With the grape-headed Uvans acting as the
brains of the Universe, Mankind no longer
needed to think for itself. So when a freebooter
like Bill Petrie began getting original ideas, he
caused a crisis that threatened the cosmos.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The first of the _things_ to pass below him had round yellow eyes
in the top of its head. The next one had an eye on each side, just
below the ears. Soon they came in droves, crowding into the fantastic
market-place, staring up at Bill with quizzical curiosity. There seemed
to be no regularity at all about where they wore the eyes on their
heads.
Bill Petrie didn't attempt to move. He couldn't. His chafed neck and
wrists were firmly clamped within the slots of a medieval pillory. As
he hung there, sweltering in the heat, he wondered how long he had
been unconscious and how long in the pillory. Somehow, it was hard to
believe he actually was where he was.
"Uva, north-ecliptic tangent, electric buzzer," he muttered fuzzily.
The Uva part of it made sense all right, but that was all. In the
fast-paced life of 2451 A.D., Uva, or Planetoid eighty-one in the
Sirius north-ecliptic tangent, held a unique position in the universe.
It was the most respected, yet least visited, body in the skies. People
called it the _brain-register_ of the universe just as a certain dimly
storied Wall Street had once been the cash register of the Earth.
It was generally known that there were natives on Uva whose heads
resembled strange clusters of grapes and whose eyes had a disconcerting
habit of never being in one regular place on their heads. Some years
after the discovery of Uva by the Gonzales "space-shot" it was found
that the Uvans had a peculiarly facile brain. They could take any
problem, no matter how tough, and crack it down into simple formula.
You gave them a problem and an equals sign--they gave you the answer.
It was a wonderful discovery.
Brains were no longer at a premium. Uvans did all the thinking,
technicians did the work and the Interworld Government did the
administering. It was administrators that counted now.
Bill Petrie wasn't an administrator. He was a freebooter, one of that
rare, declassed group who still clung to the idea that they could do
their own thinking instead of having it done for them.
He squinted hard at the Uvans who crowded beneath the pillory and
shuddered. Something was wrong. The Uvans were supposed to be very mild
and not at all addicted to the use of ancient tortures. This time he
shut his eyes and held them that way, cutting out sight while he tried
to think back.
He recalled the first scene: shooting upward to the top offices of the
Interworld Fuel Monopoly....
* * * * *
Bill worked for the Monopoly as a kind of glorified errand boy.
Everyone worked for monopolies in this day and age, freebooter or not.
As he rode upward, he had an inkling that something important was
disturbing the smoothly regulated mechanism of the world. The entire
IWFM building buzzed with feverish activity.
"Another fuel crisis," Bill murmured thoughtfully. He stepped from
the elevator and hurried down a hall to a door marked--_Commissioner
Castlebottom_, Fuel. Bill rapped.
"Come in," said a voice. It was a smooth feminine voice, not
Castlebottom's.
Bill entered and was stared at from behind a desk. The eyes that were
fastened upon him were worried and balloon-like. They belonged to
Castlebottom, a youngish, rotund individual with a great deal of front.
"So it's you at last," Castlebottom puffed. "Such delays! The
crisis ... etheroel."
Bill sniffed, then jockeyed his eyes around, searching for the other
voice. It was then that he caught his breath....
Kitty Carlton was the woman of the moment, the toast of three
worlds--Mars, Venus and Earth. The Planetoids didn't count for they
were just colonies. Kitty was the very capable chief of the giant
Cosmetics Monopoly. But she wasn't toasted for that. It was her very
trim, blonde, dimpled loveliness that did the trick. Dressed in
leatherine white from head to foot, she resembled a snow queen.
"Petrie!" Castlebottom's strained voice jarred Bill back into
the present. "Pay attention, please! That's the trouble with you
freebooters. Minds always wander."
"Do you blame me?" Bill murmured.
"The matter in hand," Castlebottom said, frowning and paying no
attention to the girl. "You know there's an etheroel crisis? We've
tapped the last fuel sands on Venus. Our supply will be gone within a
month. You know what that means?"
"Where do I fit in?" Bill asked.
"This, precisely," said Castlebottom. "You leave for Planetoid Uva
immediately. We can't spare anyone else. Here are the _equals_ to be
filled in by the Uvans. We've outlined the problem. We need a synthetic
etheroel. The Uvans will give you the answer. Guard it with your life.
Now you'll need credentials ... wait...."
Castlebottom was up from his desk. He disappeared into a side office.
"Freebooter, eh?" It was Kitty Carlton. She had crossed the room and
now sat on the edge of Castlebottom's desk, looking at Bill with frank,
deep-blue eyes. "Very interesting. You're the first one I've ever seen
this close. You don't look very different."
"So you think," Bill grinned. "You ought to hear my side of the
difference. How about lunch any one of these years?"
The girl's penciled brows knitted. "With a freebooter? No!" Her lips
parted with a vague smile. "But if you were ... ah ... for example, a
monopoly commissioner like Tubby--"
"Tubby?" asked Bill.
"Yes, Castlebottom, my fiancé."
"You'd give me a buzz?"
"Perhaps."
Castlebottom returned to the room, puffing with bureaucratic vigor.
"Here are your credentials, Petrie," he said, handing Bill a metallic
IWG diplomatic pass. "There's a Patrol cruiser waiting."
Bill took one look at Kitty Carlton and tossed the pass back upon the
desk. "I'm not going!" he said.
"Not going!" Castlebottom exploded. "But the fuel crisis, man!"
"Get someone else. I said I'm staying. I'm working my way up to head a
monopoly."
"You!" Castlebottom turned purple.
"Yeah, me. I'll think my way up. That's more than you ever did."
Castlebottom looked very threatening for a second. He clenched and
unclenched his hands spasmodically, finally stabbing a pudgy finger at
a pushbutton on his desk. He had the look of a conqueror as he stared
toward the door.
Bill pivoted in time to see the three Monopoly Building policemen
charge in. Each one was built on the order of an eight-gun
space-destroyer and the result was about as devastating. Bill got in
one sharp jab but a moment later the three destroyers carried him out.
Bill's sandy hair was a bit mussed. His good-natured mouth was clamped
tightly on a trickle of blood and the rest of his body felt like
strenuously whipped eggs.
"Freebooter!" That was the last thing he heard Castlebottom saying.
"Take him down to the cruiser."
* * * * *
Bill was in no condition to appreciate the next few days. He sensed
the wallowing of the IWP Cruiser as it hit difficult gravs and felt
his ears dulled by the hollow drumming of the rocket pumps. Sometimes
a mess-boy brought in food but more often, icepacks. Between icepacks,
Bill figured a dozen ways of evening the score with Commissioner
Castlebottom.
The plans were all very good, but with one exception. The next day,
the Patrol Cruiser hovered over a planetoid surface described by
astronomers as Uva. Castlebottom was back on Earth.
A Junior Officer ferried Bill from the Cruiser to the planetoid in a
small auxiliary plane.
"We'll pick you up in fifty hours," said the officer.
"Why will it be that long?" asked Bill.
"It'll take that long. You don't know the Uvans."