The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 10

"Yeah, yeah, that's right, Carl. I know a few guys once, tried playing the legit. Got kicked around, see? Low pay. Staffman hammering on 'em all the time. Big joke when they try to get more for themselves.

"Yeah, big joke. They get blamed, they bust something, see, so they owe the company big money." He looked critically at a pair of socks.

"So they get smart after a while. Dusted around the corner and went back on the make. Do better that way, see?

"Naw, they give you a lot of guff, you go to work outside, work hard, keep your nose clean, you come out of parole and you're in the money. It's sucker bait, is all. Don't go like that, see."

Marlo came closer to Holme.

"Naw, you go out clean, see, just like you say. Then you play it easy. Get a good score and lay back for a while. Don't go pushing your luck.

"That's how they hook me, see. I get too hungry. Get a nice touch, it looks so good I gotta go back for seconds, and they're waiting. I don't make that mistake again." He shook his head.

"Got me a nice pad, way up valley. Gonna hole up there. Go out, pull a good job, then I lay around, maybe a year and think up another. Then, when I'm all ready, I go out, pull a can or two open and lift what they got back to the pad. Ain't gonna be no more of this scuffling around, hitting a quick one and running out to spend the pins quick, so's I can get in no traps."

He looked at Holme thoughtfully.

"I just now think of something, kid. You can make yourself a nice bit, real easy. Don't cost hardly nothing to set up and there ain't much risk. You work more'n a year, learning all about tools, huh? They teach you all about making tools, huh?"

"Sure." Holme laughed shortly. "Got to make all your own hand tools before you get through. Why?"

Marlo grinned broadly.

"I could tell you a lotta guys, need real special tools. Need tools you don't buy in no store, like maybe a good can opener a guy can carry easy. And they pay real good, you make what they want and keep your mouth shut." He rubbed his chin.

"Nice," he went on. "Real nice. And all you need is maybe a few tools you can buy anywhere. And maybe you gotta build up a little forge. Guy knew his way around, he could make a nice pile that way."

Stan looked at the man thoughtfully.

"Sounds interesting," he broke in, "but suppose they find some fabricator operator out in the woods, heating up metal instead of working on a regular job? They'd be curious, don't you think? Especially if the guy's already picked up a record."

"Naw." Marlo turned toward him. "So he's a graduate--who ain't? See, they show this guy up here, he's supposed to be a fabmeister. Only maybe he don't like punching keys. Maybe he don't like to chase them meters, huh? So maybe he'd rather use muscle hardware, see?" He grinned.

"Some guy sets himself up a shack up valley, see? Starts a fixit joint. Looks real legit. Even with muscle hardware, he can put out jobs faster'n them people can get parts from way down Talburg way, see.

"And he gets in with the joes, too. They got their troubles getting things made up for 'em. So this guy gives them a hand. Even working cheap, he picks up some change there, too, and one way or another, the guy's got a living, see?" He glanced back at Holme.

"Only now and then, here comes a few guys in the back door, they want a special job, see, for real special pay. And there's your ice cream and cake. And maybe a little stack for later on."

"I don't know." Stan picked up a book. "I'd rather try playing 'em on the table for a while. It might beat getting flashed and dropped back in."

Big Carl shrugged and crawled back into his bunk.

"Aagh, can happen to anybody," he said. "Just keep this under your hair. Smart kids like you can make out pretty good, you just use your heads. Ain't nothing down Talburg way, though." He yawned.

"Well, I've had it. Got into it with that Wanzor again, out on the pile. Give one of them joes a boost, he gets three meters high." He yawned again and turned toward the wall.

Stan flipped the pages of the book. He had still been unable to put his finger on the point at which Kellonia had ceased to be a planet of free citizens and become the planetary prison he had found himself on.

There had been no sudden change--no dramatic incident, such as the high spots in the history of his native Khloris. Here, things had just drifted from freedom to servitude, with the people dropping their rights as a man discards outworn clothing.

He leaned back, lowering the book. Kell's planet, he remembered, had been one of the first star colonies to be founded after the discovery of the interstellar drive. Settlers had flocked to get pa.s.sage to the new, fertile world.

During the first three hundred years, people had spread over the planet, but the frontier stage had pa.s.sed and the land of promise had stabilized, adopted laws, embraced the arts and sciences. One by one, frontier farms had given way to mechanized food-producing land, worked by trained technical teams and administered by professional management.

Kellonia had entered the age of industrialized culture, with the large individual owner a disappearing species.

Unnoticed and unregretted, the easy freedom of the frontier was discarded and lost. One by one, the rights enjoyed by the original settlers became regarded as privileges. One by one, the privileges were restricted, limited by license, eliminated as unsuitable or even dangerous to the new Kellonian culture.

Little by little, the large group became the individual of law and culture, with the single person becoming a mere cipher.

Members of groups--even members of the governing council itself--found themselves unable to make any but the most minor decisions. Precedent dictated each move. And precedent developed into iron-hard tradition.

In fact, Stan thought, the culture seemed now to be completely self-controlled--self-sustaining. The people were mere cells, who conformed--or were eliminated.

Again, he picked up the book, looking casually through its pages. Detail was unimportant here. There was, he realized with a feeling of frustration, only a sort of dull pattern, with no significant detail apparent.

He awoke a little groggily, looked around the cell, then jumped hastily out of his bunk. Usually he was awake before the bell rang.

Pete Karzer was coming back from the washstand. He looked over.

"You up, Graham?" he said in his whispery voice. "Hey, you know I'm getting out this morning. Guess you'll want to swap blankets again, huh?"

"That's right, too. No use turning in a good blanket, is there?"

"Don't make sense." Pete ma.s.saged the back of his neck.

"Never could figure that swap," he said. "Don't get me wrong, it was real good, being able to sleep warm, but you caught me good when I tried to swipe that blanket of yours. Ain't never seen a guy move so quick. And I ain't so dumb I don't know when I'm licked." He grinned ruefully.

"So I'm down, like I been hit with a singlejack. Then you go and hand over a good blanket for that beat thing I been using. How come?"

Stan shrugged. "I told you," he said. "Where I come from, it's a lot colder than it is here, so I don't need a blanket. I'd have offered a swap sooner, but I didn't want to look like some greasy doormat."

"Wasn't no grease about that swap." Pete grinned and rubbed his neck again. "I found out real quick who was the big man. Where'd you learn that stuff anyway?"

"Oh, picked it up--here and there." Stan glanced down at the floor.

There would be no point in explaining the intensive close combat training he'd been put through at school. Such training would make no sense to his cellmates. To the good citizens of Kellonia, it would seem horrifyingly illegal. He glanced up again.

"You know how it is," he went on. "A guy learns as he goes."

Big Carl Marlo swung his legs over the side of his bunk.

"Looks like you learned real good," he said. He examined Stan.

"Pete tells me about this deal. I kinda miss the action this time, but Pete tells me he's got the blanket and he's all set to plug you good, you should maybe try a ha.s.sle.

"Only all at once, you're on him. He feels a couple quick ones, then he don't know nothing till next day. You can maybe do things like that any time?"

Stan shrugged. "Guy never knows what he can do till he tries. I know a few other tricks, if that's what you mean."

Marlo nodded. "Yeah. Know something, kid? Ain't no use you waste your time being no fabricator nurse. You got a good profesh already, know what I mean?"

Stan looked at him questioningly.

"Sure." Marlo nodded. "So you come here, like maybe you're a tourist, see. But the joes get you and they bring you up here. Going to teach you a trade--fabricator nurse, see. Only they don't know it but you're one guy they don't have to teach, 'counta you got something better. All you gotta do is find your way around."

"I have? Do you really think...."

"Sure. Look, there's a lot of antique big-timers around, see. These old guys figure they need some guy can push the mugs. Pay real good, too, and they couldn't care less you're a graduate. Maybe makes it even better, see. You get in with one of those old guys, you got it made. All legit, too. Oughta look into that, you get out."

Stan smiled. "The first day I was on this planet, they went through my bags while I was out looking over the town. They found a paper knife and a couple of textbooks." He shrugged.

"So I came back to the hotel and someone hit me with a flasher. I came to in a cell." He glanced around.

"Somebody finally told me they'd given me two to five years for carrying a dangerous weapon and subversive literature. Now what would I get if I went out and really messed some guy up?"

Marlo waved a hand carelessly.

"Depends on who you work for," he declared. "You got the right boss, you get a bonus. Worse the guy's gaffed, the bigger the payoff, see?"

Stan reached for his bag of toilet articles.

"That's legitimate?"

"Sure." Mario smiled expansively. "Happens all the time. Even the big outfits need musclers. Staffmen, see? Sorta keep production up.

"Lot of guys get real big jobs that way. Start out, they're Staff a.s.sistance Specialists, like they roust the mugs when they got to. Then pretty quick, they're all dressed up fancy, running things. Real good deal." He shrugged.

"Need a heavy man once in a while, even in my business. Like maybe some guy's got a good pad, he doesn't want a lot of prowlers shaking up the neighbors. You know, gets the law too close, and a guy can't work so good with a lot of joes hanging around. Might even decide to make a search, then where'd you be?" He spread his hands.

"But there's some Johnny Raw, keeps coming around. And maybe this is a pretty rough boy, you can't get on him personal, see. So the only answer, you get some good heavy guy to teach this ape some ethics. Lotta staffmen pick up extra pins this way."

"I think I get the idea. But suppose the law gets into this deal?"

Marlo spread his hands. "Well, this is a civil case, see, so long as the chump don't turn in his ticket. So, anything comes up, you put an amba.s.sador on the job. He talks to the determinators and the joes don't worry you none. Just costs a little something, is all."

Pete looked up from his packing, a smile twisting his face.

"Only trouble, some of these big boys fall in love with their work. This can get real troublesome, like I pick up this five to ten this way.

"See, they get this chump a couple too many. So, comes morning, he's still in the street. Real tough swinging a parole, too. I'm in here since five years, remember? So I'm real careful where I get muscle any more."

"Sounds interesting." Stan nodded thoughtfully.

"Great s.p.a.ce and all the little Nebulae," he said to himself. "What kind of a planet is this? Nothing in the histories about this sort of thing." He walked over to the washstand.

"Some day," he promised himself, "I'm going to get out of here. And when I do, I'll set up camp by Guard Headquarters. And I'll needle those big brains till they do something about this."

There was, he remembered, one organization that should be able to do more than a little in a case like this. He smiled to himself ruefully as he thought of the almost legendary stories he had heard about the Federation's Special Corps for Investigation.

As he remembered the stories, though, corpsmen seemed to appear from nowhere when there was serious trouble. No one ever seemed to call them in. No one even knew how to get in touch with them. He shrugged.

The men of the Special Corps, he remembered, were reputed to be something in the superhuman line.

For a large part of his life, he had dreamed of working with them, but he had been unable to find any way of so much as applying for membership in their select group. So, he'd done the next best thing. He'd gone into the Stellar Guard. And he'd lasted only a little more than three years.

Somehow, he'd taken it from there. He was still a little hazy as to how he'd managed to land in prison on Kell's planet. It had been a mere stopover.

There had been no trial. Obviously, they had searched his luggage at the hotel, but there had been no discussion. He'd simply been beamed into unconsciousness.

After he'd gotten to Opertal, someone had told him the length of his sentence and they'd a.s.signed him to the prison machine shop, to learn a useful trade and the duties of a citizen of Kellonia.

He smiled wryly. They had taught him machinery. And they'd introduced him to their culture. The trade was good. The culture--?

His memory slid back, past the prison--past the years in Kendall Hall, and beyond.

He was ten years old again.

It was a sunny day in a park and Billy Darfield was holding forth.

"Yeah," the boy was saying, "Dad told me about the time he met one of them. They look just like anyone else. Only, when things go wrong, there they are, just all at once. And when they tell you to do something, you've had it." He closed his eyes dreamily.

"Oh, boy," he said happily, "how I'd love to be like that! Wouldn't it be fun to tell old Winant, 'go off some place and drown yourself'?"

Stan smiled incredulously. "Aw, I've heard a lot about the Special Corps, too. They've just got a lot of authority, that's all. They can call in the whole Stellar Guard if they need 'em. Who's going to get wise with somebody that can do that?"

Billy shook his head positively. "Dad told me all about them, and he knows. He saw one of 'em chase a king right off his throne once. Wasn't anybody to help him, either. They've got all they need, all by themselves. Just have to tell people, that's all."

With a jerk, Stan came to the present. He slopped water over his hands.

"Too bad I can't do something like that myself," he thought. "I'd like to tell a few people to go out and drown themselves, right now." He grinned ruefully.

"Only one trouble. I can't. Probably just a lot of rumor, anyway."

But there was something behind those stories of the Special Corps, he was sure. They didn't get official publicity, but there were pages of history that seemed somehow incomplete. There must have been someone around with a lot more than the usual ability to get things done, but whoever he had been, he was never mentioned.

He shrugged and turned away from the washstand.

"Hope that bell rings pretty soon," he told himself. "I'd better get chow and go to work before I really go nuts."