Operation: Outer Space Part 31

"They used to put lunatics in snake-pits. When they were people who'd taken to lunacy for escape from reality, it made them go back to reality to escape from the snakes. Shock-treatments used to be used, later, for the same effect. We're too soft to use either treatment now. But Johnny gave himself the works. The odds are that from now on he will never want to be alone even for an instant, and he will never again quite dare to be angry with anybody or make anybody angry. You choked him and he ran away, and it was bad! So from now on I'd guess that Johnny will be a very well-behaved little boy in a grown man's body." He said very wryly indeed, "Alicia will be very happy, taking care of him."

A moment later he added:

"I look at that set-up the way I look at the landscape yonder."

Cochrane said nothing. Holden liked Alicia. Too much. It would not make any difference at all. After a moment, though, he changed the subject.

"I think this is a pretty good bet, this planet. You think it's no good.

I'm going to talk to the chlorella companies. They grow edible yeast in tanks, and chlorella in vats, and they produce an important amount of food. But they have to grow the stuff indoors and they have a ghastly job keeping everything sterile. Here's a place where they can sow chlorella in the oceans! They can grow yeast in lakes, out-of-doors!

Suppose they use this world to grow monstrous quant.i.ties of unattractive but useful foodstuff--in a way--wild? It will be good return-cargo material for ships taking colonists out to our other planets.--I suppose," he added meditatively, "they'll ship it back in bulk, dried."

Holden blinked. He was jolted out of even his depression.

"Jed!" he said warmly. "Tell that to the world--prove that--and--people will stop being afraid! They won't be afraid of starving before they can get to the stars! Jed--Jed! This is the thing the world needs most of all!"

But Cochrane grimaced.

"Maybe," he admitted it. "But I've tasted the stuff. I think it's foul!

Still, if people want it ..."

He went back down to the communicator to contact the chlorella companies of Earth, to find out if there was any special data they would need to pa.s.s on the proposal.

And so presently the ship took off for home. It landed on the moon first, and Johnny Simms was loaded into a s.p.a.ce-suit and transferred to Lunar City, where he could live without being extradited back to Earth.

He wouldn't stay there. Alicia guaranteed that. They'd move to the glacier planet as soon as hotels were built. Maybe some day they'd travel to the planet of the s.h.a.ggy beasts. Johnny would never be troublesome again. He was pathetically anxious, now, to have people like him, and stay with him, and not under any circ.u.mstances be angry with him or shut him away from them. Alicia would now have a full-time occupation keeping people from taking advantage of him.

But the ship went back to Earth. And on Earth Jamison became the leading television personality of all time, describing and extrapolating the delicious dangers and the splendid industrial opportunities of star-travel. Bell was his companion and co-star. Presently Jamison conceded privately to Cochrane that he and Bell would need shortly to take off on another journey of exploration with some other expedition.

Neither of them thought to retire, though they were well-off enough.

They were stock-holders in the s.p.a.ceways company, which guaranteed them a living.

Cochrane put s.p.a.ceways, Inc., into full operation. He fought savagely against personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. He spent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynical examination of deftly b.o.o.by-trapped business proposals. His lawyers insisted that he needed an office--he did--and presently he had four secretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons under him. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly that somebody had waited two hours past appointment-time to see him.

It was Hopkins, who had not been willing to interrupt his dinner to listen to a protest from Cochrane. Hopkins was still exactly as important as ever. It was only that Cochrane was more so.

It woke Cochrane up. He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelled appointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and made preparations for a more satisfactory way of life.

They went, in time, to the s.p.a.ceways terminal, to take ship for the stars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteen ships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen others arrived. Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according to his own notions. Officially he was doing research for s.p.a.ceways, Inc., but actually n.o.body told him what to do. He puttered happily with improbable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results.

Holden was already off of Earth. He was on the planet of the s.h.a.ggy beasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived there and became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased, instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise.

But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse of the s.p.a.ceways terminal. There were people everywhere. The hiring-booths of enterprises on the three planets now under development took applications for jobs on those remote worlds, and explained how long one had to contract to work in order to have one's fare paid. Chambers of Commerce representatives were prepared to give technical information to prospective entrepreneurs. There were reservation-desks, and freight-routing desks, and tourist-agency desks ...

"Hmmm," said Cochrane suddenly. "D'you know, I haven't heard of Dabney in months! What happened to him?"

"Dabney?" said Babs. She beamed. Women in the terminal saw the clothes she was wearing. They did not recognize her--Cochrane had kept her off the air--but they envied her. She felt very nice indeed. "Dabney?--Oh, I had to use my own judgment there, Jed. You were so busy! After all, he was scientific consultant to s.p.a.ceways. He did pay Jones cold cash for fame-rights. When everything else got so much more important than just the scientific theory, he got in a terrible state. His family consulted Doctor Holden, and we arranged it. He's right down this way!"

She pointed. And there was a splendid plate-gla.s.s office built out from the wall of the grand concourse. It was elevated, so that it was charmingly conspicuous. There was a chastely designed but highly visible sign under the stairway leading to it. The sign said; "_H. G. Dabney, Scientific Consultant._"

Dabney sat at an imposing desk in plain view of all the thousands who had shipped out and the millions who would ship out in time to come. He thought, visibly. Presently he stood up and paced meditatively up and down the office which was as eye-catching as a gold-fish bowl of equal size in the same place. He seemed to see someone down in the concourse.

He could have recognized Cochrane, of course. But he did not.

He bowed. He was a great man. Undoubtedly he returned to his wife each evening happily convinced that he had done the world a great favor by permitting it to glimpse him.

Cochrane and Babs went on. Their baggage was taken care of. The departure of a ship for the stars, these days, was much less complicated and vastly more comfortable than it used to be when a mere moon-rocket took off.

When they were in the ship, Babs heaved a sigh of absolute relief.

"Now," she said zestfully, "now you're retired, Jed! You don't have to worry about anything! And so now I'm going to try to make you worry about me--not worry about me, but think about me!"

"Of course," said Cochrane. He regarded her with honest affection.

"We'll take a good long vacation. First on the glacier planet. Then we'll build a house somewhere in the hills back of Diamondville ..."

"Jed!" said Babs accusingly.

"There's a fair population there already," said Cochrane, apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station will be logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored with loafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Not commercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped back to Earth if any sponsor wanted it. I think they would ..."

Presently the ship with Babs and Cochrane among its pa.s.sengers took off to the stars. It was a perfectly routine flight. After all, star-travel was almost six months old. It wasn't a novelty any longer.

Operation Outer s.p.a.ce was old stuff.

THE END.