Read Like A Writer

There are two ways to learn how to write fiction: by reading it and by writing it. Yes, you can learn lots about writing stories in workshops, in writing classes and writing groups, at writers' conferences. You can learn technique and process by reading the dozens of books like this one on fiction writing and by reading articles in writers' magazines. But the best teachers of fiction are the great works of fiction themselves. You can learn more about the structure of a short story by reading Anton Chekhov's 'Heartache' than you can in a semester of Creative Writing 101. If you read like a writer, that is, which means you have to read everything twice, at least. When you read a story or novel the first time, just let it happen. Enjoy the journey. When you've finished, you know where the story took you, and now you can go back and reread, and this time notice how the writer reached that destination. Notice the choices he made at each chapter, each sentence, each word. (Every word is a choice.) You see now how the transitions work, how a character gets across a room. All this time you're learning. You loved the central character in the story, and now you can see how the writer presented the character and rendered her worthy of your love and attention. The first reading is creative—you collaborate with the writer in making the story. The second reading is critical.


John Dufresne, from his book, The Lie That Tells A Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

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Sunday, April 17, 2016

The King of the City by Keith Laumer


THE KING OF THE CITY

By KEITH LAUMER

Illustrated by FINLAY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine August 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


He was a sort of taxi-driver, delivering
a commuter to the city. The tank traps and
armored cars were the hazards of the trade!


I stood in the shadows and looked across at the rundown lot with the windblown trash packed against the wire mesh barrier fence and the yellow glare panel that said HAUG ESCORT. There was a row of city-scarred hacks parked on the cracked ramp. They hadn't suffered the indignity of a wash-job for a long time. And the two-story frame building behind them—that had once been somebody's country house—now showed no paint except the foot-high yellow letters over the office door.

Inside the office a short broad man with small eyes and yesterday's beard gnawed a cigar and looked at me.

"Portal-to-portal escort cost you two thousand C's," he said. "Guaranteed."

"Guaranteed how?" I asked.

He waved the cigar. "Guaranteed you get into the city and back out again in one piece." He studied his cigar. "If somebody don't plug you first," he added.

"How about a one-way trip?"

"My boy got to come back out, ain't he?"

I had spent my last brass ten-dollar piece on a cup of coffee eight hours before, but I had to get into the city. This was the only idea I had left.

"You've got me wrong," I said. "I'm not a customer. I want a job."

"Yeah?" He looked at me again, with a different expression, like a guy whose new-found girl friend has just mentioned a price.

"You know Gra'nyauk?"

"Sure," I said. "I grew up here."

He asked me a few more questions, then thumbed a button centered in a ring of grime on the wall behind him. A chair scraped beyond the door; it opened and a tall bony fellow with thick wrists and an adams apple set among heavy neck tendons came in.

The man behind the desk pointed at me with his chin.

"Throw him out, Lefty."

Lefty gave me a resentful look, came around the desk and reached for my collar. I leaned to the right and threw a hard left jab to the chin. He rocked back and sat down.

"I get the idea," I said. "I can make it out under my own power." I turned to the door.

"Stick around, mister. Lefty's just kind of a like a test for separating the men from the boys."

"You mean I'm hired?"

He sighed. "You come at a good time. I'm short of good boys."

I helped Lefty up, then dusted off a chair and listened to a half-hour briefing on conditions in the city. They weren't good. Then I went upstairs to the chart room to wait for a call.


It was almost ten o'clock when Lefty came into the room where I was looking over the maps of the city. He jerked his head.

"Hey, you."

A weasel-faced man who had been blowing smoke in my face slid off his stool, dropped his cigarette and smeared it under his shoe.

"You," Lefty said. "The new guy."

I belted my coat and followed him down the dark stairway, and out across the littered tarmac, glistening wet under the polyarcs, to where Haug stood talking to another man I hadn't seen before.

Haug flicked a beady glance my way, then turned to the stranger. He was a short man of about fifty with a mild expressionless face and expensive clothes.

"Mr. Stenn, this is Smith. He's your escort. You do like he tells you and he'll get you into the city and see your party and back out again in one piece."

The customer looked at me. "Considering the fee I'm paying, I sincerely hope so," he murmured.

"Smith, you and Mr. Stenn take number 16 here." Haug patted a hinge-sprung hood, painted a bilious yellow and scabbed with license medallions issued by half a dozen competing city governments.

Haug must have noticed something in Stenn's expression.

"It ain't a fancy-looking hack, but she's got full armor, heavy-duty gyros, crash-shocks, two-way music and panic gear. I ain't got a better hack in the place."

Stenn nodded, popped the hatch and got in. I climbed in the front and adjusted the seat and controls to give me a little room. When I kicked over the turbos they sounded good.

"Better tie in, Mr. Stenn," I said. "We'll take the Canada turnpike in. You can brief me on the way."

I wheeled 16 around and out under the glare-sign that read "HAUG ESCORT." In the eastbound linkway I boosted her up to 90. From the way the old bus stepped off, she had at least a megahorse under the hood. Maybe Haug wasn't lying, I thought. I pressed an elbow against the power pistol strapped to my side.

I liked the feel of it there. Maybe between it and old 16 I could get there and back after all.


"My destination," Stenn said, "is the Manhattan section."

That suited me perfectly. In fact, it was the first luck I'd had since I burned the uniform. I looked in the rear viewer at Stenn's face. He still wore no expression. He seemed like a mild little man to be wanting into the cage with the tigers.

"That's pretty rough territory, Mr. Stenn," I said. He didn't answer.

"Not many tourists go there," I went on. I wanted to pry a little information from him.

"I'm a businessman," Stenn said.

I let it go at that. Maybe he knew what he was doing. For me, there was no choice. I had one slim lead, and I had to play it out to the end. I swung through the banked curves of the intermix and onto the turnpike and opened up to full throttle.



It was fifteen minutes before I saw the warning red lights ahead. Haug had told me about this. I slowed.

"Here's our first roadblock, Mr. Stenn," I said. "This is an operator named Joe Naples. All he's after is his toll. I'll handle him; you sit tight in the hack. Don't say anything, don't do anything, no matter what happens. Understand?"

"I understand," Stenn said mildly.

I pulled up. My lights splashed on the spikes of a Mark IX tank trap. I set the parking jacks and got out.

"Remember what I told you," I said. "No matter what." I walked up into the beam of the lights.

A voice spoke from off to the side.

"Douse 'em, Rube."

I went back and cut the lights. Three men sauntered out onto the highway.

"Keep the hands away from the sides, Rube."

One of the men was a head taller than the others. I couldn't see his face in the faint red light from the beacon, but I knew who he was.

"Hello, Naples," I said.

He came up to me. "You know me, Rube?"

"Sure," I said. "The first thing Haug told me was pay my respects to Mr. Naples."

Naples laughed. "You hear that, boys? They know me pretty good on the outside, ha?"


He looked at me, not laughing any more. "I don't see you before."

"My first trip."

He jerked a thumb at the hack. "Who's your trick?"

"A businessman. Name is Stenn."

"Yeah? What kind business?"

I shook my head. "We don't quiz the cash customers, Joe."

"Let's take a look." Naples moved off toward the hack, the boys at his side. I followed. Naples looked in at Stenn. Stenn sat relaxed and looked straight ahead. Naples turned away, nodded to one of his helpers. The two moved off a few yards.

The other man, a short bullet-headed thug in a grease-spatted overcoat, stood by the hack, staring in at Stenn. He took a heavy old-style automatic from his coat pocket, pulled open the door. He aimed the gun at Stenn's head and carefully squeezed the trigger.

The hammer clicked emptily.

"Ping," he said. He thrust the gun back in his pocket, kicked the door shut and went over to join Naples.

"Okay, Rube," Naples called.

I went over to him.

"I guess maybe you on the level," he said. "Standard fee. Five hundred, Old Federal notes."

I had to be careful now. I held a bland expression, reached in—slowly—took out my wallet. I extracted two hundred-C notes and held them out.

Naples looked at them, unmoving. The thug in the dirty overcoat moved up close, and suddenly swung the edge of his palm at my wrist. I was ready; I flicked my hand aside and chopped him hard at the base of the neck. He dropped.

I was still holding out the money.

"That clown isn't worthy of a place in the Naples organization," I said.

Naples looked down at the man, stirred him with his foot.

"A clown," he said. He took the money and tucked it in his shirt pocket.

"Okay, Rube," he said. "My regards to Haug."

I got in the hack and moved up to the barrier. It started up, trundled aside. Naples was bending over the man I had downed. He took the pistol from the pocket of the overcoat, jacked the action and aimed. There was a sharp crack. The overcoat flopped once. Naples smiled over at me.

"He ain't worthy a place in the Naples organization," he said.

I waved a hand vaguely and gunned off down the road.


II

The speaker in my ear hummed.

I grunted an acknowledgement and a blurred voice said, "Smith, listen. When you cross the South Radial, pick up the Midwest Feed-off. Take it easy and watch for Number Nine Station. Pull off there. Got it?"

I recognized the voice. It was Lefty, Haug's Number One boy. I didn't answer.

"What was the call?" Stenn asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Nothing."

The lights of the South Radial Intermix were in sight ahead now.

I slowed to a hundred and thought about it. My personal motives told me to keep going, my job as a paid Escort was to get my man where he wanted to go. That was tough enough, without detours. I eased back up to one-fifty, took the Intermix with gyros screaming, and curved out onto the thruway.

The speaker hummed. "What are you trying to pull, wise guy?" He sounded mad. "That was the South Radial you just passed up—"

"Yeah," I said. "That's right. Smitty takes 'em there and he brings 'em back. Don't call us, we'll call you."

There was a long hum from the speaker. "Oh, a wiseacre," it said finally. "Listen, rookie, you got a lot to learn. This guy is bankrolled. I seen the wad when he paid Haug off. So all right, we cut you in. Now, get this...."

He gave me detailed instructions. When he was finished, I said, "Don't wait up for me."

I took the speaker out of my ear and dropped it into the disposal slot. We drove along quietly for quite a while.

I was beginning to recognize my surroundings. This section of the turnpike had been opened the year before I left home. Except for the lack of traffic and the dark windows along the way it hadn't changed.

I was wondering just what Lefty's next move would be when a pair of powerful beams came on from the left, then pulled onto the highway, speeding up to pace me. I rocketed past before he had made full speed. I heard a loud spang, and glass chips scattered on my shoulder. I twisted and looked. A starred hole showed in the bubble, above the rear seat.


"Duck!" I yelled. Stenn leaned over, put his head down.

The beams were gaining on me. I twisted the rear viewer, hit the I/R switch. A three-ton combat car, stripped, but still mounting twin infinite repeaters. Against that, old 16 was a kiddie car. I held my speed and tried to generate an idea. What I came up with wasn't good, but it was all I had.

A half a mile ahead there should be a level-split, one of those awkward ones that caused more than one pile-up in the first few months the turnpike was open. Maybe my playmates didn't know about it.

They were about to overtake me now. I slowed just a little, and started fading to the right. They followed me, crowding my rear wheel. I heard the spang again, twice, but nothing hit me. I was on the paved shoulder now, and could barely see the faded yellow cross-hatching that warned of the abutment that divided the pavement ahead.

I held the hack in the yellow until the last instant, then veered right and cleared the concrete barrier by a foot, hit the down-curve at a hundred and eighty in a howl of gyros and brakes—and the thunderous impact of the combat car.

Then I was off the pavement, fighting the wheel, slamming through underbrush, then miraculously back on the hard surface and coasting to a stop in the clear.

I took a deep breath and looked back. The burning remains of the car were scattered for a quarter of a mile along the turnpike. That would have been me if I had gauged it wrong.

I looked at the canopy of the hack. Three holes, not a foot apart, right where a passenger's head would be if he were sitting upright. Stenn was unconcernedly brushing glass dust from his jacket.

"Very neat, Mr. Smith," he said. "Now shall we resume our journey?"

"Maybe it's time you leveled with me, Stenn," I said.

He raised his eyebrows at me slightly.

"When Joe Naples' boy Friday pointed the gun at your head you didn't bat an eyelash," I said.

"I believe those were your instructions," Stenn said mildly.

"Pretty good for a simple businessman. I don't see you showing any signs of the shakes now, either, after what some might call a harrowing experience."

"I have every confidence in your handling—"

"Nuts, Stenn. Those three holes are pretty well grouped, wouldn't you say? The man that put them there was hitting where he was aiming. And he was aiming for you."

"Why me?" Stenn looked almost amused.

"I thought it was a little shakedown crew, out to teach me a lesson," I said. "Until I saw where the shots were going."

Stenn looked at me thoughtfully. He reached up and took a micro-speaker from his ear.

"The twin to the one you rashly disposed of," he said. "Mr. Haug was kind enough to supply it—for a fee. I must tell you that I had a gun in my hand as we approached the South Radial Intermix. Had you accepted the invitation to turn off, I would have halted the car, shot you and gone on alone. Happily, you chose to resist the temptation, for reasons of your own...." He looked at me inquiringly.

"Maybe I'm sap enough to take the job seriously," I said.

"That may possibly be true," Stenn said.

"What's your real errand here, Stenn? Frankly, I don't have time to get involved."

"Really? One wonders if you have irons in the fire, Smith. But never mind. I shan't pry. Are we going on?"

I gave him my stern penetrating look.

"Yeah," I said. "We're going on."


In twenty minutes, we were on the Inner Concourse and the polyarcs were close together, lighting the empty sweep of banked pavement. The lights of the city sparkled across the sky ahead, and gave me a ghostly touch of the old thrill of coming home.

I doused that feeling fast. After eight years there was nothing left there for me to come home to. The city had a lethal welcome for intruders; it wouldn't be smart to forget that.

I didn't see the T-Bird until his spot hit my eyes and he was beside me, crowding.

I veered and hit the brakes, with a half-baked idea of dropping back and cutting behind him, but he stayed with me. I had a fast impression of squealing metal and rubber, and then I was skidding to a stop up against the deflector rails with the T-Bird slanted across my prow. Its lid popped almost before the screech died away, and I was looking down the muzzles of two power pistols. I kept both hands on the wheel, where they could see them, and sat tight.

I wondered whose friends we had met this time.

Two men climbed out, the pistols in sight, and came up to the hack. The first one was a heavy-set Slavic type zipped into a tight G. I. weather suit. He motioned. I opened up and got out, not making any sudden movements. Stenn followed. A cold wind was whipping along the concourse, blowing a fine misty rain hard against my cheek. The polyarcs cast black shadows on gray faces.

The smaller man moved over to Stenn and crowded him back against the hack. The Slav motioned again, and I moved over by the T-Bird. He fished my wallet out and put it in his pocket without looking at it. I heard the other man say something to Stenn, and then the sound of a blow. I turned my head slowly, so as not to excite my watchdog. Stenn was picking himself up. He started going through his pockets, showing everything to the man with the gun, then dropping it on the ground. The wind blew cards and papers along until they soaked up enough water to stick. Stenn carried a lot of paper.


The gunny said something and Stenn started pulling off his coat. He turned it inside out, and held it out. The gunny shook his head, and motioned to my Slav. He looked at me, and I tried to read his mind. I moved across toward the hack. I must have guessed right because he didn't shoot me. The Slav pocketed his gun and took the coat. Methodically, he tore the lining out, found nothing, dropped the ripped garment and kicked it aside. I shifted position, and the Slav turned and backhanded me up against the hack.

"Lay off him, Heavy," the other hood said. "Maxy didn't say nothing about this mug. He's just a Escort."

Heavy started to get his gun out again. I had an idea he was thinking about using it. Maybe that's why I did what I did. As his hand dipped into his pocket, I lunged, wrapped an arm around him and yanked out my own artillery. I held onto a handful of the weather suit and dug the pistol in hard. He stood frozen. Heavy wasn't as dumb as he looked.

His partner had backed a step, the pistol in his hand covering all of us.

"Drop it, Slim," I said. "No hard feelings, and we'll be on our way."

Stenn stood absolutely motionless. He was still wearing his mild expression.

"Not a chance, mug," the gunny said softly. No one moved.

"Even if you're ready to gun your way through your pal, I can't miss. Better settle for a draw."

"Maxy don't like draws, mister."

"Stenn," I said. "Get in the T-Bird. Head back the way we came, and don't slow down to read any billboards."

Stenn didn't move.


"Get going," I said. "Slim won't shoot."

"I employed you," Stenn said, "to take care of the heroics."

"If you've got any better ideas it's time to speak up, Stenn. This is your only out, the way I see it."

Stenn looked at the man with the gun.

"You referred to someone named 'Maxy.' Would that by any chance be Mr. Max Arena?"

Slim looked at him and thought about it.

"Could be," he said.

Stenn came slowly over to the Slav. Standing well out of the line of fire, he carefully put a hand in the loose pocket of the weather suit and brought out the pistol. I saw Slim's eyes tighten. He was having to make some tough decisions in a hurry.

Stenn moved offside, pistol in hand.

"Move away from him, Smith," he said.

I didn't know what he had in mind, but it didn't seem like the time to argue. I moved back.

"Drop your gun," he said.

I risked a glance at his mild expression.

"Are you nuts?"

"I came here to see Mr. Arena," he said. "This seems an excellent opportunity."

"Does it? I—"

"Drop it now, Smith. I won't warn you again."

I dropped it.

Slim swiveled on Stenn. He was still in an awkward spot.

"I want you to take me to Mr. Arena," Stenn said. "I have a proposition to put before him." He lowered the gun and handed it to Heavy.

It seemed like a long time until Slim lowered his gun.

"Heavy, put him in the back seat." He motioned me ahead, watched me as he climbed in the T-Bird.

"Nice friends you got, mug," he said. The T-Bird started up, backed, and roared off toward the city. I stood under the polyarcs and watched the tail glare out of sight.

Max Arena was the man I had come to the city to find.


III

Old number 16 was canted against the deflector rail, one side shredded into curled strips of crumpled metal. I looked closer. Under the flimsy fairings, gray armor showed. Maybe there was more to Haug's best hack than met the eye. I climbed in and kicked over the starter. The turbos sounded as good as ever. I eased the gyros in; she backed off the rail with a screech of ripped metal.

I had lost my customer, but I still had wheels.

The smart thing to do now would be to head back out the turnpike to Haug's lot, turn in my badge and keep moving, south. I could give up while I was still alive. All I had to do was accept the situation.

I had a wide choice. I could sign on with the New Confeds, or the Free Texans, or any one of the other splinter republics trying to set up shop in the power vacuum. I might try to get in to one of the Enclaves and convince its Baron he needed another trained bodyguard. Or I could take a post with one of the king-pins in the city.

As a last resort I could go back and find a spot in the Naples organization. I happened to know they had a vacancy.

I was just running through mental exercises to hear myself think. I couldn't settle for the kind of world I had found when I touched planet three months back, after eight years in deep space with Hayle's squadron. When the Interim Administration shot him for treason, I burned my uniform and disappeared. My years in the Service had given me a tough hide and a knack for staying alive; my worldly assets consisted of the clothes I stood in, my service pistol and a few souvenirs of my travels. For two months I had been scraping along on the cash I had in my pocket, buying drinks for drifters in cheap bars, looking for a hint, any lead at all, that would give me a chance to do what had to be done. Max Arena was the lead. Maybe a dud lead—but I had to find out.

The city lights loomed just a few miles away. I was wasting time sitting here; I steered the hack out into the highway and headed for them.


Apparently Lefty's influence didn't extend far beyond the South Radial. The two roadblocks I passed in the next five miles took my money, accepted my story that I was on my way to pick up a fare, said to say hello to Haug and passed me on my way.

Haug's sour yellow color scheme seemed to carry some weight with the town Organizations, too. I was well into the city, cruising along the third level Crossover, before I had any trouble. I was doing about fifty, watching where I was going and looking for the Manhattan Intermix, when a battered Gyrob four-seater trundled out across the fairway and stopped. I swerved and jumped lanes; the Gyrob backed, blocking me. I kicked my safety frame down and floor-boarded the hack, steering straight for him. At the last instant he tried to pull out of the way.

He was too late.

I clipped him across his aft quarter, and caught a glimpse of the underside of the car as it stood on its nose, slammed through the deflector and over the side. Old 16 bucked and I got a good crack across the jaw from the ill-fitting frame, and then I was screeching through the Intermix and out onto the Manhattan Third level.

Up ahead, the glare panels at the top of the Blue Tower reared up half a mile into the wet night sky. It wasn't a hard address to find. Getting inside would be another matter.

I pulled up a hundred yards from the dark cave they used to call the limousine entrance and looked the situation over. The level was deserted—like the whole city seemed, from the street. But there were lights in the windows, level after level of them stretching up and away as far as you could see. There were plenty of people in the city—about ten million, even after the riots and the Food Scare and the collapse of legal government. The automated city supply system had gone on working, and the Kingpins, the big time criminals, had stepped in and set things up to suit their tastes. Life went on—but not out in the open. Not after dark.

I knew almost nothing about Arena. Judging from his employees, he was Kingpin of a prosperous outfit. The T-Bird was an expensive late model, and the two thugs handled themselves like high-priced talent. I couldn't expect to walk into his HQ without jumping a few hurdles. Maybe I should have invited myself along with Stenn and his new friends. On the other hand, there were advantages to arriving unannounced.

It was a temptation to drive in, with the hack's armor between me and any little surprises that might be waiting, but I liked the idea of staging a surprise of my own. I eased into drive and moved along to a parking ramp, swung around and down and stopped in the shadow of the retaining wall.

I set the brake and took a good look around. There was nothing in sight. Arena might have a power cannon trained on me from his bedroom window, for all I knew, but I had to get a toe into the water sometime. I shut down the turbo, and in the silence popped the lid and stepped out. The rain had stopped, and the moon showed as a bright spot on the high mist. I felt hungry and a little bit unreal, as though this were happening to somebody else.


I moved over to the side of the parking slab, clambered over the deflector rail and studied the shadows under the third level roadway. I could barely make out the catwalks and service ways. I was wondering whether to pull off my hard-soled shoes for the climb when I heard footsteps, close. I gauged the distance to the hack, and saw I couldn't make it. I got back over the rail and waited.

He came into sight, rangy, shock-haired and preternaturally thin in tight traditional dress.

When he got close I saw that he was young, in his early twenties at most. He would be carrying a knife.

"Hey, Mister," he whined. "Got a cigarette?"

"Sure, young fellow," I said, sounding a little nervous. I threw in a shaky laugh to help build the picture. I took a cigarette from a pack, put the pack back in my pocket, held the weed out. He strutted up to me, reached out and flipped the cigarette from my fingers. I edged back and used the laugh again.

"Hey, he liked that," the punk whined. "He thinks that's funny. He got a sense of humor."

"Heh, heh," I said. "Just out getting a little air."

"Gimme another cigarette, funny man."

I took the pack out, watching. I got out a cigarette and held it gingerly, arm bent. As he reached for it, I drew back. He snatched for it. That put him in position.

I dropped the pack, clenched my two hands together, ducked down and brought them up hard under his chin. He backflipped, rolled over and started crawling.

I let him go.

I went over the rail without stopping to think it over and crossed the girder to the catwalk that ran under the boulevard above. I groped my way along to where the service way branched off for the Blue Tower, then stopped and looked up. A strip of luminous sky showed between the third level and the facade of the building. Anybody watching from the right spot would see me cross, walking on the narrow footway. It was a chance I'd have to take. I started to move out, and heard running feet. I froze.

The feet slid to a stop on the level above, a few yards away.

"What's up, Crackers?" somebody growled.

"The mark sapped me down."


That was interesting. I had been spotted and the punk had been sent to welcome me. Now I knew where I stood. The opposition had made their first mistake.

"He was starting to cross under when I spot him," Crackers went on, breathing heavily. "He saps me and I see I can't handle him and I go for help."

Someone answered in a guttural whisper. Crackers lowered his voice. It wouldn't take long now for reinforcements to arrive and flush me out. I edged farther and chanced a look. I saw two heads outlined above. They didn't seem to be looking my way, so I started across, walking silently toward a narrow loading platform with a wide door opening from it.

Below me, a lone light reflected from the wet pavement of the second level, fifty feet down; the blank wall of the Blue Tower dropped past it sheer to the glistening gutters at ground level. Then I was on the platform and trying the door.

It didn't open.

It was what I should have expected. Standing in the full light from the glare panel above the entry, I felt as exposed as a fan-dancer's navel. There was no time to consider alternatives. I grabbed my power pistol, flipped it to beam fire and stood aside with an arm across my face. I gave the latch a blast, then kicked the door hard. It was solid as a rock. Behind and above me, I heard Crackers yell.

I beamed the lock again, tiny droplets of molten metal spattering like needles against my face and hand. The door held.

"Drop it and lift 'em, mug," a deep voice yelled. I twisted to look up at the silhouettes against the deflector rail. I recognized the Slavic face of the man called Heavy. So he could talk after all.

"You're under my iron, mug," he called. "Freeze or I'll burn you."

I believed him, but I had set something in motion that couldn't stop now. There was nothing to go back to; the only direction for me was on the way I was headed—deeper into trouble. I was tired of being the mouse in a cat's game. I had taken the initiative and I was keeping it.



I turned, set the power pistol at full aperture, and poured it to the armored door. Searing heat reflected from the barrier, smoke boiled, metal melted and ran. Through the stink of burning steel, I smelled scorched hair—and felt heat rake the back of my neck and hands. Heavy was beaming me at wide aperture, but the range was just too far for a fast kill. The door sagged and fell in. I jumped through the glowing opening, hit the floor and rolled to damp out my smouldering coat.


I got to my feet. There was no time now to stop and feel the pain of my burns. They would expect me to go up—so I would go down. The Blue Tower covered four city blocks and was four hundred stories high. There was plenty of room in it for a man to lose himself.

I ran along the corridor, found a continuous service belt and hopped on, lay flat, rode it through the slot. I came out into the light of the service corridor below, my gun ready, then down and around again. I saw no one.

It took ten minutes to cover the eighteen floors down to the sub-basement. I rolled off the belt and looked around.

The whole space was packed with automatics; the Blue Tower was a self-sufficient city in itself. I recognized generators, heat pumps, air plants. None of them were operating. The city services were all still functioning, apparently. What it would be like in another ten or twenty years of anarchy was anybody's guess. But when the city systems failed the Blue Tower could go on on its own.

Glare panels lit the aisles dimly. I prowled along looking for an elevator bank. The first one I found indicated the car at the hundred-eightieth floor. I went on, found another indicating the twentieth. While I watched, the indicator moved, started down. I was getting ready to duck when it stopped at the fifth. I waited; it didn't move.

I went around to the side of the bank, found the master switch. I went back, punched for the car. When the door whooshed open, I threw the switch.

I had to work fast now. I stepped into the dark car, reached up and slid open the access panel in the top, then jumped, caught the edge and pulled myself up. The glare panels inside the shaft showed me the pony power pack on top of the car, used by repairmen and inspectors when the main power was off. I lit a per-match to read the fine print on the panel. I was in luck. It was a through car to the four-hundredth. I pushed a couple of buttons, and the car started up. I lay flat behind the machinery.

As the car passed the third floor feet came into view; two men stood beyond the transparent door, guns in their hands, watching the car come up. They didn't see me. One of them thumbed the button frantically. The car kept going.

There were men at almost every floor now. I went on up, passed the hundredth floor, the one-fiftieth, and kept going. I began to feel almost safe—for the moment.


I was gambling now on what little I knew of the Blue Tower from the old days when all the biggest names congregated there. The top floor was a lavish apartment that had been occupied by a retired fleet admiral, a Vice-President and a uranium millionaire, in turn. If I knew anything about Kingpins, that's where Max Arena would hang his hat.

The elevator was slow. Lying there I had time to start thinking about my burned hide. My scalp was hit worst, and then my hands; and my shoulders were sticking to the charred coat. I had been travelling on adrenalin since Heavy had beamed me, and now the reaction was starting to hit.

It would have to wait; I had work to do.

Just below the three hundred and ninety-eighth floor I punched the button and the car stopped. I stood up, feeling dizzy. I grabbed for the rungs on the wall, hung on. The wall of the shaft seemed to sway ... back....

Sure, I told myself. The top of the building sways fifteen feet in a high wind. Why shouldn't I feel it? I dismissed the thought that it was dead calm outside now, and started up the ladder.

It was a hard climb. I hung on tight, and concentrated on moving one hand at a time. The collar of my coat rasped my raw neck. I passed up the 398th and 9th—and rammed my head smack against a dead end. No service entry to the penthouse. I backed down to the 399th.

I found the lever and eased the door open, then waited, gun in hand. Nothing happened. I couldn't wait any longer. I pushed the door wide, stepped off into the hall. Still nobody in sight, but I could hear voices. To my left a discreet stair carpeted in violet velvet eased up in a gentle curve. I didn't hesitate; I went up.

The door at the top was an austere slab of bleached teak. I tried the polished brass lever; the door swung open silently, and I stepped across the threshold and was looking across a plain of honey-colored down at a man sitting relaxed in a soft chair of pale leather.

He waved a hand cheerfully. "Come on in," he said.


IV

Max Arena was a broad-shouldered six-footer, with clean-shaven blue jaws, coarse gray-flecked black hair brushed back from a high forehead, a deeper tan than was natural for the city in November, and very white teeth. He was showing them now in a smile. He waved a hand toward a chair, not even glancing at the gun in my hand. I admired the twinkle of light on the polished barrel of a Norge stunner at his elbow and decided to ignore it too.

"I been following your progress with considerable interest," Arena said genially. "The boys had orders not to shoot. I guess Luvitch sort of lost his head."

"It's nothing," I said, "that a little skin graft won't clear up in a year or so."

"Don't feel bad. You're the first guy ever made it in here under his own steam without an invitation."

"And with a gun in his hand," I said.

"We won't need guns," he said. "Not right away."

I went over to one of the big soft chairs and sat down, put the gun in my lap.

"Why didn't you shoot as I came in?"

Arena jiggled his foot. "I like your style," he said. "You handled Heavy real good. He's supposed to be my toughest boy."

"What about the combat car? More friends of yours?"

"Nah," he said, chuckling easily. "Some Jersey boys heard I had a caller. They figured to knock him off on general principles. A nifty." He stopped laughing. "The Gyrob was mine; a remoted job. Nice piece of equipment. You cost me real dough tonight."

"Gee," I said. "That's tough."

"And besides," he said, "I know who you are."

I waited. He leaned over and picked something off the table. It was my wallet.

"I used to be in the Navy myself. Academy man, believe it or not. Almost, anyway. Kicked out three weeks before graduation. A frame. Well, practically a frame; there was plenty of guys doing what I was doing."

"That where you learned to talk like a hood?"

For a second Arena almost didn't smile.

"I am perfectly capable of expressing myself like a little gentleman, when I feel so inclined," he said, "but I say to hell with it."

"You must have been before my time," I said.

"A year or two. And I was using a different name then. But that wasn't my only hitch with the Service. When the Trouble started, I enlisted. I wanted some action. When the Navy found out they had a qualified Power Section man on their hands, I went up fast. Within fourteen months I was a J. G. How about that?"

"Very commendable."

"So that's how I knew about the trick I. D. under the emulsion on the snapshot. You should have ditched it, Maclamore. Or should I say Captain Maclamore?"


My mouth opened, but I couldn't think of a snappy answer to that one. I was in trouble. I had meant to play it by ear once I reached Arena to get the information I needed. That was out now. He knew me. He had topped my aces before I played them.

Suddenly Arena was serious. "You came to the right man, Maclamore. You heard I had one of your buddies here, right? I let the word leak; I thought it might bring more of you in. I was lucky to get Admiral Hayle's deputy."

"What do you want with me?"

Arena leaned forward. "There were eight of you. Hayle and his aide, Wolfgang, were shot when they wouldn't spill to the Provisional Government—or whatever that mob calls itself. Margan got himself killed in some kind of tangle near Denver. The other four boys pulled a fast one and ducked out with the scout you guys came back in. They were riding dry tanks—the scout had maybe thirty ton/hours fuel aboard—so they haven't left the planet. That leaves you stranded. With six sets of Federal law looking for you. Right?"

"I can't argue with what's in the newspapers," I said.

"Well, I don't know. I got a couple newspapers. But here's where I smell a deal, Maclamore. You want to know where that scout boat is. Played right, you figure you got a good chance of a raid on an arsenal or a power plant to pick up a few slugs of the heavy stuff; then you high-tail out, join up with the rest of the squadron and, with the ordnance you pack, you can sit off and dictate the next move." Arena leaned back and took a deep breath. His eyes didn't leave me.

"Okay. I got one of you here. I found out something from him. He gave me enough I know you boys got something up your sleeve. But he don't have the whole picture. I need more info. You can give it to me. If I like what I hear, I'm in a position to help—like, for example, with the fuel problem. And you cut me in for half. Fair enough?"

"Who is it you've got?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh."

"What did he tell you?"

"Not enough. What was Hayle holding out? You birds found something out there. What was it?"

"We found a few artifacts on Mars," I said. "Not Martian in origin; visitors. We surveyed—"

"Don't string me, Maclamore. I'm willing to give you a fair deal, but if you make it tough for me—"

"How do you know I haven't got a detonator buried under my left ear," I said. "You can't pry information out of me, Arena."

"I think you want to live, Maclamore. I think you got something you want to live for. I want a piece of it."

"I can make a deal with you, Arena," I said. "Return me and my shipmate to our scout boat. Fuel us up. You might throw in two qualified men to help handle the ship—minus their black-jacks, preferably—then clear out. We'll handle the rest. And I'll remember, with gratitude."

Arena was silent for a long moment.


"Yeah, I could do that, Maclamore," he said finally. "But I won't. Max Arena is not a guy to pick up the crumbs—or wait around for handouts. I want in. All the way in."

"This time you'll have to settle for what you can get, Arena." I put the gun away and stood up.

I had a feeling I would have to put it over now or not at all.

"The rest of the squadron is still out there. If we don't show, they'll carry on alone. They're supplied for a century's operation. They don't need us."

That was true up to a point. The squadron had everything—except fuel.

"You figure you got it made if you can get your hands on that scout-boat," Arena said. "You figure to pick up fuel pretty easy by knocking off say the Lackawanna Pile."

"It shouldn't be too tough; a fleet boat of the Navy packs a wallop."

Arena tapped his teeth with a slim paper-cutter.

"You're worried your outfit will wind up Max Arena's private Navy, right? I'll tell you something. You think I'm sitting on top of the world, huh? I own this town, and everybody in it. All the luxury and fancy dinners and women I can use. And you know what? I'm bored."

"And you think running the Navy might be diverting?"

"Call it whatever you want to. There's something big going on out there, and I don't plan to be left out."

"Arena, when I clear atmosphere, we'll talk. Take it or leave it."

The smile was gone now. Arena looked at me, rubbing a finger along his blue cheek.

"Suppose I was to tell you I know where your other three boys are, Maclamore?"

"Do you?" I said.

"And the boat," Arena said. "The works."

"If you've got them here, I want to see them, Arena. If not, don't waste my time."

"I haven't exactly got 'em here, Maclamore. But I know a guy that knows where they are."

"Yeah." I said.

Arena looked mad. "Okay, I'll give it to you, Maclamore. I got a partner in this deal. Between us we got plenty. But we need what you got, too."

"I've made my offer, Arena. It stands."

"Have I got your word on that, Maclamore?" He stood up and came over to stand before me. "The old Academy word. You wouldn't break that, would you Maclamore?"

"I'll do what I said."

Arena walked to his desk, a massive boulder of Jadeite, cleaved and polished to a mirror surface. He thumbed a key.

"Send him in here," he said.

I waited. Arena sat down and looked across at me.

Thirty seconds passed and then the door opened and Stenn walked in.


Stenn glanced at me. "Well," he said. "Mr. Smith."

"The Smith routine is just a gag," Arena said. "His name is—Maclamore."

For an instant, I thought I saw a flash of expression on Stenn's face. He crossed the room and sat down.

"Well," he said. "A very rational move, your coming here. I trust you struck a profitable bargain?" He looked hard at me, and this time there was expression. Hate, I would call it, offhand.

"Not much of a deal at that, Stenn," Arena said. "The captain is a tough nut to crack. He wants my help with no strings attached. I think I'm going to buy it."

"How much information has he given you?"

Arena laughed. "Nothing," he said. "Max Arena going for a deal like that. Funny, huh? But that's the way the fall-out fogs 'em."

"And what have you arranged?"

"I turn him loose, him and Williams. I figure you'll go along, Stenn, and let him have the three guys you got. Williams will tell him where the Scout boat is, so there's no percentage in your holding out."

"What else?"

"What else is there?" Arena spread his hands. "They pick up the boat, fuel up—someplace—and they're off. And the captain here gives me the old Academy word he cuts me in, once he's clear."

There was a long silence. Arena smiled comfortably; Stenn sat calmly, looking at each of us in turn. I crossed my fingers and tried to look bored.

"Very well," Stenn said. "I seem to be presented with a fait accompli...."

I let a long breath out. I was going to make it....

"... But I would suggest that before committing yourself, you take the precaution of searching Mr. Maclamore's person. One never knows."

I could feel the look on my face. So could Arena.

"So," he said. "Another nifty." He didn't seem to move, but the stunner was in his hand. He wasn't smiling now, and the stunner caught me easily.


V

The lights came on, and I blinked, looking around the room.

My mementos didn't look like much, resting in the center of Arena's polished half-acre of desk top. The information was stored in the five tiny rods, less than an inch long, and the projector was a flat polyhedron the size of a pill-box. But the information they contained was worth more than all the treasure sunk in all the seas.

"This is merely a small sample," Stenn said. "The star surveys are said to be unbelievably complete. They represent a mapping task which would require a thousand years."

"The angles," Arena said. "Just figuring the angles will take plenty time."

"And this is what you almost let him walk out with," Stenn said.

Arena gave me a slashing look.

"Don't let your indignation run away with you, Arena," Stenn said. "I don't think you remembered to mention the fuel situation to Mr. Maclamore, did you?"

Arena turned to Stenn, looming over the smaller man. "Maybe you better button your lip," he said quietly. "I don't like the way you use it."

"Afraid I'll lower you in the gentleman's esteem?" Stenn said. He looked Arena in the eye.

"Nuts to the gentleman's esteem," Arena said.

"You thought you'd squeeze me out, Arena," Stenn said. "You didn't need me any more. You intended to let Maclamore and Williams go and have them followed. There was no danger of an escape, since you knew they'd find no fuel."

He turned to me. "During your years in space, Mr. Maclamore, technology moved on. And politics as well. Power fuels could be used to construct bombs. Ergo, all stations were converted for short half-life secondaries, and the primary materials stored at Fort Knox. You would have found yourself fuelless and therefore helpless. Mr. Arena would have arrived soon thereafter to seize the scout-boat."

"What would he want with the boat without fuel?" I asked.

"Mr. Arena was foresighted enough to stock up some years ago," Stenn said. "I understand he has enough metal hoarded to power your entire squadron for an indefinite time."

"Why tell this guy that?" Arena asked. "Kick him to hell out of here and let's get busy. You gab too much."

"I see that I'm tacitly reinstated as a partner," Stenn said. "Most gratifying."

"Max Arena is no welcher," Arena said. "You tipped me to the tapes, so you're in."

"Besides which you perhaps sense that I have other valuable contributions to make."

"I figure you to pull your weight."

"What are your plans for Mr. Maclamore?"

"I told you. Kick him out. He'll never wise up and cooperate with us."

"First, you'd better ask him a few more questions."

"Why? So he'll blow his head off and mess up my rug, like...." Arena stopped. "You won't get anything out of him."

"A man of his type has a strong aversion to suicide. He won't die to protect trivial information. And if he does—we'll know there's something important being held out."

"I don't like messy stuff," Arena said.

"I'll be most careful," Stenn said. "Get me some men in here to secure him to a chair, and we'll have a nice long chat with him."

"No messy stuff," Arena repeated. He crossed to his desk, thumbed a lever and spoke to someone outside.

Stenn was standing in front of me.

"Let him think he's pumping you," he hissed.

"Find out where his fuel is stored. I'm on your side." Then Arena was coming back, and Stenn was looking at me indifferently.


Arena had overcome his aversion to messy stuff sufficiently to hit me in the mouth now and then during the past few hours. It made talking painful, but I kept at it.

"How do I know you have Williams?" I said.

Arena crossed to his desk, took out a defaced snapshot.

"Here's his I. D." he said. "Take a look." He tossed it over. Stenn held it up.

"Let me talk to him."

"For what?"

"See how he feels about it," I mumbled. I was having trouble staying awake. I hadn't seen a bed for three days. It was hard to remember what information I was supposed to get from Arena.

"He'll join in if you do," Arena said. "Give up. Don't fight. Let it happen."

"You say you've got fuel. You're a liar. You've got no fuel."

"I got plenty fuel, wise guy," Arena yelled. He was tired too.

"Lousy crook," I said. "Can't even cheat a little without getting caught at it."

"Who's caught now, swabbie?" Arena was getting mad. That suited me.

"You're a lousy liar, Arena. You can't hide hot metal. Even Stenn ought to know that."

"What else was in the cache, Maclamore?" Stenn asked—for the hundredth time. He slapped me—also for the hundredth time. It jarred me and stung. It was the last straw. If Stenn was acting, I'd help him along. I lunged against the wires, swung a foot and caught him under the ribs. He oofed and fell off his chair.

"Don't push me any farther, you small-time chiselers," I yelled. "You've got nothing but a cast brass gall to offer. There's no hole deep enough to hide out power metal, even if a dumb slob like you thought of it."

"Dumb slob?" Arena barked. "You think a dumb slob could have built the organization I did, put this town in his hip pocket? I started stock-piling metal five years ago—a year before the ban. No hole deep enough, huh? It don't need to be so deep when it's got two feet of lead shielding over it."

"So you smuggled a few tons of lead into the Public Library and filed it under Little Bo Peep."

"The two feet was there ahead of me, wisenheimer. Remember the Polaris sub that used to be drydocked at Norfolk for the tourists to rubberneck?"

"Decommissioned and sold for scrap," I said. "Years ago."

"But not scrapped. Rusted in a scrapyard for five years. Then I bought her—beefed up her shielding—loaded her and sank her in ten fathoms of water in Cartwright Bay."

"That," Stenn said, "is the information we need."

Arena whirled. Stenn was still sitting on the floor. He had a palm gun in his hand, and it was pointed at the monogram on Arena's silk shirt.

"A cross," Arena said. "A lousy cross...."


"Move back, Arena." Stenn got to his feet, eyes on Arena.

"Where'd you have the stinger stashed?"

"In my hand. Stop there."

Stenn moved over to me. Eyes on Arena, he reached for the twisted ends of wire, started loosening them.

"I don't want to be nosey," I said. "But just where the hell do you fit into this, Stenn?"

"Naval Intelligence," Stenn said.

Arena cursed. "I knew that name should have rung a bell. Vice Admiral Stenn. The papers said you got yours when the Navy was purged."

"A few of us eluded the net."

Arena heaved a sigh.

"Well, fellows," he said—and jumped.

Stenn's shot went wild, and Arena left-hooked him down behind the chair. As he followed, Stenn came up fast, landed a hard left, followed up, drove Arena back. I yanked at my wires. Almost—

Then Arena, a foot taller, hammered a brutal left-right, and Stenn sagged. Carefully Arena aimed a right cross to the jaw. Stenn dropped.

Arena wiped an arm across his face.

"The little man tried, Mister. Let's give him that."

He walked past my chair, stooped for Stenn's gun. I heaved, slammed against him, and the light chair collapsed as we went over. Arena landed a kick, then I was on my feet, shaking a slat loose from the dangling wire. Arena stepped in, threw a whistling right. I ducked it, landed a hard punch to the midriff, another on the jaw. Arena backed, bent over but still strong. I couldn't let him rest. I was after him, took two in the face, ducked a haymaker that left him wide open just long enough for me to put everything I had in an uppercut that sent him back across his fancy desk. He sprawled, then slid onto the floor.

I went to him, kicked him lightly in the ribs.

"Where's Williams," I said. I kept kicking and asking. After five tries, Arena shook his head and tried to sit up. I put a foot in his face and he relaxed. I asked him again.

"You didn't learn this kind of tactics at the Academy," Arena whined.

"It's the times," I said. "They have a coarsening effect."

"Williams was a fancy-pants," Arena said. "No guts. He pulled the stopper."

"Talk plainer," I said, and kicked him again, hard—but I knew what he meant.

"Blew his lousy head off," Arena yelled. "I gassed him and tried scop on him. He blew. He was out cold, and he blew."

"Yeah," I said. "Hypnotics will trigger it."

"Fancy goddam wiring job," Arena muttered, wiping blood from his face.


I got the wire and trussed Arena up. I had to clip him twice before I finished. I went through his pockets, looked at things, recovered my souvenirs. I went over to Stenn. He was breathing.

Arena was watching. "He's okay, for crissake," he said. "What kind of punch you think I got?"

I hoisted Stenn onto my shoulder.

"So long, Arena," I said. "I don't know why I don't blow your brains out. Maybe it's that Navy Cross citation in your wallet."

"Listen," Arena said. "Take me with you."

"A swell idea," I said. "I'll pick up a couple of tarantulas, too."

"You're trying for the hack, right?"

"Sure. What else?"

"The roof," he said. "I got six, eight rotos on the roof. One high-speed job. You'll never make the hack."

"Why tell me?"

"I got eight hundred gun boys in this building alone. They know you're here. The hack is watched, the whole route. You can't get through."

"What do you care?"

"If the boys bust in here after a while and find me like this.... They'll bury me with the wires still on, Maclamore."

"How do I get to the roof?"

He told me. I went to the right corner, pushed the right spot, and a panel slid aside. I looked back at Arena.

"I'll make a good sailor, Maclamore," he said.

"Don't crawl, Arena," I said. I went up the short stair, came out onto a block-square pad.

Arena was right about the rotos. Eight of them. I picked the four-place Cad, and got Stenn tied in. He was coming to, muttering. He was still fighting Arena, he thought.

"... I'll hold ... you ... get out...."

"Take it easy, Stenn," I said. "Nothing can touch this bus. Where's the boat?" I shook him. "Where's the boat, Stenn?"

He came around long enough to tell me. It wasn't far—less than an hour's run.

"Stand by, Admiral," I said. "I'll be right back."

"Where ... you...."

"We need every good man we can get," I said. "And I think I know a guy that wants to join the Navy."


EPILOGUE

Admiral Stenn turned away from the communicator screen.

"I think we'd be justified in announcing victory now, Commodore." As usual, he sounded like a professor of diction, but he was wearing a big grin.

"Whatever you say, chief," I said, with an even sappier smile.

I made the official announcement that a provisional Congress had accepted the resignations of all claims by former office holders, and that new elections would be underway in a week.

I switched over to Power Section. The NCO in charge threw me a snappy highball. Damned if he wasn't grinning too.

"I guess we showed 'em who's got the muscle, Commodore," he said.

"Your firepower demonstration was potent, Max," I said. "You must have stayed up nights studying the tapes."

"We've hardly scratched the surface yet," he said.

"I'll be crossing back to Alaska now, Mac," Stenn said.

I watched him move across the half-mile void to the flagship. Five minutes later the patrol detail broke away to take up surveillance orbits. They would be getting all the shore leave for the next few years, but I was glad my squadron had been detailed to go with the flagship on the Deep Space patrol. I wanted to be there when we followed those star surveys back to where their makers came from. Stenn wasn't the man to waste time, either. He'd be getting under way any minute. It was time to give my orders. I flipped the communicator key to the squadron link-up.

"Escort Commander to Escort," I said. "Now hear this...."

Doctor by Murray Leinster


DOCTOR

BY MURRAY LEINSTER

Illustrated by FINLAY

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine February 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



Suddenly the biggest thing in the
universe was the very tiniest.


There were suns, which were nearby, and there were stars which were so far away that no way of telling their distance had any meaning. The suns had planets, most of which did not matter, but the ones that did count had seas and continents, and the continents had cities and highways and spaceports. And people.

The people paid no attention to their insignificance. They built ships which went through emptiness beyond imagining, and they landed upon planets and rebuilt them to their own liking. Suns flamed terribly, renting their impertinence, and storms swept across the planets they preëmpted, but the people built more strongly and were secure. Everything in the universe was bigger or stronger than the people, but they ignored the fact. They went about the businesses they had contrived for themselves.

They were not afraid of anything until somewhere on a certain small planet an infinitesimal single molecule changed itself.

It was one molecule among unthinkably many, upon one planet of one solar system among uncountable star clusters. It was not exactly alive, but it acted as if it were, in which it was like all the important matter of the cosmos. It was actually a combination of two complicated substances not too firmly joined together. When one of the parts changed, it became a new molecule. But, like the original one, it was still capable of a process called autocatalysis. It practiced that process and catalyzed other molecules into existence, which in each case were duplicates of itself. Then mankind had to take notice, though it ignored flaming suns and monstrous storms and emptiness past belief.

Men called the new molecule a virus and gave it a name. They called it and its duplicates "chlorophage." And chlorophage was, to people, the most terrifying thing in the universe.


In a strictly temporary orbit around the planet Altaira, the Star Queen floated, while lift-ships brought passengers and cargo up to it. The ship was too large to be landed economically at an unimportant spaceport like Altaira. It was a very modern ship and it made the Regulus-to-Cassim run, which is five hundred light-years, in only fifty days of Earthtime.

Now the lift-ships were busy. There was an unusual number of passengers to board the Star Queen at Altaira and an unusual number of them were women and children. The children tended to pudginess and the women had the dieted look of the wives of well-to-do men. Most of them looked red-eyed, as if they had been crying.

One by one the lift-ships hooked onto the airlock of the Star Queen and delivered passengers and cargo to the ship. Presently the last of them was hooked on, and the last batch of passengers came through to the liner, and the ship's doctor watched them stream past him.

His air was negligent, but he was actually impatient. Like most doctors, Nordenfeld approved of lean children and wiry women. They had fewer things wrong with them and they responded better to treatment. Well, he was the doctor of the Star Queen and he had much authority. He'd exerted it back on Regulus to insist that a shipment of botanical specimens for Cassim travel in quarantine—to be exact, in the ship's practically unused hospital compartment—and he was prepared to exercise authority over the passengers.

He had a sheaf of health slips from the examiners on the ground below. There was one slip for each passenger. It certified that so-and-so had been examined and could safely be admitted to the Star Queen's air, her four restaurants, her two swimming pools, her recreation areas and the six levels of passenger cabins the ship contained.

He impatiently watched the people go by. Health slips or no health slips, he looked them over. A characteristic gait or a typical complexion tint, or even a certain lack of hair luster, could tell him things that ground physicians might miss. In such a case the passenger would go back down again. It was not desirable to have deaths on a liner in space. Of course nobody was ever refused passage because of chlorophage. If it were ever discovered, the discovery would already be too late. But the health regulations for space travel were very, very strict.

He looked twice at a young woman as she passed. Despite applied complexion, there was a trace of waxiness in her skin. Nordenfeld had never actually seen a case of chlorophage. No doctor alive ever had. The best authorities were those who'd been in Patrol ships during the quarantine of Kamerun when chlorophage was loose on that planet. They'd seen beamed-up pictures of patients, but not patients themselves. The Patrol ships stayed in orbit while the planet died. Most doctors, and Nordenfeld was among them, had only seen pictures of the screens which showed the patients.


He looked sharply at the young woman. Then he glanced at her hands. They were normal. The young woman went on, unaware that for the fraction of an instant there had been the possibility of the landing of the Star Queen on Altaira, and the destruction of her space drive, and the establishment of a quarantine which, if justified, would mean that nobody could ever leave Altaira again, but must wait there to die. Which would not be a long wait.

A fat man puffed past. The gravity on Altaira was some five per cent under ship-normal and he felt the difference at once. But the veins at his temples were ungorged. Nordenfeld let him go by.

There appeared a white-haired, space-tanned man with a briefcase under his arm. He saw Nordenfeld and lifted a hand in greeting. The doctor knew him. He stepped aside from the passengers and stood there. His name was Jensen, and he represented a fund which invested the surplus money of insurance companies. He traveled a great deal to check on the business interests of that organization.

The doctor grunted, "What're you doing here? I thought you'd be on the far side of the cluster."

"Oh, I get about," said Jensen. His manner was not quite normal. He was tense. "I got here two weeks ago on a Q-and-C tramp from Regulus. We were a ship load of salt meat. There's romance for you! Salt meat by the spaceship load!"

The doctor grunted again. All sorts of things moved through space, naturally. The Star Queen carried a botanical collection for a museum and pig-beryllium and furs and enzymes and a list of items no man could remember. He watched the passengers go by, automatically counting them against the number of health slips in his hand.

"Lots of passengers this trip," said Jensen.

"Yes," said the doctor, watching a man with a limp. "Why?"

Jensen shrugged and did not answer. He was uneasy, the doctor noted. He and Jensen were as much unlike as two men could very well be, but Jensen was good company. A ship's doctor does not have much congenial society.

The file of passengers ended abruptly. There was no one in the Star Queen's airlock, but the "Connected" lights still burned and the doctor could look through into the small lift-ship from the planet down below. He frowned. He fingered the sheaf of papers.

"Unless I missed count," he said annoyedly, "there's supposed to be one more passenger. I don't see—"

A door opened far back in the lift-ship. A small figure appeared. It was a little girl perhaps ten years old. She was very neatly dressed, though not quite the way a mother would have done it. She wore the carefully composed expression of a child with no adult in charge of her. She walked precisely from the lift-ship into the Star Queen's lock. The opening closed briskly behind her. There was the rumbling of seals making themselves tight. The lights flickered for "Disconnect" and then "All Clear." They went out, and the lift-ship had pulled away from the Star Queen.

"There's my missing passenger," said the doctor.


The child looked soberly about. She saw him. "Excuse me," she said very politely. "Is this the way I'm supposed to go?"

"Through that door," said the doctor gruffly.

"Thank you," said the little girl. She followed his direction. She vanished through the door. It closed.

There came a deep, droning sound, which was the interplanetary drive of the Star Queen, building up that directional stress in space which had seemed such a triumph when it was first contrived. The ship swung gently. It would be turning out from orbit around Altaira. It swung again. The doctor knew that its astrogators were feeling for the incredibly exact pointing of its nose toward the next port which modern commercial ship operation required. An error of fractional seconds of arc would mean valuable time lost in making port some ten light-years of distance away. The drive droned and droned, building up velocity while the ship's aiming was refined and re-refined.

The drive cut off abruptly. Jensen turned white.

The doctor said impatiently, "There's nothing wrong. Probably a message or a report should have been beamed down to the planet and somebody forgot. We'll go on in a minute."

But Jensen stood frozen. He was very pale. The interplanetary drive stayed off. Thirty seconds. A minute. Jensen swallowed audibly. Two minutes. Three.

The steady, monotonous drone began again. It continued interminably, as if while it was off the ship's head had swung wide of its destination and the whole business of lining up for a jump in overdrive had to be done all over again.

Then there came that "Ping-g-g-g!" and the sensation of spiral fall which meant overdrive. The droning ceased.

Jensen breathed again. The ship's doctor looked at him sharply. Jensen had been taut. Now the tensions had left his body, but he looked as if he were going to shiver. Instead, he mopped a suddenly streaming forehead.

"I think," said Jensen in a strange voice, "that I'll have a drink. Or several. Will you join me?"

Nordenfeld searched his face. A ship's doctor has many duties in space. Passengers can have many things wrong with them, and in the absolute isolation of overdrive they can be remarkably affected by each other.

"I'll be at the fourth-level bar in twenty minutes," said Nordenfeld. "Can you wait that long?"

"I probably won't wait to have a drink," said Jensen. "But I'll be there."

The doctor nodded curtly. He went away. He made no guesses, though he'd just observed the new passengers carefully and was fully aware of the strict health regulations that affect space travel. As a physician he knew that the most deadly thing in the universe was chlorophage and that the planet Kamerun was only one solar system away. It had been a stop for the Star Queen until four years ago. He puzzled over Jensen's tenseness and the relief he'd displayed when the overdrive field came on. But he didn't guess. Chlorophage didn't enter his mind.

Not until later.


He saw the little girl who'd come out of the airlock last of all the passengers. She sat on a sofa as if someone had told her to wait there until something or other was arranged. Doctor Nordenfeld barely glanced at her. He'd known Jensen for a considerable time. Jensen had been a passenger on the Star Queen half a dozen times, and he shouldn't have been upset by the temporary stoppage of an interplanetary drive. Nordenfeld divided people into two classes, those who were not and those who were worth talking to. There weren't many of the latter. Jensen was.

He filed away the health slips. Then, thinking of Jensen's pallor, he asked what had happened to make the Star Queen interrupt her slow-speed drive away from orbit around Altaira.

The purser told him. But the purser was fussily concerned because there were so many extra passengers from Altaira. He might not be able to take on the expected number of passengers at the next stop-over point. It would be bad business to have to refuse passengers! It would give the space line a bad name.

Then the air officer stopped Nordenfeld as he was about to join Jensen in the fourth-level bar. It was time for a medical inspection of the quarter-acre of Banthyan jungle which purified and renewed the air of the ship. Nordenfeld was expected to check the complex ecological system of the air room. Specifically, he was expected to look for and identify any patches of colorlessness appearing on the foliage of the jungle plants the Star Queen carried through space.

The air officer was discreet and Nordenfeld was silent about the ultimate reason for the inspection. Nobody liked to think about it. But if a particular kind of bleaching appeared, as if the chlorophyll of the leaves were being devoured by something too small to be seen by an optical microscope—why, that would be chlorophage. It would also be a death sentence for the Star Queen and everybody in her.

But the jungle passed medical inspection. The plants grew lushly in soil which periodically was flushed with hydroponic solution and then drained away again. The UV lamps were properly distributed and the different quarters of the air room were alternately lighted and darkened. And there were no colorless patches. A steady wind blew through the air room and had its excess moisture and unpleasing smells wrung out before it recirculated through the ship. Doctor Nordenfeld authorized the trimming of some liana-like growths which were developing woody tissue at the expense of leaves.

The air officer also told him about the reason for the turning off of the interplanetary drive. He considered it a very curious happening.

The doctor left the air room and passed the place where the little girl—the last passenger to board the Star Queen—waited patiently for somebody to arrange something. Doctor Nordenfeld took a lift to the fourth level and went into the bar where Jensen should be waiting.

He was. He had an empty glass before him. Nordenfeld sat down and dialed for a drink. He had an indefinite feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. There are always things going wrong for a ship's doctor, though. There are so many demands on his patience that he is usually short of it.

Jensen watched him sip at his drink.

"A bad day?" he asked. He'd gotten over his own tension.


Nordenfeld shrugged, but his scowl deepened. "There are a lot of new passengers." He realized that he was trying to explain his feelings to himself. "They'll come to me feeling miserable. I have to tell each one that if they feel heavy and depressed, it may be the gravity-constant of the ship, which is greater than their home planet. If they feel light-headed and giddy, it may be because the gravity-constant of the ship is less than they're used to. But it doesn't make them feel better, so they come back for a second assurance. I'll be overwhelmed with such complaints within two hours."

Jensen waited. Then he said casually—too casually, "Does anybody ever suspect chlorophage?"

"No," said Nordenfeld shortly.

Jensen fidgeted. He sipped. Then he said, "What's the news from Kamerun, anyhow?"

"There isn't any," said Nordenfeld. "Naturally! Why ask?"

"I just wondered," said Jensen. After a moment: "What was the last news?"

"There hasn't been a message from Kamerun in two years," said Nordenfeld curtly. "There's no sign of anything green anywhere on the planet. It's considered to be—uninhabited."

Jensen licked his lips. "That's what I understood. Yes."

Nordenfeld drank half his drink and said unpleasantly, "There were thirty million people on Kamerun when the chlorophage appeared. At first it was apparently a virus which fed on the chlorophyll of plants. They died. Then it was discovered that it could also feed on hemoglobin, which is chemically close to chlorophyll. Hemoglobin is the red coloring matter of the blood. When the virus consumed it, people began to die. Kamerun doctors found that the chlorophage virus was transmitted by contact, by inhalation, by ingestion. It traveled as dust particles and on the feet of insects, and it was in drinking water and the air one breathed. The doctors on Kamerun warned spaceships off and the Patrol put a quarantine fleet in orbit around it to keep anybody from leaving. And nobody left. And everybody died. And so did every living thing that had chlorophyll in its leaves or hemoglobin in its blood, or that needed plant or animal tissues to feed on. There's not a person left alive on Kamerun, nor an animal or bird or insect, nor a fish nor a tree, or plant or weed or blade of grass. There's no longer a quarantine fleet there. Nobody'll go there and there's nobody left to leave. But there are beacon satellites to record any calls and to warn any fool against landing. If the chlorophage got loose and was carried about by spaceships, it could kill the other forty billion humans in the galaxy, together with every green plant or animal with hemoglobin in its blood."

"That," said Jensen, and tried to smile, "sounds final."

"It isn't," Nordenfeld told him. "If there's something in the universe which can kill every living thing except its maker, that something should be killed. There should be research going on about the chlorophage. It would be deadly dangerous work, but it should be done. A quarantine won't stop contagion. It can only hinder it. That's useful, but not enough."

Jensen moistened his lips.

Nordenfeld said abruptly, "I've answered your questions. Now what's on your mind and what has it to do with chlorophage?"

Jensen started. He went very pale.

"It's too late to do anything about it," said Nordenfeld. "It's probably nonsense anyhow. But what is it?"

Jensen stammered out his story. It explained why there were so many passengers for the Star Queen. It even explained his departure from Altaira. But it was only a rumor—the kind of rumor that starts up untraceably and can never be verified. This one was officially denied by the Altairan planetary government. But it was widely believed by the sort of people who usually were well-informed. Those who could sent their families up to the Star Queen. And that was why Jensen had been tense and worried until the liner had actually left Altaira behind. Then he felt safe.

Nordenfeld's jaw set as Jensen told his tale. He made no comment, but when Jensen was through he nodded and went away, leaving his drink unfinished. Jensen couldn't see his face; it was hard as granite.

And Nordenfeld, the ship's doctor of the Star Queen, went into the nearest bathroom and was violently sick. It was a reaction to what he'd just learned.


There were stars which were so far away that their distance didn't mean anything. There were planets beyond counting in a single star cluster, let alone the galaxy. There were comets and gas clouds in space, and worlds where there was life, and other worlds where life was impossible. The quantity of matter which was associated with life was infinitesimal, and the quantity associated with consciousness—animal life—was so much less that the difference couldn't be expressed. But the amount of animal life which could reason was so minute by comparison that the nearest ratio would be that of a single atom to a sun. Mankind, in fact, was the least impressive fraction of the smallest category of substance in the galaxy.

But men did curious things.

There was the cutting off of the Star Queen's short-distance drive before she'd gotten well away from Altaira. There had been a lift-ship locked to the liner's passenger airlock. When the last passenger entered the big ship—a little girl—the airlocks disconnected and the lift-ship pulled swiftly away.

It was not quite two miles from the Star Queen when its emergency airlocks opened and spacesuited figures plunged out of it to emptiness. Simultaneously, the ports of the lift-ship glowed and almost immediately the whole plating turned cherry-red, crimson, and then orange, from unlimited heat developed within it.

The lift-ship went incandescent and ruptured and there was a spout of white-hot air, and then it turned blue-white and puffed itself to nothing in metallic steam. Where it had been there was only shining gas, which cooled. Beyond it there were figures in spacesuits which tried to swim away from it.

The Star Queen's control room, obviously, saw the happening. The lift-ship's atomic pile had flared out of control and melted down the ship. It had developed something like sixty thousand degrees Fahrenheit when it ceased to flare. It did not blow up; it only vaporized. But the process must have begun within seconds after the lift-ship broke contact with the Star Queen.

In automatic reaction, the man in control of the liner cut her drive and offered to turn back and pick up the spacesuited figures in emptiness. The offer was declined with almost hysterical haste. In fact, it was barely made before the other lift-ships moved in on rescue missions. They had waited. And they were picking up castaways before the Star Queen resumed its merely interplanetary drive and the process of aiming for a solar system some thirty light-years away.

When the liner flicked into overdrive, more than half the floating figures had been recovered, which was remarkable. It was almost as remarkable as the flare-up of the lift-ship's atomic pile. One has to know exactly what to do to make a properly designed atomic pile vaporize metal. Somebody had known. Somebody had done it. And the other lift-ships were waiting to pick up the destroyed lift-ship's crew when it happened.

The matter of the lift-ship's destruction was fresh in Nordenfeld's mind when Jensen had told his story. The two items fitted together with an appalling completeness. They left little doubt or hope.


Nordenfeld consulted the passenger records and presently was engaged in conversation with the sober-faced, composed little girl on a sofa in one of the cabin levels of the Star Queen.

"You're Kathy Brand, I believe," he said matter-of-factly. "I understand you've been having a rather bad time of it."

She seemed to consider.

"It hasn't been too bad," she assured him. "At least I've been seeing new things. I got dreadfully tired of seeing the same things all the time."

"What things?" asked Nordenfeld. His expression was not stern now, though his inner sensations were not pleasant. He needed to talk to this child, and he had learned how to talk to children. The secret is to talk exactly as to an adult, with respect and interest.

"There weren't any windows," she explained, "and my father couldn't play with me, and all the toys and books were ruined by the water. It was dreadfully tedious. There weren't any other children, you see. And presently there weren't any grownups but my father."

Nordenfeld only looked more interested. He'd been almost sure ever since knowing of the lift-ship's destruction and listening to Jensen's account of the rumor the government of Altaira denied. He was horribly sure now.

"How long were you in the place that hadn't any windows?"

"Oh, dreadfully long!" she said. "Since I was only six years old! Almost half my life!" She smiled brightly at him. "I remember looking out of windows and even playing out-of-doors, but my father and mother said I had to live in this place. My father talked to me often and often. He was very nice. But he had to wear that funny suit and keep the glass over his face because he didn't live in the room. The glass was because he went under the water, you know."

Nordenfeld asked carefully conversational-sounding questions. Kathy Brand, now aged ten, had been taken by her father to live in a big room without any windows. It hadn't any doors, either. There were plants in it, and there were bluish lights to shine on the plants, and there was a place in one corner where there was water. When her father came in to talk to her, he came up out of the water wearing the funny suit with glass over his face. He went out the same way. There was a place in the wall where she could look out into another room, and at first her mother used to come and smile at her through the glass, and she talked into something she held in her hand, and her voice came inside. But later she stopped coming.


There was only one possible kind of place which would answer Kathy's description. When she was six years old she had been put into some university's aseptic-environment room. And she had stayed there. Such rooms were designed for biological research. They were built and then made sterile of all bacterial life and afterward entered through a tank of antiseptic. Anyone who entered wore a suit which was made germ-free by its passage through the antiseptic, and he did not breathe the air of the aseptic room, but air which was supplied him through a hose, the exhaled-air hose also passing under the antiseptic outside. No germ or microbe or virus could possibly get into such a room without being bathed in corrosive fluid which would kill it. So long as there was someone alive outside to take care of her, a little girl could live there and defy even chlorophage.

And Kathy Brand had done it. But, on the other hand, Kamerun was the only planet where it would be necessary, and it was the only world from which a father would land his small daughter on another planet's spaceport. There was no doubt. Nordenfeld grimly imagined someone—he would have had to be a microbiologist even to attempt it—fighting to survive and defeat the chlorophage while he kept his little girl in an aseptic-environment room.

She explained quite pleasantly as Nordenfeld asked more questions. There had been other people besides her father, but for a long time there had been only him. And Nordenfeld computed that somehow she'd been kept alive on the dead planet Kamerun for four long years.

Recently, though—very recently—her father told her that they were leaving. Wearing his funny, antiseptic-wetted suit, he'd enclosed her in a plastic bag with a tank attached to it. Air flowed from the tank into the bag and out through a hose that was all wetted inside. She breathed quite comfortably.

It made sense. An air tank could be heated and its contents sterilized to supply germ-free—or virus-free—air. And Kathy's father took an axe and chopped away a wall of the room. He picked her up, still inside the plastic bag, and carried her out. There was nobody about. There was no grass. There were no trees. Nothing moved.

Here Kathy's account was vague, but Nordenfeld could guess at the strangeness of a dead planet, to the child who barely remembered anything but the walls of an aseptic-environment room.

Her father carried her to a little ship, said Kathy, and they talked a lot after the ship took off. He told her that he was taking her to a place where she could run about outdoors and play, but he had to go somewhere else. He did mysterious things which to Nordenfeld meant a most scrupulous decontamination of a small spaceship's interior and its airlock. Its outer surface would reach a temperature at which no organic material could remain uncooked.

And finally, said Kathy, her father had opened a door and told her to step out and good-by, and she did, and the ship went away—her father still wearing his funny suit—and people came and asked her questions she did not understand.


Kathy's narrative fitted perfectly into the rumor Jensen said circulated among usually well-informed people on Altaira. They believed, said Jensen, that a small spaceship had appeared in the sky above Altaira's spaceport. It ignored all calls, landed swiftly, opened an airlock and let someone out, and plunged for the sky again. And the story said that radar telescopes immediately searched for and found the ship in space. They trailed it, calling vainly for it to identify itself, while it drove at top speed for Altaira's sun.

It reached the sun and dived in.

Nordenfeld reached the skipper on intercom vision-phone. Jensen had been called there to repeat his tale to the skipper.

"I've talked to the child," said Nordenfeld grimly, "and I'm putting her into isolation quarters in the hospital compartment. She's from Kamerun. She was kept in an aseptic-environment room at some university or other. She says her father looked after her. I get an impression of a last-ditch fight by microbiologists against the chlorophage. They lost it. Apparently her father landed her on Altaira and dived into the sun. From her story, he took every possible precaution to keep her from contagion or carrying contagion with her to Altaira. Maybe he succeeded. There's no way to tell—yet."

The skipper listened in silence.

Jensen said thinly, "Then the story about the landing was true."

"Yes. The authorities isolated her, and then shipped her off on the Star Queen. Your well-informed friends, Jensen, didn't know what their government was going to do!" Nordenfeld paused, and said more coldly still, "They didn't handle it right. They should have killed her, painlessly but at once. Her body should have been immersed, with everything that had touched it, in full-strength nitric acid. The same acid should have saturated the place where the ship landed and every place she walked. Every room she entered, and every hall she passed through, should have been doused with nitric and then burned. It would still not have been all one could wish. The air she breathed couldn't be recaptured and heated white-hot. But the chances for Altaira's population to go on living would be improved. Instead, they isolated her and they shipped her off with us—and thought they were accomplishing something by destroying the lift-ship that had her in an airtight compartment until she walked into the Star Queen's lock!"

The skipper said heavily, "Do you think she's brought chlorophage on board?"

"I've no idea," said Nordenfeld. "If she did, it's too late to do anything but drive the Star Queen into the nearest sun.... No. Before that, one should give warning that she was aground on Altaira. No ship should land there. No ship should take off. Altaira should be blocked off from the rest of the galaxy like Kamerun was. And to the same end result."

Jensen said unsteadily; "There'll be trouble if this is known on the ship. There'll be some unwilling to sacrifice themselves."

"Sacrifice?" said Nordenfeld. "They're dead! But before they lie down, they can keep everybody they care about from dying too! Would you want to land and have your wife and family die of it?"

The skipper said in the same heavy voice, "What are the probabilities? You say there was an effort to keep her from contagion. What are the odds?"

"Bad," said Nordenfeld. "The man tried, for the child's sake. But I doubt he managed to make a completely aseptic transfer from the room she lived in to the spaceport on Altaira. The authorities on Altaira should have known it. They should have killed her and destroyed everything she'd touched. And still the odds would have been bad!"

Jensen said, "But you can't do that, Nordenfeld! Not now!"

"I shall take every measure that seems likely to be useful." Then Nordenfeld snapped, "Damnation, man! Do you realize that this chlorophage can wipe out the human race if it really gets loose? Do you think I'll let sentiment keep me from doing what has to be done?"

He flicked off the vision-phone.


The Star Queen came out of overdrive. Her skipper arranged it to be done at the time when the largest possible number of her passengers and crew would be asleep. Those who were awake, of course, felt the peculiar inaudible sensation which one subjectively translated into sound. They felt the momentary giddiness which—having no natural parallel—feels like the sensation of treading on a stair-step that isn't there, combined with a twisting sensation so it is like a spiral fall. The passengers who were awake were mostly in the bars, and the bartenders explained that the ship had shifted overdrive generators and there was nothing to it.

Those who were asleep started awake, but there was nothing in their surroundings to cause alarm. Some blinked in the darkness of their cabins and perhaps turned on the cabin lights, but everything seemed normal. They turned off the lights again. Some babies cried and had to be soothed. But there was nothing except wakening to alarm anybody. Babies went back to sleep and mothers returned to their beds and—such awakenings being customary—went back to sleep also.

It was natural enough. There were vague and commonplace noises, together making an indefinite hum. Fans circulated the ship's purified and reinvigorated air. Service motors turned in remote parts of the hull. Cooks and bakers moved about in the kitchens. Nobody could tell by any physical sensation that the Star Queen was not in overdrive, except in the control room.

There the stars could be seen. They were unthinkably remote. The ship was light-years from any place where humans lived. She did not drive. Her skipper had a family on Cassim. He would not land a plague ship which might destroy them. The executive officer had a small son. If his return meant that small son's death as well as his own, he would not return. All through the ship, the officers who had to know the situation recognized that if chlorophage had gotten into the Star Queen, the ship must not land anywhere. Nobody could survive. Nobody must attempt it.

So the huge liner hung in the emptiness between the stars, waiting until it could be known definitely that chlorophage was aboard or that with absolute certainty it was absent. The question was up to Doctor Nordenfeld.

He had isolated himself with Kathy in the ship's hospital compartment. Since the ship was built it had been used once by a grown man who developed mumps, and once by an adolescent boy who developed a raging fever which antibiotics stopped. Health measures for space travel were strict. The hospital compartment had only been used those two times.


On this voyage it had been used to contain an assortment of botanical specimens from a planet seventy light-years beyond Regulus. They were on their way to the botanical research laboratory on Cassim. As a routine precaution they'd been placed in the hospital, which could be fumigated when they were taken out. Now the doctor had piled them in one side of the compartment, which he had divided in half with a transparent plastic sheet. He stayed in that side. Kathy occupied the other.

She had some flowering plants to look at and admire. They'd come from the air room and she was delighted with their coloring and beauty. But Doctor Nordenfeld had put them there as a continuing test for chlorophage. If Kathy carried that murderous virus on her person, the flowering plants would die of it—probably even before she did.

It was a scrupulously scientific test for the deadly stuff. Completely sealed off except for a circulator to freshen the air she breathed, Kathy was settled with toys and picture books. It was an improvised but well-designed germproof room. The air for Kathy to breathe was sterilized before it reached her. The air she had breathed was sterilized as it left her plastic-sided residence. It should be the perfection of protection for the ship—if it was not already too late.

The vision-phone buzzed. Doctor Nordenfeld stirred in his chair and flipped the switch. The Star Queen's skipper looked at him out of the screen.

"I've cut the overdrive," said the skipper. "The passengers haven't been told."

"Very sensible," said the doctor.

"When will we know?"

"That we can go on living? When the other possibility is exhausted."

"Then, how will we know?" asked skipper stonily.

Doctor Nordenfeld ticked off the possibilities. He bent down a finger. "One, her father took great pains. Maybe he did manage an aseptic transfer from a germ-free room to Altaira. Kathy may not have been exposed to the chlorophage. If she hasn't, no bleached spots will show up on the air-room foliage or among the flowering plants in the room with her. Nobody in the crew or among the passengers will die."

He bent down a second finger. "It is probably more likely that white spots will appear on the plants in the air room and here, and people will start to die. That will mean Kathy brought contagion here the instant she arrived, and almost certainly that Altaira will become like Kamerun—uninhabited. In such a case we are finished."


He bent down a third finger. "Not so likely, but preferable, white spots may appear on the foliage inside the plastic with Kathy, but not in the ship's air room. In that case she was exposed, but the virus was incubating when she came on board, and only developed and spread after she was isolated. Possibly, in such a case, we can save the passengers and crew, but the ship will probably have to be melted down in space. It would be tricky, but it might be done."

The skipper hesitated. "If that last happened, she—"

"I will take whatever measures are necessary," said Doctor Nordenfeld. "To save your conscience, we won't discuss them. They should have been taken on Altaira."

He reached over and flipped off the phone. Then he looked up and into the other part of the ship's hospital space. Kathy came out from behind a screen, where she'd made ready for bed. She was beaming. She had a large picture book under one arm and a doll under the other.

"It's all right for me to have these with me, isn't it, Doctor Nordenfeld?" she asked hopefully. "I didn't have any picture books but one, and it got worn out. And my doll—it was dreadful how shabby she was!"

The doctor frowned. She smiled at him. He said, "After all, picture books are made to be looked at and dolls to be played with."

She skipped to the tiny hospital bed on the far side of the presumably virusproof partition. She climbed into it and zestfully arranged the doll to share it. She placed the book within easy reach.



She said, "I think my father would say you were very nice, Doctor Nordenfeld, to look after me so well."

"No-o-o-o," said the doctor in a detached voice. "I'm just doing what anybody ought to do."

She snuggled down under the covers. He looked at his watch and shrugged. It was very easy to confuse official night with official day, in space. Everybody else was asleep. He'd been putting Kathy through tests which began with measurements of pulse and respiration and temperature and went on from there. Kathy managed them herself, under his direction.

He settled down with one of the medical books he'd brought into the isolation section with him. Its title was Decontamination of Infectious Material from Different Planets. He read it grimly.


The time came when the Star Queen should have come out of overdrive with the sun Circe blazing fiercely nearby, and a green planet with ice caps to be approached on interplanetary drive. There should have been droning, comforting drive noises to assure the passengers—who naturally could not see beyond the ship's steel walls—that they were within a mere few million miles of a world where sunshine was normal, and skies were higher than ship's ceilings, and there were fascinating things to see and do.

Some of the passengers packed their luggage and put it outside their cabins to be picked up for landing. But no stewards came for it. Presently there was an explanation. The ship had run under maximum speed and the planetfall would be delayed.

The passengers were disappointed but not concerned. The luggage vanished into cabins again.

The Star Queen floated in space among a thousand thousand million stars. Her astrogators had computed a course to the nearest star into which to drive the Star Queen, but it would not be used unless there was mutiny among the crew. It would be better to go in remote orbit around Circe III and give the news of chlorophage on Altaira, if Doctor Nordenfeld reported it on the ship.

Time passed. One day. Two. Three. Then Jensen called the hospital compartment on vision-phone. His expression was dazed. Nordenfeld saw the interior of the control room behind Jensen. He said, "You're a passenger, Jensen. How is it you're in the control room?"

Jensen moistened his lips. "The skipper thought I'd better not associate with the other passengers. I've stayed with the officers the past few days. We—the ones who know what's in prospect—we're keeping separate from the others so—nobody will let anything out by accident."

"Very wise. When the skipper comes back on duty, ask him to call me. I've something interesting to tell him."

"He's—checking something now," said Jensen. His voice was thin and reedy. "The—air officer reports there are white patches on the plants in the air room. They're growing. Fast. He told me to tell you. He's—gone to make sure."

"No need," said Nordenfeld bitterly.

He swung the vision-screen. It faced that part of the hospital space beyond the plastic sheeting. There were potted flowering plants there. They had pleased Kathy. They shared her air. And there were white patches on their leaves.

"I thought," said Nordenfeld with an odd mirthless levity, "that the skipper'd be interested. It is of no importance whatever now, but I accomplished something remarkable. Kathy's father didn't manage an aseptic transfer. She brought the chlorophage with her. But I confined it. The plants on the far side of that plastic sheet show the chlorophage patches plainly. I expect Kathy to show signs of anemia shortly. I'd decided that drastic measures would have to be taken, and it looked like they might work, because I've confined the virus. It's there where Kathy is, but it isn't where I am. All the botanical specimens on my side of the sheet are untouched. The phage hasn't hit them. It is remarkable. But it doesn't matter a damn if the air room's infected. And I was so proud!"

Jensen did not respond.


Nordenfeld said ironically, "Look what I accomplished! I protected the air plants on my side See? They're beautifully green! No sign of infection! It means that a man can work with chlorophage! A laboratory ship could land on Kamerun and keep itself the equivalent of an aseptic-environment room while the damned chlorophage was investigated and ultimately whipped! And it doesn't matter!"

Jensen said numbly, "We can't ever make port. We ought—we ought to—"

"We'll take the necessary measures," Nordenfeld told him. "Very quietly and very efficiently, with neither the crew nor the passengers knowing that Altaira sent the chlorophage on board the Star Queen in the hope of banishing it from there. The passengers won't know that their own officials shipped it off with them as they tried to run away.... And I was so proud that I'd improvised an aseptic room to keep Kathy in! I sterilized the air that went in to her, and I sterilized—"

Then he stopped. He stopped quite short. He stared at the air unit, set up and with two pipes passing through the plastic partition which cut the hospital space in two. He turned utterly white. He went roughly to the air machine. He jerked back its cover. He put his hand inside.

Minutes later he faced back to the vision-screen from which Jensen looked apathetically at him.

"Tell the skipper to call me," he said in a savage tone. "Tell him to call me instantly he comes back! Before he issues any orders at all!"

He bent over the sterilizing equipment and very carefully began to disassemble it. He had it completely apart when Kathy waked. She peered at him through the plastic separation sheet.

"Good morning, Doctor Nordenfeld," she said cheerfully.

The doctor grunted. Kathy smiled at him. She had gotten on very good terms with the doctor, since she'd been kept in the ship's hospital. She did not feel that she was isolated. In having the doctor where she could talk to him at any time, she had much more company than ever before. She had read her entire picture book to him and discussed her doll at length. She took it for granted that when he did not answer or frowned that he was simply busy. But he was company because she could see him.

Doctor Nordenfeld put the air apparatus together with an extremely peculiar expression on his face. It had been built for Kathy's special isolation by a ship's mechanic. It should sterilize the used air going into Kathy's part of the compartment, and it should sterilize the used air pushed out by the supplied fresh air. The hospital itself was an independent sealed unit, with its own chemical air freshener, and it had been divided into two. The air freshener was where Doctor Nordenfeld could attend to it, and the sterilizer pump simply shared the freshening with Kathy. But—

But the pipe that pumped air to Kathy was brown and discolored from having been used for sterilizing, and the pipe that brought air back was not. It was cold. It had never been heated.

So Doctor Nordenfeld had been exposed to any contagion Kathy could spread. He hadn't been protected at all. Yet the potted plants on Kathy's side of the barrier were marked with great white splotches which grew almost as one looked, while the botanical specimens in the doctor's part of the hospital—as much infected as Kathy's could have been, by failure of the ship's mechanic to build the sterilizer to work two ways: the stacked plants, the alien plants, the strange plants from seventy light-years beyond Regulus—they were vividly green. There was no trace of chlorophage on them. Yet they had been as thoroughly exposed as Doctor Nordenfeld himself!

The doctor's hands shook. His eyes burned. He took out a surgeon's scalpel and ripped the plastic partition from floor to ceiling. Kathy watched interestedly.

"Why did you do that, Doctor Nordenfeld?" she asked.

He said in an emotionless, unnatural voice, "I'm going to do something that it was very stupid of me not to do before. It should have been done when you were six years old, Kathy. It should have been done on Kamerun, and after that on Altaira. Now we're going to do it here. You can help me."


The Star Queen had floated out of overdrive long enough to throw all distance computations off. But she swung about, and swam back, and presently she was not too far from the world where she was now many days overdue. Lift-ships started up from the planet's surface. But the Star Queen ordered them back.

"Get your spaceport health officer on the vision-phone," ordered the Star Queen's skipper. "We've had chlorophage on board."

There was panic. Even at a distance of a hundred thousand miles, chlorophage could strike stark terror into anybody. But presently the image of the spaceport health officer appeared on the Star Queen's screen.

"We're not landing," said Doctor Nordenfeld. "There's almost certainly an outbreak of chlorophage on Altaira, and we're going back to do something about it. It got on our ship with passengers from there. We've whipped it, but we may need some help."

The image of the health officer aground was a mask of horror for seconds after Nordenfeld's last statement. Then his expression became incredulous, though still horrified.

"We came on to here," said Doctor Nordenfeld, "to get you to send word by the first other ship to the Patrol that a quarantine has to be set up on Altaira, and we need to be inspected for recovery from chlorophage infection. And we need to pass on, officially, the discovery that whipped the contagion on this ship. We were carrying botanical specimens to Cassim and we discovered that they were immune to chlorophage. That's absurd, of course. Their green coloring is the same substance as in plants under Sol-type suns anywhere. They couldn't be immune to chlorophage. So there had to be something else."

"Was—was there?" asked the health officer.

"There was. Those specimens came from somewhere beyond Regulus. They carried, as normal symbiotes on their foliage, microörganisms unknown both on Kamerun and Altaira. The alien bugs are almost the size of virus particles, feed on virus particles, and are carried by contact, air, and so on, as readily as virus particles themselves. We discovered that those microörganisms devoured chlorophage. We washed them off the leaves of the plants, sprayed them in our air-room jungle, and they multiplied faster than the chlorophage. Our whole air supply is now loaded with an airborne antichlorophage organism which has made our crew and passengers immune. We're heading back to Altaira to turn loose our merry little bugs on that planet. It appears that they grow on certain vegetation, but they'll live anywhere there's phage to eat. We're keeping some chlorophage cultures alive so our microörganisms don't die out for lack of food!"

The medical officer on the ground gasped. "Keeping phage alive?"


"I hope you've recorded this," said Nordenfeld. "It's rather important. This trick should have been tried on Kamerun and Altaira and everywhere else new diseases have turned up. When there's a bug on one planet that's deadly to us, there's bound to be a bug on some other planet that's deadly to it! The same goes for any pests or vermin—the principle of natural enemies. All we have to do is find the enemies!"

There was more communication between the Star Queen and the spaceport on Circe III, which the Star Queen would not make other contact with on this trip, and presently the big liner headed back to Altaira. It was necessary for official as well as humanitarian reasons. There would need to be a health examination of the Star Queen to certify that it was safe for passengers to breathe her air and eat in her restaurants and swim in her swimming pools and occupy the six levels of passenger cabins she contained. This would have to be done by a Patrol ship, which would turn up at Altaira.

The Star Queen's skipper would be praised by his owners for not having driven the liner into a star, and the purser would be forgiven for the confusion in his records due to off-schedule operations of the big ship, and Jensen would find in the ending of all terror of chlorophage an excellent reason to look for appreciation in the value of the investments he was checking up. And Doctor Nordenfeld....

He talked very gravely to Kathy. "I'm afraid," he told her, "that your father isn't coming back. What would you like to do?"

She smiled at him hopefully. "Could I be your little girl?" she asked. Doctor Nordenfeld grunted. "Hm ... I'll think about it."

But he smiled at her. She grinned at him. And it was settled.

Scent Makes a Difference by James Stamers


SCENT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

By JAMES STAMERS

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine April 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]



What I wanted was a good night's sleep. What
I got was visitation rights with the most
exasperating pack of sleepwalkers in history.


A fried egg came floating up through the stone steps of the Medical Center and broke on my shoe. According to my watch, it was time for the breakfast I didn't have that morning, so I waited a moment for the usual two rashers of bacon.

When they materialized, I hopped aside to avoid them and went back into the building, where the elevator took me straight up to the psychiatric floor, without asking.

"Your blood pressure, salts, minerals, vitamins, basal metabolism, brain pattern, nervous reflexes and skin temperature control are within accepted tolerances," it droned, opening the doors to let me off. "You have no clinical organic disorders; you weigh a hundred and fifty-two pounds, Earth, measure six feet one inch, and have a clear pallid complexion and an egg on your shoe."

I walked down the corridor to Dr. Doogle Spacio-Psycho Please Enter and went determinedly in.

"Name, please," said the blonde receptionist, tapping her nail eroder.

"Jones. Harry Jones."

"Mr. Harry K. Jones, the physicist?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no," she said, fiddling with the appointment list, "Mr. Harry K. Jones has just had his morning appointment and left."

"I know," I said. "An important piece of clinical data has just turned up. I have returned with an egg on my shoe."

"I think you'd better see the doctor."

I sat down to wait and took the little bottle of pills from my pocket. "From the Galaxy to you, through Dr. Doogle, Spacio-Psycho," it said on the label. "The last word in tranquilizers. Conservative Zen methods only, appointments any hour, first consultation free, no obligation, call personal transmitter DDK 51212-6790, Earth. Active ingredients oxylatohydrobenzoic-phe-ophenophino, sugar, coloring to 100%."


The inner office door opened and Dr. Doogle smiled fatly at me from behind his expensive desk.

"Do come in," he called, "and tell me all about it."

"It's happened again," I said, going into his office.

"Well, why not, if you feel that way? Nurse, bring me Mr. Hing-humph's case history."

"Mr. Har-ry K. Jo-nes' film is in the transcriber, Doctor," said the receptionist. "Mr. Jones, the physicist."

"Ah, yes, of course. Please sit down, Mr. Jones. Now what exactly is the trouble? Hold nothing back, tell me all, reveal your intimate thoughts."

"The main entrance just served me the breakfast that your diet forbids," I said, sitting down.

"Plain case of wish fulfillment. Put it down to poltergeists, Mr. Jones."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well, now," Dr. Doogle said, drumming his fat fingers, "I don't think we need to go into technicalities, Mr. Jones."

"Look," I said firmly. "I came to you to get a quiet night's sleep. No more insomnia, you said, leave your problems in the laboratory, let not the nucleii banish sleep, work hard, sleep hard, take tranquilizers and enjoy the useful recuperation of the daily wear on body tissues, deep dreamless sleep of the innocent."

He look at me suspiciously.

"It sounds like the sort of advice I might have given," he admitted.

"Well, at least I managed to keep my dreams in my head until I started your treatment. I have an urgent problem to solve that vitally affects national security. I can't have this sort of thing happening in the middle of an experiment."

I pointed to the fried egg on my shoe and shook it off on the pile of his green carpet.

"Yes. Well," he said, peering over the desk at it. "If you feel that strongly, Mr. Jones, perhaps you'd better give up the diet and just take the pills."

"I want to know how it happens," I said, and I settled firmly into the consulting chair.

Dr. Doogle coughed professionally. "Of course, of course. You are an intelligent man, Mr. Jones. One of our leading physical scientists. Naturally you wish to know the precise mechanism of such phenomena. Very commendable and entirely natural. Think no more about it."

"Dr. Doogle, do you know what you are doing?"

"Spacio-Psycho is still in its early stages, Mr. Jones. You are really privileged to be a pioneer, you know. We have had some most interesting results with that new tranquilizer. I hope you're not losing faith, Mr. Jones?"

"I accept the orthodox philosophy of Spacio-Psycho, it is only the basic philosophy of Ch'anna or Zen, and I had the routine scientific education, naturally."

"Ah," said Dr. Doogle with rapture, "the substratum of the universe is no-mind, and thus all material things are in constant unimpeded mutual solution. Ji-ji-muge, the appleness of an apple is indistinguishable from the cupness of a cup."

"And an egg on the shoe is the breakfast I didn't have," I said.

"Here," he said. "I think those pills are sending your sleeping mind down beyond the purely personal level of your own emotions and subconscious cerebrations. Take these, in a little water, half an hour before going to bed."

I stood up and walked over to the door.

"What are they?" I asked.

"Same as before, only stronger. Should send you right down to the root of things. Pass quiet nights in no-mind, Mr. Jones, sleep beyond the trammels of self, support yourself on the universal calm sea of no-mind."

"If these don't work, there'll be no-fee," I told him.


I took three of the stronger pills that night, turned off the light and lay back in bed, waiting for sleep to come and get me. The antiseptic odor of the Medical Center recalled itself, but nothing else happened, and I was still waiting to go to sleep when I woke up next morning. No dreams of a breakfast I couldn't eat, no dreams at all. I had been smelling the memory of formaldehyde and just slid off to sleep. I could still smell it, for that matter, as if it were coming from the slightly open bedroom window. I looked up.

"Hallo," said the tall skinny man in a doctor's coat on the window sill.

"Hallo yourself," I said. "Go away, I'm awake."

"Yes, you are. At least I assume you are. But I'm not."

I sat up and looked at him, and he obligingly turned his head to profile against the brightness of the window. He had a sharp, beaky face that was familiar.

"Haven't we met somewhere?" I asked.

"Certainly," he said, in a slightly affected voice.

"Well?"

"I don't know your name," he said, "but I have a very important post-operative case at present, and you keep charging around the ward when you're asleep. I just came over, as soon as I could get a few hours' sleep myself, to ask you to stop doing it, if you don't mind."

"I've done no such thing."

"You were doing it all last night, my friend."

"I was not," I said. "I spent last night here in my own bed. I didn't even dream."

"Ah, that probably accounts for it. Tell me, do you take drugs, tranquilizers, by any chance? We've had a lot of trouble with that. They seem to cause a bubble in the sequence of probabilities and things shift about. I've been taking a new one myself, while this case is on. I suspect that although I'm dreaming you, I think, you are not asleep at all. At least I wasn't when you made all that noise in my ward last night."

"No, I'm awake," I said. "Very much so."

"I see. Well, I shall wake up soon myself and go back to my own world, of course. But while I'm here, I suppose you haven't any advanced works on post-operative hyperspace relapse?

"Pity," he said, as I shook my head.

"I suppose you have no information on the fourth octave of ultra-uranium elements?"

He shook his head. "Didn't even know they existed," he said. "I don't believe they do in my probable time. What are you, a physicist? Ah," he added, as I nodded, "I wanted to specialize in physics when I was in college, but I went in for medicine instead."

"So did I," I said, "medicine, I mean, but I never passed pharmacology with all those confusing extraterrestrial derivatives."

"Really?" he said interestedly. "It's my weakest subject, too. I'm a pretty good surgeon, but an awful fool with medications. I suppose that's how we got together. You won't come busting up the ward again, will you?"

"I'd like to be obliging, but if I don't dream and I don't know where I am when I'm asleep, I don't see what I can do to stop it. It's not as if I'm really there, is it?"


He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Look," he said. "In my probable time, you're as much physically there as I am now in your time here. I'll prove it. I know I'm asleep in the emergency surgeon's room in my hospital. You know you're awake in your bedroom."

He held out his hand and walked across the floor to me.

"My name's Jones," he said.

"So's mine," I answered, shaking his solid hand. "This must be a very vivid dream to you."

We smiled at each other, and as he turned away, I caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror beside my hairbrush on the cabinet.

"Good heavens!" I said. "In a mirror, you look exactly like me. Is your name Harry Jones?"

He stopped, walked over to the mirror and moved about until he could see me in it.

"Harold K. Jones," he said. "You've got the face I shave every morning, but I've only just recognized you. You're me."

"I prefer to think you are me," I said.

"So you did fail that final pharmacology exam, eh? And I didn't, in my probability. Well, well. I must admit it seemed more probable I would fail at the time, but I passed."

"It was that tramp Kate's fault. She said yes too easily."

He coughed and looked at his fingers. "She said no to me. And, as a matter of fact, after I passed I married her. She's my wife."

"I'm sorry. I meant nothing personal."

"You never married?"

"I never really got over Kate," I said.

"I wonder what would have happened if I had qualified and then not married her."

"You mean what did happen—to the Harry K. Jones who passed in pharmacology but did not marry Kate. He must be around in another probability somewhere, the same as we are. Good heavens," I shouted, "somewhere I may have solved the fourth octave equation."

"You're right, Harry. And I may have found out how to get hyperspace relapse under control."

"Harold," I said, "This is momentous! It is more probable that you-I and I-you will make a mess of things, but there must be other probability sequences where we are successful."

"And we can get to them," he shouted, jumping up. "Are you using oxylatohydrobenzoic-pheophenophino?"

"Something like that."

"Three pills last thing at night?"

"Yes."

"Ever have foreign bodies materialize into your time-space?"

"Several breakfasts," I said. "The last egg was yesterday, on my shoe."

"It was Virginia ham with me, so I stopped dieting and increased the dosage."

"So did I," I said. "I suppose, apart from major points where a whole probability branches off, we lead much the same lives. But eggs don't dream. How did the ham get into your waking world?"

"Harry, really! I have a tendency to jump to conclusions, which you must control. How do you know eggs don't dream? I would have thought, though, that a pig was peculiarly liable to the nightmare that it will end up as a rasher—any reasonably observant pig, that is. But I don't think that is necessary. Obviously, we are dipping down to a stratum where things coexist in fact, and not merely one in fact and the other in mind, or one probability and not its twin alternative. Now, how do I get hold of the me that solved this hyperspace relapse business?"

"And I the ultra-uranium octave relationship," I added.

"Look out," he said. "I'm waking up. Good-by, Harry. Look after myself...."

He flickered, paused in recovery and then faded insubstantially away. I looked around my empty bedroom. Then, because it was time to go to work at the laboratory, I shaved, dressed and left my apartment, as usual.


Some high brass and politicians had been visiting the laboratory, showing off to their females how they were important enough to visit the top-secret bomb proving labs, and the thick perfume was hanging in the sealed rooms like a damp curtain.

"I wish they wouldn't bring women into the unventilated labs," I grumbled to my assistant.

"Never mind, Chief. If you can make this bomb work, they'll let you build your own lab in the Nevada desert, with no roads to it. Have you found the solution?"

"I'll tell you when I have," I said. "But I do have a new approach to the problem."

And as soon as I could, I left the labs and went back to my apartment downtown, took three pills and lay still, waiting for sleep. I could not get the smell of that perfume in the lab out of my nose. It was a heavy gardenia-plus-whatnot odor. I woke up in the middle of the night with the perfume still clinging to the air. The room was dark and I crossed my fingers as I leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp. If mental concentration on all the possible errors in my work was the key, the successful me should be here in the room, snatched from his own segment of probability.

I turned on the light. There was no one else in the room.

"Hell," I said.

Perhaps it just meant he, or that me, was not asleep, or was perversely not using tranquilizers. Or didn't that matter? No, I controlled this alone and had gone wrong.

"Did you say something, Harry?" asked Kate, stepping out of the bathroom and pulling the top of her nightgown into, I guess, place. "Ooo, fancy dreaming about you. This is odd."

I sat up and covered myself protectively in the bedsheets.

"Look, Kate," I said. "I don't want to see you. I'm not your husband, really. He's a pleasant fellow, I met him today, and he's not me. I never became a doctor. No doubt you remember what I was doing instead of studying."

That was a mistake, for she came and sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers into my hair.

"I thought it was odd I should dream about my husband," she said. "I'll believe you, because I don't know how I got here and you do look like the Harry I used to know, before he went all high scientific surgeon and no time for fun."

She curved more fully than she had when she was eighteen, but there was neat symmetry to her sine formulae, and she still had blonde hair. Her perfume was the same as the one in the lab I had been smelling all day, it was now reaching me at high amperage.

So that was the key, the evocative power of smell association. I sniffed deeply at the perfume in appreciation.

"Like it?" Kate asked, wriggling.

"Only for its scientific values," I said. "It suggests a most valuable line of research."

"I'm in favor," she said, and pressed me to the bed.

"Your husband is coming!" I shouted, and it worked. She disappeared. Presumably she woke up in her own probability time-space. And no doubt Kate's reflexes by now were trained to snap her awake and away at the suggestion that her husband was around. It was highly improbable that Kate would alter much.

I got up to make myself some coffee. There was no point in wasting sleep without a plan. Clearly, I had to take the pills and fix the appropriate smell in my mind, and when I woke up I would drag the proper slice of another probability with me. And then I would interview the me who had solved the ultra-uranium heavy element equation. And the bomb to end all bombs would be perfected. The test was ready, waiting for me to say, "Let's go, boys. We know what will happen this time."

But there was, it struck me, the difficulty of finding the right scent to evoke the right probable me.


I collected all the toothpaste, deodorant, shaving stick, aftershave lotion I could find in the bathroom and started on the toothpaste. I inhaled deeply and lay down, with the first tube on my chest. But after the coffee, I slept very briefly, and when I looked up there was only a toothbrush on the carpet. It was not mine in this world and I had no idea whose it was, or rather which probable me it belonged to.

But at least this established the principle. The smell produced the object—and, if I went deep enough in sleep, it would produce the whole Jones.

I dressed quickly and went out for a walk in the night air, breathing deeply and memorizing every scent I came across. Then I went back to the apartment, sniffed hard at the row of personal unguents, and lay down to sleep.

When I woke up, it was morning and the room was full of people.

There were about a dozen of me, some wearing very odd clothes, some scowling, others grinning unbecomingly, and some looking just plain stupid.



"Gentlemen," I said, standing up on my bed, "I am sorry to disturb your dreams but a matter of vital consequence has made me call you all here. I am Harry, or Harold K. Jones, and I became a physicist. I need your help. Do any of you know anything about the octaves of elements beyond uranium?"

There was a babble, through which I heard chiefly:

"The man's mad.... He says he's me.... Who are you, anyway?... No, you're not. I'm Jones...."

"Please, gentlemen," I said. "I don't expect we have much time before some of you wake up in your own probability. You, sir, in the armchair—yes, you in the tight pants—how about you?"

"Me?" he said. "I'm Captain Jones. Third Vector Spacefleet. Engineer rank. Who the galactic hellix are you, eh?"

Even from the bed, I could detect the smell of sweat and grease from his working uniform.

"I suppose you took up flight engineering at high school?" I suggested.

"Quite right," he snapped.

An early deviation, obviously. I remembered being enthralled with the arrival when I was a kid of the early space rockets, but my enthusiasm was daunted by old Birchall, who made us stick to airplanes. Obviously, his was not.

"How about you?" I asked, pointing to the thinnest me in the room.

"Penal colony on Arcetus," he said. "Eternal labor."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wonder which time—well, how many physicists are there here, or physical chemists, or astronomers, or even general scientists?"

I walked around the room, detecting toothpaste brands A, B, C and Whitebrighter, and a range of toilet preparations with manly odors contributing to our popularity with friends, relatives, girls and bosses, but no other physicist. Not a trace of research in my line. And one or two of them were already showing signs of waking up elsewhere and disappearing from the room.

I was about to start tracing it back to the point when I abandoned a medical career, and I could still smell the formaldehyde, when Dr. Harold K. Jones appeared.

"Look," he said, "I want you to keep away from Kate. Perhaps I didn't make that clear yesterday.... Good heavens, where did you get all of these me from? Does anyone here know anything about post-operative hyperspace relapse?"


Disgustedly, I saw that more than half of them did. Perhaps I should have been a doctor, after all. The probabilities were heavily represented in medicine. I sat on the bed and stared at my toes while the doctors babbled excitedly together. I gathered that Dr. Harold K. Jones had solved his problem, anyway.

"Excuse me," said a thoughtful me in a very quiet voice. "I didn't want to make myself obtrusive, but I did do a certain amount of research on the theoretical possibilities of elements heavier than uranium. It seemed to me they might go on being discovered almost indefinitely."

"They are," I said quickly, "octave after octave of them. Tell me about it, please."

"Look," he said, "it was only an idea. I really specialized in biochemistry, but we do use trace elements, and the formula I worked out at the time was—let me see...."

"Please try to remember," I said.

"Ah, yes, it was this," he said, and the strain of remembering woke him up and he disappeared back to his own probability.

"This was damned well planned, Harry!" said Dr. Harold K. Jones enthusiastically. "I think we can save hundreds of people every year now. I always knew I had it in me."

"Listen, Jones," said Captain Jones of the Third Vector Spacefleet, pushing himself through the crowd. "I've been talking to one or two of the others, see, and if you have the galactic gall to disturb my sleep again, I'm going to blast you. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," I said.

"It's tricky out in space, you know. No hard feelings, but the fraction of a micro-error and poof! You see what I mean. I must get a sound sleep at stand-down."

"Don't forget what I said about Kate," Dr. Harold K. Jones remembered to warn me. "I know how to do it, too. And you can have an accident with my instruments—easily."

He disappeared. I watched as the others woke up and went, one by one, even the felon from Arcetus, until they were all gone and I was alone with dark thoughts on heavy elements. It was so improbable that I was the only me who had worked on these lines, and very probable that if two of us with similar minds did work on the same problem, we could between us find the answer. Look at Dr. Jones and his hyperspace relapse.

Thinking of Dr. Jones made me think of Kate, and I fell asleep again with the memory of her scent in my head, as if I were really smelling it. When I woke up again, halfway through the morning, there she was in my room. She was at least dressed this time, but she smiled familiarly at me.

"For God's sake, Kate," I said, "go back to your husband!"


She began to cry. "Oh, Haroldkin," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. I must be dreaming, because I know you're dead, but I've kept everything just the way it was. Look—I haven't even touched your messy desk."

"Are you sitting in a room?" I asked.

"I'm in your study, Haroldkin," she said, surprised. "Can't you see?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I can't."

"Oh! Then I can throw out all these old papers?"

"What old papers?"

"Oh, I don't know, Haroldkin," Kate said. "You made such a fuss about failing that silly medical exam that you never let me touch your desk when you graduated in physics."

"Physics!"

"Yes," said Kate, throwing paper after paper onto the carpet. She made sweeping motions in the air and dumped a mass of notes into her lap. They appeared on her fingertips, but they stayed in existence when she dropped them on the carpet.

"How did I die?" I asked, bending down and thumbing rapidly over the papers.

"A bomb went off," she said. "I really don't want to talk about it. But you were so eminent, Haroldkin!"

I must have been very soft in the discrimination to have allowed that revolting nickname, I thought, but it was clear from the papers I was holding that I knew my physics. And there it was, printed in an issue of the Commission's Journal that never existed in my time-space, the whole equation I was looking for. It was so obvious when I read it that I could not understand how I failed to think of it for myself—for my own myself, that is.

When I looked up, this probable Kate had gone. I wanted to thank her, but the evening would do. Meanwhile, here was the ultra-uranium fourth octave equation.

I called the laboratory, read it off to my assistant, and told him to get on with the test.

"Right, Chief. I'll go down myself and give you a report when I get back."

I said fine and took the rest of the day off. It was the peak of my career so far, and from the widow Kate's comments, it seemed as if I had a great probable career to come. Of course, I would have to redouble our safety precautions at the labs and it would be best if I never went near the proving grounds. That other physicist me probably made some error that I would avoid, being forewarned.

By evening, I decided to try to locate that probable Kate again, to thank her, and to find out exactly how that poor me blew himself up with a bomb. With care, I recalled the perfume and also the musty smell of the papers, for I did not want Dr. Harold K. Jones' Kate appearing. Then I removed all other odoriferous substances from the bedroom, took three pills and was about to lie down to sleep when my assistant called to report on the test.

"That you, Chief? What a success! We're made. Your name's in lights, Chief! It was the most colossal explosion I've ever seen. It burned the area like toast. It even smelled like toast, with a touch of ozone and sulphur. Very strong smell...."

"Stop!" I screamed. "Stop!"

But it was too late. I could smell it clearly as he had described it. And now the pills are working. How in the name of heaven am I going to stay awake? Because once I fall asleep....