Kenneth Bulmer (18 page)
Authors: The Wizard of Starship Poseiden
"And after?"
"After that you'll
know why we're here."
Back
in Randolph's room, Howland listened. He felt stiff and sore and his body
stung; but soon that would go, and the whisky tasted good. He remembered
Mallow—and the Scotch tasted even better.
Charley
Kwang said, "Here's a letter for you, Peter. Came with the rest of the
mail; but all the fun and games prevented me from giving it to you before.
Check?"
"Check, Charley.
Thanks."
The
letter was from Helen. Howland let it lie in his fingers, limp, feeling the
paper, as he savored what it might say, and as he listened to Dudley Harcourt,
Vice-Chancellor of Lewistead, speaking.
"And,
Cheslin, I may say that I am
not
surprised
at what you didl I do believe that had I been put in your invidious position I
would, have done something similar myself. Although to rob a spaceliner in
deep space might have been a little above my sphere—"
-
"Rob, Dudley?" Randolph was
himself. Dapper, smart, arrogant, he stared at the police in the room as
though they belonged on a microscope slide. "I don't know what you're
talking about."
"It's
okay, professor." Warner carefully selected a cigar from Randolph's desk.
"We know what you did—and we know how you did it."
"Really? Please
enlighten me."
"Look, Cheslin. There is no need to
fence any more. We know. But I ought to say at the beginning that there have
been changes back on Earth in the year you've been here on Pochalin Nine.
There's been an election, for one."
"Results are out, are they? I suppose
the government retained their comfortable majority." Randolph was
speaking, Howland saw, in an effort to drag the conversation back to
rationality after the absurdities of the spaceliner holdup. "They're all a
corrupt bunch of politicans."
Harcourt
was smiling. "Look at me, Cheslin. In me you see the archetype of
corruption. As Vice-Chancellor at Lewis-tead I was in fairly close contact with
Mahew, the Chancellor. And he was Secretary for Extra-Solar Affairs."
"Was?"
"Was, Cheslin. The old government is
out.
OutI
And we're in! Oh, you never bothered your
head over my political affiliations, that I know. But I now find myself in the
extraordinary position of sorting through Mahew's mess—in other words, my dear
Cheslin—I am now Secretary for Extra-Solar Affairs."
"A very big boy indeed," said
Howland. Everyone in the room ignored him. Randolph held their attention;
Randolph, still, against the power of the new Secretary.
"Dudley!
You artful old skin-grafter, you! Of course I knew you were mixed up in
politics, and spoke the same language as Mahew—but this is marvelous!
Congratulations."
"Thank
you, Cheslin. But what this means is that I, as a small part of the government,
have to prosecute you for what the news people called 'this audacious crime'
and the "holdup of the century.' You do follow?"
Warner broke in giving Randolph no time to
answer. "We know you did it, prof. And very clever, too. Mr. Harcourt
really provided the answer when he mentioned Dr. Haffner's work on viruses. We
put it all together in our funny old-fashioned forensic way."
"Don't be so modest, Warner," said
Randolph, tartly.
You still couldn't really like the undercover
agent, despite bis obvious willingness to be pleasant. Why he was trying to be
decent, no one, least of all Howland, on the scientific staff could comprehend.
Harcourt supplied the answer.
"Had
the elections gone through just that little earlier, then you would have
received the Maxwell Fund without the slightest hitch. As it was—well, we won't
go into all that painful business again. Suffice to say that my government
feels that your work on creation of life is so important that we will not only
see you receive the Maxwell Fund but also a tidy sum direct from the government
itself. In fact, Cheslin, the amount we are prepared to advance, by some
co-incidence, tallies exactly with the amount that was in the strong-room of
Poseidon."
Howland stood, stunned. Randolph turned his
great frog's-eyes up at his friend, Dudley Harcourt, Vice-Chancellor of
Lewistead and now also Secretary for Extra-Solar Affairs— a very big boy
indeed—and smiled his cheeky, perky, unrepentant urchin grin.
"I thank you, Dudley.
And I understand—"
"Not
quite finished, Cheslin. The robbery from
Poseidon
was important enough for us not to want a
repetition. There will be a trial arising from charges already made. I can tell
you that you will not be there in person at the trial neither will your name or
the names of your associates be mentioned. But the sentence will be two years
in prison—"
"Prison! Two
years!"
"Yes,
Cheslin, for the law cannot be flouted. However, the name of the prison happens
to be Pochalin Nine. You will stay here for two years—"
But
a shaky laugh of relief swept over Randolph and Howland and Haffner and the
others, a relief that they could not openly express for fear of ridicule. But
they all felt it. Two years in prison—but the prison was here, where they were
working their hearts out unraveling the secrets of life— a measly two years
here—they'd been prepared to spend ten if necessary.
"Thank
you, Dudley," said Randolph. And this time he really meant it, meant it
more than anything he'd said before. For money was after all only colored
scraps of paper and entries in ledgers—but work on Pochalin Nine trying to
outsmart nature was an essential part of him, his whole being, and without it
he would shrivel into a useless dried husk.
The principals went quiedy away to settle the
details. The ex-space Navy men went to their quarters and soon the sounds
emanating from there showed they were in full swing celebrating. Haffner and Howland,
in the middle and marooned from either party, went their own separate ways—
Howland to read Helen's letter.
In part, she reaffirmed that she loved him
and wanted to many him. That was satisfactory. Howland, sitting on his bed,
read on avidly. She was back at Lewistead working on the manuscripts. They were
more puzzling than she had at first realized. But she still believed in her
ideas.
"If
I'm right it will mean that I shall spend a long time at Lewistead writing my
paper and trying to settle as much as possible of the differences between the
schools of thought. I'm sorry about that, Peter—I want to get married as much
as you do—but if your work takes you to Pochalin Nine then mine as insistendy
holds me here at Lewistead."
Howland looked up from the paper. Someone was
singing down in the crews' quarters—Stella was having herself a ball,
accompanied by some of the other men's wives. Helen might not fit in here—but
Howland doubted that. She'd fit in. But she was staying at Lewistead to work on
dead and buried authors—author, sorry.
"Of
course," he read on. "If I'm wrong, if Shaw and Wells are not the
same person, why, then I shall look pretty silly; but I shouldn't really mind.
In that unlikely eventuality I'd hop the first ship to your nearest checkpoint
and you could come and fetch me with Charley Kwang's ship. But I think, my
darling, that you will have to wait some time."
Howland
slowly lowered the paper. Randolph was finishing the details with Harcourt,
and his project to create life would go on now, to success, Howland felt
confidently. Haffner had found his self-permitted one bottle and was happily
and sedately drinking. The crew was having a whale of a time. Even Old Cussman
was happy.
Peter
Howland would only be happy if Helen Chase discovered that George Bernard Shaw
and Herbert George Wells were two different people.
And,
despite his big words to her back in Lewistead, he couldn't have any real hope
that the experts were wrong.
He
stood up. "They've
got
to be different people!" he shouted
violently. "By heavens, they must be two writersl They must!"
He
looked down at Helen's tri-di snap in its plastic cube on the bedside table.
She smiled back at him.
"You've
got to be wrong just this once, Helen. Then, perhaps you and I can do something
about creating life on Pochalin Nine—in the old fashioned way."
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