Murray Leinster (Duke Classic SiFi) (25 page)

"Look at that, Jed," said Holden heavily. "There's a reality none of us
wants to face! We're all more or less fugitives from what we are afraid
is reality. That is real, and it makes me feel small and futile. So I
don't like to look at it. Johnny Simms didn't want to face what one does
grow up to face. It made him feel futile. So he picked a pleasanter role
than realist."

Cochrane nodded.

"But his unrealism of last night put him into a very realistic mess that
he couldn't dodge! Will it change him?"

"Probably," said Holden without any expression at all in his voice.
"They used to put lunatics in snake-pits. When they were people who'd
taken to lunacy for escape from reality, it made them go back to reality
to escape from the snakes. Shock-treatments used to be used, later, for
the same effect. We're too soft to use either treatment now. But Johnny
gave himself the works. The odds are that from now on he will never want
to be alone even for an instant, and he will never again quite dare to
be angry with anybody or make anybody angry. You choked him and he ran
away, and it was bad! So from now on I'd guess that Johnny will be a
very well-behaved little boy in a grown man's body." He said very wryly
indeed, "Alicia will be very happy, taking care of him."

A moment later he added:

"I look at that set-up the way I look at the landscape yonder."

Cochrane said nothing. Holden liked Alicia. Too much. It would not make
any difference at all. After a moment, though, he changed the subject.

"I think this is a pretty good bet, this planet. You think it's no good.
I'm going to talk to the chlorella companies. They grow edible yeast in
tanks, and chlorella in vats, and they produce an important amount of
food. But they have to grow the stuff indoors and they have a ghastly
job keeping everything sterile. Here's a place where they can sow
chlorella in the oceans! They can grow yeast in lakes, out-of-doors!
Suppose they use this world to grow monstrous quantities of unattractive
but useful foodstuff—in a way—wild? It will be good return-cargo
material for ships taking colonists out to our other planets.—I
suppose," he added meditatively, "they'll ship it back in bulk, dried."

Holden blinked. He was jolted out of even his depression.

"Jed!" he said warmly. "Tell that to the world—prove that—and—people
will stop being afraid! They won't be afraid of starving before they can
get to the stars! Jed—Jed! This is the thing the world needs most of
all!"

But Cochrane grimaced.

"Maybe," he admitted it. "But I've tasted the stuff. I think it's foul!
Still, if people want it ..."

He went back down to the communicator to contact the chlorella companies
of Earth, to find out if there was any special data they would need to
pass on the proposal.

And so presently the ship took off for home. It landed on the moon
first, and Johnny Simms was loaded into a space-suit and transferred to
Lunar City, where he could live without being extradited back to Earth.
He wouldn't stay there. Alicia guaranteed that. They'd move to the
glacier planet as soon as hotels were built. Maybe some day they'd
travel to the planet of the shaggy beasts. Johnny would never be
troublesome again. He was pathetically anxious, now, to have people like
him, and stay with him, and not under any circumstances be angry with
him or shut him away from them. Alicia would now have a full-time
occupation keeping people from taking advantage of him.

But the ship went back to Earth. And on Earth Jamison became the leading
television personality of all time, describing and extrapolating the
delicious dangers and the splendid industrial opportunities of
star-travel. Bell was his companion and co-star. Presently Jamison
conceded privately to Cochrane that he and Bell would need shortly to
take off on another journey of exploration with some other expedition.
Neither of them thought to retire, though they were well-off enough.
They were stock-holders in the Spaceways company, which guaranteed them
a living.

Cochrane put Spaceways, Inc., into full operation. He fought savagely
against personal publicity, but he worked himself half to death. He
spent hours every day in frenzied haggling, and in the cynical
examination of deftly booby-trapped business proposals. His lawyers
insisted that he needed an office—he did—and presently he had four
secretaries and there developed an entire hierarchy of persons under
him. One day his chief secretary told him commiseratingly that somebody
had waited two hours past appointment-time to see him.

It was Hopkins, who had not been willing to interrupt his dinner to
listen to a protest from Cochrane. Hopkins was still exactly as
important as ever. It was only that Cochrane was more so.

It woke Cochrane up. He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelled
appointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and made
preparations for a more satisfactory way of life.

They went, in time, to the Spaceways terminal, to take ship for the
stars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteen
ships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen others
arrived. Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according to
his own notions. Officially he was doing research for Spaceways, Inc.,
but actually nobody told him what to do. He puttered happily with
improbable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results.
Holden was already off of Earth. He was on the planet of the shaggy
beasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived there
and became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased,
instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise.

But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse of
the Spaceways terminal. There were people everywhere. The hiring-booths
of enterprises on the three planets now under development took
applications for jobs on those remote worlds, and explained how long one
had to contract to work in order to have one's fare paid. Chambers of
Commerce representatives were prepared to give technical information to
prospective entrepreneurs. There were reservation-desks, and
freight-routing desks, and tourist-agency desks ...

"Hmmm," said Cochrane suddenly. "D'you know, I haven't heard of Dabney
in months! What happened to him?"

"Dabney?" said Babs. She beamed. Women in the terminal saw the clothes
she was wearing. They did not recognize her—Cochrane had kept her off
the air—but they envied her. She felt very nice indeed. "Dabney?—Oh, I
had to use my own judgment there, Jed. You were so busy! After all, he
was scientific consultant to Spaceways. He did pay Jones cold cash for
fame-rights. When everything else got so much more important than just
the scientific theory, he got in a terrible state. His family consulted
Doctor Holden, and we arranged it. He's right down this way!"

She pointed. And there was a splendid plate-glass office built out from
the wall of the grand concourse. It was elevated, so that it was
charmingly conspicuous. There was a chastely designed but highly visible
sign under the stairway leading to it. The sign said; "
H. G. Dabney,
Scientific Consultant.
"

Dabney sat at an imposing desk in plain view of all the thousands who
had shipped out and the millions who would ship out in time to come. He
thought, visibly. Presently he stood up and paced meditatively up and
down the office which was as eye-catching as a gold-fish bowl of equal
size in the same place. He seemed to see someone down in the concourse.
He could have recognized Cochrane, of course. But he did not.

He bowed. He was a great man. Undoubtedly he returned to his wife each
evening happily convinced that he had done the world a great favor by
permitting it to glimpse him.

Cochrane and Babs went on. Their baggage was taken care of. The
departure of a ship for the stars, these days, was much less complicated
and vastly more comfortable than it used to be when a mere moon-rocket
took off.

When they were in the ship, Babs heaved a sigh of absolute relief.

"Now," she said zestfully, "now you're retired, Jed! You don't have to
worry about anything! And so now I'm going to try to make you worry
about me—not worry about me, but think about me!"

"Of course," said Cochrane. He regarded her with honest affection.
"We'll take a good long vacation. First on the glacier planet. Then
we'll build a house somewhere in the hills back of Diamondville ..."

"Jed!" said Babs accusingly.

"There's a fair population there already," said Cochrane,
apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station will
be logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored with
loafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Not
commercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped back
to Earth if any sponsor wanted it. I think they would ..."

Presently the ship with Babs and Cochrane among its passengers took off
to the stars. It was a perfectly routine flight. After all, star-travel
was almost six months old. It wasn't a novelty any longer.

Operation Outer Space was old stuff.