Who could say what thoughts, emotions, surged through the robot's
mind? Intelligence there was and an undeniable strength inspiring
confidence.... And something greater--some indefinable prowess
beyond, perhaps, the ken of man--
Calidao, city of mystic intrigue, cosmopolitan city where Solarian,
Centaurian and Lalandean hold daily intercourse, bartering in lives and
souls, and in treasures and alien lore whose origin and significance
shall remain forever hidden in the womb of time--
Thither flashed Frederix in the dead of night, riding the radio beam in
from the direction of Kaa. Starshine alone and what light the almost
indetectable moons gave illumined the semi-somnolent cosmopolis. Along
the main artery, famed Space Boulevard, the varicolored lights of night
clubs blazed up through the glassite vaults; the spaceport, a mile and
more out of town, shone in a wavering splendour of swirling beacons,
pointing white, stabbing fingers into the dark, and the whole was
flooded intermittently with brightest green as the great concentration
of spacelamps flashed a mighty, guiding column upward and outward to
whatever craft might move across the firmament.
Frederix drove down low over the port, searching for sight of a large
black freighter marked with Onupari's famous (and infamous) boxed-star
insignia. Just as he was rewarded by a glimpse of it lying in the ways,
just as exultation swept in a warm tide over him, a blindingly-crimson
blast seared up from beneath, cutting a great gap in the left wing,
waving futilely after him as he careened into the night, his tortured
sight seeping slowly back, trying desperately to keep the crippled ship
awing.
He realized that the Calidaoan Vrons and sympathizers bought with
golden coins, promises of greatness, and freedom from the "Anarchy of
Earth," had indeed taken dictatorial possession of Calidao and were
guarding well the ship of Onupari which would bring death to the Double
World.
Opening the purring atomics wide, he swept in a wide arc far out over
the wastes and back to the farther side of the city, and, cutting in
the infra-red viewplates, glided to a swift albeit unsteady landing on
the verge of the encircling desert.
He hesitated, but the robot, dropping to the ground, led him unerringly
to a small lock opening on one of the back streets. Pausing in the
darkness, Frederix peered through the glassite wall.
A young Martian policeman stood smoking thoughtfully beneath a carbon
arc, handsome and proudly erect in his bright, apparently-new uniform,
quite alone in this narrow thoroughfare.
Frederix's hand dropped to the disrupter, shifted to the needle-gun,
and, opening the lock slowly, he aimed and pressed the trigger. Leaping
within, he caught the paralyzed youth, lowering him into the shadows of
a nearby doorway.
A surge of commendation beat in his brain--praise for his choice of
weapons. For why should one so young and handsome die? Why should any
of Sol's disillusioned billions die because of a few greedy men who had
rushed into a band which would damn the entire system unless someone
revealed their duplicity, which had already precipitated all manner of
internal strife? Violence would avail naught; they must be shown the
plain truth of it so that they might live and be free!
The robot hurried away now, turned swiftly in a high-arched tunnel
which intersected the street, and led Frederix to the fantastically
carven front of a large mansion whose portal had been but recently
blasted asunder. Over that shattered door was the crest of Jethe the
munitions baron, and _within the room_--
Nausea seized Frederix's stomach. Hoary-haired Jethe, dealer in power
for peace or war, was sprawled across a paper-strewn table in terrible
death, his wizened face and body ribboned into one horrible mess of
blood and gore, sliced by a disrupter, signature no doubt of Meevo or
Onupari--
Dizzy with the sheer bestiality of the scene but driven by some manner
of apprehension, Frederix threaded his way through the debris to an
all-wave radio clinging on the farther wall, snapped the switch and
dialed to the Kaa frequency.
A message was coming through, clear now, proof that the sandstorm had
subsided and skies were clear. Frederix recognized the cold emotionless
voice of Blake, the Kaa chief operator.
"... the message you've found may ring true, but in the light of
Cravens' message from Certagarni, proving Frederix to be in league with
anti-service factions, we find that we cannot send ships to a possible
trap in Calidao until you've learned from Andres what's really behind
all this. Please inform us of any developments. Off!"
Oh, the blind fools! They had found Andres and the message but would do
nothing until the paralytic spell had worn away! And Onupari must have
been in this room hours before; his ship, prepared for flight, must
have long been loaded! He left the place of death at a run.
The tiny monkey-thing led the way toward Space Boulevard, and into the
engineer's mind an encouraging thought came. _Onupari has not left!_
And Frederix raged inwardly against the callousness, the bloodlust of
that fat, swarthy renegade whom he had seen so many times glossing over
crimes charged to him by the Embassy.
The freighter had not taken off yet; the thunder of its atomics would
have been easily heard. He might yet--_what_? If the Service men--_If_--
As if they, trying to resuscitate an unconscious man almost an hour's
flight away, could come in time!
V
Dwells there a thing in all of space
Without a smile to light its face?
Intellect: Puck's dwelling place?
"What fools we mortals be!"
Ahead he saw an enormous Geissler tube sign flashing alternately with
neon's bright red and argon's blue:
THE SPACASINO
Dine & Dance--Floorshow Tonite
Joy Rikki & Martian Madcaps
and simultaneously, he heard voices and the double tread of footsteps
down a cross street. The robot slipped intelligently into the shadow of
an ornate doorway and he followed.
Coarse voices--the voices of space-hardened men:
"We gotta git Manuel out to the ship. 'S been loaded since sundown.
What'll the Envoy think? Cripes, we're behind schedule now--'most a
day!"
"You git 'im out! Ain't I tried? Y'know 'ow 'e is when 'e gits drunk!
Give the blighter a bevy of chorines to dance in front of 'im and some
vod-vil stuff and the blinkin' fool will set there all the bloomin'
night 'e will, if 'e's anywheres near tight, an 'ell itself won't move
'im!"
... The voices became inaudible--
Inspiration came to Hunter Frederix then. It was a futile, vain hope.
It was a desperate gamble and Death held the odds; but an hour's delay
might mean success. Andres would soon be conscious; the rockets would
flash out of Botrodus.
A wild plan flashed across his brain, and then a pure thought which
held in it understanding and acknowledgment--understanding of one man's
weakness and acknowledgment of another's genius.
He looked down at the robot, saw the photocellular eyes turned upwards
to his face. Despite the seriousness of it all, he smiled crookedly as
he caught the automaton up in his arms and hurried across to a doorway
marked plainly "Stage Door--No Loiterers!"
The door opened as he crossed the photo-electric eye on the threshold,
and he came upon a hectic scene: a sweating, cigar-chewing manager
upbraiding a group of voluptuous chorines.
"Listen, girls, please can't you think up a new routine? This fellow's
a madman when he's drunk and he might take it in his cranium to tear
the joint apart. How's about that Starshine Sequence?"
Frederix shouldered his way brusquely through the surprised throng,
ignoring the angry remarks which came as his metal suit brushed bare
arms and backs. No time for pardons now; seconds meant life or death--
"Hey, Mac!" he said by way of introduction. "Could you use an act?"
The irate manager surveyed the big, purposeful man inside the oxysuit,
grinned and said:
"Listen, Goldilocks, whatcha think this is--a bearded man's convention?"
"Never mind about the customers!" the engineer burst in repartee,
smiling though his heart was grim. "I've a trained, talking Ganymedean
ape here. I'll give you an act that'll knock 'em wild if you'll
announce me now and give me a dressing room for about ten minutes. Oke?"
A system was hanging on the balance in the weighing of a few, short,
seemingly lightly-spoken words--the future of many kindred races sprung
from a common sun who labored now under greatest stress--And the
grinning manager must have sensed the aura of seriousness and power
about the unshaven man and his strange companion, for his face grew
sober.
"What's the act like, pal?"
"Ever hear the '_Saga-of-Sal_'?"
"I've heard _of_ it!"
"Tonight you'll hear _it_!"
Frederix's heart was beating with the power surges of a liquid-rocket's
blast as he hurried into the dressing room, completely removed his
helmet, splashed on fiery pseudo-pirate make-up, darkened his golden
beard, and then turned his attention to the stoic robot.
Time flew with the beating of his heart. Removing the robot's system
of speech, he set the disks awhirl, loosening the bolts which held the
144 common units of enunciation in a fixed order. Transcribing his
reedy falsetto onto the disks, remembering some of the great poem,
extemporizing with his natural flair for poetry, he recited some of the
choicest lines; then locked the enunciator unit and lay the robot aside
with an air of confidence and satisfaction.
Carefully he obliterated with make-up any distinguishing signs on the
government suit; then hurried out into the wings, the monkey-thing
scurrying before--
(The rockets are coming from Kaa, from Kaa,
Out of Kaa flashing flames in the night.)
* * * * *
All spacemen have heard the "Saga-of-Sal," repeated from expedition
quarters on Pluto into the English colony in Mercury's twilight zone,
Sal, the throaty torch-singer from dear old Boston at the very sound
of whose magic voice the maharajahs of Mars went into ecstasy and who
spurned them all to marry a blue midget from Callisto.
Conceived by some long-dead bard with the virile, full style of a
Kipling, it had been handed from mouth to mouth, every minstrel singing
it differently; but none of them ever had cause to sing it quite like
Hunter Frederix and his futuristic concept of a vaudeville stooge did
that wild night in the Spacasino while he waited, his life hanging on
a thread, anticipating momentary recognition, praying for the sound of
rockets out of Kaa.
The automaton scampered out in advance and a howl of laughter shook
the terra cotta walls. Frederix glimpsed Manuel Onupari rising from
a drink-laden table beyond the arc-lamps, a reluctant scowl on his
black-jowled, evil face as he argued vehemently with a Vron who was
plainly encouraging the renegade's men to take their leader to the
waiting ship.
But at the sound of applause, Onupari shook himself free and sank back
into his seat, exploding in drunken laughter, calling for more wine.
(Out of Kaa flashing flames in the night--)
A sigh of relief on his lips, Frederix looked down at that pink,
bewhiskered face, unspeakably comical, unspeakably innocent as they
swung into the Saga, holding its cues while the crowd roared, giving
them full punch under the sensitive direction of the electrical life
which seemed to know so much of all things.
"I will take my atomic and sweep through the stars
And chase all the girlies from Pluto to Mars;
I'm a knight with a steed which belches out flame;
I'm a whooper, by golly, Vamose is my name!
"Monk is my partner--he rides on my knee!
He flirts with them girlies, what a grand sight to see!
From Callisto to Luna, from mountain to shore
We still are a-whoopin'; may the rockets roar!"
Whereupon they swung into an animated recital of how they, privateers
ranging the void, had heard Sal broadcasting from a Martian station,
and, unutterably fascinated by her siren's call, landed only to be
turned over to the Service since she was a Service dame, and to sit in
a jail cell and watch her say I do to that Callistan blue midget in
a magnificent jail house wedding for dear old publicity's sake! What
a wild, uproarious yarn that was; what shouting, whistling, stomping
arose in that semi-barbaric place!
And the minutes were fleeing--and the miles behind the ships plunging
onward--
* * * * *
Mad thunder of applause broken by an equally mad roar. Meevo, pale,
wild-eyed, bursting into the club, crying out:
"Onupari! Planes riding the beam in from Kaa--two hundred miles away!
Come on, you drunken fool!" And Meevo jerked the drunken commander to
his unsteady feet, slapped his face with an insane violence, threw him
into the arms of some less-drunken men and rushed them and his fellow
Vron out into the night.
_They were coming!_ Coming, yes, but fifteen endless minutes away! Half
that time would see Onupari's powerful ship standing out into cosmic
space!
And the native impetuosity of Hunter Frederix could not fail to come.
Heated thoughts surged through his brain. His hand strayed to the guns
at his side and then he had flung the helmet on to his suit, clamped
it down and was gone from the Spacasino like a flash. "Monk," the
robot-extraordinary, tried in vain to match his madly-plunging steps.