American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56 Read online

  Sister, do you smell like this to your mister? The olfactory went on, and it was the very last straw. I had to use my carton while the ad chirped:

  No wonder he’s hard to get! Use Swett! and one of those heavenly-harmony trios caroled in waltz time:

  perspire, perspire, perspire,

  But don’t—kill off his desire—

  and then a gruff, prose, medical pitch:

  don’t try to stop perspiration.

  it’s suicide. doctors advise

  a deodorant and not an astringent

  and then back to the first line and the olfactory. This time it made no difference; I had nothing more to give.

  Taunton’s was great on the gruff medical pitch; you’d think they invented it.

  My seatmate, a nondescript customer in Universal apparel, watched with a little amusement as I retched. “Too much for you, friend?” he asked, showing the maddening superiority people who suffer from motion-sickness know too well.

  “Uh,” I said.

  “Some of those ads are enough to make anybody sick,” he said, greatly encouraged by my brilliant riposte.

  Well, I couldn’t let that get by. “Exactly what do you mean by that remark?” I asked evenly.

  It frightened him. “I only meant that it smelled a little strong,” he said hastily. “Just that particular ad. I didn’t mean ads in general. There’s nothing wrong with me, my friend!”

  “Good for you,” I said, and turned away.

  He was still worried, and told me: “I’m perfectly sound, friend. I come from a good family, I went to a good school. I’m in the production end myself—die-maker in Philly—but I know the stuff’s got to be sold. Channels of distribution. Building markets. Vertical integration. See? I’m perfectly sound!”

  “Okay,” I grunted. “Then watch your mouth.”

  He shriveled into his half of the seat. I hadn’t enjoyed squelching him, but it was a matter of principle. He should have known better.

  We were held up over Little America while a couple of other tourist craft touched down. One of them was Indian and I mellowed at the sight. That ship, from nose to tail, was Indiastry-built. The crewmen were Indiastry-trained and Indiastry-employed. The passengers, waking and sleeping, paid tribute minute by minute to Indiastry. And Indiastry paid tribute to Fowler Schocken Associates.

  A tow truck hauled us into the great double-walled plastic doughnut that is Little America. There was only one check point. Little America is an invisible export—a dollar trap for the tourists of the world, with no military aspects. (There are Polar military bases, but they are small, scattered, and far under the ice.) A small thorium reactor heats and powers the place. Even if some nation desperate for fissionable material were to try and get it, they wouldn’t have anything of military value. Windmills eke out the thorium reactor, and there’s some “heat pump” arrangement that I don’t understand which ekes out the windmills.

  At the check point I asked about Runstead. The officer looked him up and said: “He’s on the two-day tour out of New York. Thomas Cook and Son. His quarters are III–C–2205.” He pulled out a map of the place and showed me that this meant third ring in, third floor up, fifth sector, twenty-second room. “You can’t miss it. I can accommodate you with a nearby room, Mr. Courtenay—”

  “Thanks. Later.” I shoved off and elbowed my way through crowds chattering in a dozen languages to III–C–2205 and rang the bell. No answer.

  A pleasant young man said to me: “I’m Mr. Cameron, the tour director. Can I help you?”

  “Where’s Mr. Runstead? I want to see him on business.”

  “Dear me. We try to get away from all that—I’ll look in my register if you’ll just wait a moment.”

  He took me to his office-bedroom-bath up the sector a way and pawed through a register. “The Starrzelius Glacier climb,” he said. “Dear me. He went alone. Left at 0700, checked out in electric suit with R.D.F. and rations. He should be back in five hours or so. Have you arranged for quarters yet, Mr.—?”

  “Not yet. I want to go after Runstead. It’s urgent.” And it was. I was going to burst a blood vessel if I didn’t get my hands on him.

  The slightly fluttery tour director spent about five minutes convincing me that the best thing for me to do was sign on for his tour and he’d arrange everything. Otherwise I’d be shifted from pillar to post buying and renting necessary equipment from concessionaires and then as like as not be turned back at checkout and not be able to find the concessionaires again while my vacation was ticking away. I signed on and he beamed. He gave me a room in the sector—plenty of luxury. It would have been twelve by eighteen if it hadn’t been slightly wedgeshaped.

  In five minutes he was dealing out equipment to me. “Power pack—strap it on so. That’s the only thing that can go wrong; if you have a power failure take a sleepy pill and don’t worry. You’ll freeze, but we’ll pick you up before there’s tissue damage. Boots. Plug them in so. Gloves. Plug them in. Coveralls. Hood. Snowglasses. Radio direction finder. Just tell the checkout guard ‘Starrzelius Glacier’ and he’ll set it. Two simple switches plainly labeled ‘Out’ and ‘In.’ Outward bound it goes ‘beepbeep’— ascending. Inward bound it goes ‘beep-beep’—descending. Just remember, going up the glacier, the tone goes up. Going down the glacier, the tone goes down. Distress signal—a big red handle. You just pull and immediately you start broadcasting. The planes will be out in fifteen minutes. You have to pay expenses for the search and rescue, so I wouldn’t yank the handle just for a ride back. It’s always possible to rest, have a sip of Coffiest, and keep on going. Route-marked map. Snowshoes. Gyrocompass. And rations. Mr. Courtenay, you are equipped. I’ll lead you to checkout.”

  The outfit wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I’ve been more heavily bundled up against the lakeside winds in a Chicago winter. The lumpy items, like the power pack, the R.D.F., and the rations, were well distributed. The snowshoes folded into a pair of staffs with steel points for ice climbing, and went into a quiver on my back.

  Checkout was very thorough. They started with my heart and worked through my equipment, with particular emphasis on the power pack. I passed, and they set the R.D.F. for Starrzelius Glacier, with many more warnings not to overdo it.

  It wasn’t cold, not inside the suit. For a moment only I opened the face flap. Wham! I closed it again. Forty below, they had told me—a foolish-sounding figure until my nose felt it for a split second. I didn’t need the snow shoes at the base of the towering plastic doughnut; it was crust ice that my spikesoled shoes bit into. I oriented the map with the little gyrocompass and trudged off into the vast whiteness along the proper bearing. From time to time I pressed my left sleeve, squeezing the molded R.D.F. switch, and heard inside my hood a cheerful, reassuring “Beepbeep. Beepbeep. Beepbeep.”

  There were some score people frolicking in one party I passed and waved cheerily at. They seemed to be Chinese or Indians. What an adventure it must be for them! But, like indifferent swimmers hugging a raft, they did their frolicking almost under the shadow of Little America. Farther out there were some people playing a game I didn’t know. They had posts with bottomless baskets set up at either end of a markedoff rectangular field, and the object was to toss a large silicone ball through the baskets. Still farther out there was a large skiing class with instructors in red suits.

  I looked back after trudging for what seemed only a few minutes and couldn’t see the red suits any more. I couldn’t see details of Little America—just a gray-white shadow. “Beepbeep,” my R.D.F. said and I kept going. Runstead was going to hear from me. Soon.

  The aloneness was eerie but not—not unpleasant. Little America was no longer visible behind me, not even as a graywhite blur. And I didn’t care. Was this how Jack O’Shea felt? Was this why he fumbled for words to describe Venus and was never satisfied with the words he found?

  My feet plunged into a drift, and I unshipped and opened the snowshoes. They snapped on, and after a little stumbling
experiment, I fell into an easy, sliding shuffle that was a remarkably pleasant way of covering ground. It wasn’t floating. But neither was it the solid jar of a shoe sole against a paved surface—all the walking I had known for thirty-odd years.

  I marched the compass course by picking landmarks and going to them: an oddly-recurved ice hummock, a blue shadow on a swale of snow. The R.D.F. continued to confirm me. I was blown up with pride at my mastery of the wild, and after two hours I was wildly hungry all at once.

  What I had to do was squat and open a silicone-tissue bell into which I fitted. Exposing my nose cautiously from time to time I judged the air warm enough in five minutes. I ravenously gulped self-heated stew and tea and tried to smoke a cigarette. On the second puff the little tent was thoroughly smoked and I was blinded with tears. Regretfully I put it out against my shoe, closed my face mask, stowed the tent, and stretched happily.

  After another bearing I started off again. Hell, I told myself. This Runstead thing is just a difference of temperament. He can’t see the wide-open spaces and you can. There’s no malice involved. He just thinks it’s a crackpot idea because he doesn’t realize that there are people who go for it. All you’ve got to do is explain it—

  That argument, born of well-being, crumbled at one touch of reason. Runstead was out on the glacier too. He most certainly could see the wide-open spaces if, of all the places on earth he could be, he chose the Starrzelius Glacier. Well, a showdown would shortly be forthcoming. “Beepbeep.”

  I sighted through the compass and picked a black object that was dead on my course. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it was visible and it wasn’t moving. I broke into a shuffling run that made me pant, and against my will I slowed down. It was a man.

  When I was twenty yards away, the man looked impatiently at his watch, and I broke into the clumsy run again.

  “Matt!” I said. “Matt Runstead!”

  “That’s right, Mitch,” he said, as nasty as ever. “You’re sharp today.” I looked at him very slowly and very carefully, phrasing my opening remarks. He had folded skis thrust into the snow beside him.

  “What’s—what’s—” I stammered.

  “I have time to spare,” he said, “but you’ve wasted enough of it. Good-by, Mitch.” While I stood there dumbly he picked up his folded skis, swung them into the air, and poleaxed me. I fell backwards with pain, bewilderment, and shamed rage bursting my head. I felt him fumbling at my chest and then I didn’t feel anything for a while.

  I woke thinking I had kicked the covers off and that it was cold for early autumn. Then the ice-blue Antarctic sky knifed into my eyes, and I felt the crumbly snow beneath me. It had happened, then. My head ached horribly and I was cold. Too cold. I felt and found that the power pack was missing. No heat to the suit, gloves, and boots. No power to the R.D.F. coming or going. No use to pull the emergency signal.

  I tottered to my feet and felt the cold grip me like a vise. There were footprints punched into the snow leading away —where? There was the trail of my snowshoes. Stiffly I took a step back along that trail, and then another, and then another.

  The rations. I could thrust them into the suit, break the heat seals, and let them fill the suit with temporary warmth. Plodding step by step I debated: stop and rest while you drink the ration’s heat or keep moving? You need a rest, I told myself. Something impossible happened, your head is aching. You’ll feel better if you sit for a moment, open a ration or two, and then go on.

  I didn’t sit. I knew what that would mean. Painful step after painful step I fumbled a Coffiest can from its pocket with fingers that would barely obey me, and fumbled it into my suit. My thumb didn’t seem strong enough to pop the seal and I told myself: sit down for a moment and gather your strength. You don’t have to lie down, pleasant as that would be . . . my thumb drove through the seal and the tingling heat was painful.

  It became a blur. I opened more cans, and then I couldn’t work them out of their pockets any more. I sat down at least once and got up again. And then I sat down, feeling guilty and ashamed of the indulgence, telling myself I’d get up in one more second for Kathy, two more seconds for Kathy, three more seconds for Kathy.

  But I didn’t.

  7

  I fell asleep on a mountain of ice; I woke up in a throbbing, strumming inferno, complete with red fire and brutish-looking attendant devils. It was exactly what I would have consigned a Taunton copysmith to. I was confused to find myself there.

  The confusion did not last long. One of the attendant devils shook my shoulder roughly and said: “Gimme a hand, sleepy. I gotta stow my hammock.” My head cleared and it was very plain that he was simply a lower-class consumer—perhaps a hospital attendant?

  “Where’s this?” I asked him. “Are we back in Little America?”

  “Jeez, you talk funny,” he commented. “Gimme a hand, will ya?”

  “Certainly not!” I told him. “I’m a star-class copysmith.”

  He looked at me pityingly, said “Punchy,” and went away into the strumming, red-lit darkness.

  I stood up, swaying on my feet, and grabbed an elbow hurrying past from darkness to darkness. “Excuse me,” I said. “Where is this place? Is it a hospital?”

  The man was another consumer, worse-tempered than the first. “Leggo my yarm!” he snarled. I did. “Ya want on sick call, ya wait until we land,” he said.

  “Land?”

  “Yah, land. Listen, Punchy, don’t ya know what ya signed up for?”

  “Signed up? No; I don’t. But you’re being too familiar. I’m a star-class copysmith—”

  His face changed. “Ahah,” he said wisely. “I can fix ya up. Justa minnit, Punchy. I’ll be right back wit’ the stuff.”

  He was, too. “The stuff ” was a little green capsule. “Only five hunnerd,” he wheedled. “Maybe the last one on board. Ya wanta touch down wit’ the shakes? Nah! This’ll straighten ya out fer landing—”

  “Landing where?” I yelled. “What’s all this about? I don’t know, and I don’t want your dope. Just tell me where I am and what I’m supposed to have signed up for and I’ll take it from there!”

  He looked at me closely and said: “Ya got it bad. A hit in the head, maybe? Well, Punchy, yer in the Number Six Hold of the Labor Freighter Thomas R. Malthus. Wind and weather, immaterial. Course, 273 degrees. Speed 300, destination Costa Rica, cargo slobs like you and me for the Chlorella plantations.” It was the rigmarole of a relieved watch officer, or a savage parody of it.

  “You’re—” I hesitated.

  “Downgraded,” he finished bitterly, and stared at the green capsule in the palm of his hand. Abruptly he gulped it and went on: “I’m gonna hit the comeback trail, though.” A sparkle crept into his eye. “I’m gonna introduce new and efficient methods in the plantations. I’ll be a foreman in a week. I’ll be works manager in a month. I’ll be a director in a year. And then I’m gonna buy the Cunard Line and plate all their rockets with solid gold. Nothing but first-class accommodations. Nothing but the best for my passengers. I always kept her smooth on the Atlantic run. I’ll build you a gold-plated imperial suite aboard my flag ship, Punchy. The best is none too good for my friend Punchy. If you don’t like gold I’ll get platinum. If you don’t like—”

  I inched away and he didn’t notice. He kept babbling his hophead litany. It made me glad I’d never taken to the stuff. I came to a bulkhead and sat down hopelessly, leaning against it. Somebody sat down beside me and said “Hello there” in a cozy voice.

  “Hello,” I said. “Say, are we really headed for Costa? How can I get to see a ship’s officer? This is all a mistake.”

  “Oh,” said the man, “why worry about it? Live and let live. Eat, drink, and be merry is my motto.”

  “Take your God-damned hands off me!” I told him.

  He became shrill and abusive, and I got up and walked on, stumbling over legs and torsos.

  It occurred to me that I’d never really known any consumers except duri
ng the brief periods when they were serving me. It occurred to me that I’d casually accepted their homosexual component and exploited it without ever realizing what it reduced to in reality. I wanted very badly to get out of Number Six Hold. I wanted to get back to New York, find out what kind of stunt Runstead had pulled and why, get back to Kathy, and my friendship with Jack O’Shea, and my big job at Fowler Schocken. I had things to do.

  One of the red lights said Crash Emergency Exit. I thought of the hundreds of people jammed in the hold trying to crowd out through the door, and shuddered.

  “Excuse me, my friend,” somebody said hoarsely to me. “You’d better move.” He began to throw up, and apparently containers weren’t issued aboard labor freighters. I rolled the emergency door open and slid through.

  “Well?” growled a huge Detective Agency guard.

  “I want to see a ship’s officer,” I said. “I’m here by some mistake. My name is Mitchell Courtenay. I’m a copysmith with the Fowler Schocken Associates.”

  “The number,” he snapped.

  “16–156–187,” I told him, and I admit that there was a little pride in my voice. You can lose money and health and friendship, but they can’t take a low Social Security number away from you . .

  He was rolling up my sleeve, not roughly. The next moment I went spinning against the bulkhead with my face burning from a ham-handed slap. “Get back between decks, Punchy!” the guard roared. “Yer not on an excursion and I don’t like yer funny talk!”

  I stared incredulously at the pit of my elbow. The tattoo read: “1304–9974–1416–156–187723.” My own number was buried in it, but the inks matched perfectly. The style of lettering was very slightly off—not enough for anybody to notice but me.

  “Waddaya waitin’ for?” the guard said. “You seen yer number before, ain’t ya?”

  “No,” I said evenly, but my legs were quivering. I was scared —terribly scared. “I never saw this number before. It’s been tattooed around my real number. I’m Courtenay, I tell you. I can prove it. I’ll pay you—” I fumbled in my pockets and found no money. I abruptly realized that I was wearing a strange and shabby suit of Universal apparel, stained with food and worse.