredited by Accrediting Commission of the National Home Study Council.
NOVEMBER 1966 Vol. 4 No. 2 ISSUE 21
ALL NEW STORIES
CONTENTS
FREOERIK POHL Editor
ROBERT M. GUINN Publisher
JUDY-LYNN BENJAMIN Associate Editor
DAVID PERTON Production Manager
lAWRENCE LEVINE ASSOC. Advertising
MAVIS FISHER Subscription Manager
Cover by DEMBER
NOVELEnES
CROWN OF STARS 6
by Lin Carter
FROST PLANET 45
by C. C. MacApp
TO THE WAR IS GONE 78
by Richard C. Meredith
SEVENTY LIGHT-YEARS FROM SOL ..123
by Stephen Tail
SHORT STORY
UNTIL ARMAGEDDON 107
by Dannie Plachta
ARTICLES
THE 1991 DRAFTEE 36
by Joseph Wesley
REPORT ON THE SLOW FREEZE 69
by R. C. W, Ettinger
DEPARTMENTS
EDITORIAL 4
by Frederik Pohl
THE JEW IN SCIENCE FICTION 109
by Sam Moskowitz
WORLDS OF TOMORROW Is published q^uarterly by GALAXY PUBLISHING CORP. Medn OHlces: 4a Hudson Street, New York, 10014. 50c per copy. Sub- scription (12 copies) $5.00 In the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and U. S. Possessions. Elsewhere $6.00. Copyright New York 1966, by Galaxy Publishing Corp. Robert M. Guinn, President. All rights Including transla- tions reserved. All material submitted must be accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelopes. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All stories In this magazine are fiction, and any similarity between characters and actual persons Is coincidental. Printed In the U.S.A. By The Guinn Co., Inc., N.Y. Title Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.
Worlds of Tomorrow * Editorial
THE WORLD OF TODAY
Since today (as we write this) is the 16th of June, we take this opportunity to wish you all a Hap- py Bloomsday.
Joyceans, of course, will recog- nize the occasion: It is on the 16th of June, one particular 16th of June early in this century, that the entire action of James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, takes place. Today the Joy- ceans of the world are celebrating the occasion by erecting a new mon- ument on Joyce’s grave in Switzer- land. But there is a more permanent monument available on a larger scale: the writing of the past half- century in the English language bears a permanent mark impressed by James Joyce. In subject matter, the present freedom of modern writers to discuss human behavior in even its “tabu” forms of sex- uality was earned by Ulysses. Banned for years, it was the sub- ject of a court struggle that re- sulted in the historic decision that a work of literature must be judged in its entirety. In technique the ef- fects of Ulysses are even more strongly felt. Joyce did not invent “portmanteau” words, but he cer- tainly made them a part of the vocabulary of narrative writing as even Lewis Carroll had failed to do. And Molly Bloom’s cadenza at the end of the book was the at- tempt of a powerful mind to describe the chaotic, nonsequential and often confusing workings of another mind. Molly’s stream of consciousness is still studied by
fledgling psychologists . . . and stiU stands the scrutiny of their professors.
Explications of Joyce are endless; but there is a new one that has a special interest for us because it is the brain-child of our staffer, Judy-Lynn Benjamin. Called The Celtic Bull and published by the University of Tulsa as the first of a new monograph series, it will be out by the time you read this. Miss Benjamin is editor-in-chief of the book; her associate editors are Joanne Kolbe and Maryann Nichols; and the contributors to the book include all three of the editors, and half a dozen more. . . .
As you will have noticed, Worlds of Tomorrow has gone over to a quarterly publishing schedule. The schedule juggling leaves us with one monthly (If), one bi-monthly (Galaxy) and the present magazine. Worlds of Tomorrow, as a quarter- ly .. . but regard nothing as set- tled; the reason for the juggling act is that we are trying to fit another magazine in.
What will the other magazine be? Well, we’re not prepared to say just yet, but we’ve been amusing ourselves by telling our regular contributors that, yes, it will be a science-fiction magazine but, no, none of them will be writing for it. . . .
Come back next issue; we’ll tell you all about it then !
—THE EDITOR
4
A SPLIT SECOND IN ETERNITY
The Ancients Called It COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
Must man die to release his inner consciousness? Can we experience momentary flights o( the soul— that is, become one with the uni- verse and receive an influx of great understanding?
The shackles of the body— its earthly limitations— can be thrown off and man’s mind can be attuned to the Infinite Wisdom for a flash of a second. During this brief in- terval intuitive knowledge, great inspiration, and a new vision of our life’s mission are had. Some call this great experience a psychic phenomenon.
But the ancients knew it and taught it as Cosmic Consciousness — the merging of man’s mind with the Uni- versal Intelligence.
Let this Free Book Explain
This is not a religious doctrine, but the application of simple, natural laws, which give man an insight into the great Cosmic plan. They make possible a source of great joy, strength, and a regeneration of man’s personal powers. Write to the Rosicru- cians, an age-old brotherhood of understanding, for a free copy of the book "The Mastery of Life.” It will tell you how, in me privacy of your own home, you may indulge in these mysteries of life known to the ancients. Address: Scribe U.A.H.
The ROSICR UCIANS SSM JOSE, CAUFOXNIA 95114 UAi.
Please Include Your Zip Code
5
6
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
Worlds of Tomorrow * Novelette
James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, move over! In an asteroid castle off Astarte, your master appears!
[AUTLEY QUICKSILVER, the most celebrated Confidential ^ Agent in all the Near Stars, had a castle of pink quartz on Carvel in the Chain of Astarte. There he lived alone with his quaint hobbles, his curious pets, and his extraordinary
collection of hand weapons; there were sixteen hundred varieties rep- resented, and with each he made cer- tain to acquire a thorough profes- sional competency.
Quicksilver’s castle clung to a sheer crag of green coral, rising from a sea of heavy opal smoke. It was a lovely thing, under a tea-rose sky.
7
8 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
with Astarte glowing redly on the dim horizon.
The horizon looked more distant than it was. Carvel was a terraform- ed worldlet with a diameter of forty- nine km.; but a permanent mag- netic field distorted the atmospheric molecules into a gigantic lens, creat- ing the illusion of vast distances. The coral cliff to which the pink castle adhered was one of a scattered for- est of similar green monoliths, even as Carvel was but a minor gem in the complex necklace of asteroids that circled the planetless, dark red star. Quicksilver’s versicle on the subject was:
Hardest of all: to find
One needle in a mountain of its kind.
Professionally, of course. Quick- silver would suffer if he were im- possible to find. Hence he was “at home” to visitors on alternate Zan- days. They would phone him, on a very special wavelength whose mea- sures were published every second Oomday in the personal columns of the Centauri Standard Times', and if their business sounded sufficiently promising, Quicksilver would switch on the beacon, and his potential cli- ents would be guided, blind, through the jungle of whirling rocks that he always referred to as his castle’s “moat.”
This Zanday his visitor was a soft little mouse of a man with a vapid face, pale eyes of contrasting colors, salmon hair and eyelids tattooed with the green ink caste mark of a Validian Scholar. In a neutral voice.
only slightly blurred with nervous- ness or tension, he introduced him- self as the Learned Pawel Spiro, Resident Locutioner in Chaiteen Archeology at the Boghazy-the- Great Museum, Tavory, Alcazar III. He spoke rapidly, soft, ingrati- atingly, not once lifting his eyes to Quicksilver after the first keen, all- encompassing appraisal.
“The Museum is interested in re- taining you, Ser Hautley, on a mis- sion of extreme delicacy. That is, to appropriate the archaic jeweled head- piece of the prehistoric Cavern-Kings of Chait (Thoin IV, Derghiz Clus- ter). We understand your fee is considerable; you will find our generosity in keeping. However, for- any expenses above and beyond rea- sonable limits, the Department re- quests an itemized bill of expendi- tures. We would like delivery of the cult-object within ninety days of the date of our contract.”
Quicksilver watched' the slight, nervous movements of Pawel Spiro's soft hands with lazy, impas- sive and mirror-bright eyes. The Confidential Agent was a lean, lithe young man of seventy-six, clothed from throat to wrist and heel in tight black satin. His face was ma- hogany, ascetic, with high cheek- bones and a broad forehead denoting astonishing intellectual capacity. His hair, falling in meticulous locks over his brow, was pewter-gray. A whimsi- cal light flashed in his oblique, mir- ror eyes (from which affectation, as well as from his mercurial tempera- ment, he derived his surname). “This headpiece, popularly called
CROWN OF STARS 9
‘The Crown of Stars’ is 1 believe venerated by a fanatic cult, is it not, Learned Spiro?”
Pawel Spiro cleared his throat with a slight, glottal cough.
“Er, ah, that is correct. It is the cult-object of the Neochait Priest- hood, fourteenth-generation descen- dants of the original settlers, who have built a form of ancestor wor- ship about the mysterious Cavern- Kings, These Cavern-Kings are an extinct race of highly intelligent lizards of prespace technology. Their curious architectural monuments — which remain, to this day, among the archeological enigmas of the Clus- ter — are virtually all that remains of their handiwork,”
‘‘Except the Crown,” Quicksilver drawled. Pawel Spiro nodded.
‘‘Except the Crown, yes. Barring the ruins, it is the only known arti- fact of this dead race.”
“Worth a fortune, I venture?” Pawel Spiro nodded again, ner- vously.
“Beyond price, Ser Hautley. Prized not so much for its intrinsic worth as for its historical value. Still, it is reputed a lovely bit of jewelry. Open-scrolled goldwork . . . rather in the High Phriote style ... set with one hundred fifty-seven pre- cious and semi-precious stones . . . among them are the only known specimens of thirteen otherwise my- thical varieties of gemstone.”
Quicksilver removed a slim green tube from a bloodwood case on the desk before him, placed it between his thin lips (without offering one to his visitor, curiously) and medi- tated unblinkingly on the anonymous
face opposite. An aromatic vapor permeated the tower chamber. There was a silence.
Pawel Spiro coughed discreetly. From within his singlet he plucked forth a plasticine card and proffered it to Quicksilver.
“You will find here a complete precis of all available information concerning this commission.”
Quicksilver accepted the card with a brown, immaculate hand. The tiny canary-yellow dragon on Quicksil- ver’s shoulder hissed like a viper, gold eyes sparking viciously. Pawel Spiro withdrew his hand hastily.
CCT^or what reason does the J? Museum wish me to ap- propriate the Crown of Stars?” Quicksilver inhaled the pungent va- por lazily. “One could hardly display a stolen artifact openly.”
“True enough. However, we shall see to it that unofficial word of our — ah — new acquisition circulates through the world of archeology. Boghazy-the-Great will gain higher status among similar institutions. Our monograph series, particularly when related to Chaiteen archeology, will acquire greater prestige and at- tract more respectful attention. And, after the fifteen-year period demand- ed by the Carina-Cygnus Criminal Code, Section 12, sub-paragraph b, ‘Statute of Limitations’ has expired, we may then openly display the cult- object without fear of reprisal.” Quicksilver stood up.
“Where may I contact you?” “Imperial House, Chitterling, Vas- sily II. I am staying under the name of Dr. Smothly.”
10 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
“You will hear from me within twenty-seven hours,” Quicksilver said, ushering his visitor out. Re- turning to the room he detached a minicamera from the ornamental border of his desk and swiftly de- veloped nine of the prints extracted from the device. He then dialed Boghazy-the-Great, asking for the Chancellor of Derghiz Archeology Department. A portly, pink-faced Cartouchan with enormous ultra- marine mustachios, robed in ortho- dox blue, inquired his business.
“Very Learned, I am Thomas Jefferson Pouchier, Senior Staffmem- her of Star magazine. We contem- plate a feature ‘article on the fine work the Museum is doing in Carina- Cygmis prehistory and neoculture. I am assigned to a few brief para- graphs concerning an underling of yours, the Learned Pawel Spiro.”
“Yes, yes, fine man. Chaiteen ar- cheology a dead end, of course. My own specialty, now — the famous Monolith-Builders of Delta Carina XI — ”
“My superior. Full Editor Lord Daughtner Rohm, is preparing the central section, dealing with your brilliant achievements,” Quicksilver interposed smoothly. “But I have a choice of several pictures of the Learned Spiro — simple two-color prints, of course, unlike the 3-D full-spectrum center-spread we plan for yourself. Tell me, are any of these a truly good likeness of the Learned?” He fanned out the prints. The Chancellor nodded.
“Very good likenesses, all. That one of Spiro rubbing his nose, very characteristic pose. But tell me.
Staffman. the section on myself — ” “Lord Daughtner will shortly con- tact you personally. Very Learned. Another question, if I may. Is the Learned at the Museum now, or where can I contact him?”
“On his sabbatical at present. For several months; due back the 15th of Jones as I recall. My secretary could — ■”
“Of course. Any idea where he went?”
The Chancellor puffed out his cheeks. “The Hub Stars. Gesualdo V. Probably find him at the Em- press Pavalia Library.”
Quicksilver thanked him, rang off, and phoned the Library. It would take an hour for the call to go through, the operator informed him. He gave her his unlisted number and asked that he be called as soon as connections were established.
II
Over a quick lunch of brisket of sea serpent and Arcadian mint- jelly he skimmed swiftly through his files.
Eleven attempts had been made to purchase the Crown, from museums mostly, but two from planetary governments. King Oswal the Pious of Altair XII had bid up to seven million. The royal collection was enormously famous. He had been curtly refused. Thirty-nine serious attempts to steal the Crown had thus far been perpetrated. All were foiled, and the would-be thieves exe- cuted by the Neochait Priesthood. All, that is, except the Master-Burg- lar of Capitan, the notorious Dugan
CROWN OF STARS 1 1
Motley, now in retirement. Quick- silver poured a dollop of creme de croix ’46 into a cut-glass goblet and dialed Information. Motley was un- listed in any of the three galactic arms. His lifelong confederate, Shpern Hufferd, however, still re- sided at Thieves’ Haven, the outlaw planet in the Gap, but did not ans- wer. Quicksilver resolved to pay him a call, but before he finished his creme de croix an incoming call flashed above the phone.
It was another potential client, a tall, saturnine aristocrat who waved off Quicksilver’s protests that he was contemplating a commission already with a clipped offer of one million munits. Quicksilver guided him down with the beacon.
This second visitor, who intro- duced himself as His Dignity Hever- et Twelvth, Proprietor of Canopus, was as slim as a dancing-master, clad in fawn-colored velvet with a great emerald trembling like a drop of green fire in his left earlobe. Car- mine hair, arranged in exquisite locks, foamed over his high peaked collar of snow-cat fur. His eyes, dyed Vermillion, flashed with sardonic humor. In a soft, purring voice. His Dignity came directly to the point.
“Here is our certified check for one million monetary units, drawn on the Royal Bank of Orion. Fetch us the jeweled crown of the Cavern- Kings of the planet Chait. It is the fourth planet of the star Thoin in the Derghiz Cluster of Central Sagit- tarius. Here is a complete dossier of relevant information. The Crown is to be delivered to a post-office box
registered in the name of H. Veret in the Chantilly Port Post Office. Here is the key. When the Crown has been so delivered, place an en- try in the Chantilly Port Herald say- ing simply: ‘Done. Q.’ The Royal Bank of Orion will then be instruct- ed to clear the check.”
His Dignity lifted a pounce-box to his nostrils and sniffed delicately. Quicksilver noncommittally shuffled through the folder and then re- garded the Proprietor quizzically.
“I was not aware that your Digni- ty was a collector of rare antiqui- ties,” he commented.
Heveret XII smiled thinly. “Our motives cannot conceivably affect our business arrangement. Come, Ser Hautley. Let us thumb-print the contract and be off.”
“I must have leisure to check over this information. Where can I con- tact Your Dignity?”
“We are extremely busy, Ser Hautley. This matter must be de- cided now. There can be no question of fee — two million, if you insist.” Firmly but politely Quicksilver de- clined to commit his services prior to a full investigation of the task, extracted a reluctant phone number and saw his blue-blooded visitor out. promising to give a definite answer within twenty-seven hours.
No sooner had the tall noble left than the phone flashed. His call to the Library was now connected. Quicksilver spoke to a prim woman of indeterminate age, modestly at- tired in a black 'Spray-on with un- tinted hair of vague off-gray.
“The Learned Pawel Spiro has been in residence for some months,
12 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
engaged on research for a mono- graph on folk customs of the Al- phayne III Owl People. Of course I am sure he has not left the planet — I see him every day!”
Quicksilver thawed the Librarian- General and rang off. He stroked the tiny yellow dragon with a long forefinger, thoughtfully, while it purred throatily.
Pawel Spiro, it would seem, was a fake. But a good one. Very good — professional class. Now, what about Heveret XII? He phon^ the Royal Archives at Barvory on Canopus II. The Third Under-Archivist, a shriveled gnome of a man with a silvery spike of beard and snapping green eyes testily demanded his busi- ness. Quicksilver held up a photo- graphic enlargement of a fingerprint he had taken from the polished panel His Dignity had touched on his way out of the castle.
“My name is Feuvel Coradayne. I collect objects previously belonging to royalty. I have recently been offered a crystal goblet from which your Lord, His Dignity Hervert Twelfth, is said to have drunk. I wish to check the validity of this association. Can you check your files and inform me if this print matches the right index finger of His Digni- ty?”
The Third Under-Archivist grum- bled a bit, but Quicksilver mollified him with swift, easy words. He van- ished from the screen, reappearing moments later to signify approval. Heveret XII, then, was legitimate, if Pawel Spiro was not. Interesting.
His cruiser was ready for depar- ture. Quicksilver opened his cos-
metic kit, preparing to change his appearance for the visit to Dugan Motley’s old colleague, Shpern Huf- ferd, when the phone flashed again — this time on an official govern- ment frequency. It was a police call.
Quicksilver accepted it. He had nothing to fear from any law enforcement agency in the civilized galaxy. An accredited member of the Thieves’ Guild, operating under a Charter from the Alphard Anar- chate, his business was fully legal. Since the Anarchate had been diplo- matically recognized by the Imperial Commonwealth of Worlds back dur- ing the Comalte Crisis, his Charter was recognized galactically. (The Alphard Anarchate, of course, was the famous system in which crimin- ality was legal and honesty against the law. An interesting culture in many ways.) He switched the phone on, and the screen filled with an ad- mirable specimen of femininity.
“Senior Inquiry Specialist Barsine Torsche, officially requesting permis- sion to land and deliver a commis- sion from the Carina Intelligence Depot. Priority prime-4.”
Quicksilver, with difficulty, re- pressed an expletive. He had work- ed with Senior Inquiry Specialist Torsche before and disliked her. She was a decorative creature, one could not deny, with magnolia-white skin, thick hair of metallic indigo and eyes and lips of warm pink. But she was obviously madly in love with him, and this dampened the ardor he might otherwise have felt. By tem- perament he was opposed to surren- der and attracted by rebuttal (which
implied eventual conquest). As he put it in a versicle;
Dearer to me: the prize I take,
Than gifts that other people make.
“I am otherwise engaged,” he said coldly.
“Hi, Haut, is that you? Switch on your vision, will you?”
He complied and viewed her stonily. “I am at the moment con- sidering two commissions. Inquiry Specialist Torsche.”
She shaped her warm pink mouth into a moue. “Oh, aren’t we hoity- toity, Hautley! But this one will in- terest you. The Lord Commissioner of Internal Security himself — ”
“I am busy — ”
“You can’t refuse a commission from a Cabinet Commissioner! Don’t you know Article Nineteen of your Charter?”
He ground his teeth. But she was right. “Oh, I suppose so,” he said bitterly. “What is it the Lord High Whozis wants me to do?” A sarcastic grin creased his^thin lips. “Steal the jeweled Crown of Stars from the Crypts of the Cavern-Kings of Chait?”
Her lips formed another moue — this time of genuine astonishment. “I ... I really think you are a tele- path, as your envious colleagues claim. How on earth did you know?”
Ill
Quicksilver guided Barsine Tors- che down and greeted her curtly. He hoped his habit of facial impassivity had prevented any sign of his own astonishment from show-
CROWN OF STARS 13
ing. Seemingly it had, for she made no reference to it.
“I don’t know how you stumbled onto it, Haut, but the Commissioner has picked you for exactly that assignment. You don’t have an ear planted in the Depot offices, do you?”
“I do not. Specialist. Nor can I accept your commission,” he rap- ped, coolly. “As I told you, I have already accepted — ”
“Hautley, your Charter — ”
“I have a legal obligation to my principal. I could be sued for a for- tune and have my scintillant Char- ter revoked!” Quicksilver, grasping at straws, pretended indignation.
She regarded him dubiously.
“Have you actually thumb-print- ed a contract, Hautley? You didn’t tell me that.”
“No. I wanted to find out why the Imperial Government wants this whatzis — Crown of Stars.”
Her watermelon-pink lips firmed, and her stubborn little chin lifted.
“I’ll have to see the contract, you know. And I certainly can’t divulge any classified information, if you are legally bound to another case. Perhaps your client could be per- suaded to waive, allowing you to handle ours?”
Hautley thought swiftly, covering his momentary silence by pouring a goblet of creme de croix for him- self and Barsine. She refused hers, whereupon he opened the bloodwood case and selected a slim green cy- linder. He could not tell Barsine the truth, i.e., that he suspected he could abscond with the cult-object within a day or two, as he could not
14 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
reveal to her that others were after it as well as the Imperial Govern- ment. Were he to do so, the Depot might become alarmed and enforce their wishes upon him. As ever, Quicksilver preferred to walk his own path. As one of his versicles put it:
Freedom: to seek my star.
Unheeding who may seek to guide, or bar,
“I doubt my principal could be persuaded to delay. Royalty, you know,” he said.
“I must see your contract,” Bar- sine Torsche insisted. Hautley sigh- ed and snapped in two the uriit cy- linder between his fingers. From this; particular cigaril a jet of lime-green smoke erupted. The young woman collapsed instantly on the wall-to- wall rug of deep-piled ormthak fur.
Hautley Quicksilver selected a blank contract from his desk. Inserting it into the typovox he rapidly dictated eleven sentences, snapped it from the machine and af- fixed his thumb-print. Luckily, from the impressions Heveret XII had left on the polished door-plate, he could select a flawlessly perfect print. He photographed it, ripped the negative from the camera and duplicated it on a plastic cube in nitrate of im- pervium. He drew a bulb of acid from his waist pouch, squirted the translucent block with a corrosive mist and, instants later, inked an ex- cellent thumbprint on the contract with the cube. The vapor had eaten away the plastic from around the
microscopic lines of impervium ni- trate. The mission described in the contract was a vital political assas- sination. He then bathed Barsine Torsche, whom he lifted to a reclin- ing chair, in a jet of counteractive gas.
She awoke, unaware of any time- lapse, to examine the forged con- tract. A tiny line of exasperation formed between her perfect indigo brows.
“You’re right, Haut. You daren’t break this. Old XII sounds des- perate, and from what I know of his temper, I doubt if the full Cabinet could dissuade him. Oh, scintillance! The Commissioner will be frothing . . . How long will it take you to vaporize the scut?” ,
“A solid month, I have no doubt. The Proprietor’s enemy seems to anticipate vaporization. His ulna has been removed from one forearm. An aluminum tube replaces it, packed with molecule-sized transistors and microprinted circuits, projecting an impervious shell of force about his body, opaque to any material ob- ject and. in fact, transparent only to gravity, moderate heat and light. Air, within his self-imposed prison, is manufactured by a tiny recycling plant in his left tibia, also a tube of aluminum.”
“Clever devil. How do you plan to scrag him?”
“Don’t know. Studying the prob- lem now . . . rather busy, as I said, Barsine . . .”
She sighed. “I can take a hint, Haut. See you around.”
Barsine paused at the door: “If you’re fooling me. Quicksilver — !
CROWN OF STARS 15
The Commissioner is really inter- ested in this case. Carina-Cygnus won’t be big enough to hold you, if he discovers — ”
His mercury-colored eyes opened with a gaze of injured innocence.
“Barsine!”
“Oh, all right. ’By — got to buzz.”
As soon as her ship lifted anti- gravs and reascended into the stratos- phere, Quicksilver flashed into ac- tion. He entered his cruiser — the fastest thing in space — and launch- ed from Carvel, threading his way through the whirling maze of minor asteroids with the skill of familiarity and the deft touch of a master pilot.
Thieves’ Haven, the outlaw planet, lay some seventeen thousand light-years towards the Hub, a lone- ly, sunless world swimming in the Gap. The Gap was the immense black rift that separated the outer Carina-Cygnus Arm from the inner Sagittarius Arm of the Galaxy. Quicksilver pointed the needle prow of his lean, rakish craft Hubwards and transposed his ship into pseu- dospace.
With a bone-shaking subsonic whine the Bettleheim-Ortleigh-Rob- ton Drive engines engaged, creating a magnetic field around the slim craft in the thousand-billion-gauss range — a magnetic field of such stupendous magnitude that the very fabric of space itself was bent until it “snapped”, forming a bubble of bent three-dimensional space around the sleek cruiser. Within this arti- ficial little private universe, light was still the limiting velocity of mat- ter — but the relative acceleration
16 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
of photonic energy was now several million times higher.
Hurtling towards the criminal planet at several thousand light- speeds, Quicksilver snapped the ship on automatic and relaxed. It would be necessary to assume a disguise: far too many outlaws at the Haven would recognize Quicksilver at a glance. If, as was highly possible, the scofflaw class was involved in this three-way struggle for the Crown of Stars, he saw no motive for ad- vertising his active participation in the contest until it was advantageous to do so. He removed the tiny canary-yellow dragon from its perch on his shoulder, slipped it in an iridium-wire cage, gave it a hand- ful of iron pyrites to eat and sat down at his cosmetic table.
Staring at his several reflections in the multi-angle mirror, he be- gan swiftly to alter his apptearance beyond recognition. A lightly radio- active hypospray, pressed against the third intersticial suture of his skull, injected a minute stimulus to his cyno-pitui'tary, which, within the hour, would bleach his skin color to a strawberry red. A quick chemical spray violently agitated the hair fol- licles of his scalp. He watched as the pewter gray of his hair grew satiny black, darkling as the tide of color crept up from the roots.
IV
As he worked, his mind raced furiously. There forces, seem- ingly independent of each other, strove for possession of the Chai- teen cult-object. Why?
Granted, the Crown of Stars was fabulously rare, worth an immense fortune, either for its intrinsic worth or its historical value, but this hard- ly seemed reason enough for the sudden interest people from widely varied areas of expertise were dis- playing it in.
A scholar, ostensibly working on the behalf of a galactically famous museum. A monarch, motives unre- vealed. An intelligence agent, set in- to action by a member of the Em- peror’s Cabinet. What did these three have in common? Desire for wealth — power — knowledge? No, it was something more. A small vertical crease formed between Quicksilver’s ebon brows.
One of the three was a phony.
Although Pawel Spiro’s story hung together, and his disguise was clever enough to fool the camera — and his professional sujrerior — the real Pawel Spiro was busily at work in the center of the galaxy on anthro- po-archeological research, while a fake Pawel Spiro, half a galaxy away, was holed up in a glossy tour- ist hotel awaiting word from the galaxy’s ace Confidential Agent.
Who was this pseudo-Spiro? What did he want from the Crown — and, more important, whom did he repre- sent?
And was Pawel Spiro the only fake, among the three clients? True, the fingerprints of Heveret XII matched those on official Canopan records, but that was only proof “to a degree.” Quicksilver smiled thin- ly. Without greatly taxing his imagi- nation, he could recall eight ways of faking fingerprints, to wit;
CROWN OF STARS 17
1. Invisible fingertip sheaths, with raised prints.
2. Skin graft, or entire digital grafts.
3. Homosculpture.
4. Bribery of the Archives offici- al Quicksilver had interviewed.
5. Forgery of fake records, and their replacement in the Archives of Canopus.
6. Dialic biostasism.
7. Kidnapping of the interviewed official, and planting a coached re- placement for the interview; or nar- cotic persuasion or hypnotic im- planting of false information with the true Archivist.
8. Time-prolypse, by means of an Anchidean protomorph, or labora- tory duplicate thereof.
He sprayed his face with astrin- gent vapor from a pressure bulb, creasing his facial flesh with a net- work of semi-permanent wrinkles, adding apparent physical age. A touch of biostatic plasm deftly ap- plied to nose, brow-ridge and jaw altered his profile subtly yet surely, and the synthetic yet semi-living pseudoflesh would stand up to any- thing but a microscopic analysis.
Quicksilver stripped off his satin tights and changed to a looser sing- let and hose of contrasting irrides- cents. Slight pads sewn in the gar- ment at shoulder and spine made him appear a little stooped and lent a false slope to his brawny shoul- ders. The man who now looked back from the mirror resembled Quick- silver only in the mirror-bright eyes his pride and inborn love of tempt- ing danger made him retain untam- pered-with. About his waist went a
“business” belt, and the singlet it- self contained various interesting gadgetry that only a detailed search, or examination by an expert tailor, would discover.
The automatic pilot chimed soft- ly. Quicksilver put away his cosmeti- cry and stepped to the glowing con- trol console. He brought the ship into normal space again by relaxing the magnetic mega-gauss field and cruised towards Thieves’ Haven on planetary drive.
Landing at the planet’s only field, he consulted his timepiece. Less than two hours had passed since he bade farewell to Pawel Spiro. Before the twenty-seven hours were up, he must: 1, locate Shpern Hufferd and extract from him the current location and pseudonym of the Master-Burglar of Capitan; 2, interview the Master-Burglar and extract from him a description of the protective measures used by the Neochaiteen fanatics to guard their treasure and the means by which Dugan Motley had managed to es- cape from Chait unharmed; 3, de- cide, of the three potential clients, which to accept his commission from; and, 4, if possible, find out who or what was behind Pawel Spiro.
Quicksilver landed neatly, berthed his ship in a subterranean dock, and gained the upper levels, taking a glidewalk into the capital (and only) city of Thieves’ Haven, Dioga.
It was a fantastic metropolis, this king-city of crime. Fabulous ave- nues lined with palaces of wine and gourmet delights, as well as the oth-
18 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
er fleshly pleasures, including thir- teen totally new and original vices specifically invented by galactically famed psychologists, chemists and anatomists for the Haven, retained a generation before at incredible fees. Glitteringly facaded gaming- houses, where eleven thousand four hundred and six different methods for parting a man and his munits could be found. Bizarre establish- ments where, for princely fees, one could titillate the most jaded palate by torturing a nude girl to death, in- dulging in narcotic boilermakers compounded of expertly blended and homogenized varieties of widely dif- fering drugs injected directly into the brain, or spend a quiet medita- tive hour as the galaxy’s most cele- brated pornographic, necrophilic and homophagic library and film- collection exhausted their repertoire for your amusement.
Against the velvet backdrop of a night never broken by a morning sun, fantastic illusion-displays chal- lenged the stars with multicolored advertising spectacles:
AH FONG’S DE LUXE DREAMERY
Murder ! Rape ! Torture ! Suicide ! Mass Atrocity
“Have Your Kicks in the Finest Man-Made Synthetic
Dreams and Illusions”
PEGLEG FAUNTLEROY PRESENTS “MANHUNT”! Track Down and Slay Your Enemies!
Satisfaction Guaranteed!
Risk Eliminated!
Why Pay a Psychosurgeon?
Our Androids Guaranteed to Simulate Mom, Dad or Anyone Else
You Hate ... So Work Off Your Frustrations the Fauntleroy Way!
(Genuine Blood Supplied by Hemoglobin Associates, Ltd.)
ONE-EYE GROGAN’S HOUSE OF TEN THOUSAND GAMES “Lose Your Shirt in Surroundings of Imperial Splendor!”
MADAME FAFH'S PALACE OF JOY
Women of a Million Worlds . . . Also Boys, Men, Neuters, Albino Hermaphrodites And Specially Trained Birds
Tuning his wristphone to the planetary wavelength. Quicksilver called Central and obtained Shpern Hufferd’s address. The former asso- ciate of the Master-Burglar now re- sided in a decayed suburb of the planet-wide city — obviously in re- duced circumstances, despite a pro- fitable career. It reminded Quick- silver of one of his less philosphlcal and more practical versicles, to wit:
Resolved: for crime to pay its best.
Your loot you wisely should in- vest.
He took a slideway and headed for Hufferd’s home. As time was of the essence, he moved to the cen- tral express strip and hurtled through the gaudy-colored night. Behind him, a bald-domed, gray-complexioned
CROWN OF STARS 19
Orgotyr in scarlet tights clambered on the strip . . . not unnoticed by the Confidential Agent.
Quicksilver threaded his way through the maze of slideways, mov- ing from strip to strip according to the directions Central had given him. In time the Orgotyr was replaced by a plum-skinned Schloim from Wol- verine IV. Noting this as well, Quick- silver smiled grimly. It was going to be an exciting night.
Shpern Hufferd lived on the first floor of a two-story prefabricated Living Home near the Autophan Canal. Here there were no illusion- displays, only a few antediluvian neon signs whose curt legends read JOE’S EATS; BAR & GRILL; MAXIE’S SODA-LUNCH; ELIM QUANG’S ELITE OVO-SNAVE and the like.
Quicksilver got off the slideway and approached the door, noting that his follower had vanished. He rang the doorbell several times. Then, drawing an all-purpose, electronic key from his waist pouch he focused it on the old-fashioned lock. The iris dilated, and he stepped warily into the room.
Lights flared. And he looked down the cold throat of a General Nuc- leonic Mark IV coagulator.
V
With a swift, all-encompassing glance. Quicksilver noted his immediate surroundings and his op- ponent. A small, dingy room and a small, dingy man. The man was old, well past the 150 mark, and going to seed. Also to pot. Quicksilver
thought, eyeing his quivering paunch and drooping jowls. But the hand on the coagulator was rock-steady.
“One move, you scut, and I’ll give you a blood clot two seconds from your heart.”
Quicksilver did not move. Huf- ferd. if he it was, looked him up and down.
“Never saw ye before, so I’ll be askin’ ye’re name before I clot ye. Speak up!”
Quicksilver’s mind flashed, weigh- ing psycho-semantico-eniotional fac- tors, and he spoke.
“Captain Rex Dangerfield,” he rapped. His verbal blockbuster had the desired effect. At the name of the most feared crime-fighter in the entire galaxy, Hufferd gasped, gaped, and his hand wavered.
Quicksilver’s right leg flashed out in a neokarate stroke. The coagula- tor went flying. And it took him only 1.4 seconds to pin his plump opponent in a hammerlock.
“C-captain Dangerfield!” Shpern Hufferd spluttered, writhing help- lessly. “B-but wh-what the divil kin ye be wantin’ with an old duffer the likes o’ me? I haven’t tipped me mitt in twenty-foive years! Been lived the life of a peaceable, retolred citizen taxpayer I have! What could the likes o’ you — ”
“Where is Dugan Motley?” Quick- silver snapped.
“The boss? Why, Captain, it’s been many a long year since — ”
There was a faint hiss, barely dis- cernable, even to Quicksilver’s train- ed sense of hearing. The fat old ban- dit snagged lifeless in his arms. A tiny poison-needle bristled under
20 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
Shpern Hufferd’s fat jowl. He was dead instantly.
His mind flashing at high speed, Quicksilver figured the angle of fire. The shot had come, obviously, from the second floor of the building across the street. The first floor was a bar, but the second was residential. From the angle at which the needle protruded from the corpse, the needle could only have been fired from the third window from the left, flying through the dilated door-iris. Quicksilver cursed, briefly, in three languages. Had he not been at gun- point he would have closed the door behind him, and Hufferd would be alive still.
There was no time to waste. He sprang out into the street and slapped his waist-pouch. The micrograv en- gaged, and he hurtled into the air, booted feet crashing through the windowpane. The room was empty, but the door was just closing. He put his shoulder against it, but it was locked.
Snapping open his pouch. Quick- silver drew out a small silver tube. It flashed, blindingly, and the plas- tic door sagged in rivulets that flow- ed smoking over the floor. He jump- ed through into the hall. Empty. At the end of the hall was a stairway, leading down into the bar. Quick- silver went down into the crowded room and cornered a huge red bar- keep in a checkered apron.
Slipping an iridium coin in the fel- low’s fat hand. Quicksilver ask- ed: “Any rooms upstairs taken?” “Only the Burgess Meredith Room,” the barkeep replied, naming
the room Quicksilver had been in.
“The others vacant?”
“That’s right, chief. You can take your pick: the Mozart Room, the Iving Berlin or the John Philip Sousa.”
“Cultural, aren’t we?” Quicksilver snarled.
“The old songs are the best,” the scarlet-faced barkeep said.
Quicksilver looked over the throng. It was a motley crowd, the spewings of the gutters of a thousand worlds, but no where among the men and women was either a bald-domed, gray-complexioned Orgotyr in scarlet tights or a plum-skinned Schloim from Wolverine IV.
“Who took the Burgess Meredith Room tonight?” he asked.
“Don’t know him. A Cartouchan in bronze and verdigris tights. Said he had a game going.”
“He did,” Quicksilver said, cold- ly. “The kind you hunt with a gun, not the kind you play with cards.”
He returned to the room he had first entered and searched it swiftly. Near the broken window, wedged against the wall, he found a curious talisman of purple metal. A hollow elipse with a smaller circle within it ... a symbol like an eye. Odd. He had never seen anything like it. He slipped it in his pouch for later examination and returned (this time via the street) to Hufferd’s flat, de- termined to find something.
The assassin, or his confederate — whether Bald-Dome, Plum-Skin or the Cartouchan in bronze and verdigris — had been busy while he wasted time across in the bar. Shpern Hufferd’s flat had been rapidly, but
CROWN OF STARS 21
scientifically, ransacked. Of his pa- jjers only ashes remained. A lot of ashes, meaning an amazing pile of papers. Had Shpern Hufferd been writing his memoirs?
It looked hopeless, but Quick- silver searched the flat. Twenty min- utes was all it took, but it pr^uced nothing. He was leafing through the few books in the apartment when he noted, by coincidence, the memoirs of Dugan Motley: My Life in Crime, Brasilia Press, Sol III. There was something scribbled on the title-page, above the publisher’s address: a series of code-numbers stamped into the paper.
He looked at the numbers thoughtfully. They seemed to be the library subject-code commonly used throughout the galaxy — the Fens- ter Decimal System. And, indeed, the copy of Motley’s memoirs was — or seemed to be — a discarded li- brary copy. But Quicksilver wonder- ed. It would be a clever gambit for Shpern Hufferd to hide Motley’s ad- dress on the one thing in the apart- ment that had “Motley” stamped all over it.
But what did the numbers mean? “107-A-sM.” It was not a phone number, or a homing-system wave- length, and certainly not a set of galactographic coordinates. What could it —
A street address.
Of course! His admiration for Shpern Hufferd warming. Quicksil- ver committed the number to memo- ry. The old purloined letter trick! And the city, obviously, was the “Brasilia, Sol III” printed right be- low the punch-code numbers.
He took the slideway back to the spaceport. En route he called Central and asked for Information. There was only one street in Brasilia whose initials were “A-sM” — A venida san Miguel — so his hunch, had proved right. And more tha ; that, he was now one jump ahead of Plum-Skin & Company, for they ransacked the apartment withoi : finding Motley’s address — or so it seemed, for had they spotted the coded title-page they would surely have burned the book.
He fully expected interception at any moment, but went disappointed all the way to his ship. He searched the slim little speedster with care, but no intruder had penetrated the ship’s electronic guardians.
The speedster flashed into deep space. With a bone-shivering subson- ic whine the Bettleheim-Ortleigh- Robton Drive engaged, and soon Quicksilver was hurtling towards Sol 111 at seven thousand five hundred light-speeds.
Swiftly, Quicksilver changed his appearance. Blue facial pigmentation; a scalp-wig of scarlet bristles; a padded pneumatic suit, and he was now a Blue Nomad of Cordova II, Aristocrat-Caste, obviously a tourist. The ship’s brain spoke through the wall-vox, reminding him of the time. He ordered lunch.
Over a snack of broiled wyvern tongue and diced karoly, he consulted the ship’s small but remarkably com- prehensive reference library. Ordo- vik’s Galactic Religious and Related Symbolism gave him the answer to the problem of the Purple Eye. The symbol stood for the planet Chait,
22 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
which was ringed with a whorl of phosphorescent purple vapor. The book informed him the symbol stood for the Neochaiteen Priest- hood. So now there was a fourth party interested in the caper!
Or was the Purple Eye a red her- ring, planted to confuse him? Time, as the maxim ran, would tell.
Sol III, a medium-sized, ox^'gen- atmosphere, one-grav planet whose indigenous civilization dated back as far as history, was called “Earth” by its inhabitants, his reference library informed him. It lay off Cen- taurus in the Orion Spur, a tongue of stars that jutted rimwards from the Carina-Cygnus Arm. It took him less than an hour to reach.
He spiraled in past Earth’s one lonely moon and landed at Brasilia. The city was one huge antique: quaint, provincial, little more than a charming backwater.. Why would fhe Master-Burglar wish to bury himself in such dull surroundings? The old- fashioned buildings, free-form con- crete pylons in some ancient organic style of architecture, looked like something in a film epic. There were no slideways, just aircabs — unless you wanted to walk on the curious mosaic-paved streets. Quick- silver took an aircab.
The driver, a native, was surly and sullen — ■ until he sized up Quicksilver as a noble tourist with money to spend. The Earth natives, it seemed, were small brown-skinned, black-haired people who spoke some- thing called Neo-Portugee. They still bore resentment against Galac- tics, it seemed . . . apparently the Conquest was neither forgiven nor
forgotten here. Quicksilver wondered how long it had been since the his- toric Imperial Eirst Fleet had taken this sector of the Carina-Cygnus. He asked, and the little cabby clack- ed the date of I.E.L. 10,322 — or 1967 A.D., according to the out- moded native Earthian calendar.
Cruising at 250 mph, the cab wheezed and clanked along potter- ing above the Matto Grosso Suburb of old Brasilia. From the sounds it made, the antique vehicle could be expected to blow a gasket or lose its venturi any minute now. The farther they went, the higher the fare mounted. The higher the fare mount- ed, the more cordial the native driver grew. Until, by the time they neared their destination, he was gratutiously pointing out bits of quaint local color: the marina at the mouth of the Orinoco; Blasco Ibanez Park (containing an exact replica of the Lost City of ‘Z’, which Colonel Faw- cett had been questing for when he had perished in the Amazonian jungles that once had stood where now sprawled endless blocks of suburban homes — the replica. Quicksilver learned, was constructed entirely out of old street car tokens contributed by school children — sadly, the Lost City itself had been torn down centuries ago, so that a fly-in video theatre could be erected in its place) .
Ah, progress! thought Hautley Quicksilver, wryly.
VI
107 Avenida san Miguel was a palatial mansion whose stately
CROWN OF STARS 23
lines reflected the well aged patina of an aristocratic, Colonial culture. It was prefabricated entirely out of pastel nonresinous plastics, nostal- gically reminding Hautley of his boy- hood visits to Grandma’s farm. The imposing structure rose amid grace- ful parks and a clutter of green- houses and other outbuildings. Quicksilver paid the (exorbitant) fare, added a tip whose munificence made the Earthian’s toes curl with ecstasy and rang the doorbell.
He gave his card to the robutler, eschewing, for this once, a nom-de- phiine, and, while waiting, glanced about. Everywhere was rose-marble from Capuchine and grillwork of fine Phriote craftsmanship, chastly ornamented with a zircon-and-chro- mium relief illustrative of various folk heroes from the local religion (Abe Lincoln, Mickey Mouse, Fidel Castro and Joan Blondell, to be pre- cise), Dugan Motley, it seemed, had invested his loot wisely. What lux- ury! What taste!
A foghorn voice in fullest bellow interrupted his cultural muslngs.
“By dog, the great Quicksilver himself, it is! Scintillate me for a no- good, it is a joy for you to meet me — no? Coming in — sitting down — making to home yourself!”
Surging ahead of the staid robut- ler came Dugan Motley himself, all seven-foot-three and 325 lbs. of him, gigantic bristling pirate-beard of flaming red, eyes blue as the Carib- bean, iridium ring in left earlobe and fantastic paunch. He bore down on the startled Hautley like a super- dreadnaught descending upon a row- boat — enveloped him in a vast.
bone-crunching bearhug that would have made a grizzly blush for shame, thumped him on the back with spine- pulverizing force, delivering floor- shaking salvos of hearty laughter that caused the bric-a-brac to jingle and several alabaster busts to quake on their pedestals.
The Master-Burglar ushered him into a first-floor den only microns smaller than the Imperial Throne Hall. Pushing his guest into the se- ductive embrace of a cozy pneumati- que that instantly adjusted to his con- tours and began a subtle massage job on his shoulder muscles, Dugan Motley waddled over to the wall and thumbed a dial. The wall sank back, revolved, turning about to reveal a staggering collection of cut-crystal beakers filled with various colored fluids.
“You, my friend, the great Quick- silver of about I have so-much heard, will drink what? Your choice you take of two hundred eleven thousand four hundred thirty-six different vari- eties of booze, rotgut and panther’s sweat (as the Ancients would say, ha-ha). What is it you are choose? Or to smoking perhaps, you want? Sniff? Inject? Nasal-spray? Ovo- Snave? You ask — I got!” he boom- ed.
For once rather overpowered, Hautley strove to recover his wanted aplomb.
“Chateau Moskowitz, Dugan, if you have it.”
“If I am having it — to laugh, it is! Seventeen more bottles I am having than the Emperor himself in the Imperial booze collection, ha-ha. But, no, yes — scut me for a snazzer.
24 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
I will having the same, by dog! Vin- tage of 3506 all-right-ereeno with you, Quicksilver? Local calendar, of course.”
“Fine.”
They drank.
Cfpfthaaa! Hot damn and by dog, ■L that is the genuine old-fash- ioned moxie, or am I a lying-er?” “Excellent,” Hautley commented, judiciously swizzling the pallid, sparkling wine about the outer rim of his glass and throwing back his head to inhale languidly, first with the left nostril, then the right, then with the left again as it was particul- arly sensitive. “A charmingly unpre- tentious little wine, ever-so-cautious- ly verging on audacity, but sweetly retiring from the brink, blushing, as it were. But pleasant, very — ah — humble, but touched with confi- dence. From the west side of the vineyard. I should say. More sun in the afternoons, you know,” he im- provised, at Dugan’s gape of non- comprehension. “Brings out the tan- nic acid in the soil. Yes, on the whole, a very hospitable little wine. Very.”
Dugan’s huge red face split in two, revealing a display of ivory that would have made a piano proud. “Oh. it is the real connoisseur, this Quicksilver, by hot damn and dog! What expertise, what know-how and the savvy, too! Oh, the joy to an old man’s heart the sight of you is bringing, the great Quicksilver! Upstairs — I can show you • — I got scrapbooks full of you! That time on Zanuck IV when the ruby eye from the idol of N’gumbo-yah
CROWN OF STARS 25
the Corn Goddess you are the steal- ing of! What finesse! And the kid- napping for of the huge ransom that Prince from Narphax II — how you are with such adroit and the subties! And him, the Prince, a forty-foot Crocodile-Man! Oh, the marvelous- ness of it! It is to an old man’s heart like a breath of times old!”
Hautley basked before the warmth of this admiration like Walter Sav- age Landor before the fires of life.
“Old!" he rallied. “Why, Dugan, you’re not a day over two hundred — • I’ll thumbprint an oath to the fact!”
They joshed back and forth for a while, as two veteran professionals will upon first meeting. But then, swiftly, to business.
“So.” Fixing Hautley with a clear blue eye. “But not to the reminlsce- doing, or the compliments-exchange, for which did you come. Quicksilver, my friend. But the business, heh?”
“Right.” Hautley nodded. “Du- gan, you are the one man who tried to turn the Crown of Stars trick and came back with a throat uncut. How did you do it? How is the Crown pro- tected? Why did you fail? How did you get caught in the first place, and you the snorpest fizzler that ever flad a flid?”
The Motley paunch heaved alarm- ingly with a series of seismic chuck- les that wreaked havoc with cheek, jowl and upper torso in general. Hautley waited for this mirthquake to subside with patience. At length it did, and, wheezing and wiping tears of honest mirth from his eyes, Du- gan tossed off another goblet of Chateau Moskowitz ’06 as lightly
as it were a beaker of carrot-juice.
“So that be’s the caper, eh my japper? The great Quicksilver plan- ning to crown a beautiful career by snipping off the Crown itself, me bucko? Har-har-har! Yes, old Dugan tried and failed — but better luck to the Quicksilver, and happily will I be tell-to-you the ins and (especial- ly) outs. You see — ”
“That’s enough free gas, Gutsy. Don’t move. Blue Boy, unless you want an air-conditioned duodenum."
The hard, flat, level voice came from approximately seven feet three inches behind him (Hautley’s keen ear told him), or right in front of the third in the series of French windows he remembered seeing up- on entering the room.
In the enormous mirror behind the racks of liquor bottles, Hautley could see the reflections of these un- expected intruders. Nor were they difficult to identify. A bald-domed, gray-faced Orgotyr in scarlet tights. A plum-skinned Schloim in a feather- covered suit. A gaunt, indigo-haired Cartouchan in bronze-and-verdigris.
He had forgotten to take a pre- caution both elementary and vital to one in his precarious profession — as he encapsuled it once in a ver- sicle:
Observed: he who would die in bed Keeps one eye fixed behind, one fixed ahead.
VII
One bore a General Nucleonic Mark IV coagulator. The second
26 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
was armed with a Cariocan boom- erang-dirk of razor-edged knifewood. The third bore, simply, a cross-com- pensating megawatt neuronic par- alyzer.
Still seated, Hautley delicately ex- erted pressure on his left boot heel, which was hollow and contained a pressure-sensitive charge of flash- powder. Using the subtle arts of muscle-control he had learned years ago from the Adepts of New Tibet (Blavatski II, to the Uniniti- ate) he allowed the exertion of ex- traordinary thrust to build up — using only those muscles from knee to heel.
“Plax off, bubby! Forget all about the flash-powder in the boot heel or I’ll air-condition your liver and your duodenum,” Bald-Dome snarled. Hautley sighed, but complied. Of course the Orgotyr wore x-ray con- tact lenses — how could he have overlooked them? You’re getting lax, Quicksilver, he told himself.
Purple with indignation, Dugan Motley was huffing and wheezing like a beached ore. Any minute now, Hautley realized tautly, the old man would do something foolish.
“Relax, Dugan. They’ve got us zaxed like a couple of clownders in a chowdery. Watch your arteries and take it easy!”
“By dog ■ — and damn-hot my ar- teries! Had the blighters replaced with plastic tubing, fore an’ aft! But I am of the insultingness! To a guest in my home the sticking-up! That it should happen to an old man, in his age, on whom none ever the dropping got! OOooooo — the shame of it! Kill me quick, scuts, be-
fore I am dying embarrass — akkr “Happy to oblige. Fats!” leered the one in bronze and verdigris, spraying him with a pale lavender ray. Dugan sagged, limbs and paunch flopping in several simul- taneous directions like a half ton of monkey-blubber suddenly uncased.
Before Hautley could move, a hissing, crackling sound exploded behind him. It sounded like ten pounds of oily bacon quick fried in a berserk shortwave-oven.
“All right. Quicksilver,” an icy voice redolent of feminine wrath seethed behind him. “You’re safe now — and I want to know what the clabher-doxmg, scintillating — !”
He turned. The three scuggers lay, rigid as tent poles, blue sparks stiU snapping from their finger tips. They had been beamed down from behind.
“I wonder, Barsine, if you realize how lovely you look when you are angry,” he said, with that suave self- possession that never deserted him, even under the most uncomfortable of circumstances.
Standing in the open window, she snorted most inelegantly.
“You thought you could fool me. Quicksilver! I hid off-planet and waited. Sure enough, you buzzed off before I could finish my cigaril! So I just followed along behind ... if I’d stopped to think what I would do if / were Ser Smart-Nose H. Quicksilver, C.A., I’d have thought of checking up on Shpern Hufferd and Dugan Motley. But now I want to know just what the double-scintil- lating — 1”
CROWN OF STARS 27
“How could you follow me through pseudospace,” be scoffed, “when a ship under Bettleheim-Ort- leigh-Robton transposition is, by definition, undetectable even by GAZDAR?”
“Simple, simpleton! When I en- tered your decrepit castle I pasted a ‘tracer’ on your ship. Now what did Dugan Motley . . .?”
He whirled, bent over the recum- bent colossus.
“Yes, by Xhingu, what about old Dugan? They zapped him down — I wonder if the old walrus is still with us?” He made a swift examina- tion of the body with his pocket medi-kit. Face solemn, he rose slow- ly-
“Well?” Barsine asked, anxiously. “Did they — ?”
“No, not the coagulator. They scuttled him with the neuronic par- alyzer.”
She relaxed. “Thank the Plenum! I’d hate to see the old reprobate fried. But if it’s only an n-gun . . .”
“. . . his brain’s in a stasis for fifty-six hours,” he said, coldly. “Don’t thank the Plenum for that! Now I’ll never get the information I need.”
“What about these three scuggers? Maybe they know something?” she offered, gesturing to the three tent poles, still feebly sparking away. The Cartouchan’s discharge had singed a corner of Dugan’s fine, Artemesian tapestry-carpet, Hautley noticed. Hautley’s mirror-eyes flashed with disdainful scorn.
“Not them — mere hirelings. Turn them over to the local authori- ties, won’t you, Barsine, while I — ”
“Oh, no you don’t, Hautley! You’ll buzz ^ the microsec my back is turned! From here on, we work together — or you don’t work at all!”
He sighed, but complied. While Barsine had the robutler phone medical aid for poor old Dugan Motley and summon the police to pick up the three unconscious crimi- nals, he searched the bodies with swift but microscopically minute scrutiny. He found: nothing.
Moments later they were winging back to downtown Brasilia in Du- gan’s own aircar and before long lifted from the quaint old planet in Quicksilver’s sleek cruiser.
“What’s our next move, Hautley?” the girl inquired while making cer- tain subtle repairs in her facial cos- metics.
“Now,” he said grimly, “I make a try at lifting the Crown.”
They were in orbit about Chait an hour later. The trip from Sol III to Thoin IV in the Derghiz Cluster had been uneventful. While Hautley spent the time studying Chaiteen references in his research library, Barsine puttered about, feeding a handful of iron pyrites to the tiny yellow-eyed dragon in its iridium-wire cage. Then, donning yet another of his remarkably complete disguises, Hautley transposed the craft into normal space and gingerly removed the nucleonic frammistator from the drive engine, replacing it with a severely fractured duplicate.
His callboard whined for atten- tion. Wiping graphite from his hands with a scrap of waste, Hautley
28 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
thTiiilibed Che switch to receiving and stared blandly into the irate features of a Neochaiteen Arohimandrate.
“Identify yourself at oncel No ship is permitted in our skies by Sec- tion 12, Paragraph Z of our Charter of Planetary Sovereignty with your Imperial Government!” the official fumed in an ecclesiastical frenzy of ruffled temper.
“Sorry, friend, but I am helpless. My nucleonic frammistator just fractured, and I was lucky to be able to transpose into the orbital vicinity of a planet.”
“What ship are you?” the Archi- mandrate demanded, suspiciously.
“The RPV Rafael Sabatini out of New Poughkeepsie, Altair. We’re bound for Y’ha-nthlei in the Ger- shom Cluster. I am the Most Hon- orable John Jacob Jingleheimer- Smith, owner and pilot, and this is my secretary. Miss Ethel Glutz. Re- quest permission to land due to need for emergency repairs.”
The official burst into a torrent of remarkably innocuous profanity, and while he was seething and bub- bling, Hautley observed him care- fully. The Chaiteens were descen- dants of nine-point-norm humanoid stock, but the preponderance of monoatomic fluorohydrates in their soil and atmosphere had, over the fourteen-generation timespan since the first colonists made planetfall on the deserted planet, embued their skins with a delicate shade of mauve. Solar radiation from their Blue Gi- ant primary, filtering down through the weird ring of purple neon cir- cling the planet, had tinctured their facial hair a peculiar canary yellow.
The combination was not unpleasant. On the contrary, rather decorative, Hautley thought. His research, by the bye, had explained this Saturn-like hoop of purple gas. Chait was a very old planet, and its sole satellite, eventually reaching Roche’s Limit, had disintegrated some centuries be- fore. Since the moon had been noth- ing more than a gigantic globe of neon-ice — the gaseous debris of a comet’s tail which had frozen in the interstellar cold into a sphere of ice — the heat released by the orb’s breakup had vaporized the frozen matter, ringing the planet with an extraordinary circle of vio- let gas. It was listed in the Tourist’s Guide to Central Derghiz, 17th Edi- tion, as one of The Seven Hundred Wonders of the Universe.
Thinking the Archimandrate had fumed and ranted long enough, Hautley imperturbably broke into his incoherent frothing and observ- ed in an amiable tone: “According to the first article of the Universal Space-Emergency Act of I.E.L. 11,493, as ratified by the entire Im- perial Enclave and countersigned by His Supreme Intelligence, the Em- peror Emil Fotheringay XIV — and I quote — ‘no planet may refuse shelter or sustenance to a distressed spaceman under full penalty of eco- nomic sanctions.’ And I might also call your attention to the Humane Activities Act, article seven, para- graphs 3, 12, 27 and Appendix F — ” “Very well, very well!” The Chai- teen wilted beneath this barrage of legality. “You and Miss Glutz may descend in your dinghy, but be cer-
CROWN OF STARS 29
tain your pile is turned to ‘neutral’ and your ship is in a stable orbit.” Curtley the priest gave detailed land- ing instructions. Seemingly Hautley and Barsine could not just land any- where, but only in one specific area. Hautley noted these directions and broke off the connection.
“Miss Ethel Glutz, is it?” Barsine said, with a touch of coldness to her mellow mezzo-soprano. “No doubt this ridiculous name reflects your true feelings for me, Hautley! I — ” He lifted a hand, cutting her off. “Please,” he said, with a slightly pained expression. “We are working now. My name is Ser, John, or Very Honorable — Ethel. They may very well have us under aural scrutiny with an audio-conductor beam.”
She subsided, and they cast off the dinghy and drifted down to the planetary surface below.
Chait was a small, cold, windy ball of rock. Black, barren, devoid of tree or leaf — a wilderness of stone stretched off on every side. No wonder the ancient Cavern- Kings had constructed their unique civilization underground.
They were met at the landing- stage and escorted from their dinghy by a silent group of priests in full lizard-skin regalia, with dragonish face masks and imitation claws. Hautley’s bland attempts to chat with them were severaly rebuffed. The priests radiated disapproval on all wavelengths.
The portly Archimandrate con- ducted them personally to the quar- ters reserved for (uninvited) guests. The trip was short and swift, but
Hautley did manage to observe something of the remarkable arch- itectural style for which the extinct reptilians were widely noted: a sub- tle matter of sloping walls, multi- planed ceilings, and chambers of do- decahedral format. Oddly impressive, he was forced to admit.
The Spartan simplicity of their quarters was depressing, to say the least. Two narrow cots, separated by a partition into distinct cubicles for privacy. Beside each cot stood a berry-wood stool, a small three- legged tabouret for toilet articles and pocket contents. A common wash- stand was to be shared by both. The walls, leaning awry at subtly wrong angles, were devoid of ornament or artificial coloring. They were con- ducted to their quarters and aban- doned there, the only reply to Haut- ley’s several attempts at conversa- tion being a curtly informative phrase that dinner would be served to them in two hours thirteen-point- five minutes. Then the lock clicked in the door, and they were alone.
It seemed so many attempts had been made to steal the precious cult- objects, that the Neochait Priesthood had developed a very unhealthy de- gree of suspicion against everyone who chanced, for whatever reason, to visit their stark little world. No doubt their quarters were bugged as thoroughly as could be made possi- ble by modern technology — for sound and vision, in every corner and cranny. Passing along the grim rock corridor en route to these cheerless cubicles, Hautley had felt the brief tingle of a penetrascope, concealed in one or another of the
30 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
rooms they had passed, as it search- ed him to the very molecular struc- ture. He remained complacent. His equipment was quite sufficiently un- observable.
Using the eye-blink code of Im- perial Intelligence, Hautley conveyed this information, together with curt warnings to watch her tongue, to his charming companion. Hence their conversation both before and after dinner was innocuous and desultory, focus made primarily upon the prob- lems of obtaining, or machining, or replacing the defective nucleonic frammistator which would restore their ship’s drive to normal func- tion.
This meal, grudgingly spooned out by a silent frater who ignored Haut- ley’s friendly offer of a tip, was a depressing affair of lukewarm gruel and buttermilk. No doubt healthy enough, but hardly up to Hautley’s discriminating level of gastronomic artistry.
When night fell, Hautley made his move. His equipment for this exploit consisted of two articles: a self-inflatable balloon dummy the size of a human, which, under cover of darkness, he set up in his cot, covering it with the rough woolen blanket, and a highly powerful light-baffle which would render him invisible to the octaves of visible light, as well as to any scrutiny in the wave-bands of infrared or ultra- violet. These two useful articles had themselves been concealed in a bent- space envelope created by a mini- ature pseudospace transposer. Out of phase with the universe of
“normal” space, this bubble had in- detectably accompanied him, towed along by a linkage of psionic energy. Now he transposed these articles to normal space, placed the dummy in his cot without even waking Barsine and, invisible behind the light-baffle, made his way out of the room by means of a subtle use of magnetic force which opened all locks before him.
His brief but comprehensive re- search into Chaiteen archeology had indicated the cherished cult-ob- jcct would be concealed most prob- ably in a sub-basement, circular in shape, directly below the main body of caverns.
Thus he made his way past the minor impediments — guards, light- traps, automatic self-sighting dis- rupter cannons, watch-dogs (whose keen sense of smell he momently destroyed with a spray of deodo- rant), photo-electric eyes rigged to alarm bells and a rather prosaic gamut of the usual death-traps and poised weights.
Within half an hour he had pene- trated into the sanctum sanctoris- simus where, if his calculation proved unerring, he should find the Crown of Stars.
Unerring, indeed, were his calcu- lations.
There the Crown sat in all its jeweled splendor.
Appalled, Quicksilver staggered back, reeling with nerve-numbing shock.
He had, of course, suspected some sort of incredibly ingenious, supra- humanly clever and diabolical meth- od by which the cult-object should
CROWN OF STARS 31
be protected from the touch of desecrating hands.
But he had not been prepared for anything like this!
Rising in thirty-seven tiers of stone like narrow shelves around the curved walls of this circular adytum, stood the fabulously valuable Crown of Stars — somewhere, lost among seven hundred and seventy-six ex- act, microscopically precise DUPLI- CATES.
Sternly repressing a cold shudder at the damnably, fiendish simplicity of it all, Hautley was ironically re- minded of his own versicle, to wit:
Hardest of all: to find
One needle in a mountain of its kind.
VIII
The desk clerk at The Imperial House, Chitterling, Vassily II, was a feather-headed young Bird- woman, obviously a Aurochnoid from Schmeedly’s Planet in the Gryx System. She gave a professional smile impartially to Hautley and Barsine. “Can I help you, Ser?”
“Yes. The name is Quicksilver. Is Dr. Smothly in?”
“One moment.” She turned to the communicator console, spoke briefly into a whisper-mike, then turned an- other bright smile in their direction. “Room 112039-Q. Go right up, Ser Quacksalver, Dr. Smothly is expect- ing you.”
The grav tube carried their cap- sule to the 112,039th floor with swift, silent efficiency. Hautley, his
mahogany features and mirror-bright eyes impassive, as, indeed, was also his meticulously arranged pewter- colored hair, palmed the door; and it opened before him. Barsine Torsche, who had been with him only moments before, was now inexplic- ably nowhere to be seen. He stepped into the room.
“Ah, Ser Hautley!” Pawel Spiro said, nervously, a little flustered. “I had been expecting you to phone, not come in person . . . and the twenty-seven hours you requested are not yet up! May I assume this means you have decided to accept my rental of your professional services?”
“You may indeed,” Hautley said with his accustomed suavity. He viewed the little mouse of a man with quiet pride, smiling gently. Pawel Spiro ran a soft hand ner- vously through his salmon-tinted hair and cleared his throat tentatively.
“You will — ah — appropriate the cult-object, then, for the Museum? When may we — er — expect — ?”
Hautley’s smile broadened smugly.
“You are hiring Hautley Quick- silver himself. Learned Spiro! With Quicksilver, to think — to decide — is to act: behold!"
With his left hand, he disengaged the light-baffle he had been unob- trusively carrying, revealing j . .
Ah!"
Spiro’s sharp, involuntary indrawal of breath was almost a cry of pain.
There before him, dangling from the out-stretched fingers of Hautley’s right hand was the Crown itself. Its incredible frosting of name-
32 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
less, curious gems winked and sparkled in the indirect ceiling-il- luminants. Its lacy open-scrolled goldwork gleamed with satiny high- lights all along the exquisite, coiling arabesques of precious metal. Not only was the Crown breathtaking for its incredible rarity; it was a stun- ning achievement of the very high- est level of the jeweler’s art as well.
Automatically, Pawel Spiro ex- tended a hand for it.
Quicksilver’s smile hardened.
“Not — quite — yet, I think, Learned! First we have to settle the little matter of — ’’
Spiro’s protuberant eyes glistened.
“Your price? Yes, yes. Listen — I am ready, I am fully prepared — in your presence, here and now — to phone my banker and to negoti- ate transferral, to any bank you choose — under any pseudonym you choose — the sum of — ’’
A lifted hand stemmed this seman- tic torrent.
“That’s not quite the matter I had in mind,” Hautley smiled (but his eyes were cold as splintered ice). “I had meant a matter of profession- al • — pride, shall we say? For I am not accustomed to being approached for a contractual agreement by a person hiding his true name and identity from me!’’ His voice gained a sharp, deadly edge of polished st'eel. “Yes, / mean you, Captain Rex Dangerfield!"
Spiro’s reaction was delicious — classic. His jaw dropped. His eyes goggled. He gaped, stunned.
Hautley’s voice turned to a smooth, ironic purr.
“I suspected, of course, as soon
as 1 discovered you were not the Learned Pawel Spiro — which, in- cidentally, took me approximately one minute thirty-seven seconds, Carina Standard Measure. But your ‘cover’ was so very good, so very de- tailed. so perfectly dovetailed with the true Spiro — appearance, mo- tive, timing — well, it could only be the work of a truly brilliant pro- fessional.”
( Spiro was watching him with dull, glazed eyes, devoid of expression or movement.)
“While en route here I took the precaution to dial your department’s Personnel Computer and to obtain a print of your dental history. These mirror-eyes, donned for the purpose, are X-ray contact lenses. The fillings and bridgework — alas! We have come so far, technologically speak- ing, in recent millenia, but we still have not conquered the problem of dental caries! Those in your mouth compare precisely with those in Dangerfield’s records. Dental work is, as you must know, a difficult, time-consuming and expensive (to say nothing of uncomfortable) means of disguise: that is, my dead Danger- field, a good agent will alter finger- prints, palm- and foot-prints, even reiinagraphs . . , but he is rarely willing to go to the dentist to com- plete the job of impersonation.”
In a calm and conversational tone of voice, and still without mov- ing. Dangerfield said: “The orna- mental buttons on my surcoat are shock-projectors, two-dimension- al microminiaturized printed-circuit models, activated psionically. I am
CROWN OF STARS 33
Standing, facing you directly. My up- per button is aimed at the clump of muscles above your heart. If you at- tempt to draw a weapon, or to move, I will fire a paralyzing shock into your heart-musculature, and you will die of normal heart-failure!”
Hautley ignored this with vast aplomb and continued talking: “I did not at first suppose it was the most celebrated crime-fighter in the Galaxy who was impersonating Pawel Spiro. But the level of your disguise’s artistry was such that you had to be one of the only four men alive capable of such expertise, to my knowledge. I, too, am one, which gave only two other suspects. Both of these men are very well known to me. You are not. We have never be- fore met. Captain; I doubt very much if my two friends would dare
risk exposure by confronting Haut- ley Quicksilver in disguise. Therefore, it had to be none other than the great Rex Dangerfield himself! That was only logic.
“Now as to purpose, there could only be one motive. In the course of an official investigation, you stumbled across evidence that the Crown contained some extraordinari- ly valuable ‘thing.’ Beyond its in- trinsic, or even historic, value — both of which are inestimable. I suspected it to be a technological secret."
“Of course,” Captain Dangerfield said coldly, in a voice quite unlike the doubtful, hesitant tones of Pawel Spiro. “The Cavern-Kings of Chait were not, as has been universally conceded, of ‘prespace’ technology. They possessed remarkable energy-
34 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
weapons: a science of armament millenia ahead of our own. The man who had access to this science could become Master of the Cosmos. I learned of this from a renegade Neo- Chaiteen priest, defrocked and exiled. He revealed, under a psychoscopic examination, that one of the gems is an energy-retaining galina crysta- ioid upon which is molecularly re- corded in universally comprehendi- ble mathematical terminology the complete weapons-technology of the lizard-men.”
Hautley interposed smoothly: “But he had already sold the information elsewhere, before you came across him, hadn’t he? To Heveret XII of Canopus, for one. Whose predeces- sor, Heveret XI, was one of the most celebrated military warchiefs of the previous century. And his son, now regnant, wished to out-do his late parent. And to a less corruptible member of the Imperial government, who set official scrutiny on the prob- lem of stealing the Crown, ultimately resulting in the attempted retention of my services. And also to one or another of the criminal lords of Thieves’ Haven, who set three scuts after Dugan Motley, working through one of his old partners — ah, it’s been quite a round-robin, hasn’t it, Rex!”
“Well, it’s over now. Quicksilver,” Dangerfield sneered. “Just drop the Crown gently on the floor and back away. Don’t try any games like pitch- ing it at my head or kicking it into my stomach, or I’ll give you a coron- ary on the spot!”
Hautley said quietly: “Now, Bar- sine!”
The three deadly buttons on Dangerfield’s surcoat vaporized. In the corner of the room, Bar- sine Torsche stepped from behind the light-baffle which had enabled her to enter the room with Hautley under full invisibility and to record every word of the conversation on his ring-recorder. In her right hand she carried a multi-gun, whose non- directional ion-ray component had just disintegrated the deadly buttons with a curved beam. Now the neuronic stun-gun component stif- fened Dangerfield and felled him like a disrooted schmetz tree.
“Captain Rex Dangerfield, I ar- rest you under the provisions of Public Criminal Code A-12, sub- section 4,” she formally intoned. Then, snapping off the recorder, she turned.
“Let’s have the Crown, Hautley. The government needs it.”
“The Government does not need a weapon so deadly,” he laughed, “since we have no enemies. Or if they do, they’ll have to find someone smarter than I to steal the correct Crown! And that would be — dif- ficult.”
Her watermelon-pink lips gaped. “You mean — ?”
“I mean / couldn’t figure out any way to steal the one authentic Crown from among the seven-hundred- seventy-six exact duplicates. I didn’t even try. All I needed was one of the phoneys to confront ‘Pawel Spiro’ with. If your Cabinet member wants the Crown, tell him to steal it him- self!”
Her lovely eyes blazed with fury. “OH! Hautley — Quicksilver!
CROWN OF STARS 35
You. Are. The. Most. /«furiating — (/isufferable — smug — ” She be- gan spacing her words for intensity of emphasis. “I hate you, you, you superaV/ious, smiling, superior gruz- flak, you!”
He reached out an arm and casu- ally pulled her into a smothering embrace. Then he kissed her with such expertise that her toes curled and her kneecaps wilted like day- old asparagus.
“That’s incorrect. You utterly adore me,” he commented, releas- ing her.
KRAK!
Her palm connected his cheek with stunning force. Crimson with fury she slapped a grav on the paralyzed Dangerfield and towed his weight- less bulk from the room. Hautley gingerly stroked his cheek and sigh- ed with weary boredom.
“Such adoration! Why does she pretend to fight it? The girl is mad for me.”
He had a versicle expressive of this amorous ennui:
Grim jest: they yield at touch of hand.
Too-easy conquest is .. . too bland! END
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Coming . . . Tomorrow!
Now that Worlds of Tomorrow is on the more leisurely quarterly publishing schedule, it is a little more difficult for us to look into our crystal ball and see just what's coming up in the next issue . . . because as of this writing, the next issue is only a gleam in the editor's eye.
But some of the sparkles show up pretty clearly, at that. Sam Mosko- witz has turned in his next column, which has to do with the theme of psy- chiatry in science fiction, and carries on the tradition that has won him readers for the past several years.
Then we have two exceptional articles. One is The Shape of Shapes to Come, by Robert Bartlett Riley. Riley is a New Mexico architect who wrote us seeking information on anything we had published about the architecture of the future. Well, we hadn't published anything very signifi- cant, and we couldn't remember seeing anything in print that really covered the subject ... so we asked him to fill the gap. As you will see, he did it handsomely.
Then we have a piece by Robert S. Richardson called The Sun Grazers, which deals with some little-known problems of comet-watching, like — what do you do when you're trying to observe a comet like Ikeya- Seki, and the only place to do it requires skulking under your neighbors' bedrooms at daybreak?
Worlds of Tomorrow • Article
THE 1991 DRAFTEE
by JOSEPH WESLEY
When tomorrow's crop of babies grow to draft age, here's what they'll find themselves facing!
A number of young men are be- ing drafted these days. It is quite possible that, twenty-five years from now, a number of their sons will be being drafted. The war won’t be the same one, probably, nor will many of the weapons be the same. Extrapolation is dangerous, with technology advancing, in the world of weaponry, with rapid strides. Nevertheless, let us attempt to ex- amine this advanced technological world through the eyes of one induc- tee of the year 1991 — or, rather, through our eyes, in reading selec- tions from some of his letters.
His first name is Mike, and he is the second offspring and first son of a young man who, this very day, is being poked and prodded and treated to other similar indignities during his pre-induction physical ex- amination”
( ( T\ear Mom and Dad and all, L' We haven’t had much liesure time, but I take my pen in hand to let you all no I am fine, and hope you are fine to. Like you said they woud. Dad they sat me down in the barbers chair and went rite over my head with the power buzzer. You should see me now, ha ha!”
(Paranthetically, do not be surprised at Mike’s calligraphy or grammar or spelling. We have chosen an aver- age draftee — that is, a young man considerably above the average in intelligence, since more than three fourths of all those called are re- jected — and the average draftee has not taken pre-High-College courses, but merely the mandatory sixteen years of schooling. With both drop-outs and advanced tracks of learning eliminated by Federal
36
THE 1991 DRAFTEE 37
law, Mike’s post cards aad occasion- al letters are surprisingly readable, as compared with those of most of his peers.)
Army authorities have traditional- ly been dissatisfied with the hair styles of young civilians coming un- der their control, and the army of 1991 is no exception. Mike, as an average twenty-three-year-old of his day, has groomed his hair in a man- ner considered appalling by most of his elders, although he has not gone to extremes. He has had his head .shaved and treated with a follicle de- pressant. He has then had his skull enameled with abstract designs — avoiding the tattooing of the far out element of his generation — and has had several coats of wax applied over all and buffed to a high polish.
The barber, as he does to all in- ductees, ran an electric device — a buzzer — over Mike’s head, strip- ping off wax and enamel right down to the bare skin. The same device applied a hair growing stimulant. As he rose out of the barber’s chair, Mike felt far more naked than he had after the mere removal of his clothes. The accelerated hair growth that resulted from the follicle stimu- lant, incidentally, gives the army au- thorities repeated opportunities to be displeased whenever they find a trainee with hair longer than the regulation limit of one point two cen- timeters.
( ( J~\ear A lice,
LJ Wish you were here, ha ha! You would he proud of me. Im al- ready a squad leader. Yesterday we had a simulated emergency deploy-
ment. They shipped us out to some island and we marched around awhil and then they shipped us back. Ive got a little headache today like after that going away party we had together but am otherwise in the pink.”
As a prospective member of a con- tinental-based counter insurgency di- vision, Mike had successfully passed his most important field test. There had been rigid pre-examinations and eliminations, of course, but only by the conduct of an actual emergency deployment can a man’s tolerance of the treatment be actually ascer- tained. The fact that there is a death rate — euphemistically called an “at- trition rate” — of more than a te uh of a per cent in the conduct of this field test is a closely held secret.
The day of the field test had start- ed early. Mike, together with 599 other recruits, had been routed out of his cot, sleepy eyed and profane, at 0330 hours, to dress in full field pack. Then, with empty stomachs growling in harmony with their feel- ings, the men were trucked to a nearby short-runway jet field. Here, they lined up four abreast outside the standard processing room clamp- ed to the main entrance hatch of a huge hybrid turbo-ramjet aircraft. At ten-second intervals, groups of four men stepped into the processing room and were smote hip and thigh and biceps with needles. Then their stiff and unconscious bodies were stored in racks within the body of the gi- ant aircraft, alongside the armored vehicles, self-propelled guns and other paraphernalia of warfare.
38 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
Mike remembered entering the processing room, his heart pounding with fear of the unknown. His next conscious memory was of leaping from the plane, filled with rage at the “enemy,” weapon at the ready and mind filled with the need to run forward to the nearest cover, drop behind it and — aside from the con- tinuing need to kill his foes — wait for further orders.
He could not recall the hypnotic treatment that had occupied the time of the flight from the mainland to Hawaii, although he was conscious of an elapse of time.
He knew nothing of the slow vertical lift of the transport on its turbojets or of the shift to horizon- tal flight. He did not know when the ship, at 20,000 meters and Mach 3, stopped the turbo rotors of the mas- sive engines and shifted to ramjet operation. He knew, only because he remembered classroom lectures, that the craft then accelerated to Mach 7 and increased its cruising altitude to forty thousand meters.
That transport can fly halfway around the earth in about three hours; the trip from the mainland to the exercise area in Hawaii took far less than that. After three strenuous hours of field exercises, the six hun- dred men - — less two who had had an unsatisfactory, though less than lethal, reaction — were back in their own barracks in time for lunch.
They rather liked the day, in fact. They were given their first half day off since training had started.
Their instructors were even more pleased. Not only had there been no deaths and only three physical re-
jections (one as a result of the re- turn trip), but every one of the re- cruits had accepted hypno-condition- ing in satisfactory manner. Since, in battle, their lives might, and prob- ably would, depend on that con- ditioning, the instructors hate to have to send on to battle those men who are unable to accept the condition- ing — and yet, they are not per- mitted to reject men for that cause. Officially, it has not been admitted that such conditioning ever takes place. Senators have asked public questions about “mind tampering,” but official public denials have fol- lowed quickly, and the questions have somehow ceased.
( ( T^ear Bill,
U Wish you were here, ha ha! You sure are a lucky stiff, going to highcollege and getting draft exemt and all. Of course you always toled me I shoud study, but like I said, those teachers already got paid to much to teach me so why didnt they do it? Anyway, after they made us all go to school for sixteen years I figured that was plenty and the army woud be better and it probably woud be only they make us study these languages I never even heard of all the time and just when you start to pick one up they change them on you."
Language study, hypno-assisted, does indeed form a most important part of Mike’s education for war. Since radio links are, and must be, used on a regular bases for battle- field communications, and since on this basis it is not possible for either side to keep his opponent from
THE 1991 DRAFTEE 39
capturing samples of his transceivers, together with any attached crypto- graphic or scrambling devices, the problem of communications securi- ty is an exceedingly difficult one.
The situation is kept under control through the use of a large number of special battlefield languages, or rather, dialects. Each battalion has its own special language — simple in structure and limited in vocabu- lary — changed as often as once a week. Command links at various levels use different languages, changed equally often, so that in a large engagement, a battlefield lead- er may be required to remember, and be able to use fluently, several different languages. Those battle tongues are taught rapidly with the aid of hypnotics. In fact, the neces- sity of changing the battlefield lan- guage is more often the reason for rotating front line soldiers than is battlefield exhaustion.
Of course, a language of this type is not cryptographically secure — the enemy is quite prepared to trans- late any such language rapidly. It is useful, however, because the troops who know the language can respond instantly to instructions, while the enemy must route the artificial lan- guage orders through mechanical translators — which have also been equipped with decrypting devices — and then relay the information back to the front line personnel who can take counteraction. This time delay makes the system worthwhile.
( ( T~\ear Mom and Dad and all,
■Ly Well, were all done with basic training and Ive been assigned
to the best unit in the Army and they will ship us out tomorrow I don’t know where were going and if I new I woudn’t tell you. Or maybe I shoud and they woud think I was a spy when they censer this and I woudnt have to go after all, ha ha! I’d be in the guard house. But seri- ously after all the practice we had in an airplane their going to send us by boat and that sounds awful old fashioned and slow hut I guess they no what their doing.”
In fact, the authorities did know what they were doing. The regiment to which Mike was sent on the com- pletion of his recruit training was not engaged in an emergency sortie, but rather in the routine replacement of soldiers whose time had expired in fighting the endemic conflict in dis- tant jungles. For this type of exer- cise, sea transport was by far the most economical and efficient that had even been devised. The ship Mike travelled in was not even no- ticeably different from those of one and two generations earlier, and the sea sickness he suffered and the bad jokes of those who did not so suffer were not one whit eased by the ad- vances of medical science over the anguish of his father in similar cir- cumstances.
For most of the journey, the ship travelled alone and unprotected. The unwritten laws of the pseudowar made of the high seas a safe haven, for ships of the enemy as well as for those of our own side. There are still war hawks who proclaim that, since our own power is overwhelming at sea, we should stop any shipping intended for the foe and should.
40 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
therefore, convoy our own shipping, to prevent retaliation. This advice is ignored, in the interests of avoid- ing “escalation”.
As Mike’s ship approached the area of conflict, it was met by a covey of half a dozen small craft of about 500 metric tons each. Mike and his compatriots watched idly as these naval ships, no more than a tenth the size of their own merchant- man, come skittering over the hori- zon on their foils. In circular forma- tion, they ringed Mike’s lumbering ship. When it was precisely in the center of their formation, they slow- ed abruptly and dropped to their hulls, their stern wakes suddenly overtaking them and setting them to rocking.
Although they were small, they were militarily powerful, with long- ranging sonars and radars and with weapons capable of destroying what their sensors detected. As usual, they were not called on to take action; their function was precau- tionary. As the ship they were con- voying entered harbor, they sudden- ly and simultaneously rose onto their foils, slid into columns and disappear- ed at high speed around a point of land, leaving to the harbor defense installations the further task of pro- tecting Mike’s ship.
(( T\ear Alice,
■Ly Well here we are at our stag- ing base. We will probably be sent up forward to where their fighting in a few days but you musnt worry about me. Ill be all right. And if I get any medals III send them to you for sou- veneers, ha, ha! Remember how you
used to say how much you liked to see me in my footbal uniform be- cause it made me look so big and strong that you couldnt resist me? Well, you should see me in my new outfit. Theyve given us some special armor and weapons and III send you a picture if theyll let me, because Im so big III bet you really couldnt resist me so I wont send the picture until Im on the way back home guess why.”
The special field armor that had been issued to Mike’s outfit had been required because of reports that the enemy is once again commencing to use laser weapons in this theater of operations.
The laser beam, developed into a “death ray,” has proved useful to both sides in many situations. It is limited, of course, to line-of-sight. In the hands of troops it is some- what delicate, in that mistreatment can drastically reduce its efficiency. Nevertheless, since ammunition re- supply is limited to a power pack, it is much used in areas where logis- tic problems are great. Several varie- ties of armor have provided protec- tion against it, greatly reducing its effectiveness, except that the armor lowers the mobility and speed of re- action of an enemy making use of it, to a very considerable degree. It was the latest version of this armor that Mike was admiring — even as he would curse it later, when he endured its discomforts in the field.
In addition, gas, as a weapon, has been restored to a status of accep- tability. All gases in use are entirely temporary in their effects. Over the years, there was much unfavorable
THE 1991 DRAFTEE 41
feeling by the public against the use of even temporarily harmful gases — so deep was the ingrained fear of the word itself — but as time has passed and it has continued to be used, there has been a gradual sim- mering down of the diatribes against it. After all, when a group has back- ed off from condemning all forms of war to condemning only certain devices of war, it is very difficult to retain a greater feeling of horror against a weapon which will leave its victims in excellent physical and mental condition tomorrow — as the gases in use all do — than the feel- ing of horror retained against a wea- pon, such as a machine gun bullet or a mortar shell, which can leave its victims painfully dying or even more painfully, permanently maim- ed.
So gas is used. It is used with penetrants which can work their way through all but the most modern of gas masks. It can work at such low concentrations as to be very difficult to detect, even with modern instru- ments, in the field. It can act in a variety of ways: to remove con- sciousness, to reduce alertness, to create susceptibility to suggestion, to induce general malaise.
In fact, it might have proved to be a decisive weapon in the hands of the aggressor of either side — the side launching a surprise at- tack — if it were not for the effec- tive use of a counter defensive de- vice: gas. Each side has developed a variety of gases to be loosed against its own troops when the enemy has set free his gas weapons upon them. While these tend drastically to affect
judgment, for the most part, they do serve to trigger previously implanted hypnotic suggestions, so that imder the influence of this counter gas, a soldier who should be unconscious, susceptible to enemy suggestion, sick and tranquil — any or all of these — will still go on fighting violently and effectively, if somewhat erratic- ally.
Of course, far more deadly gases than these exist, and some of them are even stockpiled by all the major antagonists; perhaps enough to de- foliate the earth and to render it uninhabitable, while at the same time destroying all animal life upon it. These, in the same class in de- structive potential as the major bombs, are deterrent weapons and, of course, have never been used. All of mankind, with no enormous con- fidence, continues to hope that they never will be used. As it is, some of the non-lethal gases are more than sufficiently terrible, being designed to provide permanent or at least semi- permanent incapacity.
( ( T^ear Mom and Dad and all,
i-J Im sorry I havent written to you for so long but Ive been to busy. My buddies and me have been up in the jungle fighting the war and dont let anybody tell you it isnt a war because it is. You remember Jack that / told you about that we went on a couple of dates together and sometimes just liked to chew the fat in the evening? Well, hes dead and I saw him get it and it was pretty bed. We were crawling along in the jungle checking to see if the enemy had cleared out of it like the
42 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
reports said and he was almost right beside me and then he suddenly jumped up and started to run and then he tripped and right after that he just blew up. But dont worry about me Mom. Ill be all right. I guess it must have been a tarantula got him."
The Tarantula of 1991 is not a spider. Instead, it is a deadly little device that has been developed by both sides for jungle warfare and that requires rather elaborate coun- ter-measures by the defenders. It is a self-mobile device, containing only a small explosive charge. It is called, by our side, the ‘Tarantula” for the reason that it is not much larger than one of those overgrown spiders and propels itself on hinged legs (six, instead of a spider’s eight — the designers were not purists), so that it even to some degree resem- bles a tarantula.
The device, in one of its avatars, has a highly efficient olfactory sen- sor, keyed to the characteristic odor of humans. It crawls around until it finds a human; it works patiently and unceasingly until it manages to get close enough to touch its victim — and it can outrun him, if the con- test turns into a chase. And then it blows up. Recruits have nightmares of waking to find a Tarantula cutting its way into their tent and of running and running, with the ihideous little thing drawing ever closer, of ford- ing streams and climbing trees and of sweating so that their scent grows ever easier to follow, until finally the metallic beast' touches them. It makes for almost compulsive clean- liness among the green troops.
Inhibiting electronic broadcasts keep these devices pointed away from the lines of those owning them and keep them from operating if the enemy thoughtfully traps them and deposits them in areas where they would encounter the troops of their own side. These things are dis- tinctly behind-the-lines weapons.
A variant of the Tarantula, and even more morale shattering to re- cruits and green jungle troops, is the “Death Moth.” This is a winged variety of the same sort of smell- homing gadget. Actually, it does not much resemble a moth, being far too heavy to be able to fly as an orni- thopter with any reasonable wing- spread. Instead, it is a sort of heli- copter, with a ducted fan providing lifting power. It is heavy enough to break through wire mesh screens to get at its victims and is small enough and agile enough to be hard to hit with hand held weapons.
It is not as much used as the Tarantula, however, because it is considerably more expensive and has only a fraction of the lasting power. Tarantulas can be left behind in an evacuated area, and they keep hunt- ing for weeks; Death Moths fly only for hours. It is also relatively easy to neultralize the moths by using a counter weapon, called “Wasp.” This is basically a similar device — a bomblet carried by a ducted fan — keyed to home on. the distinctive buzzing sound created by the Death Moth.
These Wasps normally remain on the ground, to keep from confusing each other, until a Moth gets close enough to be heard. Then a Wasp
THE 1991 DRAFTEE 43
attacks and destroys the Moth. At the distinctive sound (deliberately made distinctive) of a Wasp explod- ing, all Wasps within hearing imme- diately settle to the ground, so that they don’t go on to destroy each other. This occasionally lets a Moth escape for a time, but it is reasonably effective. Without this precaution, the first Moth on the scene would attract all Wasps within hearing, and the Wasps would continue to attract each other, since the sound they make in flying is inevitably much the same as that of the Moths.
The Wasps would then eliminate each other, and later arriving Moths would be unopposed.
Efforts to design a similar auto- matic counter device against the ground crawling Tarantulas have re- sulted in the “Hunting Spider.” This has not been notably successful, however. There is no distinctive characteristic of the Tarantula not shared by other natural or artificial denizens of the jungle battleground. It is just possible to use the charac- teristic emanations of the power supply of the enemy version of the Tarantula as a source of informa- tion to home on. These differences are, however, so slight that exploring Hunting Spiders frequently cause as much attrition to each other as they do to the enemy. Still, they are used, coupled with secondary devices to try to keep them from getting too close to each other, in order to assist in keeping the build up of Tarantula types from becoming unbearably large in any one area. This measure, however, does not always prove to be effective.
Bill Id like you to do some- thing for me. I told Mom and Dad that Ive been sent back from the front lines for a little vacation, but the fact is Im in a hospital. Now dont tell them or anything like that because theyd just worry but there are so many television cameramen and such running around with there live shows and all that Im afraid they may find out and if they do just tell them that it isnt very much and thats right it isnt very much as a matter of fact.
If you want to know what hap- pened Bill I got gassed. They gave me a medal a Purple Heart but its not my heart thats purple. I wont even tell you where I got wounded, but I was wearing my antigas suit and when I had to go I tried to use it like they told me how, and there was some skin penetrant gas in the area and I must have goofed. Any- way Im sleeping on my stomach ha ha!"
Mike was, in fact, a very lucky young man. He had been exposed to a very light concentration of a gas designed to provide permanent dis- ability. The very low concentration of the gas, which had been deposited several weeks earlier when the enemy abandoned the area, together with a very fleeting exposure and prompt treatment, meant that Mike would recover fully in a matter of months.
Against those gases that are deadly when breathed, as a passive defense, small semi-permanent nose filters have replaced old-fashioned gas masks, because dangerous concen- trations of gas can be so low that
•44 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
ordinary detectors are ineffective, and there may not be warning to permit donning bulky masks. Of course, these require that you keep your mouth shut and breathe through the filter. And it is true, as Mike found out. that some gases can do their work by being absorbed direct- ly through any mucous membrane, or even through the skin, although this does normally require somewhat higher concentrations of gas then are adequate when only breathing is in- volved.
Perfumes and deodorants are ex- tensively used, not to keep from of- fending, but to assist in staying alive against olfactory seekers. More effec- tive than these, which can have their own distinctive odors and then be- come the targets for other weapons to home in on. are coverall suits and helmets, light in weight but imper- vious to the air.
These frustrate the smell-homing Tarantulas (though not the kind that homes on body heat) as well as pro- viding an excellent counter against almost all varieties of gas. The great- est weakness of this defensive device is the necessity of the soldiers using it to remain hooked, except for ^ort periods of time, into an air- conditioning system. Even a porta- ble air supply isn’t enough — an anti-gas suit quickly becomes a near-
lethal steam cabinet if kept closed and not connected to an efficient air conditioner. Air conditioners can be made fairly small and portable, but they are still inconvenient and ham- pering to carry. And they themselves form lucrative targets. .Also, the coverall suits require great skill to use properly; otherwise the soldier finds himself totally unprotected whenever he finds it necessary — as do all men on occasion — to per- form normal and essential body func- tions.
Mike’s skill had proved to be in- sufficient for the occasion in this vital area.
( ( T^ear Bill,
L-' Im home on what they call convalescent leave, and they tell me that unless things get a lot worse I wont have to go back at all and Ive got a pension and a good sitting- down type job because the gassing doesnt bother me unless I try to do to much exercising.
So I asked Alice to marry me and she said sure shed make it legal and hows about coming down Tuesday and being best man at my wedding, except you know wholl really be the best man ha, ha!
All best,
Mike
—END
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Worlds of Tomorrow • Novelette
FROST
PLANET
by C. C. MacAPP
Illustrated by MORROW
Someone was murdering on the icy planet — someone who was not a human, and not an alien either!
I
Ignoring the faint hostility of the six or seven civilian mine work- ers, Colonel George Keane stepped forward and bent over the corpse of old Jonno Estes. He didn’t have to touch it to know it would be stiff as an icicle; on this part of the ice field the air never got as warm as ten below zero centrigrade, and
there’d been a blizzard the day and night before.
He had to put one foot on the body and use both hands on the handle of the big knife to pull it out. The blade was Terran trade steel, but the workmanship was native — the metal left thick, the edges more hammered than honed; the huge ivory handle firmly attached by three copper studs. The blade had gone
45
46 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
nearly through Jonno, from behind.
Someone — a mine foreman named Gus Leitner — remarked, “Guess no one’ll stand up for the Lubs this time.”
Beneath the face-flaps of his parka hood, Keane flushed slightly. He straightened and met Leitner’s eyes. “There’s been no improvoked vio- lence from the Lubs in the four years I’ve been on this planet. We’ll in- vestigate this impartially. Meanwhile, I don’t want anyone spreading false stories.”
Another man said, “I guess we can teU what we saw. You think a man could drive that knife into him like that?”
Keane hesitated. “That’s a fair question. Just don’t go telling any- thing you didn’t see.” He turned to Paarensen, planetary superinten- dent for Terran Factors, Inc., who bossed the mines as, well as the fur trading. “Will you see that he goes back to Mantown for an autopsy?”
Paarensen, a bulky blond man with shrewd gray eyes, grunted an oath. “Sure; if it means anything. What are you going to do. Colonel?”
Keane put down his dislike of the man and asked coolly. “What would you do?”
Paarensen gestured impatiently. “I’d get hold of Big Daddy Lub and tell him what’ll happen if he doesn’t deliver the killer fasti”
“I don’t doubt you would,” Keane said dryly. “I intend to see him first thing. After th^. I’d like to talk to you about Jonno’s recent ac- tivities, if you can check on them. Will you be in your office?”
“I suppose so.” The superintendent turned to get the body loaded into a flitter.
Keane climbed into his own flitter and lifted a few feet from the ice. He hesitated, thinking, before calling his HQ. His new adjutant seemed to be a good man, but in the twenty- odd days (somewhat longer in hours than Terran ones) the lieutenant had been on Mellunde, he’d hardly had time to be accepted by the garrison. Still, there was no choice.
Keane picked up his walky. “Lieu- tenant Kipp. Kipp? Say, we’ve got trouble. A man’s been murdered, and it looks as if a Lub may have done it. I said may, personally, I doubt it. But I want you to get all emer- gency posts manned and slap a cur- few on unnecessary movements. Call the spaceport and put a hold on Hermes — she’s due to take off be- fore long ■ — and send someone to each of the transportation pools. Don't let anyone carrying weapons leave the city. Man three or four squad flitters and get them aloft. Tell them to intercept and turn back anyone headed for Lubtown. Get cooks on duty, and so forth. Call in the stand-by sections and keep them ready. Okay?”
“Uh, yes sir. Where will you be. Colonel?”
“I’ll be somewhere south along the Wulluh Gorge, looking for Gak- kru. Big Daddy Lub. 1’U be below the cliffs and out of contact for a while; if I’m more than an hour I’ll lift high enough to radio in. Lieu- tenant, there’ll be some growling, but don’t argue and don’t let anyone push you around.”
FROST PLANET 47
Keane glanced down at the big Lub knife on the deck of the flitter. The congealed blood on it was beginning to melt.
He muttered in frustration. Why in hell, with people finally getting reconciled to the comparatively new laws regulating commerce with na- tives, did some Lub fool have to do a thing like this? If a Lub had done it. Especially to Jonno Estes. If there was a man on Mellunde better-liked than Jonno — and, except possibly for Keane himself, on ib^er terms with the Lubs — he didn’t know who it was.
With the canopy closed and the air in the flitter growing warm, he unzipped his parka down the front and tossed 'back the hood. Heading east, he climbed another thousand feet to look around, hoping to find a clue.
The stretch of ice where Mantown and Lubtown (both consisting of tunnels and chambers in the ice) were located was about two hundred miles long, east and west, and about fifty wide. It filled what was possibly a deep chasm between the Gale mountains on the north and the Gundersons on the south — the lat- ter being the immense rook rampart that confined the whole ice sheet. This local rectangle of ice was quite stable, frequent snow just about compensating for the, very gradual efflux of ice. Actually, this was more or less an eddy backed up by the great Tintan glacier east of it, which Gale mountains and spilled out came down from Tintan Gap in the through Wulluh Gap in the Gunder- sons.
He was nearing the glacier now and could see the striations in the ice, in parallel curving lines, spanning the whole distance from one gap to the other. Near Wulluh Gap, several temporary mine buildings, and an as- sortment of tractors and other ve- hicles, dotted the ice, tiny with dis- tance but very visible in the crisp, clear air. They were harvesting a lateral moraine the glacier had been building for eons. He passed above them and turned down Wulluh Gap, letting the flitter sink sharply with the glacier, hoping (as he always did) he might be at the right moment to see some vast chunk of ice break free and go crashing majestically down among the tumbled boulders of the terminal moraine. But there was none today.
This side of the Gundersons was a sheer drop; mostly bare rock, with patches of snow near the top from which tiny streams trickled. WuUufa River itself was the melt-off from the glacier. He was flying down that now; ahead of him it entered the only break in a solid forest of dark green trees still bearing snow from last night’s blizzard. He drifted through, below tree-top level. A small group of Lubs, fishing from some rocks near midstream, looked up as he went over. They fished from midstream because there were things in the forest even a Lub fear- ed.
Thirty miles whipped by. With lower, warmer altitudes (compara- tively) the forest thined, then gave way to the sedge — coarse grasses taller than a man. He lifted from the river gorge and flew along west
48 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
of it. He and Gakkru had a tenuous arrangement to keep posted on each other’s whereabouts, and it was his understanding the Lub overchief would be somewhere here today, on a hunt for a big sedge-l>oar that had been spotted.
He grinned, thinking of the aptness of the nickname. Big Daddy Lub, The Lubs kept growing until senility set in. Gakkru wasn't senile yet; but he admitted to eighty-odd Mellunde years (over a hundred Terran), and he was a head taller than any other Lifb Keane had ever met. That, since the Lubs were built somewhat along the lines of a Kodiak bear, put him a good yard and a half over Keane’s own five-eleven.
Before long he saw a trampled area of sedge with a huge dark shape in it and some less huge ones around it. He approached, made a circle around the area (a courtesy, making .sure nothing dangerous was stalk- ing), then slanted down. Gakkru, recognizable by his size and the tinges of gray in his fur, stood apart, watching him come.
Keane had been trying for four years to make up his mind whether the Lubs looked humanoid or not. There was definitely something bear- like about them, beyond the thick dark fur and the lower jaw with its canine teeth. There was no snout or muzzle, though, and the nose, wide and flat and pinched even flatter against the face at the nostrils, was reminiscent of a rough old human f uailist’s. The ears, small cups with no lobes to freeze, weren’t human- oid. The forehead and the small deep eyes might be. The body — well.
they walked erect or on all fours, as the situation persuaded them. They were as nearly man-shaped as bear-shaped, but they wore a harness over both shoulders instead of a belt- to carry their scabbards and pouches, because belts wouldn’t have stayed up.
Their hands were not paws, but their feet were.
Keane landed on a spot at the edge of the trampled area.
t CT^riendship, George Keane.”
J/ The patriarch, towering over the Colonel, pronounced the Eng- lish words slowly but distinctly.
“Friendship, Gakkru.” Keane, his own voice a little odd in this thick lower air (Mellunde’s air was breath- able for a short time, despite the excess carbon dioxide), added a few words of greeting to the other Lubs, among whom was Gakkru’s son Bwult. He walked over and looked at the dead sedge-boar. “A fine specimen.” The elephant-sized beast wasn’t piglike, really, except that it carried and used its two-foot tusks as a boar does.
Gakkru took several slow steps, bent and measured one of the tusks with spans of his big fingers. Then, showing his lower canines in the equivalent of a grin, he drew his knife — an all-ivory one, carved from a similar tusk, it’s blade nar- rowed from years of re-edging — and compared it with the dead beast’s tusk. “A good specimen,” he agreed, “but not too good. I would not want my son to wear a better trophy^knife than mine.”
Bwult grinned briefly. The knife
FROST PLANET 49
he wore now had a steel blade. He gave Keane a formal, rather than cordial, gesture of by-your-leave and turned to begin work on the kill.
Amenities done, Keane said, “Gakkru, there’s bad trouble.” He walked to the flitter, got the mur- der weapon and handed it to the patriarch.
Gakkru blinked once and lifted the knife to smell of the blood still on it. “Human.” He rumbled some- thing in the Lub tongue (“Messen- ger, home, quick,” as Keane caught it), and the younger Lubs gathered hastily to him.
Keane said, “I wOl fly you to Lubtown if you wish. Or anyone you want to send.”
The overchief nodded ponderously in thanks. “I will go, then.” He told Bwult, in Lub, “Carve the meat. Bring what you can and cache the rest.” He walked to the flitter, eyed it doubtfully and began to squeeze his huge bulk into the passenger’s seat.
Keane walked around and squeez- ed in beside him, made the gesture of by-your-leave to the other natives and lifted off gingerly. He did not go back to Wulluh Gorge, but headed directly northwest, climb- ing to clear the forest.
Gakkru turned the knife over in his big hands, his face unreadable. “Did one of my people do this, George Keane?”
Keane didn’t answer for a mo- ment. “The problem,” he said final- ly, “is that most of Mantown will think so.” He described how the knife had been driven into the body.
“Jonno — ” he noted Gakkru’s blink, “yes, it was Jonno Estes — was northeast of town, almost to Tintan Gap. He was apparently go- ing to cross the glacier to Warm Lake, where he had a hidden cave or something. He had a rifle and a telescope — they’re both missing, by the way — and we think he was probably going after crag eagles.” Gakkru nodded slowly. “Yes, he had taken some fine eagle pelts there. But his cave was not near Warm Lake. It was on this side of the glacier.”
“Oh?” Keane pondered that. “Well, anyway, I have no idea why anyone would want to kill him. Un- less . . . excuse me; unless some Lub wanted the rifle.”
Gakkru made a sound like a sigh. “Many would want it. But to kill Jonno Estes ... I will tell you a thing, George Keane. Maybe I should have told you before, but it was a small thing and did not in- volve my tribes. Jonno did not ac- cept your new restrictions on trade with us. He had been stealing things from Terran Factors and trading them to tribes many miles west.” Keane said, “If you mean whiskey. I knew that was going on, but I didn’t know Estes was involved.” Gakkru wagged his head. “Not whiskey. Frenet cells. The things that make heat.”
Keane looked at him in surprise. “Frenet cells? Why, they’re worth — he couldn’t have gotten away with manyl”
“No. Not many. But even one, in the old days, used to trade for as many fine pelts as a Lub can carry.
50 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
It would melt more burrows than a hundred of us would be able to using our own way.”
Keane put the flitter into a climb- ing spiral, until the jagged line of the Gundersons showed beyond the forest, and reached for his walky. ‘'Lieutenant Kipp.”
“Colonel? Yes, sir.”
■‘Anything up. Lieutenant?”
“Well — nothing really drastic, sir. We had to intercept several flitters, and in Mantown we dis- armed one group of citizens. The ritmors floating around are something awful. Are the Tubs really declaring war?”
Keane grinned at Gakkru and handed him the walky. The overchief growled into it, “We Lubs are at peace with you, and we are not fools. We have seen Terran weapons and would be foolish to start anything.
Kipp stammered a little, then caught his poise. “Well, uh, sir, there’s a lot of wild talk. Colonel, Mr. Paarensen has been trying to reach you, and so has the City Man- ager. Paarensen’s been giving me fits.”
“All right,” Keane said, “I’ll call him right away.” He made a gesture of apology to Gakkru and then call- ed Paarensen.
The superintendent’s voice was angry. Keane! It’s about time! I’ve got things to talk to you about. Are you alone?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’d better not talk, then. Will you come to my office?”
“As soon as I deliver something,” Keane told him. “Within half an hour.”
U
Lubtown, which, under the stimu- lus of Terran trade, had grown from a few ice burrows to a con- siderable maze of tunnels and cham- bers and ventilation-flues, was be- tween Mantown and Wulluh Gap and just north of a fairly good pass over the Gunderson summit. The Tub Trail came through this pass and zigzagged down the steep south- ern slopes to the hunting country below. There was a certain amount of game on the ice itself or in the high mountains, but the real volume of furs came from the forest or the sedge.
As the flitter climbed toward the pass, Keane saw Lubs in small bands, plodding upward, bulky packs of furs on their shoulders. It was earlier in the afternoon than they usually started home. He turned to Gakkru. “Expecting another blizzard to- night?”
“Yes.”
Keane gained the summit and flew through the pass. Meat-hunters were hurrying out from Lubtown, no doubt to build up the larder before night. Beyond the last slopes, only a few hundred yards onto the ice, he could see dark forms moving in and out of the burrows. “Main hole?” he asked Gakkru. At Gakkru’s nod, he headed that way, landed and slid back the canopy so the patriarch could squirm out.
Gakkru asked, “Where can I find you in the next few hours, George Keane?”
“I’M be moving around. Suppose I come back here in two hours?”
FROST PLANET 51
“That will be good.” Gakkru look- ed down at the murder weapon in the flitter “If I could take that — ” The Colonel handed it to him. “I may want to see it again.”
“It will stay with me. Friendship, George Keane.”
“Friendship, Gakkru.”
Mantown — fifteen thousand men, women and children spread beneath fifty square miles of ice, so the city’s general heat wasn’t too concentrated — was some miles west of Lubtown. In between (pur- posely) was Keane’s garrison. He noted, as he flew over the latter, the two squad flitters beside the tunnel entrance, parka-clad troopers in them.
He flew on to Mantown, where two more of his flitters were cruising
slowly above scattered knots of peo- ple. There were fewer children out getting the sun today than usual; no doubt the rumors had scared their parents. He put the flitter into a cir- cle for a look around before going down. To the west, the afternoon sun was a blinding glare on the ice. Northward, above the dark masses of the Gale mountains, the sky was brilliant blue; no sign yet of the bliz- zard. At the spaceport (a mile north of Mantown) the spaceship Hermes rested like an enormous hockey puck; the only ship on the planet just now, or near it.
■Some black dots on the ice, twelve miles or more north, held his atten- tion for a minute until he decided they were not vehicles, but animals of some kind migrating. He switch- ed on his command radio channel for
52 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
a minute, heard nothing to worry about and slanted down toward Main South Entrance. His picket-flitters swerved toward him, then turned away as they recognized his craft. He eased into the tunnel mouth, past civilians and a squad of his men afoot, flew above scattered crowds for a quarter-mile and turned into the side-tunnel leading to the Terran Factors offices.
Paarensen was at his desk running thick fingers through his blond hair and barking orders into a desk com- municator and three or four waikies. He saw Keane, snapped, “Busy,” in- to the communicator, leaned his chair back and scowled. “See Big Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did he say? Deny it?”
“He’s looking into it right now. Paarensen, you’d better check into something he told me. Jonno was peddling Frenet cells a few hundred miles west.”
The chair-legs hit the floor. “No!” Paarensen’s cold gray eyes narrowed in thought for a moment, then he was on his feet. “Come on!”
Thirty minutes later, Keane and Paarensen stood staring at a dozen empty insulating cases that had been replaced at the rear of a pile of full ones.
The cells — the size of grapefruit — were packed six in a case, in a single row, with two inches of insu- lation around each. A close inventory was kept, but evidently the clerks had been simply counting cases with- out helfting them to see if they were full.
Paarensen kicked at one of the
empty cases. “The stupid bums!” He pulled a walky from his pocket. “Security Chief! Who? I don’t care whether he’s on duty or not! Get him down to Stockroom Nineteen right now!” He thrust the walky back in his pocket and turned sourly to Keane. “You any idea what those things are worth? How the hell does Big Daddy know it was Estes, and why didn’t he say something before now?”
Keane said, “Forget that. Did Jon- no have access to this storeroom?”
“Hell, no. He was on the payroll as a prospector.”
“Well, then, he had accomplices. Can you pin it down to a limited numiber of men?”
Paarensen paced a few steps, scow- ling. “The thing could have been go- ing on for a year. In that time, twenty men could be involved — some of them already rotated back to Earth.” He glanced at his chronometer. “I can think of two, damn it, who’ve just left on Her- mes!”
“No, they haven’t,” Keane told him, “I put a hold on her.”
“Huh? Why I had a consignment of . . . hm, maybe you’re right. Well . . . Where’s that damned Security Chief? What I wanted to tell you, Keane, is that a couple of my men 'out in a flitter saw a Lub up near where we found Jonno, about the time he must have been killed. I’m having trouble with some of the crews. They want to raid Lubtown and teach them a lesson. I’m not sure, now, it isn’t a good idea. You going in to look for these Frenet cells, in case Big Daddy’s lying?”
FROST PLANET 53
Keane hesitjated. “I may, depend- ing on what I hear from him. But if they were stolen over a period of time, we wouldn’t have much chance of finding them. And I believe Gak- kru when he says his own tribes weren’t involved. He thought only a few had been traded.”
Paarensen muttered his doubt. “Anyway, more about Jonno: he left in a small ice tractor, not on foot. He had bundles. Damn it, those could have been some of the Frenets. It begins to add up — see? He got into an argument with some Lub, whether it was one of Big Daddy’s or not, about the price. And the Lub killed him and took the cells.” He stood looking at Keane for a minute. “I found something else. Jonno had been bribing somebody — no doubt somebody off-planet by now — and shipping out ten times his hunter’s quota of furs, under faked names. I’d never have suspected him — such a mild old buzzard.”
“Yes,” Keane said. “Well, if you’re right, when we find the cells we’ll find the killer. I hope you’ll make it plain to your crews that Lub- town’s probably not guilty.”
Paarensen pondered and finally said, “All right, I suppose I should. But you’d better come up with some- thing.”
From Terran Factors, Keane went to the city offices, radioing ahead that he was on the way. Most of the tunnels held knots of people, and around the city offices there was a virtual mob. His own squad of eight men on duty there was taking a certain amount of jeering. He ra-
dioed Kipp to send two more squads, with riot guns, just in case. Then he went in to see the City Manager.
Sam Wilier was a dark, slight man who didn’t talk much, but who made sense when he did. Now, in the pri- vacy of his office, he wasted few words. “Colonel, I know you have other problems, but 1 thought you ought to know this. I don’t know what’s causing it — volcanic activity, maybe — but the temperature of the ice throughout Mantown’s been go- ing up. Four days ago it was up a quarter of a degree. Each day since it’s accelerated, until now it averages nearly three degrees above normal.”
Keane had trouble getting his mind on the thing. “Three degrees, eh? That still leaves quite a margin below freezing.”
“Yes, Colonel. But — this is strict- ly in confidence — my engineers have no idea where it’ll stop. If the ice actually melted, we’d be wiped out.”
Things clicked suddenly in Keane’s mind. “God! WUler, listen — would a few dozen Frenet cells, scattered around the city, do it?”
Wilier turned pale.
Ill
Before going to keep his appoint- ment with Gakkru, Keane stop- ped in to brief and bolster Kipp. “Know what a Frenet cell is. Lieu- tenant?”
“Well, sir, I know it’s some kind of small reactor, to produce heat, but I never saw one.”
Keane told him, “It’s about this big — a hollow, metal sphere filled
54 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
with something like metal wool and with a small pool of liquid fissionable alloy. That is, it’s liquid up to a cer- tain temperature. Above that, it va- porizes and spreads into the metal wool, which acts as a damper and stops the reaction. It will produce heat just about as fast as you can conduct it, or radiate it, away. To store one, you simply encase it in a good insulator. It stays hot and keeps itself shut off most of the time. It can be stored for centuries that way.
“They’re used for mining in the ice, here, where it’s not too deep. You drop one on the ice, and it melts its way down. There’s just a small hole, and that freezes over behind it. When it hits something solid, that stops it; it begins to melt a submerged pool. When that gets to equilibrium size — or usually before — you drill down, pump out the water and re- cover the Frenet cell. Then you’ve got yourself a good big chamber to fill with breathable air, and you go down and mine.”
“I. see, sir. Neat. Is there some connection with this murder?”
“I think so. Anyway, the killing’s not important now. Somebody’s sown Frenet cells all around the city — some time ago — and right now we’re sitting over a hot pool and God knows what pressure of steam.” Kipp looked bewildered. “A hot pool, sir? It seems to me it would take an awful lot of Frenet cells, or anything else, to do that!”
Keane told him, “You don’t re- alize how much total energy there is in one of the things. Now, what we’re faced with in a matter of days
— if the pressure doesn’t blow us all to hell first — is that the ice in Man- town will melt. The city will pop to the surface like a cluster of balloons. Only these balloons will burst — the insulation in the tunnels and cham- bers isn’t strong enough or flexible enough to take it. And of course anything heavy, such as air-rectifying machinery, will sink. Do you see the picture?”
Kipp’s face showed that he did. “But — surely we can dig them out, of something!”
Keane shook his head. “Even pin- pointing them would be impossible, spread over the area they are. Any- way they’re a long way down — no- body knows how much ice there is under Mantown or how much of ifs melted by now. And if you could drill that far, without the ice pressure crushing your shaft-casing, you’d get a geyser for a while, then the whole area might collapse. Another interesting theory is that it might happen so suddenly we’d all get par- boiled.”
Kipp was ashen now. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to dig emergency quarters in a hurry and transfer as much vital equipment as we can and move. I’m going to see Paarensen again — WOler’s with him now — ■ right after I talk to Gaikkru. Pa- arensen will know, better than any- one, what’s possible and what isn’t. Now, for the time ibeing, keep this quiet. A panic won’t help. And yoi^ve got to sit on things — here, in Mantown and at the various out- posts, wMe I’m busy. All ri^t?”
“I’ll try. Colonel.”
FROST PLANET 55
Keane started out of the office, but before he got past the switchboard the girl corp>oral on duty said, “Colonel, excuse me, a Mr. Akers is in the anteroom. He in- sists on seeing you.”
Keane glanced at his chronometer. “Damn it . . . Oh, all right; as long as he’s here.”
Belden Akers, captain and owner of the Hermes, was a man in his late forties, quite tall, beefy^faced, with a consideraible paunch. It was prob- ably inevitaihle, and surely apt, that he was called “Belly” Akers. He started as soon as Keane was in sight. “Colonel, blast it. I’ve been trying to find you for two hours. That adjutant of yours won’t give me any satisfaction at all. When are you go- ing to let me lift out of here? What’s this local crime got to do with my ship? I’ve got assignments to deliver, promise dates and penalties if I don’t meet them. I don’t see why — ” Keane cut him short. “Akers, you’ve been tramp-shipping around long enough to know I can’t clear your passenger list with an investi- gation pending. How many are there?”
Akers looked slightly triumphant. “Sixteen. Can’t you just hold them and let me go? Terran Factors will have four ships of their own in here in a couple of months. You’ll have this murder cleared up by then, and these sixteen people can rebook pas- sage. I’ll refund full fare; and you ought to pay per diem if there’s any inconvenience, and — ”
Keane interrupted impatiently, “I might have done that, but I haven’t even had time to go to the men’s
room, and now something else has come up. I can’t talk about it now, but we’re going to need your ship’s power and air-machinery. You’re commandeered until further notice. We’ll compensate you for everything. I’m declaring martial law, as soon as I have a minute to write a proclama- tion. Right now I’ve got to go. Get your crew together and sobered up and just sit. And don’t say anything to anybodyl” He turned and walked away, aware that the pressure are be- ginning to get his nerves.
Gakkru was waiting at the same burrow. He was terse about the amenities, then: “I will show you a thing, George Keane.”
He led the way toward several Tubs, half a mile from the burrow, who seemed to be digging in the ice. The natives, as Keane approached, eyed him with strong hostility. With a shock, he saw two Lub corpses on the ice. This was a burial.
The grave was being melted out the Lub way. Bach worker had a hollowed-out tree shoot, packed near one end with burning dry moss (the same material diey used for the scant warmth in their burrows). Blowing in the other end directed the flame against the ice. They cut annular grooves, then broke out the centers. It was slow; small wonder a Frenet cell was a real treasure to the Tubs.
Gakkru rumbled something to the workers, and they turned back to the job, sullenly. The patriarch moved over to the corpses and turn- ed one face down to show a bullet
56 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
bole in the back of the skull. “You asked me, George Keane, to find out whether one of my people killed Jonno Estes. Now I ask you if men killed these?”
Keane, shaking with anger, blurt- ed, “I . . . On the face of it, yes. They’ll be found and punished. I promise you that!”
Gakkru turned and strode back toward Lubtown. “I hope so,” he growled, “I am having opposition from my own people.”
Keane pulled himself together. “I think you know how sorry I am. But here is something. A Lub was seen near where Jonno was killed and about that time. How about the tribes to the west? Wouldn’t it be a long way for them to come?” “A long way, yes, but not impossi- ble. However, we have seen none.” He looked at the Colonel through narrowed eyes. “The Frenet cells. I think, George Keane, you and I both have bad trouble.”
“Worse than you know,” Keane told him. He described the threat to Mantown.
Gakkru stopped walking and looked at him. “Who would do such a thing? And why?”
“The only thing I can see,” Keane said, “is that someone wants a real calamity, so that . . . well, damn it . . .”
Gakkru rumbled low in his throat. “Yes. I see. It will be blamed on us. On Lubs. And then these laws you say are to protect us wtU be changed again, and as before we will see less of honest Terran trade and more Terran tricks and more Terran bullets. Is that it?”
Keane faced up to the massive fury, trying not to flinch. This, he thou^t fleetingly, is one of the prob- lems — Lubs are so damned big, people are simply afraid of them. “That’s about it,” he said. “You un- derstand, many other planets than Mellunde and many native races are under the same law. I can’t be- lieve that Terran Factors is behind it, but the companies that were here before are very big and very power- ful, and they have spies and agents everywhere. I don’t think Paarensen’s one of them.”
Slowly, Gakkru’s anger subsided. - Finally he said, “I almost wish, now, that I could tell you one of my peo- ple killed Jonno. It would make things easier. But I cannot. There is no sign that any Lub of my tribes was trading illegally with Jonno or that any of us were near when he died.” He ambled in silence for a way. “This matter of a strange Lub. That is something to think about.”
They reached the burrow, and Keane steeled himself for something he hated. “There’s something I must ask you. We’ll have to dig emergency quarters, probably on the other side of the spaceport, at once. With a blizzard coming, men won’t be able to work much outside. Will you let us hire your people to do the work? We’ll pay well.”
Gakkru looked at him for a mo- ment, faint irony in his expression. “The law says Lubs must not be hired to do directed work.”
Keane, face red beneath the parka flaps, said, “I can suspend that in such an emergency.”
Gakkru suddenly softened. “Of
FROST PLANET 57
course we will help. When will you want us? How many?”
‘Tonight; as soon as we can get rigged. About five hundred.”
Gakkru waggled his head. “1 had better start talking to my people.”
When Keane arrived, Paarensen had already gotten over his shock at 'the news and was on the communicator, mobilizing men and equipment. He reached a pause and scowled up at Keane. “1 suppose you know there’s a blizzard due.”
Keane nodded. “I have Gakkru’s promise he’ll supply Lubs to help.” Parrensen looked startled. “Well! That will make the difference! But I don’t know . . . After the Estes thing . . .”
Keane almost -boiled over. “Listen! Somebody shot two Lubs out on the ice. There was already a curfew on the town, so it must have been men from one of the mines. Now in view of our need for Lub help, I want you to find out who it was and bring them in. I’ve got to assure Gakkru they’ll be punished.”
Paarensen leaned back and eyed Keane narrowly. “Yeah? How about the murderer of Jonno Estes?”
Keane said, “We don’t know for sme that a Lub killed him; and any- way, it’s very unlikely it was a local one. Men killed the two from Lub- town. There’s no doubt about that.” The superintendent demanded, ‘'How can you be so sure? Why couldn’t strange Lubs have done that too?”
“Damn it,” Keane snapped, “I know a bullet hole when I see one! Not a Lub has a rifle.”
Paarensen smiled coldly. “Oh, I don’t know. How about the rifle Jormo was carrying?”
Keane’s mind spun for a min- ute. “Damn.” He felt himself flush. If he’d had a few minutes to sit down and think . . .
Paarensen said, “Anyway, that doesn't matter now. I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, I’ve been checking on what equipment I can muster, and Sam’s got an inventory of city sup- plies. We’re short of insulation. We’ll have to strip city compartments and tunnels, remelt the insulation and spray it on the new quarters. Food, we can handle. The air machinery’s the big problem. Some of it’ll have to be torn apart to be moved, and putting it back together will be slow.” Keane said, “I can spare some small units from the garrison. And can’t we rig something temporary? Taking a little carbon dioxide out of the air oughtn’t to be hard.” Paarensen frowned. “Not on a la- boratory scale, no; just bubble the air through ILmewater, for one thing. But it would take days to build big- scale equipment. I’ll check on that, though. Another thing — we’ll need lights, a hell of a lot of them, and generators to supply power.”
Keane said, “I told Akers we’d need his ship’s power. Would you want her moved out to -the location?” Paarensen thought a minute. “No: we’ll be close enough to the port to run a cable.”
Sam Wilier said, “I have twenty small generators that have never been uncrated. But they’re not on wheels.” Keane suggested, “Could we put them on sleds?”
58 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
“Yeah,” Paaiensen said. “Good heavy 8leds, made of big logs. Trac- tors can pull them around.” He look- ed at a wall clock and reached for the communicator. “Ed? Say, send a couple big flitters down the mountain with crews to cut a hundred logs; oh, say, two feet diameter, twenty feet long — before dark. Huh? Do it anyway, damn it! Lift them up to the north edge of the spaceport.” He switched off. “Damn; so little time . . . We can use some of those logs for lightpoles.” He looked at Keane. “Have you got a good esti- mate on that blizzard ”
Keane reached for his walky. “Switchboard. Who’s on duty? Oh, Corporal; what’s the last word on the blizzard, and how recent is it?” “Just a moment, sir.” Papers rustled. “Here’s a report from North Outpost about twenty minutes ago. TTie wind was beginning to hit them. They estimate it’ll be here an hour and a half after sundown. It’s a bad one.”
Paarensen grunted. “We’U need a little time to show the Lubs what to do. Ill have foremen on the site be- fore sundown, Keane. Can you get the Lubs there by then?”
Keane got to his feet. “Some of them, I guess.”
Paarensen said, “You can spare a few more minutes, can’t you? I’ve got steaks and real coffee coming in. We may not have much chance to eat toni^t.”
rv
Sunset bad turned the icefield golden; then the Melliinde dtisk
had brought its shades of turquoise and blue and purple. Now, as full darkness fell, Keane, with a sergeant driving, bumped over the ice in a low closed tractor — practically a tank — watching for any signs of trouble. Already the wind was be- ginning to hammer on the thick windshields.
He’d felt better for a while, with solid food in him, but there’s been this problem and that. At least, he’d gotten two hundred Lubs to the site, with Gakkru promising more soon.
The work area was a fantastic panorama in the clear night. Thirty or more of the stout logs had been erected — a third of their length in the ice — and storm lights fastened securely to their tops. Into and out of the islands of illumination moved tractors, large and small, squat der- ricks on wide treads, the few melt- ing-machines Paarensen had, men bundled to awkwardness in layers of clothing and the Lubs. Mostly, so far, cables were still being laid and lashed to the lightpoles, but already a few pits were begun. The first stage of digging would be to get slanting tunnels down to the right level. There, horizontal drifts would fan out, and chambers would be hollow- ed. Once protected, and with kitch- ens and air machinery working, crews of men could continue work.
As if angered at the thought, the wind struck harder, heeling the trac- tor over. The sergeant driving shook his head in concern, shifted to a lower gear and pmnped more pres- sure into the hydraulic system. The tractor jolted worse that way, but didn’t list in the wind.
FROST PLANET 59
60 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
The drummiag on the hull ibecame a keening, then a shriek. Now, sud- denly, hail pelted the glass and steel. That passed quickly, and the snow came; a curtain of horizontal white ropes, it seamed, piling up in an in- stant against the whipping cables and the bases of the poles, blowing away in sudden spurts only to be re- placed at once. Visibility was only yards. Vaguely, Keane could see the nearest men. clinging desperately to cables or lifelines, fighting their way to the shelter of heavy vehicles or the shallow pits. A Lub moved by, cariy’ing some tool, leaning almost fcwty-five degrees against the wind. He stared for a moment into the trac- tor’s headlights, from eyes that were no more than furry slits, then moved on. The way the wind blew his fur about and slammed snow into it, Keane wondered that it didn't come out. But the hulking native showed no discomfort or concern.
Keane leaned nearer the sergeant shouted, “Move north and go along the line. Let’s turn off the headlights and use the snooper.”
The sergeant complied. The snoop- er was a beam of infrared that swept back and forth or circled, invisible without special viewers. There were goggles; but instead of wearing those, Keane and the driver watched a view- screen that showed whatever the in- frared illuminated. Colors were all off, of course — the ice looked black, where it was swept clean of snow — but the infrared penetrated the blizzard a little better than visi- ble light. There was another rea- son Keane was using it. His par-
ticular tractor was ’ to patrol the northern edge of the worksite, and he didn’t want his location at any moment given away by headlights.
Paarensen had lined up his heaviest closed vehicles, east and west, along the northern limit of the site, as a sort of anchor and to give what lee they could. From these, power cables and lifelines stretched into the work area, whipped about now by the wind. Now and then Keane caught a glimpse through momentari- ly thinner snow of someone hauling himself along a lifeline or letting him- self be blown down it. A few Lubs still walked about. But by now most of the Lubs and such men as were still out were in the shelter of the pits they were digging.
Keane worked his way east along the line of vehicles, behind it where no spotlights hit him. He was near the end when, at the very limit of the snooper’s illumination, something dark moved.
He put out a hand to the ser- geant, who stopped the vehicle. Keane turned the beam back manual- ly, found that object and held it; he turned up the intensity. It was a Lub form on all fours, plodding from the north toward the line of tractors. It wore no harness. The sergeant said something inaudible as Keane reach- ed for a walky.
“Paarensen,” the Colonel called, “Paarensen.” The static was very bad.
The superintendent finally answer- ed. “Keane?”
“Yes. I see a solitary Lub out here, behind your line, about — oh, near the eastern end. He doesn’t act
PROST PLANET 61
like one of the workers. He’s — ” Keane stopped to turn the beam a little.
Simultaneously, the shaggy head swivelled in their direction. Slitted eyes stared for a moment, then the creature broke into a run (Lubs could move fast when they wanted to) straight toward the nearest large vehicle. Keane jerked a look at the sergeant, but the trooper was al- ready jamming down the accelerator. The tractor lurched forward. Keane pressed his face against a side win- dow, hoping to see the running crea- ture in a spotlight from the big ve- hicle, but he didn’t. They came abreast of the vehicle, and he swivdl- ed the beam back and forth, search- ing. 'Something, deep in the snow? No — it was a man coming up a lifeline. Keane gestured to his driver, who wheeled the tractor around and sent it in an arc, east and then north and around. But the Lub was gone.
The sergeant shouted, “Could it see us, sir?”
“I don’t think so,” Keane shouted back. “Maybe it felt the infrared.” He picked up the walky he’d drop- ped on the seat. “Paarensen?”
“Here. Where the hell did you go?” “It sensed us and ran. I think we chased it away, but you’d better have your men on the alert.”
Static and profanity came back. Then, “The men in the open couldn’t hear a walky, even if they had a free hand to hold one. I’ll tell the men in the vehicles to keep watch.” Keane let it go at that, but he called one of his other tractors. “Sergeant Cato? Cato?”
Finally, “Cato here, sir.” “Sergeant, bring your tractor up to the north side ’and help me patrol. Be on the lookout especially for a furtive, solitary Lub, but also for anything else. Use the snooper and show no lights. Tell the others you’re leaving.”
“Right, sir.”
After that Keane, using the trac- tor’s more powerful radio, was able to reach HQ. He told Kipp what had happened then asked, “Any trouble in Mantown?”
“Not really, sir. Your proclama- tion of martidl law sobered people. Of course they’re pretty scared about this ice temperature, and — ” “Ice temperature! You mean that’s got out?”
“Yes, sir. The rumor was around that the Lubs had scattered the things, but I put out a bulletin say- ing the Lubs had no access to the storerooms. Did I do wrong, sir?” Keane sat in angry thought. So someone had spread the rumor and added the lie about the Lubs. “No,” he told Kipp finally, “you did right. But be especially watchful. A panic could start quicker than you think. How are the men taking all this?” “Fine, sir. I took the initiative of getting all their dependents quietly out of Mantown and here to HQ. That’s helped.”
“Very good idea. Lieutenant. How about you? Have you eaten?”
“I had sandwiches, sir.”
“All right. You’d better put a good man on your desk for a while and get a nap. This may be a long night.”
“Thanks, Colonel, I’ll do that.”
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eane cruised back and forth a couple of times, meeting Oato’s tractor the second time. They could talk well, this close. Neither had seen anything.
The general static, though, was worse then ever, and Keane was min- utes slow in recognizing a hubbub on the common band. What he did hear, first, was Paarensen shouting, “Into the vehicles, damn it! Get your men into the vehicles!”
He shot a glance at an indicator, sav/ he had no direction fix on Pa- arensen. The sergeant, thinking for himself, whipped the tractor around and went churning back toward whore they’d seen the furtive Lub. They reached a tractor with all its lights on and swinging. Four or five men were helping another, injured, along a lifeline. The light on the nearest pole was out. The radio was a babble now. Kean shouted, “Pa- arensen! What’s going on?”
Paarensen must have been close; his snarl was clear. “A massacre, that’s what’s going on. You and your damned Lubs. Where’ve you been?” Keane sat stunned for a moment, then seized his driver by the shoulder and pointed south. The tractor spun and went that way, snooper-beam swinging ahead. They swerved hard to avoid a shallow pit (deserted), found a cable and followed that to avoid the pits. Once Keane saw a pair of Lubs with harnesses gallop- ing away south east on all fours. He saw one Lub and one human corpse, each already nearly covered with snow. There might be other bodies in the pits, of course. “Paarensen! I’m in the middle of things, and it’s
deserted. Just how many men were killed? How many are still out?” The superintendent snarled, “How do I know, damn it? Everything hap- pened like an explosion!”
Keane said, “Damn it, didn’t any- one actually see anything?”
A passionate voice broke in, “/ saw something! I was in a pit with my foreman and three Lubs. A bunch more Lubs came by, carrying bows, and grabbed at our Lubs, and they took off. My foreman grabbed one and tried to stop him. The Lub swung at him and broke his neck.” A calmer voice, farther away, said, “Somebody shot out the light on my tractor. With a rifle or pistol. Then I saw those big arrows flying around the nearest lightpole, and that light went out too. I had five men out. A couple made it back; and I heard another on a walky, but he hasn’t called since. I don’t know anything about the others.” Other reports poured in, some wild, some meaningless. Keane broke in, “Where are the Lubs?” Paarensen said, “It looks as if they all headed for Lubtown. No dobbt to get weapons. I hope you have Man- town guarded.”
■ “It’s guarded,” Keane snapped. “What 1 want to know is exactly what happened here? How did it start? Did any of your men have guns?”
“Hell, yes,” a hot voice put in. “One of the big ones came for me with a knife, and I emptied my pistol in him!”
Paarensen said, “What difference does it make now, how it started?” “It makes the difference,” Keane
FROST PLANET 63
said, “whether anything can be salvaged. What kind of idiots are you? Now all of you stay put, un- derstand? I’m going after the Lubs.”
V
The blizzard, of course, would quickly hide any trail in the snow. However, it hadn’t yet covered the four Lub corpses Keane passed on the way. They’d evidently been wounded, but kept up with the bunch until they fell.
Presently he was so close behind the main group he could still see a trail. The sergeant slowed a little. Nevertheless, when the tractor did overtake the Lubs, it nearly blunder- ed into them. One minute there was the hurtling snow. The next, yards ahead, a wall of erect forms, backs
snow-covered, loomed like a forest of statues. They were leaning back against the wind, keeping their balance with hardly a stir. Keane swept the snooper back and forth. Perhaps one in five carried a bow.
Well, they were stopped here watching something, and he’d better find out what it was. He switched on the headlights.
They whirled to face the tractor, darting to both sides, squinting at the headlights, grabbing for weapons. The wind deformed their features, but they all looked murderous. A few moved forward, crouched. Then, shoving his way through the pack, a supergiant among giants, came Gakkru. He recognized ithe tractor and scowled. Behind him came Bwult. The younger Lub trotted for- ward to stand, face contorted, a few
64 V.'OIilDS OF TOMORROW
yards from the tractor, and made The irtimate gesture of hate — thumb and forefinger, to represent fangs — aigainst his throat. He couldn't see Keane in the darkened interior, prob- ably. but he could read the name stenciled on the vehicle.
Gakkru took two steps and shoved Bwult aside so that he went sprawl- ing. Bwult was up at once, scream- ing inaudibly at his father. Now, from the attitudes of the other Lubs, Keane guessed what had happened — ■ the bunch returning to Lubtown had met Gakkru leading another contin- gent; Bwult and Gakkru had argued, and the tractor had arrived just then.
Bwult made a gesture; Gakkru made one back, and suddenly knives were out.
Keane groaned. “No!” Should he interfere? The cherished knife of ivory Gakkru carried would be no match for steel. And, while Gakkru was taller by two feet, and hundreds of pounds heavier, he was slowed by his bulk and his age. But it would be futile to interfere. Gakkru had taken to himself the challenge — or issued one of his own — and the Lub law was that one of the two must die. So Keane sat watching, his headlights shining on the scene.
Bwult, full of rage, attacked first. He came on all fours, darting to Gakkru’s left, knife flashing up in a murderous arc. Gakkru anticipated, dropped aside at the last moment and had a big leg in the right place to send Bwult tumbling. But Bwult was up as soon as his father, and now the blind fury was dulled. He came in erect, coolly, weaving, feinting with the knife.
Keane had watched Lub knife- fights before. The one object was to kill. Whether the winner was badly cut up or not didn’t matter. At this upright fighting, Bwult’s advantage of mobility was greater than on all fours — and if Gakkru went to all fours while Bwult stood up, Gakkru’s left arm would be busy supporting him, while Bwult would have his to parry with. There were a few minor cuts, quickly, on each side, the wind and snow whipping the blood away at once. Then Bwult got into position for a hack that had to be parried knife-to-knife. Gakkru made the parry, but a big chip of ivory flew from his blade to vanish with the blizzard. That, Keane thought, would probably be the thing. Sooner or later, the steel would cut clear through the ivory. Then it would be just a matter of execution.
"Out the end came sooner; so A swiftly Keane almost missed it. Knives flashed in a pattern of threat and counter-threat, then Gakkru ap- peared to make a mistake, took a gash on the left shoulder and stagger- ed a little. Bwult moved in fast, eagerly, and thrust. But from some- where. Gakkru’s left arm came up, deliberately taking the steel and whip- ping on to strike Bwult and knock him off balance. Now Keane saw that Gakkru had perfectly calculated the wind — his son could not re- treat fast enough. Bwult’s body hid Gakkru’s expert up-ifrom -below thrust, but Keane saw Bwult jerk, make an ineffectual swing with his own knife and go limp at the knees.
Gakkru, lower teeth showing.
FROST PLANET 65
hurled his beloved knife off into the blizzard as hard as he could. Then he went slowly to all fours and was motionless, big head hanging. Blood gushed from his left arm. Presently two Lubs moved up, cutting at a leather pouch to make bandages, and knelt to bind up the arm. Others slowly dragged Bwult’s corpse off toward Lubtown.
Keane wondered dully, now what. He couldn’t seem to care much; his exhaustion was catching up with him. But Gakkru lifted his head and look- ed straight at the tractor. Slowly, the patriarch got to his feet and came forward. He pointed; then, as Keane didn’t understand, pounded on a small hatch in the top, through which, when it was open, a man could thrust head and shoulders. The Colonel mustered enough spirit to open it.
Even with Gakkru’s head blocking the hole, the screahi of the wind was deafening. Keane stood up to catch the Lub’s bellow, “Who shot my men, George Keane?”
Keane tried to find words, “I . . . don’t know. I saw one Lub sneaking around, earlier, but he ran when he sensed us. Are you sure . . .?”
Gakkru must have guessed what Keane didn’t want to ask. “My son did not lie. He did not start the trou- ble. I think, George Keane, if you want your people to live you had bet- ter produce this strange Lub.”
His voice, so far as Keane could hear, was calm, but ominous. Keane said listlessly, “Produce him, eh? In all these square miles of blizzard?” Nevertheless, he reached for his walky. “Paarensen. This is Keane.”
After oceans of static and a false start or two, Paarensen’s voice came, weakly. “Keane? Where are you? Are you doing anything?”
Keane muttered curses. “Listen. Keep your men in the vehicles, but scout around without headlights there are lightpoles with lights still on. Be on the lookout for that strange Lub. Do you understand me? He’ll avoid direct beams, but you might see him in sUhouette. I think he’s the one who started aU this.”
Paarensen said in disgust, “Keane, you’re a complete fool.” “Maybe. But it’s the only chance we’ve got. Gakkru’s still ready to listen, if we can prove your men didn’t start the shooting. He’s just now had to — oh, hell, just do as I say. And get ready, as much as you can, to resume work.” Without waiting for an answer, Keane switch- ed to his command channel. “Ser- geant Cato.”
Faintly, “Here, sir.”
“Round up the other tractors. Search the whole working area and a mile or two around it. No visible lights. Look for that solitary Lub — he’s not wearing a harness — and if you see him, don’t go too near. They seem to be able to feel the snooper beams, or something. I'll be somewhere around.”
He got the acknowledgment and moved his head near Gakkru’s. “Is your arm all right? I can take you over to HQ and get it sewed up.”
“It is not bleeding now. This strange Lub you keep talking about. From which direction did he come?” “North, when I saw him. Off the
66 V/ORLDS OF TOMORROW
ice, I guess; or from the Gale moun- tains. Wihy?”
“Because,” Gakkru said, “if he is from a foreign tribe, or if he’s an out- cast from one of mine, he will have a place where he lives. One does not eat and sleep out in blizzards.” Keane grunted ironically. “That only leaves — ” He stopped, suddenly hit by an idea. “Say! If he killed Jonno Estes and stole his rifle . . . Do you know where that cave is that Jonno was supposed to have?” Gakkru blinked. “Yes! That is a good thought! Let us go there and look!”
Keane said, “We’ll turn the trac- tor so the main hatch is down-wind. If you can squeeze in — ”
Gakkru said, “I can ride com- fortably on top. Wait a minute.” He beckoned to several Lubs. While he was talking to them, snow swirled madly in and out of the unprotected hatch. Then the tractor rocked as Gakkru climbed atop it, and again his big head blocked the hatch.
The radio brought no news Paarensen was getting his men calmed down, though, and gradually coimpiling a picture of what had happened. Four or five lights, it seemed, had been shot out with rifles or pistols. No one had seen the mars- man or heard the shots. Shortly thereafter, Lubs and men, in a mutual explosion of hate and fear, were killing each other. -It was obvious that someone had rallied the Lubs and led them away, no doubt to arm themselves and return. The actual deaths on each side were apparently few. But work was stopped. Gakkru,
even after hearing what details were known, refused even to talk about possible resumption until (and if) the foreign Lub were found.
The tractor jolted northward at top speed. There were about fifty- five miles to go; north to the Gale mountains, then eastward along them until Gakkru found the right spot. The miles dragged. At times, Gak- kru’s weight shifted; at others, he might have been dozing. His furry odor and the smell of his blood filled the tractor. The sergeant put thumb and forefinger to his nose in pantomime and made a face. Keane frowned at him.
A short run, with improved visi- bility, then Gakkru said, “We are near. Turn up the slope, slowly, but do not show a light.”
Keane said, “Oh, by the way, do you know about this snooperscope we’re using?”
“Yes. I have heard it described.”
“Well . . . could a Lub feel a slight warmth, as from a strong beam of light, in a blizzard?” He explain- ed about the furtive Lub.
Gakkru let his lower jaw hang in thought. “Stop here. You can try it on me.”
The tractor creaked and tilted; snow swirled into the hatch, and Gakkru appeared ahead of the ve- hicle. Looking back, he strode to what Keane presumed was the limit of the tractor’s visibility and stopped. He stood a moment then started back slowly. Keane played the beam upon him.
When Gakkru’s head blocked the hatch again, he said, “I felt nothing, George Keane.”
FROST PLANET 67
“Hm. Well . . Keane gestured to the sergeant to drive on up the slope.
The cave, no doubt cut by anci- ent water, was a few hundred yards up a bare ravine. The tractor stopped thirty yards from it. Gakkru, as he’d insisted, approached the cave on foot, listened, sniffed, peered and finally vanished inside.
A quarter hour dragged endlessly by. Fioaily Gakkru reappeared and brokoned. When the tractor reached him he leaned over it and said, “You can drive inside, George Keane. No one is home. But someone has been there recently.”
The disappointing thing for Keane (and ominous, since Gakkru’s mood grew darker) was that, accord- ing to the patriarch, there was no smell of Lub about the cave.
There was freshly-cooked food, though. There were also containers of water, a stove and energy-units, a heated sleeping-bag, air machinery. There was a viewer and a small li- brary of tapes. Boxes of rifle am- munition might or might not have belonged to Jonno Estes. So might all the other things — except for the recent cooking, which proved some- one had used the cave within hours.
Gakkru sniffed around the depths of the cave again, came back and said, “There is nothing more to be learned. I think we had better post ourselves just inside the mouth and wait.”
“Wait?” Keane said unwillingly. Gakkru’s small eyes blinked at him. “Can you think of a better place to look? It is not many hours
until morning. This stranger will want to be out of sight by then.” Keane sighed. “Damn it, I guess so. Well, as long as we’re going to sit here, do you want to get in the tractor? Then we can talk without our voices carrying.”
Hours dragged by. Then — be- fore there was any trace of daylight to Keane’s senses — Gakkru, lean- ing forward to peer through the thick windshield, growled, “Some- one is coming.”
Keane snapped awake. Unable to resist, he switched on the snooper at low intensity and swept the beam once in a quick arc. It passed over something large and dark. He swung it back, stopped it, ready to switch it off hastily if the object showed any reaction.
But it did not. It was a Lub form, trudging up the ravine, eyes on the solid rock ahead of it. Keane glanced once at Gakkru, saw the overchiefs eyes narrowed almost shut and laid his hand on the aiming-grip of a gun that would fire anesthetic bul- lets.
Gakkru must have guessed Aat. He growled, “Use a deadly weapon, George Keane, and a strong one.” Keane sensed something in the voice and darted another quick look at Gakkru. “Why?”
Gakkru said calmly, “That is not a Lub.”
Keane, uncomprehending, stared back at the advancing figure, which was within forty yards now. And suddenly he noticed something that made Um gasp. From the ^aggy bead a weak beam of light fanned out
68 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
But . . . He was seeing it through the snooper viewscreen!
Suddenly things came clear in his mind, in a flash. His hand darted to switch off their own beam. God; it was lucky the advancing thing hadn’t spotted it already! Then his hand dropped to the control of a heavy machine gun. This thing could only be a suit — a servo-powered-and- controlled suit, with room inside for a man to operate it; it was made to look and move like a Lub. But with radio and infrared vision of its own.
Gakkru growled, “Shoot! Shoot! Many have died tonight!”
Bullets spat from the gun. The ob- ject didn’t take them like anything animal. It jarred a little, halted, stood motionless for a moment, then, push- ed by the wind, began to fall back- ward. It hit the rock and lay still.
By the time they’d dragged it up to the cave and got it open, Keane had realized that such an artifact could only have been built on Earth or one of the other advanced plan- ets; so he wasn’t much surprised to find the bleeding corpse of the Hermes’ skipper and owner, Belden Akers.
VI
A few days later, when various problems had been ironed out and the relocation work was going well, Keane stood in crisp, brilliant sunshine just outside Gakkru’s main burrow, saying good-bye. The patri- arch’s arm would probably recover fairly well.
Keane said, “Lieutenant Kipp held up very well during the whole thing.
and he’s a fair-minded man. You can trust him.”
Gakkru waggled his head absent- ly. Keane supposed it was no wonder the patriarch acted listless and older.
Keane went on, “I hope you un- derstand — not everyone does — that the best thing I can do is get to Earth as soon as possible and re- port first-hand. The interest behind Akers and the mine foreman who helped him — Gus Leitner — will be in with their lies and their pres- sures.”
Jaakkru’s small eyes focussed on him. “I understand, George Keane.” “Well . . Keane, with nothing more to say and feeling uncomfort- able, half turned to go, but turned back. “Friendship, Gakkru.”
The big face twisted, and for a moment hate broke through. “I do not blame you for an3rthing that has happened, George Keane. But you are a man.” A pause. “Jonno Estes, too, called me friend.”
Keane said defensively, “They made a cat’s-paw out of him. I’m sure he had no idea — ”
Gakkru rumbled in his throat, then said, with a tone of dismissal, “Maybe I will feel differently by the time you return from Earth.” “Yes,” Keane said, “when I re- turn.” He made a small gesture with his hand; tmmed and walked away, zipping up his parka against the icy wind. He very much doubted he’d return to this planet. Earth Govern- ment would accept his version; but there’d be a fuss, and someone would have to be the goat. But he didn’t know if he’d want to return.
END
Worlds of Tomorrow • Article
Report on the Slow Freeze
by R. C. W. ETTINGER
Since Ettinger's first piece on freezing appeared here in 1963, progress has been slow. Here are a few reasons whyl
1964 and 1965 were years of high tragedy and low comedy. It was tragic — perhaps — that while so many heard of cryogenic interment, so few understood the opportunity; and it was tragic — certainly — that several who did understand the op- portunity were not quite able to grasp it before death intervened. And it was ludicrous — if your taste runs to black humor — that many with an apparent intellectual grasp of the situation blandly ignored the personal implications.
Some are amazed at the failure to freeze a single corpse (publicly) be- fore 1966; others are astonished at the extent and general sympathy of continuing public interest. I think I can account for both, and the ac- counting may be useful.
For the benefit of those who still have only a vague and super- ficial acquaintance with the thesis, let me state it briefly. It is proposed to freeze the newly dead, using a chemical perfusate to reduce freezing damage, and store them at liquid nitrogen temperature (— 196°C or — 320°F), which will prevent ap- preciable further deterioration in- definitely. Eventually, it is hoped, science will be able to cure or repair the ailment that caused death, and also the effects of a short period of clinical death, and also the freeze- store-thaw damage, and even the physical debility of old age; thus a prospect of Indefinitely extended life is given to us now living and to those now dying. Some further de- tails will emerge in the discussion
69
70 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
below of recent events; at this point, it may be appropriate to note a little history.
Genesis of the Idea
Cryogenic interment had never been forecast in science fiction, as far as I know. Suspended anima- tion, of course, is a well worked lode; but this involves freezing or other treatment before death, with the subject revivable at will. I recall only one story in which a man was frozen after death and later revived: “The Jameson Satellite,” by Neil R. Jones, which I read pierhaps thirty years ago. But the freezing here was incidental, and the revival accidental (millions of years later, by wander- ing super-scientists of an alien race); there was no suggestion of a planned, systematic or general ef- fort, nor any familiarity with cry- obiology (low temperature biology).
The idea came to me in 1947, after Jean Rostand, the renowned French biologist, discovered the pro- tective effect of glycerine in freez- ing animal cells. In an Army hos- pital at that time, I embodied it( but did not emphasize it) in a science- fiction story, “The Penultimate Trump,” which was published in the March, 1948, issue of Startling Stories. Then I waited for many years, momentarily expecting some- one with better credentials and more prestige to introduce the Freezer Era. In 1960 (while a physics instructor at Wayne State University in De- troit), I summarized the thesis on one page and sent this to a few hundred people selected from Who’s
Who, but received only a small re- sponse. In 1962 I prepared a prelimi- nary version of THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY and sent a couple of hundred privately printed copies to various people, including Rostand and Frederik Pohl.
Rostand himself, a few years ear- lier, had predicted that one day the aged, as well as the incurably ill, would be frozen to await help; but he had not taken the next step, in- volving freezing after death and ac- cepting some degree of freezing dam- age. He immediately recognized the validity of this logical extension and suggested an article on the subject, which was published in the May, 1963, issue of Science et Vie. He also was kind enough to write one of the prefaces for the revised and expanded version of THE PROS- PECT OF IMMORTALITY, which was published by Doubleday in June of 1964. The second preface was written by Prof. Gerald Gruman, a physician and historian of science at Lake Erie College. Fred Pohl, meanwhile, had published excerpts from the first version in the June, 1963, issue of Worlds of Tomorrow and, at about the same time, had arranged for the first radio discus- sion, on Long John Nebel’s midnight talk-show in New York.
Several other people — possibly many others — had had the same idea indeprendently. In particular, Evan Cooper in Washington, D.C. had presented it to a small discus- sion group called “Twentieth Cen- tury Books,” and in 1962, after some years of thought, privately printed a book called IMMORTALITY:
REPORT ON THE SLOW FREEZE 71
PHYSICALLY, SCIENTIFICAL- LY, NOW (under the pen name “Nathan Duhring”); and Dr. Law- rence N. Jensen, then chairman of the Art Department at Castleton State College in Vermont, was do- ing research for a book. The pub- licity attending my book brought us together; and early in 1963 we met in Washington, and the Life Exten- sion Society was formed with Ev Cooper as president.
Organizations and Personalities
I" merest in THE PROSPECT OF
IMMORTALITY has been very wide (if seldom deep) and continues to mount. The book has been pub- lished in England, France, Holland and Germany as well as in the U.S., and an Italian edition is forthcoming. An American paperback edition (Macfadden-Bartell) is now on the stands. There have been hundreds of articles in publications the world over — many through my wife’s skill in media relations — and scores of TV and radio discussions, including several occasions each on such shows as Merv Griffin’s, John- ny Carson’s Tonight, and Mike Douglas’. Although the issue so far may seem rather pimy, the mountain continues to labor, and some of the mice are lively and determined little creatures.
The oldest and largest of the non- profit organizations promoting cryo- genic interment is the Life Extension Society (2011 N St. NW, Washing- ton DC 20036; send for brochure), with something over 400 members in January of 1966. Ev Cooper, who
fortunately has independent means, devotes full time to the work with- out remuneration. His wife, Mil- dredrhas made many contributions, including a new name for the frozen, brittle people; Homo Snapiens, (This is certainly more dignified than Fred Pohl’s “corpsesicles.” I think it was also she who summarized the recent situation by saying, “Many are cold, but few are frozen.” Other active members include: Dr. L. N. Jensen, now chairman of the Art Depart- ment at Southern Connecticut State College; Prof. E. W. Walton, who teaches Greek and Latin at Converse College in Spartanburg, S. C., and his wife Judi, who has been doing some cryobiological research; James Clancy, an insurance salesman, and R. C. Payne, a biology teacher, of Montreal; Michael Hart, a New York attorney; Thomas Tierney, a G. M. employee, and Richard Jones, an actor and writer, in Los Angeles; Alan Wofsley, a psychology instruc- tor at the University of Hull in Eng- land; Marc Collet and Dr. Emile Leclerc at Nancy, France; and many others, including physicians, scien- tists and clergymen.
One of the newest and most active nonprofit organizations is the Cryo- nics Society of New York (corres- ponding secretary Saul Kent, 2083 Creston Ave., Bronx, N.Y. 10453; send for brochure) . It split off from LES (although its members remain LES members also) through activist sentiment; the feeling was that too many LES members merely paid their $2 yearly for the monthly news- letter and did little else but kibitz. C.S.N.Y. demands a $25 initiation
72 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
fee and $10 annual dues and expects members to make definite personal preparations for cryogenic interment, including the purchase of adequate additional life insurance (or other earmarking of funds) and the draw- ing of suitable wills, execution of trust agreements, etc. They hope in 1966 also to prepare integrated physical facilities in the N.Y. area. Some of the earliest members in- clude: James Sutton, a private de- tective; Harold Costello, a wrestler; attorneys Prof. David Haber of Rut- gers, Curtis Henderson and Nathan- iel Janes; students Saul Kent and Karl Werner; and others including an associate professor of physics at Columbia and an associate professor of chemistry at N.Y.U., as well as business people, housewives, etc. (It is interesting to note also that all age groups are represented, from col- lege students to very senior citizens.)
Among commercial organizations, the one most active recently is Cryo- Care Equipment Corporation (2204 W. Indian School Rd., Phoenix 15, Arizona); its president is E. Francis Hope, a wig maker who read in my book that his industry might not last. Working with physicists, Mr. Hope has built several human cold-storage units, or “cryocapsules,” and has be- gun to sell them. Specifications on the first model were: capacity one or two people; price $3200; cost for replacement of liquid nitrogen $100/ year. It consists of an inner cylinder of aluminmn and an outer one of steel; between the two cylinders is a vacuum for insulation, as with a thermos bottle, and in the evacuated space are over 200 layers of alter-
nate aluminum foil and fiberglass sheets to reduce radiative heat trans- fer. It does not depend on electricity, but merely requires recharging with liquid nitrogen once every several months. On the basis of &e speci- fications asserted, and taking size into account, it appears to be more economical and more efficient than liquid nitrogen refrigerators made by the big companies such as Union Carbide.
\ pparently less active, but still in the running according to in- formation now some months old, is Juno, Inc. (1802 W. Pleasant St, Springfield, Ohio), led by New York businesman Leonard Gold. Juno has built and tested “time capstiles” and was prominently mentioned in the news last spring when there was a near miss on cryogenic interment in Springfield. Mr. Gold says he plans only to sell equipment to funeral di- rectors and cemetarians.
Another company is Continuelife Corp. (131 Avenue C, Latrobe, Pa. 15650), led by accountant Forrest Walters, who says he plans integrated services.
Still another seems to be called Technigenics, but my information about it is informal and should prob- ably not be made public now.
There has been some fringe ac- tivity by kooks and con men, but less than might have been expected; and there have also been organiza- tions that breathed but briefly and expired. There was an embarrassing episode in the San Francisco area when a group calling themselves the “Abolish Death Committee” picket-
RBK}RT ON THE SLOW FREEZE 73
ed a funeral home and offered to run me for president,” but this for- tunately did not last long. “Ameri- coin,” a nonprofit division of the Civic Association of America in Hol- lywood, with very respectable peo- ple at the helm, last year had am- bitious plans, but now seems to be quiescent. The Immortality Research & Compilation Association in Los Angeles has merged again with LES. Cryo-Life Corp. in Kansas City, Mo., after some brave predictions, apparently failed to obtain adequate funding. I have been approached by several get-rich-quick, would-be oper- ators, some of them ludicrously crude and others rather impressive- ly smooth. (This is not to imply that I object to anyone getting rich, either quickly or gradually, so long as he gives value. Many physicians, phar- macists and morticians have become legitimately rich while performing less important services.) I remain un- affiliated with any company.
Still another organization inspired by the continued publicity was one formed by a Brooklyn industrialist Dr. Benjamin Schloss, a biochemist by training, with the initial assistance of former band leader Artie Shaw. Hoping to win more scientific sup- port by emphasizing research, he first called his nonprofit group the Society for Anabiosis and empha- sized freezing humans for possible immortality. (“Anabiosis” means either revival after apparent death, or latent life in the sense of sus- pended animation.) From late 1964 to early 1966, his approadi gradual- ly changed, and the name was changed to Society for Biosis and
finally to Foundation for Aging Re- search, with the emphasis on funda- mental research entirely and only small mention of cryobiology.
The big firms with cryogenic inter- ests, e.g., General Dynamics, Union Carbide and Cosmodyne, have ex- pressed keen interest in various ways, 4^t so far timidity has restrained cupidity, and they continue to gaze wistfully at the water, but won’t jump in. This is natural enough, since the primary concern of any large organization is not how to win, but how to avoid losing. They are not interested in maximizing the ex- pected gain, but in minimizing the maximum loss.
Scientific ond Medical Reaction
The major reason for the lack of spectacular progress is the cau- tion of physicians and scientists, and it is important to detail this situ- ation.
I have spoken or corresponded with many prominent cryobiologists, biologists and physicians, including: Dr. Harold Meryman of the Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethes- da; Dr. Arthur Rinfret of Linde Corporation; Dr. Rupert Billingham of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy, Philadelphia; Dr. Theodore Malim in of Georgetown University; Dr. Richard Lillehei of tiie University of Minnesota and Dr. Hermann Muller, Nobel laureate of Indiana University. In addition, all the above have made public or semipublic statements. They typically (not neces- sarily imanimously) regard the re- vival of people frozen by present
74 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
methods as possible, but highly im- probable.
Dr. Muller and Dr. Meryman oppose the program as socially or philosophically undesirable; Dr. Meryman, in particular, has express- ed the hope that we will never achieve immortality. The others have shown some degree of symapthy, but appear to be dominated by pro- fessional caution and reserve and are unwilling to recommend the pro- cedure unless revival is assured or probable.
It is my firm opinion that such an attitude is ill-considered and ir- responsible. Please consider care- fully:
1. Any attempt to estimate the “probability of revival” in the inde- finite future cannot be more than a vague statement of pessimism and certainly cannot represent an actual calculation, although the language seems to suggest that such a calcu- lation has been made. Anyone mak- ing such an estimate implies that he knows a great deal both about the nature of the problem and about the ultimate capabilities of science — • whereas the best informed person alive knows very little about the former and nothing about the latter.
2. With respect to freezing dam- age, there are specific grounds for optimism — chiefly the fact that present freezing methods often leave many or most of the cells functional, and therefore a reasonable expecta- tion exists that the others can some- day be repaired or replaced. (If some of the cells are functional, it is high- ly probable that many of the non- functional ones have relatively little
damage.) For example, dog kidneys have been frozen in liquid nitrogen and did not survive as organs ap- parently only because of failure of a small percentage of the cells, mainly in the small blood vessels. (Dog and rat kidneys have fully retained or recovered function after freez- ■hig for very short periods; and a cat’s brain was reported in the lay press to have been frozen for several months with a normal encephalo- gram after thawing.)
3. The physician’s duty is to try to save the patient, not to decide whether he ought to live. If the life- saving attempt involves an extraor- dinary effort, the physician should present the facts as objectively as possible and allow the patient or family to make the decision. Not to let the patient know of the pos- sibility is certainly unethical, except in cases of incompetence or other unusual circumstances.
4. The physician should remember the many precedents for the use of unproven remedies in otherwise hopeless cases.
5. There are many cases, e.g., in- volving dying children, in which most of the “philosophical” objec- tions, even if they were otherwise valid, do not apply.
6. Good, not harm, will result even if optimism about those frozen now proves unjustified. Those dying will have an additional measure of hope and will never know disappoint- ment. The families will grieve less bitterly and will know no disappoint- ment either, since a final reckoning, if negative, can hardly come before several centuries. Further, when the
REPORT ON THE SLOW FREEZE 75
program becomes wide-spread, so- ciety will probably benefit from the long view, becoming more stable; rash and desperate actions will tend to be fewer.
7. An immediate, practical large- scale cryogenic interment program is imi>ortant, not only to give some chance to those now dying, but also to improve the chances of those dy- ing later. Cryobiological research, now pitifully slow, is unlikely to achieve fully perfected freezing methods within several decades with- out massively increased support, and such support can hardly come ex- cept as a by-product of an immense practical program involving billions of dollars. Thus every one of us — even the young — has a personal stake in an immediate program.
8. Those who might be willing, in effect, supinely to accept a death sentence from a committee of sci- entists who opine that the chance is “small,” should recall that every revolutionary idea is, and must be, initially opposed by the majority. For an idea to be both revolutionary and also immediately acceptable to the majority would be nearly a con- tradiction in terms. This is not to suggest that an idea must be right if it is new — ■ most new ideas are wrong — but, nevertheless, there is a long, historical succession of ra- dical ideas which later proved right, and every one was at first decried by the experts. In this case, the ex- perts may be right — but will you stake your life on it?
9. Reluctance of scientists and physicians to coop>erate is by no means universal; some are enthusias-
tic, although they are so far re- latively few and relatively obscure.
The basic impediment, among most scientists and physicians as well as the general public, is that they have been able to see only two aspects of tbe program: (1) an in- teresting abstract problem, especially in terms of sociology; (2) a threat to an established way of life or to a professional reputation. They have not been able to think in terms of saving an individual life, others’ or their own. Beside the huge general tragedy of opportunity for two years ignored, there have resulted several individual tragedies of the most piti- ful kind.
Near-Misses and Axe-Kneelers
Ihave had many letters from be- reaved relatives who discovered the opportunity too late — in some cases by only a few days, in others be weeks or months. They say they would have done anything, seized any chance, however slim, if they had known in time; some ask if it is possible to disinter the body and freeze it. Whether, in fact, they would have proceeded if they had known in time is another matter.
Dying patients or their relatives have often written me, saying they intended to take this chance, only to give up after all. The most com- mon reason is discouragement by an ignorant physician and by other members of the family, combined with the practical difficulties, effort and financial sacrifice demanded.
In May of 1965, in the well-pub- licized Springfield, Ohio case, the
76 WORLDS OF TOMORROW
husband of a dying woman deter- mined to freeze her despite her physician’s opposition. Another phy- sician was found in the hospital willing to cooperate, and a mortician, and their pastor gave the project his blessing. Mr, Gold, of Juno, Inc., had his “time capsule” standing by; General Dynamics rushed in a large supply of liquid nitrogen, gratis; my brother Alan and I went down there with additional equipment; the hos- pital administrator agreed to co- operate; and a team of volunteer firemen was standing by to assist in the initial preparation of the body, involving external cardiac massage and artificial respiration. But the hospital trustees became nervous and, after a midnight meeting of the Board, withdrew hospital coopera- tion. This did not make the project technically impossible, since we still had mortunary facilites, but it gave fresh ammunition to opposed re- latives, who finally persuaded the husband to reverse his decision. The patient died a few hours later, una- ware that she might