Kenneth Bulmer (9 page)

"Peter! What's the matt
err

The same sort of tone old Willi Haffner had
used, just after that telephone call . . . "Matter?" He tried to
laugh off that spasm. "Nothing. Might be getting a chill—keep forgetting
my pills."

"You look—scared."

"Yes,
and well I might be. I'm supposed to be in the lab right now—working. Not
sitting talking to—to female professors of literature."

"Well,
you'd better make the best use you have of the chance. I'm sailing on the
twenty-ninth."

"Oh? Twenty-ninth.
Where, may I—"

"You
may not!" She reached across the table and took his wrist, pressing with
her finger tips. "Ill tell you all about it when I'm back with the
manuscripts. Soon thereafter, Peter,
my
dear,
111
be famous. Then—"

He
couldn't say anything. She would be famous—and good luck, tool But for all she
knew he'd still be simple Doctor Peter Howland buried in Lewistead without the
Maxwell Fund and all its dazziing prospects. He released her hand gently and
stood up, smiling.

"I'll see you before I go,
promise."

"Of
course. Now get off to your stinks and smells in your horrible sterilized
laboratory."

Back
in his sterile, hygienic but very human laboratory, Howland found Haffner and
Mallow watching Professor Randolph who was beside himself with glee. An
unconscious or dead hamster lay on a tiny platform on the workbench beneath a
shielding plastic dome.

"All
very well, professor," Haffner grumbled as Howland walked up. "But,
if you will pardon my saying it, the whole sequence is. not—ah—very
scientific."

"You and Peter have been producing this
virus. Now we see it has grown into what we need. Look! Look at the test
animal—not a flicker of consciousness. Yet in twelve hours it will be skipping
about its cage not the whit the worse for wear."

"It
would be just as much out of the way with a bullet in it," growled Mallow,
fretfully. He lit a cigarette without offering them around. "Can you
absolutely guarantee the twenty-four hour period?"

Haflner nodded. "We
can do that, at least."

"Ah,
Peter!" said Randolph, turning and staring up. "You are just in time
to see the finals—"

"The
finals. How about the introduction?"

"That
will be Terence's problem. Hell assign a man to assist you. I don't envisage
any difficulty. After all, a space-liner must be similar in many ways to a
starcruiser—right, Terence?"

"I suppose so."

The
tensions between these people, pulling them in different and mutually
destructive ways, frightened Howland, filled him with misgivings for the
future. The success of any expedition of this character must depend on teamwork
and trust. At that moment, precisley, with Randolph and Mallow and Haflner
exchanging glances, that fraction of time in which clarity hit him, Howland
first decided on insurance.

"Right,
Peter," Randolph said briskly. "We.give the inoculations tonight
Arrange for all you need to be taken where Terence directs. Haflner and
I
will be working here, so don't forget to see we get our shots,
too."

"Right,
professor," Howland answered automatically, his mind feverishly rejecting
plan after plan. There had to be a way. There
must
be a way to save his own neck.

That
night, by devious routes, the members of the expedition reached the
rendezvous, a greasy garage on the outskirts of town. Heliflyer parts filled
much of the space and a jet engine hung on clamps from the ceiling. Howland
didn't see the owner and he asked no questions.

Each member of the expedition stepped up to
Howland, who was ministering in front of his opened suitcase like a relief
doctor in an old time cholera campaign. He gave each one the required shot of
inoculation serum. They each made a joke of it, in character. Stella hoped it
wouldn't leave too much of a scar. Howland reassured her, bending over,
fiddling with his phials and bottles and ampoules. Mallow took his shot last

"Just in case, Howland, old man,"
he said, with a smirk.

Packing
up, feeling the tremble in his hands, Howland wondered if he had done the right
thing. If he had read the signs correctly then what he had just done was very
clever. If he'd been wrong—why then he'd go the way of Fingers Kirkup.

The preliminary target date—the twentieth—set
by Professor Randolph arrived.

Terence Mallow and his crew left.

"Don't
be late at the rendezvous, Terence," said Randolph as Mallow left his
chambers. "We're all depending on you." If it was meant to be funny,
then Howland considered the joke had fallen flat.

After
Mallow had gone, Randolph turned to his assistant and said, "Everything's
ready, Peter. I'm looking forward to buying the equipment we'll need on
Pochalin Nine!"

CHAPTER EIGHT

D
udley
H
arcouht
,
Vice Chancellor of Lewistead, accepted Professor Cheslin Randolph's explanation
that he needed a rest. Randolph explained that he would be taking his new
assistant, Peter Howland, with him. They would, Randolph said with a faint and
disconcerting smile, not be away long; just a short restful cruise among the
stars.

"I'm glad you've taken my advice,
Cheslin. One of the virtues of a stellar civilization is the ability to visit a
low-gravity world and live in absolute comfort, with all strain removed from the
heart and muscles."

"If
you don't prolong your stay. Atrophy sets in with alarming rapidity."
Randolph chuckled; he was in excellent spirit. "Term finishes on the
twenty-fifth; but we'll be back before the vacation is through. I intend to
remain pretty active for a long time to come."

As they spoke Randolph realized, with a wry
shock, that he would miss Harcourt and the games of chess that invariably
resulted in a general massacre of the Vice Chancellor's forces. Harcourt was
all right. Just that sometimes his position dictated actions alien to the man's
character.

Like
now. Randolph listened carefully as Harcourt spoke. Any feelings about his
plans he might have possessed that would undermine his resolve vanished.

"I'm
very glad, Cheslin, very glad indeed that you have taken the whole business of
the Fund as calmly as you have. I feel the University as a whole owes you an
explanation and an apology. But this is strictly between you and me; on a
personal level."

"All
right, Dudley," said Randolph, wondering what was to come.

"I know you saw Mahew, the Chancellor,
and I know you were sent away empty. I suppose Mahew told you the story that he
was in the hands of the Trustees and could do nothing? Yes? Well. I'm telling
you this, I insist, on a personal level; there may be a chance of a subsidiary
fund next year, or the year after. But
~k
)rders for the disbursement for this year's
Maxwell Fund came straight from Mahew, straight from the government—"

"But they can't interfere in University
matters!"

"When the Chancellor is Secretary for
Extra-Solar Affairs, when the Trustees are almost all government men, the government
can—and does—say what happens to money to be spent by the University."

"But this is monstrous!" Randolph
kept himself from fuming only by thought of the virus, and the whisde, and of
his nephew and his crew aboard their spaceship. "What has Mahew against
me? Why pick on me?"

"Not
you, Cheslin. You were unfortunate that this happened to be your year for the
Fund. You see—the space Navy have been developing a brand new weapons system
and drive—revolutionize the whole tactic of space battle— and they just don't
have facilities for handling the problems involved. We have here some very fine
computers—among the best in the galaxy. With the Maxwell Fund the government
is already hard at work developing the biggest and best, turning it over
full-time to work on this new space Navy weapon—"

Randolph felt the red roaring rage in
him
and bit down hard to control himself. He had to retain his icy composure. But a
little anger—a little—would be justified and expected. Keeping the lid on was
tough.

"I'd like to flay alive every man jack
in the government and their jackals of Trustees! Taking money that belongs to
me—mel—and throwing it away, building machinery that can only kill and destroy!
And I intend—intended—to create life! This is
a
monstrous affront to the liberty of science and a damned waste of good
money—"

Harcourt
smiled and held up a hand. "I guessed you'd feel almighty peeved, Cheslin.
I took
a
risk in telling you. But I couldn't—I just
couldn't let you go off without hearing the truth. It would have soured our
own relations. I can do nothing, of course."

"And Professor Chase?"

"She
just happened to be lucky. You were right in saying that the new theatre and
these papers of hers won't take
a
tithe
of the Maxwell Fund. But an appearance must be maintained that it is being
spent on University projects. She doesn't know, either. And I'll ask you not to
tell her."

Randolph returned that smile, amazing
Harcourt. "I won't tell her. I'm off on a holiday in space. The government
can carry on their filthy back stairs intrigues all they like. But if they
think I'll vote for them in the next election—ha!"

The little professor stormed back to his
department and hurried his staff through their packing. The rest of the expedition
was packed off and waiting in a small hotel by the spaceport not too far from
Lewistead. Randolph and Howland took their leave of the University. To
Howland's sorrow he missed Helen. She had rung him; but he'd been out. Now she
had left and he hadn't wished her a good journey. Well. Ancient manuscripts had
no importance beside the hijacking of a bullion-carrying spaceship and the
triumphant series of experiments leading to the proof that man could create
life.
That
was important.

In
his domineering way Randolph had brushed aside Howland's questions about the
way they would explain their possession of the money. "I am Professor
Randolph!" the little man had flashed. "If I return from a spatial
voyage-even one on which money has been stolen—no one will dare suggest that I
had anything to do with that merely because I can now go ahead with my work.
Nonsense! And well cover the tracks . . ."

It
was so flagrant that Howland knew wryly that the prof would get away with it.

They
left on the thirtieth and by the first of the month, with a surprising hint of
sunshine clearing away the snow, trooped aboard starliner
Poseidon,
outward bound for Gagarin Three. The trip
would be a comfortable three weeks. Many folk took the journey to get away from
it all for a short time. A holiday mood pervaded the many levels and staterooms
and restaurants of the mammoth ship. Despite his own preoccupations and
worries, Howland experienced a strange and welcome lightening of spirits and an
eagerness to participate to the full in the life of the ship. After Gagarin
Three the ship made two further short trips, a week each, to Amir Bey Nine and
Santa Cruz Two. What existed on those two worlds the stellar vacationers didn't
know or care.

In the warm, brilliantly lit, brightly
colored staterooms of the starliner, or in the mellow, subdued fighting of the
bars and intercorridor cafes,
 
everyone
shook off the winter shackles of Earth as they had left her; the snow gave
place to soft carpeting, the bleak greasy grey sky to cosy illuminations and
the frosty air to softly scented currents of pure ship's air.

Randolph
beckoned Howland into his stateroom, a three-roomed apartment with every
luxurious convenience the weary stellar traveler might wish. Haflner joined
them as Randolph was saying, "On Santa Cruz Two is
a
culture originally set up by freethinkers from Earth, men and women who
took to space so that they could live their own peculiar system to themselves.
A quirk of social evolution; but harmless. Amir Bey Nine is our target—Terence
told me about the place. The planet is bleak and is given over one hundred
percent to the needs of the space Navy. It is an Outworld planet that strikes a
chill into the heart of every man. Oh—and there are tinkly little debased
amusements for the men to waste money on—
the
money!"