Collected Short Fiction, page 222
Into this situation, enter me.
I was just an average joe in the past, a fellow who ran into some trouble and decided the easiest way out was to duck into this guinea-pig job. Some way out!
Apparently these women saw something in me—maybe there aren’t enough men to go around, or something, and they jumped for me. So I got away from them. Talk about frying pans and fires, though!
I heard Clara’s steady pacing outside my cell. They weren’t going to let me out until the time came for my speech. And if I delivered the speech as instructed, some amazon was likely to nail me; if I didn’t, Lola would take care of me. I was cooked either way.
I cursed myself for having left 1957 in the first place. But it was too late to worry about that now. I was here, and I was going to operate under my own steam or else.
And no matter which way I moved, I was doomed. Even if Lola and his men won, probably Lola’s first action would be to put me out of his way, as a possible rival for his throne. And naturally if the women held the fort they’d waste no time slitting my throat before I fomented another rebellion.
Maybe wishing wouldn’t make it so, but I wished desperately to be back in the 20th century where I belonged. I practically yelled it out loud.
“I don’t want to be here!” I yelled. “I should a stayed where I was!”
“Cut out that caterwauling,” Clara growled. “You want the Queen to hear you? She’s only a hundred stories above us, y’ know.”
“I don’t care,” I said miserably. “I’m going to die either way, so what does it matter?”
Then I realized the foolishness of my own attitude. I was due to face death; why not do it bravely? So I shut up. I waited.
Hours passed. Then the cell door swung open, and Lola walked in.
“Ready to go make your speech, pal? Remember—all of masculine mankind’s future depends on the pitch you make.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go.” But my knees were quivering, and I didn’t really mean it.
He handed me a small round capsule. “This is the photonic amplifier. When I give you the signal, just switch it on and start to talk. You’ll be heard all over the city.”
“Downtrodden males of the world, unite!” I said, grinning despite myself. “All right. Lola. I’ll do what I can in the name of mankind.”
“You’d better,” he said ominously.
What happened after that is pretty hazy. Lola and Clara led me through a fantastic passageway into the open, and conducted me to the Central Plaza. I remember making a speech of some kind. I remember three of the amazon women racing madly toward me, trying to reach me and shut me up. I remember starting to run in the middle of my speech, turning, slugging it out with the three women. They were like pillars of stone. They closed in on me.
And I blanked out. Sometime later, I awoke—
And saw the patient, kindly face of Professor Ostrov peering down at me.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Did you suspend yourself too? And what’s been going on?”
“This is the year 1957, son,” he said calmly. “Everything is all right.”
“Like hell it is,” I snapped. “Where am I? What—”
“You’re in my laboratory,” he said. “You’ve been under-going preliminary psychological tests before I put you into the somnocasket. I’ve been keeping close electroencephalographic check on you all the time you were living through that purely fictional incident.”
I sat bolt upright. “You mean that never happened?”
“Merely a test,” he said mildly. “But I’m happy to report that you showed commendable adaptability in strange situations, that you handled yourself well—though we observed one momentary lapse in stability—and that, in general—” I got off the table and silenced him. “I want to thank you, Doctor.”
“What for?”
“For giving me a second chance,” I said. I reached for my clothes and started getting into them. “I’ve had one look at the future, and maybe it was a phony, but it taught me one thing—life can’t be any worse here.”
“Are you, then, planning to withdraw from the experiment?” he asked, gaping.
“Damned right I am!” I smiled happily, put on my coat, and left the lab without a further word. I knew now that there was no sense in running off to the future; things weren’t any simpler there.
I knew what I would do: I would find my girl, take her out someplace, talk over all our misunderstandings. I was confident we’d patch things up somehow.
All I had to do to make our marriage work was be a little more considerate—and let her share the responsibilities, instead of trying to run the whole show myself. Yes, I thought, as I started down the familiar dirty old twentieth-century street. Women needed to be given more responsibility in running things.
THE END
Hot Trip for Venus
Alex Mayne knew somebody wanted to keep him out of the spacelanes. And that could only mean someone was afraid he’d learn about the—
THE CARGO SHIP Lightfoot stood poised at the end of the Nevada Flats spaceport, ready to blast off. At its controls Alex Mayne ran down the final check watching lights click on and off as he tallied the fuel, checked the computer, cleared the orbit.
“Okay, Central, I’m ready,” he said finally. He put his fingers lightly on the blasting panel, waiting for clearance. “Am awaiting go-ahead.”
“Hold it up, Mayne,” a voice from the control tower told him. “We’re still checking some things.” Mayne tapped his fingers impatiently against the panel. “Okay, I’ll wait. But my orbit’s only got a tolerance of three minutes, so hurry it up.”
A moment later, the radio crackled again. “Sorry, Mayne, but you’ll have to get out of that ship. You can’t take off.”
“What?”
“That’s right,” the impersonal voice said. “We’re sending Relief Pilot Anderson to Venus in your place. Report here immediately.”
“Why?” Mayne asked. “What the hell’s wrong? I’ve got flight clearance for this, and if you louse up my orbit—”
“I’m sorry, Mayne, but you don’t have flight clearance. Your blastoff certificate’s been revoked.”
For a moment, Mayne froze, not thinking of moving. His blastoff certificate revoked? Impossible! A spaceman without a certificate was like a singer without a voice, like an athlete without legs, like a painter without eyes. Finished . . .
His lips tightened. “Look here, Central. There’s no reason why anything like that should happen. I’m leaving in exactly thirty seconds. One. Two.”
“Hold it, Mayne! You take that ship off the ground and we’ll blast you out of the skies. This is a direct order: get out of that ship and report to Administration.” Mayne’s fingers hovered over the blasting keys and stayed there as indecision gripped him. Central was right—if he made an unauthorized blastoff, they’d track him and blow him to molecules quick enough—and even if he got away, he’d be finished as a pilot from that moment on.
He glanced out the viewplate and saw his relief coming toward him over the field, accompanied by a couple of other men. That clinched it. If he blasted off now, the heat of his jets would kill three innocent men. It would be premeditated murder.
Mayne heard someone banging at the airlock, and a faint, tinny cry of “Open up!”
“Okay,” he yelled disgustedly. “I’m opening.”
He pressed the stud that operated the lock mechanism and it swung open. Don Anderson, the lanky young relief pilot, entered, with two other men that Mayne recognized as groundside mechanics.
“Hello, Mayne,” Anderson said self consciously. “They tell me I’m making this run for you.”
“So I hear,” Mayne said, measuring himself against the other. “I’d like to know what for.”
Anderson shrugged. “Beats me. I just do what they tell me. Bud and Joe here’ll escort you over to Central. Seems they want to see you about something.”
Mayne nodded and got ready. He calculated that if he could somehow overpower the three of them and tie them up, he could check out in Anderson’s name. He had to make this run. He had to—“You’ll have to recalculate the orbit,” he said. “Mine’s no good now. Come over here, and I’ll show you.”
Anderson stepped toward Mayne, who rocketed a punch up from his knees that sent the relief pilot staggering backward. Mayne followed with a right below the heart, and turned to confront the two mechanics.
They came at him from both sides. He landed a couple of good punches, then felt a fist slide past his guard and thud into his stomach, and another catch him off the cheekbone and spin his head around. Dizzily he tried to fight them off, but he couldn’t manage the job. They went over him very efficiently for almost a minute, until he put up his hand weakly. “Okay! Lay off!”
“You going to come without a fight, now?”
“I’ll come,” Mayne said bitterly. One of the mechanics turned to Anderson, who was fingering a swelling lump on the side of his jaw. “You all right?”
“I’ll manage,” the relief pilot said. “Get him out of here and let me get going on my run.”
Mayne scowled. “This is a put-up job, Anderson. You’re not going to let them yank away my certificate like that, are you?”
“Listen, Mayne, this isn’t my idea,” Anderson said. “I take what assignments I get.”
“Come on,” one of the mechanics growled. “Let’s go, Tarzan. This crate has to take off, and we can’t wait on you.”
HE LET THEM half-drag, half-push him across the dark expanse of the space field toward the gleaming needle of the Administration Building at the far end of the field. Once they crossed the red line that marked the danger zone, Mayne saw a bright flash of light spring from the dome of Administration, signaling clearance.
The Lightfoot spouted flame and rose on a noisy jet barrage, hung frozen for a moment, then vanished Venusward. Mayne watched it go.
My ship, he thought dismally. There goes my ship, and I’m not on it. I’ve been grounded.
The word was like dirt in his mouth. Grounded. Now, of all times to be grounded, when so much hung on this flight, when so much desperate urgency rode behind it. He stared upward at the place where his ship had been, then turned and let the mechanics take him to Administration.
He entered the Administration Building, passed through the doors that opened at his approach, and into Routing Control. A man in Universal Spacelines uniform looked up at him as he entered.
“You the router I was just speaking to?”
The man nodded. “Are you Alex Mayne?”
“Damned right I am! What’s this business about, anyway?”
The router spread his hands apologetically, then reached into his desk and drew forth a crisp memo slip. Up at the top, the imprint was that of B.J. Connaughty, head of Universal Airlines. Underneath that, a short message was typed in neat green letters.
To The Router:
Please be informed that the blastoff certificate of pilot Alexander Mayne is hereby cancelled, effective immediately. This means that Pilot Mayne is not to make his scheduled run in our ship Lightfoot this evening, nor is he to make any further space journeys. He is to be considered permanently grounded.
B.J. Connaughty,
President
Mayne stared at the note for a moment, then returned it to the router. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “My certificate’s been cancelled. I’ve been yanked from my run.” He licked his lips. “Why?”
“I can’t tell you, Mr. Mayne.” Note the Mister, Mayne thought. I’m just another planetlubber now. “You’ll have to take that matter upstairs. I’m sure they can help you.”
“Upstairs?”
“Records office. Look up your certificate—there’s bound to be a reason for cancellation.”
“You’re right. I’ll check right now.”
“Good luck, Mr. Mayne.”
“Sure,” Mayne said. “Sure. Thanks loads.”
He went upstairs. The records office was on the twenty-minute level of the giant building, and the night recordskeeper smiled blankly at him as he entered.
“My name is Mayne,” he said. “Pilot first class. My certificate’s just been cancelled, and I want to know why the hell why.”
“Very well,” the recordskeeper said. “M-A-Y-N-E, is it?”
“M-A-Y-N-E. Alexander Mayne. A-L-E-X-A—”
“That’s all right, sir.” The recordskeeper disappeared into a vast stack of computer tapes, set some sort of machine whirring, and returned a few moments later with a punched card that Mayne recognized as his certificate.
“Here you are, sir.”
Mayne took the card, which was stamped CANCELLED in bright red, and scanned it. On the back, it said, under “Reason for Revokement,” DISCHARGED ON MEDICAL GROUNDS. Appended to that was a handwritten scribble that said, “Failed quarterly reflex test. No longer fit for space hauling. Recommendation: ground work in the Company. Good service record.” Mayne stared bleakly at the card, then looked at the recordskeeper. “This is baloney,” he said quietly.
“Sir?”
“I said baloney! I passed my Quarterly by plus ten. Get me my testing records, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Mayne waited impatiently. There was some clerical error involved here, obviously; he had the duplicate of his record home, with his pass-card for the last Quarterly. He had the proof. It only needed to be passed through channels, and he’d be back in space again.
“Here you are, sir,” the recordskeeper said. He handed Mayne a thick portfolio which contained his medical reports over the last five years, covering his period in service as a pilot. He riffled through them impatiently, thumbing over the little yellow Quarterly cards that told of his fitness to pilot a ship.
“July, October, January, April—ah, here we are.” He pulled out the July card, the one covering his most recent examination, and held it between nerveless fingers.
The card was red. Bright red.
It was a failing card.
And he knew he had passed that exam.
“Here,” he said. “Take the whole batch away.”
“Is there anything else I can get you, sir?”
Mayne shook his head.“No. It doesn’t matter, now.” He turned and left, walking out into the corridor, standing there staring at the bright lights that lined the halls, not knowing where to turn next.
The card said he failed. He hadn’t failed.
He’d lost his certificate. He was through as a space man.
The answer was obvious. It was a frame—someone wanted to keep him out of space. Someone wanted to keep him away from Venus permanently. Someone knew what Alex Mayne had intended to do as soon as he got back to Venus again.
He sank down on a bench in the hall. Where do you turn now, when every avenue is blocked?
IT MUST HAVE BEEN on his last run to Venus in the Lightfoot, six weeks before, that he’d seen the peculiarly glassy look in the eyes of the Greenie.
The small Venusian had been standing alone in the middle of the forest staring meditatively at a gort-bush whose rainbow spines were weaving ever closer to it. Mayne had been making the trip from Venusport to New Chicago to pick up his cargo vouchers when he came across him.
The Greenie was waiting for the gort-bush to grab him, and he wasn’t making any attempt to resist. Mayne sprang from his landcar, covered the twenty feet of swampy bog between him and the Greenie in a few quick bounds, and incinerated the gort-bush. Then he turned to the Greenie.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, in lingua spacia. “You looking to die young?”
The Greenie only shook its head blankly from side to side. Mayne reached out, jogged it back and forth in an attempt to awaken it—and saw the glassy way its eyes were fixed, staring forward. It was the goggle-eyed look of the kerith-addict.
Kerith? On Venus? The Plutonian drug was forbidden by the most stringent laws in the galaxy—and who would sell it to the simple-minded Venusians? Who would be that low? It was like selling the stuff to children.
“Wake up!” Mayne yelled, slapping the Greenie hard. The Venusian only moaned, and backed away. Shrugging, Mayne slugged the small humanoid and dumped him in the back of his landcar. He proceeded on to New Chicago, and took care of his business there.
His next stop was going to be the local Medical Office, to have the Greenie checked over, to have the diagnosis of kerith-drugging confirmed. Only—when he returned to the landcar, there was no Greenie there. Just a ripped-off bit of gray material that could be only one thing—a fragment of a Universal Spacelines pilot’s uniform.
And the only pilot currently on Venus besides Mayne was Brian Connaughty. The son of B.J. Connaughty, the President of the Company.
Mayne could not stop to investigate. His schedule had called for blastoff later that afternoon, and there wasn’t any way he could deviate from that.
So Brian Connaughty was selling kerith to the Greenies, eh? He didn’t have any proof, of course, but it certainly looked that way—and Mayne wouldn’t put anything past wiry, unscrupulous Brian.
Mayne had planned to look for proof on his next trip up, six weeks in the future. It was a week-long stay next time, and he’d have ample time to smoke out this kerith peddler, whether he was Connaughty or anyone else.
Not now. Not any more. Apparently Connaughty knew that Mayne was aware of what was going on, and it hadn’t been too hard for Brian to get access to the records to juggle the medical reports, to get Mayne’s certificate rescinded.
He’d never get back to Venus now. No one would listen to a grounded spaceman, in the first place, and in the second place he couldn’t afford the million-credit fee for a private trip to Venus. There was no way he’d be able to stop Connaughty’s kerith-racket.
He would never be able to prove fraud, either—not when he had B.J. and Brian against him. His protest would never get anywhere. He’d never get his certificate back.
Damn you, Connaughty!
Right now, Brian was probably on Venus, selling his weed to the unsuspecting Greenies. And Mayne was permanently Earthed. Permanently.
