Manly Wade Wellman - Novella Read online

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  When I wrote this story in 1938, I did myself the luxury of feeling that I had scored a minor point in the science fiction game I was playing.

  Most of the hundred or so stories of the future I have written fit into an overall imagined picture of what life might he like in the thirtieth century. Without making them sequels, yet I give them a setting that is constant—the same cities on various planets, the same peoples and governments and customs on Mars, Venus, Earth and the Jovian moons, the same principles governing fashions, tools, transportation and morals of a thousand years hence. It was a special kind of fun to fit various stories into the pattern, like jigsaw pieces, and it impelled me to consider numberless aspects of that possible life of our remote descendants.

  Such life wouldn't always glitter or delight. I thought a great deal about the commonplaces and drudgeries, and several times 1 wrote about them, space station no. 1, I thought then and still think, came out fairly well in the drab colors of an undesirable job in a corner of space's nowhere.

  The brief adventure at the utilitarian artificial planetoid ’is simple and small, compared to what adventure could be in the thirtieth century, but it deals rather decisively with the fates of several persons; and not the least of them is a Martian of the Martians I have written about so often that 1 have almost convinced myself and a number of readers that they are what Martians truly are. This time, more than ever before or since, my Martian surprised and deceived everyone, including me, his chronicler. He is the real central character in space

  STATION NO. 1.

  * *

  MANLY WADE WELLMAN

  Zeoui Writes a New Chapter in the Story of Martian Conquest.

  In ITS time Space Station No. I was unique in the solar system and probably the universe, for, of all the worlds that swung around the sun, it alone was a creation of mortal engineers and mechanics, built of materials artificially prepared, shaped and joined, for civilized purposes and profit.

  Without it the Martio-Terrestrial League's Jovian colonies might well have failed at the start. Jupiter's moons abounded in valuable minerals, offered broad lands for development and settlement by emigrants, but they were almost too far away. Only once in two years were Mars and Jupiter in conjunction, close enough for liners and freighters to ply between. A few days thus, then the planets drifted apart on their orbits, the gap widening to an impossible distance for two years more.

  Wherefore the League’s experts planned and built Space Station No. 1, to circle the sun along Mars' orbit, but on the far side of the sun from Mars. Old Sol's gravity carried the synthetic planetoid in approximate position, as the current of a whirlpool carries a chip of wood in an endless circle. Occasional rocket blasts kept the station exactly where it should be. Thus, when the planet was in opposition and at its farthest from Jupiter, the station was at its closest, a half-way house for the refueling of Jupiter-bound ships from Earth and Mars. Supplies and other relief could reach the colonists once each year instead of once each two years.

  Viewed from afar against the star-dusted black of space, the station looked like an exaggerated mimicry of ringed Saturn. The spherical center was an outmoded and awkward space-hulk two hundred meters in diameter. Construction ships had towed it into position, then clamped great girders all around its equator to extend like spokes from a hub. These in turn were braced with smaller crosswise girders and cables and the whole decked over with metal plates to make a circular plane a mile across, extending collar-like from and around the ball-shaped center. This deck was the landing port. The hulk in the middle did duty as administration building, storehouse, and living quarters.

  For men lived there. And though the League and the colonies found Space Station No. 1 practical and valuable, its attendants found it all but unendurable.

  There were two of them, standing just now on the outer rim of the deck, clad in space-overalls of insulated fabric, magnetized boots that held them to the almost gravityless plating, and bell-like glass helmets, slightly clouded against the sun's unimpeded glare. The taller was Lane Everitt, a tough-bodied young Terrestrial, who was glaring as fiercely as the sun itself. He had had enough of Space Station No. 1, this cramped corner where he must live in dingy cabins, corridors and holds, and swaddle himself in glass and fabric whenever he ventured out for exercise.

  A full year of this prison-like boredom, and why? Because he, a simple navigator of Spaceways, Inc., had loved and been loved by Fortuna Sidney, daughter of the corporation's director-general. Now he was out here, doomed to the most deadly routine job in the universe, while she was shut up in the strictest schools with instructions to forget him.

  “Rats!” he growled aloud, and his own voice, echoing inside the helmet, startled him. He must stop mumbling to himself— yes, and lying awake, and cheating at solitaire—or he'd go crazy, like that chap Ropakihn he had relieved out here. And if he went crazy, he, too, would be clapped in an asylum. No job, no freedom. No, Fortuna. He gazed down from the deck's verge into the endlessness of space, found no comfort there, then turned his head inside the transparent helmet to glance back along the level expanse of deck. He felt like a very small fly on the rim of & very big tray, with the hulk for an apple in its center. And Earth and the solar system valued him at less than a fly.

  “Did you mention rats, Ev? You require rodents for some purpose?”

  It was the mechanically expressionless voice of Zeoui, his Martian associate, who stood beside him. Zeoui’s chrysanthemum-like face—if face it really was—tilted toward him questioningly.

  Zeoui was one of those Martians destined from birth and before to live and work with Terrestrials. Eugenic breeding and medical alteration had brought his shape to approximate that of an Earth man. His soft, bladder-like body had been elongated, stiffened with artificial spine, and raised erect upon two slender limbs. Its upper comers were even shaped into shoulders, and bore in lieu of arms two tentacles with sensitive tips, just now concealed in his space-mittens. At the top, under the helmet, was his large and fragile braincase, shaggy all over with the petal-like fronds and tags of tissue housing his Martian awareness of conditions that approximated the five Terrestrial senses. Thus developed and equipped, Zeoui could walk and work with Earth’s mankind, could talk—he favored ultra-pedantic and exact polysyllables—by stirring air through an artificial larynx. He was more at home among Terrestrials than among the jelly-like bodies and feeler-appendages of his fellow-Martians.

  He spoke again: “A rocket vessel, swift and small, approaches.”

  “Coming here? Already?” Everitt glanced up. “They aren’t due, not for hours yet.”

  The thought of ships depressed him. For five days they would be passing him, heading for Jupiter, and in a few weeks the craft from the colonies would be stopping off on the inner trail—worse than no company at all. He and Zeoui would mix liquid oxygen and other ingredients into fuel and operate the pumps, but there would be no chatting or fraternizing. Skippers might transmit formal orders, receive reports, no more. No word from home or friends, no mail. . . .

  “Observe. It is approaching rapidly.” Zeoui pointed a tentacle. In the blackness far above circled a tiny gray dart of a space-craft, cutting speed, and preparing to land. Everitt scowled in perplexity, lifting a hand to his helmet as if to rumple his bright hair inside.

  “Thats not a Spaceways job,” he said in mystified tones. “It looks like a war craft. What—”

  The lead-colored cigar burst into a dazzling flare at the nose, and the gush of the forward rockets braked it sharply. As the two watchers stood at gaze, it fell to a swaying crawl directly overhead. Then it curved in, around, and down to the deck not a hundre
d yards away.

  Almost before its rocket blasts had subsided a panel sprang open in its side and a helmeted head popped out.

  “Someone disembarks,” commented Zeoui’s maddeningly dry voice. “Yes, and makes significant motions of the hand.”

  The first figure to reach the deck was small and slight, even in space-overall.

  “Ev!” came a soft, trembling cry to Everitt’s earphones, and his heart stirred. He had never expected to hear that voice again.

  “Ev, dear!” The little figure was running toward him, and he found his own voice.

  “Fortuna!” he cried back, and sped to meet her. A moment later he had clutched the newcomer in his arms, was pressing her close to him and gazing at a dear white face through two thicknesses of clouded glass. Her big, storm-dark eyes swam with tears of mingled joy and concern, her full lips trembled.

  Then more motion from the direction of the ship caught Everitt’s eye. A towering form in full space-armor stepped into view. Then another, then four more in a group. They bore arms in their hands or belts—the big leader an electroautomatic rifle, his stunted neighbor a lantern-like rust-ray, the others pistols. Everitt stiffened in startled wonder.

  “It’s all right, they’re my men,” came Fortuna’s voice to his ears. “Let’s go somewhere and talk, Ev. It’s important.”

  “Right, Fortuna,” he agreed, making his voice steady. To Zeoui he spoke crisply. “Stay on deck, will you? I’m taking her inside.”

  Zeoufs face-petals stirred and curled against his helmet- glass, as if in worried fidgets. “These individuals,” he ventured. “Is it to be understood that—”

  “Steady, old man,” cautioned Everitt quickly. “You aren’t supposed to speak to visitors.”

  “The same restriction applies to yourself,” reminded Zeoui. “But I must speak,” Everitt said flatly. ‘Til handle this situation alone, though. No need for you to be involved.”

  It was half a warning, half a snub, and Zeoui fell silent. Taking Fortuna’s arm, Everitt led her toward the hulk. Their eyes were ever upon each other, and their emotion was too deep for smiles. Behind them came the armed half dozen companions of the girl.

  The lock-panel in the hulk slid back at Everitt’s touch and first he and Fortuna, then the others, stepped into the little airlock chamber. A moment later they had passed the inner panel. Inside the old control room that, stripped of instruments and fitted with a desk, chairs and cabinets, served as an office, they felt the comforting pull of the artificial gravity that the outer deck lacked.

  All began to unship their helmets. Everitt and Fortuna freed their faces first and at once kissed with hungry violence. Everitt thought that the biggest of Fortuna’s companions chuckled derisively under his half-doffed headpiece, but was too happy to resent it.

  “And now,” Fortuna murmured, freeing her lips, “I’ll tell you how we are working your escape.”

  “Escape?” repeated Everitt sharply. “You don’t mean—”

  “I tried to get you relieved,” the girl said, with a serious wag of her dark, curly head, “but Daddy turned obdurate. Said he’d keep you here until you rotted. And so, in desperation, I went at it another way.” Half turning in Everitt’s embrace, she nodded to the big man. “Tell him, Ropakihn.”

  “Ropakihn?” said Everitt. “Are you—?” He paused.

  The giant’s head was out of the helmet now. It showed huge, heavy-jowled, with bright, piggy eyes, a mighty blade of a nose and a crimson complexion. The coarse, well-combed thatch of hair was a good six feet six above the office floor, and the armored body was heavy, even for that height. A loose smile crossed the big, red countenance as a raspy voice answered Everitt’s half-voiced question.

  “Yes, I’m Ropakihn, the man who played—well, eccentric— to get away from here.” The lips grew looser, writhing a bit. “They shut me up in a comfortable but boresome asylum, until Miss Fortuna here came to visit me. She arranged for a leave of absence for me and these other inmates. You see,” and his rasp grew smug, “I knew about the new type of war- craft and their MS-ray. Knew it from a retired officer—also eccentric enough to be shut up. He babbled out the location of a hangar where an ultra-fast experimental ship was kept.” Everitt puzzled over this information. “MS-ray—metal- solvent? I heard it was being developed, an advance on the rust-ray principle.”

  “Since you were exiled it became a reality,” Ropakihn informed him. “There’s one on that super-speed ship out there —the one we took a few nights ago from its hangar.”

  He paused, grinning in a self-congratulatory manner, while Fortuna took up the tale. “I guessed,” she said, “that Ropakihn wasn’t as afflicted as they thought. I also guessed that he would be miffed enough at the people who had exiled and imprisoned him to be an ally. He was good enough to listen and to pick these other friends.”

  For the first time Everitt looked at Ropakihn’s five companions, almost helmetless by now. And he was genuinely shocked.

  Not one of them was normal. The man with the rust-ray was a hunched and twisted dwarf with the face of a cunning weasel. Two of the others were well set up, but they wore expressions of brutal stupidity. The remaining two were patently imbecilic, fidgety and grimacing. No wonder both Fortuna and Ropakihn had avoided saying “crazy”—had employed such words as “eccentric” and “afflicted.” The other expression would have been too pointed to use in this company.

  Ropakihn continued, amusedly:

  "In any case, Everitt, Miss Fortuna got us out. Now she wants us to try to get you out."

  '‘Exactly,” added Fortuna in happy triumph. "What with our extra speed, we have a start of hours on the rest of the ships. Have you any baggage? We'll head back to Earth at once.”

  "I can’t go,” said Everitt.

  There was silence for a moment, and they all looked at him —Fortuna uncomprehending, Ropakihn somewhat scornful, the others foolishly querulous. Then Fortuna began to argue.

  "You don't understand, darling. It isn't as though they were out patrolling the space-lanes for you. Why, they won't even know you've deserted until we’re safely landed and lost, in Africa or Brazil or—”

  "I can’t go,” said Everitt again.

  Ropakihn chuckled, as he had when Fortuna and Everitt had kissed each other.

  "Do I read you rightly?” he inquired with the hint of a sneer. "Do you feel that your duty lies here?”

  "Duty!” snapped Fortuna heatedly. “This routine job? Why, Ev, darling, a child could do it, mixing fuel and filling tanks.”

  "Without me the Jovian route will be broken in two,” he reminded her. "Zeoui couldn’t handle things alone.”

  Fortuna clenched her little fists in despair. "Don’t you want me? Don’t I love you, and didn’t Spaceways do you a shabby trick? Your every instinct—”

  "There are many instincts,” he interrupted gently. "One is for love, and heaven knows that it’s strong in me. But another’s for honor and loyalty. That keeps me at my post.” Another silence, with all eyes on Everitt. Finally Fortuna shrugged, though not in complete resignation.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said slowly.

  "I know I am,” Everitt rejoined. "You can go home, dear, and wait for the thing to work out properly.”

  “That,” growled Ropakihn in a new, grim voice, "is where you are wrong.”

  He took a step forward. The five grouped behind him suddenly brought their weapons to the ready. Ropakihn himself shifted his right hand to the trigger-switch of his rifle.

  “Corby,” he said crisply to the twisted man with the rust- ray, “go out on deck and bring that Martian in here.”

  “Yop.” The man called Corby made a sloppy gesture of salute and turned to enter the air-lock, putting on his helmet as he did so.

  Everitt tightened his muscles as if to spring, but Ropakihn lifted his weapon wamingly. “Steady,” said the giant. “You’re my prisoners.”

  “Ropakihn!” called Fortuna. “I’m giving orders here.”
<
br />   “Not now.” The heavy, red face crinkled in a broader grin. “You think I’ll go back to that asylum? Think again, lady. We’re going to go to Jupiter instead.”

  Everitt had not shrunk back from the menace of the guns. “You’re outlaws, then?” he demanded accusingly. “You mean to defy Earth and Mars together?”

  “Outlaws—for today,” agreed Ropakihn in high good humor. “But in a few weeks we’ll be conquerors. That MS-ray will blow the defenses loose from the whole Jovian colonial setup. They’ll have to surrender to us. Instead of outlaws— rulers!” He grew exultant. “And Earth and Mars will have to treat with us.”

  Then he grew blustery. “Get ready to mix us some fuel, Everitt. Enough for the jump to Jupiter.”

  Everitt shook his head. “I serve no ship without a voucher from the Interplanetary Commerce Commission,” he said flatly.

  “Here’s my voucher,” and Ropakihn twiddled his rifle. “It’s electric-powered, but bored for lead-and-powder cartridges— fifty—just like the guns of the ancients. A novelty piece.” His grin grew cruel. “No merciful death by shock, Everitt. How would you like me to start shooting your toes ofl, one at a time?”

  Everitt was disdainfully silent.

  “Or Miss Fortuna’s toes, perhaps? Does that intrigue you?”

  Everitt felt a chill creep along his spine. Fortuna tortured! ...

  “There’s no fuel mixed as yet,” he announced. “We didn’t expect a ship so soon.”

  “No? Then we’ll start the machinery going. And when we’ve fueled ourselves, we’ll try out our MS-ray—wash this station clear out of the universe.”

  One or two of Ropakihn’s followers giggled inanely at the thought, and Fortuna shivered. The sense of her danger and his own helplessness infuriated Everitt. “You’ll destroy the station!” he cried.

  “Of course,” Ropakihn’s face turned harsh. “It doesn’t fill me with affectionate memories. And with it gone, police craft can’t refuel and follow.”