The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Ii Part 69

"Captain Gary Wright, the commander of the ship." His brow knitted. "Why? Do you know him?"

"I'm not sure," Tom said weakly. "But if he's the same man--then that flight's in danger."

"What are you talking about?"

Tom concluded his story about the death of the Homelovers treasurer, down to the last detail of the framed photograph on Wright's desk. The tale brought Colonel Mordigan into immediate action. He buzzed for his orderly, and in another minute, was fumbling through a folder marked Cla.s.sified.

"Yes," he said numbly. "It's the same man. Father's named Benjamin Wright, and he's vice-president and treasurer of Homelovers, Incorporated. I never connected the two ..." He looked up, his eyes heavy. "If your story is true, Mr. Blacker, then Captain Wright is one of these so-called Antamundans. And if their mission is what you say it is--"

Tom clenched his fists on the blotter. "Please, sir! Let me stay here until the flight is concluded. After that, you can do what you like."

"All right," Mordigan said wearily. "I'll fix you up with something in the officer's quarters. But I'm sure you're wrong, Mr. Blacker. You have to be."

Twenty-four hours later, radio contact with the Mars expeditionary ship ceased abruptly.

From Mt. Wilson observatory, a hurried message arrived, reporting a small, brief nova in the orbital vicinity of the planet Mars.

Tom Blacker, dozing fitfully on a cot in the quarters of a grumpy Lieutenant-Colonel, was awakened suddenly, and summoned to the office of Colonel Grady Mordigan.

"Very well, Mr. Blacker," the colonel said stiffly. "I'm willing to help. Just tell me what you want me to do."

The receptionist smiled icily at Tom, and then the smile vanished like a Martian polar cap.

"Why--Mr. Blacker!"

"Hi, Stella," he grinned. "Mr. Andrusco in his office?"

"Why, I don't know. Suppose I give him a ring--"

He stopped the hand that was reaching for the telephone. "No need of that. I think I'll just surprise him. After all, it's been some time."

He turned the k.n.o.b of John Andrusco's door slowly.

Livia was with him. When he entered, they both stood up hastily, their eyes wide and their mouths unhinged.

Livia reacted first. She cried out his name, and then sat down heavily, as if the words had been a physical force.

"Hi, Livia," Tom said casually. "Good to see you again, Mr. Andrusco. Sorry that I haven't been around--but things have been pretty hectic for me lately."

"How did you get here?" Andrusco's voice was choked.

"I've been here all weekend, if you want to know." Tom seated himself blithely. "As a matter of fact, the Homelovers Building has had quite a lot of visitors this weekend."

"What do you mean?"

"You know the staff of cleaning personnel that invades this place every Sat.u.r.day? Well, there were some changes made this particular weekend. I'm sure you'll be interested in hearing about them."

Livia said: "Shall I call the police, John?"

"The police were represented," Tom said. "Don't worry about that. In fact, the top technicians from three government agencies were doing the housework around here this weekend, Mr. Andrusco. They probably didn't get the building much cleaner--but they swept up a lot of other things. Yes, they certainly uncovered other things."

Andrusco walked over to Livia, and touched her shoulder in a comforting gesture. The sight of them made Tom scowl.

"All right!" he said roughly. "I'm not blaming you for what you're doing. But things were getting out of hand, Mr. Andrusco. That's why we had to put a stop to it."

"And have you?" Andrusco asked politely.

"I'm afraid so. It was quite a shock, let me tell you. We didn't know what to expect when we dissected this building of yours. But the last thing we expected to find was--a s.p.a.ceship."

Andrusco smiled. "It was cleverly done. You'll have to admit that."

"I do," Tom said fervently. "You've got those s.p.a.ce flight experts absolutely insane with curiosity. They'll want to hear the whole story. Will you give it to them?"

The man shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. I presume the engines have been dismantled?"

"Made inoperable, yes. It would have been a great trick, if you could have done it."

Livia spoke sadly. "It was the only thing we could have done. There's no place on this Earth where we could have erected a s.p.a.ceship without being observed. So we created this building. In time, we would have perfected the mechanism and left this silly planet of yours."

"That's what I don't understand," Tom said. "What about Antamunda--and the survivors--"

"There's no longer an Antamunda," John Andrusco said hollowly. "The story we told you was true in its essence, but not, I'm afraid complete. You see, the exodus that took place five hundred years ago was a total exodus. The entire population of our world--a handful, a pitiful ragged thousand--left Antamunda for this planet. We thought to make it our new home, for all eternity. But in time, we learned that we had emigrated to an extinction just as certain."

"What do you mean?"

"This world is cursed to us, Mr. Blacker. I can't tell you why. We breed slowly, infrequently--you might even say, thoughtfully. And on your planet, but one child in a thousand has survived the rigors of childbirth on Earth." He looked at Livia, and the woman lowered her eyes in remembered sorrow.

"That's why we had to leave," Andrusco said. "To repopulate elsewhere. We chose the planet Mars, and we were determined to make it our home before your world claimed it. Our scientists and technicians have worked on nothing else but this flight since the beginning of the last century. This building--this vessel--was the culmination of our plans. In another few years, we would have been ready. The dream would have been realized."

Tom walked to the window of the office, and looked out at a bank of swift-moving clouds drifting past the spire of the Homelovers Building.

"I'm afraid that's the saddest part," he said. "The atomic engines in the bas.e.m.e.nt have been examined, Mr. Andrusco. The best opinions say that they're pitifully inadequate. The men who studied them say that you would never have made the journey in safety."

"That can't be true! In time--"

"In time, perhaps. But since your landing here, your scientists have forgotten a great deal about s.p.a.ce flight. I'm afraid you would have never reached that Promised Land ..."

Andrusco said: "Then we must die ..."

"No!" Tom said.

Livia looked at him.

"I said no!" he repeated. "The Antamundans can live. Don't you see that?"

"No," Andrusco said, shaking his head. "On Earth, we shall die. If Mars is closed to us ..."

"Can't you see? If Mars can be opened for Earth, then it can be opened for you, too. For all Antamundans! Your people can make the journey, too, once s.p.a.ce has been cleared for Earth ships. You can still have your new home!"

"Perhaps," Livia said dreamily. "Perhaps that is the only way. But by then, Tom, it will be already too late. There has been no living child born to us in the last ten years. By the time the Earth people reach Mars and establish regular pa.s.sageway--we will be too old to keep the race alive."

"Then let's speed it up!" he said. "Let's make sure that the s.p.a.ce lanes open! Let's do everything to make s.p.a.ce the most important project on Earth!"

"But how?" Andrusco said, bewildered.

Tom went to the visiphone.

"Get me the Lunt Theatre!" he snapped.

Homer Bradshaw's face appeared.

"Mr. Bradshaw?"

"Hi, Tom! How's the boy?"

"Great, Homer, great. Only listen. I got a new angle for you. We're gonna doctor up that show of yours before the opening. Don't worry about the dough-- Homelovers will take care of it with pleasure."

"Sure, Tom! Anything you say!"

"Then take this down. The first thing we're changing is the t.i.tle. From now on it's Mars Or Bust ..."

THE END.

Contents

CUBS OF THE WOLF.

BY RAYMOND F. JONES.

It may be that there is a weapon that, from the viewpoint of the one it's used on, is worse than lethal. You might say that death multiplies you by zero; what would multiplication by minus one do?

In the spring the cherry blossoms are heavy in the air over the campus of Solarian Inst.i.tute of Science and Humanities. On a small slope that rims the park area, Cameron Wilder lay on his back squinting through the cloud of pink-white petals to the sky beyond. Beside him, Joyce Farquhar drew her jacket closer with an irritated gesture. It was still too cold to be sitting on the gra.s.s, but Cameron didn't seem to notice it--or anything else, Joyce thought.

"If you don't submit a subject for your thesis now," she said, "you'll take another full six months getting your doctorate. Sometimes I think you don't really want it!"

Cameron stirred. He shifted his squinting gaze from the sky to Joyce and finally sat up. But he was staring ahead through the trees again as he took his pipe from his pocket and began filling it slowly.

"I don't want it if it's not going to mean anything after I get it," he said belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some silly subject like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to the Martian Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the b.u.t.t of enough ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your life you get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the specialty you worked in and threatens to read your thesis."

"n.o.body's asking you to do anything you don't want to. But you picked the field of sociology to work in. Now I don't see why you have to act such a purist that it takes months to find a research project for your degree. Pick something--anything!--I don't care what it is. But if you don't get a degree and an appointment out of the next session I don't think we'll ever get married--not ever."

Cameron removed his pipe from his mouth with a precise grip and considered it intently as it cupped in his hands. "I'm glad you mentioned marriage," he said. "I was just about to speak of it myself."

"Well, don't!" said Joyce. "After three years--Three years!"

He turned to face her and smiled for the first time. He liked to lead her along occasionally just to watch her explode, but he was not always sure when he had gone too far. Joyce had a mind like a snapping, random matching calculator while he operated more on a slow, carefully shaping a.n.a.logue basis, knowing things were never quite what they seemed but trying to get as close an approximation of the true picture as possible.

"Will you marry me now?" he said.

The question did not seem to startle her. "No degree, no appointment--and no chance of getting one--we couldn't even get a license. I hope you aren't suggesting we try to get along without one, or on a forgery!"

Cameron shook his head. "No, darling, this is a perfectly bona fide proposal, complete with license, appointment, the works--what do you say?"

"I say this spring sun is too much for you." She touched the dark ma.s.s of his hair, warmed by the sun's rays, and put her head on his shoulder. She started to cry. "Don't tease me like that, Cameron. It seems like we've been waiting forever--and there's still forever ahead of us. You can't do anything you want to--"

Cameron put his arms about her, not caring if the whole Inst.i.tute faculty leaned out the windows to watch. "That's why you should appreciate being about to marry such a resourceful fellow," he said more gently. And now he dropped all banter. "I've been thinking about how long it's been, too. That's why I decided to try to kill a couple of sparrows with one pebble."

Joyce sat up. "You aren't serious--?"

Cameron sucked on his pipe once more. "Ever hear of the Markovian Nucleus?" he said thoughtfully.

Joyce slowly nodded her head. "Oh, I think I've heard the name mentioned," she murmured, "but nothing more than that."

"I've asked for that as my research project."

"But that's clear out of the galaxy--in Trans.p.a.ce!"

"Yes, and obviously out of bounds for the ordinary graduate researcher. But because of the scholarship record I've been able to rack up here I took a chance on applying to the Corning Foundation for a grant. And they decided to take a chance on me after considerable and not entirely painless investigation. That's why you were followed around like a suspected Disloyalist for a month. My application included a provision for you to go along as my wife. Professor Fothergill notified me this morning that the grant had been awarded."

"Cam--" Joyce's voice was brittle now. "You aren't fooling me?"

He gathered her in his arms again. "You think I would fool about something like that, darling? In a week you'll be Mrs. C. Wilder, and as soon as school is out, on your way to the Markovian Nucleus. And besides, it took me almost as much work preparing the research prospectus as the average guy spends on his whole project!"