E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne (112 page)

It need hardly be mentioned, perhaps, that Seaton was enjoying himself very much. Although he was not, in truth, the ‘big, muscle-bound ape – especially between the ears’ he was wont to describe himself as, there was certainly a pleasure in being up against the sort of problem that muscle and skill could settle. For a time he was concerned about the fact that events elsewhere might be proceeding at a pace he could not control; but there was not a minute spent on the surface of this planet that was not a net gain in terms of the automatic repair of the
Valeron
. That great ship had been
hurt
. Since there was at the moment very little that Seaton could do effectively about DuQuesne, or directly about the Chlorans, or the Fenachrone – and there was a great deal he could do here on the surface of Ray-See-Nee – he put the other matters out of his mind and did what had to be done.

And enjoyed it enormously!

Seaton went ‘home’ to the empty and solitary house that was
his temporary residence and raised the oversize ring to his lips. ‘Dottie,’ he said.

‘Oh, Dick!’ a tiny scream came from the ring. ‘I
wish
you wouldn’t take such horrible chances! I thought I’d
die!
Won’t you, tomorrow morning, just shoot the louse out of hand?
Please?’

‘I wasn’t taking any chances, Dot; a man with half my training could have done it. I
had
to do something spectacular to snap these people out of it; they’re dead from the belt-buckle up, down, and back. But I’ve done enough, I think, so I won’t have any more trouble at all. It’ll get around – and
how!
– and strictly on the Q and T. All those other apes will need is a mere touch of fist.’

‘You hope. Me, too, for that matter. Just a sec, here’s Martin. He wants to talk to you about that machinery business,’ and Crane’s voice replaced Dorothy’s

‘I certainly do, Dick. You say you want two-hundred-fifty-pound Sullivan Sluggers, complete with variable-height mounts and inch-and-a-quarter – that’s English, remember – bits. You want Ingersoll-Rand compressors and Westinghouse generators and Wilfley tables and so on, each item by name and no item resembling any of their own machinery in any particular. Since you are supposed to be repairing their own machinery, wouldn’t it be better to have the Brain do just that, while you look on, making wise motions, and learn?’

‘It might be better, at that,’ Seaton admitted, after a moment’s thought. ‘My thought was that since nobody now working in the mine knows anything much about either mining or machinery it wouldn’t make any difference, as long as the stuff was good and rusty on the outside, and I know how our stuff works. But I can learn theirs and it will save a lot of handling and we’ll have the time. They’re working only two shifts in only one stope, you know. Lack of people. But nine-tenths of their equipment is as dead as King Tut and the rest of it starts falling apart every time anybody gives any of it a stern look – I was scared spitless all shift that we’d be running out of air or power, or both, any minute. So we’ll have to do one generator and at least one compressor tonight; so you might as well start getting the stuff ready for me.’

‘It’s ready. I’ll send it down as soon as it gets good and dark. In the meantime, how about Brother Rat? Have you anyone watching him?’

‘No, I didn’t think it was necessary. But it might be, at that. From up there, would you say?’

‘Definitely. And Shiro and Lotus haven’t much to do at the moment. I’ll make arrangements.’

‘Do that, guy, and so long till dark.’

‘Just a sec, Dick,’ Dorothy said then. ‘I’m not done with you yet. You remembered the no-neighbors bit, I think?’

‘I sure did, Honey-Chile. No
neighbors within half a mile. So, any dark of the moon, slip down here in one of the fifteen-footers and all will be well.’

‘You big, nice man,’ Dorothy purred. ‘Comes dark, comes me! An’ you can lay to that.’

Countless parsecs away, DuQuesne made proper entry into the solar system, putting his
Capital D
into a parking orbit around Earth, and began to pick up his tremendous order of machine tools and supplies. It went well; Brookings had done his job. There was, however, one job DuQuesne had to do for himself. During the loading, accordingly, he went in person to Washington, D.C., to the Rare Metals Laboratory, and to Room 1631.

That room’s door was open. He tapped lightly on it as he entered the room. He closed the door gently behind him.

‘Park it,’ a well-remembered contralto voice said. ‘Be with you in a moment.’

‘No rush.’ DuQuesne sat down, crossed his legs, lighted a cigarette, and gazed at the woman seated at her electronics panel. Both her eyes were buried in the light-shield of a binocular eyepiece; both her hands were manipulating vernier knobs in tiny arcs.

‘Oh! Hi, Blackie! Be with you in half a moment.’

‘No sweat, Hunkie. Finish your obs.’

‘Natch.’ Her attention had not wavered for an instant from her instruments; it did not waver then.

In a minute or so she pressed a button, her panel went dark, and she rose to her feet. ‘It’s been a long time, Blackie,’ she said, stepping toward him and extending her hand.

‘It has indeed.’ He took her hand and began an encircling action with his left – a maneuver which she countered, neatly but still smilingly, by grasping his left hand and holding it firmly.

‘Tsk, tsk,’ she tsked. ‘The merchandise is on display, Blackie, but it is not to be handled. Remember?’

‘I remember. Still untouchable,’ he said.

‘That’s right. You’re a hard-nosed, possessive brute, Blackie – any man to interest me very much would have to be, I suppose – but no man born is ever going to tell me what I can or can’t do. Selah. But let’s skip that.’ She released his hands, waved him to a chair, sat down, crossed her legs, accepted the lighted cigarette he handed her, and went on, ‘Thanks. The gossip was that you were all washed up and had, as Ferdy put it, “taken it on the lam.” I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. I’ve been wanting to tell you; you’re a good enough man so that whatever you’re really after, you’ll get.’

This woman could reach DuQuesne as no other woman ever had. ‘Thanks, Hunkie,’ he said; and, reaching out, he pressed her right hand hard then dropped it. ‘What I came up here for – have you a date for Thursday evening that you can’t or won’t break?’

Her smile widened; her two lovely dimples deepened. ‘Don’t tell me; let me guess. Louisa Vinciughi in
Lucia.
’

‘Nothing else but. You like?’

‘I love. With the usual stipulation – we “Dutch” it.’

‘Listen, Hunkie!’ he protested. ‘Aren’t you ever going to get off of that “Dutch” thing? Don’t you think a man can take a girl out without having monkey-business primarily in mind?’

She considered the question thoughtfully, then nodded. ‘As stated, yes. Eliding the one word “primarily”, no. I’ve heard you called a lot of things, my friend, but “stupid” was never one of them. Not even once.’

‘I know.’ DuQuesne smiled, a trifle wryly. ‘You are not going to be obligated by any jot or iota or tittle to any man living or yet to be born.’

Her head went up a little and her smile became a little less warm. ‘That’s precisely right, Marc. But I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I enjoy your company a lot. So, on that basis, okay and thanks.’

‘On that basis, then, if that’s the way it has to be, and thanks to you, too,’ DuQuesne said, and took his leave.

And Thursday evening came; and all during that long and thoroughly pleasant evening the man was, to the girl’s highly sensitive perception … well, different, although very subtly so. He was not quite, by some very small fraction, his usual completely poised and urbane self. Even Vinciughi’s wonderful soprano voice did not bring him entirely back from wherever it was he was. Wherefore, just before saying goodnight at the door of her apartment, she said:

‘You have something big on your mind, Blackie. Tremendously big. Would it help to come in and talk a while?’ This was the first time in all their long acquaintance that she had ever invited him into her apartment. ‘Or wouldn’t it?’

He thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘There are so many maybes and ifs and buts in the way that talking would be even more futile than thinking. But I’d like to ask you this: how much longer will you be here in Washington, do you think?’

She caught her breath. ‘The Observer says it’ll take me a year and a half to get what I should have.’

‘That’s fine,’ DuQuesne said. His thoughts were racing, but none of them
showed. What were those Observers doing? And why? He knew the kind of mind Stephanie de Marigny had – they were feeding with a teaspoon a mind fully capable of gulping it down by the truckload … why?
Why?
So as not to play favorites, probably – that was the only reason he could think of. DuQuesne was playing for very high stakes; he could not afford to overlook any possibility, however remote. Had his interest in Hunkie de Marigny been deduced by the Norlaminians? Was it,
in fact, possible – even likely – that he was under observation even now? Was their strange slowdown in her training meaningful? He could not answer; but he decided on caution. He went on with scarcely a noticeable pause, ‘I’ll see you well before that – if I may?’

‘Why, of course you may! I’d get an acute attack of the high dudgeons if you
ever
came to Washington without seeing me!’

He took his leave then, and she went into her apartment and closed the door … and stood there, motionless, listening to his receding footsteps with a far-away, brooding look in her deep brown eyes.

As the days had passed, more and more of the Skylarkers had come to ground in Seaton’s temporary home on the planet Ray-See-Nee; until many of them, especially Dorothy, were spending most of their nights there. On this particular evening they were all there.

Since the personal gravity-controls had been perfected long since, Dunark and Sitar were comfortable enough as far as gravity was concerned. The engineers, however, had not yet succeeded in incorporating really good ambient-atmosphere temperature-controllers into them; wherefore he was swathed in wool and she wore her fabulous mink coat. They each wore two Osnomian machine pistols instead of one, and they sat a couple of feet apart – in instant readiness for any action that might become necessary.

Lotus and Shiro, a little closer together than the two Osnomians but not enough so to get into each other’s way, sat cross-legged on the floor. He was listening intently, while she wasn’t. Almost everything that was being said was going completely over her head.

Dorothy, Margaret, and Crane sat around a small table, fingering tall glasses in which ice-cubes tinkled faintly.

Seaton paced the floor, with his right hand in his breeches pocket and his left holding his pipe, which he brandished occasionally in the air to emphasize a point.

‘Considering that we can’t do anything at all on unmuffled high-order stuff except when an ore-scow is here, masking our emanations,’ Seaton was saying, ‘we haven’t done too bad. However, I wouldn’t wonder if we’d just about run out of time and we’re right between the devil and the deep
blue sea. Mart, what’s your synthesis?’

Crane sipped his drink and cleared his throat. ‘You’re probably right in one respect, Dick. They apparently make a spectacle of these destructions of cities; not for the Chlorans’ amusement – I doubt very much if they enjoy or abhor anything, as we understand the term – but to keep the rest of the population of this world in line. Whether or not the quisling dictator of this world arranged for this city to be the next sacrifice, it is certain that we have interfered with the expected course of events to such an extent that the powers-that-be will at least investigate. But I can’t quite see the dilemma.’

‘I can,’ Dorothy said. They
have
to have a grisly example, once every so often; and since this one didn’t develop on schedule maybe they’ll go crying to mama instead of trying to handle us themselves. You see, they may know more about us than we think they do.’

‘That’s true, of course—’ Crane began, but Seaton broke in.

‘So I say it’s time to let Ree-Toe Prenk in on the whole deal and add him to our Council of War,’ he declared, and talk went on.

They were still discussing the situation twenty minutes later, when someone tapped gently on the front door.

The Osnomians leaped to their feet, pistols in all four hands. The two Japanese leaped to their feet and stood poised, knees and elbows slightly flexed, ready for action. Forty-five-caliber automatics appeared in the hands of the three at the table, and Crane flipped his remote control helmet onto his head. Seaton, magnum in hand, snapped on the outside lights and peered out through the recently installed one-way glass of the door.

‘Speak of the devil,’ he said in relief. ‘It’s Hizzoner.’ He opened the door wide and went on, ‘Come in, Your Honor. We were just talking about you.’

Prenk came in, his eyes bulging slightly at the sight of the arsenal of armaments now being put back into holsters. They bulged still more as he looked at the Japanese, and he gulped as he stared fascinatedly at the green-skinned Osnomians.

‘I knew, of course, within a couple of days,’ Prenk said then, quietly, ‘that you who call yourself Ky-El Mokak were not confining your statements to the exact truth. No wilder could possibly have done what you were doing; but by that time I knew that you, whoever you were, were really on our side. I had no suspicion until this moment, however, that you were actually from another world. I thought that your speech to the miners was what you said it was going to be, “a shot in the arm of hope”. It now seems more than slightly possible that you were talking about the very matters I came here tonight to see you about. Certain supplies, you will remember.’

‘I remember. I lied to you, yes. Wholesale and retail. But how else could I have made the approach, the mood you were in,
without blowing everything higher than up?’

Your technique was probably the best possible, I admit.’

‘Okay. Yes, we’re from a galaxy so far away from here that you could barely find it with the biggest telescope this world ever had. Our business at the moment is to wipe out every Chloran in this region of space, but we can’t do it without – among other things – a lot more data than we now have. And we’ll need weeks of time, mostly elsewhere, for preparation.