A Place In The Sun Part 1

A Place in the Sun.

by C.H. Thames.

_Mayhem, the man of many bodies, had been given some weird a.s.signments in his time, but saving The Glory of the Galaxy wasn't difficult--it was downright impossible!_

The SOS crackled and hummed through subs.p.a.ce at a speed which left laggard light far behind. Since subs.p.a.ce distances do not coincide with normal s.p.a.ce distances, the SOS was first picked up by a Fomalhautian freighter bound for Capella although it had been issued from a point in normal s.p.a.ce midway between the orbit of Mercury and the sun's corona in the solar system.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The terrible weapon blasted death and carnage through the ship.]

The radioman of the Fomalhautian freighter gave the distress signal to the Deck Officer, who looked at it, blinked, and bolted 'bove decks to the captain's cabin. His face was very white when he reached the door and his heart pounded with excitement. As the Deck Officer crossed an electronic beam before the door a metallic voice said: "The Captain is asleep and will be disturbed for nothing but emergency priority."

Nodding, the Deck officer stuck his thumb in the whorl-lock of the door and entered the cabin. "Begging your pardon, sir," he cried, "but we just received an SOS from--"

The Captain stirred groggily, sat up, switched on a green night light and squinted through it at the Deck Officer. "Well, what is it? Isn't the Eye working?"

"Yes, sir. An SOS, sir...."

"If we're close enough to help, subs.p.a.ce or normal s.p.a.ce, take the usual steps, lieutenant. Surely you don't need me to--"

"The usual steps can't be taken, sir. Far as I can make out, that ship is doomed. She's bound on collision course for Sol, only twenty million miles out now."

"That's too bad, lieutenant," the Captain said with genuine sympathy in his voice. "I'm sorry to hear that. But what do you want me to do about it?"

"The ship, sir. The ship that sent the SOS--hold on to your hat, sir--"

"Get to the point now, will you, young man?" the Captain growled sleepily.

"The ship which sent the SOS signal, the ship heading on collision course for Sol, is the _Glory of the Galaxy_!"

For a moment the Captain said nothing. Distantly, you could hear the hum of the subs.p.a.ce drive-unit and the faint whining of the stasis generator. Then the Captain bolted out of bed after unstrapping himself.

In his haste he forgot the ship was in weightless deep s.p.a.ce and went sailing, arms flailing air, across the room. The lieutenant helped him down and into his magnetic-soled shoes.

"My G.o.d," the Captain said finally. "Why did it happen? Why did it have to happen to the _Glory of the Galaxy_?"

"What are you going to do, sir?"

"_I_ can't do anything. I won't take the responsibility. Have the radioman contact the Hub at once."

"Yes, sir."

_The Glory of the Galaxy_, the SOS ship heading on collision course with the sun, was making its maiden run from the a.s.sembly satellites of Earth across the inner solar system via the perihelion pa.s.sage which would bring it within twenty-odd million miles of the sun, to Mars which now was on the opposite side of Sol from Earth. Aboard the gleaming new ship was the President of the Galactic Federation and his entire cabinet.

The Fomalhautian freighter's emergency message was received at the Hub of the Galaxy within moments after it had been sent, although the normal s.p.a.ce distance was in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand light years. The message was bounced--in amazingly quick time--from office to office at the hub, cutting through the usual red tape because of its top priority. And--since none of the normal agencies at the Hub could handle it--the message finally arrived at an office which very rarely received official messages of any kind. This was the one unofficial, extra-legal office at the Hub of the Galaxy. Lacking official function, the office had no technical existence and was not to be found in any Directory of the Hub. At the moment, two young men were seated inside. Their sole job was to maintain liaison with a man whose very existence was doubted by most of the human inhabitants of the Galaxy but whose importance could not be measured by mere human standards in those early days when the Galactic League was becoming the Galactic Federation.

The name of the man with whom they maintained contact was Johnny Mayhem.

"Did you read it?" the blond man asked.

"I read it."

"If it got down here, that means they can't handle it anywhere else."

"Of course they can't. What the h.e.l.l could normal slobs like them or like us do about it?"

"Nothing, I guess. But wait a minute! You don't mean you're going to send Mayhem, without asking him, without telling--"

"We can't ask him now, can we?"

"Johnny Mayhem's _elan_ is at the moment speeding from Canopus to Deneb, where on the fourth planet of the Denebian system a dead body is waiting for him in cold storage. The turnover from League to Federation status of the Denebian system is causing trouble in Deneb City, so Mayhem--"

"Deneb City will probably survive without Mayhem. Well, won't it?"

"I guess so, but--"

"I know. The deal is we're supposed to tell Mayhem where he's going and what he can expect. The deal also is, every inhabited world has a body waiting for his _elan_ in cold storage. But don't you think if we could talk to Mayhem now--"

"It isn't possible. He's in transit."

"Don't you think if we could talk to him now he would agree to board the _Glory of the Galaxy_?"

"How should I know? I'm not Johnny Mayhem."

"If he doesn't board her, it's certain death for all of them."

"And if he does board her, what the h.e.l.l can he do about it? Besides, there isn't any dead body awaiting his _elan_ on that ship or any ship.

He wouldn't make a very efficacious ghost."

"But there are live people. Scores of them. Mayhem's _elan_ is quite capable of possessing a living host."

"Sure. Theoretically it is. But d.a.m.n it all, what would the results be?

We've never tried it. It's liable to damage Mayhem. As for the host--"

"The host might die. I know it. But he'll die anyway. The whole shipload of them is heading on collision course for the sun."

"Does the SOS say why?"

"No. Maybe Mayhem can find out and do something about it."

"Yeah, maybe. That's a h.e.l.l of a way to risk the life of the most important man in the Galaxy. Because if Mayhem boards that ship and can't do anything about it, he'll die with the rest of them."