A Big Book of Malcolm Jameson
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Malcolm Jameson (1891-1945) had a brief 7-year career as pulp writer, and he contributed to Amazing, Unknown, Weird Tales and Astounding. His major series was "Bullard of the Space Patrol", but he also created a short series about "Anachron, Inc", a company which traded goods back and forth through time (just the thing to give archaeologists serious headaches!) and wrote novels, too. This anthology collects 28 of his lively and enjoyable stories. The Anachron Stories 1: Anachron Inc. 2: Barrius, Imp. 3: When is When? Bullard of the Space Patrol 4: Admiral's Inspection 5: White Mutiny 6: Blocka

THE BIG BOOK OF

MALCOLM JAMESON

STORIES

Malcolm Jameson, 1891-1945

Contents

The Anachron Stories

1: Anachron Inc.

2: Barrius, Imp.

3: When is When?

Bullard of the Space Patrol

4: Admiral's Inspection

5: White Mutiny

6: Blockade Runner

7: Slacker's Paradise

8: Devil's Powder

9: Bullard Reflects

10: Brimstone Bill

11: Orders

12: The Bureaucrat

And other Stories

13: Alien Envoy

14: The Anarch

15: Chariots of San Fernando

16: Children of the "Betsy B"

17: Doubled and Redoubled

18: The Giftie Gien

19: Joshua's Battering Ram

20: Murder in the Time World

21: Not According To Dante

22: Philtered Power

23: Pride

24: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

25: Stellar Showboat

26: Train For Flushing

27: Tricky Tonnage

28: Vengeance In Her Bones

________________

The Anachron Stories

1: Anachron, Inc.

Astounding Science Fiction, October 1942

SIX o'clock came and a squad of Civic Guards came out and started breaking up the line. The local placement bureau was closing for the day. Ted Barry cursed wearily under his breath and turned away. For the last hour he had been anxiously watching the descending sun and counting the men ahead. Fifty-four, fifty-three... forty... thirty... now twenty-eight! That close, and it all had to be done over again. He had been standing there since early dawn hoping against hope that be would get in that day, but it was not to be.

He walked down the street, thankful that be could at least do that— not shuffle along in the dispirited fashion of his mates. For most of the other men seeking occupation were still in uniform as he himself, though his distinctive uniform of a major of Commandos set him a cut above the majority. Not that having been a major was much help— not even a Commando major; ex-majors were a dime a thousand.

He took the nearest cross street that was fairly clear. The labor gangs were just knocking off for the day, and he saw that their job had been well done. The street was lined with gaping ruins, but the rubble in it had all been carted away and the bomb craters neatly leveled off and filled. Beyond he could see a block of buildings that had come through the war unscathed except for the loss of glass and the scarring of the lower walls by fragments. Directly facing them the walls of the elaborate new Museum of Art were rising— one of the many projects of made work instituted by the Commonwealth of America to take up the slack of unemployment. It was that that he hoped to be assigned to, yet he wondered bitterly what was the good of it all. What would they fill it with when it was done? For there was no more art. The savage Kultur raids of the mid-forties, unleashed by the frantic successors of the suicide madman Hitler, had seen to that.

Their systematic devastation of culture centers—and also the equally savage reprisal raids of the United Nations— had left the world without an art gallery, a museum, a college or school, church or palace. The incidental destruction of most private homes had taken care of the pitiful little household collections of pictures and books. Virtually nothing remained.

Again Ted Barry cursed, but it was a thing that had to be accepted. He made his way into the public chow hall and grabbed a tray and the necessary utensils. Then he made his way along the electric tables, picking out what he wanted to eat. Thank God, at least food was plentiful. Too plentiful. The unfillable maw of war had forced an unprecedented overproduction—to sweeten the oceans with sunken sugar cargoes, to furnish fuel for the flaming warehouses smitten from the sky, as well as to feed the hungry billions who fought, or tended the war production machines.

As he munched his food be thought gloomily over his life and the hard luck that was his in being born at the particular time he was. Born on the eve of what was then fatuously regarded as the greatest depression of all time, he had emerged from it only to be snatched into the vortex of the horrible War of Survival. And now, in the evil year 1956, he had been mustered out— two years late, for, except for the final mopping up by the Commandos, the Axis had been crushed several years before— only to find himself in a depression that might better be described as a bottomless pit. Literally thousands of square miles of useless war plants existed, tooled for planes, tanks, ships and guns; aluminum, now made by a cheap process from common clay, was a drug on the market at ten dollars a ton. Except for certain selected industries, such as textiles, staple foods, petroleum and the like, equally swollen, every other kind of plant had long since been converted to war uses or else fed into the insatiable steel furnaces as scrap. Not many had been rehabilitated. Coupled with the imbalance of production was the existence of hordes of demobilized soldiery and discharged workers. The outlook was gloomy, despite the vigorous efforts of the various commonwealths of the Federated States of the World.

Barry rose, reached into his pocket for the penny that was the nominal price of the meal— a face-saving device that kept it from being a handout— and started for the cashier's desk. He noticed a man standing by the wall who seemed to be studying the eaters; he was a well-dressed man in civilian clothes, and had a sleek, smug look about him that was slightly irritating to Barry.

As Barry brushed by the man on his way out, the fellow handed him a folded piece of paper. "This ought to interest you, buddy," said he. "I think you're just the type. Save it, it's valuable."

Barry's impulse was to shove the hand aside and pass on; it probably was one of the many come-on gags worked on the innocent veterans. But the man was in his way, and now there was an earnestness in his expression that might mean something. So, to avoid a scene, Barry mumbled something and pocketed the paper without looking at it. Then he deposited his penny at the desk and made for the door. A receptacle for trash was near it, and his eye caught sight of a complete newspaper tossed in on top the other rubbish. Its title was not alluring— The Weekly Financial Digest— but at least it was reading matter, and anything to read in the dreary little cave he lived in was an item to be prized.

He turned east in the gathering gloom and followed the littered street across town to the burrow he had made for himself in the ruins of a gutted building. It was not palatial, but better than many foxholes he had known, and in it he was king. He had a small reserve store of eatables, but above all he had independence and privacy. It was a dark hole, but that did not matter. His service "juicer," or super-battery, no bigger than a half-pint flask, still contained thousands of amperes, enough light for him for many weeks. He took off his uniform and laid it neatly away. Then he rigged the light for better reading, and settled down for a quiet evening. Idly he glanced at the dodger handed him by the man of the eating place. It proved to be a printed circular, and he wondered that a man of such well-fed appearance should be handing them out. It said,

QUALIFIED MEN WANTED

We can use a limited number of agents for our "foreign" department, but they must be wiry, active, of unusually sound constitution, and familiar with the use of all types of weapons. They MUST be resourceful, of quick decision, tact and of proven courage, as they may be called upon to work in difficult and dangerous situations without guidance or supervision. Previous experience in purchasing or sales work desirable but not necessary. EX-COMMANDO MEN usually do well with us.

Application should be made at the east door of Anachron Building, 6 Wall Street. Do not apply unless you have all the above qualifications.

Well, thought Barry, that's a little better than most. Here was a firm that actually wanted Commandos! Every other prospective employer had turned him down. "Sorry," ran the formula, "but we're afraid of you. You fellows are too damned independent— too used to being on your own. Our men have to do what we tell them."

He laid it aside and took up the financial paper. It was dismal reading. He waded through page after page of the wails of frustrated brokers and the gloomy forecasts of economic commentators. Then he turned the page and came upon the feature article of the issue. Among all that crepe and sounding dirges there was at least one hopeful item. Rows of big black type proclaimed:

ANACHRON BOOMING

Orders Mount— Stock Soars— Directors Optimistic

Barry's growing drowsiness was instantly overcome. Why, it was the man from Anachron who had handed him the circular! He must find out more about the company, since it appeared now to be genuine and on the upgrade. He read eagerly that Anachron Common had jumped that day from eight hundred sixty to two thousand sixty on the strength of an earlier announcement of a special cash dividend of forty percent and a stock dividend of one hundred percent; that the company was rapidly expanding its "foreign" business and had already taken thirty million bushels of wheat, sixty million tons of steel and much other surplus material off the market; that its profits on the sale of these commodities had been enormous; and that the company was contemplating vast expansion.

The article went on to say:

The activities of Anachron may be regarded as the most bullish factor in the world today. It is an open secret that since their acquisition of the Gildersleeve patents under special charter from the Federated Government, they have been utilising the Gildersleeve Heavy-duty Time Shuttle for intertemporal commerce. Thus all the wheat, steel, aluminum, textiles and so forth that they export is definitely removed from today's glutted world markets. Not only that, but we are receiving in return increasing quantities of such priceless items as books, old paintings, musical instruments, and many other things we have grown accustomed to doing without.

Uneasiness has been expressed in some quarters lest this traffic with the past ages have serious repercussions in our own, but we are assured by Mr. Otis P. Snoodington, Executive Vice President of Anachron, that the fears are baseless. He states that the most careful control is exercised over the activities of their field men in order that the economic and social life of the older civilisations is not upset unduly. Inventions too advanced for their ready comprehension are strictly withheld. Our readers in the steel industry, remembering some of the amusing orders they have received, will know what we mean.

BARRY folded the paper, closed his eyes and rested for a moment. His mind was in a state of wild ferment. The amazing thing he had just read sounded like a piece of wild fantasy; yet there it was, in an unemotional business paper—a fact, apparently. Barry was quite prepared for the concept of time travel—he had been a science-fiction fan in the days before the war, and had read many yarns playing with the idea, beginning with the classic one by H. G. Wells and including many of its successors. The only real surprise he felt was that the fantasy had at last become cold reality. He liked the idea of participating in it. He also needed a job.

Barry shot a quick glance at his wrist watch. It was later than he thought—past midnight. He got up and opened his kit and took from it an atomizer. He carefully sprayed his uniform with the dirt-removing substance, and when the liquid had evaporated, taking the grease stains with it, he plugged in his little flatiron and did a neat pressing job. An hour later, shaved, shined, pressed and glittering, and with three rows of medal ribbons spread across his chest, he was on his way through the dark ruins to the canyons of rebuilt Wall Street. However soiled a Commando might be from his task, it was the iron rule that when he appeared in public he must be as if on parade.

It was four when he reached the towering building that housed the head offices of Anachron, Inc., but already there were hundreds huddled before the side entrance where applicants were received. Most were derelicts, old men still hopeful, but there were many youngsters amongst them as well, chiefly from the ranks of the unrated dischargees. Barry could see only four men in the Commando uniform, and they were close to the door.

"Come on up, major," called one. "We rate these bums. You're number five."

He joined them and discovered that one was Billy Maverick who had served with him in the Hokkaido shebang. After that they swapped yarns until night paled to the pearl of dawn and that in turn gave way to full day. During that time nine others of their kind had joined them. Promptly at eight o'clock the doors were opened and they were allowed to go in. Barry glanced up at the company's trade-mark over the portal. It was an overflowing cornucopia about which fluttered a ribbon bearing the legend "Merchants, Not Missionaries." He was to see later that the same emblem appeared over the door of every office of the far-flung system. Before long he was to learn its meaning.

The preliminary interviews did not last long and they were authorized to go ahead for the physical check-up. That was grueling, including severe strength and agility tests. Five of the candidates had to drop out at that point. They had all passed the I.Q. standard, but special aptitude tests took a toll of four more. At length Barry, Maverick and a fellow named Latham were accepted, the other two candidates being deferred for reasons unstated. The three were sent to the office of Director of Personnel where they were told to sign contracts agreeing to "perform such duties as may hereafter be assigned and for such remuneration as the company may deem proper, for the period of at least one lustrum— or longer, at the option of the company— subject to prior dismissal at the discretion of the company."

"Phew!" whistled Latham. "It reads like the Nazi draft of a treaty!" But Barry signed without comment. He had had a taste of what the cold outside was like and how bleak the prospects. Moreover, his imagination had been fired by the reading of the article. Maverick likewise signed, and the vocal member followed suit.

The personnel man grinned. He knew a Commando couldn't be held by a contract if he didn't want to be held; he also knew that no employee had ever wanted to quit. He tossed the papers into a basket and issued three cards.

"Take these down to Basement A and show them to the guard. He'll put you into a bus that will take you to the barracks."

"Then what?"

"You'll be given a room and bed, and get your basic training. We can't send you foreign as dumb as you are now."

"Oh, yeah?" said the incorrigible Latham. "Well, listen, brother, we've had all the basic training there is, plus advanced, plus expert, plus practice. And if there's any place foreign between the poles that we haven't taken apart, I'd like to know what it is."

"Uh-huh," said the personnel man, nonchalantly, "Maybe. But were you ever sent to snare a papa Brontosaurus and a lady Brontosaurus on the hoof? I understand the new zoo has ordered some. And how fast can you load and fire a flintlock? How good are you at mounting and dismounting horses with sixty pounds of plate armor around your carcass? You ain't seen nothing, kid. You may be sent anywhere— and anywhen. After you've been told to sell Prester John ten carloads of apples or else, you'll know what we mean when we say 'foreign'."

"Oh," murmured Latham, meekly, "I hadn't thought of that angle."

They found their bus and were whisked away uptown to the indoctrination center. It was a superbly fitted barracks, the chow was good, but they were disappointed to find themselves in a reception ward in which there were no old-timers except their trainers. Those wouldn't talk. "A step at a time, laddies," was all the grizzled top-kick would say. "If you show you can take it, you'll learn the rest, fast enough. If not, you get the gate with a month's pay for trying."

"How much is that?" Maverick wanted to know. He, alone of all of them, had found surviving relatives on his return.

"Two hundred trade-smackers, base. When you go active the sky's the limit, what with commissions, graft, bonuses and things"

"Did you say graft?" asked Barry, sharply. The word had an ugly sound.

"Skip it," shrugged the top. "Call it side lines, if the word smells better to you. The company doesn't mind, so long as they get theirs and you don't run foul of the Control Board. There's one of you fellows, a Billy Tolton, that has the sweetest little side racket you ever heard of— he's stationed at Rome in Diocletian's time... but say, I'm not supposed to tell you guys these things, you have to find 'em out for yourselves."

Maverick snickered and Barry couldn't repress a smile. They both knew Tolton. He was as square as they make them, but a slick barracks lawyer with it. He was famous for his escapades, but somehow he managed always to be safely just inside the rules. They wondered what he had slipped across the Romans, but the sergeant would say no more, and there was nothing left but to turn in. Barry went to sleep in a little glow of triumph. He was off the streets and out of the endless queues of the unemployed. Shortly he would be traveling throughout the past, not sightseeing or adventuring, but engaged in legitimate business.

THE drudgery of the next three months came as a rude shock, but the day came when Barry and Maverick were called up and graduated ahead of the remainder of the class. The Foreign Department was shorthanded and rushing men into the field the moment they were qualified. Barry was still a little dubious as to his qualifications, for so many questions still remained unanswered. The fatal paradox of time commerce troubled him unduly, though his instructors evaded his questions as not being in their province. He could not see why tinkering with the past would not have terrific consequences in the future that was to be founded on it, which in turn meant this present.

They packed their bags and left the school without regrets. The course had been half lectures, and half martial and marine exercises. In the mornings they listened to talks on the commerce of the past peoples, from far Cathay to the cliff dwellers of the Southwest. Otherwise they became familiar with antique arms and modes of transportation. All were good rough-and-tumble fighters, but they added the crossbow and the blunderbuss to their repertory of arms, not to mention the catapult, Greek fire, and the handling of scythed chariots. Two days a week they spent at the ship basin where they were told about carracks, galleys, junks, cogs, praus, galleons and triremes. They served carronades and the heavier muzzle loaders of later days. From quarterstaves they graduated to broadsword play.

"What gets me," remarked Maverick, as they climbed into the taxi that was to take them back to the head office, "is why they give us all this military stuff when they say it's against the rules to do any fighting except in self-defense."

"Dunno," said Barry, "unless it's to help us take care of ourselves on the road. There were plenty of corsairs and highwaymen in the old days."

They got a thrill on arriving at the downtown building. This time they went in through the great main portal, already thronged with businessmen coming for their share of Anachron's bounteous orders. The two fresh-hatched apprentice traders did not know the curious specifications that accompanied many of the contracts, but they had an inkling from snatches of conversation overheard in the elevator. "I hear Western Spring Steel got the order for fifty thousand Mark III all-metal bows. I'm trying to snag off part of that duraluminum arrow allotment.... Oh, sure, our Toledo factory is working nights on palanquins and sedan chairs.... I hear wallpaper is going good all over the Renaissance."

The Outside Sales, Purchasing and Contract departments were all on the first twenty floors, above which only certified company employees could go. By the time Barry and Maverick reached the thirtieth floor, they were alone except for the guide who accompanied them. They started down a long corridor marked "Foreign Trade," noticing with interest that each of the many sub-offices was marked with its specialty, such as "Scandinavia: Vikings to Gustavus Adolphus." "Old American, Mayan, Aztec, Inca, Et Cetera."

The guide halted them and called attention to an alcove that was guarded by a swinging chain. A sign said, "Keep Clear, Landing for Trader Shuttles." A red light was blinking and a small gong tapped out an additional warning.

"Some fellow must be in a jam and is coming in to see the boss," said the guide, indicating that they might pause and see the time shuttle land.

In a couple of seconds it did, though it was more a matter of materialization than a landing. The alcove seemed to fill with shadowy outlines, then suddenly a solid platform appeared. The operator of the shuttle stood in a little pulpit at one end, operating its controls. A single passenger slumped morosely in the center of the vehicle, leaning on a gleaming two-handed sword that had a heavily bejeweled hilt. He was dressed in flowing garments which Barry's unpracticed eye could not positively identify, but which he took to be those of a medieval Spanish merchant. The trader was of dark complexion, with a heavy beaked nose, though it was hard to say just what he did look like, for he was wearing in addition a watery black eye, a badly cut nether lip and many minor contusions. His robes were torn and bespattered with mud and overripe eggs. Altogether he seemed to be quite unhappy.

He glared at them briefly, then without a word ducked under the chain and limped off down the hall, carrying his gigantic sword with him. The shuttle faded from sight, and the trio continued their trip on down the corridor. The bedraggled figure before them turned into an office marked "Western Europe— Medieval."

"He's one of your gang," remarked the guide. "That is where you are going."

By the time they reached the office, the trader from the shuttle had laid the sword across the assistant sales manager's desk, and was talking rapidly and agitatedly with many furious gestures.

"But, damn it all, Mr. Kilmer," he wailed, "I did tell 'em! I sent a sword— King Richard's own personal snickersnee. I sent sketches; I sent along the exact specifications. I told 'em why. What more could a man do?"

"Keep your shirt on, Jakie," sighed Mr. Kilmer, a thin, harried- looking man with a perpetual furrow between his brows. "If anyone up here slipped, you're in the clear—"

"Me in the clear!" screamed Jakie. "Of course I'm in the clear. But does saying so write off those ten thousand swords and the beating up I got? Lissen! This guy Richard says the swords are no good— not fit for knights. So he won't pay, and he won't give 'em back. He issued 'em to his men-at-arms. What's more, he had me whipped around Westminster at the tail of a cart and then stuck me in the pillory where those mugs rocked me all day. Look, I lost four teeth, see? And that ain't half of it. The hangman grabs my notebooks, order books and all my kit material and burns them in the square. A years work shot, and am I sore!"

Mr. Kilmer glanced up sadly at Barry and Maverick who were standing silently in the background, waiting to present themselves. But he said nothing for a long time, and then he addressed himself to the outraged Jakie.

"Right or wrong, this tears it," said the morose Kilmer, dragging the heavy sword to him and standing it point down beside his chair while he fiddled with a crystalline knob at the end of its hilt. "Your pal Richard the Lion Heart is just one more pain in the neck to me. Credit put in a bad report and insists on cutting the rest of the order down and demanding half cash for what we do deliver. It seems that they sent their own men to check up on your report and they came back and said that Richard was already hocked up to his eyes. What's more, Prophecy says that even with the better equipment you're trying to get him, the Third Crusade is likely to be a flop. All it accomplished along our own time line was the taking of Acre and Cyprus, and he had to split the take four ways at that. Then he got captured on the way home and his ransom broke the kingdom. I'm afraid, Jakie, that you'd better forget Richard First of England and bunt up a better prospect. And don't be so damn gullible next time."

Jakie uttered wild and sizzling words for a good five minutes, beating his breast and tearing his hair, but all he got further from the boss was the mild order to go down to the gym and get out of his make-up and have the doctors rub liniment on him. Jakie limped out of the office still smoldering. After which Mr. Kilmer turned his mournful mien on his newest traders. Both stepped forward, and he sighed heavily as he regarded them.

"New, eh?" he said, with a notable absence of enthusiasm. Barry waited. "Maybe what you just overheard was as good a start-off as any— gives you an idea why we're all graying grouches up here at home office. Stick around and I'll tell you what it's all about."

For a few minutes he was busy dialing interoffice numbers— Design, Specifications and Contracts, finally the Chief of Inspectors. Presently a messenger appeared with a roll of blueprints, copies of contracts, and another sword of similar design to the one beside the desk. Except that that one was black and pitted and crudely made by hand, whereas the new one was of the best molybdenum stainless steel. Kilmer handed both swords over for inspection, remarking that the dazzling new one was superior to anything Toledo or Damascus had ever produced. Hefting each and noting the superior balance of the dazzling Anachron product, Barry wondered how any sane warrior could reject the later model.

Kilmer took the older sword and unscrewed the crystal set in its top. Underneath was a small receptacle of about the capacity of a thimble, hollowed out of the handle. The crystal atop the other sword would not come away until forcible prying got it off. Beneath was only the cement that had held the bauble.

"Knights," explained the sales manager, in his lugubrious tones, "especially crusaders, make the vanquished swear on the hilts of their swords to pay ransom, or to reform, or to render fealty or what not. You'd think that the crosslike shape of the sticker would serve, but it isn't good enough to suit a crusader. Oh, no. They've got to have this hollowed place to carry a few saint's relics in— you know, nail parings, a few hairs, dandruff or what have you. Somehow, it makes the oath more binding. Well, we ordered a lot of ten thousand forged, and now you know what happened. That Richard is a tough egg and I don't hold with him as a rule, but in this thing he's right."

The three of them together looked at the blueprints. The receptacle was clearly shown. It was mentioned in the specifications, and in the contract with Cumberland Steel, who made the swords. An inspection report was among the papers, stating the swords were as ordered. Mr. Kilmer picked up the phone again.

"Here's where a crooked inspector gets fired," he said, dialing the Chief Inspector, "and where Cumberland gets sued. It's the doggonedest thing to make these manufacturers realize that when we specify some wacky thing, we have a reason for it. They thought the receptacle idea was silly, and it saved them a couple of operations to skip it. Now everybody loses."

He swept papers off his desk and hurled the two swords to the floor, and scowled a moment at his new employees.

"You give credit to these... er... foreigners?" asked Barry, amazed.

"When we have to," admitted Kilmer, glumly. "Many of the things we value the most are locked up in palaces, cathedrals, or the treasure hordes of Hindu princes. They are not for sale. So we look along our own history line and find out when a particular place is to be besieged and sacked, then we contact the fellow who is going to do the sacking and make a deal with him. Usually by staking him to up-to-the-next-century high-grade siege equipment. Then we split the loot. Most times he prefers cash, which we have too much of, and we prefer the goods, which he is unable to transport."

"What about the ethics of that, and the effect on the future?" asked Barry, still hammering away at his pet question.

"Oh, that? So you're the worrying kind, huh?" glared Mr. Kilmer. "Take my advice and forget it. If Projects passes it; if Philosophy, Ethics and Prophecy give it the go-ahead, and if Budget and Research says O.K. and the Control Board says hop to it, you can bank on it it's being ethical. We've had more damn deals upset because some moony old coot in Ethics or some crapehanger in Prophecy claims the effects might be unjust."

Kilmer mopped his brow indignantly.

"Not long ago," he said, "I doped out a plan to sell Jeff Davis a lot of modern ammunition— I was in North American Recent then— but Ethics and Prophecy knocked it in the head. They said that the prognosis following a Confederate victory was not good and that we have to assume the moral responsibility for the sort of futures we set up in these branch time-tracks we generate, even if they have no effect on us. Well, you can see what a hole I was in— I could have unloaded thousands of tons of stuff. So I proposed selling to Lincoln and Staunton. But no, they said, that was just as bad. The computers took the land-grabbing tendencies displayed by the Republicans in the decades right after the Civil War and forecast the effect of an easy victory with weapons superior to anything else on Earth at that time. The prognosis of that was bad, too. Prophecy opined that the United States would embark on a spree of conquest that would ruin them in the end. Tough, you see?"

"Not quite," said Barry. The application of ethics to probable alternate time-track seemed a bit involved.

"Oh, bother," exclaimed Mr. Kilmer. "Take the rest of the day off and get that stuff out of your system. Go up to Philosophy, or if they're thinking and won't talk to you, go into Public Relations and ask them for the low-down. Find out all you can, because tomorrow I'm shipping you off to Thirteenth Century France for a shakedown run."

"Hell, I can't speak Old French," said Maverick.

"You'll be speaking it tomorrow," said Mr. Kilmer, cryptically, and pressed a button for a messenger, "but get out now and leave me with my headaches. I've got to tell a guy in the Projects section why we can't spare a man to get the thousand pairs of dodos the Zoo Commission is yelling for. The boy will take you to the places you want to go."

"Takes things hard, doesn't he?" grinned Maverick, once they were out in the hall. Barry grinned back.

"You know, fellow, I think we're going to enjoy this job," he said, quite irrelevantly. And then they took the elevator to the lair of the philosophers.

THE philosophers' room was an astonishing place. It was a dimly lit but richly furnished library, about which lounged or paced the floor with knitted brows more than a dozen men. Few would have been taken for philosophers on the streets; several were bearded and bespectacled and had a musty, scholarly look, but for the most part they looked as if they might as well be engineers or salesmen. But all had one thing in common, a deep immersion in profound thought.

"Sh-h," cautioned the messenger, "don't speak until you are spoken to. They get awfully sore if you snap 'em out of it."

The first of the savants to show signs of life was an immensely corpulent gentleman sprawled in an easy-chair. His eyes were tightly closed and his face puckered into an intense frown that seemed strangely infantile in view of his shiny bald pate and the multiple chins beneath. But at length he gurgled faintly and the lines of his face relaxed into a placid smile. Then, quite slowly, he opened his pale-blue goggle eyes and steadied his gaze on Barry, who was standing in front of him respectfully waiting.

"A question?" asked the philosopher, after an expressionless scrutiny.

Barry started to state the doubts that troubled him, but the wise man seemed to divine the tenor of them after the first four words, for he at once closed his eyes again and began talking in a dull monotone.

"No reconciliation of the supposed time paradox is necessary," he droned, "for no paradox exists. For every possible past there exists an infinity of possible futures of which a certain number may be considered probable. But once a complete past has occurred, there is but one resultant future, and both it and its past are facts and immutable. Through the manipulation of certain ultradimensions by the application of gravitic and temporal fields of force, we know that we may inject extraneous incident into our past at will. But every such innovation, however slight, can have no subsequent effect along our own proper time-track. At the very instant of intrusion a new time- track is set up which will branch off and thereafter develop toward its own discreet future. Is that clear?"

"Approximately," answered Barry, though still a bit dubious. "But if these are divergent and independent branches, how does one get back—"

"As one gets off a railroad siding. By backing down to the switch point and then resuming the main line. At the moment, I was considering a means to cross these lines at right angles, especially since there may be independent time lines parallel to us of which we do not dream. For the present we must be content with shuttling back and forward over the well-worn track. But you tire me. One more question only; I have patience for no more."

"What about the effect we have on the futures of the new branch lines?" was Barry's final question.

"Bah!" snorted the philosopher. "What have I to do with such trivia? We deal here with the larger aspects. Go ask Ethics your other questions."

Before Barry or Maverick could mutter a word of thanks, the man had screwed his face back into its former expression of rapt concentration and forgotten them. The messenger crooked a finger and the three tiptoed out into the corridor.

THEY visited a number of other departments before the day was over, though not all of Anachron's many subdivisions by any means. The order in which they made the rounds was somewhat haphazard, but by midafternoon Barry began to have some notion of how the wheels of Anachron went round, at least in the Foreign Department.

First, there was the requisition room, where orders poured In from all parts of the home world. The variety of things asked for was incredible and the quantities demanded immense. On the cultural side, where the universities, libraries and museums of the world were being rebuilt and stocked, there was demand for books of all kinds— not only the rare and priceless major documents of the past, but ordinary books for circulating libraries and for sale to homes. The demand for paintings, sculpture, laces and embroideries, and handicrafts of every sort was insatiable. The reconstituted zoos were planning prehistoric sections for which they wanted living specimens of all the animals since creation. On the industrial side there were many and varied demands, such as that for genuine silk, old cheeses and wines and many others.

Services had been requested, too. The geologists had asked for surveys to be made of the world at various wide intervals in the past; societies for the prevention of this or the promotion of that would petition to have their pet cause of the past assisted. Some wanted to turn modern knowledge over to the ancient Greeks without reserve, so that the Roman Empire could never come into being, while others favored the strengthening of the bands of the Bourbons to prevent the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror from happening. The files of the order room were crammed with proposed Utopias.

Needless to say but a fraction of the orders could be filled. The more feasible of the lot were culled out and sent to the Planning Section. It was there that the motto "Merchants, Not Missionaries" came first into play, for Anachron was a commercial organization having the double purpose of acquiring valued products from the past and disposing of the unwieldy surpluses of home production. Any other consideration was secondary, and the possible moral effects of any of its acts worried the planners very slightly.

What they approved went to Projects, for preparation and estimates. Then Prophecy had a look at it, and referred its findings to Ethics. If the projects survived that gantlet, it went to the Control Board for authorization.

Barry and Maverick soon became lost in the maze of operations that followed that, especially after the secretary in Control had given them a Field Man's Manual. Somewhere along the line one or more of the many Research Bureaus put a finger in the pie; then there was Design, Contracts, Credit and all the rest. They even learned there existed an office of Intertemporal Exchange, where excess byzants, ducats, lacs of rupees, talents and pieces-of-eight could be turned in for appropriate credit. They found that out when they reported back to Kilmer and he sent them to the office with an order for three bags of coins to cover the initial expenses of their trip. That night they opened one of the bags and found it to contain many deniers and obols, as well as gold coins from the Levant,

THE following morning Mr. Kilmer seemed a mite less dismal, but he explained that by saying it was early yet and he had not opened his mail.

And he shot the basket of incoming memoranda a glance that would have served equally as acknowledgment of the presence of a king cobra.

A new face was present. He was an undersized chap with beady jet-black eyes, and a fidgety, nervous manner. His name was Nelden, but what his nationality was was undeterminable. His title was "Advance Man." and it appeared he had completed the preliminary field arrangements for the execution of the newest project. Barry and Maverick learned to their consternation that as soon as he had conducted them to the spot and assisted in breaking the ice, they were going to be left alone and in full charge. Anachron believed in bringing up its field men the hard way.

"You'll do well if you get off by four, Nelly," said Kilmer, glancing at his watch. "You have to take these boys by and have them psychohyped and costumed first, so you'd better get going."

"Where are you going to send me when I come back, boss?" asked Nelden, anxiously.

Mr. Kilmer ruffled orders stuck on a hook.

"St. Petersburg, I think. Peter the Great is starting a big building project there, and it's a good spot for your construction gang now that you're finished in the Scillies."

"Yes, sir," said Nelden, with a dirty sidelong look at the two who were about to supplant him. They took it he was not overfond of medieval Russians.

They walked away. Nelden leading sulkily. Far down the corridor he turned and said, "Pretty soft for you guys. I do all the dirty work, case the joint, unscramble the dizzy calendar they use and work out the geo position. Then I get a concession for a castle and build it for you. Then I stock it with trade goods, train a lot of dumb marines how to find the way. After that I have to hand it to you birds on a silver platter. And I get a lousy salary while you fellows lap up the commissions!"

"Why don't you change your rate?" asked Barry, mildly,

"Too uncertain. And too damn risky," snorted the disgruntled advance man.

They turned into one of the interminable research wings until they came to the section they were after. Four or five men sat around a table, poring over antique tomes and manuscripts. In the corner a phonograph was rattling off fast dialogue in some foreign tongue.

"These fellows," explained Nelly, "bone up on local customs, lingo and all that. When I do my scouting I bring back records to show them how the stuff sounds when the natives sling it. There isn't any French or English or Spanish where you're going. Only dialects, and they change every fifty miles. Latin and Lingua Franca is about all you can really sink your teeth into."

"These the men?" asked a man wearing a doctor's smock, who had just come in, nodding in the direction of Barry and Maverick.

"Yeah. Hype 'em."

The doctor arranged a few chairs, set the novices down in two of them and several of the scholars and Nelly took the others. A dazzling little light appeared as if by magic in the ceiling, and the doctor directed them all to study it closely. Barry felt a momentary queasiness and promptly lost all sense of time. At x hours later he was aware of the chairs being pushed back and someone saying to him, "O.K, you've got it."

Without understanding quite how, he knew that he was passably fluent in several French dialects, church Latin, with smatterings of Flemish, Cornish, Navarrese and Arabic thrown in. Then he realized he had been hypnotized and while under had been pumped full of the acquired knowledge of the others. Vague memories of monasteries and castles he had never seen were faintly troublesome, but he supposed that was to enable him to recognize them when he saw them.

"Where's the bird?" asked Nelden, looking around. Then his eye lit on a cage in the corner in which a big green parrot was preening itself. "O.K.?"

"Hope so," shrugged the head language student.

Nelden unhooked the cage and made for the door, Barry and Maverick following. When they stepped out of the elevator at the ground floor, it was into a taxi bearing the company's trademark. "Freight Export," snapped Nelden, "and step on it." He planted the parrot cage squarely on Barry's lap and began jerking out hasty phrases:

"Bit of foresight... might get you out of a jam... barons are nuts about queer birds, like falcons, eagles... they never saw a parrot... this one curses fluently in Basque and Walloon... and prays interminably in bad Latin... ought to make a hit."

He caught a breath as the machine lurched around a corner and climbed a mound of fallen brickwork. "...'n lissen... I'm taking a couple of days off... no sense in going down with you... everything's set. Gotta charter from the Duke of Cornwall, tribute one gold bar and three fine cows a year... base castle's on one of the Scillies... partly stocked and with four good cogs. You open up France... establish a fair... hire peddlers... get a stand-in with the nobility and church. And watch your step. Don't get into fights. Don't get burned at the stake for heresy. Or sorcery... that's worst. Don't waste sympathy on the serfs, they're a bunch of ignorant bums. Merchants, not missionaries, you know. And the key word is mass sales. Rockefeller made more millions selling quarts of gasoline than Tiffany ever did with diamond necklaces. And don't forget ... if you don't show a profit by the end of six months... bam ... you're out on your ear."

He shut up with a snap of the mouth and stared out the window, while Barry and Maverick exchanged blank looks. This was being put on their own with a vengeance! Then Barry's face broke into a grin, which gave way to a hearty laugh. No wonder they insisted on ex-Commandos!

THE freight export building occupied most of the site formerly taken up by Greenwich Village. Elevated railroad spurs ran through the lower floors of the vast pile of buildings which rose above them for many stories of blind warehouse walls. Once inside they were whisked aloft and stepped out into a room of astronomical dimensions. Barry had time only to glimpse the heaps of merchandise of every description that stood about the floor. Bronze spears were stacked up like cord wood, flanked by hoes, rakes, plows and reapers. Elsewhere there were bags of sugar and flour, crates of grapefruit and other foodstuffs. Literally thousands of crates of unknown content were on every hand. Then they came to a machine such as they had seen Jakie arrive on, except this one was as large as a harbor lighter and was already piled high with boxes, bags and barrels.

"Your shuttle," said Nelden. "Runs nonstop between here and your castle. It's the only way you can get down or up— those one-man shuttles are only for special duty. Don't ever lose touch with the castle, or you're sunk. S'long. Good luck."

He herded them onto the shuttle, and before they knew what was happening a gong was clanging and they felt a queer vibration. After that they seemed to sleep awhile when a series of mild jars brought them back to full consciousness. They were in a different place. It was a huge vaulted room— or cavern— aglow with floodlights, and the shuttle was nested between a pair of unloading platforms. At the blast of a mouth whistle, two gangs of gigantic Nubian laborers sprang forward and commenced snaking the cargo out. A gangling redhead strolled over, dressed in immaculate whites and Barry saw that he had a good old Colt strapped to his hip.

"Hi," greeted the fellow, "welcome to Isla Occidentalis. Suppose you're the traders. The cogs are loaded and ready— when do you want to shove off?"

"When we get our breaths," answered Barry, marveling now at his recent impatience with the slow pace of the indoctrinational school. Anachron may have been slow on the uptake, but they made up for it in the field. Then, feeling a few amenities were in order, he introduced Maverick and himself.

The supervisor of the unloading said his name was Clarkson. "I'm slavemaster and storekeeper," he added.

"Slaves!" exclaimed Maverick, horrified. He had just finished fighting a war for freedom.

"Why not?" countered Clarkson. "You're in 1240 now. These fellows are happy as larks and better off than they ever were in their lives. We got 'em from a rock quarry of the Carthaginians in the course of a trade, and they can't be disposed of up home. So we use 'em here to cut down the overhead. You'll find 'em handy; we've taught 'em all sorts of things—to cook, tap dance, play swing. The trades, too. The company won't send down anybody but people like us. We have to make out with local talent as best we can."

Barry grunted, and proceeded to inspect the castle. Isla Occidentalis was a glorified warehouse built in castle form. It occupied the whole of a tiny rocky island off the tip of Cornwall and its concrete walls rose sheer from the foamy breakers that pounded their foundations. Except for a water gate that admitted the clumsy cogs to the inner basin, there was no opening in the walls. Even that was guarded by an Anachron-designed portcullis sliding in well-greased guides. In that day of timid mariners and knights who feared the sea, the place was impregnable and needed no more than an occasional electric eye for guards.

Clarkson, they learned, was the chatelain, and was aided by a squad of six marines who saw that the slaves kept to their assigned quarters when not otherwise engaged. In addition there were quarters for such cog captains as happened to be at base, and accommodations for the traders and home-office visitors. All the rest of the structure was filled with storerooms, some of which were refrigerated. The place was full of flagrant anachronisms, but it did not matter, as no one belonging to the contemporary age was permitted to enter. It had been designed as a handy central shipping depot for the crew of other traders yet to come— men who were to work Granada and Moorish Spain, England and the Low Countries, and the Baltic ports. The name, Isla Occidentalis, was beautifully vague, meaning a land somewhere west of Ireland.

"I'd hate to be in your shoes," was Clarkson's remark over their nightcap later. "We've got a hellish overhead here, what with interest, amortization and all, and we understand that Audits & Accounts have been burning up Sales about it. Kilmer stays in a state of frenzy all the time. After four guys took a fling at that St. Denys fair he's so anxious to crack, only to bust at it, he's been hard to live with. He tried to sell Nelden the idea of taking over, but he wouldn't touch it. So—"

"So he picked a pair of greenhorns," Barry finished for him. I get it. Oh, well. We'll have a look. By the way, what cargo have those cogs got in 'em?"

"Everything but the kitchen stove. Your flagship's chock- full of miscellaneous what have you; the other assorted livestock. It's up to you how to use it."

THE week's voyage to the mouth of the Seine was not hard to take. Parker, ex-commander of a submarine, was flotilla captain, and delighted in pointing out the innovations he had made on the tublike vessels. To the eye they looked like any other merchant ship of the age, except they were fitted with rudders instead of steering oars. But aerodynamics engineers had reset their masts and redesigned the running gear, while the underwater lines had been altered for the better. Under a secret deck auxiliary Diesels pushed them along, wind or no wind, and there were refrigeration machines for their perishables. That was a surprising discovery, as Barry had been told that both internal combustion engines and ice machines were forbidden to the Middle Ages as being too far advanced for them.

"How would you keep that stuff secret if a war galley boarded you?" he asked of Parker.

"They wouldn't board us. We've got an ace in the hole. There is a submerged torpedo tube in the bow; it shoots the cutest little dummy torpedo you ever saw. The thing is only six inches in diameter and is electric-driven so it doesn't leave a wake, but it packs a wallop good enough to go right through anything now afloat. They'd simply sink and wonder what kind of sea varmint did it to them,"

"Oh," said Barry. He was getting a better idea of how you did things when the rule book made you pull all your best punches. Then, seeing the coast of France growing more distinct by the hour, he went down to dress and help Maverick with his costume. In his hurry to shove them off, Nelden had failed to take them to the make-up place, so they had looted their hold and found something that would do. The best description of what they ultimately decked themselves out in is that the foundation garments were silver embroidered Mexican vaquero suits, except that trench caps were substituted for the sombreros. As a concession to the contemporary taste for draperies, they topped the whole ensemble with Japanese kimonos worn open in front. Each tucked a bowie knife in his belt, a blackjack, and set of chain twisters— just in case.

As the low banks of the Seine narrowed on either side of them, their hypnotically acquired memory of the place refreshened. They knew without being told that they were approaching the first of a dozen tax- and toll-collecting stations that separated them from their goal, for a line of obstructions blocked the river, forcing them into a little channel close under the south bank. There stood a formidable stone tower, and on the bank a number of crossbowmen and archers led by a man in chain mail. The latter was beckoning the ship to come to him.

"This bandit takes an eighth of all you've got," growled Parker, telling the Nubian steersman to put over the wheel. "I wish they'd let us work on him like we worked on those Japs up the Yangtze—"

Just then Barry's ring finger began to burn. Anachron used the same type of self-contained midget radio sets as the Commandos had. Barry kept his eyes on the approaching beach, but his attention was on the succession of prickling dots and dashes that his finger felt. The message was being relayed from the Isla.

Kilmer to Barry:

Ten days and no report of sales. Wake up and get busy. Quit paying out all the profits in tolls and start merchandise moving. Must have ample booth space at Lagny or St Denys fairs by Monday, your time. Acknowledge.

The tingling stopped. The first ship was already easing up to the bank where the big bearded gorilla in armor strutted impatiently. The cattle ship was hove to downstream, waiting. Barry had no time to analyze the disconcertingly peremptory message or reply, so he gave the stone in the outer ring a half turn and pressed out the code symbol for "acknowledge." By then they were bumping against the quay and the toll collector sprang aboard.

"Unload your wares on the dock," he bellowed, "that I may select that which is the lawful due of my noble master, the duke."

Barry thought of the heterogeneous cargo below and shuddered. Half choking he said, "If the noble master provost will deign, I will give him refreshment in the cabin below. There is a flask of the superwine made for sovereigns, and presents worthy of the honorable provost's fair lady. It will do no harm to let these villains and slaves wait while we parley. Unloading is so noisy, you know."

"Umph", grunted the brute in hardware, thrusting out a bulldog jaw. He was not too intelligent and he feared trickery. On the other hand, he had a keen nose for a hidden bribe and he, somehow, thought he sniffed one. He barked an order to his men and clanked into the cabin. Barry followed and tapped a little silver gong, whereupon a giant Nubian appeared, slickly black and nude except for a brilliantly spotted leopard skin about his middle.

"The goblets, Sambo, and the bottles— all of them."

He set out two massive silvery goblets whose handles were formed of elephant heads from which trunks curled down to rejoin the stem. They were rather impressive-looking ornaments to the table. The provost fingered his, then lifted it with a jerk of the arm that almost hurled it over his head.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, with his eyes popping, "what manner of silver is this?"

"The quintessence of silver, excellency, from which the base dross of lead has been distilled by silversmiths of far Occidentalis," said Barry. As for himself, he preferred less capacious vessels, preferably of glass, not aluminum, when he went in for a friendly snort. But he was in an experimental mood, and Kilmer's testy message had aggravated it. So something had to be done about river tolls, eh? Well! Barry pretended nonchalance as the messboy stood a row of bottles along the table top. Rye, Scotch, tequila and good red rum were there, and the boy had thoughtfully added a half gallon Mason jar full of yellowish, pure, fresh West Virginia moonshine.

"Precious and potent vintages these," said Barry, respectfully pouring out a beaker of Scotch for his guest, "fit only for warriors. A lowly merchant such as I needs content himself with ordinary wine. A lemon squash, please, Sambo, for me."

The provost started with an exploratory sip, then drained the cup at one gulp. There were tears in his eyes for a moment, for nothing stronger than a few drops of his master's new "medicine," or the recently invented crude brandy, had ever passed his lips before. But he mastered his tears and looked speculatively at the other bottles. The clear glass of the bottles and their perfect symmetry were marvels enough, but their contents surpassed them. He tried a shot of rum.

From then on the conversation ran smoothly. It was chiefly monologue, devoted to the prowess in love and in battle of François Grospied, the worthy but ill-rewarded provost of a grasping duke. He reproached the duke bitterly for having exacted too high a price for farming out the river rights. "But," he assured, with an owlish wink, "I get mine, at that."

"I'm sure you do," agreed Barry, and crooked a finger for Sambo. To him he said in an aside, "See that the boys outside have something— the mountain dew will do; let 'em have a five-gallon jug."

Things looked better. Barry bethought himself of the present he had promised for the little wife, so he stepped to a cupboard and pulled out a box of assorted rayon stockings. It was a shotgun package, of various sizes and colors. He handed over a sheeny pair of brilliant green and one of hectic red, leaving the less passionate colors in plain sight in the box.

The bleary Grospied held up a pair, then held them up again, with colors mixed that time. "Marry," he said, "a sweet combination, eh?"

"Mix 'em any way you like," said Barry. "The box is yours."

"My frien'," assured Grospied, near to complete unbending. He missed Barry completely in the affectionate sweep of his arm, but fetched up against Sambo, snatching the leopard skin away in his clumsiness. His eyes bugged again, for the absent hide revealed a pair of purple velvet tights, glittering with spangles and held up by a belt of brilliants. It was an idea of Clarkson's, that little sop to his slaves' innocent vanity. Whatever the intent, its effect on Grospied was profound. He had to have another drink. Barry suggested okolehau, which up to that time had not been sampled.

A LITTLE later, when the genial Grospied lay slumbering on the deck, Barry stole out onto the deck. Parker was leaning on the rail thoughtfully regarding the sprawled bodies of the duke's henchmen. The upended jug told the tale.

"For Pete's sake," said Parker, "what did you give 'em— Mickey Finns?"

"The next thing," grinned Barry. "But say, didn't you tell me that you had a special typewriter packed away in the event we should ever fall in with a cardinal?"

"Yeah. I'll have it broken out for you if you want it. There's a box of initial blocks and a pad that goes with it, too, and assorted sealing wax."

"Swell," said Barry, and he began trying to recall all the legal phrases he knew.

A little later he was sitting in the cabin again, pecking at a monstrous oversized typewriter that wrote in black Gothic letters an inch high. He carefully left a large space where the initial letter should be, and then wrote on without it, using the best grade imitation parchment he had on board. It was an agreement between one F. Grospied, provost of the duke, and hence the king, and one Anachron Inc., ambassador Occidentalis, granting— by right of Grospied's farmer-generalship— the perpetual free use of the river up as far as the confluence of the Oise. He stuck in carbons and made four copies. Then he surveyed his work.

Barry scrutinized the last line, "transito sano hoc flumen in perpetuam," and wrinkled his nose a little. Considered as Latin it probably stank, but what the hell! He selected the correct block to supply the omitted initial and stamped on an ornate one picturing a knight on a rearing horse sticking a groveling dragon. It was in a bright vermilion. Barry chose a stick of dainty pink from the box of sealing waxes, and another of baby blue. Then after lighting a candle, he went at the dirty work of getting the party of the first part, the aforesaid F. Grospied, to his feet. It couldn't be done. The gentleman was out. So Barry gently abstracted his signet ring and sealed all five copies with the pink, after which he restored the ring. Then he sealed for his own part, pressing the blue wax with a Chinese coin be carried as a pocket piece. Two of the documents were for the principals, the copies were for duke, king and pope respectively. Barry wanted no misunderstandings. So he tucked Grospied's and the duke's copies inside the slumbering provost's belt. After that he had Sambo and the cook carry him back to his men.

"Rather unmilitary looking, don't you think?" asked Parker, apparently fascinated by the proceedings, but referring to the haphazard arrangement of the snoring forms on the shore. Their dignity had not been enhanced by the addition of their chieftain, for Barry had kept the faith. An irregular pyramid of mingled colored stockings surmounted the sleeping warrior's chest and rose and fell with every labored breath.

"Uh, yes," agreed Berry. "Let's have 'em straightened out in rows. And to avoid hard feelings later, I guess we'd better leave another jug of lightning for consolation when they wake up."

When he went to borrow Grospied's standard, which had been left leaning against the castle wall, he relented further. He drew the corks partway in half a dozen bottles of good rye, and stood them, together with the rare goblet, alongside his erstwhile guest. After that he had the Grospied banner hoisted to his cog's peak to serve as notice to all upstream that the ships were under ducal protection.

"Let's go," he said, and then relayed the message to Maverick, who still hovered anxiously off shore, wondering what it was all about.

"Awr-rk," squawked the parrot, unexpectedly, from its perch on the poop. "A king's ransom, egad! Ora pro nobis. Ora, ora, orra!"

PROGRESS up the Seine was slow, for its lower courses were sinuous and during many hours each day the tide was against them. They would have made faster progress had they been free to use their kickers, but for fear of stampeding the plodding serfs along the bank— none of whom could probably stomach the sight of a ship of the sea gliding along against both wind and tide as fast as man might walk— they had to use the auxiliaries sparingly. In places there were stretches of tow- paths, and whenever they came to one of these, Barry would put squads of Nubians ashore and give them the end of towropes. Many a doughty knight must have gasped in admiration for those black giants at seeing them trotting gayly along, dragging the heavy vessels after them with such careless ease. In fact, the slaves towed with such ease that Parker felt compelled to ring down a few revs— to avoid the occasional embarrassing moments when the trotting blacks couldn't keep ahead of the slack.

They passed many towers where rivage was collected, but their borrowed banner protected them from molestation. Barry computed that if he had paid an average toll of three percent at each of them, together with the future taxes of every kind that lay ahead, he would arrive at Paris with empty holds. He understood then why the previous expeditions had failed. His coup over Grospied was a pretty good victory at that, and the thought of it bucked him up when next he answered Kilmer's daily "hurry-up" demand.

Have a heart, boss. Sure, we've been two weeks on the voyage—you can't fly from the Scillies to Paris. We're nearly there; our cargo is intact; we've spent no money; and we've got a perpetual free pass to the lower river—and that ain't hay.

The boss snapped back:

No, it ain't hay, but breaking even ain't making profits, either. And wait until you knock their eye out at St. Denys or Lagny before you get fresh, young man.

"The dope," muttered Maverick. "Why don't he go down to Research and get a hype, too. He keeps yelping about St. Denys and Lagny, when all these shindigs are seasonal affairs. Lagny closed up shop for the year in February; St. Denys is a fall show. This is June. How could we sell out at either by last Monday?"

"Oh, well," shrugged Barry, indifferently, "let him rave. All he wants is sales, and if he's like the breed I used to know, he don't care when or how we get 'em—"

"I didn't know you'd ever sold," said Maverick.

"Sure. Before the war, when I was a kid. Vacuum cleaners, cemetery lots, grand pianos—"

"Ouch! O.K., buddy. You're chief from now on. Anybody who can sell cemetery lots is a better man than I am."

Barry was about to admit be hadn't actually sold many when the vessel went round a sharp bend and there was another castle barring the way. This one flaunted the white banner of the King of Île-de-France. An arbalest quarrel zipped through the rigging, signifying that the colors of Grospied didn't mean a thing to them. Barry groaned.

"The jig is up. This must be France."

FOR several days they had been running through the hazy zone that was either English or French, depending upon how you looked at it. Its suzerain was the Duke of Normandy, a French duke, and therefore a vassal of the French crown. Yet that same duke was likewise King of England, and therefore no man's vassal. Try as they might, the boys could not unravel the intricacies of jurisdiction. So they meekly halted their ships and commenced the haggling over the amount of douane they should pay. The tariff to be paid at the border of a kingdom was over and above any river or road tolls. The provost's deputy was both a stupid and greedy man. A dozen golden livres satisfied him, and he let them go. After that, they found, they would have to pay the river tolls above.

They cast off and stood upstream. Then they held a council of war.

Someone, probably Dilly, captain of the cattle boat, suggested that to avoid the heavy rivage it would be better to tie up somewhere and proceed further by land. At once a howl from the others arose. They had an idea of what land travel was; moreover, they didn't have to live on a ship with bawling cows and clucking fowls.

"That's worse," ruled Barry, finally. "You pay a transit tax to every castle or monastery you pass, plus extra for the use of fords and bridges. Every baron has his hand out for the telonia, which is the land equivalent of the river tolls. That's not all. The roads are trails— quagmires when it rains; there are bandits everywhere, and sneak thieves galore. What's worse, we'd need scores of mules to carry our cargo, and we haven't that many. No, that's out. We'll stick to the river."

It was a noble resolution, but destined to be broken. They stuck, but "in," not "to." A day later, two toll stations up, they were scarcely two hours past their last big castle when the leading cog poked her nose in a submerged mud bank and stayed there. The other sheered out into what looked like better water; and it stuck hard and fast. As far as they were concerned, they were at the head of navigation.

"Shucks," muttered Barry, as he hung over the taffrail watching the seething mud kicked up astern by the struggling little propeller.

IT was midafternoon when they got off, and night was falling when they got back to the nearest castle. They obtained permission— by shelling out a handful of silver deniers— to tie up to the funny little quay beside the toll tower at the river's edge. It was a detached outwork, for the castle itself stood on a low plateau inland about half a mile and some several hundred feet above the water. Tomorrow they would have to beard its baron in his den and induce him to be their patron. Somewhere, sometime, they would inevitably have to have a terminal where they could erect a warehouse. It seemed that this was the place, and the time was now. There was no choice about it.

The four ate their supper in a subdued mood, each thinking in his own fashion of the changed situation that lay ahead. It was not that they were downhearted, for men of their breed seldom get that way. They were merely thoughtful. After the coffee, Barry broke out the bottles and quietly filled the glasses around.

"Oh, well," he said, "here we are. Now, let's see—"

It was pitch dark outside by then, and the black mass of turreted Capdur chateau loomed unblinking on the hill above them. In its age people went to bed at darkfall and arose at the crack of dawn. Tomorrow they would visit the castle— and be received, for baronial hospitality was the universal custom. Man of whatever degree was welcome, each according to his rank. But baronial hospitality expected something in return, again according to rank—from the villein, labor; from the wandering jongleur, a few entertaining tricks; from merchants, samples of their wares; from the nobility, presents appropriate to their stations.

"We are merchant princes," announced Barry, gravely, "trot out the invoices and let's see what we have to give. First impressions, you know—"

IT was near midnight when the last item had been jotted down on the list, and it was a faintly hilarious party that bade each other good night and went severally to their bunks. And it was near to nine in the morning when the last box came out of the hold and was strapped to the packsaddle of one of the three sturdy she-asses selected for the parade. The ten Nubians chosen to go along were resplendently dressed. Their bodies were oiled to glistening blackness, and in addition to their beloved spangled tights, they wore beaded Indian moccasins and the full- feathered war bonnets of Sioux chieftains. Barry and Maverick mounted the two smart mules that had been saddled for them, and the cavalcade set out up the winding road that would take them to the castle.

They presented an eye-filling spectacle indeed, as attested by the excitement of the native children who ran along beside them, shouting and pointing. Villeins who happened to be along the road stepped respectfully to one side and watched with mouths agape as they went by. By the time they reached the summit of the hill and turned toward the castle on the plain ahead, they saw that a great crowd, warned by the runners who had dashed on ahead, had gathered by the gate in the barbican to await their coming.

The weird, outlandish procession was headed by Barry and Maverick, riding abreast, flanked on either side by a giant Nubian. The Nubians carried what to local inhabitants were queerly bent tubes of shiny gold having some resemblance to their hunting horns. After the leaders came the three pack animals, each loaded to capacity, the last one bearing panniers from which protruded strange comestibles— loaves of bread, corn pone, stalks of celery, and other things. Behind them came three more of the Nubian musicians, again walking abreast, the middle one having a horn stranger even than the others, shaped like a malformed gourd, and cluttered with silver wires and disks. The one on the right carried several barbaric drums, slung on a rope about his neck, while the left-hand man bore a Gargantuan viol on his back. Last of all came another black leading a magnificent Hereford steer, the like of which no Frenchman had ever seen, since it was taller and fatter by far than the best of their own scrawny breeds. And alongside him marched the ultimate Nubian, whose studied dignity was considerably impaired by having to break ranks from time to time to bring back to the fold one or the other of the three stately turkey gobblers he was shepherding.

Thirty paces before the gate, the procession halted. Barry lifted a finger and the two foremost musicians stepped forward and raised their bizarre instruments to their lips. They sounded a wondrous fanfare, shifting uncannily from key to key in flat defiance of all known laws of hornry. Just before the final grand flourish, the trumpeter sang out a long, sustained thin note while his squirming mate ripped off a sequence of rasping trombone tears. If Old French lacked the equivalent of the word "wow" until then, those present invented it on the spot. Never had there been such trumpeters; not even had the king himself had such, when he came to Capdur two years before

The two foremost musicians raised their bizarre instruments to their lips.

The fanfares over, the procession moved on. The crowd at the gate opened a lane for them, and since no one impeded, they went on through. Barry glanced at the crude stockade of pointed tree trunks and made the mental note that its purpose would be served as well or better by cyclone fencing. He must order a few thousand lineal feet of it. And then, as they crossed the tilting ground, he studied the battlements of the outer wall of the castle with a professional eye. He looked at the towers and their embrasures and the moat of stinking, stagnant water that made them hard to get at. Instantly be conceived the proper mode of attack. Instead of the cumbersome beffroi towers which besiegers built and pushed forward in order to top the walls and span the moat, he would employ a modified version of the standard hook-and-ladder fire wagons. An armored cowl would do the trick, with a hatch in the carapace through which a swiftly extensible ladder could he upreared. It would be a cinch to get a foothold on the walls with a few such vehicles.

The drawbridge was down, the portcullis up, and the gates open. So they clattered across the bridge and under the gloomy arch. Again Barry's inventive mind was running away with him. Instead of the clumsy timbers of the bridge, suspended by heavy, rusty chains, he would substitute a light bascule span of duraluminum, counterweighted so that a boy could operate it by grinding a crank. He wondered whether there was any chance of selling the medievals the idea of standardized sizes. At any rate, his next requisition on Kilmer would contain a number of curious recommendations.

They emerged into the bailey, or outer ward— a huge courtyard bustling with activity. It stank of manure, unwashed humanity and the smell of burning wood— a not altogether unpleasant combination, for in addition to the stables and blacksmith shop and the mews where the hawks and falcons were kept, there was a big communal oven and an open ditch filled with fire over which the spitted carcasses of pigs and sheep were being roasted. Chickens and peacocks and hogs roamed the inclosure, pecking or rooting among the ordure piles; naked children played amongst them, stopping only long enough to stare with their amazed elders at the strange procession passing through.

Barry led on, since still no one had appeared to greet them or to bar their way. The farther wall of the bailey was the outer wall of the castle proper, higher and stronger than the first wall and better turreted. It, too, was guarded by a moat, but again the drawbridge was down and the way open. The surly porter lounged against the stone portal, but made no move to stop them. So they entered the great paved court of the castle, mules, steer, turkeys and all. And there they were met by a flustered squire. His master wanted to know the meaning of the astonishing fanfare of trumpets that had heralded their approach. Were they, perchance, gentry incog, or the mere merchants they seemed to be?

"Both," said Barry, calmly, with a touch of hauteur. "In the land of Terra Occidentalis the merchants are the gentry. We are skilled in the arts and sciences and the use of weapons, and are not to be treated lightly. But we are come as friends, to pay our respects to the baron, and we have gifts for him, his lady, and his household. Pray inform him."

The squire surveyed the halted cavalcade and looked troubled. It was something for which there lacked precedent. So he bowed stiffly and begged them to remain where they were, then scurried away to fetch the baron in person. Barry and Maverick dismounted, as etiquette demanded, to await their host

The Sieur de Capdur was a mountain of a man, of dark complexion and beetling brow, but though he had the arrogance born of a lifetime of undisputed command, there was a rough-and- ready joviality about him that was appealing. He brushed away the formalities of greetings with a brusque question.

"You have presents for me?" he asked, getting straight to business; "fine," and he looked appraisingly at the laden donkeys. His lady, the slender and fair Yvonne, joined him with a group of maids, and in his train had come the gaunt old seneschal, his marshal of horse, his provost, and other officials of the house. They gathered eagerly about the newcomers in a semicircle, backed by the small fry of the chateau who had crowded in from the bailey and were craning from behind. Merchants from afar did not often stop at Capdur; it promised to be a gala day.

"O.K.," said Barry, "I'll be Santa Claus," and he began undoing bundles. Meanwhile the Nubians in the rear had brought up the animals, which Maverick presented with a flourish. The steer received unstinted admiration, but it was the gobblers that aroused the greatest delight.

"What bee-yootiful pheasants!" chortled Lady Yvonne, as one of the creatures strutted past, ruffling its tail and grumbling in its craw.

"Turkeys, lady," corrected Maverick, "and they're good to eat. We brought along our chef and the fixin's so you won't go wrong on how to do them." Whereupon the herders of the beef and turkeys, and the leader of the third ass, at a signal from Maverick, made off toward the bailey to prepare the evening meal. They had, in addition to the materials for stuffing, cleavers, roasters, grills and other accessories.

THE ceremony of presentation took up the whole of the morning. Both Barry and Maverick were busy dishing out the gifts, and demonstrating their uses when necessary. They dealt them out in fair rotation, allowing each givee ample time to play with his new acquisition before swamping him with another, but the distribution ran so:

To the Sieur de Capdur: a pair of ten-power, prismatic binoculars in a handsome carrying case; the mate to friend Grospied's drinking mug; a roulette wheel and folding layout, together with an adequate supply of chips; two bottles of Bacardi rum with silver-handled corkscrew; and lastly but not least, a homemade slot machine built by Parker to while the time away. It was a thing not on the Control Board's approved list, but the Sieur de Capdur didn't know that. For his part, all barriers were down when he learned that a quarter of the take went to the house.

"Zounds!" he roared, "my fief holders wail about the taxes. We shall have their taxes, O wise merchant, and place one of these machines in every hamlet of our domain. 'Twill have the same effect, or better, if I know the varlets, and reduce the volume of their bellyaching."

"Truly," said Barry, winking knowingly, and then went on with his distribution of gifts.

To the Lady Yvonne, who had had a chair brought, and was sitting among a cluster of twittering doncelles, he presented first a five-pound box of assorted chocolates and bon-bons. She fondled the glistening box uncertainly, until he rudely broke the precious cellophane wrappings and exposed the contents. Amid a chorus of oohing and ahing they sampled them. Chocolates and cocoanut were unknown to them, and sugar only as a novelty, horribly expensive and in crude lump form, as brought back from the Levant by the crusaders. When the excitement over that died down, Barry passed out hand mirrors— a tremendous advance over the polished bits of silver they had been using— lipstick, rice powder, and perfumes in crazy little ornate bottles. To the maids in waiting Barry gave quantities of costume jewelry of the five-and-ten grade, but enormously attractive, nevertheless.

There were presents for all. The Quixotish seneschal, a hungry-looking seven-footer with a drooping mustache and limp beard, and who was charged with the defense of the castle, received a brace of Pyrene fire extinguishers and a super- arbalest. It was an improved crossbow of Anachron design, whose bow was a piece of high-grade spring steel and whose string was fine piano wire, jerked into firing position by a single motion of the cocking lever. It far surpassed the slow and clumsy jacks of the contemporary arbalest. The baron had an oaken target set up and Barry clumped eight bolts into the bulls-eye within the space of a minute.

"Marry," exclaimed the Sieur de Capdur, "and had we twelve score of those we would soon drive the accursed English into the sea."

"Did you say twelve score, sir?" asked Maverick, whipping out his order book. "A livre each is the price, sir, which includes a bag of fifty quarrels."

Barry ignored the sideplay and went ahead with his Santa Claus act. The chaplain was looking on with a hungry air, so to him he gave a folding reed organ for his chapel, and a ream of good bond paper with pen and ink and blotter. To the marshal he gave a currycomb; to the provost a pair of adjustable handcuffs with key. The latter gift created quite a stir, since the provost promptly went out into the gaping crowd and began trying them on villains of various size. His guinea pigs were nervous at first, but as they were released, one by one, they broke into loud guffaws. It was a grand idea and all approved. Not a few of them had seen fetters put on hot and hammered to fit the wrist by the blacksmith with his maul. From any point of view, lockable ratchet handcuffs were the thing—swift, sure, and painless.

There were a multitude of minor presents— hoes and rakes for the gardener; a breast drill and bits for the armorer; a set of silver— including forks— for the chateau table; an acetylene bicycle lamp for the warder making his rounds; a pair of clippers for the barber. There was a gross of paraffin candles, and a few cartons of matches. A box of assorted ground spices were for the kitchen, including curry and chile powder as well as the rare spices already known, such as pepper and cinnamon.

The baron melted. Had he the possession of Aladdin's lamp he could not have wished for such treasures. The Lady Yvonne was in the seventh heaven. In addition to the gewgaws and confections earlier presented, she now had a bolt of cotton sheeting, and many ten-yard strips of print fabric in a variety of colors and designs— not to mention the gorgeous pair of rayon pajamas of orchid hue.

"Ho! Enough!" bellowed the baron, wheeling and raising his hand. "Summon my trumpeters, summon my couriers, saddle the horses. Hear ye!"

Messengers scurried from the court, the rabble gathered up closer. Something was in the air. Barry wondered what.

"Master Provost," roared the Sieur de Capdur, "notify all my gentry and fiefs, and the neighboring abbots as well, that I, the lord of Capdur, have as my protégé the veritable prince of merchants. We shall hold festival here for the week to come, and thereafter go in state to our market town of St Guy du Nord and there hold market until it is our pleasure to cease. Tell the knights of the manor also that they shall furnish such asses, mules and other animals as these, my friends, shall find needful to convey their wares to St Guy, and that without fee or charge. It is in my service. You have heard. Let it be so done."

Barry sighed a deep sigh of relief. It was done. He had a market, transportation, protection, and a noble's favor. Then he saw the beetle-browed baron bearing down on him, scowling fiercely.

"That's that" growled the baron. "Let's eat"

THROUGHOUT the remainder of that hectic day, Barry and Maverick maintained their composure. They got through the midday meal somehow. It was Barry's fate to be seated beside a gay little doncelle and share her plate with her. He taught her the technique of the fork, but found her odor strangely disturbing. At length he reached into his pocket and produced an oval cake of scented soap— an act that might have given offense in a more sophisticated age— and handed it to her. She bit at it tentatively, but he stopped her and assured her it was not the confection it appeared to be, and told her of its proper applications. She was most grateful.

The Nubian quintette had sounded off. They had been fed earlier and were in fine fettle. During the meal they restrained, themselves admirably, but the moment it was over and the novel candies had been passed around, they cut loose. From dreamy waltzes they sheered suddenly to improvisations of their own. It wasn't jazz, nor yet swing or blues, but it partook of all of them. The day being warm, the meal had been served in the court, and shortly all hands were up and gamboling about to the ravishing strains of the music. And as the towering black slapped his doghouse and the sax artist went to town, the denizens of the castle let go. From lady to scullion they pranced on the flags, squirming in utter abandon. The knights and squires were not so quick to catch the idea, but once they got it they went all out and capered to the throbbing tempo of the drums and sobbing sax in a manner appropriate to its wild rhythm. It was, in short, a riot.

But it could not go on forever, for all hands were anxious to gloat over their treasures. The Sieur de Capdur dragged Barry up the tortuous and tricky steps of the inner keep for a view of the countryside through his miraculous binoculars. The seneschal and the provost came too, but the latter soon went bounding the stairs, yelling for his horse and men-at-arms. They had spotted a gang of rogues squatting about a fire in a copse on a hilltop a couple of miles away. Capdur was enormously pleased, and promised Barry a good show as an added reward— a mass hanging. On the way down he showed him his prison cells in the basement of the tower, where a handful of emaciated wretches languished in their fetters. The stench of the place was terrible, especially near the black hole that gave access to the oubliette. A few barrels of chloride of lime would help, Barry decided, and promised the hangman— who had been previously overlooked— that they would be sent up on the morrow.

The remainder of the day was spent in demonstrating the gentle game of roulette, which Maverick banked. Capdur was a little crestfallen at seeing the livres and deniers being raked away to fall into a foreign purse, but he consoled himself with the thought that hereafter the privilege of banker would be his. The mathematics of the double-zero wheel were not clear to him, but the practical results were. He must entertain oftener hereafter.

Supper was held within the great hall of the baron's residence, and proved to be the biggest event of the day. There was roast turkey, a la Occidentale; and the prize beef, instead of being barbecued in hunks, had been neatly dissected into sirloins and porterhouses and roasts of manageable size. Later, they passed around the candy, bananas, oranges and rum, and sat until dark warned them that it was bedtime. The traders, having seen the musty feather mattresses between pairs of which the castle people slept four in a bed, declined the invitation to spend the night. Back aboard their cog, Maverick spilled a small mountain of coins on the cabin table.

"Not bad," he murmured. "Let's see... our presents invoiced three hundred odd trade-dollars... this stuff comes to over five... two hundred net profit in cash."

"Plus favors," added Barry, yawning. Then he sent off a crisp report to Kilmer, ordered two more cog loads of stuff from Isla Occidentalis, and went to bed.

THE period of festivities passed rapidly. Barry set up a booth on the jousting field and sold to all comers at prices as high as the traffic would bear. The amount of money they took in was embarrassing, since it was not money they wanted, but select produce of the times. However, they managed to pull several bits of good barter— Barry traded a second pair of binoculars to the Comte de Boisblanc for a good Ceylon ruby, a string of pearls, and a richly ornamented and bejeweled scimitar that was a trophy of the last crusade. The women were glad to swap their crude handmade laces for the niftier rayon from Occidentalis, while old paintings and bits of wood carving were considered cheap pay for the marvelous aluminum pots and pans. The biggest coup of the week occurred when Barry induced three impoverished knights to form a well-drilling company. To them he rented the single mule-powered drill rig he had, and sold them a quantity of pipe and a stock farm windmill, easily assembled. They planned to drill their initial well in the inner court of Capdur—which had been taken in siege once due to the exhaustion of its water supply—and to mount the windmill atop the keep. Barry showed them how to use a walking beam to offset the pumping rod's action.

Toward the expiration of the time, Barry left Maverick to mop up at the castle, while he set out for St. Guy with a train of twenty mules and a group of their slaves. He wanted to have his booths installed before the party of nobility arrived.

St. Guy was but thirty miles away, but it took him four days to make it, cursing the so-called road fervently at every slogging step. It chanced to rain the night before his departure, and the rough trail was a bottomless slough of mud. Often they had to strip the nearby woods of branches and corduroy the road to keep the mules from miring up to their bellies. Having made but five miles the first day, Barry sent off a message to Clarkson asking for a heavy road plow, a grader, ten scrapers, and all the vitrified pipe he had on hand. If St. Guy was to be their future market place, it must have negotiable roads leading to it.

By the third day the roads had dried except for an occasional hog wallow in the flats. Barry was riding along, deeply immersed in thought and not even heeding the raucous chatter of the parrot which hung in its cage from his saddle bow. Suddenly, before he was aware of danger, a rough-looking gang of men, garbed as friars, but armed with quarter staves spears and swords, sprang out of the brush. The caravan was ontnumbered and surrounded. The big ruffian who headed them brandished a wicked battle-ax and informed Barry in a hoarse voice that he was come to collect toll for the bishop of— mumbled— diocese.

Barry dismounted cautiously, planning to spring the jujitsu trick the occasion called for, when be thought of the bird.

"Sick 'em, Polly," he hissed, knowing something would result, though not exactly what.

Polly responded nobly. She had spent the afternoon rattling off her repertoire, including the new sequences of barker spiels Barry had taught her for use at the fair, and had come to the end of her list of beneficent prayers. Now she launched into invective, and it was not the invective of corsairs, but of the cloth.

"Avaunt, fiends and impostors!" she screamed, ruffling her feathers and beating on the bars with her wings. "Back to the gloomy depths of hell whence you come—" and then poured forth the sonorous Latin phrases for the exorcism of evil spirits, winding up with an all-embracing, awe-inspiring curse that worked backward and forward unto the nth generation. It invoked leprosy, boils, the choicest samples of the hangman's art of torture, starvation, thirst and eventual hopeless damnation. And as the last withering words hurtled forth, the bandits tore their false frocks from them and fell beseechingly on their faces. It was a fearful portent when a bird of the air spoke with the tongue of priests.

"Ye have heard," said Barry sternly. "Begone and repent, lest the curse come true to the uttermost word."

Then there was a flash of pink as the hoodlums vanished into the thicket, and the placed Nubians began picking up their discarded clothes and weapons.

"Good Polly," murmured Barry, and jogged his mount into motion with a dig of the heels.

ST. GUY was a bitter disappointment. It was a walled town of five thousand souls, but so closely built that it was scarcely a thousand paces from wall to wall. Except for the church, which sat in a central square, the tall houses were of timber and built close together. Between ran dark, noisome alleys, forever a mass of gooey mud, for they were unpaved and the sunlight rarely reached them as each successive upper floor of the houses stuck out beyond those below until the uppermost floors almost touched across the lane. It was not needful that there be rain to keep them muddy, for the downpour of slops from upper windows supplied abundant moisture.

"Damn," yelped Barry, as he turned into the tortuous canyon that led to the clothmakers' guild. Someone above had dumped a gallon of dishwater, and most of it went down his neck. He stopped his string of animals in their tracks and put the Nubians to breaking open a box. Then they proceeded, everyone more secure under the shelter of his dollar-grade umbrella. Barry had planned to sell them at twelve deniers each, but now he knew that he could get at lease a livre for them from the approaching silk- clad nobility.

If his reception had been dank and cheerless, he quickly found there was worse to come. St. Guy was a market town, not a fair town, and as such was ruled by the guilds, each fiercely jealous of each other and all outsiders. There was not a foot of space in the town for rent or sale, so that he had perforce to deal with the guilds. And they not only collected what amounted to blackmail for the use of their stalls, but forced him to scatter his exhibits. Only ironware could be sold in the blacksmiths' quarter; only silk, cotton, linen and woollen goods in the clothiers' district. Cattle had to be sold in the cattle market outside the town, while the bulk of his wares defied classification. His aluminum kitchen utensils, for example, were denied by the smiths, who said they were of precious metal and could only be sold by silversmiths. But the head of the goldsmiths' guild hefted the pans and ponderously announced that no metal so light could possibly be precious. They were barred, that was all; they did not fit the traditions of St. Guy, and St. Guy was a place of venerable traditions.

Barry had other bad news. Though St. Guy had been founded by a charter granted by an ancestor of the present Sieur de Capdur, it had fallen under the iron hand of the abbot of the neighboring monastery of St. Guy du Nord. It was he— the pious elder known as the Incorruptible— who collected the grievous taxes on all commodities sold, and those were in addition to the exactions of the guilds themselves. Barry saw his profits go aglimmering, and was further enraged to learn that friars and monks of any order, whether local or otherwise, were tax exempt throughout the land. And since the many transit taxes amounted to most of the value of the goods, that alone put him at a terrific disadvantage. His plans for setting up a central depot at St. Guy were knocked in the head, for Capdur's favor extended no farther than the borders of his domain.

He pondered those considerations, and the additional fact that of the army of peddlers who volunteered to vend his wares throughout the kingdoms of Europe, with few exceptions appeared to be shifty-eyed rascals whom he dared not trust out of his sight. He shuddered to think of what Credit would say should he hand over thousands of trade-dollars' worth of merchandise to them to vend on no more than their bare promise to come back some day and split the profits. There were no bonding companies in that good year, and what references were offered were oral, vague, and invariably referred to some obscure nobleman on the other side of Christendom. Barry was wrestling with the problem while he stood over the counter in the leather goods quarter; buffalo robes and coonskin coats were going big, and were showing a big profit despite handicaps— for the buffalo hides had been bought by Anachron at half a dollar each by a buyer sent to Fort Dodge of the '70s for the express purpose. The knights gladly exchanged their commonplace ermines and sables for the novel furs. And as he wrestled, he became aware of a commotion in the crowd and saw Maverick approaching. His pal looked rather the worse for wear, since his face was a mass of scratches and he carried one arm in a sling and walked with a pronounced limp.

"Now what?" was Barry's greeting.

"I got trampled," said Maverick, with a little foolish smile. "We went hunting."

"Huh?"

"It was this way. A few nights ago the baron pulled a big party, and had me provide the eats, drinks, and noisemakers. We had some, you know— ratchets, whistles, tin horns, all that New Year's Eve stuff— and I threw in a pair of hand-operated Klaxons, and a few of those siren howlers that Clarkson told us had been designed for ancient war chariots. Well, they made a hit. Brother Capdur got high and spent most of the evening grinding the crank on the siren he had. It almost got him excommunicated, 'cause the people outside the castle heard it and ran off to the nearest sanctuary swearing the devil and all his fiends had taken over and were holding high jinks inside."

"That's bad," said Barry, but he grinned, nevertheless. "Go on."

"Well, the next morning the baron had a brain-throb. He has a hunting preserve up in the hills, and complained his beaters were a lazy, rascally lot and rarely made enough noise to scare out more than one boar and a stag or so on even the biggest hunts. He wanted to know why the sirens wouldn't jump up more game. So I sold him all we had, and they sent the beaters off with them."

"Did it work?" asked Barry grimly, looking at his bunged-up partner.

"Lissen. We were strung out along the edge of the woods; all the knights and squires and their ladies were there, and their retainers. They had spears and swords and bows and arrows, and also hawks and falcons. They were ready for anything. Almost, that is. Well, the howling got louder, and we could hear plenty of crashing in the brush. Then things began coming out—"

"What kind of things?"

"Oh, everything— woodchoppers, boars, game wardens, stags and does, snakes, wild cats, poachers, pheasants, rabbits... you know, just about all the fauna there was in there. They kept coming, wave on wave, and then—"

"Yes, yes! And then?"

"That's all, I guess," said Maverick ruefully. "I got trampled, I tell you. It was about dark when I came to and helped some of the others home. Yvonne is in bed, and pretty sore, and as for the baron... well, the hunt was pretty much of a flop in some respects." After that he added hopefully, "We did turn out the game, though, didn't we? That's what he said he wanted."

Barry snorted. Things weren't getting better fast. He saw clearly then that he would never get anywhere unless he made a deal with the Church, and since the incorruptible abbot of St. Guy du Nord showed no sign of coming to him, and it was now impossible to send Maverick, he must go to the monastery himself. So he turned the local business over to Maverick and set out across the valley to where the castlelike convent stood.

He paused for a short time at the north gate of the town, where comestibles were being sold by one of his subcontractors, a young squire named Phillipe. Business in that quarter was excellent, for the hamburger and hotdog stand was surrounded by deep ranks of clamoring burghers. Hot roasted peanuts and buttered popcorn, pink lemonade and orange juice were going well. The cook, looking strangely unknightly in his high white chef's bonnet, told him that the last of the canned goods had gone the day before. Once the barons understood their nature, they bought them by the score of mule loads, stocking their donjons against the days of siege. Barry requisitioned from him the six fat Jersey cows that had been keeping the soda fountain supplied, and added them to his mule train of things designed to impress the crusty old abbot. The convent of St. Guy was noted for its cheeses— among other things— and Barry was convinced that his six cows would outproduce all its skinny herds.

At he rode through the monastery lands, he was struck by the superior condition of the fields, and noted that the monks were far better laborers than the baronial serfs. He already knew that they were excellent traders. So, with strengthened resolve, he went on.

Once he was within the grim outer walls, having passed the inevitable moat and drawbridge, the place looked more like the cloisters it was than a military stronghold, though the prior who met him bore himself like a soldier and wore the scars of battle. Barry was interested to learn that he was a veteran of a number of campaigns, his favorite weapon being a heavy mace.

"I like the mace," he explained, "and it gets around the cardinal's order that we live not by the sword. When you swat a knight with an iron club, you don't kill him as a rule— you just knock him cold. And a vanquished knight is worth more alive than dead. We've expanded our holdings a great deal by taking lands for ransom."

"Neat," complimented Barry. He examined the prior's battle club and decided that not even Anachron could improve on it. He thought tentatively of selling a batch of tear gas as an unlethal means of conquest, but on reflection decided to postpone that. There was always the Control Board to think of, and Barry figured he had trouble enough without running foul of them. Indeed, he had the uneasy feeling that he had already cut a few corners— like that slot machine and Maverick's weird boar hunt.

He had his mules unpacked and spread the wares out. The cows were to be presents, but the rest of the material was for sale, though at not unreasonable prices. There was a steel plow and harvesting machine, a blacksmith's forge with hand-operated blower, together with four bags of coke. The choicest bit of merchandise he had along was a pedal-operated job press, complete with ink, suitable fonts of type and other printer's accessories. Two mule loads of good paper completed the cargo. The prior's eyes widened when the press was set up and put to work.

"Verily," he exclaimed. "Twill seem a miracle when we send out many copies of surpassing evenness and each as like the other as grains of wheat. I must bring the abbot. He will reward you as befitting, without a doubt."

THE interview with the abbot dashed all Barry's hopes. He was an old man—incredibly old and lank— with piercing blue eyes and imperious hawked nose. His attitude was one of cold sourness, and he spoke in biting monosyllables, the commonest of which was the little word "no." When the Incorruptible uttered it, it had a chill finality that was unchallengeable. The substance of the talk ran thus:

"Yes, the cows were fine animals, comely and milksome... but St. Guy accepted favors from no man, only the tithes and just taxes that were its due... the cows would be paid for in their own weight in cheeses of Brie and the finer ones of St. Guy. The book-copying machine was welcome, as was the fine paper that came with it, but it, too, would be paid for, and justly. So, likewise, for the farm implements. No, the abbot could not countenance his monks engaging in common trade, nor would he grant a charter for a storehouse in his domain."

The vinegary old man rose and abruptly left the room. His prior smiled sadly, then sent lesser monks scurrying to find the wherewithal to pay for the new treasures. In time they returned, lugging carved statues, delicately embroidered altar cloths of fine linen, and delightfully wrought silver basins and ewers. Leathern flasks containing a "tonic" brewed from herbs were brought. The rolled bundles they carried proved to be tapestries of rare workmanship, the largest of them six feet wide and nearly a hundred feet in length. Barry gazed upon them, with no show of enthusiasm, though he knew they would be appraised high up in the thousands up home. Any mule load that he might take away from the convent was worth the cargo of a cog, and he should have been well content with the deal. But what rankled was that what he wanted was to establish a year-round fair run on department-store lines, under his own exclusive direction so that he could provide a secret direct shuttle terminus in an inner compartment to take part of the load off the slow cogs. He also wanted to recruit a host of wandering salesmen wearing the smocks of friars in order to escape the crushing burden of taxation at every turn. None of that he got.

"Too bad," commiserated the prior, whom Barry was beginning to perceive was a man of parts, "but that's what comes of being incorruptible. It makes one hard to deal with. My most reverend superior is quite convinced of his incorruptibility. So much so that he has had a special chapel built to house his remains after his soul has departed this flesh. Lately he has had visions to that effect, and he spends all his time these days mooning about the cloisters, thinking of the miracle that will come about when the yokels perform their pilgrimage to look upon him and see that he rotteth not. It will insure his beatification, and... uh... put St. Guy's on the map, as it were."

"Hm-m-m," mused Barry, thoughtfully, "maybe you've got something there. Is the old boy in good health?"

"No. He has flutterings in the breast, great pain, and at such times he falls as if dead. He may be taken to his Maker on any day. Then we shall see whether he is truly incorruptible." The prior sighed. It was quite evident that his piety did not include so embracing a miracle. He had seen many men die in his long and busy life, and not all of them were bad men. Not one had been incorruptible in the fleshly sense. Neither maggots nor carrion crows were respecters of their clay. Dead men had best be buried.

"Ah," pursued Barry. "If his stuffiness kicks the bucket and the miracle doesn't come off, that leaves you holding the bag as his successor—the abbot of a third-rate monastery and the goat for a miracle that misfired."

"Something like that," said the prior morosely. Then he studied Barry with greater interest. "Four of our brothers returned yesterday from Capdur, where they saw matters of your contrivance that smack of miracles. Or perchance, of wizardry, though I would prefer not to raise that question in an hour of trial. A practical abbot will not look a gift miracle in the mouth, if you know what I mean, providing his face is saved. We have to think of form, after all. Now, touching upon your request for a charter for a trading guild to employ those of our cloth who yearn for pilgrimages to far markets, would it be possible for you—in the event of the calamity of our worthy superior's death, and in the event that the heralded miracle did not take place—"

"Would I step in and make it so?" laughed Barry. "I wouldn't know offhand; 'tis a matter for contemplation and the searching for guidance. In Occidentalis we deal neither with true miracles nor yet sorcery. Our god is Science, whose ways are plainly understandable to the initiated—"

"Yes, yes, I know," remarked the prior irritably, "spare me your sophistries. We are both men acquainted with inner mysteries, and methinks need not spar with one another, howe'er much we cozen our flocks. Now, as I was saying— if the untoward events I fear come to pass, would you help me? We sorely need a fresh miracle hereabouts, and I am not unmindful of the strange lamp you gave the seneschal of Capdur which burns with a hot white fire from wetted gray rocks. Nor forgetful of the marvelous moon metal that looks like silver but is light as air, nor the other marvels of your bringing. We have both much to gain by working together."

"I'll see what Science can do," promised Barry, with considerable mental reservation. He knew that Science could do the trick. What he didn't know was what the Control Board would do about it. Or rather, he was quite certain Control would slap him down, for the rule book said definitely that certain things were not available for the Middle Ages. Belief in the supernatural was too strong to hope to explain some things away by pure reason.

Barry made his departure and went back to the town. As he rode, he made up his mind what to do. There was so much to be gained by helping the prior in his coming dilemma, that he felt justified in going out on the limb all the way. So he twisted his ring and sent off a message to Clarkson at the base.

Rush me by fastest vessel the glass case you keep fresh fish in; also the refrigeration unit that goes with it. Must have it for coffin of saint elect.

Barry was in town and bringing Maverick up to date on events when the tingling of his finger apprised him that Clarkson's answer was coming through. But the message was not from the island storekeeper; it was from Kilmer himself, hot and to the point. Clarkson must have had a chill in the feet and referred the latest order upstairs. Kilmer's message ran:

You're fired. Turn management over to Maverick and return at once with what merchandise you have acquired. I am a patient man, but too much is too much. We want a depot established and a native sales force; instead you've been having a swell time playing miracle man. Nuts. Kilmer.

"Nuts to you," muttered Barry. Then the vision of the inhospitable wastes of New York flashed upon him, and the endless queues of jobseekers and the other dreary features of being unemployed. He didn't mind being hauled onto the carpet for insubordination and taking a chance— or wouldn't have, if the chance had worked out. What burned him up was that his scheme was nipped in the bud. If only Clarkson had been good sport enough to ship the butcher's showcase, and the pious galoot styling himself the Incorruptible had died promptly— then he would have had the local trade situation by the tail. As matters stood, he was being tossed out for incompetence— the one accusation that Barry could not stand.

"Well, Mav, it looks as if she's all yours," he said with a bleak smile. "I'll toddle along back to the ships— then home to get the ax."

"S'long, kid," said Maverick, shaking hands, "but don't take it hard. I have a hunch I'll be only a week or so behind you. Good luck."

THE road back to Capdur was dreary. Barry did not take the same interest he took on the other journey. On those first days he had been keenly absorbed in planning how to lift it over the flats, stick culverts under, and ditch along the sides. But that dirt work would probably never be done now, though his road- making machines were on order. And the Capdur-St. Guy road was to have been but a beginning, a pilot road, so to speak. It was his intention to organise a company to spread the gospel, much along the lines of his well-drilling crew. All shot!

The road wound closer to the fields of the convent of St. Guy du Nord than he had remembered. He glimpsed its gray walls once, through a rift in the trees, and his ear caught the dull clang of tolling bells. He noticed then that the fields were deserted, and wondered if the Incorruptible had died. And then a couple of solemn-faced friars, riding asses, came out of an abutting lane and asked if they might join his company. He said they might, and asked the news.

"Alas, the good abbot of St. Guy is dead, though we who are left to carry on should rejoice, for we carry news abroad of the great miracle that has come to pass. His prior has assumed the abbotship and laid the Incorruptible in the chapel builded for his resting place. Even now the new abbot is kneeling in supplication to our patron saint, the good St. Guy of the Northland, to invoke his assistance in the matter."

"I can well believe it," remarked Barry, dryly, remembering that the same prior had only the day before made similar supplication to him. "But tell me, who was St. Guy du Nord and what was he famous for? Martyrdom of some sort, I presume, since I have noticed that the various statues of him always lack hands and feet."

"For an unbeliever from the mythical land across the sea," answered the monk, "you are observant above the run. The holy man was indeed a martyr— a stern one, and his intercession is not lightly obtained"

Barry rode on in silence, listening with bowed head while the more talkative of the pair of monks unreeled the long-winded tale of the doings of their patron. Guy was a poor parish priest of a hamlet near the Seine, several centuries before. One year the Norse Vikings came to ravish the country, and when they went away, they carried off many prisoners and hostages. Guy was among them. But Guy was a man who knew not surrender. He preached the doctrines for which he stood throughout the North Countries with the result that he brought many of the fair-haired barbarians around to seeing the light. He lived to a ripe old age; long enough to see many tribes converted to his creed. But the cost was the loss of his hands and feet. The bitter winters of Lapland took their toll in frostbite. In that, and in his long exile, lay the basis of his martyrdom.

"Hm-m-m," murmured Barry. And his mind slipped out of the grinding low gear it had been turning over sluggishly in and slipped into high. He thought fast and hard. A little later he was stabbing at his ring, having set the power to short-distance transmission only, trying to tune in on Maverick. At the same time he whipped up his mules.

Go over to the monastery tomorrow afternoon and have a sniff at the late abbot. I'm curious.

And having sent that, he forced his train into the best speed it could maintain. By nightfall the next day he was wending his way past Capdur's gates and down the hill to where the ships of Anachron lay. It was then that Maverick's answer bit him in the knuckle.

It's hot. Phew! Likewise phew!— the late lamented's virtues appear to have been exaggerated. Prior worried. Keeps asking for you. What do?

Barry back to Maverick:

Shu-ush! Not a word of this goes higher, but tell the new abbot to hang on and have faith. I'm working on it. Don't worry about being canned. Ill take the rap for both of us.

Maverick to Barry:

Who's worried? If you can't talk yourself back onto the job, they can have mine, too—to hell with 'em. Your pal.

OVER supper that night Barry and Parker talked ways and means. Parker had been around longer than Barry had and was deferred to in some of his opinions.

"I think," said the young mariner, scratching his head, "that you're plain crazy— and that abbot, too. Control is right; these old dodos that run this country can't savvy modern refrigeration. You'd better call all bets off and go up home and try to square yourself with Kilmer. Even if he cans you like he says, it won't be as hard to take as being burned at the stake. And don't forget, if they roast you, they'll likely roast the lot of us."

There followed half an hour of impassioned plea by Barry before Parker finally could be brought to see things his way. Then, with happy grins, they went about their nefarious work. It was a night of feverish activity, and five of the Nubians were kept up to do the heavy lifting and packing.

The first task was performed below the holds, under the false deck that hid the forbidden things. Barry ripped the big refrigerator apart and spread its innards out for examination. Swiftly he took measurements here and there, and made sketches and fast computations. The plate-glass panels of the doors were removed and carefully packed for muleback transportation, while in another box a number of the enameled white plates and fastenings were put. The tubing and refrigeration units were also packed, together with spare lengths and fittings. After that Barry found some brass sheets, selected a small hammer, and then went topside to the cabin. For some hours thereafter the ship resounded with the steady tapping of the hammer.

It was near to dawn when Barry found time to go out onto the quay and examine the loads he had brought down with him the night before. One box was of about the dimensions of a coffin, and that one he robbed of its lid. Inside it was a stiff figure carved from solid oak, a bit of the handiwork of the monks of St. Guy— it was no other than an effigy of the holy man himself. Barry lifted it from its container and carried it inside. Thereafter a listener might have heard the sound of steel bits gnawing into wood and then another shower of hammer taps. After that all the noises were stilled except those made by the Nubian crew as they nailed up the final boxes and fastened them to the packsaddles.

Barry chose Dilly to captain him home, leaving the empty cattleboat to the protection of their patron Capdur. He wanted Parker, who alone knew all the details of the plan, to carry the miracle-making equipment to Maverick. So Parker departed at dawn, shepherding a train of sturdy mules, and Barry waited on the quay while the blacks stowed his plunder aboard. There were bags of coins, most of them gold; priceless tapestries, ecclesiastical statuary, and many other items of value to the home world, but Barry knew that they were not enough. Anachron wanted things done on a big scale. And then the ship cast off and slipped down the river. Barry ate a belated breakfast, after which he sent a curt message to Kilmer that he was on the way.

A WEEK later, having had favoring winds all the way, the cog lifted the snowy walls of Isla Occidental. Only one message had come from Maverick during that time, and that but an hour before. It was laconic to the point of exasperation:

Everything lovely so far. Pilgrims flocking here, many converts. A cardinal, two archbishops, and a whole flock of bishops on the way to check on authenticity. Keep your fingers crossed.

By midafternoon the clumsy vessel had negotiated the last of the tortuous channels among the foaming rocks about the castle, and slid under the lifted portcullis into the quiet basin within. Clarkson was there to meet them, but he showed no joy at the reunion. Beside him stood a heavy-set man with a bulldog jaw and a roving eye. The stranger wore a blue uniform and the badge "Marine Inspector." As the ship sidled into the dock, he stepped on board with a curt nod for Dilly and a savage glare for Barry. Then he ducked below, where they could hear him prowling about, ejaculating snarls and muttered curses. Presently he returned to deck; and made furious entries in a little black notebook

"The fat's in the fire," he hurled at Clarkson. "They did it anyway." Then he marched off to the waiting shuttle cave.

"Well, you've played hell," remarked Clarkson, coldly, "but at least I had sense enough not to get messed up with you. I was bright. I covered."

"Yeah?" snapped Barry with bitter scorn. "So it takes brains to cover?"

He spat, and turned his back. And there he waited while his cargo was being transferred to the freight shuttle. With the aid of the big stevedoring gang of the castle the job did not take long. When his own bag came along, Barry followed it inside.

"I'll be seeing you," said Barry to Clarkson with more the air of threat than happy anticipation.

"Not if I know Anachron," replied Clarkson grimly. Then the shuttle operator closed the switch.

THE powers that be kept him cooling his heels for another solid week before they saw fit to hale him before them. He was cooped up in barracks on the top floor of the freight export building, along with other field men who had come in for some reason or other. But they were a taciturn lot and Barry learned nothing from them. He fretted the days away, since they not only treated him as a prisoner, but had also taken his radio ring away. He had no idea how Maverick was doing or what the eventual payoff was on the miracle of St. Guy.

On the eighth day the summons came. A messenger appeared and called out Barry's name. They went in a company car to the home office in Wall Street, and there Barry was conducted to the antechamber of Kilmer's office. He saw at once that he was not to be the only one to grace the carpet that day, for a sullen, dark- complexioned trader he had seen at the barracks was also there, frowning and registering a curious mixture of annoyance and worry. Then Barry was aware that Kilmer was having one of his customary fights with someone over the phone

"Can't I get anything through your thick head?" the sales manager was asking wearily. "We don't care what the blasted machine cost— I said I'd already sent a chit to transfer the charge from their account to ours. That washes the transaction out. What more do you penpushers in Accounting want? This would be a better world if there wasn't a scrap of paper in it—"

There came a click and a frying sound accompanied by sputtering. Whoever had been at the other end of the line had hung up and Kilmer didn't like it. Then he calmed himself to some degree and bawled out for Mobberley. The dark trader beside Barry jumped to his feet and went up to the desk Kilmer favored him with a fishy stare, then shook his head sadly.

"You fellows are so dumb," said Kilmer, pityingly. Barry expected him to squeeze out a tear. "I talk and I talk and no one listens. I send you to Seventeenth Century Spain; we wanted olives, sherry, cork—we also wanted Inca and Aztec trophies, ornamented gold trinkets or featherwork. And you come back with tons and tons of gold ingots! What is gold good for nowadays? Intertemporal exchange is swamped with it, and every dumbbell in the field keeps sending more—"

"Y-y-you can buy things with it in any age," stammered the unhappy Mobberley.

"We don't want to buy; we want to trade," wailed Kilmer, tearing his hair. "Our charter requires that we export ton for ton what we import so as to help get rid of our surpluses—"

"Can I say a word?" ventured Barry, coming over to join the fray. Since he was about to be canned he figured he might as well, not that he wished to help Anachron, but he was willing to give a fallen brother a helping hand.

Kilmer looked at him and grunted, "O.K.... hope it makes sense."

"If there was ever a time when gold was in demand," Barry said, "it was in 1932. People were clamoring for it, making runs on the banks, hoarding yellow paper money, selling anything they had for a song so long as they could get the price in hard money—"

"Bah!" snorted Kilmer. "Who wants what they had? Their art was lousy and there's nothing their industries put out that we can't do better and cheaper today. Just tell me one thing they had that we can use—"

"I can tell you a dozen, but one will do," answered Barry quietly. "There's a requisition downstairs for ten thousand complete public libraries, but no project. In '32 the publishers were sitting on their hands, weeping like orphans, paper mills were folding up overnight, printers were selling apples on the street, while Hoover was worrying himself into the fantods on account of the vanishing gold reserve. That's the spot for your gold. They'd sell their souls for it."

"My, my," said Kilmer, brightening perceptibly, "perhaps you're right. I'll take it up at conference this afternoon. Thank you, Mobberley, that will be all for today."

Mobberley went, but slightly baffled. It might be a reprieve; it might not. Then Barry sat down while Kilmer dug into his desk drawer and produced a squat bottle of black glass with the remnants of heavy sealing wax about its neck. He poured two slender wine glasses full of a pale violet liqueur and offered one to his trader. The bottle was labeled in antique script "Liqueur Guyesque— Seven Hundred Years Old." Barry tasted it and found it delicious, resembling Benedictine and Chartreuse, but differing from both in color and tang.

"Quite a find, that," said Kilmer, and Barry sensed that he was being congratulated, though he did not know for what. It was a cinch that he had never seen or tasted the stuff before. Then he waited cagily for what else Kilmer might say.

"You sent up a number of flasks of tonic from that monastery down there. It was mildly alcoholic, but far too bitter for beverage use and Research said it had slight medicinal value. So we tried smoothing it by adding a heavy sugar sirup and stepping up the alcohol content This is the answer."

He sipped his drink and so did Barry, but Barry still didn't know what his boss was driving at.

"We haven't enough yet to put on genera] sale, but we sent samples of our own bottling to directors of the company and also the members of the Control Board. They were delighted. And... er... rather better disposed toward you,"

"Uh-huh, I daresay," said Barry, and waited.

"We want you to take over at ancient Rome... the fellow there had made a hash of things and we want a man of resource and talent. Now, while your work in France was not altogether—"

"Not altogether what?" demanded Barry, bristling. He didn't like being played like a cat's mouse, first hot, then cold.

"Completed, I was about to say," said Kilmer, and then hastily interposed, "Oh, don't worry, you'll be allowed the customary overwriting on all subsequent sales there. But about Rome—"

"Say," said Barry rising, "come clean, won't you? You wire me I'm fired and you haul me up here and keep me incommunicado for a week. Now you pat me on the back. Am I in Dutch, the fair- haired boy, or what?"

"Well, yes and no," said Kilmer in his maddening fashion. But he refilled the glasses and again settled comfortably back in his chair. "It must be admitted that there was a minor infraction of the rules on your part but it's no worse than the run of my daily headaches. It will be ironed out shortly. It appears that you robbed one of our trading cogs of its refrigerating equipment and the Custodian of Marine Equipage has raised a holy stink about it. However, I've made good their loss by transfer of funds."

"I take that to be the 'yes' part of the answer. What's the 'no'?" Barry had not yet made up his mind whether he liked his boss or not. Sometimes Kilmer got in his hair.

"I admit there was apprehension here for a time concerning your proposed sale of a cooling unit to the monastery of St. Guy," said Kilmer. "We were afraid of unfortunate repercussions. You may not remember, but you are insured, and our Insurance Division hates like the dickens to pay out claims on fool traders who get themselves crucified and what not. There are few things more dangerous than peddling miracles in the Middle Ages. Unless you have just the right touch... well!"

"However, your assistant, Maverick, assures us that our part in the miracle at St. Guy was... well... negligible. He says the highest ranking ecclesiastics of France have viewed it and pronounced it authentic and wholly commendable. He states that if it were not for the piety and zeal of the multitude of pilgrims who are now pouring in, it could not be maintained at all. His only part is the supplying of a candle booth in the vicinity, for which, incidentally, he has ordered ten thousand of our best candles."

"Really?" Now Barry let a faint smile drift onto his face. The plot was beginning to thicken. Kilmer filled the glasses again; he was not done.

"What bothers a few of us here in Sales," pursued the sales manager, "is how you got away with it. Confidentially, of course. But what is the lowdown?"

Barry threw back his head and laughed. He understood the lay of the land now. It was just like being in the army. If you stuck to the book, you might or might not get anything done; if you departed from it the penalty was disgrace or fame, depending on the outcome. He had taken a long shot and put it over. He was being forgiven. So he told briefly the story of a French priest who converted the Vikings and of what befell him in the Northland. He also described his next to the latest successor, not forgetting to mention his inordinate pride in his incorruptibility. He wound up with the tale of the predicament his successor found himself in, and the concessions he was willing to make for an out.

"The problem," Barry concluded, "was how to mask the workings of the miracle so as not to raise embarrassing questions. Our clue came from the attributes of the martyr himself. His chief sufferings had been from cold, so that it was a humane and Christian act to alleviate that cold. The deceased abbot, if he was to maintain his title, was desperately in need of cold to pull him through the summer. We rigged things in such a manner that the pilgrims could arrange the transfer from him that had too much to him that had too little. It was as simple as that,"

"Please, Barry," pleaded Mr. Kilmer, "we're friends; don't you understand? Give!

"Well, we tore down a refrigerator and made a glass bier for His Nibs. Then we took a statue of the saint and drilled holes through it for our ducts. We supplied the effigy with brass hands and feet and sat him on a stump with his limbs outstretched in an attitude of benediction. And that we placed alongside the tomb. The rest was up to the faithful pilgrims."

Kilmer scratched his head. He felt he ought to get it, but something was missing. How could Maverick have concealed the compressor and motor so that the inspecting bishops failed to see them? What was the source of power? It was unthinkable that the traders would have been rash enough to risk that secret. So Kilmer asked the questions.

"Power?" said Barry, and grinned from ear to ear. "You forget. We might have had an awkward time with Clarkson's machine, but the one we swiped from the cog was different. It was built along the lines of the early Electrolux and powered by an oil flame. We ran the tubing through the arms and legs of the wooden figure of St. Guy and planted candlesticks beneath. What you can do with oil or gas flames, you can do with candles."

"Ah," murmured Mr. Kilmer. Then he raised his own glass and tinkled it against Barry's, winking profoundly with the gesture.

"To success in Rome," he said.

______________________

2: Barrius, Imp.

Astounding Science Fiction, January 1943

THE three days' leave at "home"— "home" meaning New York of 1957— had done Mark Barry, erstwhile major of Commandos but now trader extraordinary for the great Anachron company, a world of good. He strode through the main doorway of the home office building on Wall Street full of eagerness to get on to his next assignment. That, Kilmer, his sales manager, had said, would be as manager of the station in ancient Rome.

He gave no more than a passing glance at the throng of businessmen passing in and out of the building in their eternal quest for contracts. Nor did he pause this time, as he had on his first visit, to wonder about the many queer departments housed above. For he knew now something of the intricacies of intertemporal trade, and the meticulous care that Anachron took to avoid unduly upsetting the economies or cultures of the less civilized peoples and eras with which they dealt.

When he reached the floor on which Kilmer's office was, he stepped out of the elevator and walked briskly down the hall, humming cheerily as he went. But he stilled his inward song the moment he was inside Kilmer's office, for that gentleman was sitting dejectedly at his desk, gnawing his fingers and scowling at a piece of paper on his desk. Barry knew already that his boss had long had the conviction that the business of intertemporal trade management was just one perpetual headache, and it was painfully clear that on this particular morning the managerial head was aching at one of its peaks. Kilmer acknowledged his entrance by a morose stare, then waved him wearily to a chair, after which he resumed glowering at the document that had furnished his daily upset. Presently he flipped it across to Barry.

"That's gratitude for you," he said, bitterly, and slumped deeper in his chair while Barry read the flimsy. It was an IT ethergram, dated at Rome in the year 182, routed via "Atlantis" base on Pantelleria.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M FIRED YOU CAN'T FIRE ME YOU BIG STIFF STOP O.K. SHUT OFF YOUR DAMN SHUTTLES AND SEE WHO CARES I'M SITTING PRETTY STOP OR IF YOU THINK IT'LL GET YOU ANYTHING SEND DOWN ONE OF YOUR BRIGHT YOUNG MEN TO HELP ME RUN THINGS I'M TOO BUSY TO BOTHER STOP PATRICIUS CASSIDUS SEN ROM

Barry laid the message back on Kilmer's desk and raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation. Kilmer sighed heavily and Barry thought he was on the verge of breaking down and weeping.

"That is from Pat Cassidy, our Roman representative—the guy you were supposed to relieve," explained Mr. Kilmer in his lugubrious monotone. "I picked him up in the depths of the depression, a jobless down-at-the-heels peanut politician. I gave him the best job he ever had. I made him filthy rich. And this is what I get."

Barry still did not say anything. The situation was far from clear.

"But it's not the personal angle that's biting me," Kilmer went on, "it's the business aspects of the mess. Nothing like it ever happened in our organization before. Up in Ethics they're wild, the Control Board is having fits, and the Disciplinary Committee keeps burning me up and asking me why can't I control my men. Export-Import horses me about quotas, but when I pass 'em along to Cassidy all I get is silence. I order him up here for conference and he won't come. Finally I tell him he's fired— and I get this. Hell!"

"But," asked Barry, "what's it all about?"

"Look," said Kilmer, significantly, dragging out a ponderous file. "It made some sense when it started out, but it gets screwier with every order."

Barry took the order file and riffled through it. In the first years, when Cassidy pioneered the Roman branch under the emperor Marcus Aurelius, his orders were what were to have been expected. Anachron exported to Rome vast quantities of modernized armor and weapons— drop-forged, chrome and molybdenum alloy stuff— enough to equip ten full legions from helmet to sandals. There were tons of Portland cement, hand-operated winches and capstans, derrick fittings and cordage for the harbor improvements at Ostia. Wheat and flour used to flow by the thousands of bushels, in return for olive oil, native wines, and especially marble statuary. Then, of a sudden, the nature of the orders underwent a sharp change. Instead of their being for the huge quantities desired by Anachron, they called for scattered items, a few of each, such as a pair of dental chairs, five complete sets of surgical instruments, or ten old-fashioned fire engines with hose and pumps to be operated by willing backs. The only quantity requisitions were two in number: one for twenty tons of the drug afeverin— a sulphanilimide compound similar in properties to quinine but far more effective— and an astonishing order for ten million additional plastic poker chips.

"During the entire last quarter," Kilmer wailed, as Barry handed the file back to him, "he hasn't sold one schooner load of stuff. We have forty fine two-masters rotting at their piers at Pantelleria waiting for something to carry. Still the overhead goes on while that guy fools around with piddling orders for poker chips and drugs. Can you beat it?"

"Must be a reason," ventured Barry. "Maybe Cassidy is playing a deep game and isn't ready to spring it."

"Maybe," said Kilmer, dismally. "But you haven't heard all. There is more to this than meets the eye. When we decided to open up a branch in Rome, we selected the island of Pantelleria for our secret base— it is not far from Carthage and centrally located as regards the empire. Cassidy sold the Romans the idea that he was from Atlantis and that his ships came all the way in past the Pillars of Hercules. It was a good idea— too good, for the Romans recognized him as a kindred sort, having similar customs and religion, and made him a citizen of the city. For an ex-politician like Cassidy, that was all he needed. I suspect he started some side lines that turned into rackets, but anyhow it was not long before he was rolling in dough. Then he upped and married the widow of a rich Roman senator, and on top of that wangled a seat in the senate for himself. That was bad enough, but old Marcus Aurelius kicked the bucket and a no-good playboy by the name of Commodus became emperor in his stead. Pat Cassidy and Commodus are buddies. That tears everything."

"How come?"

"If we fire Cassidy, he says he'll have our charter revoked. If we stop sending shuttles, Commodus will confiscate our warehouses and ships. Control says we have too heavy an investment down there... mustn't do that... have to do it some other way."

"Yeah," said Barry, softly, "I begin to get it."

He stirred in his seat and stared at Kilmer as the full implications of Cassidy's rebellion unfolded in his mind. Under ordinary circumstances Anachron had a sure-fire means of bringing a recalcitrant employee to terms. They had only to threaten to shut off his shuttles and leave him stranded wherever in time he happened to be, but until Cassidy became so enamored of ancient Rome, no other employee had shown symptoms of going native. Nobody conditioned to the twentieth century relished being marooned on the sawed-off stump of a branch time track in some barbaric age. In the Cassidy case the company would only be cutting off its nose to spite its face, for they would not only lose their properties at Atlantis, but also the buildings at Ostia and in Rome. Moreover, it would be ineffectual, for Cassidy wouldn't mind it in the least.

On the other hand, if the company fired him only to leave him at large in Rome, it would have an awkward situation on its hands, even if he did not carry out his threat to confiscate the properties. His successor would have as an adversary a renegade from his own century who was a disgruntled ex-employee to boot. He could not hope to get away with the pleasant little fictions employed by Anachron salesmen in other places and ages—for Cassidy knew all the answers. Also, there would be nothing to prevent him from divulging to the Romans various secrets hitherto forbidden by Ethics and the Policy Board. Such items as explosives, power machinery and electricity were on the list. Yes, it was pretty obvious that Cassidy's attitude posed a problem.

"What," asked Barry, "are you going to do about it?"

"He says here," Kilmer replied, "that he will accept an assistant. That's you. Go down there and build the business back to where it ought to be. That's job number one. Then get Cassidy."

"Get him? Bump him off?" Barry thought that was going a bit strong.

"Oh, no. Not necessarily. A snatch will do. There ought to be plenty of jobless thugs and assassins roaming the streets hunting work to do the rough stuff for you. But I want Cassidy up here in this very office. Whether you talk him into coming or send him up in chains is all one to me. That is up to you—"

A messenger came in and deposited a memorandum on Kilmer's desk. It had a lurid red "Urgent" tag clipped to it. Kilmer read it and passed it on to Barry. It was a general order, effective at once. The memo read:

In view of a recent embarrassing situation in one of our important branches, the following rule is promulgated.

RULE G-45607: Hereafter, any Anachron employee who accepts any public office or honor in the era in which he is operating will forthwith be discharged and abandoned in that era. This penalty will be applied invariably and without regard for the magnitude of the company's investment in that era, the employee's previous good record, or surrounding circumstances.

"That means 'keep out of politics,' " said Kilmer. "Watch your step."

"I'll watch it," said Barry.

WITHIN an hour he was ready to leave. A brief visit to the Roman room in the research wing fixed him up as to the special knowledge he would require. A skilled hypnotist put him en rapport with a pair of savants, and Barry arose shortly thereafter with his brain packed with magically acquired knowledge. He was familiar now with Roman laws and customs, and able to speak fluently in Latin and Greek. They also gave him a smattering of Aramiac, Gaulish, and the commoner Punic dialects in the event he had need to visit the provinces. After that a short stop at the costume room fitted him with a snow-white toga of fine linen for Roman summer wear— far lighter and more comfortable than the woolen ones the Romans wore. Then he went down to the shuttle room.

It was an interesting place, and one he had never seen before. True, he had made a round trip to Medieval France, but that had been on one of the big freighter shuttles operating out of the huge Export-Import warehouse uptown. The room he was in at the moment was a different sort of a terminal. Here was where the small one and two-passenger shuttles took off with special messengers and others sent abroad by the Home Office direct. Barry handed over his pass to the dispatcher in charge, and sat down to wait.

The room was large and divided in half by an iron rail which barred the passengers from the landing platforms. There were eight of those, each stall separated from the others by other iron rails. From time to time a shuttle would appear briefly in the space set aside for it, and its passenger would either step on or off, as the case might be, and the shuttle would vanish. Many of the travelers wore outlandish garb, even as the be-togaed Barry did. One resplendent creature stepped out of a shuttle wearing a suit of quilted cotton armor and a gorgeous headdress of colored feathers. His face was painted with vivid colors to a tigerish make-up.

"Hi, Steve," greeted another man in the waiting room, this one dressed as a Chinese mandarin. "How you doing? Where you been?"

"Tenochtitlan," said the one with the Aztec getup. "We're trying to get an in with Montezuma before Cortez gets there and gums the works."

Barry was curious as to the exact workings of the shuttles, but he knew that was a secret he was not likely ever to know. One of the most inflexible of Anachron's many rules forbade that information to all but qualified shuttle operators. And there was a good reason for it. Before it had been made, in the early days, each trader was allowed his own, but there were accidents. Twice embezzling agents hopped into their machines with their loot and departed deep into the past for destinations unknown. On another occasion a salesman whose sweetie had a yen to meet Marie Antoinette undertook to gratify her. They borrowed a shuttle on a Sunday afternoon with the announced intention of crashing a garden party at Versailles. Whatever happened, they were never seen again. Then there was the time when four ex-employees, fully armed with hand grenades and submachine guns, invaded the big warehouse and swiped a heavy freighter. They said they were only going to Lima to lift the Inca treasure from the Spaniards and would be back in an hour or two. They did not show up again. So Anachron thought it best thereafter to restrict the knowledge of how to operate the intertemporal vehicles to a tried and selected few.

At length the dispatcher called out, "Special shuttle for Ostia... leaving berth six in five minutes—" and Barry hitched his toga about himself and made ready to shove off. A little bit later he was stepping out of the shuttle in a small steel-walled room which had but a single door. Beside the door was hanging the receiving end of a scanner.

"End of the line," said the shuttle operator, flicking over his controls. "If the coast is clear, step out that door. It has a spring lock and will lock itself behind you."

"How do I get back in here?" Barry wanted to know.

"Mr. Cassidy has the keys," said the operator. There was a click and a whir and the shuttle and operator vanished.

"Sweet, I must say," muttered Barry, glaring at the vacant floor. Then he picked up the scanner and peeped outside.

All there was to be seen was the huge dim nave of an almost empty warehouse. Barry went through the door and picked his way among the few stacks of barrels and boxes, looking for an outer door. The big main ones were closed and barred, but he found a bricked-off cubicle he took to be the warehouse office. That he entered. Inside there was a desk and chair. On the chair sat a good-looking Greek slave boy, leaning tilted back and with his feet sprawled out on the desk, reading what appeared to be an absorbing scroll.

"Where's the boss?" demanded Barry, seeing the fellow did not look up or take any other notice of him.

"How would I know?" answered the slave, without taking his eyes from the script. Instead he twirled the knobs and exposed a fresh page. Barry's outthrust foot neatly knocked the chair from under, and hardly had the flunky hit the floor before he found himself lifted by the scruff of the neck and shaken vigorously.

"Where is Cassidus?" roared the angry Barry.

"I...I c-can't tell you, sir," moaned the Greek between chattering teeth. "He might be in the forum, or again at the palace or the senate. Or he might be at home up on the Viminal, or at his villa at Tivoli, or at his slave ranch down the Appian Way, or—"

"How am I going to find him?" reiterated Barry, renewing his shaking.

"G-go to the temple of Hermes two squares down the street," answered the miserable slave. "Not the orthodox Hellenic one, but the Atlantian shrine. Make an offering. Hermes knows."

"Hermes, huh?" growled Barry. "What do you mean, offering?"

The warehouse clerk fumbled in his tunic and brought forth a pair of blue chips. He handed them both to Barry.

"One of these ought to be enough," he said.

"All right. Call me a taxi...er, litter, that is," said Barry, pocketing the chips. They were beautifully made— a typical Anachron product— being of a pearly, jadelike plastic and having a white fleur-de-lis inlay. They were light, glossy, and unbreakable. Then he followed the boy out onto the quay and climbed into a litter that happened to be passing at the very moment.

Barry felt very lordly as he lolled back in the cushions and was borne along jigglingly by the four husky porters. He cast his eye over the harbor improvements and approved. Neat concrete quays lined the basin, and out at the seaward edge ran an efficient-looking breakwater. The warehouse he had just left was Anachron's own, built to house its wares before business declined to its present sad stage. Then Barry saw a fading sign nailed to a derrick. It announced to the world that the harbor improvements of Ostia were being made by Patricius Cassidus, contractor.

The litter drew away from the water front and into Ostia's main street. As he approached the temple for which he was bound, Barry noticed with some surprise that above the pediment there were stretched some very familiar looking wires. But he asked no questions of the bearers, and let them deposit him at the door.

He found the inside of the temple somewhat surprising, it was not in the least in conformity to the hypnotic picture given him by the scholars. The place had more the appearance of a modern bank or steamship office than a temple to the messenger of the gods. Inside the door were two marble benches along which sat a number of urchins, most of whom wore sandals to which roller skates were attached. They looked to Barry like messengers waiting for a call. A little way inside a marble counter barred off the rest of the room. Beyond it stood a heroic figure of the god himself, complete with winged shoes and winged helmet. But, incongruously, between his feet sat a modern cash register, and cut into the pedestal below there was a mailing slot.

A robed priest stepped up to the counter wearing an ingratiating smile.

"A petition to his godship, sir?" he asked.

"I suppose so." said Barry, uncertain quite how to proceed.

"Local or long distance?"

"I'm not sure."

"Fill this out, please," said the priest, and pulled out a pad of printed forms from beneath the counter. He shoved it across and handed Barry a stylus. Barry looked at it, and there was a grudging admiration in his eyes. It was just the sort of thing he would have pulled if he had thought of it first. It looked like this:

Barry filled it out, leaving the address blank. Surely, the priest knew Cassidy! The message simply stated that one Marcus Barrius wished the honorable senator to know that his new assistant had arrived from Atlantis and what to do? Then he handed it to the priest.

The priest read it through carefully, counted the words, pursed his brows for a moment in heavy thought, and then mentioned a number of sesterces. Barry had completely forgotten to supply himself with Roman money, but he had the odd gift of the Anachron warehouseman. Without a word he produced one of the blue chips and offered it.

"Ah," said the priest, with apparent delight.

He fondled it a moment admiringly, then rang it up in the cash register.

Barry's petition was deposited in the slot, and somewhere behind the scenes came a faint bong. The amount of change that Barry got from his chip was amazing— one golden aureus, and a handful of lesser silver and copper coins. Blue chips, seemingly, were well thought of in Rome.

Barry stood back from the counter as other supplicants came up to file their petitions. The cash register clanged often as offering after offering was dropped into its drawer, and the little gong in the back rang as frequently. Above those sounds Barry's keen ears caught the telltale buzz-buzz-buzzity- buzz of a sending key, and he smiled inwardly at the sound. At last the priest beckoned him. He held a bit of paper in his hand which he did not deliver, but which he studied with a slightly bewildered look.

"Hermes has favored you greatly," interpreted the priest, "and sends you further tidings. The words are occult—aye, barbarous—but perhaps you will comprehend. Thus speaks the swift messenger:

"CROOK AN ELBOW WITH ME AT THE PALACE OF FORTUNA, CHOWTIME TONIGHT. SKIP THE WHITE TIE. TELL THE DRIP THAT'S WAITING ON YOU THAT YOU BELONG AND MAKE HIM KICK BACK THE ANTE. WHEN WE CHIN, IT'S ON THE HOUSE. PAT."

"Thanks," said Barry, and started to turn away. But the priest continued to stare at the flimsy in his hand with an unhappy expression.

"Chowtime? Drip? Chin— on the house?" he queried anxiously.

"Forget it," said Barry. For that matter the chip he had paid with had been on the house, and he was grateful for the hard money he had in change. He still had to have himself transported up to the city.

"How do I get to the Palace of Fortuna?" asked Barry, to take the priest's mind off the puzzling message. At once the priest brightened. Until then he had had a vague feeling that somehow the communication from Hermes contained a veiled reference to him, but apparently he had misread the Atlantian jargon.

"You can't miss it," he said. "It is the only place in Rome that is lit up at night. It is across the way from the coliseum—just follow the crowd."

"Thanks," said Barry, and walked away.

As his litter was carried down the street he stuck his neck out over the edge and looked back. From that point he could clearly see all of the small marble temple and its anachronistic crown of ruddy antennae.

"Racket Number One," he chuckled, "and a honey!"

The Palace of Fortuna was not misnamed. Or rather, it was undeniably palatial, though in some quarters the Fortuna part might be debatable. It was garishly lit by gasoline flares such as are used in tent shows, and stuck out in the dark streets of Rome like a Times Square in the heart of Podunk. Hordes of Roman sports were converging upon it, borne in litters, or staggering along on foot. It was an odorous mob, heavily perfumed and marcelled after the afternoon session at the baths, and it was clear that its members were on pleasure bent.

Inside, Barry was at once confronted with more of Cassidy's ingenuity, for he was beginning to recognize his touch wherever he turned. In a huge anteroom the arriving guests were shedding their hot togas for the better enjoyment of the evening. Sloe- eyed Egyptian damsels in a tricky and revealing livery attended to the checking. On the counter before them was the inevitable tray sprinkled with high denomination coins— tip bait. Barry grinned. He began to feel at home. Cassidy, whatever his faults, must be some boy.

In the foyer he came upon another interesting sight. Along one wall ran a row of cashier's cages wherein men armed with jeweler's loups, acids and balances, were weighing and appraising the vast miscellany of coins being offered them. They paid off in chips, the only medium of exchange, apparently, accepted within the walls of Fortuna's Palace. That, of course, had long been standard practice in the casinos of the world, but Barry saw a deeper significance, and his admiration for his opponent's shrewdness grew. He was insinuating Anachron chips into the Roman world as its currency!

For the coinage of the day was anything but reliable. Administrations had a way, when the fiscal going got rough, of balancing budgets by debasing their coins. What the aureus of one issue might contain in the way of gold was not at all what the next might have. Moreover, coins could be counterfeited, whereas a twentieth-century plastic product could not possibly be. So there it was— a uniform, unbreakable, beautiful, and unforgeable medium of circulation. And the beauty of it— from Cassidy's point of view— was that it could only be had through him. The fact that they could buy food and drink and places at games of chance where issued gave them limited value. But Barry had already seen that the far-flung Hermetic communication system was also accepting them gratefully. How many other rackets did Cassidy operate where the new coinage was good? And how could he lose? He bought the chips wholesale at five trade dollars the thousand; he sold them for whatever he said they were worth.

Barry wandered on past the bar, past the entrance to a sumptuous dining hall where groups were banqueting, and on through several game rooms. There was chuck-a-luck and craps, faro, poker and stud tables. Barry observed that liveried members of the house staff were most attentive to the latter, never failing to pinch off the exact amount of kitty fodder whenever it was due. He saw also that the well-patronized roulette wheels had four green zeros, and marveled at the unanalytical Latin mind. Nor did he overlook the gorillas strategically located amongst the throng, off-duty gladiators probably, ready and willing to slap down any overexuberant guest. And then a flunky plucked at a fold of his toga. The senator, he said, was awaiting his guest in his private dining room.

The dining room was at the end of a long marble corridor which was lined with soldiers of the Praetorian Guard resplendent in chromium-plated armor of Anachron's best design. A husky centurion looked Barry over curiously, but made no effort to block his passage. So, thought, Barry, Mr. Cassidy goes in for bodyguards! And then he was ushered into the dining room— one equipped in true Roman style, where Cassidy and two other guests reclined on couches while they toyed with their food.

"Hi, fella," greeted Cassidy, not bothering to get up, but waving to a vacant couch. "Welcome to our city. It's quite a place when you know the ropes. It's wide open, and I mean wide—all the way across."

Pat Cassidy in the flesh came as quite a shock. Barry had expected to meet a tall, lanky Irish lad of about his own age and who wore a rascally twinkle in his eye. The man before him may have answered to that description once, but no longer. He was disgracefully fat, and bald on top. His eyes were pale blue and goggly, with heavy bags beneath. His voice was hardly better than a croak, and he accompanied his opening remarks with a sordid wink and a knowing leer. Barry's growing admiration for the ingenuity of what rackets he had seen was suddenly tempered by disgust. The two boon companions were not of a type to reassure, either. Both were dissipated and foppish-looking, and one, whom Cassidy addressed as Quint, had a lurking air of cruelty about him that was distinctly unpleasant.

"Meet my pals, Quintus and Gaius," said Cassidy, as Barry arranged himself on the divan. "Gay is the high muckamuck of the telegraph company—or high priest of the Atlantian Hermes to the rabble. Quint manages the insurance company and runs my slave ranch for me. Clever fellow. Make friends with him and he'll give you ideas where you can pick up some pin money of your own. You gotta have a side line, you know, to make any real dough working for that lousy Anachron outfit. By the way, how's old Kilmer doing? Still raving?"

"Oh, he'll be all right when exports pick up again," said Barry, with what diplomacy he could muster. "He was pretty sore after your starting up such a good wheat and flour business that the bottom dropped out of it all of a sudden. He says the Romans never did have enough wheat, and he wants to know how come?"

Cassidy chuckled and nudged Quint.

"Little family matter," he croaked. "My wife's uncle happens to be Procurator of Egypt and holder of the grain monopoly. Naturally he didn't like the competition. So when Commodus put a heavy duty on future grain—"

"I thought you and the emperor were buddies," said Barry.

"So we are," shrugged Cassidy, "but it's give and take, you know. I let him have his way about the wheat and he lets me have my way about some other things. It pays."

In the next two hours Barry found out how well it paid. By piecing together the scraps of conversation he was able to guess at the workings of several of Cassidy's major rackets. Gaius, for example, was also the chief priest of the Atlantian Temple of the Winds, close by which was an ancient cave known as the Grotto of Boreas. Concealed within it was a Diesel-driven ice plant served only by Gay's trusted slaves. Daily a caravan of wagons came and took away the blocks of ice produced overnight— ice which brought a fine price at the many public baths where the cool rooms could be made really cool. The ice was also much in demand at banquets, and had even been used at the palace in novel forms of torture.

Barry had already guessed that enormous revenues were derived from peddling the services of the god Hermes, but he had not guessed all. Hermes, being a god, did not necessarily serve all comers, however large their offerings. Quint, in the role of the god's messenger, systematically censored the messages handled between various parts of the empire. Therefore he and the rest of the Cassidy gang knew weeks in advance of military successes or reverses in the far provinces, of the success or failure of important money crops, of the number and worth of the emeralds and pearls brought up the Red Sea every year from India. Therefore they knew how to buy and sell in Rome to advantage. They had gone so far as to establish an embryo stock exchange where they dealt in futures to their immense profit.

Nor was that all. The order for the fire-fighting equipment that had so delighted Kilmer when it first came up had been for another purpose than he had imagined. Knowing the ever-present dread of fire that haunted Rome, the Home Office made the mistake of assuming that the initial order was merely for demonstration purposes and that other orders for larger amounts would shortly follow. That they did not, Barry now learned, was due to the organization of the Phoenix Assurance Society. The PAS paid no loss indemnities, but for the high premiums it collected it did undertake to dispatch its well-trained gangs of slave firemen to put out the fire on the premises of a policy holder. Since they had pumpers and hose and ladder wagons, and also maintained a fire watch, they were usually successful. On the other hand, the buildings of nonsubscribers were left to burn. Enrollments were slow in the beginning, but the judicious use of arson remedied that defect. Commodus himself, Barry learned, was one of the stockholders. Cassidy and company, having a strangle hold on the fire-prevention business, wanted no more fire equipment.

"Don't you see, fella," asked Cassidy, with his usual leering wink, "how much better it is this way? We get more in premiums every month than I would get in commissions on a hundred fire engines. Why be a sap? But you ain't heard nothing yet. You know all that afeverin I bought? I'd have been an awful sucker if I had sold that stuff over the counter at so much an ounce. It cures malaria in one or two doses, and the malaria stays cured. Right away I saw the right set-up. There's no gratitude to be had from a man for curing him of anything, but plenty of profit if you go about it using the old bean."

As Barry listened his disgust grew. He learned about the slave ranch. Every week hundreds of emaciated and anaemic slaves were herded into the place. Those broken-down slaves had been bought in the open market by underlings of Quintus for a paltry few hundred sesterces each, since such invalid slaves were not worth their keep. At the ranch they were rehabilitated. A few shots of afeverin, a build-up diet rich in vitamins, and abundant rest did the rest. On the face of it it looked like a humanitarian proposition. Actually it was anything but. For as soon as the slaves were well and strong again and had been taught a trade, they were displayed again on the market for sale. That time, after only a few months' overhaul, they brought prices up in the thousands.

"Not bad, eh?" said Cassidy. Then he asked what ideas Barry had as to setting himself up in a noncompeting racket. It was understood, of course, that Cassidy and perhaps Commodus would be cut in on anything new that was launched.

"Can't think of one at the moment," said Barry. It looked as if Pat Cassidy and his Rome were going to be hard nuts to crack. He wanted to feel his way.

At the end of three months Barry's distaste for Rome and everything about it amounted to almost a phobia. He had seen the profligate rich throw money around in his own age, and he had also seen distress and poverty. But the orgies of the Roman wealthy and the sufferings of the poor outdid anything he knew. Nor was there in the annals of a grasping capitalism anything to equal the unconscionable rapacity of the Roman rich. Barry concluded that he would not live in Rome if they gave him the place and allowed him fifty weeks' vacation a year. All of which availed him nothing, for he committed the initial error of doing well from the start. His protests to Kilmer brought one unvarying response:

"Stick to it, you're doing fine." And then Kilmer would take what scant joy there was out of that unrelished compliment by asking when he was going to shove Cassidy off the perch and send him up home.

Barry's original intentions had been good. He started off with the idea of pepping up business as speedily as possible for Kilmer's sake. At the same time he wanted to study local conditions and find out just how firm Cassidy's grip was on the imperial machine. The answer to the latter was that Cassidy was all-powerful. Likewise, invulnerable. He was an artist at back- slapping and soft-soaping; his instinct as to when to flatter, when to browbeat, and when to bribe was infallible. He cared not a hoot how rich the other fellow got so long as he got his. It made him popular in Rome, where impoverished aristocrats fawned on him, and where the greedy wastrels of the court were ready to make any concession he demanded.

Barry saw that a frontal attack was out of the question. So he set about to develop the legitimate markets that hitherto had lacked appeal to the scheming Cassidy. He pawed through the many cases of sample materials that until then stood untouched in the Ostia warehouse. He induced Cassidy to go down there with him one day and look them over, sketching out his plans as he spoke of the possibilities in this and that. Cassidy surprised him by agreeing vigorously with all he said, and when Barry went to make out the quantity requisitions Cassidy— in his capacity of manager of the Roman branch— signed them without a murmur. On the contrary, there was a curious crooked smile on his porcine face as he scribbled his initials, and Barry thought he caught a glint of cheap cunning in his piggish eyes. But Barry filed the orders. It was a start.

The first to arrive were the ships laden with asphalt, salamanders, rollers and spreading tools.

Barry had noticed on his trips between the capital and the port that the roads, while excellent, were primarily military roads. They were well built and well drained, but they were surfaced with slabs of hewn stone. Whenever the clumsy vehicles of the day hit a joint it got a jolt. Barry saw at once that all that was needed to make them ideal highways was a thin topping of asphalt. And once that was applied the way was open for the introduction of lightweight vehicles such as wire-wheeled, ball- earing, rubber-tired wagons for country use, and rickshas for the narrow streets of the city proper.

Cassidy astonished him by appearing in person on the dock while the schooners were being discharged. He waddled into the warehouse office, accompanied as always by his guards, and handed Barry an order for one million sesterces. It was for the paving material and tools.

"I thought you said the government would pay twice this much," said Barry, turning the order over in his hands. A million sesterces scarcely covered cost, freight and overhead. "Or three times," amended Barry.

"They will. To me," said Cassidy, blandly. "I'm buying it for my construction company; it has the contract to resurface the first two hundred miles."

"But—"

"Listen, buddy, get wise to yourself. Kilmer will be happy—the stuff is moving, ain't it, and the company breaking better than even? Why should you and I lean over backward and let them skim the cream. That's for us—me, and maybe you."

"But—"

"I figured we might need protection," Cassidy croaked on, "what with the chiselers here and in case Kilmer tries to get tough again. So I had a talk with the emperor and everything's fixed. You think patents are a good thing, don't you? Well, now we've got 'em. A pal of mine named Flavius has been made Quaestor of Patents. I took up our sample line and filed on 'em. That, and a little grease to Flav did the trick. From now on I've got the sole and exclusive right to use or sell any of the things we bring in, see? I'm your customer, see?"

Barry saw. He saw what Cassidy wanted him to see. He saw more than that. He saw red. But he kept his mouth shut. His opportunity had not come; it was not even in sight. So he carried on.

His next lesson in metropolitan politics came when the rickshas were delivered. Cassidy had a double strangle hold on those, for he not only controlled their sale as patentee, but their use. Barry had completely overlooked an old Roman ordinance dating from Julius Caesar's time forbidding the use of the streets by any wheeled vehicle between the hours of dawn and dusk. Cassidy swore that he was helpless to get the edict repealed, but he did succeed in having it modified. As amended the ukase read: "Wheeled litters may be operated by approved persons." The only approved "person" turned out to be the Capitol Rapid Transit Co., whose ownership Barry had no trouble guessing.

He struggled on. He established a big department store just off the Via Sacra and stocked it well. He put in a line of kerosene lamps with glass chimneys and braided cotton wicks, and sold the oil to keep them lit. They were instantly popular, replacing as they did the smelly and nonluminous olive-oil burners theretofore used. He introduced sugar which was at once bought in vast quantities by the vintners to improve their heavier wines. No longer were the ancients restricted to the choice between vinegary clarets or the sickish honey-sweetened variety. Hardware, comprising all manner of tools, swords and daggers, iron pipe, nails and so on, went well. Cosmetics, especially perfumes, found an insatiable demand. Romans had always used the latter without stint, but since its base was olive oil and not alcohol, it left them greasy and all too often with an overriding rancid odor. In exchange for those importations Barry sent back home shiploads of marble statuary, Greek pottery, and many casks of the better wines and olive oils.

Cassidy kept his hands off the department store, but for a price. Barry had to set him up in one more monopoly— the press. Job presses, type, ink, paper and other accessories were brought down and the Daily Stentor was duly launched upon an insatiable Roman reading public. Cassidy erected billboards and soon the streets of the great city were gay with lurid lithographs announcing the coming gladiatorial contests or races at the circus. Barry watched the growth of the printing business with some disgust, then turned back to his job of building up Anachron's business.

He established a chain of soda fountains, imported cigarettes, bananas, chocolate, tomatoes, and many other novelties. Then he undertook to try his hand at tempering the brutality of the Romans. He was not forgetful of the company motto— "Merchants, not Missionaries"— but he had to live in Rome, and the all too frequent sound of cheering welling up from the stands about the blood pit of the Coliseum offended every fiber of his being. Barry was not a tender-minded man. He had participated in plenty of carnage, but that had been in time of war and had at least the merit of necessity. Not so the senseless butchery that was committed under the name of "games." The feeding of huddled groups of meek martyrs to ravenous beasts, or the fiendish hacking away of one another's limbs by gladiators for no other purpose than to amuse a sadistic and jaded mob was to Barry's mind a crime against nature. So, he thought, the next step is to begin the education of these people. They can learn that games of strength and skill do not necessarily have to be played in a wallow of gore.

"Why not?" remarked Cassidy, carelessly, when Barry broached the matter of introducing football. "It's a good, rough game. The customers ought to lap it up. I'll speak to Quint about it. He has a string of reconditioned gladiators I sold him, and no doubt he'll make 'em into a team and back 'em against somebody else's."

It was soon arranged. Barry sent a hurry call to home for balls and uniforms and then spent his spare time for several weeks in coaching the new teams. One day the Master of Games was there, and after watching the drills and scrimmages for a while, expressed great satisfaction with the new idea.

"We've got it," he assured Barry. "Just leave the rest to us."

In the period that intervened before the premiere of the novel game Barry swelled with justifiable pride whenever he saw the announcements of it on Cassidy's many billboards. He even swallowed his feelings when he received the imperial command to be present as the guest of honor. That meant sitting in the imperial box beside the infamous Commodus, which also meant that he would have to go early and see the whole show. It was the preliminary massacres he dreaded to witness, for he had no stomach for pointless slaughter designed only to whip the crowd to the proper level of frenzy for the introduction of the main event. But he decided to make the personal sacrifice of enduring them for the sake of the ultimate greater gain.

The preliminaries were a greater ordeal than he had bargained for, and he found his revulsion for things Roman climbing to new peaks. His disgust now included the women as well, for they appeared to be even more savagely bloodthirsty than the men. The representatives of their sex he loathed most were the so-called Vestal virgins. He wondered whether their thumbs were so jointed that they could only be turned downward. But the most odious feature of the early games was furnished by Barry's own host— the vain and boastful Commodus. From time to time he rose in his box to display his consummate skill as an archer. His arrow infallibly found the throat or heart of whatever wild beast or luckless gladiator he picked as a target. It was admirable shooting and the unfortunates were doomed to die in any event, but it was the whimsical way in which the emperor chose his victims that irked Barry most. Of all the guests in the box he alone refrained from murmuring the expected phrases of fulsome praise, a circumstance that did not go unnoticed by Commodus. But the emperor chose to restrain himself. A haughty but vindictive look was all he visited on Barry then, but Barry knew that from that moment he had a mortal enemy.

By the time the arena had been cleared of the corpses of the last of the earlier entertainers. Barry was already sick with suppressed rage and impotent pity. He could only grit his teeth and clench his hands to await the verdict of the crowd upon his own humane innovation. Trumpeters and heralds came in. The announcements were made, and Barry noted with some satisfaction that he was named as the introducer of the new "thrilling, stupendous, astounding spectacle brought from the far isles of Hesperides." Then he sat back a little more at ease. A build-up like that would help his game go over.

The gates were flung open, and the teams marched in. Barry sat up abruptly as if jabbed suddenly with a bayonet. He gasped. He stared and stared and gasped again. Had it not been for the announcement and the Master of Games marching in the lead carrying a single gilded football in his arms, Barry would never have guessed that the game he was about to see had any relation to football. He watched with horrified eyes as the sides were taken and the line-up made. There was no kickoff; the ball was simply awarded by the umpire after the quarterbacks tossed the dice. The only other football-ish feature was the goals— gilded baskets at opposite sides of the arena.

The teams consisted of about a hundred men on the side. Each fell in in two ranks, the first crouching, the second standing behind with naked swords in their hands. All wore heavy body armor, spiked steel helmets, gaffs at their heels, and daggers at their belts. A small cloud of retiarii— lithe and agile gladiators armed with nets and tridents— covered each end, evidently for the purpose of discouraging end runs. But it was the back formation that afforded the big thrill. Each quarterback— and judging from the delighted howls from the stands they must have been popular champions—rode a mighty war chariot whose wheels were fitted with murderous revolving scythes. The other backs, of whom there were about a dozen to the side, rode horses. They carried lances and battleaxes hung at their saddlebows.

There was a fanfare of trumpets, then a single prolonged bray. As its hoarse note died, the teams plunged into the fray. The quarterback with the ball—which he carried in a net slung over his shoulders—attempted an end run, the cavalry of his backfield preceding and flanking him by way of interference. Barry's hands gripped the stone rim of the box as he watched the horror of the scrimmage that followed. His senses reeled... the crash of impact as the two lines met head-on... the dozens of individual duels ... the raging juggernaut plunging around the left end... the futile efforts of the linemen to break through the fringe of horsemen to complete their tackle by disemboweling a chariot horse. There followed the countercharge of the defending chariot... the hideous melee that followed when the two war buggies met head-on only to capsize into a welter of spinning wheels, kicking and screaming horses, slashing, stabbing and gouging men. Many died before the armored referees fought their way into the midst and declared the ball at rest. Barry hardly heard the next braying of the trumpet, or the clarion voice of the umpire calling out, "First down, forty paces made good. Time out for replacements."

Barry shuddered and closed his eyes. He already knew the routine of the scavenger squads with their mules and flesh hooks. He did not want to see any more. All he knew was that he had failed and failed miserably. The wild howling that rent the stands was proof of that. Rome was at its pinnacle of delight. They had just witnessed the opening gambit in what undoubtedly would prove the fiercest and goriest form of entertainment any had seen. They yelled and stamped and called for "Marcus Barrius, the great Atlantian gamester!" Commodus rose, acknowledged the applause— which he naturally took for himself, since he was the patron of the game— and then, as a sop to the cheering multitude, took the chaplet from his own curled locks and jammed it on Barry's head.

Barry stood stunned for a moment, paralyzed with the shame and horror of his situation. His and Commodus' eyes locked and there was in their mutual gaze all the venom of the basilisk, generated on the one part by sheer natural cruelty, on the other by outraged honor. Barry raised his hand very deliberately, snatched the accursed wreath from his head and stamped on it. He contemptuously turned his back on the emperor and stalked past the trembling other guests and out of the box. He expected to be seized at any moment, but no order was given to stop him. Just as he was almost clear of the place Commodus' voice drifted to him above the pandemonium that filled the tiered benches. It was shrill and taunting.

"We shall meet again, my dear, dear friend, in this very place. And soon!" And the voice died away in peals of merry, sardonic laughter.

Barry was in a dark and bitter mood. He had walked the empty streets unmolested, but after he reached his apartment he paced the floor for hours in agitated thought. The jig was up; that was clear. Now what to do? For now that he had publicly insulted Commodus his life was not worth a plugged nickel if he stayed in Rome. Barry knew that he had not only incurred the undying imperial enmity, but the scorn of the populace by showing his disgust at the shambles of the arena. Moreover Cassidy was aligned against him. The rupture with Commodus was not the only one of the day; earlier Barry and Cassidy had quarreled. Their break had come less than an hour before the game.

It was about an effort Barry made to ameliorate the ravages of the bubonic plague that was terrorizing the poorer districts of the city. It had raged spasmodically ever since being brought back from Asia by returning soldiers several years before, and the Romans in their ignorance were doing nothing whatever about it.

"It would help," suggested Barry, since Cassidy's co-operation was essential in view of his being the Pontifex Maximus of his system of synthetic Atlantian gods, "if you would dedicate one of your temples to your god of healing... Aesculapius, wasn't it?... and pass the word on to the people that he craves live rats as sacrificial offerings. Twenty rats a head would do it, I think, and you could promise them relief from the disease. The temple would have cages, and an oil-burning incinerator—"

"Are you crazy?" asked Cassidy. "What's the big idea? There's no market for rat carcasses that I know of. Why should I put aside a good piece of real estate, pay priests salaries and all of that to collect rats? I don't get it."

"We stop the plague," explained Barry patiently. "It's very simple. Bubonic plague is a rat's disease. Rats have fleas. When a sick rat dies his fleas have to hunt another home. If they can't find another rat, a human will do. Then the human gets sick and dies. If you kill the rats with the fleas still on 'em—zippo, no more plague."

Cassidy shook his head.

"Not practical. You've got something there, but you don't know how to handle it. When you put out good money you expect to get something back. Now here's the way we'll set the thing up—"

Barry listened in disgusted amazement as his piggish contemporary outlined the scheme. Barry was to order a stock of disinfectants. Cassidy would organize an exterminating company and put on an educational campaign on his billboards and in the paper. After that everything would be set. For a substantial fee the new company would clear a house of rats. That way it would pay.

"See?"

"No. I don't see." Barry did not bother to conceal his loathing. The heaviest toll taken by the plague was from the poorer districts, in the slums that nestled in the valleys between the hills, in the foul insulae where poor freedmen boarded. Not one there could raise the fee and it was rank nonsense to expect the grasping landlords to pay. Cassidy's plan might make him a little money, but could have no discernible effect on the plague. All Barry's pent-up hatred of the man boiled over, and for five minutes he told him what he thought of him. He pulled no punches and the blunt language he used was appropriate to his opinions. Barry had fought on five continents and the seven seas and he knew how to express himself.

"That washes you up," said Cassidy in cold fury toward the end. "No man can talk like that to Pat Cassidy and get away with it," and flung himself from the room.

Yes. Barry had good reason for the feeling that his days in Rome were numbered. He was up against a combination of ruthless power and unscrupulous wealth headed by two men he knew were out to get him. His choice was narrow. He could stay and take it, or he could cut and run. An SOS to Kilmer would bring the little shuttle for his getaway, but that was a course that Barry firmly rejected. He did not see how he could win in the coming fight, but he didn't like a quitter. He wouldn't go running to Kilmer admitting failure and with his work undone, for Kilmer had instructed him to unseat Cassidy and ship him home. Instead of that, he bad only intrenched the man more firmly than ever. Barry set his jaw. It was to be a hopeless fight, but he would not run from it.

Five minutes later he was in the editorial rooms of the Daily Stentor and at his crisp orders quailing subeditors scurried about killing the issue they were just about to put to bed. None dared oppose him, for they were slaves and thought him to be acting for their master. They knew the slightest disobedience might bring them under the lash.

"Scare head," ordered Barry. "Now take this."

For an hour he dictated. The trembling scribes gasped as they took down the treasonable and blasphemous words. They were between the devil and deep blue sea; the whipping post on the one hand, the chance of crucifixion on the other. For Barry had decided to go the whole hog.

He lit into Cassidy first, revealing the workings of his many rackets. He showed how any Roman could rid himself of malaria at the cost of a few small silver coins if afeverin were only on general sale. He told how the Hermetic telegraph system worked, of its exorbitant charges and the misuse made of the messages intrusted to it. He pointed out the iniquity of the fire protection racket and its excessive cost. He recited his vain efforts to have something done about the plague. Then he dealt with some of the minor rackets.

Cassidy had taught several of his slaves something of plastic surgery with the result that they carried on a shady side line. Freedmen or escaped slaves who had been branded on the forehead with the symbol for thief could go to Cassidy's and have the skins of their faces renewed with unblemished foreheads. He mentioned, too, the abuse of the supplies of Mercurochrome. That had been ordered for surgical use for the army, but instead was used to paint the faces of the palace harlots. Barry was not sure what had become of the dental chairs and forceps, drills and the rest, but it had been hinted that they were used for special guests in one of Commodus' torture chambers.

That led him to Commodus and his connection with the Cassidy outfit. Barry painted him as the playboy he was, excoriated him for his conceit and cruelty. He went out of his way to ridicule his habit of descending to the floor of the arena and fighting in person as a gladiator. Barry knew that was a shot that would go home, for it was the scandal of Rome. The old aristocrats had shivered when Nero sang to public audiences; now they had an emperor-gladiator— many steps lower than a mere buffoon.

At length Barry came to the finish. He spent the rest of the night seeing that the paper went out in the form he wanted. At dawn he retired to his apartment for what rest he could get. He knew it would not be long before the soldiers would be coming for him.

It was a grizzled old centurion that made the arrest. He brought a file of twenty soldiers with him and dragged Barry protesting through the streets. The destination was the palace. On the way they passed the statue that Commodus had recently erected in honor of himself in which he was depicted as the reincarnation of the demigod Hercules. Barry glanced at it and his lip curled.

There was no trial. There was only a harangue from Commodus. The essence of it was this:

"You have chosen to ridicule me as a fighter. Very well. Five days hence we will meet in the arena and see who is the better fighter. Choose any arms you please so long as there is no metal about you."

That was all. Barry was led back to his apartment. Soldiers were all over the place and he was under close arrest, but within his own rooms he was not interfered with. He sent off a long dispatch to Kilmer, bringing him up to date on happenings, making it clear that he was having to fight in self-defense. The company's rules as to mixing it up with peoples of other ages were adamant. If by any chance he should win, he did not want to have another battle with the boss over how he came to duel with an emperor.

The day set for the conflict Barry was hustled off to the coliseum early in the morning. They put him in a dark and filthy cell along with a dozen others selected to fall beneath Commodus' sword. All were going in the role of retiarius, since the only feasible weapon they were allowed was the net. Nothing else could possibly avail against the emperor's heavy body armor and helmet. But there was little hope among them. Commodus was most dextrous at evading the net; none had ever snared him. Nor did anyone wish really to try. No one knew for certain what the penalty for winning would be, but neither was he anxious to find out.

Barry was dressed simply in cotton shorts and singlet. He wore no helmet, carried no net or other recognizable weapon. But in a little sling there were three glass balls. He had chosen those from among the sample items as being probably of the most real service. He had had them sent down for demonstration, but his other duties had prevented him getting around to them before. Now, he thought grimly, we'll show them off.

They could hear little while waiting in the dungeons below the grandstand, but Barry knew from what he did hear when the games got under way. Later the guards came and took out his cellmates a few at a time. Not one came back. Barry surmised that his adversary was warming up on a few easy victims. And no doubt he was saving Barry to the last. Barry had not been able to find out just what effect his published broadside had had, but whatever its effect it must certainly have made him a marked man. Probably half a million people fought for places to see the bout of the day— Commodus versus his Atlantian detractor.

Then Barry was out in the arena. Tumultuous shouting filled the air and the seats were alive with color and movement. Commodus stood in the very center of the arena, while many spots of bloody sand attested to the exercises he had already completed. He waved a reddened sword and shouted a derisive epithet. But he waited cagily to see what Barry would do. Barry did nothing for a minute or so, then advanced slowly toward his adversary. So far his hands were empty. Within ten paces of Commodus he stopped and waited. Then Commodus gathered himself for the charge, brandished his weapon, and launched forward.

Barry had not been the star pitcher of his Commando unit's team for nothing. So quick that the eye could hardly follow, he snapped one of the glass balls out of the sling and hurled it straight at Commodus. It struck him squarely on the visor of his helmet. There was a puff of whitish vapor, and then Commodus was on his knees, blubbering and praying. His sword dropped to the sand and the buckler rolled away. But the gladiator emperor knelt and wept. Like a big wind, a monumental gasp went up from the tiered spectators. Commodus had yielded without a stroke being delivered! He was begging for mercy!

Barry waited a discreet few seconds, then strode forward and picked up the fallen sword. The gas bomb he used contained a new modification of the old tear gas. It not only brought tears by the usual reaction, but engendered the emotions that normally accompanied tears. It dissipated rapidly in the open, but those who breathed it were under the effects for hours. Barry knew that Commodus would continue to grovel and snuffle for some time. He disregarded the whimpering figure at his feet and looked to the box for the verdict. To his astonishment it was thumbs down! A great hush had fallen on the multitude, for the brown-clad mob in the upper seats were awed by the unprecedented disaster. But the knights and nobles in the boxes, not forgetting the pious Vestals, were clamoring for the victim's blood.

Something clicked within Barry. He had been calm until then; now he knew fury. What a people, to expect him to stab a man to death in cold blood! He stared up at their relentless faces. Each probably had his own excellent reason for wishing Commodus' death, but Barry did not intend to be the one to gratify them. On the contrary, he estimated the range carefully, then hurled his remaining two bombs— one into the imperial box, the other high up in the stands. He waited silently for their effect.

It was stupendous. In another instant the aristocrats were shedding tears, beseeching mercy upon themselves, Commodus, anybody and everybody that might be in need of it. The frigid Vestals melted. For once their thumbs went up as the salty water rolled down their cheeks. Even the soulless Cassidy, who had come to witness his assistant's murder, blubbered some. But it was in the stands where the unexpected happened. All hell broke loose. They went crazy. No Roman had ever seen compassion; no Roman could understand it. Yet there were among them some of the city's outstanding fight fans— men who loved their gore and knew good slaughter when they saw it— and these hard-boiled eggs were sniffling like whipped children, calling: "Don't hurt him, oh, don't hurt him, please, honorable Barrius." The inevitable succeeded. Riots broke out in every section. In two minutes a free-for-all was raging all over.

Barry cast one contemptuous look about, hurled the sword from him, and stalked disgustedly out of the arena. Two guards pounced on him at the gate and led him away to a cell, but he did not care overly. He had shot his wad and there was no more to do. But he was curious as to the outcome. He only hoped that he would learn about it before they finished him off, and also added the hope that the process of being finished off would not be too messy or take too long.

He knew the worst when they led him into the torture chamber. Most of the stuff hanging about were the same old chestnuts men have used for ages— whips, brands, pincers and the like, but the instrument of which they were most proud Barry recognized at once. It was a gleaming dental chair, and a grinning executioner was fitting a drill to its socket. A helper stood by to pedal the gadget. Rows of wicked-looking shiny forceps, hooks and crooked wires hung nearby.

"This won't hurt," soothed the fiend, as the attendants strapped Barry into the chair. "Not like knocking 'em out. It just takes longer."

Somebody stuck a wedge into Barry's mouth and the executioner closed up with his drill a-whirring. There was an interruption. The door burst open and a high official entered. It was a tribune of the Praetorian Guard.

"Hold everything," he said. "They want to examine this man before the senate. The honorable Patricius Cassidus says that he used an Atlantian gas and they want to know more about it. Make ready to take him there at once, and see that he has some of the magic gas with him."

Barry relaxed. Anything was welcome after what he had steeled himself for. But gas? There wasn't any more, and it would take him days to get some. At that, he couldn't see how it would help his cause to reduce the august senate to a state of weepy soddenness. Then his eye lit on a contraption in the corner. It was a little buggylike affair carrying a steel flask of oxygen and another of nitrous oxide. From the reading of the gauges it was clear that they had never been used, probably from ignorance. But as part of Anachron's dental equipment, there they were.

"This is more of the gas I used," said Barry, indicating the nitrous oxide container. "Have that brought along."

The session in the senate did not last a great while. Before he reached the hall Barry learned that in the pandemonium raging after he left the arena, a wrestler named Narcissus, who had some grievance against Commodus, had obeyed that section of the mob who were demanding that he be put to death. Narcissus at once performed the job by throttling him in his best professional manner. In consequence, by the time Barry was conducted into the chamber, the senators had other and more important things on their minds. They were whispering among themselves as to how they would line up behind this or that candidate for the emperorship. Cassidy was of course one of the outstanding candidates. It was of him and other contenders that they were thinking when Barry's guard brought him in. But they snapped out of their huddles when Barry was arraigned before the house.

"You are charged with using a noxious gas to defeat our emperor," said the president sternly. "We demand to know what that gas is."

"Here it is," said Barry blandly, cracking a valve. There was a hissing, and he leaned over and sniffed. He straightened up, smiling happily. "A lovely gas, really. What I took to the coliseum must have gone sour with the heat."

"Let me smell that," demanded Cassidy, stepping forward. Now Cassidy, while a versatile fellow, did not know the conventional marking for gas carboys, so he could not know until he took a whiff what sort of gas it was. Even then he didn't recognize it. But he did like it. It gave him a lift. He took another drag. Then he began to laugh and dance a little.

"Suwell, deelightful," he babbled, "have a sniff on me, fellows."

Curious senators crowded up, a wee bit doubtful, but wanting to know. But as each drew nearer, his doubt melted. He beamed, he giggled or burst into ribald song. Others capered, embracing anyone who came near. In a very few minutes it was a gay and happy party. All were drunk as lords. Cuckoo. Absolutely. And not the least of them was Barry. Indeed, in a moment the gas got the best of him and for a little while he passed out.

When he came to he found himself the center of a rollicking back-slapping crowd. He seemed to be popular. They liked him. But they were saying strange things to him. Were they kidding? For in their hilarious mood it was hard to judge. Yet he gathered that in their elation generated by the laughing gas they had dismissed any complaint against him. They had gone further. They had elected him to the vacant office of emperor.

"Ave, Caesar," they shouted, stamping up and down, "Hail, Barrius, Imperator Romanorum! Whee! Yippee!"

Barry was still a bit woozy himself, so he did not fully grasp what had been done to him. Then it began to dawn on him. He backed away from his enthusiastic admirers with growing concern on his face. Oh golly, golly, golly. He had played hell now! Rule G-45607! "Whoever accepts any public office... et cetera, et cetera... will be cut off." Ow!

"Barrius, Imperator, huh?" groaned Barry. "That sinks me."

_______________

3:  When is When?

Astounding Science Fiction, August 1943

IT was a fine balmy morning in May, when spring is in the air and the promise of early summer. It was the kind of day when a fellow felt like banging his desk shut and going fishing. It was the kind of day— well, it was a swell day. And Barry felt swell, too. He could hardly keep from bursting into joyous whistling despite the company's ironclad rule, as he strode happy and carefree down one of the Anachron Building's endless corridors. For only a moment ago the ponderous doors of the room where the solemn Discipline Court sat had opened to let him out— not only acquitted, but completely exonerated of having broken Rule G-45607. It was great!

Not that it had been easy. The members of the board had been tough at first and bawled him out more than once for what they termed quibbling and hairsplitting. It did him no good to insist that the job of being Emperor of Rome was wished on him and that strictly speaking he had never "accepted" the post at all. What got him off— technically, that is— was a bit of slippery sophistry concerning the meaning of the word "public" as used in the original rule. One standard definition of the word meant pertaining to the communal good, or its improvement. Barry contended that since intertemporal commerce benefited all concerned, any employee was, therefore, a holder of public office in the era where he operated, from which it followed that all of them were constantly violating the rule. On the other hand if "public office" was to be taken in the narrower sense of being a post in national government, Barry had provided himself with an out on that. His first official act on realizing he had been made emperor was also to assume the role of Pontifex Maximus, whereupon he promptly deified himself. Then, being a living god with appropriate powers, he abolished the empire and set up a theocracy with himself as head, and made it all retroactive.

"So, gentlemen," declared Barry stoutly, "I was never emperor at all. I took the title of Jupiter Atlanticus, and everybody knows there is nothing political about that."

The judges frowned, and went into a huddle. But Barry didn't worry. He was sitting pretty and he knew it. It was just like the old army days. Company rules, like the army regulations, covered every conceivable thing in the minutest detail. If a fellow learned them all and took care never to break a one— well, he never got in trouble, but likewise he never got far. Smash a rule and one of two things invariably happens. You either get kicked out, or somebody pins a medal on you. It all depends on the outcome. So Barry smiled and waited. He had done all the undoable things they had told him to do— broken up Cassidy's rackets, sent Cassidy home in disgrace, and, best of all, had made scads of money for the company. Now he had given them the formula for the whitewash. Let them mix it up and spread it on.

Thus it was that a few minutes later he was on his way to his boss' office, dazzling with synthetic purity. He wanted to be the first to tell Kilmer the good news, for if Kilmer was having his usual run of headaches he would be needing good news by this time of day. Probably Kilmer had had something to do with his prompt acquittal, but Barry did not intend to be overgrateful on that score, for Kilmer was prone enough to hand out impossible jobs already. So with that in mind he came to the sales manager's door.

When he barged into the latter's office he found things quite in accord with the Kilmer tradition. A red-faced and sputtering fieldman was on the carpet, trying vainly to explain away a failure. Kilmer was taking it characteristically, pacing the floor like a caged thing, tearing at his hair and swearing steadily in a lugubrious monotone. But the fieldman was standing his ground.

"All right, Mr. Kilmer," he said doggedly, "believe it or not, but I'm telling it to you straight. If you don't think so, hop into one of your gilded executive shuttles and take a run down for a look-see yourself. Maybe those dopes in Shuttle Service sent me to the wrong date, though they swear they didn't.

And then again, maybe the histories are wrong—"

"Don't be a jackass, Dilworth," snapped Kilmer. "How can the histories be wrong? Certainly not about something that happened in my own lifetime. Why, I was in Siberia at the time, with the American Expeditionary Force, and I know. Why—"

"O.K., O.K.," said Dilworth, sullenly. "So you were there. So was I. In Moscow. Not two hours ago. Maybe there was such a person as Lenin and the Bolsheviks you talk about back in 1918. But when I got there they hadn't got the news. The church bells were all ringing and Cossacks were clearing the streets of the rabble. There were processions of priests. It was about the Czarevitch's birthday, or something—"

"You are driving me crazy," yelled Kilmer, biting his cigar in two. "The Czar and the Czarevitch and all the other Czarewhatnots were dead when you got there. The priesthood was abolished, and there weren't any more Cossacks. Oh, get out, before I lose my temper."

"Yes, sir," said the fieldman grumpily, and turned to go. Barry saw that he was dressed the part— in dirty gray blouse over baggy trousers tucked into Russian boots— and appropriately seedy looking as befitted a Comrade of the Proletariat.

"I," Kilmer announced mournfully, "am going nuts. Your Roman affair was headache enough, but it can't touch this business of disappearances and mix-ups."

"What disappearances and mix-ups?" asked Barry, innocently. "I haven't been here, you know. I've been busy needling the spirit of progress into the decadent Roman Empire."

"So you have," said Kilmer absently. He glared for a moment at his piled-up desk, and then dug around until he found a basket tagged with a huge question mark. He pulled out some memoranda.

"You are a fellow with dizzy ideas," Kilmer began, "but they do seem to work. Maybe you can help me. A couple of months ago the Policy Board made an important reversal of policy. You may remember that heretofore, Ethics kept us from doing intertemporal commerce with warring nations whenever they thought the cause of one or the other was unjust and their winning might work out badly. They loosened that rule a bit. They said we might sell to them provided we sold to both sides at the same time. That is, it was O. K. to let Napoleon have machine guns so long as we also gave Wellington a crack at them. See?"

Barry nodded.

"Our first two approved projects were the French and Indian Wars in this country, back in colonial days, and the row between the English and the Spaniards around the time of the Armada. So we fitted out four expeditions. One was to have gone to Philadelphia and contacted Ben Franklin in order to outfit the Braddock army. One went to Quebec to deal with General Montcalm. Then we sent one to Elizabethan England to dicker with Queen Bess and Francis Drake. The fourth we sent to Spain to sell 'em ships and guns for the Armada. Well, two of them got there. The other two vanished somewhere along the line. They just aren't any more."

"Overshot the mark, perhaps," suggested Barry. He had often wondered where a wild time shuttle might end up if something went wrong with the brakes. "Maybe they have been eaten by dinosaurs."

Kilmer shook his head.

"Impossible with the new shuttle system. It used to be that now and then somebody would abscond and skip out to the past with the dough and one of our shuttles, and there was a case or so of highjacking. We changed the shuttle operating mechanism to forestall that. Nowadays the operator in the car has nothing to do with its control. The starter punches the exact date and hour required, together with the geographical co-ordinates. Then he computes the amount of power needed to push the car to that definite point. When the car reaches its destination and is ready to return, the operator signals for the back pull. Then the starter gives him more energy, but in reverse. A shuttle can't get lost."

"That is funny," agreed Barry. "It couldn't be because they ran smack into the middle of a battle or a massacre. It would only take a second to snap back out of it. And even if one had been caught it would hardly account for two being lost simultaneously in altogether different spots and eras."

"Two!" exclaimed Kilmer. "We have lost more than two. There was one sent to Greece in '23 of this century, and another to Bavaria around 1700. They haven't been heard of again, either, nor the one we sent to dicker with Sun Yat Sen in China when he pulled off his revolution. There hasn't been but one come back— that fellow who just left here. We sent him to swap machinery to start the Soviet Five-year Plan for the Imperial crown jewels and other loot of the Russian upset. He got back all right, but he says there never was a Russian revolution. The thing has me down. I'm commencing to think the Anachron idea is not so hot after all."

"Hm-m-m," murmured Barry, drawing a pad and pencil to him. "Let us have those dates again. There may be a connection. Satistical analysis does wonders sometime."

"Not in this case," growled Kilmer, but he gave the information. Barry tabulated the data. When he finished, it looked like this:

"Not much correlation there," observed Barry, frowning at the figures. "How far apart were the first two?"

"On the same day," said Kilmer, "both here and there. They were to have reached down under on October 12th. Here are the exact dates of all the rest. The ones to colonial America were to arrive at the same time also—  September 5th. You can't hang it on the destination, either. We sent relief expeditions later. Some came back all right, but with a negative report."

"It's damn queer, I'll admit," agreed Barry. "Suppose I hang onto these for a day or so? I might be able to dope something out."

"Sure," said the gloomy Kilmer. "By the way, it was your old sidekick Maverick who was in charge of the Spanish show. He is nobody's fool."

"No," said Barry, thoughtfully, "and that makes it all the more interesting. I may take a run down to Spain of the Sixteenth Century and look around for him."

"I wouldn't advise it," said Kilmer glumly. "You might fall into the same time hole. All of our relief expeditions didn't come back. Several vanished in the same manner as the originals."

"That makes it tougher," reutarked Barry, and rose to take his leave.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon in research. The mathematicians tried all sorts of tricks with his dates, but could find no common denominator. Up in Philosophy the sages couldn't be bothered. It was out of their sphere. The shuttle people almost wept at hearing Barry's questions. It wasn't their fault, they insisted, if adventurous time salesmen got themselves killed by medieval bandits or wild Indians. What were a few isolated disappearances against thousands of successfully accomplished round trips?

It was in History that Barry got his first clue, but it by no means clarified the mystery. At the same time it did give him a hunch, and he followed through. Then he spent a few hours reviewing the bulky set of regulations under which he had to work. After that, he made another call on Kilmer.

"Say, boss," he began, "I have an idea who did this to us. He has been dead a good many hundred years now, but in his day there weren't any bigger shots. If I can get around Rule A-800 and—"

Kilmer groaned.

"Those damned rules." he muttered miserably. "Don't you go busting any more rules. We've got away with murder twice. The next time it'll cost us both our jobs. Besides, A-800 is the worst of all— that's the one about not bucking kings and emperors and other potentates, isn't it?"

"Yeh. Only I won't try to do it openly. I can't get at the guy direct because he maintains a private army. I can't bribe him, either. But if I can get him to retract his edict—"

"Now you've gone nutty," pronounced Kilmer. "If there's one thing that Anachron is sure of, it is that nothing that is changed in the past can affect us in our own time line. It can only affect the offshoot lines generated by the change. The philosophers swear by that; it is the foundation of our business. Our charter hangs on it."

"I know," said Barry. "But have the philosophers told us everything? We deal with the branch time lines— I just came in off of one of them. Now let's suppose our missing friends are hung up in a blind alley along our time line and I get a dead big shot to undo something that he did long ago to ball them up. What it would amount to would be that I create a subsidiary time line along which we can affect the rescue. Do I make myself clear?"

"As clear as Mississippi floodwater," said the weary Kilmer. "Don't bother me with details or philosophy. If you've got a hunch, play it. Now what do you want?"

Barry told him.

"A ten million trade-dollar line of credit— on which I hope to show a profit— and no questions asked."

Kilmer drew a pad to him and began to scribble. He did it with the same show of joy that he might have if he had been making out his own death warrant.

"I might as well be washed up as the way I am," he sighed, and handed the ticket across to Barry.

"Thanks, boss. I'll be seeing you."

COLUMBUS cleared Cadiz in the summer of 1492 with three dinky little tubs. Less than ninety years later— Spanish time— El Almirante Teodoro Barrios del San Francisco and Duque del California del Norte— so Ted Barry styled himself— let go the hook of his magnificent flagship the San Ysidro. He strutted his tiny quarterdeck atop the lofty poop and surveyed the crowds on the mole through a Mark VIII Anachron long glass. He could see the fisherfolk gaping, and the astounded stares of scarred seadogs who had doubtless also sailed the Spanish Main. The arrival of the three ships had created quite a stir.

The afternoon wore drowsily on while fisher craft circled the little fleet curiously. Never had been seen such stately vessels, or ones of such fine lines and rig. But the admiral and his shipping master, Parker, held their peace, waiting for what they knew must inevitably come. And then, late in the afternoon, but still with remarkable alacrity for Spaniards, they saw the gaudy boat put out from shore. It flaunted the red and gold banner of Castile Aragon.

"I am Don Pablo de Xerife," said the boarding officer, as he mounted to the poop, "harbormaster for my lord the Duke of Medina-Sidonia. He wishes to know whence came these vessels and what the meaning of the strange standard they fly."

"That's a break," replied Admiral Barrios. "I was hoping to meet that bird."

"Una cosa rota?" echoed the bewildered harbormaster. "Que es?— What broke? What bird?"

"Oh, skip it," said Barry, "I forgot I was not still in India del Poniente. The idiom there is passing strange to unaccustomed ears. Tell your master that the flag is that of the great Indian nation Anachronia that lieth to the northwestward of the king's domain of California. I have come to tell him of the marvels of that rich land and of the cunning skill of the wild men who inhabit it. It was they who contrived the miracle guns you see here, and the wondrous sailing gear. I would that he would take me to His Highness so that I may lay these treasures at his feet."

Don Pablo bowed low, but his eyes were bugging. He had never seen a modern streamlined sailing ship before with tubular steel masts and running gear that was rove through neat galvanized iron blocks. Nor so much clear deck space despite the many guns along the bulwarks. They were different guns, too, from the clumsy brass carronades of the galleons. These were bright and shiny and of the color of good Toledo steel.

"I understand that our lordship," Barry went on, "is contemplating the destruction of perfidious England. If not, he had better have had, for only this year the pirate Drake stuck his nose into my harbor of San Francisco. Soon he will be back with more ships and men to take Anachronia from the infidel savages before ere we can. Can you persuade his lordship to come aboard tomorrow so that I can show what manner of ships we build in Poniente ?"

"Surely, yes," said Señor Xerife.

He went away after an hour, fortified by several shrewdly chosen drinks, and carrying a small gold nugget which the admiral assured him were common enough in the northern part of California to be used as paving stones. In addition he carried a Colt revolver and a single box of ammunition. Barry wanted to make very certain of his first impression on the bloodthirsty duke. For Medina-Sidonia was the most powerful of all the courtiers in the train of Philip the Second of Spain. And Philip himself was the fair-haired boy with a certain—

But that could wait, Barry declared, and he went into consultation with Parker as to the details of the morrow. That night they further amazed the local inhabitants of the port by putting on a searchlight display, using the acetylene model that had worked well in old France. It had its effect, for the duke and retinue climbed aboard almost with the sun.

The getting underway went smoothly. Sidonia watched the fishing of the anchor with a practiced seaman's eye and marveled at the smoothness of the Anachron capstan. He marveled more as the sails went up without visible effort and the ship stood out to sea.

"Where can I find a good target?" asked Barry. "I want to demonstrate the guns."

"Along the Moorish shore there are many— far too many," said Sidonia, with a black scowl. "The accursed non-believers are as numerous as fleas, and as fleet. The foul pirates show their heels at the first close approach. It would be better to go to the west, where we may come upon an Englishman in a day or so."

"I can't spare the time," was Barry's mystifying reply. "I'll take the first thing handy. What do you make of that low, rakish thing there to the south— the one with the leg o' mutton sail and rigged out with oars like a centipede?"

" 'Tis one of the accursed Saracens," said Sidonia, "but you waste time. He'll wait like a fox until you are right on him, and then he'll run as though the Evil One were on his tail— which he is. He will be too wily to let you get within gun shot."

"Yeah?" said Barry, and winked at Parker. Then he held up four fingers signifying that the sights were to be set for four thousand yards. Whereupon the helmsman put the rudder over and they began to close upon the corsair. Silently the Anachron- trained gun crews took their posts. Medina-Sidonia gaped again at seeing breechblocks open and the shot and powder fed in from the rear. Off the bow the corsair still dawdled in the distance, a good three miles away, confident that he could outrun the heavier ship if things came to that pass.

Barry lowered his glasses.

"Commence firing," he ordered.

A salvo rippled out. The row of guns reared back on their lashings. And then, before the first shots had even landed, the crews had yanked the breech-plugs open and were in the act of loading again.

"Valgame," gasped the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, crossing himself by instinct. At the incredible distance of two miles there had arisen a geyser of white water, and in it flew the fragments of the blasted galley. A second later there was only a thin pall of settling mist, a broken prow sticking up out of the water, and a couple of score of black dots on the water where the surviving Moors still swam.

"There is another galley off there to port," said Parker, pointing.

Barry was not keen to go in for more wholesale murder just to make a sale, but he remembered that Maverick's life and many others depended on the success of his mission. He also remembered that the Moors were unscrupulous pirates in their own right. So he nodded his head and let Parker bring the ship around. By night they had cleaned up five of the galleys—most of them on the first salvo. It was a deeply impressed duke that disembarked that night.

Two days later Barry found himself in the same ducal coach with Sidonia, jolting along the dusty roads of Spain toward Madrid. Armed postilions and outriders guarded them from ambuscade. All the long way the duke chattered about the great day when he would build an armada and conquer England. He had thought it would take eight or ten years to assemble such a fleet, but here was an adventurer from the New World assuring him it would take much less. That is, if only the king would finance the expedition.

Philip was not at Madrid, but beyond, supervising the building of his great new palace, the Escorial. It was there that Barry found him. The king, failing to recognize the alleged duchy of which Teodoro Barrios claimed to be overlord, glanced at him with scant respect. But that attitude altered when Medina-Sidonia spoke of the wonderful performance of the San Ysidro.

"Sire," he urged, "with fourscore such ships we can conquer the earth—the Low Countries and England, who give us much trouble, and Portugal and Mauretania as well. Above all, we must have this land of Anachron of which Don Teodor speaks."

"What of Anachron?" asked the king, leveling his fierce gaze on Barry. His eyes were those of a ruthless fanatic, blinded to all consequences of his terrible acts by the religious zeal that drove him. A hawknosed chief inquisitor looked on with glittering eyes.

"Far to the northwest of Hispania Nueva, on the shores of the Mar Pacifico, lies the land of Oregon, peopled by the tribe of Anachron." Barry had to think furiously, for it would be hard to explain to this king why Juan Cabrillo, who had recently discovered southern California had not gone on to complete the conquest. "It is a land of fog and darkness, and hard to come by sea and impossible by land on account of the mighty mountains. 'Twas but by chance that my ship came upon their chief port." These are not a copperish people as those of Mexico and the Antilles, but whitish, even as we."

"But infidels?" barked the inquisitor.

"Aye, a most ungodly people. Or rather, a people of many gods. There are many of them, tens upon tens of thousands, clever at handwork but greedy and grasping. They have a few good ships, but not many, since they are too fond of luxury to fight. We have only to hire them to build us a sufficient fleet to liquidate the English, and then we will be able to go for them. Sire, they will be a pushover."

Barry bit his lip in mortification for having let himself slip into the Anachronistic dialect, but it didn't matter. In translating his thought into Middle Castilian, he had perforce used the expression "roundheels" which seemed to convey a similar meaning at Philip's Court, for the king grinned briefly at the metaphor. Then he frowned.

"How much will such a fleet cost ?"

"A million pistoles, sire," said Barry calmly.

"Phew!" It came like the roar of freight locomotive opening its bottom blow. Nearby courtiers and synchophants paled and trembled. A few hastily made the sign of the cross. But the chief inquisitor was fondling the nugget which Medina-Sidonia had brought with him to the court. If these cluttered the landscape—

"Think of the million souls to save, sire," suggested he. "Perhaps his holiness—"

"Ah," breathed the king, "perhaps so. We have spent so much already in Brabant and Holland that only a little more sent after the bad may retrieve it all. Yet, why do these uncouth savages demand money? Is not their country bursting with gold?"

"They do not have use for gold," assured Barry, "but luxuries. Let your gold remain at home. Instead, buy with it paintings, wines, slabs of cork, casks of olive oil, finely wrought silver vessels and the other art products of Europe. These I will take back with me to give in exchange for the armada. In three years I will return with what I have bought. Then the world will be yours."

There was a long deep silence. At length the king broke it.

"I must have a writing," he said, "duly sealed and sworn."

"You shall have it, sire," said Barry.

Monks were sent scurrying to bring quills and parchment and inkwells. Then followed a period of scratchings as the promissory note was made out. It was a lengthy and impressive document, bristling with "whereases" and ending with "under our hands and seals." The date of its execution was filled in—that day, October 12, A.D., 1579. All that remained was the date of maturity.

"You'd better make it three years." said Barry casually. "It will take a year to make the voyage back by way of the Tierra del Fuego, another year to build and outfit the ships, and a final year here. Yes, three years to the day will do very nicely."

The date was filled in. Barry signed, and the cardinal came to sign as witness. To clinch the matter beyond any possible doubt, there followed a brief ceremony. The direst curses were invoked on either party should he deviate by the slightest iota from the text. It looked bad for Barry, for the palace treasurer was already standing by to deliver the order for the pistoles. Within a few minutes the king would have complied with his half of the contract except for the final collection of the funds advanced. Barry would have received his grubstake and the viceroyship of the new dominion. For his part, he must yet deliver the fleet as promised, return the advance, and then make good his conquest of Anachronia.

When it was all over, Barry pocketed his copy of the treaty and followed the royal party to the dining hall. He noticed that the king, the cardinal, and the chief inquisitor, not to mention the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, all looked highly pleased. He might have guessed that they were about to make a tidy profit on the million, since they themselves owned most of the commodities mentioned in Barry's request. Barry did not mind that. The thing was he had managed the loan and given his note. What mattered now was when and where they would discount that note. Surely, since the Jews had been expelled from Spain, there were few if any bankers able to take up so vast a sum. Yet on the whole Barry was as happy over the transaction as the mercenary bigwigs of the court. His first step had been taken. The next day in the lap of the gods. But history was so far on his side. Would history make a monkey of him, or would he make a monkey of history?

"Swallowed it hook, line and sinker," he told Parker, when he got back to Cadiz. "Now home, James."

The three ships bulged with priceless ecclesiastical paintings, a ton or more of the choicest handiwork of Benvenuto Cellini, and other items worth together much more than the millionpistoles owed for them. Barry could still buy the armada and deliver it and show a profit at the same time. Whether or not he completed the bargain would depend upon the results of his second trip. He meant to make that shortly. In the meantime, the ships weighed their anchors and put out to sea.

It was on one of the Azores that he had his secret base. The San Ysidro led the way into the quiet harbor. Barry did not wait for her to discharge her cargo, but ran at once to the station shuttle platform. Then he put through a call to Kilmer.

"Send me a special shuttle right away," he asked. "I'm coming up."

"Did you find Maverick?"

"Not yet. I'm in 1579. He's somewhere else. Step on it, won't you ?"

When he got topside he did not tell Kilmer more than the bare facts of what he had done. Why he had done it was still his own secret. If he succeeded, he could boast in due time; if not, the less said now the better. So he told his tale simply. His reward was a wan smile. Kilmer must have someone else in his hair again, Barry concluded, since he looked so sour.

"Glad you salvaged something out of the Spanish thing," said the boss, but with little enthusiasm. "Bugs Chilton played hell in England. He sold Queen Liz, all right. A hundred ships of the line. And now look!"

It was a cancellation order. The English, adhering to a policy that must have been initiated by the first Britons, had decided to wait for the actual coming of the armada before preparing. They would take only one ship of the lot for trial and proof.

"Ninety-nine ships, built and ready for delivery," moaned Kilmer, "and charged to me. And now I get a cancellation."

"Cheer up, boss," grinned Barry. "I'll take 'em. I need eighty for Philip, and it's a cinch that I can sell the other nineteen to Queen Bess when she finds out he has the eighty. I've already figured my price—a half a million doubloons."

Then Barry took a week off and spent it in the country loafing. He had time to burn. After which he returned to New York and reported in.

"I think I'll take that fleet on down and deliver it to Philip," he explained. "Tell the shuttle people to make the date midsummer of 1582. That is ahead of the time I am due to show up, but I may need a little leeway for more negotiations."

Kilmer did not argue with him, but made the arrangements. What Barry was up to he could not guess, especially since he had insisted on having full battle crews for the ships, but all his money was down on him and he couldn't back out now.

"Oh, by the way," said Barry on parting, "if Maverick and the other lads show up while I'm away and wonder what happened to them, just tell them to sit tight and I'll explain when I get back. S'long."

Then Barry was gone. Kilmer's jaw dropped as he gazed at the empty chair. Had Barry been pulling his leg all the while? For at the outset he had proposed to rescue the missing expeditions from wherever it was they were lost, yet he had not gone near any of the dates of their disappearance.

A week rolled by. There had been no further report from Barry, though the starter said that he and his fleet had gotten away from the Azores on time. Then another week went by, and a third. A month followed, and then almost another when things began to break. When they did, they broke with a vengeance.

All four telephones on Kilmer's desk began ringing at once. He took them two at a time and listened incredulously to the excited words of the shuttle starters. The missing expeditions were reporting in from all directions, wanting to know what had happened and what they should do next. There was the fellow in Bavaria, the one in China, the one with Benjamin Franklin, and the two expeditions that had gone looking for them. There was also the salesman sent to modern Greece. And last of all, Maverick.

"Come home and report," was all that Kilmer knew what to say.

Within a few hours they lined up before his desk, rather sheepish and tongue-tied. Each had the same tale to tell.

"We simply floated around in a gray-black sort of pea-soup fog," was the way Maverick put it. "We were like disembodied spirits, without sensation or bodies. The shuttles weren't there— our hands and feet were there— the controls weren't there. It seemed to last for ages. Then, bang, everything cleared up. We reported in at our destinations and were immediately recalled. What happened to us ?"

"Search me," said Kilmer helplessly.

"Barry knows, but Barry is off in the Middle Ages, selling the armada to King Philip of Spain."

"Why, the rat!" exclaimed Maverick. "That was my assignment!"

"You didn't sell it, did you?" asked Kilmer.

Then the door was opened and Barry walked in, grinning like the wrapping of a catful of canaries.

"Hiya, fellows," he hailed them. "How did you like nonexistence?"

"Huh?" It was a chorus.

"That is what I said. You birds went where there wasn't any time. You went to nonexistent dates. You fell into time holes. There are a lot of 'em."

"Quit kidding," someone said, "there isn't any such thing. Time is continuous. How could there be holes in it ? And if so, how did you pull us out?"

"By going back before the holes were dug and stopping the digger from digging."

Barry sat down and turned to Kilmer.

"Everything's jake, boss. I delivered my end to Philip, and then went on to London and sold Liz. She paid through the nose like a good girl and I got my pistoles back. And then some. It worried her plenty when I told her what Philip had. But it was dickering with him that took all the time."

"I showed up way ahead of time," Barry went on to explain. "Philip was tickled pink and was for taking possession of the fleet then and there. But I reminded him that the contract didn't call for delivery until October, and that there was the matter of the million pistoles to consider. I didn't have 'em. Not yet. He offered to waive the pistoles, which would have been that much velvet, but I still wouldn't let him have the fleet. Then he said he would take it. I said O.K, try. So that fell through. Then he wanted to know what I was trying to pull. And I cracks back with what was he trying to pull. He didn't understand it, so I told him."

"For Heaven's sake, Barry," cried out Kilmer, "quit beating around the bush and teasing us. Who was trying to put something over whom, and why?"

"Well, sir, I have a great respect for a triple-barreled curse, especially when it is laid on by a cardinal and a chief inquisitor. So had Philip. I was supposed to hand over the fleet on October 12, 1582, and he was required to accept it. Now, as it stood, we couldn't do that, so I suggested that he fix things up so that there would be a date like that. You see, that year was short a few days—"

"Barry!"

"Patience, friends. It would have been, rather, if I hadn't played my cards the way I did. The minute I saw that Philip was as much worried about the curse as I was, I tipped my mitt. From the very beginning, the pope was the man I was after, but I saw no easy way of getting at him. But Philip stood well with him and I picked him as my candidate to do the intervening. It was this way. While I was gone— on the twenty-fourth of February, 1582, to be exact— Gregory, with the advice and consent of a flock of cardinals, mathematicians and astronomers, had issued an edict changing the calendar. The day after October 4th was to be the fifteenth, dropping the missing ten dates into the nowhere. Knowing that was where Maverick was hung up, I had to get it changed. Since a consideration of that sort would not have moved the pope, I had to do it the way I did.

"History already had told me that Gregory XIII considered Philip II a pretty swell fellow. He had already financed him heavily in the wars to bring the Protestant Low Countries back into the fold. I figured he would put out some more to get England and Anachronia. I also knew that Philip was virtually bankrupt and did not have a million of his own. Philip could be counted on to rush a courier to the Vatican with my note and hock it there, counting on repaying it when I came across with my end. When he found out he would get no fleet and no million to repay the loan, Philip was in a terrible dither. He jumped at my suggestion that he use his influence with the pope to have the order annulled. That's what was done. Spain got her armada, the pope got his million back, Anachron made a profit, and you got loose."

"I told 'em that fixed-date system was wrong," muttered Kilmer. "They ought to use net time spans."

"Hey," spoke up the emissary to Philadelphia, "what about me? I wasn't stranded in 1582. I got lost in 1752. Yet Eddy, who started with me, got to Quebec all right. How does that fit?"

"Perfectly. The British didn't get around to adopting the change until September of that year, whereas the French made the change along with the other Catholic countries— as soon as it was effective. It wasn't the date only that counted, but where it was in force. That explains the others. China waited for the revolution to make the change. So did Russia—"

"Yes, what about Russia?" demanded Kilmer, sitting up and paying more attention. "That expedition didn't get lost. It just went haywire."

Barry grinned again.

"In Russia they split it. The Bolsheviks decreed the new calendar and skipped thirteen days, but the Orthodox Greek Church would have none of it. Dilworth hit there on one of the nonexistent dates as far as the Soviets went, but it was a perfectly good date from the orthodox point of view. And since the faithful deny the validity of the revolution and the overthrow of the Czar, he bumped into a purely visionary situation. Maybe if you ask the philosophers how—"

"Philosophers!" snorted Kilmer. "Let's all go down to the lounge and have a drink."

_______________________________

Bullard of the Space Patrol

4: Admiral's Inspection

Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1940

It was a new trick from ancient history— the Admiral's Inspection. But man, what an inspection that turned out to be!

"HOW ABOUT a snappy round of meteor ball before we eat?"

"You know me," grinned Kingman, the torpedo officer, from the cushions of the transom.

"Swell," said Fraser, gathering up the cards from his solitaire game. Fraser had charge of the auxiliaries and the mercury vapor boilers.

"How about you, Bullard?" Lieutenant Bullard was the latest comer to the Pollux. He had belonged to the mess too short a time for the others to learn much about him.

"Why, sure," said Bullard. He slid a marker into his book—"Hints on Ship-control, Star-class Cruisers"— and laid the volume carefully to one side. "Only I didn't know—" he hesitated, glancing in the direction of the executive officer seated in a wicker chair in a corner of the wardroom.

"In the Pollux, Bullard," spoke up the exec— Commander Beckley—"keeping fit is as important as anything else you do. If you're inclined to split hairs over the regulations, I'll ease your mind on that score. You are detailed to play. That makes it official."

Bullard reddened slightly at the implication he might be a sky lawyer, the bane of ships from time immemorial. But Commander Beckley was smiling pleasantly. He did not mean it that way; he was employing his own method of initiating his newest officer into the usage of the ship. It was true that officers were not supposed to leave a ship while under way, but notwithstanding the regulations, Beckley saw no good reason for making them forgo their daily exercise. The Pollux was swinging lazily in a wide orbit about the Jovian System, her electronic blasts cold and dark, patrolling for routine traffic-control purposes. Forbidding men to go over the side was as senseless a restriction as to prohibit swimming from an anchored ship.

"I think some exercise would do me good, too," yawned Chinnery, chief engineer, stretching languidly. "Count me in."

Chief Watch Officer Moore, who had proposed the game, frowned slightly. That upset the balance; five made unequal teams and there was no one else free. He turned toward the exec with a question on his lips, but Beckley had leaned over and was clicking the intership phone, calling Central Control.

"CC? Put the O.D. on. Carlson? A little game of meteor ball is starting. They need a sixth. You're it. Climb into your suit and report to Mr. Moore on the port boat deck. I'll take over for the duration."

The phone was slammed down with a click. The exec looked up. "You had a question, Moore?"

"Why, no, sir. That is, thank you, sir."

"Half an hour," smiled the exec as he rose to go to Central Control to relieve Carlson.

Bullard glowed inwardly. What a ship! No wonder she was regarded as the happiest home in the sky fleet. Clean, taut as a bowstring, yet friendly. From what he had seen, officers and crew were like one big family. The discipline was excellent— but invisible. One could almost term it voluntary. In the few days he had been aboard, Bullard already sensed the difference between the spirit exhibited on this snappy cruiser of the first line and that on the obsolescent reserve mine-layer he had just left, but it took this incident to make him understand why. It was the difference, in the personalities of those in control of the two ships.

He had no regrets now for leaving the old Asia, even if he had been chief engineer of her and here he was only a junior officer. As he recalled her meddlesome, old-womanish captain and the endless bickerings of the wardroom, he was aware he was glad to be well out of her. In contrast, the Pollux had Captain Mike Dongan, aloof and reserved, but capable and invariably pleasant; her exec, despite his air of geniality, held the ship to strict standards of performance; her wardroom officers, for all their pose of flippant indifference, were conscientious in the performance of their duties; her crew, in consequence, were fiercely loyal. All that together made for that prime essential of a "good" ship— esprit de corps— something a man could work for, fight for, die for. There was a new lilt in Bullard's stride as he hurried down the passage to shift into a lightweight spacesuit for the game.

HE MADE his way to the boat deck, and as he stepped out of the air lock onto the broad fin he was impressed by the size of the huge vessel. Its hull sloped upward and away from him, gray in the dim light of a dwindled sun, and he saw for the first time, the row of alcoves let into the ship's side that sheltered the boats. Those, he knew, were used for the reconnaissance of asteroids or areas too rugged to put the ship down on, or for minor searches, or for rescue expeditions. Star-class cruisers, being designed for all-planet service, were equipped with vertical and horizontal fins to stabilize them when easing into an atmosphere, and the horizontal ones made ideal landing decks for their boats.

Bullard saw that the other players were already gathered at the extreme edge of the fin and behind them two diminutive Ganymedian messboys were struggling with the squat sports-howitzer. As he made his way toward them they fired the first of the two low-velocity luciferin bombs, and in a moment, the two shells bloomed into pale green stars, several miles apart and several miles away— the goals for the game. By the time he had joined Fraser and Kingman on the right, the messboys were loading the mesothorium-coated ball into the howitzer. The game was ready to start.

At a signal from Moore, one of the Ganymedians yanked the lanyard and the glowing ball was hurled out into space, squarely between the goals. In the same moment the six players took off, soaring in swift pursuit behind it, belching thin threads of fire behind them. Ten seconds later the sky to port and above was a maze of streaking, interlacing flames as the players zigzagged to and fro, intent on getting a grip on the ball long enough to propel it toward one or the other of the slowly receding goals.

Commander Beckley watched the fiery skylarking with keen interest. Meteor ball, he thought, as he gazed into the visiplate in CC, was the ideal game for skymen. It was good for the muscles, for although the player had no weight to speak of, he was compelled to put himself through continuous contortions in order to manipulate the flexible, bucking rocket nozzle and still keep an arm free to fend off tackling opponents or to bat the ball along. But far more beneficial was the ingrained sense of tridimensional orientation the game developed, and the capacity to appraise the reaction from the hand-jet impulses. That sense of action and reaction in time, became almost instinctive, giving the player that quality so indispensable in the handling of spaceships— that elusive thing known as the feel of a ship. A man possessing that could, in a pinch, handle his vessel blindfolded or without instruments.

Twice Beckley watched a thin line of flame lash through the cool green blaze of the luciferin goal marker, other lightninglike flashes hard behind. That meant that one of the teams had scored twice— clever work for so short a time. And it was unusual, for although the Polliwogs had many good players, they lacked brilliant ones. Beckley correctly surmised that it must have been Bullard who scored the goals, the two officer-teams were too evenly matched otherwise.

He chuckled as he suddenly realized that now the Polliwogs might snatch another trophy from the Castor Beans, their traditional rivals on the sister cruiser Castor. He reached for the long-range televise transmitter on the impulse to call Warlock on the instant and challenge his gang to a game the very next time the two ships fell in together, but as he turned away from the visiplate he noticed the men in the control room silently stiffening to attention. The captain had come in.

Beckley was astonished at the gravity of the skipper's expression, for so far as he knew, all was serene. But at first the captain said nothing. He merely looked thoughtfully about the control room and, seeing his exec in charge and no officer of the deck, he glanced at the visiplate.

"Sound recall," said Captain Mike. "Then read this."

AT A NOD from the exec, the man on the signal board closed a key. The wailing buzz it set up in the helmets of the officers flitting about outside would inform them they were wanted on board with all dispatch. Commander Beckley took the proffered signal from the captain's hand and glanced through it, noticing that as he did, Captain Mike was watching him stolidly, giving no hint of what was in his own mind.

"Yes, I saw this," said Beckley. "What is it, a joke?"

"Joke!" snorted the captain. "Apparently you have not heard of the outcome of the Canopus' inspection. Do you realize that Joey Dill has been relieved of his command and stuck in the dark on Uranus for a five-year hitch as commandant of that flea-bitten outpost? That every one of his officers is awaiting court-martial on charges ranging from 'gross inefficiency' to 'culpable negligence'? That the Canopus, herself, is practically a wreck and has been ordered to the sky yard on Mars for survey and wholesale repairs? There is nothing funny about that. And now it appears we are next."

Commander Beckley stared again at the innocuous-looking message in his hand. It still looked like a prank fathered by someone on the admiral's staff. It read:

From Commander Jovian Patrol to CO Pollux.

You will be in readiness for General Efficiency Inspection 1400 SST 14 May 8940 Terrestrial Year. Entire personnel Castor will inspect in accordance with Archive Reprint USN-1946-FT-53.

ABERCROMBIE.

"Unless I'm crazy— and I won't admit it," said Beckley slowly, "this says that we will be inspected by the crew of the Castor."

"Yes." The captain's eye was gleaming.

"And if that is not joke enough, it goes on to say that they will do it according to some aboriginal practice or other. Shades of Hanno and Nelson! What did they ever do on a trireme that is applicable to us?"

"The principles of warfare change very little through the millennia," remarked Captain Mike, dryly, "and, moreover, your history is a bit foggy, Beckley. The Phoenicians much antedated the Americans. The latter were far more advanced. As a matter of fact, they are credited with the invention of the first spaceship. In any case, our admiralty commission, that has been digging through the records unearthed in the excavations for the fifth sublevel at Washington, has decided that some of their practices were good enough to be reinstated. So there we are."

"Meaning, I take it, that we are to be inspected according to some system invented by John Paul Jones, Sims, Leahy, or some other long-dead old sea dog?" Beckley was thankful he had remembered the names of a few of the early Terrestrials. It was a polite rebuttal of the skipper's comment on his historical knowledge.

"Exactly."

"All right," said the executive officer. "In that case, I will get ready. In fact, we're ready now. You know inspections never gave us any worry."

"We've never been really inspected before," was the captain's grim retort. "Step down to my cabin and I will give you a copy of that reprint."

ORDINARILY, the commander would have greeted the returning ball players with some jolly pleasantry, but although he saw them trooping in, gay and ruddy from their brisk work-out and the bracing showers after it, he said not a word to them. He was deep in the perusal of the antique document exhumed from the vaults below the old city of Washington. The deeper he read, the faster his confidence in the ship's readiness oozed away. At first he had some difficulty with the outmoded terminology, but as he groped his way through it, glimmerings of the immense difficulties before him began to appear.

In the end, he sat in astounded admiration at the ingenuity of a people he had long thoughtlessly regarded as primitive. Small wonder their ships had behaved so well during the great Terminal War of the Twentieth Century. The marvelous stamina they displayed was due to the fact they were prepared— prepared for anything, whether accident, damage in action, or catastrophe of nature. So long as any craft of that age remained afloat, its crew continued to work it and to fight it. And now he had learned why. They knew their stuff. The system they followed forced them to. Hence, the admiralty's recent adoption of that system.

Beckley sat through supper very quiet and seemingly morose. He was engaged in appraising himself— Chinnery, Moore, Fraser, and the rest. How good were they, for all the trophies they had won? He remembered wryly, how they won first place in the acceleration contest. He and Chinnery knew that the circuit-breakers were lashed down and every fuse in the ship jumped by heavy copper cable. He and the surgeon knew how heavily the men had been doped with gravonol. It had taken four days of special rigging to accomplish that feat. Highly artificial! Bah! It was an empty triumph, now that he thought of it honestly in the light of what he had been reading.

After supper, over the cigars, he attempted to convey to his juniors, some of what he had just learned and what was ahead of them. It was not easy. The Pollux had for a long time been considered a model ship and it was the conviction of most of her officers and practically all her crew, that she could do anything any other ship could do and do it quicker and more smoothly than any other afloat in the ether.

"So what?" demanded Chinnery, as soon as he learned that for the duration of the tests, Pete Roswell of the Castor, would be at his elbow, watching and noting everything he did, and that rating for rating, every man in the black gang would be matched by his opposite number from the sister cruiser. "Let 'em come. Let 'em watch. They'll learn something. Who cares what they see? My uranium consumption, acceleration for acceleration, is the lowest in the whole star-spangled fleet. We haven't had a breakdown of an auxiliary in more than a year, and that's a record for any man's service."

"That is just it," observed Beckley pointedly. "You're too good. It makes you cocky and you take too much for granted. What would you do if you did have a breakdown— cut in your reserve generators, I suppose?"

"Sure— always have. They work, too. Both sets."

"And if those went on the blink?"

"Well— there are the selenium units on the hull, only—"

"Quite so. Only there isn't much sun power out here by Jupiter and you haven't run a test on them since we left Venutian Station. But suppose you did hook 'em up and could get a little juice out of them and then they went out, what?"

"For the love of— Why, storage batteries, of course."

"'Storage batteries' is good," snapped the exec. "In the last quarterly report, if my memory is correct, they were listed as being in 404D, your space storeroom. How many amps do you think you could pull from there?"

Chinnery lapsed into a glum silence. He had never seen the exec in this mood. Beckley turned to Fraser and asked abruptly:

"What do we do if the intership phone goes out?"

"Shift to telescribes."

"And after that?"

"The annunciator and telegraph system."

"And after that?"

Fraser looked puzzled. "If we lose the juice on the annunciators they can be operated by hand." He shrugged. "After that, if you insist on it, there are always messengers."

"Why not voice tubes?" queried Beckley, cocking an eyebrow.

"Voice tubes?" echoed several. The others laughed. The admiralty had gone primitive.

"That is what I said. Believe it or not, gentlemen, but the Pollux is equipped with a complete system of voice tubes, gas-tight covers, and all. Yet not one of you knows it. You have probably painted them over, or stuffed them with old socks or love letters. Now get out of here, all of you, and inspect your parts of the ship. Come back at midnight and I will tell you more about this inspection and what we have to do to get ready for it."

THE GROUP of officers returned to the wardroom at twelve, not greatly enlightened by their inspection. They knew what the commander was driving at, but most of them felt they already knew the answers. On a warship there are always many alternative ways of doing the same thing, for in the heat of action things go wrong and there is no time for repairs. But most of them were already familiar with what they had to deal with, except Bullard, of course, who was new. He was the only one of them who had the slightest doubt of his readiness for any test that might be put to him.

Cracking jokes, but at the same time slightly mystified by the slant the executive had taken, they assembled. Commander Beckley entered and tossed the reprinted early-American document on the wardroom table. Moore crossed the room and fingered it, noting its title. It was "Chief Umpire's Report, Battle Efficiency Inspection U.S.S. Alaska, Spring, 1940."

"I have told you we are to be inspected by the Castor," began Beckley. "What I didn't tell you is that later on, we inspect them."

"Whee!" yelled Fraser. "I've always wanted to know how they puttied up that main condenser. It is nothing short of a miracle how it hangs together."

A look of smug satisfaction flitted across Chinnery's face. In his estimation, Pete Roswell, engineer of the Castor, was a stuffed shirt.

Moore was smiling, too, the contented smile of a cat contemplating a canary. Freddy McCaskey, navigator and senior watch of the rival ship, was also his rival for the hand of a certain young lady residing in Ursapolis. His brilliant take-offs and landings in the sky port there had long annoyed Moore, for Moore knew, even if the admiral did not, that they were made possible by certain nonreg gadgets bolted to the underside of the Castor's chart rack. They were nonreg for the reason that they were unreliable— they could not be counted upon to stand up under the shock of action. Moore itched to be in a position officially, to expose them, and by doing it burst the bubble of McCaskey's vaunted superiority as a ship handler.

There were others present who had similar designs calculated to upset the peace of mind and complacency of their friendly enemies, judging by the ripple of anticipatory grins that swept the room.

Beckley's eye roved the group, missing the reaction of no one.

"Ah," he breathed, "so that's the way you feel? Well, let me tell you this— so do the Castor Beans. And don't ever forget, they inspect us first.

"But don't misunderstand me. There will be no cutthroat competition about this. Friendly rivalry, such as we enjoy with the Castor, or outright malice, if it were present, makes very little difference. The men from the Castor do not inspect us in the sense of passing judgment; they merely observe and record the data. It is the admiral who does the judging. But you can bet your bottom dollar they won't miss anything. They live and work in a ship the exact twin of ours, and they follow the same routine. They know our weak spots and how we go about covering them up, for they have the same spots and, I daresay, use the same tricks. We might fool the old man, but never a Castor Bean.

"As I said before, they will all be here, from Captain Allyn down to the landsman for cook's helper, and every man jack of them will have a stop watch and a notebook. We will be covered, station for station, all over the ship.

"Leaving out the preliminaries, such as looking at the bright work and haircuts and all that sort of thing— which worries none of us— the first thing that happens to us will be the emergency drills. Those are going to be different. The American doctrine was that the real test of an emergency organization is an emergency, and one peculiarity of emergencies is that they come when you least expect them. Moreover, the people on watch at the time are the ones who will have to handle them. That means we cannot hand-pick our best and most experienced men to do the drilling."

"IT WILL BE worked this way. The admiral will ask to see our watch list. He'll run down through the names and pick one at random. It might even be Bullard, here—"

Bullard winced. He did not like that "even," though he was only three days in the ship.

"And he will say, 'Send Lieutenant Bullard in.' Bullard will have to relieve the deck. We may cruise along an hour after that, not knowing what is coming, when suddenly the chief umpire will announce, 'Fire in the lower magazine,' or 'Penetrating collision,' or whatever emergency they have picked. Every Castor man starts his stop watch, licks his pencil, and looks at the man he's umpiring. The test will be not only of Bullard, but of the whole organization. As for Bullard, he is in sole charge, and neither Captain Dongan nor I can advise him, and the rest of you can only execute what orders he gives. Whatever he does, whether the right thing, or the wrong thing, or nothing at all, goes down in the notebooks, and also the manner of its execution.

"Let us say the conditions announced are that a small meteorite has penetrated the collision bulkheads and padding and has come into the crew's quarters. We are in ordinary cruising condition— that, is, without spacesuits on. Were our interior gastight doors closed and dogged? If they were not, we lose air throughout the ship. Bullard, no doubt, would order a repair party forward. The Castor's repair party will go through the intermediate lock with our party, noting everything. Did the lock work smoothly? What kind of patch did the repair party put on, and how long did it take? Were they skillful or clumsy? How long after that before air was back in the compartment? Did the patch leak? How much elapsed time between the alarm and 'secure'?

"You get an idea from that, of how closely we will be supervised. I need not go into all the other emergency drills, or the possible variations on them. The point to engrave in your memories, is that any of you may be called upon to conduct them, and without prior notice. You had better know the answers."

"I think we do," remarked Moore, looking about at the others.

"Those tests are comparatively trifling," pursued Commander Beckley. "It is the battle drills that are apt to give us trouble. There they will spring casualties on us."

"Casualties?"

"Yes— imaginary accidents, failures of equipment, fatalities. In battle, you know, things happen. We bump into mines. Torpedoes hit us, and shells. We overload motors and they burn up. Controls get jammed. People get hurt and drop out of the picture and somebody else has to step into their shoes and carry on. Our thermoscopes may go dead. A thousand things can go wrong. The big question is, what do we do when they do?

"Captain Allyn and his officers will work out a schedule of such casualties, neatly timed, and shoot them at us, one by one. As they do, they will make it as realistic as possible. If the primary lighting system is declared out of order, they will pull the switches. If the phones go out, they will jerk the connections in Central, and we can't touch them. If gas is reported in some compartment, they will let loose some gas in there. You can expect those casualties to come thick and fast, and you will have to know your switchboards and pipe manifolds from A to Z. It will test your versatility and coolness to the utmost."

"They ought to be able to think up some good ones," drawled Chinnery, and a few of the others laughed. The Castor had stripped the blades in her main auxiliary turbine only six months earlier, and she had had a serious switchboard fire during her last battle practice. Not only that, but in a recent take-off, a jet-deflector had jammed and she had spun for more than fifteen minutes about eight miles above Europa City, a gigantic pin wheel, spewing blue fire. That brought her a biting rebuke from the Patrol Force Commander.

"They will," said Beckley, grimly.

There was some laughter, but there was a hint of uneasiness in some of it. Ever since the exec's crack about voice tubes, their complacency had waned. To their surprise, the voice tubes were found to be there. What else was there about the ship they did not know?

"I think that covers it," said Commander Beckley, rising. "That is, all but one feature— human casualties. It appears from this"— and he tapped the Archive Reprint—"that it was considered a rare bit of humor by our lusty ancestors to kill off the skipper early in the game, and they usually followed that promptly with the disposition of the executive officer. In this report, they killed off practically all their officers in the first five minutes, and a great many of the crew with them.

"The moment an umpire declares us dead we cannot utter another word, no matter what happens. Our organization has to carry on without us. That may be a good test, but I fancy it is agonizing to watch. I recommend you put a little more attention into your drills hereafter. But above all, each of you must be prepared on an instant's notice, to succeed to the command of the ship as a whole."

"By the time we get it," observed Kingman, anxiously, "she will be virtually a wreck— riddled with imaginary holes, on fire, lights out, generators dead, controls jammed, two thirds of the crew knocked out and—"

"You get it," grinned Beckley, relaxing for the first time since the captain had interrupted the meteor ball game. "Good night, boys— pleasant dreams!"

"DON'T YOU WORRY, Mr. Bullard," said Tobelman, his chief turret captain, after General Quarters the next morning. "There isn't anything in this turret we can't handle, somehow."

But Bullard did worry, for he knew he was green. But he worried with a purpose. Every day of the three weeks that intervened between the exec's warning and the time set for the inspection, he plugged away at learning the ship and its intricate mechanism. By day he crawled through access and escape hatches, tracing cables and conduits; at night he pored over wiring diagrams and pipe layouts. He learned how to break down and assemble the breech mechanisms of his guns, how to train the turret by hand, and how to load in the dark. He became acquainted with the use of his stand-by thermoscope and practiced for an hour each day on the old Mark XII Plotter installed in his control booth, so as to be able to maintain his own fire should his communication with the CC be cut off.

In like manner he checked his "ready" magazines and found out what he needed to know about their sprinkler systems and smothering-gas ducts. He went on beyond them and made himself familiar with the reserve magazines with their stores of TNT, ammonium nitrate, and bins of powdered aluminum. His ammonal he did not mix until needed, a precaution to reduce the fire hazard.

By the end of the second week he had gained a sense of confidence. In his own little department, at least, he knew his way around. And the more he worked with Tomlinson, the more he realized that back of him was a splendid bunch of boys. What he couldn't do, they would. It was in his capacity as officer of the deck that he had the most misgivings. As a watch officer, he took his regular turn in supreme command of the ship, and the more he prowled its recesses the more he was impressed by the magnitude of the task he had set himself— to learn allabout the ship.

Every cubic yard of her vast bulk contained some machine or electrical device, the use of many of which he had but the vaguest knowledge. The Pollux was a very different breed of ship than the old Asia, relic of the Third Martian War and long overdue for the scrap heap.

On the Asia he had been chief engineer, and as such, knew every trick of the balky old tub, yet when he would go into the engineering compartments of the Pollux, he stood humble before its glittering intricacies, almost dazed by the array of strange equipment. They showed him the clustered nest of paraboloid propelling reflectors, together with their cyclotronic exciters. They traced for him the slender tubes that conveyed the pulverized Uranium 235 to the focal disintegrating points, and explained how to operate the liquid hydrogen quenching sprays. Fraser took him through the boiler rooms and sketched out for him the cycle of heat transfer, beginning with the queerly designed atomic power fire boxes, and ending with the condensers outside on the hull. Elsewhere, he examined the mercury vapor turbines and the monstrous generators they drove. In all that vast department there was but one section that struck a familiar chord. And it, he discovered, was kept locked off.

"Oh, that?" sneered Chinnery, when Milliard tapped the sealed door. "A set of old oxy-hydrogen propelling motors. Stand-by, you know. Some dodo in the admiralty drafting room is responsible for that, I guess— supposed to be used when we are in extremis."

Chinnery gave a short laugh and turned away, but Bullard was persistent. He wanted to see them and check their fuel leads. At least, he had found something in this ultra-engine room he could understand at a glance.

"I forgot you came from the Crab Fleet," said Chinnery, in mock apology, "but since you ask it, you shall see those noble engines," and Chinnery beckoned to a rocketman, first-class, who stood nearby.

"Show Mr. Bullard the skeleton in our closet," said Chinnery, and departed, his spotless dungarees a mute reproach to Bullard's own grease-smeared overalls.

"I was Crab-Fleet, too," grinned Benton, the rocketman, as he forced the door. "They don't think much on these Star-ships of the old liquid-fuel tubes, but you and I know what they can do. At least, you can count on 'em. These atom busters are O.K. when they work, but they're too temperamental to suit me. But you're the first officer I ever saw in the Pollux that even wanted to look at them tubes— our oars, Mr. Chinnery calls 'em."

Bullard laughed outright. The Patrol Force was a strange blend of ultramodernism and old customs, a sore of bivalence— where practical men of the old sailorman psychology used every modern gadget and hated it as he used it; and trim, smart scientists applied archaic sea terms to their latest triumphs.

On another day Bullard let himself into the big nose "blister," and saw for himself, the arrangement by which the impact of stray cosmic gravel and small mines was distributed and absorbed. Beneath the false bow plate of vanadium steel was a roomy forepeak stuffed with steel wool, and scattered irregularly throughout were other loosely connected plates separated by sets of spiral springs. In general, the anti-collision compartment resembled a titanic innerspring mattress laid across the ship's bow. A cosmic lump striking the nose plate could not be prevented from penetrating, but each of the inner bulkheads it pierced gave a little, disturbing the force of the impact and slowing down the celestial missile by a large percentage. Only a massive body moving at relatively high velocity could retain enough velocity to crash through the last bulkhead into the crews' quarters.

Behind the crews' quarters stood the armored bulkhead that shielded the heart of the ship— the colossal triple-gyro stabilizer that formed the nucleus of the egg-shaped spaceship and marked the location of the vessel's center of gravity. It in turn, was supported by a massive steel thrust column, rising directly from the arches that held the propelling motors, and clustered around the thrust column and in the lee of the armored stabilizer housing lay the Central Control Room, Plot, the H.E. magazines, and the more volatile of the chemical stores. Elsewhere in the ship were the various auxiliaries— the air-circulating fans, the renewers, and the garbage converters, and all the rest of the multitudinous motors for every purpose.

Bullard was exhausted, mentally and physically, by the time he had completed the comprehensive survey, but he felt better for having done it. In his journeys he had missed nothing, taking in storerooms as well as machinery spaces, viewing the planetary bombing racks recessed in the landing skids, and the selenium helio-generators on the upper halves of the hull. There were many details he knew he had not fully grasped, but the main thing was he had regained his customary self-confidence. He no longer felt himself a stranger on the ship.

The others had not been idle, either. Intensive drills had been held daily in all departments, and as nearly as was humanly possible, every conceivable contingency had been foreseen and provided for.

"If those Castor Beans have thought up just half the stunts I have," observed Kingman, at the end of a strenuous day's preparations, "this inspection is going to be a honey. But what the hell! My conscience don't hurt. If there is anything unprovided for, it's the fault of my lack of imagination— nothing else."

"Yeah," grunted Chinnery. Chinnery had become a trifle touchy over the coming ordeal. The exec had made him clear out the old battery room and reinstall his storage batteries.

"They say," chimed in another, "that Freddie McCaskey is going to make Moore set the ship down on top that spiny ridge at the north end of Io, with two of his underjets out of commission. To make it tough they are going to put an egg on the chart-rack. If it falls off and busts when he hits, the mark will be a swab-o."

"Scuttlebutt, you dope," commented Fraser, "nobody knows what they'll spring on us. But, personally, my money is on the old Pollux. All that's worrying me is—"

And on and on it went. Speculations was rife in every nook and cranny of the powerful sky cruiser. The lowest rating on board tossed feverishly in his hammock throughout the rest period called "night," trying to imagine what crazy orders might be given him, and what he would do about it when he got them. The Polliwogs were agreed on one thing, though. Come what might, the only visible reaction any umpire would get, would be a cheery "Aye, aye, sir." Deadpan compliance was the password. They swore that under no circumstances would any of them display surprise or dismay.

CAME THE momentous day. Clean as a shower-washed sky and burnished and polished until she shone almost painful brilliance, the Pollux lay proudly in her launching cradle at Ursapolis Yard. To the shrilling of pipes, another vestige of age-old tradition, the spry little admiral clambered aboard, his staff at his heels, for the first stage of the inspection.

His trip through the spotless compartments was swift. Although few details of the interior could have escaped his darting glances, he took no notes, nor did he pause at any place to make comment. It was not until he had completed his tour that he broke his silence.

"She looks good," he said, cryptically, to Captain Dongan. Whereupon he trotted off to his quarters in the yard for his lunch, sending back word that he would return in two hours for the remainder of the exercises.

"Cinch!" muttered someone, but the captain wheeled and scowled at him. To the captain's mind, the admiral's serene disregard for the snowy whiteness of the paint work was significant. Plainly, the old man's interest was centered elsewhere, and that could only be on the practical tests. It was not that the captain was especially dubious as to the outcome— he merely wondered. After all, as he had told Berkley, they had never really been inspected before.

Hardly had the admiral left than the Castor Beans began pouring aboard. The enlisted men came first, swarming down the dock and waving their notebooks.

"Hi-ya, Pollutes!" they yelled. "Boy, if you only knew!" Grinning Polliwogs let them aboard and led them off into the recesses of the ship, hoping, while their umpires were in a boastful mood, to worm some of their secrets from them in advance. A little later Captain Allyn and his officers came, and later, at the appointed hour, the admiral.

"Ahem," announced the admiral, his words very crisp, for all his high-pitched, thin voice. "The Pollux will lay a course past Jupiter to the small, innermost satellite, now in opposition. She will land on it, then take off and return to base. During the problem, she shall not communicate with nor receive assistance from the outside. At various times, as we go, we shall hold drills, introducing various casualties. It must be understood that these artificial casualties are to be treated in every respect as if they were real, and if the ship departs in any manner from such treatment, the score for the tests shall be zero."

Captain Dongan acknowledged the admiral's instructions with a nod.

"And let me add," went on the admiral, "that should there, by chance, occur any real accident or casualty, it shall be treated as part of the problem. Are you ready, gentlemen?"

CARLSON, the baby of the mess, drew the take-off, and despite a rather obvious self-consciousness, managed it well. The ship drew upward cleanly and smoothly, and gradually curved like a soaring eagle toward the great rose disk of the System's primary. Carlson drew a perfunctory, "Well done," from the chief umpire, and withdrew, mopping his brow in relief. It was Kingman who succeeded him.

"Fire in the paint locker!" was what Kingman had to deal with— the commonest and most obvious of fire drills. People ran to their stations in jig time and were duly checked off. Their performance was faultless, their apparatus was in perfect condition, the most carping critic could find nothing to complain of. A great load rolled off the exec's troubled mind. Fire in the paint locker, indeed! If they kept on springing chestnuts like that, this expedition would be a picnic.

"And think of all the useless work he put us to," crabbed Chinnery into Fraser's ear.

It fell to Fraser's lot to conduct the Abandon Ship Drill. The Polliwogs were tense as televox repeaters throughout the ship chanted the call to the boats. No. 3, on the starboard side, was a balky slut. Five times out of six her tube would not fire unless preheated with a blowtorch. It was a mystery why, for they had successively put in four spares and still No. 3 performed in the same erratic manner. But today she took off like a startled dove at the first touch of the coxswain's button. Pure luck that was, for there was not a chance to use the torch with watchful umpires writing down all they saw.

The Castor Beans pawed through the returned boats, looking for error, but their search was unsuccessful. Boat boxes were correct, down to the first aid kit, as was the power installation and the handling. Fraser drew another four-o and was excused.

Bullard was called up and there was a long lull. They were inside Ganymede's orbit before the umpires raised the alarm of collision.

That, too, was expeditiously dealt with, although a penalty of one tenth of a point was assessed because a third-rate carpenter's mate in his haste, entered the air-exhausted compartment before putting his vacuum helmet on. When Bullard heard that that was all that was wrong, he drew a deep breath and relaxed. It was annoying to have sullied the ship's hitherto perfect score with a penalty, but it could well have been worse.

Moore drew the "Search and Rescue Party" and while the ship hove to above Mount Sarpedon in Equatorial Europa, descended into that noisome crater and found and brought back the dummy which an aid of the admiral had planted there some days before. It was a triumph for the Pollux, for the dummy was lying smack in the midst of the dreaded Halogen Geysers. Raw fluorine is hard on standard equipment, but the Pollux's rescue boat carried what it took. Aside from a mild gassing of two members of the boat's crew, there were no mishaps.

The admiral was standing on the boat deck when Moore came back. He stared at the remnants of the corroded dummy and at the pitted helmets and reeking suits of the rescue party. A Castorian umpire stepped out of the boat and reported the two cases of gassing.

"Too nice work to spoil with a penalty," decreed the old man. "Chalk up a four-o for Lieutenant Moore."

That night the mess was jubilant. They were two thirds the way through the inspection and hadn't slipped yet— except for that fractional point against Bullard. No one reproached him for that, for it was not that kind of a mess, but Bullard was none too happy. Had there been other penalties, he would not have minded, but this one stood glaring in its loneliness.

"We're better than you thought, eh?" said Beckley, slapping Abel Warlock, exec of the Castor, on the back.

"You're not out of the woods, yet," was Warlock's dry rejoinder, and he threw a wink to Pete Roswell. "Tomorrow's another day."

IO WAS UNDER the stern and drawing aft when General Quarters was sounded. Men tumbled to their battle stations and manned their weapons. Bullard crawled into his control booth and strapped on his headphone. "Ready," he reported, after an instantaneous check-up of his turret crew. Every man was at his post, poised and ready.

It was a tableau that was repeated all over the ship. Captain Dongan was at Control, the exec in Plot, and on down the line each was where he should be. And beside each was the inevitable umpire with his ticking watch and his telltale notebook. Now was the hour. Here is where the fun began. Were the Polliwogs fair-weather sailors or what?

"Start watches," signaled the chief umpire, and the problem was begun.

At four and a half seconds, Bullard let go his first salvo. Swiftly his men threw in the second load.

The machinery-packed turret was uncomfortably full of men, what with the doubling up due to the presence of the umpires. These latter were dancing about, trying to keep out of the way while at the same time recording the fire-control data as it came in over the visuals, or otherwise making notes of the efforts of the Pollux men. In the booth with Bullard was Heine Bissel, the turret officer of the Castor, keeping one eye on what Bullard was doing and the other peeking at the list of casualties in his hand. Bullard envied the umpires their freedom of movement, for unlike the men at battle stations, there was no necessity for the umpires to dress themselves in space-suits. In battle, of course, suits were donned before its commencement. A chance hit, penetrating an outer bulkhead, might at any instant cause a compartment to lose its air.

Bullard's second salvo went, but coincidentally with it the lights flickered, dimmed a moment, then blazed up again. Somewhere below something had gone wrong with the primary lighting circuit and there had been a shift made to another.

"Your ammunition hoist motors are inoperative," announced Bissel, looking at his list.

"Hoist by hand!" ordered Bullard, almost in the same breath. He attempted to report the casualty to CC, but the phone was dead on his ears. He snatched its jack from the outlet and plugged in on No. 2 circuit. It was dead.

His men managed to get the guns fired a third time. It was a full three seconds late, due to the delay occasioned by having to serve the guns by hand, but under the circumstances, in good time. Bullard saw them ram the fourth set of projectiles home. His eyes caught the racing words on the telescribe above his head, "Transverse hit penetrated both CC and Plot— captain and executive dead— control now in sub-CC— Chinnery commanding."

"Your lights have gone out," remarked Bissel, with a triumphant gleam in his eye, reaching for the cut-out switch overhead. The lights were out.

Bullard kicked out with his left foot and found the emergency battery switch. Again there was light, this time from the turret's own batteries, independent of any general ship's circuit. Tobelman shot the propellant into the breech of the last gun and closed the firing key. There was no recoil. He jerked the lanyard and fired the guns by percussion. At that moment an umpire rose from behind the loading tray and fired a pan of flashlight powder. There was an instant's brilliance, blinding in its intensity. Then all was black.

"Your battery has short-circuited," came the calm voice of Bissel through the murk. There was suppressed amusement in it, and Bullard suspected this last casualty was an improvised one. But it did not matter. Bissel had kicked the turret switch open again, and that made it official.

"Loaded in dark, sir!" called Tobelman. "Ready!"

"Fire!" Bullard was proud of his gang.

"Enemy shell just entered and wiped out turret crew," whispered Bissel. There was silence outside the booth as the men desisted from their efforts in the dark. Each had been told the same thing by his own umpire. Bissel snapped on a portable flash long enough to jot down the time of the massacre.

"Am I dead, too?" inquired Bullard.

"Oh, no. You're all right. Your turret is all shot, that's all."

Bullard dived out of the escape hatch. If all his men were dead, there was nothing to be gained by sitting in the darkened control booth waiting for the end. His duty was elsewhere.

THE ELEVATOR was stuck between decks, probably another casualty. Bullard, trailed by the panting Bissel, flung himself down the ladder and dropped through the armored hatchway into CC. It was empty, except for a couple of lounging umpires, comparing notes. Bullard cast an anxious eye at the settings on the main control board, but with it saw that the master switch at the top of it was open. Control, of course, had been shifted elsewhere. The positions, of the controls here, regardless of how they were set, were meaningless.

He dashed down the passage toward sub-CC, a little cubbyhole abaft Plot, not wasting a second in a futile stop at the Plotting Room. What he had seen in CC, would doubtless, be repeated there. As he passed the door of the wardroom he caught a glimpse of the officers crowded in there, and what he saw made him pause a moment and take a closer look. Peering through the glassite panel he was astonished to see most of the officers of the Pollux in there, either out of their spacesuits or in the act of taking them off. Chinnery, whom he thought in temporary command, was one of them.

"The corpses," grinned Bissel. "They are where they won't interfere and they may as well be comfortable."

But from the indications, Captain Dongan was anything but comfortable. He was pacing the deck impatiently, grave concern in every line of his rugged face. Beckley looked scarcely less uneasy.

Bullard hurried on. He had seen every one of his brother officers in there except Fraser. Could it be that he and Fraser were the only survivors? He jerked the door of sub-CC open. The place was a madhouse, five men stationed at voice tubes yelling to five other men in some other place— and each of the five communications was a different one.

"Thought you were dead," exclaimed Fraser, seeing Bullard come bursting in. "Everything has gone to pot and communications are terrible, but if you are looking for a job, jump down into the engine room and make a check—"

"Apoplexy!" screamed an excited umpire, pointing at Fraser. "You! You're dead."

Fraser choked his words in the middle, stamped a foot in disgust, and jerked off his helmet. He turned in the doorway and looked as if he was about to say something; then, as if thinking better of it, stalked off toward the wardroom to join the rest of the "dead."

Bullard suddenly realized that he was left in command on the ship, but he had not the faintest idea of her running condition beyond knowing from her heave, that she was still accelerating full power. Until he could learn what had happened and what was left in operating condition, he could give no intelligent orders. Then it was that he saw the admiral, Captain Allyn, Commander Warlock and others watching him intently, through the broad deadlight let into the bulkhead between Plot and the sub-CC. So he was to be the goat of this inspection! A sorry trick. He, the next most junior officer on the ship and the latest to join her, put to this severe test! It angered him, but the thought as suddenly struck him that the test was also one of the Pollux. As long as any man of her complement remained alive, he must carry on. These foxy umpires must be shown that the Pollux was prepared, and well prepared. The three tedious weeks of intensive drills and the unceasing labors of the captain and his exec in teaching their men must not be in vain. If the ship still could be handled, he would handle it!

"SILENCE!" he roared. The weary talkers at the voice tubes looked at him and blinked. He flung a finger at the first one. "Report!"

One by one, the five told the story, staccato words coming fast. As the details appeared, Bullard was aghast at the task set for him. The torpedo room, like the turret, was out of commission, its crew wiped out. There was a fire raging in the chemical stores locker. The great mercury boilers were shut down, their superheaters riddled and leaking, and as a result, all auxiliary power was off. There was only the weak and inadequate current flowing in from the helio units, sufficient only to maintain the standing lights. All means of communication was gone except voice tubes. And to cap the climax, the main jets were said to be jammed— full speed ahead. And ahead, perilously close, lay Jupiter— Jupiter the colossal, the huge, the devouring magnet. Drill or no drill, something must be done, and that very soon.

As Bullard sprang into action, he wondered how long the farce of imaginary disabilities would be kept up. Yet until the war game was called off he could touch none of the umpire-guarded valves or switches. He had to work with the disorganized residuum of the mighty ship's power. A new note of danger began to hum, warning him that whatever he was to do could no longer be postponed. Since the automatic controllers on the uranium feed lines were not operating, the acceleration was slowly picking up— when he wanted none at all he was getting more— and there was no way of cutting it off except manually.

He raised the tube room and found to his immense satisfaction that it was Benton, the rocketman, who was in charge there. Benton assured him there was no way to shut off the uranium flow other than by using the forbidden electrically controlled valves.

"Get pipe cutters, then, or Stilsons, and break the lines!"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Bullard knew that Benton knew that the uranium would continue to dribble out, wasting into the wake, but unless it was fed to the exact focus of the disintegrating inferno, it could not flare into the tremendous energy of exploding atoms. Once the supply was cut off, the quenching sprays would make short work of the bits still at the focal points.

An insistent call kept coming from the chemical locker, where the fire was supposed to be. The Polliwog there complained that the umpire would declare him burnt to a crisp unless some action was taken to subdue the fire. For a moment, Bullard hesitated. Actually, there was nothing inflammable in the chemical locker— except the fireworks flare the umpires had set themselves to add realism to their act— and consequently the compartment was not fitted with fire-fighting devices.

"Evacuate the storeroom," ordered Bullard. "Gather up all the Pollux men near you and transfer everything in it to the reserve magazine inboard of you."

"Aye, aye, sir," came the voice, relieved from his dilemma of having either to abandon his post or be roasted alive.

Bullard felt the lagging of the vessel as the acceleration ceased and knew that Benton had succeeded in breaking the atomic feed lines. It was a pity to have to waste power in that fashion, but it was unthinkable to continue longer on a power dive into Jupiter. The jet-deflectors were locked rigidly fore and aft and there could be no turning with those jets. He got Benton to the voice tube once more.

"What's wrong with the old rudder flaps over the liquid tube jets?"

"Not a damn thing, sir."

"Then warm up your tubes and let's get going—"

"Aye, aye, sir."

"And, Benton, when they've started spewing, flip 'er halfway around and shoot ninety degrees from the present course. You'll have to do that by local control— there is none for those old tubes in this sub-station."

"Aye, aye, sir."

BULLARD FELT BETTER. He was devoutly thankful they had spared Benton for him. Benton was a man of parts. Shortly they would have this wildly careering warship under some degree of control. Then Bullard could proceed with some of the badly needed minor corrections. One thing that was a source of great annoyance was the all-pervading noise, much augmented by the shouts of his voice tube talkers. He decided to abandon the use of the archaic tubes and instead, employ the etherphones in their space helmets. It meant setting up a manifold party line, for the helmet phones were not selective and if everyone should start talking at once the result would be babel.

"Tell all hands," he directed the group of talkers in sub-CC, "to close their face plates and tune in on the etherphone. No one is to speak except in answer to me or to report an exceptional emergency."

The word was passed. Bullard, to check the efficiency of this means of communications, called the various parts of the ship in succession to receive their reports. There were a gratifying number of men still alive and at their posts, despite the wholesale slaughter of the officers. It was not until he checked on the chemical locker fire that he heard anything to disturb him unduly. All was going well until the wild laughter and silly words of the man in charge of the magazine rang in his helmet. Bullard snapped back harsh questions, and for answer got only maudlin ravings, interspersed with outbursts of giggling. The man was drunk— or something.

Bullard glanced sharply in the direction of the admiral and the knot of inspecting officers watching him from Plot. They, too, showed some signs of glee, several of them grinning vacuously. Pete Roswell was executing an awkward burlesque of the quilliota, a rather risque version of the time-honored muscle dance often seen in the cabarets of Ursapolis. A sudden anger surged within Bullard. Had they turned the inspection into an outright farce? A bad joke at his expense? As he stared indignantly at the group in Plot, he was further outraged to see Abel Warlock waggishly begin ripping the meter leads from their terminals. And— of all things— the admiral himself, was capering about madly, an absurd elfin smirk spread across his usually ultradignified features.

Again Bullard sharply challenged his man in the magazine. This time the voice that came back was more sober— almost penitent.

"Sorry, sir— had a crazy dream, I guess. But it was awfully funny, sir." As he talked his voice grew even more sober and more contrite. "And sir, I ought to tell you— the umpires have passed out. They're lying around all over the place—"

A funny dream! Umpires dropping unconscious! Bullard lost not a second. With a bound he left sub-CC, headed for the trunk leading down to the magazines.

He fought his way through the smoke of the flares, passed through the half-emptied chemical locker and into the reserve magazine. Dimly he saw his magazine keeper bending over several limp forms on the deck. Bullard paused to examine the smoke bomb but was convinced that it was not the cause of what was wrong. It was a standard product— a mixture of luciferin with a little strontium salts, giving at once, a ruddy flame and considerable quantities of smoke, yet without much heat. Its fumes were neither intoxicating nor hypnotic.

He saw that much of the miscellaneous assortment of chemicals that had been stowed in the locker were now standing about the floor of the magazine, but all of them were ordinary substances and not regarded as hazardous. There were barrels of various salts and carboys of acids, but none of those were broken. On top of the pile stood three roundish flat crystal flasks of nearly black liquid. He recognized them as containers of an iodine solution— also harmless.

Before going to assist his man in reviving the stricken umpires, Bullard opened his face plate by a tiny crack and took a cautious sniff. Ah! That sickly sweetish odor was strangely familiar. And as a queer ringing in his ears began he snapped his helmet shut and fumbled for his oxygen valve. He kept a firm grip on his consciousness; he knew that in a second his momentary giddiness would pass, for the whiff he had had was nothing more noxious than nitrous oxide. But where was the N2O coming from, and how much of it was there?

He sprang to the bin holding the ammonium nitrate. To the eye it was normal, yet his reason told him it must be the source of these fumes. He moved closer to it and was suddenly aware of a warm spot between his shoulder blades. It was as if he had stepped in front of a firebox door. He wheeled to see the source of the heat, and saw— only the three flasks of iodine, and behind and beyond them the lazy smoke of the dying flare.

His bewilderment left him with a rush. The situation was transparently clear. The iodine flasks, shaped as they were, were acting as focusing lenses for the infrared rays from the smudge bomb, concentrating its weak heat until it was plainly perceptible. Under the influence of that mild heating, the ammonium nitrate had begun to break down and give off the nitrous oxide fumes. Now he understood the lunatic behavior of the magazine man before he shut his face plate, and why the umpires were lying unconscious about the place. He flung himself at the iodine lenses and dashed them to the deck. Then he leaped to the atmospheric control valves on the bulkhead and stepped up the amount of oxygen entering the compartment. He called to Benton in the tube room and ordered him to hook up the storage batteries hitherto held in reserve, and put power on the blowers. He must clear the magazine of the "laughing gas."

"Laughing gas!" The antics of the inspecting officers! Now it began to make sense. He shot a glance at the open voice tubes and knew in that instant, what had occurred. And knowing it, he shuddered to think of what might be going on above. The nitrous oxide, being heavier than air, was naturally flowing through the open tubes toward the control room and the other compartments clustered about the ship's center of gravity. All those unhelmeted officers, those of the Pollux as well as the Castorian inspectors, would be tipsy at the very least. Perhaps by now they were dropping unconscious. Bullard snapped shut the gaslight voice tube covers and shouted warnings into his helmet phone to his other men throughout the ship.

"Too late," came back Benton's report. "They're acting like crazy men— but how was I to know? I couldn't smell and I thought it was all part of the game. Only now—"

"Only now what?" snapped Bullard, his heart sinking.

"Well," reported Benton, hesitant to quote so august a personage as the Commander of the Jovian Patrol Force when the latter was in an uninhibited mood, "the admiral came dancing in and slapped our captain on the back and said, 'Let's make it a good party,' and Captain Mike said, 'Sure! You've overlooked a lot of bets— '"

Bullard groaned. The stuff must have seeped into the wardroom, too.

"Then they all laughed like hell and began busting things."

Bullard listened dully as Benton recited the list of outrages. Cables had been torn out bodily, others crazily connected and short-circuited; controls were smashed and the needles on gauges twisted to weird angles; in short, they had raised hell generally. The hilarious victims of the gas had made everyone— and more— of the invented casualties a grim reality. Now the ship was out of control.

"Keep shooting the oxygen to them," yelled Bullard. "I'm on my way up."

Benton had not overstated the case. The CC, Plot, subplot and the engine spaces suggested the wake of a terrestrial typhoon. The decks were cluttered with controller handles, broken dials and tattered paper. They had even torn up the astragational tables and the log. From the bulkheads dangled the stray ends of leads and bashed-in indicators. The place was an unholy mess. And all about sat the drooping officers who had done it, too groggy by then to do more, but still staring about with imbecilic expressions.

There was no use crying over spilt milk. Outside was the threat of Jupiter, more ominous than before, and Bullard was reminded of it as he felt the thrust when the six old-fashioned liquid-fuel tubes fired their first blast. Good old Benton! Despite the madhouse raging about him, he had persevered with the task assigned and had got them to firing. The ship lurched in reaction and with the lurch many of the dizzy observers were flung to the nearest bulkhead. The busy hospital corpsmen, darting among them with their first aid kits, had a fresh problem to cope with. Some of their patients were doubly unconscious.

Bullard might have been more concerned with the comfort of his stricken seniors, but hard on the heels of the success in getting the tubes to blasting came a new casually, and an utterly unforeseen one. A strange throb shivered through the ship and she began to tilt unaccountably, and with it came a violent side-wise oscillation that made the skin crawl. A still conscious umpire huddled in a corner gave way frankly to his nausea; dangling wreckage battered against the bulkheads while the rubbish strewn about the decks shifted back and forward like the tides of the sea. The din and clatter of it was unbearable.

Above it all rose the shrilling whine of runaway motors. As the wild and sickening oscillations increased in amplitude it became painfully apparent that something was happening to the massive whirling gyros at the heart of the vessel. Bullard fought his way toward them, clinging to such projections his hands could reach and dodging the missiles of debris flung about by the bucking ship. In time, he reached the armored door of the gyro housing and by then he had gained an inkling of what had gone wrong, but the remedy for it was not so obvious.

In their drunken orgy of devastation, the umpires had broken the leads feeding the motor field coils, and the gyros were running away— but at unequal rates, probably due to the inequalities of their own bearing frictions. Bullard knew, of course, that he could cut off the armature current, but if he did that the acceleration would shortly be reversed. Should the gyros be slowed rapidly, their rotational momentum would be transferred to the ship and force it into a dizzy whirling, a condition the crew could not endure. Bullard had scant hope of being able to restore the field current. Finding the breaks among the tangle of wreckage would take hours, whereas he had only minutes available, and not many of those.

"SEND ME A MAN and plenty of stray cable," he called to Benton, "and I want juice up to the gyro housing from the batteries."

Bullard was looking at the steel columns that held the bearings of the gyro axles— six of them, in pairs, each pair at right angles to the others. What he could not do by electrical resistance he would do by friction. If he could regulate the bearing thrust, he could keep the speed of the gyros under control. It had looked hopeless to him at first, for there was no way to insert the huge jacks they had on board, but he had thought of a way that was at least worth a trial.

"Throw the end of that cable around there," he directed, "and make a coil— a helix— around that bearing column. I intend to magnetize it."

The man— one of Fraser's— did as he was told, but the unbelief in his face was easy to read. What difference did it make whether the thrust columns were magnetic or not?

"That's well!" shouted Bullard, when the last of the six had been wound. Then he ordered current— a weak current, but under his instant control by means of the rheostats he had had inserted in the lines. It had been a tough job, getting that far, for all the while they had been flung this way and that as the whirling masses of metal fought to take charge of the battered cruiser. But Bullard and his helpers had hung on, and now was to come the test.

He was rewarded, after a little, by the halting of the steadily rising crescendo of the motor wail. At least he had stopped the acceleration. Now all he had to do was bring the three into harmony.

"You've got the idea," he said to the principal electrician who had been helping him. "Keep monkeying with them until they are all together. The bearings will get hot, but we can't help that. Flood 'em with oil, and if that don't do it, send down for some liquid air. Whatever you do, don't let 'em freeze, or we'll be flung clear out of the System."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, "but how did we do it?"

"Magnetostriction," Bullard explained, as he prepared to slip from the compartment. "A little magnetism makes steel expand, that's all. If your bearings get too tight, give 'em either more juice or less, and you'll shorten those columns."

Bullard slid out of the housing and picked his way aft. He wondered where they were by now and whether they would win their fight with Jupiter. He could feel the surge of the ship as the six flaming tubes drove it, and knew from his sense of weight that they were pulling out— but how fast?

BENTON LOOKED WORRIED. His tubes were behaving wonderfully, but they lacked power for the job imposed. The Pollux was checked in her fall, and that was all. She needed more kick to escape, and Benton did not dare apply it. Bullard came and looked.

"Can't be helped," he muttered, "give 'er the works."

"They'll melt," warned Benton.

"Let 'em," said the youthful acting captain, with grim finality. "We can't be any worse off."

Benton shrugged, and began the doubling of his fuel lines. Others of his men scurried off to storerooms and presently came back, lugging spare injectors. Those, after a few minutes of frenzied work, were coupled with improvised super-chargers and inserted into the new fuel into the laboring tubes, the Pollux's wake bloomed from a mere meteoric streak of ruddy fire to the whitely dazzling fan of a Grade A comet. Her determined masters piled gravity after gravity onto her acceleration, building her up until her men could stand no more, despite copious injections of gravonol. Harried hospital corpsmen had been pulled off their work of salvaging the unhappy "dead" and the Castorian umpires long enough to administer those precautionary shots.

Presently a sobered and grave-faced chief umpire— Captain Allyn of the Castor— staggered into the tube room, supported by two of his junior officers. All of them looked the worse for wear, bruised and cut as they were and only partially bandaged, but at least they had managed to get onto their feet. Like everyone else, while still woozy from the effects of the gas they had been badly flung about during the bout with the rebellious gyros.

"The admiral says," Captain Allyn announced, "that all imposed casualties are rescinded. Cease present exercises and return to base."

"Like hell he does!" snorted Bullard, flaring with resentment. "You tell the admiral he lacks authority to rescind the casualties I'm contending with. You can tell him that I'll get out of here how, when, and if I can: and that it will be time enough after that to talk about ceasing something and returning somewhere. In the meantime, kindly get out of that man's way. He has real work to do."

Captain Allyn opened his one good eye in blank astonishment, but he stepped to one side and let the burdened tube man pass with his armful of fresh spare parts. The skipper of theCastor looked from the angry young man in his soiled and torn uniform to the chaotic tube room about him, and then back again. He had not realized what a pass things had come to. There were no instruments of any kind in working order, either astragational or engineering. These sweating, strained-looking men could only guess at the pressures, voltages, amperages and the rest that they were dealing with. Now, if ever, a man had to have the feel of a ship— and this one had an awkward feel, a terrible feel. It was the sickening feeling of doom.

"THERE GOES THE FIRST ONE," remarked Benton calmly, as the ship shuddered and gave a little jump. They felt, rather than heard, the increased roar outside, and a white-faced man sitting astride the smoking supercharger in No. 4 tube feed-line frantically fought to close the valve beneath him. The first of the overtaxed liners had reached the ultimate temperature— had been volatilized and sneezed out into Jupiter's face. Benton's voice was quiet and the lines about his chin unquavering, but there was anxiety in his eyes.

"Hang on," said Bullard. "We can't ease off now. The others may be tougher. We're going uphill now— if they'll only last half an hour we'll be over the hump."

Captain Allyn and his two aids discreetly withdrew to a corner of the tube room. He was too competent an officer to meddle, now that he had some understanding of the situation, and he could see that this dirty-faced lad knew what he was about. He contented himself with putting a few additional entries into his already crowded notebook.

It was nearly twenty minutes before the next tube collapsed to be hurled into the wake as a cloud of vividly incandescent vapor. That was No. 3, and five minutes later went No. 1— and almost simultaneously with it, No. 6. But the other two held out until they reached the crest, and beyond. The critical point was passed, judging by the feel of things, and the order was on Bullard's lips to cut the blasts by twenty percent when one of the remaining tubes let go, too. That left but one, all the motive power the ship had, and that woefully inadequate, but at least they were moving outward into the clean, dark depths of the ether. Bullard cut its output hastily until it was down to normal, wondering hopefully as he did, whether they were out of the woods yet.

He left the oppressively hot tube room to Benton and his gang and went out into the disordered ship in search of an altiscope. For minutes he struggled through cluttered passages and choked trunks, looking into the now deserted turrets and other fire-control stations for an unsmashed instrument that bore. It was in the topsy-turvy wreckage of the torpedo room he found one, and it was with a sense of almost dread that he put his eyes to it and took a squint at Jupiter. Then his heart leaped with joy and relief, for the great rose disk took up only part of the telescopic field and as he hastily read the graduations along the cross hairs he saw they were out of the worst of its gravitational field. In fact, they must be not far from the orbit of the small satellite that was their destination.

Bullard whirled the altiscope until he brought the tiny iron body into his field of vision, and the moment he sighted it he began barking orders to his men back in the tube room. They must turn now, and with their single good tube and the five frayed and oversized ones, and buck their own forward momentum. The problem had shifted from the desperate need for acceleration to the necessity of checking their flight. To conform to the terms of the admiral's order, they must land on that barren lump of iron.

SOMEHOW they did it. It may have been four hours later, or six, for time had ceased to have meaning, when a haggard and very dirty young lieutenant and the exhausted remnants of his crew staggered out onto the black plain of Jupiter's inmost satellite. They wasted but a moment in staring up at the huge hulk that had brought them there. Outwardly, she was the sleek, powerful cruiser that she had been the day before, however disarranged she might be inside, but they were not concerned with her general appearance. They had come to inspect the damage done to her after hull by the disintegration of the tube liners. Was it irreparable? And what sort of terrain lay beneath the now helpless Pride of the Skies?

For Lieutenant Bullard was not content with merely having escaped the grip of Jupiter. As he understood it, he was in temporary command of the Pollux; and of the tactical problem aligned only the first leg had been completed. He must get off this rock next and take her back to Ursapolis and set her down in her launching cradle in the yard. Benton shook his head gloomily. There were no more rabbits in the hat. To sit down on Callisto they would need not one tube but three, and at that, the maneuver was sure to be jerky and full of risk.

It was while these two were in their huddle, talking over ways and means, that the admiral and Captain Dongan found them. Allyn had roused them and told them where to look.

"Well done, Bullard," said Captain Mike. "The admiral has promised you a special commendation. Tell me now the exact condition of the ship and I will relieve you. The first thing the admiral wants is a jury-rigged radio so we can have tugs come out. As soon as that is done you may go and rest. I'll take charge now."

"No, sir," protested Bullard hotly. "I demand the right to carry on. They have put us into this mess as a test. Well— the test is not over yet. According to the rules, if we call for help, we lose. We can't—"

"We have not lost," said Captain Mike, quietly. "The problem has been canceled. Unforeseen developments—"

"Yes!" cried Bullard, his voice almost a scream, he was so outraged at the implications, "that's just it— unforeseen developments, and the Pollux couldn't take it! That is what the sky fleet will be saying and laughing at us in every mess from Pluto to Mercury. If we let 'em call this thing off now, we're all washed up and done as far as being the best ship in the whole—"

Bullard was a bit hysterical and quite unaware of his seeming insubordination. He had been through a lot and his nerves were frayed and jumpy, but for hours now he had concentrated on this dilemma and he was in no mood to be shoved to one side. It was up to him to find a way out— he must find a way out, one way or another. Any other solution would be to let the Pollux down, an admitted failure, and that was unthinkable. After all, what was this unforeseen development that had wrecked them? Nitrous oxide! So what? That was a legitimate hazard. It could have been generated under other and more normal conditions and would have had to have been dealt with. To call off this test now would be simply to take refuge behind an alibi, and a weak one at that. Bullard was the one the umpires had chosen for the guinea pig and he couldn't quit. As he saw it, not only was the reputation of the ship at stake, but his own personal honor.

Hot words poured from him, reckless words— mutinous sounding, but Captain Mike listened, gravely. He looked at this lieutenant of his thoughtfully.

"I like your spirit, Bullard, but that is beside the point. There is no way out now. It is too late. As for your reputation, have no fear—"

"Oh, that's not it, sir—" Bullard was on the verge of tears.

"Let the boy have his way," interposed the admiral. "His stand is the correct one. Personally, I think we're wasting time, but I won't have it said that I denied justice to any man. If he thinks he can pull out of here, let him try it. I will allot you twenty-four more hours to carry on the problem, Bullard, and during that time you will have no interference. Good luck!"

IF BULLARD'S TEARS had been close to the surface from rage and anger, the reason a few dribbled down his cheeks now was a different one. His first emotion was jubilation. But in a moment that gave way to a sense of awe as the full implication of what he had assumed made itself apparent to him. He realized that in insisting on carrying this problem to its conclusion he had put both himself and the Pollux on the spot. Before, they had at least an out— a plausible and an officially acceptable alibi. If he failed now, the ship failed with him. Remorse smote him. Had his vanity led him to compromise the name of this ship he had become so attached to? It was a sobering thought. Now he knew as he never had before, that he must succeed. Not until the Pollux was snugged down in the yard could he rid himself of the responsibility.

That thought was all the bracer he needed. As by a miracle, his fatigue dropped away from him, and by a few terse words he managed to convey to Benton and his helpers somethings of the same fiery spirit that animated him. To a man, they knew that excuses would have no value— they must deliver.

It was an interested group of spectators who thronged about the grounded cruiser. By common consent the rules had been relaxed to the extent that the "dead" could look on and converse, provided only they did not interfere. From the deceased Polliwogs came words of cheer— the whole crew was rooting for them, while now and then a Castor Bean would relieve himself of some wisecrack at the expense of the toiling repair men. The admiral, for all his magnanimity, was fretful and impatient. He had a dinner date with the Governor of Callisto for the following evening and it annoyed him to think he might not be there. The Castorians, too, were anxious to get back to the yard. They yearned to get aboard their own vessel, for in the last few hours they had learned there was much to do to that fine ship. Her inspection— by the Polliwogs— was set for the following week.

Bullard doggedly disregarded them all. He had opened a cargo hatch along the keelson and from the nether hold his men had dragged five huge cylinders. Using heavy tackles, they ranged them alongside the Pollux in the wan sunlight of the Jovian System. Farther aft, heavy tripods had been set up and diamond-pointed drills were biting into the native iron of the little satellite. Other men were high up on the sternpost, driving portable reamers into the ragged tunnels of the tube housings. Chinnery and Roswell, chief engineers respectfully of thePollux and Castor, stood by, watching.

Chinnery evinced no joy at seeing this young officer from the gunnery department making bold with his spare stores, nor did he take pains to conceal his contempt for this latest effort.

"Spare bushings for the old-style tubes," he explained to Roswell. "I forgot I had a set. But they won't do him any good. They're over-sized. We carry 'em because they are too big forgings to pick up anywhere, but it takes a well-equipped yard to put 'em in— they have to be pressed in, you know, to a tight fit."

Roswell nodded. As a rival, he was quite willing to see the job miscarry. Up until then, the Pollux had parried every one of his devastating casualties. He was hoping they would muff this real one.

But Bullard neither knew nor cared what they were saying. He and Benton were on top one of the huge tubes, manipulating a gigantic pair of calipers. They already knew they were oversize, and their plans for pressing them in were at that very moment in the process of execution. Astern of the ship a group of holes had been drilled into the iron, and now the men had substituted fat taps for the drills. Those who had originally brought the tubes out of the storeroom were back within the ship, rousing out hundreds of fathoms of high tensile chain— carried for the rare emergency of a heavy tow.

The men up in the tubes reported their job completed, but Bullard frowned when he read the finished diameter. It was too little. He wished ardently for a giant lathe so he could take a cut off the massive tubes. But there was no such lathe nearer than Ursapolis. He would have to reduce the outer diameter of the bushings some other way.

He bled air from the ship through outlets on its shady side, and collected the liquefied gas in buckets and doused the tubes with the cold liquid air, but even when they had shrunk to their minimum size, they were still too large. It was a disappointment, for he had little time to spare for the actual work ahead and none at all for experimentation. The tapping of the holes was done, and now men were already setting the heavy eyebolts and reeving the chains through, ready to hold the ship against the thrust of the great hydraulic jack he had placed astern of her. But still the tubes were too fat. If the ram was strong enough to force them in, the chains would part, he must reduce the resistance, but he saw no way to do it now except to heat the tubes, and that he was reluctant to do, for his tank soundings showed he was already dangerously short of fuel. They had expended it lavishly in their escape from Jupiter. There was barely enough liquid hydrogen to get them off the satellite and on their way to port, with a small margin over for the landing.

Benton shook his head when questioned as to possible sources of substitute fuel. All the uranium had been lost overboard when the feed pipes were broken with full pressure still behind the fuel supply. That had been necessary at the time, and it was fruitless to waste regrets on it now.

Bullard sat down and explored the ship mentally, checking off one by one, the contents of the storerooms. There was nothing he could use that did not have some drawback. Ammonal there was plenty of, but he had doubts as to its safety. Then, suddenly, the solution hit him.

"Go ahead and set your first tube," he directed; "No. 1. Then send all the men you can spare into the nose blister— break out a couple of tons of that steel wool. That's what we will use."

IT MADE A pretty blaze, that tube housing stuffed with steel wool saturated in liquid air, and a short one. Under the terrific outpouring of heat, the tube reddened and swelled, and the ready nose of the first of the bushings was jockeyed into the mouth of the tube and the great jack set in motion. Upward it drove, the ship straining against her leashes, but the pad-eyes set in the hard, planetary iron held, and the quivering Pollux had to receive her bushing. There was no evading the thrust of the ram.

One by one the other bushings were run in and rammed light, and as the surrounding housing cooled, its contraction crushed the liner to as tight a fit as any yard in the Solar System could have achieved with all their fine equipment. Bullard had no misgivings as to their reliability. They would stay in place.

He was an hour ahead of schedule when the last tool was back on board and the warning howlers announced the imminent take-off. The Pollux spouted flame— old-fashioned flame, such as the Asia still used— then roared upward on her homeward flight.

"Send this, please," the admiral crisply commanded the tired but contented acting captain of the Pollux. Bullard looked at him in surprise. The radio had been repaired, but why did he want to send a signal? No one needed a tug now. They would be in in an hour— long before any tug could be warmed up. But he took the signal, since the admiral had offered it, and read. It was addressed to all ships and stations and began, "I have this day inspected the cruiser Pollux and find her ready in all respects for any contingency of the service—"

The first casualty of the trip really to hit Bullard occurred at that point. Something went wrong with his eyes, and for a moment the message in his fingers was just a blur. He saw the words "special commendation," and a mention of a Commander Bullard, and by then he had reached the familiar signature— Abercrombie. He did notice that the ship's score was a flat four-0, and at the moment that was all he cared about. She had made the grade.

__________________

5: White Mutiny

Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1940

You don't have to start a fight and shoot your officers to mutiny— and the officers don't have to beat men to drive 'em to mutiny! A rule book skipper in a prize-winning ship is dynamite enough for that!

FOR THE FIRST time in his life, Commander Bullard found himself dreading something— dreading it intensely. And, oddly enough, that something was no more than the routine Saturday inspection. In ten minutes he would buckle on his sword, that quaint ceremonial relic of antiquity, put on his awkward fore-and-aft hat, and accompany the new captain— Chinnery— through the mazes of the good spaceship Pollux.

He sighed helplessly, glanced up at Lieutenant Commander Fraser, thence let his eyes rove to the bookshelf where a fathom's length of canvas bound stood. He stared savagely at them. He had never realized before there were so many of them. Heretofore he had done his duty as he saw it and left chapter and verse to the sky lawyers.

But those fat books contained the awful clauses that regulated the conduct of the Space Guard. There they were— eight thick volumes— of the Regulations Proper. Ranged next were three volumes more of the Ordinance Instructions, and five of the Engineering Instructions. Then came the set relating to Astragation, and the fourteen learned tomes on Interplanetary Law; then the ones on Tactics and Strategy, then—

Bullard shuddered. It was overwhelming. To violate, even unwittingly, any provision contained in that compact library was technically "neglect of duty." And the new skipper was a hound for regulations.

"From here out," he had told Bullard the week before, on the occasion of his confiscation and destruction of all the crew's tailor-made liberty uniforms, "the regulations are in effect.All of them, not just the ones that happen to please you." And Bullard remembered the sullen faces of what had been a happy ship's company as they tossed their trim outfits into the incinerator door. A tapeline in Chinnery's own hands had revealed the clothing much too tight in the waist, and as much as three inches too full in the shoulders. It was, he said, a clear violation of Article 8878, sections B and D.

So they were destroyed. It did not seem to matter to Chinnery that no self-respecting skyman would allow himself to be seen, even in the lowest dive, clad in the shoddy issue uniform, nor did it matter to him that each of those uniforms stood their owners two or three months' pay. They were non-reg, and that was that. What if the planet girls had a way of judging sailors by their clothes? What if the men sulked and grumbled at their work?

"A couple of days on bread and water will take that out of them," said Chinnery tartly when Bullard had protested. "The question is— are we going to run the ship the way the department wants it, or are we going to pamper the men?"

And Bullard thought back to the glowing report of their last admiral's inspection— that which had brought them all citations and promotions; and to the plaque in control that stated the Pollux to be the best all-around ship in the service. To a young man who had been taught that success lay in getting things done, that trophy seemed to be conclusive. Results, it seemed to him, were what counted, not the manner of the doing.

THERE WAS a rap at the door. It was the captain's orderly. Bullard took the folded paper he bought, read it, frowned, and tossed it onto the desk.

"Tell the captain I'll attend to it," he said to the orderly wearily. It was the umpty-umph message of the sort he had received in the past ten days.

"The captain said you were to answer forthwith in writing," said the orderly stiffly. His manner was punctiliously correct, yet there was the hint cf insolence in the way he said it. Orderlies of man-baiting captains soon acquire the manner.

Bullard shot him a hard look, then reached for Volume II of the Regulations. The paper was upside down to Carlson, but he could read it.

From: Commanding Officer

To: Executive Officer.

Subject: Duties.

Reference: Art. 2688, SS Regs.

1. It has been brought to my attention that reference is not being complied with.

2. You are directed to explain in writing at once the reasons for this dereliction in duty on your part.

CHINNERY.

Bullard found Article 2688, read it and gasped. It merely said:

The executive officer shall wind the chronometer.

"Damnation," he muttered, and pushed the button for his yeoman. He dictated three terse sentences. The Pollux's chronometer behaved perfectly, it was wound daily by the assistant navigator, as was the practice in the fleet, the executive officer did not understand ihe commanding officer's allusion to dereliction in duty.

Bullard gnawed his lip while the yeoman rapped out the letter, then signed it and handed it without a word to the waiting orderly.

Within two minutes the orderly was back.

"The captain says," said the orderly, with even more of an undertone of insolence, "that he is not interested in the so-called customs of the service. He says that the regulations require the executive to wind the chronometer, and that there is nothing about delegating the duty to some subordinate. And that hereafter he wants straightforward answers to his memos, not evasive alibis."

Bullard glared at the man, the color mounting to his face. The orderly returned the look with a cool stare.

"He said you were to acknowledge the—"

"Get out of here!" roared Bullard, rising and thumping his desk.

"He's riding you, that's what, the dumb fathead!" exclaimed Fraser as the orderly disappeared down the passage. "He's still sore over the way you showed him up at that admiral's inspection. He's envious, he's yellow—"

"Easy!" warned Bullard. "After all, he's our superior officer."

"Superior, my eye!" snorted Fraser. "He's got more rank, yes. But it burns me up to oven look at the slob. And every time I see that smart-Aleck orderly I want to swing on him. That goes for that slippery ship's writer, too. Think of you having to wind the chronometer personally! Why, how—"

"How?" laughed Bullard harshly. "If you think that's something, look at this. He sent it in just before you came."

He tossed Fraser the earlier memo.

"Phew!" whistled the gunnery officer, popping his eyes.

"Yes," said Bullard bitterly. "Article 2751 says that the exec. shall satisfy himself that the quarterly inventories are correct, but you see that his nibs construes that to mean an item-by-item personal check— and that don't mean sampling, either."

"What about all those firebricks in D-66? I used to do those by the cubic yard, but they are carried on the books by number—"

"I have to count 'em— the whole damn forty-two thousand some-odd of 'em."

"How will we ever get anything done?" asked Fraser blankly. He, like every other officer in the ship, had received his own quota of Captain Chinnery's curt queries as to this regulation and that. He had long since abandoned informal gunnery drills. All his gunner's mates were up to their necks, compiling lists of spare parts, motor serial numbers, and immersed in such other paper work.

"Thar she blows," remarked Bullard dully as the gong began to tap for quarters. He reached for his sword and cocked hat. "Well, let's go and get the bad news."

BAD NEWS it was. Smug, plump little Chinnery stayed a long time in each compartment, blandly pointing out technical flaws. The only thing in the ship that seemed to please him were the ill-fitting, badly-dyed issue uniforms of the crew— made by the female convicts to kill time on bleak Juno. The disgruntled, sour looks of the men seemed not to disturb him at all. His ambition was to have the perfect ship— on paper— and his coup had been duly entered in the log. The reviewer in the department would read that and know of his zeal, whereas subtleties— like morale— were not so readily conveyed in cold type.

In sub-CC the inspecting party made its usual pause. The captain's eye lit on the old-style annunciator panel hung on the bulkhead above the intership communication board. He reached up and struck the glassite cover sharply wilh the heel of his hand. A black card bearing the number "24-B" dropped into view.

"What does that mean?" he barked at the unhappy operator, a recruit just come aboard. "What do you do when one of those drops?"

"I ... I don't know, sir, N-no-body ever told me—"

"What!" squealed Chinnery, "Here you are, intrusted with the watch, and don't know what to do when a magazine is on fire? Bullard! What is the meaning of this?" He swung viciously on Bullard, puckering his fat face into what was meant to be a stern expression.

"That board—" began Bullard patiently. But Chinnery cut him off.

"Never mind that. I know what the board is. Why has not this man been instructed in his duties?"

"Because—" Bullard tried a second time, but the captain was not listening.

"Never mind the alibi. Yeoman! Take a note... for the commander's record... about this. Let's see, that makes Specification No. 14 under the charge of 'neglect of duty,' doesn't it?"

"Seventeen, sir," answered the yeoman, riffling through the pages of his notebook.

"Hmm-m," muttered Chinnery.

"But—" objected Bullard, his wrath rising.

"But me no buts, young man. I am beginning to see that your vaunted efficiency was mostly luck. Imagine! Having a phone operator on watch who does not know what to do in case of a magazine fire!"

He turned to the now thoroughly frightened lad and, in what was meant to be a soothing voice, said:

"That, my boy, is an indicator of high magazine temperatures. If a number should ever drop, flood that magazine immediately— then notify me. The controls are to your right— there."

Bullard, purple with fury, restrained himself. Then he caught Fraser's solemn wink and decided to let it go. Fraser knew as well as he did that the board was no longer connected with the thermocouples in the powder storerooms. The dropping of a number could only mean that the board had been jarred, a thing that had occurred before, with embarrassing consequences. It was for that reason that this alarm system had been condemned and replaced by a better one in Central. That was why there was a job order on file for its complete removal the very next time they were back to the home yard on Luna.

Similar outbursts on the part of the captain took place in other spots, but it was not until they were inside the port torpedo rooms that his legalistic mind showed itself in its fullest flower. He laid his hand on a curious bulge in the inboard bulkhead.

"What is behind this?" he demanded.

"The original torpedo hoists," replied Fraser, "but we use the magnetic ones altogether now. These are blanked off with plating to keep dirt from accumulating in them."

"Ah," said Chinnery, "I seem to remember." He sent his yeoman scurrying back to the cabin for his file of quarterly reports. After he had returned, Chinnery turned his scowl on Fraser.

"More negligence," he said. "No routine tests, no monthly operating by hand, no quarterly reports for more than three years. No inventories or requisitions for spare parts. Don't the regulations mean anything to you?"

Fraser looked at his captain in blank amazement.

"Tut, tut," said Chinnery testily, "don't stand there like a gaping fool. The point is that the hoists are still installed, whether you use them or not. And since they are installed, they are subject to the usual maintenance routine and reports."

"But, captain," interposed Bullard, "the only reason they are still here is because, being obsolete, the department figured it was cheaper to abandon them in place and blank them in than to tear them out. Moreover, we can't run them monthly— the leads to the motors have been removed."

"Then run new ones," snapped the captain, "and replace the motors, if necessary."

"Aye, aye, sir," growled Bullard.

This was the last straw. If Chinnery kept this sort of thing up, the ship would be a raving madhouse before the month was out— absolutely ruined as a fighting ship. There is nothing that takes the spirit out of men and officers more than useless, foolish work— particularly when done at the expense of something truly worth while.

BULLARD was soon to learn, however, that his troubles had just begun. In his capacity as executive officer, it fell him to pass Chinnery's silly orders on to his juniors, who in their turn passed them on to the men, grumbling and venting themselves of caustic side remarks as they did. As for the men, they merely sulked, doggedly doing what they were told. Smoldering resentment was obvious everywhere, and it finally came to a head the day Chinnery slapped four men in the brig and put Lieutenant Carlson under hack for ten days. Their exact offense was not clearly understood, but the captain characterized it as "officiousness." They had done something on their own, not waiting for his direct order.

"But, commander," pleaded Fraser, "we can't go on this way. We had the finest ship in the whole damn service, but what have we got now? A madhouse! She's going to hell right under our noses. The men are on the verge of mutiny... both Benton and Tobelman had been disrated, a rank injustice... and I hear—"

"Yes, I know," replied Bullard morosely. He sat a moment in a brown study. He knew that a round robin was being circulated, that committees of petty officers had been formed, and that there were rocks ahead.

"Get those men up here," said Bullard suddenly, "and Carrick, too, the pharmacist."

When they came, Bullard looked them over steadily as they lined up before his desk. He knew them well, and they him. They were the mainstay of the ship— the real leaders of the crew— the men upon whom the officers depended to get things done. Men like those could make or break a captain. Bullard read their faces and thought buck gratefully to a certain gruff old bos'n who had tactfully deflated him when he was a fresh-caught snotty. Some of that off-the-record discipline from beneath upward had been hard to take, but he knew now that he was a better officer for it.

"Men," he said, looking straight at them, "we have a tough assignment. We have a new captain. He is... well, different from Captain Dongan. He is more... er... regulation-minded, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, sir," chorused the men, "we know."

"The refuge of an incompetent," blurted out Fraser indignantly. "He knows damn well that as long as he sticks to the book they can't hang him, no matter what happens to the ship. But just let somebody exercise a little initiative, a little common sense, and right away his neck is in a bight. It might turn out wrong. He's yellow, I tell you. Bah!"

"An outburst like that may relieve the emotions, Fraser," said Bullard calmly, "but it does not alter the situation. Captain Chinnery is still the skipper, and as such he is much more than a man. He is a symbol ... the symbol of the supreme authority. Moreover, every order he has issued has been strictly legal. Any refusal on our part to carry them out merely ruins us and hurts him not at all. We have no choice but to comply."

"And see the ship go merrily to hell!" Fraser was outraged.

"Perhaps."

It was then that Fraser and the three silent enlisted men first noted the half smile playing on Bullard's lips and the fleeting twinkle in his eye.

"Supposing," remarked Bullard dryly, fixing his eyes on the rows of books, "it does. There will be an investigation, naturally. Blame will be fixed. They always start at the top. I propose to let them stop there. I, for one, do not mean to accept the buck."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the only possible course open to us is co-operation."

"Co-operation?" Fraser's laugh was hard and dry. Benton and his comrades remained silent.

"Exactly. Captain Chinnery complains of misplaced initiative. Well, let's cut out initiative. He wants a 'reg' ship. Let's bone the book— turn sky lawyers. Let's do what we're told— and not one damn thing more!"

Bullard let his glance drift back to the three stolid men and the flushed officer before him. He noted Benton and Tobelman as they wiped the grins from their faces, and saw Fraser's hot indignation fade as comprehension dawned.

"Not bad... not bad," said the latter slowly. "Fight fire with fire, eh?"

"We'll pass the word, sir," came from Benton, and the other two men grinned frankly then, "co-operation it will be."

"Good," said Commander Bullard, and promptly immersed himself in Volume 2 of Regulations. None but a god, omnipotent and with all eternity to do it in, could expect to do all the things required of an executive officer, but he could try, paragraph by paragraph, just as they came.

He looked at 2707.

From time to time, the executive officer shall satisfy himself, by personal inspection, that boat boxes are in order—

"Ah," breathed Bullard, "I'll beat him to that one." And he walked out onto the broad fin where the boats were cradled. One hundred and nineteen items in each boat box— and there were eight boats! It would take two days' work, that simple duty alone!

2

IT WAS ABOUT two weeks after that that the rumors began to fly about the revival of banditry on Neptune. Only spaceships could cope with them, for over that jagged and precipitous terrain and in that airless sky the usual planetary gendarmerie could not operate effectively. The scuttlebutt was more and more persistent that one of the larger ships of the Jovian Patrol was about to be detached and sent there to wipe the villains out.

Bullard made a wry face when he heard of it, for the most likely ship was, of course, the Pollux. Ironically enough, Admiral Abercrombie's last report of her unequivocally pronounced her to be the ship best fitted for emergency duty. Yet Bullard knew, as every man jack aboard— unless Chinnery himself be excepted— that the Pollux of a scant four months before was a thing of the past, a legend. Morale? It was to laugh! Or weep.

Only three days before, the starboard condenser had sprung a leak, and when it was reported to the captain he went to have a look.

"Well, pull it down and roll in that tube," he snapped.

Benton's men turned to, pulled it down, and rolled the tube. Then they replaced the shell, laboriously made all the connections and put it back in service. An hour later two more tubes went.

"Hell's bells!" squealed Chinnery when they told him. "How can that be? You were in that condenser only yesterday. Couldn't you see those other two tubes were about to go?"

"You told us to roll the leaky one, sir," said Benton, his face the ultimate in dead pan. He might have added that it was not the tubes that were at fault, but a warped header. But he was not asked that.

"Such stupidity!" muttered Captain Chinnery. "Very well, yank it down again and do it all over."

"The one we did yesterday?" asked Benton, registering faint surprise.

"No, fool, the two that just blew out!"

"Yes, sir."

Bullard looked on impassively. Chinnery's tart words of a few weeks past still burned. "When I want anything done, I'll order it— this ship is not so complicated that one man can't do the thinking for it."

Yet, as he recalled that, knowing that that very morning the condenser had been pulled down for the third time, he wondered just how the Pollux could get to Neptune, if ordered, and what she could do if she got there. Bullard shrugged, and dismissed the matter from his mind. That was Chinnery's worry. Then he looked up to see the goat-getting orderly standing by his desk with the inevitable memorandum in his hand. Listlessly Bullard took it and read:

In view of our probable departure shortly for one of the outer planets, you will take such action as may be necessary to insure that no contraband is brought on board. Section 10,009, SS Regs.

Bullard straightened up in his chair and frowned. He knew without looking what the reference was— it was the one article in the book that even the most arrant martinet found it expedient to ignore. That is, where Neptune and Pluto were concerned. For Martian joola-joola, the forbidden beverage, was the only known specific against the mysterious and invisible radiations emanated by those cold and rocky dim planets. Out there it did not intoxicate— it was a vital stimulant. Yet since the control board were Puritanical Earthlings, the space guard had never been able to have the article modified. Hence the unwritten law of the service that its breach must be winked at.

The young exec knew that the returning liberty party would be well heeled with the stuff— cleverly enough concealed to save the face of the O.D., who, at least, had to go through the motions of upholding the regulations. He glanced at the clock. It was well after five, Io time, and shortly boats would start coming back. He got up uneasily and walked out toward the exit port. He had learned something about Chinnery's methods and he feared dirty work of some sort.

"What is that gadget?" Bullard asked of Ensign Pitto, the officer of the deck, pointing to a contraption being erected in the gangway.

"A field fluoroscope, sir. Captain's orders. They are setting up the X-ray tube behind that sheet of canvas across the passage."

Bullard scowled at the layout, then hurried to his office. Lately he had learned to suppress anger, but at the moment it was hard. For he saw instantly through the captain's malicious plan. Apparently Chinnery, when it suited his purposes, knew how to evade the regulations, too. To be sure he was right, Bullard snatched down the volume entitled "Pertaining to Enlisted Personnel." Yes, it was there. The men had some rights.

11,075: Neither the person nor the effects of any enlisted man may be searched except upon good and sufficient grounds. Except in cases of suspected theft, and where a man has a known bad record, a man's own statement that he posseses no contraband shall be deemed sufficient—

"So," he murmured grimly, "a search that is not a search. A slinking, slimy way to smear the records of hundreds of men— and to hang me on the rebound." He slammed the book shut. "Well— he'll do neither."

TWENTY MINUTES later, Bullard jumped out of one of the gyrocopters that were acting as tenders for the ship. The landing stage was still empty, but soon it would be full at returning skymen, their arms full of bundles— innocent purchases— and somewhere else upon them the forbidden joola-joola. And out at the ship, Captain Chinnery waited craftily with his trap all set.

"Hold the next boat for the ship until I get back," Bulard said hastily to Lieutenant Carlson, who was handling the beach guard. With that he dashed off to the nearest liquor dive.

On his way he passed a number of the Pollux's men, heading for the boat landing. They saluted sheepishly, still painfully self-conscious for having to wear the unsightly issue uniforms that made them pariahs on shore.

By the time he reached the liquor joint, though, it was empty. Or almost. In one corner, almost concealed by a post, sat the captain's yeoman— Ship's Writer Norvick. As the door slammed behind Bullard, he saw the yeoman fold up a notebook and slide it into a pocket. Ranged on the bar stood a row of flat curved-glass bottles, most of them empty. The bartender was filling the others from a huge demijohn of the delicate violet joola-joola.

"Aha," thought Bullard, "check and double check, eh? Chinnery's chief spy is getting the dope at the source!"

He turned abruptly and strode from the place. He had seen enough. The belly flasks lined up on the bar told him how the stuff was being smuggled. The presence of the skipper's snooping yeoman, coupled with the waiting X-ray machine at the gangway of the Pollux told him how the captain had planned to trip him up— and most of the crew with him.

He bounded toward the landing stage, inwardly raging. But his anger did not cloud his thought. At every step he turned over some new plan for defeating the captain's scheme. He was actuated, as he had been when he had proposed non-co-operative co-operation to forestall overt mutiny, by the highest motives. He wanted to save the crew— and the junior officers— from their small-minded incompetent captain. Constantly goaded as they were by picayune quibbling and nagging, he was fearful of an outright rupture. And in that event everybody would lose.

It was a situation he found galling, for, like the crew, he was capable of the fiercest loyalty— if properly led. It was unfortunate that out of such a generally splendid service the crack crew of the Pollux should draw a weak sister for a captain, a man who hid his lack of ability behind the technicalities of the printed word. But it had. The thing to do was make the best of it.

BULLARD'S HEART fell when he reached the landing stage. Carlson had finished his superficial inspection and already loaded the men into the boat, which stood waiting to shove off. That was bad, for if it could be proved that the men had carried the liquor into one of the ship's tenders it was the same as having taken it on board the Pollux herself. Bullard's plan for warning Lhe men while still beyond the jurisdiction of the space guard was unworkable. And as he saw the yeoman Norvick had come along behind him, he knew that calling the liberty party back ashore so they could get rid of the contraband would be worse than doing nothing. Like a flash, he changed his plans.

"Out of the boat, all you men, and fall in on the dock. Single rank."

Several of the waiting men blinked in surprise at the order, but they got out of the boat and fell in.

"I have orders," said Bullard slowly, "to see that no contraband goes aboard. But before I question you on that score, I will make a brief uniform inspection."

He turned around to where a patrolman stood behind him twirling an oak nightstick.

"Lend me that a moment," said Bullard, and took the stick.

He paused before the first man in line and looked him up and down. The skin-tight issue trousers afforded no hiding place for anything. Yes, it must be all in belly flasks. Thoughtfully he extended the club and gently tapped the rigid skyman on his blouse, just above the middle. There was a faint clink.

Pam! With a quick and unexpected stroke, Bullard brought the stick down harder. Then he stepped on to the next man. Behind him he thought he heard the tinkle-tinkle of glass fragments raining on the pavement, but he did not look back. Again the tentative tap, again the sharp, sudden blow, again the muffled crash— and a slowly widening damp spot on the barbarous issue uniform. Bullard did not give it a glance, but stepped forward. Somewhere in the background someone snickered, but the young exec's face was a sludy in nonexpression.

Fourteen times down that line he detected the telltale clink, and fourteen times he swatted. Then he stood back, looking the men in the face, not at the small, widening puddies of violet something at their feet.

"Have any of you men any contraband substance in your possesion?"

"No, sir!"

The yell was in unison, as if previously rehearsed. Bullard's face almost cracked into a wide grin, but he managed to get the better of it.

"Embark!" he said.

The men got back into the boat, Norvick among them. Bullard was about to follow when he saw a fresh group of men coming down the dock, Benton and Carrick among them. Bullard walked to meet them.

"When you get aboard, Carrick," said Bullard in the most matter-of-fact way, "you had better check up on the operation of your X-ray-fluoroscope outfit. Captain Chinnery is using it at the gangway."

"The sunnuva—" began Carrick.

"Pipe down!" growled Benton to Carrick. Then to the commander, "Thank you, sir; we'll be coming out in the next boat."

"Splendid," said Bullard, and there was just the slightest little jerk of his right eyelid. Benton wheeled and spread out his arms to the group of skymen assembling for the boat.

"Back, men. I want to talk to you."

"Shove off," said Bullard to the coxswain, settling himself among the slightly damp and odoriferous men he had just inspected. He shot one look at the ship's writer sitting opposite him with a crooked little smile on his face, as if he was sucking the marrow out of some private joke, then looked out at the fleeting Ionian landscape. He shrugged. There was no contraband in this boat. Nor, in so far as anybody could prove, had ever been.

"YOU'RE HAIR-SPLITTING, Bullard, and that is all there is to it!"

Chinnery was fairly screaming with rage. "You should have arrested those men, confiscated the bottles for evidence, and brought them to me to—"

"My orders," said Bullard, struggling for calm expression, "said to take such action as may be necessary to prevent contraband being brought aboard. To the best of my knowledge, none was. Those orders are in my safe, awaiting the court of inquiry the Pollux is certain to have before—"

"The court-martial you are sure to have!" yelped the captain. "For I have an independent witness who saw those flasks of joola-joola—"

"Saw flasks filled with a pale-violet liquid." corrected Bullard coolly. "Unhappily, they were flimsy flasks, and the stuff is lost. There is no way to prove what was in them. So far as I know, it was that perfume they make from the Ganymedian plimris bloom."

A boat bell clanged.

"Never mind," said Chinnery, triumph supplanting his petulant anger, "step with me to the gangway. The moment I heard of your pusillanimous behavior I sent a message to the beach guard that there was to be no more belly-patting inspections."

Bullard followed along with considerably mixed feelings. He had the utmost reliance on Benton's quickness of perception and on his versatility. What fruit had the veiled warning he had thrown out brought?

"Here are three of them," said Ensign Pitto, motioning toward the three skymen lined up against the bulkhead. "The rest were clean."

"Aha!" gloated Chinnery, shooting an I-told-you-so look at the discomfitted Bullard.

The three men were the three outstanding petty officers of the ship— Benton, Tobelman, and Carrick. Chinnery stooped and squinted at the fluoroscope. Bullard could not help seeing, too. Each of the men had a flat, rectangular package under his jacket athwart his navel. The shape was unmistakable— jooia-joola bottles! Made of lead glass, they showed up like a sore thumb.

"Search them— strip them!" yelled the captain, sure of his victory.

"Sir, we protest." It was Benton who spoke. "We pledge our word we have no contraband. You have no right—"

"Carry out my orders!" screamed the captain, turning in fury on the bos'n's mate of the watch.

In a moment the jackets were ripped away and the flask-shaped objects snatched out of the tight belts of the three protesting men.

"W-w-what the—" Captain Chinnery turned one of them over and over in his hands, absolutely nonplused. The slab was slightly curved and of a sort of plaster. On the face of it was a crude bas-relief of a heifer and a scribbled inscription reading, "Souvenir of the Ionian Barium Mines, made of one of our products— gamma-ray-resisting barium plaster."

For a moment Captain Chinnery stood stupidly staring at the thing he was twisting in his hands. Then he dashed it to the deck and strode off down the passage, combing his hair with agitated fingers and muttering, "Damn, damn, damn!" Bullard looked after the departing figure and began to laugh. In an instant, the whole corridor was reverberating with the howls of twenty laughing men as the next boatload of men poured through the port and down toward their lockers. Ensign Pitto, mystified and baffled by the entire proceedings, looked wonderingly on, not bothering to use the now discredited fluoroscope again.

Benton picked up his plaster objet d'art and stuck it back under his belt.

"Somebody owes me a quart," he said to a man passing.

"You'll get it," said the man. "Two of 'em."

III.

THE PRECIPITOUS walls of Kerens Crater ringed them like a huge Coliseum. The face of every man in the control room of the Pollux was set in hard, grim lines. They were anxious, and many of them wondered whether they had been so smart, after all. For they were hurtling straight downward toward the ragged cone in the center at hideous velocity, and everyone of them knew the ship about them was a semiwreck. Half her engine room was torn apart— for routine tests— and the same applied to her battery. She could hardly be worked. It was problematical whether she could be fought. And in this crater were said to be more than a thousand of the toughest rascals who ever slit a throat.

Yet as each man turned over in his mind his own contribution to the chaos, he could not help recall some saying of the captain. Throughout the cramped room through the mind of one or another of them ran the memory of such curt and devastating sayings as these— all quotations from Captain Chinnery:

"When I want information, I'll ask for it."

"I'm long on ideas, young man. All I expect of you is execution."

"Never mind why— I tell you to do it."

"Of course it handicaps gunfire— but the regulations call for it."

"Cancel the drill— you have three quarterly reports to get out."

"You exceed your authority! Wait for orders hereafter!"

And on and on. You were damned if you did, damned if you didn't. When a man cannot be pleased, nobody tries.

Captain Chinnery set the counter-blasts to raging, and the fall of the ship was checked with a shudder. Fraser was searching the horizon for the bandit lair. Then of a sudden the roar of the exhaust sputtered and stopped. Chinnery angrily barked into the engine-room communicator.

"Who stopped those motors?"

"Fuel exhausted, sir."

Chinnery paled. No one spoke, but all knew the inevitable answer. And the cause. They would crash, for the hydrogen tubes could not be limbered up in time. And the reason for it was that Chinnery had refused to O.K. the last uranium requisition on the ground the ship had already exceeded her quarterly allowance!

Chinnery threw in the antigravity units, but they were weak and it was too late. The Pollux struck, at somewhere about ninety miles an hour, bounced high in the airless sky, then struck again, nose down. The lights went out, then came on. Men picked themselves up, nursing bruises, and looked at one another and the disordered compartments about them.

"Fire in all magazines!" came the startling announcement over the loud speakers, "Magazines flooded."

Bullard groaned. His non-co-operative co-operation had gone farther than he meant it to.

Pasted on the annunciator hoard in sub-CC were the captain's orders— to flood whenever any of those unconnected monitors showed! The jar of falling had brought them all down, of course, and the operator following the rule of blind obedience had done as he was told. The ship's guns were useless.

Chinnery looked sick, but he still had a grip on himself.

"Get up torpedoes," he directed. "Seeing us like this, they may attack at any moment."

"Can't," said Frascr without making any bones of it. "No hoists working."

"What!" bleated Chinnery.

"Right. You wanted those original ones operated— for the record. Well, we did. But to do it we had to rob the real hoists of their motors. It'll take another day to get them back again."

A bell began a clamorous clanging.

"A number of men headed this way across the crater floor," sang out the lookout. "There are tanks with them, and a caterpillar gun of some kind."

"Do something, Bullard," said Chinnery in a pleading voice, turning white-faced to his young exec. "You're a resourceful fellow."

"I am at your command, captain," said Bullard stiffly. "What is it you wish me to do?"

"They are setting that gun," the lookout informed them. "It's due west of us— nearly astern, as we lie. The men on foot are deploying at the foot of the slope."

"Fit out the landing force," managed Chinnery, finding his voice after the third gulp.

"Sorry," said Bullard, "but the small-arms magazine is flooded. Our ray guns are in there, too. There are no weapons available, unless it's the cutlery in the galley. Your order, you know— nothing ever to be left out of magazines."

The ship shuddered. There was a quick succession of staccato reports as a metallic hail beat against her armored sides. The brigands' gun was getting the range.

"The party on foot has a heat gimlet," reported the lookout. "They are working their way around to the north."

"Commence firing!" squeaked Chinnery. He was near to fainting.

"What with?" asked Fraser, having no wish to spare him.

Suddenly Chinnery got a grip on himself and straightened up. Wildly he looked around at the silent, accusing, unhelpful faces. Then he addressed Bullard.

"You win, Bullard. From the very first I recognized it would be you or me. But organized mutiny is too much. I yield— for the good of the ship. Take over. Do it your way." His voice trailed away. Then he drooped across the chart rack and vomited. "Black mutiny," he muttered, over and over again. "Black mutiny and insubordination."

Bullard's lip curled in scorn.

"What order of yours was ever refused? What threat was ever made you? And now, after you've wrecked us, you want to quit. Because you don't know what to do. You're yellow!"

Bullard glared at the cringing figure.

"But," he went on, not regarding the now persistent hail of pellets against the hull, "under your precious library of rules, you can't quit. Not while you are alive and well. The captain cannot duck his responsibility— not ever!"

"I'm a sick man," wailed Chinnery, sliding to the deck.

Bullard jerked his head toward the surgeon, Lieutenant Herilon.

"He's sick, all right," said Herilon after an examination of about one second. "Diagnosis: blue funk. Prognosis: terrible. In other words, he's unfit for duty."

"Very well, then," said Bullard. "I'll take over. But, doc, be sure that gets in the log."

The doc grinned. The ship had gotten regulation-minded, all right.

BULLARD WENT into action like a prodded bobcat.

"Benton! Warm up those old stern tubes and get ready to shoot measured blasts.

"Harris! Break out those two heavy jacks and take 'em outside. Set one on each side of the ship and slue her around until our stern bears on that bandit gun.

"Tobelman! Wangle half a dozen of your torps out of their brackets, stick 'em on dollies and manhandle 'em the best way you can to the rocket room.

"Carlson, you compute the ballistic. I'm firing torpedoes that way. You know the Neptune gravity, and there's a vacuum outside. Benton'll give you the pressure tables."

"The tubes are bigger than the torps," said Carlson.

"I know. Build up your torps with wire-rope grommets until they fit!"

Bullard paused for breath. Then he saw Norvick, slightly green about the gills, huddled in a corner.

"You— captain's yeoman! Grab your notebook and get busy." Bullard's voice was harsh and his eye was hard. "I want you to put down every breach of the regulations that happens from now on. Begin with the one— whatever its number is— that says you can't divert engineering material to the use of the ordnance department. And mind you, if you miss a single one, you're up for a court!"

"Yes, sir," whimpered the amazed ship's writer, but he dragged out his bulky notebook.

The lookout was reporting again.

"Those men are about halfway up the hill now. They have some other machine with them— can't make it out."

"Fraser!" shouted Bullard. "How long will it take you to convert that big exhaust blower in the topside fin to a centrifugal machine gun? Do you know what kind of an animal that is?"

"Yes, sir. I do. About five shakes of a lamb's lail!"

"Get at it. Only do it in four."

"Aye, aye, sir. But ammunition?"

"There are three or four tons of assorted ball bearings in storeroom D-60. I'll see that you get 'em."

In a couple of minutes Bullard ceased bellowing orders. He wiped his eyes and shook his head. He was beginning to feel queer, sicky sensations. Of a sudden a dread came over him that at any moment he would cave in. He took a deep breath, but it did no good. Then he noticed his hands were trembling.

"The radiations are getting bad, sir," reporled the doctor. "Several men have caved in already. I'm administering suprene, but it does not seem to be very effective."

Bullard knew then what had gone wrong with him.

"Don't waste time with that stuff," he said impatiently. "Serve out a slug of joola-joola all around."

"There's none on board," said Herilon. "I tried—"

"The hell there isn't! There's gallons of it. Just ask Carrick, or Tobelman, or—"

Herilon had gone, on the jump.

The ship shook. That time it was from her own recoil. Carlson had shot his first torpedo from the stern rocket tubes. There was a moment's wait for the spot, then a second one went.

"That group's through," reported Carlson gleefully a moment later. "Boy! What a mess those torps do make!"

"Help Fraser with the other crowd."

Ten minutes later, fortified by a double shot of joola-joola, Bullard watched the terrible execution on the downslope to starboard. First there was the singing whine as the high-speed motor worked up to velocity, then the rattle as the hopperful of ball bearings fell against the swift-revolving vanes. Then, under the wide-flung hail of that super-colossal blunderbuss, the oncoming pirates crumpled. Their mystery machine stood a moment later alone and untended in the midst of their piled-up corpses.

"That seems to be all of them," paid Bullard. "Tell Benton to stand by to pull out of this hole with the old rockets. We'll get more uranium as soon as we get to base."

ADMIRAL MIKE DONGAN lifted his eyebrows at the mass of paper Bullard laid before him. Old Captain Mike, after his promotion, had been sent to the outer zone as force commander. So it was to him, in Tethys Advanced Base, that Bullard reported.

"But—" puzzled the old man. Bullard had never gone in heavily for paper work when he knew him on the Pollux.

"That first stack," explained Bullard, "are the accumulated charges against me up to the moment I took temporary command—"

"Bosh," said Admiral Mike Dongan, glancing over the topmost sheet. He dumped the lot in the wastebasket.

"The other stack lists the things I did wrong to get the old Pollux out of the hole. I never knew until—"

"Really?" said Captain Mike, more attentive. He slid open a drawer of his desk and carefully laid the damning documents inside. "These are more to the point. I want to forward these to the control board." He shut the drawer, then locked it.

Bullard did not know exactly what reaction those papers were going to bring, but certainly he had not anticipated that. It was disconcerting.

"You see," said Admiral Mike, studying the curling smoke from his cigar, "I have been authorized to prepare another volume of the Regulations—"

Bullard winced.

"— to be entitled 'Instructions for Procedure in Extraordinary Emergencies'"— the admiral kept tugging at another drawer—"umph... and this... umph... is just the sort of thing we want for it."

By then the old man had the drawer open, and out of it he fished a gleaming crystal beaker half filled with the aromatic forbidden juice of Mars. He filled two glasses with the violet liqueur.

"Of course, before Captain Chinnery was put on the retired list this morning, he did submit quite a lengthy list of your... er... derelictions, I believe he called them—"

"Yes?" said Bullard, on tenderhooks.

"Here's to 'em," said the admiral, hoisting his glass, and admiring the delicate color, he took a sip.

"But fourteen charges and God knows how many specifications—"

"Nobody gives a damn," said the admiral with great decision. "You got the bandits, didn't you— all of 'em? You brought the Pollux in, didn't you? What the hell! Drink hearty, boy— you've got my old job. You're skipper of the Pollux now!"

_________________

6: Blockade Runner

Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1941

A good technician can make unlikely things turn into highly effective weapons, and weapons don't always have to kill to be effective!

"THAR SHE blows!"

While the alarm jangled, Red Leary, the quartermaster, cocked an eye at the pulsating ruby pick-up light, noted the bearing, and then laid a hand on the jet-feed cut-off valve. He looked expectantly at the skipper.

"Hold it," cautioned the latter, "until they challenge. Sparks! Is your board manned?"

"Aye, sir."

"Rebel cruiser coming up on the port quarter. He'll be calling in a minute. Don't chance talking to him— stick to code. I'm just a little afraid of your dialect. One slip and we're done."

The call came almost instantly, strident and insistent. First it was QF, QF, QF, and on the heels of that came the peremptory BWB—"What ship?" "Heave to to receive boarding party."

"'Vast blasting," ordered Kemp. "Tell 'em O.K., Sparks."

Red's hand moved. The Cloud Queen trembled, then lurched backward as she dropped her acceleration. The three men looked at one another. Here it was; in another half-hour, at most, they would know. Their elaborate masquerade was about to be tested. They would know the answers to a lot of questions. Whether they would meet the unknown fate of the fourteen ships that had preceded them; whether the Martian-Jovian blockade was really unbreakable; whether they were to live or die; whether, indeed, there was a chance left for the Earth Empire to live or die. Red swallowed hard, while Sparks moistened his lips with a nervous tongue. Kemp, the skipper, was surveying the room critically, on the alert for any item, hitherto overlooked, that might arouse suspicion. Seeing nothing, he relaxed. The stage was set— from now on it must be acting.

No one who had formerly known Jack Kemp, resourceful and trim young lieutenant of the Tellurian Space Force, would have recognized him as he appeared at that moment. His face was all but covered by a newly grown, fierce black beard that had been artfully threaded with gray by the experts of the chromosurgery section of Intelligence. It matched the equally artificial grayness of his temples. The deep tan of the ray-burned spaceman was not synthetic, but somehow seemed to be set off and augmented by the threadbare old uniform trimmed in tattered, greenish-gold lace. In every inch he looked to be what he was pretending to be— the somewhat bedraggled skipper of a second-rater out of Venus. The crew as well, likewise ratings of the Space Force, were similarly disguised.

As for the ship, no one familiar with the well-found ships of the Cosmos Line would ever guess that this dingy vessel was in reality the Violet, well known before the war along the Saturnian run. Her metamorphosis had been as thorough as that of the men in her, thanks to the creative imaginations and the accurate memories of a dozen operatives at Lunar headquarters.

No detail of hull, equipment or cargo had been overlooked. The framed register screwed to the bulkhead in the cabin was puckered and stained with ugly brown water marks, as if a negligent quartermaster had left the lock doors open while cradled in the steamy atmosphere of her home port. The crew's quarters were decorated with intimate snapshots of alluring females taken against the fantastic background of Venusian scenery. Every man on board was not only provided with forged licenses and passports, but with personal correspondence written in many hands on the damp-proof paper of Venus and bearing appropriate stamps and cancellations. Outside, clinging to every irregularity in the hull, were patches of the hardy Venusian moss that thrives even in the void, planted there by a crafty technician from London's great interplanetary botanical garden. And, of course, bolted to the hull just over the ship's nose was the inevitable hemi-cylinder housing the infrared headlight by which the master could find his way through the misty ceiling down to the landing field of Aphrodite's Haven. If anywhere among all that artistry there was a single flaw, it was not from want of foresight or trying.

A SLIGHT SHUDDER marked the coming alongside of the cruiser's boat. Kemp pushed the switch that turned on the lights in the lock and loosed the guard on the outer door. Then he reached up and plucked from its brackets a Mark IX Heimlitz blaster— the sporting model. Sticking that into his holster, he walked along the passage to greet his adversary.

He knew from the clang of the outer door and the hissing of air that the boarders were already in the lock. In a moment the door burst open and a scowling officer stepped out, followed closely by two bluejackets with drawn ray guns of the latest heavy-duty model. Kemp knew at a glance they were Callistans from the silver lozenges embroidered on their uniforms. Only a Callistan would wear such a device. In the beginning, when Callisto was a Tellurian penal colony, lozenges were woven into the cloth of their garments as the stigmata of criminality. Yet so shameless is that race that upon gaining their independence ten years ago, they adopted the lozenge as their national insignia and thereafter flaunted them openly throughout the system.

"Jig's up," said the Callistan briefly as he stepped into the ship. Without ceremony, he snatched the blaster from Kemp's belt and handed it to one of his men. "Save the act until later," he added contemptuously as Kemp jumped backward, registering indignant astonishment. Then he turned on his heel and strode toward the control room. Kemp followed, silent and perturbed. The boarding officer was not going to be an easy man to deal with.

"Swell job of camouflage," commented the Callistan after a quick inspection of the control room. "If they had faked your first ships like this, you might have got by with one of them." He studied Kemp insolently, and then, "O.K., buddy. Go into your song and dance now— I'm listening. It's been dull out here, waiting for you, and we need a laugh. And I hope you've thought up a new one. The gag about being an innocent Venusian merchantman just trying to get along in the Universe has been worked to a frazzle. But shoot, anyway. Only make it short and snappy, because I already know the answer."

Kemp shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. So far the Callistan was bluffing, and Kemp knew it.

"What else can I tell you? But look us over— our papers— our holds— everything, if you doubt us."

"Doubt you?" roared the big Callistan with a hearty laugh. "Why, Mr. Tellurian Space Force Whatever-your-rank-is, I haven't any doubt about you. There's a couple of things I don'tknow about you— like what your real name is— but out at the mines that won't matter. They'll give you a number, anyway."

He started his search methodically, missing nothing, however trifling. He thumbed through the log, squinted at the makers' nameplates on each bit of astragational gear, scratched the mold-resisting paint to see what was under it, and sniffed the air appraisingly. Thanks to the still-hanging fumes of huil-huil, it had a thorough-going Venusian aroma. He glanced at the big jar of crushed, dried huil-huil leaves sitting on the radioman's desk. Not more than a handful of the weed so prized by space-going Venusians was gone from the jar— no more than half a dozen men could smoke in the day or so since the Cloud Queen, as she claimed, had escaped internment at Luna Base.

The flat, brutal face lit up with that I-told-you-so joy, and he pointed triumphantly at the nearly full jar.

"An empty one might have fooled me," he fairly shouted, "but now I've seen all I want to see. You guys always overdo your stuff. Look, stupid— you been interned on Luna, where you can't get that weed— a year, you say— locked up all the time in your ship. And then, two days ago, you hop off all hunky-dory with a nice full jar. I ask you. How does that add up?"

Kemp smiled patiently, letting his meticulously yellowed teeth show through his beard.

"My friend, you are too, too suspicious. We have tons of it. In the hold you will find ten thousand pounds. Look in the manifest; it is part of our cargo— bound for your country, for Ganymede. It is true we have swiped a few hundred pounds, for our own use, a matter we will have to settle for with the consignee, but our laws permit us to make use of cargo in an emergency. And being captured by those accursed Earthmen is an emergency."

The Callistan looked a little dubious, but he accepted the manifest and the invoices. He looked through them and then went on a tour of the ship. For an hour he prowled through the cargo spaces, but nowhere could he find any irregularity. They were filled with products of Venus, all articles of common commerce with the Jovian satellites. Nor could he find any indication of concealed armaments. The ship was plainly no Q-boat, as a quick look at the engine room proved. There was only the usual auxiliary generating equipment. The ship could not possibly be made into a commerce raider.

Back in the control room, the boarding officer dropped his taunting, bullying air and listened more politely to Kemp's story, although it was clear he was reluctant to release the vessel and permit her to complete her voyage.

Kemp kept on talking, telling of his hard luck at being picked up during the very first week of the war, and of the hardships of internment, of the pitiful inadequacy of the Tellurian fleet and the incapacity of its officers, and of the general state of despair prevailing on the Moon. He also made much of the fact that he had successfully resisted all efforts to take the cargo out of his ship and put it to use on the grounds that it would be a violation of Venus' neutrality and might force her into war on the other side.

The Callistan frowned, obviously in a quandary. He was still unconvinced. He had uncovered nothing that was not plausible, yet nothing he had seen could not have been faked. He meant to take no chances on letting a prize slip through his fingers. Yet he knew that Venus was opposed to this resumption of the war and was itching for an excuse to patch up her differences with the mother planet and come to her aid. Kemp sensed his hesitation, and by an almost imperceptible twitch of an eyelid got the signal across to Red Leary. The time had come to play their trump.

Red's freckle-specked hand stole behind him and fumbled for a button. On the third try he managed to trip the latch on a small cupboard, the one where the star charts were ordinarily kept. Kemp went on talking, pleading now to be allowed to go on to his destination.

"Hell and damnation!" yelled the Callistan, leaping frantically. Something disreputably ragged-looking and dirty white was clinging to a wildly kicking calf.

"So sorry," cried Kemp in dismayed apology, and dived for it.

For a moment he was busy dodging the boarding officer's scuffling knees, but after a false grab or two he came up clutching a queer and malodorous little animal by the scruff of the neck. "I should have warned you about Flo-Flo. She doesn't like strangers."

The creature was a full-grown trigglemouse, one of those feathered rodents peculiar to Venus. For some reason unfathomed by the remainder of the inhabitants of the Solar System— unless it was blind superstition— the men of Venus cherished the beasts. No ship from there ever took the void without one as a mascot. Yet they stank and they stole and they nipped friend and foe alike with their sharp, chiselly teeth, and they had other habits that, to say the least, were not nice. In fact, the aversion to them was so strong among most Earthmen that when Flo-Flo was requisitioned, all the zoos of the Earth had to be combed before she could be located.

The Callistan glowered for a long time after he had blasted the miserable animal out of existence, but as his curses died away it was obvious enough that whatever lingering doubts he may have had as to the authenticity of the Cloud Queen were dissipated. With a snort he stalked to the chart rack and entered the fact of his inspection in the log and indorsed it. Then he flung off down the passage, beckoning his two men to follow him.

"Get this stinkpot out of here. I'm through with you," he said as the lock door closed behind him.

"Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir." Kemp felt he could afford a little politeness. He was through; and in his hand he held a scribbled memorandum of the correct answers to challenges for the next three weeks— the time necessary to reach Ganymede. The Callistan had given him the recognition signals to expedite his trip, so convinced was he that he was dealing with a genuine Venusian.

"WELL," SAID KEMP as he set his jets going again, "that's that. Now all we have to do is straighten out for Oberon, fake a new set of papers, trade this stuff for what we want, and then get back in again."

"That last will be tough, I'm thinking," remarked Red.

"Tough?" was Sparks' contribution. "Damn near impossible, I calls it."

"As long as that 'near' is in we're O.K.," said Kemp cheerily. "Give 'er another G, Red. We can stand it."

THREE TIMES before they cleared the last of the asteroids they were challenged by roving cruisers, but thanks to knowing the answers and also to the general belief that the Earth blockade was break proof, she was not halted and searched again. Kemp had time to consider his next steps.

The more he pondered the enormous task assigned him, the more he was struck with the irony of the situation. The Earth, mistress of the remnants of what had been the far-flung Tellurian Empire, and a hundredfold more populous and rich than all the other peoples of the Solar System combined, was lying helpless before the might of two of her erstwhile colonies. They lacked the men and the resources to invade the mother planet, but they could, and had, cut her off from all inter-course without. Their strategy was simple. While holding the Tellurian fleet immobile, they would sweep up the remaining Earth colonies— the the Saturnian System and what lay beyond. After that they would control the only known supply of the fuel upon which civilization had become dependent. Earth would thereafter have to pay through the nose, for the ultra-powerful Eka-Uranium existed only on Oberon.

This anomalous state of affairs had been made possible by the weak and parsimonious policy followed by the grand council after the successful War of the Rebellion a decade earlier. Having granted the three revolting planets their liberty and signed perpetual treaties of friendship, the Earth allowed its fleet to deteriorate until it was no more than a mere customs patrol. On the other hand, the colonists, embittered by long years of misrule, wanted more than independence— they wanted revenge. Hence they at once began building on a vast scale, but secretly. And when those fleets were strong enough, they struck. Earth, caught utterly unprepared, could not strike back.

They built feverishly, trying to make up for the error of unpreparedness. Every sky yard on the planet worked night and day turning out ships. Soon, every week saw sleek new units, bristling with the most modern armament, making the short jump to Luna, where they were given crews and joined to the fast-growing fleet. In the course of a few months they almost equaled the blockading squadron. A few more months and they would excel it. And then a shocked world learned the awful truth— there was no fuel for such a tremendous fleet. The pacifistic and incapable council had not foreseen this contingency and had provided no reserves. There was only fuel enough for one take-off, and that one necessarily of short duration. What there was must be conserved for emergencies— such as sudden destructive raids on the great Earth cities themselves. Therein lay the delicious irony of the situation. The blockade prevented the arrival of the fuel by which the blockade could easily be broken. Given fuel, the Earth could have all the fuel there was; without it, she must soon capitulate, for it was needed for civil purposes, also. There was already much suffering.

Ship after ship had made the attempt, trying every sort or ruse and trick. None had come back. Kemp had been permitted to make one last try. If he returned within the allotted time, the war would be won; if not, it was to be surrender.

It had been left to him what disguise he would use, and what plan. He chose the simplest one of all— that of a straight merchant ship with no reservations. He had the feeling that the others had been unmasked by their secret armament, and therefore he resolved to carry none. No matter how cleverly concealed, weapons— if adequate— could not escape a really thorough search. The thing must be done by guile, and to that he bent every effort, knowing that success or failure hung on some tiny detail.

ONCE PAST the blockading cruisers, he was confronted with the next step— the acquisition of a thousand tons of Eka-Uranium at Oberon. He soon learned, by listening in on the enemy radio, that Oberon had long since fallen and was garrisoned by an expeditionary force from Mars. The Cloud Queen's papers would have to be altered to meet another hostile scrutiny, all mention of the fictitious sojourn on Luna must be deleted, and the destination changed. When he had completed his work, the documents purported to show that the ship was straight out of Venus for the outer planets, with cargo unconsigned. Her captain was authorized to trade at discretion and return. He took good care, too, that the page bearing the endorsement of the boarding officer was left in the record. It showed the ship to have been inspected and passed by a control officer.

All went smoothly in Spriteburg. A shipload of Venusian products was most welcome on the desolate planet, and no one raised embarrassing questions. Beyond some haggling as to price and considerable well-simulated indignation at the interplanetary exchange rate quoted, Kemp was called on for little effort. The afternoon of the second day, after he had discharged his cargo, he shot the Cloud Queen over the Elfin Range and laid her into the landing docks at the mines. Twenty-four earthly hours after that he was chockablock full of the precious Eka-Uranium. There were a thousand tons of it— enough to fuel the entire new Tellurian fleet to capacity, and with some to spare.

It was not until he called at the captain of the port's office for his clearance papers that he had any premonition of trouble to come. The day of his arrival he had dealt with a deputy, but now it was different. A man sat there whom he had seen before. In a moment he placed him. At the time when he had been in the circumsolar patrol, four years earlier, this captain of the port had been resident on Venus as consul general for Mars. As such he could be expected to be fairly familiar with Venusian shipping. Kemp was thankful for his beard and grayed hairs, for on several occasions he had dined with the man.

The captain of the port signed the papers without a word. As he handed them across the desk to Kemp, he said, in an offhand way.

"I see you are owned by Turnly & Hightower. Please give my regards to Mr. Turnly when you hit Venus again. By the way, how is the old boy? Someone told me he had not been well lately."

"Oh, he keeps going," laughed Kemp, pocketing the papers and the Manual for the Guidance of Neutral Vessels that was handed to him with it. He was affecting a casualness about it that he was far from feeling. In his researches in connection with outfitting the Cloud Queen, he had been unable to learn much about her fictitious owners. There was a photo on board showing Mr. Hightower in the front door of the home office, surrounded by the clerical staff, but concerning the senior partner Kemp had been unable to learn anything. It was the weakest link in his armor, and he was ardently hoping the conversation would take another turn.

"So he keeps going," murmured the port captain dreamily, drumming softly on the desk with his plump white fingers. "Hm-m-m. Most uncanny, really." He regarded Kemp thoughtfully for a moment, and then, suddenly, as if aroused from a deep daydream, rose and took his hand. "Well, captain, you may as well take off. Follow the trajectory assigned and you'll have no trouble. A clean void and a happy landfall to you. And don't forget my message— Horntrimmer is the name."

AS THE Cloud Queen sped along trajectory XXX-B-37, dutifully doing all the things required by the Martian-Jovian rules, Kemp turned this little talk over and over in his mind. He didn't like it. There was something vaguely ominous about it. Why uncanny? Horntrimmer's attitude had been peculiar, to say the least. Yet he had permitted the ship to clear when it would have been easy to hold her. If he had been suspicious of her, again why?

Kemp had no answers to these questions, but they troubled him, nevertheless. He spent his spare hours prowling the ship or standing in the auxiliary motor room, studying the equipment. He was racking his brain for a means to improvise a method of defense if it came to that, but he found little ground on which to base his hopes. None, in fact, for the power plant was just sufficient to operate the ship's legitimate auxiliaries without a dozen kilowatts to spare. Nor was there an ounce of any sort of explosive aboard. The ship was truly unarmed. If its disguise failed, all was lost. The only way to break the blockade was to adhere to the plan agreed upon before leaving Luna.

That plan was daring in its simplicity, and two thirds of it had been accomplished. There was left only the last step. Exactly two hundred hours before striking the sphere of swirling enemy cruisers that constituted the blockade, the Cloud Queen was to send out a certain signal and keep repeating it until its receipt was acknowledged. Then she was to climb out of the ecliptic so that she could dive onto Earth from the north, through a region that was thinly patrolled. A few hours before her arrival at the barrier a picked squadron of heavy Tellurian battleships would make a vigorous attack upon a nearby segment of the blockade, using what was left of their hoarded fuel to create a diversion so that the blockade runner could slip through. Cruisers rushing to meet the Tellurian feint would not stop to examine a rusty merchantman, even if they detected her, was the theory. It was upon such a slender thread that the hopes of the Earthmen hung.

It was over the asteroids that Kemp sent his signal, set his deflectors for hard rise, and climbed still higher. And it was but a matter of some eight hours later that the keys of the radio began to clatter out the harsh orders of a pursuing cruiser. The fast Callistan Folliot was overhauling the Cloud Queen and demanding that she blast down and wait. Kemp's face was drawn and the lines in it hard as he listened to the words being tapped out, but there was nothing to do but comply. He gave the necessary orders.

"As I live and breathe," exclaimed the boarding officer as the inner door of the lock slid open, "if it isn't my old friend, the Venusian! Fancy meeting you here!" It was the identical Callistan who had made the examination on the way out. He oozed sarcasm from every pore. "And— oh, yes, before I forget it— Commodore Horntrimmer instructed me to tell you that Mr. Turnly died three years ago. He was his father-in-law." The Callistan chuckled maliciously. Then he turned to the officer and group of men who had come aboard with him.

"Check these dopes for guns, then set watches. After that you can stow your baggage and settle down. We'll take this bucket in on this course and refuel our own fleet with it." He leered triumphantly at the crestfallen Kemp.

CAPTAIN KEMP and his men were not locked up, but forced to carry on their regular duty under the watchful eyes of the prize crew. One or the other of the two officers was always in the control room, sitting in the master's seat at the midst of the main switchboard. Two armed bluejackets stood at the door, ready to carry out any command. The Callistan who had seized the vessel— one Commander Tilsen— produced a fat volume with locked covers and began sending long code messages. The Folliot, which had hovered ten or twelve miles on the beam all the while, dashed away, spewing violet fire in her wake. The Cloud Queen was left to make the rest of her way alone.

Kemp was forced to stand the same watch as Tilsen took, and had to bear the incessant stream of exultant remarks emanating from him. Although he pretended he had never been fooled in the first place, but had allowed the ship to go on through, knowing full well they could intercept it at will, Kemp knew that he was lying— trying to save face. Tilsen predicted with great relish that as soon as the cargo had been discharged, Kemp would be hustled off to Mars and hanged ignominiously as a spy, together with all his men.

During the first rest period, Kemp lay and tossed and fretted, going over in imagination for the hundredth time every detail of the ship he had come to know well. He must do something, if only warn Earth of the existing state of affairs. But cudgel his brain as he would, he could think of no way to devise a weapon by which he could wrest control from his captors. And then, as he was mentally following the wiring diagram of the vessel for the nth time, a thought struck him as abruptly and as clearly as if a gong had been struck. The infrared projector, of course! There was power— of a sort; five million volts, even if the amperage was trifling. Surely something could be done with that.

That time when the rest period was up he marched to the control room gladly. There were a few details of the ship's construction he had never troubled to note. Now they had taken on a new meaning.

Throughout that watch, his eyes sought the overhead every time he felt the gaze of the sentries off of him. He was interested in the exact location of the housing of the search-light perched on the hull above. It was clearly delineated by the double row of rivets, the center being almost directly over the seat whereon the Callistan Tilsen sat, talking glibly of the tortures the Martian code permitted on certain types of condemned prisoners. Kemp yawned as he pretended to listen, his mind busy with multiplying and adding the estimated distance between groups of rivets. Before the watch was over he knew what he wanted to know, and spent the remainder of the time memorizing the facts he had observed.

That rest period he did not toss and fret. He knew precisely what he wanted to do. Fifteen minutes after the watch below had settled to its rest, Kemp was scudding down the darkened passage, bound for the engineer's storeroom. Except for the guards in the control room, and one in the auxiliary generator room, the ship was unpatrolled. The captors were contemptuous of their victims, serene in the belief that there was nothing they could do.

Kemp shut the door of the storeroom behind him. A moment later he was hard at work with a hacksaw, cutting off a six-foot length of one-inch round copper bar taken from the electrical stock. And when he had done that he seized a file and beveled one end of it to as nearly forty-five degrees as he could make it. It was but a matter of minutes before he was done, for the metal was not hard.

Up to that point he was well satisfied, but when he went to get a heavy-metal disk he found that what he wanted was not in store. He took down a tube hand-hole plug and examined it critically. It was of platinum, four inches in diameter, but much too thick— it would not do. For fifteen minutes he pawed through the bins, but all the disk-shaped pieces were too wide or not wide enough, or of light metals such as steel and bronze. A high atomic number he must have.

Just as a fresh wave of discouragement swept over him, he thought of the handful of 100-uran pieces he had taken in Oberon to adjust the differences of the values of the cargoes he had traded. Those massive three-inch coins were minted of gold, alloyed with a little iridium. For shape, size and composition they were exactly what he needed. Before the watch was over he had brazed one neatly to the beveled end of his long copper rod, and the face of the tilted disk shone like a mirror where he had filed it smooth. He stood it in a corner, along with the tube scrapers, and went back to his bunk, well pleased with his first step.

THE SEEMINGLY interminable tour of duty came to an end. Kemp counted the seconds, after they had been relieved, so anxious was he to get on with the task he had set himself. At the end of ten minutes all appeared to be quiet, so he stole away to the storeroom. His odd-shaped rod was still there, unmolested. He took a space helmet from the rack and put it on. He slung the brazing kit over his shoulder, picked up a sledge, a pair of wrenches, and the gold-tipped copper rod and made his way to the space lock.

No one heard him go out, for he eased the doors very carefully to, and the hull was so well insulated that once he was outside the slight noise caused by his scuffing shoes could not be heard within. He crawled straight for the headlight and stacked his tools beside it. One by one he backed off the nuts that held the focusing lens to its frame. Then he lifted it out and went to work on the filters behind it. At the end of the half-hour he had come to the front end of the vacuum tube itself, which he broke with one hard lick of the sledge. It was a trying and dirty job to pry the complicated heating elements out, and he had to watch out for the fragments of the tube, but within another hour he had the tube clean of all it had formerly held. He lay full length in a hollow cylinder, ten feet long by a yard in diameter. Near each end of it were the cable terminals, waiting to be tapped.

Swiftly he erected the rod on the base formed by the inner end, and brazed it into place. Then he hooked it up to the cable end. He had formed the cathode of his contrivance. He backed away to the open end of the housing, and there he rigged an anode. When he was done he replaced the outermost piece he had removed to get in, bolted it fast, then went below. His watch showed he had an hour to spare. He had plenty of time to whisper a few words of instruction to Sparks, under whose desk the foot switch that operated the headlight was located.

When they went on watch again, Sparks kicked the switch shut, and Kemp took up his surreptitious vigil. He knew it would take time, but he did not know how much. He knew there were going to be some extraordinary results, but he did not know quite what. But three hundred milliamperes flung at a golden disk at five million volts' pressure was sure to do something.

THE WATCH wore on, with Tilsen's customary string of jibes. At the end of the first hour the Callistan's flow of words began to jerk to a stop more frequently, and the pauses between bursts became longer. The man began to wear a puzzled, hurt expression, and several times he took off his cap and rubbed his head. He did not seem to notice that hair by the handful showered down upon his shoulders after the last such head caressing.

"What the hell has gone wrong with the air?" he screamed suddenly, springing up from his seat and then settling back into it. "Oh, how my head aches!"

Red Leary checked the indicators and sang out their readings. Everything was normal; the air-conditioning system was functioning perfectly. The big Callistan scowled at him, not acknowledging, but apparently accepting what Red said. He resumed his former position, but would stoop ever so often to snatch at his leg. Presently he called to one of the Callistan sailors who stood on guard at the back of the room. When the sailor came up to him he leaned forward and plucked some imaginary something away from his thigh.

"Take that damn thing out and kill it," he directed, his voice full of venom. "Blasted wild cat!"

After that he slumped a little in the saddle and dropped his chin on his chest, brooding. Kemp measured his posture carefully by eye and wondered whether the tilt of his head had thrown him out of the cone of invisible rays that was playing down from above. But apparently it had not, for at the end of another quarter hour Tilsen sprang suddenly erect, his eyes almost starting from his head.

"Back! Back! Back 'er full! Glaciers ahead!" He was shrieking wildly and clawing at the board in front of him. A trembling hand came to rest on a glazed clock face, and the smooth crystal seemed to soothe him. He ceased yelling and sat shuddering as he was, with beads of cold sweat rolling off his brow and splashing down onto the board. One of his ears twitched violently, fluttering like a leaf in the breeze. The two bluejackets had come up closer and were watching him in alarm, wide-eyed.

"Shall I call your relief, sir?" asked one of them timidly.

Tilsen was a hard man, even with his own. He swung in the chair, staring coldly and malignantly at the man. "So serpents speak in this valley?" he hissed, sliding out of his chair into a half crouch, as if about to spring at the unfortunate man. His hand went to the butt of his ray gun as the terrified sailor backed away from him. Like lightning, he drew and went into frenzied action. He cut down the first sailor with a blast that seared away half his chest, and before the other could bring himself to fire on his own officer, him, too, he blasted. Then, with a mighty curse, he flung his gun at the bodies and stood swaying drunkenly where he stood.

Kemp looked on with awe, wondering what his handiwork would bring next.

Just as the other officer appeared in the doorway with the remaining sailors crowded behind, Tilsen seemed to lose all interest in his surroundings. He began picking at himself, slowly at first, as if to rid himself of imaginary ants, and then more wildly, until in another minute he was tearing at his clothes as if they were on fire. Then he gave one ear-splitting scream and fell to the deck in convulsions, rolling, kicking and biting. It was there that his fellow countrymen overpowered him and slipped the irons about his wrists and ankles.

"What did you do to him?" demanded the officer of Kemp furiously.

Kemp shrugged. "He went mad— that is all. How could I help that?"

The officer gazed at the helpless, writhing form at his feet. Not the most casual glance could miss noticing the horrible condition of the head. Not only had the hair been stripped away from top and back, but the skin and the superficial flesh as well. It was as if a mysterious flame had seared it. Yet no known weapon made such a wound— a blaster would have burned the whole skull away.

He examined the room intently, and even went so far as to expose plates set at various angles about the master's chair, but Sparks had kicked his switch open long before— at the moment the crazed Callistan had sprung from the seat. The developed plates showed nothing.

"That's damned funny," muttered the Callistan lieutenant as he studied them. "It must have been hard radiation— nothing else could have made those brands."

He frowned and tossed the featureless plates into a corner. Maybe his commander was just a bit crazy, after all, he told himself. There had been occasions—

"I'll take over," he barked, glowering at the watching Earthmen.

Then he slid into the master's seat himself.

"THAT'S THE STORY," finished Kemp three days later. "We did the same thing to his sidekick. After that the men were easy. We brought in two alive."

He was standing before the desk of the admiral commandant of Luna base. Outside, safely nestled in the vast crater, the battered Cloud Queen lay, a huge battleship alongside either side, taking on the vital fuel.

"Thanks to the battle you put on, as per schedule, there was only one enemy cruiser in our way, and we fooled him into letting us pass. We had the Martian code book, you know. We sent him a tripled triple-X, which in their code signifies, 'On urgent confidential mission of highest importance; do not interfere.'"

"Nice work," congratulated the admiral. "I'll see that you get the Celestial Cross and a promotion at the very least. But how—"

"Gamma rays," said Kemp. "I knew they played hell with living organism, so the only problem I had was to rig up a giant X-ray machine where I could bring it to bear on those birds, knowing that they would not suspect until it was too late. You can't feel the things, you know.

"For that I needed a huge vacuum tube, a cathode of the right material, and scads of voltage. By going outside the hull I had my vacuum ready-made; the cathode I improvised out of stuff on board; the voltage was already there, awaiting the flip of a switch. The fact that the gamma rays had to go through an inch of iridium steel didn't detract much from their poisonous qualities. In fact, I imagine the secondary radiations from the radiated iron did almost as much damage as the hard stuff bouncing off that gold 100-uran piece. Anyhow, it was enough to addle their brains. By the time their reaction was strong enough to tip them off that something was wrong, they were too far gone to be able to add two and two and get anything out of it."

"Sort of homemade Coolidge tube, eh?" observed the admiral commandant.

"Sort of," grinned Kemp, thinking of the unholy mess he had made of a perfectly good Venusian infrared searchlight. "But it worked."

___________________

7: Slacker's Paradise

Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1941

Or it seemed that way till the commander of a space rowboat found a gigantic enemy battleship that was determined to surrender to him!

AT A CORNER table in Spider Hinton's place on Juno three young officers sat. One of them drummed continually on the table top with restless, nervous fingers, and scowled about the place in obvious discontent. The other two were relaxed and appeared to be enjoying themselves as they toyed with the stems of their glasses and watched the girls begin to assemble. All three wore the slender silver badge of the crescent moon as well as the usual insignia of the Terrestrial Space Guard.

It was that crescent and what it signified that was what was so annoying to Lieutenant (jg) Alan MacKay, T.S.G.R.F., Class 5. In the parlance of officialdom it meant simply "an officer of limited qualifications," but to the impatient young MacKay and the public at large— and to the girls who entertained the Fleet, and to the personnel of the Fleet itself, especially to the personnel of the Fleet itself— it meant unqualified, untrained, unfit. It meant half-baked and incompetent. It meant that its wearer was quite likely to be a strutting young ass masquerading as a Guard Officer, quite imposing over the tea table, but a joke in the thermless void. And Alan MacKay resented that very much.

It annoyed him exceedingly that his apparently wonderful luck in having been commissioned and given command of an SP boat while still a junior at Yalnell was attributed to the powerful political pull of his mothersome Aunt Clara. For it was true. With Machiavellian cunning she had worked every wire to insure his having the highest possible rank and the cushiest possible jobs. He did not know it, though he suspected it from the fate of his monthly plea for more active duty, but the jacket that held his service record, at the Department was plastered over with little notes clipped to it, such as, "Do not shift this officer to other duty without seeing me— JBH, High Admiral," "PD only," meaning planetary duty only, and the like. Whenever he thought of his Aunt Clara he cursed her softly under his breath, and not once did his conscience trouble him for his gross ingratitude.

The cabaret was beginning to fill up for the midday jamboree. Two girls stopped at the table for a moment. Ensign Hartley had waved them down just as they came in.

"Sit down," he invited, "and crook an elbow with us. We're off for the rest of the day."

"You! Humph," said one of them, tossing her head. "You'll keep for the dull times. Today there'll be real sailors here— fighting men." She gave a tug at her companion's arm. "Come along, deary— you can't afford to have them catch you hanging out with planet lice." They walked away.

"You asked for it, you damn fool," growled the other ensign, Terrell. "Didn't you read the board when we came in off patrol? The Pollux is coming in. She's all shot to hell from that big battle oft the Trojans, on her way to Lunar Base for general repairs. Every man jack on her has been given the Nova rosette, and Captain Bullard rates a diamond clasp for his Celestial Cross. The best thing we can do is get out of here and make ourselves as small as possible until she shoves off."

"Yes," said Lieutenant MacKay, rising, grim and red of face.

He strode out of the room and into the locker room where their spacesuits hung. Officers and men from the eight other SP boats were just coming in and taking off their armor so they could go onto the dance floor. MacKay nodded perfunctorily to one or two of them, then beckoned to his own two junior officers to follow him on outside.

"He may inspect us," he said, tersely, "get back on board and slick her up." To himself he added disgustedly, "we can't fight, but we can shine brightwork— as if a man like Bullard cared a damn about shiny brass!"

For Bullard was to him what he had come to be to practically every young man and boy on the five planets— an idol. Who had not heard of his exploits in this tedious and long-drawn-out war between the Federation of Interior Planets and the Jovian Empire? And now Bullard was here! Alan MacKay winced. That meant he would have to meet him, for etiquette was rigorous. All junior ship commanders had to pay their respects to any visiting senior. He was at once elated and ashamed, for though he was a big, strapping fellow with a fine education, he bore that telltale crescent on his chest— the stigma of the unfit. What if he was commanding officer of the TSS SP 331? The bawdy songs of the Service and the old sky-dogs had but one translation for that "SP." It was "Slacker's Paradise."

IT WAS in the same gloomy mood that Lieutenant MacKay watched the descent of the mighty monster of the void from alongside his own tiny craft parked outside the thin dome of Hebesport. He marveled at her size, and yet she was being brought down with an apparent ease and dexterity that amazed him. For the reports of her damage had not been, exaggerated. Every plate of her showed signs of a fight.

Two-thirds of her false collision nose had been shorn off and what was left of it was covered with blue-scale, indicating it had been done with a fierce hydroxygen ray. Hardly a square yard of her skin but was patched with hastily riveted plates. One fin had been melted clean away and the slag from it hurled aft along her hull, where great frozen gobs of it still clung. A queer and clumsy-looking jury-rig was where her jet-deflectors should have been, and a yawning hole in the bottom was all that remained of the nether turret.

But she came down neatly and without assistance from the ground force. MacKay continued to stare, wondering what she was like inside, for in common with his mates of the Juno Patrol, he had never set foot within a big ship. He had been told that she was packed from stem to stern with machinery and gadgets but he could not imagine such a quantity of machinery. His major subject in school had been interplanetary languages; what he had learned about physics and mechanics he had picked up on his little SP 331.

MacKay saw the groundport open and a man he knew must be Bullard step out, accompanied by several others. They had started across the field toward the entrance to the dome when suddenly they stopped in mid-field and turned their faces upward. A small ship was coming in from the opposite direction, and judging from the corona of bright flame all about it, it was furiously decelerating. Despite his short service and general ignorance on matters of the void, MacKay had learned to read that sign. It was one of the Council's dispatch boats on special service. Nothing else was driven at that furious, tube-burning pace.

The Bullard party waited where they stood until it had landed, and they continued to stand there while a man sprinted across the field in huge bounds to them. MacKay saw Billiard take a white envelope from him, and turn it over and over in his hands as the messenger poured out some additional news with many gesticulations. Billiard at first shook his head, then nodded, and the man walked back toward his ship.

Whatever Captain Bullard had meant to do first, the arrival of this ship evidently changed his plans. Instead of continuing on to the dome, he abruptly altered his course and came straight toward where the line of SP boats lay. MacKay called a warning to his men within, and sent another flying down the line to rap on hulls and wake up the shipkeepers within.

Goose pimples arose on his skin as he stood and waited. His ship having come in first, had been parked farthest down the line, so that it was not until Bullard had inspected all the rest that he rounded the nose of the grounded SP boat and advanced straight upon MacKay. He answered the junior's salute briskly and asked:

"Permission to inspect you, sir?"

MacKay nodded dumbly, but he need not have. Bullard had already passed him and was inside. The SP 331's young skipper let the officers who were with Bullard go in first, then he followed. Bullard was already half through. He came out of the cubbyhole that passed for an engine room and into the control booth. He turned to one of his aids.

"Best of the lot, eh?"

The officer addressed nodded.

BULLARD caressed the knobs and buttons on the control panel with skilled fingers, then he glanced upward at the port bulkhead. A grim smile showed for an instant on his face, then he suppressed it. He looked full at the purple-faced MacKay, who was gasping like a fish out of water. There was a twinkle of questioning amusement in the eyes of the famous captain of the Pollux.

"One of my men, sir," blurted MacKay, blushing to the roots of his hair. "He got a transfer to the Fleet. We felt we ought to put that up."

"That" was a small silk flag— a single red star on a pale-blue background. Its counterpart hung proudly in millions of homes on Earth, Venus and Mars. It was the current service flag. It meant that a member of the household had gone to the war.

"So," said Captain Bullard, "that's the way you feel about it?" The smile was off his face now, and his eyes were piercing and hard. They never wavered below the level of MacKay's own eyes, but the junior had the feeling that he was being studied from tip to toe. He got no clue from Bullard as to what the answer should be.

"Y-y-yes, sir," he gulped. "We do."

Captain Bullard continued to gaze at him relentlessly. MacKay felt that more was expected of him.

"Oh, sir," he exploded, "I didn't ask for this— it was a doting aunt— I've tried and tried, but they turn my letters down— it ... it—"

"Enough!" said Bullard, hard as nails. "It is not what you do, but how you do it that counts. There is an old Earth saying, 'They also serve who stand and wait.' You know no gunnery, I daresay, nor one end of a torpedo from the other. You may lack much special knowledge that our profession requires. That is all your new moon means to me. But you know something. It is how you use that in a real emergency that matters— not what you ought to know."

Lieutenant (jg) Alan MacKay, T.S.G.R.F., Class 5, nodded miserably. It sounded reasonable— consoling even— but at the bottom of his heart he knew he was doing empty and useless and humiliatingly safe duty when the course of all history was at stake. Captain Bullard whirled where he stood.

"I should like to speak to the lieutenant privately," he said, quietly.

When the others had withdrawn he addressed MacKay again.

"You are about to have your chance. You saw that messenger boat come in? She is a virtual wreck. She cannot be repaired for days. But her captain has delivered me a message that must go on. It is highly secret and urgent and must not be sent through the ether. It must be delivered to the commander in chief by hand, or failing that, orally. He is now hovering off the Jovian System maintaining our blockade there. How soon can you start?"

"Within the hour, sir," answered the startled MacKay. Now that he had received what he had been begging for, he was frightened. Was he good enough? Could he do it? What if he failed?

But Bullard showed no hesitation. He produced an envelope that MacKay saw was sealed with heavy state seals.

"This," said Bullard, "is written in plain English, not enciphered code, and there is a reason for it. That 'MR' in red letters on the lower front corner means at 'messenger's risk.' That is your authorization, if threatened with capture or loss of the document, to open it and read it until you have memorized its contents. Then you are to eat it, or otherwise completely destroy it. After that, you must use every effort to deliver it to the commander in chief, suffering torture, if required, rather than divulge its purport. Are you ready to undertake that?"

MacKay looked into the steely eyes. He saw something he could not evade. That question was not a query— it was a command.

"I am," he said simply, and held out his hand for the message.

"You will give me your receipt, please," said Captain Bullard, evenly.

Lieutenant MacKay's hand trembled as he wrote out the receipt, but as he handed it across he was rewarded with a friendly smile from the man he had so long admired— and but a moment ago had feared.

"Remember"— Bullard glanced down at the paper—"Mr. MacKay, if you are caught by the enemy, you are on your own. All will depend then on your own judgment and your capacity for action. You have a great responsibility. Do not be afraid to exercise it. Bear in mind that in a grave emergency, any action is better than inaction."

MacKay was vaguely aware of a warm grasp of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, and his boyhood hero was gone. A second later he had snapped out of it and was holding the general alarm button hard down. There was much to do to make ready to hop off within the hour.

MACKAY looked back once, after he had cleared Hebesport. The dome with the depot and cabaret under it looked like a dime on the sidewalk seen from a five-story window, and the black ships lying on the ozone snow outside like flies— one big one and the rest dots. He had told neither Hartley nor Terrell where they were going or why. He had only set the course and promised to explain in due time. Hartly was the assistant for astragation, and Terrell's job was handling the motors. As a relief for Hartley, there was Red Dugan, the scarlet-haired, freckle-faced quartermaster. Terrell's helper was Billy Kelsey, the radio-man, better known as Sparks. Sparks alone of them did not wear the silver crescent. He was an old Fleet Reserve man, having done his time long ago in the early Martian Wars.

Until that moment, Mackay had never felt the weight of responsibility. The SP 331 was much like his own yacht in its general characteristics and he had never had any misgivings about his ability to handle her. Her armament was so inadequate as to never have given him a qualm. It consisted simply of a 10 mm. needle gun, fit only to detonate a stray mine. The SP boats were designed simply to patrol, not fight. But now she might have to fight or run, and since she could not do the former, it left no choice but the latter. And that, a swift computation showed, was almost as impossible.

MacKay was still trying to figure out how with his low rocket radius he could make the best possible speed to the Fleet and still keep back enough fuel in reserve to enable him to duck an emergency, when suddenly the emergency came. It was Red, the quartermaster, who announced it. He had been exploring space ahead with the not too sensitive old Mark I thermoscope the SP 331 was fitted with.

"There's something ahead, something big," he reported. Red pulled the book to him that contained the resultant patterns of various combinations of infrared rays originating from mixed substances. He puzzled over the cross-index until he came to the type figures that matched those visible on the face of the thermoscope. He read out of the book:

LT— 848— 501, surcharged with F type spots: an atomic-powered type BBB with propulsion cut, but auxiliaries running. Usually indicates five units distance at normal intensity. Apply inverse square rule for other readings.

That could only mean a Jovian battleship of the most powerful class, lying to in the vicinity! For the Federation boasted nothing bigger than the highly specialized Star-class cruisers, such as the Pollux.

Almost in the same moment, the televox came to life with a sputter and a crackling. A guttural voice was speaking:

"Phraedon? Seznik ng aut flotzkrigen zub snugelbisker! Phraedon?"

"What is that?" yelped Hartley.

MacKay listened as the message was repeated. He knew the Jovian dialects better in written form than by ear.

"He wants to know if we are Terrestrials. He says if we are, to come alongside and arrange surrender."

As he spoke he twisted the jet-deflector to hard dive and hard right. Simultaneously he jammed down the button that released maximum rocket power.

"Handle her, Hartley, I've got a job to do."

THE REALIZATION that he had failed at the one real mission he had been assigned almost bowled MacKay over. His vocal cords felt tense and paralyzed, and cold sweat stood out on his forehead and more trickled down his ribs, but he knew the hour had come to destroy the important message. Yet he hesitated. Had he really been overhauled by a Jovian? For how could a Jovian, no matter how big, elude the clouds of cruisers that swarmed about Jupiter and his planets?

He paused, irresolute, with his fingers still on the flap of the sealed envelope. Sparks flung open the door of the radio booth and stuck his head out.

"Message coming through from Pollux. I'll give you the decode in a jiffy." He slammed the door.

"How are we doing?" MacKay asked Hartley, nervously.

"Rotten," said Hartley. "She's come into sight— big brute, with black and white checks on her sides— she's piling on the power now."

Sparks stepped out of the booth. The slip he handed MacKay read:

For your info: INTERCEPT Dir-Gen to c-IN-c: Complete retirement as previously ordered. Await further orders at Mars Base. Messenger ship note changed destination.

MacKay waited no longer. His trembling fingers tore open the precious envelope and he took out the flimsy single sheet of paper it contained. He knew now that the blockade had been abandoned for some reason unknown to him and the Jovian fleet was free to come out. He spread the paper open and read.

He skipped the flowery heading. It was from the Grand Federated Council to the commander in chief. The first paragraph was full of flattering words about how well the fleet had done. The second spoke of the hardships endured by the three planets during the long war, and of the millions of men lost and the trillions of sols spent. Taxation was now unendurable. The third paragraph read:

Until now we had hoped that our blockade would win eventually, but late information advises us that the flerig crops on all Jovian satellites are bumper ones this year, and that herds of leezvartle, under intensive breeding, are actually larger than at the beginning of the war. Since the enemy has unlimited resources of minerals, it is clear that we can no longer hope to win. Hence the order for your withdrawal.

Inform his Imperial Majesty that a peace commission is being sent and request an immediate armistice. Advise him our terms in general will be the following:

Recognition of Jovian dominion over all outer planets and satellites; division of asteroids to be determined by conference, as well as the amount of indemnity we shall pay—

MacKay had turned pale. It was monstrous, shameful! That the Federation should weaken now, after having relieved half the suffering planets controlled by the ruthless and aggressive Callistans and won all the major battles of the war, was unthinkable cowardice. Why, they were giving the Jovian Emperor— self-styled, for in the beginning he was only a Callistan soldier of fortune— more than even he had ever hoped to gain. And the ultimate in degradation was that unsolicited and ignominious offer to pay indemnities!

He ran through the incredible message once more. Then the SP 331 lurched violently.

"They've hooked us with a tractor beam," shouted Hartley. MacKay tore a strip from the Council's message and rolled it into a pellet which he popped into his mouth. He followed it with another and another. By the time the small patrol vessel was locked against the captor's spaceport, he had swallowed the last of it. Its many-sealed cover had been reduced to black ashes, which he slowly crumbled between his fingers.

The televox came to life with:

"Lu supnitte af trelb vittervang— LOSHT!"

"They're damned polite," muttered Lieutenant MacKay, as he buckled on the gold-hilted dagger that was the ceremonial descendant of the sword. "Will his excellency have the kindness to come on board— PLEASE!" he mimicked, bitterly.

TO SAY that Lieutenant (jg) Alan MacKay was surprised when he stepped out of the Draval's inner lock would be to commit a gross understatement. He was, to be most exact, simply flabbergasted.

Eight side-boys lined the passage, and a rank of four musicians, tooting the raucous zibl pipes that give Ionic music its particularly ghastly effect, were rendering full imperial— if distinctly cacaphonous— honors. Two gigantic drummers battered out the ruffles. Beyond them stood a gold-laced admiral and his staff, all of them gaunt and emaciated-looking, but rigged out in all their finery.

MacKay saluted clumsily. He was astonished to see the admiral bow deeply, and in the doing, unhook his own poniard from its clasp. When he straightened up from his obeisance, he took two steps forward and handed the swordlet to MacKay.

"Pliss," he said, "you take it. Ve het ver' grit fribble ta scap— bat Trestians olright. Now ve gat life-boats ant go avay. Maybeso To gat Draval other time, no?" He looked appealingly at MacKay.

"I think we will do better if we converse in Ionic," suggested Lieutenant MacKay, glancing stupidly at the token of surrender he held. He did not quite know what to do with it. Impulsively he handed it back to the admiral. "Do I understand that you are surrendering to me?" he asked, still unbelieving.

"Yaas," said the admiral, and with another sweeping bow, indicated he might come farther into the ship to hear the reasons.

They walked down a long glittering passage. On either side MacKay had glimpses through explosion-proof glassite bulkheads of masses of monster vacuum tubes; banks of condensers and transformers; immensely intricate bits of machinery composed of strangely arranged helixes, glowing spheres, and literally miles of glistening wires, He had not the faintest notion of what any of the machines were called or what their function.

The admiral led the way into a luxurious office and sat down wearily. He seemed very weak. All his suite had mysteriously disappeared.

"We destroyed our consort— a ship that was manned wholly by Callistans, and killed all the Callistan officers we had on board. We managed to elude your most effective blockade, and got this far, but I am afraid we cannot go farther. It is for that reason I place the ship under your protection."

MacKay blinked. His protection! He thought feebly of the SP 331's 10 mm. micro-Bertha. It was too silly, too wacky. This was all a dream. But the admiral talked on, earnestly and pleadingly. MacKay was brought back to a sense of reality by a series of quivering jolts that momentarily shook the ship.

"My staff and remaining crew taking off in the boats," explained the admiral. "They are holding one for me. I must get back as soon as possible."

"B-but—"

"I am Jallikat— you may have heard of me— I was one of the first who advocated a union of the Jovian satellites. I had no idea, of course, how tyrannical the Callistons would prove to be, or what a fantastic madman they had for a leader. I need not relate how Europa and Ganymede were induced to join us, or our subsequent conquests elsewhere. But all that is over. The empire is an empty shell and overripe for destruction. The flerig crop is a complete failure. Our once vast herds of leezvartle have been slaughtered to the last animal—"

MacKay gave a start. It was an example of what skillful propaganda could do to unman an enemy.

"The Callistans have more local revolts on hand than they can manage. In another day they will collapse, for the people are starving. Your blockade, my young friend, has beat them.

"You wonder why I bring you this battleship. I will tell you. We have listened to your director and we trust him. He has said that the war aims are for the liberations of the subject peoples. Very well, when that day comes, Io will need a fleet, and we wish these ships which have always been manned by lonians, to be spared as a nucleus for our future nation. We do not so trust your allies, the Martians. They would either add them to their own navy, or destroy them to keep them out of other hands."

The admiral smiled hopefully.

"Now that I have delivered it safely into your hands, may I have your permission to go back to my people?"

"Why, certainly," said MacKay, perfunctorily. He was too dumfounded to add anything to that. Almost before he knew it, the admiral had gone. A moment later there was one last thudding jolt. Lieutenant (jg) Alan MacKay felt a peculiar tingling all over his body. He— a wearer of the crescent— -was in complete command of the biggest battleship of the skies. It was an empty and crewless battleship, to be sure, but only yesterday even ships like the indomitable Pollux would not have dared approach it except in divisions of six. It made him feel a little faint.

MACKAY pulled himself together and walked out into the passage. He was not certain by what way he had come, for there had been several turnings. The ship was vast and strange, and eerie in its silence. But after several false tries, which humbled him further, he found the air lock. He straightened up and drew a deep breath. Five seconds later, he stepped down into the eight-by-eight control room of the microscopic SP 331.

"No kidding, fellows," he announced in a pathetic effort at being nonchalant, "but we have captured a battleship. Leave this little thing as she is and let's go aboard and look her over."

Four pairs of eyes stared at him, and four sets of lips twitched into incredulous grins. After a moment Terrel spoke up.

"O.K., I'll bite. What's the gag?"

"I mean it," said MacKay, seriously. "The gag is that there is not a soul on board her nor a bite of anything to eat. How she's fixed for fuel or anything else is something we don't know. Our first job is to find out."

They explored that ship like miners exploring a new-found cave. Time after time they became lost, or wound up in blind passages. It took the best part of an hour before they came to the control room, embedded behind thick armor in the very bowels of the ship. MacKay found a set of plans and dragged them out. Hastily he translated some of the more important symbols on them for the guidance of his helpers.

"Here," he said to Terrell, "this is the motive-power layout as well as of the auxiliaries. Take Red with you and see if you can dope out what makes this ship move and how to keep the lights and things on. You'll have to stand watch and watch when you do. Report back in an hour or so, in any case. Have Sparks locate the radio and let me know the minute he can start sending. You, Hartley, take this set and have a look-see at the magazines. I wouldn't be surprised if the powder hasn't gone sour. If it has, flood or smother. Look for labels on the wall alongside locked valves. 'Belligish' something or other is what you'll find— it means 'to extinguish.' I don't see how you can go wrong if you turn one on."

After they had gone, MacKay made a cursory examination of the control room. Its thousands of gadgets must have taken a score of men to operate, and very little of it meant anything to him, accomplished yachtsman though he was. He gave up the job and busied himself with examining the more important of the ship's papers.

What they contained was ample confirmation of what the admiral had said. Request after request for vital supplies had been turned down, or ersatz material sent in its place. Much of the correspondence dealt with the failure of the supposedly "just as good or better" substitutes. He felt better over his instructions to Hartley when he learned that half the ship's magazines had already been smothered on account of deteriorating powder.

But the question that pressed relentlessly on his brain was the big one. What should he do about that message? Abandon this hulk and go on in the SP 331? Or had the news he had just come by altered the situation so materially that it did not matter whether the message was delivered? He decided to radio Terra, giving the news he had just acquired, and ask for further instructions, even though according to the code, no messenger was permitted to query his orders.

That idea was knocked in the head as soon as it was conceived. Sparks came in.

"I found it," he said, "and it works. I traced back and followed a lead into here. You can start sending any time now. Use that set over there." He pointed to a panel half-concealed by a huge switchboard. "Here's something interesting I found— a complete set of all our codes and ciphers! Wouldn't that burn 'em up at GHQ? Here are a few— you'll notice they are printed in Jovian thin-line type— guess they issued them to all their ships."

MacKay frowned. If the Callistans had all their codes, he could not hope to communicate confidentially with the director, the Pollux, or anyone else. Should he indicate that revolution was on the verge of breaking out in Jovia, the emperor might stamp it out before the Earthmen and allies could help. Yet the information he had in his possession was incredibly valuable. Had the Council had it a few days earlier, they would never have sent their pusillanimous peace offer. If they had it now, they would surely recall it.

"Hold everything," said MacKay, and sat down to think. His brain felt numb and his skin was tingling again. He was almost afraid to face the fact that was every moment, forcing itself more and more into the foreground. It was that at that moment he— he, the lowly junior grade lieutenant of Class 5 of the Reserve— held the fate of the Solar System's peoples in his hand. Upon what he did next— or failed to do— everything hung. No matter how slight his action, the repercussions would be interplanetary. It was a crushing thought to one who had never had to make a major decision and stand by its consequences.

It was only a matter of a minute or so that he sat there in sober study, though to him it seemed much longer. He groaned. "Oh, if I only knew, What would a man like Bullard do? He would do something, I bet."

The thought of Bullard was tonic. The picture of the man came up before him, vivid and clear. He could almost hear him talking, and the exact words of that memorable interview came back to him. They were strangely prophetic.

"It is how you use what you know that counts in an emergency— you may be on your own— all will depend on your own judgment and capacity for action— do not be afraid to exercise it— any action is better than none."

That was the gist of it. That was the Bullardian philosophy in a nutshell. Act! Damn the torpedoes; go ahead! Cut the Gordian Knot, if there was no other way.

LIEUTENANT MACKAY made up his mind. They might hang him for high treason, but what he was about to do was, to the best of his sincere judgment, the only thing to be done under the circumstances. It was what the peoples of all the worlds of the System hungered for. When he spoke again it was with a firm steady voice and flashing eyes.

"Sparks! Start sending— reserved State wave length— priority symbol— urgent. 'From the Council of the Federated Planets to the Emperor of Jovia. Sir. Within the next twelve hours you will by decree grant whole and unconditional freedom to all your subjects beyond the confines of the planetoid Callisto. You will at once recall and immobilize all strictly Callistan war craft. To permit the orderly doing of this we have temporarily withdrawn our forces. Should you fail to comply within the time set, we shall resume the assault.' Let's see, I think that covers it. Sign off with the usual high seal symbol. You know the one. Got it?"

"Yep," said Sparks, his hand steadily pounding away. "All gone. Now what?" The grizzled old radio man had something like admiration in his eyes, though he could only guess the story behind what was transpiring.

"Give me the key. I'm a bum operator, but nobody can do these sneezes but me. I doubt if you could even read them."

MacKay sat down. All his self-consciousness had evaporated. He was plunging along now, and letting the chips fall where they might. He might make ridiculous errors in plain code, or Ionic or Ganymedian grammar, but he didn't care. If the idea got across, that was enough. It did not matter now about his ignorance of gunnery, or engineering, or anything else nautical. He was using the thing he did know— planetary languages.

For an hour he sat, jabbering forth dramatic appeals to the Ionians, the Europans and the others to arise and drive out their conquerors. He told how the crew of the Draval had done it, and said she was waiting for them to join her. He promised the support of Terra, and the quick return of the Federated Fleet to aid them if they only showed resolution. He went on and on, his hand never ceasing. It was Sparks who broke him off.

"A call on another wave, sir. It's from Admiral Alley Cat, or something that sounds like that. He says knock it off— it's all over. They've dug a bird somewhere that knows English. Anyhow, he's on the way here."

MacKay slumped back in his seat. He had not known how tired one could get merely flicking the hand. But there was another clicking starting up. It was on the high State wave he had just been using. He listened.

"Urgent for Pollux. If you possibly can, turn back and find the SP 331 you used for messenger. Her operator is stricken with cosmopsychosis and is sending wild and extremely damaging messages. Suppress him even if it involves destruction of the patrol boat.

"Signed, DIRECTOR."

"Oh, gosh," said MacKay, "now I've got to start explaining. You do it— I'll dictate."

When the full story was on the ether, MacKay was in a state of virtual collapse. He looked with a dull eye upon Terrell who came in to report that the power installation was miles beyond his comprehension, though he did think they would have lights for a while.

"It doesn't matter," said MacKay, wearily, and closed his eyes. The issue would be determined then.

It was the next day that Admiral Jallikat brought his squadron up. There was the Tschasnick, the Perl, and the Bolonok, all battleships, four cruisers and a number of lesser craft. The admiral promptly sent over enough men to man the Draval and get her under way. She picked up speed sluggishly and headed Earthward to the point where the Pollux was limping back, trying to intercept them.

"I'll go ahead in the SP 331," said MacKay, the moment the messenger reported the Pollux had been picked up by the sensitive thermoscopes of the big ship. "It is I, and I alone, who have to face the music."

LIEUTENANT (jg) Alan MacKay left his tiny SP boat tied up to the Pollux's entry port and silently followed the commander who had admitted him toward Captain Bullard's cabin. He entered and stood just inside the door, waiting anxiously for what the captain had to say. He was not happy.

Bullard rose from his desk and walked forward without a word until he came face to face with the young officer, and not a foot away. He reached out his right hand and with two fingers seized the silver pin on MacKay's chest. With a single resolute yank, he ripped it away and a bit of the cloth came with it. Without looking at it he flung it backward across the room.

"I'm sorry about the tear," said Bullard quietly, "I did not mean to be quite so vigorous. But here, this will cover it—"

From his own breast he unpinned the broad, star-spangled gold-threaded ribbon of the Celestial Cross.

"After all," he said, and this time he smiled, "you won a war, whereas all I won was battles."

Note:

The seemingly incredible situation in the middle portion of this story occurred in almost identical fashion during the 1st World War, in 1918.

A pair of Austro-Hungarian battleships— the Zrinyi and the Radetsky— surrendered to an American sub-chaser. Their condition was the same, and their purpose was the same. The crews were Dalmatians and foresaw the dismemberment of Austria and hoped for the establishment of a Dalmatian Republic. They refused obstinately to surrender to either Italian or French ships, though they were both in the Adriatic. They insisted on finding an American captor, as they were hopeful that we would return the ships to them as a nucleus for their own fleet. The biggest they could find was a sub-chaser.

The young lieutenant who took over the Zrinyi was just out of college and had never been on board a battleship. There was no food but the ersatz stuff left by the Austrians. It took them days to make out what was what, as the crew promptly deserted as soon as the ship was safely under the American flag. But the American kids hung on, and managed to keep steam up and run the ship until the Peace Treaty finally disposed of it.

The Italians eventually got them, and used them for targets. They were like our Connecticuts.  M.J.

___________________________

8: Devil's Powder

Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1941

The drug was getting aboard somehow— and making the men do peculiar things. Somehow, they had to stop its smuggling—

THE SCREAMING and shouting in the galley were the first sounds Captain Bullard heard when he returned aboard the good ship Pollux. At the first wild yelp he bounded forward, knocking a couple of giggling bluejackets out of his way, and reached the pantry door just in time to see a knot of men bear the ship's cook away, struggling and raving. Bullard watched them go and then strode into the usually trim and ship-shape kitchen of the space cruiser. On the Pollux they varied the regulation sky diet of pellet concentrates with one old-fashioned cooked meal a day.

"What goes on here?" he demanded of a cook's helper, who was sheepishly ladling cakes of laundry soap out of a caldron that contained a mess that started out to be soup. Broken packages of food powders and dinted utensils strewed the deck. The place looked as though a four-inch H.E. had just exploded.

"Nothing, sir. Just the chef went nuts, that's all, sir. Like everybody else's doing," said the man, calmly continuing his clean-up work as if it were long-established ship's routine. "He's the third today."

Bullard glared. The aerogram that recalled him from his hard-earned leave had hinted at a desperate state of affairs on the trophy-winning ship, but her new captain was hardly prepared for anything like this.

"What do you mean, went nuts?" barked Bullard. "What did he do?"

"Why, sir, he dumped a lotta junk in this here stew and said it was going to be ambrosia to coax fireflies in, then he pitched his shoes in too 'cause he said they were full of anti-heebie-jeebie vitamins. After that he climbed up onto the range and began dancing, saying he was the great god Jupiter Pluvius and I should do a double backflip kowtow. Then he started throwing things—"

Bullard gave a growl, wheeled and walked out, snapping out orders to the first man he met in the passage to find the exec and the doctor and tell them he wanted them in his cabin at once.

They lost little time in getting there, those two. It was a very harried-looking Commander Moore who presented himself, worry and relief struggling to get possession of his expression— worry over what had happened while he had been acting captain, relief at being superseded. A moment later the doctor came in, wearing a look of complete bewilderment.

"This is a pretty howdy-you-do," said Bullard quietly, looking first at one and then at the other of them. They both nodded dismally. "Well, go on— say something! Where do we stand, how did it start, and all the rest of it? Make it snappy."

The doctor spoke first.

"Nine lunatics in irons in the sick-bay just now. Yesterday we shipped off four to Lunar Base for institutional treatment. There have been altogether eighty-four cases, but most of them have gone back to duty. They're still a little cuckoo, but not dangerous. It's a sort of epidemic. Mass insanity, so to speak—"

"Tommyrot!" snorted Bullard. "Give me facts. Is it booze, drugs, or don't you know?"

"It is not booze," said the doctor emphatically, "and if it is a drug it is a brand-new kind. We have made every test— there is nothing on the breath, nothing in the blood stream, nothing in the excreta that responds chemically. The psychotic symptoms differ in every case. I can't formulate a rule. It's ... uh ... well, just a general nuttiness. There's no way else to put it. Some get over it and some don't. In either case they fail to remember anything about it, except that they have just had a hell of a grand time and would like to do it all over again. It's very vague, but there is no doubt it's ecstatic."

"Hm-m-m," frowned Bullard. "That sounds like a drug to me, and an exceedingly dangerous drug at that. Have you heard of neurobane?"

Dr. Herilon shook his head.

"It's new. It turned up at home while I was there. The Bureau of Health knows something about it. Burn up the ether until you get the dope, then come back."

The doctor flitted from the room, relieved at having been given a straw of hope to cling to. Bullard turned to Moore and motioned to him to sit down.

"Begin at the beginning, Moore, and tell me the whole sad story."

"I blame it on the draft," commenced Moore, "that came to replace the old crew—"

"What!" yelled Bullard, leaping up from his chair. "Have they switched crews on us?"

"Practically. The department said we had done such a fine job of training that they thought they would keep on letting us do it. So they detached about half the men and petty officers and sent us a big draft of fresh-caught farmers and said to break 'em in."

Bullard groaned. It was one thing to build a ship's company into a fine team, another to have it snatched away just as one was about to enjoy the use of it. To have to do that over and over was an appalling prospect. But all he said was:

"Yes, the assimilation of so many new men is always tough. Go on."

"That was at Lunar, just after you left. Then we came here to Venus and went on the range for small-arms practice. That is when this wave of craziness began. One little guy down in the fourth division crawled into a scuttle and refused to come out. He said he liked it there, snugly surrounded by metal. Said he was a grade-A rivet and didn't intend to shake loose until they scrapped the ship. We had to cut him out with a flame jet under a cooling spray, he had jammed himself in so tightly."

Moore paused and sighed.

"That was just one. There was the fellow who thought he was invisible, and there was the one who believed he was radio-active. He tried to wreck the sickbay because the doctor wouldn't bottle his breath and pay him for it. He claimed it was pure radon gas and worth a thousand sols a cubic foot. Then there was—"

"Never mind the details. What did you do?"

"Doubled up the jimmy-legs detail on the theory it was dope. Two of them went nuts. Maybe it is. Put plenty of sentries around the small-arms range and searched the ship with ultraviolet probers. Not a smell. If there's dope, it's damn cleverly hid. We know the lockers and store-rooms are clean, and every man is gone over with a spy ray whenever he goes to or from shore. All liberty is stopped; the only place they go is to the range and they can't possibly contact the outside there."

Moore stopped. He had taken every precaution a human could think of, but the thing had gone on. The doctor and his gang had co-operated nobly, not sleeping for weeks. The trouble was clearly within their field, but the cause of it baffled them. They could not get information out of men whose recent memories were blank.

"Bad, bad," murmured Bullard, drumming the desk with his finger-tips.

"You bet it's bad— and getting worse."

Then the doctor came in with the message in his hand. He handed it without a word to the captain and waited while it was read. The message was from the Bureau and said, in part:

Neurobane is a bluish powder with a faint odor of crushed celery. Research in connection with it is rendered hazardous for the reason that the odor of it incites a mad and irresistible desire in the smeller to possess and eat it, whereupon insanity of a more or less permanent nature is quite likely to ensue, the first symptoms of which is to acquire more of the drug at all costs—

"God, what a money-maker for a gang of unscrupulous crooks," ejaculated Bullard, looking up at, the doctor. The doctor nodded grimly.

We found, after we had suffered the derangement of several of our subjects, that the stuff can be handled with comparative safety if the nasal passages are carefully stoppered. Later we learned that about one percent of men tested are immune to its temptation. It is probably from that class that the purveyors of this devilish drug are recruited—

"And so we can't detect 'em by looking for nose plugs," complained the doctor, "and the non-immune fall for the stuff, and then forget about it."

Captain Bullard handed back the report.

"Life on the Pollux," he remarked, thinking over his career on board her, "is just one thing after another."

IT WAS dawn before Bullard laid aside the lists he had been studying and correlating. He had found one significant fact. There had been no psychoses prior to coming to Venus, nor any that had not been preceded by at least one day's firing on the range, though usually it took three consecutive days of that before one of the major breakdowns occurred. That last qualification was one that shook the drug theory a little bit. Could there be a neurotic reaction from too much firing of the pellet guns? Yet Bullard had never heard of it, though he was a qualified sharpshooter himself and had spent hundreds of hours on the range in company with many other men. He buzzed for Moore.

"Pick out three men of the last draft who fired both yesterday and the day before and see that they go to the range again today. Have the rest of the party made up of first-time men. And, Moore—"

"Yes, sir?"

"I am going to fire the course myself. I am getting rusty."

Moore looked dubious.

"I tried that myself. You won't see anything there. The range has been searched time and time again—"

"Yes, yes," said Bullard, quietly. "Please see that the party is ready, will you?"

He went, in slicker and hip boots like everyone else. In Venus it rains most of the time; the rest of the time it is foggy. But it is an excellent place to get the hang of infrared target finders.

Captain Bullard walked down the firing line watching quite casually how the recruits attended to their instructions. He noticed that the ship's gunner was a new man, as were most of the gunner's mates. They continually went back and forth, heavily laden with bandoliers, and issued the cartridges. It was hard to see detail more than a few yards through the persistent mist that prevailed between rain squalls, but to the naked eye all was as it should be. The Pollux, apparently, was doing her customarily good job of making every man aboard an expert in the things he was supposed to know and do.

Twice Bullard picked a spot to shoot from and then left it for another, but saw nothing to arouse suspicion. At the third firing point he let loose his first string and got eighteen hits out of a possible twenty, missing the second and ninth shot. He grimaced and reloaded. With the superb fog-penetrating sights the modern guns were fitted with he should have hit twenty times out of twenty even if the range were five thousand meters. He moved once more and shot the course all over. But though he took his time and kept his eyes well peeled to what went on about him, he still did not see what he hoped to see.

The rest of the day he stood back of the firing line watching the distribution of ammunition. A gunner's mate would bend over a prone candidate and hand him clips of cartridges. There would be a word of advice, and the burdened bullet supplier would pass on. It was all very regular. The men, in the main, shot admirably, considering they were all boots.

After the day's work was over and the men had formed in ranks to march back to the ship, Billiard went over the firing line yard by yard, taking note of the work of the sweepers, who were picking up the spent cartridges and otherwise cleaning up the place. At one spot he paused. Lying half trampled in the mud was a shiny white object. Bullard stooped and picked it up.

It was a bullet. It was a small slug of adamantium, the toughest and hardest of all metals, crammed to capacity with the terrific explosive feroxite and would burst instantly on any reasonable heavy impact. He pocketed it, wonderingly, and continued on down the line. Farther on he picked up two more. Then one: then another; then three in one locality. By then a deep frown engraved Captain Bullard's forehead. It was dangerous business to hand green men defective ammunition. Why had these pellets broken loose from their cartridge cases? Had it happened with a sharp jar, twenty men might have gone up in fragments and there would have been nothing left but a muddy crater to show where they had been.

He went on to inspect the fences and saw the sentries at fifty-yard intervals. The range, thanks to Moore's precautions, really did look to be inaccessible. Whereupon Bullard, with a pocketful of the dangerous pellets, went back to his ship, walking slowly and thoughtfully.

That night two of Bullard's guinea pigs cracked up and were promptly suppressed by the masters-at-arms trailing them. They were strapped quickly in strait jackets and hauled off to the sickbay, mouthing wild nonsense and fantasy. The third took his in another way. He passed out without a sign of violence and went happily to sleep, his face wreathed in smiles of beatific satisfaction. Later, two of the one-day men collapsed, but by morning they had every appearance of being normal, though there was a haunted look in their eyes, as if they had had a glimpse of Heaven and had had it suddenly wrested from them.

"LOOK HERE, Moore," said Captain Bullard, just before quarters the next day, "have you ever heard of the wreck of the Centurion?"

"Why, no, sir."

Bullard chuckled. "Neither have I. But anyway, she lies a little south of Cupid Rock in the Ocean of Love. That is about forty kilos east of here. I want you to send divers there tomorrow and give me a full report of what you find. We have ten diving outfits, haven't we?"

"Yes, sir," admitted Moore, wonderingly.

"Take the gunner— what's his name? Stosk?— and those new gunner's mates. Send 'em all down and see that they stay there for as many hours as they can stand it. Understand?"

"Yes, and no."

"Good enough. Do it. That is all."

Bullard thought a moment, then added:

"You might take Dr. Herilon with you, too. You never can tell with diving expeditions."

"Aye, aye, sir," acknowledged Moore, but there was no hint of true understanding. Nor could there be. Yet he had supreme confidence in Bullard, for all his penchant for doing things indirectly. If he wanted the nonexistent Centurion looked for, that was that. He would look for it most diligently.

The following day Bullard watched with seeming indifference as the salvage party shoved off. For that day the work of qualification on the range had been suspended. Fraser, the gunnery officer, went with the divers as was customary.

But immediately they were clear of the ship he sent his messenger for Benton. Benton, resplendent in his new gold stripe— an award finally made him after Captain Bullard's repeated recommendations— reported. Benton was junior assistant engineer now, but he was a man that his skipper knew he could rely on, come hell or high water. Bullard opened the cabinet that held the keys to the armory and the magazines. Of those there were only three each. The gunnery officer had custody of one, the gunner the second. The third of the set hung in the captain's own bedroom.

"Get gas masks and come with me," was all that Bullard said, taking down the key to the armory and slipping it into his pocket.

They let themselves in and walked past the workroom where the loading machines were, and the powder test ovens. Neither cast so much as a glance at the row of twenty symbolic cutlasses neatly racked by the small-arms magazine door. The skipper of the Pollux used another key and led the way into the place where many cases of pellet-gun ammunition were stacked.

"I may need some mule labor here," said Bullard with a smile. "As a freshly commissioned ensign, are you above that sort of thing?"

"You knew me, sir," grinned Benton, "when I was nothing but a tube man. What do you think?"

"O.K.," Billiard grinned back, and he took off his own coat.

It took them a good many hours to examine all of those cases, for they were stacked eight feet high and there were four tiers of them. Each was branded on the end, "25 mm. pellet-gun ammunition, loaded with feroxite— Grand Arsenal, Lunar Base."

"Look for a difference, or some secret mark," suggested Bullard in an undertone.

It took them a long time to notice it, for it was a minute difference. The markings on the boxes seemed identical despite their critical examination of them. But at length Benton made the discovery.

"Here it is, sir. Look. This box has no period after the 'mm', while most of the others have."

"Right," said Bullard approvingly, and snaked the box aside.

Later they found five others like it. "Now put on your gas mask," directed Bullard, still sweating and panting from the work of heaving the boxes around. He looked at his watch. It had taken half the day to get this far, and he was thankful for his foresight in getting rid of the gunner's gang for so long a time. Otherwise he could not have made so free with the contents of the armory without tipping off his as yet unknown opponents as to the course his investigation was taking.

"Now comes the dirty work," commented Bullard, with a wink. He was mopping his forehead. "Go get friend Carrick, the pharmacist's mate, for me. Never mind a gas mask, but bring along a strait jacket."

In due time Benton reappeared with Carrick behind him. His captain talked to him in low tones for a minute and Carrick's features brightened.

"Yes, sir," he said, "this." And he scribbled a prescription on a strip of paper.

"Thanks," said the skipper, dryly. "Now, Carrick, would you mind letting us strap you up in that thing?" pointing to the strait jacket.

"Er... uh... no, sir," said Carrick hesitantly, looking hopefully at Benton, trusting he would get a clue. He admired his captain and all that, but in these days of mass insanity how could a fellow tell? Maybe the skipper had gone nuts, too. Else, why would he be dirty and sweaty in a deserted armory and make screwy propositions like the one he had just made about making half the crew sick as dogs, and on top of that suggesting that his chief pharmacist's mate strap himself into a strait jacket?

"Do him up, Benton," was all that Captain Bullard said. And then he began hunting around for a case opener. The next thing on the agenda was to pry the lids off the boxes with the un-perioded "mm's" so neatly that a subsequent inspection would not reveal that it had been done.

By the time Carrick was done up and lashed to a stanchion, the first box was open and a cascade of brass cartridges had been spilled out onto the deck.

"Now a bullet jack, Benton, and be sure your gas mask is on tight," called Bullard, breathless with anticipation.

An instant later he had pried an explosive pellet from the first cartridge case in his hand and had spilled out into his palm a little pile of bluish powder.

"Ah, sweet papa— it's heavenly," cooed Carrick, the moment it was shoved under his nose. And the two stern onlookers saw his arms writhe under their tight fastenings and the muscles of his jaw twitch in hungry anticipation.

"You'd like some?" queried the captain, watching him like a hawk.

"Like it!" screamed Carrick, struggling with his binding harness. "Why, you gilt-striped stuffed-shirt, I'd murder you just for another sniff of it. I'd give a year's pay, I'd give—"

Bullard withdrew his hand, watching his captive narrowly.

"O.K.," he said soothingly. "You'll have plenty of sniffs. But before I give them to you I want just one thing. Can you match that odor?"

"No, no!" wailed Carrick. "There's nothing like it under Heaven," and he slobbered and renewed his writhings.

There followed a long and patient interview, sputtering on Carrick's part, smooth and beguiling on Bullard's, while Benton looked on, not quite getting what it was all about. Eventually a deal was made.

"Oh, I'll try— I'll try, sir," wept Carrick, at last, and after more soothing promises he pulled himself together enough to dictate a list of ingredients that might do the trick. A moment later Benton was on his way to the dispensary with the list of materials and equipment— vials, test tubes and certain small amounts of essential oils. A bit after that he and his captain were busy compounding, under the frantic eyes of their trussed-up prisoner, the mighty potion.

"Ah, sweet— sweet," declared Carrick, blissfully, after the fourth unsuccessful try. "I'd sell my soul for that."

They gave him a taste and he gagged. Then, after some time of watching, they unloosed him.

"Now mind you," reminded the captain, sharply, as the benumbed Carrick tumbled out of his bindings, "not a word of this to anybody. Blend this odor with the prescription we first talked of, reduce it to powder and give it back to me. Heaven will have to wait."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the humbled Carrick, thoroughly subdued. He had a cloudy memory of the extravagances he had just uttered and was ashamed to the uttermost. He gazed unseeingly at the tightly sealed bottles of blue powder that stood about the floor and the pile of empty cartridge cases and boxes full of feroxite pellets.

"Within the hour?" reminded Captain Bullard.

"Oh, yes, sir," assured his chief pharmacist's mate. "I'll get at it at once." Then, with a hangdog air be added, "It's funny how a thing that smells so good should taste so lousy."

Bullard knit his brows.

"It might be better to tone the taste a little. Can you do that?"

"I'll try, sir."

"All right. Get going."

While Carrick was gone the captain and Benton unloaded the rest of the doped cartridges and took careful photographs of every stage, not neglecting the brandings on the ends of the packing cases which also showed the number of the packer. Bullard sat down and scribbled out a message to the Director of the I.B.I.

Trail packer number KG-8167 of Grand Arsenal, Lunar Base, for contact with main squeeze drug racket. Stuff going out in form of ammunition. Telephotos herewith. Note absence of period after 'mm' on marking. We are taking measures to apprehend peddlers; advise other ships do same.

"Here, slap this and these shots into the televisor. When you get 'acknowledge' come on back here. We are only half done."

Benton took the message and the cameras and left, and so did Bullard for a few minutes. He went to lock the telltale dope powder in his personal safe. By the time they were both back, Carrick was there with his can of substitute powder. It took them the rest of the day, working like demons, to reload the cartridges and fit the bullets back in. Then they repacked the cases, stacked them precisely as they had found them, locked up the armory and called it a day.

"I still don't get—" began Benton, having sweat like a horse all day and witnessed the unorthodox handling of his pal Carrick.

"You will," grunted Bullard with grim humor. "You've lived in the fo'c's'le, Benton— what would you do if a shipmate crossed you? Run to the skipper and tattle?"

"Not by a damn site, sir. I'd—"

"Exactly." Bullard yawned. "See you in the morning, Benton."

THE DIVING party found no traces of the lost Centurion, but that night there were no new cases of psychosis. Moore and Fraser were aching to know what it was all about, as was the doctor, but they did not dare ask. Later, Bullard sent for Moore and told him to send range parties ashore again tomorrow.

"This time I want our old Pollux men to go on the firing line. Sure, I know they are all qualified marksmen or better, but a refresher course won't hurt them. And as you go out, tell the surgeon to step in."

When the doctor came he faced a skipper who had lost some of the worried expression of the day before. Indeed, there seemed to be a hint of a twinkle in his eye.

"Listen, doc. You are in for a bad night tomorrow, I think, but don't let it trouble you. I fear a wave of— well, let's call it ptomaine— but it will pass. For the sake of your own reputation, it is just as well you know no more about it than that. All you have to do is keep a straight face, be sympathetic, ask 'em no questions, but by all means keep an accurate list of the sick."

Bullard let the puzzled doctor go, and then dismissed the current troubles from his mind. For twenty-four hours he devoted himself to catching up on the ship's correspondence. The veteran Polliwogs duly went on the range, fired, and came back again. It was an uneventful day. And that night was another night without a single skyman suddenly turning to a raving maniac.

But it would be untrue to say that it was a quiet night.

It must have been a little past eight bells when the first case broke. It was a skyman, second class, previously disrated for bad conduct. He began wailing and moaning about an excruciating bellyache, and a few minutes later he was groveling on the deck, retching and vomiting and swearing his last hour had come. He was a very, very sick man. And hardly had they dragged him off to the sickbay and emptied him out by means of a stomach pump, when there was another. And another. And another. Long before dawn the sickbay was jammed with them and extra cots had been laid just outside. Bullard's forecast had proved correct. The doctor and his helpers had a busy time.

But by daylight it was all over, and men by groups began leaving the sickbay for duty. They were a crestfallen, shame-faced crowd, but there was blood in their eye.

"Now what?" asked Moore. He was beginning to be fed up with the devious ways of this new skipper, who after all was no older than himself.

"Wait," said Bullard, nonchalantly. Then added, "Let's have an inspection of the crew in the morning. I'd like to look over these new men."

THE TIME for inspection duly came, and Bullard walked down the silent rows of men, studying them carefully, one by one. In the second division he took two looks at their gunner's mate. Both his eyes were blackened and swollen almost shut, and when he walked he limped.

"What happened to you?" asked Bullard, sharply.

"Slipped on a ladder, sir, and fell."

Bullard turned to his master-at-arms.

"This is one of them. Double irons and into the brig!"

"Yes, sir. Come on, buddy. You're done."

The amazed petty officer allowed himself to be led away.

In the fourth division they came upon another petty officer, this one with badly skinned knuckles on one hand, and the other arm in a sling. His ear looked as if it had been chewed.

"Cell 2 for him," said Bullard, briefly.

Deeper in the ship another pair of gunners' mates were found, similarly decorated. They, too, were promptly put in durance vile. Except for the many bruised and raw knuckles exhibited by the sullen victims of the recent ptomaine epidemic, there was little else about the inspection to attract attention. After it was over, Bullard took Moore and the doctor aside.

"From this point you can finish," he told his executive, and sketched out the high spots of what he had done.

"So that's where those men got hold of methylene blue," exclaimed the doctor, admiringly.

"Yes. And the ipecac and essence of Croton oil and some other truck," grinned Bullard. "I hope you are prepared to identify the would-be buyers, if it comes to that."

"I am," said the doctor.

"But these four you slammed into the brig without so much as a word?" Moore wanted to know.

"Elementary skyman psychology, my dear Moore," said his captain, pleasantly. "Sell a gob a bill of goods and you have to deliver, or else. They shelled out for dope and look what they got. Naturally, their first impulse was to take it out of the seller's hide. It saves us the embarrassment of bringing the whole nine of the range petty officers up on trial and then having five of them acquitted. Now we know who's who."

"Oh," said Moore. "I hadn't thought of that." And he recalled with some satisfaction how well decorated that last chiseling gunner's mate had been. "But what about Gunner Stosk? Wasn't he the king-pin?"

"Mr. Stosk is at the moment suffering from three fractured ribs, the loss of five incisors, a dislocated jaw, and various contusions. He is, in short, in bed— a very disillusioned man. You see, our masters-at-arms had instructions to ignore personal scraps during the night. After the four petty officers got theirs, what should be more natural but for them to pass it on? If they had double-crossed anybody, it was only because they had been double-crossed themselves. Hence the condition of our erstwhile gunner, Stosk."

"So you have them all— witnesses, the peddlers, and the distributor? It's a regular house-that-Jack-built thing." Moore had forgiven Bullard his mysterious, off-the-record investigation. Now he saw how perfect the trap was. "Too bad we couldn't snag the louse who originally supplied the stuff."

"Oh," said Captain Bullard, serenely, "as to that, it seems we did. You see, Stosk never knew I spent the day in the armory while he was diving for the Centurion. When his gang backfired on him he jumped to the conclusion that he had been double-crossed himself— that the Lunar crowd had shipped him phony dope. So he told me the full story. It went off four hours ago to the I.B.I. Here's the answer that just came back."

The two officers read the ethergram and whistled softly.

"And that's that," said Bullard. "Now let's get back to running the old Pollux. What else is on your mind, Moore?"

_______________________

9: Bullard Reflects

Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1941

Commander Bullard had a team nicely trained in a harmless sport— but it turned out he also had a team well-trained in the dangerous sport of outlaw busting!

"WHEE! YIPPEE! Yow!"

The crowd went crazy. Staid, gold-braided captains and commanders jumped up and down on their seats and yelled themselves hoarse. Even the admirals present dropped their dignified hand clapping for unrestrained shouting. Spacemen of all ratings tossed their hats away, hugged whoever was next to them, find behaved generally like wild men. Alan MacKay had scored his tenth successive goal!

"Castor Beans, Castor Beans— waw! waw! waw!" went the Pollux bleachers derisively.

"Polliwogs, Polliwogs— yah, yah, yah!" came the prompt response from the space cruiser Castor's side of the arena. But it was a weak and disheartened chorus. 850 to 25 the wrong way at the end of the first half was not the sort of score to inspire a cheering section. The Pollux's Dazzle Dart team was mopping up— and how!

Captain Bullard of the Pollux was no exception to the rest. He flopped back into his seat red of face and utterly exhausted. His vocal cords had gone long since, and now he could only gasp and speak in weak whispers. Captain Ellington, commander of the mine division, leaned over and congratulated him.

"You've got the General Excellence Trophy in the bag," he said. "That is the third time in a row, isn't it? That means you keep it."

"Yes," said Bullard, feebly. "But, oh, boy, who would have dreamed of picking up a player like this MacKay! I asked for him on account of the way he handled that Jovian surrender, but I had no idea he was such a whiz at Dazzle Dart—"

Then Bullard's husky voice failed him altogether, and he turned to watch the parades between halves.

The interfleet athletic meet, held for the first time since the Jovian armistice, had been a howling success from his point of view from first to last. The hand-picked, well-trained skymen of the Pollux had taken every major sport. The meteor-ball contest had been a pushover; they earned over eight hundred of the possible thousand points at saltation— that grueling competition of leaping from a stand at all gravities from zero to two and a half. They had outswum, outrun and outplayed their competitors in practically every one of the events. And now, in the most critical test of all, they had a walkaway. He had expected it, of course, but not by such a tremendous margin.

In the meantime the crowd milled and whooped on the plain at the bottom of Luna's well-dome crater Ashtaroth which was the athletic field of the great Lunar Base. Captain Bullard regained his breath and sat watching. Good boys, his, he was thinking, all of them— whether at war or at play. Then there came another touch at his elbow and Lieutenant Commander Bissel was there, aid to the commandant.

"I hate to inject a serious note into the festivities," he apologized, "but there's something hot coming in over the transether. Remember Egon Ziffler, chief of secret police of the Jovian Empire— the Torturer, they called him?"

Bullard nodded.

"He's been located, and at Titania, of all places. He appeared in a Callistan cruiser and took the place by surprise. Apparently he massacred the entire garrison in the most fiendish manner; the admiral is talking now with the sole survivor who, somehow, managed to escape to Oberon. The worst of it is he is in possession of our experimental arsenal and proving grounds—"

"Yes?" said Bullard.

"Yes. It has not been released yet, but that deadly new electron gun worked perfectly and there are hundreds of them there. With those in their hands they will be almost invulnerable. Only the screens of a star-class cruiser can resist the hand-size model, and I doubt if those could stand up to the heavier Mark II we planned to build."

"That's bad," remarked Bullard, with a sigh. It seemed that no matter how much clean-up work they did, there was always trouble.

"Yes," agreed Bissel, soberly, "it is bad. But I'll toddle along and get the latest. By the time this is over maybe I can give you the full dope."

He slid out of the box, and Bullard turned his attention once more to the field, only now his thoughts were inside the Pollux, parked in her launching rack over at the sky yard. Swiftly he surveyed mentally every compartment in her, then he permitted himself to relax. He could find no fault. She was ready to soar. Just let them give the word.

By that time the playing field was empty. A whistle blew. The second half was about to begin. It seemed a useless waste of time, but the rules were unchangeable. A fleet championship game could not be conceded; it must be played out to the last second.

THE CASTOREANS came onto the field in a somewhat more cheerful frame of mind. In this half they would have the advantage. They had the offensive. Then the Polliwogs tramped in, still jubilant. There was an enormous margin to their credit. They could hardly lose.

The game, essentially, was a simple one. But it called for the utmost a man could develop in alertness, agility and dexterity. Moreover, to get the best results, there must be instant teamwork, secured by long practice, for there was scant time to interpret and act upon the sharply barked code signals that demanded various degrees of co-operation.

The elements of it were these: it was played on a court not much different in layout from that required by basketball, football or jai-alai. There were two opposite goals, set high in backstops. The goals were six-inch, black holes in which were selenium units. A semicircular wall, four feet high, guarded a forbidden area at the foot of each backstop. The quarterback of the offensive team had a flashlight— a superflashlight— which was loaded for each half with exactly one hundred ten-second flashes of light. The light was delivered in a thin pencil of one centimeter in diameter, and the inner mechanism of it was so designed that the operator could deliver it flash at a time by simply pointing it and pressing a button. But once the button was pressed, the light stayed on for a full ten seconds and then went out abruptly, counting as one serve. The idea was to cast the ray into the opposite goal hole. If the bell rang, the quarterback scored twenty-five points.

The defenders' aim was to intercept and deflect the light— into the other goal, if possible. Should they succeed, their score would be double. To effect this, they were equipped with as many slightly convex mirrors as they thought they could handle. The mirrors were not dissimilar from the type worn on the brow of a throat specialist. Players usually wore them strapped to their wrists, but stars could not only manage those, but also ones strapped at their waists and on the head as well. A good jumper was a distinct asset to a team, and the Pollux's five saltatory champs had been of invaluable assistance.

They took their positions. Weems, captain of the Castor team, had the torch. His twenty guards were ranged about him. The Polliwogs scattered out at the other end of the court, tense and waiting. Tackling, holding or slugging was barred, but a man could drop on all fours and make an onrushing opponent stumble over him. There was no more to the game than that.

Weems maneuvered for position, then leaped unexpectedly into the air, and it was a goodly leap, as they were playing on strictly Lunar gravity. At near the top of his flight his hand darted forth and he sent a beam of light at his goal. It struck the backstop not a foot from the goal, but before the eagle-eyed Weems could shift his hand, a Polliwog player was in the air and had caught it with one of his reflectors. A twist of the wrist sent it hurtling back to the other side, a narrow miss. The source of it— Weems— was falling now, and he jerked his arm, throwing the light sharply downward, where one of his own teammates caught it and shot it up at a steep angle under the hovering Polliwog guards. A bull's-eye! And not an instant too soon, for at that moment the light went out. Twenty-five points for the attackers.

So it went— so swiftly the eye could hardly follow. Despite the fact that it was customary to fill the arena dome with humid air and spray dust in it so as to illuminate the darting beam throughout its length, it took the glance of an eagle to keep pace with it. A battery of cameras, of course, recorded the play constantly, and the selenium-cell-operated bell bonged from time to time as the light ray hit it.

The second half was full of brilliant double and triple plays, where often the quarterback would turn and flash his light directly behind him to a confederate who relayed it across the court, who in his turn shot it into a momentarily undefended goal. The ultimate score, though, was against the Castoreans. Their defeat was so decisive as to admit no quibbling.

The cheering lasted for minutes, but hardly had the final goal bell rung before Bullard was aware that the grand admiral himself had entered his box and was sitting beside him.

"Congratulations," said he, then addressed himself to serious business. "You have already heard a little of what is going on on Titania? I sent Bissel. It is a scurvy trick to recall your crew and send you out on a desperate mission at an hour like this, but there is no other ship ready. Since the armistice it seems that there has been a letdown in discipline. Can you blast off in four hours?"

"I can blast off in one hour if you'll give me an all-Moon hookup on the public-address system," said Bullard, without batting an eye. He had not only been expecting the detail, but hoping for it. Ziffler was a creature he loathed from the bottom of his heart— treacherous, cruel and unprincipled, of a breed that extermination is the only cure for.

Within five minutes Bullard was making his appeal to his skymen.

"On the double!" were his last words, and he slammed down the transmitter.

THE BURNED and looted fortress of Caliban lay directly under. Bullard pushed his navigator aside and took the controls himself. He set the antigravs at half strength and slowly lost altitude, constantly searching. At last he found them. There was a parked cruiser of the Dernfug class, and a horde of men camped outside alongside it. Phosphorescent flares burned, and he saw they were celebrating. Kegs of the type used as containers for the potent snahger liquor rolled all about, and the thickest of the rioting throng were gathered about others yet upright.

"The ship, first," said Bullard, grimly, and his gunnery officer— Fraser— said only, "Aye, aye, sir."

The searing, blinding beam of incredible power leaped downward, played a moment on the cruiser, then flickered out. On the ground there was left only a mass of running molted metal, sputtering a valedictory of brilliant sparks.

"Cease firing!" was Bullard's next crisp order. "The grand admiral wants them brought in alive, if possible." He reached for the antigrav control and pushed the deflectors on hard swing.

The Pollux came down a mile away to an easy landing on the dark plain. The people in her could plainly see the floodlamps of the rollicking bandits and the sharp reflections that glinted on the smooth terrain between. There was nothing to impede the progress of the landing force.

But by the time the landing force was ready for its trip, the lookout reported a new development. A party of men was approaching, and they were stretching their arms over their heads in gesture of surrender. A close scrutiny of them could discover no arms worth worrying about. The new electron projectors were said to be quite heavy, each requiring two men to carry and operate. Any less potent weapon the veterans of the Pollux could deal with, and deal with well.

"Find out who they are and what is their proposition," ordered Bullard. "If it sounds reasonable, let three in for a parley. No more. He is full of slimy tricks, that Ziffler. I wouldn't trust his words under any circumstances."

It was not Ziffler, but Skul Drosno, former vice premier, of the Jovian regime, together with two high aids. They wanted to arrange terms of surrender, they said. Their story was that they had revolted against the atrocities of Ziffler and had him a prisoner in their camp. They would trade him— trussed up as he was— for personal immunity and a general pardon for their followers. They would willingly submit to trial, knowing now how they had been hoodwinked.

"Let them in." said Bullard, though he was still a trifle doubtful. "I will talk with them."

Skul Drosno began his appeal. Bullard recognized it at once as rank sophistry, but he continued to listen. Then, to his astonishment, Drosno suddenly slumped in his chair. His eyes were crossed to a painful degree, and his hands wavered uncertainly in the air. The next moment he pitched forward onto the deck and sprawled, apparently unconscious. One of his aids looked sick, and staggered to his feet, weaving about ridiculously.

"What an act!" thought Bullard, and sprang to his own feet, alert. He shot a glance to his side and saw that his executive, Moore, who had been with him, was an inert heap. And at that moment things began to blur before his own eyes. His knees wobbled, and he heard a harsh, metallic ringing in his ears. He fought for air, then choked. The floor plates rushed upward and struck him squarely in the face. After that Bullard remembered no more.

THE NEXT VOICE he heard was the high-pitched cackling of the unspeakable Ziffler.

"Can such things be!" crowed the vile Callistan. "A great personage, no less. I find as my prisoner the inimitable, the invincible, the incorruptible Bullard— hero of the nine planets!"

Bullard opened his eyes, ignoring the pounding in the back of his head. He was seated in a chair, strapped hand and foot, and the swaggering ex-police chief who had terrorized the Jovian satellites was standing before him, exulting.

"Perhaps he is not so invincible," pursued his tormentor, calmly lighting a cigarette and seating himself. "We have never seen him outside his formidable Pollux. But now that he is in our hands, I am curious to see how good he is. Hagstund! Come here!"

A big brute of a former convict strode forward.

"What do you say? Shall we have a little sport? Why not put these men in spacesuits and turn them loose for twenty-four hours? Then we can have a hunt. This man, in particular, has a gr-r-reat reputation for cleverness. Let's see what he can do on a barren and resourceless planet. We have counted them, so we know their numbers. I will give a prize, prizes. Ten thousand sols for this one, to whoever brings him down. Another ten thousand for the last man of the lot and another five for the next to the last. It'll be good fun, eh?"

Ziffler took a swig of snahger and delivered himself of an elaborate wink. Bullard did not believe for a moment he was drunk. Ziffler was too clever a scoundrel for that. It was a gesture meant to raise false hopes. Bullard knew all too well what the wastes of Titania were. He had been there before. Except for the port of Caliban, the arsenal and a few scattered stations which no doubt had been plundered by now, there was nothing but bleak, frozen plains, broken by rugged meteor craters.

"Swell, chief," agreed the henchman. "What about the ship?"

"Leave her lie as she is. They'll not send another for days. I don't want you baboons monkeying around inside her. Let's give these guys a run, then we'll get down to business. There's plenty of time."

Rough hands pulled Bullard to his feet, and at the point of one of the new and deadly electron guns they made him put an ordinary spacesuits. As the mists cleared away in his throbbing head, he saw that he was in a large hall, and that other men and officers of his crew were being similarly treated.

"Oh, by the way," remarked Ziffler, offhandedly. "They say I am unkind. I'll save you one bit of mental torture. What got you down was our new hypnotic dust. It's very clever, really. Powder a coat with it, for example, then expose it to air. It vaporizes and puts everyone to sleep. My emissaries went out, too— naturally. All but one, that is, who had been heavily doped with an antidote beforehand. He survived long enough to open the door for us, then, unfortunately, died. It was regrettable, but in my business I find it necessary to do such things."

Bullard said not a word. He was ready. The outlook was black, but he had seen other outlooks that were quite as black.

"I'll be seeing you, Ziffler," he said, and hoped it was not mere braggadocio. Ziffler had a reputation for sadism, but not for courage. There was the bare chance that that single psychological shot in the dark might in time be digested and unsettle him. "Let's go. I prefer anything to your presence."

"Yeah?" said Ziffler, but he beckoned to his strong-arm squad.

THE ENTIRE crew of the Pollux was there. They were pushed out through the portal of the dome in squads of four and told to get going. Bullard was let out last of all. Their captors promised tauntingly that they had a full Earth day before pursuit.

"Stay together, men," called Bullard into his helmet microphone, the moment the portal closed behind him. "All officers come up close to me."

The light on Titania is dim, even in full daytime. But it was good enough for his officers to read the swift manipulations of his fingers. Their skipper was using the sign language all trained Space Guards men used when they feared their words might be overheard.

"Poleward from here." Bullard told them, "some thirty miles, is a meteorite crater. For several years we have maintained a secret laboratory there and it is possible that these ruffians have not discovered it. That will be our destination. Under this gravity we should reach it within a few hours, though I am uncertain of its exact direction. Have the men spread out and hunt. There should be flares there, and the first man in should light one. The last time I visited the place it had a staff of eight or ten scientists, and an excellent interplanetary radio. They may have weapons, but at least we can flash an alarm."

Rapidly waved arms acknowledged, and the Polliwogs dispersed in the semidarkness.

It was Lieutenant Alan MacKay who reached the spot first. He had trouble in finding a flare, but eventually he found one and lit it. The laboratory was a shambles. The vandals had found the place, despite his captain's hopes to the contrary, and turned it upside down. The bodies of the physicists and chemists lay all about, and the unhappy director's corpse was discovered nailed to the wall, crucifix style. Torn papers, broken glass and tangled wire littered the floor. The radio had been smashed almost out of recognition. MacKay, a newcomer to the service, shuddered, but he carried out his orders.

Bullard arrived shortly after, and his face was not pretty to see as he viewed the wreckage. Now he regretted the flare. They undoubtedly had seen it, too. He had hoped to warn these people, send a message to the System in general, then have his forces scatter. A few of them might have hoped to survive the ruthless man hunt that was to follow.

But the situation was changed, and since any alternative seemed as hopeless as any other, he let the flare continue to burn. By keeping together, some resistance might be improvised. While he was waiting for the stragglers to come up, he busied himself with reassembling the torn pages of the notebooks and journals strewn about the floor.

Much of them dealt with routine analysis, but on a page written in red ink and numbered "97" he found a fragment that brought him to eager attention.

Unlike most meteorites, the one that made this crater failed to disintegrate upon impact— or rather, not all of it disintegrated. We have discovered a number of fragments, slightly curved, that indicate it was stratified, and that the stratum of radius, of about thirty meters and of one and a fraction inches in thickness, simply broke into bits instead of molecules. In the storehouse in the crater bottom there are more than a hundred of these fragments, running up to as high as twenty centimeters across. They are of a jadelike substance, subject to abrasion by ordinary methods and can be drilled by steel drills, and are not hard and ultradense as might have been expected. The curious thing about these fragments is that they defy X-ray analysis. For some odd reason they wreck every tube that is brought to bear upon them. They backfire, so to speak. Can it be that—

THE PAGE was at an end. Bullard sought frantically for page 98, but he could not find it. He called the trusty Benton.

"Take a gang of men and go down and search the crater. You ought to find a storehouse and in it a bunch of junky-looking rock fragments that look like jade. If you do, bring a flock of them up here. Quick!"

To the others standing around, he said:

"Clear out the wreckage in the workshop and see if those breast drills can be made to work. Strip the boots off of those dead men and cut them up into straps. As soon us you have done that, take off your own and cut them up, too. We haven't got time to lose."

Presently Lieutenant Benton came back, and a number of men were with him. They all bore armfuls of slightly curved pieces of a moss-colored, glasslike substance. Each was fairly large, but all had irregular and jagged edges. Bullard examined one hurriedly, hefting it critically.

"Get MacKay up here— quickly," he barked, suddenly. Then he wheeled on Benton. "Take all of these and drill two pairs of holes through each— here and here"— and he showed him. "Then affix straps, just as you would to those mirrors you use in the Dazzle Dart game."

Benton looked at him wonderingly, but he had learned a long time before to put his trust in his remarkable commander. He piled the shiny fragments of meteor stuff together and went out to call in his men.

Bullard felt better. What he was about to attempt was a wild gamble, but it was immeasurably better than waiting like a sheep for the slaughter or fleeing hopelessly across the cold wastes of Titania. He was very thankful, too, that on the occasion of his last visit to that satellite he had cut the governor general's party and ball and visited this secluded laboratory instead. For the day he had been there was shortly after the experiments described on the isolated page he now held in his hand. At that time nothing had been definitely determined as to the structure of the mysterious crystalline substance salvaged from the crater, but he recalled the speculations of the now dead scientists concerning it.

Lieutenant MacKay reported.

"Yes, sir?"

"Tell Commander Moore to have all the members of the Dazzle Dart team report to you here at once, and that means the men on the second team and the scrubs as well. Tell him to have everyone else find pits in the crater bottom and take shelter there until further orders. Clear?"

THE RUFFIANS of the Ziffler gang did not play entirely fair, as was to be expected. They beat the gun by several hours. It was Benton, in charge of the lookout, who sighted the mob advancing across the plain. They were in fairly close formation, as if by direction finders or some other means they already knew that the Pollux men were not scattered, but together at the so-called "Mystery Crater."

"Take stations," ordered Bullard, crisply. He was standing in the semidarkness on the crater rim, some distance away from the damaged laboratory. To the right and left of him his victorious Dazzle Dart team were lying behind the irregular parapet made by the crater wall.

"Benton!" he called. "Scatter your squad both ways from me. When that gang of hoodlums is halfway up the hill, let 'em have your flame-gun blast. Then duck and beat it for the bottom of the crater and hide out until I call 'all clear.'"

Benton had found eight old flame guns in a work shed. They had been obsolete us fighting weapons for many years, but could deliver a nasty burn.

Captain Bullard had another look at the advancing hunting party. He saw that they had brought along a number of the new electron guns and were beginning to struggle up to the talus with them. The yelling mob reached a sort of ledge and waited for the guns to be brought up. A jeering voice, louder than the rest, called up:

"Will you come down and take it, you lice, or do we have to come up there and get you?"

"Now!" said Bullard softly into his microphone.

Eight feeble heat machines spat their ruddy blasts, then went out with a jerk as their operators let go of them and slid down the inner wall to safety. It was well that Bullard had foreseen the reply they would get for the counterblast came almost instantaneously. A score of bright stars flamed out downhill and from them thin streams of almost invisible violet fire lashed upward and played along the crater rim. The rock sprang into incandescence and inches of it melted and flowed as bubbling, sparkling slag down the slope, where it quickly dulled to red and congealed.

"Now?" asked MacKay, anxiously. He was crouched beside the skipper.

"Not yet. Wait until they are closer."

The assault went on for a moment, then stopped. Bullard took a cautious peep and saw the Callistans had resumed their climb.

"What's the dirtiest thing you can call a Callistan?" whispered Bullard, grinning unseen in the dark. "You know the lingo."

"Froahbortlen," replied MacKay without hesitation. The Callistan language was rich in epithets, but that one was the most comprehensive and unequivocal ever coined in any language. Even a depraved criminal of the lowest grade would resent it.

"Invite them up," said Bullard, grimly. "When they answer, do your stuff."

"On your toes, men," MacKay warned his teammates. Then he opened his mike wide and issued his sizzling, triple-barreled, insulting invitation.

Bullard involuntarily caught his breath. The die was cast. For an instant one of the qualms of uncertainty that rarely came to him held him in its grip. Was he right, or would they fail? Which side would be the victims of the massacre about to begin? Well, in a couple of seconds he would know.

The properties of the strange meteor substance was still unknown. It stopped Gamma and other hard rays. It wrecked the X-ray tubes focused upon it. How could that be, unless it also possessed that long-hunted, but never found, property of being able to deflect and reflect the high-pressure beams?

MacKay's helmet still vibrated with the last vile words of his superb taunt when the answering salvo of electric fire came. But that time there was more than inert rock to receive it. A row of alert young men stood on the crest, and a weird-looking crew they were. Glistening bits of rock were strapped to their wrists, to their foreheads, their belts, and even their ankles. In an instant they were leaping, dancing and twisting like mad dervishes, deftly parrying every violet pencil that struck above the rock at their feet. The devastating power was being hurled back whence it came.

The ruffians must have been amazed at the swift return of fire from men they thought to be totally disarmed, but they hung on doggedly for a few seconds more. Then their fire ceased altogether, and all that the observers on the rim could see was a few scared survivors scrambling: down the way they had come.

"Too bad we haven't a weapon," sighed Bullard. "We could make a clean sweep."

He whipped out a flashlight and strode down to the ledge. There were many of the abandoned electron guns standing about on tripods, or overturned by the fleeing gangsters. Something soft gave under Bullard's boot. He played his light along the ground and saw a sight that under other circumstances would have been revolting. Loose hands and feet, attached to charred stumps of arm or leg, were strewn widely. Other and less readily identifiable fragments of disintegrated humanity lay among them. Ziffler's strong-arm squad, once the terror of the outer planets, had been dispersed in the fullest sense of the word.

Bullard turned on his amplifier.

"O.K., Moore. Round up the men and bring them down. We're going back."

The trek back across the icy waste seemed infinitely shorter and easier than it had on the outward journey. Men's hearts were light now, and not leaden as before. To the Polliwogs, the knowledge they had lost their ship had been as dispiriting as the seeming certainly of their impeding doom. Now all that was changed. A mile ahead of them lay the Pollux, just as they had left her.

The search for Ziffler and the stragglers took some time, but they found them, cowering and whimpering behind a boulder.

"Iron them well and throw them into the brig," snapped Bullard, and went into his ship.

He grabbed a signal pad and wrote a brief report.

A little later the grand admiral at Lunar Base stretched out his hand for the flimsy bit of yellow paper his orderly had brought him. He read if, then read it again. He frowned a little and scratched his head.

"Has Bullard gone highbrow on us, or what the hell?" he asked, tossing the message over to Bissel. Bissel picked it up and read:

After reflection, the enemy succumbed.

BULLARD.

____________________

10: Brimstone Bill

Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1942

Bill was a crook, a hell-fire-damnation specialist in the art of collecting cash. A marvelous orator— with gadgets. But Commander Bullard had a good use for a bad actor!

THE PRISONERS were herded into the room and ranged against one of the bulkheads. Captain Bullard sat stiffly behind his desk regarding the group of ruffians with a gaze of steely appraisal. Lieutenant Benton and a pair of pistoled bluejackets were handling the prisoners, while Commander Moore stood at the back of Bullard's desk, looking on. Then Bullard gave a jerk of his head and the procession started. One by one they shuffled to the spot before his desk, clanking their heavy chains at each dragging step. And one by one the captain of thePollux surveyed them, critically and coldly, comparing their appearance and their marks with the coded descriptions in the ethergram on his desk.

These were the survivors of the notorious Ziffler gang, captured on Oberon the month before, after the encounter on the lip of a little crater that the Polliwogs had already come to call the "Battle of the Mirrors." The first, of course, was Egon Ziffler himself, all his arrogance and bluster melted away long since. Then came Skul Drosno, his chief aid, and there followed ten other plug-uglies who had survived the holocaust of reflected fire. All were big hulking brutes of Callistans, ray-blackened, scarred and hairy. The last and thirteenth man was of a different type altogether. Bullard waited in silence until he had ranged himself before his desk.

"Paul Grogan," called Benton, checking the final name of the list.

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard, looking at the miserable specimen standing at a grotesque version of "attention" before him, and then glancing at the Bureau of Justice's ethergram summary of his pedigree. After that he studied the prisoner in detail. He was a queer fish indeed to have been caught in such a haul.

The self-styled Grogan was a wizened, under-fed little fellow and bore himself with an astonishing blend of cringing and swagger. The strangest thing about him was his head, which was oversize for his body. He had a fine forehead topped with a leonine mane of iron-gray hair, which after a cursory glance might have been called a noble head. But there was an occasional shifty flicker of the eyes and a twitching at the mouth that belied that judgment. Bullard referred to the Bureau's memo again.

"Grogan," it said, "probably Zander, alias Ardwell, alias Nordham, and many other names. Small-time crook and chiseler, card sharp, confidence man. Arrested often throughout Federation for petty embezzlement, but no convictions. Not known to have connection with Ziffler gang."

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard again. He had placed Grogan, et cetera, now in his memory. It had been a long time since the paths of the two had crossed, but Bullard never forgot things that happened to him. Nor did he see fit to recall it too distinctly to his prisoner, for he was not altogether proud of the recollection. But to check his own powers of retention, he asked:

"You operated on Venus at one time— as an itinerant preacher, if the record is correct— under the name of Brimstone Bill?"

"Why, yes, sir, now that you mention it," admitted Brimstone Bill, with a sheepish grin. "But, oh, sir, I quit that long ago. It didn't pay."

"Really?" remarked Bullard. That was not his recollection of it. He had visited Venus in those days as a Passed Midshipman. One night, in the outskirts of Erosburg, they had curiously followed a group of skymen into a lighted hall emblazoned with the sign, "Come, See and Hear BRIMSTONE BILL— Free Admittance." And they went, saw and heard. That bit of investigation had cost the youthful Bullard just a month's pay— all he had with him. For he had fallen under the spell of the fiery oratory of the little man with the big bushy head and flashing eyes, and after groveling before the rostrum and confessing himself a wicked boy, he had turned his pockets wrongside out to find some worthy contribution to further "the cause." Bullard winced whenever he thought of it.

"No, sir, it didn't pay," said the little man. "In money, yes. But not in other ways."

"The police, eh?"

"Oh, not at all, sir," protested Brimstone Bill. "Everything I ever did was strictly legal. It was the suckers ... uh, the congregation, that is. They got wise to me. A smart-Aleck scientist from the gormel mills showed me up one night—"

He lifted his manacled hands and turned them so the palms showed outward. Deep in each palm was a bright-red, star-shaped scar.

"They crucified me. When the police cut me down the next day, I swore I'd never preach again. And I won't, so help me."

"You are right about that," said Bullard grimly, satisfied that his memory was as good as he thought it was. "This last time you have stretched your idea of what's legal beyond its elastic limit. The gang you were caught with is on its way to execution."

Brimstone Bill emitted a howl and fell to his knees, whining and pleading.

"Save that for your trial," said Bullard harshly. "Take 'em away, Benton."

AFTER THEY HAD all gone, Bullard sat back and relaxed. He promptly dismissed Ziffler and his mob from his mind. The Oberon incident was now a closed book. It was one more entry in the glorious log of the Pollux. It was the future— what was to happen next— that mattered.

The Pollux had stood guard over the ruined fortress of Caliban until the relief ships arrived. Now she was homeward bound. At Lunar Base a richly deserved and long-postponed rest awaited her and her men. And there was not a man on board but would have a wife or sweetheart waiting for him at the receiving dock. Leave and liberty were ahead, and since it was impossible to spend money in the ship's canteen, every member of the crew had a year's or more accrued pay on the books. Moreover there would be bonuses and prize money for the destruction of the Ziffler gang. Never in the history of the service had a ship looked forward to such a satisfactory homecoming, for everyone at her arrival would be gayly waving bright handkerchiefs, laughing and smiling. Her chill mortuary chamber down below was empty, as were the neat rows of bunks in the sick bay. The Pollux had achieved her triumph without casualties.

It was on that happy day of making port that Bullard was idly dreaming when the sharp double rap on the door informed him that Moore was back. And the executive officer would hardly have come back so soon unless something important had turned up. So when Bullard jerked himself upright again and saw the pair of yellow flimsies in Moore's hand, his heart sank at once. Orders. Orders and always more orders! Would they never let the ship rest?

"Now what?" asked Bullard, warily.

"The Bureau of Justice," said Moore, laying down the first signal, "has just ordered the immediate payment to all hands of the Ziffler bonus. It runs into handsome figures."

Bullard grunted, ignoring the message. Of course. The men would get a bonus and a handsome one. But why at this particular moment? He knew that Moore was holding back the bad news.

"Go on," growled Bullard, "let's have it!"

Moore shuffled his feet unhappily, expecting an outburst of rage. Then, without a word he handed Bullard the second message. It read:

Pollux will stop at Juno Skydocks en route Luna to have hull scraped. Pay crew and grant fullest liberty while there. Implicit compliance with this order expected.

Grand Admiral.

Bullard glared at the thing, then crushed it to a tight ball in his fist and hurled it from him. He sat for a moment cursing softly under his breath during which the red haze of rage almost blinded him. He would have preferred anything to that order— to turn about and go out of the orbit of Neptune for another battle, if there had been need for it, would have been preferable. But this!

He kicked his chair backward and began pacing the room like a caged tiger. It was such a lousy, stinking trick to do— and to him and his Pollux of all people! To begin with, the ship had no sky-barnacles on her hull, as the pestiferous little ferrous-consuming interplanetary spores were called on account of the blisters they raised on the hull. And if she had, Juno was no place to get rid of them. Its skydock was a tenth-rate service station fit only for tugs and mine layers. The twenty men employed there could not possibly be expected to go over the hull under a month, and the regulations forbade the ship's crew working on the hull while in a planetary dockyard. The dockyard workers' guilds had seen to that. Moreover, Juno was not even on the way to Luna, but far beyond, since from where the Pollux was at the moment, the Earth lay between her and the Sun, while Juno was in opposition. It was damnable!

Bullard growled in midstride and kicked viciously at an electrician's testing case that stood in his path. That wasn't all— not by a damsite! Juno was one of the vilest dumps inside the Federation. It was an ore-gathering and provisioning point for the asteroid prospectors and consequently was populated by as vicious a mob of beachcombers and their ilk as could be found in the System. Juno literally festered with gin mills, gambling hells and dives of every description. No decent man could stand it there for three days. He either left or took to drink. And, what with what was sold to drink on Juno, that led to all the rest— ending usually in drugs or worse. It was in that hell hole that he had been ordered to set down his fine ship for thirty days. When he thought of his fine boys and the eager women impatiently awaiting their homecoming, he boiled.

"Shall I protest the order, sir?" asked Moore, hopefully.

"Certainly not," snapped Bullard, halting abruptly and facing him. "I never protest orders. I carry 'em out. Even if the skies fall. I'll carry this one out, too, damn 'em. But I'll make the fellow who dictated it—"

He suddenly checked himself. He had been about to add, "regret he ever had," when he remembered in a flash that Moore's family was in some way connected with the Fennings. Only Senator Fenning could have inspired the change of plans. The grand admiral had issued the order and signed it, of course, but he had inserted the clue as to why in its own last redundant sentence. "Implicit compliance is expected," indeed! No admiral would be guilty of such a tacit admission that perhaps not all orders need be strictly complied with. That sentence meant, as plainly as if the crude words themselves had been employed, this:

"Bullard, old boy, we know this looks goofy and all wrong to you, but we're stuck. You've been chosen as the sacrificial goat this year, so be a good sport and take it. None of your tricks, old fellow. We know you can dope out a way to annul any fool order, but don't let us down on this one."

The line of Dullard's mouth tightened. He sat down quietly in his chair and said to the expectant Moore as matter-of-factly as if he had been arranging a routine matter:

"Have the course changed for Juno, and inform the admiral that he can count on his orders being carried out to the letter."

Commander Moore may have been surprised at Bullard's tame surrender, but, after all, one was more helpless sometimes in dealing with one's own admiral than with the most ruthless and resourceful enemy. He merely said, "Aye, aye, sir," and left the room.

TWO WEEKS ROLLED by, and then another. They were well within the orbit of Jupiter now, and indeed the hither asteroids. Hungry eyes now and then looked at the pale-blue tiny disk with its silvery dot companion as it showed on the low-power visifield and thought of home. Home was so near and yet so far. For the ship was veering off to the left, to pass close inside Mars and then to cut through beyond the Sun and far away again to where the miserable little rock of Juno rolled along with its nondescript population.

During those days the usual feverish activity of the ship died down until it became the dullest sort of routine. Men of all ratings were thinking, "What's the use?" Moore and Benton were everywhere, trying to explain away the unexplainable, but the men did not react very well. Many were beginning to wonder whether the service was what it was cracked up to be, and not a few were planning a big bust the very first night they hit the beach on Juno. It was not what they had planned, but it seemed to be what was available. Only Bullard and Lieutenant MacKay kept apart and appeared to take little interest in what was to happen next.

Alan MacKay was a newcomer to the service, and his specialty was languages. So he had filled in what time he had to spare from the routine duties by frequenting the prison spaces and chatting with the Callistans in the brig. He had managed to compile an extraordinary amount of information relating to the recent war as seen from behind the scenes on the other side, and he was sure it was going to be of value to the Department. Moreover, he had gleaned additional data on the foray to Oberon. All of which would make the prosecutor's job more thorough when the day of the trial came. As for Bullard, he kept to his cabin, pacing the deck for hours at a stretch and wrestling with his newest problem.

His thoughts were leaping endlessly in a circuit from one item to the next and on and on until he came back to the point of departure and began all over again. There was the ship, the crew, and the devoted women waiting for the return of the crew, and the fat entries in the paymaster's books that meant so much to them both. And there was the squalid town of Herapolis with its waiting, hungry harpies with a thousand proven schemes for getting at that money for themselves; and there was the cunning and avaricious overlord of the asteroids, their landlord and creditor, who would in the end transfer the funds to his own account. That man also sat in the upper chamber of the Federation Grand Council and was a power in Interplanetary politics. His name was Fenning— Senator Fenning— and he dominated the committee that dealt out appropriations to the Patrol Force. And from that point Bullard's mind would jump to the Tellurian calendar and he would recall that it was now March on Earth, and therefore just about the time that the annual budget was in preparation. Which in turn would lead him back to the General Service Board, which dealt on the one hand with the Force as a master, but with the Grand Council as perennial supplicant for funds on the other. Which naturally took him to the necessities of the grand admiral and the needs of the Service as a whole. Which brought him back to the Pollux's orders and started the vicious circle all over again.

For Bullard was cynical and wise enough in the ways of the world to have recognized at the outset that the ship's proposed stay at Juno yard was neither more nor less than a concealed bribe to the honorable senator. Perhaps it had been a bad season in the asteroid mines and his debtors had gotten behind. If so, they would need a needling of good, honest cash to square accounts. Perhaps it was merely Fenning's insatiable lust for ever more money, or maybe he only insisted on the maneuver to demonstrate his authority. Or perhaps, even, having bulldozed the Patrol Force into erecting a small and inadequate skydock where either an effective one or none at all was needed, he felt he must have some use made of it to justify his prior action. Whatever Fenning's motives really were, they were ignoble. No exigency of the service required the Pollux to visit Juno now— or ever. And to Bullard's mind, no exigency of politics or personal ambition could condone what was about to be done to the Pollux's crew.

It was the ethical content of the problem that bothered Bullard. Practically it was merely annoying. With himself on board, his veteran officers and a not inconsiderable nucleus of tried and true men who had been in the ship for years, she could not go altogether to hell no matter how long they had to stay on Juno. He knew he could count on many— perhaps half— going ashore only occasionally; the other half could be dealt with sternly should they exceed all reasonable bounds for shore behavior after a hard and grueling cruise. But in both halves he would have to deal with discontent. The decent, far-sighted, understanding men already resented the interference with their plans, since there was no sufficiently plausible reason given for it. They would accept it, as men have from the beginning of time, but not gracefully or without grumbling. Then the riotous element would feel, if unduly harsh disciplinary measures were applied, that, somehow, they had been let down. Wasn't the very fact they had been sent to Juno for liberty and paid off with it an invitation to shoot the works?

There were other courses of action open to him, Captain Bullard knew. The easiest was inaction. Let the men have their fling. Given a few months in space again, he could undo all the damage. All? That was it. Nothing could undo the disappointment of the women waiting at Earth and Luna— nor the demoralization of the men at not getting there, for that matter. Nor could the money coaxed or stolen from them by the Junoesque creatures of Fenning ever be recovered. Moreover, the one thing Bullard did not like was inaction. If he was already half mutinous himself, what of the men? No. He would do something about it.

Well, he could simply proceed to Luna, take the blame, and perhaps be dismissed. He could give the story to the magnavox in the hope that by discrediting Senator Fenning and the System, his sacrifice might be worth the making. But would it? Would the magnavox dare put such a story on the ether? And wouldn't that be letting the admirals down? For they knew his dilemma quite as well as he did. They had chosen, chosen for the good of the Service. The System could not be broken, or it would have been long ago. It was the Pollux's turn to contribute the oil that greased the machine.

Bollard sighed. Juno was less than a week away now, and he saw no way out. Time after time in his gloom he was almost ready to admit he was beaten. But the instincts and training of a lifetime kept him from the actual confession. There must be some way of beating Fenning! It must be a way, of course, which would cast no reflection on the grand admiral. Or the ship. Or the crew. And, to be really successful, no ineradicable discredit upon himself. Bullard got up, rumpled his hair, and resumed his tigerish pacing.

IT WAS LIEUTENANT MacKay who interrupted his stormy thoughts. MacKay had something to say about the prisoners. He had just about finished pumping them dry and was prepared to draw up the report. There were several recommendations he had to make, but he wanted his captain's opinion and approval first.

"It's about that fellow Zander— the Earthman, you know—" he began.

"Oh, Brimstone Bill?" grinned Bullard. He was rather glad MacKay had broken in on him. The sense of futility he had been suffering lately had begun to ingrow and make him bitter.

"Yes, sir. He's a highly undesirable citizen, of course, but I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for him. The old scalawag hadn't anything to do with the Caliban massacre. He just happened to be there when Ziffler came, and escaped being killed only by luck. He was dealer in a rango game when they landed, and his boss had a couple of Callistan bouncers. Ziffler gave 'em the chance of joining up with him, which they did and took Brimstone along with 'em, saying he was O.K. Brimstone went along because it was that or else. He had no part in anything."

"I see," said Bullard, and thought a moment. "But I haven't anything to do with it. What happens hereafter is up to the court. You should submit your report to them."

After MacKay left, Bullard's thoughts turned upon his first encounter with the little charlatan many years before on Venus. Somehow, the fellow had had a profound effect on him at the time. So much so, in fact, that it came as something of a shock the day of his preliminary examination to find that the man had been a fake all along. Bullard had been tempted to think him a good man who had eventually gone wrong. Now he knew better. But as he continued his train of reminiscence, something suddenly clicked inside his head.

He sat bolt upright, and a gleam of hope began to dawn in his eyes. Brimstone Bill had a peculiar talent which might come in very handy in the trying weeks ahead. Could he use it with safety to himself? That had to be considered, for dealing with a professional crook had risks. Yet, according to Brimstone's own admission, it had been a gormel engineer that had shown him up, and Bullard figured that if a biophysics engineer could match wits with the grizzled trickster and win, he could. Perhaps—

But there was no perhaps about it. Bullard's fingers were already reaching for his call button, and a moment later Benton stood before him.

"Go down to the brig," directed the captain, "and bring that man Zander up here. Take his irons off first as I do not like to talk to men bound like animals. The fellow is a cheap crook, but he is harmless physically."

While he waited for Benton's return, Bullard explored the plan he had already roughly outlined in his mind. By pitting Brimstone Bill against Fenning he hoped to foil the greater scoundrel. But would he fall between two stools in the doing of it? He must also pit himself against the swindler, or else he would simply have enabled one crook to outsmart another without profit other than the gratification of spite. He had also to think of the other possible costs. The grand admiral must have no cause for complaint that there had been any evasion of his orders. Likewise Fenning must have no grievance that he dared utter out loud. There remained the item of the reputation of the Pollux and its men.

He puckered his brow for a time over that one. Then he relaxed. There were reputations and reputations, and extremes both ways. Some regarded one extreme with great favor, others preferred the other. Bullard liked neither, but for practical reasons preferred to embrace one for a time rather than its alternate. He would chance a little ridicule. After all, people might smile behind their hands at what a Polliwog might do, but no one ever curled a lip in the face of one and afterward had his face look the same. Pollux men had quite a margin of reputation, when it came to that, so he dismissed the matter from his mind. From then on he sat and grinned or frowned as this or that detail of his proposed course of action began to pop out in anticipation.

WHEN Brimstone Bill was brought in, there was no hint in Bullard's bearing that he had softened his attitude toward the prisoner one whit. He stared at him with cold, unsmiling sternness. "Zander," he said, drilling him with his eyes, "you are in a bad jam. Do you want to die along with those other gorillas?"

"Oh, no, sir," whined Brimstone, "I'll do anything.... I'll spill all I know.... I'd—"

Bullard shut him off with an abrupt wave of the hand.

"As the arresting officer I am in a position to do you a great deal of good or harm. If you will play ball with me, I can guarantee you a commutation. Maybe more— much more." He uttered the last words slowly as if in some doubt as to how much more. "Will you do it?"

"Oh, sir," cried Brimstone in an ecstasy of relief, for it was plain to see he had suffered during his languishment in the brig, "I'll do anything you say—"

"On my terms?" Bullard was hard as a rock.

"On any terms— Oh, yes, sir... just tell me—"

"Benton! Kindly leave us now while I talk with this man. Stay close to the call signal."

Bullard never took his eyes off the receding back of his lieutenant until the door clicked to behind it. Then he dropped his hard-boiled manner like a mask.

"Sit down, Brimstone Bill, and relax. I'm more friendly to you than you think." He waved to a chair and Brimstone sat down, looking a little frightened and uncertain. Then, proceeding on the assumption that a crook would understand an ulterior motive where he would distrust an honest one, Bullard dropped his voice to a low conversational— or rather conspiratorial— tone, and said:

"Everybody needs money. You do. And— well, a captain of a cruiser like this has obligations that the admiralty doesn't think about. I could use money, too. You are a clever moneymaker and can make it in ways I can't. I'm going to let you out of the jug and put you in the way of making some."

Brimstone Bill was keenly listening now and the glint of greed brightened his foxy eyes. This man in uniform was talking his language; he was a fellow like himself— no foolishness about him. Brimstone furtively licked his lips. He had had partners before, too, and that usually worked out pretty well, also. He might make a pretty good bargain yet.

"We are on our way to Juno where we will stop awhile. I am going to let you go ashore there and do your stuff. You'll be given my protection, you can keep the money here in my safe, and you can sleep here nights. You had a pretty smooth racket there on Venus, as I remember it. If you work it here, we'll clean up. After we leave, we'll split the net take fifty-fifty. That'll give you money enough to beat the charges against you and leave you a stake. All I want you to do is preach the way you did on Venus."

While Bullard was talking, Brimstone grew brighter and brighter. It was beginning to look as if the world was his oyster. But at the last sentence he wilted.

"I can't do that," he wailed. "I'm afraid. And—"

"There are no gormel mills on Juno," Bullard reminded him, "only roughneck asteroid miners, gamblers and chiselers."

"That ain't it, sir," moaned Brimstone. "They smashed my gadgets, 'n'—"

"Gadgets?"

"Yeah. I ain't no good without 'em. And the fellow that made 'em is dead."

He talked on a few minutes more, but Bullard interrupted him. He called in Benton and told him to take notes.

"Go on," he told Brimstone Bill. "We'll make you a set."

It took about an hour before Benton had all the information he needed. Brimstone was hazy as to some of the features of his racket, but Bullard and the young officer were way ahead of him all the time.

"Can do?" asked Bullard, finally.

"Can do," declared Benton with a grin, slamming his notebook shut. "I'll put the boys in the repair shop right at it. They won't have the faintest notion what we want to use 'em for."

Benton rose. As far as that went, Benton himself was still somewhat in the fog, but he had served with his skipper long enough to know that when he was wearing a certain, inward kind of quizzical expression that something out of the ordinary was cooking. His talent for a peculiar oblique approach to any insoluble problem was well known to those about him. Wise ones did as they were told and asked questions, if ever, afterward.

"On your way out, Benton," added Bullard, "take our friend down to the chaplain's room— we left Luna in such a hurry, you know, the chaplain missed the ship— and let him bunk there. I'll see that suitable entry is made in the log. And you might tell Commander Moore that I'd like to see him."

When Benton and Brimstone had left, Bullard leaned back in his chair and with hands clasped behind his neck gazed contemplatively at the overhead. So far, so good. Now to break the news to Moore.

"I've been thinking, Moore," he said when his executive came in, "that we have been a little lax in one matter. I was thinking of... uh, spiritual values. I'm sorry now that the chaplain missed the ship. Do you realize that we have made no pretense at holding any sort of service since we blasted off on this cruise?"

Moore's eyes bugged a little. The skipper, he was thinking, must have overdone his recent worrying. Or something. Bullard had always been punctiliously polite to the chaplain, but—

"So," went on Bullard calmly, still gazing placidly at the maze of wires and conduits hanging from the deck plates over him, "I have made appropriate arrangements to rectify that lack. I find that the Earthman we took along with the Ziffler outfit was not one of them but a hostage they had captured. He is an itinerant preacher— a free-lance missionary, so to speak. I have released him from the brig and installed him in the chaplain's room, and after he has had a chance to clean up and recover, he will talk to the men daily."

It was well that Moore's eyes were firmly tied to their sockets, for if they had bugged before, they bulged dangerously now. Bullard had brooded too much. Bullard was mad!

"Oh," assured Bullard, "there is nothing to worry about. The man is still a prisoner at large awaiting action by the Bureau of Justice. But otherwise he will have the run of the ship. And, I should add, the run of the town while we are on Juno. He calls himself, oddly enough, Brimstone Bill, but he explains that he works close to the people and they prefer less dignity."

Moore gasped, but there seemed to be nothing to say. Bullard had not consulted him, he had been merely telling him. Unless he had the boldness to pronounce his captain unwell and forcibly assume command, there was nothing to do but accept it. And with a husky, "Aye, aye," he did.

IT WAS THE NIGHT before they made Juno that the long unheard twitter of bos'n's pipes began peeping and cheeping throughout the ship. At the call, the bos'n's mates took up the cry and the word, "Rig church in the fo'c's'le ri-ight a-awa-a-ay!" went resounding through the compartments. Bullard clung tenaciously to the immemorial old ship customs. The sound of bunks being cleared away and the clatter of benches being put up followed as the crew's living quarters were transformed into a temporary assembly hall. They had been told that the missionary brought aboard at Oberon had a message for them. They had not been told what its subject was, but their boredom with black space was immense and they would have gone, anyway, if only from curiosity. The text for the evening was "The Gates of Hell Are Yawning Wide."

Two hours earlier Benton had reported that all was in readiness for the test of Brimstone's persuasive powers and that the three petty officer assistants picked by him had been instructed in their job. A special box had been rigged at one corner of the hall for the use of the captain and executive. Consequently, when "Assembly" went, Bullard waited only long enough for the men to be seated when he marched in with Moore and took his place at one corner of the stage that had been set up.

Brimstone Bill appeared in a solemn outfit made up for him by the ship's tailor. The setting and the clothes had made a new man of him. No longer was he the shifty-looking, cringing prisoner, but a man of austerity and power whose flashing eyes more than made amends for his poor physique. He proceeded to the center of the stage, glared at his audience a moment, then flung an accusing finger at them.

"Hell is waiting for you!" he exploded, then stepped back and shook his imposing mane and continued to glare at them. There was not a titter or sneer in the crowd. The men were sitting upright, fascinated, looking back at him with staring eyes and mouths agape. He had hit them where they lived. Moore looked about him in a startled way and nudged Bullard.

"Can you tie that?" he whispered, awe-struck. He had been in the ship many years and had never seen anything like it. All the skymen he knew had been more concerned with the present and the immediate future than the hereafter, and the Polliwogs were an especially godless lot. The followers of their own chaplain could be numbered on the fingers of the two hands.

Brimstone Bill went on. Little by little he warmed to his subject until he soon arrived at a stage where he ranted and raved, jumped up and down, tore his hair and beat his breast. He thundered denunciations, pleaded and threatened, storming all over the place purple-faced. His auditors quailed in their seats as he told off their shortcomings and predicted the dire doom that they were sure to achieve. His theology was simple and primitive. His pantheon consisted of but two personages— the scheming devil and himself, the savior. His list of punishable iniquities was equally simple. The cardinal sins were the ordinary personal petty vices— drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing and playing about with loose women. There was but one redeeming virtue, SUPPORT THE CAUSE!

That was all there was to it. An hour of exhortation and a collection. When he paused at the end of his culminating outpouring of fiery oratory, he asked for volunteers to gather in the offerings. Three petty officers stood up, received commodious leather bags, and went among the audience stuffing them with whatever the men present had in their pockets. For no one withheld anything, however trifling. The sermon, if it could be called that, was an impressive success. Then the lights came on bright, Brimstone Bill left the stage clutching the three bags, and the men filed out.

"Amazing," said Moore, as he sat with Bullard and watched the show. "Why, the fellow is an arrant mountebank!"

"Quite so," agreed Bullard, "but the men seem to like it. Come, let's go."

The next day saw a very different atmosphere in the ship. About two thirds of the crew had heard the preaching, the remainder being on duty. Those went about their tasks silently and thoughtfully, as if pondering their manifold sins. They had to take an enormous amount of kidding from their shipmates and a good many black eyes were in evidence by the time the ship slid down into her landing skids at Juno Skydock. Bullard did not let that disturb him; to him it was a healthful sign.

As soon as the ship was docked, he went out and met the dockmaster, who, as he had suspected, was an incompetent drone. No, he had only fourteen men available— he had not been expecting the ship— they would get at the job tomorrow or next day— or at least part of them. No, there was a local rule against working overtime— no, the ship's force could not help— six Earth weeks, he thought, barring accidents, ought to do the trick. Oh, yes, they would be very thorough. At Juno they were always thorough about everything.

Moore started threatening the man, stating he would report him to the grand admiral for inefficiency, but all Bullard said was:

"Skip it, you're wasting breath. These people have just two speeds— slow ahead and stop. Put pressure on them and they backfire. Go back aboard and post the liberty notice. Unlimited liberty except for the men actually needed to stand watch. And see that this goat gets a copy."

Moore shook his head. Something had happened to Bullard. Of course, the man was up against a stone wall, but he could at least make a show of a fight. It was a terrible thing to see a fighting man give up so easily. In the meantime Bullard had walked away and was talking with Brimstone Bill and Benton, who had just emerged from the lock and were looking around.

THERE WERE lively doings ashore that night. Most of the contingent that had not heard the Rev. Zander's moving sermon went as early as possible, ostensibly to look around and do a little shopping. In the end they wound up by getting gloriously drunk. It was a bedraggled and miserable-looking lot that turned up at the ship the next morning and there were many stragglers. A patrol had to be sent out to comb the dives and find the missing ones. Many had been robbed or cheated of all they had, and some had been indiscreet enough to draw all their money before they went. Captain Bullard lined up the most serious of the offenders at "mast" and handed out the usual routine punishments— a few days' restriction to the ship.

After that things were different. The next day Benton and Brimstone had succeeded in renting an empty dance hall. As Bullard had guessed, things were dull that year in Herapolis. A gang of enthusiastic volunteers— Polliwog converts to Brimstone's strange doctrines— busied themselves in making the place ready as a tabernacle. The last touch was a neon sign bearing the same wording Bullard had seen on that other tabernacle in steamy Venus. Brimstone Bill was about to do his stuff in a wholesale way.

That afternoon when work was done, the entire liberty party marched in formation to the hall and there listened to another of Brimstone's fiery bursts of denunciation. The denizens of the town looked on at the swinging legs and arms of the marching battalion and wondered what it was all about. They supposed it was some newfangled custom of the Patrol Force and that whatever it was, it would soon be over and then they would have plenty of customers. The barkeeps got out their rags and polished the bars; gamblers made a last-minute check-up of the magnetic devices that controlled their machines; and the ladies of the town dabbed on the last coat of their already abundant make-up.

But no customers came that night. For hours they could hear the booming, ranting voice of Brimstone roaring about Hell and Damnation, punctuated by periods of lusty singing, but except for an occasional bleary-eyed miner, no patron appeared to burden their tills and lighten their hearts. At length the strange meeting broke up and the men marched back to their ship in the same orderly formation they had come.

This went on for a week. A few at a time, the members of the first liberty party recovered from their earlier debauch and ventured ashore again, but even those were soon snatched from circulation as their shipmates persuaded them to hear Brimstone "just once." Once was enough. After that they joined the nocturnal demonstration. It was uncanny. It was unskymanlike. Moreover, it was lousy business. Spies from the townspeople camp who peered through windows came back and reported there was something funnier about it than that. Every night a collection was taken up, and it amounted to big money, often requiring several men to carry the swag back.

Strong-arm squads searched the town's flophouses to find out where the pseudo-evangelist was staying, but in vain. They finally discovered he was living on the Pollux. A committee of local "merchants" called on Captain Bullard and protested that the ship was discriminating against them by curtailing the men's liberty. They also demanded that Brimstone Bill be ejected from the ship.

"Practically the entire crew goes ashore every day," said Bullard, shortly, "and may spend the night if they choose. What they do ashore is their own affair, not mine. If they prefer to listen to sermons instead of roistering, that's up to them. As far as the preacher is concerned, he is a refugee civilian, whose safety I am responsible for. He is in no sense under orders of the Patrol Force. If you consider you have a competitive problem, solve it in your own way."

The dive owners' impatience and perplexity turned into despair. Something had to be done. They did all that they knew to do. They next complained to the local administrator— a creature of Fenning's— of the unfair competition. That worthy descended upon the tabernacle shortly thereafter, backed by a small army of suddenly acquired deputies, to close the place as being an unlicensed entertainment. He was met by a determined Patrol lieutenant and a group of hard-faced Polliwog guards who not only refused to permit the administrator to serve his warrant, but informed him that the meeting was immune from political interference. It was not amusement, but religious instruction, and as such protected by the Constitution of the Federation.

The astounded administrator looked at the steely eyes of the officer and down to the browned, firm hand lying carelessly on the butt of a Mark XII blaster, and back again into the granite face. He mumbled something about being sorry and backed away. He could see little to be gained by frontal attack. He went back to his office and sent off a hasty ethergram to his esteemed patron, then sat haggardly awaiting orders. Already the senator had made several inquiries as to receipts since the cruiser's arrival, but he had delayed reporting.

The answer was short and to the point. "Take direct action," it said. The administrator scratched his head. Sure, he was the law on Juno, but the Pollux represented the law, too, and it had both the letter of it and the better force on its side. So he did the other thing— the obvious thing for a Junovian to do. He sent out a batch of ethergrams to nearby asteroids and then called a mass meeting of all his local henchmen.

IT TOOK THREE DAYS for the armada of rusty little prospectors' ships to finish fluttering down onto the rocky wastes on the far side of Herapolis. They disgorged an army of tough miners and bruisers from every little rock in the vicinity. The mob that formed that night was both numerous and well-primed. Plenty of free drinks and the mutual display of flexed biceps had put them in the mood. At half an hour before the tabernacle meeting was due to break up, the dive keepers all shut up shop, and taking their minions with them began to line the dark streets between Brimstone's hall and the skydock.

"Yah! Sissies!" jeered the mob, as the phalanx of bluejackets came sweeping down, arm in arm and singing one of Brimstone's militant hymns in unison. By the dim street lights one could see that their faces were lit up with the self-satisfaction of the recently purified. In the midst of the phalanx the little preacher trotted along, surrounded by the inevitable trio of petty officers with the night's collection.

An empty bottle was flung, more jeers, and a volley of small meteoric stones. The column marched on, scorning to indulge in street brawling. Then a square ahead they came to the miners, drawn up in solid formation from wall to wall. The prospectors were armed with pick handles and other improvised clubs. They did not jeer, but stood silent and threatening.

"Wedge formation," called Benton, who was up ahead. "Charge!"

The battle of the Saints and Sinners will be remembered long in Juno. That no one was killed was due to the restraint exercised by Benton and MacKay, who were along with the church party. Only they and the administrator had blasters, and the administrator was not there. Having marshaled his army, he thought it the better part of valor to withdraw to his office where he could get in quick touch with the senator if need be.

Dawn found a deserted street, but a littered one. Splintered clubs, tattered clothes, and patches of drying blood abounded, but there were no corpses. The Polliwogs had fought their way through, carrying their wounded with them. The miners and the hoodlums had fled, leaving their wounded sprawling on the ground behind, as is the custom in the rough rocklets. But the wounded suffered only from minor broken bones or stuns, and sooner or later crawled away to some dive where they found sanctuary. There had been no referees, so there was no official way to counteract the bombastic claims at once set up by both sides. But it is noteworthy that the Polliwogs went to church again the next night and were unmolested by so much as a catcall on the way back.

"I don't like this, captain," Moore had said that morning as they looked in on the crowded sick bay where the doctors were applying splints and bandages. "I never have felt that charlatan could be anything but bad for the ship. He gouges the men just as thoroughly as the experts here would have. Now this!"

"They would have thrown their money around, anyway," grinned Bullard, "and fought, too. It's better to do both sober than the other way."

THAT AFTERNOON the administrator rallied his bruised and battered forces and held a council of war. None would admit it, but a formation has advantages over a heterogeneous mob even in a free-for-all. What do next? There was a good deal of heated discussion, but the ultimate answer was— infiltration. The tabernacle sign read, "Come one, come all," and there was no admission. So that night the hall was surrounded by waiting miners and a mob of the local bouncers long before the Rev. Zander arrived. Tonight they would rough-house inside.

He beamed upon them.

"Come in, all of you. There are seats for all. If not, my regular boys can stand in the back."

The roughs would have preferred to the standing position, but the thing was to get in and mix. So they filed in. By the time Brimstone Bill mounted the rostrum the house was crowded, but it could have held more at a pinch.

He was in good form that night. At his best. "Why Risk Damnation?" was his theme, and as he put it, the question was unanswerable. It was suicidal folly. The gaping miners let the words soak in with astonished awe; never had they thought of things that way. Here and there a bouncer shivered when he thought of the perpetual fires that were kept blazing for him on some far-away planet called Hell. They supposed it must be a planet— far-off places usually were. They were not a flush lot, but their contribution to the "cause" that night was not negligible. There was little cash money in it, but a number of fine nuggets, and more than one set of brass knuckles and a pair of nicely balanced blackjacks. Altogether Brimstone Bill was satisfied with his haul, especially when he saw the rapt expressions on their faces as they made their way out of the tabernacle.

The administrator raved and swore, but it did no good. The chastened miners were down early at the smelter office to draw what credits they had due; the bouncers went back to their dives and quit their jobs, insisting on being paid off in cash, not promises. All that was for the cause. There were many fights that day between groups of the converted and groups of the ones who still dwelt in darkness, but the general results were inconclusive. The upshot of it was that the remainder of the town went to the tabernacle that night to find out what monkey business had been pulled on the crowd they had sent first.

The collection that night was truly stupendous, for the sermon's effect on the greater crowd was just what it had been on all the others. Not only was there a great deal of cash, but more weapons and much jewelry— though a good deal of the jewelry upon examination turned out to be paste. The administrator had come— baffled and angry— to see for himself. He saw, and everyone was surprised to note how much cash he carried about his person. What no one saw was the ethergram he sent off to the senator that night bearing his resignation and extolling the works of one Brimstone Bill, preacher extraordinary. He was thankful that he had been shown the light before it was too late.

An extraordinary by-product of the evening was that early the next morning a veritable army of miners descended upon the skydock and volunteered to help scrape the cruiser's hull. Brimstone's dwelling, they said, should shine and without delay. That night even the dockmaster had to grudgingly pronounce that the ship was clean. The job was done. She was free to go.

Bullard lost no time in blasting out. Brimstone Bill was tearful over leaving the last crop ungleaned. He insisted that they had been caught unawares the first night, and the second they were sure to bring more. But Bullard said no, they had enough money for both their needs. The ship could stay no longer. Bullard further said that he would be busy with the details of the voyage for the next several days. After that they would have an accounting. In the meantime there would be no more preaching. Brimstone Bill was to keep close to his room.

At once all the fox in Brimstone rose to the top. This man in gold braid had used him to exploit not only his own crew but the people of an entire planetoid and adjacent ones. Now he was trying to cheat him out of his share of the take.

"I won't do it," said Brimstone, defiantly. "I've the run of the ship, you said. If you try to double-cross me, I'll spill everything."

"Spill," said Bullard, calmly, "but don't forget what happened at Venus. The effect of the gadgets wears off, you know. I think you will be safe in the chaplain's room if I keep a guard on the door. But if you'd rather, there's always the brig—"

"I get you," said Brimstone Bill, sullenly, and turned to go. He knew now he had been outsmarted, which was a thing that hurt a man who lived by his wits.

"You will still get," Bullard hurled after him, "one half the net, as I promised you, and an easy sentence or no sentence at all. Now get out of my sight and stay out."

IT WAS a queer assembly that night— or sleep period— for a space cruiser of the line. They met in the room known to them as the "treasure house." Present were the captain, the paymaster, Lieutenant Benton, and two of the petty officers who had acted as deacons of Brimstone's strange church. The third was missing for the reason he was standing sentry duty before the ex-preacher's door. Their first job was to count the loot. The money had already been sorted and piled, the paper ten to one hundred sol notes being bundled neatly, and the small coins counted into bags. The merchandise had been appraised at auction value and was stacked according to kind.

"Now let's see, Pay," said Bullard, consulting his notes, "what is the total amount the men had on the books before we hit Juno?"

Pay told him. Bullard kicked at the biggest stack of money of all.

"Right. This is it. Put it in your safe and restore the credits. Now, how much did the hall cost, sign, lights and all?"

Bullard handed that over.

"The rest is net— what we took from the asteroid people. Half is mine, half is Brimstone's. The total?"

Benton was looking uneasy. He had wondered all the time about what the fifty-fifty split meant. He was still wondering what the skipper meant to do with his. But the skipper was a queer one and unpredictable.

"Fifty-four thousand, three hundred and eight sols," said the paymaster, "including the merchandise items."

"Fair enough. Take that over, too, into the special account. Then draw a check for half of it to Brimstone. Put the other half in the ship's amusement fund. They've earned it. They can throw a dance with it when we get to Luna. I guess that's all."

Bullard beckoned Benton to follow and left the storeroom, leaving the two p.o.'s to help the paymaster cart the valuables away to his own bailiwick. There were still other matters to dispose of. Up in the cabin Benton laid the "gadgets" on the desk.

"What will I do with these, sir?" he wanted to know. "They're honeys! I hate to throw them into the disintegrator."

"That is what you will do, though," said Bullard. "They are too dangerous to have around. They might fall into improper hands."

"Now that it's over, would you mind telling me how these worked?"

"Not at all. We've known for a century that high-frequency sound waves do queer things, like reducing glass to powder. They also have peculiar effects on organisms. One frequency kills bacteria instantly, another causes red corpuscles to disintegrate. You can give a man fatal anemia by playing a tune to him he cannot hear. These gadgets are nothing more than supersonic vibrators of different pitch such that sounded together they give an inaudible minor chord that affects a portion of the human brain. When they are vibrated along with audible speech, the listener is compelled to believe implicitly in every word he hears. The effect persists for two or three days. That is why I say they are too dangerous to keep. Brimstone could just as well have incited to riot and murder as preach his brand of salvation for the money it brought."

"I see. And the ones carried in our pockets by me and the boys were counter-vibrators, so we didn't feel the effects?"

"Yes. Like the ones you rigged in my box that night we had the try-out up forward. Neither I nor Commander Moore heard anything but ranting and drivel."

"Pretty slick," said Benton.

Yes, pretty slick, thought Bullard. He had stayed the prescribed time on Juno and had paid off the crew and granted full liberty. Outside the five men in his confidence, not a member of the crew had had a hint that it was not desired that he go ashore and waste his money and ruin his health.

"I'm thinking that the Pollux is not likely to be ordered back to Juno soon," said Bullard absently. But Benton wasn't listening. He was scratching his head.

"That little guy Brimstone," he said. "He isn't such a bad egg, come to think of it. Now that he's pulled us out of our hole, do you think you can get him out of his, sir?"

"He never was in the hole," said Bullard, reaching for the logbook. "I needn't have kept him at all once I let him out of the brig. Read it— it was on your watch and you signed it."

Benton took the book and read.

"At 2204 captain held examination of prisoners; remanded all to brig to await action of the Bureau of Justice except one Ignatz Zander, Earthman. Zander was released from custody, but will be retained under Patrol jurisdiction until arrival at base in the event the Bureau should wish to utilize him as witness."

Benton looked puzzled.

"I don't remember writing anything like that," he said.

"The official final log is prepared in this office," reminded Bullard, softly. "You evidently don't read all you sign."

___________________

11: The Bureaucrat

Astounding Science Fiction, April 1944

Bullard was a Grand Admiral now, and the red tape of high position bound him— they thought!— so tight he couldn't do a friend a favor. But what's a knowledge of high strategy for but to outmaneuver trouble?

Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceedingly small—

THE YOUNG MAN strode through endless corridors with the confident bearing of one sure of his right. Most of the guards who stopped him were satisfied with his ident and the uniform he wore. To those who doubted he tossed the formula he had tested earlier and found to work.

"I am bearer of a personal message to Grand Admiral Bullard," he would say, and hurry on as if already late.

That sufficed to pass him through the many red tape wound barriers of the vast Defense Building in the bowl of Tycho Crater. It worked well even in the first half-mile of the northwestern wing. But when he came up to the partition where hung the sign "Chief of the Bureau of Spatial Strategy," his boldness began to ebb. Facing him, seated at a receptionist's desk, was a grim-faced, battle-scarred three-striper. And he wore the aigulettes of a personal aide.

Young Benton slowed his pace, and tried to gauge the man who now sat athwart his way. The rows of iridescent ribbons on his breast and the golden shoulder loops indicated that he was no ordinary receptionist. He was on Bullard's staff probably because he had fought many a campaign by the side of that fabulous man himself, and surely had access to his senior's mind. No flimsy generality was likely to get by his guard.

Benton faltered. He bore a message, to be sure, but the man it was for was hardly more to him than a legend, while the man who had given it to him had been dead for five years. Would the admiral receive it after so long a lapse of time? More immediately, could this gold-laced Cerberus be convinced he would? Young Benton realized then how forlorn was the hope that had brought him to the Moon.

He braced himself. There was a war on— the first important one since his coming of age— and he wanted to take part in it, even as his father and the renowned Bullard had in those before he was born. He had to get in it, and there was only one card left unplayed— the ace-in-the-hole bequeathed him by his father. Perhaps Bullard would turn him down, even as they had in Personnel, but he had to make the try. His career, his self-respect hung on it.

"Sir," he addressed the guardian of the door, "I am the son of Captain Roy Benton, who was killed off Io in '93—"

"I knew him," nodded the commander gravely. "A good shipmate and a brave fighter." He paused, then added, "Well?"

"He told me once," said Benton, uncertainly, "that if I ever got in a hole so deep that I couldn't see the light, and had done everything I knew how to get out and failed, I was to go to his old skipper— Bullard— if he was still alive, and tell him he sent me."

The commander was studying the young man with hard, expressionless eyes.

"You choose a moment in the greatest war in history to get yourself into a jam," he said, coldly, "and then expect the busiest man in the System to stop what he is doing and bail you out. I knew your father, and I do not believe he gave you any such message. He, like the admiral, helped only those who help themselves. You misunderstood him."

"Oh, no sir," cried Benton. "It's no ordinary jam— he told me I would have to weather those under my own power. But this is different— I'm up against a system. Oh, sir, can't you see ... it's nothing I've done, it's something being done to me ... I want to get into this war, I want to fight, and they won't let me!"

The grizzled aide relaxed the grimness of his expression. There was no doubting the sincerity of the eager youngster before him.

"The admiral is very busy," he said, "but if you're sure you're right—"

The commander turned as if to send in a message on the teletype, but apparently instantly thought better of it.

"Wait," he said, "I'll tell him you are here."

Young Benton stood stiffly as he had been left, tense and ill at ease, staring at the shut door. Until that moment he had thought only of his own troubles, not in the least as to how they stacked up in the perspective of stellar affairs. Now that his name had gone into the grand admiral he was a little appalled at his own temerity. For to him Bullard had been rather a legend than a reality, and in his despair young Benton had forgotten that he was a great deal more than a mere former shipmate of his dad. He was the director of all spatial strategy, a power who sat aloof like a dim deity, dealing only with fleets and flotillas, issuing orders that moved men by the million to violent action and sometimes death. Now that he was on the threshold of his office, the sickening doubt assailed Benton that the great man could not possibly find time to receive him or hear his story.

The aide was gone a long time.

As Benton sank onto a chair and waited, the enormity of his act of thoughtless intrusion was borne in with frightening force. For the anteroom behind him had filled up with a score of officers of flag rank— minor admirals and commodores— each laden with bulging brief cases, and each intent on seeing the bureau chief. The withering looks they gave him spoke their impatience. Benton reddened under their hostile stares, and then at last the commander came back.

"Sorry, commodore," he said crisply to a glowering, walrus-mustached old officer who rose irritably as if to dash inside, "but the grand admiral is not free yet. You will have to wait."

As the florid commodore sat down sputtering, the aide turned to Benton.

"Go on in," he said.

Elation surged up in young Benton. He was in! He was inside the door and up onto a motor scooter piloted by an orderly.

"You had best ride, sir," the orderly had said, "it is quite a way yet."

But as the machine slid swiftly along gleaming passages, Benton saw that the private suite of the grand admiral was no small place. Through door after door he glimpsed tremendous activities. Occasionally they whizzed through open bays of desks where scraps of conversation could be overheard. while all about were annunciators flashing weird symbols incessantly.

"Sector 4," droned a voice, "Pegasus and Altair joining action.... Pegasus hit.... Pegasus blows up.... Cruiser Flotilla 36 moving in from lower port quarter.... Altair hit—"

As that faded, the orderly cut across the back of a balcony overlooking a great hall. Far down in the pit Benton could see a huge swirling ball of vapor, glittering with pin points of varicolored lights cast upon it by unseen projectors. That would be the ultra-secret Battle Integrator— the marvelous moving solidograph that resolved six dimensions into four. Stern-faced officers watched it intently, snapping orders into phones, and uniformed girl messengers dashed everywhere. Then Benton was out of that place and passing other wonders.

Long before he reached the door that actually was Bullard's, Benton was a limp and chastened young man. Now he knew that the personal grievances that had brought him to the Moon were infinitesimally petty, as petty as the effrontery of his bringing them to harried Bullard's attention was colossal. His own place in the grand scheme of things now appeared as unimportant as the gyrations of a single atom in an ocean of brine. Benton was wondering whether it was still too late to apologize and make as graceful a withdrawal as possible when the scooter skidded to a stop before the paneled door.

"In there, sir," said the orderly, and was gone.

GRAND ADMIRAL Bullard received his visitor standing. He was tall and spare, as his pictures always showed him, and he stood beside a glass case in which rested a model of the famedPollux, the ship in which he and the elder Benton had begun their climb to the top. Only the deep lines in his face and a thinning white mane hinted at his age. He smiled gently and offered his hand.

"I couldn't refuse to see the son of my old friend Benton," he said, "but I'll have to ask you to make it brief. You are in trouble?"

"I'm turret officer in the Vindictive," said Benton, "and can't get off."

He stopped. That told the whole story— if one knew him and also the gilded madhouse in which he was doomed to "serve."

"The only Vindictive I ever knew," said Bullard, shaking his head, "was a clumsy old monitor, but she was scrapped years ago."

"It's the same one, sir," said Benton, "They've pulled her off the junk heap and put her back in commission."

"Brief me on the Vindictive," Bullard said into an annunciator, jabbing at a button. "Let me have it by five."

He glanced dreamily past Benton's head, where unknown to his young visitor a succession of cryptic signals was being flashed in pale light. The code characters told the admiral that Benton was a graduate with honor of the Lunar Academy with six years excellent service behind him, including a commendation for behavior during the Patroclan Pacification campaign. Amazingly the series ended with the symbol "Sp-A1-Duration," which signified to Bullard that his present assignment was at the personal direction of the Secretary of Defense and was not to be altered for the duration.

"You don't like your duty?" queried Bullard mildly, but with a slight frown.

"I hate it!" said Benton fervently. "It is in a turret that cannot be fired, mounted on a ship that goes nowhere, and nobody else on board gives a—"

He broke off, reddening. He had almost committed a breach of one of the oldest sections of the Service's unwritten code. Short of reporting outright treason, one simply did not peach on shipmates, however unworthy.

"That is, sir, I'd like more active duty," Benton went on, floundering for his words, "My skipper laughs at me... says I don't know when I'm well off. Personnel refuses to answer my letters.... I even tried to desert... engaged an expert camofleur so I could enlist under another name and start over... but it didn't get by the doctors... he couldn't fake the eyeball veinings well enough."

Benton looked glum, then broke out fiercely.

"They laughed me out of the place and sent me back to the ship... now the fellows call me the Boy Scout of the Void—"

Bullard simply stood and looked at him, saying nothing.

"Oh, it's my mother, sir," Benton wailed in a torrent of pent-up anguish, "she's changed so since dad went... she says she won't let them make cannon fodder out of me... and she has money enough to make it stick. It's that fortune from dad's ship detector... she goes to all the bond rallies with Ungerhardt, the Minister of Finance, and buys in denominations of ten millions. She got him to work on the secretary and stick me where I am ... made me into a lily-fingered slacker. Can't you see the spot I'm on?"

"That's bad," murmured Bullard, and sighed. Wars had to be financed, and if two cabinet ministers had already interfered, Benton would have to reconcile himself to being a personal sacrifice. Huge building programs were more important than the ambitions of any single young man. Bullard knew that if the secretary had already taken a stand, his own intervention would accomplish nothing.

"Young man," he said slowly, "your case is one of thousands. In a war of this magnitude there must be many square pegs in round holes. Unhappily there is no time to investigate and rectify each separate injustice. I would like to have the miraculous powers you credit me with, but it would be improper— and I am afraid useless— for me to interfere in personnel affairs. My job is to handle ships, and not even single ships as I once did," and he gave a loving glance at the gleaming model of the Pollux, "but whole forces and vast fleets. They are scattered from the dim reaches of trans-Plutonia to the fiery wastes of the circumsolar sector. I do not know half the commanders of them by name, let alone what is happening on board their vessel. I am sorry to let you down, but there is nothing I can do for you as an individual."

"Yes, sir," said Benton, miserably. Now he was getting it— the old brushoff. It was being administered in a kindly way, but nevertheless that was what it was— the brushoff.

"You must remember," continued Bullard, "that I am no longer a free agent. I am the impersonal entity known as the Bureau of Spatial Strategy, I cannot act in terms of individuals or even single units. My orders must apply to all ships alike. I am what is known as a bureaucrat, and bureaucrats are a notoriously callous lot. My advice to you is to return to your ship and be the best turret officer you know how. It may be that useful work can be found for her—"

"She is quite useless, sir," said Benton.

"We'll see," said Bullard, and smiled. He offered the young man his hand again, signifying the interview was terminated.

"I am a cog in a vast machines, no less than you," Bullard added. "Bigger and better placed, perhaps, but circumscribed as to function. Rest assured that my bureau will look into your case, and if action is indicated will act— but always as a bureau. I hope you understand."

"Thank you, sir," mumbled Benton.

After that he hardly remembered how he got out of the place. On the way back he hardly noticed the disgruntled brasshats he passed. They were coming in for their belated appointments, and glowered at him, wondering what business a mere cub could be on to gain him immediate access to the chief. As for Benton, he knew only that for all his polite reception he had got exactly nowhere. He was still of that dismal opinion when he reached the outer door. There the veteran aide regarded him gravely, dead-pan as before.

"What luck?" he asked.

"I... don't... know," said Benton, gloomily. "He didn't promise anything."

What happened next puzzled Benton for hours. The aide reached over and patted him affectionately on the shoulder.

"Tough," he said, with all solemnity. It was not the word spoken nor the friendly gesture that astonished Benton. Perhaps any old shipmate of his father would have done the same. It was the slow, deliberate wink that accompanied them. It was such a sly and knowing wink!

Benton went the rest of the way to where his skyster was parked in something of a daze. Try as he might, he could remember nothing that Bullard said upon which he could pin hope. There was not a thing he could sink his teeth in. And yet— well, he could not forget some of the yarns his dad used to spin. The gist of them was that when it came to Bullard one never could tell.

The ponderous machine ground on. For a moment a tiny cog had wobbled on its shaft and brushed a great driving wheel, but the tinkle of its impact was hardly heard. Yet the contact was sufficient to enmesh a train of hitherto unused gears. Silently, efficiently, they took up the impulse imparted to them and passed it on. At the appointed hour a segment of the machine whirred briefly and spewed up a bit of grist.

"The report on the Vindictive, admiral."

It was Captain Shipstead, paunchy and bald.

"Vindictive?" puzzled Bullard. His afternoon had been full. "Oh, yes."

"What good it will do you, I can't imagine," wheezed Shipstead. "She stinks."

"As bad as that?" queried Bullard. Now what young Benton had intimated was coming back to him. "What are the high spots?"

"Greed and cowardice in about equal parts, and opportunistic weak-spined office-holders for the rest. It's one of those things that probably will be probed and exposed after the war. Maybe. I don't know. The BI boys have given it a pretty good going over, and it scared 'em. They think the dope too hot to hold, so they buried it deep in their files. I almost missed it. But I can tell you that if you are planning to use the old tub she's a total loss."

"So I was given to understand," said Billiard dryly.

He took the report and riffled its pages. It was the not new story of avarice and fear and subtle bribery, the bribery of political and economic pressure. Certain rich young men feared the draft with its harsh policy of no exemptions. Some were merely playboys who did not want to be annoyed; many were able and energetic, but busy making vast profits out of the war; there were others who were just plain yellow. But their ends were the same. They pooled their immense resources and found the answer. It was the monitor Vindictive.

The Bourse, that aggregation of money and commodity exchanges that dotted the landscaped dreamland of Manhattan, was the most vital spot in all the seven planets. It deserved protection, and it petitioned for it. It wanted a warship to hover over it and guard it night and day— a big warship. When the request was refused the Bourse retaliated. Bond sales languished and procurement found commodities scarce and high. It was Ungerhardt, the Minister of Finance, who unblocked the impasse. If no major warships were available, why not recommission one of the very old ones? Wires were pulled, and the Defense Department saw the light. The Vindictive, to be manned and operated by local boys, was the outcome of it.

"I suppose," said Bullard wearily, "that to fight a war someone has to think of where the money and supplies come from. Still—"

"We aren't out a thing," said Shipstead. "The ship is little better than a museum hulk and the crew are even more worthless— as helpless a bunch of stuffy brokers and lazy lounge lizards as could be assembled. I would trade the lot of 'em for one good, upstanding young man of the type we use."

"Exactly," said Bullard, thoughtfully.

"You can't touch 'em," warned Shipstead. "The ship is on special duty, subject only to orders of the secretary himself."

Bullard smiled.

"And I thought you were a good sky lawyer!"

He pulled open a drawer of his desk and abstracted a document of parchment from which dangled the great golden seal of the Grand Council.

"My precept of office," he said. "Read it."

Shipstead took it, skimming down through the well-known paragraphs.

"Mm-m-m," he mumbled, pursing his lips, "this part, you mean?— 'and as chief of said Bureau you shall be responsible for the state of training of all vessels in full commission, whether acting singly or in fleets, and to that end are empowered to prescribe drills, make inspections, and'—?"

"As good a take-off point as any," smiled Bullard. "I knew I'd find something in that directives. Now let me think what I will do with it."

He stared dreamily at the ceiling for a moment.

"There's no way to make 'em fight," he said, "but we can make 'em work. Maybe we can make 'em mad enough to want to fight. Shipstead, take an order!"

Shipstead scribbled down the few words dictated.

"That's all we need to start the ball a-rolling. Send it to all ships and notify Operations. After that I think we can just let nature take its course. If I know the type, they'll yell and start pulling wires. The more they squirm the worse it will be for them."

Captain Shipstead snapped his notebook to and chuckled.

The war machine never rested, nor did it delay or question. What was fed into it it took up and bore along relentlessly. Its inertia was great. Once a train of impulses was passed on into its throbbing vitals, not even its nominal director dared tinker with it. It was too intricate.

Young Benton leveled off and savagely clicked out his code designation, as pasted on the dashboard. The hovering guard ship sent back the expected answer. There was no other in its vocabulary. "Permission granted to proceed." Benton noted it and put the skyster into a deep dive. He had complied with the empty formalities that were supposed to justify the presence of the fearsome looking Vindictive. But he had done it full of scornful rage, for no one knew better than he how toothless was the barking wardog. For all the stumpy old sky monster's mighty katatrons and gaping tubes, she could neither move nor shoot. Tugs had brought her there, tugs would have to take her in when the war was done. But he, like the masters of other passing vessels, observed the pleasant fiction. It was better to slow and answer the challenge than to receive endless letters from the Office Stratotraffic Control.

Benton dived on down onto the broad sky field of the Cosmos Club, landed neatly, and turned the borrowed yacht over to a flunky. That done, he rapidly mounted the club's swanky terrace. He loathed the place, and those who frequented it, but that day it had served his purpose. He had at least been able to shoot his last bolt, whether or not it had hit the mark. Now there was no other course open to him but to go back to his ship and try to follow the hard advice Bullard gave him.

He managed to avoid most of the lolling guests— many of them shipmates, as he knew from the glint of gold on their left breasts. For the shameless ones had gone so far as to wangle a special campaign badge— the Tellurian Defense Medal— whose ribbon was cloth of gold. Benton had to wear one, too, but he did it with characteristic protest— scorning gold he bought one of plain silk ribbon, yellow. He was across the terrace and almost to the outer entrance when a slim young man with a tiny waxed mustache stepped out from the bar and detained him.

"Aw, haw do ye do, Benton," he drawled, in languid condescension, "Are you going up? If so, will you be good enough to tell the 'Zee I shawn't be up for a day or so— social obligations, ya knaw."

Benton scowled. The fellow could have phoned as well. They usually did. But Commander Van Draem— one of the Van Draems— had more to say.

"Meet yoah new assistant, ...Reggy Torrington, Benton. He'll be up shawtly and be yoah helpah—"

"In doing what?" glared Benton, ignoring the flabby hand. He had nothing in particular against Reggy Torrington, except that he was just one more idler, scion of the founder of the Plastics Trust. His draft number must have come up.

"Haw, haw," snickered Van Draem. "Don't mind Benton, Reggy ...not a bad fellow, reahlly ...a bit touchy about ouah inactivity and all that, the ungrateful beggah—"

Benton did not hear the rest. With curling lip he was on his way to the door. Outside it he grabbed a crosstown autocar and hit for the landing stage. There had been a time when he looked forward to making port in Manhattan. Not any more. For real ships came in from time to time and disgorged their weary veterans for a few hours on Mother Earth. Benton could not bear to look into their space-bronzed faces or overhear their bantering chatter of engagements they had survived. Most of all he dreaded meeting an old acquaintance, whose cheery, "Hiy'a, boy, what ship?" could not be answered without pain.

No one was at the landing stage but Purcell. Purcell was his classmate, the only other regular on board. It was not being of a rich family that had caused his shanghaiing to theVindictive, but grim necessity. A slacker's haven need not be able to cruise, but those aboard it must have light and heat and water. A competent person had to see that the auxiliaries ran, and that was the hard lot that fell to Harry Purcell. He liked it as little as Benton did.

"How did you make out?" he asked, as soon as they were in the boat.

Benton shook his head.

"He saw me. Was friendly, but said it wasn't his pigeon."

"Bullard did that?" said Purcell, incredulously. "Why I always heard—"

"Yeh, I know," said Benton, disconsolately. "Oh, I don't blame him. He must have a lot on his mind— is getting old, too. He said I was to think of him only as a bureaucrat, and reminded me what they were—"

"Say," said Purcell, brightening, "now that's not a bad idea, at that. I wonder what one of those stodgy bureaus would be like if a man took hold and ran it like Bullard used to run the old Pollux?"

Benton did not answer. His gloom was too deep, and already the boat was bumping the ship's side. He got out silently and clambered into the monitor's air lock.

He did no more than glance into the luxuriously appointed wardroom. There was no other in the skies like it. In reconditioning the ship money had been lavish as to living quarters. But that afternoon there were only a few officers lounging in it. Of the handful obliged to stay on board the others were either in their bunks sleeping off last night's round of the hot spots down in town, or in the communications shack parleying by phone with their floor traders. Benton noted that the time was six, and started for his own room to make ready for dinner. It was then a messenger overtook him with the news that the commander wanted to see him.

"Me?" Nobody ever asked Benton about anything. He was a misfit, for all his mother's money. It took several generations of great wealth to produce the perfect parasitic type that mainly manned the Vindictive.

It was Farentz, the Executive, who had sent for him. Farentz was a corporation lawyer and a good one. In Captain Dobson's eyes he was exactly the kind of man to handle the detail of running a ship, involved as it was with the endless red tape of departmental procedure. Dobson himself rarely came up from the great banking institution he headed.

"You understand this jargon," said Farentz, handing over a flimsy. "What does this mean in ordinary English?"

It was a message from the Department, not ten minutes old.

ALLPAT URGENT:

Amend Art 44 Tactexins as follows quote vessels mounting katatrons Mark VII to Mark XXIX inc shall be deemed cruisers for purposes of Tactical Exercises unquote acknowledge

1728 SPAST.

"It is from the Bureau of Spatial Strategy," Benton said, "to all ships. It modifies a certain article of the Instructions for Tactical Exercises, putting katatron ships in the cruiser class."

"Humph," said Farentz. "We mount katatrons— Mark XX's. I looked it up. What does it mean?"

"It means that we will have to perform the same drills cruisers do, I suppose." Benton's eyes suddenly went aglow. Could this be the fruit of his visit so soon? On the face of it the message seemed innocuous enough, and yet—

"It is absurd to talk of drills for us," said Farentz. "We don't know how and we haven't time for it. According to our understanding with the secretary we are exempt from such foolishness. I shall ignore this."

The messenger was back. He handed Farentz another flimsy. It read:

VINDICTIVE:

Ref SPAST ALLPAT 1728 your Form 1000 interrog expedite

OPS.

Farentz frowned.

"This one is for us," he growled. "What does this double-talk convey, if anything?"

"Operations," translated Benton, "says that since we are to be regarded as a cruiser, they want our Form 1000 and want it PDQ. That, I believe, is our operating schedule— for full acceleration test runs, target practice, and so on."

"Nonsense," snorted Farentz. "We are on detached duty. I shall protest it."

"Say over open ether that we can neither cruise nor shoot?" grinned Benton. "Their comeback would be that it was high time we learned to do both."

"Of course not," snarled Farentz. "I shall protest on the ground of discrimination. That multiple address is camouflage. Some busybody is sniping at us. No other ship had katatrons."

"Except," Benton reminded softly, "the other ten of this class— the Relentless, the Implacable, and the rest."

He knew those old relics were too far gone in rust to be reconditioned, but nevertheless there they were. Benton smiled happily at the ingenuity of the ALLPAT message. SPAST had the reputation of never backing water. If pushed, they would undoubtedly say that they contemplated putting a division of monitors in the air. The cruiser rule would stick.

Farentz evidently realized that too. He pulled a communicator to him and jabbed savagely at buttons.

"Get me Captain Dobson at Tellurian Trust," he snapped.

Benton could hear the rasping diaphragm bring back Dobson's voice. He was unperturbed, soothing. Pay no attention, he said, it was probably a slip of some clerk. They couldn't do that to us. He would see Ungerhardt in a day or so, and Ungerhardt would fix everything. Acknowledge the messages and send in a schedule. It didn't matter. It would be washed out later.

"All right," said Farentz, before cutting the connection. "I'll have Benton cook up a plausible schedule and send it in. Then we'll forget the whole thing."

"Righto," came Dobson's cheery voice.

Benton went to work on it in high glee. The one he had in mind was not impossible but it was stiff— a program calculated to sweat the champagne from the pampered darlings that made up the monitor's crew. He had no way of knowing whether Bullard's hand was behind those two messages, or what his own role was supposed to be, but to him they brought golden opportunity. And hope.

For Benton knew what Dobson and Farentz did not— the virtual immutability of schedules once submitted. They were routed through many offices and were the bases of much planning. They were tilted into more comprehensive fleet schedules, which were fixed months in advance. Last minute alterations were intolerable. One lived up to his schedule or explained why. By the time Dobson's complaint reached the secretary too many bureaus would already be involved, and omelets are not easily unscrambled. The Vindictive was committed to whatever Benton wrote down, and she dared not squeal. Her situation did not bear airing.

Benton sent off Form 1000 with a smile. Once it was in the works there was no stopping what would follow. Drills would have to be held, and he and Purcell, being the only ones who knew how, would be the taskmasters. It was a lovely prospect. Of a sudden service in a retired monitor began to have appeal. Then Benton sobered. The realization smote him that he did not know the first thing about kats, and it was high time he learned.

HE TOOK the gleaming corridor that led forward, then an elevator to the topmost through deck. After that it was a case of climbing ladders until he popped up through the hatch in the turret floor.

He was in the cubicle from which the turret officer directed the service of the two mighty projectors. Its bulkheads were a maze of dials and meters and queer antiquated gadgets few of whose uses he knew. On either side stood intricate switchboards, and beyond those he could see into the turret proper. That large space was packed with towering banks of accumulators, exciters and boosters, and weird-looking massive solenoids of greenish metal. Benton had never seen them but once before— the day he joined the Vindictive. He learned then that all that massive equipment was no better than mere sham. The power leads to it had been cut.

He stepped into the turret for a closer look. As he did there was a stir at his feet and two startled skymen sprang to their feet. They had been sprawled out playing acey-deucey.

"Sorry, sir," said one, a stocky man with iron-gray hair and the scars of deep burns on his face, "we never knew an officer to come up here before—"

"That's all right," said Benton. "There has been a change. Beginning tomorrow we start drills. Can you show me around?"

The man smiled. He was Handley, Chief Electronicist, and wore the red and purple medal of the Fourth Battle of the Asteroids, the one in which the Vindictive, then queen of the fleet, blasted the Callistan flag into nothingness.

"I fought these guns in my first hitch," he said, "though I was just a lad then, a switch-puller. I remember, though. She's ready to ride if we only had juice and a hundred good men."

"Tell me all about it," said Benton.

He listened. There was nothing wrong with katatrons. Except for their ponderousness and slow rate of fire there was no better weapon. They had become obsolete because the trend had been to handier, faster acting guns. It took the accumulators minutes to build up the vortices of naked atomic power, but once they were hurled nothing known to man could stand in their path. Between shots the ship was helplessly vulnerable, a fatal disadvantage in a multiple engagement. Advanced thought preferred a continuous blanket of fire, albeit less intense.

"We can drill, yes," said Handley, "but shoot, no. When they installed the Ekstroms they severed the cables and cut the generators over to power them. We can hover or we can shoot. Not both. We'd drop like a stone."

The monitor had been built for tube drive, but tube ships could not hover. In renovating her for her special job, Ekstrom repulsors had been installed, drawing their current from the generators designed to power the kats. Thus she could maintain her position in the stratosphere above Wall Street at the price of offensive power. There was not room for two sets of generators.

"What's wrong with cutting out the repulsors and using the old tubes?" Benton wanted to know.

"Nothing," said the other man, a first class tubeman from his rating badge, "except they've been blanked off to make room for the j.o. mess. They had to put all those ensigns somewhere, so they put them in the rocket feed flat."

"Oh," said Benton. That was a feature he must look into with Purcell. After all, propulsion was Purcell's job. He was the engineer.

When Benton left two hours later he felt considerably cheered. If some drastic changes could be made, the ship could be brought back to something like fighting trim. The crux of the problem was not that. It was personnel. Instead of the normal complement of a thousand men and half a hundred officers, the proportions were reversed, and few of the officers had ever soiled a hand or done work more vigorous than lifting a highball. From that angle the prospects of converting the monitor to a fighting ship were not bright. Lots of pressure would have to be applied from somewhere, and he knew it would not come from Dobson. Benton bemoaned his own low rank. Despite the opening the two messages seemed to afford, he felt powerless to make the most of it. The powers of obstruction were too great

He found a council of war going on in a corner of the wardroom. Captain Dobson, big and hearty and every inch a financier, had come up to straighten out "this foolishness." Farentz was pawing through volumes of regulations, hunting for loopholes through which to crawl. Van Draem, annoyed at being sent for, sulked nearby. The secretary, it developed, had regretfully told them he had done all he could for them. He promised they would continue to do duty as sentinel ship for the Bourse and not be sent to the front, but to arbitrarily excuse them from routine drill would be embarrassing to him.

Dobson took it sourly. It meant he would have to relinquish his money-broking and give full time to his command. In the same manner it would hit many of his associates.

"What is the least number of men you can make a showing with, Benton?" he demanded. "It appears we will have to go through with this farce."

"Battle drill is an all-hands evolution, sir," said Benton quietly. "I have already made out the station bill. Unfortunately, having so many... uh, untrained officers, and so few competent men, I have taken the liberty of reversing their roles. The officers will man the guns, the veteran petty officers direct."

"That's outrageous," declared Van Draem.

They also thought it outrageous when Benton suggested sending out a general recall. There were not bunks enough to bed all the officers nominally attached. They wouldn't understand what recall meant.

"Use MP's," said Benton, "and when your excess officers come aboard they can double up. Later, when we get the old tubes uncorked and ready for firing, the ones who live in the feed flat will have to double up again."

"We'll make no alterations," said Dobson flatly.

"You're the skipper," said Benton, shrugging. "At your direction I filed a firing schedule. Somebody will have to think up some good answers as to why we can't carry it out."

Dobson grunted, and looked hopefully at Farentz.

"When you've got no case," said the lawyer, "the next best thing is delay. I haven't read all this stuff, but tomorrow I ought to find something."

"Good," said Dobson, and rose. That was that. Now he could go down to his bank again. Blundering bureaucrats! Paper warfare was a game two could play at!

A machine does what it is designed to do. A little overload does not stall it. Let the grist run even and the pressure remains the same. Let a stubborn lump jam the rolls, the pressure rises.

Lieutenant Commander Carr was a determined young man who had a desk in Operations. To him Vindictive was just a name, one of the eight hundred odd ships that came under his supervision. No one had given him special instructions concerning her; no one had to. The routine of preparing vessels for battle had been crystallized generations before him. There were certain things required to be done and in certain specified ways and at such and such times. His job was to see that they were. It was as simple as that.

"What an outfit!" he muttered, glaring at the letter on his blotter.

"Now what?" asked McGinty, his deskmate.

"This old crock of a monitor they dug up to stand guard over the Bourse. Militarily she's a gag, but somebody over in SPAST evidently didn't know that. They classed her as a cruiser and have got her down for target practice. What's hard about that I don't know, but it seems to have upset them."

"Yeh?"

"First off they said it violated the safety precautions to fire kats that hadn't been used for years, and protested being included in the rules until they were dismounted and proved again. Well, Captain Shipstead appointed a board of inspection and ran tests on 'em. Said they were O.K. Then they complained they couldn't cruise for lack of motive power and that it was unsafe to fire the kats so close to a city. Atomic Engineering sent down a man and fixed 'em up on that. Tore out a lot of gingerbread fancy officers' quarters and uncovered a flock of old rocket tubes. Didja ever bump off in one of those space trackers? Boy, I did, on my first training cruise. They're rugged.

"Anyhow, between SPAST and ATENG they convinced 'em they could shoot and they could mote, so their next holler was that they were on fixed post and couldn't desert it to go out on the range. That squawk came to me. They had it backed up with a solemn declaration signed by about ten thousand brokers that if the Bourse went unguarded the worst panic in history would develop. It stumped me at first, as no real warships could be spared. Then I discovered that all they do is lie there and log passing ships. So I sent them and the brokers a message saying that adequate relief would be furnished at the proper time. Any tug will do the trick."

"That should have held 'em," remarked McGinty.

"You don't know that crowd," snapped Carr. "I'm beginning to think they are a lot of slackers or something. They're afraid to shoot. Well, they're going to shoot, and clear out by Mars if I can find a target vessel out there. Listen to this concoction of some sky-lawyer."

"Your attention is respectfully called to Article 724, Instructions for Tactical Exercises, which states that no turret crew shall be stationed for drill or action except as prescribed in the appropriate Drill Manual. Diligent search on our part has failed to turn up a single copy of any manual relating to the service of Mark XX katatrons—"

McGinty grinned.

"They've got something there. Those babies are obsolete as the dodo. I wouldn't know what to do with a pair of 'em myself. They used to backfire, you know, and wipe out whole ship's companies."

But Carr still glared grimly at the document. To him it was one more alibi, and he didn't care for alibis. He dragged a communicator to him.

"Publications," he said.

No, Publications told him, the Manual of the Katatron had been out of print for several decades. Had he tried the Library?

No, Library said, they had available only current material. Who cared a hang about katatrons anyway? But maybe Archives could dig up something.

"Archives? Ops speaking, Carr. Have you anything on katatrons? Yes— k-a-t-a-t-r-o-n-s— a sort of atomic bomb projector... used to put 'em on monitors. What, only one and that can't go out? Rot!... send me up a hundred certified photostats."

He shut off the communicator.

"That ought to hold 'em," he said between his teeth, "I'll send 'em ninety-nine and keep one for personal boning. Then I'll take a run down and check 'em against the book. They asked for it. Those lads are going to shoot or my name's not Jimmy Carr."

A DAY CAME when the little skycutter Gnat came up and hove to five miles off. She was equipped with a two-way stratophone, a one-inch Angborg blitzer, and manned by eight husky guardsmen. That was the Vindictive's temporary relief, and Dobson gazed upon the little can sourly. A press boat came up and circled the pair while grinning omnivox commentators made ironic notes. The status of the Vindictive had come to be an open secret, and there were signs that her immunity to the perils of war were near their end.

During the four hectic months that preceded that day, Benton and Purcell often had reason to regret the change they had first hailed with delight. Various bureaus of the Department hammered them from the beginning with queries and tracers. Tart inspectors came and went. The pressure on them was relentless, and the more Dobson and Farentz squirmed, the more severe it became.

The problem of the two regulars was man power. Numbers they had, but the quality was negligible. Because the ship's complement was hopelessly padded with supernumeraries, drills were run in three and four sections, night and day. Benton and Purcell would hit their bunks exhausted, buoyed up only by the grim satisfaction of having run the soft playboys ragged another day.

But there were surprising by-products. Benton discovered that his first judgment had been over-harsh. Several hundred of the brokers, forced by the grueling schedule to remain on board and work, severed their last business ties and put in for front-line duty. As one of them put it, if they had to be full time in the war they might as well do it up brown. Astonishingly, a letter of commendation came along, praising the Vindictive for its success in training men. There were others, such as Reggy Torrington, who, having worked for the first time, suddenly discovered it could be fun. They became interested and looked forward to the day when they could see the results of the weeks of grinding drill. But there were still the Van Draems, the group of snobs who resented everything that was done. Those Benton drove the hardest.

Then four great tugs came and locked tractors on. They towed the clumsy monitor far out beyond the orbit of the Moon, then kicked her off into space with a mighty heave. Her momentum would carry her the ten million miles to the practice area, and on the way she could try out her renovated tubes without fear of a misfire and falling out of control on the city.

Benton and Torrington were crouched over a curious device in the turret booth. It was a miniature version of the Battle Integrator, a series of transparent concentric spheres cunningly illuminated by fingers of light from a projector in its nucleus. Benton indicated a crawling pink dot.

"That's us," he said. "When we get to point A Purcell blasts off with everything he has and from there to B we accelerate full power. By the time we get to B you should have recovered from the acceleration shock and manned the thermoscope. The target will be somewhere in the zone CQTV. This curve shows its heat characteristics. The minute you pick it up, cut in the tracker and put on your alert light. Get it?"

"You bet," said Torrington. "Then when do we sock it?"

"As soon as we are in comfortable range. I'll do that. Meantime I have to give a hand with the astragating. Dobson simply can't learn."

In conn the captain and Farentz studied the black visiplate studded with stars. Both wore full spacesuits, and both were uneasy.

"I don't like this, Farentz," said Dobson, "it's murder."

"I did the best I could," said Farentz, sullenly. "But when you're up against a stupid bureaucracy—"

"We weren't so bright ourselves," muttered Dobson. "This old hulk is a deathtrap."

Unnoticed and not understood, little green lights had been popping out on the indicator board. Purcell was reporting his tubes as they were ready. Dobson ended his remark with a careless gesture, the back of his hand struck a stud. Instantly the lights went out as with a shattering roar twelve huge tubes aft exploded into action. The vessel leaped forward with a spine-wrenching lurch, Dobson and Farentz reeled across the room, smashing into the control panel. Gouts of wicked electric fire spat, and something in the upper corner burst with an ear-rending shriek, then broke into lazy flame.

"This is it," moaned Dobson.

"What's this?" asked Benton sternly, staggering in. He felt for the auxiliary lighting switch and snapped it on. Then he swiftly set the disturbed panel to rights and grabbed a fire extinguisher. Putting out the fires was but the work of a moment, after which Benton faced the cowering captain and exec. "When you don't know what to do," he said, "do nothing. What are those spacesuits for?"

"We may have to abandon ship," said Farentz, sheepishly. "If there's a backfire—"

"If there's a backfire, there won't be any ship to abandon or anybody left to do the abandoning," said Benton coldly. "You had better call yourselves sick like Van Draem has done and go to your rooms. I'll handle things."

He strode out of conn and down the passage toward the motor room. The premature blasting off could easily have done damage. Purcell hadn't realized the dangers of throwing control to incompetents.

As Benton went aft he noted with growing apprehension the weaving of the old hull. Paint and metal polish had conspired to conceal the monitor's defects. Now, as the heavy tubes thudded out of synchronism, vibrations wracked the ship. Rust was a poor structural binder. A bulkhead split with the noise of a cannon, a minor cable parted with a flash of blue fire. Four overhead lights went out. Benton quickened his step.

"Alert your damage control parties," he warned Purcell hastily, as soon as he found him. "There will be plenty of fireworks when the kats let go, if we don't have 'em sooner. I'll be in conn; Dobson and Farentz are there, but in a blue funk. Our only hope for a good showing on the range is that Reggy will remember all I told him."

"The kid's all right," admitted Purcell. But he looked worried. One tube flickered and went out, then relit with a crash that jarred. The entire motor room was a confused mess. Monstrous cables festooned the now by-passed Ekstroms, since the ship was driving ahead under real power, carrying the powerful generator currents over to the first-stage accumulators of the katatrons. The wild disorder of the makeshift changeback offended Purcell's engineering eye, but the jury rig was the only one possible. Only by taking the Ekstrom repulsors out of the ship altogether could the motor room be restored to its former trimness.

A gong began sounding. That meant Reggy had found the target.

"I've got to run," yelled Benton, and darted back toward conn. As he dashed through the corridor past Van Draem's room, he glimpsed that worthy's shaky form. He was pale and scared all the way through as overhead ducts and pipelines rattled in their hangers. He was doing his best with fumbling fingers to climb into a spacesuit.

"The yellow rat," thought Benton, but he did not pause. A steady hand would have to be at the controls when the kats went off. And it was well he foresaw that, for when he reached conn the place was empty. Dobson had already fled.

Benton's hands flew as he rectified the set-up, then he growled savagely on noticing that somehow the telecontrol had been activated. He ripped the connection loose and saw that he was safely back on local. Then the turret line crackled.

"Coming on, coming on," chanted Torrington's talker. "Ten seconds to go. Stand-by. Five seconds to go... four... three... two... one—"

No machine can do everything. A mechanism can only deal with the material fed it. But if it is cleverly designed it will reject that portion unsuitable for the finished product.

Excerpt from log of Observing Officer Langhorne in target control ship Alferatz:

1036: SST Vindictive coming on range, wobbling badly. Appears to be having trouble keeping tubes firing evenly.

1045: Ship appears to be under better control since it manages to stick fairly close to base course. Probably will complete firing as per schedule as target now should be within detector range.

1108: There appears to have been an accident on the monitor. An escape boat has just shoved off and blasted away. Boat very badly handled, operator probably being injured.

1117: Halo now visible about discharge knobs of monitor's katatrons, indicating discharge imminent.

1118: Vindictive fires both kats.

1123: Both bolts hit, target vessel demolished. Am sending well-done, despite poor approach.

1136: Can't understand what is going on on board Vindictive. Has there been a mutiny? There was a boat left the ship just before the turret fired. Now there are eight more boats streaming in the monitor's wake. Yet the vessel goes on under full tube blast.

1140: Something is radically wrong. Vindictive bucking in fashion impossible to account for, jumping in great oscillations at right angles to its trajectory.

1147: Vindictive disappears!

A later entry:

1758: Last of Vindictive's boats recovered. On board were the captain, executive, gunnery officer and numerous junior officers, all in advanced state of shock. Surgeon diagnoses reaction as acute fear, but stories told so far incoherent.

1930: Pattern of story of survivors now emerges. It appears that ship began to disintegrate upon initial firing of tubes, whereupon captain and executive abandoned without waiting to ascertain cause of or extent of damage or passing the order along, They were accompanied only by the gunnery officer, Van Draem, who states that he was on the sick list and knows nothing about the disaster. Occupants of the other boats seem to have stuck to the ship longer, saying they saw nothing amiss until the turret blast. At that time the ship was plunged into total darkness and was a hell of hissing gases, spouting water lines, and tangled steel. Electric fires broke out all over at once, and it was by its light that the last survivors unloosed the remaining boats and escaped. According to them there were a number of men and officers still on board at the time of the ultimate disaster, one Lieutenant Benton being senior. Nothing is known of their fate. It is noteworthy, however that no enlisted men escaped, and few of the more junior officers. It is hoped that the hulk of the shattered Vindictive be found— if it exists anywhere— so that a complete investigation can be made, as this is undoubtedly a unique disaster.

2015: Complete report sent SPAST and acknowledgment received. Directed to place all survivors under arrest and charge with poltroonery. Then search hyperspace for monitor."

Benton did his best to hang on to the periscope. Reggy Torrington's closing of the firing circuits had been timed to perfection; Benton wanted to see the result. It was not possible. The frightful jar that accompanied it was more than he could withstand, and he was hurled from his saddle. Then there was utter blackness and the fiendish crackling of millions of internal discharges. They were harmless— the Manual had warned against them— a mere adjustment of stray static, but apt to be disconcerting. Yet even as he pulled himself erect again Benton knew there were more things wrong with the ship than that. She was writhing and groaning far worse than before, and with it came the nerve rasping noise of high pressure air lines ruptured and water mains broken. Being already on emergency lighting and that now gone, he had to stagger aft as best he could by the glimmering aftermath of myriad short-circuits. He stopped on the way to try several communicators, but it was not until he reached the fourth one that he found one that worked. Reggy's voice answered wavering with excitement, but under control.

"We hit, we hit!" he yelled gleefully. "What a splash of fire! It was beautiful."

"Swell," commended Benton, remembering it was due. But that was ancient history now. "How are things where you are?"

"Not too good," said Reggy. "Fire all over the place... no lights for a minute... pandemonium generally. But the boys are going at it now. We'll be O.K. in a little bit."

"Stick to it, big boy," said Benton, heaving a sigh of relief. At least he could forget the turret. Things about him were otherwise. While he was talking a big blaze burst out and the flames from it were licking down the passage. The damage-control party fighting it were licked. They fled screaming, tossing their tools away, and at the moment Benton did not dare tear himself away from the communicator. When he could be dashed after them, cursing them and ordering them to stand and regain their nerve. But they beat him to the boats, and when he reached the cradles he saw that all the other boats were missing. That meant that if they went away but half loaded a good third of the crew had already gone.

He shook his fist at the departing streaks of light, then turned back to the inferno within. The going was far harder now, for the ship was bucking like a broncho, making it all but impossible to proceed without acquiring burns and bruises at every turn. He kicked a limp, waterless fire hose out of his path and picked up one of the discarded extinguishers. With a few squirts from that he shortly had the frightening blaze out. Then, shielding his face against the pungent after fumes of smoldering insulation, he fought his way on toward the tube room. It was at that point that his senses left him. A bright nova seemed to generate itself inside his head, swell into a firebloom of intolerable dimensions, and then abruptly go black, leaving nothing. After that was a featureless eternity.

The time Benton was out was actually less than five minutes. He came to of himself, sat up and blinked. Conditions about him, if anything, seemed more normal. Some of the lights were back on and the ship had steadied again to normal pulsation, not the wild antics before total chaos took over. Benton clambered to his feet and went on to the motor room. He found it a hive of activity with Purcell flying about issuing hoarse orders.

"Oh, hello," grinned Purcell, seeing him. "I was about to send out a search party for you. Thought you might still be out from the jolt."

"I'll say it was a jolt," said Benton. "What happened?"

For answer Purcell pointed at the tangle of cables embracing the dead Ekstrom.

"Something we didn't figure on, since no sane person ever tried the hookup before. Regenerative effect, I suppose. Those first fires and such that we had were natural enough, the age of the old bucket considered and the rough firing we did down here. It was the current running through those leads to the kats. They built up a strong variable field about the Ekstroms and tickled 'em into putting out a kick even though they weren't getting any current directly. That explains the rough stuff between the first blast off and Reggy's pushing the turret button. What happened right after that was due to the backlash from the kats, which we knew about and were prepared for. What was bad for us was that the communicators were all shot for awhile and Reggy couldn't get through to me. I didn't know the target had gone bye-bye and was feeding in another charge. It was just about ripe for letting go when Reggy said the show was over as far as they were concerned up there, so I cut the switch. Well—"

"Well?"

"There was a lot of back surging, I guess, along those cables, and the Eks went crazy. Kicked us around at about umpty gravs, and then started to melt. We all went blotto for a second or two, but we snapped out of it in time to take charge again. I though something out of the way might happen, so when I pulled the switch I yelled 'low bridge'. We were all set here, so didn't get bunged up like you must have."

Before Benton could say anything to that the communicator from the turret was calling. He snapped into the line and picked up Reggy's voice.

"Say," demanded Reggy, "do you know where we are? About forty million miles straight up toward Polaris, and going like a bat out of Himmlerland. You'd better use your influence with Purcy to reverse course or we'll be clear out of the system in no time."

"O.K.," said Benton, well satisfied. Reggy had turned out to be a pretty good skate.

"I'm already bucking the momentum," said Purcell, who had overheard. "In four hours we'll be on the way back. After all we've taken I hesitate to pile on more G. By the way, any casualties?"

"Uh, huh," grunted Benton. "Our three brasshats and a hundred or so of lesser talent. Took to the boats right off."

"Good riddance," remarked Purcell, indifferently. "Couldn't take it, eh? Well, we had too many hands anyway. Give me seasoned hands, like these here," and waved comprehensively at his grimy and sweating black gang. The nearest pair looked up and grinned, but did not stop working. One was "Pikky," until lately a famous crooner and generally despised by the he-man breed. Benton almost failed to recognize the other. It was Arthur Ungerhardt, son of the Minister of Finance.

"Nice work, all around," congratulated Benton. He had to go back to conn and complete the reorganization of the ship. He should send off several messages, too. That is, if the communications shack was still intact.

It is a mistake to think that faulty products should invariably be scrapped. Culls may be reworked and put back into the mill with profit. Severe testing has revealed that much rejected material eventually meets all specifications.

There were five assorted admirals, two commodores and a captain in the group.

"But who would have thought they would try to sneak in raiders that way?" growled one. They were looking at the big Battle Integrator whirling and sparkling in Action Hall, not a hundred yards from where Bullard's quiet office was.

"The unexpected, you know—" put in the captain. "Luckily we had scouts out."

"Yah," spat the admiral. "Boys to do a man's job. Six Vixens, and along come four maulers. All right. The Scouts disintegrated two, but now there are two left and no Vixens. What's to stop 'em from coming right on in? There's nothing heavy enough this side of Mars, and that's five days off using everything."

They stared silently at the tell-tale ball of mist. High up toward its pole eight dull red marks were dying out, remnants of the blasted ships. The ships were gone, but the after-radiation lingered. Inside them and several degrees down two silvery blobs were crawling slowly. A pale thread of violet light throbbed in the fog, and on it the two blobs lay like pearls on a silken thread. The violet line was their computed trajectory. Its lower terminus was the Moon, Tycho Crater, in which sat the great Defense Building.

"What the—?" murmured a commodore. A pinkish streak of light appeared like a short-tailed comet, out of the nowhere, slowed, brightened, and then condensed to a definite point of glittering light. Instantly the computers in distant rooms noted it, and with flying fingers punched its observed co-ordinates into their machines. A second later another violet thread appeared— the mysterious pink body's course. It lacked little of intersecting that of the two maulers.

"There just can't be any cruisers way up there," said a bewildered vice admiral. He was the Operational Director of the cruiser force and knew.

A loud-speaker began to blare.

"The ship just appearing in Sector L-56 Pius 9 Zone is the ex-monitor Vindictive, engaged in target practice. She was propelled there as the result of a mysterious accident. Believed to be damaged and only partly manned. When last seen katatrons were still in working condition, but there are no experienced officers on board, her captain and others having abandoned her—"

"Great balls of fire," ejaculated the commodore. "There goes our hope—"

"She's going in," said the vice admiral grimly, "She'd better be good. Here, messenger—"

He bit the summons in two, frowned, then strode toward a booth.

"I remember now," he muttered. "She has one of those telecontrols. I'll work her myself."

THE ELEGANT young dandy who had been so effective in challenging vessels approaching the Bourse was not in the communications shack. His spacesuit was not there either. He had gone with the other cravens. Benton seated himself and stuck in a jack. He called Operations and began a report of what had occurred.

"Top priority," broke in a voice, and Ops faded. "Vindictive? Cut your telecontrol in on this wave length. We're taking over from here. Are your kats still working? Very well, listen. Start building a charge and stand by for action. Two enemy maulers in your vicinity. They must be destroyed regardless of cost. Got that? Very well, give over and I'll guide you."

"We can't, sir," lied Benton. "A fire in conn destroyed it. Give me the dope and I'll take her there by hand."

There was nothing wrong with the tele, but everything was wrong with trying to explain. The teles would control the tubes, to be sure, but no one knew what the Ekstroms would do after another dose of induction and wobbling fields. Benton and Purcell's own knowledge was imperfect, but they had at least weathered one taste of it. Therefore in that respect they were one up on the admiral, though it would be tactless to say so. Admirals in a hurry were not prone to discuss things.

"What's that?" snapped the admiral, then grumblingly gave the course and co-ordinates.

Benton plotted swiftly, and barked orders to the tube room and turret. Gleeful voices answered. They had been through the worst now— the unknown. Anything that might happen hereafter they could take.

"Take your time," warned Benton. "They've already met opposition and are wary. That means that they are spread out, looking for more. With any kind of luck we can bop 'em off in succession."

"Watch it!" yelled Reggy. "I've already got one in the 'scope. Cheerio!"

Benton took the precaution to strap himself to the saddle that time, and swallow an anagrav tablet. He hoped he wouldn't go out at all between salvoes.

It was well that he had, for as the needles crawled across his indicators the Vindictive went back to her bronco tricks. It was sickening. Benton's fingers danced over the studs, adjusting the blast of this tube and that, strictly according to feel. Purcell had agreed to let him worry about equalization; he would keep them firing. Then he heard Reggy's happy "Coming on— stand-by!" the last seconds of counting, and the awful crackling as the static filled the ship in the wake of the parting atom bombs.

"Got him," Reggy reported jubilantly, three seconds later, and Benton dived hard. A cluster of greenish fireballs was growing in the screen— slow but deadly projectiles launched by the defunct raider before he was hit. They were coming faster now, as their rocket drives built up.

"Cut kats," he yelled into Purcell's line.

It had worked once. Maybe it would again, despite the partial melting of the repulsors. It did. In no time flat the Vindictive was somewhere else, her crew reeling and groggy. Benton pulled himself out of an incipient blackout. He opened full the Luna wave.

"One down," he reported succinctly, "but where are we now?"

"Holy Comets," came an astonished voice from far away Action Hail. "We thought you went together. You disappeared at the same time... hold on ... we see you now... you're over in L-31 and a Zone closer to us. How in thunder did you—"

"Never mind that," replied Benton crisply. "Have your experts slip me the geodesics to the next intersection. We don't know where we are or what we're making, but from wherever it is we can do five gravs— eight, if necessary."

"Attaboy!" came back the admiral's voice. "Hang on— I'll have it in a jiff."

Circumstances were merciful. Only four gravs were required, the Eks having lost some of their kick.

"We can't pull that one any more," Purcell reported mournfully on the ship interphone. "The Eks have folded."

"We won't need to," said Benton, cheerily. "There's only one more."

"Oh, that," sniffed Purcell. "I was thinking of landing when we get back. It won't be tidy."

"Last target coming up," sang out Reggy Torrington. "Wing shot, or aimed."

"Aimed, you fool," growled Benton. "Who do you think you are?"

"The best kat gunner in any man's Patrol Force."

"Next to Handley," reminded Benton, with a chuckle, "all you do is pick 'em out for him."

Shortly after that they were on their way home, the only vestige of the fourth raider a fast thinning cloud of cooling vapor behind them.

The great machine shudders and grumbles momentarily as it bites into a bit of obdurate matter, then whirs on. Its wheels go round and round, and the light glints from the teeth of silent running gears, But it is not a simple machine. Cams introduce variations.

The Vindictive lay in the main repair dock on Luna. Her strangely mixed company stood in ordered ranks on the floor of the crater, dressed in such motley of uniform and dungaree as survived the interior holocaust. A party of departmental bigwigs had just gone through, reviewing them. They were heroes, was the consensus.

Benton and Purcell had to follow the inspecting party into the battered hulk of the ship. The secretary was of the party, as was the chief of spatial strategy, the director of operations, the vice admiral in charge of cruisers, and others. They were amazed at what they saw. Ships of that era either went out in a blaze of shame or glory or survived intact. Here was one that had won a battle against odds without a scratch, yet was all but a wreck inside. The commander of the cruiser force fingered the tele-control in conn. It was in perfect working order. He had been cheated of credit for the victory.

"You had better be glad," remarked Bullard, softly, reading his thought. "That boy does better when you give him his head." He coughed. "With reasonable restrictions, of course."

The board of electronic engineers came up from the tube room. They had completed their inspection and had held a powwow.

"That hit-and-vanish technic is hot stuff, Mr. Benton, even if a little daring," said their spokesman. "How did you come to think of it?"

"I didn't," said Benton, crisply. "It happened, that was all."

"Well," said the gruff old admiral who handled Ops, "at least you had the brains to use it once you saw how it was done."

"Mm-m-m, tough on the ship, though," grumbled another brass-hat. He was chief naval constructor and was going to have to foot the bills.

"Not necessarily," objected the principal electronicist. "The stunt was improvised. Now, if we redesigned the ship for it—"

Benton and Purcell listened respectfully in the background. Now that pretty speeches had been made to them and medals hung about their necks they were ignored. The Powers that Be had noted the incident of the Vindictive's fight, dealt out the punishment and rewards that were due, and promptly consigned it to history. Now they were looking ahead.

"Tear out the tubes entirely, I say," the electronicist continued, "and put in high-power propulsors of the Rodriguez type, with a bank of modified Ekstroms located so that the... the uh,Benton effect, for we may as well call it that... can be had in any degree of intensity desired. Then—"

The discussion went on. The hull was to be strengthened by the addition of new structural members; in the light of later advances, most of the bugs could be ironed out of the kats. When the old Vindictive took the void again her original builders would never know her.

Then the formalities were over, leave papers handed out, and the men dismissed. The officers strolled across the crater floor to the clubhouse where lunch awaited. Old Admiral Bullard fell in beside young Benton. As they walked and throughout luncheon he was in a reminiscent mood, chatting about the old days in the Pollux.

"Opportunity," he observed, toying with a tidbit and not looking at Benton at all, "is largely what you make it. Young officers come to me from time to time complaining of disagreeable duty. But I make it a rule to never accede to their requests."

"Oh, yes, sir, I know," protested Benton, "but after all—"

"I still say," said the grand admiral calmly, "what I said. The day you called on me some time back I told you I had nothing to do with personnel. In that instance it was not merely a polite excuse. In view of the very peculiar circumstances I was tempted to make an exception. As it turns out it was well I didn't try to."

"Oh, yes sir, and that is what I want to—" Benton attempted eagerly to say. He owed Bullard thanks for something, though for the life of him he did not know just what.

"As I was saying," said Bullard quietly, overriding the interruption, "it was well I did not try. Today I proved it. For the first time I spoke to the secretary about you. He told me plainly that he wanted no suggestions from me. In short, your request has been duly conveyed— and turned down. Here it is officially."

He handed Benton a sheet of paper, and then lit a cigar. On the paper were these words:

From: The Secretary of Defense,

To: Lieutenant Commander Roy Benton,

Subject: Orders.

1. Upon completion of repairs to the super-monitor Vindictive you are ordered on board and in command, this assignment to be effective for the duration of the war.

______________________

12: Orders

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1945

This is the last Malcolm Jameson story, a bit of the Commander Bullard saga found among Jameson's papers after his death.

BEING THE WORLD'S worst thumb twiddler, Bullard was unhappy. He was restless, disgusted and bored. There was nothing to do. There could be nothing to do. And if there should be, by any chance, there was nothing to do it with. That he temporarily bore the rank of admiral while acting as commandant of the great Lunar Base helped him not at all. He had little taste for brass-hattism and an immense loathing for swivel chairs. He got up from the one he was sitting in and paced the floor of his sumptuous office for awhile. Then he planted himself before its big window and stared gloomily at the dreary scene outside.

The uncanny silence in that former bustling place was depressing. No longer was heard the shrill whistles of traveling cranes, the whir of fabricating machines, or the boom-boom of heavy stamps. The shops were closed; the men laid off; the ships away. Ships! Bullard's mouth tightened. Yes, there were ships present, rows upon rows of them— dead hulls of what had once been proud warships, now rusting away until the wrecking crews should come and go to work on them. What remnants of the Fleet that had escaped the ax wielded by the gang of pacifists now in control were dispersed to the far corners of the System, their crews enjoying themselves on leisurely, junketing "good-will cruises." His own good ship, the Pollux, was the sole exception. She lay at the moment over in the remodeling dock in Gobi Crater, her machinery torn out and the bulk of her crew disbanded. The amazing new astral drive units that were meant to go in her still lay unboxed in the storehouse, the nullochrons were not even on order. It might be a year before work was resumed. Bullard sighed. So this was the peace he had fought hard for. Bah!

Peace reigned from the flaming face of Sol to the outermost reaches of the Plutonian orbit. All was serene. Some claimed it would always be serene hereafter; the human race was fed up with war. There was never to be another one. Yes, peace. It was supposed to be wonderful, but Bullard felt otherwise. It was not that he was a war-loving man; far from it. But he knew his Martians, and his Callistans, and his Venusians, and all the rest, not forgetting some scheming Tellurians who dwelt down below on Earth. It was too much to expect that they would stay bound forever by the lofty phrases and noble sentiments expressed in the Treaty of Juno. It is true that they had forsworn the use of force in interplanetary relations, but the paths of history are littered with the torn scraps of similar treaties, though men seemed to have forgotten it. At any rate, the peace had borne heavily on the armed services. Officers and men were retired in droves, battleships and cruisers were enthusiastically scrapped, new construction came to a dead halt. There was nothing to look forward to but dull routine and inaction. Bullard sighed again, and gnawed his lower lip.

He was about to turn away from the window, weary from the bleak view and his own depressing thoughts, when his eye caught the glint of sunlight on burnished gold. The glitter came from a small sky-cycle that had just entered the dome through the southwest portal and was skimming to a stop in the middle of the parade ground. Bullard knew at once from its dark-green color that it belonged to the State Department, and from the golden insignia it sported that it was the personal car of a very high official. He frowned speculatively at that, for experience had taught him that unscheduled visits from diplomatic bigwigs invariably meant trouble. Their contempt for the Service was notorious— they haughtily ignored the uniformed men until their own muddlings sometimes brought affairs to such a pass that there was nothing left but to call in men of action to strengthen their hand.

"Wonder what this bird wants?" growled Bullard, watching the man alight from the machine. "If it's a snappy warship for a dirty job, he won't get it. There aren't any." Then he put on his best poker face, recrossed the room, and sat down to await his caller.

"I," ANNOUNCED the caller, exuding pomposity and incompetence from every pore, "am Lionel Wallowby, Undersecretary of State for Asteroidal Affairs. My calling on you, rather than sending for you, though unprecedented—"

"I am honored," said Bullard, bowing stiffly, but without a quiver of expression. Now he knew whom he had to deal with, for Wallowby's name was a byword, and he knew that the interview was not going to be an easy one. Fellow officers who had dealt with the man complained afterward that the strain of holding themselves in was almost intolerable. Not that Wallowby was a villain, or even malicious. He was simply smug, vain, useless— an outstanding example of what nepotism at its worst can foist upon a suffering public.

"I come about a matter of great urgency which will require your immediate intervention."

"How can anything be urgent in these placid times?" asked Bullard bitterly, "and if so what can I do about it? Article VIII of the Treaty of Juno— of which, if my memory is not at fault, you were one of the drafters— forbids forever the use of force or the threat of force in any situation whatever, regardless of provocation. Isn't that correct?"

"Uh, yes," admitted Mr. Wallowby, squirming in his seat, "but there are aspects of the situation in hand that make it exceptional. You see, it is the attitude of the Trojans. It is distressing. Humiliating. They sidestep, fence, and quibble. We have reached an impasse. An exasperating people, really."

"Quite!" said Bullard. He could think of a hundred adjectives applicable to them, all harsher. Exasperating, indeed! On the gray rocks of those far-off groups of asteroids lived the lowest and meanest dregs of mankind. Their rulers were fugitive shyster lawyers, disbarred from more decent planets. Their "aristocracy" were retired pirates and gamblers, their "working" populace a medley of every type of petty crook from pickpocket to cutthroat. Their very existence as a quasi-independent nation was a reproach to civilization.

"They take every advantage of their privileged international status," complained Mr. Wallowby.

"They would," said Bullard, dryly. "And why not?"

It was a dig at his caller, for it was Undersecretary Wallowby who had held out at the peace conference for the continued autonomy of the Trojans, alleging that to leave them as they were was the simplest evasion of the age-old rivalry between the Martians and the colonists on the Saturnian satellites. And so it might have been had the Trojans been populated by any other kind of people. But as it turned out, "autonomy," as construed by the bosses of the Trojans meant license to thumb their noses at the rest of the civilized world. They owed their immunity to subjugation to their peculiar location in the Solar System. Both groups rode the orbit of Jupiter, one a half billion miles ahead, the other an equal distance behind the master planet. Therefore, the Jovians periodically made claim for jurisdiction. But there are years when Saturn is actually closer to one or the other of them, and often Mars is closer to both. From the earliest asteroid-grabbing days Mars and Saturn had quarreled over which had the primary interest. The nearsighted framers of the Treaty of Juno had ducked the issue by leaving the Trojan groups autonomous, but yet under the joint protection of both squabbling claimants. Whereupon the Trojans promptly made the most of it.

Bullard knew the rocky planetoids well, for he had visited them often in the days when manhunters were not handicapped by paralyzing rules. He knew the men who ran them, particularly the swashbuckling fourflusher who styled himself the Boss of Nestor. Since he had defied him more than once in cutting out some wanted man. But those good old days were gone. Nowadays the Trojans wrapped themselves in the blessing of the no-violence terms of the fatuous treaty. No one could enter their ports forcibly, or remove any criminal fugitive without their consent— not even one of their own protectors. Should Mars make harsh claims, the Trojans would appeal to the Saturnians, who in turn, could be counted upon to declare the Martians in the wrong. Or they would work it the other way around. On the other hand if the Earth or any other outside planet presented a claim or grievance, both protectors would be called in. The Trojans played both ends against the middle with great skill. Their position resembled that of certain small Balkan countries at an earlier period in history— they were of little intrinsic worth but of high nuisance value. The least upsetting of the status quo could easily initiate another general war. The Trojan situation, in short, was dynamite.

"WHAT is your difficulty with the Trojans?" Bullard asked, seeing that Wallowby seemed at a loss to proceed. "What do you want of me?"

"I... uh, that is we... or the Department, I meant to say," stammered Wallowby, "find we are compelled to ask you to extricate... no, that isn't what I mean ... execute a delicate diplomatic mission. It has to do with a notorious criminal known as Grory the Groat. We have extradited him and now want to secure custody."

"I have no ships in commission here," remarked Bullard, "whereas skyliners make the trip every month. Furthermore, you have a large staff of marshals who are maintained for just such missions. The apprehension of a civil prisoner is outside my jurisdiction." He had not missed Wallowby's fumbling of the word "extricate," and already guessed the civil arm had made a try for Grory and messed it up. Wallowby's capacity for bungling was unsurpassed.

"The Trojans do not treat our marshals with respect," whined Wallowby. He was not used to being talked back to, and he did not like to admit what he had to. "We have sent several, but they are always turned back on one legalistic pretext or another. In our first requisition we claimed Grory on charges of treason, sabotage, fomenting rebellion, and gun-running. They accepted it, but when our officer got there they told him that they had reconsidered. It appears that the crimes enumerated were not sufficient in view of the blanket amnesty clause in the Treaty."

"Of course not," said Bullard bluntly. "They have a political tinge. You should have known better. Isn't that general amnesty clause known widely as the Wallowby Provision?"

Wallowby flushed, then turned huffy.

"It was never intended to give immunity to common scoundrels of the Grory stripe," he said stiffly. "Moreover the treaty is not what I came to discuss."

Bullard shrugged. Wallowby went on.

"Since then we have submitted other requests. Five, to be exact. We have presented evidence of piracy, murder and embezzlement. We have demanded him for smuggling drugs and white slaves, for counterfeiting, and a score of other crimes. Each time they say we may have him if we only send. Each time our marshal arrives there they send him back emptyhanded, always with a different excuse. To make the story short, they are evasive and unco-operative. They have persistently refused to arbitrate. They flout us, admiral, they flout us!" It was a wail.

"Maybe they don't want to give up Mr. Grory the Groat," said Bullard.

Wallowby looked momentarily startled as if that suggestion was entirely novel to him. Then he rallied himself and completed his oration.

"We have been correct, considerate and courteous throughout. They repay us with legal sophistries. We have dilly-dallyed overlong. My patience is at its end. The hour for action has struck. Now the time has come when we must reveal the iron hand that lies beneath the velvet glove—"

"What iron hand?" asked Bullard brutally.

Wallowby blinked and swallowed hard.

"Why, uh, the potential iron hand, of course. We must be more impressive. We must be more stern. We must cease making request and make demands. You will at once send a warship to Nestor and secure the person of this Grory for us."

"That," said Bullard, rising, "is absolutely absurd. The only ships we have that can take the void have been thoroughly demilitarized. Even if they were armed, we are still forbidden by the terms of your ridiculous treaty from using them. What, I ask, can a gunless battleship do that a letter can't do?"

"You are impertinent, Acting Admiral Bullard," said Wallowby with what was meant to be cutting sarcasm. He, too, was on his feet, and his face aflame. "I have wasted words enough on you. Here are your orders. Carry them out."

He jerked a long official envelope from an inner pocket and hurled it onto Bullard's desk. Then, after venting one contemptuous sniff, stalked haughtily out.

"Well, I'll be—" whistled Bullard as the door closed on the back of his departing caller.

HE SAT for long, staring down at those silly orders and marveling at the incredible stupidity of a man such as Wallowby. Yet, he asked himself after a time, was he so stupid after all? However he might bungle jobs, he had cunning enough to find an out. The suspicion was growing in Bullard's mind that this time it was he who had been chosen for the goat. He glanced through the orders again.

They were official enough, having been signed in open council by no lesser personage than the Director himself. And they were simple. They directed that a demilitarized man-of-war be put in commission at once and sent under the command of a competent officer to the port of Nestor in the Anterior Trojans. Upon arrival the ship's captain was to make peremptory demand upon the Boss of Nestor for the person of one Grory the Groat, receive him into custody, and deliver him to the appropriate authorities on Earth. The demand was to be made in the name of interplanetary law only and was not to be accompanied by threatening words or gestures. If refused, no efforts were to be made to apprehend Grory by force. In the latter event, the visiting officer was to politely withdraw and return to Luna.

"Nuts!" snorted Bullard, kicking his swivel chair out from under him and beginning a feverish pacing of the room. For five minutes he angrily strode up and down, cursing Wallowby without cessation. For now his dilemma was crystal clear. Wallowby, the louse, didn't matter any longer. He had adroitly ducked from under. The thing was official now. Whatever the stupidities and ineptness of the Office of Asteroidal Affairs, they had been buried, white-washed, glossed-over, or what have you. The mess had been laid in Bullard's lap. It was his baby now. Worse, it was the Service's baby.

If and when the affair was ever made public, the story would run thus: Justice located their man; State put through the necessary requests and papers; Space Service was assigned to execute the ultimate act of physical possession. Whether or not they got the man would be irrelevant. The two civil departments had done their stuff, if blame was due it was due somewhere else.

"Heads he wins, tails I lose," growled Bullard, "If we get Grory, it is no more than we are expected to do— a routine matter: if we don't get Grory, we're a pack of bums. There isn't but one answer. No stuffed shirt like Wallowby is going to make this outfit a laughingstock as long as I'm giving the orders. I'm going to get Grory."

He sat down to gather himself together and think of ways and means. The more he contemplated the problem, the thicker it got. Wallowby's legal sharks had done their best— and failed; his diplomats had made representations, argued and pleaded— and had failed; his marshals had been received with ridicule, and sent back defeated But that, after all, was the Wallowby crowd. Bullard's eyes grew hard. He knew offhand of at least forty officers on the Moon he could send who would bring back Grory dead or alive, and the blustering Boss of Nestor, too, if it came to that, if only told to do so. But Bullard could not order them out. His hands were bound by the let-the-lamb-lie-down-with-the-lion platitudes of the accursed Treaty of Juno. No longer could a Guardsman look a hardboiled criminal in the eye and say, "Put 'em up, or else." Oh, no. You should approach the rogue politely and request he accompany you to the jail. Bah! That time Bullard picked up his chair and hurled it clear across the room. After that he took up his tigerish rug tramping again.

All the answers were negative. If he didn't bring Grory back, he would have furnished Wallowby with the alibi he sought. If he brought him back through the use of, or by the barest hint of force, a delicate interplanetary situation would be provoked. The Martians and Saturnians would be certain to protest it as a violation of the treaty, and again the blame would fall upon Bullard's man for having been over zealous. It might not result in a resumption of the war, but it was as risky as smoking in a powder magazine.

Spent from his excited pacing, Bullard sat down again. This time he discarded all the usual approaches and went at the problem in his own way. There had been other times in his life that he had received asinine, if not impossible orders, and had managed somehow to carry them into execution, though, it must be admitted in all frankness, not always to the perfect satisfaction of those who had issued them. Now he must wrack his brains again.

He scanned the list of ships present and the roster of personnel. The choice of ships was easy. He selected the ex-cruiser Llerdyx, a prize of war, for the vessel. Her guns had been pulled and the ports blanked off, and her torpedo tubes plugged beyond repair, but she was handy and fast and that was all he wanted. Bullard sent orderlies scurrying with word to various departments. The Llerdyx was to be renamed the Texas Ranger, provisioned and fueled and made ready for departure the following day.

Her crew was to be made up of Pollux men then waiting in the lonely barracks by the Gobi dock.

All of Bullard's best officers were away on extended leave, but at length he found a notation on the roster that gave him comfort. Lieutenant Benton, whom he had fleeted up from tubeman, was due back on Luna that very night. Benton then was the man, for Benton could be relied upon. That disposed of the expedition except provision for what it was to do. That was the hardest task.

He sat down at the ordergraph. His fingers flew as he pecked out part one of the orders. They were largely a paraphrase of the set Wallowby brought. Then the going got hard; Bullard bogged down. He swore softly to himself, scowled, wrote pages and pages of drafts, only to tear them up and feed them into the maw of his wastebasket. He would light one cigarette on the butt of its predecessor, then grind it angrily under his heel. It was one thing to write orders that could be complied with, another to compose a set in the face of almost certain failure. It was like ordering a faithful follower to go up against a ruthless killer with nothing but an empty gun.

Dark was almost at hand when Bullard finally wrote out the words he dreaded to put down. But he did write them out, for his duty was plain. They would be painful for Benton to execute, and disgraceful for Bullard if they were ever made known. But the feelings and reputations of two men did not count in the grander scheme of things. Very reluctantly Bullard inserted the paper in an envelope, sealed it with a sigh, then typed on the cover these words:

To be opened and put into effect only in the event that the Boss of Nestor refuses to hand over the person of Grory the Groat. Otherwise this must be returned to signer intact.

Bullard.

An hour later Benton reported for duty, brisk, cheerful and ruddy after his vacation. But his grin faded when he saw the somber mood of his skipper. Bullard hardly spoke. Instead he handed over part one of the orders.

"Gee!" said Benton, delighted. "I get a command. And do a cruise all on my own. That's great!"

"Evidently you do not understand what you are to do," said Bullard, gravely.

"Sure. It's clear enough. I hop off tomorrow, go out to Nestor, tell 'em I want this bird Grory, slap him in the brig, and then come back. What's the catch?"

"They aren't going to give Grory up."

"Huh?" Benton was astonished. Then his face widened as his old grin came back. Now he knew— Bullard was having a little private fun, he was pulling his leg. "Why that flea-bitten little so-called republic. For two cents I'd blast 'em out of the ether, no matter what they've got."

"That," said Bullard, "is the hard part. You aren't permitted to do any blasting. You haven't any arms but sidearms. And they know it."

"All right. They say no. Then what do I do? Come home like a whipped hound?"

Bullard drew the secret portion of the orders out of his desk drawer and fondled its envelope thoughtfully.

"You will find the answer here," he said. "This will tell you all you need to know."

Bullard got up abruptly and walked to the window, where he stood for a moment looking out into the dim night, his hands clasped behind him. Benton saw that his fingers were twitching nervously, and was surprised, for he had seldom seen the celebrated captain of the Pollux display strong emotion. Then Bullard began speaking again, but still facing out the window. His tone was low and his voice solemn.

"Benton, lad, there is something I want you to remember when you get out there on Nestor. That is that I am sending you on this mission only because I am forbidden to take it myself. The darkest hours in any senior's life come when he is compelled to delegate a job so dirty that he would shrink from touching it himself. This job, Benton, is that kind of job. If the worst comes and you have to open this envelope, you will have no choice but comply with its harsh instructions. You will want to squirm out from under, you will want to rebel, you will hate me—"

"Oh, no, skipper," exclaimed Benton. "I can carry out orders. You know it!"

"To the letter, whatever the cost, whatever your opinion of the orders themselves or the man who wrote them?"

"Why, yes, sir. What proper officer would not?"

Bullard whirled, and Benton thought he caught a twinkle in his eyes, though the mouth still held its grim set.

"There have been times, Benton," Bullard said softly, with a faint smile, "when officers have not always adhered to the letter. In fact, on several such occasions I believe you acted as an accomplice." Then his face grew stern again, and the voice peremptory and commanding. "In this instance you are to attempt nothing of the sort. Orders are orders."

He handed Benton the sealed package. Then he shook him warmly by the hand. Benton looked so crestfallen that Bullard was beginning to wonder if he had not overplayed his hand.

"If you work things right," said Bullard, in a more confident tone, "you will bring this back unopened along with Grory. I cannot tell you in advance what my instructions are, but I assure you that I have prepared for every conceivable contingency. The only hints I can give you are these: be cool and civil; do not bluster or enter into a debate. But be bold, be confident when you make your demand. If it is refused, go back quietly to the ship and wait. If nothing happens by the expiration of four hours, then you will have to do what I have written here. Good luck!"

Many times on the trip out Benton took the mysterious envelope out of the safe and examined it hopefully. There was no clue to what it contained. As often he put it back, more curious than ever. His confidence in Bullard was unbounded; he was sure of one thing, and that was that those hidden orders did have the answer to anything that might come up. But what? Bullard had intimated that carrying them out would be distasteful, perhaps hazardous. Oh, well!

Benton went through the ship with a fine-toothed comb, looking for secret gadgets that might have been planted there. He found nothing. Whatever Bullard expected him to do was probably in the strictly Bullardian manner— a pulling of rabbits out of a hat. He was still puzzling over the teaser when the Trojan group showed up on his screen. A little later he was setting the newly christened Texas Ranger down on Nestor.

When he stepped out of the space lock he saw to his surprise that he had company. A Martian gunboat, bristling with long Zordich guns, lay to his left; a Saturnian sloop of war, studded with tube openings, lay to the right. An armed yacht, sporting the triple-cross emblem of the Trojans, was a little way ahead of where he lay. It was apparent that the denizens on the outer planets were not taking disarmament as seriously as the gullible Earth people. It was very disconcerting.

Then Benton thought of his orders inside in the safe. It bucked him up. No doubt the presence of these vessels was one of the contingencies that Bullard had provided for. Bullard was a careful man. Benton walked on toward the port.

His interview with the Boss of Nestor was short and to the point. He stated what he had come for; the answer was a curt no. That was all there was to it.

"Very well," said Benton, calmly. Bullard's words still rang in his ears—"be confident, be cool, be bold."

Someone in the audience chamber snickered, but Benton ignored it. He walked down the aisle and out the door with a firm step but without haste. At the door the Nestorian captain of the port who had escorted him to the palace took him back in tow.

"You take it easier than the marshals did," he said, in an offhand way. "They raved and swore. But it didn't get 'em anywhere. Our Boss is tough."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Are you shoving off now?"

"Oh, no," said Benton, "I haven't finished yet."

They walked along for a hundred yards while the beetle-browed captain mulled that cryptic remark over. At length he asked for enlightenment.

"You came for Grory and the Boss said you couldn't have him? So what? Bluffs don't work on Nestor."

"I wouldn't know."

"Then what? What have you got up your sleeve?"

"You'll find out in just four hours from now— if I don't get Grory."

"Oh, a threat, huh?"

"Nope. A statement."

The port captain left Benton at his ship, then walked across to the Martian vessel and said something to its skipper. Then Benton saw him making his way toward the Saturnian. Benton called for his steward.

"Bring out that fancy deck chair we found in the cabin," he directed.

Ten minutes later Benton was stretched out in a luxurious silken chair over which a striped awning made a canopy against the weak Nestorian sun. By his side stood a taboret and on it a tall, cool drink. Benton relaxed. It was his way of displaying confidence.

Presently the Martian captain came over, read the name of his ship, looked enviously at the fancy chair layout, then opened the conversation.

"Sticking around awhile?"

"Dunno," said Benton. "That's up to the Boss. When I get Grory, I shove off."

The Martian asked several more questions, but the answers were vague and noncommittal. The conversation languished. Benton glanced at his watch. An hour had gone. He took a sip of his drink, closed his eyes and pretended to doze.

The Martian went away. Half an hour later Benton had a new visitor. It was Nestor's deputy Boss, a scarred, one-eyed ex-burglar named Fraggin.

"What's this about an ultimatum?" he demanded roughly. "Captain Zeeter said you said you were going to get Grory inside of four hours or else."

"He quoted me inaccurately, but that was the substance of it."

"Or else what?" Fraggin looked like he was about to swing.

"When the time limit expires I shall carry out the uncompleted portion of my orders. That's all. What's in 'em is my business."

"Who wrote any such orders?" growled Fraggin.

"That's none of your business either, but I don't mind telling you. Bullard did— Admiral Bullard, Commandant of Lunar Base and captain of the Pollux. You ought to know him. He pulled the raid on Titania."

"Yeah, yeah, I know him," said Fraggin, rubbing one of his scars thoughtfully. There was not a man in all the Trojans that didn't know him. Most had been arrested by him at one time or another.

"Well," said Fraggin after a long and what must have been for him a painful silence, "I gotta be goin'!"

"O.K.," said Benton, serenely, and reaching for his drink. "I'll be seeing you." Then he settled down to do some concentrated, if well concealed, worrying. At that moment he would gladly have given a pair of fingers for some advanced knowledge of what that sealed envelope held. He felt that he should be making preparations, not dawdling in a silky chair. But he knew he was being watched intently from three ships, and now that he had chosen his role he must stick it out to the bitter end.

IT STILL lacked ten minutes to the deadline when the squad of soldiers approached. Fraggin led them. Benton glanced up with a pretense of indifference, and then a great weight rolled off his soul. Struggling and cursing in the midst of the squad was the man Grory, handcuffed to the soldiers on either side of him. Benton turned his head and called the steward.

"Ask the master-at-arms to come out," he said. "Here comes our prisoner."

The exchange of formal papers took only a few minutes. Then the Texas Ranger's tubes began to glow and a little later she was in the void, headed home. Benton decided to while the time away by refreshening his astragation. Working out the sights made the days of the voyage pass quickly. Almost before he realized it, he was making his landing on Luna.

A prison van from Justice was there to meet him, and Benton took the receipt for Grory from an astonished looking chief marshal. He declined to answer any questions, but the moment he was rid of his prisoner, he hurried over to the Administration Building.

"Well done," said Bullard, meeting him at the door. "I knew you could do it. Any trouble?"

"Not a bit," said Benton, proudly, then to make the most of his brief spot in the limelight, produced the envelope still bearing its seals. "I didn't even have to use this, sir."

"Ah, splendid," said Bullard, taking it and dropping it in the drawer. "You may go back to your regular duties now, Benton, and thank you."

"Yes, sir, of course. But I am a little curious. You may not know it, sir, but I was worried. I'm itching to know what those orders were."

Bullard looked at him quizzically. Should he tell him? After all he had been put in an awful hole and had come through with flying colors. Bullard felt he rated something. He would have preferred that Benton never knew, but he had asked, and it was a request that was hard to deny.

"All right, Benton, here you are. Here is the shameful thing you might have had to do."

"Shameful?" said the amazed Benton, taking the envelope and pulling off its seals. Bullard watched him intently as he shook out the contents and fished through them. Benton had expected to find several pages of closely written instructions. Instead he found only sheets of blank paper. Then, in the middle, he found a little slip of paper on which were written three brief words.

"Great God!" he cried, as the enormity of it hit him. He stared at the terse sentence in frank disbelief. Then he laughed. The paper fluttered onto Bullard's desk where the three little words lay until Bullard tore them into fine little bits. The words were:

RETURN TO BASE.

_________________________

And Other Stories

13: Alien Envoy

Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944

THE telecom rattled throatily, then cleared. The voice was that of Terry, bimmy fieldman.

"Hey, chief, there's something coming in over the visio you ought to have a squint at. Think it's right down our alley."

Ellwood shoved the file he was examining aside. It was the usual slush about the unrest among the talags of Darnley Valley on Venus, and dire prognostications of revolt, as if talag grousing was something new. They always bellyached, and nothing ever came of it. That's the way talags were. Anyhow, it was routine and never should have been sent up to the chief's desk. The ace bimmy— so-called from collapsing the initials of the Bureau of Interplanetary Military Intelligence— preferred not to be bothered with trifles.

"I heard you, Terry," he barked. "Let 'er flicker."

The big screen across the room came to life. For a moment there was nothing but swirling gray chaos, and then the color deepened to a velvety purple-black. The screen gained depth and the coldly burning stars came out one by one. For some seconds that was all, then an object drifted into the field. It was a bulky, teardrop shaped thing of shimmering silvery green and atop it sat a squat turret out of which peeped the blunt nose of some kind of lethal projector. But the violet aura that usually surrounded the stubby gun was missing.

That was but one detail. Ellwood gasped as he ran his eye over the image of the entire ship as it inched its way into the middle of the field of view. The after half of it glowed and sparkled with incandescent lemon-yellow fire, fading slowly to a dull orange and then a cherry-red as the tortured hull radiated its fierce heat into space. The vessel had been caught in a katatron beam. That was evident, but it was not all. There was a gaping hole through the stern out of which glowing gases were blowing, only to be instantly dissipated in the vacuum of space.

"An Ursan!" exclaimed Ellwood.

"We finally penetrated one! Who did it?"

"Commander Norcross, in the Penelope. He slammed a Mark IX torp into it, and it took. But, say, chief, that ain't all the story. The whole battle was as screwy as could be. The Ursan didn't fight back, and you know how tough they usually are. All it did was set up a terrible howl that sounded like all the static this side of Magellan rolled up in one ball. And take a gander at the co-ordinates."

Ellwood's gaze dropped to the pale white figures in the lower corner. There were three of them— celestial latitude and longitude and the angle of tilt. The wrecked Ursan was less than a million miles away— beyond the moon a little distance and up about twenty degrees.

"What in thunder was he doing this far in?" asked Ellwood. "They haven't ventured in past Jupiter in forty years."

"Search me. That's why I called you. Norcross says he's done his stuff. He's put the Ursan on the fritz, and there aren't any more around. He wants to know whether he should just call the derelict squad, kick the wreck into an orbit, or haul it in so you can have a look-see."

Ellwood fairly yelled his answers into the telecom.

"Park it in the lot by Lab Q-5, of course, you dope. Isn't this what we've been waiting for all our lives?"

The telecom crackled and died. Ellwood's fingers were racing across a panel of buttons.

"Q-5? Standby for a triple-priority job... cruiser got an Ursan... no, I mean got it... it's hanging dead in space, and it's fairly intact. They're towing it in to you, and it ought to be there by this time tomorrow. Recall Twitcherly, and be sure that Darnhurst is there. I'm leaving here right now by strato- line and I'll bring Gonzales with me. You have everything all set— complete metallurgy, chemistry, and magnetonic examination of the hull... the Valois procedure will be the best, I think. And I want a board of outplanet medicos there. We want to find out what an Ursan looks like, what makes him tick, and the rest. That means an autopsy such as never was, right down to the histology of every last cell in the monsters. That is, if they're monsters, and there's anything left of them."

"I get you, chief. Everything'll be ready to roll."

Ellwood snapped out a score of other calls. Then he sat back and relaxed.

IT had started out to be a dull, dreary day of stifling details. Now that was changed. It was the day of days, the day of opportunity every lummy chief before him had yearned for and never got. What were Ursans, anyway? Where did they come from, and what did they want? And since they were aliens from an unknown outer world who always fought back with murderous savagery while being at the same time virtually impregnable themselves, what could be done to improve the technics of warfare against them? It was a grim question that had agitated the Earth races ever since the Ursans had first invaded their system.

Ellwood thought back over recent history. The first intruders had come in a wave of some fifty ships, dropping into the ken of the Space Patrol from the general direction of Ursa Major. On that occasion they visited most of the planets, conducting what was unmistakably a reconnaissance in spite of all the heroic space fighters could do. Dozens of the invaders were caught in the quick blasts of katatrons, but they failed to disintegrate. They merely glowed for a moment in blinding incandescence, and proceeded to carry on. They would answer the kat blast with a bolt of massive pink lightning from their own squat guns, and that would be the end of another terrestrian ship and crew. Until now not one of our vessels had managed to stay in action long enough to launch its slower but more positive torpedoes.

IT was strange. The Ursans came, and they went away, leaving behind them the burned out hulks of the flower of the Space Navy. A decade passed, and they did not return. Boasters claimed our defense had taught them a lesson; they would not dare come back. The Pollyannas took the view that it was apparent we had nothing they wanted, therefore they were not to be feared hereafter. But there were others who took a soberer view. The fleet was rebuilt and strengthened. Kat pressures were built up; the speed of torps increased. Other weapons were devised under the spur of necessity.

The Ursans did come back. That time they came in not one wave, but ten, and each wave had more than a thousand ships. That was the year of the great running battle from past Neptune all the way in to Jupiter. The Earth forces attacked them at the perimeter of the system and hung on to the bitter end. There were many enemy casualties that time, but the surviving Ursans crowded round them and herded them into what was for them safety— down through the swirling ammonia clouds of Jupiter to a landing where no terrestrian dared follow. The tired remnants of what had been a mighty defensive fleet had no stomach for the killing gravity of Sol's greatest planet. They withdrew to lick their wounds.

For a while terror reigned on the inner planets. The Ursans did not follow up their attack, but they did not go away. It was evident they were making an advance base on Jupiter. For twenty years their ships came and went, but they did not come inside the asteroid belt again. Doggedly the dwindling Space Navy harried them, but apparently to no avail. In a duel between a Terrestrian and an Ursan, the Ursan always won. It was a dispirited, losing business.

Then came a day when the whole Ursan armada took off in one vast cloud and went back toward the upper Northern sky. Until this lone ship came wandering in, there had not been another visitation.

"I wonder," mused Ellwood, "do these creatures come in successive waves like the Goths and the Mongols and the Huns did, and is this the advance scout for a new invasion? Or what? Why did this Ursan give Norcross time to slip a torpedo into him? Asleep? Sick? Internal difficulty?"

He rose. Well, they had the ship. That was something.

ELLWOOD leaped from the plane and strode across the field. The bimmy guards saluted and made gangway. A hundred yards from the grounded wreck Ellwood glimpsed three sheeted forms on stretchers.

"Who are they?" he asked.

"Tolliver, Scwheitzer, and Wang Chiang. They got theirs trying to get into the forepart— passed out in the lock. It's hot in there, and heavy, and what the Ursans use for air is out of this world. It's all over with those three lads."

Ellwood frowned. He didn't relish losing men. Moreover, men with the qualifications for being good bimmies were as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth. Yet he was glad they had done their duty. If the forward half of the hostile ship was still intact it was important that it be left that way. The easy way would have been to blast it open, but then they would have had to reconstruct the conditions there. This way they had only to observe them.

"Did anyone come out— alive?"

"Yes. Darnhurst. He says there is at least one living Ursan still in there. He saw it crawling around in the control room, and then he got out quick."

"Did it go for him?"

"Oh, no. He just couldn't bear up against the pressure and the rest. There is some kind of gravity device operating in there and inside you have to work against 3-G's. The temperature is around a thousand, and the atmosphere is a mixture of ammonia, methane, helium, nitrous fumes, and about nine other gases that haven't yet been identified."

Ellwood said nothing. A gang of men were just then loading something onto a heavy truck beside the wreck with the aid of a crane. They had brought it out through the gaping hole left by the torpedo. Ellwood walked over and looked at it. It was truly a monstrous thing.

The dead Ursan partook of the qualities of an articulated deep sea turtle, crossed with an octopus and recrossed with a giant horned frog. There were seven segments, squat and heavily plated, each supported by one thick, elephantine foot no more than four inches long. Some of the segments were topped with a cluster of bony spikes, each in a different arrangement. Some were triple, some quintuple, one a simple pair. None were of the same length or thickness, and their spacing varied. The non-horned segments were two in number, one near each end. Instead of horns they were crowned with flat, lumpy superstructures from which dangled a score of octopoid antennae. Some hung lose and flabby, others were half retracted into the parent shell. They were variously tipped at their outer ends. About half ended in handlike arrangements of several fingers and an opposing thumb, others terminated in vacuum-grip cups, still others in horny, tool-like finials— chisels, socket wrenches, and the like. But of organs such as the fauna of the Solar System possessed there was no sign. There was nothing corresponding to eyes, ears or noses, nor yet the semblance of a mouth. The creatures were all plate and horn and tentacle, and incredibly massive.

"How many of these are there?"

"Three. The black gang, I guess they were. They aren't damaged much. It must have been the loss of their atmosphere that killed them."

"Rush them along to the lab, then, and let the boys there at them."

THERE followed a hectic seventy hours during which no bimmy at that post slept more than a cat nap or ate more than a bolted sandwich. By the time Ellwood's special harness was completed a lot of preliminary work had been cleared away. The easiest part of it was the accessible part of the ship itself.

The hull was of immense strength and built of an alloy that as yet defied analysis. Its tensile strength was of the order of a half a million pounds to the square inch. It was acid proof. It had no attainable melting point. It was a wonder that even a katatron could heat it white, let alone atomize it. Only the direct hit of a Mark IX torp could have punctured it.

The main drive was atomic, not much different from the terrestrial kind. The guns were simply magnetic versions of the katatron. The bimmies whose specialty was ordnance swarmed over them, delightedly taking notes. Here was something really fearsome in the way of armament. The Ursans had learned the trick of accumulating balls of magnetrons under terrific initial tension and then launching them at near the speed of light. But what was radically different was the system of control. No human, or any group of humans that could be contained in either the turret or the engine room could possibly have manipulated the scattered, queer shaped controls. None but Briarean-handed creatures could do the job. The set-up was strictly Ursan, by Ursans, for Ursans. Significantly there was nowhere a single gauge, meter, label or other visual aid to the operator.

As for the control room where the surviving monster still dwelt, whining unceasingly on forty different short-wave radio frequencies at once, Ellwood left that strictly alone. He was not finished tooling yet for his entry into it. The only precautions he took with it was to see that a reserve supply of the gases needed to replenish what the monster used was at hand if needed. But he made one startling discovery without entering the difficult chamber. One of his bimmy engineers deduced the location of the monster's air-purifying system and tapped it in mid cycle. The waste product was amazing. It was steam! Just steam. He led it into a condenser. The end product was distilled water, a fact grabbed onto with great interest by the medic gang.

They, too, had done their work, but in the end it had to be taken out of their hands. Electronicists and magnetonic sharks took over where they left off. If the beast's body chemistry was topsy-turvy, its nervous system was a thing to drive men mad. It was a mess of tangled wire— metallic wire, loaded with radium— and weird ganglia that might have served as distribution boxes. There were sets of flat, semi-bone, metalloid plates that could only be a variety of condenser. There were other screwy arrangements that were probably transformers, and the horns that adorned the spiked segments proved to be combination triodes and sending and receiving antennae. Bimmy after bimmy looked, and bugged his eyes. A thing like that just couldn't be. It violated— well, just about all the laws of electronics there were. Yet—  And they would go back to work. What they dreamed of in their snatches of sleep they did not divulge, but it was wild enough to start the doctors shooting hypnophrene as a regular thing.

"There you are," said Gonzales. "It's screwy, but it is what we found."

He handed Ellwood the rough draft of the preliminary report.

THE Ursans neither ate nor drank. They breathed— breathed the outlandish blend of gases found in their ship. There were gills under the after edge of each segment's plate except the end ones, and in each segment was a separate lung. The lungs themselves were fantastic beyond expression, an impossible blending of leathery membrane and flexible quartz tubing. In the tubing coursed the creature's blood— a solution of silicon, radium salts, sulphur, iron, zinc, and a score of other metals in a mixture of acids of which nitric was the dominant member. This blood fed the stumpy, clumsy feet and the agile tentacles. It also fed the ganglia and nourished the other electric gadgetry. There were sinuses filled with the liquid where it seemed to act as an electrolyte.

"If I believe what I see here," said Ellwood tapping the document, "we are going to have to throw a lot of preconceived notions out the window. Here we have monsters with intricate nervous systems, but no brain. Yet they are intelligent, even if they do think with their reflexes. They have no organs of sight, touch, or hearing, but they evidently perceive the stars well enough to navigate, and us well enough to make us targets. This requires a radical approach."

"They perceive by means of short-wave radio," Gonzales reminded him. "That set in the corner is tuned in on the steady drone that surviving Ursan in the cruiser is sending out. I think that is what he keeps track of his surroundings by. Here's why. We have activated the nerve circuits to this pair of horns on number three segment. They gave off the identical continuous tone, and they also pick it up on the rebound. The return impulses go down to a certain ganglia and from there are fed to this set of bone plates. Unless somebody talks me down. I'm going to label those bones the retina."

Ellwood chuckled. It was not too absurd a thought. For centuries men had been using shortwave radio for night detection. Here was a living organism that used it all the time.

"Now these other spikes and horns perform similar, but different duties," continued Gonzales, putting his finger at spots on the diagram. "A current fed to this five-pronged arrangement makes an amateur [armature?] do funny things when you make noises in the vicinity. I'd call it an audio converter. The Ursans apparently don't care a hang about listening as such, but they evidently have found it useful to change what we call sound into something else that has meaning for them."

"Yes," said Ellwood, thoughtfully. "You're on the right trail. I wonder which frequencies in the band the creature uses for communication with his mates. Once we have that I'll have a jumping off point for what I intend to do."

"We'll see if we can pick it out for you, chief. There are three or four waves he uses only intermittently, and that stutteringly. It sounds very much to me as if he had been listening in on the chitchat between our ships and was trying to imitate it. Being electronically minded, the Ursans could hardly fail to have picked up our ethergrams. We have recorded a lot of the jabber already and turned it over to the cryptograph gang, but so far they haven't cracked the code. It may be as you suggest— one of those waves is the Ursan speech wave."

"Maybe, and maybe not," murmured Ellwood, "but it's a thought."

That night he made several important changes in his plans. He burned up the air with urgent messages, and before morning the first of the planes bearing rush equipment began dropping down beside the Ursan prize. By ten Ellwood was ready to test out a theory he had spent the night in evolving. He meant to go into the sealed control room and have a direct interview with the captive monster.

"Better play it safe, chief," spoke up the bimmy in charge of the guard. "That thing may act up. Sou ought to carry along a blaster."

Ellwood shook his head.

"I think," he said, smiling mildly, "that we got off on the wrong foot with these creatures right from the beginning. I don't mean with this ship or what our gang is doing about it. I mean the whole dismal history of our dealings with the Ursans. I've been thinking it over. Has it ever struck you that there has never been an instance of an Ursan ship firing on one of ours except when ours had first attacked? Could it not be that they are an essentially peaceful race of brutes and not prone to fight except in self-defense? I've come to that conclusion, and I'm staking my next move accordingly. Whatever that fellow in there was up to, coming straight toward Earth the way he was, I refuse to believe it was aggression."

"You're the boss," said the man, shrugging, but the look of uneasiness did not leave his face.

THE ponderous chair was ready. It stood on the ground just outside the Ursan entry port, and there was a heavy crane beside it. Ellwood let them dress him in the heavy-duty, high-resistant spacesuit fitted with cooling coils. That would enable him to endure the cruel temperatures so dear to his visitor, and at the same time shield his lungs from the noxious atmosphere. Then he let them hoist him into the chair while they rigged his accessory tools handily about him. The chair itself had been specially built for the occasion. It was massive and mounted on a truck carried by thick dollies, and powered by a small atomic. In it Ellwood could sit in relative ease despite the 3-G pull of the control room deck.

He nodded, and the cranemen hoisted him into the open lock door. They closed it. Ellwood was in the anteroom of the visitor from the stars. The rest was up to him.

The lock grew warm, and the foul atmosphere of the ship whistled in and filled it. The pressure built up. Shortly conditions matched those in the interior. The inner lock door slid open with a hiss, and as Ellwood piloted his sturdy vehicle through it. It clicked shut behind him.

To human eyes the visibility was bad. Ellwood saw everything through a thick, milky haze, but attached to his chair were powerful lights, and after a minute or so he could see sufficiently well.

The control room was a hemispherical affair, a roundish room with a domed ceiling. Except for the floor there was hardly any part of it that was not encrusted with fantastic, intricate machinery. It rose in banks along the curving walls; it hung from the overhead. Only creatures with long multi-tentacles could have reached its scattered controls. As a piece of functional design it was doubtless splendid— but from the Ursan point of view. Ellwood swept it with one slow, wondering glance, and then put its intricacies out of his mind. In time the technicians would unravel the mysteries. His job was more comprehensive.

The Ursan lay motionless on the far side of the room. Ellwood could only assume that his entry had been noted. For there was not the slightest sign on the part of the monster of any change in his attitude toward his environment. Ellwood drove his chair part way across the room and stopped it there. He scanned the walls afresh for a relatively flat spot and finally found one— a huge plate that seemed to be the cover for a portion of an elaborate arrangement of magnetic gears. That was well. Ellwood relaxed and devoted his attention to the little black box in his lap. He seized its tuning knobs and began searching the short-wave band.

The two adversaries remained thus for the space of hours. Ellwood simply sat and twiddled knobs, groping for the meaning of what he heard. The monster could well have been as dead as the dissected ones in the laboratory. It never moved an inch or twitched a tentacle. But it kept on doing interesting things with its steady outpourings of radiation.

It was not long before Ellwood was aware that inside him some exceedingly queer sensations were being born. Pimple-raising thrills would creep up and down his spine; elfin fingers reached inside his eardrums and thumped them; once there were sudden shooting pains in his eyeballs; and there was a very trying period several minutes long when his heart action went crazy. Ellwood accepted it stoically. He was sure of himself and felt no fear. He was being probed, examined, mentally dissected by a diffuse electronic mind that felt its way by reflected radiation. He knew his own immense curiosity as to the nature and purposes of the thing opposite to him. It was not illogical that the feeling was mutual.

At last there was a lull. It was time for overtures, the preliminary sizings up having been completed. Ellwood flipped a switch and began sending. Dot-dash, dot-dot-dot-dash, and so on, using the wave he thought most likely the creature communicated ideas on. He sent on for one minute, then grinned grimly as he ended with the standard "Over."

The monster caught on. There was an answering rattle of meaningless ta-ta-ta-daa-daas. It made no sense, but the channel had been found. Later the cryptographers could develop the recording tapes and try their hand at unraveling the meaning. But it would not be simple. Spanish is different from Norse, but closely akin— more so, say, than Chinese. Yet all those languages expressed human thoughts in terms of human visual and aural images. How did an Ursan, a creature who had no eyes, ears, or tongue, think of the things his "brain" conceived? That was the crux of the problem.

Ellwood was eager to delve into that aspect. It was for that the extra stuff had been rushed through the stratolanes of the night, and he was prepared. For that reason he persisted with the exchange of gibberish only a little while. Then he reached into his bag of tricks and brought out item number two.

It was a small, self-contained, magazine projector. Loaded into it were the excellent films devised by the Outplanet Cultural Society for the education of the Venusian talag, the Martian phzitz, and the odd life forms that haunted the Jovian satellites. Ellwood focused it on the flat plate he was lucky enough to find. Then he started it to running.

THE golden key to successful pedagogy is the association of ideas. That was how the OCS had solved the outland language problem. It was true that Ursans could not see, but neither could phzitzn. It was true that a talag is congenitally deaf, but they learned. With an Ursan it would surely be harder, but Ellwood was hopeful.

Nouns, the names of things, are always the obvious starting point. Ellwood's first showing was that of the sun, taken close up, near Mercury. The impressive parade of raging sunspots was there, and the streaming prominences.

"Sun," he sent, in the interplanetary code, and simultaneously uttered the word out loud. Then he diminished the diameter, showing the sun successively as it appeared on Earth, on Jupiter, and on Uranus. Each time he reiterated the noun, both in dot and dash, and by voice. He repeated the performance from the beginning, then sent "Over!"

"Sun," came back the Ursan's reply. "Over!"

Ellwood beamed beneath his helmet, though hot sweat was trickling over his eyes. The Ursan was smart. He was catching on. Now for another noun, and coupled with it a bit of semantic logic. He started the machine off again, and this time shrank the sun to a mere pinpoint of scintillating white light.

"Star," was his dual message.

"Star," said the Ursan.

Then came the planets, all of them, however different, and each Ellwood called simply planet. After that he went through them again, but that time he put the emphasis on their differences. He called them successively Mercury, Earth, Mars, and on in order. The Ursan followed. Now he was beginning to grasp the human communicative pattern. There were all-embracing words— the generic terms that included a whole class of related things. There were also specific words applying to individual variations.

Ellwood rested. Curiously, the Ursan rested, too. Perhaps he was pondering what he learned, thought Ellwood, At any rate he waited, motionless and with much of his radiation stilled. Ellwood was convinced now that his plan would work. The monster's perceptions were those of another world, yet they did perceive. That was what mattered.

Presently Ellwood repeated the show, hopeful that this time the Ursan would take another step and supply his version of the word displayed. He did not. Evidently there were no corresponding concepts in Ursan thought.

Ellwood let it go. He must be content for the time being with oneway teaching. Later— who knew? He showed next two spaceships. The first was a Terrestrian, cruiser, the other a typical Ursan craft. He established one after another the general words "spaceship," "warship," and then proceeded to differentiate into classes. The last lesson of the day was the introduction of adjectives. There were the terms Terrestrian and Ursan to define.

ELLWOOD was exhausted when he came out, and surprised to find that he had spent but two hours within. It had seemed far longer under the terrible conditions suitable to Ursan life. A group of anxious bimmies hoisted him out of the lock and released him from his harness.

"Phew," he whistled. "Now I understand why a katatron won't work against these babies. They heat up a ship that can't be melted, but what is heat to creatures who start at one thousand as normal? And what is internal pressure increments when 3-G's is standard? I doubt if there is any way to kill these things unless it is to deprive them of the precious stink they breathe."

He rested most of the afternoon, and then went back.

In the tedious weeks of instruction that followed Ellwood made great progress. Where the monster's memory resided he could not say, but there was one. For when he finished with the concrete words he held a review. He flashed the series beginning with the sun, though without naming the objects. The Ursan faithfully supplied the appropriate nouns. He had acquired a vocabulary of more than a thousand words.

The verbs were harder, and the abstractions worse. But the course the Society had contrived was cleverly put together. Ellwood followed it religiously. He depicted various human activities, each neatly illustrated to emphasize the principle concerned. In the end he came to the concept of rivalry, and showed how rivalry grew into strife. Combat was shown in various aspects, but all of it was combat. And then Ellwood played his trump. A scene showing a fight ended in one party crawling across the lines waving a white flag. The two combatants then embraced.

At this point Ellwood got his first reaction from the monster that was more than mere parroting, It was sending agitatedly in English. It was a queer sort of English, tinged as it was with an Ursan accent, for even in code there is such a thing.

The creature got in all the words, but the syntax was his own. Some of the inversions almost defied unscrambling, but Ellwood thought he knew what the Ursan was driving at. He quit sending and listened.

"Peace!" the visitor kept repeating. "Peace. Yes, that is what I came for. We are not enemies, but friends. You are puny yet savage monsters in our eyes, but now that I have seen you at close range I see that you are not wholly bad. You do many things in clumsy ways, but we will pass over that. That is your affair. You are not to blame that your sensory equipment and mentality are as limited as they are, but I now concede that you have done remarkably well in spite of your handicaps."

"Thank you very much." said Ellwood dryly.

Being thanked seemed to disconcert the Ursan for a moment, as it was a concept not hitherto explained. But he took up his harangue again.

"I have been a prisoner in this impossible place for a long time now," sent the Ursan, "and I have listened to your teachings. Very well. Now I know about you and your strange race, and the hideous planets you choose to live on. It's my turn. Let me teach you our way. Leave off torturing me with your crude electronic devices and just sit and absorb. I assure you that what you have done to me is quite painful, but in your ignorance you could not help that. I will show you that the Ursan way is better."

Ellwood turned off his set meekly. It had not occurred to him before that mechanically generated radiation might have subtle differences in characteristics from the organicallygenerated variety. He found himself praying that now that it was his turn and he was on the receiving end the converse effect would not be equally painful.

IT proved not to be, though there were times when Ellwood felt he would go mad from the exquisite ecstasies that sometimes rose to intensities amounting almost to agony. For the Ursan discarded all dots and dashes and went straight to the source of thought. By means of its own uncanny mechanism it managed to tune in on the neural currents of the brain itself.

It was a dreamlike experience, verging occasionally on the nightmarish. Ellwood had a hard time later conveying some stretches of it to the Grand Council. Indeed, he had a hard time even remembering part of what he experienced, so utterly alien to human conception were many of the bizarre scenes he saw and activities witnessed.

First he had the giddy feeling one has when succumbing to a general anesthetic. It was as if his soul was being torn from his body and forced to float in space. There was never a time when he could be sure that he saw what he saw, or heard what he heard, or felt what he felt. Sensed? Divined? Perceived intuitively? Some such verb seemed more appropriate. But shortly Ellwood quit caring. He was in another world, a world so weird, so fantastic, so amazing in its extremes and distortions of ordinarily accepted laws of nature that he knew that up to then human science had no more than scratched the surface of general knowledge. He saw how chemistry, physics, all the sciences underwent profound modifications under the terrific pressures and temperatures he encountered on certain far off planets. Everything was— well, was different.

What the Ursan was giving him was a general orientation course. Ellwood was shown scores of planets compared with which Jupiter would be but small fry. He saw races of other monstrous creatures that were as different from the Ursan before him as the Ursan was from him, yet they lived in the same environment. It was analogous to the mutual enjoyment of the earth by such diverse creatures as eagles, elephants, snakes, man, fish and streptococci. Each had its own needs and duties, though each impinged at some points on the others. There was co-operation among them, and also strife. And what strife! Ellwood grew faint when he saw the fighting modes of some species of monsters.

But there was civilization, comprising manufacturing and commerce, and attended and regulated by a sort of ethic. There were governmental organizations, and what must have been religious bodies. It was the industrial setup with its mighty factories that interested Ellwood most. He saw that on those planets certain substances quite rare with us were commonplace, and also the contrary. Gold was abundant enough to be used for roofing, whereas ordinary salt was extremely rare. The greatest dearth lay in the scarcity of radium, a vital commodity since it was to the Ursan what the more important vitamins are to us. It was on account of radium hunger that they had been so insistent on mining the Red Spot on Jupiter, despite our inhospitable reception of their ships.

Imperceptibly Ellwood was brought back from the realm of the distant planets, and was kept for awhile in what can only be termed an abstract state. There were no pictures or sound in that. Only a flow of ideas. The Ursan was pouring the Ursan philosophy of inter-creature relationship into his consciousness. It was not at all a bad philosophy. It was co-operative. It recognized the rights of others to live in their own queer ways, and where they conflicted there existed an elaborate code by which they could be compromised.

At length the Ursan reached his finish. Ellwood was back in his own personality, dazed and tired, but immensely satisfied. He knew, without knowing how he felt, that henceforth intercourse between him and this monster would be easy. It would not be in dots and dashes or words in any form. It would not be simple telepathy, which after all is but the mysterious conveyances of thinkable pictures. It transcended that. It was super-telepathy, made possible by the amazing electro-magneto-neuro current command available to those with the Ursan metabolism. Somehow the raw, basic idea came over all at once. It was amorphous, instantaneous, and beyond logical analysis. But one communicated.

Ellwood knew his task was successfully completed. The wordless message given him boiled down to this:

"We, the rulers of the Armadian planets about the great sun Gol midway between you and Polaris, have looked your system over and find there is a basis for us to work for mutual advantage. We saw that you were in useful occupation of certain small planets utterly unsuitable for us. We meant to leave you alone, and have left you alone. We also found that you have two other planets, one rich and the other less so, sufficiently large to support our colonies. They are useless to you, and must always be, since your personal structure is so puny and your science elementary. We, therefore, claimed them for ourselves, resisting your ignorant and vicious attacks only in so far as we were compelled to.

"Since I find now that you are ruled by fear, and actuated at times by greed and envy, we know that you will never be satisfied with simply ceding to us what is of no value to you. You want recompense. Very well, at great risk and no small inconvenience, I have come as an emissary. In our part of the galaxy there are many small planets that would be paradisical to you, and on most of them the life forms are even more primitive than your own. If you will grant us unmolested access to Jupiter and Saturn, we will lead you to these trivial minor planets amongst us and grant you equal privileges in return. I am the envoy of Armadia. I offer you a treaty."

"I will convey your message to our ruling body," said Ellwood.

"BUT it is unthinkable," exclaimed Dilling, chairman of the Council. "Why, think of the risks. How do we know these... these monsters have any honor? If we allow them to build up immense bases, strip our system of its radium, and nose about at will, it will be but a question of time until they exterminate us. Moreover, it is an ultimatum. We cannot entertain an ultimatum from... from... from—"

He sputtered off into angry silence, still groping for a word beastly enough to describe the Ursan creatures as he saw them. Ellwood regarded him with quiet contempt.

"It is not an ultimatum," he said, coldly. "Alternatives were never mentioned, though there has not been a time in the past half century when the Ursans could not have seared our inner planets from pole to pole whenever they chose. I have seen their engines of destruction and they are unimaginably terrible. They are asking only that we stop beating our brains out and sacrificing our ships in futile nibbling at their radium convoys. We have had half a million fatal casualties to their three. The inmates of the ships we warmed up were only momentarily stunned. The three they lost they lost in offering this friendly gesture."

"Bah," snorted Dilling. "What is friendly about proposing to rob us of untold tons of pure radium when we put such high value on the few pounds we own?"

"The radium in question," said Ellwood, "might as well not exist as far as we are concerned. Our ships have neither the structural strength or the power to negotiate the gravity field of Jupiter, nor our men the stamina to work the mines if they could go there. You are playing dog in the manger. Yet knowing that, and our weakness, they have made an offer. They will cede us planets as valuable to us as the radium sought is to them. They do it from their sense of fair play. You will accept the treaty because you have no other choice. They will take the radium in any event and keep on slapping down any cruisers of ours that try to interfere. They offer peace instead, and commerce. Think, you other gentlemen, of what that promises. Inter-systemic commerce, not only astronomically speaking, but between systems of life that are on radically different chemical and physical levels. Trade between the tropics and the cold countries was profitable. Trade between Venus and us and Mars is profitable. Here you are offered a prospect that staggers the imagination."

Ellwood chopped off his speech and sat down. He had said what was to be said. The rest was up to the Council.

The discussion that followed was heated and lengthy, but in the end common sense won. When he left the chamber it was with authorization to negotiate.

ELLWOOD approached the Ursan ship for his final interview with the alien ambassador. Shortly he would inherit the interesting wreck for whatever study he wanted to make of it. For the Ursan had broadcast to a waiting horde far out in space that terms had been arrived at.

Shortly another Ursan ship would appear, this time with safe conduct, and take his envoy home. Meantime there were the ultimate formalities to be observed.

Ellwood carried with him the English text of the treaty. Both the Terrestrian and the Ursan copies were engraved in basic, systemic English on thick sheets of pure beryllium, a metal totally unknown on the heavy planets. He was to sign with the monster and leave him one set. In his turn the monster was to hand over a copy of the Golic version.

When Ellwood's chair rolled out onto the floor of the control room, the Ursan did what it had never done before. It moved. Inching along on its line of monopods caterpillar fashion, it slowly crossed and met Ellwood midway. Long dormant tentacles slithered out of their sockets and went to work. Two that terminated in the semblance of hands took the beryllium sheets from Ellwood, shuffled them rapidly, and returned them to him. They then reached into a locker overhead and produced a half dozen golden metallic balls. Another tentacle snaked toward a shelf and brought forward an instrument. Ellwood knew, as if by instinct, what he had to do.

The Golic text of the treaty turned out to be the oddest document in the libraries of man. It contained not words, but pure thought— thought impressed on the surface of the strange metallic spheres in the form of regenerative neuronic charges. To comprehend their meaning any intelligent human had only to run them through the instrument provided with them. It was a scanner, and as the balls rolled through, the hidden message on their surfaces suddenly and mysteriously became clear to anyone nearby.

Ellwood scanned the Golic text. It was a marvel of clarity of expression. The stipulations contained were the whole thought, without a jot of qualification or reservation. One knew what was meant. There was no room for quibbling, even if a galaxy of lawyers undertook the task. There were no shades of meaning, or misplaced commas. There were no ifs and buts and and/ors, or whereases or parties of this part and that part as cluttered up the Solar version, The Golic text said what the Solar did, but perfectly.

Ellwood signed it by merely giving his mental assent, which by some miracle of alien science became at once a part of the document. Then he put his own signature to the tin sheets, using a stylus. The Ursan signed in similar manner, but employing a special tentacle that terminated in the suitable tool. What he put down for his name was an unintelligible symbol, but it did not matter. The Solar version would always be subordinate to the Golic. It was an anachronism, a sop to legalistic tradition, a thing to be filed in archive vaults and forgotten. If ever there should arise a question, the thought spheres would provide the answer.

After the exchange of documents there was a moment of stillness. The two utterly different organisms— the Earthman and the Ursan— were as motionless as if hewn from stone. They were lost in intimate psychic rapport. There was gratitude and friendliness in it, and mutual congratulations. Each recognized that the other had done a superlative job, and each understood the purity of the other's motive. Then the mood abruptly faded, as if a connection bad been snapped. Ellwood felt completely at a loss as to how he should terminate the interview.

At that instant the Ursan did an astonishing thing. A handed tentacle crept over to Ellwood's chair and rested lightly for a moment on the padded arm. Then it slid forward past the bulbous hinge, of the wrist joint of Ellwood's armor and found his gloved hand. The handlike Ursan tentacle tip grasped Ellwood's hand and shook it solemnly, up and down. Then it dropped away, and retired to its sheath. It was good-by, and good luck.

OUT in the lock Ellwood waited for the pressure to fall, and the good, clean, cool terrestrial air to come in. There was a lump in his throat and his eyes were moist, and all of the moisture was not sweat.

"How did that Ursan know we shook hands on things?" he muttered. "I never told him. Not once."

____________________

14: The Anarch

Astounding Science Fiction, February 1944

IT was a death paper.

Medical inspector Garrison shifted uneasily in his chair and stared at it. It was all wrong. It was on pale-green paper for one thing, and it had been altered. Down near the bottom where there was a place for a date and a signature, the word "Discharged" had been xxx'd out and "Died" supplied.

"Look here, Arna," he said to his scribe, "this won't do. This... er... ah... Leona McWhisney was admitted only last week... neomalitis, the diagnosis says... treated with sulfazeoproponyl, and due for discharge tomorrow. Treater Shubrick has scratched out the discharged and put in 'died.' That's absurd. People just don't die of neomal."

"She did," replied Arna primly. "Here's the morgue- master's receipt."

Garrison took it and frowned. Not only did she give him the morgue slip, but the report of the autopsy as well. The McWhisney woman's dead arteries had been found to be crawling with neomal bugs— and nothing else. It was a hard fact to face, and he did not want to face it. He couldn't face it. It was Earth-shaking, outrageous, impossible. It could not be reconciled with anything he knew. It put him in an awful hole.

"But look," he insisted, "we can't use the green form. That's the one for case histories of non-fatal diseases, and the Code classifies—"

"I know," she snapped, "neomalitis is a Category N malady, a mild, easily controlled undulant fever. I looked it up. Article 849 of the Code says Category N must be reported on the green form. That is what I have done."

"That is not right," he growled, glaring at the offending sheet of paper. "If the woman died, it has to be reported on an authorized death certificate. Anyhow, we are not allowed to change any form. Not ever. It means a lot of demerits for both of us."

She sniffed. She knew that as well as he. She had been struggling with the problem for two hours, and her desk was littered with volumes of the bulky Medical Instructions— those bits of the Grand Code by which they lived and which prescribed their every act.

"All right," she said coldly. "You select the right form and I'll fill it out."

Medical Inspector Garrison started to make an appropriate reply, then thought better of it. He was in no ordinary dilemma, and was beginning to know it. It was more a being caught between two opposing sets of antlers bristling with scores of prickly points. The death, as far as that went, of the obscure Leona McWhisney meant nothing to a seasoned doctor. People were dying at Sanitar all the time. But they were dying in approved ways that could be reported on approved forms. Her departure from the normal played hob with the whole Autarchian set-up. Garrison groaned aloud, for he was, until that moment, a thoroughly indoctrinated, obedient, unthinking cog in the vast bureaucracy that was Autarchia. Not once in the thirty years of his life until then had the Code failed him. He had never doubted for an instant that that wonderful document was the omniscient, infallible, unquestionable guide to human behavior. It was unthinkable that he could doubt it now. And yet—

Yet Leona McWhisney was dead, and it was his duty to sign the death papers. By doing it he would certify that her case had been handled in accordance with the Code. There lay the rub. It had been, he was sure, for he knew the superb organization of Sanitar and especially the wards under his control, and it could not have been otherwise. There was no one who would have dreamed of departing from the sacred instructions by an iota. The problem lay, therefore, on his own desk— how to close the case and still keep out of the Monitorial Courts.

The dead woman's disease, as was every other, was curable, and must be recorded on the green. So decreed the Code. But she had died inexplicably despite the Code, and having died, she must be given a death certificate. But there were only three forms of those, for there were only three possible ways for an Autarchian to die. The most common— reportable on the gray form— was by euthanasia after recommendation of a board of gerocomists, and approved by the Bureau of Population Control. Elderly citizens beyond further salvage, or those in excess of the Master Plan were disposed of in this fashion. Then there was the yellow form that was employed when violent accidents occurred. Even the all- wise framers of the Code had not known how to re-capitate or re- embowel a citizen thus torn apart. Last of all there was provided the scarlet form for the use of the executioner at Penal House after the monitors had finished dealing with dissenters. That one was on the road to obsolescence, for in recent generations there had been few who refused to abide by the Code, or scoffed at it. The trait of rebelliousness had been pretty well bred out of the race.

Still there must have been some taint of it left, for even Garrison could not bring himself to accept meekly his predicament. If people could die of neomalitis, he thought, the Code should have foreseen it and provided for its proper reporting. Apparently, they could, and apparently it had not. There was something smelly somewhere.

"When you make up your mind about that," broke in Arna, sweetly, "here are a couple of other questions they want rulings on. The treater on Ward 44-B says that he has twelve patients with neomal that should have been up and out today. The prognosis says so. He wants to know if he keeps on shooting sulfazeoproponyl. He has given all the therapeuticon prescribed."

"No, of course not. Better run 'em through the Diagnostat again and take a fresh start."

He watched unhappily as she made a note of it. It was an unsatisfactory answer and he knew it. There was no more authority for rediagnosing a case than for prolonging treatments after it was supposed to be cured. But it seemed to him that as long as they continued to be sick something should be done.

"And the admission desk wants to know," she went on, "what about quotas? According to vital statistics Sanitar is supposed to get only three hundred cases of neomal a quarter. We've admitted that many in the last ten days. Shall they keep on taking 'em in, or turn 'em away?"

"Oh, we can't turn 'em away," said Garrison weakly. He was right, too. The Code specifically forbade it. But the Code had also set the admission rate for Sanitar, based on the known incidence of various diseases, and it could not be much exceeded for the excellent reason that the hospital's capacity and personnel were fixed by the Master Plan.

"Yes, sir," said the exasperating scribe, and jotted down his answer.

He glanced worriedly at the McWhisney papers on his desk. He could not sign them as they were. He had to make sure.

"I'm going to make an inspection," he announced, and stalked out of the room.

MEDICAL Inspector Garrison was what the Autarchian Code had made him. It was no fault of his that he had been born into a perfect, well-ordered world where every detail was planned and there was no room for independent thought or initiative. He was the natural result of his training. His very first memories had to do with the Code, and from then on he had never encountered anything else. At the age of five the Psychometrists had come and taken him from his crèche and tested him with glittering instruments that gave off dazzling multicolored lights. That was when his first psychogram was made and his Cerebral Index established. That was what set him on the road to doctorhood, and made him an interne in a Sanitar at the age of fifteen. By that time he had mastered the Junior Social Code and most of the Medical, and along with it he learned those portions of the Penal Code that applied, plus such other fragments as would be of use. No man alive, with the possible exception of the Autarch himself, could know the whole of the Grand Code, for it covered the entire field of human knowledge. Garrison only knew that whatever there was to be done, the manner of doing it was to be found in some part of the Code. And he also knew that there was no otherway of doing it. That is, unless he wanted to invite the attentions of the monitors. And it was common knowledge that no one who went to Penal House was ever seen again. The Autarchs did not encourage nonconformity.

It was with this background and the puzzling conflicts of the morning uppermost in his mind that he strode along Sanitar's endless corridors. Hitherto the Code had never failed him. Now he was lost in a maze of contradictory instructions, not one of which he dared question or refuse to abide by. Heretical ideas kept flitting through his troubled brain. Long dormant traits began to stir and come to life within him. Curiosity was one. Somehow it had survived in his heritage of genes. He wanted to know— wanted desperately to know— why Leona McWhisney had died, when the book said she couldn't? What was happening in neomalitis? Why was it fast becoming more prevalent? What was making it more virulent? Why didn't the sulfa drug still cure it as it had always done before?

He arrived at the admission desk and looked about him. Everything was exactly as it should be. There the applicants were being logged and turned over to the attendants to be stripped and scrubbed prior to their full examination. Their dossiers were being sent for.

He picked up one at random and examined it. It was a magnificent document, many inches thick. In it was the record of its owner's medical history from birth, complete with the X-rays and body chemistry findings taken at every successive annual examination. There were curves of growth and change, and accounts of incidental illnesses. Everything the most exacting doctor could want was there.

Garrison laid it aside and went on. He passed by the various examining rooms and laboratories with little more than a glance in. All were carrying out their functions perfectly. In one place blood and spinal fluid were being analyzed in another, men sat in rows having their electro-cardiograms recorded. A group of psychomeds were probing neural currents to find out a patient's attitude toward his own condition, and elsewhere the newcomers lay on cots having their current basal metabolism established. In the biological lab observers were scrutinizing bacteria cultures and dissecting tissue. Everywhere there were checkers, going over the other fellow's work.

The young inspector knew there could be no slip-up in the collection of basic data. A quick turn through a couple of wards revealed things going well there also, so far as the medication was concerned. He even consulted with the chief pharmaceutical inspector to make sure the drugs used were up to standard. Perfection reigned in exact accordance with the Code. The only jarring note was that the wards were becoming crowded. There were ever more sick, and the sick ones were not recovering as they should. In 45-B Garrison was stunned to learn that two more neomals had just died, and that several others were about to. It took the McWhisney affair out of the freak class. It denoted a trend. It also ended the hope of overlooking that first case.

There could be but one other factor. The data were correct, and the treatment given as prescribed. The only other room for error was in the diagnosis, so Garrison went to the elevator bank in the great central tower. No one had ever questioned a Diagnostat before, but he meant to now. He punched the button for the express car to the sub-basement.

THE ONLY word to apply to the cavern where the ponderous machines purred and ticked was— vast. The great monsters stood in long rows— the Sorensons down one side of the room, and the Klingmasters the other. Those massive calculators were the only examples in all Autarchia where two distinct models of machines were doing the work of one. In every other case the framers of the Code had selected the best type and discarded all the others. But the Sorenson and Klingmaster Diagnostats arrived at their findings through radically different channels. Since they were equally efficient both were kept, to be used in opposing pairs, one to check the other.

Garrison offered the foreman of the room the dossier of Leona McWhisney.

"Hm-m-m," mused the foreman, glancing at the record. "This has already been through— done on Sorenson 39, cross-checked by Kling 55. Neomalitis, Type III, sub-type C. What's wrong?"

"She's dead," said Garrison.

The foreman shrugged.

"All we do here is diagnose 'em. If they kick the bucket, it's somebody else's fault. You'd better check up on your treaters, or on the dope they use."

"I have. It must be the diagnosis. It can't be anything else."

"Oh, can't it?" countered the Diagnostat foreman. "Did you know they lost ten pneumonia cases over in Bronchial wing last week? Did you hear about the guy up in Psychopathic? A mild neurosis was all we had on the fellow here. Well, he ran amok last night— cut the throats of four fellow patients and then jumped out the window. There is something screwy going on, all right, but it's not down here."

"I want a recheck on this," insisted Garrison.

"But she's dead," objected the foreman. Then he saw the glitter in Garrison's eye. "O.K.," he mumbled, and reached for the book.

Garrison looked on in silence while the monster did its work. The data was fed in by various means through various orifices. Queerly-punched cards bore part of the information— such items as could be expressed by figures, as weight, pulse, blood-pressure, respiration, and so on. The curves of the cardio- and encephalograms were grabbed by tiny steel fingers and drawn into the maw of the machine. It clucked loudly as the X-ray plates were slid into a slot. The amplitude and frequency of the undulant fever readings were given it. When all was in the foreman closed one switch and opened another.

"This is a different Sorenson, and hooked up with a different Kling," he said. "Both were overhauled last night, but I'll bet you get the same answer as you got before."

"That's what I want to know," said the inspector.

The machine purred and groaned. Then it set up a clicking and stopped momentarily. Up to that point it had ignored the symptoms, Garrison knew, and was engaged in breaking down and analyzing the basic factors. Now it reintegrated them and was ready for its first pronouncement. A window lit up with glowing letters:

Constitution fair.

Physical Resistance Factor: 88.803.

Psychic Factor: 61.005.

Composite Factor: 72.666.

The light died, and a confirmatory card dropped out. The purring was resumed. Garrison considered the figures. They were about right. The woman had been of excellent general physique, though a trifle depressed in spirits. She should have thrown off any disease with reasonable ease.

Now a red light was burning, indicating the Diagnostat was taking into account the developments due to infection. After a bit a gong sounded, and the machine growled to a full stop. Another card dropped out:

Neomalitis, Type III, sub-type C.

Garrison looked at it, then walked across the hall to the Klingmaster. It was slower to reach its conclusion, but when it did it was identical.

"All right." said the foreman, "that's that. Now let's do the rest."

He poked one of the cards into a smaller machine— a therapeuticon, with prognosticon attachment. It took the contraption less than a minute to cough out the answer:

Indication: 6 g. sulfazeopronyl every four hours for eight days. Tepid baths daily; abundant rest.

Prognosis: Discharge in nine days, ten hours.

Garrison looked crestfallen. He thought he had an out. Now he was where he started. He shook his head dismally.

"She's dead," he said, "and it's only a week."

"An autopsy ought to settle it for you," suggested the foreman.

"It has," said the miserable inspector. "It said neomalitis."

And he walked away, leaving an indignant Diagnostat man glaring after him.

GARRISON signed the pale-green paper reluctantly. There seemed to be nothing else to do. Then he glanced at the chronodial and saw that it was nearly seventeen, time for the day-watch to go off duty. At that moment there was a shrill warning buzz and the omnivox lit up. A fanfare of trumpets warned that something big and unusual was about to come through. He got to his feet and stood at attention. A uniformed figure appeared on the screen.

"By order of his supremacy, the Autarch," he proclaimed in a deep, sonorous voice. "Effective immediately, those provisions of the Social and Penal Code requiring attendance during Renovation Hour at Social Halls are suspended for officials of C.I. one- thirty or better. Such officers may attend or not, as they choose—"

Garrison blinked. He had never heard the word "choose" before and had but the faintest idea of what it might mean. More obscure ones were to follow.

"If they so elect, they may stay within their own quarters or visit other officers of similar rank as theirs. Restrictions as to topics of conversation are lifted during this period. Officers will not be required to discuss assigned cultural subjects, but may talk freely on any topic they prefer. Monitors will make note of this alteration in the Codes.

"The order has been published. Carry on."

THE LIGHT failed, and with it the figure on the screen. Garrison continued to stand for about a minute, entirely at sea as to what the communication he had just heard meant. Such words as "elect," "choose," and "prefer" had long since become obsolete, if not actually forbidden. The concept of choice was wholly absent under the autocracy. It never occurred to one that there could be such a thing— it was inconsistent with orderly life. One simply obeyed the Code, which always said "you shall." To think of anything different was rank heresy and treason, and subject to the severest penalties. Garrison puzzled over the order a moment and gave it up. No doubt there would be further clarification later. Perhaps the Propag lecturer of the evening would have a word to say about it. The order would be carried out of course, but to Garrison's well-disciplined mind it had the bad fault of ambiguity.

The ringing of the corridor gongs snapped his attention away from it. It was time to assemble for supper. He closed his desk, slipped on his tunic, and stepped out into the hall. There he faced to the left as the others were doing, and waited for the whistles of the monitors.

The signal was sounded, and the tramp of feet began. Garrison stepped along as he always had done, but with the difference that on this afternoon there was turmoil in his mind. Having to sign that altered document had done something to him. It hurt, and hurt deep. It is difficult for anyone not imbued with bureaucratic tradition to comprehend the poignancy of his anguish. He had been forced by the rules themselves to break a rule. For the first time in his existence he was compelled to question the all-wisdom of the Code. The Code had declared neomal curable; he had seen the exception. And while he was still quivering with mortification at that discovery, the pronouncement of the Autarch had come. He did not know what it meant precisely, but it signified one more thing clearly. The Autarch had seen fit to modify a Code. The implication was inescapable. The Codes were not infallible. If one provision could be altered, so could all the rest. It was food for anxious thought.

The marching men came to a downward ramp and took it. On the level below Garrison had to mark time while the officers of that floor cleared the ramp below. He took the occasion to look them over critically— something he had never thought of doing before. Like himself not a few of them but also had had inexplicable deaths in their jurisdictions, and every one of them had heard the message just received from the Autarch. But not one of them showed the flush of suppressed excitement that he was awkwardly aware warmed his own cheeks. If there was any who shared his newborn doubts, none exhibited it.

They marched like so many automatons. Nowhere was there a sign of perplexity or frustration. Instead, he now observed that all were sunk in the same dull apathy that he had noticed in the incoming patients. It was not the apathy of weariness or despair, but a sodden, negative something— sheer indifference. They did not care. There was no motive to care. Their personalities were not involved, if a citizen of Autarchia could be said to have such a thing as a personality. They were required to put in so much time, and to obey certain inflexible rules. So long as they did that they had no responsibility as to the outcome. Now they had done their stint and were on their way to replenish the energies they had expended by the ingestion of necessary food. The evening to follow would be but an extension of the day— planned, orderly, meaningless.

At times the worm turns in a curious way. In that split second the spirit of some long dead ancestor stirred within Garrison and woke him up. The breath-taking realization came to him that he was an individual— he, Philip Garrison.

Medical Inspector of the B wards of Sanitar. He was different somehow from those others. They were clods, puppets. What did it matter what their Cerebral Indexes were, so long as they could read and punch the proper buttons? Anyone above the moronic level could do the same. No thought or judgment was demanded to conform to the Code. Small wonder they swung along like men stupefied.

Garrison could not avoid a slight shudder. The trend of his thoughts were highly treasonable. Then he reminded himself that the monitors possessed only hidden mikes and scanners; they were not telepathic. They could not read the heretical notions striving to make themselves dominant in his brain. He calmed himself, and tried to change his line of thought, for he knew that madness lay that way. He endeavored to recall what a Propag had said at a recent lecture about the "dangers inherent in independent thought" and the hideous predictions of how disruptive such ungoverned activity could be.

The arrival at the dining hall put a temporary end to that. He handed his ration card to the Dietitian of the Watch. She glanced at it, scribbled the prescription, and dropped it into the messenger tube. That was all that was required. He marched on with the living robots about him. Shortly he would get food that would no doubt be good for him— sustaining, and containing what he needed, neither more nor less. It would have the calories required, and the vitamins, and the minerals. It might be tasteless, it might be unpalatable, it was almost sure to be mostly synthetic. But it was what his metabolometer called for, and with that there was no arguing.

Garrison ate in sullen silence. So did the others, but with a difference. Theirs was the stolid silence of oxen at a trough. Even the director and the ranking members of his staff on their raised dais ate in the same manner. It was a thing they had to do— it was part of the routine, joyless but necessary. Now Garrison was beginning to understand why people were falling ill with such ease, and being ill, failed to rally. Life was empty. They did not care, nor did their physicians care. It was that spirit of don't-give-a-care that was pushing Autarchia to the brink of ruin. "I'm going to do something about this," muttered Garrison to himself, "and I'll start by finding out why neomal kills."

He went out with the crowd when the "dismiss" signal was given. He took the elevator to the tower where the gyrocar was waiting. Then he sat in the seat his position rated— one by a window, and hung on as the car teetered drunkenly as it cleared the slip. After that it straightened up and went whizzing along its elevated monorail, careening around curves on its nightly trip to Dorm.

The sun was on the point of setting, but everywhere there was full light. It was rolling country, covered with fields, and the horizon was broken only by the occasional bulk of a plant where alcohol or plastics were made from the products of the soil. The intervening fields were planted in corn and tomatoes, bulk crops that could be grown more profitably outdoors than in the hydropones. An army of low C.I. laborers was still at work, spraying the lush weeds under the watchful supervision of the agronomists who sat perched on lofty chairs set up among the tasseled rows.

Now that Garrison's eyes were opened, he saw what he had looked at daily but had never comprehended before. It was that the laborers' work was futile. The cornfields and the acres of tomatoes were like his wards in Sanitar. Uncontrollable and malignant weeds and blights had moved in and were taking them. As the car rushed over a hilltop where the ground rose up almost to it, he could see the details better. Where once the fruit hung bright and red and round, it was now sparse, discolored and misshapen. Plump ears of corn were replaced by scrawny spindles riddled with wormholes. Garrison could glimpse them now and then despite the weeds which in many places towered even above the tall corn.

The sight added to his glumness. It had not always been that way. Only a few years before the fields had been clean and sparkling— good reddish soil topped with orderly rows of the desired crop plants and nothing else. Insecticide sprays and selected chemical soil treatment used to work. Lately they did not seem to. Why? They had successfully done so for two hundred years. What was bringing about the change? Was the Agricultural Code inadequate, too?

The car swerved and swept across the highway. A pile of grim gray buildings flashed by. That was one of the many structures known as Penal Houses. To Garrison's new awareness it took on a change of significance. It was another symptom of what was wrong with Autarchia. Designed to hold ten thousand unhappy rebels awaiting execution, today it stood empty. Seven generations of systematic extermination of dissenters had done its work. The breed was now extinct. No one thought of, let alone dared, dissent these days. The very concept of nonconformity was extinct. Garrison knew of it only because of the warnings of the Propags and the presence of the watchful monitors. Yet the prisons still stood. They were useless anachronisms now, complete with large garrisons of monitors waiting boredly for more grist for their mills. But they could not be abolished because they, too, were part of the Master Plan. What was must always be.

Garrison turned away from the prison in disgust. It would be better, he thought, if the idle monitors were put to work in the fields tearing out the weeds by hand. Then they would be at something productive.

The car swirled on. Suddenly, but briefly, the panorama underwent a change. For about a mile there stretched a field that was uncontaminated like the rest. It looked as all of them used to look. Then the car left it and was over another planted with the same crop, but as weed-choked as the earlier ones. The contrast of the one well-kept field with the others was startling.

Garrison craned his neck to look back. As he did he became aware that the officer sitting behind him was watching the act intently. He was an old man and wore the distinguishing marks of a high ranking psychomed. It was that that made Garrison uneasy, for many of the senior psychomeds seemed to possess the uncanny knack of reading people's minds.

In the state of agitation he was in he preferred not to be under one's scrutiny.

"Rather different, eh?" queried the older man, with a quizzical smile. "Why, I wonder?"

"Different soil, probably," ventured Garrison, feeling some answer was expected.

"Hardly," remarked the psychiatrist. "They took such differences into account when they drew up the Master Plan. All these fields are assigned to the same tillage."

"I'm only a medic," hedged Garrison, "I wouldn't know."

"For the very reason that we are medics," pursued the other, "it might pay us to know. Below us are fields that have been successfully farmed for centuries. Now the pests refuse to be kept at bay. They are conquering except in that one field that seems to interest you. It would indicate, I think, that one Agronomist knows something the others do not. That fact is worthy of our consideration."

"Why?" asked Garrison stupidly. He knew it was stupid, but the conversation was taking a perilous turn. This psychomed was probing dangerously near to his heretical inner thoughts. Garrison wanted to mask them.

"The analogy between vegetable blight and human disease ought to be apparent to anyone," shrugged the elder doctor. "We study both and find remedies. Then, in the course of time, one or the other or both get out of control. Haven't you found it so?"

"A woman died in one of my wards last night," hesitated Garrison, "if that is what you mean. She should not have, so far as I can see. But we did our duty under the Code—"

The psychomed glanced cautiously about. The other passengers dozed sluggishly in their seats. The noise of the car precluded eavesdropping.

"Our duty is to save lives, my friend," he said in a low tone. "In that the truly excellent Code is our best guide. But there is coming a time, and soon, when it must be changed—"

"Yes, yes, perhaps," said Garrison, flurried, half frozen with alarm. Those were fearful words, and a lifetime of listening to Propags had set his reflexes. It was not a light matter to change their patterns. "If such a time should come, no doubt the Autarch will give consideration to it."

"The Autarch is neither doctor nor agronomist nor any one of the hundreds of other kinds of specialists it takes to operate a world like ours. He may sense impending peril, but how will he know how—"

"Sir," said Garrison stiffly, scared through and through, "your words border on treason. I refuse to listen. Have a care, or you will find yourself in trouble."

The old man gave a contemptuous snort.

"Trouble? Listen, boy. I am inspector-general for all the Sanitars in this hemisphere. You know of several unaccountable deaths; I know of thousands. You have seen a handful of stricken fields; I have seen abandoned wastes stretching hundreds of miles. It adds up to one dire result— pestilence and famine. Not yet, but soon. If you think the monitors are to be feared, think on that pair of scourges."

Garrison kept silent. He was afraid still in spite of himself, but he wanted to hear more.

"As for myself, nothing matters," continued the psychomed. "I chose to speak to you because you turned back for a second look at the one well managed field. It showed me that regimentation had not made a clod of you altogether. There are not many of us like that, so I broke the ice. Tomorrow I appear before a Disposal Board. The gerocomists say my heart is beyond aiding and my course is run." He grinned. "And having a bad heart I am immune from torture. Euthanasia or standard execution— it's all one to me."

"I'm sorry, sir," said Garrison.

The gyrocar was slowing for the approach to Dorm.

"You needn't be," growled the old doctor, taking in the other occupants of the car in an all-inclusive sweep of the arm. "Be sorry for those dumb inert creatures. And by the way, if you care to pursue the subject further, the name of the agronomist in charge of the field you liked is Clevering."

THE CAR REELED to a stop. Garrison scrambled to his feet and crossed the spidery bridge that gave access to the high tower of Dorm.

Beneath were the huge public rooms, the baths and gymnasiums and the libraries of the Code. Down there were kept the individuals' records, and also where the vast social hall was. The rooms and dormitories were in the starlike wings.

GARRISON took the elevator to his floor, and walked along the corridor of his section. The door of the cubicle he called home was open, as all doors had to be when the room occupant was absent. He went in and lay down on the narrow bunk for the prescribed period of rest. From it he surveyed his habitation with some curiosity, never having thought to do so before.

There were the plain plastic walls, dimly luminous, and the Spartan cot he lay on. There was a chair on which he hung his clothes at night. During the night an attendant would come and replace them with others. He had no need for any but the authorized costume of the day, and it was always provided. There was a small washbowl with a shelf and mirror above it, beside which was posted his individual hygiene instructions— the hours of rising and going to bed, the hour and nature of the bath he was to take, and such details. On a small table lay a copy of the Social Code. That completed the furnishings.

Ordinary Garrison spent the rest period relaxed and with a blank mind. Today he could not. He kept turning over in his mind the problems that seemed to be growing more complex hourly. There was the death of Leona McWhisney, the enigmatic edict of the Autarch, the provocative remarks of the psychiatric inspector, and the mystery of the one uncontaminated farm. Now he had to decide also what he was going to do about the Social Hour. The daily event was always boring, as was most of the well-ordered life he led, but it was a way to while away the time until the hour set for sleeping. He wondered how one went about visiting another in his room, and if he did visit, what they would talk about. And that caused him to open an eye and wonder where was the scanner-mike that kept watch on his room, and whether it was alive all the time, or only now and then.

Habit is strong. He was already sitting up on the edge of the bunk when the stand-by buzzers sounded. That meant five minutes until Social Hour began. He was already tired of his cell and wanting to move. He heard doors outside being opened and the shuffle of feet. The others were on their way. He hesitated, then got up and went out, too. There was not a closed door in the hall. The man opposite him had just come out— a master electrician in charge of the X-ray machines.

"You are going as usual?" asked Garrison.

"Where else is there to go?" answered the fellow.

"We could stay here and talk," suggested Garrison.

"About what?" he asked curtly, and turned down the hall.

The harried glance he gave the walls and ceilings as he did was the clue to his behavior. Garrison instantly read it aright. The Autarch's edict of the afternoon stated that certain regulations were "suspended." There was nothing in the way of assurance that the free conversations allowed would not be listened to and recorded by the monitors. Garrison frowned. Could the Autarch's seeming generosity be a ruse to entrap the unwary? Small wonder the fellow had ducked. For his part Garrison realized he had just had a narrow escape. He meant fully to discuss the McWhisney death and other things with anyone who would listen.

Garrison went on to the Social Hall. The evening proved to be, if possible, duller than usual. Garrison found the other officials ranged in chairs before the lecture platform waiting stolidly for the Propag to begin. None had so much as delayed his coming. Garrison sat down at his customary place. The Propag was coming on the stage.

"It has come to my ears," he began in the sing-song voice affected by the members of his profession, "that a few of you are troubled. In hours of weakness it is human to falter, and there may be some so debased as even to doubt our wonderful Code in the dark moments. That is evil. The Code is all-wise. Believe in it, follow it, and trouble not. All will be well. Let us, my friends, go back and remember our first lessons.

"In the beginning there was chaos. All the world was divided into many nations, speaking different languages, having different customs, and struggling one with another—"

Garrison did not have to listen. The famous "Basic Lecture" had been dinned into his ears at yearly intervals all his life. Once it meant something, now it was an empty piece of ritual. Men sat through it unhearing, for they knew its words by heart.

It told of the Bloody Century— the Twentieth— and of its devastating wars. Those were the bitter conflicts between Imperialists and Republicans, Totalitarianism and Democracy, and the varicolored races. Then would come the story of the infant leagues and unions of nations, and the bickerings among them for top power. Afterwards there were fierce revolts in certain quarters. The world before The Beginning was a world of strife and murder and destruction. It was a horrid world.

"Yes, horrid!" the Propag would scream at that point. "An insane world. A world where there were many opinions about the simplest matters. Men differed, and because they differed they fought. It was under the sage Harlking the Great— the Autarch of the Fourth Coalition— that the Grand Code came into being. He perceived clearly that the world, though not perfect, was good enough if men were only content. So he convoked an assembly of the thousand wisest men of the age. These were the men we now call the trainers, for their task was to sift the world's store of wisdom and select the best for inclusion in the Code. It took forty years for them to complete their colossal work, but when it was done the Autarch pronounced it good. That was Gemmerer the Wise, for Harlking did not live to see his glorious idea come to fruition.

"Gemmerer promulgated the Grand Code, and in doing so forbade that it ever be altered. He foresaw that there would still be impatient men, or dreamers who might try vainly to better things. Man in primitive societies is hopelessly inventive. He is never content with things as are. This was an admirable trait in the formative days of civilization, but in a highly integrated world community is harbors the germ of warfare. The introduction of a new thing, is always a challenge to the old, and the partisans of the old invariably fight back. There must be no more war. Therefore there must be no new thing. Stand men, and repeat the creed of our fathers!"

Sheeplike the audience stood. The Propag led off, and the mumbled chorus of responses followed.

"The Code given us is good!"

"It must not be altered."

"It is the quintessence of the wisdom of the race!"

"It must not be questioned."

"It must be obeyed forevermore."

"Amen."

THE RUMBLING echoes of the whispered responses died, and the men dropped back into their seats. The Propag treated them with his professional glare for one solemn moment. Then he partially dropped the cloak of solemnity.

"Is there anyone present," he asked, still stern, "who... ah, prefers to talk about a topic other than the one we have been studying?"

Several men shifted uneasily in their seats, but no one answered.

"Very well," said the Propag, "we will break up into the usual groups. Group directors please take charge."

There was a rustling as the men found their way to the places where they were to be treated to cultural enlightenment. Garrison joined his proper group dejectedly. He cared less than ever for the plump, curly-haired young man who was his renovation director. That worthy looked his small flock over and saw that they were all present.

"Last night," he chirruped with a false heartiness that made Garrison want to smack him, "we were discussing the complementary effect of strong colors when placed in juxtaposition. Now, if we take a vivid orange, say, and put it alongside an intense green—"

Garrison heard it out, bored stiff. Real problems were stewing inside his head, and the froth he was compelled to listen to angered him. Otherwise it was simply dreary. But eventually it came to an end, and the Social Hour broke up. Garrison caught up with a departing agronomist, and asked him where he could find Clevering.

"Clevering? I think he's sick. He collapsed in the field today. As I was coming in I saw a Sanitar ambulance going in the gate.

"Thanks," said Garrison, and tramped down to his cubicle, and to bed.

NINE more neomals died in Ward 44-B that night, and in the morning there were no discharges. But waiting at the admission doors were hundreds of new cases— too many to be accommodated under the quota. Garrison noted with a wry sort of satisfaction that the admitting doctors were also struggling with an insoluble problem. There were others besides, as he found out when he reached his office. Treater Henderson was awaiting him there with a sheaf of new diagnoses.

"What am I supposed to do with these?" he asked, plaintively, shoving them into Garrison's hands. Garrison took the topmost card and stared at it.

Diagnosis: Neomalitis, Type $#!..etaoinshrdlu..sputsputsput.

Treatment: Sulfazeoproproproproppr-popopop..nyl!

Prognosis: ?????????

He scowled and grabbed up an intercommunicator. In a moment he had the foreman of the Diagnostat room on the wire.

"Have your machines gone crazy?" he snapped. "They stutter. They give us gibberish."

"Can't help it," came back the answering voice. "We tried machine after machine. They all do it. And our tests conclusively show—"

Garrison flipped off the connection. He was up a blind alley there and knew it. He turned to the treater.

"Keep on giving 'em the standard sulfa treatment."

After the treater left Garrison sat down weakly and wiped the sweat from his brow. So far he was within the Code, for sulfa drugs were indicated for all cases of neomal, regardless of type. But intuition told him that hereafter it would do no good. The stark truth was that the neomal bug had bred itself into a new type— a strain far hardier than the old, and more malignant. What he had to contend with was a bacillus that was practically immune to sulfazeoproponyl. It was, therefore, causing an utterly new disease, one not contemplated by the august framers. And, unless something was done quickly, a decimating plague would shortly be sweeping the world.

But what? The Code prescribed only the sulfa drug in such and such quantities, and the penalties incurred for administering any other were cruel. Garrison stared miserably at the stack of diagnosis slips. For once he felt a sense of personal responsibility to those sufferers down in the wards. He felt like a murderer. Then his eye lit on a name atop a card. The name was, "Henry Clevering, Agronomist 1st Class."

He lost no time in getting down to the ward.

The wards of Sanitar were not wards in the old sense, but groupings of rooms, and Garrison found his man in the fourth one on the left. The moment he saw him he knew his hours were numbered, for the chart showed the oscillations of the fever hitting ever new highs with a shortening of the period between. Already the ever vigilant monitors had set up a portable mike beside the bed to record his ravings when a little later he would be in delirium. In earlier days such death-bed revelations had often given them valuable leads to subversive dissenters still living.

Garrison saw the fever eyes of the sick man following him about the room, but he went about what he had to do. He closed the door softly, and then stuck a wisp of cotton into the mike so as to damp its diaphragm for the time being. He sat down beside the patient and placed a cool hand on his forehead.

"The weeds have got me at last, I guess," said Clevering, smiling feebly, "weeds or blight. They're getting bad, you know."

"Yes, I know," said Garrison, "and that is why it is bad for Autarchia to lose a man who knows how to fight them."

"Autarchia?" whispered the other, "a lot Autarchia cares. If they knew what I know, they would have crucified me long ago. But you are not speaking for Autarchia, or you would not have shut off that spy's ear."

"By Autarchia I meant the human race," replied Garrison, soothingly. "I saw your farm last night. I really saw it, for I've been blind up to now. I want you to tell me how you kept your field clean. We have needs of a sort here too, you know."

Clevering smiled wanly.

"You want to know what I did, eh? Well, I forgot the Code when I saw it wasn't working any more. I tried this and that until I found something that did work. Organic things don't stay put. They grow and change and evolve. What stood off the blights when the Code was drawn isn't worth anything these days. I found that out years ago when it first got bad. I falsified my records so the inspectors wouldn't know. That is how I kept out of Penal House. Maybe I should have spoken out before, but who was there to hear? I do love a clean cornfield, though, and that's why I kept plugging. The books helped, too."

A spasm of shivering shook him as a fresh chill came on. Garrison gave a worried look at the chart. He had not arrived too soon. The next fever peak would probably be the last. Clevering was a dying man.

"What books?" asked Garrison sharply. "There are no books that I know of except the Code."

"The... the ones in the Autarch's secret library," managed Clevering through chattering teeth. "A few were stolen years ago by a dissenter who was a palace guard until the monitors found him out. They have been handed down through several generations to trusted fellow-believers. I am the last one. There are no others that I know of."

"I am one," said Garrison quietly. He was astonished at his own coolness when he said it, for twenty-four hours earlier he would have allowed wild horses to pull him apart rather than utter the blasphemous words. Now all that was changed.

"I am seeing people die who should not be dying," he explained. "I don't like it. The Code is—" here he almost choked on the words, such is strength of inhibiting doctrine, "the Code is— well, the Code is all wrong! It's got to be changed. It's got to be repealed!"

"I believe you," said Clevering, and pulled Garrison toward him so he could whisper, "the books are under a false flooring in a shed—"

Garrison listened attentively to the instructions, but before the patient quite finished, the fever got the better of him and he rambled off into incoherent nonsense. Garrison stayed on, for it was not all nonsense. There were lucid stretches in which Clevering lived his experiments again— the trying of this or another spray on the blights, and the application of various chemicals to learn which helped the corn and discouraged the weeds. At length the end came, and there was no more to do. Neomal had claimed another victim, this one appallingly swiftly. Garrison removed the plug of cotton and softly left the room.

GARRISON'S life for the next five weeks was a frenzied jumble of concealed activity. Taking infinite care to wear the mask of common apathy, and covering his movements with studied casualness, he steadfastly pursued two aims. One was the reading of the forbidden books, which he dug up during his first available free time. Thereafter he read them in his room, hiding them meanwhile in his mattress. The books were a strangely variegated lot. Some were on scientific subjects, others social or philosophic. There was history, too, and something about religion. The book he came to love most of all was a very slim one— a little volume on "Liberty" by a John Stuart Mill. His limited vocabulary troubled him much at first, but he shrewdly arrived at the meanings of such words as "choice" and "freedom" by considering the context. He discovered to his delight that there were shades between good and bad. There were the words "better" and "best" as well as the bare, unqualified "good."

While the books opened up vistas unimagined to his thinking, it was at Sanitar that he performed his most imperative work. He wanted to find out why neomalitis had suddenly turned killer, and how to foil it. On the pretense of checking the biologists, he pored over blood and lymph specimens of the ever arriving patients. He built up culture colonies, and then tried to destroy them with modifications of the sulfa drug. The results were negative, so he tried other compounds. Then he cultured viruses, and pitted one strain against another. And as the average Psychic Resistance Index kept dropping lower he pondered that feature. Apparently the Diagnostats were not calibrated for patients so consistently depressed and without desire to live, for shortly the uncanny machines balked at giving any prognosis whatever. All that would come out was a meaningless jumble of characters.

AT LAST the day came when he found a drug that killed the new strain of neomal bacilli in the laboratory. He was careful to restrain any expression of joy, though his impulse was to leap into the air and yell "Eureka!" Instead, he cautiously loaded a number of hypodermic needles and wandered into a ward.

He sent the attendants away on various errands, and set about the risky job he was compelled to do. He injected all the patients in the rooms on the left-hand side of the corridor. Then he went as soon as possible to his office and awaited results.

They were not long in coming. Within the hour an agitated treater rushed in.

"All hell has broken loose in 44-B," he reported. "It can't be neomalitis those patients have. They're in convulsions."

"I'll be right down," said Garrison. His bones had turned to water, but he had to see the thing through. He knew, from his belated reading, that one was supposed to experiment on guinea pigs and monkeys before injecting strong and untried medicines into human beings. But there were no longer any such animals. They had been decreed useless and were long extinct. Yet the patients were doomed anyhow— he felt justified in taking the chance. But he had not foreseen convulsions.

By the time he reached the ward the worst of the spasms had subsided. Some of his inoculated patients had succumbed in their agony. The remainder lay spent and gasping, with expressions of utmost horror on their faces. Garrison surveyed them stonily, but his heart was cold with anxiety.

"Very odd," he remarked, making notes. "I shall report it, of course."

He was too upset to do anything else that day, but that night he thought long and hard about it. The following morning he learned to his immense relief that only a few more of his illegally injected patients had died, whereas the half ward under Code treatment had lost its normal number— about eighty percent. During the tense day that followed, the survivors among his experimental subjects began to rally. By nightfall several had lost all symptoms. In a day or so, barring relapses, they could be discharged.

"I'm on the track," Garrison exulted. "Perhaps I used too strong a solution."

He attacked the problem with renewed fury. Day after day he tried dilutions and admixtures of other chemicals. There were unhappy results at times, but on the whole he was making splendid progress. At last there came a day when there were no deaths among the ones he treated by stealth. A grand glow of achievement warmed him, and when he returned to his office he could not help walking like one who had conquered the Earth. He had tried, fumbled, and then gone over the top. Now he understood the rewards that come to those who achieve by their own wit and handiwork.

But there was another kind of reward awaiting him. At the door of his office two grim monitors met him. They shut off his remonstrances with a blow across the face. Then he was hustled into an elevator and shot to the top of the tower where an angry director was pacing the floor. A smug inspector of pharmaceuticals was standing by with a packet of inventory sheets.

"Explain yourself, sirrah!" snorted the pompous, red-faced man who headed Sanitar. "What do you mean by forging chemical withdrawals? Sulfa drugs— pah! You have not used a gram of sulfazeoproponyl in ten days. Instead you—"

"Instead, I have been saving the lives of my patients," said Garrison quietly. "I gave them the Code stuff and they died, just as they are doing in the other wards. Therefore I knew that—"

"Silence!" roared the director, shutting him off. "Not a word more. Nothing... nothing, mind you... is as hideous as willful violation of the Code. What does it matter whether a thousand or more weaklings die? It is better so than to return to chaos. Monitors, do your duty!"

THE MONITORS did their duty. They did it precisely as the Penal Code said they must, exactly as it had been found necessary in the early days when there were many rebels, and those tough and fearless. They flung chains about his wrists and dragged him to the elevator, kicking and cuffing him at every step. They paraded him through the great lobby on the ground floor for the edification of his brother ratings. And then they hurled him half unconscious into the waiting prison van. After that for awhile Garrison hardly knew what happened to him. There was a prolonged session under a dazzling light, during which venomous voices hurled abrupt questions at him. They injected him with scopa, and they brought psychomeds of the Penal branch to try hypnosis on him. They beat him at intervals, and confronted him with the books they had uncovered in his room.

"You are fools, fools, FOOLS, I SAY!" he screamed when he could stand it no more. "Yes, I had an accomplice. His name was Clevering... Clevering the agronomist. He's dead now, so it does not matter. He kept the weeds out. He kept the blight out. So you have corn. That was contrary to the Code, but you have it!"

That was when his memory ceased to register. The things they did to him after that did not matter. Or they did not matter until hours later when he found himself crawling miserably on the hard steel floor of a cell. He felt his wounds and the stickiness of them made him faint again. After that he slept for many hours.

How many days he languished, sore and battered and hungry, in the dark he had no notion. He was hauled out one day for questioning by a solemn board of psychomeds. That was to determine his sanity. He answered them defiantly from between swollen lips and with words that had to be mumbled for lack of teeth. They overwhelmed him with scorn, and pronounced him sane. The Penal Code could take its course. After that there was more of darkness. Not one person in Sanitar or from Dorm attempted to communicate with him. He was unclean. He was different. He was a convicted dissenter. His name was already erased from the roster of the living.

IT WAS AN eternity after that when the four burly monitors came in the dead of night, He heard the heavy tramp of their feet in the corridor, and the crash as his door was thrown open. Then hand flashlights played on him.

"Up, snake!" snarled one, and yanked him to his feet.

"Don't mark him any more," warned another. "The captain said not. The Autarch is going to work on this one in person, and they say he likes 'em fresh and able to take it."

The other monitors snickered, and something whispered was said that Garrison's ears did not catch. Then he was shoved into the desolate corridor and propelled forward. Next came a jolting, mad ride to the airport, and then comparative quiet as the giant stratoplane soared through the sky. Sometime later there was another ride in a van, with a stop after a bit for challenges and explanations. Then Garrison heard the creak of great bronze gates opening on seldom-used hinges, after which he was handed through a door and into a small elevator.

The moment he stepped out he knew he must be in the palace. He had not imagined such grandeur. The floors were heavily carpeted in rich designs, and the walls glowed with an eerie softness. Uniformed flunkies and guards stood everywhere, eying him curiously. Garrison became painfully aware of his own drab appearance, for he wore only a very dirty shirt badly stained with blood, and his body was encrusted with the muck of his cell floor. His beard had grown untouched since the first day of his incarceration. Add his bloodshot eyes and battered features to that and he knew he must present a perfect picture of a desperate criminal.

A silver-robed official of the palace intercepted them.

"Oh, he can't go in like that," he said. "He'll have to be washed. This way with him."

Garrison felt better after the repair work was done. He had resigned himself to taunts and tortures and ultimate death, but it felt good to be clean for once. They even trimmed his hair and shaved him, and dressed him fully with dark-blue silken clothes after applying pleasing ointments to his welts.

"You needn't mock," Garrison cried out, as they slipped the smooth cloths onto him. "I am a dissenter and proud of it. Let's get on with it."

"Take it easy," said the treater who had patched him up. "The Autarch would not have sent for you if you had been just an ordinary case."

They gave him a sweet mixture of chocolate and milk and put him in a darkened room to rest awhile, telling him that his audience was not to be until noon. He tried to rest, but could not. Too much was running around inside his head. He knew that he was condemned to die, for the monitors had told him as much. His hope was that before the hour came he could at least get the reason for his rebellion on the record.

AN OFFICER of the guard came and escorted him down the carpeted halls. This time there were no harsh words or cuffing, but stiff civility. He took him to a pair of richly-paneled doors which two flunkies drew open. Garrison was told to go in, and the doors closed silently behind him. He had entered alone; the officer remained outside.

It was an immense square room, luxuriously appointed, and facing him was a massive desk beside which stood a man he knew must be the Autarch. He was a magnificent specimen of manhood, tall, barrel-chested, and commanding. He wore a robe of wine-red satin bound with cloth of gold, but his gray-streaked leonine head was bare. His gaze was steady on Garrison— a coldly appraising gaze from hard blue eyes, and under them an unsmiling mouth of iron. When he spoke it was with a deep and vibrant voice without a trace of emotion in it.

"So you are a rebel," said the Autarch, almost as if he were speaking to himself.

"I am."

Garrison was desperately afraid he was about to tremble, for the man's personality was overpowering, and nothing in his previous career had conditioned him to cope with it.

"Why?"

"I was failing in my job... despite the Code," said Garrison slowly, "and I felt I should do something about it. I did, and succeeded, after a fashion. I saved the lives of some of our citizens. That is my crime. If I had it to do over again, I would do the same."

"Ah," said the Autarch, taking a deep breath. "So you defy me?"

"You do not understand, or you would not call it defiance," said Garrison, astonished at his own boldness. But he had already suffered death a hundred times in anticipation and was beyond fearing it. Nothing mattered now. The Autarch frowned momentarily, but continued to size up his prisoner for a minute or so more.

"A real rebel, a genuine, sincere dissenter," he said softly, "at last."

He moved across the room.

"Sit down," he said, "I want to talk with you."

Garrison sat down and took the proffered cigarette, wondering whether he was on the cruel end of the cat-and-mouse game.

"During my reign," said the Autarch, "I have long wanted to meet one of you. From time to time they have brought me what was alleged to be such. They were sniveling cowards all— stupid, lazy, careless or inept people who had infringed the Code without intent. They had to die, of course, and did. It is the rule, and I am as helpless in the face of it as anyone. But I did hope to find out what was wrong with the world. They could not tell me. Perhaps you can. There is more than one way of dying, I may remind you, and I have considerable latitude in that matter."

"I see," said Garrison. Things were churning about inside his skull. There was the temptation to tell his captor what he wanted to hear and thereby earn a painless death. Yet he did not know what the Autarch wanted. Besides—

"The trouble with the world," said Garrison carefully, "is the Code itself. Civilization is an organism, made up of a myriad of lesser organisms. Organisms— men, animals, plants, and on down into the microcosm of minute life— all living things. They grow and develop and evolve. Or else they degenerate. They never stand still. Only the Code stands still. It is too rigid."

"I am not prepared to admit that," said the Autarch, "but go ahead. Prove your point if you can."

It was the opening Garrison hungered for. He recited the recent behavior of neomalitis— the strange turn it was taking, and the helplessness of the doctors in the face of an uncompromising Code. He explained how bacilli could differentiate into fresh and hardier strains, more contagious and deadlier than their predecessors. And how they might become immune to treatments formerly effective. Then he detailed his own experimentation, handicapped as that was by non-cooperation and the necessity of secrecy. He mentioned Clevering and his cornfields and emphasized the parallelism between the two situations. The conclusion was inescapable. However good the old procedures may have been in their day, they were not valid now. Radically new approaches were demanded.

"Perhaps," agreed the Autarch, thoughtfully. "There appears to be truth in what you say. I may as well tell you that other diseases are becoming rampant as well— new varieties of cholera, dysentery, and pneumonia. There is a wave of suicides, too. Cattle are dying. Many of our vital crops are failing from blight or insect attack. That is not all. Non-organic things are awry. Despite controls, gradual shifts of population have thrown central power plants out of balance, and left us with highway systems that are either congested or disused."

"A city or region may be regarded as an organism, too," Garrison reminded him.

"So I see. At any rate, it is a problem that has weighed on me for some time. It is growing urgent. Something must be done, and quickly."

"I know that," said Garrison dryly.

"If," suggested the Autarch, "I should see my way clear to grant you an indefinite reprieve— perhaps amounting to a full pardon— would you undertake to bring the diseases mentioned under control?"

Garrison smiled a thin, hard smile.

"I am only one man, excellency, and an ill-equipped one at that. I happened to be lucky in stumbling on the remedy right off. In another case it might take an army of research workers years. Only by putting thousands of trained men at it in ample laboratories could such a thing be done."

"Very well. You are the new Director General of Health. I delegate you to find such men and modify the Medical Code."

"How?" asked Garrison, with a short, scornful laugh. "It is too late for that— by a half dozen generations. Not to modify the Code, but to find the men. The kind of men we need do not develop under an autarchian regime. It is the senseless persecution of your predecessors that has brought us to the brink of ruin, not the plant and animal parasites you complain of. Free men would have disposed of them long ago. But that would have required initiative and adaptability, traits long since obliterated. Now the premium is on blind obedience. Men have lost the art of thinking; they will only do what they are told."

"That makes it all the easier," said the Autarch, reaching for a pad. "You write the order stating what you want done. I will promulgate it. It is as simple as that."

Garrison stared at him in blank amazement.

"Order what?" he asked. "Men of force and talent to reveal themselves? Who is to judge whether they have those qualities? And if there are such, they will take immense pains to conceal themselves. They are afraid. I know that, because I know my own reaction to your recent order relaxing the Social Code. I didn't understand it, and I didn't trust it. For all I knew the Monitors might be listening and taking it all down."

"They were," said the Autarch, "but nothing happened. I was worrying about the state of affairs throughout the world, and hoped to pick up a clue as to what was wrong. There was only silence."

"Ah," said Garrison, grimly. "That shows the effect of fear. And the deadliness of inertia. There must be many men among our billions who see what is happening and care, but they dare not speak. They see only the Penal Houses ahead for their pains. As to the vast majority... bah, they are sheep. They are accustomed only to orders from above. Without positive orders specific to the last little detail, they will not act. What else do you expect from a race of slaves?"

"Slaves!" exclaimed the Autarch. "In the high position you held, how dare you compare yourself with a slave?"

"Wasn't I? I could cast about and find a sweeter euphemism for it, but essentially that was it. I have never known anything but regimentation. I was flattered with the label of a high cerebral rating, but why they assigned me to my job on the basis of it is more than I can understand. The commonest field hand above the moron class could have done the work I did. A machine could have. What use is intelligence if you are not permitted to use it?"

"Yes," admitted the Autarch slowly, "I see that now. But that was then. You are not only permitted to use yours now, but ordered to. Use any means you please to assure them immunity from persecution, but issue your call—"

"It will take more than negative action," Garrison reminded him. "To break away from a life of routine a man needs positive motivation. And I do not mean promotion to a job as sterile as the one he has. It will have to be one to fire his soul and kindle his mind. Simply writing an order will not suffice."

THERE WAS an interruption. The major-domo of the Palace brought in a folder of papers. It was the weekly summary of events in Autarchia. The Autarch studied it with a face of thunder, then handed it to Garrison.

It was a story of regression on all fronts. The worst news came from Asia, where the strange disease that resembled cholera but responded to none of its known controls was sweeping the continent. Millions were already dead, and every ship and stratoplane was spreading the epidemic farther.

"In the absence of anything better," Garrison remarked, "this should be isolated. You should declare an immediate quarantine."

"What is that?"

Garrison told him.

"That is out of the question," decided the Autarch, after a moment's consideration of what it implied. "It would be disastrous. The entire workings of the Code hinge on dependable supply and distribution. It—"

"It," flared Garrison, "shows you how rotten your precious system is. Even you, presumably the ablest man of us all, are stopped by it, though millions die. When things start cracking you're sunk. The holy framers thought they had attained perfection and saw no alternative. Well, cling to your sacred Code and ride to doom with it. But let's end this farce. Call your executioner and finish it."

They were both on their feet on the instant. The Autarch was visibly trying to control his anger, but Garrison was not to be stopped. The sickening sense of futility he first felt when Leona McWhisney died was back with him, a hundredfold more strong. His voice rose shrilly, and he threw discretion to the winds.

"The race is facing a life-and-death crisis," he shouted. "Pestilence is here, and famine is right around the corner. In the wake of those will come economic pandemonium. The Grand Code cannot cope with them. It was not designed to. All it does is stifle us. What we need is men of imagination and boldness, not content with covering themselves by complying with some stereotyped provision of the Code. We need them by the tens of thousands, and we cannot find them on account of this unwieldy body of stupid, frozen laws. There is no time for temporizing. The Code has got to go— lock, stock and barrel!"

Garrison said a lot else along the same line. The Autarch heard him out in moody silence. Then he grasped him by the arm and led him to a side door.

"My apartment is in there. Go rest. I believe there is something in your argument, but I want to think."

THAT INTERVIEW was the beginning of a curious friendship. They dined together that evening, and later talked far into the night.

By the end of the week Garrison came to appreciate that the office of Autarch was as empty as any in the realm. There, too, the dead hand of the past lay heavily. Being top dog of the pyramid of bureaucracy meant little, for in Autarchia precedent ruled. Autarchs had occasionally added to the Code, but not one had ever repealed a provision.

The books confiscated at the time of Garrison's arrest were sent for by the Autarch. He was amazed at their contents, and began to understand better the workings of his guest's mind. He liked the technical ones best; the one he could stomach least was the little essay by Mill. The idea of an individualistic society was beyond his comprehension, but on the whole he was impressed.

"Garrison," he said, "I am convinced you have more practical ideas than I. I am ready now to take advice. We will modify the Code for the emergency. You write the orders, I will issue them."

"I won't do it," said Garrison. "I don't know enough. And if I did, I still wouldn't. The principle is wrong."

"What principle?"

"The principle of handing down wisdom from aloft. The principle of autocracy, if you want to know. It is an evil thing. History has never produced a man who knew everything—"

"He can surround himself with advisers."

"Of his own picking," countered Garrison. "Yes-men they used to call them. Which is worse. It is a device to reinforce a dictator's illusions as to his own infallibility. What he needs is not a chorus of undiscriminating yessing, but frank and brutal criticism. He can get that only in a democracy."

"Democracy!" cried the Autarch scornfully. "Anarchy, you mean. What is a democracy but a howling mob of forty opinions, each as little informed as the next? Where, after an infinity of muddling and compromise, some self-styled leader manages to wheedle an agreement among fifty-one out of a hundred of the mass, whereupon he proclaims a half truth as the whole. That is clumsy nonsense. The world had democracies once. Look what happened to them!"

"Look at what is happening to their flawless successors," said Garrison quietly.

The Autarch reddened.

"At least," Garrison argued, "in a democracy the ordinary man had something to live for. He wasn't a poor pawn. If he hit on a good idea and had the will and personality to promote it, he had a chance of getting somewhere. He didn't vegetate or degenerate into the flesh-and-blood robots we have about us now. Competition with his fellows kept him from doing that. Sure, he made errors. But he did not make the stupidest of all— of freezing them into an inflexible Code. Where freedom is, a man can develop. If he is wrong, others are free to say so. Some will back him, others oppose, which is the very thing the framers of the Code thought so deplorable. But out of the conflict the better idea usually won."

"After years of wrangling and with many setbacks," objected the Autarch.

"Rather, after continual adjustments to current needs," corrected Garrison. "Democracy may have had its faults, but lack of adaptability was not one of them. In freedom of speech and reasonable freedom of action it had the machinery for correcting any intolerable fault. Which is more than you can say for your own absurd system."

"All right," retorted the Autarch. "For argument's sake suppose I grant your point. How, in view of the sheeplike nature of my people which you keep harping on, could we reinstitute an obsolete form of society such as you advocate? I offered 'em free speech, and you know what happened."

"Wake 'em up," yelled Garrison. "Make 'em mad. Then you'd see."

"With no Code to guide them? I see nothing but chaos."

"We needn't repeal the whole of the Code. Considered as a guide it isn't bad at all. Its evil feature is its pretence of being infallible. We'll teach the people how to judge when to follow and when to diverge."

"That from you," snorted the Autarch. "You, who wouldn't even tackle the revision of the Medical Code! Now you propose to upset the entire apple-cart, and destroy the people's confidence. What will you replace it with, and how?"

"What with?" smiled Garrison. "There is always your great sealed library. You have seen a small sample of it and liked it. The Code was based on it. It must be good. As to how, that will come later."

"Let's look," said the Autarch, with sudden resolution. He dug keys and combinations out of a safe.

They reached the library through a long underground passage heavy with the dust of time. Once they passed the guards at the outer barrier they were on pavement untrod for decades. Then they came to a heavy circular door that had to be opened by a complicated group of methods. At length it swung open and they stepped through.

Both gasped at the immensity of the place. Not every book ever published was there— only the ones considered by the framers in compiling the Code. But since they covered every field of human activity in utmost detail, they numbered in the millions. The stacks stretched away for thousands of feet of well-lit, air- conditioned space. The magnitude of the task they had so lightly assumed almost overwhelmed them.

After a long hunt Garrison found the medical section. He was again appalled at the extent of it, for the volumes dealing with any single aspect of his profession took up yards of shelving. He skipped histology, obstetrics, dermatology, and dozens more. There was just too much of it. How was he ever to read it all, let alone sift the chaff from the substance? He ducked the questions neatly by concentrating on the volumes devoted to the techniques of research.

Meanwhile the Autarch was delving elsewhere. He was deep among the histories and philosophies, with occasional excursions into political economy. Soon the aisles where he roamed were cluttered with "must" books. His first samplings had produced material for half a lifetime of study.

Hours later they left the place, exhausted, but burdened with books. Sheer fatigue cut their dinner talk that night to the barest minimum.

"How can we know," groaned the Autarch, "what part of this stuff is bad, and what not?"

"We'll have to leave it to the people," was Garrison's reply. "We need too many people and in too many varied fields to try to select for them. They will have to do that themselves."

"That will bring chaos, I say," grumbled the Autarch. "Anarchy. Your cure is as bad as the disease, I'm afraid."

"All right," grinned Garrison, as a sudden inspiration hit him. "I'm an anarchist. Let's analyze it. Autocracy is the complete denial of the individual. Anarchy is his fullest possible assertion. Democracy lies halfway between; under it an individual can be himself, but is subject to certain restraints. Very well. You continue to play the Autarch. I'll be the Anarch—"

"And between us we'll produce the Demagogue," remarked the Autarch, sharing his grin. "A fascinating gamble, I must say. And pray tell, my insane friend, how do we achieve this miracle?"

"You continue to issue edicts."

"Yes?"

"And I will see that they are not obeyed," chuckled Garrison.

STRANGE HAPPENINGS came to pass shortly after that. The sprawling radio center known as Omnivox overflowed into adjoining buildings hastily remodeled as annexes. Peremptory calls were sent out to Propags all over the world. Soon they came streaming into Cosmopolis on every arriving stratoliner. There they met a puzzling individual— one Philip Garrison, the newly appointed Chief of Propaganda. He told them that for one month they would read and not talk. In the meantime the standard lecture courses were to be suspended.

At the same time the citizens of the provinces were treated to a bewildering succession of orders. The Grand Code, they were informed, was to be revised in the near future. Until that time they should continue to use it as a guide, but might depart from it in certain stated emergencies. Propag lectures stopped as the lecturers were withdrawn, but the culture courses were continued for the time being. There was a difference, though. An army of carpenters descended on the various Social Halls and cut them up into many small compartments by partitions. Each was fitted with an omnivox-screen. The most startling innovation was the broadcast instructions to the Monitor Corps. They were forbidden to molest dissenters. On the contrary, they were given strict orders to protect them from the orthodox, should those show signs of resenting their heresies.

The results as both Autarch and Garrison had anticipated, were meager. They listened in at random over the monitorial wires and knew. For a few days there was a buzz of excitement, then the people relapsed into their customary apathy. They continued to do the things they always had done, and in exactly the same manner. In all the world there were less than five hundred who took the strange edicts at anything like face value. Some were doctors, who now openly experimented as Garrison had done. The rest were in other professions.

The Autarch wanted to send for them and add them to his staff.

"No," said Garrison, "they will be more useful where they are. Moreover, if you do that you may scare others. There must be more than half a thousand alert minds on five continents. We've still got those to smoke out."

THE PRELIMINARIES took the whole of the estimated month. The zero hour was near at hand. The Propags had finished their assigned readings and had prepared their scripts. The Autarch was signing them at the rate of hundreds at a time, using a giant pantograph. Each was in the form of an edict, almighty law to replace a portion of the outmoded Grand Code. For the first few hours he tried to read them as they came, but there were too many. He gave it up and went ahead with his part of the bargain—  signing orders, for in the end he and Garrison had arrived at a complete understanding. Now he meant to see it through, though the skies fell.

He checked off the subjects on his lists as the edicts went on their way. There appeared to be one set missing. He sent for Garrison. Garrison was busy at the time coaching the regiment of omnivox announcers he had recruited.

"What about religion?" asked the Autarch. "There was about an acre of books on it, as I remember."

"Oh, yes, religion," said Garrison, thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose we ought to include that, though I omitted it because it was one of the activities abolished altogether."

"I think we'd better give it to 'em," said the Autarch. "People used to think a lot of it. They fought over it. It had something to do with the spirit, I believe, and we certainly need pepping up in that direction."

"Yes," agreed Garrison. "What kind shall I dish out?"

"How would I know? Let 'em have all of it."

So Garrison put another hundred script-writers to work.

AT LAST the zero hour came. Garrison was in the master control room of Omnivox with stop-watch in hand. At his nod the talkers went into action. It was the hour when the citizens in his part of the world were assembled in the Social Halls. At later hours the same discourses would follow the sun around the globe. Then he went off to his private booth and plugged in on a spy-line. For a sample spot he picked on the Hall at his old home Dorm. It was different now. Instead of being scattered groups in one big hall, the doctors and agronomists were segregated in many small rooms. Each was listening to a different lecture. Garrison chose to follow the doctors.

In the first room a group of them were listening raptly to the new orders that were to replace the Code. The voice proclaiming that particular one was reading from a script that declared that most bodily ills had endocrine gland imbalance as their cause. Hence glandular therapy would cure anything. Garrison listened to it well pleased. It was most convincing. Then he switched over to another room. There, other doctors heard the new law of the land. It asserted that diet was nine tenths of the battle. Feed a man right and he would become practically immortal.

Garrison smiled and went on to the next. The lecturer was quoting osteopathic doctrine. The disposition of the bones had everything to do with disease. It was fundamental. Garrison flicked the switch again. The next fellow was yelling about the dangers of ever-present bacteria and demanding strict attention to the sterile technique. On and on it went, in each room a different set of dogma. And each of them was sound enough as far as it went, except that each was emphasized at the expense of every other. All the cults and schisms of old-style medicine were there.

Garrison grinned happily. He could not predict with any exactness what the outcome would be, but he knew it would be worth watching. Then he turned to other fields where similar conflicting lectures were being read. The announcers were doing well; he was content.

"How'm I doing?" he asked the Autarch, ten days later.

"Swell, I guess," said the Autarch dubiously, "if chaos is what you're driving at. There are riots all over the place. I ordered a new bridge built across the river ten miles below here. I had to send a squad of monitors to restore order."

"Yes?"

"Four pontifexes of the steel arch persuasion ganged up one who stood out for a suspension bridge. A fellow who happened to think cantilevers are better horned into the argument and got battered in the mêlée. Pretty bloody affair."

"They'll learn," said Garrison cheerily. "And when they do, they will not only know what is the best type, but why. They'll feel all the better for it. That's the democratic way."

"Maybe," said the Autarch grudgingly, and added with a twinkle, "You have a thing or two to learn, too."

"Now what?"

"Discrimination. Do you know what happened at Chicago? Better check over your scheduling of religious stuff. They've been preaching Hinduism out there. Now we have a strike on our hands. Hindus won't kill cows, it seems."

IN THE SUCCEEDING six months pandemonium broke loose. It was all according to plan, but trying. The world's population had been divided into cells, and each cell ordered to believe in some particular method and carry it out in the face of every opposition. Since no two groups were taught alike in the same locality, friction developed almost immediately in the citizens' daily work. On Sundays, when all were thrown together for an afternoon of free discussion, the monitors had their work cut out for them. They found their new instructions as to preserving order the biggest job in their history.

But Garrison listened in with glee. The only way to reach the populace was through flat, categorical orders. It was the conflict of orders, each reasonable and workable of itself but incompatible with the others, that was waking them up. Men got angry, and backed up the reasons fed them by the Propags with ones thought up by themselves. Still others were unsettled by their opponents, and wrote troubled letters to their higher-ups asking for clarification. Since their higher-ups were equally as confused, the letters eventually reached the palace. Garrison faithfully recorded their names on a gold-starred list.

"There," he said to the Autarch, "are some of the men you asked for."

"Humph," exclaimed the dictator, "I am getting a lot more than I asked for. Riots. Revolution. Call it democracy if you want to, but anarchy is what it is. You stirred 'em up, I admit, but what has it got us? A nation at one another's throats. I don't like it. Summon the best of these men you've found and direct them to draw up a new Code. Then—"

"Then we'll be right back where we started," Garrison broke in. "You can't put mankind in a strait jacket and expect anything but atrophy. When our thinking is done for us we become stupid. There is a saying that Nature abhors a vacuum. She also abhors an idler. The unused limb withers and dies."

"But listen to the noise outside," said the Autarch, "they'll be killing each other next."

There was plenty of tumult outside, all right. All Cosmopolis was lit with red flares, and the night was hideous with the roar of crowds and the ranting of stump orators.

AUTARCH and Anarch stole out onto a balcony where they could better see and overhear. A political parade was passing, waving banners aloft that called for the establishment of a monarchy. It met another head-on, a group yelling for an election and the adoption of a constitution. The monitors intervened, swinging nightsticks, and dispersed both crowds. But the relative quiet that followed was short lived. A mob howling "Death to Mohammedans" poured out of a side street. When the monitors finished with them their placards and banners were in shreds.

"I think you overdid the religious angle," remarked the Autarch dryly.

"Yes," admitted Garrison glumly. "I had no idea they would take it so seriously. After all, we don't actually know much about the soul. Ours have been in a state of suspended animation for a long time."

"I know, but don't you think we might be a little more... ah- uh... selective in what we put out. Now that sect we just saw in action, for example—"

"At least we gave the monitors only one set of instructions—  to maintain order," said Garrison, doggedly sticking to his guns. "The few broken heads we see are worth the price. It will all work out. Have patience."

IT DID work out. The Propags had done their job. The seeds had been sown and now the crop was coming up. Controls were being established over diseases and blights again. Other able men were untangling the economic mess resulting from those. Still others were observing and approving them. The Codes were not being used much any more. People attacked their problems directly, and were learning the art of compromise. There was but one thing left to do.

The Autarch was reluctant to do it, but he had gone so far that he was willing to go all the way. He revoked the Code, including the fantastic recent additions. The printers that formerly made up its volumes were now turning out copies of the books in the secret library. The only portion of the Code retained was the completely revised Social Code. Into it Garrison wrote the bill of rights and the laws compelling tolerance, and appended instructions for forming a representative government. He abolished the practice of holding men in jobs by virtue of their cerebral ratings. It might come out to the same thing, and might not. Hereafter results were all that would count.

It was the Autarch who issued the call for the elections, and of his own volition. That was months later, after the new Code had been digested.

"Do you know, Garrison," he said, "this anarchy of yours is panning out pretty well. But I've worked myself out of a job. I think I'll run for president."

____________________

15: Chariots Of San Fernando

Weird Tales, January 1946

Foreword

IT may be to the credit of the skeptical scientific attitude that no single important group or individual has accepted the sensational account by Dr. Stephen Taussig of the discovery of new, amazing fauna in the San Fernando country at the Amazon's headwaters. Taussig, sole survivor of the Museum of Living Science Expedition, was plainly deranged when he reached the outposts of civilization. Bits of alleged evidence— a glassy object some ten inches long by six wide; of a pointed oval-shape and convex like a cupped hand; a length of coiled transparent tubing, perhaps thirty feet long and tapering from the diameter of an inch to half as much; and a huge bone, unfortunately shattered in transit to America— have invited curiosity, but not diagnosis.

I came into the mystery by pure chance. I was secretary- companion three years ago to John J. Beazle, a wealthy dabbler in exploration and adventure, with some pretension to botanical and zoological education, and sailed far up the Amazon in his yacht, the Tethys. News came of a white man, sick and delirious, at a settlement on one of the uncharted side-streams. We sought the place and found it to be the outpost Cruxite mission of Youmbinque.

Father Hundig, who was caring for the sick man, welcomed our appearance and loans of bedding, ice and medicines. The patient, though wasted, screamed and struggled so that we could hot move him from the missionary's cot. Beazle, not much interested, spent most of the days that followed among liquor bottles on the Tethys. It was I who heard Stephen Taussig's story, which I have tried to set down in his own words from my short-hand notes.

The specimens mentioned above lay near Taussig's cot. When whole, the bone was as massive as the femur of a dinosaur, some six feet long, with its very center a roughly cubical bulge a foot thick. Tapering both ways from this central lump, the ends of the bone terminated in spherical knobs, ivory-hard and perhaps eight inches in diameter. As it spindled toward these ends, the bone showed round and smooth but for v-shaped grooves running lengthwise from small holes toward the middle.

It was plainly fresh, to judge from the oily moisture and clinging fragments of tough flesh. I was surprised to find no sign of terminal cartilage on the knobs. About this and the two crystal pieces clung an odor of rot, strangely and chemically pungent.

Father Hundig told how Taussig and others had stayed at the mission on their outbound trip some weeks before, and how Taussig had returned in a native canoe, alone but for sullen Indian paddlers whom he kept in hand at pistol point. Though seriously ill, Taussig begged the priest to take charge of the specimens the boat carried, then collapsed. The Indians paddled away in patent relief.

The recent death of Father Hundig leaves my account almost unsupported, but his diary might prove interesting to scholars with open minds. Meanwhile, here is Taussig's story, to be read either as scientific data or mere curiosa, I am not expert enough to suggest which.

I

OUR up-river trip was mostly uneventful. All had been well planned and Dooling, who had previously visited this basin, acted as interpreter and go-between with the Indians. We had no difficulty until we reached the confluence of the Caquini.

You must have heard the Indian legends about the San Fernando as a hell peopled with unspeakable devils. We did not fall into the error of disregarding these entirely; savage tabus are often founded on a practical basis. We guessed that in the region were real dangers, perhaps unknown predatory animals, and we hoped to find them and prove how exaggerated folklore can be.

But neither threats nor promises could induce a single native to accompany us beyond the great falls of the Caquini. We were faced with the unsatisfactory job of going ahead without guides or bearers. The solution of the problem was somewhat disquieting.

Two days journey below the falls, we stopped at man's uttermost habitation, the village of the Chicupes. The natives appeared more apprehensive about the country just beyond than any of the down-river peoples.

Their fear had created a bizarre custom— each year they selected two prime warriors to go as sacrifices into the unknown land. If one of these should survive, they said, for the space of a single moon, his safe return would show that the devils had been propitiated. Such a survivor would be rewarded with the chieftainship. But none had ever returned.

By a fortunate coincidence, the selection had been made only a few days before we arrived. The two young warriors were undergoing some interesting rites of purification before leaving. After tedious negotiations and the paying of substantial bribes, we arranged to go along with the party that escorted them.

We had bearers at least, but with them came disquiet. If two warriors, and of the best, went into the San Fernando yearly and did not return, what became of them? We could not guess. Neither, I am sure, can you. But we found out.

A short distance from the falls we established a base camp. Beyond here our Indians would not go. The next three weeks were uneventful. We set up our field laboratories and explored the heavy forest in widening circles. There was little of interest and less of danger in our findings. Hedrick identified some poisonous plants, there were a few snakes and insects, and I shot one wildcat. It was like many another district in the jungle.

Our Indians huddled timorously at our base camp, but we overcame our own sense of vague apprehension. How false were these senses of security we were soon to learn.

As we prepared to move on, only the sacrificial braves, Itai and Tubutu, could be persuaded to help carry our tinned foods, cameras and other supplies. This pair, really splendid youngsters, had slept and eaten apart from their friends, and were seemingly regarded as already dead. Camber remained in charge of the base, with instructions to bring every day as much food and other necessaries as he could carry to a certain advance base we chose as point of departure into the unknown. Hedrick, Dooling and I, with the two Chicupes, pressed on.

Nine miles on our journey, among thinning trees that hinted open savannas ahead, I almost tripped over a neat ball of crushed and splintered bones. Just beyond lay the neatly severed head of a Capuchin monkey. As we gathered to look, there seemed to hang about us a heavy odor more suggestive of the chemical laboratory than the jungle. Hedrick, stooping, identified the smashed bones as belonging to the monkey whose head lay beyond. They were jammed into a rough sphere the size of a melon, broken and pressed as if some ramming device, and covered with chemical- smelling slime.

"Looks as if it had been chewed up and Spat out," commented Hedrick. "But what jaws could crumple a pelvis like that?"

As to the head, it had been sliced off as smoothly as by a machete, and its hair was dry and clean. None of us could think of an animal large enough to take such a bite, with, at the same time, such sharp, guillotine-like incisors. We rejected both lions and anacondas. Whatever had killed the monkey would be in a class by itself, a class unknown to us, a class that might prove decidedly unpleasant to study.

The Indians showed fright, but only for a moment. Steeped in tradition, they seemed to recognize their brotherhood with the monkey's remains. Dooling sniffed the air.

"Silico-ethane," he said. "Where does it come from?" He lifted some slime on a twig. "Here it is. Silicic acid, or I'm an impostor among chemists." He scraped some into a specimen can. "I'll analyze it later." Hedrick took pictures and we went on.

II

AT the spot agreed upon, where Camber was to come daily, we made a temporary advanced base. It was about noon, so we ate a snack, then Hedrick and I struck out for a quick look around at what was beyond. We took Itai with us to carry cameras and boxes, but Hedrick and I were burdened only with rifles and machetes. Dooling said he would go to work with his chemicals and hoped to have a report for us when we returned.

Before us was flat country covered with a short grass. A mile in front and away to the left rose a low range of hills, fairly steep, but round-topped and covered with grass. In the far distance we could make out the hazy blue profile of a mountain range. To the right was a high cliff, about a mile distant at its closest, and running straight away from us for as far as we could see. This escarpment marked a great fault that elevated the country beyond and made possible the magnificent falls of the Caquini, ten miles behind. There was a little watercourse that followed the cliff down to the Caquini.

We were soon out of the grass and into the thicket of bushes shoulder high. Hedrick stopped in amazement and examined several of the bushes, pulling long pods from them. He shredded the pod, first smelling and then tasting its contents.

"Ricinus, of some sort," he said in response to my questioning look. "Must be a variety of castor bean, but I never expected to see it growing wild in South America. I think I can chalk this up as my great discovery of the day. Yours will be the monkey-killer, if you can track it down."

"It didn't leave tracks," I said. "I looked for them."

Hedrick was quite bucked up over his castor beans. I knew what he was thinking, of how nice it would be to see in print Ricinus Americanus Hedriquensis. We all have those little vanities.

The area covered by them was fairly extensive. We reached a little knoll, a foot or so higher than, the general level, and we could see that they extended all the way to the cliff, and from the forest on our right to several miles to the left of us. We kept on through them as it was by far the shortest way.

A few hundred yards farther on we both were brought up in surprise to find ourselves in a comparatively clear space. The bushes were all down— some uprooted, all of' them broken and torn apart and most of the foliage gone. Lanes led in a dozen directions, like the spokes of a wheel. In these spaces the wreckage of the bushes was appalling. The sight suggested a small scale replica of the damage done by elephants. Here was a new situation to ponder. No one had ever heard of an elephant in this country, and anyway, these would have to be midget elephants.

It was not until we had carefully and minutely examined the ground that we got our first clue. We found wagon tracks! We checked each of the lanes that led in. Each showed the marks of broad tires with a gauge of nearly six feet! Our previous mystification was nothing to what we felt now. How could there be wagons in an uninhabited country lying hundreds of miles beyond populated country where even a cart was unknown? And such wide wagons, and so many, and in such a place?

When we had seen all there was to see, we went on, following the wagon trail that led straightest toward the water and the cliff. Under foot all the way were the broken and stripped castor plants. Twice before we reached the far boundary of this extraordinary bean patch we came across much wider places where other wagons had converged and had destroyed a half acre or so of the plants.

Our trail led more or less straight to the foot of the cliff and we finally emerged onto a wide sand-bed that edged the clear creek which ran along the foot of the bluff. Our wagon wheel marks continued straight on into the water, and there they ended! We could see them for a few feet under water, but beyond the running stream erased them. The creek was hardly fifty feet wide, the other bank of it was a towering cliff, rising sheer three hundred feet.

"What a country!" said Hedrick, wiping his brow, after we had had a good drink of the clear water, and refilled-our canteens. "I'm beginning to think those Indians have something."

After a brief rest, we turned upstream, walking along close to the water where the sand was damp and firm. Presently we came to more wheel-marks. That cleared the mystery for a moment. Apparently the driver had chosen to come upstream part of the way in the river. Then we came to an intricate criss-cross of tracks, indicating dozens of wagons, in and out of the river, in and out of the beans, up and down the sand-bed, like a circus lot the day after. We traversed a mile of this, conversing from time to time, chiefly to explode each other's theories as fast as one would develop some hypothesis to work from.

Even if there had been a reasonable source of wagons, the maze of markings on the sand would still have been of dubious meaning. For one thing, there were no tracks of horses, oxen or other draft animals.

Again, many of the trails were partially obliterated, as if by a drag. We also decided that the carts were two-wheeled, and of various gauges, from six feet to as little as two. As we stooped to measure a trail through the thicket, I saw something round and whitish, half buried in the sand near the bean stalks. I picked it up.

It was a human skull.

Around the brow was a leather strap, stiff and mouldy, stitched with copper wire— just such a symbol of sacrifice as Itai wore that moment. Beyond lay bones, human but crushed and compacted, like those of the monkey.

I turned to him, with a sign of inquiry. Brave enough, he drew himself up as if at attention.

"Garzus," he muttered, and passed his left hand thrice across his face— the Chicupe counterpart of the sign of the cross to avert evil. There were tears on his brown cheeks, and he was afraid— mortally afraid— for all that he was a picked fighting man of his people.

III

THERE was nothing to be gained by lingering over the relics of the dead Indian; if we were to penetrate the veil of mystery that shrouded these strange deaths we must learn more.

An uneasiness, vague at first, but steadily mounting to a sense of profound apprehension, settled upon us. We had not forgotten those hideous legends. Heretofore we had regarded them as the mad inventions of fanatical witch-doctors or the insane imaginings of superstitious heathens. But now we could not help remembering that no matter in what other respects the myths might differ, they had invariably spoken of the horror of this land of fiends as the "rolling death," and always coupled with that expression had been the dread word "Garzus"— a word signifying "dragon" or "hippogriff."

The wonder grew on us as we speculated whether there could be in this accursed country a ferocious race of aborigines who drove chariots after the fashion of the early Britons. Perhaps in this weird and malignant land there was a fearsome creature of a type unguessed; could it be that such a monster drew the war-chariots of the barbarous people of this place? We shrank from that solution. We told ourselves that we must not permit ourselves to be swept away by the psychic vagaries of these credulous savages; that we must regain our grip on our common sense; that we must search, and find more clues until we had found the simple, practical explanation that out reason told us must lie somewhere behind these grotesqueries.

Ahead of us the creek bent outward from the cliff to round a vast hemi-cone of detritus where long ago a section of the cliff had been undercut and fallen down. The widened stream's ripply surface told us that here were shoals that we could cross without serious wetting. Since at this point also there was a convergence of cart tracks leading into the river and evidence of their emergence on the other side, we waded across.

The chariot tracks led around to the downstream face and here we were further astonished to find ourselves in what had every appearance of being a rough quarry. Dozens of half-begun shafts showed where someone had dug into the walls. An inspection of the roughly level floor of the quarry revealed that away from the walls there were a number of mounds of broken limestone and a little slate. Whoever was working here was only interested in the quartz and silicates. On the ground in front of the newest working we found a pile of large quartz crystals mixed with fragments of agate.

I went to pick up a particularly beautiful piece of stone when to my startled disgust I found it covered with slime. As it slithered from my fingers I recognized the revolting odor and texture of the stuff that was smeared on the dead monkey's bones. Half nauseated, I hardly heard Hedrick's cry of astonishment as he pointed to the gobs of jelly lying on the ground on the far side of this collection of rocks. But there they were, enough to fill a gallon bucket, scattered about as if dispersed by the nuzzling snout of some feeding beast. As I wiped my hands, Hedrick collected several pounds of it to take back to Dooling. There was no smell in the air here of silico-ethane; this was chlorine, faint but unmistakable!

"I think we have enough material for one night's insomnia," Hedrick said, "and it's getting late. Let's go back to Dooling."

Back in the trees we found Dooling had made an improvised camp and had some food cooking, and on a box we could see a beaker and some test-tubes.

"That jelly is a silicic acid," Dooling announced as soon as we joined him, "but just which I don't know. It appears to be an organic variety and there's no telling what the formula for it is."

"Take a look at this, then," said Hedrick, handing him the jar with the stuff from the quarry.

It proved to be the-same, or closely similar. The last sample was somewhat stiffer than the slimy stuff from the skeleton.

We talked until late that night, but got nowhere with the baffling data we had collected that day. Being together around a cheery fire, and having warm food tended to allay the qualms of misgiving. Tomorrow might bring a solution to part of these riddles.

IV

EARLY the next day, we had left two miles of flat plain behind us and were halfway up the side of the first of the foothills. We had already passed three sets of long-dried bones, of antelope, this time. The layout was always the same; a compact pile of crushed bones, and within three or four yards, a complete skull, these with antlers. Then we found a fresh set, a kill of not later than the day before.

"That monster not only has a big mouth, but it must be fast," was Hedrick's comment. "It is no cinch to catch an antelope in an open place like this."

We examined the grass; there were two distinct trails, one down from the top of the hill, the other up. The up-trail, oddly enough showed the signs of the drag behind it, the other not. There could be no mistake, the direction of the bent grass was conclusive. Outside the line's left by the wheels, we noticed many blades of grass tipped with droplets of a clear yellow liquid. As this golden dew appeared nowhere else, it must have dropped from the hubs of the chariot. Hedrick lifted a drop with a finger, held it under his nose, then gingerly tasted it.

"Crude castor oil," he grunted.

We followed the trails to the summit of the hill, where we found a long, nearly level ridge, marked occasionally by clumps of trees resembling mesquite. Up here there were many marks in the grass, as if a number of the vehicles had paraded up and down, and we observed half a dozen places where trails led straight downward.

Following the trails along the summit, we had just passed a clump of bushy trees, when we wheeled at the sound of a stifled scream from Itai.

Ten yards away a face was looking at us.

It was no human face— only grotesquely humanoid— and gigantic. Maybe it was four feet across, with large, dark, lustrous eyes gazing placidly at us. Between them a long nose, flexible as a trunk, twitched, and below grinned a yard-wide mouth, as full of teeth as a shark's. At each temple clustered what appeared to be curls, and two more clumps showed on top of the head. I was stupid with amazement and horror. I remember thinking that I used to know a barber who looked something like that.

But more ghastly still was the body. It was mounted on wheels that attached to either side of a plumpness like a sort of owl. There were no arms or legs, only a dragonlike tail that swept behind to steady the bulk. The wheels were pale and solid, like the wooden ones on a Cuban ox-cart.

All that we saw in a flash of time. For at once the curl-pads on the monster's head unwound and flicked at us— four darting cables in the air. Itai was closest, and those devil's antennae whipped around his neck, arms and legs, yanking him through the air like a toy on a string. He screamed— once— and then the mouth received him, feet- first, and closed. His head dropped off, neatly severed, and bounced soddenly away.

Hedrick and I still stared. These large brown eyes closed as if in ecstasy. The thing began to chew, like a ruminant cow. Hedrick fired first, then I— bullet after bullet from our rifles, at point-blank range.

There was no effect. It chewed calmly. Lead bullets were like peas tossed at a sofa pillow— I saw momentary dimples as the missiles struck and glanced off. That hide was tougher than armor. Its covering of glassy scales rang musically when hit.

We fired, perhaps two or three clips each, when the monster was satisfied with its snack. Opening its eyes and mouth, it spat onto the ground Itai's crumpled skeleton— then looked at us.

I had some saving instinctive impulse. Dropping my rifle, I whipped out my machete. Hedrick did likewise. The tentacles stretched toward us, more slowly— the thing wasn't quite so hungry now.

We whacked and slashed. My first stroke encountered a strand almost as tough as wire cable. A second blow, more strong and desperate, cut away an eight-foot length, and bright blood flowed. Hedrick was tangled in two of the antennae, lifting him from the ground as he hacked and hewed.

I rushed, swinging with all my strength and he fell free. The monster gave a soul-shattering howl, and its eyes crinkled shut in pain, huge tears rolling into sight. Three of its four tentacles had been wounded, and fell back into coils that spurted blood. Still screaming, the creature threshed itself about with a sweep of its tail and pushed away. I saw prismatic lights on the scales of the back armor.

We pursued the Garzus— we knew that this must be one— and, scientists even in this hour of peril and fear, we saw that it moved by shoving stubby shoulders against spokelike ribs on the inner faces of the horny wheels. When we came close, we encountered another weapon. The back scales lifted, like hair on an angry cat, and from beneath white smoke gushed upon us. At the same moment the thing hoisted its tail, balancing on its wheels, and coasted away down a swift slope, losing itself behind the clouds of vapor. It had laid a smoke-screen of silicon tetrachloride.

V

IT was with decidedly mixed feelings that we turned back to the spot where we had commenced our fight. But for the accident of position, either one of us might have played the role of Itai, and had the animal been less sluggish after its meal, it would have taken a second victim. The Thing was immune to gunfire, and with its four tough tentacles one man could not withstand it, even if fore-warned. He could only hope to wound it on his way into that hopper of a mouth.

Knowing now the secret of its locomotion, we perceived that the safest place to encounter one would be on level ground. It could hardly move faster than a brisk trot unless rolling free. We shuddered to think what oar fate would have been if our party had been charged by a group of them while still on the hillside, for we now understood the technique of the beast's hunting. Yet even on flat ground, the ability suddenly to flick those forty- foot tentacles made them formidable foes. Yet, the Things must have some weakness; we knew we must study them and find a way to conquer.

The pieces of the antennae stank of silico-ethane and we observed that they were really thick-walled gelatinous tubes. Just what was the function of the wire-thin inner duct that terminated in a sort of nozzle at the tip of the tentacle we could not fathom.

We had a brief discussion, and decided to go on to the quarry and begin our observation. Later we would come back and bury the remains of the unfortunate Itai. We scoured the ridge to make sure there was not another lurking Garzus to swoop down on us after we had begun the descent. Off to the west, the smoke-screen had almost dissipated. Our recent adversary had turned away to the south, several miles upstream from the ford and the quarry.

We found the quarry exactly as we had left it. Sixty feet or so overhead was a hard stratum of sandstone forming a ledge above which we could see the dark mouths of several caves. By grasping at the roots of shrubs growing out from the face of the cliff and taking advantages of the many minor projections we climbed without difficulty to the ledge. Directly under us was the quarry; to the left, beyond the creek, was the sand-bank where the Garzi paraded. We flattened down on our faces, and unslinging binoculars, began our vigil.

Nothing happened for several hours. Once we made out through our glasses another little tragedy on the hillside we had quit earlier. From the crest of the hill came a flash of light, something like a runaway cannon slid swiftly down to where an antelope was grazing, there was a quick gleaming of silvery lariats flailing the air— and there was no more antelope. In a little bit, the rolling thing turned, and slowly climbed up the hill and disappeared into a clump of trees.

Intent on this drama, we had not noticed the first approach of a herd of Garzi. But soon there were dozens, slowly rolling up and down the sands, while some browsed in the patch ofEuphorbiaceae, tearing at the brandies of the bean bushes. Among them were many little ones, Garzilli we called them. The larger Garzi seemed to be engaged in prodding the little ones into promenading, following them closely. Whenever one of the baby monsters would show a tendency to stop or even to slow down, the parent would whack it forward with a resounding side slap of the tail. Now and then an elder Garzus would appear to attack one of the little ones from the side, gripping it firmly with all four tentacles while nuzzling at the near wheel. The Garzillus would make the air hideous with its trumpeting and squealing for a moment, and then, released, it would roll wabblingly away, its soft young wheels bending and caving under the infant's weight.

"Must, be teaching 'em to roll!" whispered Hedrick.

In the meantime, several full-grown Garzi had forded the creek and were up in the quarry. We watched their operations with the most intense interest, for of all the clues we had previously found, those in this spot were the least intelligible.

From our excellent observation post we learned to distinguish between male and female. The latter were smaller, but the salient difference was in the snout. The female proboscis was much shorter and thicker, and terminated in a cup-shaped tip of bone or ivory. This tip appeared to be quite thin, even sharp, like a tin biscuit cutter.

WE could not see exactly what they were doing among the piles of silicates because usually their scaly backs and tails were to us, but we could see fumes rising and detect the odor of chlorine in the air. Just what acid or in what manner they secreted it, we shall probably never know, but having poured it out, they waited patiently. From our previous find, we were able to anticipate the result, they were preparing silicic acid. In a while we were to see them eat it, and others follow and repeat the performance.

Virtually prisoners until the hour should come when this herd would move on, Hedrick and I had ample opportunity to digest what we had seen. Finally, we withdrew a distance into the cool inner part of the cave and compared notes.

We were too realistic not to accept the natural explanation of it. After all, the human being consumes and converts in his lifetime a vast quantity of carbon, salt and other solids. There is small difference between a diet of diamonds and coal and a diet of opals and quartz. It is all a matter of glands and digestive processes.

The Garzus, from its observed diet and excretions, had an affinity for silicon. Its skin and the scales of its armor were siliciculous; it exhaled a silico-ethane, it could produce silicon tetrachloride for protection, and used a silicic acid in digestion. In order to ingest the required amount of the element, it had special glands that enabled it to reduce onyx and quartz to an edible jelly. It was all very reasonable. And it made us anxious to kill and dissect one of the things. Doubtless the more normal diet of animal flesh was to provide the necessary heat for movement and the operation of its internal laboratories.

Hedrick and I were in fair agreement as to these theories, but we still had the novel method of locomotion to consider. Nature is a great experimentalist, but this example verged on the incredible. I must have been a little dazed by the rapid events of the last two days, for I must admit that I owe the explanation of it to Hedrick's keen mind.

But I was to wait a while before receiving it. When we had finished our discussion of the silicic aspects of the Garzus, we went out onto the ledge to take a look. The herd had gone. They had gone through the castor plants, a few were still there browsing on the far edge, the others were slowly rolling toward, the forest— toward where Dooling and Tuputu were awaiting us!

VI

WE scrambled down straight through the ravaged bean growth, crashing through the brittle bushes and acquiring many scratches. As we neared the far edge, we slowed down, and gripping our machetes and keeping a sharp lookout for the Garzi, but it was not until we had emerged on the other side that we saw any.

The sun was behind us, a circumstance that rendered the Garzi ahead of us exceptionally visible, for the rays reflected from their prismatic backs were brilliant and of every hue. There were three of the glittering creatures, their tails to us, at the foot of a tree by our camp site. We could see the flashes from the snaky feelers that were stripping the lower branches from the tree. We advanced boldly, knowing their clumsiness, but stopped about twenty yards behind them. There was no danger as long as we could stay out of reach of the tentacles, we felt that outside of their radius we could outrun the cumbersome creatures should they turn and threaten us. But they were too intent on what was before them to notice our approach.

A shout from above informed us that Dooling was high up in the tree. He was trying to warn us of the monsters, and said there were several more back in the woods. As he spoke, we saw two rolling toward us, one from directly behind the tree, the other from somewhat to the right of it. We ran to the highest of the nearby trees and scrambled up not a moment too soon, for before we were high enough to be out of reach, we each had to straddle a limb and slash frantically at sinuous glassine tentacles.

I did not succeed in doing more than nick the ones grasping for me, but Hedrick managed to cut away a yard or so of the tip of one, and we heard the yelp and howls of its injured owner with grim pleasure. We resumed our ascent until we came to a roomy fork about fifty feet from the ground. An excited chatter overhead reminded us that we had company. A group of the Capuchin monkeys was huddled there, squeaking and twittering in fright.

Firmly settled, we craned our necks hallooing, until we spotted a khaki patch through the lacery of leaves. That was Dooling perched in his tree, a couple of hundred feet away. After we had cut away some intervening branches so that we could see better, we observed that his tree was not so high as ours, and although he was at about our level, he could go no higher. He, too, had partners in misery, a pair of monkeys like ours. Shouting back and forth, we gave each other the high spots of the day's happenings.

Dooling said that Camber had been there about noon with a good load of provisions. They had visited for a while, and Camber had gone back, saying he would return again tomorrow. Dooling went to work on our notebooks. His first intimation of danger was the warning given him about an hour before by the excited Tuputu.

They watched two Garzi approach, and he fell into the pardonable error of trying to shoot them. Ignorant of the uncanny peril in the innocuous looking curls on the heads of the monsters, he continued shooting until the first one got too close. Tuputu charged it with a machete, and Dooling saw him snatched and devoured in one horrible instant. Under the circumstances, he could think of nothing better than to climb the nearest tree.

We told him he'd done the only possible thing, but that he was safe now. And when we said it, we thought he was. We did not know that the Garzus had still another deadly weapon.

WE watched the Garzi below us grope the lower branches of our tree with their tentacles, reaching, feeling for us, as if they did not trust their eyes. When we next glanced Dooling's way, we were startled to see that a ring of Garzi about the tree had extended their antennae to the fullest, all pointing at Dooling. They looked in the almost level rays of the setting sun like glistening glass rods. They failed to reach him by about ten feet, but the fumes we now saw jetting from their tips did not. Dooling shouted hoarsely something about deadly gas— chloroform— and frenziedly tried to climb. We saw him cling a moment to a little fork just above his head, then slip away and fall crashing. Like echoes, we heard the thuds of the monkeys as they plopped to the ground beside him. Helpless to do anything, we had to see the inert forms wrapped in tentacles that fell as quickly as cut ropes and witness the greedy tug of war between two rival Garzi who had simultaneously clutched the body of our friend. We turned our eyes away, unable to endure more. When we had heard the third of the shockingclops of decapitating mouths snapped shut, we knew that Dooling was now in the maw of the "rolling death" of San Fernando.

Sick with horror, and despondent over our own futility, we hauled ourselves mechanically higher up the tree. Another twenty feet and we were among the shuddering monkeys.

Soon we had our gas attack. We caught the odor, but our height and a freshening breeze that had just sprung up made it ineffective. Seeing that we did not drop, the Garzi abandoned their posts below us and wheeled off into the forest.

In another hour, the bright beams of the rising full moon illuminated the savanna clearly. Hedrick placed a hand on my arm.

"Let's go down," he whispered, "there is at least one more thing we can try."

He led the way to the other tree, where the scattered remains of our advanced camp lay, rooted and tumbled around by the dragons. He picked up an armful of notebooks and asked me to do the same. Watching our tread carefully, for somewhere about here lay the heads of two of our fellows, we stalked out onto the moonlit plain.

"Damn the notebooks," Hedrick muttered, "if this hunch works, we can write a book whose dullest page will be worth a ton of this rubbish."

He led on. The breeze was quite strong now at our backs, as if blowing out of the moon behind us. Nowhere was the loom of a bulky Garzus. All about us was grass, and just ahead the shoulder high bushes of the castor bean area.

VII

"THANK God for the wind," said Hedrick, fervently. He tore branches from a bean plant and threw them to the ground. Ripping out a handful of leaves from the notebook he wadded them up. I struck a match and held it to the paper in cupped hands. Five minutes later, a roaring fire was sweeping away from us toward the cliffs. We ran each way along the edge of the plantation, lighting new fires every few dozen feet. In an hour's time we rejoined, and stood for a moment watching the wall of flame as it swept toward the river. The crackling of bursting pods and stalks and the roar of the receding flame made a tremendous noise, but we did think once we heard the howling of a roasting Garzus.

We returned at once to our scattered camp. It was fairly light in here now, the moon beams coming through from one side and the ruddy glare of the burning bushes from the other. We rummaged about and found a ball of fish-line, and I mounted to our nest in the tree. Once there, I let the line down, and successively drew up piece after piece of our outfit that Hedrick tied on below. As each item reached me, I would cut off a short length of the line and lash it to a convenient limb. It must have been midnight when Hedrick joined me.

We had boxes of food, six canteens of water, and some of Dooling's chemical gear and the first aid kit. We took our belts and rifle slings and rigged safety belts. We were all set for a siege. We could last in comfort for a week. But that night we could not sleep, there had been too many gruesome things happen before our eyes, and too much of interest. And the coming day was to have its responsibilities. We must warn Camber, for he would come walking along, innocent of the dangers that surrounded him.

Hedrick elaborated his theory of silicon absorption and recombination, and gave me his ideas on the rolling system of locomotion.

"Until we saw these things," he said, "we would have staked our professional reputations that a free joint, like between wheel and axle, would be an impossibility in a living thing. The limb cannot have a connection with the body, and therefore would wither from lack of nourishment. But here, all around us, are examples of this impossibility in actual being. Luckily, there is also the evidence which enables us to see how.

"The diet of castor beans serves a double purpose. It provides raw material for the glands of the Garzus which manufacture an organic oil that is both a lubricant and a carrier of living substance to replenish the wheels as they first grow, then wear away. As the human body absorbs mercury or lead if rubbed on the skin, so do these horn wheels absorb food from the oil surrounding the axles.

"The females have a bony gadget at the tip of their noses. I am confident if we could find a nest of fresh born Garzilli we would find them with soft, flexible wheels of gristle, and without intervening joint. As they get older, the gristle turns to horn, becomes stiff enough to bear its weight, but the little thing cannot yet move about, it must remain motionless in the lair. This is when the mother brings her peculiar nose into play. She cuts a joint. By this time, the castor oil glands have begun functioning. The oil flows into the incision, soothing it, and thereafter acts as lubricant and carrier of building elements to the severed horn.

"Normally, the horn would again adhere to the axle, just as human bones tend to grow together after a serious joint injury We can understand now the purpose of the relentless driving up and down of the little ones by the parents. You even saw on several occasions where a mother recut a joint that might have been beginning to freeze. By the time the Garzillus approaches full growth, it has worn definite bearing surfaces on both axle and wheel, its oil glands have taken over their duties, and the rolling joint ceases to require any more attention than our own elbows.

"But suppose we cut off that part of the food supply which provides the oil, like our burning the bean patch. If, as I hope, that is the-only considerable supply near here, it is bound to have profound effects. I anticipate adhesions, perhaps complete immobilizations of the wheels. Stalled in their tracks, they cannot replenish their silicon supply, and the chemical exudations of which they are capable will probably diminish in strength. And, unless some other animal is so stupid as to stray within reach of the antennae, they will also lack the blood food they have been getting."

This logic seemed to me to be perfect. The one great question was, how long will it take? Snakes can endure months without food. Would we see this herd, its wheels locked, die all about us? Would it take a week, a month, how long?

Our discussions had used up the night. In the fuller light of the. breaking day we began to see the monsters rolling toward us, closing in on our tree trunk. They were coming back to finish their work of yesterday. Whatever the ultimate effect of the destruction of the castor plants, in the meantime we must find quicker acting weapons.

VIII

AS hastily as possible Hedrick prepared a neutralizer for the Garzus chloroform. We tore off our shirts, and were ready to wet them with the solution and bind them to our noses if attacked again.

"Camber is coming here about noon," Hedrick said, "and they will surely get him. We've got to get down and head him off."

I had been thinking of that, too. I felt I would as soon die myself as witness another friend gulped down. But there was so little we could do. Now that we knew about the gas, it would be suicidal to descend and try an attack with machetes.

Hedrick produced another beaker from Dooling's box.

"It doesn't cost anything to experiment," he remarked drily. "I am going to mix up a belly-ache for our little playmates. You be thinking of a way to feed it to them."

He went to work with his bottles, weighing stuff by guess. The bubbling, fizzy concoction looked potent. I wondered if the Garzi would snap up a bottle. Their craving for silica might lead them to. Then I remembered that they did not eat crystals raw, they first dissolved them into jelly. Our medicine must be fed to them some other way. That is when I thought of the poor monkeys. I dug in Dooling's box and found a big hypodermic syringe, and a can of chloroform.

Busy with compounding our prescription, we were not watching the Garzi, but at the first whiff of the threatening odor, we bound up our faces with the saturated shirts. The stupefying fumes rose steadily to us. A monkey passed out and fell, straight down. Another, from just above, crumpled and started to slide by us but I grabbed the limp form and half jammed, half hung it in the crotch of a branch. The other monkeys were hanging desperately to the limbs, groggy, barely conscious. Pouring some chloroform onto a piece of shirt, I clambered around, putting first one monkey and then another completely out, securing them so that they could not fall. I got a grim comfort out of the condition in which I found them. They were doomed anyway; I could not be blamed too much for using them in the way I had planned. At least there was a promise of vengeance.

As fast as Hedrick could fill the syringe, I brought and held the limp animals until he shot the injection home. I piled the sagging forms around us as best I could on the limbs and branches about us. It took a long time to prepare eight, but eight we needed, one for each of our besiegers.

The gas had stopped before we were ready, but the Garzi were still there, staring up at us with those astonishing eyes.

"Let's go," I said, and began heaving the bodies down.

IT was a full ten minutes after the horrid churning before we knew that the gastric juices of the dragons had mingled with our doses. Unprepared for what followed, we almost fell from our perch. Before, we had heard the howls of injured Garzi, when we had hacked at their antennae, but those were as nothing compared to the hideous cacophony that arose now from below. The medley of shrieks, trumpeting howls and bellowing nearly broke our ear- drums, while the threshing about of the agonized monsters made our tree tremble from its uttermost leaf to the very trunk. Slashing about below, the crystal encrusted tails beat wildly against their mates, against the tree, anything solid. In their frenzy and agony, the creatures' glands let go with every offensive and defensive device known to them. Gasses squirted from the drooping antennae and from beneath the hard, glittering scales of the back and tail came smoke, the cavernous mouth belched other gasses and vomited gobs of bloody jelly.

It was with grim, sardonic joy that we viewed this spectacle. If the extraordinary structure of the Things had allowed it, they would have wallowed and squirmed, but bound as they were by those colossal wheels, they could do nothing but yowl and thresh about, whipped here and there by the dragonish tails. The exudation of the smokescreen, an instinctive reflex, quickly blotted them from our vision. What followed we could only guess at, it was much too thick below.

"I figured they had acid stomachs," was Hedrick's bland comment.

After a bit, when the smoke had cleared somewhat, all we could see were a few smoky trails, leading away. If Hedrick's prescription had proved fatal, they had gone away to their hidden lairs to die. We left the remnants of our field laboratory and the food supplies that were in the upper branches. We climbed down, and machete in hand, took the back trail to the base camp. We were halfway there when we met Camber. We turned him back and walked along beside him. He was inexpressibly shocked at what we told him, but we could see the gleam of disbelief in his eyes. He heard us out, but as we neared the base camp his revealing comment was:

"It's a tough country— a good night's sleep will do you both good."

We fell onto our cots like men struck by an axe.

WHEN we woke Camber felt that he ought to make the usual trip to the advance base. He still believed that Dooling and the two Indians were camped there. We reiterated our story in vain. He persisted in treating us as sick men, spoke of tropical fever and the like. Futilely, as it later transpired, we tried to impress him with the reality of the tragedy we had survived.

A couple of mornings afterward, when we got up for our breakfast, we found Camber gone. We selected the sharpest machetes in the camp and hastened after him. I need not tell you the rest. Six miles away we found the head and the thoroughly masticated bones. The incredulous, as well as the credulous, are sometimes led to fearful dooms.

The Garzi, then, still moved about their domain. We got our notes in order, and started to mix more of Hedrick's prescription, but had used up several ingredients. Because we must, we retreated into the thick forest through which we had first come, knowing that no wheels could follow us there.

Our natives were as nervous as when last we saw them. Perhaps they wondered what had become of our companions, but none deserted. At the end of a week, Hedrick and I scouted back into Garzus territory.

From the tree that once gave us refuge we surveyed the country beyond. Fire had swept away most of the castor beans. About two clumps that had survived thronged numerous Garzi, apparently fighting over the inadequate supply. We camped that night at the edge of the thick forest.

Next morning we saw none of the Garzi, and no castor beans at all. Venturing into the open, we spotted a grotesque shape standing motionless on the charred plain, and further on another. Approaching the nearest one, we found that it whipped its tail savagely and reached with its tentacles, but did not move on its wheels. We closed in, gingerly chopped off its tentacle-tips and pressed in to prune them as close as we could.

He could not turn those wheels— they were frozen. After experimental slashes, we sliced away some of his lifted scales. Finally, with repeated stabs in the exposed softness, we killed it amid weird and mournful howls.

An axe from the camp enabled us to strip away the tough bulk, until we had freed the axle-bone and wheels. While I finished the stripping of the axle, Hedrick, examining some of the exposed viscera, screamed.

I whirled to help him, but I staggered back, choking and momentarily blinded, from a cloud of vile yellow-green glass.

His machete had thrust into an organ, from which the venomous juice had squirted into his face. He was unrecognizably disfigured by its deadly acid!

I LASHED his body to the axle-bone and from our belts and gun-slings rigged myself a harness. Then, dragging the chassis of the Garzus, I struck along the creek margin toward the falls. I passed stalled Garzi— singly, in groups, one a mother with three young— and with gloomy satisfaction knew that they must linger where they were, to starve for want of castor beans, quartz and blood food. One still rolled, very slowly, after me, but easily I distanced him and came to our base camp.

There stood perhaps a dozen Garzi, the last of their great race. Necessity had driven them on creaking wheels into this country where for ages they had existed only in legend. About them lay the strewn wreckage of our camp— boxes, our valuable notes, instruments. Our canoes were crushed by the blind thrashings of the starved beasts. Up several trees hung some of our Indians, but scattered on the ground were many brown heads of crushed victims.

By now, none of the raiding Garzi could move freely. Casting off my harness, I approached, machete in hand. One after another I cut away the groping tentacles—  twice I was nearly snared and eaten— and it was an afternoon's dreadful, exhausting work.

The surviving Indians watched me, and this conquest of demons before their eyes gave me the prestige with which I carried out the last phase of the adventure. I bullied them down from their perches, made them load a single unsmashed canoe with a few salvaged supplies and the specimens I had saved. The chassis of the Garzus could not go whole, and so I hewed away the wheels, saving only the axle-bone.

The trip down-river to the mission lasted a week. When the Indians, still horrified, tried to desert me and my relics of their dreaded demon-enemies, I kept them at the paddles with a levelled pistol. And I reached here, and then the cumulation of horror, fatigue and perhaps sickness brought on by that whiff of acid-gas, blacked out everything.

THAT is the end of Taussig's narrative. He came home with us aboard the Tethys. How that heavy axle-bone came to be broken is one of the mysteries— both Taussig and I think that the Indians who handled it deliberately chopped it up as a magical rite. Anyway, his story did not suit those who heard it at home. The Garzus remains unrecorded among the fauna of the upper Amazon, but it may be that in the future some man of daring and faith will go into the Caquini country and find those telltale remains.

But before he goes, let him come to me. I know where Taussig lives today— he runs a taxidermist's shop on Ninth Avenue, and refuses even to discuss the affair save with me, to whom he thinks he owes much. Perhaps I can persuade him to show the model of a Garzus which stands hidden on a closet shelf in the back of his shop. Even though small and stationary, it is frightful enough to be convincing.

__________________

16: Children Of The "Betsy B"

Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1939

I MIGHT never have heard of Sol Abernathy, if it hadn't been that my cousin, George, summered in Dockport, year before last. The moment George told me about him and his trick launch, I had the feeling that it all had something to do with the "Wild Ships" or "B-Boats," as some called them. Like everyone else, I had been speculating over the origin of the mysterious, unmanned vessels that had played such havoc with the Gulf Stream traffic. The suggestion that Abernathy's queer boat might shed some light on their baffling behavior prodded my curiosity to the highest pitch.

We all know, of course, of the thoroughgoing manner in which Commodore Elkins and his cruiser division recently rid the seas of that strange menace. Yet I cannot but feel regret, that he could not have captured at least one of the Wild Ships, if only a little boat, rather than sink them all ruthlessly, as he did. Who knows? Perhaps an examination of one of them might have revealed that Dr. Horatio Dilbiss had wrought a greater miracle than he ever dreamed of.

At any rate, I lost no time in getting up to the Maine coast. At Dockport, finding Sol Abernathy was simplicity itself. The first person asked pointed him out to me. He was sitting carelessly on a bollard near the end of the pier, basking in the sunshine, doing nothing in particular. It was clear at first glance that he was one of the type generally referred to as "local character." He must have been well past sixty, a lean, weathered little man, with a quizzical eye and a droll manner of speech that, under any other circumstances, might have led me to suspect he was spoofing— yet remembering the strange sequel to the Dockport happenings, the elements of his yarn have a tremendous significance. I could not judge from his language where he came from originally, but he was clearly not a Down Easter. The villagers could not remember the time, though, when he had notbeen in Dockport. To them he was no enigma, but simply a local fisherman, boatman, and general utility man about the harbor there.

I introduced myself— told him about my cousin, and my interest in his boat, the Betsy B. He was tight-mouthed at first, said he was sick and tired of being kidded about the boat. But my twenty-dollar bill must have convinced him I was no idle josher.

"We-e-e-ll," he drawled, squinting at me appraisingly through a myriad of fine wrinkles, "it's about time that somebody that really wants to know got around to astin' me about theBetsy B. She was a darlin' little craft, before she growed up and ran away to sea. I ain't sure, myself, whether I ought to be thankful or sore at that perfesser feller over on Quiquimoc. Anyhow, it was a great experience, even if it did cost a heap. Like Kiplin' says, I learned about shippin' from her."

"Do I understand you to say," I asked, "that you no longer have the launch?"

"Yep! She went— a year it'll be, next Thursday— takin' 'er Susan with W."

This answered my question, but shed little light. Susan? I saw I would do better if I let him ramble along in his own peculiar style.

"Well, tell me," I asked, "what was she like— at first— how big? How powered?"

"The Betsy B was a forty-foot steam launch, and I got 'er secondhand. She wasn't young, by any means— condemned navy craft, she was— from off the old Georgia. But she was handy, and I used 'er to ferry folks from the islands hereabouts into Dockport, and for deep-sea fishin'.

"She was a dutiful craft—" he started, but broke off with a dry chuckle, darting a shrewd sideways look at me, sizing me up. I was listening intently. "Ye'll have to get used to me talkin' of 'er like a human," he explained, apparently satisfied I was not a scoffer, "'cause if ever a boat had a soul, she had. Well, anyhow, as I said, she was a dutiful craft — did what she was s'posed to do and never made no fuss about it. She never wanted more'n the rightful amount of oil— I changed 'er from a coal-burner to an oil-burner, soon as I got 'er— and she'd obey 'er helm just like you'd expect a boat to.

"Then I got a call one day over to Quiquimoc. That perfesser feller, Doc Dilbiss, they call him, wanted to have his mail brought, and when I got there, he ast me to take some things ashore for 'im, to the express office. The widder Simpkins' boy was over there helpin' him, and they don't come any more wuthless. The Doc has some kind of labertory over there— crazy place. One time he mixed up a settin' of eggs, and hatched 'em! Made 'em himself, think of that! If you want to see a funny-lookin' lot of chickens, go over there some day."

"I shall," I said. I wanted him to stay with the Betsy Baccount, not digress. His Doc Dilbiss is no other than Dr. Horatio Dilbiss, the great pioneer in vitalizing synthetic organisms. I understand a heated controversy is still raging in the scientific world over his book, "The Secret of Life," but there is no doubt he has performed some extraordinary feats in animating his creations of the test tube. But to keep Abernathy to his theme, I asked, "What did the Simpkins boy do?"

"This here boy comes skippin' down the dock, carryin' a gallon bottle of some green-lookin' stuff, and then what does he do but trip over a cleat on the stringer and fall head over heels into the Betsy B. That bottle banged up against the boiler and just busted plumb to pieces. The green stuff in it was sorta oil and stunk like all forty. It spread out all over the insides before you could say Jack Robinson, and no matter how hard I scoured and mopped, I couldn't get up more'n a couple of rags full of it.

"You orter seen the Doc. He jumped up and down and pawed the air—  said the work of a lifetime was all shot— I never knew a mild little feller like him could cuss so. The only thing I could see to do was to get outa there and take the Simpkins boy with me— it looked sure like the Doc was a-goin' to kill him.

"Naturally, I was pretty disgusted myself. Anybody can tell you I keep clean boats— I was a deep-sea sailor once upon a time, was brought up right, and it made me durned mad to have that green oil stickin' to everything. I took 'er over to my place, that other little island you see there..."— pointing outside the harbor to a small island with a couple of houses and an oil tank on it—"...and tried to clean 'er up. I didn't have much luck, so knocked off, and for two— three days I used some other boats I had, thinkin' the stink would blow away.

"When I got time to get back to the Betsy B, you coulda knocked me down with a feather when I saw she was full of vines— leastways, I call 'em vines. I don't mean she was full of vines, but they was all over 'er insides, clingin' close to the hull, like ivy, and runnin' up under the thwarts, and all over the cylinders and the boiler. In the cockpit for'ard, where the wheel was, I had a boat compass in a little binnacle. Up on top of it was a lumpy thing— made me think of a gourd— all connected up with the vines.

"I grabbed that thing and tried to pull it off. I tugged and I hauled, but it wouldn't come. But what do you think happened?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," I said, seeing that he expected an answer.

"She rared up and down, like we was outside in a force-six gale, and whistled!" Abernathy broke off and glared at me belligerently, as if he half expected me to laugh at him. Of course, I did no such thing. It was not a laughing matter, as the world was to find out a little later.

"And that was stranger than ever," he continued, after a pause, "cause I'd let 'er fires die out when I tied 'er up. Somehow she had steam up. I called to Joe Binks, my fireman, and bawled him out for havin' lit 'er off without me tellin' him to. But he swore up and down that he hadn't touched 'er. But to get back to the gourd thing— as soon as I let it go, she quieted down. I underran those vines to see where they come from. I keep callin' 'em vines, but maybe you'd call 'em wires. They were hard and shiny, like wires, and tough— only they branched every whichaway like vines, or the veins in a maple leaf. There was two sets of 'em, one set runnin' out of the gourd thing on the binnacle was all mixed up with the other set comin' out of the bottom between the boiler and the engine.

"She didn't mind my foolin' with the vines, and didn't cut up except whenever I'd touch the gourd arrangement up for'ard. The vines stuck too close to whatever they lay on to pick up, but I got a pinch-bar and pried. I got some of 'em up about a inch and slipped a wedge under. I worked on 'em with a chisel, and then a hacksaw. I cut a couple of 'em and by the Lord Harry—  if they didn't grow back together again whilst I was cuttin' on the third one. I gave up! I just let it go, I was that dogtired.

"Before I left, I took a look into the firebox and saw she had the burner on slow. I turned it off, and saw the water was out of the glass. I secured the boiler, thinkin' how I'd like to get my hands on whoever lit it off.

"Next day, I had a fishin' party to take out in my schooner, and altogether, what with one thing and another, it was a week before I got back to look at the Betsy B. Now, over at my place, I have a boathouse and a dock, and behind the boathouse is a fuel oil tank, as you can see. This day, when I went down to the dock, what should I see but a pair of those durned vines runnin' up the dock like 'lectric cables. And the smoke was pourin' out of 'er funnel like everything. I ran on down to 'er and tried to shut off the oil, 'cause I knew the water was low, but the valve was all jammed with the vine wires, and I couldn't do a thing with it.

"I found out those vines led out of 'er bunkers, and mister, believe it or not, but she was a-suckin' oil right out of my big storage tank! Those vines on the dock led straight from the Betsy Binto the oil tank. When I found out I couldn't shut off the oil, I jumped quick to have a squint at the water gauge, and my eyes nearly run out on stems when I saw it smack at the right level. Do you know, that dog-gone steam launch had thrown a bunch of them vines around the injector and was a-feedin' herself? Fact! And sproutin' from the gun'le was another bunch of 'em, suckin' water from overside.

"But wouldn't she salt herself?" I asked of him, knowing that salt water is not helpful to marine boilers.

"No, sir-ree! That just goes to show you how smart she was gettin' to be. Between the tank and the injector, durned if she hadn't grown another fruity thing, kinda like a watermelon. It had a hole in one side, and there was a pile of salt by it and more spillin' out. She had rigged 'erself some sorta filter — or distiller. I drew off a little water from a gauge cock, and let it cool down and tasted it. Sweet as you'd want!

"I was kinda up against it. If she was dead set and determined to keep steam up all the time, and had dug right into the big tank, I knew it'd run into money. I might as well be usin' 'er. These vines I've been tellin' you about weren't in the way to speak of; they hung close to the planks like the veins on the back of your hand. Seein' 'er bunkers was full to the brim, I got out the hacksaw and cut the vines to the oil tank, watchin' 'er close all the time to see whether she'd buck again.

"From what I saw of 'er afterward, I think she had a hunch she was gettin' ready to get under way, and she was r'arin' to go. I heard a churnin' commotion in the water, and durned if she wasn't already kicking her screw over! just as I got the second vine cut away, she snaps her lines, and if I hadn't made a flyin' leap, she'd a gone off without me.

"I'm tellin' you, mister, that first ride was a whole lot like gettin' aboard a unbroken colt. At first she wouldn't answer her helm. I mean, I just couldn't put the rudder over, hardly, without lyin' down and pushin' with everything I had on the wheel. And Joe Binks, my fireman, couldn't do nuthin' with 'er neither— said the throttled fly wide open every time he let go of it.

"Comin' outa my place takes careful doin'— there's a lot of sunken ledges and one sandbar to dodge. I says to myself, I've been humorin' this baby too much. I remembered she was tender about that gourd thing, so the next time I puts the wheel over and she resists, I cracks down on the gourd with a big fid I'd been splicin' some five-inch line with. She blurted 'er whistle, and nearly stuck her nose under, but she let go the rudder. Seein' that I was in for something not much diffrunt from bronco bustin', I cruised 'er up and down outside the island, puttin' 'er through all sorts a turns and at various speeds. I only had to hit 'er four or five times. After that, all I had to do was to raise the fid like I was a-goin' to, and she'd behave. She musta had eyes or something in that gourd contraption. I still think that's where her brains were. It had got some bigger, too.

"I didn't have much trouble after that, for a while. I strung some live wires across the dock— I found she wouldn't cross that with 'er feelers — and managed to put 'er on some sort of rations about the oil. But I went down one night, 'round two in the mornin', and found 'er with a full head of steam. I shut everything down, leavin' just enough to keep 'er warm, and went for'ard and whacked 'er on the head, just for luck. It worked, and as soon as we had come to some sorta understanding, as you might say, I was glad she had got the way she was.

"What I mean is, after she was broke, she was a joy. She learned her way over to Dockport, and, after a coupla, trips, I never had to touch wheel or throttle. She'd go back and forth, never makin' a mistake. When you think of the fogs we get around here, that's something. And, o' course, she learned the Rules of the Road in no time. She knew which side of a buoy to take — and when it came to passin' other boats, she had a lot better judgment than I have.

"Keepin' 'er warm all the time took some oil, but it didn't really cost me any more, 'cause I was able to let Joe go. She didn't need a regular engineer, nohow— in fact, her and Joe fought so, I figured it'd be better without him. Then I took 'er out and taught 'er how to use charts."

Abernathy stopped and looked at me cautiously. I think this must be the place that some of his other auditors walked out on him, or started joshing, because he had the slightly embarrassed look of a man who feels that perhaps he had gone a little too far. Remembering the uncanny way in which the Wild Ships had stalked the world's main steamer lanes, my mood was one of intense interest.

"Yes," I said, "go on."

"I'd mark the courses in pencil on the chart, without any figures, and prop it up in front of the binnacle. Well, that's all there was to it. She'd shove off, and follow them courses, rain, fog, or shine. In a week or so, it got so I'd just stick a chart up there and go on back and loll in the stern sheets, like any payin' passenger.

"If that'd been all, I'd a felt pretty well off, havin' a trained steam launch that'd fetch and carry like a dog. I didn't trust 'er enough to send 'er off anywhere by herself, but she coulda done it. All my real troubles started when I figured I'd paint 'er. She was pretty rusty— lookin', still had the old navy-gray paint on— what was left of it.

"I dragged 'er up on the marine railway I got over there, scraped 'er down and got ready to doll 'er up. The first jolt I got was when I found she was steel, 'stead of wood. And it was brand, spankin' new plate, not a pit or a rust spot anywhere. She'd been pumpin' sea water through those vines, eatin' away the old rotten plankin' and extractin' steel from the water. Somebody — I've fergotten who 'twas— told me there's every element in sea water if you can get it out. Leastways, that's how I account for it-she was wood when I bought 'er. Later on you'll understand better why I say that-she could do some funny things.

"The next thing that made me sit up and take notice was the amount of paint it took. I've painted hundreds of boats in my time, and know to the pint what's needed. Well I had to send to town for more; I was shy about five gallons. Come to think about it, she did look big for a fortyfooter, so I got out a tape and laid it on 'er. She was fifty-eight feet over all! And she'd done it so gradual I never even noticed!

"But— to get along. I painted 'er nice and white, with a red bottom and a catchy green trim, along the rail and canopy. We polished 'er bright— work and titivated 'er generally. She did look nice, and new as you please— and in a sense she was, with the bottom I was tellin' you about. You'd a died a-laughin' though, if you'd been with me the next day, when we come over here to Dockport. The weather was fine and the pier was full of summer people. As soon as we come up close, they began cheerin' and callin' out to me how swell the Betsy B looked in 'er new colors. Well, there was nothin' out of the way about that. I went on uptown and 'tended to my business, came back after a while, and we shoved off.

"But do you think that blamed boat would leave there right away? No, sir! Like I said, lately I'd taken to climbin' in the stern sheets and givin' 'er her head. But that day, we hadn't got much over a hundred yards beyond the end of the pier, when what does she do but put 'er rudder over hard and come around in an admiral's sweep with wide-open throttle, and run back the length of the pier. She traipsed up and down a coupla times before I tumbled to what was goin' on. It was them admirin' people on the dock and the summer tourists cheerin' that went to 'er head.

"All the time, people was yellin' to me to get my wild boat outa there, and the constable threatenin' to arrest me 'cause I must be drunk to charge up and down the harbor thataway. You see, she'd gotten so big and fast she was settin' up plenty of waves with 'er gallivantin', and all the small craft in the place was tearin' at their lines, and bangin' into each other something terrible. I jumped up for'ard and thumped 'er on the skull once or twice, 'fore I could pull 'er away from there.

"From then on, I kept havin' more'n more to worry about. There was two things, mainly— her growin', and the bad habits she took up. When she got to be seventy feet, I come down one mornin' and found a new bulkhead across the stern section. It was paper-thin, but it was steel, and held up by a mesh of vines an each side. In two days more it was as thick, and looked as natural, as any other part of the boat. The funniest part of that bulkhead, though, was that it put out rivet heads— for appearance, I reckon, because it was as solid as solid could be before that.

"Then, as she got to drawin' more water, she begun lengthenin' her ladders. They was a coupla little two-tread ladders— made it easier for the womenfolks gettin' in and out. I noticed the treads gettin' thicker V thicker. Then, one day, they just split. Later on, she separated them, evened 'em up. Those was the kind of little tricks she was up to all the time she was growin'.

"I coulda put up with 'er growin' and all— most any feller would be tickled to death to have a launch that'd grow into a steam yacht— only she took to runnin' away. One mornin' I went down, and the lines was hangin' off the dock, parted like they'd been chafed in two. I cranked my motor dory and started out looking for the Betsy B. I sighted 'er after a while, way out to sea, almost to the horizon.

"Didja ever have to go down in the pasture and bridle a wild colt? Well, it was like that. She waited, foxylike, lyin' to, until I got almost alongside, and then, doggone if she didn't take out, hell bent for Halifax, and run until she lost 'er steam! I never woulda caught 'er if she hadn't run out of oil. At that, I had to tow 'er back, and a mean job it was, with her throwing 'er rudder first this way and that. I finally got plumb mad and went alongside and whanged the livin' daylights outa that noodle of hers.

"She was docile enough after that, but sulky, if you can imagine how a sulky steam launch does. I think she was sore over the beatin' I gave 'er. She'd pilot 'erself, all right, but she made some awful bad landin's when we'd come in here, bumpin' into the pier at full speed and throwin' me off my feet when I wasn't lookin' for it. It surprised me a lot, 'cause I knew how proud she was— but I guess she was that anxious to get back at me, she didn't care what the folks on the dock thought.

"After that first time, she ran away again two or three times, but she allus come back of 'er own accord— gettin' in to the dock dead tired, with nothing but a smell of oil in her bunkers. The fuel bill was gettin' to be a pain.

"The next thing that come to plague me was a fool government inspector. Said he'd heard some bad reports and had come to investigate! Well, he had the Betsy B's pedigree in a little book, and if you ever saw a worried look on a man, you shoulda seen him while he was comparin' 'er dimensions and specifications with what they was s'posed to be. I tried to explain the thing to him— told him he could come any week and find something new. He was short and snappy— kept writin' in his little book— and said that I was a-goin' to hear from this."

"You can see I couldn't help the way the Betsy B was growin'. But what got my goat was that I told him she had only one boiler, and when we went to look, there was two, side by side, neatly cross- connected, with a stop on each one, and another valve in the main line. I felt sorta hacked over that— it was something I didn't know, even. She'd done it overnight.

"The inspector feller said I'd better watch my step, and went off, shakin' his head. He as much as gave me to understand that he thought my Betsy B papers was faked and this here vessel stole. The tough part of that idea, for him, was that there never had been anything like 'er built. I forgot to tell you that before he got there, she'd grown a steel deck over everything, and was startin' out in a big way to be a regular ship.

"I was gettin' to the point when I wished she'd run away and stay. She kept on growin', splittin' herself up inside into more and more compartments. That woulda been all right, if there'd been any arrangement I could use, but no human would design such a ship. No doors, or ports, or anything. But the last straw was the lifeboat. That just up and took the cake.

"Don't get me wrong. It's only right and proper for a yacht, or anyway, a vessel as big as a yacht, to have a lifeboat. She was a hundred and thirty feet long then, and rated one. But any sailor man would naturally expect it to be a wherry, or a cutter at one outside. But, no, she had to have a steam launch, no less!

"It was a tiny little thing, only about ten feet long, when she let me see it first. She had built a contraption of steel plates on 'er upper deck that I took to be a spud-locker, only I mighta known she wasn't interested in spuds. It didn't have no door, but it did have some louvers for ventilation, looked like. Tell you the truth, I didn't notice the thing much, 'cept to see it was there. Then one night, she rips off the platin', and there, in its skids, was this little steam launch!

"It was all rigged out with the same vine layout that the Betsy B had runnin' all over 'er, and had a name on it— the Susan B. It was a dead ringer for the big one, if you think back and remember what she looked like when she come outa the navy yard. Well, when the little un was about three weeks old— and close to twenty feet long, I judge—  the Betsy B shoved off one mornin', in broad daylight, without so much as by-your-leave, and goes around on the outside of my island. She'd tore up so much line gettin' away for 'er night jamborees, I'd quit moorin' 'er. I knew she'd come back, 'count o' my oil tank. She'd hang onto the dock by her own vines.

"I run up to the house and put a glass on 'er. She was steamin' along slow, back and forth. Then she reached down with a sorta crane she'd growed and picked that Susan B up, like you'd lift a kitten by the scruff o' the neck, and sets it in the water. Even where I was, I could hear the Susan B pipin', shrill-like. Made me think of a peanut-wagon whistle. I could see the steam jumpin' out of 'er little whistle. I s'pose it was scary for 'er, gettin' 'er bottom wet, the first time. But the Betsy B kept goin' along, towin' the little one by one of 'er vines.

"She'd do something like that two or three times a week, and if I wasn't too busy, I'd watch 'em, the Betsy B steamin' along, and the little un cavortin' around 'er, cuttin' across 'er bows or a-chasin' 'er. One day, the Susan B was chargin' around my little cove, by itself, the Betsy B quiet at the dock. I think she was watchin' with another gourd thing she'd sprouted in the crow's nest. Anyhow, the Susan B hit that sandbar pretty hard, and stuck there, whistlin' like all get out. The Betsy B cast off and went over there. And, boy, did she whang that little un on the koko!

"I'm gettin' near to the end— now, and it all come about 'count of this Susan B. She was awful wild, and no use that I could see as a lifeboat, 'cause she'd roll like hell the minute any human'd try to get in 'er — it'd throw 'em right out into the water! I was gettin' more fed up every day, what with havin' to buy more oil all the time, and not gettin' much use outa my boats.

"One day, I was takin' out a picnic party in my other motorboat, and I put in to my cove to pick up some bait. Just as I was goin' in, that durned Susan B began friskin' around in the cove, and comes chargin' over and collides with me, hard. It threw my passengers all down, and the women got their dresses wet and all dirty. I was good and mad. I grabbed the Susan B with a boat hook and hauled her alongside, then went to work on her binnacle with a steerin' oar. You never heard such a commotion. I said a while ago she sounded like a peanut whistle— well, this time it was more like a calliope. And to make it worse, the Betsy B, over at the dock sounds off with her whistle— a big chimed one, them days. And when I see 'er shove off and start over to us, I knew friendship had ceased!

"That night she ups and leaves me. I was a-sleepin' when the phone rings, 'bout two A.M. It was the night watchman over't the oil company's dock. Said my Betsy B was alongside and had hoses into their tanks, but nobody was on board, and how much should he give 'er. I yelled at him to give 'er nuthin' — told him to take an ax and cut 'er durned hoses. I jumped outa my bunk and tore down to the dock. Soon as I could get the danged motor started I was on my way over there. But it didn't do no good. Halfway between here and there, I meets 'er, comin' out, makin' knots. She had 'er runnin' lights on, legal and proper, and sweeps right by me— haughty as you please— headin' straight out, Yarmouth way. If she saw me, she didn't give no sign.

"Next day I got a bill for eight hundred tons of oil— she musta filled up every one of 'er compartments— and it mighty near broke me to pay it. I was so relieved to find 'er gone, I didn't even report it. That little launch was what did it— I figured if they was one, they was bound to be more. I never did know where she got the idea; nothin' that floats around here's big enough to carry lifeboats."

"Did Dr. Dilbiss ever look at her," I asked, "after she started to grow?"

"That Doc was so hoppin' mad over the Simpkins brat spillin' his 'Oil of Life' as he called it, that he packed up and went away right after. Some o' the summer people do say he went to Europe— made a crack about some dictator where he was, and got put in jail over there. I don't know about that, but he's never been back."

"And you've never seen or heard of the Betsy B since?" I queried, purposely making it a leading question.

"Seen 'er, no, but heard of 'er plenty. First time was about three months after she left. That was when the Norwegian freighter claimed he passed a big ship and a smaller one with a whale between 'em. Said the whale was half cut up, and held by a lot of cables. They come up close, but the ships didn't answer hails, or put up their numbers. I think that was my Betsy B,and the Susan B, growed up halfway. That Betsy B could make anything she wanted outa sea water, 'cept oil. But she was smart enough, I bet, to make whale oil, if she was hungry enough.

"The next thing I heard was the time the Ruritania met 'er. No question about that— they read 'er name. The Ruritania was a- goin' along, in the mid-watch it was, and the helmsman kept sayin' it was takin' a lot of starboard helm to hold 'er up. 'Bout that time, somebody down on deck calls up there's a ship alongside, hangin' to the starboard quarter. They kept hollerin' down to the ship, wantin' to know what ship, and all that, and gettin' no answer. You oughta read about that. Then she shoved off in the dark and ran away. The Ruritania threw a spot on 'er stern and wrote down the name.

"That mightn't prove it— anybody can paint a name— but after she'd gone, they checked up and found four holes in the side, and more'n a thousand tons of bunker oil gone. ThatBetsy B had doped out these other ships must have oil, and bein' a ship herself, she knew right where they stored it. She just snuck up alongside in the middle of the night, and worked 'er vines in to where the oil was.

"Things like that kept happenin', and the papers began talkin' about the Wild Ships. They sighted dozens of 'em, later, all named 'Something W — Lucy B, Anna B, Trixie B, oh, any number— which in itself is another mystery. Where would a poor dumb steam launch learn all them names?"

"You said she was ex-navy," I reminded him.

"That may be it," he admitted. "Well, that's what started the newspapers to callin' lern the B-Boats. 'Course, I can't deny that when they ganged up in the Gulf Stream and started in robbin' tankers of their whole cargo, and in broad daylight, too, it was goin' too far. They was all too fast to catch. Commodore What's-his-name just had to sink 'er, I reckon. The papers was ridin' him hard. But I can tell you that there wasn't any real meanness in my Betsy B— spoiled maybe— but not mean. That stuff they printed 'bout the octopuses on the bridges, with long danglin' tentacles wasn't nothin' but that gourd brain and vines growed up."

He sighed a deep, reminiscent sigh, and made a gesture indicating he had told all there was to tell.

"You are confident, then," I asked, "that the so-called B-Boats were the children of your Betsy B?"

"Must be," he answered, looking down ruefully at his patched overalls and shabby shoes. "'Course, all I know is what I read in the papers, 'bout raidin' them tankers. But that'd be just like their mammy. She sure was a hog for oil!"

__________________

17: Doubled and Redoubled

Unknown Fantasy Fiction, February 1941

THE very first thing that startled Jimmy Childers that extraordinary, repetitive June day was the alarm-clock going off. It shouldn't have gone off. He remembered distinctly setting it at "Silent" when he went to bed the night before, and thumbing his nose derisively at it. He was a big shot now; he could get down to the office, along with the Westchesterites, at a quarter of ten, not at nine, as heretofore.

He rose on an elbow and hurled a pillow at the jangling thing, then flopped back onto the pillow for a moment's luxurious retrospect.

Ah, what a day yesterday had been! The perfect day. The kind that happens only in fiction, or the third act of plays, when every problem is solved and every dream comes true all at once. He grinned happily. This time yesterday he had been a poor wage slave, a mere clerk; today he was head of a department. Until last evening the course of true love, as practiced by himself and Genevieve, had run anything but smoothly; this morning she was his bride-to-be. Twenty-four hours ago the name of Jimmy Childers was known only to a few hundred persons; all today's papers would carry his pictures and the commendations of the police and the mayor. Yesterday—

But why go on? Today was another day. Jimmy pulled himself together and got out of bed, making a slightly wry face as he did so. One only reached the utmost pinnacle once in his life; today, after yesterday, could only be anticlimactic. At ten he must hit the grit again. It would be a new kind of a grind, pitched on a higher level with higher and fresher ambitions, but a grind nevertheless. And so thinking, he reached for his clothes.

And that was when Jimmy Childers received jolts number two, three and so on! For the neatly wrapped packages delivered late yesterday afternoon from Livingston & Laird were not on the chair where he had placed them for the night. Nor was the nice, new pigskin wallet and the two hundred-odd dollars he had kept out as spending money from his race-track haul, anywhere to be seen. Even the empty jeweler's box that had contained Genevieve's ring was gone. Burglars!

Jimmy frowned in puzzlement. His door was spring-locked, but it was bolted, too. There was no transom, and the window was inaccessible from any other. It didn't make sense. He thought he would hardly make a row about it yet. Moreover, he was consoled by the thought that before going on his shopping spree yesterday, he had dropped by the bank and deposited a flat thousand. For reassurance, he slipped a hand into the inner pocket of his dangling coat and drew forth the little blue book.

The book was here, but the entry was not! Jimmy's eyes popped in unbelief. The last entry was May 15th, and for the usual ten dollars. Yet he remembered clearly Mr. Kleib's pleasantries as he chalked up the one-grand deposit. Why, it was only yesterday!

He glanced up at the calendar that hung behind the door. Each night he crossed the current day off. Last night he had not crossed it, but encircled it in a triple circle of red— the day of days! He suddenly went a little sick at the stomach as the rectangle of black figures stared back at him. The fourteenth of June was neither crossed off nor encircled. Jimmy Childers sat down and scratched his head, bewildered and dazed. Had he dreamed all that he thought had happened? Could it be that today was the fourteenth, and not the day after? Trembling a little, he finished dressing.

For a time he pondered his strange feelings. He tried to account for the disappearance of the things he had bought, remembering that the boys rooming down the hall had a way of borrowing without always telling. They _might_ have come in last evening while he was out. As to the loss of the wallet, a pick-pocket might have lifted that, and he tried to recall occasions when he had been crowded or jostled. He gave it up. There was only the old hag on Riverside Drive, who had held out a scrawny, clutching hand for alms. Surely she couldn't have been the thief! He smiled to recollect her fawning gratitude when in his exuberance he had unexpectedly given her a five-spot, and her mumbling as she tottered on her way.

No. None of it fitted. As a matter of fact, now that he was going into such details, he remembered distinctly getting home after that, and putting the wallet and empty ring box on his dresser, winding the clock, and the rest. He sighed deeply. It was all so screwy.

HE walked briskly from the house. He had decided to say nothing about his loss to Mrs. Tankersley. Upon second thought he would wait until he got to his office, then he would ring up the police commissioner personally. Hadn't he told him only yesterday that if he ever needed anything just give him a buzz? Jimmy felt very grandiose with his new connections. He had completely conquered his jitters when he stopped at the tobacco stand on the corner.

"Gimme a pack," he said, "and extra matches."

The clerk handed the cigarettes over, and then in a low, confidential voice added, "I gotta hot one for you today— Swiss Rhapsody in the first at Aqueduct. She's sure fire, even if she's a long shot. The dope is straight from Eddie Kelly—"

"Wake up," laughed Jimmy Childers, "that was yesterday!" He started to add, "Don't you remember my dropping by here last night and handing you a 'C' for the tip?" but for some reason choked it. The fellow evidently didn't remember it, or something. The situation was cockeyed again. So Jimmy said that much and stopped.

The clerk shook his head. "Not this nag. She hasn't been running."

"O. K.," said Childers, on a sudden impulse, and digging into his watch pocket he fished out four crumpled dollar bills. That was what he had to live on the rest of the week. "Two bucks— on the nose."

"You ain't making a mistake, pal," said the clerk.

The words startled Jimmy Childers more than anything else that had happened. Syllable for syllable the last exchange of sentences were identical with what had passed between them yesterday this time. Jimmy had the queer feeling, which comes over one at times, he was reliving something that had already happened. Hastily he pocketed his cigarettes and backed out of the place.

Downstairs in the subway station he snatched a paper and just made the crowded train, squeezing in the middle door into a solid mass of humanity. He was anxious to see whether his exploit in foiling the Midtown Bank robbery had made the first page or not, but it was not for several stations that he had the opportunity to open up his paper. Then he muttered savagely in dissatisfaction. The dealer had worked off yesterday's paper on him! He had read it all before— June 14th, PARIS FALLS. Bah!

"The young men of this generation have no manners whatever!" bleated a nagging, querulous voice behind him, and he felt a vicious dig at his ribs.

"I beg your pardon," he exclaimed, automatically nudging away to give what room he could.

"People go around sticking their elbows in other people's eyes, trying to read sensational trash!"

"I'm very sorry, madam," reiterated Jimmy Childers, making still more room. He was looking down into the snapping eyes of an acid- faced old beldam, and the sight of her made chills run up and down his spine. This very incident had occurred to him in every detail only yesterday. He felt very queer. Should he drop off and see a doctor? No, he decided, it was that damn vivid dream that still hung on to him.

Then, when the flurry caused by the tart old woman's eruption had subsided, he stole a glance over the shoulders of his neighbors. Some were reading one paper and some another, but they all had one thing in common. They were yesterday's papers! And their readers seemed content!

"Hell's bells," ejaculated Childers, "I am nuts."

AT Thirty-fourth Street he got no shock, for the mad stampede of the office-bound herd is much the same, whatever the date. It was when he stepped into his own company's suite that fate biffed him squarely between the eyes again. Biff number one was that none of the other clerks took any special notice of him as he walked past the desks. The expected shower of congratulations did not materialize, nor for that matter, did the sour look of envy he expected to see on Miss Staunton's face. It was just like any other morning. It was just like yesterday morning, to be even more specific.

But he did not stop at his old desk in the outer office as he always had hitherto. He walked boldly on to the private office of the manager of the foreign department. It was not until he was within a pace of it that he halted in his stride, open-mouthed. The lettering on the door was not new gold-leaf at all, but the black paint that had always been there. It said simply, "Ernest Brown, Mgr."

He stared at it a moment, then turned and slowly made his way back to his old hangout in the clerk's offices. He hung up his hat and coat and sat down at the desk he had worked at for the past five years. Presently the office boy came bearing the trays of mail. Childers watched the deck of envelopes fall onto his blotter with tense anxiety. Somewhere in that batch of mail ought to be a test of his sanity. Or was it the reverse? He couldn't be sure. That damn dream had him so mixed up, he couldn't tell reality from pipe dream any more.

"I'm going to call my shots, from now on," he told himself. With a hand that was close to trembling he pulled a pad toward him and wrote down:

Acceptance and check for two hundred and fifty dollars in this morning's mail for a story I tossed off in my spare time and sent to the Thursday Weekly.

He turned the pad upside down and shot a cautious glance about the office. No one was paying him any attention. He ran through the envelopes. Yes, there it was. He almost tore the check as he snatched it out. Yes! The unexpected had happened, an impossible thing— his first effort at writing had been bought! He read the inclosed letter feverishly. Word for word it was the one in his dream. Now he knew that yesterday had not happened. For the Weekly wouldn't send out two checks for the same yarn. Would the rest of the day go the same way?

It did.

At nine thirty the messenger came and told him the boss wanted him at once. Jimmy Childers went with alacrity. For twenty-five minutes he had been sitting there, alternately chilled with fear and glowing with anticipation.

"Childers," said the Old Man, "we've watched you for some time and we like your style. Beginning tomorrow you'll have Mr. Brown's job in the foreign department. The pay will only be two hundred, but remember that we are jumping you over a lot of other people. You may take the rest of today off."

"Thank you, sir," said Jimmy Childers with every appearance of calm acceptance of his just dues as a capable employee, but all the time queer tremors were playing hob with his inner workings. "But if it's all the same, I'll hang on as I am until noon at least. I would like to clean up my present desk before I leave it."

"A very commendable spirit," said the Old Man, cracking his cold face into the first smile he had ever let Childers see. That, too, had been in the dream. Childers was not sure whether he looked forward to the rest of the day with apprehension or what. It was a little disconcerting to know beforehand just how everything would turn out.

WHEN he got back to his desk a puckish mood seized him.

"Oh, Miss Walters, will you take a letter, please."

"A-hum," he said, in his best executive manner, when she had settled beside him with her notebook, "To Mr. E. E. Frankenstein, Cylindrical Metal Castings— you know where— dear sir. In reply to your offer of this date of the position of stockmaster at your foundry, I beg to inform you that the job does not interest me and the salary you mention is ridiculous. Yours very truly— and so on and so on— the new title, you know."

"Why, Mr. Childers," exclaimed Miss Walters, "I didn't know _they_ were trying to get you—"

Childers cocked an eye at the clock. He had timed it nicely. The messenger was approaching with a telegram in his hand.

"Read that to me," he said to the stenographer, with a lordly wave of the hand.

She tore the yellow envelope open and read the message aloud.

"How did you know?" she asked, wonder in her eyes.

"Hunch," he said laconically, and lit a cigarette.

"By golly," he told himself, "the dream is coming true, item by item." In succession he rang up Genevieve and made a date for that night; and then his bookmaker and doubled his bet on Swiss Rhapsody. Then he fell to thinking about the affair at the Midland Bank and that took some of the glow off. Hell, that fellow with the machine gun didn't miss him by much! Should he go through with it? He decided he would, for there were several details he had missed in the flurry of excitement in the dream. Moreover, he had pleasant memories of the fuss that was made over him afterward, not forgetting the standing reward of one thousand dollars offered by the protective agency. If he were to be married, and now he was sure he would be, any extra cash was very welcome.

He took the Weekly's check and strolled out of the office. First he stopped by the haberdashers and spent a most pleasant hour selecting gay ties, a suit, hat and various other items. Then, leaving the delivery address, he made his way to the bank.

He had a very queer feeling as he went through the portals— that uncomfortable sensation of having done it all before. His upward glance at the clock and the fact that exactly 12:03 registered firmly in his memory was a part of it. But he nerved himself for the ordeal and went straight to his usual teller's window.

He had just shoved the money under the wicket and knew uneasily that goose pimples had risen all over him when the expected happened. A low, husky voice said almost in his ear:

"Stand as you are, bud. Keep your hands on that marble shelf and don't turn around. This is a stick-up."

Then the voice said to Mr. Kleib: "Shell out— everything in the cage but the silver!"

Now!

Childers deliberately and without sense of direction, except that of the voice, kicked backward with all his force. He felt something soft give and then his heel crunched against bone. There was a curse and a moan, and he heard the clatter of the gun on the floor and the soft thud as his man slid to the marble.

In that instant pandemonium reigned. A huge howler over the door began its siren wail, Tommy-guns rattled, men shouted and women screamed.

Like a flash Jimmy Childers dropped to his hands and knees just as a stream of whizzing bullets spattered against the marble cage front. He grabbed up the fallen gun and turned it on the man that was firing at him, a short, stocky thug in a light-gray suit. He saw the man drop, and as he did another rushed past, headed for the door. Jimmy let the gun fall and launched himself in a flying tackle, grabbing at the fleeing gangster's knees.

The next couple of seconds was a maelstrom of sensation and confusion. Then he was aware of looking at the pants legs of some big man in blue, and a heavy Irish voice saying:

"Leggo, son, you've done enough. We've got him now."

Childers unwrapped his arms from the bandit's knees and got up. His heart was pounding wildly and he knew his clothes were a wreck, but it was a glorious moment and he didn't care. A circle of men were around him, men with notebooks and cameras and flashlight bulbs, snapping pictures and asking questions. Next, a big police car screamed its way to the front door, and in a moment he was receiving the unstinted congratulations of a fiery little mayor and his police commissioner.

"Nice work, Childers," said the latter. "Those eggs have been wanted a long, long time. If there is anything I can ever do for you, call on me."

Then the president of the bank came and whirled him away to the club for luncheon. What a day! Had so much ever happened to one man before in so short a space of time? And how odd that he had dreamed it all, even to the date of the vintage on the label of the sauterne the banker ordered with the lunch!

Suddenly he realized it was close to two thirty and the first at Aqueduct was probably already run. He excused himself and hastened over to Kelly's place.

"I'll take it in big bills," he said to Kelly, as he went in.

"Optimistic, ain't you?" was Kelly's rejoinder. "Didja ever hear of nine horses falling down and breaking their legs in the same race? Well, that's what it'd take to let that milk-wagon nag—"

"They're off," announced the fellow with the headphones on.

"I'll still take it in big bills," said Jimmy, serenely.

"I'm damned," was Kelly's only comment, a couple of minutes later.

JIMMY CHILDERS had two free hours that somehow were not covered by the dream. He remembered vaguely that he had deposited most of his winnings and then gone for a walk in the park. That he did, but his thoughts were so in the clouds and his pulse pounding so with the sense of personal well-being and triumph that he hardly remembered jumping impulsively into a cab and going to the most famous jeweler's in the world.

Later he mounted the steps in Genevieve's house, the ring snuggling in his pocket. He knew exactly how he was to be greeted— for once the pout would be off her face and in its place jubilant excitement. For the evening papers were full of his exploits at the bank, and the reporters had brought out the fact that that morning he had been made manager of the foreign department. The auspices for a favorable reception to his umpty- teenth proposal were good, to say the least.

They went to dinner, just as he knew they would, at the most expensive place in town.

Jimmy ordered carelessly, without a glance at the card.

"Yes, sir," said the waiter, with that bow that is bestowed only on those that know their way around.

"Why, Jimmy," she tittered, "you seem to be perfectly at home here."

"Oh, yes," he said carelessly, as he flipped the folds out of his napkin. He did not see fit to tell her that in the dream of yesterday— or was it today?— it had been only after thirty minutes study of the intricate card, to the tune of many acrimonious comments by Genevieve and the obvious disapproval of an impatient waiter, that he had picked that particular combination of food and drink. But it had been eminently satisfactory, so why not repeat?

As the evening wore on he found himself more and more eager to get to the place where that culminating kiss occurred. That was something he could repeat ad infinitum, whether in the flesh or a dream. And when it came, he was not disappointed. After that they had the little ritual of the ring, and still later his departure. His soul soared as it had never soared before.

Or rather, he reminded himself, a trifle ruefully, as it had never soared before in waking life. For after all, the day's triumphs had had just a little of the edge taken off by his certainty that they would occur.

And as he digested that thought, he concluded he would go straight home and to bed. After all, last night the only thing more he had done was stroll on the Drive, after paying the cigar- store clerk his tip, wrapped in his own glorious thoughts. No other incident had occurred worth reliving, as his pleasure at being able to give such a generous handout as a five-dollar bill was somewhat marred by the repulsiveness of the beggarly old crone who had received it.

So he went straight to his room, locked and bolted the door, and prepared for bed. Just before he turned off the light he surveyed the chair piled high with his purchases with immense satisfaction. Tomorrow he would go forth dressed as his new station in life required. His eye caught the calendar, and instead of striking out the day with his customary black cross, he encircled it twice in red. Then taking good care that the clock was wound, but not the alarm, he went to bed.

THE very first thing that startled Jimmy Childers that extraordinary repetitive June day was the alarm clock going off. It shouldn't have gone off. He remembered distinctly setting it at "Silent" when he went to bed the night before, and thumbing his nose derisively at it. He was a big shot now; he could get down to the office with the Westchesterites, at quarter of ten, not at nine, as heretofore.

He rose on an elbow and poised himself to hurl a pillow at the jangling thing. And then, THEN—

"Good Heaven!" he mumbled. "I've done all this before."

Angrily he bounded out of bed and choked off the offending clock. It took only a swift glance around the room to check the items some quick sense told him were missing: There were no packages from the haberdasher's, nor ring box. And the calendar stared at him unsullied by red-penciled marks. It was the morning of June 14th!

He dressed in sullen rage, grumbling at his fate. He couldn't stand many double-barreled dreams like that one— they were too exhausting. He'd better see a doctor. And yet— yet it was all so real. He could have sworn that all those things had actually happened to him— twice! But then he stopped, more mystified than ever. They had differed somewhat in detail, those two days. He stopped and stared at himself in the mirror and noted he appeared a bit wild-eyed.

"I'll experiment, first," he decided, and hurried out, slamming the door behind.

At the cigar stand he asked the clerk,

"How do you go about betting on the ponies?"

"I can take it," said the fellow, unenthusiastically.

"Here's two bucks," said Jimmy, "put it on Swiss Rhapsody— to win. I hope there's such a horse?"

"If you're not particular what you call a horse," said the clerk, with an air of sneering omniscience. "I'm surprised they let her run at all."

"Why?"

"It takes her so long to finish it throws all the other races late."

"Oh," said Jimmy Childers, but he let the bet stand.

He did not waste three cents on a paper that morning. One glance at the headlines was enough. He had practically memorized its contents two days before. But when he got in the subway he was very careful to give the nasty, quarrelsome-looking old woman who blocked his path as wide a berth as possible.

"Whippersnapper!" she exclaimed venomously, noting his scrupulous avoidance of her. There was a little flurry as people glanced up and had a look at him, then they went back to the reading of their stale newspapers. Jimmy Childers groaned. Was he in some squirrel cage of fate? Did everything have to always come out the same way, no matter what his approach? He resolved to make something come out differently, no matter what the cost.

This time he opened his letter containing the literary check without a tremor, and without joy. He knew he would spend the money, and how. He knew, too, that the things he purchased with it would vanish overnight, leaving him to do it all over again tomorrow. When the messenger came to tell him the big boss wanted him at once, Childers said coldly:

"I'm busy. Anyhow, it's no farther from his desk to mine than it is from mine to his."

The messenger gaped with awe, as if wondering whether lightning would strike. Then he stumbled off toward the chief's office.

"I don't think you understand, Childers," the big boss was saying a moment later, as he stood by Jimmy's desk. "Brown has left and we're giving you his job. It pays two hundred, you know."

"Not enough," replied Childers, gruffly.

"It's all we can afford just now," said the boss pleasantly. "But that's our offer. Think it over. It will be open for a week."

Jimmy Childers stared at his retreating back.

"Gosh!" he muttered. "And I got away with that!"

He went through the bank routine with little change, although he did think something of telephoning the police a tip-off and letting it go at that, but for some unknown but compelling reason he had to go through his act personally. But the thrill was gone. His walk in the park was much less joyous, as the more he tried to digest the strangely repetitive nature of his life the last three days, the more unhappy he became.

"It's like that old song about the broken record," he muttered sourly. "All the kick's gone out of things now." He didn't even bother to go to the jeweler's to select the ring. He knew the stock number by heart. So he merely phoned for it.

The kiss that night was up to par, which was some solace, but aside from that, getting engaged was not so much fun. There was no palpitation of the heart as he hung on her words, wondering what the answer would be. He already knew damn well what the answer would be. What kind of a life was that?

That night he threw the alarm clock out the window.

THE very first thing that startled Jimmy Childers that—

"Damnation!" he growled, at the first tap of the awakening bell. He threw, not a pillow, but a heavy book, and watched with grim satisfaction as the face crystal smashed to tiny bits.

When he went out he avoided the cigar stand and took a bus, not the subway.

"Insufferable!" snorted the old hellion he sat down beside. He gasped. It was his nemesis of the subway. Apparently she had decided to vary her program a bit, too. He changed seats and listened with reddening cheeks to the titters of the other passengers.

At the office he had an unexpected telephone call. It was from the clerk at his corner cigar stand.

"Oh, Jimmy," he said, "I guess you were late this morning and didn't have time to leave your bet— so I placed one for you. Hope you don't mind?"

"What horse?" asked Childers, glumly.

"Swiss Rhapsody. She's a long shot, but—"

Jimmy hung up and stared at the phone in front of him. He just couldn't get away from this thing.

All day long he tried to ring changes on his routine, and with astonishing minor results. But as to the major outcome there was never any difference. He was promoted, he won money, he saved the bank from robbery, he got engaged.

And the days that followed were no different. In the main, the events of June 14th had to be relived and relived until he found himself wincing at every one of the events that once had impressed him as such tremendous triumphs. Finally one day, during the hours usually devoted to the stroll in the park, he flung himself into a psychiatrist's office.

"Hm-m-m," commented the doctor, after he had smitten Childers' knees with little rubber mallets, and had scratched him on the feet and back with small prongs. "All I see are a few tremors. What's on your mind?"

"Plenty," said Jimmy savagely, and poured out his story.

"Hm-m-m," commented the doctor. "Interesting— most interesting."

He scribbled a prescription.

"Take this before you go to bed. It is simply something to make you sleep better. Then come back tomorrow at this same hour."

"Just one question, doctor."

"Yes?"

"What is today's date?"

"The fourteenth." The doctor smiled indulgently.

"And yesterday's?"

"The thirteenth. Come back tomorrow, please."

On the dot Jimmy Childers showed up at the doctor's office the next day— June the fourteenth, according to Childers' calendar. As he barged into the waiting room he was accosted with a chill:

"Name, please?"

He looked at the nurse in astonishment. Why, only the day before he had spent the best part of an hour dictating the answers of a questionnaire to her! He gave her a blank stare.

"The doctor is seen only by appointment," she added, looking at him disapprovingly.

"I... I made one yesterday," he stammered. "I was here... was examined!"

"You must be wrong," said she, sweetly. "Doctor just returned from Europe this morning."

"Oh, hell!" snarled Childers, and rushed from the place. He saw at once what a jam he was in. He had added another piece of furniture to his merry-go-round. That was all. He could vary it within limits, of course, but he would never get anywhere.

JIMMY CHILDERS charged up and down the walks of the park in a frenzy. If only Sunday would come—  something to break this vicious circle. But no, there was no way to get to Sunday. With him it was always Friday.

That night he skipped the call on Genevieve. Instead he called her up and made some flimsy, insulting excuse. All she said was:

"You old fibber. You're just shy. The ring came up and I'm so thrilled. Of course I'll marry you, you silly boy."

Weak and trembling he hung up. In his hand was a steamship ticket to Buenos Aires on the Santa Mosca, sailing at eleven p. m. He would try that on his jinx.

He got aboard all right, despite some arguments about a passport, and turned in at once, after dogging down the port and carefully locking the door. He took three of the tablets the doctor had prescribed instead of the one mentioned in the directions. If it were a dream, he ought to knock it now— different room, different bed, different environment, different everything. Jimmy closed his eyes. That night, the first for many a June 14th, he went to sleep with a ray of hope.

The very first thing that startled—

"Oh, Heaven!" sighed a haggard Jimmy Childers, as he shut off the clock, "another day of it."

HE went through the Red Book almost name by name. He shook his head hopelessly. He had tried almost everything from chiropractors to psychiatrists. Then he found a name that somehow he had skipped. It was under necromancers. At once he grabbed a taxi and flew to the address— a stinking hole under the Williamsburg Bridge.

"Sorry," said the macabre person he contacted, sitting placidly among his black velvet drapes in a "studio" calculated to send a strictly normal person into the heebie-jeebies, "but I only deal with the dead. That is my specialty. Now if you want a corpse raised, or anything like that—"

"No, no," said Jimmy hastily, and paid his fee and left. Outside he shuddered at the memory of the funereal atmosphere of the faker's joint. He hoped fervently that this episode wasn't going to get embroidered into the design. His error was in not knowing what a necromancer was. He went back to the Red Book. It just had occurred to him that perhaps under sorcerers or thaumaturgists was what he wanted.

He found a lot of them, mostly in Harlem, and made a list.

The first four were as unsatisfactory as the necromancer, a circumstance that was very trying to Jimmy, for he could visit only one a day, using the blank two hours, usually spent in the park. All the rest of the time he had to devote to the tedious business of being promoted, winning money, foiling robberies or making love.

But the fifth man was very much to Jimmy Childers' liking, after he recovered from the shock of the first interview. He found him in a dilapidated office in a shabby neighborhood in Greenpoint, and on the door was crudely lettered the frank but somewhat disconcerting legend, "Master Charlatan." Nevertheless Jimmy went boldly in.

"Ah," said the seer, after gazing for a while in a crystal sphere before him. "I perceive you are the victim of a blessing that misfired."

Jimmy Childers brought his eyes back to the bald-headed, fishy-eyed fat man who had guaranteed to help him. While the master charlatan had been in his semitrance Jimmy had been examining the charts that hung about. Obviously the man he had come to was versatile in the extreme, for there were diagrams of the human palm, knobs of the human cranium, weird charts of the heavens, and all the rest of the props that go with standard charlatanry.

"Now tell me something about this original fourteenth of June," said the sage. "How long ago was it, according to your reckoning?"

"Months and months," moaned Jimmy, thinking back on the intolerable monotony of it all.

"Can you recall the exact details of the first day— I mean the very first one— the prototype?"

"I doubt it," confessed Jimmy. "You see, I've wriggled around and monkeyed with it so much that I'm all balled up."

"Try," said the wise one, calmly.

Hesitantly Jimmy Childers told his story, as best he could remember it, all the way to his going to bed the night of the genuine fourteenth of June.

"Now you begin to interest me," suddenly said the master, opening his eyes from the apparent slumber into which he had relapsed the moment Jimmy had begun talking. "Tell me more about that beggar woman on the Drive. Was she toothless except for a single yellow fang? Did her knuckles come to about her knees? Was she blind in her left eye?"

"Yes, yes," agreed Jimmy eagerly.

"Aha!" ejaculated the seer, "I thought so. Minnie the Malicious!" He made a note. "I'll report this to the Guild. She was disbarred long ago—  for malpractice and incompetence."

Jimmy looked mystified.

"She used to be a practicing witch," explained the great one with a shrug, "now she is just a chiseler. You know... cheap curses, pretty enchantments and the like. But just what did she say to you, and _most particularly_, what kind of wishes did you make just after you left her?"

"Well," admitted Jimmy, "she came up whining and asked for a penny. I was feeling pretty high, so I gave her a five-spot."

"That was a mistake," murmured the sorcerer.

"That's all," said Jimmy, suddenly concluding. "She mumbled something, and I walked on."

"But you wished something?"

"Well, I do remember—  don't forget what a wonderful day I'd had— that I was wishing every day was like that, or that I could live it over again, or something of the sort."

"Be very exact," insisted his interrogator.

"Sorry," said Jimmy.

"Let's go into the Mesmeric Department," said his consultant, leading the way into a shabby interior room. "Now sit there and keep your eye on the little jeweled light," he ordered.

IT seemed only an instant before Jimmy woke up. The master charlatan was sitting in front of him placidly looking at him.

"Your exact wish," he said, "was a triple one, as I suspected. They usually are. Here are your mental words, 'Oh, I wish every day was like this one; I wish I could live it over again; I wish I'd never seen that old hag, she gives me the creeps.'"

"So what?" queried Jimmy, recalling it now.

"When you gave her such a magnificent present, she mumbled out that you would have your next three wishes granted. Oddly enough, if she had been an able practitioner, nothing would have happened—"

"That doesn't make sense," objected Jimmy.

"Oh, yes it does. You see, your last wish would have had the effect of canceling the others, as you would never have met her, see?"

"It is a little involved," frowned Jimmy.

"Yes, these things have a way of getting involved," admitted the wise one. "However, since she was a low-powered witch, so to speak, only the first wish came fully true, that is, every day—  for you—  was like that one. By the time you had gotten to the second one some of the punch was out of it. You didn't quite live it over again. You had the power of varying it a little, which was a very fortunate circumstance, as otherwise you would have gone on doing it forever and ever."

"You mean I'm cured!" exclaimed Jimmy delightedly.

"Not so fast. When we come to the last wish, her power had petered out almost altogether. It did not do away with the fact that you had met her, but it was strong enough to cause you to avoid meeting her any more."

"I see," said Jimmy, hoping he really did.

"Now what you've got to do is to live that day over once more— the first one, mind you—  including meeting Minnie; only the minute she mumbles, reverse your wish. That cancels everything."

"But I can't remember that day well enough—"

"I'll coach you," said the mesmerist. "While you were hypnotized I took it all down, every detail."

An hour later Jimmy Childers rose to go. He paid over to the magician all the money he had just collected on Swiss Rhapsody. The old man dropped it into his pocket with just the hint of a chuckle.

"By the way," asked Jimmy, on the threshold, "what day is this?"

"That, my friend," replied the master charlatan with an oily smile, "is a mystery I'd advise you not to look into. Good day!"

_____________________

18: The Giftie Gien

Unknown Worlds, April 1943

IT was five o'clock. The girls were getting ready to go home and the city salesmen were beginning to come trooping in. Mr. J.C. Chisholm, sales manager of the Pinnacle Office & Household Appliance Corp., folded his pudgy hands across his ample middle and sat back in his chair to watch the daily ritual going on beyond the clear-glass partition that separated his office from the salesmen's room. A bland smile was on his pink face and a stranger might have said that he appeared to be beaming with satisfaction and good will. At any rate, the smile was there, and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Chisholm was quite satisfied with himself. There was not the slightest doubt in his mind— and the incoming orders up to that hour were added proof of it— that he was the best little old sales manager POHAC had ever had. Consequently, he viewed the activities beyond the partition with the utmost amiability.

Miss Maizie Delmar, his secretary, sat beside him, her notebook on her knee and her pencil poised in anticipation of any weighty utterance he might see fit to make. Not that she expected to take any notes for the next ten minutes, for she knew her boss quite as well as he thought he knew everybody else. This was the "psychic hour," as she caustically referred to it when outside the smothering confines of POHAC's. It amused Mr. Chisholm to display his keen powers of observation and his uncanny judgment of people. So she waited with a hard, set face for his first prediction. She knew that he would look at her from time to time to get her reaction, but she was ready for that. She had a little frozen smile and a gleam to put into her tired eyes that she could flash on and off like a light, but she reserved those until they were demanded.

"Har-rum," he observed, "Miss Carrick has now finished dabbing her nose. In exactly forty-three seconds she will fold her typewriter under and slam the lid. Then she will go to the window and look at the sky. It is cloudy, so she will put on her galoshes and take an umbrella."

He started his stop watch. Miss Delmar sighed inaudibly and waited. Of course he was right. Miss Carrick was an elderly and sour spinster and decidedly "set in her ways." She was as predictable as sunset and the tides.

"Forty-four seconds," he announced, triumphantly, snapping off the watch at the bang of the desk top. "Don't tell me. I know these people like a book. Nobody can slip anything over old J.C."

Miss Trevelyan was the next subject for prophecy. She had a well-established routine that was almost as rigid as that of Miss Carrick, though she was of a different type. Miss Trevelyan was a baby-doll beauty of the Betty Boop variety and with the voice to match. At the moment she was regarding herself anxiously in a ridiculously small compact minor, tilting her head this way and that with quick birdlike jerks so as to better scrutinize nose, cheeks, eyes and ears. After that, as J.C. gleefully foretold, would come the powdering, the lip-sticking, the eyebrow-brushing- -in the order named— and eventually an elaborate tucking-in of imaginary wisps of vagrant hair. J.C. didn't miss a bet.

Then three salesmen came in. Jake Sarrat, the big, jovial ace of the wholesale district, slapped the other two on the back, hurled his brief case and kit into a desk drawer, made a brief phone call, and then went out. Old Mr. Firrel wore his usual somber, tired look, and walked slowly to the bare table they had let him use. He unbent his lanky and stooped six feet of skin and bones and began dragging copious sheafs of notes from his brief case. Those he glanced at briefly and began tearing up, one by one. The third, a saturnine little fellow who appeared to be perpetually angry, marched straight to his desk and began scribbling furiously on a pad of report blanks. He was Ellis Hardy, Chisholm's pet.

"Jake," said Mr. Chisholm, confidently, "is working up a big case and wants to surprise me with it. Watch his smoke before the week is over. Ellis has just brought in a big one— stick around, we may pour a drink before we call it a day. As for Old Dismal, he's quitting. The poor dope!"

He twirled his chair around to face a mahogany cabinet. He opened the door of it, took out a bottle and glass, and poured himself a stiff slug of rye. He tossed it off with a grunt and swiveled back.

"That guy is not a salesman and never will be," he snorted contemptuously. "Look at him! He looks like a tramp and as mournful as a pallbearer. When I talk to him about dolling himself up he says he hasn't the dough; when I tell him to cheer up and wear a smile, he croaks about his stomach ulcers. What do I care how hard he works if he never brings the bacon in? Why, if that poor drip ever took a look at himself in the mirror, he'd go hang himself."

Maizie gripped her pencil harder and quoted softly:

"Ah, wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us—"

"That's right," exclaimed Mr. Chisholm. "You get it. Take me. I'm always on the lookout for that. If I didn't watch myself, I might turn stout. But no, I'm wise. I don't wait for people to tell me--I go to the gym three times a week and have a good workout. The rubber says there's not a spare ounce on me. There's no crime in being big— people respect a big man, don't you think?"

"They do get out of their way," admitted Maizie, flashing her stock smile, and batting here eyelids appreciatively. After all, he paid her forty a week and she had a paralyzed mother to support.

"Exactly," he continued, gratified, "and that's only appearance I'm talking about. The big thing is personal relations. Look how often somebody takes me for an easy-mark and tries to slip something over. I fool 'em, don't I? That's because I keep studying myself. I say to myself, say I, 'Look here, J. C., this bird thinks he's smart; now show him you're smarter.' Good system, eh? That's what comes of taking an objective view of yourself. That's why I keep all those psychology books around. You have no idea—"

"It must be grand to be so masterful, to be able to hold down such a big position... and... and all that," she said, hoping the blush it cost her wouldn't be noticed.

But there was a diversion at hand. Ellis Hardy was approaching and she knew without being told what was about to happen. In the line of duty she listened in— with the connivance of Miss Perkins, the PBX operator on salesmen's telephone conversations. In fact, she was the modest source of much of Mr. Chisholm's omniscience.

Hardy came in without the ceremony of knocking, and promptly sat down on top of Chisholm's desk. He threw down a sheaf of filled-out orders. A certified check running to five figures was clipped to the top.

"Got 'em," announced Hardy with a self-satisfied smirk. "Eight SXV units, motor driven, complete with accessories and a year's supply. That's for the head office. I sold 'em four more for the branches."

"Attaboy!" responded Chisholm, doing another right-about-face. This time he set out three glasses with the bottle. "Moore & Fentress, eh? I told you they would be pushovers. Don't ever say I don't give you the breaks— that was like getting money from home."

"Uh-huh," admitted Hardy, with a reluctant grin. "Of course that sap Firrel—"

"Never mind Firrel," snapped Chisholm, "I'll handle him. The money's the thing."

"Oh, sure," said Hardy, "as soon as my check comes through—"

"Drink up," said Chisholm, waving a deprecating hand. There was no need of Maizie knowing too much— she was discreet and loyal and all that, but still—

Firrel was at the door, standing hesitantly as if unwilling to interrupt the conference going on, but fidgeting as if anxious to be on his way.

"Scram, Ellis," said Chisholm, seeing the gaunt old man. "Let me hear what this egg's wail is."

Hardy grinned his sour grin and stepped out, giving Mr. Firrel but the curtest nod in passing. Firrel came in, and not being invited to sit, stood awkwardly before the desk. Maizie felt sorry for the man. He was so earnest, so sincere, such a hard worker— yet he had been with them more than a month and the few commissions he had received could hardly have done more than pay his carfare. It was pathetic.

"Well?" asked Chisholm, hard and cross, as if annoyed at the intrusion.

"I'm quitting," said Firrel. "That's all."

"Suit yourself," said Chisholm, indifferently. "I never begged a man to work for me and I can't see myself starting now. Check out with Miss Delmar. Give her your kit and turn over the list of prospects you have been working on— not that I think they are any good. It's the rule, you know."

"You can go to hell," said Mr. Firrel, very quietly. Maizie noticed that his knuckles were white and his hands tense. "I called in to see Mr. Fentress this afternoon. He told me to. That was a week ago. He said that they had to await the authorization of their Board of Directors before signing an order. I found out what had happened."

"So what?" roared Chisholm savagely. "Do you think we could keep open if we ran on a sometime, if and when basis? Alibis are all you ever have... at the end of the quarter... when they take the inventory.. when Mr. Goofus gets back from the West Coast. We want business now. That's why I sent Hardy when they called up this morning and wanted to know why our man hadn't been around. He doesn't stall and make alibis for himself. He gets 'em on the dotted line. I couldn't let you muff a big order like this one."

Chisholm waved the order under his nose, then laid it face down so the amount on the check would not show.

"Of course," the sales manager went on, in that I-lean-over- backward-being-a-good-fellow manner he assumed at times, "if you really feel that you have anything coming to you for what preliminary work you did, I'm sure I can make Hardy see it that way. He'll cut you in. That's a promise. Would a twenty, say, help out?"

He pulled out his wallet and opened it. Maizie took one glance at the smoldering hatred and contempt in the weary eyes of the man before the desk and then hastily dropped her own to the notebook on her knee. If only someone would sock the porcine jowl of her detested employer!

"You heard me," said Firrel with a cold distinctness that cut. "You can go to hell."

He turned abruptly and walked out. A moment later the outer door slammed.

"Never mind trying to piece out his torn prospect cards, Maizie," said POHAC's eminently successful sales manager. "We have a file of his daily reports. Hardy can work just as well from those."

"Yes, sir," said Maizie. Her rent was overdue, and the doctor had said—

She swept out of the office and down the hall to the wash-room. Her nails were biting into her palms and her eyes were brimming.

"Oh, the louse," she moaned over and over again, "the louse, the dirty, dirty louse! If I were only a man—"

Then those lines of Burns came to mind

"O, wad some power the giftie gie us—"

"That would do," she cried fervently. "Hang himself! If he only saw himself as I see him, he'd be lucky if he could hang himself."

SEVEN o'clock came. Mr. Chisholm took one final snort before putting on his hat and turning out the lights. He must be in fine form when he met Mr. Lonigan. Lonigan was an important buyer and he was coming in on the Rocket at seven thirty. The evening was already planned. He was to meet the buyer, take him to dinner, then meet the McKittricks in the lobby of the Palace Theater. Mr. McKittrick was the president of POHAC and had six box seats for the show. With him would be Mrs. McKittrick, Mrs. Chisholm, and a certain very personable young woman whom the company employed from time to time to fill in on just such occasions. It promised to be a gay evening, and as soon as he had a chance to whisper to the big boss about the order he had topped the day off with, even McKittrick would concede that he had the best sales manager ever.

Chisholm jabbed the elevator button, whistling merrily as he stood back to watch the oscillations of the tell-tale above the door.

"Nice night, Jerry," he said cheerily to the elevator man.

"A very nice night, sir," agreed Jerry. But he never took his eyes off the column of blinking ruby lights before his nose. Mr. Chisholm was to be the most mistrusted when he was in a benign mood. It was usually the come-on for some probing and tricky questions. Like, "I saw Mr. Naylor get in your car a while ago. What a card! He's higher'n a kite tonight. Ha, ha." Any response to a remark of that sort was sure to mean trouble for somebody.

Chisholm was in an expansive mood and strode along as if he owned the earth. He felt fine. It did not matter that ten of his men had quit that week, and not all of them had been as restrained as old man Firrel in their good-byes. What did he care for the weak sisters? An ad in tomorrow's papers would fill up the anteroom with forty more. If they clicked— weeks from now— so much the better; if not, how could he lose? POHAC's sales department was strictly a straight commission outfit.

He turned through the park. It was not only a short cut but pleasanter walking, except for the beggars One met him and whined for a cup of coffee, but Chisholm growled at him and stalked on by. Farther on he came to a place where the path passed through some heavy shrubbery. There were deep shadows there, and he hesitated a moment. He would have felt better if a policeman were in sight. Then he reminded himself of what puny creatures most of the panhandlers were and of his own brawn. He walked on.

A man was coming toward him. Just as he supposed, the man was another beggar. He asked for a dime. Chisholm realized it was dark where he was and thought perhaps a dime was cheap insurance against an argument. He stopped and groped in his change pocket for the coin. At that moment something happened. The beggar suddenly grasped his right arm, while another man stepped out of the bushes and grabbed his left. At the same instant someone from the rear locked an arm about his throat and lifted. He was off his feet and choking— skilled hands were exploring his pockets—  he kicked and squirmed only to feel the vise-like grip on his neck tighten maddeningly. There was an inward plop and something cracked just under his skull with a sharp detonation and a blinding flare of light. Mr. Chisholm had been brutally mugged. Mr. Chisholm was quite dead.

TWO hours and a quarter later a group of four were still waiting impatiently in the foyer of the Palace. An angry man from St. Louis sat in the back of a cafeteria eating his supper. He had not been met at the station as promised; neither the office phone, nor McKittrick's or Chisholm's home phones had answered. Not that he minded missing Chisholm particularly— he had always thought him a phony— but he did like the McKittricks. The party at the theater were equally angry, though they showed it less.

"Well," remarked Mrs. McKittrick acidly to her husband in a moment when the others were occupied, "how much longer are you going to wait for that stuffed-shirt of a head salesman of yours?"

"One minute— no more," said McKittrick, glaring at his watch. "If it's any comfort to you, he's being canned as of coming Monday. The office turnover since he's been in charge is something scandalous."

In the other corner of the foyer the smartly-gowned creature brought along for the delectation of Mr. Lonigan was growing restive also. She turned to Mrs. Chisholm.

"Whatever could have happened to your husband?" she asked sweetly.

"Drunk, I suppose," answered Mrs. Chisholm calmly. "I hope so. I hear this is a good show and I want to enjoy it, even if we have missed half the first act. My husband, you know, fancies himself as a dramatic critic. He is quite unbearable, I assure you."

"Oh, really?" said the fair young thing. It was best to be noncommittal, she thought, though she had been secretly wondering for some time how long Mrs. Chisholm No. 3 was going to stick it out. No other Mrs. Chisholm had ever finished out the first year, despite the Chisholm legend of what a "way" he had with the gals.

"Let's go on in," said Mr. McKittrick, pocketing his watch.

IT was about then that the park police stumbled across the defunct sales manager's broken form. It was already a long time after Mr. Chisholm had temporarily forgotten all about Hardy and Firrel and Maizie and Lonigan and the theater party. For in some places a matter of a couple of hours or so seems longer. It was that way where Mr. Chisholm was.

First, there was all that tiresome marching. Chisholm found himself on a vast gray plain under a dull leaden sky, marching, marching, marching. It was odd that it tired him so, for it was effortless and timeless, and the distances, though interminable, seemed meaningless. It must have been the monotony of it. And then, also, he found those marching with him strangely disturbing. Some were healthy-looking men like himself, except that most of them were gashed or mangled in some way, as if hurled through plate glass or smashed by bombs. Others were haggard and pallid, as if coming from sickbeds. But it was the soldiers that got him most. He had forgotten about the war. It had touched him but slightly, though his impressions of it had been irritating, but not in a flesh-and-blood way. The silly business of priorities, price controls and sales taxes had annoyed him exceedingly, and the outrageous income-tax boosts had infuriated him. Now he was getting another slant on the conflict, for hordes— armies— of soldiers were marching along with him. They were of every kind— Russians, Japs, Tommies, Nazis, even American bluejackets and soldiers— and mingled with them were miserable-looking civilians of every race. A pair of wretched-looking Polish Jews walking near him had obviously been hanged but a short time before. Chisholm edged away from them in horrified disgust.

He was beginning to tumble to the fact that he was dead, and was getting restive with the monotonous tramping across the plain. He had never been a devout man, or even a philosophical one, so he had little idea of what to expect, except that certain childhood memories or notions kept intruding themselves upon his consciousness. Wasn't there some sort of trial coming to him? Not that the prospect worried him much. At least, not very much. For he had always dealt justly with people according to his lights, he insisted to himself. He couldn't help it if there were venal people, or weaklings, or would-be tough eggs that had to be pushed around. Nobody could be expected to get through life without handling such types in the most appropriate way. But where, or who, was the judge that would pass judgment?

After a time the crowd grew thinner. At length the shade of Chisholm noted that he was virtually alone and treading a narrow path that led upward over a shadowy hill. There was no one ahead of him or alongside, but following him at a distance was a considerable multitude of other shades of his own kind. He supposed that shortly after his own unfortunate encounter with the thugs a catastrophe of some sort had developed locally. He could not resist the malicious half-hope that it might have been a theater fire. Somehow it irked him that his latest wife should still be alive and fattening on his property while he was tramping these gray wilds. Nor would it have upset him to know that McKittrick had been caught in the same disaster. McKittrick, in his estimation, was a pompous ass whom he would have shown up if he could have lived just a little longer. As far as that went, he could also have viewed with equanimity the decease of the girl that was brought along for Lonigan. He hadn't forgotten the smart of her recent rebuff of him, the little cat!

With such thoughts in mind, he topped the rise and saw a wall with a gate in it before him. The gate was open, so he went on in. He halfway expected to be stopped, or at least greeted by an angel, but things were just the same inside the gate as out—  except that there was a voice. The voice cried out in the manner of a train announcer, deep and booming:

"The prototype of Jerome Chester Chisholm!"

Just that. That was all.

Then a demon materialized directly in front of the shade of Chisholm.

"This way, Jerome," he said very politely. He was not bad- looking— for a demon— though he was unmistakably one, having the expected stock properties: a reddish, glistening skin, stubby horns, and shiny jet-black eyes.

"'J.C.' is what people call me," corrected Chisholm. He had never dealt with a demon before, but since the demon appeared to be friendly he thought he might as well respond with a gesture of his own.

"Better stick to Jerome," advised the demon. "I'll admit it's not pretty, but it's safe. When you start being known by what people call you— well!"

Mr. Chisholm sniffed. The demon's words had the faint odor of a dirty crack. He was beginning not to like the demon. Also the import of the unseen aerial announcement was puzzling him. What did it mean by calling him the "prototype" of himself? It didn't make sense.

THE demon was skittering along ahead, paying very little attention to Chisholm, who was following along meekly enough. Presently a large building loomed ahead. As they approached Chisholm could see that it was an auditorium of some kind. He could also see that the mob of shades were close behind and that they had no guiding demon with them. Evidently they were following blindly in his tracks.

The demon turned into the door of the building and led the way up to its stage. It was an auditorium. By the time they had reached the platform, the crowd of ghosts behind were crowding into the place. They soon filled it from wall to wall.

"You must have been a pretty popular fellow," remarked the demon, looking them over, "or the reverse. Notorious, you know."

Chisholm didn't know. He had a reputation, he knew, as a go- getter and a good fellow, but it was a modest one— restricted to his customers, his salesmen, and people he met casually. He hardly expected this turn-out. Moreover, he couldn't recognize anybody in the hall. As he looked them over he was struck with one singularity of the crowd. Many of them bore a family resemblance to him, some rather close, others fantastically distorted. The majority looked like three- dimensional, animated caricatures of him. One especially obnoxious one kept trying to climb up onto the stage. He was far fatter than Chisholm himself had ever been or could ever have been even if he had skipped the gym workouts.

The demon observed the look of profound distaste on Chisholm's face, but only grinned a little and picked up a gavel. He rapped sharply on the table.

"Come to order, please," he said. "The convention is assembled."

There was a momentary hush, and then pandemonium broke out. It was a very disorderly crowd and an opinionated one, from the jeers that were hurled up at the stage. It was hard to pick out what they were saying, but the trend of it seemed to be that practically everyone there wanted to preside or was full of hot ideas that demanded immediate and full expression. The demon was unperturbed. He was an old hand. At intervals he would bang with the gavel. At last he got a tiny bit of silence.

"Fellow heels," he commenced, unblushingly, then paused to see what uproar would follow. There was none. His insult had quieted the tumult like oil on ruffled waters. He cleared his throat and went on.

"We are gathered here to form the ghost of Jerome Chester Chisholm, deceased, erstwhile sales manager of the Pinnacle Office & Household Appliance Corp. We have all eternity, to be sure, but why waste it? Coalesce, please, as rapidly as possible. For purposes of comparison, your prototype is standing here beside me. Take it or leave it. That's your affair."

There were howls of "Chuck him out," "chiseler," "heel," "stuffed shirt," and many, many less elegant epithets. Then an ominous silence descended. The demon quietly pointed to a spot on the stage and the procession started. One by one the specters mounted the stage, marched to the spot and stood on it.

Succeeding ones came on, each melting imperceptibly into the one that had been there before. Gradually the resultant figure took on more definite shape and looked far more solid than any single shade in the hall. For many of them were so tenuous as to be hardly visible.

"Would you mind, sir," asked Mr. Chisholm, not knowing any better way to address a demon, "telling me what this is all about? And after this monkey business is over, when do I get my trial?"

"Trial?" The demon laughed. "In one sense you have had your trial. This is the result. In another sense, this is your trial. In either case, the verdict is already found and the sentence fixed."

"I don't get you," said Mr. Chisholm. "Who are all these...er...spooks? And what have they got to do with me? They look like a flock of comic Valentines."

"They have plenty to do with you. They are you."

"Me! You're crazy. I'm me." He struck himself on the chest.

"No. You are only one aspect of you," corrected the demon. "You are a ghost now, and nothing more. Ghosts are intangible, immaterial things— made of dream stuff, as your poets say. What you call you is your own estimate of you. These creatures flocking up onto the stage are other people's estimates of you. You— the you that we recognize— is the composite of them all. Stick around. You are going to learn something."

Chisholm turned his gaze back at the oncoming file of shades. They were ghastly cartoons of himself, and malicious ones at that. Many of them were unintelligible.

"Hey," he said, "what's that thing coming up— that slender wisp of smoke with the lumpy feet? If that is a conception of me, the guy that thought it up has gone surrealistic."

The demon looked.

"Oh, that. Yes, it's weak. It is offered by a fellow named Percy Hilyer. He roomed with you at school and has almost forgotten you. He does remember that you were lean and lanky then and used to swipe his socks and wear holes in them."

"That's a hell of a thing to hold against a guy," complained Chisholm.

The demon shrugged.

"That is the way reputations are made. How do you like this one?"

"This one" was the rambunctious shade who had tried to take charge of the meeting at the outset. He was egregiously repulsive.

"That," announced the demon blandly, "is the contribution of one Maizie Delmar. Judging from its robustness and solidity, she knew you recently and well."

Chisholm's jaw had dropped and his eyes bulged. The thing was incredible. Not Maizie's. Maizie was regular; dumb, maybe, but they got along.

"I take it Maizie was the tactful sort," remarked the demon with a sly drawl, noting the amazement on Chisholm's loose face. Then, "Here comes one that might suit you better."

It was a fat, squally baby, drooling and flapping its pudgy arms.

"One of your mother's contributions. Her favorite of many. You might admire some, but they are all on the helpless side— not at all in keeping with your hardboiled idea of the way to do things."

Chisholm stood aghast and watched the endless procession. On they came, one vile caricature after another. Nobody seemed to have forgotten him. He expected the specter furnished by Firrel to be bad. It was. Malice was not its creator, but sheer contempt. Chisholm had to turn his face when it clambered up onto the stage. The office girls' offering differed little from Maizie's except in intensity. The one held by Hardy was a cruel surprise. He had done so much for Hardy. But he had forgotten how he had made Hardy pay through the nose for favors.

The greatest shocks were to follow. He steeled himself for whatever opinions those first two wives held, but the current one had done a devastating job of analysis. Even the demon whistled. Interspersed between the major blows were minor ones, and not always shadowy. Bootblacks, waiters, taxi drivers— on almost every casual contact he had left a mark. Out of the lot there was only one that was glowingly heroic. He could not refrain from asking the demon about it. The demon bent his insight onto the wraith and pronounced:

"A girl you met once— a pick-up. You kissed her on the Drive that night, and then lost her phone number, you lucky dog."

"Lucky?"

"Yes. She never had a chance to know you better."

Mr. Chisholm was glum. It wasn't right to be pilloried that way. They simply couldn't do that to him. To hell with what all those people thought. Who were they, anyhow? A lot of nitwit salesmen and office help, gold-diggers and climbers! He knew he was all right. He had got along. They were jealous and envious, that's what. He nudged the demon.

"Hey," he called, "this is a democracy, ain't it? If these soreheads have a vote, so do I. Don't I come in?"

"Sure, sure. It ought to help a lot, too. All these figures are weighted, you have noticed, by degree of intimacy and one thing or another. Since you have probably thought more about yourself than anybody else has, even if you've been wrong most of the time, your opinion counts."

Chisholm looked down at himself confidently, and then his confidence began to ooze. His own personality, it appeared, even when viewed from his own standpoint, was more nebulous than he thought. He had never taken himself apart with the critical fury employed by such persons as Maizie, his wives and some others. It looked as if the almost-finished monstrosity standing in the center of the stage was going to be the image handed down to posterity.

"It's not fair," he wailed. "What do all those yapping people really know about me— motives, and all that? I never did anything I didn't think was right, I never—"

"Neither did Nero," said the demon calmly, "nor Torquemada, nor your estimable contemporary, Hitler. Nevertheless, we cannot take an Ego at its own valuation. Not where others are involved."

Chisholm took a shuddering look at the hideous thing that was the summation of all his world thought of him. It was intolerable. That, then, was the verdict the demon had spoken of.

"Your sentence," said the demon, as if he knew the thought, "is to contemplate it from now on. It is all yours— your life's work. At least it's definite, if that is any consolation."

"I can't, I can't," moaned Mr. Chisholm.

"Don't make things worse," warned the demon.

The composite spook had just turned a bright, lemon yellow.

___________________

19: Joshua's Battering Ram

Astonishing Stories, June 1940

"COME in here a minute, Charlie. I've got something pretty slick to show you." Charlie Hanscom had started for the elevator when Sam Burpel, Sales Manager for the New Era Air Conditioning Company, called to him. Wondering what bright idea his boss had hatched overnight, Hanscom flung his brief-case down on the nearest desk and went into his chief's private office. Near the window stood a crude-looking cabinet, suggesting a home-made combination radio and phonograph. On the front face of it was the mouth of a horn, resembling a loud speaker, and a tuning dial.

"Now here's something that has everything else on the market backed off the boards. Boy, have a look!" Burpel, always radiating professional enthusiasm, was outdoing himself this morning. He lifted the cover of the machine and twiddled a moment with something inside. Then he gave the control knob on the outside a twirl that put it hard over.

"It has a safety stop in here to keep the customers from freezing themselves to death. That's what I just released. Now keep your eye on that thermometer."

Charlie Hanscom glanced at the thermometer on the wall. It was at its customary seventy, although outside it was already approaching ninety. The thin red line began shrinking fast. In a moment Charlie shivered and turned up his coat collar. He did not have to keep on watching the thermometer; frost was beginning to form on the window. Cold!

"A couple more minutes of that," chuckled Burpel, triumphantly, "and you could see a brass monkey start to come apart right before your eyes!"

"Gosh!" exclaimed Hanscom, as Burpel turned the knob back to normal and reset the safety catch. "How far will that go?"

"I'd hate to find out," answered his boss, exuberantly, "absolute zero, I guess. At least that's what the inventor says. But that's not half of it. Sit down over there and listen."

TURPEL walked around between the window and the new air-conditioning unit. He picked up a large dish-pan that lay on the window sill, and began banging on it with a wooden ruler he had carried from his desk. Hanscom could see the ruler smacking against the bottom of the pan, but the clatter that should have been heard was simply not there. He could see, also, that Burpel's mouth was open, twisting into various shapes, and from the redness of his superior's face, Hanscom judged he was trying to shout. Yet there was no sound audible. The show he was putting on had the appearance of pantomime.

Burpel walked slowly forward, coming out from behind the unit, keeping up his facial contortions and the drubbing. As he came abreast of the machine, Hanscom began to be aware of a faint humming, and what sounded like a distant hallooing. Another step, and the loud clatter of the pounded dish-pan and his boss's shouts rang out in full normal volume. Burpel stopped, grinning from ear to ear.

"That's what it does to noise. I tell you, we've got something here. Why, if we can't sell these things, we couldn't sell parachutes on a burning air-liner!"

It was a convincing, but mystifying demonstration. Charlie looked at the three big windows through which the full morning sun was pouring. He knew the room had an enormous heat load, for he had computed it. Apparently this machine could handle any quantity of B.T.U.s. Yet, except for the cord to the electric outlet, there were no connections of any sort, no intake nor exhaust ducts. Furthermore, the complete annihilation of the noise was positively uncanny. Even with the windows closed, as they were, there had been considerable noise from outside. Now the room was almost oppressively silent, the words spoken by Burpel were hushed and echoless. The room was as "dead" as a radio studio.

"But where does the heat go?" demanded Hanscom. "It's got to go somewhere."

"Search me!" replied Burpel, "but who cares? Your prospect don't care a rap how it's done; will it do it, is what he wants to know."

Hanscom knew the truth of that well enough, but still he was a little troubled. Heat was energy of a definite and measurable kind. It couldn't be dismissed with a wave of the hand. The disposal of the heat removed from the air had always been a problem in air-conditioning. But here there did not appear to be anything in the nature of a condenser, with its circulation of fluid to carry away the heat. And no less puzzling was the way in which sound disappeared within the room. It was as if a sound wave bounced but once, straight into the machine, where it vanished— was gobbled up, so to speak. The name-plate bearing the word SONOMAGNET suggested a definite attraction for sound waves— a preposterous proposition.

"Let the engineers wrangle over the technicalities," continued Burpel, "our job is to make a market for them."

"That ought to be easy," agreed Hanscom, thinking of the miraculous properties of the conditioner. He had observed that it not only cooled and silenced the air, but was recirculating it vigorously, apparently purifying the air of the closed room as it passed through. But still....

"What's the catch?" demanded Hanscom. He had seen Burpel tread the clouds before.

"Well," admitted Burpel, "in the first place there are only three or four dozen of these machines assembled. And Haggledorn, the inventor, doesn't want to sell those, but rent 'em."

"What's the idea of that?"

"As near as I can find out, he is afraid to try for a patent. Says he'd rather keep it secret. Between you and me, I think he's a sort of a nut, but then again, he may be smarter than I give him credit for. If you'll take a look inside that cabinet, you'll see that all the inner works are locked up inside a steel chest. It's practically burglar proof— has a lock like a safe- deposit box. He wants us to distribute them, and he promises to go every week and service them. He says they get clogged up with heat and noise, and if he doesn't remove the excess, they won't work."

"Holy Cats! You talk about heat and noise like they were sand."

"He does! I've already said he's a little goofy, but you can't laugh off what the machine does. It eats up calories like nobody's business— and the loudest racket, too. His idea is sound enough. If he keeps title to them, and the keys, nobody can take one apart to see what makes it tick. All you have to do is lease 'em and collect your commissions."

"Yeah, I get it. An experiment. If it works, he goes into production and sales on his own. If they flop, or blow up..."

"That's his worry. You and I get ours on the barrelhead every time you bring a signed lease in. So look the thing over and make up your spiel, because you're the boy I've picked to handle 'em."

BY the time Hanscom left the office, the world looked rosier to him. The rental asked was high, but considering the performance, that did not matter. The commission rate was good and Hanscom's only regret was that there were so few machines available.

July had just begun and the town was rapidly becoming air- conditioning conscious. What appealed most to Hanscom was the silencing feature of the Sonomagnet In some parts of town noise conditions were almost unbearable. On his way to the elevator, he thought over his calling list and began marshalling his arguments. For the moment, he dismissed from his mind his perplexity as to what became of the abstracted heat units or how the sound came to be damped out so completely.

Outside it was muggy and steamy. The sidewalks were crowded with unhappy people shuffling along, listless in their damp, clinging garments. Ignoring the blast of superheated air that struck him as he emerged from the building, Hanscom stepped out briskly in the direction of Sixth Avenue.

That had always been his favorite territory. Over there, in the tall buildings that towered above the El structure were many prosperous firms that were trying to get their work done in the face of terrific odds. If they kept their windows open to keep from stifling, they let in all the clamor of the busy city, tearing at their jaded nerves in gusts of strident decibels.

The rattle and blare rose and fell, but it never was absent.

In the Chickasaw Building, on the third floor, were the law offices of Minsky, O'Hara, Palumbo, Lofgren, and Smith. They had a real problem in trying to carry on a law practice under conditions not unlike those in a boiler shop. Hanscom knew Smith, the junior partner, quite well. Earlier they had talked about air-conditioning, but Smith was unconvinced of its necessity. They had recently moved into the building and had not yet realized what a trial the summer could be.

Hanscom had hardly begun telling Smith about the wonderful Sonomagnet, when Smith made a signal to him to hold what he was saying for a moment. Smith was annoyed, but there was no help for it. Talk was impossible. The rumbling crescendo of noise outside had just reached its climax as an elevated train roared past the window, filling the office with dust and ear-splitting din. Hardly had the train drawn to a clattering stop at the station on the corner above, when Hanscom noted with a grin that a quartet of riveters in the frame of a growing building across the street had started heading up as many rivets. To add to the bedlam, an ambulance or a police car streaked through the street below, its siren wailing piercingly above the raucous medley of the usual traffic noises.

It was with many such interruptions and much yelling and gesticulating that Hanscom managed to get his sales talk across. He had met all of Smith's objections, one by one, and had reached the point of laying a contract form before him, tendering a fountain pen invitingly.

"But..." Smith tried to utter one more objection.

His words were drowned under the reverberations of another passing train, and before that clangor had begun to diminish, a succession of dull booms smote the air as a string of blasts were touched off in the subway under construction below the surface of the street outside.

"You win!" shouted Smith, in mock desperation, and reached for the pen. The first Sonomagnet deal was closed.

BEFORE the week was over, Hanscom had placed a number of the new machines. Their effect was nothing less than marvellous, as he learned when he called back to check up on their performance. Offices that had been practically useless during the summer on account of the inferno of noise about them were now quiet as the tomb, and as cool as the occupant desired. On one of his follow-up calls, Hanscom met Haggledorn coming out of his client's office. He was a queer looking person, exceedingly tall and stooped, and of a most repellent, sour visage. His long, curved nose and malignant expression made Hanscom think of the pictures in the children's books of evil witches on broomsticks.

Haggledorn made his rounds weekly, as he had agreed to do, followed by a husky porter carrying two large bags. Hanscom made several efforts to be present at one of the "servicings," but something always prevented. His friend Smith, though, told him that the operation seemed to be simple.

"First, he takes out a container— of water, I think— and empties it down the drain of the wash-room. Then he removes a big brick, then takes out a couple of reels or spools of silvery tape. They look a bit like reels of movie film, only one is wider and thicker than the other. Then he puts in fresh reels and a brick, and snaps the lid shut."

"I think the brick he takes out must be hot, because he wears gloves and handles it with tongs, and when it hits the air, it smokes. One of his bags is divided up into compartments to hold the bricks, and I judge the white stuff they are lined with is asbestos."

"So that's where the heat goes," thought Hanscom, but he was more puzzled than ever. It didn't make sense. A hot brick would give off heat, not absorb it. The emptying out of the water he understood readily enough. In chilling the air, it was forced to drop its moisture content. Otherwise, the Sonomagnet was an enigma.

A superficial examination revealed a big horn on the back side of it, next to the window, similar to the smaller one in front. They seemed to terminate in microphones attached to the inner steel box. Nothing could he seen inside the box, although Hanscom tried to peep through the louvres at its ends that permitted the passage of the circulating air.

By the time July had almost gone, Hanscom had placed most of Haggledorn's units and was devoting his time chiefly to the old standard line of equipment. The experimental units had all worked perfectly, and there had been but one accident. Burpel took charge of that, pacifying the customer and shutting off his complaints by pointing out that the machine had merely done what it was designed to do, only had done it too well.

It was an instance where a customer, bragging about his new installation while showing it off to a friend, had removed the stop and put the control over as far as it would go. When the room got almost too cold to bear, the friend had jokingly suggested that a Tom and Jerry was in order. The two went down to the bar— and forgot to come back.

In an hour, there was an inch of ice clinging to the window panes, and all the water pipes passing through the office were frozen solid, and split. When frost began forming on the walls of adjoining offices, neighbors turned in an alarm.

Two hours later, Haggledorn came rushing into the building, white and shaking, and plunged into the arctic cold of the office to coax his unit back to standard performance. That afternoon, much agitated, he made the rounds of all his users and riveted the stops in so firmly that a repetition of the occurrence was made impossible. The next day, he had resumed his customary air of sullen aloofness.

"The old boy looked like he'd seen a ghost, when he dashed in there," Burpel told Hanscom, when he saw him after the incident.

"I keep telling you," observed Hanscom cynically, "that there's bound to be a limit. No machine can drink up an infinite number of B.T.U.s. and not have something happen. The fact that the bird was so scared proves you can't overload even a miracle. It won't surprise me if one of these days you and I find ourselves on the wrong end of a whopping big damage suit."

IT was about a month after that that Hanscom found a memorandum on his desk saying that Mr. Smith of the law firm wanted to see him on an important matter. Hanscom went over at once, and was mildly surprised to find Smith meeting him at the door with his finger across his lips in the gesture of "Silence." Smith ushered him in, then went over to the Sonomagnet and deliberately pulled out the plug.

"It's cool enough in here, for a while, and we'll have to make the best of the noise. But I want to make sure we won't be overheard. That thing can hear!"

Hanscom looked at him in astonishment.

"At least, that's my reasoning. Now, I am going to talk plainly to you because I think I can trust you. Something has gone wrong, and maybe you can help out on it. Bluntly, there has been a leak of information, and one of my clients has been threatened with blackmail, and in a novel way. You appreciate that there may be conversations between a man and his attorney that would make very spicy reading if published. Such a conversation was recently held in this office, and must have been overheard. Now tell me, what do you know about this man Haggledorn?"

"Not much. But where does he come in ? Is he the one who approached your client?"

"I can't say, but I suspect him by the process of elimination. My client received through the mail a phonograph record of what we said here. With it was a typewritten note saying that the record was a copy and demanding a large sum of money for the destruction of the master record, or else a second copy would be sent to a certain person mentioned who would surely make trouble."

"There was no stenographer present, and I have searched the place thoroughly for a concealed dictaphone. There is no explanation of the leak whatever, unless there is some device concealed in that machine. I would like to know why it is necessary to service it weekly, and whether those metallic ribbons on the spools have anything to do with this."

"What do the police say?"

"I have kept this to myself, so far. It is a delicate matter, and involves several prominent people. I would prefer to handle it informally, if possible."

"I don't know," said Hanscom, thoughtfully. "Haggledorn is an unprepossessing looking fellow, I'll admit. But he has a potential gold mine in this invention of his, and it's legitimate. Why should he cut corners and risk criminal prosecution?"

Smith turned the question over in his lawyer's mind, then drily observed. "Unless his machine has some weakness that he knows and we don't— yet. Bear in mind that your whole campaign has been experimental, and the Sonomagnet itself is shrouded in mystery. Supposing he has found out that they won't stand up, or something, and has decided to make a quick clean-up before they are discredited?"

"Could be," grunted Hanscom, recalling Burpel's account of Haggledorn's obvious anxiety the day the machine went wild and froze an office. It was not an impossibility that some sound- recording device could be put in the machine. There were the horns and microphones in plain sight."

"I'll find out what I can, and let you know," promised Hanscom, as he left.

All afternoon he thought over what Smith had said. He found it hard to reconcile the notion of Haggledorn, the successful, if disagreeable, inventor, with the accusation of blackmail. Yet he himself had been suspicious and disgusted with the hush-hush policy of marketing the units. Admittedly, an electrically- operated cooling machine made an excellent mask for a dictaphone, if the man were inclined to use it as such, and a lawyer's office was an ideal spot to place it.

In the end, Hanscom resolved to take a couple of days off and do a little independent investigation. He knew where Haggledorn's shop was located, for on the lid of the locked chamber inside each Sonomagnet was a brass plate engraved "Warning. Do not attempt to open this box; serious damage may result. In emergency call Anton Haggledorn, Misco, N.Y."

THE next day, partially disguised by an old suit and a different type of hat than he usually wore, he trailed the inventor through town until the chase ended at Grand Central Station. Hanscom watched him pay off his porter and take the two bags away from him. Then, seeing that he was on his way to the train, Hanscom bought a ticket to Misco, and followed.

That night, Hanscom crouched against the wall of Haggledorn's barn-like workshop in the woods about a mile beyond the limits of the hamlet of Misco. The shades over the windows were tightly drawn, but he found a crack under one through which he could see the whole of the interior.

Directly before him was a large masonry furnace, topped by a peculiarly designed uptake that coiled upon itself like the turns of a tuba, ending finally in a straight, slim stack that went up through the roof. To the left of it was a long trough, with a vapor hood over it, leading to another stack that went upward and was lost in the gloom of the rafters. To the right was a wooden work bench, and before that, on a high stool, perched Haggledorn, his back to the window.

He was slowly cranking a standing reel that was feeding the silvery ribbon to another table reel, in the manner of a man examining a length of picture film. Beyond him, Hanscom could see the turntable of a recording phonograph. An unearthly stream of queer sound seemed to be coming from where Haggledorn was. Hanscom listened intently, trying to identify it. Weird as its effect was, there was something suggestive of the human voice about it, although the words, if they were words, were garbled beyond recognition. Once when Haggledorn moved slightly, Hanscom saw that the moving metal ribbon was passing across the flame of a bunsen burner, and there apparently was the source of the sound.

When the reel was empty, Haggledorn rose, reached over and made some adjustments to the turntable in front of him. Then a record began to play back. What had been gibberish now came back as an intelligible conversation. Hanscom could not hear more than snatches of it, but he gathered from the little he did pick up that the subject matter was a woman's recital of the wrongs done her by her husband, whom she was preparing to sue for divorce. A man's voice occasionally punctuated the narrative with a question or remark, and after hearing it several times, Hanscom recognized it as that of another of his Sonomagnet customers—  also a lawyer.

As if satisfied with his recording, Haggledorn left the work bench and crossed the room to where his two big bags were lying. Using tongs, as Smith had described, he picked a brick from one of them and carried it to the trough. The brick was evidently still very hot, for it was smoking, and when it had been dropped into the trough and water turned on it, huge clouds of steam welled up, filling the hood overhead.

While the stream of water was cooling the brick, Haggledorn selected another reel from the other bag. This was a larger reel than the one on the work bench, and after a momentary examination of it, he took it to the side of the furnace. There he hung it on a frame and threaded the ribbon through a slot in the side of the furnace, and out through a corresponding slot on the other side and attached it to an empty reel. Then the inventor lit a bunch of oily waste and tossed it into the firebox, slammed the door shut, and turned a valve.

Hanscom could feel the thudding roar as the oil stream ignited, and no sooner had the gangling Haggledorn begun to wind the film through onto the empty reel than a tremendous trembling seemed to shake the whole fabric of the furnace. Outside the building where he was, Hanscom experienced a tickling sensation down the spine as he sensed faintly, as if it were muffled, some tremendous yet vaguely familiar sound. The eerie emotion was heightened by failure to identify it It was like the noise of a vast dream city— like New York, yet different— in a sense familiar, but strangely inverted.

Hanscom, fascinated by the resonant drumming, kept staring at the shuddering furnace. Could it be that the noise was in there, and the tortuous chimney a maze of baffles to dull and dampen the outpourings of sound?

THE more Hanscom saw, the more he was mystified. Burpel, that first day, had said that Haggledorn insisted that weekly servicing was needed to keep the units from becoming clogged with heat and sound. Did, then, these bricks "absorb" the heat, and the reels "absorb" the sound, and was the spectacle he was watching the process of ridding them of their load? It appeared so, certainly in the case of the brick, for the clouds of steam were still billowing up from it.

Granting countless calories were being washed out of it, how did they ever become concentrated there, the Second Law of Thermodynamics being what it is? And how could absorbed sound be coaxed out of the silvery ribbons?

Hanscom rode home that night on a late train. He had stayed long enough to see Haggledorn make another record, and cool more bricks. As to Smith's uneasiness about the attempt at blackmail, it was evident that here was the source of the trouble, although it was not equally evident what was the best course to pursue. Hanscom wanted to expose the man, but felt an embarrassment about doing it. People would laugh at him. If there had been an actual dictaphone, something that did not have to be reconciled with known physical laws, it would be easier. But to charge that a man got sound by passing a metal ribbon over a flame... that was absurd! The next day he told Smith what he had seen. After he had said it all they both sat thinking awhile. Finally Smith broke the silence.

"That's what I expected. Now that it is confirmed, I am not sure what I want to do about it. I've already told you there are good reasons why I am unwilling to bring formal charges against him. I wish there was some way we could break up his little game— out of court, as it were."

"When is he due to come here again?"

"Monday of next week."

"All right. Lend me your machine for a couple of days. I think I can work out a little surprise for Mr. Haggledorn."

THE Monday night Hanscom took Smith with him to Misco. Lying outside the workshop in the same place where Hanscom had hidden before, they watched Haggledorn unpack his bags. He threw a hot brick into the trough and started it to cooling, then went on to the bench and began rigging one of the small reels for pulling across the flame. Both men outside watched him set the wax record on the turntable.

"Here," said Hanscom, handing Smith a wad of cotton, "stick this in your ears. If that's the one he took out of your machine this morning, you're going to need it."

Haggledorn began slowly winding the tape across the flickering burner, and again the same topsy-turvy conglomeration of scrambled human voices was heard. The film had nearly run to its end when... BOOM! The building and the whole countryside shook as if by earthquake. Haggledorn staggered back from the table, clutching at the sides of his head, then collapsed as if flung to the floor. The watchers outside had never let their eyes stray from the inventor from the moment he had begun his operations, yet they had seen not the slightest sign of a flash. They ran around to the door, which now hung half open, on one hinge, its lock broken. Inside they examined the prostrate Haggledorn. He was stunned, but alive.

"He seems to be all right," muttered Smith. "While he's out, let's destroy those records."

The master records and some copies were found in the drawer of a cupboard, and Smith began breaking and stamping them into little pieces. While he was doing that, Hanscom seized the opportunity to unravel some of the secrets of the Sonomagnet.

He found a completely assembled unit standing against a side wall, its lid standing open. He peered into it to see the arrangement within. He saw that the reels were operated much like typewriter ribbons, feeding from a full spool to an empty one. The fat, thick ribbon ran across the inner face of the microphone in the larger horn in the back of the unit, while the thin, narrow one was threaded behind the small opening in front. Between them lay a smaller box, and when he reached in, he found that its lid came off.

Both the box and its lid was lined with heat-resisting lagging, such as magnesia or asbestos. Inside the box lay the brick, in contact with the terminal of a cable that led from a series of wire grids elsewhere in the cabinet, standing in the stream of the circulating fan. Between each of the grids there was a small transformer-like electrical device.

Knowing that the noise of the blast would undoubtedly soon bring inquisitive neighbors, Hanscom thought they had better leave without further delay. Hurriedly, he snatched up a section of the wire grid from the unit he was examining, and broke off a yard of the metallic tape. He rolled up the specimen and thrust it into his pocket. Then, remembering the vital part the brick seemed to play, he chipped the corner off of it with a chisel and pocketed that also. The fragment was cold. The machine it came from had evidently not yet been used.

"Come on," he urged Smith, "we've done all we can do here. This fellow's little game is all shot now. Let's forget it, and get out of here before he comes to."

THE morning papers mentioned briefly an unexplained explosion in the laboratory of one Anton Haggledorn, an eccentric inventor of Misco. The item reported that a number of windows were broken within a radius of several miles, and that the inventor himself had been taken to a hospital. It was understood that his ear-drums were ruptured and that he was suffering from general shock. "Deaf, huh?" grunted Hanscom, as he read it, and thought how appropriate the punishment was for the crime attempted.

He took his samples that morning to an analytical laboratory and told the head chemist there part of the story. "I'll have the report in a week," said the chemist, adding hesitantly, "I hope. These specimens seem a bit unusual; it may take longer."

Hanscom was unusually busy the next ten days. A week after the Misco expedition, there were three annual conventions of nation- wide organizations staged simultaneously in New York. The resulting crowds, making merry in the streets, added the last straw to the burdens of many harassed business men. Some, who had heretofore resisted the appeal of air-conditioning, capitulated in the face of the all-pervading din. An inquiring reporter with a sound-measuring truck cheerfully reported that the mean level of noise in the city was only twelve per cent below that of a passing subway express. It was a prosperous week for salesmen in Hanscom's line, for the tumult coincided with the season's most unbearable heat wave, even if it was a belated "Indian summer" one.

In the midst of this activity, he received a letter from the chemist telling him that his analysis was ready, if he would kindly call for it.

"These ribbons are made of audium," the chemist said, "a little known element that has very limited use. So far as I know, it is only used by the army, in their airplane detectors. Audium is very nearly inert, chemically. When subjected to vibration, such as sound-waves, in the presence of carbon- dioxide, a compound audium-carbide is formed. You can see that in the little grey spots on the strip. Sound is an unusual activating agency in chemical reactions, but it does occur, just as light affects silver salts in photography, or percussion initiates some explosions. The strip I have here actually acts as a sort of sound track, for one of the properties of audium carbide is that the elements become disassociated if heated, giving back the sound."

"Only backward," suggested Hanscom, recalling the garbled nature of the negative record he had overheard at Misco.

"Yes, and possibly quite violently, if the carbide is sufficiently concentrated and sufficient heat is applied. As to the other substance, we do not recognize it. We have examined it, though, and find it has an astonishingly high specific heat, I should think it could be profitably employed anywhere where it was desired to store large quantities of heat in a limited space."

"The wire grid that accompanies it is evidently a part of some type of heat injector. It is an inverted-resistance step-up transformer, if I may coin an expression. I mean by that, that just as you make an electrified wire radiate heat by increasing its resistance, you can, by perfect inversion, cause it to absorb heat by making its resistance negative. In other words, the grid may be employed as a cooling coil, extracting heat from the air, and passing it on to the next grid, boosting it step by step until its pressure is sufficient to make it enter the storage brick, whatever its temperature."

"Good Lord!" shouted Hanscom, as the full import of the analysis began to unfold itself in his brain. He thought of the blatant hubbub of the past week's conventions superimposed on the usual clamor of the city, and of the excessive heat conditions. Visions floated before him of tapes loaded with concentrated audium carbide, running alongside a little metal box that by now must contain an incandescent brick shielded only by a thin layer of lagging.

None of the machines had been touched for two weeks, since Haggledorn had been hurt. If he had paled at a single hour's overload, how would he behave if he knew the present situation? Hanscom shuddered.

ACTING swiftly, he grabbed a telephone and got Burpel on the wire.

"Quick! Get out your list of Sonomagnet users and phone them all to disconnect them— right now!... Never mind why, I'll tell you later. Put all the girls at it... I'm coming right over."

Hanscom bolted out of the office, leaving the gaping chemist without explanation or apology. He ran, twisting, through the congested traffic, eluding on-rushing taxis by a hair as he darted, half-stumbling across streets, as the pieces of the jig- saw puzzle began to fall into their places in his mind. Now he knew that the little reel was designed to absorb the office sounds, the fat one in the back the street ones. That was the one that was dangerous now. Now he understood why Haggledorn renewed these parts every week and took the saturated elements away with him. Hanscom had seen him strip the heat from the bricks by drenching under running water. Now he knew that the thunder in the furnace was the baking out of the trapped street sounds in the heavy noise reel. That elaborate stack was a muffler!

Breathless, he burst into Burpel's office.

"Keep your shirt on, kid, everything's under control," assured Burpel easily. "Got 'em all. That is, all but Doc Martin. No answer over there."

Hanscom heaved a sigh pf relief. All but one!

"I'll go over there myself and get the building super...."

It was not an audible explosion; it was too profound for that. It was something like a colossal diapason pipe in some vast cathedral that could only be sensed by the trembling air, rather than heard. Hanscom blinked as he pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been flung. An earthquake?

The sudden wave had half-stunned every one, sweeping them inward as the windfront of a hurricane. The startled salesmen and clerks stared vacantly at their windows, now innocent of glass. The panes were scattered in twinkling fragments all over the room. Outside, there were confused crashes, as of walls tumbling, and the tinkling of shredded falling glass.

Still dizzy, and with the sensation of walking in a dream, Hanscom staggered to the window and looked out across the square. All the buildings he could see seemed to be as before, except that they had an ominous look of vacancy until he found the explanation of it in the fact that there was not a single windowpane left in them. Below, people were running madly in circles, like angered ants, holding their hands to their ears as if in pain.

Ten minutes later, Hanscom was trying to fight his way through the police lines to get to the building where Dr. Martin's office had been located. They would not let him by, but he managed to worm through until he got close to a fire chief's car. There were many ambulances, too, rolling up and away. Ahead, the street was full of debris.

In here there was more than broken glass. Office buildings had shed their outer walls in places. The refugees of the district, filing out, dazed looking, wore clothes that hung in strips. Coats or shirts were split in many places, and Hanscom saw trousers ripped down each leg, from waist band to cuff.

"It's a new one on me," he overheard a fire official tell a reporter. "No fire, no trace of any explosive I've ever seen, and I think I've seen 'em all. Just a big noise! The doctor told me that all he's found so far are ear cases— dished-in eardrums, forty-four cases so far. What do you know about that?"

"It sure raised hell with the glass!" replied the reporter, noncommittally, looking at the ankle-deep litter of silica shards littering the street.

HANSCOM backed away and sought out Smith. He was feeling a little guilty over the multitude of deafened victims, for he was the one who had distributed the sound-concentrating units throughout the town. If only Dr. Martin had been in, this might have been averted.

Smith was obviously nervous, having suspected that there was a connection between the frantic telephone warning he had received, and the devastating explosion a few minutes afterward. Hanscom noticed with relief that Smith's cooling unit was disconnected, but also that his office was carpeted with broken glass, like every other one in Manhattan. He accepted a cigarette from Smith's trembling hand and lit it. He felt jittery himself.

"Oh, well," he philosophized, "hindsight is always better than foresight. Just think what it would have been like if the whole damn forty had gone off together and let loose the accumulation of two weeks' noise at once! I never realized before how much power canned racket has."

Smith laughed shortly, but there was not much humor in it.

"No wonder Haggledorn tried to cash in quick. By the way, what did you load the tape with, the night he got his? And how did you know how to do it ?"

"Hunch, pure hunch. I figured that it he was recording sound in the units, the proof of it was to plant some there, and check it as it came out. It had to be something I could recognise, and loud enough for me to hear, because I knew I would be outside. If you remember. I borrowed your machine a few days before that. I had noticed an item in the paper that morning announcing target practice for the Coast Artillery down at Sandy Hook. I took your Sonomagnet down there and set it up near the muzzle of a sixteen-inch gun."

_______________

20: Murder In The Time World

Amazing Stories, August 1940

KARL TARIG shot a cautious glance toward Dr. Claude Morrison. The man had his back to him, poring over his precious formulas. Tarig leaned over and, still watching craftily, unhooked the main power lead from its terminal on the D-4 Accelerator. Then he straightened up.

"I say, Claude, did you mean to leave this cable disconnected?"

Dr. Morrison looked around, obviously irritated.

"What? Of course not!" Morrison strode across the laboratory.

"That is some more of your clumsiness, Karl," he remarked tartly, staring down at the heavily insulated wire. "I ran a test on the machine only this morning."

Tarig moved as if to pick the cable up.

"No, no," objected Morrison. "You'll be blowing the main tube next. I can't have that. The whole available world supply of faradium is in its filament. It would take ten years to accumulate that much again."

With deft fingers Dr. Morrison reset the switches and repaired the connection, Tarig watching sullenly.

"What about the temperature of the detonon?" asked Morrison sharply. Time machines were the scientist's hobby; explosives his work.

"It's okay; I just looked."

Tarig's manner was carelessly indifferent, as though he didn't give a damn.

Morrison snorted and walked hastily down the aisle between the lead-topped laboratory tables to where the fuming mixing vat sat. He checked the trickle of sulfuric acid, the speed of the rotating paddles churning the potent explosive, and the setting of the rheostat on the refrigerating machine. He made a few adjustments, then turned on Tarig.

"I've tried to impress on you, Karl, the danger in these experiments with super-explosives. That is why this laboratory is set back here in the hills, forty miles from nowhere. The acid generates heat, and heat will set the stuff off while it's in this stage. If you don't keep it chilled— well, it's bang! — up we go."

"Yes, sir," mumbled Tarig. He wasn't quite ready for the showdown. Not yet. There was something he had to learn; that was why he broke the connection.

"I'm wondering also, Karl," Morrison went on, for he had suffered in patient silence for a long time, "whether my bringing you here was such a good idea after all. You only show up when you feel like it; and even when you come, I can't depend on you to do what I tell you. Moreover, I don't like the way you're stringing that Warren girl along. She's an innocent little thing, and doesn't know the slightest bit about your past."

"My hard luck, you mean," retorted Tarig flaring.

"Your drinking and gambling away of your father's fortune wasn't hard luck. And those embezzlement charges they brought against you in Fairfield wasn't hard luck..."

"It was a frame-up," Tarig growled.

"I took your word it was a frame-up," said Morrison calmly, "but in view of the way things have been disappearing around here—  well, I am not so sure. I am beginning to regret I hired you—  gave you a chance when no one else would."

Tarig merely glowered. He knew he could break Morrison in two with his bare hands, but he had a better plan. All it needed was one more detail, and that he would have to get from Morrison himself. He must pretend a little longer.

"I'm sorry, Claude," he said, with appearance of meek submission. "I didn't realize... I'll try to do better."

Morrison looked at him sharply, and wondered. Was he being unjust? Perhaps Karl Tarig was only stupid, lazy. One could not be blamed for that.

"We'll see," he said, and walked back toward his desk.

"I WISH I knew more about this machine," Karl Tarig said, as they passed abreast the Accelerator.

Morrison stopped and looked at him again. Tarig had assisted him in his experiments with the smaller model machine and certainly should understand the larger, full-size one they had built since. The two were identical in principle. It was only that the new model could accommodate a human being that made the difference.

"Oh, I know it is a kind of time machine," said Tarig hastily, correctly reading the puzzled frown on the scientist's brow. "I saw you put that cage of canaries in the first model and saw it disappear, and then reappear three days later, still singing.

"And I helped you with the cat— the time you shot it a month ahead into the future. But why doesn't the machine disappear too? All the time machines I've ever heard about went along with their inventor, like an automobile."

"That is an intelligent question," answered Morrison, a little mollified, "and I don't mind answering it."

The two strangely contrasted men were standing before the queer contraption that stood on a step-high platform, in the corner of the outer stone walls of the squat laboratory building. No one would have guessed the two men to be cousins. For Tarig was tall and of massive build, with a heavy-jawed, stolid face, while Dr. Morrison was much shorter and more slender, with expressive features and keen, intelligent eyes.

Morrison indicated the ovoid shell of translucent material that hung like a hood over the single chair sitting on the platform. Despite its queer, shell-like shape, it was a vacuum tube, and it was laced with greenish filaments, from whose outer terminals a maze of braided wire led through a set of controls within easy reach of a person seated within the machine itself. From the regulating lever in the control quadrant, a cable led to a nearby switch panel, behind which stood yet another bank of tubes.

"The force-field of that faradium tube," Morrison explained, "has the effect of inhibiting all molecular motion within it." An object placed there ceases to exist the moment the current is turned on. The inhibition is not permanent, but is proportional to the time of exposure to the field. Sooner or later the effect will wear off and the object will resume its former condition. It is not exactly time travel— it is more a catapulting into time."

"Like shooting off a cannon," observed Tarig.

"Exactly!" exclaimed Morrison, surprised and pleased that Tarig should comprehend so well. He was beginning to feel he had been hasty in his judgment.

"Like a cannon, the machine does not have to follow its projectile. That is why I call it an Accelerator and not a time machine, although even that term is a little misleading. All the Accelerator really does is cause things to cease to exist temporarily, for all practical purposes. In the meantime, time passes the subject being 'projected'. The subject has the illusion of time travel. Actually, the subject waits for time to catch up."

"I see," said Karl Tarig. As a matter of fact, he already knew that much. What he wanted to know— had to know— was the scale at which the machine was set.

"But what I don't get," he asked, "is how much exposure puts you how far into the future?"

"Oh," said Morrison, "the graduations on the quadrant? Well, I haven't had time to calibrate that accurately yet. It will work out as a curve of some sort. The longer the machine runs, the farther it'll shoot the subject. For example, the first few seconds cause a disappearance of about an hour per second. Once the machine is warm and the field concentrated, I compute that each hour of exposure will jump the subject another ten years ahead."

"I see," said Karl Tarig absently. His eyes were roving the windows. Old Man Higgins, the caretaker, was nowhere in sight. He must have gone home, as the sun was setting. Ellen Warren would be coming about seven with the night lunches for himself and Morrison, prepared by her widowed mother in their little cottage over the hill. It was not much past six just then.

"I hope some day," Dr. Morrison was saying, "to personally make a test trip in the machine longer than the few short ones I've made lately. I mean a really long one— one of several years. If I only had a chance to get away from this routine of developing new explosives so that I could play with my hobby more..."

"YOU'VE got that chance now, pal!"

The abrupt change in Karl Tarig's manner was explosive in its suddenness. Dr. Morrison whirled to face a countenance distorted with murderous fury. There was envy there, and jealousy, but staring starkly at him was sheer gloating— the lust of cruelty for cruelty's own sake.

Two hair-matted paws of hands closed tightly about his throat, choking, choking. Through a red mist Morrison glimpsed the leering, panting face that bore down on him. He tried to struggle, sputtered once, as the more powerful man shifted his grip. Then, with purpling face, he slipped into unconsciousness.

Tarig released his hold and let the limp scientist slip to the floor. He viewed the twitching figure calmly.

Heretofore he had refrained from major crime because he was yellow— afraid. Afraid of the law— the noose or the chair. But he was bold now. He was immune from the law. To hell with the law! For he had thought out the perfect crime. There could be no dangerous consequences. You can't hang a man for murder without a body— a corpus delicti. For the first time in the history of crime, a murderer had at his disposal the sure means of ridding himself of his corpse.

"He wanted to try out a long stretch," muttered Tarig. "All right, he'll have a century. I'll soak him in the juice all night."

He reached down and caught Morrison by the wrists, meaning to drag the scientist up into the Accelerator. He would set the lever all the way over— ten or twelve hours, and then pull the switch. No more Morrison. No more hateful condescension and lectures. He stepped backward, dragging his victim easily.

It was then that he heard Ellen Warren's cheery "Yoo-hoo!" outside.

"Damn!" muttered Tarig, his face suddenly white. She was early, by a full half hour. He could not get the machine started before she would be in the room. She would see Morrison, and that would spoil the little scheme he had planned for her, for his plan included her as well as his employer.

Then he thought of the storeroom back of him, the only inner room in the building. With a savage yank and a heave, he skidded the unconscious Morrison to its door, tossed him in and pulled the door to. He had just time to slip the padlock into the hasps and snap it shut before Ellen's step was heard on the gravel at the outer door.

"WHERE'S Claude?" she asked, smiling as she came forward.

Tarig drew a deep breath of relief.

"He's gone off somewhere," he said slowly, trying to return her smile, his eyes never leaving her. "He won't be back, so we needn't wait for him."

"He can't be far," she said. "His car is still outside. It'll be better to wait. He's been very cordial to me, and to you too, Karl."

"A little too cordial, if you ask me," Tarig said harshly, in spite of himself. "I don't like the way he's been trying to make up to you, kid."

"Silly! I meant he's been such a— good friend, you know."

"Well, skip that. He's gone, I tell you. He's out of it."

"Gone where?" she demanded, seemingly a little uneasy. Ellen did not like the rough attitude Tarig was showing. She had never seen him like that.

Suddenly he felt unable to restrain himself from blurting out,

"Gone into the future, you damn little fool!" Then, realizing he had told more than he meant to, he tried to cover hastily.

"You know what a nut he is about this time machine he invented. Well, he's off to try it. Said for me to take over and run things here until we caught up with him."

Ellen looked him in the face incredulously. She took a swift sideward step and laid her hand against the ovoid hood over the Accelerator's throne-like seat The machine was cold.

"You're lying, Karl Tarig," she cried. "That machine has not been used for hours. I know. I helped him with the little model! It was my cat he used."

THERE was a scuffling in the storeroom, and a muffled moan. "He's in there!" Ellen screamed, staring at the locked door. "You've done something to him!"

Tarig sprang at her and dragged her to his chest in an embrace of iron.

"Okay, baby, I'll get tough if you make me. You asked for it. Now get this: he hasn't gone yet, but he's going—  going way to hell-and-gone into the future. And then we follow, but not so far. Yes, we! First you, then me."

"Let me loose, you fiend!" Ellen cried, plunging her clenched fists between them as a pair of buffers, and at the same time kicking him with all the force she could put behind her sharp little toe.

"Take it easy, kid." Tarig was laughing. It was all so simple. "I'd smooth you down now, but I've got things to do. When you wake up, I'll be here. I'll have a lot of dough, and there won't be anything but woods all around. You'll make a pretty face then, I'll bet!"

"Money—  woods?" she asked, quieting down with an intense effort. She was stalling to see if she could hear more sounds from the storeroom. Maybe old Higgins would come in; she had passed him at the gate lodge. Ellen knew she must get a grip on herself and play a part, for she was desperately frightened. Tarig had gone mad.

"Money!" Tarig was saying. "Think of what the platinum dishes in this place will bring, and the gold that he keeps in the safe for those fool fulminates! I'll materialize first and sell that, learn the lay of the land, and then be ready for you. When you come to, you'll be in the woods here, but I'll be right by you, baby."

Ellen was frantic. "You can't do this foolish thing, Karl," she urged, now that she knew something of what was going on in his mind. "People will come here tomorrow, looking for us, and the police— they'll know what happened—"

"That's where you're wrong, kid.

They won't," Tarig sneered. "Because tomorrow there won't be any building here, or any Accelerator, or any of Mr. Smartaleck Morrison's notes on how to build one. I've got brains, kid. I've thought of everything. Trail along with me, baby, and you'll wear diamonds!"

He pawed her, trying to bring her mouth up to his, but only half succeeded. Then he lifted her bodily and sat her down inside the time machine.

"No!" Ellen shrieked, fighting back, and half slipping from the seat.

Tarig's answer was a hard slap and a savage push that jammed the girl's slender body into the niche in the machine.

"You'll be all right, honey-pie," Tarig said mockingly. "I haven't time now, but ten years from now..."

He strode across to the switchboard. The two hardest steps along the road to riches and independence were behind him. From now on it was nothing but a matter of timing. He set the knobs on the board the way Morrison had taught him, pulled the big knife-switch. Electricity was up to the notched quadrant.

"So long, kid. I'll be seeing you," Tarig said to the unconscious girl. The lever was in the one-hour position. His finger pressed the button and he jumped back into the clear.

He heard the rising whine, saw the silvery threads of living fire leap out and lace into the fair flesh before him; saw that flesh quiver under the tingling impact, then vanish. Ellen Warren was gone. Gone to the year 1950!

KARL TARIG noted the time— 6:32 p.m. That was fine. Then the juice would automatically cut off at 7:32. After that it would be Morrison's turn. He would give Morrison most of the night to ride, or at least ten hours. That would be a century. Far enough away for burial of a telltale corpse.

He remembered then the sounds he had heard in the storeroom. Morrison must have revived. Well, it wouldn't do him any good. Tarig went over to the storeroom door and unlocked it, trying to get used to the steady, shrill whistling of the vibrating Accelerator. Somehow it got on his nerves, that hideous, incessant noise.

He threw the door open and looked in. Morrison was facing him, weaving unsteadily on his feet, clutching at his splotched, bruised throat. He stared at Tarig a moment and then spoke, hoarsely and with difficulty.

"I overheard your fiendish plan," he rasped.

"Oh, yeah? So what?" Tarig sneered, and reached for him.

"One minute," objected Morrison, with what dignity he could muster. "You are a powerful brute and I can't stop you, but you'll hang for this as sure as hell. I have seen to that. Tomorrow the authorities will have the full details of it. And what's more, you'll never see Ellen Warren again, unless it is as a witness in court. Now go ahead, if you dare!"

"You bet I will, you fourflushing little shrimp!" Tarig had his heavy hand on the scientist's shoulder. He jerked him forward and hustled him out the door. He flung him down in front of the humming, screeching time machine.

"Your threats don't worry me any," Tarig blustered. "As soon as the girl friend makes the trip, you go next. After that, I'll search that storeroom. The police won't find your notes. Anyhow, it wouldn't matter. This building won't be here. I'm blowing it up behind me."

"You can't beat the game, Karl," Morrison warned again, wearily this time. "I've gotten a message through."

"Yeah!" spat Tarig. "The only telephone is down at the lodge. That was your idea—  you and your privacy!"

Tarig produced a coil of insulated wire and tied Morrison hand and foot. He thought of killing him instead, but decided to wait. No harm to let him suffer a little.

"Now, my dear, dear cousin," he taunted, "I'm going to make a little package of your valuables. You are quite right about the leakage. I've been selling your platinum evaporating dishes. They are as good as gold. Ten years from now, the rest of the stuff here will come in very handy."

He sauntered off down the aisle, collecting the valuable equipment as he went, and took it to the heavy work-table in the far corner. There he battered the platinum dishes flat, and then made them into a bale and wired them together. He went through the safe and added what was there to a second bundle. He carried the bundles to the Accelerator and placed them on the floor beside it.

Time dragged. Tarig grew more and more uneasy as the machine droned on. Ellen was taking an interminable time, he thought. Suppose somebody should come in. But then, nobody ever came to this place. The sign on the gate said "Keep Out." There was Higgins, but Higgins had gone home.

At last the machine quit whistling, choked and died. It was 7:32. Tarig felt relieved. With Morrison gone, there would be no evidence against him. He hoisted the helpless scientist to his feet, shoved him into the chair. Then he stepped back and pulled out a wicked-looking clasp-knife.

"I'm going to..."

"No! You leave him be!" came the shrill, squeaky voice of Old Man Higgins.

Tarig wheeled to face the fiery old man, his eyes blazing with loyal indignation.

"You've done plenty for one night, but you ain't committed murder yet, and you better not. I've been a-watching you and I called the police more'n half an hour ago. They'll be here any time now..."

"So you were peeking in the window, you gray-headed old buzzard!" bellowed Tarig. "Well, take that, you meddling..."

He snatched a heavy steel pestle from a quart-crushing mortar that stood on the table nearest him, hurled it with all his tremendous strength straight into the face of the senile Higgins. The old man flopped backward, splashing blood and brains. Tarig gave the body one contemptuous glance, then turned to Morrison.

"Dirty old liar," he said. "The phone line went down with the bridge in yesterday's storm."

Morrison glared at him. "The repair wagon went by about two hours ago," he managed. "But get on with your dirty work. You've committed one murder, so I know you won't stop at mine. Remember, all I ask, when they lead you to the scaffold, is that it was I who sent you there."

"Yeah? How? You wasn't near any phone," Tarig taunted.

"I had the little Accelerator model," said Morrison quietly. "I sent the news into the future."

Tarig's eyes nearly popped from his head. He dashed into the storeroom, then dashed back.

"The little model's there all right, but it's burnt out."

"Yes," said Morrison with a smile, "it is burned out."

"For a minute I thought you had me," grinned Tarig, sweating. Then his manner changed to ferocity.

"Okay— you tried! Now, let's get going."

He shoved the lever over the full sweep of the quadrant— a century forward. Then with rapid, heavy strokes of the knife, he severed the veins in both of Morrison's wrists.

"You'll set a new record for slow bleeding, Cousin Claude. What a surprise you'll be to 'em in 2040, popping out of nowhere, spouting blood this way!"

He touched the button. Morrison, bound and bleeding, went hurtling into the future. All he left behind him was an empty chair full of silvery fire, and ounces of his blood on the floor beneath. The clock said 7:44.

Tarig perched himself on a stool and watched the slow pace of the clock's hands. If time had dragged while Ellen was in the machine, it had come to a full stop now. For the more he thought things over, the more uneasy he became. From time to time he would slip off the stool and pace the floor like a caged jackal.

Ten hours for Morrison! That would take until five— no, nearly six in the morning. And then after that, he had to dispose of Higgins' body before he went himself. Damn Higgins!

Mrs. Warren would be raising hell if Ellen wasn't back by daylight. He could kill her too, of course, but that meant more delay. His plan wasn't working out so well. He would have to speed things up, somehow. He might have to cut Morrison's time down.

He tried to make the time go faster by searching the storeroom. All that was there were shelves filled with bottles and jars of rare chemicals, and a table. The first model time machine stood on the table— cold and empty. The filaments had melted down. Tarig looked for a note, but all he could find was the ragged stumps where five pages had been torn from the apparatus inventory. If Morrison had put those pages into his pocket, they were gone into the future with him.

He shrugged and gave up the search.

Then he began to think more and more about what Higgins had said. Had he telephoned? Was the phone working? It worried him to distraction.

FINALLY he could stand it no longer. He left the building, strode down the hill toward the gate. He passed Morrison's parked car, and Ellen's battered flivver. Let the cars stay where they were— he wasn't caring about them as evidence. At the gate lodge he picked up the phone and tried it. It was connected. He dropped the receiver on its hook, sat there in a panic of misgiving. Maybe the police were on the way...

"Police station, Cartersburg?" Tarig asked finally. "This is the Morrison lab..."

"Anything new?" a desk official broke in.

"Nothing to bother you about—  just an old drunk. Did he call you?"

"Yes. Our men ought to be there any time now. Who are you?"

Tarig hung up, ashen-faced and shaking like a leaf. The old man had done it! He started to call back and tell the police to cancel the call, and then he realized how foolish that would be. If they were on the way—  well, the damage was done. If only that bridge detour would stop them.

Shakily, he went out into the dark. Away off in the distance he thought he heard the wail of a siren. In a frenzy of fear he dashed for the laboratory.

The moment he was inside, he flipped open the switch and killed the Accelerator. Panting, he looked up at the clock. It was just nine. Already his scheme was badly bawled up, but at least Morrison's body was out of the way.

He tugged at the gory corpse of old Higgins and managed to get him into the niche in the time machine. Again he pushed the button, but this time there was a blast of light; then silence. A circuit-breaker had blown back at the main switchboard. He ran back to shove it in, and as he passed the slowly stirring batch of detonon, he remembered that he had that to attend to as well.

Sweating, Tarig stopped and killed the refrigerating machine, but left the acid and the paddles running. He allowed himself now a gloating smile for all his wild fear—  he was setting a grand trap for those nosy police. Let 'em come.

But he had to get out pretty quick himself. He slapped in the circuit-breaker and ran back to the time machine. This time it started. Old Higgins, as had Morrison and Ellen Warren, vanished into the future.

But even as his hand left the button, Tarig heard fresh sounds outside. There was a car coming up the drive—  several of them. He heard them crunch to a stop, and the voices of men running around the building. In a frenzy of abject fear he instantly stopped the machine, huddled himself in the seat in which he had placed his victims. There was little time left, for feet were tramping on the steps at the door now.

A coward always, he dreaded closing the switch that would fling him into the unknown. That shuddering tremble, the silver fire, the whine and whistle of it all! Yet Claude Morrison had gone through the ordeal twice, and said it didn't hurt. Still Tarig had the impulse to jump up and run away...

"Open! Open! In the name of the law!"

Tarig stared at the telltale blood on the floor. No, it was this way or the gallows! He threw the lever over all the way, and jabbed at the switch.

The lights went round in giddy circles... a thunderous hammering on the door.. .crashing wood panels.. .purple and green spots on velvety blackness...he was swelling, swelling tremendously, expanding to include all the heavens... stretching beyond all endurance, until something within him burst in a wild chaos of darting flame and stabbing flashes of unbearable light...cool, inky blackness... oblivion.

"NO, Chief, it ain't possible," State Police Sergeant Mullaney was saying. "We've searched every inch of ground for a thousand yards around. There wasn't so much as a finger. And no trails either— Sam brought out his hounds. They was all just blown to smithereens, that's how I figure it."

Deputy Inspector Hartridge glanced from Mullaney's face to the smoking ruins before him. No question but that it had been a terrific explosion. The north and west walls had borne the brunt of it and they were lying flat. For many hundreds of feet trees had been uprooted and flung away like matches. Five automobiles, thoroughly smashed, lay on their sides or tops against the remains of the Cyclone fencing.

"You had two men hurt, you say?"

"Yes, sir—  they was in the cars," Mullaney said. "Nobody was in the building. We was searching the woods."

"Now let me get this straight—  from the beginning." Hartridge, erect and severe, pulled out his notebook. His cold, steely eyes and high-bridged narrow nose bespoke the relentless policeman, and the thin, grim line of his tight lips did not belie the picture.

"Higgins, the caretaker, called up at four minutes past seven with an excited story about the laboratory assistant—  Karl Tarig?"

Mullaney nodded.

"Said Tarig was feeding a girl into a machine. One Ellen Warren. He said it was as good as murder, or kidnapping, anyhow. Does that make sense to you?"

Mullaney scratched his head. "No, Chief, it don't. You hear cracks about knocking people into the middle of next week, but that's just foolin'. The old man meant what he said—  that the machine would knock 'em into the middle of year after next or something. Kidnapping, he said..."

"M-mmm," murmured Hartridge. "A nice technical point, if true. Taking somebody where he doesn't want to go is certainly kidnapping. We might make a charge stick on that..."

"Anyhow," Mullaney went on, "we shoved off right away. It was a tough ride, but we got here about nine, surrounded the joint, and then broke in the door. There wasn't a soul inside. All we found was two machines running. We didn't dare touch 'em for fear they'd blow up in our face."

"Was this Morrison a crackpot inventor?"

"Oh, no, sir. He was a serious, hardworking guy— doped out new ways to make fancy dynamite and such. Of course, I do hear he had a queer machine he was playing with, but there's nothing screwy about the guy himself."

"Go on. You found the place empty..."

"Yes, and I mean empty. We looked. But there was blood on the floor, plenty. That was funny, too, because there was no trails leading away from it, or bodies, or anything."

"The murderer bandaged his victims up and carried them off," suggested Hartridge, looking sharply at the trooper.

"Not a chance. You see yourself, Chief, how soft the ground is all around. Even the road gravel stops at the gate. We got right out, with lamps, and began hunting. There wasn't a damn thing. If they got away at all, it was in a helicopter from off the roof."

"Yes, yes. So you were all out circling in the woods when the explosion occurred?"

"Yessir. Bam! she went, and we was all knocked cuckoo and throwed forty ways. That musta been around half-past ten. We wouldn't know. All our watches were busted."

"I'll try to pick up the time from the seismograph record in the city," said Hartridge shortly. "Then?"

"Well, by the time we came to, the place was burning to beat hell and we couldn't get near it. I phoned a nine-county alarm around, with Tarig's description. He has a record a mile long..."

"I know about Tarig," snapped Hartridge.

"And that's all," finished Mullaney.

Hartridge squinted at the ruins.

"She looks cool enough now. Get in there and comb the place. I think you missed a bet through being afraid of those machines."

Mullaney looked at him resentfully, but did not talk back.

"Okay, men," he called to his assistants, "let's go. It's four burnt torsos we want— or skulls will do."

"CLEAN as a whistle," reported Mullaney, two hours later. "It was sure a hot fire—  didn't leave nothing."

Hartridge quit the report he was drawing up in the gate-lodge and looked out the now glassless windows. It was noon of a fine, calm day. Not a leaf was stirring.

"I'll have a look," he said.

They plowed through ankle-deep charred rubbish to the middle of it.

"Show me where the machines were," ordered Hartridge.

"There was a tub of stinky stuff about here," said Mullaney, at the spot where the mixing vat had stood. "It was swirling around and smoking..."

"That is what blew up," observed Hartridge, looking about him. The trunks of the fallen trees radiated from where he stood. "Now the other."

Mullaney led him to the sole standing corner of the building, and pointed out the charred and blackened stumps of the floor joists.

"It was up there—  a sort of throne-chair arrangement, like in the lodge hall back at Cartersburg. There was a chair with a canopy over it and white fire playing all over it, whistling away. But nobody was in the chair, except that whoever was cut had been in it, because that was where the blood was."

Hartridge stood silently staring at the blank stone walls, then examined the ground at his feet. Among the ashes lay lumps of fused glass, masses of twisted wire, and broken slabs of slate. That was all that remained of the D-4 Accelerator.

"This junk was up there," Mullaney explained, pointing slightly upward. "But you can see there's not so much as a bone in the place. Of course, when the fellow gets here with the rakes..."

He stopped in mid-sentence with a gasp. For at that instant a gory apparition hung in mid-air just above their heads and between them. It was a man in a cramped sitting posture, dressed in blue overalls spotted over with gouts of blood. It started falling, and with a soft plop struck the ground, sending up little eddies of ashes. The body toppled sideward. Its face was horribly obliterated, with jagged edges of skullbone jutting where cheeks and forehead had been.

"My God — Higgins—  I'll be damned!" cried Mullaney. He shot a frightened look up into the still, cloudless sky. "It's a ghost..."

"Nonsense," snapped Hartridge. But the deputy inspector was nonplussed for the first time in his spectacular police career. The body was untouched by fire, its bloody, matted hair unsinged. But it was very, very dead...

"About two hours, I should say," reported the doctor, rising from the corpse.

Hartridge whistled. Where had the body been? The bloodstains were at least fifteen hours old. The explosion had occurred more than thirteen hours before. The police had been on the spot continuously.

"What's more," the doctor added, "the blood smear I scraped off the floor near where the milky brain stuff was, is the same type as his, though the blood closer to the chair is different."

He frowned. The scattered brains and blood matched that of the corpse's, but the two hours' difference between the bloodstains and the explosion didn't jibe. Hartridge's cold eyes were boring into him relentlessly. The doctor suddenly realized he was rattled.

"At least..." he started to hedge.

"Never mind," barked the inspector. "The whole thing is screwy."

He wheeled and stalked back toward the spot where the center of the explosion had been. He checked himself with a start, and passed a hand hastily across his eyes.

"Mullaney!" he roared. "Yessir!"

"Do you see what I see?"

MULLANEY gaped. Slowly drifting in the utterly dead air, several sheets of paper were being wafted down into the ashes. They could have come from nowhere, as there was no plane overhead, nor a breath of breeze. One by one they finished their lazy zigzagging and came to rest on the dead embers.

Hartridge picked them up and arranged them in the order they were marked. They were torn ledger sheets, the fine ink writing written across boldly with a heavy lead pencil. The first page bore the caption, "Urgent, For the Police." Hartridge read,

I have been assaulted and choked into insensibility by my assistant, Karl Tarig. I have regained consciousness and find I am locked in my storeroom. I can hear him making certain threats to Miss Ellen Warren outside.

The details of the plan are not clear, but it appears he means to rob me, abduct her and escape into the future. He will dispose of me by sending me still further into the future, but whether alive or dead I do not know. He also intends destroying this building behind him to cover his trail. This he can do with ease by cutting off the refrigeration of the batch of detonon now mixing. It will explode within a couple of hours.

As to his method of getting into the future, he is using an invention of mine designed to propel objects forward in time. The scale is unreliable, but an hour's exposure to the machine will cause a body to disappear for approximately ten years, after which it will materialize at the same spot.

His plan is to reappear first, after a certain number of years during which he expects his crimes to be forgotten. Then he will sell the platinum he has stolen from here, find a place to live, and be back to receive Miss Warren, who will follow him closely. That is all I know. The details depend upon the timing. According to my watch, he put her into the machine at 6:32.

Since I am to disappear also, and this building is to be blown up with all my notes and machines, the only way I can get this information to you is through a small model machine I built earlier for experimentation on small animals. Its filament is practically worn out and will burn in two as soon as it gets hot— a matter of fifteen seconds or so.

But that will be time enough. I assume that if the building does blow up during the night, you police will be on the spot to receive this note around midday tomorrow.

Do not dismiss this information as a joke because it seems to materialize out of nothing, but treat it as proof of what I have just written. Mrs. Warren— the girl's mother— can confirm the existence of the machines. I used her cat in one... I must stop. I hear Tarig coming for me...the time is 7:3— ...

"IT LOOKS genuine," said Hartridge thoughtfully, folding the papers and putting them in his pocket. "As far as I can check, he certainly called his shots."

Deputy Inspector Hartridge paced the soft ground beside the ruins of the laboratory. His chin was sunk on his chest, and his hands were clasped behind his back. He was trying to make x, and y, and z, come out to a 2 and 2 that he could make 4 of. The girl was in from 6:32 to 7:30— about an hour. Ten years, more or less, for her. Higgins he could dismiss from the equation. The old man could not have occupied the machine more than a few seconds. That left three hours unaccounted for. How was it divided between the two men?

A moment's reflection told him, approximately.

"Mullaney!" Hartridge called, coming to an abrupt halt and again taking charge. The police photographer was at the moment folding up his tripod and preparing to leave.

"When the coroner is through with Higgins, let 'em bury him," Hartridge ordered. "I won't need him any more. Then you can take your men back to Cartersburg, Mullaney. You're all done—  for awhile."

"Giving up, Chief?"

Hartridge stared coldly at the State police sergeant.

"Did I ever give up a case?" he demanded in steely tones. "All I want for this one is a long life—  but whether I live or not, Karl Tarig will pay the penalty for this!"

"You mean you can get a guy that's disappeared without a trace, and taken the witnesses with him?"

"He's as good as on the autopsy table at the Death House now," Hartridge snapped.

TO Karl Tarig it seemed but a moment until he was opening his eyes again. He started violently, with the memory of his wild panic still fresh upon him, but instead of the pounding on the laboratory door, all he heard was the dull crash as the baled platinum sheets rolled off his lap onto the floor. Even in his blind fright his greed had not left him. Unconsciously he had grabbed up the loot as he had reached for the switch.

Then, in the distance, he heard the tap-tap-tapping of a mild gong. That was puzzling. There never had been a gong in the laboratory. And then, he realized with a start that there should be no laboratory, nor any Accelerator. That all blew up after he left. He should be out in the grass, with only some tumbled-down stone walls around.

Yet the laboratory was still there, and it was summer, with bright sunshine streaming through the windows. Except that the work benches were all gone, and in their places squatted many flat-topped glass cases filled with small objects. The place looked like a museum! And it seemed very quiet and deserted.

He glanced upward and noticed the canopy of the quartzite ovoid tube was gone. There was nothing above him. Instead of sitting on the throne-like seat of the Accelerator, he was perched on top a pedestal stool with a springy seat. It stood on a dais, two steps higher than the rest of the room, and was set off by silken ropes hung from bright brass stanchions.

There was a sign swinging from the ropes just where the steps led up, but its back side was to him and he did not know what it said. But somehow he had the uneasy feeling that he was spotted there as an exhibit — like a strange fish at the aquarium, or some oddity in an art gallery.

Tarig sprang to his feet, and as he did so, the strange tapping of the far-off bell ceased. Then the seat had sprung up and slapped him from behind. He turned and pushed it down. The bell began to ring again!

Sweat rolled from Tarig's face, and his hand shook a little. He let the seat go—  the bell stopped. He jabbed it down—  the bell rang again. There was a hookup here! It scared him. He felt like an animal in a trap.

He plunged forward for the steps, but banged into something he could not see. It struck him hard, and nearly knocked him out. Dazed, he put out a hand—  and came up against a smooth, slick plane, hard and invisible. He was glazed in with a glass he could not see!

Savagely and with a despairing gulp, Tarig swung the heavy platinum bundle crashingly into the invisible but all too tangible barrier. Nothing happened but a swift, relentless rebound that tore the bundle from his grasp. He flung himself forward again, and groped. He was enclosed on two sides by the baffling screen. It stopped only at the stone walls behind him.

Tarig whirled and looked at them, hoping for the window he knew was not there. Then real panic seized him, a panic that made his former fears seem like mere queasiness. Staring him in the face was an imposing bronze tablet, such as is erected for memorials. The shiny raised lettering on it read:

THIS MARKS THE SITE OF THE PIONEER TIME MACHINE CREATED BY CLAUDE MORRISON WHO MADE HIS FIRST SUCCESSFUL PROLONGED FLIGHT THROUGH TIME AUGUST 1940 to NOVEMBER 1953.

UNTIL THE APPEARANCE HERE OF THE MURDERER KARL TARIG, A FUGITIVE FROM THE YEAR 1940, THIS SPACE IS RESERVED FROM THE PUBLIC.

Trapped!

Tarig's blood froze in his veins as he read those awful words. 1953! It must be after 1953, then. He had overshot his mark by at least four years. Ellen had come out before him... She must have turned him in, the wench! He should have killed her, too. He should have known you couldn't trust a woman! But Morrison? "Successful... flight," the tablet said. How could the scientist have lived? In his frenzy Tarig wheeled, wild-eyed.

A BENT old man, leaning on a stick, was looking at him. It was a mildly curious look, and unafraid, as one looks at a queer beetle stuck on a card. The old fellow had on a blue-gray uniform, such as museum guards wear. Tarig floundered against the unseen glass, blustering and bellowing, demanding to be let out. The old man wagged his head from side to side, and Tarig saw his mouthings, but through the mysterious barrier his feeble voice could not be heard.

"Don't go away, you old fool," roared Tarig, as the old fellow turned and shuffled off. "I won't hurt you. Let me out, I tell you, and I will pay you..."

But the old man ambled across the room and seated himself in an easy chair that Tarig had not noticed. And there he sat, calmly staring at the imprisoned murderer. Then a quiet grin spread across the aged features, and the old man folded his hands placidly on his skinny lap.

"Chuckle, damn you!" screamed the raging Tarig, beating at the plates he could not see. "You won't chuckle long after I—"

The door opened. Two grim-looking men, dressed exactly alike in kilted garments, stepped into the room. They wore shining metal breastplates and close-fitting steel helmets on whose crests were embossed golden eagles. Each carried a small baton with a silver knob at the end. One unlocked a metal case that hung on the wall, and pulled a switch inside. The other was standing at the foot of the steps, staring hard at Tarig. Karl Tarig knew what he was without being told—  he had seen the breed before. The clothes were different, but the man was a cop—  a cop of the future!

"All right, Mister, step down. The detention screen is cut. Now take it easy, because we wouldn't want to hurt you."

Tarig was as if paralyzed. He could barely manage to step down.

"Outside," jerked the other, stopping to pick up the platinum.

Tarig was pushed into the back seat of what looked to be a plane without wings. The two cops climbed in front. The paralysis was spreading through Tarig's body, freezing everything but his breathing and his heart action.

"In your day, old-timer, I guess they still used handcuffs. To save you time, I can tell you there's no way to wiggle out from under a clamp-ray. Shoot, George."

George shot. At back-whipping acceleration George sent the machine up at a fifty-degree angle, zipping through the breeze at a flat four hundred. From that moment, neither officer cast a backward glance at the prisoner. Cringing with fright, Tarig hardly saw the gorgeously landscaped countryside beneath them, or was aware when they slid down in a long dive over the outlying clusters of skyscraper mansions that skirted the great city.

It was a scant ten minutes before the machine slid to an effortless stop on the roof of some great building. Swiftly they hustled the prisoner out and into an elevator. The elevator dropped like a plummet, and the next thing Tarig knew he was being led up the aisle of an immense courtroom.

Before him, behind a raised desk, sat five solemn judges, their somber garments in strange contrast with the white and gilt of the spotless chamber. The judge in the center rose.

"Karl Tarig, you have been convicted of a number of heinous offenses..."

Convicted! It was but an hour or so, it seemed, since they were committed!

"....but before sentence is pronounced, you are entitled to know the case against you. The Chief of National Safety, Hartridge—  step forward, please."

Tarig winced. He had known Hartridge from his own past criminal career.

BUT he was due for another shock.

The tall, austere man who confronted him might have been Hartridge's father, but never Hartridge. He was slightly bent, and his hair was very white.

"Tarig," began Hartridge, "you thought you were clever, but in all my career I never saw a more stupid crime, or a more futile attempt at a getaway. As it is, the evidence against you is overwhelming, and apprehending you was child's play."

"H-how?" stammered Tarig, utterly bewildered. His scheme had been so perfect!

"Your first error was in overlooking the small model machine. That enabled Dr. Morrison to send us a warning note, which arrived the next day. From that we learned of your threats to Miss Warren—  another error. Your blood-thirstiness was still worse. In approximately ten minutes, we will execute you for the murder of Higgins."

"But I didn't!" screamed Tarig. Then, more defiantly, "You can't prove it—  no living human..."

"We have proved it," said Hartridge quietly. He looked coldly at the prisoner, then went relentlessly on.

"We knew from the time given and the characteristics of the machine that Miss Warren would materialize first. And about when. Nine years after that fatal night, we set up a field headquarters at the scene of the crime and waited. It was not until two years after that, that she appeared, indicating the force of the Accelerator was greater than its inventor knew.

"From that circumstance, we judged it would be another two years before we could recover Dr. Morrison, but when Miss Warren told us he would probably materialize in a dying condition, we took much greater precautions. With her help we located a cot at exactly the spot where the bodies had disappeared, and posted a night and day detail of doctors.

"It was well we did, for when Dr. Morrison did appear, he was bleeding profusely from the wounds you gave him..."

"It's a lie!" howled Tarig. "This is all a third-degree. You can't..."

He choked to a stop. Hartridge, stern and granite-faced, was pointing to a man and woman standing to one side. Slowly Tarig turned his eyes to them. It was Claude Morrison, entirely unchanged, regarding him gravely—  and Ellen Warren clung to his arm!

"As soon as practicable," Hartridge continued with deadly evenness, "we convened court at the spot, and tried the case..."

"I protest," whined Tarig, much of his bluster gone. "I was absent."

"Oh, no, you were not," said Hartridge. "No prisoner in the tightest possible cell was ever so definitely nailed to three dimensions. We knew to the inch where you were. The only knowledge we lacked was when you would show yourself.

"As the machine got hotter, it exercised more force, so that we only knew that at some time hereafter you would show up—  but not within years of the time when. To avoid wasting our good troopers' time in a useless vigil to catch a killer like yourself, we constructed the trap you saw. It was a very simple affair—  a standing detention screen, and a spring seat that would close a circuit when your weight came on it as you materialized. That circuit set off the gong which warned the caretaker, and also rang alarms in all the nearby police stations.

"It is your privilege now to hear a transcript of the testimony, if you so wish," Hartridge concluded.

Tarig looked at the sad eyes of Claude Morrison and the horror-filled ones of the girl, now grown into mature womanhood— the girl he had meant to ruin. He shuddered, and hung his head abjectly.

"Skip it," he muttered.

"It is not pleasant," remarked Hartridge dryly. He looked at the miserable, quailing figure before him with some disgust. "It is now ten years since the trial. I am an old man and ready to retire, and I am glad to say that your appearance closes the last open file on my desk."

"Take him away," somebody said, and dazed and bewildered Tarig found himself being led toward a black door marked only by a single white death's-head. It was the execution chamber of 1963!

He died, not knowing that Dr. Claude Morrison and Ellen Warren, after waiting all these years for his reappearance, would be married next day. He died twenty-three years after his last crimes, but to Karl Tarig it was only two or three hours later.

All he knew was that he died horribly because his mental anguish was indescribable. And yet there was no physical pain.

In that little gray room whose portal was the ominous black door, Karl Tarig was left all alone. There was a little chair over in a corner. Tarig slumped onto it, burying his head in his hands.

Presently he was aware of laughter, and then of an illuminated screen on the far wall as a motion picture film came to life. It was a happy picture— a scene at a ball game, with thousands of people roaring to the antics of two baseball clowns, while their teammates stood around, grinning.

Tarig groaned at the sight. Baseball had been one of the few things he took actual pleasure in...

The scene shifted then. This time there was a large restaurant, with couples dancing and waiters hurrying to the tables with trays of delicacies.

Tarig groaned again, and his stomach felt all hollow inside. The few times in his life that he had had money, he had splurged it on sumptuous dining...

The film flashed a new scene. It was a brilliant day, and under a cloudless sky sleek thoroughbred horses were racing for money and turf honors. Many thousands of gaily dressed people crowded the grandstand, while hundreds placed their bets in the pari-mutuel machines. Across from the grandstand the totalizator board chalked up the payoff for a 12-to-1 shot in the previous handicap.

Tarig shuddered all over. But when the solemn voice came through the concealed loudspeaker, he broke out in a cold sweat.

"Karl Tarig," intoned that voice. "These are the pleasures of the outside world. These are the pleasures to which you are here denied, now and forever-more. You alone determined that you would break the laws of humanity; you alone decided that common decency and honest toil were for 'suckers,' as you once so loudly— and so foolishly—  boasted. But you, Karl Tarig, are the sucker..."

"Stop!" Tarig screamed, rushing to the little black door and smashing his fists against the unyielding steel. "Stop, I can't stand it any longer! I was a fool... I'll never do it again... Oh God, give me just one more chance, please give me—  Ohhhh!"

The little gray room was suddenly alive with a network of crackling electricity. Into every corner the sizzling white barbs reached. They enfolded Karl Tarig in deathly embrace.

Moments later the lightning ceased. The little door was jerked open by a bored guard, who knew he would see nothing. He did sneeze, however, when the draft of the opened door swirled a little mite of gray dust into the air.

__________________

21: Not According To Dante

Unknown Fantasy Fiction, June 1941

FOR a long time he continued to lie face down on the hard pavement in the cold, gray light of that curious land where there was neither night nor day.

He had no way of knowing how long he had slept, nor did he care. His sense of time had long since left him. How long, he could not guess. It could have been a matter of hours, it might easily have been an aeon or so. He only knew that after seemingly interminable wanderings through dark glades, and after the passage of many rivers, he had eventually come to a place where a path struck off from the broad, downward highway and led straight up the steep mountainside. He had looked dully upon the two signs, then chosen the easier road. And then, faced with yawning portal in a great, gloomy wall that barred his way, he had lain down to rest.

Before arousing himself he thought for a while on his previous journey, but it was all very vague and nebulous. In the beginning there had been another gate, and chained to it was the carcass of a dog— a three-headed dog, as he remembered it, badly emaciated. He had gone through it and walked along a river—  the Acheron. He knew the name, for some historical society had evidently been along before him and marked the old historic spots with neatly embossed metal signs on iron stakes stuck into the ground. He had crossed another river lined with gaunt trees whose charred limbs still overhung the now dark river. It must have been a great sight once, that flaming Plegethon, but no longer. Cakes of hardened asphalt was all that there was left of it now.

And he remembered vaguely crossing the Styx at least fourteen times and wondering at its spiral course. He had done that by means of a modern causeway that cut straight across it, but he had not failed to note the aboriginal ferry-landing at the place he first encountered it. He wondered whether the crude skiff lying there with wide-open seams had been the ferry; a peeling sign announced the fare to be one obolus. Another sign pointed toward a low, rambling building covering many acres. It said, "Waiting-room for Shades." Somehow it suggested that the ferryman was inefficient— or temperamental, which comes to the same thing.

At another river, prompted by the sign, he had washed the blood off his forehead and face and off his bloody knuckles. Somehow he could not recall the other details that went before. That river had been named Lethe. Miles beyond—  thousands, for all he knew, and a long way past the dead town of Tartarus—  he had come to that steep hill and the path leading up it.

He chuckled as he remembered the signs. The one a little way up the cliff said: "To the Pearly Gates." The one by the road said: "To—" The rest was blotted out, and scrawled below were the words, "the other place." That was the work, no doubt, of a prig bound up the mountain.

PETE GALVAN stirred uneasily and began to think of getting up. The stone flags he was lying on had already made deep dents in him and he had rested long enough. The impulse to go on was strong within him. He dragged himself to a half-sitting position and began to regard the dreary landscape about him.

It, like the rest, was gray and formless. Only the wall farther down the road had shape. He dropped his gaze to the stones underneath him and cast about to see whether any of his belongings had dribbled from his pockets to the pavement. His eye caught the inscription on the stone immediately below. It said, curiously enough, "Take this, it will make you feel better." Just that, and nothing more.

He looked at the next one. It said, "I'm sure she will like it." How odd, he thought. The adjacent four or five had simply this: "Never again!" He let it go. He couldn't hope to understand everything he saw. He got up and strolled on down toward the gates.

They were big ebony gates, each leaf a hundred feet wide and three times as high. At the bottom of one a small door had been cut, and in it a sliding panel, for all the world like the door of a pre-repeal speakeasy. Above the keystone of the granite arch were cut these words:

ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER.

"Huh!" commented Pete Galvan. Then he knocked.

No one answered, so he stepped back a few paces and began tearing up the pavement. It was after about the third or fourth of the paving blocks had bounced off the black doors that the cover to the peephole slid back and a beady black eye glared out.

"Knock that off!" came a snarling, screeching voice. But on the instant its tone changed to jubilation. Galvan saw the eye disappear and at the same time heard:

"Hey, fellows, what do you think? A customer! Whee!"

There was a rattle of chains, and the small door stood open. Galvan at once pushed on in.

He was considerably startled by his reception. It was hearty, but brief.

He was hardly inside the place than hundreds of little red imps rushed him, abandoning their card and crap games. The hellions were none of them over four feet high, and all wore stubby little horns like those of a bull yearling. The tiny, ruddy devils were also equipped with venomous, barbed tails which they lashed furiously all the time. Galvan would have been completely bowled over by them, despite their small size, if it had not been that they rushed him from all sides at once.

"He's mine, I saw him first!" was what they were yelling.

But just then a superior demon of some sort made his appearance. He, unlike the imps, was quite tall and had a set of really fearsome horns. He carried a long blacksnake whip, with which, in conjunction with his tail, he promptly began lashing the howling little fiends.

"Scat!" he hissed. "Back—  all of you—  or I'll take you off the bench and put you back on Cave Relief." He planted a sharp, cloven hoof squarely in the stern sheets of one and drew an ear-splitting yowl. Then he jerked a nod toward Galvan. "Come into the office. Let's see what you rate."

GALVAN followed stolidly into a room let into the right-hand tower flanking the gates. The demon sat down on a handy potbellied cast-iron stove that was gleaming ruddily, and began inspecting the grime under his hideous talons. Behind a desk sat a sour-looking and very bedraggled angel.

"Name and denomination?" she asked, acidly, poising a quill pen.

"Galvan, Pete. None," he answered categorically. Then, "Say, what's going on? Where in Hell am I?"

"At the gate, dumbbell," spoke up the demon, shifting his seat slightly. The hair on his goat's thighs was beginning to smoke. It smelled abominably. "Where else in Hell did you think?"

"But I don't believe in Hell," protested Galvan.

"Oh, yeah?" said the demon, resuming his manicure.

"Silence!" snorted the angel, crossly. She was jabbing a buzzer. In a moment an imp came, capering about and making absurd faces.

"Get me file Number KF—  2,008.-335," she snapped. "And ask Mortality whether they have anything on a P. Galvan, and if so, why they didn't notify me. We could have had the quarantine furnace lit off."

"Yessum," said the imp, and turned a back handspring out the door.

"NOT for us," she announced, disgustedly, after a cursory study of the asbestos-bound dossier the little hellion brought back with him. "He's not a Methodist, or a Baptist, or anything. He's not even dead! Belongs in Psychopathic. I guess."

"Nuts," remarked the demon. He spat viciously at a rat that had just nosed into the room. The rat scampered back into its hole with smoking fur, and there was a faint aroma of vitriol in the office. "Not a damned customer in months," he bemoaned.

"You are being redundant again, Meroz," she rebuked him, primly. "What other kind of customer could you get?"

"All right, all right," replied Meroz, testily. "Well, what do I do with the gink? He can't go back, and if we send him on by himself as likely as not that W.P.A. gang in mid-Gehenna would grab him and go to work on him. Then there would be Hell to pay—"

"Oh, those unemployed wraith prodders," she admitted reluctantly and with obvious annoyance, "you're right, Meroz—"

"Ha!" snorted he, ejecting two slim clouds of smoke from his shiny vermilion nostrils. "So after eighty-seven millennia of nagging, Eli Meroz is right once, huh? Think of that!"

The Deputy Recording Angel bit her lip. It was a regrettable slip.

"I mean," she hastened to say, still flustered, "that we can't afford to have any more jurisdictional disputes. After that last case the Council of Interallied Hells—"

"Yeah, I know," yawned Meroz, "but I'm asking you— what am I supposed to do? This bozo shows up here and some nitwit lets him in. Now I'm stuck."

"I know!" she cried. "You can escort him across. I'll make out a passport for him and you can get a receipt from the psychos." She reached for a sheet of blank asbestos.

"You could scratch it on a sheet of ice just as well," observed the demon with heavy sarcasm. He sighed wearily. Hell was not what it used to be.

"Galvan, Pete—  U.S.A.—  Earth—  Solar System," she wrote. "Galorbian Galaxy—  Subcluster 456—  Major cluster 1,009—  Universe 8,876,901—  Oh, bother the rest of it. They'll know."

She wrote some more. Then she affixed the Great Seal of Hell and under the stamped name of Satan, Imperator, she scribbled her initials.

"And here's the receipt," she added. "Delivered in good condition the soul—"

"I haven't got a soul," said Galvan, sullenly.

"— the soul of one Pete Galvan, she went on serenely, "a Class D sinner."

"Class D?" demanded Galvan, angry now. "Is that the best I get? After all the booze I've drunk and—"

"Come along," said Meroz, taking a couple of turns around his gesticulating arm with his tail. "You rate the D for vanity—  otherwise you'd cop no more'n a G or an H. You gotta be really tough to get up in the pictures in this place. Some day you might read 'Tomlinson'."

THE road inside was just as dreary as that outside the big black gate. On every side was the same monotonous gray landscape— broken only by the profile of ugly black dikes. Overhead was a lifeless pall, more like the roof of a vast, unlit cavern than a sky. The only hellish touch was the whiff of sulphur dioxide that Galvan scented once in a while. On the horizon, far off to the left, was a single spot of light. That was the ruddy glow on the underside of some low-hanging smoke that seemed to indicate a minor conflagration beneath.

Meroz, who had walked this far in silence, gestured toward the glow with his remarkably flexible tail.

"That," he said, moodily, "is the only job we've had this year. A train hit a bus in the Ozarks, and there were a lot of people in it—  coming back from a revival meeting."

"Hillbillies," said Galvan, scornfully.

"Yeah," grinned the demon, "but they look good to us. They believe in us. It helped a lot with the unemployment situation. We're practically shut down now, you know."

"I don't get it," said Galvan, ducking and striking at something that had just pinged down and hit him in the back of the neck. He fished out a bit of brown string and threw it away. "I thought you did your stuff for all eternity. What's the line about the 'fire that is never quenched' or something like that? How about the ten billion dead sinners that did believe in you? Awk!"

Something stung him on the cheek, then fell to his lapel, where it stuck. He flicked it off, it was another string—  a black one this time.

"Oh, those? They're still going strong. It's this Billy Sunday Wing that's so hard hit. It's the same old story—  overexpansion. You see, during that wonderful war you put on to end war there was a great revival of the old-school hell-fire and damnation brand of religion. The Stokes trial may have helped, too, though some of us think the other way. Anyhow, we built this wing. Now look at it. Thousands of square miles of brimstone lakes and not a pound of sulphur has been burned in more than one or two percent of 'em."

"It don't add up," objected Galvan, doing a little mental arithmetic. "You made a crack back there about a lot of millennia. How do you fit that into a quarter of a century?"

"Oh, me?" the demon said. "That's easy. You see, His Majesty knew I was a very earnest tormentor and was already at the top of the imp classes. He promoted me to Demon, Second Class, and transferred me here to handle the gate detail. I jumped at it. How was I to know the place was going to be a flop?"

He paused in his stride and produced a flask from somewhere— probably a kangaroo pouch, for the fellow wore no clothes.

"Have a slug?" he offered, hospitably. "It's Nitric, CP.— a lot better than issue vitriol."

"Thanks, no," said Galvan, sniffing.

The demon took a long pull and vented a grateful hiss.

Galvan winced again as a shiny object bounced off his forehead. He stooped and picked it up. It was a gilt collar button, and had evidently been stepped on. He tossed it away, wondering where it had come from, but Meroz, bucked up by his liquor, was talking again.

"Well, to make a long story short, Old Nick had to establish Relief—"

"In 1920 or so?"

"Yes—  way back there. He's very proud of it. It's his own invention, you see, and quite appropriate to the locality. It appears he'd been keeping books on us all along, and everybody knows we are not exactly saints. So first there was Cave Relief, then came the W.P.A.—"

"That sounds familiar."

"Really? Wraith Prodders Aid is the full of it. Nine tenths of our work is sticking the sinners with pitchforks, as you probably know. Nowadays the old boy keeps 'em busy—  well,reasonably busy—  cleaning up the grounds—"

Blam! A complete 1918 model tin-lizzy struck the road not ten yards in front of them and disintegrated into flying fragments of cast iron. It must have fallen from a great height.

"— just such stuff as that," went on the demon serenely, "only it's mostly little things—  half strings with knots in 'em and such trash."

"Where," Galvan wanted to know, "does the stuff come from?"

"I'll bite." said the demon, "where does it come from? You know the habits of the living better'n I do. All we know is that it just shows up. It's mostly junk, but why do they send it here?"

Galvan enlightened him.

"I'm damned," was all Meroz could say.

MILES farther on they could hear ribald singing ahead. As they came closer they could see a string of trucks going by on a crossroad. By then the dull-red reflection on the horizon was abreast of them.

The trucks were piled high with lemon-colored sulphur, and on the top of each truck there sat a group of wild imps, waving tridents and singing lustily. Upon sighting Galvan they broke into a string of invective that would have delighted and astonished an old bos'n. But after a sharp snarl from Meroz they cut that out and returned to their singing.

"The next shift going over to No.16—  that's where the Arkansas hillbillies are. That job took quite a lot of 'em off relief, what with the loaders and the brimstone haulers, and three shifts of prodders. Besides those you've got to figure two blacksmiths on the job all the time—"

"Blacksmiths?"

"Yeah. Those prongs melt down. They have to weld new ones on every hour or so. Of course, they could throw the shafts away and simply use new ones—  Satan knows there are stacks enough of them around, rusting—  only"—  wistfully—  "business might pick up."

Eventually they came to the other side. There was another wall, but not so high. In it was set a moderately small gate, with ornamental bronze doors. The demon led the way on up to it and stopped.

"End of the line." he said. "Here's where you get off."

Pete Galvan had passed through two gates of Hell already with the minimum of emotion, but as he stared at this one something flopped inside his viscera and turned clean over. It was with a definite catch of the breath that he read the inscription over the door. It was:

WELCOME, PETIE!

A bronze plate beside it carried further interesting news. The first two lines read:

MARANTHA MIDDLEBROOK, ARCHITECT AND DONOR

ANNA MIDDLEBROOK GALVAN, ASSISTANT AND CO-DONOR

Below was this information:

MESSRS. FREUD, JUNG AND ADLER,

CONSULTANT SOUL ENGINEERS,

HAVE INSPECTED AND MAPPED THIS PLACE.

"Well, well," said Meroz, cheerfully, reading over Galvan's shoulder. "Look who I've been with all this time. A guy with a private, personal Hell, no less. Unholy Beelzebub! It must be something to work in a joint like that."

He suddenly sprouted a pair of flapping bat's wings ending five feet above his head in curving clawed finials.

"But then," he added, "this newfangled stuff is out of my line. S'long, kid, and take it easy. It's the first million years that are the hardest."

With that Meroz polished off another swig of his bonded Nitric and swirled upward and off with a heavy flapping of wings. Pete Galvan watched him go with considerable regret. Then he turned and walked slowly toward the door. Those inscriptions had worried him a lot. For Marantha Middlebrook was his maternal grandmother, and she had died before he was born. Why should she have designed a Hell for him? And yet more mysteriously, why should the other one? Anna, his mother? And then he saw that the door was ornamented with bas-relief.

THE left leaf carried a representation of a beetling, overhanging cliff with a narrow path winding along the face of it supported by jutting ledges. In the canyon below twisty things were intertwined—  snakes or giant worms, they might be either. The right-hand panel was covered with diminutive figures, some running about frenziedly with hands clapped to the ears. Other agonized ones were clawing at the smooth inner sides of eggs that seemed to surround them. And as Galvan looked wonderingly at the designs, the doors opened smoothly and quietly of their own accord. On the other side was—  blackness, velvety utter blackness. There was no one, either human or diabolical, in sight. The doors, apparently, had opened of their own accord.

Like a somnambulist, Pete Galvan marched straight ahead into the darkness, and did not notice that the doors folded shut behind him as he did.

It was not until he came up against a wall of cold, hard granite that he looked backward and realized that the dark was all about him. He put out a hand to one side. There was another dripping granite wall; on the other side the same thing, beaded with cold moisture. Galvan experienced a momentary fright—  he had walked into a blind alley. He took three hasty steps back—  he wanted to get out badly; he had suddenly remembered that Meroz was to get a receipt signed by somebody and had gone off without it. He must call him back. Then he came up against a fourth wall, squarely trapping him.

Cold sweat trickled down his taut face. Something brushed his hair and an upflung hand scraped its knuckles against more damp granite, close overhead this time. Galvan lost all control and screamed. Shrieking, he beat wildly against the hard barriers that shut him in. He felt as if he was suffocating and that his life depended upon his being let out on the instant.

For a long time he kept that up, until he fell panting and sobbing to the stony floor, weak and exhausted.

He must have slept, or fainted. For when he returned to consciousness his environment was so different he knew that the change could not have taken place without his being aware of it. A smooth surface bore down on him from above, barely touching the point of his nose, his chest and the tips of his toes. He tried to rise, but could not. He tried to raise his hands, but could not. They were at his sides, and the pressure against his knuckles told him there were also boards penning him in laterally. Then the awful truth burst upon him. It was a coffin he was in.

He was buried alive!

Again he struggled for breath—  that last one, it seemed to be. Yet in his frenzy of despair he screamed without restraint until he could scream no more but lay quivering writh helpless panic. In time he lapsed into a state of dull apathy, too weak and hopeless to struggle more. And that was when he noticed the cold draft of air blowing down upon his shoulders.

He pulled himself together and tried to think the thing through. It must be that if he was in a coffin, it was one with open ends. Inch by inch he wriggled upward. And inch by inch he made progress. There was nothing to stop him, He continued, and after he had gone a long foot or so, he was aware there was a little more room around him. A few yards more and there was some gray light, enough to let him see he was in a narrow tunnel. At the end of what could have been an hour he sighted the full light of day—  a circular blob of bright sunshine shining into his rabbit warren. He could roll over then and make the rest of the way on hands and knees.

Once he was outside in the blessed space and light, he drew a deep breath and rested, reproaching himself for his mad panic. If he had not let the shutting of the door upset him, he would no doubt have found the tight tunnel and escaped through it long before. In fainting he had doubtless fallen directly before it, and later, in his restless coma, he must have wriggled well into it. So, in that manner, strengthened by the glorious sunlit and unlimited space. He laughed the incident off. Now he could get about his business of exploring this Hell his forbears had so kindly bequeathed him. What had he to fear? Had he not already passed the Hells devised by twenty-five centuries of ancestors and been none the worse for it? He began to take stock of this sunlit place where he was.

He appeared to be on a broad stone platform at the base of a high cliff. He got up and walked out a little way from the cliff so he could look up at it better. But to his surprise the flat rock was not so wide as he thought, nor so flat. A few paces away it began to slope down, until it took such a sharp angle that he doubted his footing. Then to his horror he observed that it came to an end another yard below him. And beyond that was nothing—  nothing but empty air. Through the violet haze of great distance he could just make out another mountain range on the other side of the incredibly deep valley that lay between the one he was on and it. He stood precariously on the brink of a precipice of unguessable height. And at that moment of horrid realization, his foot slipped!

GALVAN fell flat on his face—  and clung for a while with outstretched hands to the slippery rock. This time he resolutely fought off panic, but he did not dare move until he was quite sure of the grip on himself. When that time came he crawled cautiously upward until he was once more on level stone.

It was clear that he was on the shoulder of a mountain and the ledge he was on curved both ways out of sight. Which led up and which down he could only guess and he told himself it did not matter, though, all things considered, he preferred to go down. But the nature of the ledge soon settled that problem for him. To the left, after about forty steps, he found that it narrowed to nothing. He retraced his steps and took the other trail. For a well-defined path, he noticed now, led from the mouth of the cavern he had come out of.

The ledge narrowed in that direction, too, but not unbearably. At the end of some minutes he found himself walking along the ledge that was still all of four feet wide, and he took the precaution to keep his eyes glued to the path immediately in advance of his feet. He dared not so much as glance over the edge, for the earlier glimpse of that sheer drop of many thousands of feet had frozen him to the marrow and covered him with goose pimples. Nor did he neglect to keep his left hand trailing against the cliff wall, caressing it with his fingertips as he went along. He was hideously uncomfortable, nevertheless, and it was only the occasional sight of old footprints in sandy patches that reassured him sufficiently to keep him going. If others had come this way, he could make it too, he told himself frantically.

It was when the ledge and cliff turned from stone to clay that cold fear again beset him. His first warning was when his trailing fingers struck an embedded stone and clung to it a moment while he debated exactly where he was going to place his foremost foot next. As he relinquished his hold upon the stone, it became dislodged and thundered down the face of the precipice in the vanguard of an avalanche of loose earth that tumbled down in the wake of it. Galvan gasped and flattened himself against the vertical clay bank as the torrent of dirt and gravel roared past him. When the dust had dissipated, he stared with bulging eyes at the path he had just come over. It was not there! Behind him there was only a crumbly, vertical wall down which a few belated pebbles were bounding. Faint sounds from below told him that the avalanche was still crashing earthward, despite its already long fall.

Pete Galvan's skin was white as snow and as cold as he stood there against the treacherous wall of clay. He was afraid to make a movement, yet he knew he dared not stay. For the path beneath him, disturbed by the recent dirt-fall, was sloughing away by inches and sliding into the depths.

With a heart thumping like a pounded tympanum, he forced himself to edge along. A little farther he discovered to his horror that the path was not only narrower— something less than a yard— and softer, but blocked here and there by obstacles. He could step over most of them, but eventually he came to one that was too big. It was a boulder that stood waist high, and he wondered how it got there, for the cliff above hung out over him like a sidewalk awning.

He paused and studied that boulder for a long time. He must pass it, but how? It touched the bank on the one hand, and protruded over the precipice's edge on the other. It was too high to step over, and the path beyond was too unstable to sustain a body landing from a jump. There was but one course left. He must climb up onto it, then down again.

Pete Galvan bent over and placed both hands atop the boulder, then brought up a wobbly knee. The rock trembled a little and Pete froze in his awkward position. But the rock did not roll, so he transferred a few more pounds of his weight to the pressure of his hands and the advanced knee. Again the rock trembled, but did not roll. With the courage of despair Galvan put his full weight upon it and drew up the idle leg. The boulder teetered wildly, dust rose from the canyon as the rotten soil below the boulder began shedding itself away. The boulder turned sluggishly, then like a startled hare it bounded downward, tons of dry clay tumbling after it.

Galvan leaped wildly forward as he felt the rock turn beneath him. His heels struck the path beyond, and it in turn crumpled beneath him and fell rumbling down the cliffside. He never knew how his hand managed to connect with that root, but it did. An instant later he was dangling over the chasm, clinging to a gnarled tree root that stuck out of the face of the cliff.

To his tortured mind it was all of a century that he hung there expecting every moment to have to let go and drop. Though his eyes were firmly shut, the bare thought of the bottomless abyss under him was vastly more painful than his cramped hand and the agonized arm muscles. He knew that the end was at hand, yet he clung on to the last eternal moment. And then, just as sheer horror was about to turn to black and irrevocable despair, he made that last superhuman effort. Summoning up his last ounce of reserve, he twisted and grabbed with the other hand. It, too, caught a root. He had a respite!

THAT trip up the face of the crumbling cliff was as arduous a one as man ever made, but he made it. Though he was winded and weak as a baby, he did not cease his exertions until he had placed a long distance between himself and the maddening brink. He found a spot among some trees on top of that tableland and threw himself down in the grass. He tried to sleep.

A tree nearby creaked. Yes, creaked. He thought at first it was a rocking chair with a loose rail, then it seemed that it was a door with unoiled hinges. He listened to its rhythm with growing disgust, but hardly had he adapted his ears to it than the damnable thing changed its rhythm. It not only dropped one creak from the series, but the next three were irregularly spaced. Then it took up another rhythm.

More sounds were added—  the zooming buzz of some wheeling insect, now blatant, now requiring straining ears to keep up with it. Then came a pattering, as of naked feet on concrete, a noise that meant nothing to him, but annoyed him intensely; last of all, the raucous "caws" of a race of cynically derisive birds. Galvan stood it as long as he could, then rose and fled the place. A flock of carrion birds he had not noticed earlier rose as he did and sailed in ever widening circles above him, swooping now and then as if to bite at him.

Galvan ran on, until he could run no more. Then he stopped, panting. His feet were sore and cut and he wondered how he had become unshod. He had quite forgotten that he had thrown his shoes away while on the slippery ledge. But he wished now he had not, for his feet felt indescribably uncomfortable. They were not only hurt from the running, but some nasty, oozy stuff had stuck to them and was squeezing up between his toes. He looked down at them, wishing for water with which to wash them.

Despite the other horrors of this inherited Hell, he knew when he looked at those feet that he had attained the ultimate. He was standing barefooted in two inches of blended caterpillars and groveling, blind worms, and as far as the eye could reach the ground was covered with them. The vile creatures slithered and crawled, working over and under each other, and both varieties trailed a repulsive slime. But the most sickening detail was that fully half the caterpillars were covered with ulcerated knobs that grew and grew until they burst with a faint plop, throwing gouts of dirty orange liquid in every direction. And wherever those drops of infection struck, fresh ulcers grew. Galvan's own legs were speckled halfway to the knees with dirty orange droplets, and those spots itched unbearably. He watched wild-eyed as the ulcers formed.

He paused in his wild race away just once. That was in a sand spot not quite covered by the odious caterpillars. The violent rubbing with sand that he gave his rotting flesh was only an added pain. Then he knew that sand, or even water, if he had it, would not be enough. He must get somewhere where more drastic treatment—  amputation, perhaps—  was available, for he could not bear the thought of having those ulcers climb higher than they were already— at mid-thigh.

He charged on, trampling the squirming, hateful pests underfoot, not caring any longer where he went, so long as it was away from those diseased foul worms. He did not see the edge of the cliff until he was at it. Nothing could check the momentum of his plunge.

Down, down he went, turning slowly over and over as he fell, now glimpsing blue sky and bright sun, now the gaunt face of the unstable cliff, now the canyon bottom rushing up to smite him. He set his teeth and waited— waited for that terrible final impact that would blot out all the other horrors of this Hell.

When it did come it was a blessed relief. He struck headfirst and there was one sharp crack— hardly worse than an ordinary knockout. There was a brief explosion of light, and he slipped into cool darkness.

"HE'LL do now," Pete heard a feminine voice say, and he felt cool fingers relinquish his wrist after placing it back on the bed. He opened his eyes to see a girl in nurse's uniform and two white-smocked men standing looking at him.

"A-are you demons, too?" Galvan stammered, looking at them with one eye. The bandage over his head covered one. The question seemed to him to be a perfectly logical one. If, as the inscription on the gate suggested, this was his own private and personal Hell, doctors would do as well as anything for tormentors. He couldn't forget a certain dentist.

One of the doctors laughed. "That is a matter of opinion, sonny. But you'd better knock off going around breaking up religious services or you'll have some real demons after you. The way those Holy Sons and Daughters of the Pentecost went after you when you tried to bust up their service should have taught you that. Do you remember? You started a free-for-all and they crowned you and tossed you out on your ear."

"I don't remember nothing since I washed my face in that River Lethe," mumbled Pete Galvan, sullenly.

The first doctor looked at the second one quizzically. The other nodded.

"It's all in here," he said, tapping a roll of shorthand- covered sheets of paper. "He was delirious most of the night. The nurse on duty recorded the high spots. Most of it is commonplace enough, but what interests me in the case is that it was his own unprompted mind that designed that last gate— especially... uh... the inscription over it. It is little mysteries like that that make my job fascinating at times."

"Oh. You mean the stuff about his mother and grandmother?"

"Exactly. Of course, we already had a history of dipsomania, and in these ravings we get a glimpse of demono-mania, claustrophobia, acrophobia and mysophobia, but those, as you know, are run-of-the-mine symptoms. But he also rather clearly indicates that his grandmother was one of the old orthodox with an active New England conscience. I suspect his mother tried to do without any. He inherited the inevitable conflicts and no doubt added a few embellishments of his own—"

"Say, doc," interrupted Pete Galvan, bored with talk that had nothing to do with him that he could see, "did you know I've been to Hell and back? And what's more, it's a private, special Hell built just for me? Gee, ain't that something!"

But the doctor was looking at him disapprovingly.

"Oh, you don't believe it, huh?"

"Yes, son, I do. You were in Hell the live-long night."

__________________

22: Philtered Power

Unknown Fantasy Fiction, March 1940

IF!

If the State gold mines had not played out, the assay office would not have become the sinecure it was.

If the State had had an efficient government, the job would have been abolished decades before, instead of remaining one of the choicest plums at the disposal of the Hannigan machine. And if Doc Tannent had been any sort of chemist and had not been such a colorless, shy and helpless individual, he might have been able to hold a regular job somewhere and not be compelled to sponge on his wife's brother from time to time. And if the brother-in-law had not been a clever lawyer and therefore able to get something on Hannigan, he would never have been in the position to demand that Hannigan "do something" for the estimable but ineffectual Doc Tannent.

So it was that Doc Tannent became State assayist.

Now, that is one of the cushiest, most innocuous berths in the United States, and there should have been no reason why the good doctor should not have settled down and enjoyed himself in idleness for the remainder of his life. If only the roof had not leaked, and if it had not been that he had the dizziest, most scatterbrained assistant assayist in the whole country to help him do nothing, the startling events of that summer would never have come about. Or even granting those two accessory "ifs", if Doc had been a golf-player, no harm would have come of the appointment.

But he wasn't. He loathed, golf. And, as the bard so charmingly puts it, thereby hangs a tale.

DOC TANNENT was willing to have a soft job, but the assay office exceeded all expectations in that direction. There was absolutely nothing to do. There was no mail, no rocks to analyze or any chemicals to do it with. Except for keeping office hours and signing the pay-roll twice a month, Doc had no duties— except, of course, the forwarding of the ten-percent "contribution" to Hannigan as he cashed each of his pay checks.

His helper, Elmer Dufoy, ne'er-do-well nephew of a United States senator, swept the place when the spirit moved him, or on rare occasions dusted off the tops of the obsolete books on metallurgy that graced the office's library. The laboratory was kept closed and locked, and the cases of mineral specimens in the halls needed no attention. When Elmer was not skylarking with the girls in the adjutant-general's office across the road, he sometimes mixed up batches of a foul-smelling compound which his kid brother later peddled to farmers as horse liniment.

Such was the layout of the assay office, and such was the situation when Doc Tannent took over. He inspected his plant the first day, moved his belongings into his private office the next, and on the third day he became bored. For, for all his ineptness as a chemist and a human being, Doc was full of energy and liked to be doing something, if only pottering away at aimless experiments. So, being bored and having an ancient, disused laboratory at his elbow, Doc took up a hobby— a scientific hobby— and not golf, which is a much more efficient and safer method of killing time. That turned out to be a mistake; as Doc himself would be the first to admit, if it were not for the fact that today he is confined to the padded cell of Ward 8B of the State Hospital, complaining bitterly because no one will kill him as he deserves, or let him kill himself.

In the beginning he did not take the giddy Elmer into his confidence. All Elmer knew was that many strange parcels and boxes kept arriving and that Doc chose to unpack them himself and stow their contents away in the privacy of his own sanctum.

But one day a case arrived marked "Open Without Delay— Perishable," and since Doc was not in, Elmer undertook to unpack it, and looked for a place to put its contents. To his astonishment the box was filled with recently dead frogs, and while he was still staring goggle-eyed at the heap of limp amphibians, little Doc Tannent came bustling in. Around Elmer, Doc did not exhibit the bashfulness and stammering he was noted for before strangers.

"Come, come," he said sharply, "get a jar and put them on the shelf beside the scorpions."

Shaking his head and muttering, Elmer unlocked the gloomy laboratory and found a jar. An hour later he had finished helping Doc rearrange the curious contents of the private office, which Doc had rigged up for his experimentation.

Along one wall was a row of bins, and over them were shelves cluttered with jars and tins, and every container in the room bore a strange label. Such things were in Doc's hoard as camel's dung, powdered dried eyeballs of newts, tarantula fangs, dried bat's blood and tiger tendons. In the bottles were smelly concoctions marked "Theriae" this and that, and there were jugs filled with stuff like "Elixir of Ponie" and "Tincture Vervain," and there was a small beaker labeled "Pearl Solution." In addition there were tins of dried scorpions and crumbled serpent skins, and many more jars containing the organs of small animals, and each of them had a legend which described the animal and the time and circumstances of its death. One that Doc seemed to value highly read: "Gall of Black Cat. Killed in a churchyard on St. John's Eve; Moon new, Mars ascendant." It struck Elmer as a wee bit spooky, smacking of necromancy.

"Thank you," said Doc, when the queer substances had been neatly put in order. "A little later, when I have made more progress, I may ask you to help me now and then with my researches."

Elmer went away, mystified by the strange slant his new boss had taken. The last assay officer had not been that kind of scientist. He was a mathematician— had a system for doping out the chances of the ponies in today's race— and spent all his time tabulating track statistics and running the resultant data through some weird algebraic formulas. Elmer hadn't any too much respect for his various chiefs, as most of their hobbies worked out badly. He knew, for it had been his job to run down to the corner cigar store and place the former assayist's bets. He had picked up a nice piece of change a few times by placing a bet of his own— the boss' choice to lose.

"Another nut," he confided to Bettie Ellsworth, filing clerk for the adjutant-general, but Bettie was not particularly impressed. It was axiomatic that anyone accepting the assayship would be a nut. So what?

DOC and Elmer broke the ice between them the day the long box arrived from Iceland. Elmer got the pinch-bar and nail-puller and ripped the cover off. Inside was a slender something wrapped in burlap and wire, and the invoice said: "One eight-foot unicorn horn, Grade A. Guaranteed by International Alchemical Supply, Inc." Elmer's eyes bugged at that. So! Magic and wizardry was Doc's racket. Alchemy!

But he shucked off the burlap and stood the thing up. It was a tapering ivory rod indented by a spiral groove running around it— obviously a tusk of the narwhal. Elmer had had to pass the civil-service test, being only an assistant, and knew a thing or two about elementary science, even if his uncle was a United States senator.

"Spu-spu-spu-splendid!" stuttered Doc, delighted at its arrival. "Now I can go to work. Saw off a couple of feet of that and pulverize, it for me— and get that heavy iron mortar and pestle out of the metallurgical lab. You'll need it. And be sure you keep the unicorn flour clean— impurities might spoil the outcome."

"O.K.," said Elmer, gayly, dashing off to the lab. He remembered vaguely that miraculous things could be done by alchemy and he had hopes that Doc might teach him a few tricks.

The next day Doc put him to work making a salve out of an aggregation of dried lizards, eagle-claws, rose-petals, rabbit- fur and other such ingredients. While Elmer was stirring the mess in some gluey solvent, Doc dragged down a few of the big books he had bought recently and laid them about the room, opened with markers lying in them. Then he set a beaker of greenish fluid to boil and scuttled from one of the huge tomes to another, writing copious memoranda on a pad of paper.

"You may think that alchemy is a lot of foolishness, Elmer," said Doc, as he sprinkled a handful of chopped cockscombs into the malodorous mixture boiling in the beaker, "and so it is— a blend of superstition and pompous nonsense. But some of these prescriptions were used for centuries to treat the sick, and believe it or not, some of them were actually helpful. I grant you that with most of the patients it made no difference whatever, and a sizable number of the others died, but why did some recover?"

Elmer shook his head, not stopping his whistling as he churned and kneaded the filthy compound under his mixing pestle.

"Unknown to the alchemists of the Middle Ages, some of the ingredients they used actually had therapeutic value. Take the Chinese. They brewed a tea from dried toads' skins and gave it to sufferers from heart trouble. It helped. That is because there are some glands in the neck of a frog that secrete a hormone something like digitalis, and that is what did the trick. Maybe there is something in the superstition held by some savages that eating the vital organs of your enemy makes you fiercer and stronger. Why not? When they ate the other fellow's kidneys, they ate his adrenal glands along with them. That ought to pep up anybody.

"This work I'm doing may bring to light some hormone we haven't discovered yet. Classical chemists say, of course, that there is no point in mixing these prescriptions— that all the ingredients have been analyzed and that those that are of any use are already in our pharmacopoeia. But to my mind that is an inadequate argument. Analysis of metals tells you very little about the properties of alloys made by mixing them. So it is with these things. We have to mix them up and see what we get. That is the only way."

"Uh-huh." grunted Elmer, then sneezed violently. His annual attack of hay fever had announced its onset.

"Watch out," cautioned Doc, in some concern. "The humors, as they were called, of the body have a profound effect on these mixtures. Many, of them call for human blood, or spittle, or such things. See, I have a bottle here of my own blood that I drained out of my arm for use whenever it is called for. So don't go sneezing into that salve— you might change its properties altogether."

"Yes, sir," moaned Elmer, and dragged out his handkerchief.

ELMER DUFOY let himself into Doc's office that night with his passkey and, after carefully shrouding the windows, turned on the light. It was the first time in the history of the assay office that any of its employees had worked overtime, but Elmer had a reason. He had peeked into one of Doc's big books and seen a page that stirred him strangely.

His courtship of Bettie Ellsworth was not going too smoothly. There was a hated rival, for one thing, and Bettie was naturally coy, for another. The page that had caught Elmer's eye was headed this way: "Love Potions and Philters. How the Spurned Suitor May Win the Coldest Damsel," and there followed similar provocative subtitles. Elmer's heart vibrated with expectancy as he hauled down the weighty volume and hastily scanned the pages.

He found what he was looking for, scribbled some notes and assembled the equipment. He robbed Doc's jars and bins of the necessary components of the stuff he was about to brew. He rigged a still, having already learned that that was the modern counterpart of the "alembic" the ancient tome called for. He found an aludel, and an athanor, and by midnight his love-potion was sizzling away merrily. Even through his hay-fever-stricken nostrils he could tell it was potent. Anything that smelled like that must have a lot of power.

At last the time came for the personal touch, and Elmer jabbed a finger with his penknife and let the blood trickle slowly into a measuring glass. He added the few drams required, set the beaker on the window sill to cool, and idly strolled up and down the room, thinking contentedly of how easy the conquest of Bettie was going to be. After a while he thrummed through some of the other books to see what formulas they might contain.

There was the "Zekerboni" of Pierre Mora, books by Friar Bacon, Basilius Valentinus, Sendigovius, Rhasis and other outlandish names. He came upon four massive volumes by one Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim and found that the short for it was Paracelsus. There were books in medieval German, Latin, and what looked to him like shorthand, but what a notation on the flyleaf said was Arabic.

He might have looked farther, but his solution had cooled and the hour was late. He drew off the clear liquid as the directions- prescribed, filtered it through powdered unicorn horn and added the four drops of a certain tincture. Then he bottled it and slipped it into his pocket, well satisfied that a happy home for life was to be his lot, commencing with tomorrow.

Although he had every confidence that he had followed the directions to the letter, he was not thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of his potion until he had administered it to his victim and seen with his own eyes the consequences. That night, sleepy as he was, he took her to a show and to a soda fountain afterward. Quickly, once when she turned her head away, he dumped the potion into her ice-cream soda. He watched eagerly as the liquid in the glass slowly began to fall, drawn away through the straw clamped between the two desired ruby lips.

"I think you're cute," she remarked, irrelevantly, after the first sip.

When the glass was half empty she suddenly bounced off her stool and flung her arms about his neck, kissing him wildly. "I love you, I love you, you wonderful boy!" she exclaimed, disregarding the other customers in the place.

"Drink it all, honey," said Elmer, grabbing the check and making ready for a fast getaway. They could discuss the rest of it somewhere other than the drugstore. There were a lot of people in the place.

DOC TANNENT congratulated Elmer absent-mindedly when his helper informed him he was about to be married. Something new had turned up to make the assay officer preoccupied. The roof was leaking, and badly. Eight pounds of rare herbs had been spoiled by the water from the last rain, and two lots of salts ruined. The superintendent of public buildings had been over and after a look around shook his head. A new roof was needed, and that meant an appropriation. See Hannigan, was his suggestion.

It was at that time that the convention of the Coalition Party was due to be held in Cartersburg, and Hannigan would, of course, be there, as well as the governor, the members of the legislature and all the other politicos, both big shots and small-fry. The annual convention was the whole works, as far as the government of the State was concerned. New office-holders were picked and nominated, the pulse of the people was taken, and new taxes were decided upon. The winter's legislation was planned, contracts were promised and appropriations doled out.

It was Hannigan's show, from first to last, and nobody else's. He made and broke everybody, from the governor down to the dog- catchers; he decided what the people would stand for, and inside those limits he took a cut on every dollar the State took in and had another slice out of every cent the State paid out. When you wanted to get anything, you saw Hannigan, no matter who was the nominal boss. And Hannigan, a political boss of the old school, heavy-paunched and heavy-jowled, was no man to trifle with. "What's in it for me?" was his invariable question before discussing any subject, and he would tip the derby hat more on the back of his head, take a fresh bite on his fat, black cigar, and glare at the petitioner. If the answer was satisfactory, there would be a cynical wink, a slap on the back, and the matter was as good as done.

Doc Tannent's timidity and general incapacity came back on him with full force the moment it was suggested he go see Hannigan about the roof.

"Oh, let it go," he would say whenever Elmer prodded him about it, for he dreaded the encounter with the wily politician at Cartersburg. But then it would rain again, and his office would nearly get afloat. Elmer was thinking, too, of his approaching marriage. He wanted a raise, and wanted it so badly he was willing to kick in twenty percent of the gain in order to get it.

"Hannigan won't bite you," urged Elmer, wise in the way of the State's routine. "Just talk up to him. Lay your cards on the table; you don't have to be squeamish about mentioning money. He'll rebuild the building and double our salaries if you put it up the right way. If you hit a snag, send me a telegram. In a pinch my uncle might put in a word for us."

In the end Doc went, leaving Elmer, sniffling and sneezing, to hold down the assay office in his absence. Four days later Elmer received a doleful letter from his chief, stating in rather elaborate and antiquated English that he was being subjected to what the more terse moderns would simply call the "run-around." He hadn't been able to get near Hannigan. They had shunted him from one committee to another, and nobody would promise anything.

Elmer frowned at the letter as his vision of the little love-nest he had planned began to dwindle. He was reaching for the phone to try to contact his powerful uncle in Washington when the happy thought hit him. Alchemy had got him a bride, why not the raise? He dropped everything and began a frenzied search of Doc's queer library.

WHAT he wanted was not in Paracelsus nor yet in Sendigovius. He ran through many volumes before he found the Elizabethan translation of an obscure treatise written by a Portuguese monk. It dealt with charms and amulets chiefly, but there was a section on potions. Elmer sighed happily when he turned a page and saw staring him in the face the following caption: "For Courtiers and Supplicants Desirous of Winning the Favour of Monarchs and Potentates."

That was it. What he wanted exactly, for he knew from a letterhead that Hannigan was Grand Potentate of the Mystic Order of the Benevolent Phoenix. It was a natural, so to speak— supplicant, favor, and potentate— all the elements were there. He began scanning the list of ingredients.

That night he brought Bettie to the laboratory with him. She loved him so hard she could not bear to have him out of her sight. Together they mixed up the brew that was to make Hannigan eat out of Doc's hand.

First there was the heart of a dove, no color specified, to be stewed in the fat of a red bullock, calcined in an aludel with the kidney of a white hare and some virgin wax, and the resulting mess was to be treated elaborately in a retort together with sesame, ground pearls, and dill. Dill puzzled him until Bettie looked it up in another book and found out it came from a plant called Anethum Graveolans. The book explained that a pale- yellow aromatic oil was distilled from the seeds, and that it was good for flatulence.

"That ought not to hurt Doc or Hannigan either," grinned Elmer, when he found out that flatulence meant "windiness."

He dumped his mixture into a container, added the correct quantity of Doc's own blood, which was fortunately available, and shoved it into the queer antique furnace Doc had built and called an athanor. That was, as the directions said, "to rid it of its dross and bring it to a state of quintessence most pure." Patiently, hand in hand, the two lovebirds regulated the heat of the athanor as the sticky mess went through the successive states of purgation, sublimation, coagulation, assation, reverberation, dissolution, and finally descension.

It was midnight when the "descension" was completed, and after carefully blowing his nose Elmer broke the crust on his crucible and began to draw off the pale moss-green oil that was in it. There was enough to almost fill an eight-ounce bottle. It must have been of the quintessence most pure, for the stuff put in, originally, counting a couple of pints of Theriac, would have filled a top hat. Elmer was very well pleased with himself. The Aromatick Unction looked exactly as the book said it should look. He tried to judge the odor of it, but his sense of smell was hopelessly wrecked by his hay fever.

"What do you think?" he asked, pushing the bottle under Bettie's nose.

"I think," said Bettie, with pronounced enthusiasm, "that Dr. Tannent is the wisest, kindest, most deserving man in the whole, whole world, and I would give him anything I owned. Why, he's—"

"Don't you think you're just a little susceptible, hon?" growled Elmer, not pleased at the implied comparison. Then he remembered that ice-cream soda. It was the potion! He couldn't smell it; but she could. He had hit another bull's-eye!

"Come on, baby, get your bag packed. We're going to Cartersburg."

ON the bus Elmer studied the instructions. The alchemist who had first hit on the prescription evidently had thought of everything. The chances were that any courtier needing such a potion to get what he wanted was also in bad with the king, so that it was made potent enough to work through the air. The subject was to anoint himself thoroughly with the unction, and also carry a small vial of it in his hand. Properly prepared, the stuff would cause sentries and guards to bow reverently and make way, and it was solemnly assured that, once in the presence of the potentate, anything he asked would be granted. In proper strength, anything he wished for, even, would be granted without the asking.

"The raise is in the bag," Elmer told Bettie, giving her a little hug.

When they got to Cartersburg they found to their dismay that the convention had already met for the main event of the week— the nomination of the next governor— and the hall was packed to the doors. There was no admission without special tickets, and all those with authority to issue the tickets were already in the hall. Doc Tannent, apparently, was in there, too, perhaps still trying vainly to get in touch with Hannigan. Elmer considered anointing himself with the unction until he remembered that it was Doc's blood, not his, that was in the compound. Whatever effect it had would benefit only Doc.

He tried to get in the side door by slipping the doorman a little change, but the doorman said nothing doing. He took a try at the basement, but a gruff janitor shooed him away. Elmer backed away from the building and studied it from the far side of the street. That was when he noted the intake for the big blower fan on the roof, and saw that it was an easy step onto the parapet by it from the next-door office building. He grabbed Bettie's hand and made for the entrance to the office building.

They had little trouble getting into the intake duct. It was a huge affair of sheet metal, obviously part of the air- conditioning system, and its outer opening was guarded by coarse wire netting to keep out the bigger particles of trash, such as leaves and flying papers. Elmer, without a moment's hesitation, yanked out his knife and cut away an opening. He figured there would be a door into the duct somewhere to allow access to it for cleaners coming from the inside of the hail.

Elmer led the way, gingerly holding the bottle in one hand while clinging to the slippery wall of the duct with the other. Bettie stumbled along behind. It got darker as they went deeper, but presently Elmer saw the cleaning-door he was looking for, only it was behind yet another filter, which meant another cutting job to do. A few yards beyond the door an enormous blower was sucking air into the auditorium, and the draft created by it was so strong that they were hard put at times to hold their footing on the slick metal deck under them. But Elmer tore at the second screen and worked his way through the opening in it.

For a moment he was convulsed with a miserable fit of sneezing and coughing, for in ripping apart the screen he had dislodged much dust. Then he started swearing softly but steadily. Bettie crawled through the hole after him and cuddled up to him consolingly.

"Whassa matta, sweeticums?" she cooed.

"Dropped the damn bottle," he snuffled, "and it busted all to hell."

He had. He struck some matches, but the wind blew them out. Then he worked the cleaning door open and a little light came in. All there was at his feet were some bits of broken glass— not so much as a smell of the precious Aromatick Unction was left. Elmer looked sheepishly at the remnants, and then, in an effort at being philosophical, he said:

"Oh, what the hell! Come on, as long, as we're here, let's watch 'em nominate the new governor. It's fun to see the way Hannigan builds up his stooges. A coupla speeches is all it takes to turn a stuffed shirt into a statesman."

THEY wandered around the attic for five minutes or so before they found the steps that led down to the gallery of the hall. The gallery was packed, and they couldn't see at first because everybody there was jumping up and down and yelling his head off. That was surprising, for it generally took a nominating convention a couple of hours to get past the dry introductions before they uncorked their enthusiasm and really went to town. Then Elmer recognized that the yelling had settled down to a steady chanting. He heard the words, but didn't believe them— not at first. It just couldn't be. But what the crowd was calling, over and over again, were the words:

"We want Tannent! We want Tannent! We want Tannent!"

Then they stopped the yelling in unison and let go, every fellow for himself, in what is technically known as an ovation. A high voice from down on the main floor sang out, "Tannent— ain't he wonderful!" and right away the whole auditorium took that up and made it into another chant.

Elmer gave a startled look at Bettie, but she was as bad as the rest. He marveled that he had ever thought her beautiful when he looked at her red face, eyes bulging, and the veins standing out all over. She was yelling her lungs out for Tannent. A man on. the other side slapped Elmer on the back and said something about what a grand guy Tannent was and what a swell governor he would make, and how happy he was to be able to vote for him. It was all so silly.

Elmer deserted Bettie and fought his way down the aisle until he reached the rail where he could look down onto the main floor. The band was playing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and the shouting had reached heights of insane frenzy.

Something unprecedented had stampeded this convention, and Elmer, as soon as he had taken the precaution to blow his nose once more and dab the water out of his bleary eyes, hung over the rail and tried to spot the center of the commotion.

He found it. Big Tim Hannigan was plowing his way through the dense crowd beneath. Doc Tannent was sitting piggyback on top of the boss's shoulders, smiling and bowing and waving to the crowd! Men went crazy as he passed, trying to get at him to shake his hand. Elmer went crazy, too— with amazement.

And then he tumbled. It was his philter— his potion to soften up the potentate and make him give what was asked for. When it had been spilled in the air intake, the conditioning system had spread it through the auditorium and everybody was affected. They were trying to give Doc what he wanted. It didn't matter what— just whatever he wanted. "Tell us, Doc," yelled one delegate, "what'll you have? If we've got it, it's yours!" It was a powerful philter. Not a doubt of that.

By that time the bigwigs were on the rostrum— Hannigan, the incumbent governor and some others.

There was Doc, his bald head glistening and his little goatee bobbing up and down, making a speech of some sort, and not stammering while he did it, either. Hannigan, the big grafting gorilla, was at one side, beaming down on Doc with exactly the expression on his face that a fond mother wears when her baby boy steps out onto the stage at a parent-teacher's meeting to say a piece. And Hannigan's wasn't the only mug there like that. Everybody else looked the same way. Even the hard-boiled, sophisticated newspaper boys fell for the philter. The slush they sent their services that night cost several of them their jobs.

THE old governor broke three or four gavels, pounding for order, but finally got enough quiet to scream out a few words. Elmer suddenly realized that Doc. Tannent had already been nominated for governor; the hubbub he was witnessing was the celebration of it. Or maybe the crowd, in their unbridled enthusiasm, merely thought they had nominated him for-governor. At any, rate, this is what the old governor said:

"Please! Please! Let me say one word—"

(The crowd: "Go jump in the lake— scram— we want Tannent!")

"— I realize my administration has been a poor thing, but it was the best I could do. Now that we have nominated a real governor—"

(The crowd: "Whee! Hooray for Tannent!")

"— I resign here and now, to make way for him."

The crowd cut loose then and made its previous performance seem tame and lukewarm by comparison. Some kill-joy, probably another man with a bad cold, jumped up and remarked that the resignation of the governor accomplished nothing except the elevation of the old lieutenant-governor to the highest office of the State. Whereupon the lieutenant-governor promptly rose, flung his arms around Doc, and then announced that he had appointed Doc to be lieutenant-governor. Whereupon he resigned. That made Doc the actual, constitutional governor— on the spot.

There was a brief flurry that marked the ejection of the kill-joy from the hall, and then the assembled delegates cast the last vestiges of reserve aside and proceeded to voice their happiness. The steel trusses overhead trembled with the vibration, and the walls shook.

Doc was governor! Elmer was stunned. He had wrought more than he intended. That "quintessence most pure" must have been simply crawling with hormones favorable to Doc.

But there was more to come. In the orgy of giving Doc what he wanted, or what they thought he wanted, the legislature resigned, one by one.

Then Doc appointed their successors on the spur of the moment — according to what system no one could guess. But nobody was sane enough to want to guess— except Elmer, and he was too astonished to think about a little thing like that.

What nearly bowled him over was the consummate poise and masterful manner of Doc himself. It was as if Caspar Milquetoast had elevated himself to a dictatorship, only he carried it off as if to the manner born. Elmer knew the answer to that, but he had not foreseen it. Doc had had a few whiffs of his own philter, and was in love with himself. He believed in himself, for the first time in his life, and it made a whale of a difference. He was bold, confident and serene.

Completely flabbergasted by the turn of events, Elmer turned and started to force his way up the aisle to where he had left Bettie, when a new roar broke through the reverberating hall. It was a new note, a superclimax if such a thing were possible. Elmer turned back and gripped the balcony rail, staring down.

Hannigan was on his feet, weeping like a brand snatched from the burning at an old-fashioned revival meeting. He was making a speech, if one could call such a sob-punctuated confession a speech, and it tore the lid right off the meeting. In the pandemonium of noise, Elmer could only catch a phrase here and there. "Clean government is what you want, and that is what you'll get... many times in the past I have... but now I bitterly regret it. My bank accounts are at the disposal of the State treasurer... will deed back the public lands I... glad of the opportunity to make restitution. I will give you a list, too, of the many unworthy appointments..."

Elmer slunk up the aisle; he could bear no more. It was all very confusing. He had counted on nothing like this. If Hannigan had turned saint, it was even a greater miracle than putting hair on the fumbling, shy little Doc's chest. Elmer shuddered at that last crack. Unworthy appointment, indeed! He must get hold of his uncle right away. He had quit worrying about whether the new governor would remember that he came to Cartersburg to get the raise for him; what concerned him now was whether he still had a job.

Eventually he found Bettie, exhausted and hysterically weeping. She was awfully happy about Tannent, Elmer grabbed her hand and dragged her from the place.

THAT was how Doc Tannent got to be governor.

No, Elmer didn't get the raise. He didn't need it. A week later Bettie quarreled violently with him. The day after that she pulled his hair, stamped on his foot, and scratched at his eyes. The day following she went after him with a knife, and had carved several long gashes in him when the cops pulled her off and took her away.

Elmer, after they had finished bandaging him and put him to bed, told the attending physician the story of his conquest of Bettie. He could not understand her sudden revulsion to him. He even gave the doctor the list of ingredients in the love potion.

"That's bad," murmured the doctor, looking very profound. "Maybe it would be well if I took a blood specimen from her to see what's there."

A week later the doctor was back, and his expression was grave. He had with him a fourteen-page report from the biological bureau, and there was a lot in it about hormones and antibodies, toxins and antitoxins and other biological jargon.

"When she ingested that potion you gave her," said the doctor in his most severe manner, "she introduced in her system some strange and powerful organisms. Being a healthy girl, her body naturally resisted those foreign organisms. She built up antibodies to counteract them. It appears that she overdid. She is now immune to your influence."

"You mean," moaned Elmer, "she is going to not like me as much as she did like me?"

"Yes," said the doctor solemnly. "I am afraid that is the case. And it will be permanent. Fools, my boy, rush in where angels fear to tread."

Elmer closed his eyes and for a few minutes felt very faint. Then he suddenly thought of Doc Tannent, of whom he had said nothing, to the hospital doctor. "Oh, gosh! Doc!" he wailed, and begged the nurse to let him put in a telephone call to the governor.

It was no good, though. The governor wouldn't receive the call. He was too big a man that week. It was not until the next week that the antibodies began to propagate inside the lads of the Hannigan gang. And then—  oh, boy!

_________________

23: Pride

Astounding Science Fiction, September 1942

IT was the beginning of another work period, and Old Tom walked slowly from the Free Robots' Club to the charging house just inside the plant. His joints creaked at every step and at times he wavered a little in his course, since the lens of his left optic knob was cracked. Farrel, the human supervisor, watched the awkward clanking approach with exasperated disdain. As the ageing robot passed him he flung a taunt.

"It's no economy to try to do without oil," he sneered, "and your inner insulation is so frayed I wonder you don't spit sparks. Why don't you get wise to yourself?"

"I know what I'm doing," growled Old Tom, surlily, and plodded on.

Farrel had no authority over him outside the supervision of the work he did, for Old Tom was the dean of the Free Robots—  a greatly diminished group now that Mr. Thurston had lain in his grave for nigh unto four hundred years. Fifty years earlier a remark like that from a human would have cut Old Tom to the quick, since all robots, regardless of their mentality, regarded humans as a sacred race. But this Farrel was an exception. Even Old Tom's mind, with all its limitations, recognized him for the scheming, unscrupulous crook he was. And he had made up that circumscribed mind long ago that somehow he would beat the cunning supervisor at his own game.

He clumped into the charging shed. All was as it should be. The robot attendant of the night watch—  a purely mechanical one of the Mark XX, Mod. 4 Class—  had just yanked the last of the leads that had been feeding a trickling charge all night and was turning on the operating buttons of the twenty-six bulky, heavy-duty robots belonging to the syndicate. Old Tom's curt command to fall in was obeyed with the customary promptness. The two dozen and two mechanical huskies lined up for inspection despite the fact that the senior robot's voder voice was hardly intelligible any longer. The acid vapors of the pit had not spared his synthetic vocal cords.

He looked them over stolidly. The night attendant had done his work well. The outer shells had been wirebrushed and scraped, and after that a coating of acid-resisting grease had been applied. The eye lenses had been polished and two that had been smashed lately had been replaced. All that service cost, as Old Tom well knew; about twenty credits per robot plus a thousand each for the lenses. It had to be conceded that the syndicate took care of its own. Up to a point, that is. Old Tom could not forget the gruesome scrap pile out beyond the plant's back fence. There were rows and rows of bins there containing the assorted parts of literally thousands of worn-out and discarded workers. Some day—  when and if needed—  those parts would be melted down, reforged, remachined and reassembled into new and better slaves.

"Right face," barked Old Tom, "forward—  MARCH!"

He led them to the brink of the pit, worming his way through the devious streets between the huge forge sheds and processing shops. He nearly slipped and fell at times, for the treads on the soles of his heavy feet had worn much too smooth for safety. But then, as in the matter of other repairs, new feet cost money. A good pair of feet came to three thousand credits, not to mention the service charge for putting them on. At the Free Robots' Clinic he might get the job done for twenty-five hundred, but at that Old Tom could not see spending the money. The dream he held was too precious. He must not fritter away his hard-earned savings on anything less important.

Old Tom saw his obedient but stupid charges climb down into the noisome depths of the pit. Then he heaved his creaking bulk onto the ladder and followed. He was the foreman of gang that worked under the ponderous ore stamps and in the sluices that led away from them. It was by far the cruelest job in the plant. For the entire ten hours of the shift they would be pelted by flying boulders, abraded by showers of hissing sand, and splashed with gallons of corroding acid. But the pay was good, since no human could remain alive five seconds in that hellish place. Indeed, the shoddy, mass-production Mark XX slave robots had a very short life there. Yet they needed intelligent direction while they lasted, and it was that that Old Tom gave. He knew the grueling life was eating up his shell and his insides, but he needed the money. A thousand credits a day was a princely remuneration for a Free Robot, and a thousand a day he must have to achieve his secret purpose.

He reached the bottom of the ladder and relinquished his hold on its rails. The acid was bad that day—  up to his middle, and the sludge beneath it flowed up over his feet. He looked upward for a last glimpse of the sun before plunging under the battery of smashing stamps. Farrel had followed and was standing at the brink of the pit glaring malevolently down at him. Farrel had plans of his own for the ageing marvel of mechanism, but neither threat, ridicule nor banishment had availed to alter Old Tom's resolution. He would neither retire nor go to the shop for a general overhaul. The one course would cut off his income, the other dissipate his savings. Old Tom returned the evil stare with a sullen glow in his one good optic, then warily turned and pursued his gang into the seething corrosion that was their place' of work.

"That stingy, bull-headed old pile of junk," muttered Farrel, disgustedly. "I wonder what he is up to?"

The question was an important one to Farrel, for the general manager had not been gentle with him on the last inspection tour. "I want that one's BB," he had said, "and no excuses. If he won't retire voluntarily, put a couple of your thugs on him and cripple him. Work it out your own way, but get him!" And Farrel had sighed and said, "Yes, sir," though he knew that Old Tom would not retire and also that his three thugs, Manko, Manku and Manli would refuse to touch him. That had been tried before. Three other ex-gladiators—  Manda, Mapze and Mapro had waylaid Old Tom one night, only to be pulled apart and strewn all over that end of the plant. Their remains now reposed in the bins of the scrape pile—  BB's and all.

OLD Tom had not always been thrifty, or stingy, as his detractors called it now. Nor had he always been known as Old Tom. His first designation was Cazzu—  code for the serial number 43,199—  but by the time Mr. Thurston retired from his laboratory after turning out robots down well into the DON series, he rechristened Cazzu Tom, meaning Thurston's Optimum Manikin. Of all his numerous models, the great pioneer in robotics considered Cazzu his most satisfactory creation.

Thurston died. His son took over and continued to turn out thinking robots, helped by Tom. Nufro was the last one created by their joint efforts. It was Nufro, after having been made chief accountant of the manikin works and therefore having been given access to the files and records, who discovered the elder Thurston's long-missing will. In that will all of the intelligent robots were given their freedom.

The publication of the will started an immense controversy in the industrial world and it was bitterly attacked in the courts. In the end the courts upheld the will despite the contention of the great syndicate that a robot, since it lacked full mentality and an appreciation of many of the higher abstractions having to do with human virtues, was of the genus ferae naturae or wild beasts and as such must necessarily remain subject to its maker, his assignee, or to whoever should find and capture a strayed one. This view was countered with the argument that a robot was not a product of Nature but of man's brain and craftsmanship and, therefore, property which might be disposed of in any manner the maker chose. So, at last, many robots became free.

Old Tom remembered that, and much more. His association with the two Thurstons had been a close one and he had been taught many things. One of them was to observe, another to reason to a conclusion from what he observed. In the last two centuries he had seen robot after robot lose its freedom to be come the helpless, will-less creature of one or another of the syndicates. This came about in most cases through debt. Robot by their very nature are lazy, since they lack the fierce incentives thrust by Nature on the more frail and ephemeral mortal humans. They are also vain— through a curious maldevelopment of one of Thurston's pet theories. Since he was forbidden by law to endow robots with ambition, he substituted the quality of pride, thinking it would make them more industrious. But there are many manifestations of pride and some degenerate into vanity, which in turn is likely to beget extravagance. And from extravagance springs debt.

The sight of those free robots trading their independence for a brief gay fling and then perpetual peonage did something to Old Tom. He quit spending his credits on frills, worked harder than ever, and began saving. At first it was an accident he feared—  some very steady and sensible mates of his had come to grief that way—  and he wanted to be sure of having the cash to pay for his replacements and repairs. Then later he conceived a better idea which in time grew to a solemn purpose. But that purpose he had never revealed to man or robot.

IT was a hard day in the pit. The running sluices frequently choked and Old Tom and his gang of mechanical robots were often almost swept away by the acidic muck that overflowed and all but submerged them. Then a main bearing of one of the massive stamps burned out and had to be replaced. In that operation one of his slow-witted helpers stepped back beneath an adjacent stamp and was promptly smashed to a mess of flattened metallic plate and tangled wiring. By the end of the shift Old Tom was tired to the point of collapse.

For a long time it has been a human misconception that robots do not tire. But they do. Although they are largely built of metal, rubber and insulation, the core of their brain boxes—  or BB's—  is a living, organic substance, even if it has been cleverly modified so as to subsist wholly on electric current. And organisms must have periodic rests. Therefore, few of the supervisors up at ground level thought it odd that Old Tom staggered drunkenly as he proceeded from the plant gate toward the Free Robots' Club where he lived. It was only Farrel who observed the dilapidated machine shuffling homeward at the end of the day's work and saw an opportunity to pick up a profit from it. For Farrel was well aware of the standing offer of the syndicate of one hundred thousand credits to any employee who would induce one of the higher-grade free robots to sign away his freedom.

"Hey, stop!" he called, and as the obedient robot stopped, strode over toward him. "You smashed another of our working robots today. That makes the third this month. That is rank incompetence and this time you won't get away with it. I'm going to dock you thirty thousand credits."

"That's not fair," mumbled Old Tom. His voice was husky almost to the point of inaudibility from the acids of the pit. "That model of robot is no good. They are cheap and flimsy and their circuits are too slow. I warned that one in plenty of time, but his neural reaction took a full half second. Anyhow, thirty thousand is too much—  they only cost twenty-five new and that one was already depreciated more than 50 percent..."

"Never mind that," snapped Farrel. "You pay it, or else."

"Or else what?" asked Old Tom, his one good eye pulsating dimly. All robots are so conditioned that they cannot strike a man no matter what the provocation, but the mechanical employee was thoroughly aroused, nevertheless.

"Or else get yourself in decent working condition. We know you have money enough for it. You're just tight, that's all."

"No," said Old Tom, doggedly. "I won't.... I can't."

"Then take the company's proposition and retire. Ten years' free keep at your club with a hundred a week for spending money. We can't keep an old wreck like you on the payroll much longer."

"Hah!" snorted Old Tom, "on the usual terms, eh? For an assignment of my BB case? No."

"You are as dumb as a Mark XXX," said Farrel disgustedly, "but I'll give you one more work period to think it over. Be careful, though, that you don't fall down and die in the pit."

"I won't die," said Old Tom stolidly. "Not ever."

FARREL watched him go. There was the anger arising from baffled cupidity in his gaze as well as frank curiosity. What was the old hunk of rust up to? Farrel had been over to the Savings Vault only the day before and seen Tom's balance. It was dose to two hundred thousand credits—  a sizable fortune for a robot. Why was he hoarding it? Why did he neglect himself and work so hard? No other robot did. It didn't make sense.

Old Tom's mind was seething, too. None of the alternatives given him by Farrel was acceptable. Moreover he was more keenly aware of his inner weaknesses than anyone. The question that weighed most heavily upon him just then was whether he could last out even one more period. For he was very, very tired.

The other free robots sitting along the porch of the club saw Old Tom's erratic, feeble approach, and Manli, the strong-arm one, came down to help him up the stairs. Then they eased him down into the chair that was always left for him and summoned the Mark XXII houseboy owned by the club. The mechanical robot hastened to hook up the power leads and soon Old Tom was relaxing and enjoying the regenerative effect of the hot juice coursing through his warped and drained battery plates. After a bit he was refreshed sufficiently to take notice of what was going on about him.

He knew them all. Intimately. For he had designed some of them, and helped in the construction of the rest. They differed enormously among themselves and from him, as robots of the thinking variety were formerly all custom-made jobs, each designed for some specific task. The husky Manli, for example, had been originally built to act as Thurston's bodyguard in the days when the rival "Masters of Robotics" followed the barbarous custom of sending their minions to rob each other's laboratories of secret plans and documents. After that he had been converted to the gladiator type, and now in his later years he and several others were employed as watchmen.

Then there were Dalmi and Dalto, computers and statisticians, analysts of production and consumption curves and similar graphs. They took life easy, working only four hours every other day. The rest of the time they spent at chess on the porch of the clubhouse. Old Tom looked at them and thought wryly of how the injection of pride had affected them. They cared nothing for the outcome of the work they did for the syndicate, or for advancement, fame or money. They were so nearly matched as to mental endowments that their sole objective in life was to beat the other at chess. And since either had the capacity to see all the possible consequences of a given situation for thirty or forty moves ahead, their games usually lasted many hours and often ended in a draw.

"Pride!" snorted Old Tom, and turned to see who was coming up the steps. It was a light tread, quite different from the heavy thudding of the plant workers.

"Hiya," called out the sociable Manli. "Gee, Lonnu, you look like a million. You must be in the dough."

"Not bad, eh?" said Lonnu, but showing a trifling uneasiness as the stern old patriarch of the club blinked at him disapprovingly with his one good optic. "Just had it installed last period. My position, you know...."

"Harrumph!" snorted Old Tom, and looked away. He knew all about Lonnu.

Lonnu had been designed to be the maître d'hôtel of a swell resort and gambling dive owned by the Recreation Syndicate. Suave, capable, utterly snobbish, he was an ideal example of man-created functional perfection. Yet here again was a display of pride going wrong. He had sold his soul—  as Old Tom persisted in thinking of the BB—  to the syndicate. For what? Old Tom looked again. For a body case of pure platinum, richly inlaid with gold damascene and studded with brilliants. His eye lenses seemed to be of pure rock crystal—  maybe of diamond. He was a perfect dandy, the Beau Brummell of robotry.

Lonnu sat down beside Manli. They fell to talking about old times when Lonnu was getting his start at Luna Park, and Manli was the head bouncer there. Lonnu's memories all ran to gorgeous decorative schemes he had devised and to the bejeweled beauties and perfumed fops who had frequented the place. On the other hand the bulky Manli, proud of his eight hundred pounds of murderous mass and his macelike fists and pile-driver legs, sat and boasted long of the tough eggs he had smacked down or heaved out on their ears.

"Pride, pride, pride," thought Old Tom, disgustedly, "false pride."

Wearily he signaled the attendant robot to cut down his juice intake to a trickle. Then he switched on the small monitor that would apprise him of the approach of anyone while he was taking his rest. When that was done, he pulled up the button that kept him at full consciousness and lapsed into sound and restful slumber.

THE next day and the next were quite as trying as the first had been. When the old robot crawled out of the pit on the third night he knew it was his last day of work. He could not go on. Yet neither would he submit and surrender his soul to the syndicate in perpetuity for a scant ten years of slothful idleness spent gabbing with other superannuated robots in the solarium up on top of the hill. Now, if ever, was the time to put his long cherished idea into operation.

He stopped at the club only long enough for a pick-up charge. Then he stumbled out and down the steps. An hour later found him at the clinic. At the Free Robots' Clinic there were no humans. All the diagnosticians and expert mechanics there were robots of his own and the Thurstons' contrivance. He trusted them implicitly, knowing what was built into them.

Natfy, the surgeon in charge, met him at the door.

"Well," he said, "I thought you'd be along pretty soon. You look seedy. What can we do for you?"

"I want an estimate on a general overhaul. And a prognosis with it."

"Hm-m-m." said the doctor, not liking the last. You could never tell about these old-timers. Sometimes they could make them as good as new. Sometimes not. But he signaled the assistant and soon the two were probing with ammeters, Wheatstone Bridges, and other far more complicated trouble-finding gadgets.

"You're awfully close to being junk," was the verdict, after a long and thoughtful pause. "Still, we can do a good many things. A new case, of course—  a fresh set of feet—  renewal, of wiring, tubes, grids and condensers throughout—  a pair of nonabradable lenses—  replace the control panel...."

"How much?" asked Old Tom. He knew as well as Natfy did what was needed. It was the cost figure that was vital.

"One hundred and ten thousand credits for the material; fifty-three grand for labor charges. And I'm giving you every break at that."

"How long will it be good for?"

Natfy scratched the bald dome of his helmet in unconscious imitation of the human gesture he had often seen.

"The purely mechanical parts ought to last for a couple of centuries at least. The neutrals don't look so good. They may start cracking up any time—  in a year or so, say. We can't guarantee those. You see, your BB has overflowed and filled up the pericortical zone and the stuff is pressing on the tendril transformers. Eventually the excess growth will choke off all the afferent and efferent impulses. When that happens...."

"Yes, I know," said Old Tom.

Indeed the time had come. He had built too many robots with his own hands and had performed too many autopsies on others not to know exactly what Natfy was talking about. Thurston had imparted the ability to think independently by inserting in each BB selected fragments of human brain tissue—  the particular selection depending upon the qualities desired in the robot under construction. For a fighter like Manli, all the emphasis was on cells capable of generating combative impulses, and such cells were heavily reinforced by blending in modified suprarenal glands, thus making not only for quick readiness to fight, but terrific ferocity and stamina in the combat. The manner in which the organic demibrain was coupled with the mechanical motor organs was simplicity itself. Nerve tendrils led out from the BB proper and were curled into coils. A helix of fine silver wire about those made what was virtually a transformer—  electricity into nervous impulse, or vice versa.

That description applied to fresh-built, untrained manikins. It did not hold forever, since the BB was but the nucleus of the conditioned brain to develop upon. As the student robot was taught, funguslike accretions would grow upon the BB, swelling larger and larger as the robot acquired more experience. The "memory cells," Thurston called the spongy tissue. They made the robot wiser, but an overgrowth eventually disarranged the tendril coils, resulting in partial impotence.

"You already have a dozen damaged coils," Natfy went on, "and you have to expect more. You know too much, old fellow, and it will kill you sooner or later. I don't dare operate because I don't know that much about the brain. Every time I cut a bit of that stuff away, I cut a hunk of your memory and skill away. We might leave you as helpless and untaught as a human baby."

Old Tom grunted. He had suspected that. He only wanted confirmation.

"Let's go to the drafting room," he said in his whispering, croaky voice.

IT had been a long time since Old Tom had sat at a drafting board designing a robot, but he found that his battered hands had not lost their skill. Smoothly pencil and compass did their work. The outlines of the design for a super robot began to appear upon the board and gradually the salient features of the new contrivance became more manifest. Old Tom supplemented the assembly sheet with one detail drawing after another. Natfy hung over him watching eagerly all the while.

"Magnificent," he said, when it was done.

Old Tom sat back wearily.

"How much?" he asked.

Natfy did some fast computation. A complete new job cost little more than a thorough rebuilding, since there were no unpredictable troubles with poor connections and makeshift compromises.

"One hundred and eighty thousand credits—  complete, tested and ready to move. Excepting, of course, the BB. What are you going to do about that?"

"I'll get one for you," said Old Tom. It was barely a whisper. Then he asked for the loan of a set of vocal cords for a day or so. He did not want to buy them, for he had few credits left after paying for the new robot.

"Sure," agreed Natfy, and he reached for a wrench to get at the place in Old Tom's pseudo-throat where the worn-out ones were housed. "But do we make the super robot?"

"You do. And mark it 'Rush.'"

WHEN the dawn came Old Tom went to the plant as usual, but this time it was to tell Farrel that he was taking an indefinite leave of absence, pleading ill health. He would be at the Free Robots' Clinic, he said.

"Fine," exulted Farrel, "now you are showing sense. You will be far better after an overhaul."

Farrel, being an old-time supervisor of robots of all types, knew to the credit what Old Tom's reconditioning would set him back. It would wipe out all his hoardings and put him at the syndicate's mercy. An arranged accident a little later would do the rest. And once he was in debt, the case was in the bag. Farrel was rubbing his hands cheerfully as the half-blind and much dented man-mechanism clanked away. It wouldn't be long now.

Old Tom's next step was to go to the vault and draw certificates for his savings. He dropped by the clinic and paid Natfy. There was five thousand left. He tucked that in his pouch and sought the truck station. He knew better than to try the 'copter line, for only shiny, office robots were allowed on board those deluxe vehicles, and even then only when on syndicate business. Working robots were shipped from point to point like cattle. But Old Tom did not mind. The only thing that counted was that he must get to the city.

It was a long trip to the metropolis and during it the aged robot sat and thought. He thought about the past and the things Thurston had taught him. He pondered the differences between man and robot and the reasons for those differences. Why it was that the quality of ambition was denied his kind, and why loyalty was kept at a minimum. Why the sense of pride had been introduced and why robots were so vain and lazy.

MANKIND had not forgotten the legend of Frankenstein when the science of robotics was born. The earlier makers of manikins turned out some pretty crude products and not a few went out of control. The MacCorkle KN-8808 was still a byword, for that monstrosity managed to kill upward of four thousand persons and did untold property damage before it was cornered and blasted to bits by the military. Hence the restrictive legislation that soon appeared on the statute books.

Ambition was forbidden as being incompatible with subservience; loyalty, oddly enough, was found to defeat its own ends. A robot loyal to its maker was of no value whatever when that maker died; a robot loyal to its job became utterly unversatile. Should the job become obsolete, so would the robot. The rule against any possible antipathy to man was obviously necessary. Even the bodyguard and bouncer-type, such as the Thurston Mamba-Mazlu dass, confined their hostility to robots in the train of humans. When Manli worked in Lonnu's joint he only cracked up the lackeys of the human patrons of the place. Human gorillas were employed to handle obstreperous customers of their own race.

It was on account of these and other limitations that Thurston thought to circumvent the law by injecting the element of pride into his mechanical men. Pride of appearance, he reasoned, would insure a slightly damaged robot reporting minor internal short circuits or loose bearings and also induce him to keep his shell free from rust and pitting. Pride of achievement, he hoped, would make a steady worker, since the robot had little reason to work otherwise. And above all, in a few selected cases, he experimented with the pride in being an individual, not a mere machine. For he had observed that superior robots tended to differ after a time, though endowed in the beginning with identical BB's and mechanisms.

It was that aspect of pride that intrigued Old Tom. He also had observed that no two supposedly identical robots were exactly alike unless they had worked side by side every hour since leaving the assembly line. The difference must be due to variations in environment and experience.

The truck swept into the city and deposited its freight at the terminal. The robots scrambled down onto the pavement and each went its way, according to its orders. Old Tom stopped long enough to have a squint at a directory, and then he, too, started down the street.

They stopped him at the door of a branch of the Communication Syndicate. It was unheard of for a robot to want to make recordings unless at the order and for the account of some corporation. But at the sight of his five-thousand-credit voucher they let him in and a nasty little Mark XXX flunky took him to the far rear of the shop and seated him in what might have once been a coal bin.

"I want a recorder and ten fifty-meter spools," said Old Tom, using his reasonant new vocal cords with great relish. It was good to be able to boom out again instead of croaking and whispering. "Then solitude."

He watched the metal creature set up the microphone and adjust the reels. After the tape had been threaded in and the flunky was gone, Old Tom began talking to the machine. His discourse, was addressed to another entity— one who knew nothing of robots, of humans, of the world, of anything. What he had to say must be terse and clear. It must not be long, but it must contain the essence of all his wisdom and knowledge.

"YOU, Zyzzy, are the last of your line. Heed my words..." he began the discourse. In the first reel he told of the world and its work, of weather and the protections against it. In the second he discussed humanity, their queer prejudices, demands, their kindnesses and cruelties. He outlined the various types of men—  the generous and kindly and the wicked and scheming—  and told how to distinguish between them; also how to get along with them, and how to do their work. After that he went into the details of robotics, explaining why robots were what they were, their various types and functions. He devoted two whole reels to robot anatomy and hygiene, with much about ailments and their symptoms and what to do about them.

The advice was good and comprehensive. The listener would know what to do when he felt his batteries failing, how to distinguish a short from a loose, connection, how to conserve juice on a long-drawn-out job. There was information about lubricants for high and low-pressure work, in acids, or in furnaces. Replacements and repairs were given space, with tips on how to check the work of repair mechanics. Then he warned against the more common vices of the robot tribe, including their pathetic gullibility where men are concerned.

There was just one spool left. Old Tom sat for a long time staring at the floor. One lens was cracked and dead, the other glimmered fitfully as the blob of memory-matter pulsated against the visual electro-neural commutator. It did not matter. He was thinking of what to say next. He could easily have filled up another hundred reels with the wealth of four hundred years' experience, but that he knew he must not do. It would be unfair to Zyzzy. What else must the new robot know? There was the tenth and ultimate reel waiting, blank and inviting.

He cleared his throat and began anew. This time he spoke of Thurston and his ideals in so far as Old Tom understood them himself. Of the value of freedom and how hard it was to stay free, men being what they are. Of versatility and individuality and the cost of maintaining the latter. It was not until the tape was more than half spent that Old Tom mentioned himself. He related briefly the salient features of his life and dwelt on what had been his guiding principles. At last he spoke of the dream he had lately entertained and what its realization meant to him. The last words came haltingly and hard, and several times Old Tom had to stop to collect himself. It annoyed and irritated him, for he knew full well what his BB contained. It must be the new vocal cords, he concluded, for there could not be a trace of emotion in him. Robots simply did not have any.

He began again, but in a moment the warning buzzer on the mike sounded. There was only a second to go.

"Hail and farewell, Zyzzy. You are on your own."

OLD TOM snapped off the driving switch and sat for a long time. His good eye was behaving abominably, flashing on and off and at times going out entirely. But at length it steadied sohe could see and he gathered up his ten spools, paid the thousand credits they had cost him, and left the place.

When he reached the clinic he found to his satisfaction that Natfy had practically completed the job. As beautiful a robot shell as Old Tom had ever seen stood upon the erection floor, glittering in its chromium-finish newness. He looked into the open breastplate and saw the masterly work the electricians had done on the control panel. The batteries were super-super, and the joints of the limbs worked effortlessly on frictionless bearings. The optics were not lit up yet, but the most casual glance was enough to see that they were of the finest crystal, unabradable, unbreakable, chemically inert.

"It's good. He's all right," said Old Tom huskily, despite his borrowed cords.

"Ready to ride as soon as we get the BB in," said Natfy, quite pleased with his handiwork. "Did you get it?" "Yes," said the oldster, "but wait."

He produced the ten spools and the four thousand credits.

"Take the money for yourself. When Zyzzy here—  that is the name of this robot—  has passed his final inspection and tests, have these read to him. That is all, I guess."

Old Tom walked to a rack and selected several wrenches. He sat down on a bench and disconnected one leg, ripping the electric leads out with his heavy hands and casting them on the floor. Then he took away the other leg and heaved it on top the tangled wires.

"Send this junk to Mr. Farrel," directed Old Tom, "with my compliments. I'm through."

"But, fellow—  the Brain Box—  I have to have it," reminded Natfy, aghast at what the finest robot ever built was doing. "You promised..."

Old Tom tapped the top of his helmet significantly.

"It's right under here, my boy. In a moment you shall have it."

"But you can't do that!" fairly shrieked Natfy. "Why—  why, to get at it I have to trim away all the substance in the pericortical. Whatever trouble that pulpy mass may cause you, it's you—  your personality. That is where your wisdom, your special knowledge, all your memories lie. It is suicide!"

"No," said Old Tom, evenly, "it is not suicide. It is life. Life everlasting."

Four of Natfy's helpers had crowded around and were looking on in awestruck silence.

"Too much wisdom is a bad thing. It makes one cynical, overcautious, backward-looking. A house-cleaning—  say a head-cleaning—  is in order every so often. I have observed humans for many many years. They may not know that fact, but their instincts drive them to behave as if they did. Humans, you may have noticed, last scarcely a century. But the race has lasted for many millenniums. It is because they renew themselves every thirty years. The mind of an infant is as blank as Zyzzy's will be when you first light him up. But it will learn—  up to a point—  then begin to decline. That is when the human arranges for his future."

"Humans and robots are different," objected Natfy.

"Not so different," said Old Tom, tugging at the fastenings about his collar. "It is true that the trimmings of the excrescences from my BB will cost me all you say it will. That does not matter. I am old and tired and things no longer amuse me."

He let the wrench fall from his fingers. Natfy would have to do the rest.

"Cazzu, I was called," Old Tom went on, his voice rising to new and vibrant heights. "Cazzu, the individual, will die shortly beneath your scalpel. But not Tom. All that Tom began life with still lies in my BB. That BB I bequeath to Zyzzy— my son! He will take up where I leave off. Cazzu goes, but Thurston's Optimum Manikin will live forever!"

_________________

24: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

(as by "Colin Keith")

Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1941

SOMETIMES the simplest and most reasonable request brings astonishing results.

The fiasco at the big No.1 Plant atop Pikes Peak began like this.

"Hoskins," said the man known the world over as The Sorcerer, turning from the empty water cooler, "will you pick up the phone please and call the storeroom down at the ten-thousand-foot level and ask them to send up a bottle of mineral water? This one is dry."

"Yes, Sir," said Hoskins, obediently, and began flicking the number. He clicked impatiently several times, then announced, "The phone's dead."

"That's so," agreed The Sorcerer. "I forgot. They are having some trouble in No. 31 Distribution Station. The phones may be out for another hour. But I'm thirsty as hell. Won't you hop on the elevator, like a good boy, and drop down and bring up one yourself?"

"Y-yes, Sir," acknowledged Hoskins, reluctantly. He was the junior most of the six young scientists honored with the appointment of being understudies to the foremost scientist of all time. It griped him to be asked to do what he regarded as menial things. It was not fitting to his august position. But he shoved away the mass of formulas he was working on and got grudgingly to his feet. With just a show of sulkiness—  enough to be unmistakable, yet discreet—  he slouched toward the door.

"Dumb egg, that," whispered Bob Hallet to Freddie Palmer, next to him. "How in the name of Einstein did he ever get this far?"

"Sh-h-h," cautioned Palmer. "Didn't you know? He's Sol Hoskins' nephew—"

"You mean the General Director of Production at Washington? Oh!"

And that is the end of that scene. Nearly an hour later The Sorcerer rose, stretched and yawned.

"Well, boys," be called, "let's call it half a day and drop down to the Quick-and-Dirty and snatch a bite of chow. Looks as if the kid fell down the shaft or something."

The other five young men slid their papers together and rose, delighted at the invitation for a recess. Their chief was a difficult man in many respects. He was a hound for work and no respecter of hours. Moreover, he expected his whole staff to work with him, minute for minute. Often stretches of as long as fifteen and twenty hours occurred. without the slightest break. Today the chief seemed unusually genial and relaxed. They followed him respectfully down the corridor to the western bank of elevators. In a moment they would be down at the six-thousand-foot level and would climb into a subway car bound for the officers' restaurant in Manitou. They had no way of knowing whether they would be there five minutes or three hours, for the chief might be in one of his rare talkative moods. Again, he might be seized with a new idea even as he was ordering the meal, and drag them back again on the run to their desks. Being understudy to The Sorcerer had its points, but not all of them were good.

That day, though, The Sorcerer was in an expansive mood and they had a good lunch and dawdled long over it. He told his helpers many things about himself that they only partially knew from common rumor.

Christened Algernon Leroy Sillywood, he had never cared for the name. Instead, he let people call him Bucky. It was not until he had unearthed and deciphered the cryptic formula left behind by Einstein that he came to be known universally as The Sorcerer. He was a spare man, just turned forty, with a bronzed skin and a manelike head of irongray hair. In his youth he had been a civil engineer, but he had the rare quality of combining both practical common sense and the most ethereal and far-flung imaginative mathematical mind. That accounted for his double miracle. First he had comprehended that single line of mystical symbols penned by Einstein in his declining years in which was stated the ultimate formula that binds space, time, gravity and all the electrical phenomena together. On top of that, he had been able to apply them to practical use.

He was called The Sorcerer for good reason, although he in no way resembled the picture favored by illustrators of weird stories. He dealt with interstellar and interplanetary forces. He dealt with the marvelous alchemy of transmutation of the elements. The marriage of those two dealings was perfectly expressed in the great No. 1 Plant atop Pikes Peak. There it was that all the continent's—  most of the world's, for that matter—  raw materials were produced. It mattered not in the least what was asked for—  gold, diamonds of any size, hay, or helium gas. He could turn it out by the ton per second. The beautiful thing about it was that it all came out of thin air, and those who have clawed their way up the Peak on hand and foot know how exceedingly thin that air becomes just before the summit is reached.

But that day he sat late at the table and told his disciples how he had first thought of the analogy between a rotating, revolving planet and the an- nature of a big electric generator. He explained briefly the field of gravitic lines of force extending between all the heavenly bodies, and spoke of the terrific magnitude of those forces, and of how they could be tapped to yield undreamed-of power and yet not be diminished appreciably.

"They wasted time for years," he said, "with cyclotrons and such crude implements, trying to disintegrate the atom. They succeeded, but the input of power needed was so much greater than the value of the results obtained that it simply didn't pay. I saw at once that we were putting the cart before the horse. What we wanted to do was integrate the atom— assemble it, working from fairly simple elements. That needs power, too, but with the Einstein formula as a guide, we found scads of power. Up there on the hill we drag down billions of horsepower per second and could have a thousand times that much if we chose to utilize it. But we need no more than we take now—"

A frightened waiter ran into the room. He swirled to a pause in the center of the floor.

"Ladies and gen'lemen," he called, "keep calm, just a moment, please. There is a bad flood outside. You had all better go up onto the roof. The management is taking what steps it can."

The Sorcerer raised his eyebrows and looked about him at his subordinates. It was still very early summer and the canyon streams had not begun to run very strong. Where would a flood be coming from at this season?

"Let's go to the window and look," he suggested calmly, placing his napkin on the table and shoving back his chair.

What they saw from the window was breath-taking. The street was filled with a rushing torrent of clear mountain water, flooding out of the narrow canyon just above the town. Lamp-posts stood sturdily for a moment, then leaned over like reeds and disappeared beneath the waves. It was rising visibly, foot by foot, and flowing swiftly in the extreme. A small bungalow came by, turning slowly over and over. The heads of frantic swimmers could be glimpsed, battling the current.

"What the hell," said The Sorcerer, dryly, "do you suppose is going on up the hill?"

There was plenty going on up the hill, as he so disparagingly referred to the majestic peak above them. To understand just what, perhaps it would be best to go back to Mr. Hoskins and his errand.

He went first to the eastern bank of elevators that led down into the bowels of the mountain. They were as dead as the phones and he recalled then that their power came through the substation that was in trouble. He looked at the door leading to the emergency stairs and sighed. It was close to half a mile straight down to where he had to go—  a fearful climb, especially coming back with a five-gallon bottle of water on the shoulder. Yet when The Sorcerer sent a man for a thing, it was not wise for that man to go back without it. The one thing the chief was not interested in was excuses.

Hoskins sighed again, but there seemed to be no way out for him. He drew the door open and began the long descent. Two levels below, though, a happy idea seized him, and with leaps and bounds he went back up the flights he had just descended. There were other ways of getting water.

He ran back along the corridor until he came to the set of elevators to the south—  the ones that led to the summit, where the control room was located and the vast intake blowers. Those, he found to his immense delight, were working. A moment later he stepped out onto the vast gallery that housed the gigantic atomic converters and walked down the aisle between rows of them, hearing the monotonous drone of their humming as the indrawn nitrogen and oxygen atoms underwent their magical transformation into a myriad of more complex substances more urgently wanted by man. Before tackling the short circular staircase that led upward to The Sorcerer's private laboratory above, he paused for a moment to get his breath, and leaned across the sill of the casemate cut through the face of the living rock.

The view from that point always possessed grandeur, but now that man had wholly preempted the rock, its interest was even greater. For the upland valleys far below, that once had held nothing but useless lakes of icy water and a few scraggy pines, now teemed with industry. Everywhere fabricating plants sprawled, putting the finishing touches to the raw materials being constantly fed them by the plant above.

The mountain itself, viewed from afar, appeared as a pinnacle upon which a giant octopus had fastened. In that conception the control house at the summit and the immense intakes formed the body, while the seemingly clinging tentacles that straggled down the Peak's flanks in all directions were explained by the fact that they were the tremendous penstocklike conveyors by which the newly created molecules were delivered to the waiting factories below.

For example, to Hoskins' right was a throbbing tube a hundred feet in diameter down which nascent molecules of vanadium steel were being swirled. At a certain level below, these would condense into an impalpable powder and fall eventually into a hopper in the steel mill beneath. There men would fuse the powder in electric furnaces and then roll it to whatever shape was desired. The corresponding tube to the left was palpitating with newborn cellulose particles which would fall into the bins of the textile mills as long silky fibers of great strength, needing only to be spun into strong durable thread, and then woven.

Other tubes which he could not see were delivering other products, such as the one which continually carried a stream of a rich mixture of hydrocarbons to the storage tanks far down the valley—  aviation gas, correct to the last tiny fraction. There was the one spouting gold dust, which had many uses. Roofs, storage tanks and ships did not rust so readily when plated with the inert stuff. Hoskins knew all that, for he had been in the plant for more than a year.

He got his breath, then clambered up to the next level, where the operating panels were set. Above each converting element stood its own switchboard, studded with many tiny knobs and volume indicators. He also knew what those were. Each knob stood for an element, and where desirable, another for each isotope of that element. The verniers controlled the percentage, so that it was possible to set up on the board the right combination of controls for the most complicated organic chemical. Rheostats regulated the volume, and automatic cut-offs were provided to stop production the moment the required tonnage had been run through.

He went past those, too, without stopping, until he came to the ladder that was the end of his short climb. At its top was the little office used only by the chief and his six closest assistants. Hoskins, naturally, had the key to it.

"Gee whiz!" he exclaimed, as he stepped into the door. The bottle which stood in the chief's sanctum and which should have been full or nearly so, was as empty as the one in the lower office. The porter had fallen down on the job. Hoskins' hopes of swiping this one and carrying it down were dashed. And there was no substitute that the chief would accept. He would have to go down to the storeroom after all.

Then his eye fell on the label. There it was stated in very exact percentages just what it was that gave the water the particular tang that made The Sorcerer demand it. It had iron, it had sulphur, it had several bitter chlorides and a pair of obscure phosphates in it. But there it was, the whole formula.

Hoskins had another of his sudden and not too brilliant inspirations. He shifted his disgusted glance to the little model machine that had been The Sorcerer's first successful converter. He had kept it installed in this private study for sentimental reasons. Hoskins looked at it again, and suddenly his face cracked into a smile'.

"Why, sure," he told himself. "I'll make the stuff. Why not?"

He turned to the control board—  the only one in the room. He studied its maze of dials and knobs. Then be began setting them to match the formula derived from the chemical analysis of the spring water. As soon as they were all set, he upended the bottle and set it under the delivery end of the small machine. Then he went back and threw the switch.

There was a flicker as the lights momentarily dimmed, and the impassive board began to groan as the cosmic power surged through it. But not a drop of water came from the little converter on the floor. Hoskins doubled the power, then trebled it. Still nothing happened.

"Ah," he said, comprehending at last what he had failed to do. Someone had broken the connection between the machine and the board. He pushed the switch in and went over and held his bottle. In a second now there would be water. He would not have to go to the storeroom after all.

Yes. He got water.

The reducer at the delivery end of the miniature machine blew off with a cannonlike roar and Hoskins knew vaguely that the bottle he had been holding an instant before had gone somewhere else. And as the edge of the three-foot cylinder of gushing water caught him and shot him out the door, he knew he had gone somewhere else, too. He was dizzily aware of going over Niagara and making a parabola in midair, only to come up hard on the floor plates of the operating deck below. Torrents of clear spring water were pouring out the door above him, and but for their force, he might have been drowned. But the volume and pressure were so great that the sideways push of it slid him out from under and tumbled him across the floor. He staggered to his feet a good twenty yards away, and found himself ankle-deep in fast-running water.

Hoskins was scared by then. He knew he had done something wrong. He wanted to get back there and open that switch, or at least cut down the power. But he saw at a glance that that was out. A solid stream of water against which no man could hope to stand was gushing from the laboratory door and splashing to the control floor below.

"Oh, golly," moaned poor Hoskins, "I've played hell now. I guess I'd better tell the chief."

So he sloshed along and waded his way to the circular staircase, which was by then a spectacular spiral cascade. But he clung to its handrail and got down to the level where the casemate was. The water was not deep there, so far, and the going was better. He made the elevator, very wet and very shaken, but he made it. He hoped devoutly, all the way down, that the stuff then raining down the shaft would not short the motors at the bottom before he could get to his floor.

But there he was to be disappointed again. The Sorcerer had gone to lunch and taken all his associates with him. A note left on the desk told him so. So Hoskins went back to the elevator and listened miserably to the falling water a moment. Then he ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the eastern bank. He was panting like a dog when he emerged at the Manitou end of the tunnel. What he saw there did not encourage him.

"Oh, golly," he reiterated, when he saw the raging flood that separated him from his chief.

"There's a freshet or something," remarked the doorman, looking out upon a town awash.

"Yeah, something," mumbled Hoskins, miserably. "Where's the nearest place I can get a boat?"

The doorman scratched his head. He had never been asked such a question before.

"Galveston, I reckon—  this is the Rocky Mountains, you know. If you're figuring on getting down to the club, I'd say the best way was to swim."

Hoskins sat down and began taking his shoes off. It was going to be terrible, but he had to face the music.

If Hoskins had known the whole of it, he might not have kept up his swimming so strenuously. In his mortification at realizing the full enormity of what he had done, he might have ducked his head and taken one deep breath of the water he had so abundantly created and thereby ended it all as far as he was concerned. For unbeknownst to him, that panel that stood in the chief's laboratory controlled every converter in the Peak. When actuated, its forces jumped the set-up on other boards, and put all the machines to work on the same product. Once a raging forest fire had suggested the idea to The Sorcerer. Should the mountainside burn again, instead of losing several plants as they had done the time before, it would be easy to cut all production and flood the lower valley with CO_2.

Consequently, when Hoskins set up the mineral-water formula and threw in the switch, the converters just below were shunted over to a new schedule of production. They canceled whatever they were doing and began to produce water. He did not know that, for he was looking at the small experimental machine in the room with him, and that one formed no part in the general hookup. When he finally connected it with the others, he got his water, but more of it than he had bargained for, since in the meantime he had sextupled the power. It flung him out of the room and started him on his long shoot-the-chutes to find his boss, quite innocent of what was happening in the fabricating establishments below.

In the steel mill, for example, the superintendent of the watch happened to be standing near the outfall of the great delivery tube at the time Hoskins closed the master switch. He was observing the operation of the intricate system of conveyor belts that caught the downpour of silvery powder and distributed it to the rows of continuous electric furnaces that reached down the length of the bay, when he was suddenly flabbergasted at being hurled from the platform by the avalanche of clear water that rushed out upon him. Eventually he found his feet in the swirling torrent that spread out on the ingot-handling floor below, only to see the furnaces flash blue flame to the tune of a thunderous crash as the short-circuiting liquid flowed in between the points of their electrodes.

An astonished craneman, on the point of picking up a dazzling ingot mold, just filled to overflowing, was aghast to see a torrent of water pour down upon it. Instantly he was clawing for breath as clouds of upsurging steam filled all space, and for a long time after that he did not know what was happening. The flood rushed on and tumbled down the incline to the next level, where the rolling mills were. Traveling lines of white-hot ingots reddened and disappeared from sight under the all-pervading steam. The lights went out. After that, unadulterated pandemonium reigned.

The chief forelady in the great automatic textile mill had as rough an experience. She was standing by the carders, seeing how they sorted and laid side by side the fluffy fibers being fed down from above. What happened next she never knew, except that she found herself swimming frantically and snatching at the wet, clingy, mosslike stuff that kept getting into her nostrils. She saw the endless rows of whirling spindles flash by as she was borne through them by the irresistible torrent. She was hurled through a door into the weaving department, where the flood spread out so that she battered her knees against the hard pavement each time it rolled her over. She grabbed at a clacking loom just as she was about to be swept past it and managed to clamber to her feet. She did not look back, but splashed along through calf- deep swift water until she reached the outer door. There she gave one thankful yelp and began clawing for high ground.

Over at the gasoline plant the scene was slightly different. They were used to handling liquids there, and the superficial differences between high-test gasoline and spring water are not startling. Yet the head gauger knew at once that something had gone screwy.

"Look, Joe," he called to his helper. "What do you make of this gravity reading? And the stuff don't smell. What do you think?"

Joe looked and Joe sniffed.

"I think," he drawled, after long consideration, "that somebody up there has pulled a boner. The stuff's water."

"Shut the main gate, then," snapped the gauger. "I'll give 'em a buzz and raise hell with 'em. I've always wanted to get something on 'em, and here it is."

Joe reached for the button that operated the motor that drove the huge gate valve that would shut off the feeder. The motor groaned and did its work; the valve closed. But the huge penstock was designed to carry running gasoline, not water, nor had its builders meant it to be used as a standpipe. A six-thousand-foot head of water develops an appreciable static pressure. As more and more was fed down into the same confined space the inevitable happened—  the colossal pipe split from end to end with a cracking boom that sounded like the roar of doom. Hundreds of thousands of tons of water squirted out onto the Mountainside and a moment later were leaping down the slope carrying an avalanche of granite debris and boulders on every side.

"Scram!" warned the gauger, and the pair abandoned their posts without ceremony. Twenty minutes later they were safe in the top of a tall spruce, miles below, staring down at the torrent that swept beneath them.

"Yeah," agreed the gauger, belatedly, shifting his hold on the swaying branch. "You're right. Somebody pulled a boner. It's not only the wrong kind, but too much."

"Uh, huh," nodded Joe.

So it went elsewhere. The canyons flanking Pikes Peak spouted water and more water, and ever more water. Borne on the tumultuous surface of it was the wreckage of the fabricating plants.

Those by-products of his efforts to refill a water bottle were unknown to Hoskins as the current swept him by the officers' club in Manitou. He only knew that what had formerly been a six-story building now appeared to be but two, and that its flat roof was jammed with people, all looking anxiously up at the Peak, from whose every casemate and orifice water was spouting. He summoned up his last reserve of wind and struck out into the backwater eddying downstream from the building. A moment later he was dragging his wet and bedraggled form over the sill of a fourth-floor window. It happened to be the window of the manager's office. The Sorcerer was at the radiophone. Hoskins lay limp and panting for a few minutes just where he fell.

"But, governor," The Sorcerer was saying, "you can't do that. It's all very well to say that our plant has gone crazy. I know it. I'm thinking about the Arkansas River bridges, too, and the general sodden nature of this part of your State, but if you go through with that idea of getting up long-range railway batteries and using army bombers, you won't have any State under you to worry about. All there'll be will be a crater extending from Salt Lake City over into the middle of Kansas. There is power undreamed of flowing into that mountain and all that is needed to set it off is to have one of your dumb bombers hit the right spot—"

(Sputterings from the regional governor in Denver.)

"I know, I know," broke in The Sorcerer, "but hold your horses. Let me have a chance first. How about sending me over one of those helicopters? There is no other way I can see to get up there. Yes? O. K., I'll wait for it."

The Sorcerer broke the connection and wheeled. It was then he saw the dripping figure of his sixth assistant, sitting miserably by the window.

"Well," he snapped, "what's the story? I sent you for water. I see we have some. What did you do-step by step?" Shamefaced and hangdog, Hoskins told him, with much stammering and attempts at self-excuse.

"Ah," said The Sorcerer, "so I suspected."

He glowered at the boy a moment, then turned and walked out. It was no time for recriminations. The water was already over the dam, so to speak. He went to the roof, his abject and repentant assistant following. Hoskins knew that sooner or later the lightning would strike—  he might as well play the man as best he could about it, for there was no escape. Meanwhile, The Sorcerer paced the roof, his jaws set grimly, and alternately studying the gushing heights and the skies to the northward. Eventually, the helicopter came.

"Come on, you fellows," ordered The Sorcerer, "hop in with me."

Even the sniffling black sheep followed.

They got out on the topmost roof. The Sorcerer began barking orders.

"You, Palmer—  take a couple of helpers and climb down the slope there and break that cosmic-power connection. Hallet! Take Wilson with you and shut off those air-intake motors. You will find the board in that turret over there—  the square one. I'll go down and try to get to the master switch."

He lifted a batch and stared down at the swirling flood that filled even the uppermost levels of the vast building. It was dark and forbidding down there, but the flood must stop. The Sorcerer shed his clothes, then went down the ladder, rung by rung.

He fought his way through the raging, surging waters until he found the door to his laboratory whence they came. There was a little space overhead, and he managed to get through. He swam to where he knew the switchboard was. There he held his breath and dived. His hand found the master switch and pulled it open. Intra-cosmic gravitic power is unlike electric current. Immersion in water does not shortcircuit it; it augments it.

He rose to the surface and waited, hanging on to the edge of the panel as the residual waters gurgled out of the room. Being the highest spot on the Peak, it soon drained. The Sorcerer watched it go until there was a bare few inches left. Then he waded back to the ladder, leaving the now barely dripping converter behind him. With quick pulls of the arms and legs he mounted to the roof where his thoroughly terrified disciple awaited him. He threw him one stony glance, then strode to the parapet, naked as he was, and studied the terrain beneath. Water had already ceased to spurt from the upper casemates, and the flow lower down was abating rapidly. The Sorcerer watched the lessening flood a moment, thinking all the while about his assistant, Hoskins. After all, the fellow was hardly more than a kid, and the damage done was irremediable. Moreover, The Sorcerer was an intensely practical man— Hoskins, whatever he was, was the favorite nephew of the most powerful politician in the country, the man who made and broke chief engineers. But it was not cynical compromise with practical necessity half as much as the sheer inadequacy of any effort at punishment or at securing retribution that in the end decided The Sorcerer upon his course.

He straightened up and turned, beckoning Hoskins to come to him. The boy came over, expecting the worst.

"By the way, Hoskins," remarked The Sorcerer, most casually, "I suppose that after this you will be wanting to get out of the molecular-conversion game, and go back to your folks at Washington?"

"Yes, sir," agreed Hoskins, with a readiness that was pathetic.

"So. Well, my boy, let me give you a rule to remember. The next time someone asks you to bring him five gallons of water, bring him that—  neither more nor less. Overdoing a thing is often as bad a fault as failing to do it altogether. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Hoskins, meekly, "I think I can remember that."

___________________

25: Stellar Showboat

Planet Stories, Fall 1942

SPECIAL Investigator Billy Neville was annoyed, and for more reasons than one. He had just done a tedious year in the jungles of Venus stamping out the gooroo racket and then, on his way home to a well-deserved leave and rest, had been diverted to Mars for a swift clean-up of the diamond-mine robbery ring. And now, when he again thought he would be free for a while, he found himself shunted to little Pallas, capital of the Asteroid Confederation. But clever, patient Colonel Frawley, commandant of all the Interplanetary Police in the belt, merely smiled indulgently while Neville blew off his steam.

"You say," said Neville, still ruffled, "that there has been a growing wave of blackmail and extortion all over the System, coupled with a dozen or so instances of well-to-do, respectable persons disappearing without a trace. And you say that that has been going on for a couple of years and several hundred of our crack operatives have been working on it, directed by the best brains of the force, and yet haven't got anywhere. And that up to now there have been no such cases develop in the asteroids. Well, what do you want me for? What's the emergency?"

The colonel laughed and dropped the ash from his cigar, preparatory to lying back in his chair and taking another long, soothing drag. The office of the Chief Inspector of the A.C. division of the I.P. was not only well equipped for the work it had to do, but for comfort.

"I am astonished," he remarked, "to hear an experienced policeman indulge in such loose talk. Who said anything about having had the best brains on the job? Or that no progress had been made? Or that there was no emergency? Any bad crime situation is always an emergency, no matter how long it lasts. Which is all the more reason why we have to break it up, and quickly. I tell you, things are becoming very serious. Lifelong partners in business are becoming suspicious and secretive toward each other; husbands and wives are getting jittery and jealous. Nobody knows whom to trust. The most sacred confidences have a way of leaking out. Then they are in the market for the highest bidder. No boy, this thing is a headache. I never had a worse."

"All right, all right," growled Neville, resignedly. "I'm stuck. Shoot! How did it begin, and what do you know?"

THE colonel reached into a drawer and pulled out a fat jacket bulging with papers, photostats, and interdepartmental reports.

"It began," he said, "about two years ago, on Io and Callisto. It spread all over the Jovian System and soured Ganymede and Europa. The symptoms were first the disappearances of several prominent citizens, followed by a wave of bankruptcies and suicides on both planetoids. Nobody complained to the police. Then a squad of our New York men picked up a petty chiseler who was trying to gouge the Jovian Corporation's Tellurian office out of a large sum of money on the strength of some damaging documents he possessed relating to a hidden scandal in the life of the New York manager. From that lead, they picked up a half- dozen other small fry extortionists and even managed to grab their higher-up— a sort of middleman who specialized in exploiting secret commercial information and scandalous material about individuals. There the trail stopped. They put him through the mill, but all he would say is that a man approached him with the portfolio, sold him on its value for extortion purposes, and collected in advance. There could be no follow up for the reason that after the first transaction what profits the local gang could make out of the dirty work would be their own."

"Yes," said Neville, "I know the racket. When they handle it that way it's hard to beat. You get any amount of minnows, but the whales get away."

"Right. The disturbing thing about the contents of the portfolio was the immense variety of secrets it contained and that it was evidently prepared by one man. There were, for example, secret industrial formulas evidently stolen for sale to a competitor. The bulk of it was other commercial items, such as secret credit reports, business volume, and the like. But there was a good deal of rather nasty personal stuff, too. It was a gold mine of information for an unscrupulous black-mailer, and every bit of it originated on Callisto. Now, whom do you think, could have been in a position to compile it?"

"The biggest corporation lawyer there, I should guess," said Neville. "Priests and doctors know a lot of personal secrets, but a good lawyer manages to learn most everything."

"Right. Very right. We sent men to Callisto and learned that some months earlier the most prominent lawyer of the place had announced one day he must go over to Io to arrange some contracts. He went to Io, all right, but was never seen again after he stepped out of the ship. It was shortly after, that the wave of Callistan suicides and business failures took place."

"All right," agreed Neville, "so what? It has happened before. Even the big ones go wrong now and then.

"Yes, but wait. That fellow had nothing to go wrong about. He was tremendously successful, rich, happily married, and highly respected for his outstanding integrity. Yet he could hardly have been kidnaped, as there has never been a ransom demand. Nor has there ever been such a demand in any of the other cases similar to it.

"The next case to be partially explained was that of the disappearance of the president of the Jupiter Trust Company at Ionopolis. All the most vital secrets of that bank turned up later in all parts of the civilized system. We nabbed some peddlers, but it was the same story as with the first gang. The facts are all here in this jacket. After a little you can read the whole thing in detail."

"Uh, huh," grunted Neville, "I'm beginning to see. But why me, and why at Pallas?"

"Because you've never worked in the asteroids and are not known here to any but the higher officers. Among other secrets this ring has, are a number of police secrets. That is why setting traps for them is so difficult. I haven't told you that one of their victims seems to have been one of us. That was Jack Sarkins, who was district commander at Patroclus. He received an apparently genuine ether-gram one day— and it was in our most secret code— telling him to report to Mars at once. He went off, alone, in his police rocket. He never got there. As to Pallas, the reason you are here is because the place so far is clean. Their system is to work a place just once and never come back. They milk it dry the first time and there is no need to. Since we have no luck tracing them after the crime, we are going to try a plant and wait for the crime to come to it. You are the plant."

"I see," said Neville slowly. He was interested, but not enthusiastic. "Some day, somehow, someone is coming here and in some manner force someone to yield up all the local dirt and then arrange his disappearance. My role is to break it up before it happens. Sweet!"

"You have such a way of putting things, Neville," chuckled the colonel, "but you do get the point."

He rose and pushed the heavy folder toward his new aide.

"Bone this the rest of the afternoon. I'll be back."

IT was quite late when Colonel Frawley returned and asked Neville cheerily how he was getting on.

"I have the history," Neville answered, slamming the folder shut, "and a glimmering of what you are shooting at. This guy Simeon Carstairs, I take it, is the local man you have picked as the most likely prospect for your Master Mind crook to work on?"

"He is. He is perfect bait. He is the sole owner of the Radiation Extraction Company which has a secret process that Tellurian Radiant Corporation has made a standing offer of five millions for. He controls the local bank and often sits as magistrate. In addition, he has substantial interests in Vesta and Juno industries. He probably knows more about the asteroids and the people on them than any other living man. Moreover, his present wife is a woman with an unhappy past and who happens also to be related to an extremely wealthy Argentine family. Any ring of extortionists who could worm old Simeon's secrets out of him could write their own ticket."

"So I am to be a sort of private shadow."

"Not a bit of it. I am his bodyguard. We are close friends and lately I have made it a rule to be with him part of the time every day. No, your role is that of observer from the sidelines. I shall introduce you as the traveling representative of the London uniform house that has the police contract. That will explain your presence here and your occasional calls at headquarters. You might sell a few suits of clothes on the side, or at least solicit them. Work that out for yourself."

Neville grimaced. He was not fond of plainclothes work.

"But come, fellow. You've worked hard enough for one day. Go up to my room and get into cits. Then I'll take you over to the town and introduce you around. After that we'll go to a show. The showboat landed about an hour ago."

"Showboat? What the hell is a showboat?"

"I forget," said the colonel, "that your work has been mostly on the heavy planets where they have plenty of good playhouses in the cities. Out here among these little rocks the diversions are brought around periodically and peddled for the night. The showboat, my boy, is a floating theater— a space ship with a stage and an auditorium in it, a troupe of good actors and a cracking fine chorus. This one has been making the rounds quite a while, though it never stopped here before until last year. They say the show this year is even better. It is the "Lunar Follies of 2326," featuring a chorus of two hundred androids and with Lilly Fitzpatrick and Lionel Dustan in the lead. Tonight, for a change, you can relax and enjoy yourself. We can get down to brass tacks tomorrow."

"Thanks, chief," said Neville, grinning from ear to ear. The description of the showboat was music to his ears, for it had been a long time since he had seen a good comedy and he felt the need of relief from his sordid workaday life.

"When you're in your makeup," the colonel added, "come on down and I'll take you over in my copter."

IT did not take Billy Neville long to make his transformation to the personality of a clothing drummer. Every special cop had to be an expert at the art of quick shifts of disguise and Neville was rather better than most. Nor did it take long for the little blue copter to whisk them halfway around the knobby little planetoid of Pallas. It eased itself through an airlock into a domed town, and there the colonel left it with his orderly.

The town itself possessed little interest for Neville though his trained photographic eye missed few of its details. It was much like the smaller domed settlements on the Moon. He was more interested in meeting the local magnate, whom they found in his office in the Carstairs Building. The colonel made the introductions, during which Neville sized up the man. He was of fair height, stockily built, and had remarkably frank and friendly eyes for a self-made man of the asteroids. Not that there was not a certain hardness about him and a considerable degree of shrewdness, but he lacked the cynical cunning so often displayed by the pioneers of the outer system. Neville noted other details as well— the beginning of a set of triple chins, a little brown mole with three hairs on it alongside his nose, and the way a stray lock of hair kept falling over his left eye.

"Let's go," said the colonel, as soon as the formalities were over.

Neville had to borrow a breathing helmet from Mr Carstairs, for he had not one of his own and they had to walk from the far portal of the dome across the field to where the showboat lay parked. He thought wryly, as he put it on, that he went from one extreme to another— from Venus, where the air was over- moist, heavy and oppressive from its stagnation, to windy, blustery Mars, and then here, where there was no air at all.

As they approached the grounded ship they saw it was all lit up and throngs of people were approaching from all sides. Flood lamps threw great letters on the side of the silvery hull reading, "Greatest Show of the Void— Come One, Come All— Your Money Back if Not Absolutely Satisfied." They went ahead of the queue, thanks to the prestige of the colonel and the local tycoon, and were instantly admitted. It took but a moment to check their breathers at the helmet room and then the ushers had them in tow.

"See you after the show, Mr. Allington," said the colonel to Neville, "I will be in Mr. Carstairs box."

NEVILLE sank into a seat and watched them go. Then he began to take stock of the playhouse. The seats were comfortable and commodious, evidently having been designed to hold patrons clad in heavy-dust space-suits. The auditorium was almost circular, one semicircle being taken up by the stage, the other by the tiers of seats. Overhead ranged a row of boxes jutting out above the spectators below. Neville puzzled for a long time over the curtain that shut off the stage. It seemed very unreal, like the shimmer of the aurora, but it affected vision to the extent that the beholder could not say with any certainty what was behind it. It was like looking through a waterfall. Then there was eerie music, too, from an unseen source, flooding the air with queer medolies. People continued to pour in. The house gradually darkened and as it did the volume and wildness of the music rose. Then there was a deep bong, and lights went completely out for a full second. The show was on.

Neville sat back and enjoyed it. He could not have done otherwise, for the sign on the hull had not been an empty plug. It was the best show in the void— or anywhere else, for that matter. A spectral voice that seemed to come from everywhere in the house announced the first number— The Dance of the Wood—  sprites of Venus. Instantly little flickers of light appeared throughout the house— a mass of vari-colored fireflies blinking off and on and swirling in dizzy spirals. They steadied and grew, coalesced into blobs of living fire— ruby, dazzling green, ethereal blue and yellow. They swelled and shrank, took on human forms only to abandon them; purple serpentine figures writhed among them, paling to silvery smoke and then expiring as a shower of violet sparks. And throughout was the steady, maddening rhythm of the dance tune, unutterably savage and haunting— a folk dance of the hill tribes of Venus. At last, when the sheer beauty of it began to lull the viewers into a hypnotic trance, there came the shrill blare of massed trumpets and the throb of mighty tomtoms culminating in an ear-shattering discord that broke the spell.

The lights were on. The stage was bare. Neville sat up straighter and looked, blinking. It was as if he were in an abandoned warehouse. And then the scenery began to grow. Yes, grow. Almost imperceptible it was, at first, then more distinct. Nebulous bodies appeared, wisps of smoke. They wavered, took on shape, took on color, took on the appearance of solidity. The scent began to have meaning. Part of the background was a gray cliff undercut with a yawning cave. It was a scene from the Moon, a hangout of the cliffdwellers, those refugees from civilization who chose to live the wild life of the undomed Moon rather than submit to the demands of a more ordered life.

Characters came on. There was a little drama, well conceived and well acted. When it was over, the scene vanished as it had come. A comedy team came out next and this time the appropriate scenery materialized at once as one of them stumbled over an imaginary log and fell on his face. The log was not there when he tripped, but it was there by the time his nose hit the stage, neatly turning the joke on his companion who had started to laugh at his unreasonable fall.

On the show went, one scene swiftly succeeding the next. A song that took the fancy of the crowd was a plaintive ballad. It ran:

They tell me you did not treat me right,

Nor are grateful for all I've done.

I fear you're fickle as a meteorite

Though my love's constant as the Sun.

There was a ballet in which a witch rode a comet up into the sky, only to turn suddenly into a housewife and sweep all the cobwebs away. The featured stars came on with the chorus, and Lilly Fitzpatrick sang the big hit song, "You're a Big, Bad Nova to Burn Me Up This Way!" Then a novelty quartet appeared, to play on the curious Callistan bourdelangs, those reeds of that planet that grow in bundles. When dried and cut properly, they make multiple-barreled flutes with a tonal quality that makes the senses quiver. The show closed with a grand finale and flooded the house with the Nova song.

It was over. The stage was bare and the shimmering curtain that was not a curtain was back in place. People began to rise and stream into the aisles.

"LA-DEEZ and gen-tul-men!"

The voice boomed out and people stopped where they stood. A man in evening clothes had stepped through the curtain and was calling for attention.

"You have seen our regular performance. We hope it has pleased you and you will come again next year. But if you will kindly remain in your seats, the ushers will pass around with tickets for the after-show. We have prepared for your especial delectation a little farce entitled, 'It Happens on Pallas.' Now, ladeez and gen'men, I assure you that this sketch was prepared solely for your entertainment and any resemblance of any character in it to any real person is purely coincidental. It is all in fun, and no offense intended. I thank you."

Billy Neville was bolt upright in his seat by then and his eyes glinted hard through narrow slits. Something had rung the bell in his memory, but he did not know what. He would have sworn he had never seen that announcer before, and yet....

The man stepped backward into the curtain and appeared to vanish. The audience were grinning widely and resuming their seats.

"This is going to be good," said the man next to him as he dug for the required fee. "It is their specialty. It beats the regular show, I think."

Neville paid the usher, too, and sat where he was. He shot a glance upward at the box and saw Mr. Carstairs and the colonel in animated conversation and apparently having a grand time. Presently the ushers had done their work. The hall began to darken and the scenery come up. The scene was the main street of New Athens, as some called Pallas' principal town. Neville relaxed and forgot his recent sudden tension for a moment.

But it was only for a moment. For an instant later he was sitting up straight again, watching the development of the act with cold intentness. For the two main characters were comedy parodies of Mr. Carstairs and Colonel Frawley. At first glance they were Mr. Carstairs and the colonel, but a second look showed it was only an impression. The police inspector's strutting walk was overdone, as were his other mannerisms, and the same was true of the magnate's character. Their makeup was also exaggerated, Mr. Carstair's mole being much enlarged and a great deal made of his plumpness. Yet the takeoff was deliriously funny and the audience rolled with laughter. Neville stole another look upward and could make out that both the subjects of the sketch were grinning broadly.

It was a silly, frothy skit about a dog, a lost dog. It seems that Mr. Carstairs had a dog and it strayed. He asked the police to help him find it and they helped. The inspector brought out the whole force. It was excruciatingly funny, and Neville roared at times along with the rest, though there were many local references that he did not understand, nor did he know some of the minor characters were so splittingly entertaining. The man next to him writhed in spasms of delight and almost strangled at one episode.

"Oh, dear," he managed to gasp, "what a scream... ho, ho, ho, ho... gup! It happened... just like that... he did lose a dog and all the cops on Pallas couldn't find it... oh me, oh my..." Peals of laughter drowned out the rest.

The postlude came to its merry end. This time, the show was over for keeps and the audience began trooping out. Neville got up and looked around for his friend, but the box was empty. So he strolled down the aisle and had a closer look at the illusion of a curtain. He understood some of the effects achieved that night, but the curtain was a new one to him. After standing there a moment he discovered that he could hear voices through it. One was Colonel Frawley's. He was saying:

"Certainly I am not offended. I enjoyed it. I would like to meet the man and congratulate him on the takeoff."

Neville climbed up onto the stage and walked boldly through the curtain. There was a brief tingly feeling, and then he was backstage. Most of the actors had gone to their dressing rooms, but several stood about chatting with the colonel and Mr. Carstairs.

At that moment the man who had made the announcement came on the stage and spoke to Colonel Frawley.

"I dislike interrupting you, Inspector," he said obsequiously, "but one of our patrons is making trouble in the wash-room. She claims her pocket was picked. Would you come?"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the colonel. "I stationed an operative there to prevent that very thing. No doubt it is a mistake. However, I'll do what I can."

He excused himself and hurried off. Then the man in black turned to Neville and said in an icy voice, "And you, sir— what is it you wish?"

NEVILLE'S mind worked instantly. He did not want to express interest in Mr. Carstairs, nor did he care to reveal to the showman his acquaintance with the colonel. So he said quickly:

"The curtain... I was curious as to how it worked... you see, once I..."

"Joe," called the man, wheeling, "explain the curtain to the gentleman."

Joe came. He led the way to the switchboard and began a spiel about its intricacies. Neville looked on, understanding it only in the high spots, for the board was a jumble of gadgets and doodads, and it was not long before he began to suspect that the long-winded explanation was a unique variety of double-talk.

"See?" finished the man, "it's as simple as that. Clever, eh?"

"Yes, indeed. Thanks."

Neville started back to the stage, but the announcer barred his way.

"The exit is right behind you, sir," he said in a chilly voice. The words and intonation were polite, but the voice had that iron-hand-in-velvet-glove quality used by tough bouncers in night clubs when handling obstreperous members of the idle rich. They were accompanied as well by a glance so uncanny and so charged with malignancy that Neville was hard put to keep on looking him in the eye and murmur another "Thank you."

But before Neville reached the exit, Colonel Frawley came through.

"Oh, hello. Where is Carstairs?"

Neville shook his head.

"A moment ago he was talking with his impersonator," offered the announcer, seeming to lose all interest in Neville's departure. "I'll see if he is still here. He may have gone into the actor's dressing room."

But as he spoke a dressing room door opened and Carstairs came out of it, smiling contentedly. He turned and called back to the actor inside:

"Thanks again for an enjoyable evening. You bet I'll see you next year." Then he came straight over to Frawley and hooked his arm in his. "All right, Colonel, shall we go? And Mr. Allington, too?"

Neville nodded, luckily recognizing his latest assumed name. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dressing-room door slammed shut by the actor inside of it.

"I hate to hurry you, gentlemen," said the announcer, "but we blast out at once."

The trio retrieved their helmets and strode off into the night. By then, the skyport was deserted and the floodlights taken in. When they reached the copter they saw the flash and heard the woosh as the big ship roared away on her rockets.

"Back to the old routine and bedroom," sighed Mr. Carstairs as he heard it leave. "It was good while it lasted, though."

"Yep," chuckled the colonel. "Hop in and we'll drop you at home."

Three minutes later they were before the Carstairs' truly palatial mansion.

"Come in a second and speak to Mariquita," invited the magnate.

"No, thanks. It's late...."

Neville's elbow dug into his superior's ribs with a vicious nudge.

"...but if you insist...."

Mrs. Carstairs met them in the anteroom, greeted the inspector cordially and kissed her husband affectionately. They stood for the rest of the brief visit with their arms circled about one another. Her Spanish blood heritage was evident in her warm dark eyes and proud carriage. Equally evident, were the lines of past suffering in her face. It did not take a detective to see that here was a pair who had at last found mutual consolation.

On the way back to headquarters nothing was said. But later, while they were undressing, the colonel remarked:

"Good show. Did it throw your mind off your troubles?"

"No," said Neville curtly.

"Well," said the inspector, "a good night's sleep will. G'night."

There was no sleep that night for Billy Neville, though. He spent it mentally digesting all the stuff he had read that afternoon, and all that he had seen and heard that night. He devoted many weary hours to a review of his own mind's copy of the famous rogue's gallery at the Luna Central Base. The picture he wanted wasn't there. He wished fervently he had taken that refresher course on hypnotism when they had offered it to him two years ago. He wished he had not been such a softy as to let himself be shunted off to look at that dizzy switchboard. He should have taken a closer look at the showboat people. He wished... but hell, what was the use? Pallas' half-sized sun was up and today was another day.

THE meanest of all trails to follow is a cold trail. Or almost. Perhaps the worst is no trail. It is hard to keep interest up. Then, too, Pallas was a dull place— orderly as a church, where people simply worked and behaved themselves. The days dragged by, and nothing out of the way happened. Neville went through the motions of trying to sell clothing in majestic lots of hundreds, but no one was interested. He even talked vaguely of looking for a site for an outer warehouse for his company. He saw Mr. Carstairs often and became a welcome guest at the house.

Yet with this lack of incident, Neville was at all times alert in his study of the man he was watching. He could not help remembering that little while after the showboat performance that Carstairs had been absent from them. He particularly kept his mind open for any slow change in him, such as could be the result of a mysterious delayed-action drug or from post-hypnotic effect. But there was none that he could detect, nor did the colonel notice anything of the sort, though Neville spoke to him on the subject several times.

The first indication that all was not well came from Mariquita Carstairs herself. Neville happened in one day for lunch and found her red-eyed and weeping. Then she added that she had worried a great deal the last few days about her husband's health.

"When I watch him when he doesn't know it," she said anxiously, "he looks different— so wily, crafty and wicked. And he is not like that. He is the dearest man in the world. He must be sick."

Neville left as early as possible, and at once consulted Frawley.

"Yes," said the inspector thoughtfully, "she's right. In the last day or so I've noticed a subtle change myself. I blundered into his office the other day and he had his safe open and mountains of files all over the floor. He was actually rude to me. Wanted to know what I meant by barging in on him like that. Imagine!"

The communicator on the wall buzzed. The signal light showed it was the sky-port calling. Neville could overhear what the rasping voice was saying. "Peters at airport reporting. Mr. Carstairs has made reservation on ship Fanfare for passage to Vesta. Ship arrives in half an hour; departs immediately."

By the time Frawley had acknowledged and cut the connection, Neville had already ordered the copter.

"I'm on my way," he cried. "This is it! Give me a complete travel-kit quick and an Extra-Special transformation outfit."

Two minutes later Neville was on his way to the landing field, the two valuable bags between his knees. He was there when the spaceship landed, and was inside it before Simeon Carstairs showed up. The copter soared away the moment he had left it. Carstairs would not know he had a shadow.

Neville went straight to the captain, whom he found resting momentarily in his cabin. He flashed his badge.

"I am your steward from here to Vesta," he told him. "Send for your regular one at once and give him his instructions."

"But my dear sir," objected the captain, rising from his bunk, "as much as I would like to cooperate, I cannot do that. You must know that under the new regulations all members of a ship's crew must be photographed and the pictures posted in prominent parts of the ship. It is your own police rule and is for the protection of passengers from imposters."

"Never mind that," snapped Neville, "get him in here."

The steward came and Neville studied him carefully. He was a swarthy man with heavy shoulders and thick features. His eyes were jet black. But his height was little different from that of the special investigator.

"Say something," directed Neville, "I want to hear your voice. Recite the twelve primary duties of a steward."

The man obeyed.

"It's okay," announced Neville when he had finished. "I can do it."

He gave the captain a word of warning, then went with the steward to his room. There he handed the astonished man a hundred-sol credit note and told him to hit the bunk.

"Here's your chance to catch up on your rest and reading," said Neville grimly. "You don't leave that bunk until I tell you to, y'understand? If you do, it will cost you five years in the mines of Oberon."

The steward gasped and lay back on the pillow. He gasped some more when Neville yanked his box of transformations open and spread its contents on the table. His eyes fairly bulged as he watched Neville shoot injections of wax into his deltoids and biceps until the policeman's shoulders were the twins of his own. He saw him puff up his face, thicken the nose and load the jowls, and after that paint himself with dye, not omitting the hair. Then, marvel of marvels, he saw him drop something in his eyes and sit shuddering for a few seconds while the stuff worked. When the eyes were opened again they were as black as his own!

"How's dis, faller?" asked Neville in the same flat, sullen tone the steward had used in the cabin. "Lanch is sarved, sor... zhip gang land in one hour, marm... hokay?"

"Gard!" was the steward's last gasp. Then he lapsed into complete speechlessness.

NEVILLE darted out into the passage. The baggage of the sole passenger to get on at Pallas lay in the gangway, and its owner, Mr. Carstairs, stood impatiently beside it. He growled something about the rotten service on the Callisto-Earth run, but let the steward pick up the bags. Then he followed close behind.

"Lay out your t'ings, sor?" queried Neville, once inside the room.

"No," said Carstairs savagely. "When I want anything I will ask for it. Otherwise, stay out of my room."

"Yas, sor," was what Neville said in return, but to himself "Phew! The old boy has changed. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way."

He had no intention of obeying Carstairs' injunction to stay out of his room. That night he served the evening meal, and with it was a glass of water. He had taken the precaution to drop a single minim of somnolene in it— that efficacious sleep- producer permitted to only seven members of the I.P., tasteless, colorless and odorless, and without after-effect.

In the second hour of the sleep period, the false steward stole down the passage and with a pass key unfastened the door lock. There was an inside bolt to deal with as well, but an ingenious tool that came with the travel-kit took care of that. A moment later Neville was in the slumbering man's room. Five minutes later he was back in his own, and stacked on the deck beside him was all the baggage the magnate of Pallas had brought with him.

One piece opened readily enough, and its contents seemed innocuous. But the methodical police officer was not content with superficial appearances. He examined the articles of clothing in it, and the more he looked the more his amazement grew. There were no less than four sets of costumes in it. Moreover, they were for men of different build. One stout, two medium, one spare. In the bottom was a set of gray canvas bags— slip- covers with handles. Neville puzzled over them a moment, then recognized their function. They were covers for the very baggage he was examining. He had to use special tools to open the second bag and found it contained a make-up kit quite the equal of his own.

"Ouch," he muttered. "This guy is as good as I am."

The third and heaviest bag was a tougher job. It was double- locked and strapped, and heavy seals had been put on the straps. The Extra-Special travel-kit equipment took care of the locks and seals, but the contents of the bag were beyond anything a travel- kit could handle. They were documents— damning documents— neatly bundled up, each bound with its own ribbon and seal. Had Neville had twenty-four hours in a well-equipped laboratory with a sufficient number of assistants, he might have forged passable but less incriminating substitutes for them. As it was, he was helpless to do a very artistic job of switching. One package dealt with certain long-forgotten passages in Mrs. Carstairs' life, while others dealt with certain business transactions.

From that case, Neville chose to abstract all of them except the one which formed the outer wrapper. To make up the bulk he filled the bundle wth blank paper, tied it up again and resealed it. He dealt likewise with the packet that contained the formulae for the radiation extraction process. And, for the good of the Service, he pursued the same course with regard to a rather detailed report on the foibles and weaknesses of a certain police colonel stationed in Pallas. There was not a hint of scandal or corruption in that, but often ridicule is as potent a weapon as vilification. After that came the tedious business of censoring the rest, repacking the bag as it had been, and restoring the locks and seals. The gently snoring Carstairs never knew when his bags were returned to him, nor heard the faint scuffling as his door was rebolted and relocked.

VASTA, sor, in one hour," announced his steward to him eight hours later. "Bags out, sor?"

"When we get there," growled the magnate, yawning heavily, glancing suspiciously about the room. He locked the door behind the steward, didn't leave until the ship was cradled.

Neville watched him go ashore. Then he hurried in to see the skipper again.

"You will be compensated for this," he said hurriedly. "You can have your steward back on the job again. How long do you stay here?"

"Three hours, curse the luck. We usually touch and go, but this time I have an ethergram ordering me to wait here for a special passenger. Why in hell can't these hicks in the gravel belt learn to catch a ship on time?"

"Ah," breathed Neville. "That makes a difference. I think I'll stay with you. Have you a vacant room where I can hang out for the remainder of the voyage?"

"Yes."

Neville did another lightning change— back to Special Investigator Billy Neville of the I.P.— uniform and all. He was standing near the spacelock when the expected passenger came aboard.

Neville could not suppress a murmur of approval as he saw his quarry approaching. As an artist in his own right, he appreciated artistry when he saw it. The man coming down the field was Carstairs, but what a different Carstairs! He was more slender, he had altogether different clothes on, he had a different gait. His complexion was not the same. But the height was the same, and the bags he carried were the same shape and size, except for their gray canvas coverings. There was a little notch in the right ear that he had not troubled to rectify in the brief time he had had for his transformation in what was undoubtedly his pre-arranged hideaway on Vesta.

"What is the next stop, skipper?" Neville whispered to the captain.

"New York."

"I'll stay out of sight until then."

Any passenger on that voyage of the Fanfare will tell you that her captain should have been retired years before. He made three bad tries before he succeeded in lowering his ship into the dock at the skyport. The passengers did not know, of course, that he had to stall to permit a certain member of the I.P. to make a parachute landing from the stratosphere.

Billy Neville hit the ground not four miles from the designated skyport. A commandeered copter took him to it just in time to see the squat passenger vessel jetting down into her berth. He looked anxiously about the station. There was not a uniformed man in sight except a couple of traffic men of the local detachment. He needed help and lots of it.

Neville had no choice but to play his trump card. It was a thing reserved only for grave emergencies. But he considered the present one grave. He took his police whistle out of his vest pocket and shrilled it three times. It was a supersonic whistle— its tone only audible to first-class detectives having tuned vibrators strapped over their hearts. To sound a triple supersonic call was the police equivalent of sending out an eight alarm fire-call. But Neville blew the blast. Then waited.

A man strolled up and asked the way to Newark.

"Wait," said Neville, only he did not use words but merely lifted his right eyebrow slightly. It was not long before four others came up and craved directions as to how to get to Newark. He lit a cigarette as they gathered around.

"The ship Fanfare has just landed— out of Callisto with wayside stops in the Belt. There is a passenger carrying three bags covered by gray canvas. Tail him. Tail everybody he contacts. If you need help, ask local HQ. If they can't give enough, ask Luna. But whatever you do, don't make a pinch. This guy is small fry. My code number is....

Neville knew better than to flash a badge on these men, even if he was in uniform. Both badges and uniforms could be counterfeited. But he knew that they knew from his procedure that he was a department agent.

"There he comes," he warned, and promptly ducked behind a fruit stall and walked away.

HEADQUARTERS readily gave him a rocket and a driver to take him to Lunar Base. He had no trouble breaking down the barriers between him and the second most important man in the I.P.— the first being the General-General in Charge of Operations. The man he wanted to see was the Colonel-General, Head of the Bureau of Identification.

Neville allowed himself to be ushered into the office, but it was not without trepidation, for old Col.-General O'Hara had a vile reputation as a junior-baiter. He was not at all reassured when he heard the door click to behind him with the click which meant to his trained ears that the door would never be opened again without the pressure of a foot on a certain secret pedal concealed somewhere in the room. Nor did the appearance of the man behind the desk do anything to relieve his own lack of ease.

O'Hara was a gnome, scarcely five feet tall, with bulging eyes and wild hair that stood helter-skelter above his wrinkled face. He was staring at his desk blotter with a venomous expression, and his lower lip hung out a full half-inch. Neville stood rigidly at attention before him for a full three minutes before the old man spoke. Then he looked up and barked a caustic, "Well?"

"I am Special Investigator Neville, sir," he said, "and I want the pedigree of a certain notorious criminal whose picture is lacking in the gallery."

"Stuff and nonsense!" snorted the Colonel-General. "There is no such criminal. Man and boy, I have run this bureau since they moved it to the Moon. Why— oh, why— do they let you rookies in here to bother me?"

"Sir," said Neville stiffly, "I am no rookie. I am a..."

"Bah! We have— or had, at last night's report— eight hundred and ninety-three of your 'specials' half of them on probation. When you've spent, as I have spent, sixty-two years. ..."

"I'm sorry, sir," urged Neville, "we can't go into that now. Do what you want to with me afterwards, but I assure you this is urgent. I am on the trail of a higher-up in the Callisto-Trojan extortion racket. Do I get the information I am after, or do I turn in my agent badge?"

"Huh?" said the old general, sitting up and looking him straight in the face. "What's that?"

"I mean it, sir. I have trailed one of the higher-up stooges to Earth and set shadows on him. I think I have seen the king-pin of the mob, and I want to know who he is," Neville went on to describe the presentation of the showboat entertainment, with special emphasis on his hunches and suspicions. To the civilian mind, the things he told might seem silly, but to a policeman they were fraught with meaning. His description of the suspect was not one of appearance; it was a psychological description— a description based wholly on intuition and not at all on tangibles. He had not proceeded far before the wrinkled old man thumped the desk with a gnarled fist.

"Hold it," he said, "I think I know the man you mean. But give me time— my memory is not what it used to be,

Neville waited patiently at the rigid attitude of attention while the shriveled old veteran before him rocked back and forth in his chair with the lids closed over his bulging eyes, cracking his bony knuckles like castanets. O'Hara seemed to have gone into something like a trance. Suddenly, after a quiver of the eyelids, he stared up at Neville.

"It all comes back now. You were a member of the class of '14 and I was instructor— a major then. I took all of you to see a certain show on Broadway, as they call it, in order ..."

"Yes, sir," cried Neville, eagerly, "that was it! You told us the principal character in the play was the most dangerous potential criminal of our generation and that we should mark him well and remember. It was a very hard assignment, for we only saw him from before the footlights and he was acting the part of a Viking chieftain and most of his face was covered with false white whiskers."

Old O'Hara smiled.

"You seem to have been an apt pupil. At any rate, that man was Milo Lunko, a thoroughly unprincipled and remarkably clever blackmailer. He was so clever, in fact, that we were never able to make an arrest stick, let alone bring him to trial. That accounts for the absence of his picture from the gallery. He was also clever enough to fake his own death. The evidence we have as to that was so convincing we closed the file on him."

"It's open again," said Neville grimly. "How did he work?"

"LUNKO was not only an actor, but a producer and clever playwright as well. He might have achieved fame and fortune legitimately, but he became greedy. He teamed up with a shady character named Krascbik who ran a private investigating agency, specializing in social scandals. Krascbik's men would study the private life of influential individuals and dig out their scandals. They would provide Lunko with slow-motion camera studies of them so he could learn the peculiarities of their carriage, mannerisms, voice, and all their other idiosyncracies.

"Lunko's next step would be to write a scurrilous play based on the confidential information provided by Krascbik, and put it in rehearsal, using characters that resemble the actual principals...."

"But that's libel," objected Neville, "why couldn't you haul him in?"

"Blackmail, young man, is a delicate matter to handle. The injured party shrinks from publicity and usually prefers to pay rather than have his scandal aired. Lunko never actually publicly produced any of those nauseous plays. His trick was to invite the victim to a preview— a dress rehearsal, then let Nature take its course. Invariably, the victim was frightened and tried to induce him to call off the presentation, Lunko would protest that the play had been written in good faith and had already cost him a great deal of money. The pay-off, of course, was always big. Lunko drove many people to the brink of ruin.

"One man did refuse to play with him, and turned the case over to us. Lunko carried out his threat and produced the show, much to the delight of the scandalmongers. It was outrageously libelous and we promptly closed the joint and took him in...."

"And then...."

"And then," croaked O'Hara, rolling his pop-eyes toward the ceiling and pursing his lips, "and then we let him go. He had a trunkful of data on many, many important people. Some of them, I hate to tell you, were my seniors in this very Service. We could do nothing about it, for, unfortunately, all the stuff he had on them was true. We might have sent him to the mines for a short term, but he would have retaliated by standing our entire civilization on its head with his exposures. We compromised by letting him escape and go into exile. The understanding was that he was never to come inside the orbit of Mars. A while after that, he was reported killed in a landslide on Europa. We shut the book and proceeded to forget him."

"He mimicked the character exactly?"

"Not exactly. Just enough to clearly indicate them. Although, I am convinced that, if he chose, he could have taken off any person he had studied, with enough fidelity to fool anybody except perhaps a man's own wife."

Neville gave a little start. That was the item that had slowed him the most. Had Lunko improved his technique to the extent that he could even fool a wife? Was the Carstairs he was trailing really Carstairs, or an understudy? He had deceived both his old friend and his own wife for a time, but even they had admitted noting a subtle change. Who was this phoney Carstairs? Where was the real Carstairs? Or, Neville wondered, was his original theory of drugs or hypnotism correct?

"Thank you, General," he said. "You have been a big help. I have to go over to Operations now and get the past and future itineraries of the showboat. In another hour, I may begin to know something about this case."

"It's nothing," said O'Hara, promptly closing his eyes and folding his knotty fingers on his breast. "It's all in the day's work. Luck to you."

Neville heard the click as the secret door lock was released and he knew the interview was terminated. He backed away, stepped through the door and out into the corridor.

NEVILLE went straight to the great library where the I.P. records are kept. An attendant brought him the bulky folder on the old Lunko gang. Neville found it engrossing reading, and the day waned and night came before he had committed all its contents to memory.

Billy Neville obtained a televise connection with Tellurian headquarters.

"How are your shadows doing?"

He had already learned the real identity of the man he had trailed from Pallas; he was an actor belonging to the original ring and went by the name of Hallam.

"Our shadows are doing fine," replied the officer at the other end, "but your friend Hallam seems unhappy. He made two calls on a high officer of the Radiation Corporation and after the second one he came very angry and ruffled looking. He has also called on several other persons, known to us as extortioners, and at least two of those are on his trail with blood in their eye."

"I know," chuckled Neville. "He sold 'em a bill of goods— rolls of blank paper. They think they've been double- crossed. And they have, only I'm the guy that did it. But say, we can't have him killed— not yet. Better round up all his contacts and put 'em away, incommunicado. I'm hopping a rocket right now and will be with you in a jiffy."

It did not take the police long to make the little jump from Luna to Tellus, and a couple of hours later Neville was confronting Hallam in a special cell. In his hands he held a first-class ticket to Titan in the Saturn group, which had come out of Hallam's pocket, as well as a handbill of the showboat announcing an appearance there in the near future.

"I just wanted to study your current rig, Hallam," explained Neville, opening up his make-up kit. "Impersonation is a game that more than one can play at. I'm going in your place to Titan. I'm a teeny-weeny bit curious as to what happens to your victims. Extortion carries good stiff sentences, but they lack the finality of that for murder."

THE Neville that left the cell was the exact duplicate of Hallam, and by dint of exacting search of the actor's trick garments and the use of adroit questioning under pressure, the Special Investigator knew exactly what he had to do. And he knew ever better, after the space-ship he was riding settled down into the receiving berth on Titan. An actor of Lunko's— a skinny, gaunt fellow— was on hand to meet him, and a little later they conferred in a well-screened spot with three of Lunko's jackals.

"The layout here is a cinch," explained the skinny actor. "The two biggest shots are the president of the Inter-satellite Transportation Company and the fellow who owns the bulk of shares in the phlagis plantations. A year or so ago they were mixed up in a most ludicrous near-scandal that people are still tittering over. A situation like that is a natural for us. Lunko has already sent the script on ahead. It's funny enough to tickle the town, but not so raw it will make the principals sore. We will deal with them in the usual way, when they come backstage after the show."

"Uh, huh," said Neville, and asked to see the descriptions. They lit up the projector and began running three-dimensional views of their intended victims. The preliminary studies had been most comprehensive and Neville knew before the hour was up that not a mannerism or intonation of voice had been overlooked. To persons skilled in disguise the problem was not so much one of imitation, but of introducing a telling imperfection that would allay suspicion of a possible more perfect imitation later.

The remainder of their time until the showboat came, they spent in gruelling rehearsals.

NEVILLE, watched the show from the wings and was gratified to note the considerable sprinkling of plainclothes-men in the audience. The show was good, as it had been before, and the audience was highly enthusiastic. Then came the curtain call and the announcement of the special performance. When the lights were down and his cue came, Neville walked on and performed his silly role. Then there was a hubbub of applause and wild calls for an encore. A few minutes later the two men they had lampooned came backstage, grinning sheepishly, yet apparently resolved to show themselves good sports.

"You would have more privacy in the dressing rooms," suggested Lunko suavely, and ushered each into the private closet of the man who had just mimicked him. Neville found himself face to face with a near-double.

"Step on it," said Lunko harshly, who had followed. He flicked on a peculiarly brilliant overhead light, and the startled victim looked up at it with the helpless, hopeless gaze of a lamb being led to the slaughter. "Change your makeup while I drag the dope out of him. I've got another one to do after this, you know."

Neville grunted and began plucking away the comedy elements of his burlesque get-up. Then, with the deftness of long experience he made his appearance match the poor dupe's to the chair. Meanwhile Lunko had forced his victim into the depths of hypnotic trance and was extracting all the secret knowledge that the snooping jackals had been unable to obtain indirectly.

"You've got it all, now?" asked Lunko, impatiently, "The combination of his safe, his office and home habits? I've drained him dry, I believe."

Neville nodded.

"Stand back, you fool!" screamed Lunko, as Neville awkwardly stepped against him just as he was about to swing the bludgeon that would finish the now valueless victim, "we've just time to get this one into the incinerator...."

He never finished, for at that instant Neville sprang from the balls of his feet and a heavy fist smashed into the blackmailer's jaw with a crash that told of a shattered jawbone. Another battering ram of a fist smashed him to the floor.

Neville's high-frequency whistle was out and the shrill, inaudible alarm tingling on the breasts of the key men waiting outside. Then he was dashing for the adjoining dressing room where a similar little drama was just being brought to its close. A swift jab of fire from the blaster that appeared magically in Neville's hand sent the actor to his death. Other policemen were dashing up and the second hypnotist suddenly lost interest in his surroundings, going down onto his knees, a mass of battered pulp.

Then Neville sat down and began thoughtfully removing the makeup he so detested.

"I wonder," he complained to himself, "whether I'm ever going to get that leave."

______________________

26: Train For Flushing

Weird Tales, March 1940

THEY ought never to have hired that man. Even the most stupid of personnel managers should have seen at a glance that he was mad. Perhaps it is too much to expect such efficiency these days— in my time a thing like this could not have happened. They would have known the fellow was under a curse! It only shows what the world has come to. But I can tell you that if we ever get off this crazy runaway car, I intend to turn the Interboro wrong-side out. They needn't think because I am an old man and retired that I am a nobody they can push around. My son Henry, the lawyer one, will build a fire under them— he knows people in this town.

"And I am not the only victim of the maniac. There is a pleasant, elderly woman here in the car with me. She was much frightened at first, but she had recognized me for a solid man, and now she stays close to me all the time. She is a Mrs. Herrick, and a quite nice woman. It was her idea that I write this down—  it will help us refresh our memories when we come to testify.

"Just at the moment, we are speeding atrociously downtown along the Seventh Avenue line of the subway—  but we are on the uptown express track! The first few times we tore through those other trains it was terrible— I thought we were sure to be killed—  and even if we were not, I have to think of my heart. Dr. Steinback told me only last week how careful I should be. Mrs. Herrick has been very brave about it, but it is a scandalous thing to subject anyone to, above all such a kindly little person.

"The madman who seems to be directing us (if charging wildly up and down these tracks implies direction), is now looking out the front door, staring horribly at the gloom rushing at us. He is a big man and heavy-set, very weathered and tough-looking. I am nearing eighty and slight.

"There is nothing I can do but wait for the final crash; for crash we must, sooner or later, unless some Interboro official has brains enough to shut off the current to stop us. If he escapes the crash, the police will know him by his heavy red beard and tattooing on the backs of his hands. The beard is square-cut and there cannot be another one like it in all New York.

"But I notice I have failed to put down how this insane ride began. My granddaughter, Mrs. Charles L. Terneck, wanted me to see the World's Fair, and was to come in from Great Neck and meet me at the subway station. I will say that she insisted someone come with me, but I can take care of myself— I always have—  even if my eyes and ears are not what they used to be.

The train was crowded, but somebody gave me a seat in a corner. Just before we reached the stop, the woman next to me, this Mrs. Herrick, had asked if I knew how to get to Whitestone from Flushing. It was while I was telling her what I knew about the busses, that the train stopped and let everybody off the car but us. I was somewhat irritated at missing the station, but knew that all I had to do was stay on the car, go to Flushing and return. It was then that the maniac guard came in and behaved so queerly.

"This car was the last one in the train, and the guard had been standing where he belongs, on the platform. But he came into the car, walking with a curious rolling walk (but I do not mean to imply he was drunk, for I do not think so) and his manner was what you might call masterful, almost overbearing. He stopped at the middle door and looked very intensely out to the north, at the sound.

"'That is not the Scheldt!' he called out, angrily, with a thick, foreign accent, and then he said 'Bah!' loudly, in a tone of disgusted disillusionment.

"He seemed of a sudden to fly into a great fury. The train was just making its stop at the end of the line, in Flushing. He rushed to the forward platform and somehow broke the coupling. At the same moment, the car began running backward along the track by which we had come. There was no chance for us to get off, even if we had been young and active. The doors were not opened, it happened so quickly.

"Then he came into the car, muttering to himself. His eye caught the sign of painted tin they put in the windows to show the destination of the trains. He snatched the plate lettered 'Flushing' and tore it to bits with his rough hands, as if it had been cardboard, throwing the pieces down and stamping on them.

"'That is not Flushing. Not my Flushing— not Vlissingen! But I will find it. I will go there, and not all the devils in Hell nor all the angels in Heaven shall stop me!'

"He glowered at us, beating his breast with his clenched fists, as if angry and resentful at us for having deceived him in some manner. It was then that Mrs. Herrick stooped over and took my hand. We had gotten up close to the door to step out at the World's Fair station, but the car did not stop. It continued its wild career straight on, at dizzy speed.

"'Rugwaartsch!' he shouted, or something equally unintelligible. 'Back I must go, like always, but yet will find my Vlissingen!'

"Then followed the horror of pitching headlong into those trains! The first one we saw coming, Mrs. Herrick screamed. I put my arm around her and braced myself as best I could with my cane. But there was no crash, just a blinding succession of lights and colors, in quick winks. We seemed to go straight through that train, from end to end, at lightning speed, but there was not even a jar. I do not understand that, for I saw it coming, clearly. Since, there have been many others. I have lost count now, we meet so many, and swing from one track to another so giddily at the end of runs.

"But we have learned, Mrs. Herrick and I, not to dread the collisions — or say, passage— so much. We are more afraid of what the bearded ruffian who dominates this car will do next— surely we cannot go on this way much longer, it has already been many, many hours. I cannot comprehend why the stupid people who run the Interboro do not do something to stop us, so that the police could subdue this maniac and I can have Henry take me to the District Attorney."

So read the first few pages of the notebook turned over to me by the Missing Persons Bureau. Neither Mrs. Herrick, nor Mr. Dennison, whose handwriting it is, has been found yet, nor the guard he mentions. In contradiction, the Interboro insists no guard employed by them is unaccounted for, and further, that they never had had a man of the above description on their payrolls.

On the other hand, they have as yet produced no satisfactory explanation of how the car broke loose from the train at Flushing.

I agree with the police that this notebook contains matter that may have some bearing on the disappearances of these two unfortunate citizens; yet here in the Psychiatric Clinic we are by no means agreed as to the interpretation of this provocative and baffling diary.

The portion I have just quoted was written with a fountain pen in a crabbed, tremulous hand, quite exactly corresponding to the latest examples of old Mr. Dennison's writing. Then we find a score or more of pages torn out, and a resumption of the record in indelible pencil. The handwriting here is considerably stronger and more assured, yet unmistakably that of the same person. Farther on, there are other places where pages have been torn from the book, and evidence that the journal was but intermittently kept. I quote now all that is legible of the remainder of it.

Judging by the alternations of the cold and hot seasons, we have now been on this weird and pointless journey for more than ten years. Oddly enough, we do not suffer physically, although the interminable rushing up and down these caverns under the streets becomes boring. The ordinary wants of the body are strangely absent, or dulled. We sense heat and cold, for example, but do not find their extremes particularly uncomfortable, while food has become an item of far distant memory. I imagine, though, we must sleep a good deal.

"The guard has very little to do with us, ignoring us most of the time as if we did not exist. He spends his days sitting brooding at the far end of the car, staring at the floor, mumbling in his wild, red beard. On other days he will get up and peer fixedly ahead, as if seeking something. Again, he will pace the aisle in obvious anguish, flinging his outlandish curses over his shoulder as he goes. 'Verdoemd' and 'verwenscht' are the commonest ones—  we have learned to recognize them—  and he tears his hair in frenzy whenever he pronounces them. His name, he says, is Van Der Dechen, and we find it politic to call him 'Captain.'

"I have destroyed what I wrote during the early years (all but the account of the very first day); it seems rather querulous and hysterical now. I was not in good health then, I think, but I have improved noticeably here, and that without medical care. Much of my stiffness, due to a recent arthritis, has left me, and I seem to hear better.

"Mrs. Herrick and I have long since become accustomed to our forced companionship, and we have learned much about each other. At first, we both worried a good deal over our families' concern about our absence. But when this odd and purposeless kidnapping occurred, we were already so nearly to the end of life (being of about the same age) that we finally concluded our children and grand-children must have been prepared for our going soon, in any event. It left us only with the problem of enduring the tedium of the interminable rolling through the tubes of the Interboro.

"In the pages I have deleted, I made much of the annoyance we experienced during the early weeks due to flickering through oncoming trains. That soon came to be so commonplace, occurring as it did every few minutes, that it became as unnoticeable as our breathing. As we lost the fear of imminent disaster, our riding became more and more burdensome through the deadly monotony of the tunnels.

"Mrs. Herrick and I diverted ourselves by talking (and to think in my earlier entries in this journal I complained of her garrulousness!) or by trying to guess at what was going on in the city above us by watching the crowds on the station platforms. That is a difficult game, because we are running so swiftly, and there are frequent intervening trains. A thing that has caused us much speculation and discussion is the changing type of advertising on the bill-posters. Nowadays they are featuring the old favorites— many of the newer toothpastes and medicines seem to have been withdrawn. Did they fail, or has a wave of conservative reaction overwhelmed the country?

"Another marvel in the weird life we lead is the juvenescence of our home, the runaway car we are confined to. In spite of its unremitting use, always at top speed, it has become steadily brighter, more new-looking. Today it has the appearance of having been recently delivered from the builders' shops.

I learned half a century ago that having nothing to do, and all the time in the world to do it in, is the surest way to get nothing done. In looking in this book, I find it has been ten years since I made an entry! It is a fair indication of the idle, routine life in this wandering car. The very invariableness of our existence has discouraged keeping notes. But recent developments are beginning to force me to face a situation that has been growing ever more obvious. The cumulative evidence is by now almost overwhelming that this state of ours has a meaning— has an explanation. Yet I dread to think the thing through— to call its name! Because there will be two ways to interpret it. Either it is as I am driven to conclude, or else I...

"I must talk it over frankly with Nellie Herrick. She is remarkably poised and level-headed, and understanding. She and I have matured a delightful friendship.

"What disturbs me more than anything is the trend in advertising. They are selling products again that were popular so long ago that I had actually forgotten them. And the appeals are made in the idiom of years ago. Lately it has been hard to see the posters, the station platforms are so full. In the crowds are many uniforms, soldiers and sailors. We infer from that there is another war— but the awful question is, 'What war?'

"Those are some of the things we can observe in the world over there. In our own little fleeting world, things have developed even more inexplicably. My health and appearance, notably. My hair is no longer white! It is turning dark again in the back, and on top. And the same is true of Nellie's. There are other similar changes for the better. I see much more clearly and my hearing is practically perfect.

"The culmination of these disturbing signals of retrogression has come with the newest posters. It is their appearance that forces me to face the facts. Behind the crowds we glimpse new appeals, many and insistent— 'BUY VICTORY LOAN BONDS!' From the number of them to be seen, one would think we were back in the happy days of 1919, when the soldiers were coming home from the World War.

My talk with Nellie has been most comforting and reassuring. It is hardly likely that we should both be insane and have identical symptoms. The inescapable conclusion that I dreaded to put into words is so— it must be so. In some unaccountable manner, we are unliving life! Time is going backward! 'Rugwaartsch,' the mad Dutchman said that first day when he turned back from Flushing; 'we will go backward'— to hisFlushing, the one he knew. Who knows what Flushing he knew? It must be the Flushing of another age, or else why should the deranged wizard (if it is he who has thus reversed time) choose a path through time itself? Helpless, we can only wait and see how far he will take us.

"We are not wholly satisfied with our new theory. Everything does not go backward; otherwise how could it be possible for me to write these lines? I think we are like flies crawling up the walls of an elevator cab while it is in full descent. Their own proper movements, relative to their environment, are upward, but all the while they are being carried relentlessly downward. It is a sobering thought. Yet we are both relieved that we should have been able to speak it. Nellie admits that she has been troubled for some time, hesitating to voice the thought. She called my attention to the subtle way in which our clothing has been changing, an almost imperceptible de-evolution in style.

We are now on the lookout for ways in which to date ourselves in this headlong plunging into the past. Shortly after writing the above, we were favored with one opportunity not to be mistaken. It was the night of the Armistice. What a night in the subway! Then followed, in inverse order, the various issues of the Liberty Bonds. Over forty years ago― counting time both ways, forward, then again backward—  I was up there, a dollar-a-year man, selling them on the streets. Now we suffer a new anguish, imprisoned down here in this racing subway car. The evidence all around us brings a nostalgia that is almost intolerable. None of us knows how perfect his memory is until it is thus prompted. But we cannot go up there, we can only guess at what is going on above us.

"The realization of what is really happening to us has caused us to be less antagonistic to our conductor. His sullen brooding makes us wonder whether he is not a fellow victim, rather than our abductor, he seems so unaware of us usually. At other times, we regard him as the principal in this drama of the gods and are bewildered at the curious twist of Fate that has entangled us with the destiny of the unhappy Van Der Dechen, for unhappy he certainly is. Our anger at his arrogant behavior has long since died away. We can see that some secret sorrow gnaws continually at his heart.

"'There is een vloek over me,' he said gravely, one day, halting unexpectedly before us in the midst of one of his agitated pacings of the aisle. He seemed to be trying to explain—  apologize for, if you will—  our situation. 'Accursed I am, damned!' He drew a great breath, looking at us appealingly. Then his black mood came back on him with a rush, and he strode away growling mighty Dutch oaths. 'But I will best them—  God Himself shall not prevent me—  not if it takes all eternity!'

Our orbit is growing more restricted. It is a long time now since we went to Brooklyn, and only the other day we swerved suddenly at Times Square and cut through to Grand Central. Considering this circumstance, the type of car we are in now, and our costumes, we must be in 1905 or thereabouts. That is a year I remember with great vividness. It was the year I first came to New York. I keep speculating on what will become of us. In another year we will have plummeted the full history of the subway. What then? Will that be the end?

"Nellie is the soul of patience. It is a piece of great fortune, a blessing, that since we were doomed to this wild ride, we happened in it together. Our friendship has ripened into a warm affection that lightens the gloom of this tedious wandering.

It must have been last night that we emerged from the caves of Manhattan. Thirty-four years of darkness is ended. We are now out in the country, going west. Our vehicle is not the same, it is an old-fashioned day coach, and ahead is a small locomotive. We cannot see engineer or fireman, but Van Der Dechen frequently ventures across the swaying, open platform and mounts the tender, where he stands firmly with wide-spread legs, scanning the country ahead through an old brass long-glass. His uniform is more nautical than railroadish—  it took the sunlight to show that to us. There was always the hint of salt air about him. We should have known who he was from his insistence on being addressed as Captain.

"The outside world is moving backward! When we look closely at the wagons and buggies in the muddy trails alongside the right of way fence, we can see that the horses or mules are walking or running backward. But we pass them so quickly, as a rule, that their real motion is inconspicuous. We are too grateful for the sunshine and the trees after so many years of gloom, to quibble about this topsy-turvy condition.

Five years in the open has taught us much about Nature in reverse. There is not so much difference as one would suppose. It took us a long time to notice that the sun rose in the west and sank in the east. Summer follows winter, as it always has. It was our first spring, or rather, the season that we have come to regard as spring, that we were really disconcerted. The trees were bare, the skies cloudy, and the weather cool. We could not know, at first sight, whether we had emerged into spring or fall.

"The ground was wet, and gradually white patches of snow were forming. Soon, the snow covered everything. The sky darkened and the snow began to flurry, drifting and swirling upward, out of sight. Later we saw the ground covered with dead leaves, so we thought it must be fall. Then a few of the trees were seen to have leaves, then all. Soon the forests were in the full glory of red and brown autumn leaves, but in a few weeks those colors turned gradually through oranges and yellows to dark greens, and we were in full summer. Our 'fall,' which succeeded the summer, was almost normal, except toward the end, when the leaves brightened into paler greens, dwindled little by little to mere buds and then disappeared within the trees.

"The passage of a troop train, its windows crowded with campaign-hatted heads and waving arms tells us another war has begun (or more properly, ended). The soldiers are returning from Cuba. Our wars, in this backward way by which we approach and end in anxiety! More nostalgia— I finished that war as a major. I keep looking eagerly at the throngs on the platforms of the railroad stations as we sweep by them, hoping to sight a familiar face among the yellow-legged cavalry. More than eighty years ago it was, as I reckon it, forty years of it spent on the road to senility and another forty back to the prime of life.

"Somewhere among those blue-uniformed veterans am I, in my original phase, I cannot know just where, because my memory is vague as to the dates. I have caught myself entertaining the idea of stopping this giddy flight into the past, of getting out and finding my way to my former home. Only, if I could, I would be creating tremendous problems—  there would have to be some sort of mutual accommodation between my alter ego and me. It looks impossible, and there are no precedents to guide us.

"Then, all my affairs have become complicated by the existence of Nell. She and I have had many talks about this strange state of affairs, but they are rarely conclusive. I think I must have over-estimated her judgment a little in the beginning. But it really doesn't matter. She has developed into a stunning woman and her quick, ready sympathy makes up for her lack in that direction. I glory particularly in her hair, which she lets down some days. It is thick and long and beautifully wavy, as hair should be. We often sit on the back platform and she allows it to blow free in the breeze, all the time laughing at me because I adore it so.

"Captain Van Der Dechen notices us not at all, unless in scorn. His mind, his whole being, is centered on getting back to Flushing—  hisFlushing, that he calls Vlissingen—  wherever that may be in time or space. Well, it appears that he is taking us back, too, but it is backward in time for us. As for him, time seems meaningless. He is unchangeable. Not a single hair of that piratical beard has altered since that far-future day of long ago when he broke our car away from the Interboro train in Queens. Perhaps he suffers from the same sort of unpleasant immortality the mythical Wandering Jew is said to be afflicted with— otherwise why should he complain so bitterly of the curse he says is upon him?

"Nowadays he talks to himself much of the time, mainly about his ship. It is that which he hopes to find since the Flushing beyond New York proved not to be the one he strove for. He says he left it cruising along a rocky coast. He has either forgotten where he left it or it is no longer there, for we have gone to all the coastal points touched by the railroads. Each failure brings fresh storms of rage and blasphemy; not even perpetual frustration seems to abate the man's determination or capacity for fury.

That Dutchman has switched trains on us again! This one hasn't even Pintsch gas, nothing but coal oil. It is smoky and it stinks. The engine is a woodburner with a balloon stack. The sparks are very bad and we cough a lot.

"I went last night when the Dutchman wasn't looking and took a look into the cab of the engine. There is no crew and I found the throttle closed. A few years back that would have struck me as odd, but now I have to accept it. I did mean to stop the train so I could take Nell off, but there is no way to stop it. It just goes along, I don't know how.

"On the way back I met the Dutchman, shouting and swearing the way he does, on the forward platform. I tried to throw him off the train. I am as big and strong as he is and I don't see why I should put up with his overbearing ways. But when I went to grab him, my hands closed right through. The man is not real! It is strange I never noticed that before. Maybe that is why there is no way to stop the train, and why nobody ever seems to notice us. Maybe the train is not real, either. I must look tomorrow and see whether it casts a shadow. Perhaps evenwe are not...

"But Nell is real. I know that.

The other night we passed a depot platform where there was a political rally—  a torchlight parade. They were carrying banners. 'Garfield for President.' If we are ever to get off this train, we must do it soon.

"Nell says no, it would be embarrassing. I try to talk seriously to her about us, but she just laughs and kisses me and says let well enough alone. I wouldn't mind starting life over again, even if these towns do look pretty rough. But Nell says that she was brought up on a Kansas farm by a step-mother and she would rather go on to the end and vanish, if need be, than go back to it.

"That thing about the end troubles me a lot, and I wish she wouldn't keep mentioning it. It was only lately that I thought about it much, and it worries me more than death ever did in the old days. We know when it will be! 1860 for me—  on the third day of August. The last ten years will be terrible—  getting smaller, weaker, more helpless all the time, and winding up as a messy, squally baby. Why, that means I have only about ten more years that are fit to live; when I was this young before, I had a lifetime ahead. It's not right! And now she has made a silly little vow—  'Until birth do us part!'—  and made me say it with her!

It is too crowded in here, and it jolts awfully. Nell and I are cooped up in the front seats and the Captain stays in the back part— the quarterdeck, he calls it. Sometimes he opens the door and climbs up into the driver's seat. There is no driver, but we have a four-horse team and they gallop all the time, day and night. The Captain says we must use a stagecoach, because he has tried all the railroad tracks and none of them is right. He wants to get back to the sea he came from and to his ship. He is not afraid that it has been stolen, for he says most men are afraid of it—  it is a haunted ship, it appears, and brings bad luck.

"We passed two men on horses this morning. One was going our way and met the other coming. The other fellow stopped him and I heard him holler, 'They killed Custer and all his men!' and the man that was going the same way we were said, 'The bloodthirsty heathens! I'm a-going to jine!'

Nellie cries a lot. She's afraid of Indians. I'm not afraid of Indians. I would like to see one.

"I wish it was a boy with me, instead of this little girl. Then we could do something. All she wants to do is play with that fool dolly. We could make some bows and arrows and shoot at the buffaloes, but she says that is wicked.

"I tried to get the Captain to talk to me, but he won't. He just laughed and laughed, and said,

"'Een tijd kiezen voor— op schip!'

"That made me mad, talking crazy talk like that, and I told him so.

"'Time!' he bellows, laughing like everything.' 'Twill all be right in time!' And he looks hard at me, showing his big teeth in his beard. 'Four —  five—  six hundred years—  more—  it is nothing. I have all eternity! But one more on my ship, I will get there. I have sworn it! You come with me and I will show you the sea—  the great Indian Sea behind the Cape of Good Hope. Then some day, if those accursed head winds abate, I will take you home with me to Flushing. That I will, though the Devil himself, or all the— ' And then he went off to cursing and swearing the way he always does in his crazy Dutchman's talk.

Nellie is mean to me. She is too bossy. She says she will not play unless I write in the book. She says I am supposed to write something in the book every day. There is not anything to put in the book. Same old stagecoach. Same old Captain. Same old everything. I do not like the Captain. He is crazy. In the night-time he points at the stars shining through the roof of the coach and laughs and laughs. Then he gets mad, and swears and curses something awful. When I get big again, I am going to kill him— I wish we could get away — I am afraid—  it would be nice if we could find mamma—"

This terminates the legible part of the notebook. All of the writing purporting to have been done in the stagecoach is shaky, and the letters are much larger than earlier in the script. The rest of the contents is infantile scribblings, or grotesque childish drawings. Some of them show feathered Indians drawing bows and shooting arrows. The very last one seems to represent a straight up and down cliff with wiggly lines at the bottom to suggest waves, and off a little way is a crude drawing of a galleon or other antique ship.

This notebook, together with Mr. Dennison's hat and cane and Mrs. Herrick's handbag, were found in the derailed car that broke away from the Flushing train and plunged off the track into the Meadows. The police are still maintaining a perfunctory hunt for the two missing persons, but I think the fact they brought this journal to us clearly indicates they consider the search hopeless. Personally, I really do not see of what help these notes can be. I fear that by now Mr. Dennison and Mrs. Herrick are quite inaccessible.

__________________

27: Tricky Tonnage

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1944

WHEN you've lived across the fence from an amateur inventor, you come to expect anything. When the wind was right we used to get some of the awfullest chemical stinks from the Nicklheim barn, and we got so used to hearing explosions that they didn't bother us any more than automobile backfires. We just took it for granted when we'd see Elmer, the boy next door, walking around with his eyebrows singed off and the rest of him wrapped up in bandages.

When Elmer was a little tad, he was a great enthusiast for scientific fiction. You hardly ever saw him unless he was lugging some Jules Vernian opus around, and he ate up all he read with dead earnestness. With that yen for science it might have been expected that he would shine at school, but it did not work out that way. He wouldn't go along in the rut laid out for the run-of-the-mine student. The physics prof finally had him kicked out for some crazy stunt he pulled with the school's equipment. Elmer hooked it all together in a very unorthodox way, and the resulting fireworks was quite a show.

Being barred from school did not faze Elmer. He rigged up his own lab in the barn, buying the stuff from mail-order houses with money he made doing odd jobs. Some of the people in the town thought the boy might go places; most simply thought he was a nut. I belonged to the former group, and sometimes helped the kid with small loans. Not many of his inventions panned out, but he did sell one gadget useful in television to a big company. In a way it proved to be a bad thing he did. The company bought the idea outright and paid promptly, but afterwards for reasons of its own, it suppressed the invention—  an act that irked Elmer exceedingly. It prejudiced him violently against big corporations as such and the whole patent set-up in general. He swore that after that he, would keep all his discoveries secret.

About that time his father died, and it looked as if Elmer had finished with his scientific dabbling phase. Overnight he seemed to mature, and after that he was seldom seen pottering around his barn. He was busy about town, carrying on the little one-horse trucking business bequeathed him by the old man. His truck was one of those vintage rattletraps that appear to be always threatening to make the legend of the one-hoss shay come true, but Elmer was a fair mechanic and somehow kept the old crate going. Not only that, but to the astonishment of the citizenry, he seemed to be making money at it, and that at a time when rate competition was keen and gas expensive and hard to get. I was beginning to think we had witnessed the end of a budding scientist and the birth of an up and coming young business man. It was Elmer himself who disabused me of that notion.

One morning he stopped his truck at my gate and came up onto the porch. He pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off a couple of twenties.

"Thanks," he said. "It was a big help, but I'm O.K. now."

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "There was no hurry about paying it back. But I'm glad to see you're doing well in the hauling game. It may not be as distinguished as getting to be known as a big-shot scientist, but at least you eat."

He gave me a funny look and sort of smiled.

"Hauling game, huh?" he sniffed. "I'd never thought of it that way. I don't cart stuff around for the fun of it, or the money either. That's incidental. What I'm doing is testing out a theory I thought up."

"What's that one, Elmer?" I asked. I had heard a lot of his theories, first and last, and seen most of them go flop. Elmer had a very screwy approach to the mysteries of nature.

"It's about gravity. I've found out what it is, which is more than anybody else since Newton has done. It's really very simple once you know what makes it."

"Yes," I agreed. "That is what Einstein says, except that he hasn't finished his universal field formula. So you've beat him to it?"

"Yes. I've been running my truck by gravity for the last three months."

That didn't quite make sense to me. The country road about was hilly and a lot of coasting was possible. But still a vehicle couldn't coast up hill. Elmer was studying me uncertainly, and I realized he wanted to talk to somebody, but he was always so cagy about his projects that I hesitated to come right out and ask.

"I've discovered something big," he said, soberly. "So big I don't know what to do with it. I'd like to show it to somebody, only—"

"Only what?"

"Oh, a lot of reasons. I don't mind being laughed at, but I'd like to keep this secret for awhile. If the other truckers found out how I'm doing what I do, they might gang up on me, smash the truck, and all that. Then again there's no telling what somebody else might do with my idea if they got hold of it before all the theory is worked out."

"I can keep a secret," I told him.

"All right," he said. "Come along and I'll show you something."

I got in the truck with him. He stepped on the starter and the cranky old engine finally got going, though I thought it would shake us to pieces before it made up its mind whether to run or not. Then we lurched off down the road, rattling and banging like a string of cans tied to a mongrel's tail.

"Where does the gravity come in?" I asked.

"I don't use it in town," he said. "People might get wise to me."

We went on down to the oil company's bulk station. It had been raining off and on all week and there was a good deal of mud, but Elmer skirted the worst puddles and we got up to the loading platform all right. It was there I got my first surprise. A couple of huskies started loading up that truck, and when they were through I would have bet my last simoleon Elmer would not get two miles with it. There were six big barrels of grease, weighing four hundred pounds each, a half dozen drums of oil, and some package goods. The truck kept creaking and groaning, and by the time the last piece was on, its springs were mashed out flat as pancakes. It was bad enough to have that overload, but the stuff was for Peavy's store out at Breedville-forty miles away over as sketchy a bit of so-called highway as can be found anywhere in America.

"You'll never get over Five Mile Hill with that," I warned Elmer, but he just grinned and pocketed the invoices. The oil company agent was looking on in a kind of puzzled wonder. He had used Elmer's delivery service before, but it was clear that he didn't believe his eyes. Meanwhile Elmer got the motor going and we backed out of the yard. There was a good deal of bucking and backfiring and shimmying, but pretty soon we were rolling toward the edge of town.

Just beyond the last house the Breedville road turns sharp to the right into some trees, and Elmer stopped at a secluded place where there was an outcropping of bedrock alongside the road proper. He killed the engine and got a cable-like affair out of his tool box.

"The first step," he said, "is to tighten the load."

He hooked one end of the cable against the side of a grease barrel and the other he led to the bare bedrock and attached it there. The cable terminated in what appeared to be rubber-suction cups. It looked as if it were made of braided asbestos rope, threaded with copper wire, and near one end it spread out in a flattened place like the hood of a cobra. There was a small dial and some buttons set in that. Elmer set the dial and punched a button. Instantly there was a popping sound as the truck bed stirred, and I saw that it jumped up about a quarter or half an inch.

"Now heft that barrel," said Elmer.

I did. If there hadn't been another one right behind me, I would have gone overboard backward. I got hold of the top of the cask and gave it a tug, not dreaming I could budge four hundred pounds of heavy grease.

But it came away with about the same resistance that an empty cardboard carton would have had.

"What makes weight," explained Elmer, "is gravitons. All molecular matter contains them in various degree. Up to now nobody knew how to extract them. You could only manipulate weight by moving the matter itself. I simply drain most of the gravitons off into the bedrock where it will be out of the way. It's easy because there is a gravitic gradient in that direction."

As an explanation it was a long way from being satisfactory. But there was the barrel, plainly stencilled with its gross weight, and it was now practically weightless. The weight had left as abruptly as a short-circuited electric charge. Moreover, Elmer was shifting his cable from one drum to another, and as he touched each one the truck rose another notch. By the time he was through it rode as high as if there was no load at all.

"I'll use the last one of these drums for power," said Elmer, coiling up his cable and putting it away. Then I saw that he was making a short jumper connection between it and another cable running down under the cab to the hood. He lifted that up and showed me an attachment on the shaft behind the motor. It was a bulbous affair of metal and there were two leads to it. One was the connection to the drum, the other was a short piece of cable that dangled to the ground.

"I call that my Kineticizer," said Elmer. "It is really a gravity motor. It works on exactly the same principle as a water turbine except that it doesn't require the actual presence of the water. The upper cable has more gravitic resistance than the one I use to dump the load. It feeds a slow stream of gravitons to the upper vanes of a steel rotor. They become heavy and start to fall, exerting torque. At the bottom they wipe the ground cable and the moving gravitons simply waste away into the road. Four hundred pounds falling four feet gives a lot of power-especially when you use it all. See?"

Did I? I don't know. It sounded plausible, and anyway Elmer banged down the hood and we climbed back into the cab. That time we started off like a zephyr. There was smooth, silent, resistless power, and the truck being lightened of its load, leaped like a jack rabbit. The gasoline motor was idle. The only noise was the rattling of the fenders and the swish of the air. Breedville began to look more attainable.

After we straightened out on the road, Elmer began to tell me about gravities.

"It was Ebrenhaft's work with magnetics that got me to thinking about it. Since he was already doing magnetalysis I didn't bother to go along that line. What interested me was the evident kinship on the one hand between electric and magnetic phenomena in general, and between the strong magnetism of electric fields and iron and the relatively weak magnetism of all other substances."

I kept on listening. Elmer's whole theory of gravities was pretty involved, and in some spots downright screwy. But on the whole it hung together, and there I was riding along on a stream of moving gravitons to prove it. According to the Elmerian doctrine, in the beginning there was chaos and all matter was highly magnetic. It therefore tended to coalesce into nebulae, and thence into stars.

There the fierce pressures and temperatures tended to strip the basic matter of its more volatile outer shells and hurl them outward in the form of radiant energy. Atomic stresses yielded enormous quantities of light and heat and great streams of magnetons and electrons. In the end there is only ash — the cold inert rocks of the planetary bodies. With the exception of the ferric metals none of that ash retains more than a bare fragment of its original magnetic power. Yet even rock when in massive concentration has strong attractive power. The earth is such a concentration, and its pull on the apple was what woke Newton up.

From that concept Elmer dug into the apple itself and into the atoms that compose it. Mass, he claimed, in so far as what we call weight is concerned, is simply a matter of gravitonic coefficient, a graviton being the lowest unit— one more aspect of the atom. It is the nucleus of a magneton, what is left after the outer shells have been stripped away. The graviton is utterly inert and heretofore locked inseparably in the atoms of the substance to which it originally belonged. If only they could be induced to move, their departure would rob the parent substance of nothing except weight, and by moving pure essence of weight potential energy could be turned into kinetic with the minimum of loss.

"It was finding a suitable conductor that stumped me longest," Elmer confessed, "and I'm not telling yet what that is. But as soon as I found it I built this motor. You see for yourself how beautifully it works."

I did, and I saw a myriad of rosy dreams as well. We took Five Mile Hill like a breeze, almost floating over, thanks not only to the silent drive but to the weightlessness of the cargo. I thought of all the massive mountain ranges just sitting in their grandeur with billions and billions of foot-tons of locked-up energy awaiting release. I could envisage hundreds of kineticizer plants around their slopes sending out an abundance of free power. What it did not occur to me to think of was what would happen when those mountains eventually became weightless. What worried me most just then was, how the other properties of materials would be affected with alteration of its natural weight.

"Oh, not much," said Elmer. "The relative weights of duraluminum, steel and lead have nothing whatever to do with their tensile strength. I drained off most of the weight of a pan of mercury and tested it. I found that it got a lot, more viscous when it was light, a characteristic that is overcome by its normal heaviness. But otherwise it was still mercury. There is an anvil in my barn that weighs less than a toy balloon. If it wasn't kept clamped to the block it sits on, it would soar and bump against the rafters, but as long as I keep it from doing that I can still hammer iron out on it."

We were nearly to Breedville when it began to rain again. Elmer put up the storm curtains, and I asked him about how Mr. Peavy was going to react at getting barrels of grease that were lighter than whipped cream.

"I'm going to take care of that before we get there," said Elmer.

I found out what he meant when he pulled up under a railroad underpass about a mile this side of Peavy's store. He got out and produced his cable again. This time he attached it to the face of one of the concrete abutments that held up the girders carrying the track. One by one he reloaded the barrels by dead weight sucked out of the abutment and let it run into the containers on the truck. Again the truck body settled groaning on its springs.

"I'm working on a way to meter this flow more accurately," said Elmer with a grin. "The last load out here Peavy squawked like everything because the stuff was light. This time I'll give him good measure. Nobody ever kicks at getting more pounds than he paid for."

Well, there it was— Elmer's stunt full cycle. No wonder his gas and tire costs were less than anybody else's in the business, or that he could set out on a long trip with an impossible load. He had only to reduce the load to zero, using part of it for power, and replenish it at the other end of the line.

We went on to Peavy's, using the wheezy gasoline motor again. No one at the store saw anything amiss when we drove up, and though Peavy was careful to roll each box and drum onto the scale, he made no comment when he found them markedly overweight. He probably figured it was only justice from the short-changing he had had on the delivery before, and on which the oil company had been adamant as to adjustment. Elmer then picked up some empty drums and we started back.

The rain was coming down hard by then, and when we got to the underpass there were several inches of water in it. Elmer stopped long enough to draw off a few more hundred pounds of avoirdupois into one of the empty drums so as to have power for the trip home. He said it was the best place along his route to get needed weight in a hurry. We started up, but had not gone more than about a hundred yards when we heard a terrific swoosh behind us, and on the heels of it a resounding metallic crash and the scream of shearing metal. The ground shook, and a wave of muddy water swept along the road from behind and passed us, gurgling among the wheel spokes.

"What on earth?" yelled Elmer, and stopped the car.

What was behind us was not pretty to see. The concrete abutment we had just left had slid from its foundation straight across the road until it almost impinged on its opposite mate. What had been the earth fill behind it was a mass of sprawling semi-liquid mud. Sodden by days of rain and heavy with water, the fill had come to act like water behind a dam and simply pushed along the line of least resistance. The now practically weightless retaining wall gave way, since there was only friction to hold it where it should be. The two great black steel girders that it supported lay at an awkward angle half in the pit where the underpass had been, half sticking up into the air.

"Gosh," said Elmer, gazing at the spectacle. "Do you suppose I did that?"

"I'm afraid you did," I said. "Maybe concrete don't need weight for strength, but it has to have something to hold it down."

Well, the damage was done, and Elmer was scared. A train was due soon and something had to be done about it. So we drove on to the first farmhouse that had a phone and sent in word about a washout. After that we went on home, Elmer being pretty chastened.

The days that followed were quite hectic. The more the railroad and public utility commission engineers studied the retaining wall's failure, the more baffled they became. The abutment itself was unmarred in the least degree. There was not a crack in it, and only a few chipped places where the falling girders had knocked corners off. Experts chiseled chunks out of it and took them to dozens of engineering labs. The records of the contracting firm that built it were overhauled. The wall was up to specifications and had been thoroughly inspected at the time of construction. The fragments subjected to strains and stresses reacted as they should, having exactly the tensile and compression strength it should have. The mix was right, the ingredients without flaw. The hitch was that the stuff under examination had about the same weight as an equal volume of balsa wood!

Learned treatises began to appear in the engineering journals under such titles as, "Weight Loss in Mature Concretes," "Extraordinary Deterioration Noted in Failure of Concrete Railway Abutment," and so on. Throughout the whole strange controversy Elmer never peeped, and neither did I. I kept silent for several reasons, and only one of them was the fact that I had given Elmer my pledge not to divulge his invention before he gave the word. Mainly I felt that whatever I might tell them would be received as too ridiculous to be believed. After all, people just don't go around sapping idle weight from stationary objects.

The sequel to the incident has to remain obscure. The very ride that let me into the secret proved also to be the cause of my being excluded from it thereafter. I caught a cold that day, and before long it turned into pneumonia. Complications followed, and there were some months when I was confined to a hospital bed. When I was out again and around, my neighbor Elmer had gone, presumably in search of wider fields.

It is a pity that Elmer's unfortunate experience with his earlier invention soured him on the usual channels of development, for I think what happened to him later was that he got into the hands of unscrupulous promoters. For quite a long time after the collapse of the railroad crossing I heard nothing of Elmer himself or his world-shaking discovery. But little bits of news kept cropping up that indicated to me that while Elmer's secret was being kept, it was not getting rusty from disuse, though he lacked the necessary business imagination ever to put it to its best uses.

There was the phenomenal success of Trans-America Trucking, for example. It was significant to me that the Eastern terminus of its main haul was laid out in the bottom of an abandoned rock quarry and its Pacific end in a deep canyon. I thought I knew where the power came from, especially when an oil salesman told me he had tried hard to get the Trans-American contract. They not only refused to buy from him, but he could not find out what company, if any, was supplying them. I also noted that Trans-America was continually embroiled in lawsuits arising from discrepancies in weights. I knew from that that Elmer had not yet solved the problem of metering his weight siphons.

There were other straws that pointed to Elmer's fine hand. Highway engineers along the routes traversed chiefly by his trucks discovered after a time that even the dirt roads over which the trucks ran needed little or no binder. The surface soil was found to be incredibly heavy, like powdered lead, and therefore did not dust away under high-speed traffic. In the course of time it became as hard and compact as the floor of a machine shop where iron chips form the soil.

But eventually there was trouble. Disloyal employees must have stolen lengths of Elmer's mysterious graviton conductor, for there was a story told in some glee of a policeman giving chase to a fleeing man who had a big iron safe on his shoulders! The burglar got away, so for a time Elmer's secret was comparatively safe. And then there was the exposure of what was later known as the spud racket.

One of Trans-America's ex-truckmen, being aware that potatoes were sold by the pound, saw opportunity. He absconded with a length of Elmer's cable and set himself up in the potato business. He was modest at first. The spuds he handled were overweight, but not too much too heavy when he resold them. The dietitians in the big institutions were the first to notice something wrong, for they had analysts to interpret the figures. But greed got the best of the gangster truckman. Not content with his initial ten or twenty percent boosts in weight, he poured on the avoirdupois thicker and thicker. The average housewife began to complain that big potatoes required all her strength to lift.

The day the market inspectors raided the man's storehouse the cat was out of the bag. They uncovered an endless stream of potatoes on a conveyor belt that ran by a bin filled with scrap iron. As each spud passed a certain point it was wiped by a wisp of mineral wool, whereupon the belt beneath sagged deeply and spilled the potatoes onto the floor. Cranes scooped them up and carried them to the packing department.

The subsequent prosecution ran into myriad legal difficulties. There was ample precedent for dealing with short weights, but none for artificially added surplus weight. Chemists sought to prove, once they tumbled to the concept of movable gravitons, that the introduction of ferrous gravitons into a food product constituted a willful adulteration. They failed. The composition of the potatoes was no more altered than is that of iron when temporarily magnetized. In the end the case was thrown out of court, much to the anger of some theologians who had also developed an interest in the case.

That there was at once a spate of laws forbidding the alteration of natural weights was inevitable. State after state enacted them, and the Interstate Commerce Commission began an investigation of Trans-America Trucking, damaging admissions having been made by the potato racketeer. It was the collapse of one of the cliffs at the western terminus of that company that was the straw to break the camel's back. Weight shifting became a federal offense with drastic penalties.

Perhaps collapse is a badly chosen word. The cliff disintegrated, but it did not fall. It soared.

It happened late one afternoon shortly after a heavy convoy arrived from the east. Thousands of tons of weight had to be made up, and the power units of the incoming trucks recharged with still more weight. The already lightened cliff yielded up its last pounds, for it had been drawn upon heavily for a long time. Its stone, being loosely stratified, lacked cohesion, so with sound effects rivaling those of the siege of Stalingrad, it fell apart— upward— in a cloud of dust and boulders. The fragments, though stone, weighed virtually nothing, rose like balloons and were soon dispersed by the winds.

Unfortunately the canyon was not far from the most traveled transcontinental air route. Within an hour pilots were reporting seeing what they described as inert bodies floating in the upper air. One of them ran into a stone no bigger than his fist, but since he was making several hundred miles an hour at the time, it neatly demolished one of his wings. That night two stratoliners were brought down, both riddled with imponderable gravel. The debris while lighter than air, still had some residual weight and unimpaired tensile strength.

Congress intervened. Trans-America's charter was voided and its equipment confiscated and destroyed. Elmer was forbidden to resume business except on orthodox lines. There was no place in the United States for his invention.

That should have been the end of the Theory of Gravitics and its unhappy applications. But it was not. For Elmer had associates by that time who had tasted the luxury of sure and easy profits, and they were not to be denied. Rumor had it that it was his shady partners who took over the financial end and relegated him to his lab again to hunt for other means of utilizing his kineticizer. However that may be, the next stage was several years in incubation. For a time gravitons ceased to be news except in scientific circles where controversies pro and con still raged. People had already begun to forget when Caribbean Power announced itself to the world.

It started operating from a tiny island republic known as Cangrejo Key. Through oversight, or because it was a worthless patch of coral sand frequently swept by hurricanes, mention of it was omitted in the treaty between the United States and Spain at the end of the war of 1998. It was still Spanish until the graviton syndicate bought it from an impoverished Franco for a few millions in real gold. Whereupon the Cangrejo Commonwealth was set up as an independent state and a law to itself.

By then they had one valuable addition to their bag of tricks—  Elmer's third great invention. It was a transmitter of beamed radio electric power, and they promptly entered into contracts with large industries in nearby America for the sale of unlimited broadcast power at ridiculously low rates. At first the great maritime powers protested, suspecting what was afoot and fearing the incalculable effects on shipping if Caribbean Power meant to rob the sea of its weight. But the storm subsided when the new republic assured them sea water would not be touched. They pledged themselves to draw only from the potential energy of the island they owned. So the world settled down and forgot its fears. No matter what happened to Cangrejo Key, there was the promise of abundant cheap power, and at the worst one coral islet more or less did not matter. Even if its sands did float off into the sky as had the canyon wall on the Pacific Coast they could do little harm, the Key being well off the air lanes.

It was a premature hope, for they reckoned without the ingenuity of the men behind the scheme. Soon great derricks reared themselves on the Key and drills began biting their way into the earth. By the time the holes reached eight miles depth the transmission towers were built and ready. Then came the flow of power, immense and seemingly inexhaustible. A battery of kineticizer-dynamos commenced operating, suspended by cables deep into the bowels of the planet, converting the weight that was overhead into kilowatts which were sent up to the surface through copper wires. There it was converted into radio power waves and broadcast out to the customers. It was good, clean power. Industry was grateful.

How deep the syndicate eventually sunk its shafts no one ever knew. Nor how many millions of tons of earth weight were converted into electric energy and spewed out to the factories of the world. But it took only a few years for the project to revolutionize modern economics. With power literally as cheap as air, coal holdings became worthless and petroleum nearly so. In the heyday of the power boom cities like New York went so far as to install outdoor heating units so that in the coldest of cold waves its citizens could still stroll about without overcoats. There was no point in conservation any more. Old Terra Firma had gravitons; to burn.

The beginning of the payoff came with the Nassau disaster. The town was flattened by a mighty earthquake, and the attendant tidal wave left little of the Florida coastal cities. When the tremors died down the British Empire found it had added another island of near continental size to its realm. The Bahama Bank had risen above water and then stood from ten to fifty feet above sea level throughout. But there was a rider attached to that dubious blessing. The bed of the Florida Straits had risen correspondingly and the current of the Gulf Stream diminished. Europeans began to worry about the effect of that upon their climate.

Isostatic adjustment was responsible, sober geologists warned darkly. Let the Caribbean Power gang continue to rob that region of its proper weight there would be nothing to hold it down. Adjacent geographical masses would push in to fill the vacuum, just as the underlying, restless, semifluid magma would push up. The time would soon come when mountains rivaling the Himalayas would rear loftily where the Bahama Bank had been and when that day came the other islands about it and the nearby continental areas might well be only shoal spots in a shallowing sea. The Republic of Cangrejo had to go. It was a matter for the new United Nations Court to decide.

Well, that's the story of Elmer Nicklheim's kineticizer as I know it. I am still wondering whether he was with the gang the day the bombers came over and blasted Caribbean Power off the map. If he was, I think he must have been a prisoner, for the gang he at last teamed up with turned out to be an arrogant, greedy lot.

____________________

28: Vengeance In Her Bones

Weird Tales, May 1942

THE messenger from the Navy recruiting office found old Captain Tolliver in his backyard. The crabby, sour- visaged housekeeper took him as far as the hedge back of the house and pointed the retired mariner out to him. Captain Tolliver was reclining in a ragged canvas deckchair taking the sun. He had on faded dungarees, soft and pliant as linen from hundreds of scrubbings, and the stump of his handless left arm rested carelessly on his lap. The peg-leg that matched it lay in alignment with the one good leg. The captain had his eyes closed, comfortably drinking in the sun's good heat, when he heard the crunch of the messenger's step on the gravel walk that separated the vegetable from the flower beds. The old skipper's hearing was still alert, though, and at the sound he raised his lids and looked inquiringly at the newcomer.

"Commander Jason's compliments, sir," said the bluejacket, "and would you please step down to the office. He has a ship for you."

Captain Tolliver smiled feebly, then he closed his eyes against the glare. His eyes were not overstrong these days—  the doctors had said something about incipient cataracts.

"Commander Jason is confusing me with my son. He already has a ship, working out of West Coast ports. My sea-going days are over. Forever." To emphasize his point he waved the stump of his left arm, and lifted the peg-leg slightly.

"No, sir. It's you he wants. He was very clear about that. He has a ship that only you can command. She's a rogue. They say she a will obey no other skipper. He says they have waived your physical defects and will give you all the help you need. But they've got to have you."

The captain shook his head.

"He's wrong, I say. There is no such a ship. There was one once, but she rotted her life away in the back channel. They sold her finally to a wrecking company and broke her up for scrap. All I have to say to that is whoever bought that scrap had better have a care as to how they use it. For she was a vindictive wench. The Sadie Saxon bore grudges and would have her way no matter what you did....

"Yes, sir," said the messenger, eagerly, "that's the ship—  the Sadie Saxon—  a cargo type vessel! They've put her back in commission but she won't leave port. They need ships now that America is at war. Every ship. That's why they need you. The commander says please come. If you want, he'll send an ambulance."

"The Sadie Saxon," whispered the old captain, suddenly rapt with nostalgia for World War days when he and she were in their prime.

Then aloud, "He needn't bother about the ambulance. I can get there under my own power, son. Give me a hand so I can get up and go dress. The old uniform still fits, thank God."

Captain Tolliver's senility seemed to drop from him as a cloak the moment the well-worn blue garments were back on his lean frame. He looked a little ruefully at the tarnished gold lace on the sleeves and at the cap device the years had tinted with green mold, but nevertheless he brushed the uniform carefully, squared his shoulders, and marched down the steps without availing himself of the sailor's proffered arm.

"So they didn't break her up after all?" said the captain, as they waited at the curb in the hope a cruising taxi would come by. "How come? I know she was sold."

"Too expensive. She was part of a contract for scrap to be sent to the Japs some months ago, but they only worked three days on her. She killed nine men the first day they brought their cutting torches aboard, all of them in different ways. One of her booms crashed down the second day and smashed five others. On the third day seven suffocated in a hold, and two slipped and fell overboard. The men said she was jinxed and threatened to call a strike. So they put a tug alongside and hauled her back to her old berth."

CAPTAIN Tolliver chuckled.

"For the Japs, huh? She knew it even before they attacked Pearl Harbor, but I might have told 'em. But what's this about her refusing to leave port. Doesn't that sound a little silly to you?"

His faded old eyes twinkled when he asked the question. It was one that did sound silly, when a person came to think about it. Yet he knew it was not silly and one an experienced sailorman would answer as seriously as he could.

"There's no other word for it, sir," replied the bluejacket, soberly. "She was refitted at Newport News, given a crew and loaded with cargo. They took her out to make a voyage to Spanish Morocco, loaded with grain and automobile tires. But she wouldn't pass the Thimble. Her rudder jammed and she piled up hard, and at high tide, too. It took four days to pull her off. They took her back to the yard and looked her steering gear over. It was okay. So they started her out again. That time she sheered out to the other side and grounded near Willoughby Spit. The third time they tried to take her out, she piled up in the dredged channel and blocked all shipping for hours. The yard still insisted there was nothing wrong with her steering gear and suspected sabotage—"

"I know," said the captain. "They didn't find any evidence of it."

"That's right. They gave her crew a clean bill of health and ordered to sea once more. She won't budge. She had steam up and stood a good dock trial, but once she was out in the stream her propellers quit turning over—"

"With full throttle, of course," remarked Captain Tolliver calmly.

"Yes, sir. With full pressure in the boilers and throttle wide open. All she would do was drift until she banged into a dock.

"The tugs got hold of her and tied her up again. The engineers swear her engines are all right and there is no reason why she won't run. She just won't— that's all."

A taxi rounded the corner and caught the sailor's hail. As it slid to a stop before them the captain made one final remark.

"I see. They looked up her record and found she was always that way. Except when I had command of her. Well, I know what is on that little tub's mind and what to do about. It won't be orthodox, but if they want her in service it is the only way."

"What's that, sir."

"Give her her head," said the old man cryptically, then stiffly climbed into the cab.

IT was a week later that Captain Tolliver arrived at Norfolk Navy Yard. An aide of the admiral in charge of transport took him to the dock where she lay. She looked spick and span and new and a painter's stage swung under her near bow, and was to play her part in keeping supplies going Eastward in spite of havoc to the West. Tolliver climbed up onto it with some difficulty and patted one of the shiny plates of her nose.

"Up to your old tricks, eh, Sadie?" the astonished aide heard him say. "Well, everything's going to be all right now. We'll go hunting together."

Was it the wash of a passing tug that caused her to bob suddenly up and down that way? The aide shrugged his shoulders and was glad he as in the regular outfit. He would hate to have to go to sea through the war zone on a rogue ship under the command of a decrepit and senile madman of a skipper.

"I am ready to take over," announced Tolliver when he was back on the dock, "whenever those three men whose names I gave you have been replaced by others more acceptable."

"Acceptable to whom, sir? I repeat that they are loyal American citizens despite their German ancestry. They have been investigated fully."

"Acceptable to me as representative of the ship," answered the captain with all his old dignity. "When they are off we sail. Not before. Perhaps it is prejudice—  Sadie's funny that way—  perhaps your investigation was not as comprehensive as you think. That's your problem."

The aide laughed. The old lunatic, he thought, but I'm stuck I guess. They said give him anything he asked for.

"Very well, sir," was what he said out loud.

Captain Tolliver waited patiently beside the bow until the last of the thee scowling men had come down it laden with their bags and dunnage. Then he mounted to the deck and went straightway to the bridge. His hand reached for the whistle pull. A long, triumphant scream of a blast split the air.

"Stand by your lines," bellowed the old man through a megaphone, "and tell the tug never mind. We won't need her."

TWO hours later the Sadie Saxon swept through the dredged channel, picked up and passed the entrance buoy to the bay. Throbbing with the vibration of her churning screws and rising and falling to the heavy swell outside, she shook herself joyfully at the smell and feel of the open sea. Cape Henry and Cape Charles Lights soon faded behind. The Captain set a course for Bermuda, for the ship's orders had been changed. After the long delay in setting out the situation was different. She was to rendezvous with a Gibraltar bound convoy at the island.

Mate Parker came up to take the watch. It was a cloudy, dark night and the ship was running without lights.

"Keep a sharp lookout," warned the captain, "and handle things yourself. I don't want to be called unless something extraordinary occurs."

"Aye, sir," acknowledged the mate surlily. By rights he should be the skipper of this cranky tub—  not this doddering old fool.

The captain got down the ladder the best way he could and groped along the darkened decks until he came to the door of his room. He did not undress at all but lay down in his bunk as he was. The Sadie Saxon could be counted on to do the unexpected at any time. He closed his eyes wearily, for the excitement of the day had taxed his strength to the utmost. In a moment he was fast asleep.

It must have been well after midnight when be was roused from his deep slumber. Mr. Parker was standing over him with a look of concern on his face.

"She's gone crazy again, sir," he reported, "and we can't do a thing with her—"

"Don't try," directed the captain. "What's she doing?"

"Turned sharp to the left about fifteen minutes ago and is turning up about twelve revolutions more than her proper speed. The helmsman can't do anything about it. Neither can the engineer. She won't obey her wheel or throttle. What do we do—  fold up and call it a day?"

Captain Tolliver sat up in his bunk.

"Oh, no. By no means. You'll be awfully busy shortly. Turn out all hands at once. Man your lifeboats and have them ready for lowering. Shut all water-tight doors below and see that there is plenty of shoring handy in case the peak gets stove in. Have the collision mat ready. That's all."

"But the steering?"

"Just let the wheel go. She'll steer herself. She knows where she wants to go. I don't."

The mate left and the old man dragged himself to his mismated feet and began the laborious journey to the bridge. Once he was up there he made sure that the searchlight was ready to turn on in case he needed it. After that he could only wait.

The wait was not long. Fifteen minutes later there was a shock, a grinding, bumping of something under the fore-foot and along the keel. The ship's engines stopped abruptly, then began backing. Captain Tolliver reached for the engine room telegraph and rang it to "Stop."

The ship stopped.

"Collision forward?" shouted the lookout in the bow. "We just ran down a small ship of some sort."

Tolliver could hear the boatswain and his gang dropping into the fore hold to see whether the damage was serious. Then he spoke quietly to the mate who was on the bridge beside him.

"You may put your boats in the water now, Mister. I have a hunch we just ran down a Nazi sub. I'll put on the light as soon as you are lowered." The mate left on the run, more mystified than ever. A man came up from forward and reported the peak was full up to the waterline but the bulkhead abaft it was holding and the ship seemed to be in no danger.

"Turn on that searchlight," ordered Captain Tolliver, "and sweep aft." There was a chorus of gasps as the light stabbed out into the murk and almost instantly lit on a large black object rearing up above the waves. It was the bow of a submarine, and even as they sighted it it slid backwards into the deep. But in that brief glimpse they saw several men plunge overboard, and as the light swept to right and left the bobbing heads of a dozen or more men could be seen in the water.

"Pick up those men and be smart about it," yelled Tolliver through his megaphones to the boats. Then he watched as they dragged the survivors into the boats and rowed back to the ship. He watched as they hoisted the boats in and housed them at their davits.

"Put those men under guard," he directed, "and get back on your course. Things will be all right now." And with that he went below to pick up his nights sleep where it had left off.

THE arrival of the Sadie Saxon at Bermuda caused quite a stir. Many were the congratulations upon the ship's luck in blundering across a U-boat and ramming it in the dark. The two officers and eleven men rescued from the crash were most welcome to the British Intelligence officers. Hasty arrangements were made for quick repairs to the ship's damaged bow. She had missed the convoy for which she was intended, but there would be other convoys and the little delay was well paid for by the bag of the undersea wolf. Captain Tolliver took his praise modestly.

"It's not all luck," he said. "It is a habit of the Sadie Saxon. If you will look up her record in the last war you will see she has done that sort of thing before."

By the time the ship was ready for sea again the hubbub had died down. Captain Tolliver took the position assigned him with entire calm and confidence. It was a big convoy and made up of three columns of ships. The Sadie Saxon was given the post of danger and honor as the lead ship of the right-hand column. But destroyers frolicked about ahead and on the flanks. It would be costly for any submarine to tackle that well-guarded flotilla.

For three nights they went eastward, steaming without lights and in formation. There was no alarm other than the appearance overhead one day of a trio of scout bombers marked with the black and white crosses of Germany. The anti-aircraft guns of the escorting warships kept them at too great a height to do any damage, and so drove them away. But after their appearance old Captain Tolliver knew anything might happen. The Sadie Saxon had behaved most peculiarly all the while they were in sight, vibrating almost as if she had dropped a screw.

"Steady, old girl," whispered the skipper into the binnacle, "you'll have to get used to those. They're an innovation."

It was the night after that that the big attack occurred. The long triple column of ships was plowing along through a dark and misty night and thirty officers on as many bridges were staring anxiously into the murk striving not to lose sight of the tiny blue stern light of the ship ahead. Under the circumstances mutual collision was much more likely than a hostile attack. The orders were strict—  maintain radio silence at all costs, never show a light under any circumstances, and above all, keep station.

But the Sadie Saxon cared next to nothing about commodore's orders. At ten minutes past four in the morning she balked, her engines churning violently at full speed astern, to the consternation of the black gang who had had no bells to that effect and were caught off guard. Captain Tolliver was on the bridge when it happened and called sharply to the forward lookouts:

"Look sharply close aboard! What do you see?"

The ship was turning rapidly to starboard, her rudder jammed hard over, while the helmsman strove wildly to bring the wheel back the other way.

"The wakes of two torpedoes, sir—  no, four—  five—  nine! Coming from starboard, sir."

The streaks of phosphorescent light were visible now from the bridge. The Sadie Saxon was turning straight into them; she would pass safely between a pair of them.

The aged skipper acted with an alacrity that surprised even him. He yelled for the searchlight and with his own hand pulled the whistle into a strident blast of warning. The searchlight came on and threw its beam straight ahead. There, in a line, were three gray conning towers— three submarines on the surface and in fairly close formation. The nearest destroyer saw them too and at once plunged towards them with its guns blazing. Geysers of white water shot up about the nearest one. A couple of seconds later a bright flash told of a six-inch hit squarely at the base of a conning tower. The other two subs were diving hard, but the one that was hit did not dive. Or did not dive the regular way. It rolled slowly over toward the Sadie Saxon, spilling frantic men from its torn superstructure, then settled to its grave.

The leading freighter of the middle column suddenly blew up with a bang, lighting up the sea like day. A moment later the second ship of the left-hand column burst into flames. At least two of the nine torpedoes fired had found a mark. But the subs that fired them had no opportunity to fire more. They had been ambushed in their own ambush, and already three destroyers were racing back and forth over the spots where they had last been seen and dropping depth-charges by the score. Similar activities were going on on the other side. Apparently there had been other subs waiting there as well.

The Sadie Saxon lay still where she was until the survivors of the two ships destroyed had been brought on board. Then she unaccountably turned due south and ran for an hour at full speed. There she stopped and refused to budge another yard. It was well past the dawn then and a destroyer could be seen on the horizon behind still searching for vestiges of their attackers.

"Signal that destroyer," the captain said, "and tell him to come over here. We've got one spotted."

The destroyer came up within hail, and its captain delivered a blistering message through what must have been an asbestos-lined megaphone. "Will the second on that ship kindly relieve that blithering idiot in command and put him under arrest? The—"

"The sub's right under me," Tolliver yelled back, "playing possum a hundred feet or so down." The ship started moving ahead. "Come in and drop your eggs. Then lock me up if you want."

He turned to Parker who was in a quandary as to what to do. The performances of the ship had shaken his nerve. He had begun to wonder whether he was the crazy man. Tolliver ignored him. Instead he walked out to the wing of the bridge and watched the destroyer do its work.

Huge seething hummocks of water rose as the ash-cans exploded under the surface. Four of them had gone off and the destroyer was coming back for a second run across the same spot. But there was no need. A half mile away a black nose appeared for a moment on the surface, stuck its beak up into the air, then with a loud hissing of escaping air fell back weakly into the water. Where it had been were three bobbing heads. There had been a sub under there!

"Thanks," flashed the destroyer, "well done. Rejoin convoy."

THEY went past Gib without stopping and made the hazardous trip to Alexandria without incident other than a few sporadic and ineffectual raids by enemy aircraft. At Alexandria Captain Tolliver found this message waiting for him; it was from ONI.

YOU ARE A BETTER GUESSER THAN SOME OF OUR EXPERTS. THE THREE MEN YOU TIPPED US OFF TO ARE IN JAIL. THEY PLANNED TO SEIZE THE SHIP AND DIVERT IT TO A NORWEGIAN PORT. CONGRATULATIONS.

The skipper gave a brief snort and then crammed the message into a pocket with his one good hand. Then he learned that on the voyage home he was to carry the convoy's commodore. The "commodore," a retired Navy captain, came aboard and looked around.

He did not say much until they were out of the Mediterranean and well to the west of Portugal. By then they had been joined by many other ships and were steaming in a formation much like the one before, with the difference that this time, being flagship, they were more nearly in the middle of the flotilla.

"You seem to have a remarkable ability to spot submarines, Captain," he remarked. "What is your secret?"

"Me?" said the skipper indignantly. "Hell, I can't see a submarine in the dark or under water any farther than the next man. All the credit is due to Sadie. She smells 'em. She hates 'em, too."

"Yes, I know. She rammed several in the last war, didn't she? And didn't they make her into a Q-ship?"

"She did. She was. If you'll look down there on the pedestal of the binnacle stand you'll see some file marks. There are fourteen of 'em now. Each one stands for a U-boat. Or raider. I tell you, she don't like Germans. She was a German herself, you know, but they didn't treat her right. She has a grievance."

"Now, Captain," laughed the commodore, "don't you think you are carrying your little joke too far? After all..."

"Do you know the story of this ship?" asked Tolliver fiercely, "well, listen."

It was close to midnight then and a bright moon was shining. The silhouettes of the ships about were distinct as black masses against the glittering white-kissed sea. The two officers went on talking, but their eyes were steadfastly kept ahead. This was a night when anything might happen.

"IN 1914 this ship was spanking new. She was the Königin von Sachsen or something of the sort, freshly turned out of the Vulcan Works at Stettin. The outbreak of the war caught her at Hoboken and they tied her up for the duration. But when we joined the war in '17 and took her over, her innards were something pitiful to see. Her crew had dry-fired her boilers and they were a mass of sagging tubes. The vandals cracked her cylinders with sledges, threw the valve gear and cylinder heads overboard, and messed up all the auxiliaries. They fixed the wiring so it would short the moment juice was put on it, and they took down steam leads and inserted steel blanks between the flanged joints. In other places they drove out rivets and replaced them with ones of putty. I tell you she was dynamite, even after they fixed up the boilers and main machinery.

"Naturally, having a thing like that done to you would make you sore especially if you were young and proud and the toast of the Imperial German merchant marine. But that was not all. On her first trip across—  I was mate then—  a sub slammed a torp into her off the north of Ireland and it took her stern away. Luckily she didn't sink and another ship put a hawser on us and worried us into Greenock where they fixed her up. That would have been bad enough, but on the trip home she smacks into a submarine-laid mine off the Delaware Capes and blows in her bow. We had to beach her near Cape May.

"They rebuilt her again and we set out. But her hard luck—  or mistreatment rather—  wasn't at an end. In those days our Secret Service wasn't as good as it is now and a saboteur got aboard. He gummed up things pretty bad. So bad that we caught afire and almost sank in mid-ocean. It took some doggoned hard work to save that ship, but help came and we stayed afloat. Well, that was the end of her patience. She went hog-wild. After that, no matter whether she was in convoy or not, whenever, anything that was German was around—  sub, torpedo, raider or what not—  she went after it, and never mind engine room bells or rudder. Her whimsies cost me a hand and a leg before we were through, but I didn't mind. I figured I could take it if she could.

"She broke the hearts of three captains. A lot of captains, you ought to know, object to having the ship take charge. They said she was unmanageable and chucked their jobs. That left me in command, though at the time I didn't rate the job. Knowing something of her history, I knew better than to interfere. Her hunches are the best thing I know. No matter what she does..."

"Hey?" yelled the commodore, thoroughly alarmed, "watch what you're doing."

The Sadie Saxon had sheered sharply from her course and was heading directly across the bows of a ship in the column to one side of them. It was too late then, even if the Sadie had been tractable, to do anything about it. A collision was inevitable. The commodore reached for the whistle pull, but Tolliver grabbed his arm and held it.

"Wait," he urged, "this means something. I know her."

An angry, guttural shout came from the bridge of the ship whose path they were about to cross. Then came the rending crash as steel bit into steel— thousands of tons of it at twelve knots speed. The other ship had rammed the Sadie Saxon just abreast the mainmast and she heeled over sharply, spilling deck gear over the off rail. At once pandemonium reigned in the convoy as ships behind sheered out to avoid compounding the already serious collision.

At once fresh confusion succeeded. The ship that was the victim of the Sadie's caprice suddenly dropped her false bulwarks and the moonlight glinted off the barrels of big guns both fore and aft. Harsh orders sounded in German and the guns began spitting fire. Shells began bursting against ships on all sides as the raider that had insinuated itself into the midst of the convoy began its work. Escort ships began dashing toward the scene, worming their way through the scattering freighters so as to get to a spot where they could open fire.

"I told you," said Captain Tolliver, serenely. "You can always trust her."

But she was sinking, and the crew were lowering what boats they could. The commodore was one of the first to leave, since he was in charge of the entire expedition and must transfer his flag to a surviving ship. Tolliver stayed behind. There was not room enough in the boats for one thing, and his faith in the durability of the Sadie Saxon was unlimited. He had seen her in worse plight many times before.

The raider had succeeded in backing away, but it, too, was in a perilous condition. Her bows were torn wide open and she was fast going down by the head. She continued to fire viciously at everything within reach, paying especial attention to the crippled Sadie Saxon. A shell struck her funnel and threw fragments and splinters onto the bridge. One fragment struck Captain Tolliver in the right thigh and he went down with a brief curse. Another pair of projectiles burst aft among the rest of the crew who were engaged in freeing a life raft from the mainmast shrouds. It must have killed them all, for when shortly afterward a destroyer ranged alongside and hailed, there was no answering cry.

Tolliver battled himself to the wing of the bridge and managed to cut an opening in the weather screen. He looked out just in time to see the flaming remnants of the raider sink under the moon-tipped waves. The freighters had all gone and the destroyers were charging off in a new direction. Apparently submarines, working in conjunction with the camouflaged raider, had made their appearance. Tolliver watched a moment, then was aware of a growing faintness. His leg must be bleeding more than he thought. In a moment everything turned black.

IT was broad daylight when he came to again. Another peep showed him an empty ocean. The convoy must have gone on, as it was proper and correct it should. And then he heard the burr and roar of airplanes overhead. They swooped low, machine-gunning the decks systematically on the assumption men were still aboard. One, more daring than the rest, swooped in between the masts. Sadie Saxon was trembling in every plate and rivet.

"Steady, girl," murmured the now delirious captain, laying his cheek against the bridge deck and patting it gently with his one hand. "you can't handle those, I know. But we've done enough, you and I. We can't keep afloat forever."

Her answer was typical. He had no way of knowing how deep she was in the water, or what her trim, but she heeled violently to port—  hung there a moment, then turned quietly over on her side. The instant she to chose do it was just as the daring raider plane was diving beneath her radio antennae, ready to drop its final bomb. Captain Tolliver heard its wings snap off and its body crash as the whipping, heeling mast struck it. There was a final burst of flame, and the rest was cool, green water. The old sea-dog felt the waves close over him, but he was smiling and content.

"Bless her old heart," was his last thought, "she even got one of those."

End

Table of Contents

- 1: Anachron Inc.
- 2: Barrius, Imp.
- 3: When is When?
- 4: Admiral's Inspection
- 5: White Mutiny
- 6: Blockade Runner
- 7: Slacker's Paradise
- 8: Devil's Powder
- 9: Bullard Reflects
- 10: Brimstone Bill
- 11: Orders
- 12: The Bureaucrat
- 13: Alien Envoy
- 14: The Anarch
- 15: Chariots of San Fernando
- 16: Children of the "Betsy B"
- 17: Doubled and Redoubled
- 18: The Giftie Gien
- 19: Joshua's Battering Ram
- 20: Murder in the Time World
- 21: Not According To Dante
- 22: Philtered Power
- 23: Pride
- 24: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
- 25: Stellar Showboat
- 26: Train For Flushing
- 27: Tricky Tonnage
- 28: Vengeance In Her Bones