Kenneth Bulmer (5 page)

They
have to send cash so that the sailors will spend it among the planets. Payment
notes and advices would serve no purpose. Bullion and cash still move in some
complicated rhythm known only to the denizens of the galaxy's stock exchanges
and indefatigable readers of the. financial papers. All this money is being
shipped out aboard various starliners and space Navy craft. All going to
complete wastel"

Quite
plainly before his inward eye Mallow could see where this conversation was
heading. His first, delighted leap forward toward the obvious conclusion of
what his uncle was saying now recoiled. Abruptly he began to see just what was
going to be involved. If he was right, of course. And he knew he was. He
started to get cold feet.

"I
intend," Professor Randolph said with grave emphasis, "to put a stop
to at least a part of this criminal squandering of money that should be used
for greater purposes. I have details of sailings. For the good of science in
general and my experiments in creation of life in particular, I am going to
appropriate a consignment of this money."

"Yes, uncle,"
said Terence Mallow, weakly.

CHAPTER FOUR

E
x-
B
oatswain's
M
ate
D
uffy
B
higgs
collected his scattered senses slowly. His
squashed nose pressed hard against the sawdusted floor. In his ears, the jeers
and yells of the barroom crowd, the chinking of bottles and glasses, the
canned music from the out-of-phase recorder, the shrill hen-cackle of painted
women blurred into a shingly beach roar of surf. The place stank of liquor and
tobacco fumes, of unwashed bodies, and cheap perfume. The back of his head
seethed with fire. He pressed himself up with both clawed hands, straining to
drag himself back to full consciousness.

"Gawd!" screamed
a woman. "
"E
ain't knocked out."

" 'It 'im again,
Fred!" yelled a drunken docker.

The
bedlam surrounding Duffy Briggs sorted itself out to one single all consuming
desire. He had to get back on his feet and strike the man who had smashed him.
He had to prove he couldn't be bested by a runt of a longshoreman. '
■■
Stabs of pain flickered behind his eyeballs,
his legs trembled and his joints seemed immersed in putty. He was growing old.
But not too old to bash in the face of this runt who had slugged him.

Four
fingers and a thumb closed around his upper arm. He was hauled up with
lop-sided ferocity and slammed down on his heels.

He
turned blindly, still seeing only streaks of crimson and vermilion, and raised
his fist to smash away this new attacker.

"Take
it easy, Duffy! There's a dozen of 'em. Let's get outta here with dignity,
whole skins, and a sense of pride. In other words—run like hell!"

Amazement
gripped Duffy Briggs as he followed that whispered advice. He had been alone in
this dreary spaceport bar, down by the interstellar dock area, and had
remained alone through the argument and the fight. Now, he had a friend—and an
old friend. He ran like hell and felt better at each step.

Chief Petty Officer Bamy Cain—not yet ex, but
arranging his affairs so that very rapidly he would be ex-CPO Cain—had knocked
down a plug-ugly trying to bar the door, and had burst out into the chilly
night air dragging Duffy Briggs.

The two men now gulped the frosty air,
feeling the nip on their noses, and the rasp in their lungs.

"Bamy Cain!" said
Briggs, marvelling.

"I
might have known I'd find you in
a
fight.
Can you walk?" At Briggs' nod they swung together down the narrow alley,
Briggs' physical resources surging back at full tide at every step. "You
were down on the floor. Tut, tut," said Cain with malicious pleasure.
"You musta been slow."

"Slow,"
said Briggs with mournful remembrance. "Slow and old, Bamy. 01d.
^T

Cain
glanced briefly at Briggs in the glare of the sodium arcs high above against
the monorail. Briggs was as he remembered him from
a
lifetime in the service; a chunky barrel of a man with
a
square, ravaged face, and a squashed nose. Come to think of it, Cain
reflected as they dodged through a darkened alley and emerged onto
a
garishly lighted strip, crowded "with restaurants and hotels and
used flier lots. The two men were much alike; came of serving and fighting for
forty years in the space Navy, Cain supposed.

"How
did you happen to be down there, anyway?" asked Briggs.

"Looking
for you. And one or two others you can help me find. There's a job on. Good
money. Slightly on the perigee side of the law; but I don't think that need
worry us."

"It
never has before." Briggs let the idea float around in his craggy head.
"Money," he said as
a
knight
might have spoken of the Holy Grail. "Money."

"I
guess you're in with us, then? Good. You remember Lieutenant-Commander Mallow?
He's running the show. . . ."

"I remember him," said Duffy Briggs. "I remember
him."

Charles Sergeivitch Kwang raised his glass of
whisky and smiled across the bar at Cyrus
Q.
Mauriac. Mauriac exuded wealth, bonhomie, business acumen, the scent of a fine
cigar, and the aroma of old brandy. The last two delectable items had been
paid for by Kwang, in the nature of a libation to a successful coup.

"Yes, sir," said Mauriac. "I
know a smart businessman when I meet one. It's been a pleasure to do business
with you, Mr. Kwang."

"And with you, Mr. Mauriac. I'm sure
those holdings out on—ah—Calzonier Second will pay handsome dividends well
within the three years we postulate. I think you'll be pleased you took the
risk."

"Risk—no risk attached! I wouldn't have
invested with your company if I didn't think that. I've put a lot of cash into
this deal." Mauriac poured the last of the brandy down his throat, glanced
at his watch, at the door, and at the briefcase standing beside Kwang's
barstool. "We've all signed up—time to have another."

Kwang
didn't want to fade too quickly. That was part of his cool professional
competence. Just this last drink, pick up the briefcase, all smiles, a clammy
handshake, and away—away out into the burstmg-over-with-opportunities galaxy
and the next sucker.

But
Mauriac, too, was in no hurry. He held Kwang at the bar, talking expansively.
Kwang kept the frown off his smooth, slender brown face. He was a lithe,
slimly-muscled man with jet black hair and a button nose and eyes of a liquid
brown sheen. He was also able to adopt an air of authority, of abasement, of
injured innocence, all at the blast of a policeman's whistle.

"You
told me you served with the space Navy," Mauriac rumbled on. "Most
interesting. Tell me—"

He
broke off sharply, looking at the door past Kwang's back. Kwang saw his plump
body slump in disappointment and then Kwang felt a hand fumble at his own below
the level of the bar. A ball of paper pressed into his palm. With a casual yet
polite charm of manner he excused himself, swiftly unrolled the paper covered
by bis knee, glanced down. "Cops," he read. "Get out-fast."

"Excuse me, Mr.
Mauriac.
I
have to—you know."

"Sure, sure. But be
right back. I'm enjoying our little chat."

Kwang
slid off the stool, looked with his heart in his eyes at the briefcase, then
strode off, head high, feeling slightly sick. Halfway there he altered course
and made for the back folding doors where selected customers were introduced to
the complexities of roulette and triplanetary. Through the door and the hanging
curtains he glanced about. A sweat sheen glistened across his smooth forehead.

"You're
losing your grip, Charley, my lad. Cops all over. That sucker you've got set up
there is on to you."

Terence
Mallow stood by the far door. His smile was curiously alive, calculating.

"Terry! Where the
devil did you spring from?"

"Never
mind that now. This way. You're stoney broke again now, I suppose? Well, I've a
little job for you . . ."

Stella Ramsy flung back the bedclothes,
grimacing at the feel of the dirty linen and the coarseness of the weave. She
stepped gracefully out of bed, naked, and walked, quivering with anger, across
to her husband's trousers where they draped in uncreased folds across
a
broken-bottomed chair. This dump of
a
boarding house was killing her. Perennially the smell of cooking, of
unwashed kids, of cats and garbage; the rankness of decaying spirits daunted
her own lonely ego. She lifted the trousers and for lack of a crease to find
the pockets quickly, lifted them by the turnups, and shook, hard. A box of
matches,
a
butt end, and three pennies. Disgustedly, she
flung the trousers at Colin Ramsy's head.

"Wake up, you useless,
bone-idle . . ."

Ramsy
grunted and snorted, turned over, groping for the sheets Stella had
distastefully flung back. "Leave alone, Stella."

"Get out of that bedl Between us we have
exactly three pennies. We owe a month's rent, we've nothing left to pawn—and
all you do is lie in bed. Come on. Out!"

The
next quarter of an hour resulted in the usual screaming match. Stella didn't
bother to dress. At least central heating came with the apartment. She
possessed one decent suit and blouse and one pair of stockings with ladders
that could be hidden. She wouldn't wear those around the apartment! Ramsy,
groaning and working his dry throat muscles, dressed perfunctorily and at last
Stella managed to push him out of the room. Leaning on the door, she screamed
out her good-bye, "And you needn't bother to come back without a
job!"

Slouching
dispiritedly in the doorway, Ramsy looked back at her. She looked good standing
there like that. He knew well enough why he'd married her. "Give us a kiss
before I go," he said weakly. "For luck."

"The
only luck you'll get is outside. I know what that kiss would lead to. And we
need money first!"

Ramsy
pawed at his face, feeling the quiver of his lips against his palms. This was a
hell of a life. What chance of a job was there for a man with his record? But
he couldn't lose Stella. That would break him up finally.

He dragged his hands away from his face to
see Stella shouting at him: "Get out and get a job!" and to see her
suddenly try to cover herself and slam the door. Slowly, he turned around.

Walking towards him,
smiling, came Terence Mallow . . .

Around him the sterile blinding whiteness of
the laboratory struck agonizing spears through his eyes. Serried ranks of
glass bottles winked sardonically upon him. A tap, dripping maddenly, hammered
strokes of redness on his inflamed brain. He felt the slickness of the
workbench beneath his fingers like a serrated saw edge, flaying through to his
cringing brain.

His brain
...

Willi Haffner knew too much
about the human brain. Too much and heart-breakingly not enough. The inhuman
shini-ness of the laboratory whirled about him, and his clutching fingers
grasped the workbench with despairing and weakening strength. Perhaps another
little drink might help. . . .

Another little drink. Above the workbench in
rows of mathematical precision stood glass jars. Haffner reached up with the
most casual of glances. His square, blunt-fingered hands with the betrayingly
bitten nails closed on the pure alcohol bottle—any one of the many derivatives
would do—unhesitatingly. The smooth glass felt like sandpaper. He poured a
stiff one. He gulped it straight. Some of the shakes went away.

Onthe
bench two tanks connected by complicated tubing awaited his attention. The left
hand tank contained the disembodied brain of a rat. Clever
animal.^
rats. In the right hand tank the brain and a
major portion of the ganglia system of a rabbit hung so enmeshed with electrodes,
wiring, telemetry and test gear that the grey convolutions remained hard to
identify. But Willi Haffner knew it was there. He'd taken the rabbit, a
kicking, furry bundle with floppy ears, from the cage himself.

This
experiment should prove Willi Haffner's genius to the world—or it would ruin
and kill him. The company would sanction no further expense and already
Borisov, the Scientific Executive, had warned Haffner on over spending. A
Chemical Company, he had said, must produce profit as well as startling new
experiments. You are, Haffner, he had said, only a spectacular form of
advertising.

The
bitter thought sent Haffner's questing hand after the alcohol bottle again. His
brilliant academic career had been broken partly through
inter-departmental-rivalry. He'd been lucky—damned lucky—to be allowed to carry
on by the Chemical Company—even if only as spectacular advertising. This time
he must not fail.

But
fail, he did. Just what went wrong, he could never be sure. An impression
remained that he had heard Borisov's assured, hateful voice and dominating
laughter from the
corridor
before
his fumbling fingers dislodged a vital connection.
Rusty red liquid sprayed thickly from a snapped junction. The tide lapped
across the bench, foaming a little like spilt beer. A sucking noise distracted
him as the heart pump drew in ordinary contaminated air from the atmosphere in
place of the hemoglobin mixture now frothing over the bench and dripping
sluggishly to the floor.