The Woman Obsession By William Campbell Gault

 

The Woman Obsession

By William Campbell Gault

Surely Collins was an idiot. He kept dreaming of women in a world that knew nothing of love's delight. But where there's life—

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe September 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Few writers possess William Campbell Gault's sensitive capacity for balancing delicacy with daring in themes which gracefully skirt the edge of the outrageous, and open up entire new worlds of speculation which future historians will most assuredly encounter in their travels time and time again. Seldom has he written a story more imaginatively audacious than this.

It was on the Mars-Jupiter run, a trip flea-bitten with asteroids, and needing a Level-One navigator. In all the galaxy, there were three Level-One navigators, and Horse Collins was one, and he was ours. By 'ours,' I mean Gideon Shipping, Inc. Twelve years I've piloted for them, and I think they're the best in the business.

Johnny "Horse" Collins was a typical space bum in one way. He was restless, he wanted to see what was out there. But he lacked discipline. And his thinking was earth-bound conventional. He'd even played football at college, and that's where he'd picked up the 'Horse' nickname. He'd been an All-Earth fullback, and why he'd gone on to navigator's school from there I'm not competent to judge. A man who can make All-Earth in a game dominated by robots is bound to have some body. No one but a sportswriter would suspect he might also have a mind.

Horse had a fine mind for his business; otherwise he was, as I've said, rather conventional, like a fullback. He liked women, for one thing.

"Why?" I asked him one day. "Their primary function is handled better by the Massago-Lust. If they have any secondary functions, I've forgotten them."

"You never knew any of their functions, except through books," Horse answered. "Second-hand living."

I stared at him. If traveling among the stars wasn't living, then what the hell was? I asked him that pointblank.

"It's nothing I could explain to you," he said. "You're space-happy."

"Why are you here, Horse?" I asked him quietly.

"Because I thought there'd be adventure, out here. Strange lands and strange people."

"Jupiter isn't a strange land. It's simply a land of ice and lava, a grotesque, fascinating, frightening...."

"No people," Horse interrupted. "And how about Mars?"

"Mars is a disappointment, sure. I was talking about Jupiter, and you say 'no people.' Earth is full of people. Too full. That's why we have the Massago-Lust."

"And the women rationed to the scientists. Who do they think they are?"

"They're the people who cut our shackles, fullback. They're the people who refused to be earth-bound."

"Mmm-hmm. And they're the cuties who could just as well maintain the population quota with artificial insemination, too. But do they? Come to think of it, why don't they?"

"You'd better check your orbit log," I told him. "We're getting into asteroid alley."

"Yes, Chief. Yes, Boss. Yes, Sir!" He pulled out the flats, and looked through the electronic scanner. Then he picked up a stylus and adjusted it to the graph arm, and took another look through the scanner.

He seemed to be frozen there. "Mi Gawd—"

"What's happened? You damned fullback, if you've lost our line to—"

He waved, stiff-armed. "Shut up. We're right on orbit. I just saw a woman. And what a woman. She was waving to me!"

In all the galaxy there had been three Level-One navigators. There were now two.

"Naturally," I said patiently. "You would. That would be your mirage—a woman."

"I saw a woman," Horse insisted evenly, "on—" He was consulting his flats, frowning. "On—Well, I'll be damned."

"You also saw a planetoid that doesn't exist. I'll name it for you, Horse's Asteroid. A fitting name."

Collins didn't answer, right away. He was flipping levers, connecting the scanner to the chart, and also to the controls. Then he said, "Okay, Skipper. We're under mechanical control. Relax, if you know how."

I locked the board and stretched my neck. Horse lighted a cigarette, a vice I deny myself. His eyes looked—bemused.

I said, "You saw a woman where there could be no women. I'll have to enter it in the log, Johnny."

"Sure," he said. He took a deep and weary breath. "You know what the boys call you?"

"Slide Rule Sam," I answered. "I'm proud of it."

"Why? A robot could handle your job."

"For a man who made his reputation in a robot's game, you're talking rather haughtily, fullback. If a robot could handle my job, a robot would be giving you orders right now. Gideon Shipping is cost-conscious enough for that, despite the wages they pay."

"Wages," Johnny said. "Is that all a man works for, wages?"

"At our level, that's all a man works for," I assured him. "You're talking like a Capitalist, Horse." I watched for a reaction.

He started to say something, then shook his head. "You'd probably enter that in the log, too, if I said it." He put out his cigarette thoughtfully. "Sam, on the way back I want you to look through that scanner. If we delay our trip back an hour, the orbits of the other planetoids will be about right, and that one should be, too. Then you can enter the fact that we both saw it. You think I'm space-simple. But you won't be able to doubt what you'll see with your own eyes."

I said evenly, "I've traveled this line for twelve years and I've had navigators before who saw mirages. You're just not emotionally stable, Horse."

"I'm not punchy, either," Horse said. "You can have my resignation right now, Sam."

"Resignation? That's a word I've forgotten, Horse. You'll be re-assigned when we return to base."

He lighted another cigarette and went back to his desk. And I wondered who we'd get to take his place. The schools hadn't had a Level-One navigator in six years and the only two graduates who met that specification were very happy on other runs. Maybe, he wasn't completely gone.... Maybe...? But that wasn't scientific thinking.

Horse said, "Ever read about the old trains on Earth, Sam?"

"Second-hand living," I quoted him. "That's what you called reading."

"All right. It's better than not living at all. Anyway, in those old days, people along the tracks used to wave at the passengers as the trains roared by, for no reason I can think of. At any rate, for no scientific reason. What happened to me was pretty much like that. Sort of romantic, wasn't it?"

"An earth-bound iron sluggard moving through cow pastures. Is that romantic to a man who's seen Jupiter?"

"No, I guess not," Horse said quietly. "Only to me, I guess."

I turned on the video-viewer above the board, and as the glow brightened, I could see the robot quarters and Van Elling playing bridge with three of our brightest automatons. Van's a great boy to buck impossible odds, but otherwise rational. He's our robot master.

Van looked up from the game at the signal light, and smiled, "About time, Skipper?"

"You'd have to ask the navigator."

Van's eyes shifted. "What's he sulking about?"

Horse waved. "How you coming with the master-minds?"

"I'm winning. I've found a system." He looked back at me. "Skipper, there should be two robot masters on this run, and you know it."

Horse laughed. "A partner, eh, Van?"

"Why not? Psychic bids, that's what throws them off. But it throws off my partner, too, and I don't make what I should. How about it, Sam?"

I said, "You wanted a report from the navigator. I'm holding the screen open for that."

Van Elling's face stiffened, and his eyes went to Horse's. Collins said, "Seven hours and twelve minutes." I turned off the viewer.

Silence in the cabin and I was uncomfortable. Damn it, there had to be discipline on board, and I was in command.

Horse said quietly, "Are you a natural son-of-a-broomstick, or do you work at it?"

Rage flamed in me, and I waited until it had languished. Then I said calmly, "I'm your superior, and I've been too lenient. I'm not strong enough to fight you but I'm powerful enough to destroy you. I intend to. Look forward to a long career in the mines of Mars, fullback."

"Even you, with all your connections, couldn't rig that," Horse said lightly. "You can ground me, and hope I get court-martialed for insubordination. I've a few connections, too."

Silence, again. I went over to his scanner and checked our co-ordinates. I brought out the log and entered his mirage and his insubordination. Why quibble? Let the record speak.

Europa loomed below us, now, and Jupiter dead ahead. The oxygenator sent its draft along the back of my neck, and I shifted in my seat, remembering his question about artificial insemination. That in itself could be considered subversive. Not that I hadn't thought it, and millions of others, but he'd voiced it.

The scientists had the money, the power, the commerce. And hadn't they earned it? Hadn't they made all this quite possible?

We hadn't said a word right up to the time I put the forward blasters on for the Jupiter mooring.

The buzzer from the rear hatch was buzzing now, and I threw the switch to open it. Van Elling came in with his duryllium helmet on, beating his hands on his thighs.

Collins helped him with the helmet, and Van said, "Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold. Chief, we might lose a couple minutes on the loading. Those boys aren't what they were when we bought them."

Through the oxygenator, I could smell ammonia and burning elgeron. I went to the viewer room and switched to the landing ramp. The robots were moving down the ramp at a pace which might have been slower than usual, but didn't seem so to me.

Behind me, I could hear Van Elling and Horse Collins whispering. Mutiny?

I watched the first of the robots go into the big hole that led to the elgeron deposits, and came back to see Van at the duplicate robot control board we had to use at the end of a trip. Van was looking worried, but it could have been feigned.

"A few minutes?" I asked. "How many is a few?"

"I said 'a couple' only, Chief, but I think that was a bad guess. It might be an hour."

Horse was smiling. Van kept his face averted.

"Delayed an hour?" I asked, and then it came to me. Horse wanted another look at his asteroid. That's why they'd whispered.

"I'm afraid," I said, "an hour's delay would be too long, and I hope neither of you think I'm being fooled by your cute little tricks. This isn't the time for trickery."

"Sorry, Chief," Van said. "I'm doing the best I can."

He kept his attention on the control board and Horse bent over his charts. They ignored me. Well, I had a lot of strings to pull. They'd regret this day, both of them.

The smell of molten elgeron was heavy now, and the bite of ammonia. The robots were coming back up the ramp, carrying enormous chunks of the solidified, translucent stuff. On Mars, it would be crushed in the huge, automatic grinders and mixed with the stydium of that planet, and sent in radiation-proof ships to the laboratories of Earth.

One robot seemed to falter for a second, and I glanced quickly back toward the cabin where I could just see Van at the control board. I couldn't tell by his manipulation of the toggles whether the robot's falter was deliberate or not, but I saw him glance at Collins and smile.

Rage simmered in me, pulsated, and I stood there for seconds in the viewing room, waiting for it to recede. The whole line of robots was stationary now and the one who'd faltered was leaning over against the guard rail of the ramp.

I came into the cabin and said, "You'd better put on your suit, Van. There's a robot out there holding up the line."

Jupiter was no place to venture without proper radiation shielding, and our space suits weren't the best in the world for radiation protection.

He said, "I think I can handle it from here, Chief."

Horse said quickly, "I'll go out and see what I can do. No sense in taking a chance on jamming the whole line, Van." Collins glanced at me for confirmation.

I shrugged. "Suit yourself. But remember—I didn't order you out."

"Unless you'd like to go, Chief," Horse said meaningfully.

I shook my head. I flushed, too, though there wasn't any reason for it. Unnecessary risks are not a part of a pilot's job.

Horse murmured something that sounded like "gutless" and I said sharply, "Would you repeat that?"

His gaze met mine levelly. "I didn't say a word, Chief. I'll get my suit on."

In a little while, I saw him out there on the ramp putting on a great show of trying to adjust the robot's delemeter, which is what gives them their uncanny balance.

After about twenty minutes, he waved and stood to one side, and Van Elling sent the impulse through. The robot staggered, and then came back to an upright position. Collins stood at the broad part of the ramp as the line began to move again.

Discipline begins with self-discipline, I told myself. No man ever achieved anything without self-control.

The more complex robots stayed in the storeroom of the ship, checking the tonnage, and classifying the elgeron according to quality. These were just the haulers, on the ramp, and Van controlled them completely from his board.

His word regarding their breakdown would be the accepted word with the bosses. I would have a difficult job getting anything on Van Elling.

But Horse Collins? Horse had seen a woman on an asteroid that didn't exist. Horse had been guilty of insubordination. He would need more friends than he had to wriggle out from under those charges.

There was another breakdown before we were finished loading, and they'd timed it well. We blasted off an hour later than usual.

Van went back to the robot quarters and Horse to his charts, and I had some more entries for the log. I'm not a talkative man, but Horse was. The silence in the cabin must have bothered him.

He said, "Chief, we could start over. We could forget the nasty things that have been said."

"I have forgotten them," I said. "Once I enter something in the log, I forget it."

"All that happened you entered in the log?"

"All. Including your earlier request to delay our return an hour." I paused. "The disciplinary board can read whatever inferences they want from that, in the light of what happened later."

"I see. The report would put Van in the soup, too, Chief."

"I suppose."

"That'll lose you two good men."

"Will it?"

Silence for over an hour, and then Horse said, "Before the company filled you full of that discipline garbage, were you human, Sam? Did you dream of a better world, a normal world, a world with women?"

"Some things we outgrow," I said. "I'm doing exactly what I want to do."

Horse sighed, and the silence grew again.

I was dozing the next time he opened his mouth. "It's not necessary to stick it to Van, too, is it, Chief?"

"I record," I said. "I don't judge."

"It wasn't necessary to record my request. Don't give me that, Chief."

"In my opinion, it was necessary."

"Okay. Would you check my co-ordinates?"

He'd caught me in a nap, and I didn't think of the time. It was a routine request in a routine voice and I rose without thinking and went over to the scanner.

I put my eye to the eye-piece and saw her. A dark girl, without clothes, more beautifully shaped than any picture I'd ever carried as an adolescent. And she was waving!

A trembling possessed me, but I fought it. I looked up instantly at Horse, and I said, "You've increased the magnification about three million times beyond the requirements of the co-ordinate check. How do you expect me to substantiate your findings?"

Horse was smiling. "I know, I know. What'd you see, Chief?"

"Nothing. There was nothing to see. This will be recorded, too, Collins."

Collins was still smiling. "You'll record there was nothing to see?"

"I certainly will, and that you had the electronic scanner up to its full magnification for no apparent reason. That should finish you, Collins."

"Chief, if you saw nothing through that scanner, you're already finished. I don't want to stay in a service that would make something like you out of me."

"You haven't the stuff to become something like me," I told him, and went back to my chair.

"The service," he said gently, "is looking for planets or planetoids that will support our kind of life. And you've just seen our kind of life. And you're not going to report it. That's going to be your cross. Because, Slide Rule, I'm not going to report it, either. That's my secret, back there. That's mine."

"Whatever it was you think you saw, you'll never see it again, Collins," I told him. "This is the only line from Mars to Jupiter and you're going to be out of work once we're back to base."

"You think," he said. "You hope. You pray."

I wonder what he thought I'd been doing in my twelve years with Gideon? I wonder if he thought I was so stupid I wouldn't have a few lines to the right people in twelve years? Did he think only the noisy ones could play this political game?

Once out of asteroid alley, I dozed. And dozing, dreamed of that black haired temptress waving, dreamed of her like some pimply-faced young idiot. Gad, if a man couldn't discipline himself after my training....

I wakened to find Horse nodding over his board.

I said sharply, "I'm ready to eat, Collins."

His head jerked upright, and he stared at me a few seconds. Then he stood up and went out to the small galley.

A stinking fullback trying to play the political game with Slide Rule Sam. How these athletes loved to over-rate themselves.

He brought my food, and then went into the galley to eat his.

When he came out, he said, "I'd like to nap, if you're going to be awake, Chief."

"I'll be awake for two hours. You'd better sleep fast."

"You're the boss," he said, which was his admission.

I gave him a bad time the rest of the trip and got not a single complaint out of him. And at Mars, we put on our suits and went ashore, and I entered my complaints with the subsidiary board at the company headquarters there.

They got us transportation to Earth next morning, and both Van and Horse were held for trial the following week.

That gave me time, and I pulled every string I knew in the four days before the trial. Horse was almost irreplaceable; Van could be replaced in five minutes.

But there was no need to worry about Collins. He didn't fight. He pulled no strings I knew of, and when he went up in front of the board, he pleaded space insanity.

He'd seen a mirage, he'd insisted on my checking it, he'd called me names and he took the full responsibility for the robot breakdown. Trying to save Van, I suppose, with that last.

Horse had a company lawyer, and he tried to establish the line that perhaps there had been life on the asteroid and that a discovery of that importance over-shadowed the charges of insubordination and temporary space insanity.

I got on the stand and swore there had been no sign of life and not even an asteroid where Horse had fixed the scanner. I was safe enough, I knew. There were only a few ships on the run, and no other with a scanner of our power.

I hadn't wasted the four days. For three years, I'd been studying navigation in my spare time. I wasn't really qualified for the Mars-Jupiter run, but I had men high in the company who thought I was. I'd get by until I learned.

I didn't want anyone else on that scanner.

Van Elling was fired without prejudice, but I knew he'd have some time trying to get back into the service after the publicity of the trial.

Collins was held over for a higher review of his case on the possibility that his background was subversive. I was sure they'd find some capitalistic group he'd belonged to briefly in college.

I was back on Mars when I got word through the new pilot that Horse had never been brought before the higher tribunal. Somewhere, Van had managed to buy an obsolete, atomic two seater, and Horse had broken out of Embardo. The two of them had been seen by one of the Gideon ships a few million miles beyond Galaxy E.

Typical fullback thinking—that—taking off into space. If he'd wanted to hide, Earth was the place for it. Where could he get to with a clunk of a two seater? He was a navigator, granted. But he'd have to have something worthwhile to navigate.

Both the new pilot and the new robot master were young and properly respectful, space-dedicated boys, and my life, I knew, was going to be pleasant. And once I had mastered navigation, I was going to be damned near irreplaceable.

As we bored through space on the old familiar run, the thought came to me that probably Horse would head for his asteroid, and if he should make it, wouldn't that be something? Two men and one girl. I wonder how long Van would live.

Van was no fullback, nor a reasonably accurate facsimile thereof. Unless he had a weapon, he'd be no match for Horse.

The image of the girl came back to haunt me. I knew there'd been an expedition or two lost in asteroid alley on early exploratory trips, but they hadn't carried women. And her face was familiar.

I went to a library and thumbed through some old newsprints. Of course! The photograph fairly leapt at me. Elsbeth Parrish, the science hater, the woman who'd gone on a lecture tour ridiculing the powers that be, making converts first in the women's schools and then in the co-educational institutions. The 'Live for Love' girl, Elsbeth Parrish.

Naturally the government had cracked down and tried to deport her to Mars. She'd disappeared a week before the trial, and one of those old Interplan Rocket Sedans had disappeared with her. The government had given her up as lost in space.

I could understand now why Horse had made the confession at his trial and why he'd been so submissive on the return trip from Jupiter. He'd tricked me into swearing there was no life on the asteroid. And now he could safely head there, because I was the one man alive besides him and Van Elling who knew there was life there, and my future depended on my not revealing it.

But could he make it in an atomic two seater? And two men for one woman—if he did make it? I had to know the answer.

When we came into asteroid alley, I had the scanner's magnification on at full strength, and I also had the automatic scanning control adjusted to the orbits I wanted. Even Horse Collins couldn't have pin-pointed it any better.

I wish I'd missed it. For both of them were there, Horse and Van, looking up my way and smiling, too. The slobs. There wasn't one woman there. There were three, all beautiful.

Two men and three women.

The dirty, science-hating sons.

Also see:

• William Campbell Gault's Books at Amazon

F.O.B. Venus by Nelson S. Bond

 

 

---

F-O-B-VENUS

By NELSON S. BOND

Lancelot Biggs was perhaps the worst second
mate Captain Hanson had ever shipped, and
he was convinced of it when he ruined their
cargo. But how dumb a man is, may
sometimes be a matter of opinion.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures November 1939.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

---

Something had gone a little haywire with my bug, and I had just repaired it and was CQ-ing on the 20 band when the door opened and Captain Hanson walked in.

Naturally, I was surprised. We were only four hours out of the Venus H-layer, and I hadn't expected any visitors; least of all the skipper. But he plunked himself down in the best chair and said, "Sparks, look at me! What do you see?"

That gave me a jolt. Even the best of them make the old dipsy-doo once in a while, but I never thought I'd live to see the day when Captain Hanson went space nutty. He'd been with the Corporation, man and boy, for more than thirty years now, and had never spent a day in dry-dock. I reached behind me cautiously and said in as soothing a voice as I could muster, "Why, I see a very nice man, Captain. Now, just you sit quiet for a minute. I've got to—"

"Stop bein' a damned fool, Sparks!" said the skipper wearily, "An' put down that monkey-wrench! I'm not slippin' my gravs—yet. I'm just askin' you a simple question. What do you see?"

I said, "Is it facts you're after, Cap, or am I allowed poetic license? If it's facts, I see a swell, slightly gray-haired guy in his middle fifties who's been through the mill, knows space like a book, and—"

"Wrong!" said Hanson. "Sparks, all radiomen are dumb. I guess that's why they're radiomen. What you see before you is a broken man. A man sadly buffeted by Fate and the dread clutch of circumstances. Not to mention meddlesome vice-presidents."

This time I got it.

"Biggs?" I said.

"Yes, Sparks. Biggs. Now tell me, man to man, what did I ever do to deserve Biggs?"

He had me there. Being the skipper of the Saturn is not what I'd call an easy job under the best of conditions. The Saturn is the oldest space-lugger still doing active duty on Corporation runs. She was built 'way back there before the turn of the century. For the past ten or twelve years, she had been on freight service, having been judged unfit for passenger duty by the SSCB—Space Safety Control Board.

To make matters worse, while we were taking on cargo at Sun City spaceport, the skipper had been called into the company offices. When he came out again, he had this Biggs in tow.

Biggs was tall. Biggs was lanky and gangly and all the other adjectives you can think of that mean a guy's Adam's-apple sticks out. He was overflowing at the mouth with a great big grin, and he was as dumb as they make 'em. He had his Third Mate's papers, and was entitled to be known as "Mister" Biggs—the "Mister" being a nice camouflage for his real name, Lancelot.

But—Biggs was the nephew of crusty old Prendergast Biggs, first vice-president of the Corporation. So there was nothing the skipper could do but gulp and say, "Very good!" when they assigned Biggs to the Saturn.

There was nothing to prevent him from hoping Biggs would stumble over his suitcases and bust his scrawny neck—but Biggs didn't do it. He was awkward enough to stumble, but lucky enough to fall on a cushion if he did!

I said gently, "What's he up to now, Captain?"

"What isn't he up to?" groaned the skipper. "First, he said he could handle the gravs when we broke out of Venus' clutch. So—"

"Oh!" I said, "He did that, did he?"

"Stop rubbin' your head an' feelin' sorry for yourself," said Hanson. "You got off lucky. Chief Garrity is nursin' two black eyes. One of the wipers has a busted arm. Everybody on the ship went floatin' off to the ceiling, same as you did."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Everything else!" snorted Hanson. "While we were all scramblin' around in midair, Biggs made a grab for the hand-controls. He got the manual deflector by mistake. Todd has just finished shapin' the course revision. We're point-oh-seven degrees off course now; almost three hundred thousand miles! We've got to up revs and waste fuel to get back, or we'll report in to Earth a day late. And you know what that means!"

Sure, I knew what that meant. Cap on the carpet before the Board; the rest of us sitting around chewing our fingernails, wondering whether they'd yank the Saturn off the Venus run.

"Well, what are you going to do about him?" I asked.

"What can I do?"

"There's always the airlock," I suggested. "Nobody would ever blame you."

"This ain't no time to be funny, Sparks!" complained the skipper. "This is a serious problem. We've got a valuable cargo of mekel-root and clab-beans to take into New York. But if that guy messes up our flight any more—"

He shook his head dolefully. I scratched mine. Then I got a brilliant idea.

"Cargo!" I said. "There's your answer, Captain!"

"I'm listenin'," said Hanson.

"Put Biggs in charge of the cargo. That way he'll be down in the hold throughout the trip. He won't be up in the control turret to bother you. And there's nothing he can do down there that'll hurt anybody."

"But that's the supercargo's job," frowned the skipper. "Biggs knows that."

"Sure. But Harkness will play along with you. Tell him to let on he's sick. Give him a vacation for this trip. He deserves it, anyway. Then it's logical enough to put Biggs on special duty below."

The skipper grinned.

"Sparks, I take it back what I said about radiomen. I think you got somethin' there!"

"Then you'll do it?"

"Immediately," said Hanson, rising, "if not sooner!"

---

So that was that. That night my relief came on duty, and I went down to the mess hall to eat whatever I could stomach of Slops' slumgullion. First person I met up with was Mr. Lancelot Biggs himself.

"Hello, Sparks," he said.

"Hello, yourself," I answered. "What are you doing at this mess? Thought you ate at the skipper's hour?"

"I did until now," he grinned. "Harkness was taken ill this afternoon, and the Skipper put me on emergency duty in his place."

"Is that so?" I said, looking as surprised as possible. "Well, that's quite a job. Lot of responsibility, you know. That cargo's valuable."

I had to grin at the way his lean face sobered.

"I realize that, Sparks. I'm devoting a lot of thought to the job, too. You know, I'm a bit of an experimenter, and it seems to me—"

One of the mess boys brought on my chow then, and I didn't listen to the rest of his chatter. Which was a sad mistake. If I had listened, I would have been able to warn Captain Hanson that trouble was on the way.

I think it was about the third day out that I began to smell those smells. Yes, I know it was the third day, because I'd just contacted Joe Marlowe on Lunar Three, giving him declination and cruising speed of the Saturn. I thought it was funny, but guessed it would go away. It didn't. It got worse. Finally, on the fifth day, I decided to do something.

There's nothing like meeting trouble halfway. I was just on my way from the radio room to the control turret when I bumped smack into Captain Hanson. It was a head on collision, but the Skipper's "Oof!" took longer than mine, so I got to talk first.

"Listen here!" I yelled, "I've had about as much of this rickety old tub as I'm going to stand. If you can't put a stop to those stinks Slops makes in the galley—"

Hanson gave me a look that would wilt lettuce.

"I don't want no trouble with you, Sparks!" was his comeback. "I been smellin' those smells, too. That's what I was aimin' to ask you about. Have you been foolin' around with some of them chemical experiments of your'n?"

"I have not," I informed him loftily. "And besides, while chemicals may stink sometimes, they don't ever give out a smell like the butt of an overripe cabbage. Except perhaps some of the sulphur compounds." Then I stared at him. "I'm not kidding. I think those smells are coming up out of the galley."

The skipper groaned softly.

"Trouble. Nothin' but trouble. It ain't enough I'm supposed to shuttle this barge between Earth an' Mars. Now I got smells to worry about, too. Well, come on! Let's look!"

We went down to the galley. Slops was stirring something in a bowl. I took one look and shuddered. Tapioca—again. And don't tell me you're not supposed to stir tapioca. I know it. Tell Slops.

Then the skipper loosed his blast.

"Okay, Slops," he snarled. "We give up. Where'd you hide it?"

Slops looked puzzled.

"Hide what? I didn't hide nothin'. What is this, a game?"

"Sure," I chinned in. "It's called Sniff-the-Atmosphere. You play it by pressing your thumb and forefinger to your nostrils. Then you try to guess what died."

"Quiet, Sparks!" roared the skipper. Then, to the cook, "Well, Slops?"

Slops shrugged.

"I ain't done nothin'," he protested. "I ain't hid nothin', and I ain't smelled nothin'. Now I got a meal on the fire. Go 'way and leave me alone."

The skipper looked at me, and I stared back at him. Both of us realized the same thing at the same time. Slops wasn't lying. The smell wasn't as bad here as it had been updeck.

Hanson scratched his head. He said, suspiciously, "Sparks, are you sure you ain't been mixin' chemicals?"

"I'll swear it," I told him, "on a pile of logbooks. That smell came from—Hey! What else beside the galley lies beneath my room and the control turret?"

"I'm a cook," said Slops, still stirring the tapioca, "not a blueprint. Don't ask me."

"Shut up!" snapped Captain Hanson. "He ain't askin' you. Let's see, Sparks. There's the storage closet ... the reservoir ... the refrigeration tanks, and the—" His eyes widened suddenly; fearfully. "Sparks!" he husked.

"Yes?"

"The vegetable hold!"

---

Man, that was it! The minute he said it, I knew. The vegetable hold—and Biggs in charge!

We hightailed it for the nearest ramp. The minute we turned down the corridor the smell got worse. Hanson blasted down the aisle like a rogue asteroid, with me trailing along behind. We hit the door; rammed it open—

Biggs was in there. The darned fool was standing in there dressed in a bulger, calmly spraying the bins of mekel-root and clab with a hose!

He turned as we entered and his eyes lighted behind the quartzite. His audiophone clacked pleasantly.

"Hello!" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"

"Anything wrong!" bellowed Captain Hanson. "He asks if there's anything wrong! That—that suit! And that hose—" The skipper's face was turning purple. "And this heat!"

"I turned off the refrigerating unit," clacked Biggs pleasantly. "You see, I had a theory that since the climate of Venus is warm and moist, it would be better for the cargo if I attempted to simulate its normal conditions of growth. So I—"

"And the suit?" roared Hanson. "Why the bulger?"

Biggs moved his hands deprecatingly.

"Why, possible infection, you know. I didn't want to expose the vegetables to any organisms—"

"Infect ... moisture ... heat...." Captain Hanson gave up. He buried his face in his hands. "Tell him, Sparks! Tell him what he's doing!"

I said, "Listen, Biggs—your theory is no good. Clab and mekel have to be kept in a cool, dry atmosphere or they rot. As a matter of fact, they are rotten! That's why the captain and I came down here—to investigate the smell. If you weren't wearing a bulger you'd notice it yourself."

"Smell?" said Biggs. "Why, now, come to think of it, I have noticed a curious odor about the ship from time to time. But I thought it was rats!"

Rats! On a space ship! Imagine!

That was the last straw for Hanson. He'd been trying, and trying hard. But now he exploded.

"Biggs!" he roared, "You've ruined this cargo! Now you're relieved from your command! But before you report to your quarters, I want every bit of this mess cleaned up. And I mean every last bit, understand? Junk it! Clear it out!"

Biggs faltered, "B-but, Captain, I only tried to—"

"You heard me!"

The skipper wheeled, fiery with wrath, and strode to the doorway. I hurried after him. I whispered in his ear, "Take it easy, Captain. He's the vice-president's nephew. Maybe you ought to go slow!"

"Slow?" groaned the skipper. "A fifty thousand dollar cargo ruined—and you tell me to go slow? I'll see that idiotic son-of-a-space-wrangler fryin' in chaos. I'll blast him out of space if I'm blacklisted for it!"

I said nothing more. What was there to say? Fifty thousand bucks worth of cargo rotting in the hold. The Board would love that!

---

That was all until the next morning. The next morning I was on the bridge when Captain Hanson had a visitor. Garrity, the Chief Engineer. Garrity never came to the bridge. So I knew, the minute I saw him, that something was vitally wrong.

It was. Garrity's first words made that clear. He glared at the skipper accusingly from eyes that were still faintly purpled.

"Captain Hanson," he exploded. "Would you be so kind as to tell me where I can find my Forenzi jars?"

Hanson said, "Forenzi jars? What are you talking about, Chief?"

"You'll be knowing what a Forenzi jar is, no doubt?" said Garrity caustically. "'Tis a lead container for battery solution. Yesterday there were thirty of them in the storeroom. Today there are only a half dozen left!"

Hanson said pettishly, "Now, Chief, be kind enough to conduct your own search for the jars. I don't know anything about them. If you can't watch your own equipment, don't complain to me about it!"

"I'm complaining to you, sir," said the Chief, "for the verra simple reason that 'twas one of your men who removed them from the locker. Your third mate, Mister Biggs!"

"Biggs!" said Hanson. "Biggs!" His face reddened. He walked to the intercommunication unit, jabbed the button that connected with Biggs' quarters. "Mr. Biggs?" he yelped, "Chief Garrity is up here in the turret asking about twenty-four lead containers that disappeared strangely from his equipment locker. Do you know anything about—"

The diaphragm clacked an answer. Hanson started. His eyes bulged. He yelled, "What?"

Again some metallic buzzing. This time Hanson didn't try to answer. He tottered away from the 'phone.

"G-Garrity," he faltered, "will you be needin' the Forenzis before we make port?"

"Well, 'tis not exactly vital—" admitted Garrity.

"But—why?"

Hanson made a weak gesture.

"Because they're—out there!"

"What?" I said. "Outside the ship? How come? Why?"

Hanson's eyes were haunted.

"Biggs," he said in a hollow voice, "thought they were garbage cans! He used them to dispose of the rotten cargo!"

---

Well, there wasn't any danger of the Forenzis getting lost, anyway. But do you know I even had to point that out to Mr. Biggs? Yes. That night I got a personal message for him, and I took it down to his cabin. Being confined to quarters, he was lonely. He looked so abject that I felt sorry for him, and lingered to talk for a while.

"I guess you think I'm a frightful dummy, Sparks," he said ruefully. "And I know Captain Hanson thinks so. But—this is my first flight, you know. And nobody ever told me what to use for garbage pails—"

"Look, Biggs," I told him, "there's no need for garbage pails in space. You can't just dump things out the airlock and expect to get rid of them."

"But Captain Hanson said to junk the spoiled vegetables."

"Junk. Not dump! They should have been thrown into the incinerator. You see, anything tossed out of the Saturn in free space just follows along with the ship." I grinned. "I'd hate to be one of the spaceport attendants on Earth when the Saturn comes in surrounded by twenty-four lead satellites full of garbage."

He picked me up on that one quick as a flash.

"But—but they won't be with us when we land, Sparks. As soon as we hit Earth's atmosphere, the friction will destroy the Forenzis and their contents."

I whistled softly.

"By golly, you're right. I clean forgot about that, and Hanson was so sore, he forgot it, too. That means we have to get those containers back into the ship before we hit the tropo, or we're going to lose a couple hundred bucks worth of equipment."

Biggs said meekly, "I—I'll be glad to go out and reclaim them, Sparks. Can you fix it up with the skipper?"

"I'll try," I told him.

So the next day I told Hanson about it. The Captain yanked his lower lip thoughtfully and agreed.

"Let him do it. That's better than giving him a free ride to Earth. And maybe he'll slip into the rocket blasts?"

I passed the order on to Biggs; then went back to the radio room. Joe Marlowe was calling me from Lunar Three. And what he had to say drove all other thoughts from my mind. His message came right from Corporation headquarters.

"Please report," it said, "exact amount and probable value of cargo. Must have immediate reply."

I shot through an O.K. and passed the message up to the skipper. Then, my curiosity aroused, I contacted Joe on our private conversation band and asked him how come and why. He answered cautiously.

"Stock market taking nosedive in New York, Bert," he told me. "Corp. bonds fading. Need this cargo badly."

Boy, there was bad news! It was a private message, but I figured the Old Man ought to know it. So when he came in I passed it along. He stared at me.

"Hell's bells, Sparks! Then in that case, I can't send this!"

"This" was the message he had intended to relay: It said, succinctly, "Cargo ruined. Value zero."

"If you do," I told him, "we'll all be studying the want ads as soon as we hit port. Stock markets are screwy. This can't be a bad panic, or a fifty thousand buck cargo wouldn't be that important. But if the Corporation's under suspicion, and they learn the Saturn's cargo is worthless—"

"What will we do then?"

"Stall," I suggested. "Maybe by the time we get in, the situation will be cleared up."

So we framed a message that wouldn't upset the apple cart too soon. It said, "Value of cargo estimated at Sun City spaceport as $50,000." And that was true enough....

---

Biggs, with his unerring faculty for selecting the wrong moment, chose this time to come bouncing into my radio room. He had taken off his quartzite headpiece, but he was still wearing his bulger, and its deflated folds hung around him like the poorly draped carcass of a Venusian mammoth.

He said, "Hey, Sparks, have you got a book on energy and radiation?"

"Help yourself," I said, pointing to my bookcase. "Why, what's the sudden excitement?"

"I've been thinking," he began, "that maybe—"

Captain Hanson let out a blat like an angry lion.

"Mister Biggs! I thought you were reclaiming those Forenzi jars?"

"Yes, sir. I was. I mean—I am. But—"

"Never mind the 'buts'! Get back to work!"

"Y-yes, sir!" Biggs saluted meekly; tossed me a grateful glance. "Thanks, Sparks. I've got an idea, and if I'm right—"

"Get out, Biggs!" roared the skipper.

"Yes, sir." Biggs backed out hastily. He was thumbing the pages as he disappeared. Hanson yanked his lower lip angrily.

"The Corporation goes busted. The Saturn goes under the hammer. We're all out of jobs. And that—that insane young whippersnapper wants to play school!"

"He seemed mighty excited about something," I said.

"He'll be worse than that," promised the skipper, "if he doesn't get those jars back on board."

All this, to get Biblical about it, took place on the seventh day. The Saturn is a ten-day freighter. So we had three more days of headaches before us till we slipped into New York spaceport.

They were three days of headaches, too. The skipper and I spent most of our time hanging over the radio, watching the progress of the stock market slump in New York. We hoped the situation would ease up so that our coming in with a zero cargo wouldn't make any difference—but no such luck. Somehow the rumor had gotten around that the Saturn's cargo would not be of sufficient value to keep the Corporation in the blue. And the Wall Street wolves were closing in, getting ready to snap if the rumor were true.

In the meantime, our stupid friend, Biggs, was taking a hell of a long time to reclaim those Forenzis. It's really not a hard job, you know. All he had to do was slip out through the airlock, throw a grapple around each jar, and bring it in.

But he seemed to be as awkward at this as at every other job he had ever attempted. On an off-period, I went down to watch him once. I found he'd thrown grapples around the jars, but had not brought a single one into the airlock yet.

---

Biggs was in a frightful mess, trying to throw grapples around the jars.

---

I told him, "You'd better get a wiggle on, Biggs. We hit the tropo tomorrow. If those things get into the atmosphere, you'll be able to pour them into the airlock."

"I know," he said abstractedly, "but I'm not quite ready to—Sparks, according to that book you lent me, cosmic rays go down to 1/100,000 Ângstrom units."

"That's right," I told him.

"That means they are more than ten times as intense as gamma rays."

"Right again. Why? What's the pay-off?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," he said strangely. He finished tying a loop around one of the jars; pushed himself free and toward the airlock.

"You want me to help you drag 'em in now?" I asked.

"No thanks, Sparks. I think we'll leave them out till tomorrow," he said.

"But Captain Hanson—" I began.

"Tomorrow."

"After all, I'm just a radioman," I shrugged. "It's your funeral," I said.

---

He got them inside the next day. I saw them lying in the corridor beside the airlock, covered with a strip of tarpaulin. And he got them in just in time, too, for about an hour later we hit the Heaviside layer.

We set out our Ampie and eased through all right. From there on, it was just an easy coast to Earth. We threw out our lug-sails—the retractable metal fins which give "space luggers" their name—and put on the power brakes. In a couple of hours we were settling into our hangar off New York spaceport.

I closed out my key and locked the radio room. There was nothing more I could do now. So I went up to the control turret and found Captain Hanson gnawing the fingernail of his index finger down to the second joint.

"Well, Captain?" I said.

"Any late news, Sparks?" he demanded anxiously.

I shook my head.

"Only bad news. The Board's sending over their appraisers immediately."

He said wearily, "Well, we did our best. If it hadn't been for that crazy Biggs, we'd still have our cargo. But as it is—"

"I wonder if International Stratoplanes need any radio operators?" I said gloomily.

We were grounded now. As we walked down the corridor the motors went off, and I could hear the hiss of the airlock opening. We reached the port just as the committee entered. Doc Challenger was there, and Col. Brophy, and old Prendergast Biggs himself. I knew, then, that things were in a bad state, or all the big bugs would not have come out.

Challenger stepped forward, beaming.

"Happy landing, Captain!" he chortled. "I need not tell you how glad we are you came in safely. We've been experiencing bad times in New York, sir, bad times! But everything's all right now."

Hanson said, "Yes, sir. But I've got something to tell you, sir—"

"Later, Captain, later! First we must take up this cargo question. Approximately $50,000 worth of mekel and clab—is that right? We have our appraisers here. If your estimate is right, the Corporation will weather this—er—mild storm."

Hanson coughed nervously. He hedged.

"Well, now, you see—about that there cargo—"

You never saw three faces lose their smiles so suddenly. There was stony silence for a minute. Then Col. Brophy said in a deep voice, "Captain Hanson, there's nothing wrong in your estimate of the cargo's value, is there?"

"No, sir. I mean the estimate was right, but—"

---

IT was right here that young Lancelot Biggs interrupted.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but I don't quite understand. Is it important that we land a cargo of clab and mekel?"

Captain Hanson whirled on him.

"Biggs!" he snapped sternly. Then he turned to old Prendergast Biggs. "Sir," he said, "I've delayed telling this as long as possible. But now I must tell you. This precious nephew of yours—"

The old man smiled fatuously.

"Yes, yes, Captain Hanson. A fine lad, isn't he? What was it you were starting to say, Lancelot?"

I grabbed Hanson's arm. I thought he was going to blow his tubes and hit somebody right then and there. But before he got a chance, Lancelot Biggs was talking again. To the Captain.

"Captain Hanson," he said seriously, "I wish you'd told me this before. I didn't realize that our cargo was so important—"

Then he turned to the committee.

"I hope you will not be surprised to learn, gentlemen, that our cargo is not vegetable. At the last minute, Captain Hanson decided to make a change—"

Hanson's face turned white. He squawked, "What! Are you trying to shift the blame to—"

Biggs' voice drowned out his protest.

"—and so, gentlemen, we have placed the cargo right here for your inspection. Look!" With a swift motion he tore the tarpaulin off the Forenzi jars. I looked—and gulped! They were the same jars, all right. Only different! They were no longer a dull, whitish metal. They were a glinting copper color! Biggs patted one of them affectionately.

"Ask your appraisers to estimate the value of these, gentlemen. I think they'll find their value to be approximately a quarter of a million dollars. These are—pure gold!"

It's a good thing I was holding on to Captain Hanson's arm. For just as the committee was exclaiming, "Excellent! Excellent trading, Captain Hanson!" the skipper's nerves gave out. He collapsed like a punctured bulger. I remember shouting, "Water! Water, somebody!" Then I passed out, too!

---

Afterward, the three of us were alone in the turret. And Hanson was asking, "But how, Biggs? I don't get it at all? How in blazes did it happen?"

Biggs blushed and looked uncomfortable.

"Why, it's pretty obvious when you come to analyze it, Captain. I can't understand how it is that no one ever discovered it before, in twenty years of space travel. But perhaps it's because ships and bulgers are made of permalloy instead of lead. Or it may be that some enzyme secreted by the rotten vegetables acted as a catalyst. Lab workers will have to study that."

"You're still not telling us what happened."

"Don't you know? It was transmutation, induced in the lead Forenzi jars by the action of cosmic rays."[1]

Captain Hanson said in an awed tone. "Exposure to cosmic rays done that?"

"Yes. Artificial transmutations were caused 'way back in the early 20th Century through bombardment with gamma rays. And cosmic rays are more than ten times as short as gammas.

"I began to suspect something strange was happening to the Forenzi jars when I first went out to gather them in. Their color had changed slightly, and their exterior was rather more granular. That's why I came in to borrow Spark's book on radiation. What I saw convinced me that the lead was being transmuted; was then in the mesolead stage; approximately an isotope of thallium.

"I decided to wait and see if the transmutation would continue—"

Hanson wiped his hand across his forehead.

"Suppose there'd been more time? An' suppose'n the transmutation had gone on a step farther? What then?"

"Well, now, there's an interesting question. The next element down the ladder is platinum.[2] It's quite possible that—"

"Wait a minute," interrupted the skipper. "Did you say platinum?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Nothin'. That is, nothin' much."

The skipper rose and strode to the intercommunicating phone.

"Ross?" he yelled. "Listen—I want you to get this crate ready to roll again. We're takin' off for Venus first thing in the mornin'. An', hey, Ross! Send to the warehouse for about five—no, make it six—dozen Forenzi jars. Yeah, Forenzi jars, I said.

"And Ross—get the biggest ones they got! The Corporation ain't found it out yet, but we're goin' into the transmutin' business. And Mister Biggs comes aboard as First Mate!"

---

[1]Lead has an atomic weight of 207 plus, and its atomic number is 82. This atomic number corresponds to its net positive nuclear charge. Gold on the other hand, has an atomic weight of 197, with an atomic number of 79.

The loss of two alpha particles and the loss of a single beta particle in a molecule of lead, causes that molecule to become an isotopal molecule of gold, with an atomic number 79, and the atomic weight of 199. For all practical commercial purposes, this is the same as true gold.—Author.

[2]Platinum has a weight of 195 plus, and a net Positive nuclear charge of 78.—Author.

 

About the Author

Nelson Slade Bond (November 23, 1908 – November 4, 2006) was an American writer. His works included books, magazine articles, and scripts used in radio, for television and on the stage.(Wikipedia)

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