Collected Short Fiction, page 548
“Yes, sir.”
“On the other ship, the one that came down a few hours ago—I’ve revoked its landing permission. The pilot pulled Overnight Stay on me, but I want him to get out first thing in the morning.”
“Right, sir.”
Burke broke the contact and turned away, clenching his fists impotently. He felt hampered by the law—the law that said any Terran ship was entitled to land at any Terran-settled spaceport planet. Requesting landing permission was only a formality. He could get into serious trouble for refusing it, even though the ships declined to tell him what their purpose in coming here might be.
He thought again of Slater and his plan to sign up the giant aliens as boxers. The thought made Burke furious. He turned back to his work.
He was still hard at work., some hours later, when the second spaceship landed.
LIKE Slater’s ship, this was a small one, with a capacity of less than a dozen passengers. Also like Slater’s ship, this one had a combined crew and passenger list of exactly one.
He was closer to Burke’s size, a small, rabbitty-looking man with unhealthy yellow skin. He darted beady little eyes all around the office and said in a staccato, chattering voice, “Slater’s been here already. I know he has the tricky bastard! What sort of deal did you make with him? He didn’t tie the planet up with an exclusive, did he? I could murder him for taking that shortcut! I started out first, but he—”
Commander Burke decided it was about time to cut short the flow of words. “Just one moment, Mr.—I didn’t get the name—”
“Colville. Dan Colville, affiliated with W.H. Annebale’s Zoological Park. I—”
“Please, Mr. Colville. Will you calm down and tell me why you’ve come here—slow enough so I can manage to understand each word?”
The rabbitty little man took a deep gulp of Dunhill V’s oxygen-rich atmosphere. “Well. We got the word about this planet of yours—it was all in the Earth papers, you see. And Mr. Annebale—he runs the Zoo, maybe you’ve heard about it, largest private Zoo in the entire galaxy—Mr. Annebale says to me, ‘Colville, we’ve got to get a couple of those creatures for our exhibition.’
“So he packs me up and sends me off here, but somehow that snake Slater found out I was heading here, and he decided to get into the act too and get a couple of the big beasts for Reynard’s circuits, and then the low-life short-cutted me and got here first, but if he signed any exclusive contracts with you I’m going to raise the biggest damn stink this side of—”
“Slater signed no contracts with me,” Burke said sharply. His lip curled in a little gesture of disgust. “Do I understand you to say that you’ve come here to get specimens of the native life on this planet to be placed on exhibit in a Zoo?”
Colville grinned, showing beaverish teeth. “That’s the ticket! We want the big ones, the ones that look like humans only they’re ten-eleven feet high—”
Burke tapped his pipe sharply against the desk. “The people of Dunhill V are intelligent, Colville. They aren’t animals you can throw into a Zoo.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Colville wheedled. “Sure, maybe they can talk a little, and they can build a fire. But they’re really savages, you know. Not even civilized. And we give them good care. We got specimens from all over the universe, everywhere. People travel for weeks to see our show.”
“Your show will have to get along without the natives of Dunhill V.”
“Dammit,” Colville said thinly. “So Slater did get an exclusive after all!”
“Slater got tossed out on his ear,” Burke said. “And you’ll get the same, I’m not interested in handing over these people for boxing matches or for zoological exhibitions or for anything else. Now, will you get the hell out of here, or—”
“Don’t get sore about it, Commander,” Colville said. He smiled craftily. “There’s a lot of natives here. Nobody would miss one or two—”
“No!”
“But I could make it awful nice to be cooperative. Mr. Annebale, he gave me a big expense account for this trip. And it wouldn’t be hard for me to put you down as one of the expenses—”
Colville reached into his pocket and drew out a thick roll of crisp yellow Galactic Dollars. He riffled through the roll. They were fifties; there must have been five or six thousand dollars in the roll. Colville slapped the money down on the edge of Burke’s desk and looked at him pleadingly.
“How about it, Commander? Mr. Annebale wants those big boys pretty hard. I’d hate to have to go back with an empty ship.”
Burke said in a glacial voice, “Attempted bribery of a Galactic Officer is a pretty serious offence, Colville. But you’re too much of a worm for me to let myself get involved in prosecuting you. Just get yourself off this planet as fast as you goddam can, and I’ll forget the whole thing.”
“Uh-uh,” Colville said sullenly. “I’m entitled to stay overnight.”
“Another space lawyer, huh? All right, take your overnight stay. But I’ll give you the same warning I gave Slater: don’t monkey around.
Don’t try to bribe any of my men and don’t make trouble with the natives, or I’ll give you good reason to regret it.”
“You’re the boy who’ll have the regrets, Burke. You’re passing up a chance for five thousand easy bucks, and you’re gonna have Mr. Annebale mad at you for no good reason at all.”
“I’ll survive his anger, Colville.”
“Maybe you won’t.”
“Let me worry about that. Just get out of my sight before I explode.”
Colville scrammed. Burke realized he was quivering with anger. It took him nearly five minutes to cool himself off.
The universe, he thought, is full of rats and lice and parasites like Colville and Slater. As soon as a new planet is opened up, in rush the exploiters, looking for the quick buck, not caring how they get it.
Burke shook his head. He had made two enemies today, powerful ones—Slater and Colville, and behind them Reynard and Annebale. Those men could make trouble for him. No doubt plenty of other good men in his position had succumbed to pressure from Reynard or Annebale in the past.
But I won’t, Burke thought. He toyed with the idea of filing a formal complaint with the home office, and decided against it. There was no sense looking for real trouble. Reynard and Annebale were just too powerful to buck.
NIGHT fell on Dunhill V.
The big yellow sun dropped behind the mountains that ringed the Terran settlement, and the planet’s three moons appeared, two of them crescent, the third full and casting brightness across the face of the planet.
Caged in the control room of his spaceship, Slater paced uneasily up and down, back and forth, like an imprisoned tiger. As each minute of the night ticked away, so did his stay on Dunhill V, he knew.
When morning came he would have to leave. And Reynard would flay him alive if he came back without the giants.
Reynard had big plans for those giants, Slater thought gloomily. The boss had the promotion all drawn up already, a big play for the eleven-foot pugilists. The only thing missing was the main dish, the aliens themselves. And that was Slater’s part of the job.
Slater hadn’t expected Burke to be so tough about things. Sure, it was illegal to hoist a couple of aliens out of an officially unopened planet, but most commanders were willing to wink at that fact when you mentioned the powerful name of Harris Reynard—and if you left a few thousand Galactic bucks behind as a kind of tip.
Burke hadn’t even given him the chance to bring up the subject of a possible bribe. And, Slater knew, Burke would never have accepted the bribe. The halfpint spaceman was one of those rare birds with an absolutely unbendable code of honor.
And it was just my luck to run into him on this job, Slater thought.
Hs active mind ran up and down the situation from half a dozen angles. For one thing, Annebale’s man Colville was here—and apparently had gotten the same cold shoulder he had. Well, that was good, but not good enough; Mr. Reynard wanted to stay one jump ahead of Annebale’s freakshow, and grabbing off the aliens would be just the coup to do it.
But how could he get the big creatures? He couldn’t pick the spaceship up and put it down somewhere else on the planet—if he blasted off now, without clearance, he would wake the whole camp up and have them on his tail right away, while if he waited till morning to leave they would monitor his ship until he had left the region of Dunhill V completely.
So going elsewhere was out. He had committed himself to this neck of the woods.
But there was an all-night guard posted at the entrance to the colony. He had a stunner-gun he could use to take care of the guard, and finding his way to the nearby alien village wouldn’t be much of a problem.
The real trouble was that it was risky, maneuvering around under that full moon, carting a cargo of giant aliens back and forth. If somebody came along and caught him, he would be in real hot water. Burke would be perfectly within his rights in executing him on the spot.
On the other hand, Slater thought, if he went back to Earth without the critters, Reynard would probably fire him—or worse.
He was caught either way. It was too risky to handle the job, and tough if he went back to report failure. He began to wish he had brought a confederate along with him. But that would have meant splitting the fee, and he hadn’t anticipated this much trouble—
A new idea occurred. There was a perfect confederate next door. Of course, Reynard would be sore about it, but not half so sore as if he came back without anything at all. Yes, Slater thought! He smiled coldly. Cooperation among thieves, that was the ticket!
He looked at his watch. It was past midnight, and the entire colony slept, all but the lone guard posted on night duty. Quietly, Slater opened the hatch of his small spaceship and darted across the spacefield to the place where Colville’s ship stood.
SLATER bounded up the catwalk of Colville’s vessel and rapped gently on the hatch. He didn’t dare tap too loudly, for fear of arousing Burke’s men—but. on the other hand, he wanted Colville to hear him.
He waited a long moment after tapping. Was Colville asleep? Damnation; this could foul up everything. Slater held his hand poised, ready to rap again in another minute if he had to.
A moment before his knuckles descended, Colville’s voice came from within: “Who’s there and what do you want?”
“It’s Slater! Open up! I’ve got to talk to you Colville!”
“About what?” came the suspicious question from inside the hatch.
“Damn it, I’ll wake the whole base up if I keep shouting from out here! Let me in and I’ll explain the whole deal!.”
There was silence for a moment; then, gears meshed with a tiny hum and the hatch slid open. Colville stood just inside the lip of the airlock, fully dressed, looking rattier than ever.
Slater forced his face not to reveal the contempt he felt for the slv little man. He and Colville had been rivals for years, crossing paths in the service of their respective employers. The idea of cooperating with Colville had never even struck him until tonight.
He stepped inside and sat down on a projecting rim. “I’m here to make a deal with you. Colville.”
“I ain’t interested in making any deals with you,” Colville said thinly.
“Are you interested in going back from here with what you came for. or aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. But it isn’t any business of yours what—”
“Listen to me,” Slater said.
“We’re both up against a stone wall in this guy Burke. He turned me down flat and I’m pretty sure he turned you down the same way. Don’t try to pretend he didn’t. We both have to leave tomorrow and we’re both going to have to leave without the big aliens.”
“My affairs still don’t matter to you.”
“This isn’t any time to start acting cautious!” Slater said. “I know what my boss is like, and I got a pretty good notion yours is the same way. They’ll both take it out of our hides if we come back empty-handed. And singly we can’t do a thing against this guy Burke. But if we team up, we can both get what we want.” Suspicion glittered in Colville’s beady little eyes. “You trying to trick me, Slater?”
“Damn you, no! Will you trust me for once?”
“Trusting you ain’t very safe.”
“I could say the same for you,” Slater retorted. “But we’ve got to work together on this thing. We can both get the aliens to take back.”
“Annebale isn’t gonna like it if Reynard has them too,” Colville pointed out.
“He’ll like it a lot less if he doesn’t have them at all,” Slater said. “Are you interested in listening to what I have to say?”
Colville paused. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Let’s hear the pitch.”
FIFTEEN minutes later Colville and Slater left the blasting area of the spacefield, allies for the first time after years of rivalry. Neither fully trusted the other—but, as Colville came to realize, unless they teamed up on this project they were both sunk.
Slater whispered, “I’ll sneak up on the guard and cool him off with the stunner-gun. You wait back here with the rocket-sled and soon as I give the signal you come by and pick me up and we go to the village.”
“Right.”
Slater strolled forward, while Colville lurked in the shadows of the spacefield with the flat rocket-sled on which they planned to transport the giants. Up front, at the main gate, a guard paced up and down slowly, on all-night duty. Slater gently massaged the butt of the stunner-gun in his pocket.
As he drew near, the guard turned round to face him. There was no friendliness on the man’s face.
“Going for a walk?”
“Just taking the night air,” Slater said. “I figured I’d get a stroll in before bedtime.”
“Kind of late, isn’t it?” Slater chuckled. “I travelled two weeks to get to this planet, friend. Maybe I’m only going to be here one night, but I want to get a good look. That moonlight’s pretty impressive.”
“You ought to see it when all three moons are full. Happens twice a year, they tell me. The sky’s full of light, and it’s bright as day.”
“Must be nice,” Slater agreed. “Wish I could stick around to see it. But say, you must get awfully bored just wandering around all night on guard duty.”
“It’s only one night a month. I don’t mind.”
“You on all night?”
The guard shook his head.
“My relief man shows up in four hours. He stays on till morning.”
“Bet you can’t wait to hit the sack,” Slater said. “Say, is there any law about drinking on duty? I got a little bottle of Procyon rum here that can really make your eyes glow.”
“We’re not supposed—”
“Oh, come on. Take a little nip,” Slater urged. He reached into his pocket while the sentry was frowning doubtfully. But instead of a bottle of rum, Slater pulled out the stunner-gun. He squeezed the trigger-bulb before the guard knew what was going on.
There was no sound, no flare of light. But the guard caved in like a falling brick wall. Slater caught him deftly and eased him to the ground. With the jolt he had received, the sentry would be sound asleep for at least half a day.
Turning, Slater waved to Colville. The rocket-sled coughed a little as Colville started the engine, but Slater hoped the noise would not be enough to awaken the rest of the camo.
As the sled drew near. Slater hopped onto the seat next to Colville and said, “Follow the road as far as it goes. We ought to reach the village pretty soon.”
“You gave the sentry a good stunning?” Colville asked anxiously.
“Yeah. He’s sound asleep. And his relief man doesn’t show up for four hours. If we hurry, we’ve got it made.”
THE bright glow of the full moon illuminated the bumpy dirt road, while the two crescent moons added lesser light from either side that did strange things to perspective and turned shadows into grotesquely distorted nightmare shapes.
Colville drove the sled steadily along, while Slater looked back constantly over his shoulder to see if they were being followed. No sound was coming from the camp. Apparently their departure had been successful; no one had awakened.
The road branched about a quarter of a mile from the Terran camp. As they approached the branch, Colville said, “Which way?”
“How in hell would I know? Turn left. The road’s wider that way.”
Colville turned left, and a few minutes later they found themselves drawing near the village. The moonlight displayed it clearly: there were a few dozen straw-covered huts of enormous size scattered in a wide semi-circle, looking like monstrous mushrooms. Behind the village was a broad pasture area.
Colville nudged Slater. “Good Lord, will you get a look at those things in the pasture!”
Slater looked. He moistened his lips tensely. “Big, ain’t they?”
They certainly were. They were some kind of cattle, sleeping in the fields. But they were the size of elephants. Even lying down, huddled into themselves, their bulk was fantastic.
“I bet your man Annebale would like to get a couple of those babies into his zoo,” Slater said. “What a bunch of monikers!”
“He’s more interested in getting the humanoids,” Colville replied. “Big animals themselves ain’t so much. It’s big animals that look like human beings that get the crowds to come.”
Slater nodded. “Okay. Stop the sled here and we’ll go into this hut.”
Colville pulled back on the brake and the rocket-sled came whistling to a halt. They climbed down. No sound came from the sleeping village. They were less than a dozen yards away from the hut nearest to the road. Slater gestured impatiently to Colville, who was hanging back nervously.
“Come on!” Slater urged.
“Suppose they have watchdogs?” Colville whispered nervously. “Watchdogs as big as bears, maybe.”
Slater pointed to his stunner-gun. “We can take care of any sort of trouble. Hurry along.”
Colville caught up with him and the two of them neared the entrance to the hut. There was no door, merely a gaping opening in the crudely-plastered wall of the dwelling. Moonlight trickled in.
