_The shade of that gangling genius of
the spaceways--Lancelot Biggs--comes
back to haunt his old ship mates._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales January 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Folks say I'm hard-boiled; well, maybe so. My mama told me a long time
ago--when I was a brat in three-cornered britches--that if you keep
your upper lip rigid and a steely glint in the old optics and _le
craque sage_ dripping from your tongue, not many people will be hopping
around, pushing chips off your shoulder and daring you to take off
your glasses.
And mama was right. So I'm commonly known as "that smart-Aleck Bert
Donovan," and folks think I'm hard-boiled--but I didn't feel like any
ten-minute egg the afternoon Diane Hanson, her pop, Cap Hanson, skipper
of the freighter _Saturn_, and I came home from Lancelot Biggs' funeral.
Lancelot Biggs was dead. Or missing for more than seven weeks in
the gray nothingness of negative space--which is the same thing. He
had hurled himself into this desolate matrix universe deliberately,
sacrificing himself to save the lives of his friends and shipmates when
we were all doomed to die horribly by crashing headlong into massive
Jupiter.
[Illustration: Lancelot Biggs was dead; or else missing in the gray
nothingness of negative space....]
Since the life-skiff in which he had entombed himself was tiny,
poorly provisioned and inadequately supplied with water, there was
no longer the faintest glimmer of hope that he might, somehow and
miraculously, have survived. Even had he found some way of escaping the
minus boundaries of the weird nega-universe into which he had fled.
Therefore, today he had been formally "buried". In spirit, so to speak,
or by remote control. The way the old boys in the 19th Century used to
bury lost mariners. With a long cortege and a tall stone, engraven with
the words: _Here lies So-and-so--Lost at Sea._
Only this being the enlightened 22nd Century and we being a bit more
reasonable, Biggs' marker read: _In Memory of Lt. Lancelot Biggs--Lost
in Space._
So we were a sad looking trio when we came back to the apartment
which Lanse Biggs and I used to share near Long Island Spaceport.
Cap Hanson had lost the finest First Mate to ever tread the ramps of
a space-lugger, I had lost the best friend a man had ever had, and
Diane--well, her loss was the greatest. She had lost the man she loved,
the lean, gangling man to whom, had not fate's grim hand intervened,
she would now be married.
And like I said--folks call me hard-boiled. But I reckon I'm only
gently poached compared to the men who operate under the title of Big
Business, because when we entered the apartment the telephone was
jangling like an opium addict's nerves, and when I picked it up I was
talking to the Assignment Clerk of the I.P.C., the Corporation from
which we draw our weekly credit checks.
"Donovan?" he yelped. "Is that you, Donovan?"
"Mmm," I said.
"Is Captain Hanson there?"
I glanced at the skipper, whose arms were about his quietly sobbing
daughter. He was a gruff old codger, Hanson; a more irascible
space-tyrant never lifted gravs. But he had a heart buried somewhere
beneath that crust, a heart that was now as hurt and grieved as my own.
"Why?" I asked.
"Never mind why!" snapped the A.C. "Put him on!"
I said grimly, "Okay, Buster! I'll play toddle-top with you. I'll _put_
him on now and _take_ you on the next time I see you. Skipper--" And I
handed him the phone.
Whatever the A.C. told the Old Man, it threw a jolt into him. I saw
Hanson stiffen like a rheumatic neck, and he roared, "_Wha-a-at!_
Impossible! Why, you damned young jackanapes, don't you know the staff
and crew of the _Saturn_ are in mourning? We won't--"
* * * * *
Then there was clacking from the ear-piece, metallic and ominous,
and the Old Man's face turned from crimson to an outraged mauve.
But anxious lines corrugated his brow and he forced a modulated
acquiescence to his voice.
"I see," he said thoughtfully. "So that's the way it is, eh? Well--"
Grudgingly "--all right, then. But I don't like it, sir. And you may
tell your superiors--"
The A.C. must have hung up on him. He turned to us slowly. "Sparks--"
he said.
Diane Hanson stared at her father. "Daddy, what is it? Is it--some news
about Lancelot?"
"No, honey," said the Old Man gravely. "Don't keep that hope burning,
dear. You'll only torture yourself. This is something entirely
different. Something--" His stifled anger burst out afresh "--something
dastardly! They should be boiled in oil, the whole rotten kit and
kiboodle of them! But I'm helpless. Orders are orders. Sparks, get in
contact with the staff and crew immediately. Tell them to pack their
duffle and be aboard the _Saturn_ by midnight."