Complete Short Fiction, page 240
“You have my best wishes—”
James Lesbee, the third, acting captain, sat in the great captain’s chair, which he had rigged up on the bridge, and pondered the problem of the old people.
There were too many of them. They ate too much. They required constant attention.
It was ridiculous having seventy-nine people around who were over a hundred years old.
On the other hand, some of those old scoundrels knew more about science and interstellar navigation than all the younger people put together. And they were aware of it, too, the cunning, senile wretches.
“Let’s see now, which ones could be killed without danger of destroying valuable knowledge? He began to write down names, mostly of women and nonofficers among the men. When it was finished he stared down at it thoughtfully, and mentally selected the first five victims. Then he pressed a button beside his chair.
After two minutes a heavy built young man climbed up the steps from below.
“Yeah,” he said, “what is it?”
Lesbee III gazed at the other with carefully concealed distaste.
There was a coarseness about Atkins that offended his sensibilities, and in a curious fashion it seemed to him that he could never like the mail who had killed his father, James Lesbee, Jr—even though he himself had ordered the killing.
Lesbee sighed. Life was a constant adaptation to the reality of the inorganic and organic matter that made up one’s environment.
In order to get a man properly murdered, you had to have a capable murderer. From a very early age he had realized that his nonentity of a father would have to be eliminated. Accordingly, he had cultivated Atkins.
The man must be kept in his place, of course.
“Atkins,” said Lesbee with a weary wave of one hand, “I have some names here for you. Be careful. Do not make the mistake of making a mistake. The deaths must appear natural, or I will disown you as an inefficient fool.”
The big man grunted. He was the grandson of one of the original workers in the hydroponic radiation gardens, and it had caused quite a stir when he had been relieved of his duties as a gardener some seven years before.
The resentment died quickly when the officer’s son who protested the loudest was put to work in Atkins’ place.
Lesbee had thought out things like that years before he acted against his father. His plan was to kill Atkins as soon as he had served his purpose.
With an aloof air, he gave the first five names, gave them verbally; and then, as Atkins withdrew down the steps, he turned his attention to the screen. He pressed another button, and presently the graying son of the old first officer climbed up to the bridge and came over to him, slowly.
“What is it—captain?”
Lesbee hesitated. He was not sure he liked the slight pause before the use of his title. He was not sure that he liked Carson.
He sighed. Life was a problem of so many adjustments, with everybody making a fetish of hoarding what knowledge they had. One had to put up with so much, and that was strange because he could remember in his own youth that people even then had been much more open-handed and open-hearted.
Why, the first generation had taught their children everything they knew—so it was said.
“Uh, Mr. Carson, what are the latest reports on Sirius?”
Carson brightened. “We are now within ten thousand billion miles. The ship has been swung around for deceleration purposes, but it will be a week yet before the telescopes will be able to determine definitely the size of the planets or whether they have atmospheres.”
“Any, uh, radiation activity?” Mr. Carson started to shake his head. He stopped. A curious expression came into his eyes. Lesbee twisted to follow his gaze. Slowly, he stiffened.
The forward half of the plexiglass bridge was twinkling with a scattering of sparks. Even as Lesbee stared, they grew more numerous.
In an hour the gas storm had dosed in around them.
Sirius A at five hundred million miles looked about the size of the Sun as seen from Earth. Lesbee III did not make the comparison from his own experience. There were motion picture views that provided a fairly exact standard for judgment. What was radically different was the planetary arrangement.
There were two planets between Sirius A and its companion sun. Their orbital speed was fantastically swift, the one nearest B having a velocity of nearly-two hundred miles a second. The other one, which was four hundred and seventy million miles from. A, had a velocity of just over one hundred and twenty-five miles a second.
It was this nearest planet that offered their only hope. With a diameter of seventeen thousand miles, it was less than half the size of the second planet, and about one hundredth the size of the planets that swung weightily beyond the erratic orbit of Sirius B.
Lesbee III studied the reports, depressed but determined. It was clear that the universe had not been designed for the comfort and convenience of man. But he must be careful not to accept the implied defeat.
Reluctantly, he made his way to the cabin where, for long now, he had segregated his aged grandfather.
He found the old man sitting up in a chair, watching a small screen view of the planet that swung nearer and nearer. Possession of the screen was one of the many small courtesies which the younger man extended to the other, but so. far it had produced no friendliness.
His grandfather did not look up as he entered. After a little, Lesbee walked over and settled himself in a chair facing the other.
He waited resignedly. It was hard when people misunderstood one’s purposes. He had once thought his grandfather would understand, even if no one else did, that James Lesbee III had the interests of the trip at heart.
Perhaps it was too much to expect, though. Human beings were always willing to be objective—about other human beings; and so an old man resented the method by which he had been retired.
Some day, no doubt, he, Lesbee III, would be retired by Lesbee IV. now ten years old. It seemed to the young man in a sudden burst of self-pity, that when the time came he would accept the situation gracefully—provided it didn’t happen too soon.
His annoyance passed. He launched his bombshell:
“Grandfather, I have come to ask your permission to announce that you will come out of retirement during the whole period that we are in the vicinity of Sirius, and that during that period you will direct the activities of the ship.”
The long, thin, scrawny body moved, but that was all. Lesbee suppressed a smile. It seemed to him that his grandfather’s mind must be working furiously. He pressed his purpose, as persuasively as possible:
“Throughout your life, sir, you have had but one purpose: to ensure that the voyage of the Centaurus II is completed according to the orders you received from the Space Board. I have read those orders, so I know what your feeling is. And I want to assure yon that I understand fully the importance of this mission.”
He shrugged. “Frankly, I like it aboard ship. Here, after your death—which I hope will never take place—I shall be commander. People used to be worried about the fact that there was one more girl in the third generation than there were men. I solved that problem very simply. I took a second wife. It was shocking for a while, but now no one gives it a second thought.”
He leaned back easily. “A voyage like this is something special. We’re a little private world, and we have to make private adjustments to changing conditions.”
He paused, and waited. But the old man said nothing. Lesbee smothered his irritation in an affable smile.
“You might be interested, sir, in the suggestions I have to make for our stay within the Sirius system. Naturally, it is already pretty certain that we cannot land here. That atmosphere below is saturated with sulphur. Just what that would do to our ship I don’t know. But one thing is certain. We’ve got to find out right here where we go next.”
It seemed to Lesbee that he had his audience interested now. The old man was stroking his scraggly white beard, his lips pursed thoughtfully.
But again it was Lesbee who broke the gathering silence:
“I have studied the reports of the methods used to re-establish communication with the Centaurians. The methods all seem too timid, considered in retrospect. There was no bold determination on your part to force attention from them, and although you spent months longer than your original intention cruising around, your lack of initiative made that merely a waste of time.
“It was obvious even then that there is a chlorine-breathing interstellar civilization, somewhat superior to that of Earth. Now, here is a sulphur breathing world.”
He leaned forward, in a sudden intensity: “We must make ourselves so obnoxious to these people that they will give us all the information we want. Are you interested?”
The old man stirred. Slowly he straightened his long body. His eyes narrowed to slits of blue.
“Just what have you got in mind,” he asked, “besides murder?”
The atomic bomb that was fired into the atmosphere of Sirius I attained a velocity of thirty miles a second. And so, in spite of the violently exploding energy flares that soared up to meet it, it penetrated to within forty miles of the planet’s dimly seen surface before it was finally exploded by a direct hit.
In one hour, when the entire scene was still concealed by an impenetrable cloud, they had their first reaction.
A transparent, glittering shell not more than eight feet in diameter was detected by the shadow telescopes. There was something inside it, but whatever it was refused to resolve into focus.
It came nearer and nearer, and still the thing inside would not show clearly to their straining eyes.
Lesbee III stood on the bridge beside the chair in which his grandfather sat. And the sweat broke out on his brow. When the shell was two hundred yards distant, he said:
“Do you think we ought to let it come any nearer?”
The old man’s glance was contemptuous. “Our screens are up, aren’t they? If it’s a bomb, it can’t touch us.”
Lesbee III was silent. He did not share the old man’s confidence that Earth’s science was equal to anything that might happen in space. He was prepared to admit that he knew very little about Earth’s science, but still—that shell.
“It seems to have stopped, sir.” That was Carson, pointedly addressing the aged captain, ignoring the acting captain.
The words relieved Lesbee III, but the first officer’s action saddened him. What kind of suicidal impulse made Carson think that the temporary presence of the hundred-year-old retired captain was a good reason for insulting the man who would be commander for thirty years more at least?
He forgot that, for the thing in the shell, whatever it was, was watching them intently. Lesbee III felt a hideous thrill. He said jumpily:
“Somebody get us a clear picture of it.”
The screen blurred, then cleared, but the object in the shell looked as confusing as ever. After a moment longer it moved in an unhuman fashion. Instantly the shell began to approach the spaceship again with a disturbingly steady forward movement.
Within seconds, it was less than a hundred yards away, and coming nearer.
“He’ll never get through the defenses!” Lesbee said doubtfully.
He watched the shell with a gathering tenseness. Not once did it slow. At twenty-five yards, it was already through the outer defenses not only of the ship but of Lesbee’s sanity.
He couldn’t see it. That was the damnable, mind-destroying part. His eyes kept twisting, as if his brain would not accept the image. The sensation was fantastic. His courage slipped from him like a rotted rag. He made a dive for the stairway, and was vaguely amazed to find Carson there ahead of him. He felt the burly Browne crowding his heels.
Lesbee III’s final memory of tin. bridge was of the ancient Captain Lesbee sitting stiffly in the great captain’s chair—and the alien shelf only a few feet from the outer hull.
They found his grandfather an hour later, still alive but quite mad. and stone blind. As they carried him down the steps to his room. Lesbee heard the old man muttering away to himself. He strained, and a few words came through:
“. . . We forgot the eccentric orbit of Canis Major A with its B. We forgot that B is one of the strange suns of the Galaxy . . . so heavy, so monstrously heavy—it came originally from a planet of B—’ ”
In the cabin, Lesbee had his first good look at the lined and bearded face. He was shocked. The eyes were all wrong, twisted, crossed, as if they had tried to look at something that could not be seen by human eyes. As he watched they continued to twist, sightlessly, horribly.
Captain James Lesbee, first commander of the Centaurus II, died in the sleep hour that same sidereal day, seventy-seven years, four months and nine days out from Earth, at the honorable age of one hundred and six years.
Within six months, no man or woman of his generation remained alive.
It was then that Lesbee III made a major error. He attempted to carry out his purpose of getting rid of a no longer wanted Atkins.
The death of Lesbee III at the hands of Atkins—who was immediately executed despite his plea of self-defense—created a new crisis aboard the Centaurus II.
James Lesbee IV was only ten years old, and, though it was urged by Browne that he be made captain at once, First Officer Carson thought otherwise.
“It is true,” he said sanctimoniously, “that he will be grown up by the time we reach Procyon, but in the meantime we will establish a Captain’s Council to command for him.”
In this he was supported by Second Officer Luthers. And several weeks went by before Browne discovered the two wives of Lesbee III were now living with Carson and Luthers.
“You old goats!” he said, at the next meeting of the Captain’s Council, “I demand an immediate election. And if you don’t agree right now, I’m going to the scientists and the crew.”
He stood up, and towered over the smaller men. The older men shrank back, and then Carson made the mistake of trying to draw a blaster from an inside pocket. When he was in a hurry Browne did not know his own strength. He grabbed the two men, and bumped their heads together. The power of that bump was too much for human bone and flesh, particularly since Browne’s rage did not permit him to stop immediately.
The developing limpness of the two bodies in his grasp finally brought him out of his passion. When full realization penetrated, he called the scientists into session, and it was then decided to hold an election.
It required a while to make the people understand what was wanted, but finally an executive council was duly elected by secret ballot. And this council recognized the right of James Lesbee IV to succeed his father when he reached maturity. In the meantime the council offered the temporary captaincy to Browne, for a term of one year.
By the following year two of the council members had thought over the situation, and offered themselves as candidates for the captaincy. Browne was re-elected.
The former third “officer was vaguely annoyed at the opposition that had developed against him.
“Why,” he said in a hurt tone to his eldest son, “they don’t know anything about the duties of an officer.”
He began to train his two sons in the details of the work.
“You might as well know something about it,” he said. “Somebody’s got to.”
For a while his conscience bothered him, and then he began to hear that there was a campaign of vilification being carried on against him behind his back.
“Things never used to be like this,” he complained to the council. “When donkeys like young Kesser and that middle-aged goat Plauck can call you a fool behind your back, there’s something wrong. I think maybe next year you fellows had better appoint me captain until Lesbee is twenty-five years old, and end that kind of nonsense. We can’t take the chance of some nut getting control, now that we’re burning the inside of the ship in the fuel chambers.”
Councillor Plauck commented dryly that the selection of decorations to be used for fuel was a function which the science department shared with the ship’s officers. A knowledge of physics was a handy adjunct to any commander in a space cluttered with dangerous energies such as the cosmic rays.
Browne’s “recommendation,” as it was called, was refused. But he was re-appointed to the captaincy for another year.
It was shortly after this that one of the councillors, passing through the hydroponic gardens, saw a familiar face among the workers. He reported to the council, and an emergency meeting was called. Browne was suave.
“Why shouldn’t young Lesbee limber up his muscles a little? This idea of a separate hierarchy is all wrong. In my opinion, all the young people should work in the gardens for a time every year. I’m going to have that put to a vote. I’ll bet the regular garden workers would just love to have you big shots come around and tell them that there are people aboard this ship who are too good to do manual labor.”
Later, when he was asked about the progress of young Lesbee in his officer training, Browne shook his head, troubled.
“Frankly, gentlemen, it ain’t so wonderful. I have him come up to the bridge every day after he’s through at the gardens. And he just doesn’t seem to take any interest. I’m coming to the conclusion, reluctantly, that he just isn’t very bright. He just can’t learn good.”
It was clear to some of the council members at least, that Captain Browne was learning very “good” indeed.
James Lesbee IV did not pause in his picking of the ripened fruit. The nearest horizon of the hydroponic gardens was two hundred yards away, but his caution was boundless. He listened with a deliberate casualness as the girl spoke to him:
“Mother says the sparks started two days ago. So we must be near Procyon.”
Lesbee IV said nothing. He accepted the old explanation for the spark phenomena, that they occurred wherever there were two or more suns to draw huge masses of gases from one another’s atmospheres. He had given the girl her instructions the “night” before. It was now up to her to make her report. His fingers continued their automatic movements, as she went on:
