Stories Complete, page 7
It was after 1500 when Raymond came into the workshop to call him for lunch. He went out. A helping of canned beef and beans was set out on the table. Elvera was in the other room. When he sat down, Raymond went in to join his mother.
It was part of the new order. No longer did he join them at mealtimes. Instead Elvera and Raymond ate first, then retired to the other room.
He was on his second cup of coffee, when Raymond burst into the room. “Pop, there’s a tractor coming over the ridge! It’s a big one. Mom says she thinks it’s—Pryor!”
Sam got up and squinted out the port. It was Pryor. Even as he watched, the big red vehicle stopped outside the lock and the door swung open.
Sam Tuttle turned to his wife. “I’m going into the workshop, Elvera. When Pryor comes in tell him I’m in there!”
Moments later, through the partition wall, he was aware of Pryor’s voice. “I’ve got the deed to that, piece of property your husband bought, Mrs. Tuttle. I promised I’d drop around with it.”
Sam waited—waited for his wife’s answer. There was none. Just the sound of footsteps retreating into the other room. There was a long silence. Then he heard Raymond’s voice, “Pop’s inside the workshop. He says for you to go in there.”
More footsteps, lighter ones this time, followed by Pryor’s tread—heavy, even in the light gravity. The door opened. From his seat at the workbench, Sam looked over his shoulder. “Come in Mr. Pryor,” he said.
Doyle Pryor walked in and sat on the edge of the bench. “Just thought I’d bring this deed around,” he said. “Was over to the Settlement this morning and had it drawn up. I think you’ll find it’s all—” he stopped; a bewildered look crept over his face.
Sam turned, following his gaze to the center of the room. “What’s the matter Mr. Pryor?” he said. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”
Pryor didn’t answer. Instead he walked to within two feet of the object that held his attention. It was the piece of meteorite Sam Tuttle had chipped from the larger stone. No mistake about that. It was shaped like a horse’s nose. And like a horse’s nose it bobbed up and down in mid-air, squarely in the center of the room!
FOR a full minute, Pryor squinted at the strange phenomenon. Then, a little awkwardly, he passed his hand over it, searching for invisible means of support. There was a trick to it—there had to be a trick to it! Afraid to touch it because of the vibration, he finally turned to Sam. “What is it? How do you make it stay up there like that?” he asked.
Sam turned up his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how it works. I just brought it in from outside and that’s what happened. Maybe it’s the heat of the room—or something.”
Pryor watched it thoughtfully for a while. Then he walked to the window. Outside, he could see the rest of the rock still strapped to the tractor. He turned back to Sam. “Got any idea what makes it do that?” he asked.
Sam managed to look puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I never heard of any rock that acted that way before.”
Pryor eyed him suspiciously. “You mean you never heard of—of—”
“Heard of what?”
“Never mind. Skip it . . . you know Tuttle. I’d. like to own a piece of that rock.”
“You would?”
“Yeah. I’ll pay you for it—pay you good.”
Sam moved the stool to the center of the room and sat down directly under the stone. “I don’t know,” he said. “Something that can do tricks like that, might be worth a lot of money.”
“I’ll pay you a lot of money!” Pryor said bluntly.
“What do you call a lot of money?”
Pryor dug into his jacket pocket and came up-with a handful of big bills. He threw them on the workbench without bothering to count them. “There’s over Sil,000 here. It’s all yours for this rock, and the niece that’s outside!”
Sam Tuttle picked up the bills. After Pryor had pocketed the receipt he’d given him, he started for the door. “I’ll load the big piece on my tractor, then I’ll come back for that,” he said.
Sam sat down at the bench and began counting the bills.
“I thought you said there was no such thing as a shield stone, Pop?”
Sam turned. Raymond was at his elbow. Elvera was behind him in the doorway. “Guess what honey?” he said. “I just sold my shield stone for $11,000.” He waited—waited for the favorable reaction that never came. Instead, his wife’s face wrinkled into a tight, hard knot.
“Sam, you didn’t? Why it must be worth millions . . . It’s the only one ever—”
Sam held up his hand. “Wait a minute, honey. Let me explain, or should I wait till Pryor gets back and explain to you all at once?”
“What’s there to explain?” Elvera asked impatiently. “There’s a solid piece of rock floating in the air. How do you explain that?”
“Simple,” Sam said. “I did it with my little gadgets.”
“You mean you’ve discovered a gadget that will make a rock float in the air?”
“If the rock contains iron, yes.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t understand it then,” Elvera said. “I’m not very bright about things like that.”
Sam looked at the floating rock lovingly. “On the contrary, honey, this one’s so simple, even Raymond would understand it. I guess it’s because it’s so simple, that nobody ever thought of it before.”
“Tell me how it works, Pop?” Raymond asked.
Sam jerked an index finger at the ceiling. “Well son, first I hooked up an electromagnet under the ceiling insul-boards so that when current is applied, it would tend to draw any object composed of iron toward the ceiling.”
“But it isn’t on the ceiling,” Elvera interrupted. “It’s halfway between the floor and the ceiling.”
“It’s at the point of equal force,” Sam said smugly.
“What’s that Pop?”
“The rock is hanging at a point where the gravity of the moon and the force exerted by the magnet are equal. That point will vary depending on the strength of the magnet and the size of the object to be suspended. In this case it’s about halfway between the floor and the ceiling,” Sam said.
“You mean you have that rock balanced at that point of equal force?” Elvera said.
SAM grinned. “Well—not by itself. To do it I had to employ another gadget. It’s an old one too—almost as old as the electromagnet itself.” Sam pointed to one of the junk-filled shelves that lined the room. “Concealed behind those cans,” he went on, “is a common, ordinary, electric eye. Its beam is directed across a spot just above this point of equal force, and it’s hooked up to the electromagnet underneath the ceiling. Can you figure it out for yourself from there?”
Elvera stared at the rock, still vibrating in the center of the room. “I—I think so,” she said. “As soon as the metal in the rock is pulled toward the ceiling, it’s path crosses the beam of the electric eye, which in turn shuts the current off. Then gravity takes over, pulls it down a little till the electric eye can take hold again. Then the whole thing begins over again.”
“Exactly,” Sam said.
“That’s what makes it shimmy, huh Pop?”
“Yes Raymond. That’s what makes it shimmy.”
Elvera continued to look at the stone. “It’s a wonderful idea, Sam,” she said. “I wonder if it would work on earth?”
“I don’t see why not,” Sam said. “One thing’s sure. We’re going to find out. I’ll need a bigger magnet and—”
He stopped when Elvera suddenly put her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry Sam,” she said, “I take back all I said about you not being a shrewd business man. I want to be here to see Pryor’s face when he comes back.”
As if in answer to the request, a sharp rap suddenly sounded on the amber glass. With a wink at his wife, Sam went to the lock and ushered Doyle Pryor inside.
“I’ll take that other piece now,” Pryor said. “How’ll we get it down?”
“Easy,” Sam said. Quickly he walked to the wall and threw the switch that shut off the current. The vibrating motion of the rock suddenly stopped.
“Pop, look!” Raymond said.
Quickly, Sam reached over to pull his son out of the path of the stone . . . as it drifted slowly across the room.
Riddle of the Rim
Gallion was a mysteriously deserted planet, inhabited only by one gorgeous girl. It was not until after her death that Vince Conway learns she never really existed at all, and by then he is thoroughly enmeshed in the
ACTUALLY there’s no good reason why the name “Vince Conway” should be cut into stone. Frontier legends from time immemorial are crammed full of colorful characters who by attributes of courage, stamina, sheer-luck, or sometimes plain-ordinary-cussedness, have managed to scrawl their names across the annals of history. Furthermore, literally scores of men before him had been out to the perimeter.
Possibly the fact that he alone returned to tell about it is enough to make him a hero. Yet curiously enough, it is at this point that the saga of Vince Conway begins. . . .
For over three-hundred years now, men had been pushing at the stars. Inquisitive, searching, snooping men they were who came in ships and clumped their human cargo out onto every fifth-rate planet and satellite. They came. They ransacked. And then they left, with new and better raw materials which could be wrought into new and better ships, which in turn were capable of snooping even further into the dark crannies of space.
All the way out they went. Out past Procyon, Aquila, and into the sun’s of Cassiopeia and their myriad swarms of planets. More men, more ships. Expanding, and sometimes fighting among themselves for the dubious honor of stabbing a new pin into the lens-shaped galactic maps that already resembled a giant swelling cancer.
Out past Cygni then, and into the coal-sack that knifed
through the galaxy like an ancient black-top highway. And inevitably—high up on the perimeter—a scant eight light-years from the rim, they reached the orange sun of Mercedes and it’s single planet, Gallion.
There they stopped.
And for a hundred-and-eight years, Gallion remained the final terminus of the galactic land-grab.
In defense of man’s tenacity, it should be clearly stated that the six virgin suns beyond Gallion did not remain that way through mortal laziness. Thirty-seven ships—each with its full complement of men—had tried to crack the perimeter. And thirty-seven ships had failed. They simply hadn’t returned.
Vince Conway and the crew of the “Orion Girl,” was the thirty-eight.
Twelve-trillion miles out from Gallion was where the trouble started; out in the region of Yeandro, first star-hurdle out from the frontier. There, three of the piles had fizzled out, and he’d had to set her down on an all-but-dead planet out near the edge of that system. He hadn’t set her down really. Slammed her down was a better word for it. . . . When you hit a dead sea-bed at four-hundred miles an hour, you don’t set down anything except the odds on your own life.
And yet, fantastically and incredibly, he’d survived—survived to bury his crew, and contemplate his own chances of survival.
At first, he’d kept track of the time, then as the weeks blended into months, he ceased to care. The ship’s stores had kept him well fed, and the thin but breathable atmosphere had kept him alive. There was no hope of rescue—even his wildest dreams had failed to give credulity to that possibility. So finally in desperation, he did the next best thing. Partly through willful-wishing, and partly through sheer boredom, he’d set about repairing the ship. Slowly, and painstakingly, he attempted to weld plates with little or no equipment, and straightened twisted pieces of metal with his bare hands. And then, months—or was it years—later, he’d braced the flame end of a metal coffin that wouldn’t have brought ten credits for junk, against the rock clay of a dead planet. and blasted off for Gallion.
He hadn’t really expected to make it—not deep down inside lie hadn’t. The odds were too long. It was too much like one of those bug-yarns they spin across the spacemen’s bar back in the thick parts of the galaxy. . . . But he had—after a fashion he had. The last thing he remembered, was that he’d flubbed the landing.
The “Orion Girl,” battered, beaten, and throbbing at the seams, had failed to respond properly at the final moment of her triumph. Now, half a mile from the Earth Settlement, she lay on her side, her plates twisted into a shapeless mass and her nose buried in the soft, reel loam of the frontier planet Gallion.
Through a jagged rent in the hull, the sun of Mercedes stabbed an orange pencil of light across the face of the man who lay slumped alongside the control board.
For a long while Vince Conway didn’t move—just lay there, his black hair matted in a thin puddle of his own blood. Then he stirred. His eyes opened, and dazedly he wiped a grimy sleeve across the crimson that seeped from a dozen angry gashes in his forehead. Carefully then, he tried to derrick himself on one elbow. A numbing pain knifed through his right side. Against the pain, he braced both elbows on the floor and pushed himself to a sitting position. Deliberately, he twisted his head, peering out the shattered porthole toward the Earth Settlement half a mile away. . . . There, like a symphony in steel and concrete, the pastel colored buildings of Gallion’s only city stood etched against the sky. It was a beautiful sight, especially where the Governor’s Mansion reared its slender spires toward the sun.
Vince Conway got up, first to one knee and then to a grotesque standing position that afforded the least pain. Unsteadily, he stumbled across the slanting metal floor, and out the lock door.
Outside, the sweet smell of point grass caressed his nostrils. And half-a-mile away the buildings of the walled city beckoned to him like some rare gem on a far-off galaxy. He took a step forward. Another. Stumbling steps they were, each one bought and paid for with an effort born out of raw determination. Unconsciously, he found himself beginning to count the steps. He’d got to thirty-six when his head began to swim. He jerked it sidewise—hard; trying to shake off the thick greyness that was dropping over him. Another step. . . . The orange sun was reeling now. He closed his eyes to shut out the brightness, but the glare continued. His knees felt very weak. He stumbled, his fingers clutching at thin air. . . . Then the brightness inside his head exploded into a thousand splinters.
He awoke slowly, like some slimy thing coming out of the deep sleep of hibernation. He was lying face-down in a patch of point grass. Only a stone’s-throw away, the “Orion Girl,” crushed and broken, lay like some discarded child’s-toy in a giant sandbox. And behind the ship, the orange sun climbed up over the flat monotony of the planet. It was a new day on Gallion, and Vince Conway was hungry.
He got up, testing his knees—surprised that they didn’t buckle under him. Though his head ached a little, he was feeling much better.
Deliberately he turned, facing the gleaming spires of the city. It looked closer now; almost close enough to reach out and touch. He started walking toward it, nervously, and with an odd and unexplainable apprehension mounting within him. . . . How would he react to human companionship, after all the years he’d spent alone? What should he say? Should he rush up to the first person he encountered and say: “Hello. How are you? I’m Vince Conway and I’ve just returned from
the perimeter?” Was that the thing to say? It was a silly thing to worry about—stupid and ridiculous. Yet as he neared the wall, his anxiety continued to mount. His pace, which had been quickening steadily, had now reached a fast trot. With a jagged burst of speed, he completed the final hundred yards and plunged through the big metal wall gates. . . . He stopped.
He was in the trade center, that bustling market-place where wares from a thousand worlds were processed and distributed. Here, under the flat-roofed building-tops, shrewd merchants vied wits against hardened spacemen and meek housewives alike for the materials necessary for their own conception of survival.
But it had changed. Though the buildings stood as always, wrapped in gaudy tints of green and yellow, the streets were different. No longer did they throb with the hurried beat of footsteps and the swish of landcars. Instead, they were covered with a layer of fine red dust, blown in from the flatlands. . . . Like the ageless canals of far-off Mars, they stretched out silently as far as the eye could reach. And there was no sound in them. Just the quiet decay of steel and concrete left to its own resources.
There were no people!
II
For the better part of a minute, the man who’d traveled fifteen-trillion miles for the sight of a human face remained motionless, dully staring at the silent buildings that flanked the naked avenues. Overhead, almost at zenith now, the raw orange sun spilled hot rays across the building-tops and into the streets, where it settled into thin mirage-puddles that shimmered against the distant building-fronts. Other than that, there was no movement.
Then, almost in panic, he was running again. Stumbling along the avenue that led deeper into the city. Faster he ran—very fast, slowing up only at intersections where he flicked quick futile glances for some sign of movement. But there was none. There were no people, no movement, and no sound except the metallic cadence of his spiked shoes against the pavement.
Almost exhausted, he stopped near the center of city, breathing hard, and gulping in long breaths of air that felt cold against his palate. Ahead of him, the street divided, circling the imported green lawn that bordered the Governor’s Mansion. . . . He felt very tired, not with the fatigue that comes from over-exertion, but with the soul-racking weariness of defeat and frustration. Then, overwhelmed by a feeling of complete and utter futility he flung himself face down on the rich green lawn. He lay very still, breathing in the sweet smell of the imported clover grass. There was something about the grass—a subtle cleanness that sent his thoughts reeling back to better days. For a long while he just lay there, his mind digesting half-forgotten memories of pine forests and green meadows. Like a swift kaleidoscope, the pictures continued to march across his brain. Now the smell of clover was dissolving. In its place was another all-but-forgotten smell. The pungent odor of tobacco smoke. . . . TOBACCO SMOKE!
