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62139_J05FWZR6_1 | 62139_J05FWZR6_1_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
CAPTAIN CHAOS
By NELSON S. BOND
The Callisto-bound
Leo
needed
a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced
Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos.
We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean
Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with
acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we
were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since
we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back.
So we laid the
Leo
down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled
our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me,
"Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!"
"Aye, sir!" I said, and went.
Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful
of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were
at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted
to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for
nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you
don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as
difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp.
I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no
dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two
of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting
desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian
colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate
a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a
loud silence.
So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I
can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite."
The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But
we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!"
"In a pinch," I told him, "
I
might be able to boil a few pies, or
scramble us a steak or something, Skipper."
"Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed
regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but
when you're running the blockade—"
He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue.
I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our
orders?"
The Old Man nodded soberly.
"Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon
as the
Leo
lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours
after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago.
"We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any
spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is
Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence
Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is
reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting
will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation.
"If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have
been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter,
capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor
and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans."
I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end
this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar
family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness."
"If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We
can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top
physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must
find a cook, or—"
"The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant
voice, "is over. Where's the galley?"
I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little
figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two
in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's
uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness
was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in
his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned
at us impatiently.
"Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?"
The Old Man stared.
"W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?"
"I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came
here to be your new cook."
O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?"
"Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney."
The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said,
"you don't look like much of a cook to
me
."
But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which
makes it even," he retorted. "
You
don't look like much of a skipper
to
me
. Do I get the job, or don't I?"
The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward
hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because
the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little
fellow, "are a cook?"
"One of the best!" he claimed complacently.
"You're willing to sign for a blind journey?"
"Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?"
"And you have your space certificate?"
"I—" began the youngster.
"Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last.
"Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much
of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—"
I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over
trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man
can
cook—"
The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps
you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's
on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an
hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs
immediately—
Slops!
What are you doing at that table?"
For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes
gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the
skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly.
"Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice.
"Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance
blockade, Captain?"
"None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous
outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—"
"If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd
try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing,
their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in
through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover."
"
Mr. Dugan!
"
The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard.
I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?"
"Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm
an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll
come down to the galley for it!"
A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and
followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined
cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave
he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just
trying to help."
"You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him
sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever
lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook."
"But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I
know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course
is
by
way of Iris."
Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens?
He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the
little squirt off, but definitely.
"Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now
you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose
you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the
ship—Captain Slops!"
And I left, banging the door behind me hard.
So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called
up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were
scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know
spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all
the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the
Leo's
complement
was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop.
John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a
hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with
one of the Alliance ships, hey?"
Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of
macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we
do
meet up with 'em, that's whut I
does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders,
that's whut I didn't!"
And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but
the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused
paws were mutely eloquent.
Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new
Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely
had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful
call rose from the galley:
"Soup's on! Come and get it!"
Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he
had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in
space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals
I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things
and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities
of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably
dee-luscious!
Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the
Leo
had enjoyed in
a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from
the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle.
He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little
fellow came bustling in apprehensively.
"Was everything all right, sir?" he asked.
"Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect!
Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find
everything O.Q. in the galley?"
"Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted
from one foot to another.
"Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine
order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir."
"So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right
away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a
tip-top chef, what?"
The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully.
"But it's such a
little
thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with
it."
"No trouble at all. Just say the word."
"Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in
the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned,
inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down
two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it."
The skipper's brow creased.
"I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything
about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we
don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do."
"Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly,
"but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we
do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom.
If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an
incinerator."
I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against
regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be
placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions
of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy
ordnance.'"
Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said
discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with
roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if
I have no incinerator—"
The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque.
He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was
anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian
marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said:
"We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that
rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought
to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops
wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging
up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say
all
the fixings, Slops?"
Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer
glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on
the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was
it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk
when he said:
"Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as
the new incinerator is installed."
So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged
the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I
found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and
thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique
reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge.
I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I
said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little
piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh,
h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape.
Looks O.Q., eh?"
"If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must
be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy."
"But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of
garbage."
"Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I
warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up
the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop."
"Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir."
I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me
of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker.
"Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid
at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered,
by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young
prospector—"
Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this
marsh-duck stuffed."
"Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The
old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong
compartment—'"
"If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm
awfully busy. I don't have any time for—"
"The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then
answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'"
"I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered
something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to
hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very
pink and flustered.
So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack
a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it
was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a
decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret.
All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day
out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from
the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no
such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the
Leo
, even though
she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled
along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least
ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around
Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block
began.
That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches.
Captain Slops was responsible for both.
For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist.
It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut
loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels
who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a
boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was
"Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish!
But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command
and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy.
When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we
could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and
refused.
"Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds!
I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party
to it. Worms—Ugh!"
"Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And
ugh!
to you,
too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad
dreams and goose-flesh!"
Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish
about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever
against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong.
He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from
ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room
practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the
cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not
only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next
nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which
before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the
title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops."
I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows
he created enough of it!
"It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and
over again.
"O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full
of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you
usually are. But I'm in command of the
Leo
, and you ain't. Now, run
along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad."
So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out
of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember
that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with
Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar
theme.
"I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in
with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple
syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much
afraid this is our last chance to change course—"
"And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son.
Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way
of Iris. Mmmm! Good!"
"Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is
extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?"
"Keep your pants on, Slops!"
"Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?"
"I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions.
There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up
with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them!
"Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we
do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear
sailing all the way to Callisto."
"But—but if there should be more than one, sir?"
"Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?"
"Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich
ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another,
because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will
favor a concentration of raiders."
The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated
pancake.
"Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in
the Belt, Captain."
"I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about
the ekalastron deposits?"
"Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—"
"Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged
lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible
answer! If you'd told me
that
instead of just yipping and yapping
about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it
is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the
most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!"
He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant
Wainwright on the bridge.
"Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through
the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—"
What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished
that sentence. At that moment the
Leo
rattled like a Model AA
spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk
on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was
unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had
been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor
beam!
What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and
Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew
their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the
Leo
had
been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the
repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had
hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came
a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge,
sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern
and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous
groooom!
from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a
plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself....
Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of
sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The
voice of the Alliance commander.
"Ahoy the
Leo
! Calling the captain of the
Leo
!"
O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of
the
Leo
answering. What do you want?"
"Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist.
You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in
our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your
immediate destruction!"
From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with
'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the
Leo
angry
voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a
heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense
moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening.
"It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I
can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He
faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good,
sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!"
The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the
Leo
.
It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway
like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech.
"You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're
going to do?"
The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance
would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more
impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively.
"Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but
surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is
always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission
to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands."
"But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what
will they do with us?"
"A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta."
"And the
Leo
?"
"Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in
command."
"That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're
marked with the Federation tricolor!"
A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered
it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me
the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been
right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our
cost; now he was right on this other score.
The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us,
it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the
Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to
greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the
enemy...."
I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the
fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late.
Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we
now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open,
and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.
Question and Possible Answers:
What is the most likely meaning of the slang O.Q.? (in twentieth-century American English)
(A) cool
(B) no worries
(C) my bad
(D) O.K./OK
Answer:
| D | 195 | 27,077 | 27,079 | 27,252 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
52855_MV65I88C_9 | 52855_MV65I88C_9_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
THE STAR-SENT KNAVES
BY KEITH LAUMER
Illustrated by Gaughan
When the Great Galactic Union first encounters
Earth ... is this what is going to happen?
I
Clyde W. Snithian was a bald eagle of a man, dark-eyed, pot-bellied,
with the large, expressive hands of a rug merchant. Round-shouldered
in a loose cloak, he blinked small reddish eyes at Dan Slane's
travel-stained six foot one.
"Kelly here tells me you've been demanding to see me." He nodded toward
the florid man at his side. He had a high, thin voice, like something
that needed oiling. "Something about important information regarding
safeguarding my paintings."
"That's right, Mr. Snithian," Dan said. "I believe I can be of great
help to you."
"Help how? If you've got ideas of bilking me...." The red eyes bored
into Dan like hot pokers.
"Nothing like that, sir. Now, I know you have quite a system of guards
here—the papers are full of it—"
"Damned busybodies! Sensation-mongers! If it wasn't for the press,
I'd have no concern for my paintings today!"
"Yes sir. But my point is, the one really important spot has been left
unguarded."
"Now, wait a minute—" Kelly started.
"What's that?" Snithian cut in.
"You have a hundred and fifty men guarding the house and grounds day
and night—"
"Two hundred and twenty-five," Kelly snapped.
"—but no one at all in the vault with the paintings," Slane finished.
"Of course not," Snithian shrilled. "Why should I post a man in the
vault? It's under constant surveillance from the corridor outside."
"The Harriman paintings were removed from a locked vault," Dan said.
"There was a special seal on the door. It wasn't broken."
"By the saints, he's right," Kelly exclaimed. "Maybe we ought to have a
man in that vault."
"Another idiotic scheme to waste my money," Snithian snapped. "I've
made you responsible for security here, Kelly! Let's have no more
nonsense. And throw this nincompoop out!" Snithian turned and stalked
away, his cloak flapping at his knees.
"I'll work cheap," Dan called after him as Kelly took his arm. "I'm an
art lover."
"Never mind that," Kelly said, escorting Dan along the corridor. He
turned in at an office and closed the door.
"Now, as the old buzzard said, I'm responsible for security here. If
those pictures go, my job goes with them. Your vault idea's not bad.
Just how cheap would you work?"
"A hundred dollars a week," Dan said promptly. "Plus expenses," he
added.
Kelly nodded. "I'll fingerprint you and run a fast agency check. If
you're clean, I'll put you on, starting tonight. But keep it quiet."
Dan looked around at the gray walls, with shelves stacked to the low
ceiling with wrapped paintings. Two three-hundred-watt bulbs shed a
white glare over the tile floor, a neat white refrigerator, a bunk,
an arm-chair, a bookshelf and a small table set with paper plates,
plastic utensils and a portable radio—all hastily installed at Kelly's
order. Dan opened the refrigerator, looked over the stock of salami,
liverwurst, cheese and beer. He opened a loaf of bread, built up a
well-filled sandwich, keyed open a can of beer.
It wasn't fancy, but it would do. Phase one of the plan had gone off
without a hitch.
Basically, his idea was simple. Art collections had been disappearing
from closely guarded galleries and homes all over the world. It was
obvious that no one could enter a locked vault, remove a stack of large
canvases and leave, unnoticed by watchful guards—and leaving the locks
undamaged.
Yet the paintings were gone. Someone had been in those vaults—someone
who hadn't entered in the usual way.
Theory failed at that point; that left the experimental method. The
Snithian collection was the largest west of the Mississippi. With
such a target, the thieves were bound to show up. If Dan sat in the
vault—day and night—waiting—he would see for himself how they
operated.
He finished his sandwich, went to the shelves and pulled down one of
the brown-paper bundles. Loosening the string binding the package, he
slid a painting into view. It was a gaily colored view of an open-air
cafe, with a group of men and women in gay-ninetyish costumes gathered
at a table. He seemed to remember reading something about it in a
magazine. It was a cheerful scene; Dan liked it. Still, it hardly
seemed worth all the effort....
He went to the wall switch and turned off the lights. The orange glow
of the filaments died, leaving only a faint illumination from the
night-light over the door. When the thieves arrived, it might give him
a momentary advantage if his eyes were adjusted to the dark. He groped
his way to the bunk.
So far, so good, he reflected, stretching out. When they showed up,
he'd have to handle everything just right. If he scared them off
there'd be no second chance. He would have lost his crack at—whatever
his discovery might mean to him.
But he was ready. Let them come.
Eight hours, three sandwiches and six beers later, Dan roused suddenly
from a light doze and sat up on the cot. Between him and the crowded
shelving, a palely luminous framework was materializing in mid-air.
The apparition was an open-work cage—about the size and shape of an
out-house minus the sheathing, Dan estimated breathlessly. Two figures
were visible within the structure, sitting stiffly in contoured chairs.
They glowed, if anything, more brightly than the framework.
A faint sound cut into the stillness—a descending whine. The cage
moved jerkily, settling toward the floor. Long blue sparks jumped,
crackling, to span the closing gap; with a grate of metal, the cage
settled against the floor. The spectral men reached for ghostly
switches....
The glow died.
Dan was aware of his heart thumping painfully under his ribs. His mouth
was dry. This was the moment he'd been planning for, but now that it
was here—
Never mind. He took a deep breath, ran over the speeches he had
prepared for the occasion:
Greeting, visitors from the Future....
Hopelessly corny. What about:
Welcome to the Twentieth Century....
No good; it lacked spontaneity. The men were rising, their backs to
Dan, stepping out of the skeletal frame. In the dim light it now
looked like nothing more than a rough frame built of steel pipe, with
a cluster of levers in a console before the two seats. And the thieves
looked ordinary enough: Two men in gray coveralls, one slender and
balding, the other shorter and round-faced. Neither of them noticed
Dan, sitting rigid on the cot. The thin man placed a lantern on the
table, twiddled a knob. A warm light sprang up. The visitors looked at
the stacked shelves.
"Looks like the old boy's been doing all right," the shorter man said.
"Fathead's gonna be pleased."
"A very gratifying consignment," his companion said. "However, we'd
best hurry, Manny. How much time have we left on this charge?"
"Plenty. Fifteen minutes anyway."
The thin man opened a package, glanced at a painting.
"Ah, magnificent. Almost the equal of Picasso in his puce period."
Manny shuffled through the other pictures in the stack.
"Like always," he grumbled. "No nood dames. I like nood dames."
"Look at this, Manny! The textures alone—"
Manny looked. "Yeah, nice use of values," he conceded. "But I still
prefer nood dames, Fiorello."
"And this!" Fiorello lifted the next painting. "Look at that gay play
of rich browns!"
"I seen richer browns on Thirty-third Street," Manny said. "They was
popular with the sparrows."
"Manny, sometimes I think your aspirations—"
"Whatta ya talkin? I use a roll-on." Manny, turning to place a painting
in the cage, stopped dead as he caught sight of Dan. The painting
clattered to the floor. Dan stood, cleared his throat. "Uh...."
"Oh-oh," Manny said. "A double-cross."
"I've—ah—been expecting you gentlemen," Dan said. "I—"
"I told you we couldn't trust no guy with nine fingers on each hand,"
Manny whispered hoarsely. He moved toward the cage. "Let's blow,
Fiorello."
"Wait a minute," Dan said. "Before you do anything hasty—"
"Don't start nothing, Buster," Manny said cautiously. "We're plenty
tough guys when aroused."
"I want to talk to you," Dan insisted. "You see, these paintings—"
"Paintings? Look, it was all a mistake. Like, we figured this was the
gent's room—"
"Never mind, Manny," Fiorello cut in. "It appears there's been a leak."
Dan shook his head. "No leak. I simply deduced—"
"Look, Fiorello," Manny said. "You chin if you want to; I'm doing a
fast fade."
"Don't act hastily, Manny. You know where you'll end."
"Wait a minute!" Dan shouted. "I'd like to make a deal with you
fellows."
"Ah-hah!" Kelly's voice blared from somewhere. "I knew it! Slane, you
crook!"
Dan looked about wildly. The voice seemed to be issuing from a speaker.
It appeared Kelly hedged his bets.
"Mr. Kelly, I can explain everything!" Dan called. He turned back to
Fiorello. "Listen, I figured out—"
"Pretty clever!" Kelly's voice barked. "Inside job. But it takes more
than the likes of you to out-fox an old-timer like Eddie Kelly."
"Perhaps you were right, Manny," Fiorello said. "Complications are
arising. We'd best depart with all deliberate haste." He edged toward
the cage.
"What about this ginzo?" Manny jerked a thumb toward Dan. "He's on to
us."
"Can't be helped."
"Look—I want to go with you!" Dan shouted.
"I'll bet you do!" Kelly's voice roared. "One more minute and I'll have
the door open and collar the lot of you! Came up through a tunnel, did
you?"
"You can't go, my dear fellow," Fiorello said. "Room for two, no more."
Dan whirled to the cot, grabbed up the pistol Kelly had supplied. He
aimed it at Manny. "You stay here, Manny! I'm going with Fiorello in
the time machine."
"Are you nuts?" Manny demanded.
"I'm flattered, dear boy," Fiorello said, "but—"
"Let's get moving. Kelly will have that lock open in a minute."
"You can't leave me here!" Manny spluttered, watching Dan crowd into
the cage beside Fiorello.
"We'll send for you," Dan said. "Let's go, Fiorello."
The balding man snatched suddenly for the gun. Dan wrestled with him.
The pistol fell, bounced on the floor of the cage, skidded into the
far corner of the vault. Manny charged, reaching for Dan as he twisted
aside; Fiorello's elbow caught him in the mouth. Manny staggered back
into the arms of Kelly, bursting red-faced into the vault.
"Manny!" Fiorello released his grip on Dan, lunged to aid his
companion. Kelly passed Manny to one of three cops crowding in on his
heels. Dan clung to the framework as Fiorello grappled with Kelly. A
cop pushed past them, spotted Dan, moved in briskly for the pinch. Dan
grabbed a lever at random and pulled.
Sudden silence fell as the walls of the room glowed blue. A spectral
Kelly capered before the cage, fluorescing in the blue-violet. Dan
swallowed hard and nudged a second lever. The cage sank like an
elevator into the floor, vivid blue washing up its sides.
Hastily he reversed the control. Operating a time machine was tricky
business. One little slip, and the Slane molecules would be squeezing
in among brick and mortar particles....
But this was no time to be cautious. Things hadn't turned out just the
way he'd planned, but after all, this was what he'd wanted—in a way.
The time machine was his to command. And if he gave up now and crawled
back into the vault, Kelly would gather him in and pin every art theft
of the past decade on him.
It couldn't be
too
hard. He'd take it slowly, figure out the
controls....
Dan took a deep breath and tried another lever. The cage rose gently,
in eerie silence. It reached the ceiling and kept going. Dan gritted
his teeth as an eight-inch band of luminescence passed down the cage.
Then he was emerging into a spacious kitchen. A blue-haloed cook
waddled to a luminous refrigerator, caught sight of Dan rising slowly
from the floor, stumbled back, mouth open. The cage rose, penetrated a
second ceiling. Dan looked around at a carpeted hall.
Cautiously he neutralized the control lever. The cage came to rest an
inch above the floor. As far as Dan could tell, he hadn't traveled so
much as a minute into the past or future.
He looked over the controls. There should be one labeled "Forward"
and another labeled "Back", but all the levers were plain, unadorned
black. They looked, Dan decided, like ordinary circuit-breaker type
knife-switches. In fact, the whole apparatus had the appearance of
something thrown together hastily from common materials. Still, it
worked. So far he had only found the controls for maneuvering in the
usual three dimensions, but the time switch was bound to be here
somewhere....
Dan looked up at a movement at the far end of the hall.
A girl's head and shoulders appeared, coming up a spiral staircase. In
another second she would see him, and give the alarm—and Dan needed
a few moments of peace and quiet in which to figure out the controls.
He moved a lever. The cage drifted smoothly sideways, sliced through
the wall with a flurry of vivid blue light. Dan pushed the lever
back. He was in a bedroom now, a wide chamber with flouncy curtains, a
four-poster under a flowered canopy, a dressing table—
The door opened and the girl stepped into the room. She was young. Not
over eighteen, Dan thought—as nearly as he could tell with the blue
light playing around her face. She had long hair tied with a ribbon,
and long legs, neatly curved. She wore shorts and carried a tennis
racquet in her left hand and an apple in her right. Her back to Dan and
the cage, she tossed the racquet on a table, took a bite of the apple,
and began briskly unbuttoning her shirt.
Dan tried moving a lever. The cage edged toward the girl. Another;
he rose gently. The girl tossed the shirt onto a chair and undid the
zipper down the side of the shorts. Another lever; the cage shot toward
the outer wall as the girl reached behind her back....
Dan blinked at the flash of blue and looked down. He was hovering
twenty feet above a clipped lawn.
He looked at the levers. Wasn't it the first one in line that moved the
cage ahead? He tried it, shot forward ten feet. Below, a man stepped
out on the terrace, lit a cigarette, paused, started to turn his face
up—
Dan jabbed at a lever. The cage shot back through the wall. He was in a
plain room with a depression in the floor, a wide window with a planter
filled with glowing blue plants—
The door opened. Even blue, the girl looked graceful as a deer as she
took a last bite of the apple and stepped into the ten-foot-square
sunken tub. Dan held his breath. The girl tossed the apple core aside,
seemed to suddenly become aware of eyes on her, whirled—
With a sudden lurch that threw Dan against the steel bars, the
cage shot through the wall into the open air and hurtled off with
an acceleration that kept him pinned, helpless. He groped for the
controls, hauled at a lever. There was no change. The cage rushed
on, rising higher. In the distance, Dan saw the skyline of a town,
approaching with frightful speed. A tall office building reared up
fifteen stories high. He was headed dead for it—
He covered his ears, braced himself—
With an abruptness that flung him against the opposite side of the
cage, the machine braked, shot through the wall and slammed to a stop.
Dan sank to the floor of the cage, breathing hard. There was a loud
click!
and the glow faded.
With a lunge, Dan scrambled out of the cage. He stood looking around at
a simple brown-painted office, dimly lit by sunlight filtered through
elaborate venetian blinds. There were posters on the wall, a potted
plant by the door, a heap of framed paintings beside it, and at the far
side of the room a desk. And behind the desk—Something.
II
Dan gaped at a head the size of a beachball, mounted on a torso like a
hundred-gallon bag of water. Two large brown eyes blinked at him from
points eight inches apart. Immense hands with too many fingers unfolded
and reached to open a brown paper carton, dip in, then toss three
peanuts, deliberately, one by one, into a gaping mouth that opened just
above the brown eyes.
"Who're you?" a bass voice demanded from somewhere near the floor.
"I'm ... I'm ... Dan Slane ... your honor."
"What happened to Manny and Fiorello?"
"They—I—There was this cop. Kelly—"
"Oh-oh." The brown eyes blinked deliberately. The many-fingered hands
closed the peanut carton and tucked it into a drawer.
"Well, it was a sweet racket while it lasted," the basso voice said. "A
pity to terminate so happy an enterprise. Still...." A noise like an
amplified Bronx cheer issued from the wide mouth.
"How ... what...?"
"The carrier returns here automatically when the charge drops below a
critical value," the voice said. "A necessary measure to discourage
big ideas on the part of wisenheimers in my employ. May I ask how you
happen to be aboard the carrier, by the way?"
"I just wanted—I mean, after I figured out—that is, the police ... I
went for help," Dan finished lamely.
"Help? Out of the picture, unfortunately. One must maintain one's
anonymity, you'll appreciate. My operation here is under wraps at
present. Ah, I don't suppose you brought any paintings?"
Dan shook his head. He was staring at the posters. His eyes,
accustoming themselves to the gloom of the office, could now make out
the vividly drawn outline of a creature resembling an alligator-headed
giraffe rearing up above scarlet foliage. The next poster showed a face
similar to the beachball behind the desk, with red circles painted
around the eyes. The next was a view of a yellow volcano spouting fire
into a black sky.
"Too bad." The words seemed to come from under the desk. Dan squinted,
caught a glimpse of coiled purplish tentacles. He gulped and looked up
to catch a brown eye upon him. Only one. The other seemed to be busily
at work studying the ceiling.
"I hope," the voice said, "that you ain't harboring no reactionary
racial prejudices."
"Gosh, no," Dan reassured the eye. "I'm crazy about—uh—"
"Vorplischers," the voice said. "From Vorplisch, or Vega, as you call
it." The Bronx cheer sounded again. "How I long to glimpse once more my
native fens! Wherever one wanders, there's no pad like home."
"That reminds me," Dan said. "I have to be running along now." He
sidled toward the door.
"Stick around, Dan," the voice rumbled. "How about a drink? I can
offer you Chateau Neuf du Pape, '59, Romance Conte, '32, goat's milk,
Pepsi—"
"No, thanks."
"If you don't mind, I believe I'll have a Big Orange." The Vorplischer
swiveled to a small refrigerator, removed an immense bottle fitted with
a nipple and turned back to Dan. "Now, I got a proposition which may be
of some interest to you. The loss of Manny and Fiorello is a serious
blow, but we may yet recoup the situation. You made the scene at a most
opportune time. What I got in mind is, with those two clowns out of the
picture, a vacancy exists on my staff, which you might well fill. How
does that grab you?"
"You mean you want me to take over operating the time machine?"
"Time machine?" The brown eyes blinked alternately. "I fear some
confusion exists. I don't quite dig the significance of the term."
"That thing," Dan jabbed a thumb toward the cage. "The machine I came
here in. You want me—"
"Time machine," the voice repeated. "Some sort of chronometer, perhaps?"
"Huh?"
"I pride myself on my command of the local idiom, yet I confess the
implied concept snows me." The nine-fingered hands folded on the desk.
The beachball head leaned forward interestedly. "Clue me, Dan. What's a
time machine?"
"Well, it's what you use to travel through time."
The brown eyes blinked in agitated alternation. "Apparently I've loused
up my investigation of the local cultural background. I had no idea
you were capable of that sort of thing." The immense head leaned back,
the wide mouth opening and closing rapidly. "And to think I've been
spinning my wheels collecting primitive 2-D art!"
"But—don't you have a time machine? I mean, isn't that one?"
"That? That's merely a carrier. Now tell me more about your time
machines. A fascinating concept! My superiors will be delighted at
this development—and astonished as well. They regard this planet as
Endsville."
"Your superiors?" Dan eyed the window; much too far to jump. Maybe he
could reach the machine and try a getaway—
"I hope you're not thinking of leaving suddenly," the beachball said,
following Dan's glance. One of the eighteen fingers touched a six-inch
yellow cylinder lying on the desk. "Until the carrier is fueled, I'm
afraid it's quite useless. But, to put you in the picture, I'd best
introduce myself and explain my mission here. I'm Blote, Trader Fourth
Class, in the employ of the Vegan Confederation. My job is to develop
new sources of novelty items for the impulse-emporiums of the entire
Secondary Quadrant."
"But the way Manny and Fiorello came sailing in through the wall! That
has
to be a time machine they were riding in. Nothing else could just
materialize out of thin air like that."
"You seem to have a time-machine fixation, Dan," Blote said. "You
shouldn't assume, just because you people have developed time travel,
that everyone has. Now—" Blote's voice sank to a bass whisper—"I'll
make a deal with you, Dan. You'll secure a small time machine in good
condition for me. And in return—"
"
I'm
supposed to supply
you
with a time machine?"
Blote waggled a stubby forefinger at Dan. "I dislike pointing it out,
Dan, but you are in a rather awkward position at the moment. Illegal
entry, illegal possession of property, trespass—then doubtless some
embarrassment exists back at the Snithian residence. I daresay Mr.
Kelly would have a warm welcome for you. And, of course, I myself would
deal rather harshly with any attempt on your part to take a powder."
The Vegan flexed all eighteen fingers, drummed his tentacles under the
desk, and rolled one eye, bugging the other at Dan.
"Whereas, on the other hand," Blote's bass voice went on, "you and me
got the basis of a sweet deal. You supply the machine, and I fix you up
with an abundance of the local medium of exchange. Equitable enough, I
should say. What about it, Dan?"
"Ah, let me see," Dan temporized. "Time machine. Time machine—"
"Don't attempt to weasel on me, Dan," Blote rumbled ominously.
"I'd better look in the phone book," Dan suggested.
Silently, Blote produced a dog-eared directory. Dan opened it.
"Time, time. Let's see...." He brightened. "Time, Incorporated; local
branch office. Two twenty-one Maple Street."
"A sales center?" Blote inquired. "Or a manufacturing complex?"
"Both," Dan said. "I'll just nip over and—"
"That won't be necessary, Dan," Blote said. "I'll accompany you." He
took the directory, studied it.
"Remarkable! A common commodity, openly on sale, and I failed to notice
it. Still, a ripe nut can fall from a small tree as well as from a
large." He went to his desk, rummaged, came up with a handful of fuel
cells. "Now, off to gather in the time machine." He took his place in
the carrier, patted the seat beside him with a wide hand. "Come, Dan.
Get a wiggle on."
Hesitantly, Dan moved to the carrier. The bluff was all right up to a
point—but the point had just about been reached. He took his seat.
Blote moved a lever. The familiar blue glow sprang up. "Kindly direct
me, Dan," Blote demanded. "Two twenty-one Maple Street, I believe you
said."
"I don't know the town very well," Dan said, "but Maple's over that
way."
Blote worked levers. The carrier shot out into a ghostly afternoon sky.
Faint outlines of buildings, like faded negatives, spread below. Dan
looked around, spotted lettering on a square five-story structure.
"Over there," he said. Blote directed the machine as it swooped
smoothly toward the flat roof Dan indicated.
"Better let me take over now," Dan suggested. "I want to be sure to
get us to the right place."
"Very well, Dan."
Dan dropped the carrier through the roof, passed down through a dimly
seen office. Blote twiddled a small knob. The scene around the cage
grew even fainter. "Best we remain unnoticed," he explained.
The cage descended steadily. Dan peered out, searching for identifying
landmarks. He leveled off at the second floor, cruised along a barely
visible corridor. Blote's eyes rolled, studying the small chambers
along both sides of the passage at once.
"Ah, this must be the assembly area," he exclaimed. "I see the machines
employ a bar-type construction, not unlike our carriers."
"That's right," Dan said, staring through the haziness. "This is where
they do time...." He tugged at a lever suddenly; the machine veered
left, flickered through a barred door, came to a halt. Two nebulous
figures loomed beside the cage. Dan cut the switch. If he'd guessed
wrong—
The scene fluoresced, sparks crackling, then popped into sharp focus.
Blote scrambled out, brown eyes swivelling to take in the concrete
walls, the barred door and—
"You!" a hoarse voice bellowed.
"Grab him!" someone yelled.
Blote recoiled, threshing his ambulatory members in a fruitless attempt
to regain the carrier as Manny and Fiorello closed in. Dan hauled at a
lever. He caught a last glimpse of three struggling, blue-lit figures
as the carrier shot away through the cell wall.
III
Dan slumped back against the seat with a sigh. Now that he was in the
clear, he would have to decide on his next move—fast. There was no
telling what other resources Blote might have. He would have to hide
the carrier, then—
A low growling was coming from somewhere, rising in pitch and volume.
Dan sat up, alarmed. This was no time for a malfunction.
The sound rose higher, into a penetrating wail. There was no sign of
mechanical trouble. The carrier glided on, swooping now over a nebulous
landscape of trees and houses. Dan covered his ears against the
deafening shriek, like all the police sirens in town blaring at once.
If the carrier stopped it would be a long fall from here. Dan worked
the controls, dropping toward the distant earth.
The noise seemed to lessen, descending the scale. Dan slowed, brought
the carrier in to the corner of a wide park. He dropped the last few
inches and cut the switch.
As the glow died, the siren faded into silence.
Dan stepped from the carrier and looked around. Whatever the noise
was, it hadn't attracted any attention from the scattered pedestrians
in the park. Perhaps it was some sort of burglar alarm. But if so, why
hadn't it gone into action earlier? Dan took a deep breath. Sound or no
sound, he would have to get back into the carrier and transfer it to a
secluded spot where he could study it at leisure. He stepped back in,
reached for the controls—
There was a sudden chill in the air. The bright surface of the dials
before him frosted over. There was a loud
pop!
like a flashbulb
exploding. Dan stared from the seat at an iridescent rectangle
which hung suspended near the carrier. Its surface rippled, faded
to blankness. In a swirl of frosty air, a tall figure dressed in a
tight-fitting white uniform stepped through.
Dan gaped at the small rounded head, the dark-skinned long-nosed face,
the long, muscular arms, the hands, their backs tufted with curly
red-brown hair, the strange long-heeled feet in soft boots. A neat
pillbox cap with a short visor was strapped low over the deep-set
yellowish eyes, which turned in his direction. The wide mouth opened in
a smile which showed square yellowish teeth.
"
Alors, monsieur
," the new-comer said, bending his knees and back in
a quick bow. "
Vous ete une indigine, n'est ce pas?
"
"No compree," Dan choked out "Uh ... juh no parlay Fransay...."
"My error. This is the Anglic colonial sector, isn't it? Stupid of me.
Permit me to introduce myself. I'm Dzhackoon, Field Agent of Class
five, Inter-dimensional Monitor Service."
"That siren," Dan said. "Was that you?"
Dzhackoon nodded. "For a moment, it appeared you were disinclined to
stop. I'm glad you decided to be reasonable."
"What outfit did you say you were with?" Dan asked.
"The Inter-dimensional Monitor Service."
"Inter-what?"
"Dimensional. The word is imprecise, of course, but it's the best our
language coder can do, using the Anglic vocabulary."
"What do you want with me?"
Question and Possible Answers:
What is the author's purpose in providing such detailed descriptions of Blote and Dzhackoon?
(A) To better familiarize the audience with the setting of the places Dan visited.
(B) To explain why Dan was so intrigued by these characters.
(C) To show that people in the future do not look as human as a character like Dan.
(D) To show that these characters are unlike the human ones on Earth.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 29,885 | 29,887 | 30,313 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
62085_C1SL2YBE_3 | 62085_C1SL2YBE_3_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Pied Piper of Mars
By FREDERIC ARNOLD KUMMER, Jr.
Elath Taen made mad music for the men of Mars.
The red planet lived and would die to the
soul-tearing tunes of his fiendish piping.
In all the solar system there is no city quite like Mercis, capital
of Mars. Solis, on Venus, is perhaps more beautiful, some cities of
Earth certainly have more drive and dynamitism, but there is a strange
inscrutable air about Mercis which even terrestials of twenty years'
residence cannot explain. Outwardly a tourists' mecca, with white
plastoid buildings, rich gardens, and whispering canals, it has another
and darker side, ever present, ever hidden. While earthmen work and
plan, building, repairing, bringing their vast energy and progress
to decadent Mars, the silent little reddies go their devious ways,
following ancient laws which no amount of terrestial logic can shake.
Time-bound ritual, mysterious passions and hates, torturous, devious
logic ... all these, like dark winding underground streams run beneath
the tall fair city that brings such thrilled superlatives to the lips
of the terrestial tourists.
Steve Ranson, mounting the steps of the old house facing the Han
canal, was in no mood for the bizarre beauties of Martian scenery. For
one thing, Mercis was an old story to him; his work with Terrestial
Intelligence had brought him here often in the past, on other strange
cases. And for another thing, his mission concerned more vital matters.
Jared Haller, as head of the state-owned Martian Broadcasting System,
was next in importance to the august Governor Winship himself. As
far back as the Hitlerian wars on earth it had been known that he
who controls propaganda, controls the nation ... or planet. Martian
Broadcasting was an important factor in controlling the fierce warlike
little reddies, keeping the terrestial-imposed peace on the red
planet. And when Jared Haller sent to Earth for one of the Terrestial
Intelligence, that silent efficient corps of trouble-shooters,
something was definitely up.
The house was provided with double doors as protection against the
sudden fierce sandstorms which so often, in the month of Tol, sweep
in from the plains of Psidis to engulf Mercis in a red choking haze.
Ranson passed the conventional electric eye and a polite robot voice
asked his name. He gave it, and the inner door opened.
A smiling little Martian butler met him in the hall, showed him into
Haller's study. The head of M.B.C. stood at one end of the big library,
the walls of which were lined with vivavox rolls and old-fashioned
books. As Ranson entered, he swung about, frowning, one hand dropping
to a pocket that bulged unmistakably.
"Ranson, Terrestial Intelligence." The special agent offered his card.
"You sent to Earth a while ago for an operator?"
Jared Haller nodded. He was a big, rough-featured individual with gray
leonine hair. A battering-ram of a man, one would think, who hammered
his way through life by sheer force and drive. But as Ranson looked
closer, he could see lines of worry, of fear, etched about the strong
mouth, and a species of terror within the shaggy-browed eyes.
"Yes," said Jared Haller. "I sent for an operator. You got here
quickly, Mr. Ranson!"
"Seven days out of earth on the express-liner
Arrow
." Ranson wondered
why Haller didn't come to the point. Even Terrestial Intelligence
headquarters in New York hadn't known why a T.I. man was wanted on
Mars ... but Haller was one of the few persons sufficiently important
to have an operator sent without explanation as to why he was wanted.
Ranson put it directly. "Why did you require the help of T.I., Mr.
Haller?" he asked.
"Because we're up against something a little too big for the Mercian
police force to handle." Jared Haller's strong hands tapped nervously
upon the desk. "No one has greater respect for our local authorities
than myself. Captain Maxwell is a personal friend of mine. But I
understood that T.I. men had the benefit of certain amazing devices,
remarkable inventions, which make it easy for them to track down
criminals."
Ranson nodded. That was true. T.I. didn't allow its secret devices
to be used by any other agency, for fear they might become known to
the criminals and outlaws of the solar system. But Haller still hadn't
told what crime had taken place. This time Ranson applied the spur of
silence. It worked.
"Mr. Ranson," Haller leaned forward, his face a gray grim mask,
"someone, something, is working to gain control of the Martian
Broadcasting Company! And I don't have to tell you that whoever
controls M.B.C. controls Mars! Here's the set-up! Our company, although
state owned, is largely free from red-tape, so long as we stress the
good work we terrestials are doing on Mars and keep any revolutionary
propaganda off the air-waves. Except for myself, and half a dozen other
earthmen in responsible positions, our staff is largely Martian.
That's in line with our policy of teaching Mars our civilization until
it's ready for autonomy. Which it isn't yet, by quite some. As you
know."
Ranson nodded, eyes intent as the pattern unfolded.
"All right." Haller snapped. "You see the situation. Remove us ... the
few terrestials at the top of M.B.C ... and Martian staff would carry
on until new men came out from Earth to take our places. But suppose
during that period with no check on their activities, they started
to dish out nationalist propaganda? One hour's program, with the old
Martian war-songs being played and some rabble-rouser yelling 'down
with the terrestial oppressors' and there'd be a revolution. Millions
of reddies against a few police, a couple of regiments of the Foreign
Legion. It'd be a cinch."
"But," ... Ranson frowned ... "this is only an interesting supposition.
The reddies are civilized, peaceful."
"Outwardly," Haller snapped. "But what do you or any other earthmen
know about what goes on in their round red heads? And the proof that
some revolt is planned lies in what's been happening the past few
weeks! Look here!" Haller bent forward, the lines about his mouth
tighter than ever. "Three weeks ago my technical advisor, Rawlins,
committed suicide. Not a care in the world, but he killed himself. A
week later Harris, head of the television department, went insane.
Declared a feud with the whole planet, began shooting at everyone he
saw. The police rayed him in the struggle. The following week Pegram,
the musical director, died of a heart attack. Died with the most
terrorized expression on his face I've ever seen. Fear, causing the
heart attack, his doctor said. You begin to see the set-up? Three men,
each a vital power in M.B.C. gone within three weeks! And who's next?
Who?" Jared Haller's eyes were bright with fear.
"Suicide, insanity, heart attack." Ranson shrugged. "All perfectly
normal. Coincidence that they should happen within three weeks. What
makes you think there's been foul play?"
For a long brittle moment Jared Haller stared out at the graceful white
city, wan in the light of the twin moons. When he turned to face
Ranson again, his eyes were bleak as a lunar plain.
"One thing," he said slowly. "The music."
"Music?" Ranson echoed. "Look here, Mr. Haller, you...."
"It's all right." Jared Haller grinned crookedly. "I'm not insane. Yet.
Look, Mr. Ranson! There's just one clue to these mysterious deaths!
And that's the music! In each instance the servants told of hearing,
very faintly, a strange melody. Music that did queer things to them,
even though they could hear it only vaguely. Music like none they'd
ever heard. Like the devil's pipes, playing on their souls, while....
Almighty God!"
Jared Haller froze, his face gray as lead, his eyes blue horror. Ranson
was like a man in a trance, bent forward, lips pressed tight until they
resembled a livid scar. The room was silent as a tomb; outside, they
could hear the vague rumbling of the city, with the distant swish of
canal boats, the staccato roar of rockets as some earth-bound freighter
leaped from the spaceport. Familiar, homey sounds, these, but beneath
them, like an undercurrent of madness, ran the macabre melody.
There was, there had never been, Ranson knew, any music like this.
It was the pipes of Pan, the chant of robots, the crying of souls in
torment. It was a cloudy purple haze that engulfed the mind, it was a
silver knife plucking a cruel obligato on taut nerves, it was a thin
dark snake writhing its endless coils into the room.
Neither man moved. Ranson knew all the tricks of visual hypnotism, the
whirling mirror, the waving hands, the pool of ink ... but this was
the hypnotism of sound. Louder and clearer the music sounded, in eerie
overtones, quavering sobbing minors, fierce reverberating bass. Sharp
shards of sound pierced their ears, deep throbbing underrhythm shook
them as a cat shakes a mouse.
"God!" Haller snarled. "What ... what is it?"
"Don't know." Ranson felt a queer irritation growing within him. He
strode stiffly to the window, peered out. In the darkness, the broad
Han canal lay placid; the stars caught in its jet meshes gently
drifted toward the bank, shattered on the white marble. Along the
embankment were great fragrant clumps of
fayeh
bushes. It was among
these, he decided, that their unknown serenader lay concealed.
Suddenly the elfin melody changed. Fierce, harsh, it rose, until Ranson
felt as though a file were rasping his nerves. He knew that he should
dash down, seize the invisible musician below ... but logic, facts and
duty, all were fading from his mind. The music was a spur, goading him
to wild unreasoning anger. The red mists of hate swirled through his
brain, a strange unreasoning bloodlust grew with the savage beat of the
wild music. Berserk rage sounded in each shivering note and Ranson felt
an insane desire to run amok. To inflict pain, to see red blood flow,
to kill ... kill! Blindly he whirled, groping for his gun, as the music
rose in a frenzied death-wail.
Turning, Ranson found himself face to face with Jared Haller. But the
tall flinty magnate was now another person. Primitive, atavistic rage
distorted his features, insane murder lurked in his eyes. The music was
his master, and it was driving him to frenzy. "Kill!" the weird rhythm
screamed, "Kill!" And Jared Haller obeyed. He snatched the flame-gun
from his pocket, levelled it at Ranson.
Whether it was the deadly melody outside, or the instinct of
self-preservation, Ranson never knew, but he drove at Haller with grim
fury. The flame-gun hissed, filling the room with a greenish glare, its
beam passing so close to Ranson's hair as to singe it. Ranson came up,
grinning furiously, and in a moment both men were struggling, teeth
bared in animalistic grins, breath coming in choked gasps, whirling
in a mad dance of death as the macabre music distilled deadly poison
within their brains.
The end came with startling suddenness. Ranson, twisting his opponent's
arm back, felt the searing blast of the flame-gun past his hand. Jared
Haller, a ghastly blackened corpse, toppled to the floor.
At that moment the lethal rhythm outside changed abruptly. From the
fierce maddening beat of a few minutes before, the chords took on a
yearning seductive tone. A call, it seemed, irresistible, soft, with
a thousand promises. This was the song the sirens sang to Ulysses,
the call of the Pied Piper, the chant of the houris in paradise. It
conjured up pictures in Ranson's mind ... pictures of fairyland, of
exquisitely beautiful scenes, of women lovely beyond imagination. All
of man's hopes, man's dreams, were in that music, and it drew Ranson as
a moth is drawn to a flame. The piping of Pan, the fragile fantasies of
childhood, the voices of those beyond life.... Ranson walked stiffly
toward the source of the music, like a man drugged.
As he approached the window the melody grew louder. The hypnotism of
sound, he knew, but he didn't care. It was enthralling, irresistible.
Like a sleepwalker he climbed to the sill, stood outlined in the tall
window. Twenty feet to the ground, almost certain death ... but Ranson
was lost in the golden world that the elfin melody conjured up. He
straightened his shoulders, was about to step out.
Then suddenly there was a roar of atomic motors, a flashing of lights.
A police boat, flinging up clouds of spray, swept up the canal,
stopped. Ranson shook himself, like a man awakening from a nightmare,
saw uniformed figures leaping to the bank. From the shadow of the
fayeh
bushes a slight form sprang, dodged along the embankment.
Flame-guns cut the gloom but the slight figure swung to the left,
disappeared among the twisting narrow streets. Bathed in cold sweat,
Ranson stepped back into the room, where the still, terrible form of
Jared Haller lay. Ranson stared at it, as though seeing it for the
first time. Outside, there were pounding feet; the canal-patrolmen
raced through the house, toward the study. And then, his brain weary as
if it had been cudgelled, Ranson slid limply to the floor.
Headquarters of the Martian Canal-Patrol was brilliantly lighted by a
dozen big
astralux
arcs. Captain Maxwell chewed at his gray mustache,
staring curiously at Ranson.
"Then you admit killing Haller?" he demanded.
"Yes." Ranson nodded sombrely. "In the struggle. Self-defense. But even
if it hadn't been self-defense, I probably would have fought with him.
That music was madness, I tell you! Madness! Nobody's responsible when
under its influence! I...."
"You killed Haller," Captain Maxwell said. "And you blame it on this
alleged music. I might believe you, Ranson, but how many other people
would? Even members of Terrestial Intelligence aren't sacro sanct. I'll
have to hold you for trial."
"Hold me for trial?" Ranson leaned forward, his gaunt face intent.
"While the real killer, the person playing that music, gets away? Look!
Let me out of here for twelve hours! That's all I ask! And if I don't
track down whoever was outside Haller's house, you can...."
"Sorry." Captain Maxwell shook his head. "You know I'd like to, Ranson.
But this is murder. To let a confessed murderer, even though he is a
T.I. man, go free, is impossible." The captain drew a deep breath,
motioned to the two gray-uniformed patrolmen. "Take Mr. Ranson."
And then Steve Ranson went into action. In one blinding burst of
speed, he lunged across the desk, tore Captain Maxwell's pistol from
its holster. Before the captain and the two patrolmen knew what had
happened, they were staring into the ugly muzzle of the flame-gun.
"Sorry." Ranson said tightly. "But it had to be done. There's hell
loose on Mars, the devil's melody! And it's got to be stopped before it
turns this planet upside down!"
"You can't get away with this, Ranson!" Captain Maxwell shook his head.
"It'll only make it tougher for you when we nab you again! Be sensible!
Put down that gun."
"No good. Got to work fast." Ranson backed toward the door, gun
in hand. "Let this mad music go unchecked and it's death to all
terrestials on Mars! And I'm going to stop it! So long, captain! You
can try me for murder if you want, after I've done my job here!"
Ranson took the key from the massive plastic door as he backed
through the entrance. Once in the hall, he slammed the door shut,
locked Maxwell and his men in the room. Then, dropping the gun into
his pocket, he ran swiftly down the corridor to the main entrance of
headquarters. In the hall a patrolman glanced at him suspiciously,
halted him, but a wave of Ranson's T.I. card put the man aside.
Free of headquarters, Ranson began to run. Only a few moments, he
knew, before Maxwell and his men blasted a way to freedom, set out in
pursuit. Like a lean gray shadow Ranson ran, twisting, dodging, among
the narrow streets, heading toward Haller's house. Mercis was a dream
city in the wan light of the moons. One in either side of the heavens,
they threw weird double shadows across the rippling canals, the aimless
streets. Sleek canal-cabs roared along the dark waterways, throwing
up clouds of spray, and on the embankments, green-eyed, bulge-headed
little reddies padded, silent, inscrutable, themselves a part of the
eternal mystery of Mars.
Haller's house stood dark and brooding beside the canal. Captain
Maxwell's men had completed their examination and the place was
deserted. Ranson stepped into the shadow of the clump of fragrant
fayeh
bushes, where the unknown musician had stood; there was little
danger, he felt, of patrolmen hunting for him at Haller's house.
The captain had little faith in copybook maxims about the murderer
returning to the scene of the crime.
Ranson stood motionless for a moment as a canal boat swept by, then
drew from his pocket a heavy black tube. He tugged, and it extended
telescopically to a cane some four feet long. The cane was hollow, a
tube, and the head of it was large as a man's two fists and covered
with small dials, gauges. This was the T.I.'s most cherished secret,
the famous "electric bloodhound," by which criminals could be tracked.
Ranson touched a lever and a tiny electric motor in the head of the
cane hummed, drawing air up along the tube. He tapped the bank where
the unknown musician had stood, eyes on the gauges. Molecules of
matter, left by the mysterious serenader, were sucked up the tube,
registered on a sensitive plate, just as delicate color shades register
on the plate of a color camera.
Ranson tapped the cane carefully upon the ground, avoiding those places
where he had stood. Few people crossed this overgrown embankment, and
it was a safe bet that no one other than the strange musician had
been there recently. The scent was a clear one, and the dials on the
head of the cane read R-2340-B, the numerical classification of the
tiny bits of matter left behind by the unknown. The theory behind it
was quite simple. The T.I. scientists had reasoned that the sense of
smell is merely the effect of suspended molecules in the air acting
upon sensitive nerve filaments, and they knew that any normal human
can follow a trail of some strong odor such as perfumes, or gasoline,
while animals, possessing more sensitive perceptions, can follow
less distinct trails. To duplicate this mechanically had proven more
difficult than an electric eye or artificial hearing device, but in
the end they had triumphed. Their efforts had resulted in the machine
Ranson now carried.
The trial was, at the start, clear. Ranson tapped the long tube on the
ground like a blind man, eyes on the dial. Along the embankment, into a
side street, he made his way. There were few abroad in this old quarter
of the city; from the spaceport came the roar of freighters, the rumble
of machinery, but here in the narrow winding streets there was only the
faint murmur of voices behind latticed windows, the rustle of the wind,
the rattle of sand from the red desert beyond the city.
As Ranson plunged further into the old Martian quarter, the trail grew
more and more confused, crossed by scores of other trails left by
passersby. He was forced to stop, cast about like a bloodhound, tapping
every square foot of the street before the R-2340-B on the dial showed
that he had once more picked up the faint elusive scent.
Deeper and deeper Ranson plunged into the dark slums of Mercis. Smoky
gambling dens, dives full of drunken spacehands and slim red-skinned
girls, maudlin singing ... even the yellow glare of the forbidden
san-rays, as they filtered through drawn windows. Unsteady figures made
their way along the streets. Mighty-thewed Jovian blasters, languid
Venusians, boisterous earthmen ... and the little Martians padding
softly along, wrapped in their loose dust-robes.
At the end of an alley where the purple shadows lay like stagnant
pools, Ranson paused. The alley was a cul-de-sac, which meant that
the person he was trailing must have entered one of the houses. Very
softly he tapped the long tube on the ground. Again with a hesitant
swinging of dials, R-2340-B showed up, on the low step in front of one
of the dilapidated, dome-shaped houses. Ranson's eyes narrowed. So the
person who had played the mad murder melody had entered that house!
Might still be there! Quickly he telescoped the "electric bloodhound,"
dropped it into his pocket, and drew his flame-gun.
The old house was dark, with an air of morbid deadly calm about
it. Ranson tried the door, found it locked. A quick spurt from his
flame-gun melted the lock; he glanced about to make sure no one had
observed the greenish glare, then stepped inside.
The hallway was shadowy, its walls hung with ancient Martian tapestries
which, from their stilted symbolic ideographs must have dated back to
the days of the Canal-Builders. At the end of the hallway, however,
light jetted through a half-open door. Ranson moved toward it, silent
as a phantom, muscles tense. Gripping his flame-gun, he pushed the door
wide ... and a sudden exclamation broke from his lips.
Before him lay a gleaming laboratory, lined with vials of strange
liquids, shining test-tubes, and queer apparatus. Beside a table,
pouring a black fluid from a beaker into a test-tube, stood a man.
Half-terrestial, half-Martian, he seemed, with the large hairless head
of the red planet, and the clean features of an earthman. His eyes,
behind their glasses, were like green ice, and the hand pouring the
black fluid did not so much as waver at Ranson's entrance.
Ranson gasped. The bizarre figure was that of Dr. Elath Taen,
master-scientist, sought by the T.I. for years, in vain! Elath Taen,
outlaw and renegade, whose sole desire was the extermination of all
terrestials on Mars, a revival of the ancient glories of the red
planet. The tales told about him were fabulous; and this was the man
behind the unholy music!
"Good evening, Mr. Ranson," Elath Taen smiled. "Had I known T.I.
men were on Mars I should have taken infinitely more precautions.
However...."
As he spoke, his hand moved suddenly, as though to hurl the test tube
at Ranson. Quick as he was, the T.I. man was quicker. A spurt of
flame leapt from his gun, shattering the tube. The dark liquid hissed,
smoking, on to the floor.
"Well done, Mr. Ranson." Elath Taen nodded calmly. "Had the acid struck
you, it would have rendered you blind."
"That's about enough of your tricks!" Ranson grated. "Come along, Dr.
Taen! We're going to headquarters!"
"Since you insist." Elath Taen removed his chemist's smock, began, very
deliberately, to strip off his rubber gloves.
"Quit stalling!" Ranson snapped. "Get going! I...." The words faded on
the T.I. man's lips. Faintly, in the distance, came the strains of
soft eerie music!
"Good God!" Ranson's eyes darted about the laboratory. "That ... that's
the same as Haller and I...."
"Exactly, Mr. Ranson." Elath Taen smiled thinly. "Listen!"
The music was a caress, soft as a woman's skin. Slow, drowsy, like
the hum of bees on a hot summer's afternoon. Soothing, soporific, in
dreamy, crooning chords. A lullaby, that seemed to hang lead weights
upon the eyelids. Audible hypnotism, as potent as some drug. Clearer
with each second, the melody grew, coming nearer and nearer the
laboratory.
"Come ... come on," Ranson said thickly. "Got to get out of here."
But his words held no force, and Elath Taen was nodding sleepily under
the influence of the weird dream-music. Ranson knew he should act,
swiftly, while he could; but the movement of a single muscle seemed
an intolerable effort. His skin felt as though it were being rubbed
with velvet, a strange purring sensation filled his brain. He tried to
think, to move, but his will seemed in a padded vise. The music was
dragging him down, down, into the gray mists of oblivion.
Across the laboratory Elath Taen had slumped to the floor, a vague
smile of triumph on his face. Ranson turned to the direction of
the music, tried to raise his gun, but the weapon slipped from his
fingers, he fell to his knees. Sleep ... that was all that mattered ...
sleep. The music was like chloroform, its notes stroked his brain.
Through half-shut eyes he saw a door at the rear of the laboratory
open, saw a slim, dark, exotic girl step through into the room. Slung
about her neck in the manner of an accordian, was a square box, with
keys studding its top. For a long moment Ranson stared at the dark,
enigmatic girl, watched her hands dance over the keys to produce the
soft lulling music. About her head, he noticed, was a queer copper
helmet, of a type he had never before seen. And then the girl, Elath
Taen, the laboratory, all faded into a kaleidoscopic whirl. Ranson felt
himself falling down into the gray mists, and consciousness disappeared.
Question and Possible Answers:
What would best describe the terrestrials' attitudes towards the reddies on Mars?
(A) The terrestrials want to help the reddies claim their own freedom.
(B) The terrestrials have complete disdain for the reddies and want to completely eradicate them.
(C) The terrestrials want to help them be successful on Mars, so they provide motivating propaganda for them.
(D) The terrestrials want to control the reddies so that the terrestrials can stay in control of Mars.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 25,621 | 25,623 | 26,122 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63616_MQ1O9T2Q_6 | 63616_MQ1O9T2Q_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
HAGERTY'S ENZYMES
By A. L. HALEY
There's a place for every man and a man for
every place, but on robot-harried Mars the
situation was just a little different.
Harper Breen sank down gingerly into the new Relaxo-Lounge. He placed
twitching hands on the arm-rests and laid his head back stiffly. He
closed his fluttering eyelids and clamped his mouth to keep the corner
from jumping.
"Just lie back, Harp," droned his sister soothingly. "Just give in and
let go of everything."
Harper tried to let go of everything. He gave in to the chair. And
gently the chair went to work. It rocked rhythmically, it vibrated
tenderly. With velvety cushions it massaged his back and arms and legs.
For all of five minutes Harper stood it. Then with a frenzied lunge
he escaped the embrace of the Relaxo-Lounge and fled to a gloriously
stationary sofa.
"Harp!" His sister, Bella, was ready to weep with exasperation. "Dr.
Franz said it would be just the thing for you! Why won't you give it a
trial?"
Harper glared at the preposterous chair. "Franz!" he snarled. "That
prize fathead! I've paid him a fortune in fees. I haven't slept for
weeks. I can't eat anything but soup. My nerves are jangling like
a four-alarm fire. And what does he prescribe? A blasted jiggling
baby carriage! Why, I ought to send him the bill for it!" Completely
outraged, he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.
"Now, Harp, you know you've never obeyed his orders. He told you
last year that you'd have to ease up. Why do you have to try to run
the whole world? It's the strain of all your business worries that's
causing your trouble. He told you to take a long vacation or you'd
crack up. Don't blame him for your own stubbornness."
Harper snorted. His large nose developed the sound magnificently.
"Vacation!" he snorted. "Batting a silly ball around or dragging a hook
after a stupid fish! Fine activities for an intelligent middle-aged
man! And let me correct you. It isn't business worries that are driving
me to a crack-up. It's the strain of trying to get some sensible,
reasonable coöperation from the nincompoops I have to hire! It's the
idiocy of the human race that's got me whipped! It's the—"
"Hey, Harp, old man!" His brother-in-law, turning the pages of the
new colorama magazine, INTERPLANETARY, had paused at a double-spread.
"Didn't you have a finger in those Martian equatorial wells they sunk
twenty years ago?"
Harper's hands twitched violently. "Don't mention that fiasco!" he
rasped. "That deal nearly cost me my shirt! Water, hell! Those wells
spewed up the craziest conglomeration of liquids ever tapped!"
Scribney, whose large, phlegmatic person and calm professorial brain
were the complete antithesis of Harper's picked-crow physique and
scheming financier's wits, looked severely over his glasses. Harp's
nervous tribulations were beginning to bore him, as well as interfere
with the harmony of his home.
"You're away behind the times, Harp," he declared. "Don't you know
that those have proved to be the most astoundingly curative springs
ever discovered anywhere? Don't you know that a syndicate has built
the largest extra-terrestial hotel of the solar system there and that
people are flocking to it to get cured of whatever ails 'em? Old man,
you missed a bet!"
Leaping from the sofa, Harper rudely snatched the magazine from
Scribney's hands. He glared at the spread which depicted a star-shaped
structure of bottle-green glass resting jewel-like on the rufous rock
of Mars. The main portion of the building consisted of a circular
skyscraper with a glass-domed roof. Between its star-shaped annexes,
other domes covered landscaped gardens and noxious pools which in the
drawing looked lovely and enticing.
"Why, I remember now!" exclaimed Bella. "That's where the Durants went
two years ago! He was about dead and she looked like a hag. They came
back in wonderful shape. Don't you remember, Scrib?"
Dutifully Scribney remembered and commented on the change the Martian
springs had effected in the Durants. "It's the very thing for you,
Harp," he advised. "You'd get a good rest on the way out. This gas
they use in the rockets nowadays is as good as a rest-cure; it sort of
floats you along the time-track in a pleasant daze, they tell me. And
you can finish the cure at the hotel while looking it over. And not
only that." Confidentially he leaned toward his insignificant looking
brother-in-law. "The chemists over at Dade McCann have just isolated an
enzyme from one species of Martian fungus that breaks down crude oil
into its components without the need for chemical processing. There's a
fortune waiting for the man who corners that fungus market and learns
to process the stuff!"
Scribney had gauged his victim's mental processes accurately. The
magazine sagged in Harp's hands, and his sharp eyes became shrewd and
calculating. He even forgot to twitch. "Maybe you're right, Scrib," he
acknowledged. "Combine a rest-cure with business, eh?"
Raising the magazine, he began reading the advertisement. And that
was when he saw the line about the robots. "—the only hotel staffed
entirely with robot servants—"
"Robots!" he shrilled. "You mean they've developed the things to that
point? Why hasn't somebody told me? I'll have Jackson's hide! I'll
disfranchise him! I'll—"
"Harp!" exploded Bella. "Stop it! Maybe Jackson doesn't know a thing
about it, whatever it is! If it's something at the Emerald Star Hotel,
why don't you just go and find out for yourself instead of throwing a
tantrum? That's the only sensible way!"
"You're right, Bella," agreed Harper incisively. "I'll go and find out
for myself. Immediately!" Scooping up his hat, he left at his usual
lope.
"Well!" remarked his sister. "All I can say is that they'd better turn
that happy-gas on extra strong for Harp's trip out!"
The trip out did Harper a world of good. Under the influence of the
soporific gas that permeated the rocket, he really relaxed for the
first time in years, sinking with the other passengers into a hazy
lethargy with little sense of passing time and almost no memory of the
interval.
It seemed hardly more than a handful of hours until they were strapping
themselves into deceleration hammocks for the landing. And then Harper
was waking with lassitude still heavy in his veins. He struggled out of
the hammock, made his way to the airlock, and found himself whisked by
pneumatic tube directly into the lobby of the Emerald Star Hotel.
Appreciatively he gazed around at the half-acre of moss-gray carpeting,
green-tinted by the light sifting through the walls of Martian
copper-glass, and at the vistas of beautiful domed gardens framed by a
dozen arches. But most of all, the robots won his delighted approval.
He could see at once that they had been developed to an amazingly high
state of perfection. How, he wondered again, had this been done without
his knowledge? Was Scrib right? Was he slipping? Gnawing at the doubt,
he watched the robots moving efficiently about, pushing patients in
wheelchairs, carrying trays, guiding newcomers, performing janitorial
duties tirelessly, promptly, and best of all, silently.
Harper was enthralled. He'd staff his offices with them. Hang the
expense! There'd be no more of that obnoxious personal friction and
proneness to error that was always deviling the most carefully trained
office staffs! He'd investigate and find out the exact potentialities
of these robots while here, and then go home and introduce them into
the field of business. He'd show them whether he was slipping! Briskly
he went over to the desk.
He was immediately confronted with a sample of that human obstinacy
that was slowly driving him mad. Machines, he sighed to himself.
Wonderful silent machines! For a woman was arguing stridently with the
desk clerk who, poor man, was a high strung fellow human instead of a
robot. Harper watched him shrinking and turning pale lavender in the
stress of the argument.
"A nurse!" shouted the woman. "I want a nurse! A real woman! For what
you charge, you should be able to give me a television star if I want
one! I won't have another of those damnable robots in my room, do you
hear?"
No one within the confines of the huge lobby could have helped hearing.
The clerk flinched visibly. "Now, Mrs. Jacobsen," he soothed. "You know
the hotel is staffed entirely with robots. They're much more expensive,
really, than human employees, but so much more efficient, you know.
Admit it, they give excellent service, don't they, now?" Toothily he
smiled at the enraged woman.
"That's just it!" Mrs. Jacobsen glared. "The service is
too
good.
I might just as well have a set of push buttons in the room. I want
someone to
hear
what I say! I want to be able to change my mind once
in awhile!"
Harper snorted. "Wants someone she can devil," he diagnosed. "Someone
she can get a kick out of ordering around." With vast contempt he
stepped to the desk beside her and peremptorily rapped for the clerk.
"One moment, sir," begged that harassed individual. "Just one moment,
please." He turned back to the woman.
But she had turned her glare on Harper. "You could at least be civil
enough to wait your turn!"
Harper smirked. "My good woman, I'm not a robot. Robots, of course,
are always civil. But you should know by now that civility isn't a
normal human trait." Leaving her temporarily quashed, he beckoned
authoritatively to the clerk.
"I've just arrived and want to get settled. I'm here merely for a
rest-cure, no treatments. You can assign my quarters before continuing
your—ah—discussion with the lady."
The clerk sputtered. Mrs. Jacobsen sputtered. But not for nothing was
Harper one of the leading business executives of the earth. Harper's
implacable stare won his point. Wiping beads of moisture from his
forehead, the clerk fumbled for a card, typed it out, and was about to
deposit it in the punch box when a fist hit the desk a resounding blow
and another voice, male, roared out at Harper's elbow.
"This is a helluva joint!" roared the voice. "Man could rot away to the
knees while he's waitin' for accommodations. Service!" Again his fist
banged the counter.
The clerk jumped. He dropped Harper's card and had to stoop for it.
Absently holding it, he straightened up to face Mrs. Jacobsen and the
irate newcomer. Hastily he pushed a tagged key at Harper.
"Here you are, Mr. Breen. I'm sure you'll find it comfortable." With a
pallid smile he pressed a button and consigned Harper to the care of a
silent and efficient robot.
The room was more than comfortable. It was beautiful. Its bank of clear
windows set in the green glass wall framed startling rubicund views of
the Martian hinterland where, Harper affectionately thought, fungi were
busy producing enzymes that were going to be worth millions for him and
his associates. There remained only the small detail of discovering how
to extract them economically and to process them on this more than arid
and almost airless planet. Details for his bright young laboratory men;
mere details....
Leaving his luggage to be unpacked by the robot attendant, he went up
to the domed roof restaurant. Lunching boldly on broiled halibut with
consomme, salad and a bland custard, he stared out at the dark blue
sky of Mars, with Deimos hanging in the east in three-quarter phase
while Phobos raced up from the west like a meteor behind schedule.
Leaning back in his cushioned chair, he even more boldly lit a slim
cigar—his first in months—and inhaled happily. For once old Scribney
had certainly been right, he reflected. Yes sir, Scrib had rung the
bell, and he wasn't the man to forget it. With a wonderful sense of
well-being he returned to his room and prepared to relax.
Harper opened his eyes. Two robots were bending over him. He saw that
they were dressed in white, like hospital attendants. But he had no
further opportunity to examine them. With brisk, well-co-ordinated
movements they wheeled a stretcher along-side his couch, stuck a hypo
into his arm, bundled him onto the stretcher and started wheeling him
out.
Harper's tongue finally functioned. "What's all this?" he demanded.
"There's nothing wrong with me. Let me go!"
He struggled to rise, but a metal hand pushed him firmly on the chest.
Inexorably it pushed him flat.
"You've got the wrong room!" yelled Harp. "Let me go!" But the hypo
began to take effect. His yells became weaker and drowsier. Hazily, as
he drifted off, he thought of Mrs. Jacobsen. Maybe she had something,
at that.
There was a tentative knock on the door. "Come in," called Harper
bleakly. As soon as the door opened he regretted his invitation, for
the opening framed the large untidy man who had noisily pounded on the
desk demanding service while he, Harp, was being registered.
"Say, pardner," he said hoarsely, "you haven't seen any of them robots
around here, have you?"
Harper scowled. "Oh, haven't I?" he grated. "Robots! Do you know what
they did to me." Indignation lit fires in his pale eyes. "Came in here
while I was lying down peacefully digesting the first meal I've enjoyed
in months, dragged me off to the surgery, and pumped it all out! The
only meal I've enjoyed in months!" Blackly he sank his chin onto his
fist and contemplated the outrage.
"Why didn't you stop 'em?" reasonably asked the visitor.
"Stop a robot?" Harper glared pityingly. "How? You can't reason with
the blasted things. And as for using force—it's man against metal. You
try it!" He ground his teeth together in futile rage. "And to think I
had the insane notion that robots were the last word! Why, I was ready
to staff my offices with the things!"
The big man placed his large hands on his own capacious stomach and
groaned. "I'm sure sorry it was you and not me, pardner. I could use
some of that treatment right now. Musta been that steak and onions I
ate after all that tundra dope I've been livin' on."
"Tundra?" A faint spark of alertness lightened Harper's dull rage. "You
mean you work out here on the tundra?"
"That's right. How'd you think I got in such a helluva shape? I'm
superintendent of one of the fungus plants. I'm Jake Ellis of Hagerty's
Enzymes. There's good money in it, but man, what a job! No air worth
mentionin'. Temperature always freezin' or below. Pressure suits. Huts.
Factory. Processed food. Nothin' else. Just nothin'. That's where they
could use some robots. It sure ain't no job for a real live man. And in
fact, there ain't many men left there. If old man Hagerty only knew it,
he's about out of business."
Harper sat up as if he'd been needled. He opened his mouth to speak.
But just then the door opened briskly and two robots entered. With a
horrified stare, Harper clutched his maltreated stomach. He saw a third
robot enter, wheeling a chair.
"A wheel chair!" squeaked the victim. "I tell you, there's nothing
wrong with me! Take it away! I'm only here for a rest-cure! Believe me!
Take it away!"
The robots ignored him. For the first time in his spectacular and
ruthless career Harper was up against creatures that he could neither
bribe, persuade nor browbeat, inveigle nor ignore. It shattered his
ebbing self-confidence. He began waving his hands helplessly.
The robots not only ignored Harper. They paid no attention at all to
Jake Ellis, who was plucking at their metallic arms pleading, "Take
me, boys. I need the treatment bad, whatever it is. I need all the
treatment I can get. Take me! I'm just a wreck, fellers—"
Stolidly they picked Harper up, plunked him into the chair, strapped
him down and marched out with him.
Dejectedly Ellis returned to his own room. Again he lifted the receiver
of the room phone; but as usual a robot voice answered sweetly,
mechanically, and meaninglessly. He hung up and went miserably to bed.
There was something nagging at Harper's mind. Something he should do.
Something that concerned robots. But he was too exhausted to think it
out.
For five days now his pet robots had put him through an ordeal that
made him flinch every time he thought about it. Which wasn't often,
since he was almost past thinking. They plunked him into stinking
mud-baths and held him there until he was well-done to the bone, he
was sure. They soaked him in foul, steaming irradiated waters until he
gagged. They brought him weird concoctions to eat and drink and then
stood over him until he consumed them. They purged and massaged and
exercised him.
Whenever they let him alone, he simply collapsed into bed and slept.
There was nothing else to do anyway. They'd taken his clothes; and the
phone, after an announcement that he would have no more service for two
weeks, gave him nothing but a busy signal.
"Persecution, that's what it is!" he moaned desperately. And he turned
his back to the mirror, which showed him that he was beginning to look
flesh-colored instead of the parchment yellow to which he had become
accustomed. He closed his mind to the fact that he was sleeping for
hours on end like the proverbial baby, and that he was getting such an
appetite that he could almost relish even that detestable mush they
sent him for breakfast. He was determined to be furious. As soon as he
could wake up enough to be.
He hadn't been awake long this time before Jake Ellis was there again,
still moaning about his lack of treatments. "Nothin' yet," he gloomily
informed Harp. "They haven't been near me. I just can't understand it.
After I signed up for the works and paid 'em in advance! And I can't
find any way out of this section. The other two rooms are empty and the
elevator hasn't got any button. The robots just have to come and get a
man or he's stuck."
"Stuck!" snarled Harp. "I'm never stuck! And I'm damned if I'll wait
any longer to break out of this—this jail! Listen, Jake. I've been
thinking. Or trying to, with what's left of me. You came in just when
that assinine clerk was registering me. I'll bet that clerk got rattled
and gave me the wrong key. I'll bet you're supposed to have this room
and I'm getting your treatments. Why don't we switch rooms and see what
happens?"
"Say, maybe you're right!" Jake's eyes gleamed at last with hope. "I'll
get my clothes."
Harp's eyebrows rose. "You mean they left you your clothes?"
"Why, sure. You mean they took yours?"
Harp nodded. An idea began to formulate. "Leave your things, will you?
I'm desperate! I'm going to see the manager of this madhouse if I have
to go down dressed in a sheet. Your clothes would be better than that."
Jake, looking over Harper's skimpy frame, grunted doubtfully. "Maybe
you could tie 'em on so they wouldn't slip. And roll up the cuffs. It's
okay with me, but just don't lose something when you're down there in
that fancy lobby."
Harper looked at his watch. "Time to go. Relax, old man. The robots
will be along any minute now. If you're the only man in the room, I'm
sure they'll take you. They aren't equipped to figure it out. And don't
worry about me. I'll anchor your duds all right."
Harper had guessed right. Gleefully from the doorway of his new room
he watched the robots wheel away his equally delighted neighbor for
his first treatment. Then he closed the door and began to don Jake's
clothing.
The result was unique. He looked like a small boy in his father's
clothes, except for the remarkably aged and gnome-like head sticking
up on a skinny neck from a collar three sizes too big. And he was
shoeless. He was completely unable to navigate in Jake's number
twelves. But Harper was a determined man. He didn't even flinch from
his image in the mirror. Firmly he stepped over to Jake's telephone.
"This is room 618," he said authoritatively. "Send up the elevator for
me. I want to go down to the lobby."
He'd guessed right again. "It will be right up, sir," responded the
robot operator. Hopefully he stepped out into the hall and shuffled to
the elevator.
Only the robots were immune to Harper Breen's progress across the huge
suave lobby.
He was a blot on its rich beauty, a grotesque enigma that rooted the
other visitors into paralyzed staring groups. Stepping out of the
elevator, he had laid a course for the desk which loomed like an island
in a moss-gray lake, and now he strode manfully toward it, ignoring the
oversize trousers slapping around his stocking feet. Only the robots
shared his self control.
The clerk was the first to recover from the collective stupor.
Frantically he pushed the button that would summon the robot guard.
With a gasp of relief he saw the two massive manlike machines moving
inexorably forward. He pointed to Harper. "Get that patient!" he
ordered. "Take him to the—to the mud-baths!"
"No you don't!" yelled Harper. "I want to see the manager!" Nimbly he
circled the guard and leaped behind the desk. He began to throw things
at the robots. Things like inkwells and typewriters and card indexes.
Especially, card indexes.
"Stop it!" begged the clerk. "You'll wreck the system! We'll never get
it straight again! Stop it!"
"Call them off!" snarled Harper. "Call them off or I'll ruin your
switchboard!" He put a shoulder against it and prepared to heave.
With one last appalled glare at the madman, the clerk picked up an
electric finger and pointed it at the approaching robots. They became
oddly inanimate.
"That's better!" Harper straightened up and meticulously smoothed the
collar of his flapping coat. "Now—the manager, please."
"This—this way, sir." With shrinking steps the clerk led Harper across
the width of the lobby among the fascinated guests. He was beyond
speech. Opening the inconspicuous door, he waved Harper inside and
returned doggedly to his desk, where he began to pick up things and at
the same time phrase his resignation in his mind.
Brushing aside the startled secretary in the outer cubicle, Harper
flapped and shuffled straight into the inner sanctum. The manager, who
was busy chewing a cigar to shreds behind his fortress of gun metal
desk, jerked hastily upright and glared at the intruder. "My good
man—" he began.
"Don't 'my-good-man' me!" snapped Harper. He glared back at the
manager. Reaching as far across the expanse of desktop as he could
stretch, he shook his puny fist. "Do you know who I am? I'm Harper
S. Breen, of Breen and Helgart, Incorporated! And do you know why I
haven't even a card to prove it? Do you know why I have to make my way
downstairs in garb that makes a laughing stock of me? Do you know why?
Because that assinine clerk of yours put me in the wrong room and those
damnable robots of yours then proceeded to make a prisoner of me! Me,
Harper S. Breen! Why, I'll sue you until you'll be lucky if you have a
sheet of writing-paper left in this idiot's retreat!"
Hayes, the manager, blanched. Then he began to mottle in an apoplectic
pattern. And suddenly with a gusty sigh, he collapsed into his chair.
With a shaking hand he mopped his forehead. "
My
robots!" he muttered.
"As if I invented the damned things!"
Despondently he looked at Harper. "Go ahead and sue, Mr. Breen. If you
don't, somebody else will. And if nobody sues, we'll go broke anyway,
at the rate our guest list is declining. I'm ready to hand in my
resignation."
Again he sighed. "The trouble," he explained, "is that those fool
robots are completely logical, and people aren't. There's no way to mix
the two. It's dynamite. Maybe people can gradually learn to live with
robots, but they haven't yet. Only we had to find it out the hard way.
We—" he grimaced disgustedly—"had to pioneer in the use of robots.
And it cost us so much that we can't afford to reconvert to human help.
So—Operation Robot is about to bankrupt the syndicate."
Listening, an amazing calm settled on Harper. Thoughtfully now he
hooked a chair to the desk with his stockinged foot, sat down and
reached for the cigar that Hayes automatically offered him. "Oh, I
don't know," he said mildly.
Hayes leaned forward like a drowning man sighting a liferaft. "What
do you mean, you don't know? You're threatening to take our shirts,
aren't you?"
Meticulously Harper clipped and lit his cigar. "It seems to me that
these robots might be useful in quite another capacity. I might even
make a deal with your syndicate to take them off your hands—at a
reasonable price, of course—and forget the outrages I've suffered at
your establishment."
Hayes leaned toward him incredulous. "You mean you want these robots
after what you've seen and experienced?"
Placidly Harper puffed a smoke ring. "Of course, you'd have to take
into consideration that it would be an experiment for me, too. And
there's the suit I'm clearly justified in instituting. However, I'm
willing to discuss the matter with your superiors."
With hope burgeoning for the first time in weeks, Hayes lifted his
head. "My dear Mr. Breen, to get rid of these pestiferous robots, I'll
back you to the hilt! I'll notify the owners at once. At once, Mr.
Breen! And while we wait for them, allow me to put you up as a guest of
the hotel." Coming around to Harper, he effusively shook Harp's scrawny
hand, and then personally escorted him not merely to the door but
across the lobby to the elevator.
Harper gazed out at the stunned audience. This was more like the
treatment he was accustomed to! Haughtily he squared his bony shoulders
inside the immense jacket and stepped into the elevator. He was ready
for the second step of his private Operation Robot.
Back on Earth it was a warm, misty spring day—the kind of day unknown
to the planet Mars. Bella and Scribney, superb in new spring outfits,
waited restlessly while the rocket cooled and the passengers recovered
from deceleration.
"Look, Scrib!" Bella clutched Scribney's substantial arm. "It's finally
opening."
They watched the airlock open and the platform wheel into place. They
watched the passengers descend, looking a trifle dazed.
"There he is!" cried Bella. "Why, doesn't he look wonderful! Scrib,
it's amazing! Look at him!
And indeed, Harper was stepping briskly downward, looking spry and fit
and years younger. He came across to them actually beaming. It was the
first pleasant expression they had seen on his face in years.
"Well, you old dog!" exclaimed Scribney affectionately. "So you did it
again!"
Harper smirked. "Yep, I turned a neat little deal. I bought out
Hagerty's Enzymes and staffed the plant with the hotel's robots. Got
both of 'em dirt cheap. Both concerns going bankrupt because they
didn't have sense enough to swap their workers. Feel I owe you a bit
for that tip about enzymes, Scrib, so I made out a block of stock to
you. All right?"
"All right?" Scribney gulped. Why, the dried-up little turnip was human
after all. "All right! Yes, sir! But aren't you going to use some of
those robots for office help? Aren't they efficient and all that?"
Harper's smile vanished. "Don't even mention such a thing!" he yelped.
"You don't know what you're saying! I lived with those things for
weeks. I wouldn't have one around! Keep 'em in the factory where they
belong!"
He glimpsed the composed, wonderfully human face of his secretary,
waiting patiently in the background. "Oh there you are, Smythe." He
turned to his relatives. "Busy day ahead. See you later, folks—"
"Same old Harp," observed Scribney. Then he thought of the block of
stock. "What say we celebrate our rise to a position in the syndicate,
honey?"
"Wonderful!" She squeezed his arm, and smiling at each other, they left
the port.
Question and Possible Answers:
Why was Harper able to buy the hotel's robots for such a cheap price?
(A) Harper befriended the hotel manager and convinced him to sell the robots to him for cheap.
(B) The hotel could not find anyone other than Harper to sell the robots to.
(C) Harper had threatened to put the hotel out of business if they did not sell the robots to him.
(D) The hotel was failing, so the company was happy to get rid of the robots.
Answer:
| D | 195 | 28,645 | 28,647 | 29,101 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63833_V187YO4H_2 | 63833_V187YO4H_2_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Jinx Ship To The Rescue
By ALFRED COPPEL, JR.
Stand by for
T.R.S. Aphrodite
, butt of the Space
Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only
her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her!
Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the
Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the
viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a
jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport
for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a
miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across
the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was
dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find
the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus.
Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth
of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together
they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor.
The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship
Aphrodite
loomed
unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the
ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the
fat spaceship.
"It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp."
Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in
agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship
with the poison personality." Cob was the
Aphrodite's
Executive,
and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs
on the
Aphrodite
. She generally sent them Earthside with nervous
breakdowns in half that time.
"Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen
that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I
thought...."
"You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski.
Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?"
"The same."
"Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's
a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the
Ganymede
. And,
after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come
this?" He indicated the monitor expressively.
Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with
me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you
wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp
operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with
tradition.
"The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish
immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional
Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the
abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United
Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ...
me.
"From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something
happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of
them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you.
"In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the
wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too
much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the
Ganymede
because I left my station where I was supposed to be running
section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in
danger...."
"The Procyon A people?" asked Cob.
"So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical
astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my
routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No
nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the
Ganymede
. Gorman gave it
to his former aide. I got this."
Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too."
"Me again. The
Ganymede's
whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig.
We celebrated a bit too freely."
Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night
after the
Ganymede
broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run,
wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...."
"Canalopolis?"
Whitley nodded.
"That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian
Embassy Ball."
"I begin to see what you mean, Captain."
"Strike's the name, Cob."
Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like
our old tin pot here." He patted the
Aphrodite's
nether belly
affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to
meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either."
Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek
Ganymede
. "She'll
carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her."
Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket
fuel, anyway. Deep space?"
Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars."
Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work."
Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior.
"A surge-circuit monitor, so help me."
Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class."
And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed
Aphrodite
was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten
years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation
Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a
surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the
planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its
formative stage, and at the time of the
Aphrodite's
launching the
surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives.
Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit
for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed
of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The
Artemis
, the
Andromeda
, and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The
three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid
had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine.
All three were miserable failures.
The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit
too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way,
wrongly.
The
Artemis
exploded. The
Andromeda
vanished in the general
direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a
ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions.
And the
Aphrodite's
starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her
store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under
20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a
tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull.
The
Aphrodite
was refitted for space. And because it was an integral
part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became
a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She
carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and
tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from
Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation.
Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet
required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see
to it that she did....
The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted
smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve.
Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a
third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet
Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship
of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere.
Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign.
Radar Officer. She's good, too."
Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me
uncomfortable."
Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our
ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know."
"No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named
this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?"
Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent.
Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge
bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle
of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an
acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit
rheostat.
"Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob.
Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the
Ganymede's
flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway."
The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship,
hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike
reached for the squawk-box control.
"Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying
bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will
recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...."
Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner.
"Orders, Captain?"
"We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here.
They're sending someone down from the
Antigone
, and I expect him by
600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See
to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start
loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all."
"Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he
paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?"
Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant
Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say."
Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V.
Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him."
The other officers of the
T.R.S. Aphrodite
were in conference with
the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying
bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale
blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the
shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the
obvious trimness of her figure.
Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others.
"... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles
of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition,
we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm
certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who
designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are
specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your
astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or
minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be
certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins,
especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important."
"That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather
leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He
nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist
chronograph, "... in an hour and five."
The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room.
"Captain?"
"Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed
girl in the doorway.
Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his
eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant
I-vy
Hendricks?"
Strike looked blankly at the girl.
"Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley.
"Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find
to say.
The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her
voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your
permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I
may
be able to
convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem
to think ... a senile incompetent."
Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ...
Miss ... but why should you be so...."
The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan
Hendricks, Captain, is my father."
A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship.
Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous
Aphrodite
had burned a
steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall
while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected
repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running
ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation
Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the
orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall.
The
Aphrodite
rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury....
For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike
and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in
space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between
them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her
father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was
little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy
spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit
that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman.
And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike
did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was
dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong.
There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy.
At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the
Aphrodite's
refrigeration
units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable
temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of
the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded,
insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and
spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the
sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to
their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing.
Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham
called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The
IFF showed the pips to be the
Lachesis
and the
Atropos
. The two
dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely
routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath
was Celia Graham's notation that the
Atropos
carried none other than
Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan.
Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into
Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so.
And she agreed.
Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The
thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia
Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's
weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without
speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression.
Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist,
in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California
womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food....
And then it happened.
Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the
scrambler. It was a distress signal from the
Lachesis
. The
Atropos
had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun.
Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the
Atropos
skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star.
The
Lachesis
had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly
trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering
power of the
Lachesis'
mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's
deathgrip on the battleship.
A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport,
but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that
even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled
Atropos
away from a fiery end.
Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the
flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of
Strykalski's face.
"Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!"
"Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the
message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head.
She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is
it
! This is
the chance I've been praying for, Strike!"
He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall
I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those
ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the
Lachesis
, he won't let go
that line even if he fries himself."
Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it!
I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat.
"That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that
you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that
the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of
the woodwork ... very messily, too."
"Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you
are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying
to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown
skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat."
There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded
desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I
know
we can! My
father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off
Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially
trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in
and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are
you afraid?"
"Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so
certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ...
it'll be the last. For all of us."
"We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply.
Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in
here?"
Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me."
Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon.
And me so young and pretty."
Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!"
"Evans here," came the reply.
"Have Sparks get a DF fix on the
Atropos
and hold it. We'll home on
their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot
the course."
"Yes, Captain."
Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the
black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges
of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts."
"Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone.
Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!"
"Graham here," replied Celia from her station.
"Get a radar fix on the
Lachesis
and hold it. Send your dope up to
Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate."
"Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply.
"Gun deck!"
"Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice.
"Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool
of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range."
"Yes, sir!" The girl switched off.
"And now you, Miss Hendricks."
"Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low.
"Take over Control ... and Ivy...."
"Yes?"
"Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her.
She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly
she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward....
Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable,
the
Lachesis
and the
Atropos
fell helplessly toward the sun. The
frantic flame that lashed out from the
Lachesis'
tube was fading, her
fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms.
Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she
save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles
of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences
that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for
the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins,
the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning
to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants
on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were
dying.
Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her
flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in
the darkened viewport.
The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell
of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with
perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped
for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with
apprehension.
Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on
the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the
Atropos
. It plunged
straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against
the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly,
a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure.
Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three
spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge
together.
They were diving into the sun.
The heat in the
Aphrodite's
bridge was unbearable. The thermometer
showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by
comparison.
Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came
out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field
of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit
rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious,
but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument
panel.
"
Ivy!
" Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm.
"I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the
show ... after ... all."
Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the
control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on
the surge-circuit.
Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within
old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the
circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the
tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in
space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line.
More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail.
Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's
fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat."
"We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The
gauges showed the accumulators full. "
Now!
" He spun the rheostat to
the stops, and black space burst over his brain....
The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And
it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And
that was all.
The space-tug
Scylla
found them.
The three ships ...
Atropos
,
Lachesis
, and old Aphrodisiac ...
lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out
cold from the acceleration, and
Aphrodite's
tanks bone dry. But they
were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol....
The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob
leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the
Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded
with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the
broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled.
"All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind,
Cob? Something's eating you."
Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I
understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the
Ganymede
back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...."
"All I said to him...."
"I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But
you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't
want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what
about Ivy?"
"Ivy?"
Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that
when we got back ... well...."
Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a
designing job."
Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...."
"The answer is
no
. Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and
sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...."
He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?"
"Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent;
then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to
the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars."
And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut
Strykalski III was doing the same.
Question and Possible Answers:
How are the events of the story best summated?
(A) A delivery ship discovers and saves two other ships
(B) A passenger ship transiting Earth - Venus accidentally starts falling into the sun
(C) Strike’s ship breaks down and has to be rescued from being pulled into the sun
(D) A war ship disguised as a cargo ship changes course and saves lives from pulling into sun’s gravity
Answer:
| A | 195 | 26,688 | 26,690 | 27,102 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63392_7YS4HHFI_6 | 63392_7YS4HHFI_6_0 | You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).
Story:
Doorway to Kal-Jmar
By Stuart Fleming
Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns
to give him the key to the ancient city of
Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of
robots that made desires instant commands.
The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes
impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed.
Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape,
and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more.
Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the
translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the
stars shone dimly.
Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he
had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass
himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city,
after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would
not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he
had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet
Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country,
and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only
safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had
to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough.
They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the
crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they
didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared
raider in the System. In that was his only advantage.
He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and
then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the
short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over
the top of the ramp, and then followed.
The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel.
Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and
started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite
young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather,
and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw.
"All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?"
"I don't understand," Syme said.
"The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?"
"Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you.
I—"
The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said
finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can
clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again."
Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes
on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next
street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side
a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the
intersection, and then followed again more cautiously.
It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data,
even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands
on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite,
glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be
imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill.
Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The
boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation
platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in
the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the
machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket
went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator
whisked him up.
The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level
of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close
overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the
platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred
a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside.
The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance
away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim,
deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the
silent figure.
It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by
some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still
air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift,
instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its
silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a
minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest.
Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into
his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms
and thrust it over the parapet.
It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist.
Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late,
he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's
harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was
falling, linked to the body of his victim!
Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm,
felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His
body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the
corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a
little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion.
Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into
play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body.
Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the
sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms
felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook
slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished.
The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost
lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the
spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below.
He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He
tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on
the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold
on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off.
He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge
at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken
only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up."
Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other
pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed
to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety.
"Are you all right?"
Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His
rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy
hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a
humorous wide mouth. He was still panting.
"I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his
dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand."
"You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I
thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly.
"That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand,
and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it."
The man sighed. "I need a drink.
You
need a drink. Come on." He
picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the
elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about
that?"
"Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it
wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now."
They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a
cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just
killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on
the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be
found until morning.
And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of
culcha
, he
took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There
it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even
friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was
the
culcha
, of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning
he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there
were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and
it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone.
He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall,
graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat.
"Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped,
caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he
said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer,
but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment,
but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to
tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I
need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?"
"Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG
plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting
in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their
delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk
after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow
of
culcha
inside him.
"I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate.
Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense,
a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big
was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector.
"Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?"
Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms,
he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been
right; it was big.
Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining
city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had
risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines,
the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly
preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many
thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached.
For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected
Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis
as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both
above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew
what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of
the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew
anything about them or about Kal-Jmar.
In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth
scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it
from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots
that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they
had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall.
Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a
bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid
dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped
in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any
Earthman to go near the place.
Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate.
Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical
in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a
force that would break it down.
And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four
hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme
Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits
on his sleek, tigerish head.
Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild.
For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not
occur to him that he had been indiscreet.
"This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better
strap on your gun."
"Why. Are they really dangerous?"
"They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and
they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns
where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that
way."
"Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting
metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and
strapped it on absently.
Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous
hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They
eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the
deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to
xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never
come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial.
When the first colonists came here, they had to learn
their
crazy
language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different
things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some,
but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same."
"So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously.
"They
might
do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it."
The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars'
deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a
wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on
sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again
on the other side.
Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared
across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow
it?"
Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess,"
he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we
cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more."
Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he
pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail
of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep
into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike
was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over
the edge.
As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind
revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire
cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical
incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides
as they descended.
Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the
metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground
again and the cable reeled in.
Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But
how do we get up again?"
"Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want
or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that
shoots the anchor up on top."
"Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my
natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of
almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his
head.
Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their
harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and
the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper
blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted,
"Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever.
The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the
gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash
that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into
the ground immediately to their left.
When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread
of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition.
Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate
said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and
caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully
toward them.
"My God!" he said. "What are those?"
Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians."
The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all
Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs
they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or,
more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large
as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge
that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with
a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the
bloodstream.
Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the
lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black
fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of
white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise;
or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which
helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now
they were mostly black.
The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand
car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears,
although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to
Martians.
Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he
swallowed audibly.
One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and
motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and
then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience,
could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same
spot long enough.
"Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit,
and Tate followed him.
"What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I
know. They're unpredictable."
"Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car
whooshed
into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out.
The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and
started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded
along under the weak gravity.
They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a
half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down
it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps,
they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker
and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine
kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture.
The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a
phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't
decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though.
"There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He
switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane
on the outside of the helmet. "
Kalis methra
," he began haltingly,
"
seltin guna getal.
"
"Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not
enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets."
Syme swore amazedly.
"I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme
ignored him.
"We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said.
"But how—?"
"We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on
its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to
ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for
several thousand years."
He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face
was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're
right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn
is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you."
Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?"
"You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply.
Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves
because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?"
"Yes."
Tate thought again. "But—"
"No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our
civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours
is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you
thought you were taking it from equals or not."
"Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with
us?"
The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect.
Unfortunately, you must die."
It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet
he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep
the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian
must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood,
holding himself in check with an effort.
"Will you tell us why?" Tate asked.
"You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception
of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to
know."
Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of
the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the
leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away
from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to
think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like
trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus."
Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently
unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he
began.
"There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a
very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform
Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere."
"I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim
all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then
we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out.
You couldn't have that, of course."
He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked
at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the
Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that
one."
"Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a
separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our
ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors."
"Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make
itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves
into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to
the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem
was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for
we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained
its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes.
"You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural
confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we."
"And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with
an—inferior—culture."
"We hope to win yet," the Martian said.
Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged.
"Will our two races ever live together in amity?"
The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He
looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man,"
he said. "I am sorry."
Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the
sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in
him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before
he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the
Martian.
It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly
strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't
tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost
feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the
swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern.
He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every
muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with
power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's
iron grip!
He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the
weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped
his lance and fell without a sound.
The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way
barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and
swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of
the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor.
Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the
trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely
to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped
his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His
right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And
all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths,
seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes,
dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of
his powerful lungs.
At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down
the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped
the weapon from blistered fingers.
He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from
the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency
kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out
a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing
it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the
burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid
formed an airtight patch.
Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind
him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I
could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even
to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us."
Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He
turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly,
but with his feral, tigerish head held high.
He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed
him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something
that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and
didn't know what to do about it.
Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the
same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black
suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around
to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which
might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That
was that.
Question and Possible Answers:
If Syme weren't initially helped by Harold, what would've probably happened to him?
(A) Syme would've been protected by the building's safety net.
(B) Syme would've gotten help from someone else.
(C) Syme would've fallen to his death.
(D) Syme would've caught himself with his two backup harpoons.
Answer:
| C | 195 | 28,603 | 28,605 | 28,938 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
63473_1VIHQ8TY_4 | 63473_1VIHQ8TY_4_0 | "You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C,(...TRUNCATED) | C | 195 | 30,201 | 30,203 | 30,565 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
51650_B3KKWWD1_7 | 51650_B3KKWWD1_7_0 | "You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C,(...TRUNCATED) | B | 195 | 31,240 | 31,242 | 31,545 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
51274_8Q2YNHG5_6 | 51274_8Q2YNHG5_6_0 | "You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C,(...TRUNCATED) | A | 195 | 33,123 | 33,125 | 33,265 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
20077_ZF5G55FD_1 | 20077_ZF5G55FD_1_0 | "You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C,(...TRUNCATED) | B | 195 | 11,754 | 11,756 | 11,940 | ... [The rest of the story is omitted]
|
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