Collected Short Fiction, page 358
“I hadn’t considered that, sir,” the miserable girl said.
“Obviously not. Well, we’re too far out from Venus to turn back, but not so far out that we can’t manage anyway with you. If you’ll take cognizance of your responsibilities and start doing your job as of now, we’ll forget this whole session. Fair enough?”
She shook her head numbly. “Captain, I should tell you—I—I’ve never been with a man before. I wanted my fiance to—to—”
She stopped. Bannister went paper-white and turned a look of wrath on me such as I had never yet seen from mortal man. I would voluntarily have stepped outside without a suit at that moment. For a veteran and supposedly competent Psych Officer to hire, of all things, a virgin Crew Girl—!
Bannister said to me icily, “There are certain physiological requirements, Harper, which a Crew Girl must have. Regulations provide that she have documentary proof of these qualifications. Well?”
“She showed me medical papers,” I said helplessly. “Sworn affidavits. I can’t understand how—I don’t—I—”
I looked at Eve. Quietly she said, “They were fakes. I gave a passport-forger a hundred fifty pay-units to do the job, certificates and all.”
“Very well, Eve,” Bannister said in a strangled voice. “You’d better return to your quarters and stay there.”
She left without looking back. The Captain broke the flinty silence that followed by saying, “Harper, we’ll overlook the matter of your idiocy in hiring this girl, because roasting you won’t solve our immediate problem. I’m open for gems of wisdom from any of you.”
“As I see it,” Tolbertson said, “It isn’t a matter for debate. With all due respect for the girl’s emotions and inhibitions, either we put her into use at once—forcibly, if necessary—or else shove her through the fuel hatch and hope to get to Sirius alive.”
“Is it that black and white?” Hammell asked. “Couldn’t we try to manage, and let the girl live?”
Tolbertson shook his head. “If she stayed among us and still refused herself, the situation would become explosive in no time. No woman at all is better than one who’s here and who doesn’t help out.”
I looked at Bannister. The captain was, I knew, a deeply humane man. He would find it nearly impossible to order the girl available for what amounted to regular rape for the next eight months; and that almost certainly would not solve our problem anyway. And it would hardly be easy to order her death.
Finally Bannister said heavily, “I’m afraid Tolbertson’s right. The girl’s more of a menace on board in her present frame of mind than if we had no Crew Girl at all. I’ll issue an order for her disposal.”
“No! Wait!” Guilt had been surging through me, and I had been searching frantically for some way out.
I tried to smile. “I’ll admit I was bamboozled by a pretty face, and signed her on without intensive psych-examination. It’s the second time in my life I made the mistake of believing what a woman said to me, and the other time—” I frowned—‘was a quarter of a century ago, on Earth. Enough apology, though. There’s a way we can use Eve as our Crew Girl, and without scarring her personality for the rest of her life.”
Bannisters eyes narrowed. “How?”
“There’s a drug,” I said. “Tolbertson knows about it. I won’t trouble you with its name, which is a yard long, but I do have some of it in my stores. It’s an acetophenone-based compound with soporific qualities. It performs a neat, temporary, and non-habituating short-circuiting of the reasoning centers.”
Tolbertson said, “Of course! It’s unpleasant, but—”
I went on: “We could dose Eve with that. And keep her dosed for the next eight months, during which time she’d function as nothing more or less than an ambulatory sex machine. At journey’s end we pull her off the stuff, give her the post-hypnotic suggestion that she spent the trip In utmost purity, and turn her over to her boyfriend. Neither of them will be any the wiser for it, nobody gets hurt, and we’ll have a Crew Girl.”
Leonards said, “It’s a lousy thing to do. She’d be as helpless as—a baby. We’d have to spoonfeed her. Somebody would have to dress her every day.”
I shrugged. “The idea’s repugnant to me. But so is dying—and I’m still a competent enough Psych Officer to tell you that there’s a case of rampant jitters all over this ship. I wouldn’t want to quote odds on our surviving another hundred and thirty-odd transitions, the way things are going.”
It went round and round the five of us for twenty minutes. Nobody liked the idea especially, but nobody had any alternatives. Bannister put it to a vote, and the count was five in favor, none opposed.
It was my job to give Eve die drug. I entered her quarters without knocking. Unsurprisingly, she had gone into convulsive hysterics and lay curled in a tight whimpering ball on the big bed.
I sat next to her, stroking her hair and soothing her as if she were a daughter of mine and not—my God!—a spaceship’s Crew Girl. Then I said, “Everything’s going to be okay, Eve. Nobody will touch you. Here—I brought something to calm you. Take it.”
She sat up and looked at me trustingly, and I hated myself. I gave her die capsule and a glass of water and she gulped it down. I talked to her quietly for twenty minutes, and watched coldly and emotionlessly as the personality that had been Eve Tyler drained from her face. Her eyes became blank, her lips drooped in a childish smile, and every sign of intelligence vanished from her.
Then I sat in the half-darkness staring at her for perhaps five minutes, saying nothing, simply looking at the pretty empty hulk that had been the girl.
It’s for the common good, I told myself. A matter of survival. Stark necessity. But I did not convince myself. I rose, finally, and went outside. Bannister was waiting there for me.
“Well?” the Captain asked.
I nodded silently and headed to my cabin. I called Stetson, and told him to go to the Crew Girl’s compartment for recreational purposes. By this time Bannister had informed the crew of the way things stood vis-a-vis Eve; they knew she’d been turned into a receptive zombie who would not refuse them anything.
Later, Stetson returned. “It was damn strange, Doc,” he said. “Like making love to a ghost, I’d say. But she’s a warm enough ghost, I’ll say that for her.”
And so it went. The Donnybrook streaked toward Sirius through the dark night of nullspace, and we passed transition-point after transition-point with no mishaps. Tension was reduced to a minimum aboard the ship.
The men grew used to the way Eve was, and soon found no inhibitions in themselves against visiting her. There wasn’t a man aboard ship who didn’t make use of her, the Captain and myself included. Some often, some not so often, depending on the man’s own particular rhythm of existence. But she was always there, always willing.
We took care of her, dressed her, fed her; after a while she learned to do some of the simpler things herself. I would often find her at the viewplate in her room, staring out uncomprehendingly at the vastness.
My own guilt-feelings dwindled. Inexorable motivations had forced us to do what we did, and in any event she had committed a grave offense by signing on under false colors. Everything about the situation seemed heading for a neat resolution: we would reach Sirius alive, and she would never know the part she had played in the voyage. Purity, I told myself as a Psych Officer and a scientist, was a matter of the mind, not of physical behavior—and so far as Eve Tyler and her fiance knew, she had kept herself pure for him.
The months passed. Landingtime drew near. We passed through the final transition-point, emerging into space near the radiant splendor of Sirius, and made our way tortuously through the battle zone to the Terran outpost on the moon of Sirius IX, where we would be assigned to immediate combat duty.
Landing-day arrived. The bleak face of the big moon hovered oppressively in our viewports. We could see the Terran fortifications below, heavily armed.
I woke Eve.
She groped her way to consciousness as I neutralized the drug that had veiled her mind for so long. She looked about uncertainly. Her eyes showed life again, not mere mindless existing.
“Hello, Eve,” I said. “Were almost ready to land.”
“So—soon?” They were her first words in nearly eight months. “We’ve only been travelling a few days.”
“It just seems that way. The whole eight months is up, Eve. We’ll be landing in a couple of hours.”
She smiled. “Eve been having the strangest dream, you know?” A blush crept over her face. “I couldn’t tell you about it, though. I wouldn’t dare!”
I took advantage of her drowsiness to send her into the hypnotic state, and dictated to her subconscious an account of the voyage, from beginning to end, on a ship which had through superhuman effort done without the services of a Crew Girl. Then I woke her again, chatted with her a while, and left.
It had been the best of a bad deal, I thought. I had myself convinced that everything would work out for the best for Eve. “Nobody gets hurt,” I’d told Captain Bannister, and it looked as though I’d been right. Nonetheless, it had been a strange trip for all of us, Eve and her twenty-three Adams, and only Eve of all of us would ever forget it.
We made a good landing. We discovered that the war was going well, that the Sirians were now on the defensive, that with a few more Terran ships on the way we’d soon have them on the run.
Captain Bannister turned Eve over to the groundside authorities that first day, explaining that she had not found Crew Girl duties much to her liking, and requesting that a position be found for her on the base staff.
We were still in the main administrative building, getting briefed on the situation, when I got a call. Irrationally, I hoped it might be my son Dan; he was somewhere in the war zone, and the probability was good that he’d be at this very outpost.
My irrational hunch turned out to be right. The face in the screen belonged to Captain Dan Harper of the Seventh Space Fleet.
“Dad? I hear you just got here on the Donnybrook. Welcome to the scene of hostilities.”
I fumbled for things to say to him. We were practically strangers. I hadn’t seen him in over two years, not since his assignment to the Sirian sector, and had had only a couple of sketchy letters from him. I said lamely,
“How’s everything been, son? I guess they keep you busy out here.”
“I get all the combat I’d ever want,” He chuckled, and a warm smile spread over his face. “Dad, you don’t know it, but I owe you some thanks.”
“For what?”
“Well, from what Eve says, I figure you never got, my last letter, so you don’t realize I’m just before getting married—and that you made it possible.”
“From what Eve says? How could you know Eve yet? We just got here! And who are you marrying?
Dan’s grin got even bigger. “I know Eve already because I knew her two years ago. And it’s a good thing I know her pretty well, because she’s the girl I’m marrying!”
“Eve! Our Crew Girl?” I could have bitten my tongue in small chunks for saying that—but it didn’t matter.
Because Dan roared with laughter. “Eve—” he said finally, when he got hold of himself—“Eve told me about how she’d fooled you. Matter of fact, she feels a little bad about it. But I told her since nobody got hurt, since the Donnybrook got here okay—and she got here—she ought to forget it. And when you come stand up for me in the main chapel tonight, you tell her the same. She’ll believe you . . .”
“You’re right, Dan,” I said slowly. “She’ll believe me . . . and nobody got hurt . . .”
Nobody got hurt, I said to myself after I’d clicked off. Purity is solely in the mind, and I am a man of science and know this to be a fact. I will remember this, and at the wedding tonight I will greet Eve with the love and respect I would have for my own daughter . . .
They tell me that I did. I don’t remember it though, because at the time I was blind drunk.
The Lure of Galaxy A
Gorch tusks—incredibly valuable—meant millions of credits. But Hetchel made too many enemies and he didn’t know enough about—gorch!
IN THE HUNTING-CAMP, Bree Lennon stood with his arms folded, listening to his employer pronounce a sentence of death on him.
“Lennon, I’ve finally figured out a way to get these natives to cooperate. I want you to go to their village, find that old chief, and beat him to death in front of the whole bunch of them. If that doesn’t show them that the Earthmen mean what they say, nothing will.”
Lennon licked dry, cracking lips. A trickle of sweat dribbled down his cheek. “It sounds pretty risky to me,” he said. “The poison-darts—the knives—seems to me they won’t take anything like that lying down, Hetchel.”
“And if they don’t? And if they kill you, Lennon?” Glair Hetchel seemed amused. His thin lips writhed into a smile. “It’s all in your contract, you know. Anything I say goes—and I order you to do it.”
“Damn you and your contract both!” Lennon snapped. “I followed you out here to Galaxy A because I needed money, not because I was looking for a roundabout way to commit suicide. And I’m cursed if I’ll pander to your greed by killing an innocent alien chief—”
“Don’t talk back to me, Lennon!”
“I’ll say whatever I please! We’ve been on World 16 for more than a week and we’re no closer to finding any gorch-tusks than we were before we came out here. The natives don’t like you and your tactics and if you think beating their chief to death will make them obey you—”
“I like to be obeyed,” Hetchel said. “By filthy natives and by my employees alike.” He-glanced at the blubbery man at his left. “Dongon, here, thinks the plan will work. And you’re expendable. So get moving, Lennon. We’re wasting time. Valuable time.” Lennon stared from the thinfaced Hetchel to jellybellied Dongon Sharker. “Why am I expendable? Why not send your pal Sharker? Or your other buddy, Zeeglak?”
“Zeeglak is our auxiliary pilot. Sharker is obviously incapable of the job—aren’t you, fat man?” Hetchel prodded Sharker’s belly roughly. “That leaves you, Lennon. And if you’re not on your way inside of half a second—”
Hetchel smiled cruelly and rage overcame Lennon at the sight. He snorted and dove forward, hands groping for the thin man’s throat.
But Dongon Sharker stepped between them, moving with astonishing nimbleness for a man of his weight. Lennon smacked up against the heavy man with a staggering impact and fell back. Hands grabbed him from behind. The third partner, Ruil Zeeglak. An open palm slammed against the back of his neck. Hetchel stepped forward and slapped him twice.
“This shouldn’t have been necessary, Lennon. But I’ll give you an hour and a half to do the job properly and report back here. And by nightfall we should have all the gorch-tusks we’ll need. Go!”
Lennon felt himself being thrust out of the hunting cabin into the eternal slimy rain of World 16. He glanced back and saw Hetchel watching him from within, blaster drawn in open menace.
“An hour and a half, Lennon. No more. And do a good job.”
“Don’t worry,” Lennon said. He spat over his shoulder and started into the thick forest.
A MONTH BEFORE he had been on better terms with Glair Hetchel and his two friends.
Lennon had been in the Tavern of Many Worlds on Jellerak VII, resting between jobs. He had just piloted a load of lavon-tubes from Daroul III to the Ghormag system and he was taking a two-week layoff before signing on for a lucrative post in a radon-transporting outfit.
“I’ll have another stirgoob,” Lennon sang out to the many-tentacled bartender.
“Mind if I pay for that, Earthman?” a cultivated voice said.
Lennon looked up and saw a tall, thin man standing over him. The man was so thin he looked two-dimensional; his lean face was all angles and planes. Behind him stood two others, one extremely fat, an odd contrast to the first, and the other a silent-looking, muscular sort.
“I don’t mind at all,” Lennon said. “I never mind when an Earthman wants to buy me a drink. The table’s big enough for four. Sit down.”
The barkeep deposited a foaming stirgoob before Lennon. The thin man handed the alien a five-credit piece and said, “Let’s have three more of the same.”
“I like to know who my friends are,” Lennon remarked.
“Sorry. My name’s Glair Hetchel; my friends are Dongon Sharker and Muzz Zeeglak,” he said, indicating the fat man and the wavy-muscled one.
“I’m Bree Lennon. Pilot First Class.”
“I know. I took the trouble of checking your record before I approached you. You’re down in the books as a topnotch man, Pilot Lennon.”
“Thanks,” Lennon said, sipping his drink. “But if this is the prelude to the offer of a job, you can skip it, Mr. Hetchel. I’m about to sign on with a radon-shipping team, and I’m very satisfied with the pay.”
“May I ask what you’ll be getting?”
“Thousand credits a week, as long as the job lasts. It should be good for at least three months.” Hetchel’s eyes twinkled coldly for a moment. He drained his drink and signalled to the bartender for four more. “That should come to 12,000 credits, roughly.”
“In all probability.”
Hetchel glanced at his two companions—a quick, flickering glance that was answered by two slight nods. Leaning forward he said, “You guessed right: we do have a job proposition for you.”
“I told you—”
“I know. You’re about to sign on with another outfit.” Hetchel’s teeth flashed brightly. “Well, it happens that we need a pilot of your caliber, Mr. Lennon, and we’re willing to pay well. Our job will also last three months. We can offer you a contract calling for a 15,000 credit minimum guarantee—r with the possibility of much more.”
