Grannie Annie, who wrote science fiction
under the nom de plume of Annabella C. Flowers,
had stumbled onto a murderous plot more
hair-raising than any she had ever concocted.
And the danger from the villain of the piece
didn't worry her--I was the guy he was shooting at.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1944.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was killing an hour in the billiard room of the _Spacemen's Club_
in Swamp City when the Venusian bellboy came and tapped me on the
shoulder.
"Beg pardon, thir," he said with his racial lisp, "thereth thome one to
thee you in the main lounge." His eyes rolled as he added, "A lady!"
A woman here...! The _Spacemen's_ was a sanctuary, a rest club where
in-coming pilots and crewmen could relax before leaving for another
voyage. The rule that no females could pass its portals was strictly
enforced.
I followed the bellhop down the long corridor that led to the main
lounge. At the threshold I jerked to a halt and stared incredulously.
Grannie Annie!
There she stood before a frantically gesticulating desk clerk, leaning
on her faded green umbrella. A little wisp of a woman clad in a
voluminous black dress with one of those doily-like caps on her head,
tied by a ribbon under her chin. Her high-topped button shoes were
planted firmly on the varpla carpet and her wrinkled face was set in
calm defiance.
I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. "Grannie Annie! I
haven't seen you in two years."
"Hi, Billy-boy," she greeted calmly. "Will you please tell this
fish-face to shut up."
The desk clerk went white. "Mithter Trenwith, if thith lady ith a
friend of yourth, you'll have to take her away. It'th abtholutely
againth the ruleth...."
"Okay, okay," I grinned. "Look, we'll go into the grille. There's no
one there at this hour."
In the grille an equally astonished waiter served us--me a lime rickey
and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour--I waited until she had tossed
the drink off at a gulp before I set off a chain of questions:
"What the devil are you doing on Venus? Don't you know women aren't
allowed in the _Spacemen's_? What happened to the book you were
writing?"
"Hold it, Billy-boy." Laughingly she threw up both hands. "Sure, I knew
this place had some antiquated laws. Pure fiddle-faddle, that's what
they are. Anyway, I've been thrown out of better places."
She hadn't changed. To her publishers and her readers she might be
Annabella C. Flowers, author of a long list of science fiction novels.
But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's
hat, as modern as an atomic motor. She had probably written more drivel
in the name of science fiction than anyone alive.
But the public loved it. They ate up her stories, and they clamored for
more. Her annual income totaled into six figures, and her publishers
sat back and massaged their digits, watching their earnings mount.
One thing you had to admit about her books. They may have been dime
novels, but they weren't synthetic. If Annabella C. Flowers wrote a
novel, and the locale was the desert of Mars, she packed her carpet bag
and hopped a liner for Craterville. If she cooked up a feud between two
expeditions on Callisto, she went to Callisto.
She was the most completely delightful crackpot I had ever known.
"What happened to _Guns for Ganymede_?" I asked. "That was the title of
your last, wasn't it?"
* * * * *
Grannie spilled a few shreds of Martian tobacco onto a paper and deftly
rolled herself a cigarette.
"It wasn't _Guns_, it was _Pistols_; and it wasn't _Ganymede_, it was
_Pluto_."
I grinned. "All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe
and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair."
"What else is there in science fiction?" she demanded. "You can't have
your hero fall in love with a bug-eyed monster."
Up on the wall a clock chimed the hour. The old woman jerked to her
feet.
"I almost forgot, Billy-boy. I'm due at the _Satellite_ Theater in ten
minutes. Come on, you're going with me."
Before I realized it, I was following her through the lounge and out to
the jetty front. Grannie Annie hailed a hydrocar. Five minutes later we
drew up before the big doors of the _Satellite_.
They don't go in for style in Swamp City. A theater to the grizzled
colonials on this side of the planet meant a shack on stilts over the
muck, _zilcon_ wood seats and dingy atobide lamps. But the place was
packed with miners, freight-crew-men--all the tide and wash of humanity
that made Swamp City the frontier post it is.
In front was a big sign. It read:
ONE NIGHT ONLY
DOCTOR UNIVERSE AND HIS
NINE GENIUSES
THE QUESTION PROGRAM OF
THE SYSTEM
As we strode down the aisle a mangy-looking Venusian began to pound a
tinpan piano in the pit. Grannie Annie pushed me into a seat in the
front row.
"Sit here," she said. "I'm sorry about all this rush, but I'm one of
the players in this shindig. As soon as the show is over, we'll go
somewhere and talk." She minced lightly down the aisle, climbed the
stage steps and disappeared in the wings.
"That damned fossilized dynamo," I muttered. "She'll be the death of me
yet."
The piano struck a chord in G, and the curtain went rattling up. On the
stage four Earthmen, two Martians, two Venusians, and one Mercurian
sat on an upraised dais. That is to say, eight of them sat. The
Mercurian, a huge lump of granite-like flesh, sprawled there, palpably
uncomfortable. On the right were nine visi sets, each with its new
improved pantascope panel and switchboard. Before each set stood an
Earthman operator.
* * * * *
A tall man, clad in a claw-hammer coat, came out from the wings and
advanced to the footlights.
"People of Swamp City," he said, bowing, "permit me to introduce
myself. I am Doctor Universe, and these are my nine experts."
There was a roar of applause from the _Satellite_ audience. When it had
subsided, the man continued:
"As most of you are familiar with our program, it will be unnecessary
to give any advance explanation. I will only say that on this stage are
nine visi sets, each tuned to one of the nine planets. At transmitting
sets all over these planets listeners will appear and voice questions.
These questions, my nine experts will endeavor to answer. For every
question missed, the sender will receive a check for one thousand
_planetoles_.
"One thing more. As usual we have with us a guest star who will match
her wits with the experts. May I present that renowned writer of
science fiction, Annabella C. Flowers."
From the left wing Grannie Annie appeared. She bowed and took her place
on the dais.
The Doctor's program began. The operator of the Earth visi twisted his
dials and nodded. Blue light flickered on the pantascope panel to
coalesce slowly into the face of a red-haired man. Sharp and dear his
voice echoed through the theater:
"_Who was the first Earthman to titter the sunward side of Mercury?_"
Doctor Universe nodded and turned to Grannie Annie who had raised her
hand. She said quietly:
"Charles Zanner in the year 2012. In a specially constructed
tracto-car."
And so it went. Questions from Mars, from Earth, from Saturn flowed in
the visi sets. Isolated miners on Jupiter, dancers in swank Plutonian
cafes strove to stump the experts. With Doctor Universe offering
bantering side play, the experts gave their answers. When they failed,
or when the Truthicator flashed a red light, he announced the name of
the winner.
It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had
brought me here. And then I began to notice things.
The audience in the _Satellite_ seemed to have lost much of its
original fervor. They applauded as before but they did so only at the
signal of Doctor Universe. The spell created by the man was complete.
Pompous and erect, he strode back and forth across the stage like a
general surveying his army. His black eyes gleamed, and his thin lips
were turned in a smile of satisfaction.
When the last question had been answered I joined the exit-moving
crowd. It was outside under the street marquee that a strange incident
occurred.
A yellow-faced Kagor from the upper Martian desert country shuffled by,
dragging his cumbersome third leg behind him. Kagors, of course, had an
unpleasant history of persecution since the early colonization days of
the Red Planet. But the thing that happened there was a throw back to
an earlier era.
Someone shouted, "Yah, yellow-face! Down with all Kagors!" As one
man the crowd took up the cry and surged forward. The helpless Kagor
was seized and flung to the pavement. A knife appeared from nowhere,
snipped the Martian's single lock of hair. A booted foot bludgeoned
into his mouth.
Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men
rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to
shout derisive epithets.
Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm
and led me around a corner and through a doorway under a sign that read
THE JET. Inside was a deep room with booths along one wall. The place
was all but deserted.
In a booth well toward the rear the old lady surveyed me with sober
eyes.
"Billy-boy, did you see the way that crowd acted?"
I nodded. "As disgraceful an exhibition as I've ever seen. The I.P. men
ought to clamp down."
"The I.P. men aren't strong enough."
She said it quietly, but there was a glitter in her eyes and a harsh
line about her usually smiling lips.
"What do you mean?"
* * * * *
For a moment the old lady sat there in silence; then she leaned back,
closed her eyes, and I knew there was a story coming.
"My last book, _Death In The Atom_, hit the stands last January,"
she began. "When it was finished I had planned to take a six months'
vacation, but those fool publishers of mine insisted I do a sequel.
Well, I'd used Mars and Pluto and Ganymede as settings for novels, so
for this one I decided on Venus. I went to Venus City, and I spent six
weeks in-country. I got some swell background material, and I met Ezra
Karn...."
"Who?" I interrupted.
"An old prospector who lives out in the deep marsh on the outskirts of
Varsoom country. To make a long story short, I got him talking about
his adventures, and he told me plenty."
The old woman paused. "Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?" she
asked abruptly.