Radiations had shorted his brilliant pilot's
brain, left him an aimless, childish hulk. Yet
Rhiannon had his moments--when he needed them.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Echoed by the sloping, sun-drenched concrete walls, booming above the
high, bony clatter of monorail cranes, shaming the entire fuming,
metallic hubbub of Boat Bed 52, the sound might have been the cavernous
indignation of some giant beast being dragged zoo-ward from a
Bio-Institute boat. It was, however, a voice, singing:
Oh-h-h, the boats come in
An' the boats go out
An' we clean 'em an' screen 'em an' preen 'em.
We fix their fins
An' we polish their snouts
With a five second breather between 'em.
I-i-if she comes in smash
From a steerocket lash
Do we wait 'til they've counted the dead?
Oh never, tut tut--
We just plate up her butt
An' fix up the rest in the--the--
Mountainous Rhiannon couldn't remember the last word. The clouded
crystal, that was Rhiannon. He killed his buffing-ray and aimed a
bellow that not only shivered the eardrums of its target but woke up
Sergeant Atoms a hundred feet below, bringing him to his feet with an
adoring bark.
"Hey, Stevie, what'sa last word?"
Steve Podalski swung his legs into view and slid carelessly down
the dull metal roundness of tube fourteen, like a boy on a barrel.
His magnetic boots thunked onto tube thirteen and took hold. He gave
Rhiannon a look compounded of acid and pity. "Go to hell with your
noise."
Off at the other end of Bed 52 a gong sounded its invitation to cease
work and relax for a while. The twelve Navy spaceboats in 52, lined
hip to hip like reclining madames on their slanting cradles, seemed
suddenly to begin to shed their skins as a solid parasitica of out-ship
workers melted in streams toward the upthrust frameworks of the lifts.
"I comin gout." A small cabbagelike Asteroidal came out of the smudgy
darkness of the tube, a scraping-ray in each flat tentacle. "I knockin
goff." Without a break in its fluid motion it climbed onto Rhiannon's
arm and couched itself in the angle of his elbow.
"Yeah, me too. Coming, Stevie?"
Podalski shook his head.
He stood and watched Rhiannon and Tweety--Tieu-tuiey was its given
name, but to pronounce it correctly always sounded a little gay--make
their way toward the lift. He shook his head again. Once a pilot, he
thought, not necessarily always a pilot. Space did rotten things to men
who got careless with their radiation screens. It blotched their minds,
tossed up fences around memory and intelligence.
A most brilliant crystal--that's what Rhiannon had once been.
* * * * *
Sixty feet away and four stories above the concrete floor of Bed 52, a
man stood by the curving window of Karrin's office and watched Rhiannon
descend in the lift. He was a small, padded man with the sly look of
the lower Mars suburbs about him.
"Tubemonkey," he said, curling his lips over the word.
Karrin raised his sober, business-man's eyes from their inspection of
the briefcase on the desk before him. "He'll do perfectly, Lin. He's
just idiot enough to get us there and back and then forget all about
it. He got a dose of cosmics--sometimes he can't even remember his own
name."
"Yes?" Lin Janus' cold gaze followed Rhiannon as the big man went
through the distant playground gate. Rhiannon was carrying Tweety on
his shoulder and bouncing every other step into the air, and Tweety
had wrapped indignant tentacles around his steed's head. A mud-colored
puppy went scooting after them, yanked by jealousy from the quilted lay
his master had prepared for him beneath Cradle Nine.
"Can he still handle a boat?"
"Not for combat." Karrin leaned far back in his chair and locked his
hands behind his head with a dignity that made the awkward position
seem very right. "He can still hit space, though."
Janus turned away from the window.
"You'd better make certain that he forgets," he said.
Karrin shrugged; another killing wouldn't matter much. "Why do we need
a pilot in the first place?"
"You took me out last time," Janus said flatly, "and I damned near died
of fright." He tapped the briefcase. "You're sure this is the right
stuff? I can't tell from looking, you know--hyper-atomics are out of my
line."
Karrin smiled slightly and brought his body forward in the chair.
"You're getting what you're paying me for." He took his time about
lighting a cigarette and then laid it on the edge of the desk as he
stood up. He took a leather folder from the briefcase, opened it to
reveal a dozen closely printed and diagrammed sheets.
"These," he said, "are Llarn's defenses. Take my word for it."
Unlike most wars, this one had started formally and in good military
taste. From their headquarters on Llarn's moon the Rebels had made
their request for political autonomy, and denial had come promptly,
through Llarn's Council, from the far off Earth Federation. The Rebels
had announced their intent to revolt in force and the first engagement
had occurred that very day--a space battle, fought competently by both
sides, and a draw. Llarn, Earth's first extra-Solar pioneer world,
threw up hyper-atomic shields--Llarn's moon did likewise--and the
matter rested there in a checkmate of technological perfection.
Subsequent space battles had been fought, but these mattered very
little. It had boiled down to a secret service war; a deadlock to be
broken by the first side skillful enough to spy out the plans of the
enemy's defense set-up. Sabotage could then finish the job.
* * * * *
The attendant looked at Rhiannon without enthusiasm. He gave the big
man a time ticket and turned and went through an arched doorway. He
had just pulled a fresh punching bag from the dwindling supply when a
_wham_ sound ran across the air of the playground outside.
Surrounded by pained chuckles, Rhiannon looked unhappily at the
dangling plastic ruin and allowed himself to be shoved aside by the
bitter attendant. Then, when the damage was repaired, he drew back his
huge right arm again. The attendant grabbed it.
"Hold on, Rhiannon, there's a rocket game over here, fella. Come on
and I'll show it to you!" He pulled the reluctant giant over to a
facsimile control board set against the wall; watched for, and saw,
the huge smile break out. Every day was a new life for Rhiannon, and
the presence of this mock control board--installed to keep him out of
trouble--came always as a wonderful surprise.
"Sit down, Rhiannon. Tubes set?"
A tense nod.
"Gravity O.K.? Green light from Central? _Blast off!_"
Rhiannon zoomed his boat into outer space and began to chase a comet.
It got away from him. After a while he thought it would be nice if he
could blast the whole Rebel navy out of the void--and they appeared,
tier upon tier of them, in gleaming battle shields.
"Sergeant Atoms!" he rumbled. "Make ready to fire."
Atoms rose up on his hind legs, compelled and controlled by the strange
and inexplicable telepathic aftermath of Rhiannon's misfortune. The
former pilot's "cosmic braincut"--and the "braincuts" of the other
few similar radiation cases--had resulted in this sour blessing: had
stepped up their mental broadcasting apparatus, and left them very
little to broadcast. Humans could often pick up random thoughts from
these men, while animals reacted easily to their will.
Thus it was that "Sergeant" Atoms placed his paws on the dummy firing
button; a temporarily selfless extension of Rhiannon's physical and
psychical form.
Together, they wiped out the Rebel fleet in a matter of seconds.
Rhiannon was exploring Polaris when a hand fell lightly upon his
shoulder. He whirled up and around snarling. A Rebel spy on his boat:
he'd kill the son--
Karrin ducked, his face seeming to sag pallid from the front of his
skull. "Whoa, now, Rhiannon, it's Karrin--it's Karrin!"
"Rebel spy!" Rhiannon had Karrin dangling off the floor at the end
of his arm. He drew back his other fist--all the way to Polaris--for
the blow that would end the war. Then reality registered behind those
glazed, distant-seeing pupils.
"Mr. Karrin! I'm sorry sir." He set his employer's sandals back on the
floor and began to shuffle uncomfortably.
Karrin looked about him, his fury artfully concealed beneath a rigid,
we-must-be-patient smirk. The other workers in the ground, some of them
poised in mid-step after having started to the rescue, were looking
embarrassed and quickly turned to resume their games. The sounds of
bowling and fencing and tennis and swimming drove away the silence, and
the odd patois of multi-specied mechanics and technicians swelled up
like jungle chatter.
Karrin put his hand on Rhiannon's sleeve and walked the big man into
the vast quiet of Bed 52. Atoms came after them, wagging almost
everything but his head which arrowed straight and true after the giant
figure.
When he was paid no attention, however, he sulked over to his box and
lay down and was immediately asleep. "Sergeant" Atoms would have been
a poor choice to stand guard duty--he had been known to sleep the
clock around, silent and unmoving. Great boats had been lifted from
the cradles above him and others put into their place, and Atoms had
dreamed on and on. And on.
Rhiannon started to apologize again.
"That's perfectly all right, soldier," Karrin said smoothly.
"Commendable attitude!" He led the way past the cradles toward the
rear of the Bed. "You want to help win the war, don't you?"
"Yes, yes," Rhiannon groaned.
Karrin beamed his approval. "Well, now, you may be able to do just
that, my boy! How would you like to be--"
"I was exploring Polaris, sir." Rhiannon's tones were suddenly vacant.
"The people there got three hea--" and the latter part of the word
remained unspoken, forgotten.
Karrin's smile wavered. They had halted by a freight entrance opening
onto the green-carpeted rear grounds. He drew the big man closer to him
and snapped his words like a whip.
"Now _listen_, Rhiannon! How would you like to hit space again--to get
your silver Sun back--to be reinstated as a commander!"
That tore through Rhiannon's fog and he reacted. He straightened his
seventy nine inches into the position of attention. "I'd like nothing
better, sir," he said.
Karrin made a great show of inspecting their immediate surroundings for
eavesdroppers.
He said: "This is a very important, a top secret mission. We--the
Council--believe that you are the only man who can fly it. We selected
you from among thousands, Rhiannon!"
Rhiannon stood ever more stiffly, his face incandescent.
"Yes _sir_. I didn't know you were a Council Member, sir."
"Very few people do," Karrin replied dryly. "Now, soldier, a special
boat is being tuned up at my private field. Do you know where that is?"
"Outside in back, sir. I've worked on your boats."
Karrin nodded. "Then go there immediately and wait. Talk to no one. I
have to confer with President Naro before--"
"President _Naro_, sir!"
Karrin saluted theatrically and Rhiannon responded with eyes afire.
The big man executed a neat about-face and marched one two through the
door. And looking after the broad back, Karrin speculated where to
place the death shot when the time came.
* * * * *
The nebula hung to starboard, seeming almost at arm's length from the
ports; a silver pinwheel; a thirty thousand light year toy. Rhiannon
jockeyed the boat closer and closer to the Rebel craft, his big hands
skipping over the board with consummate, unthinking skill. He shot out
the hand-line and it snaked to the airlock of the other boat.
Janus, holding the briefcase flat against his belly, stepped into the
lower portion of the single spacesuit and ducked under and up into the
top portion that hung from its rack. The muffled clicks as he turned
the sealing handles were the only sound in the cabin. Then his voice
came metallic from the speaker. "We'll contact you, Karrin, if we
need you again--although I think this trip should be the last one."
He inflated the suit and stamped several times, testing the suit's
perfection by the ringing in his ears.
Karrin's reply was purposefully vague, with an eye to Rhiannon. "There
should be use for the Security Chief of Federation Spacelines even
after the war is over, Janus. A--ah--'Rebel' underground will likely
start up--and as you've already seen, a man with a briefcase will
hardly doubt the purity of my kitchens or suspect one of my cabin-boys
of unwanted partisanship. I have some very cooperative men working for
me."
Putting a boot on the hatch-ladder, Janus showed a sardonic grin
through his faceplate. "Every man's purse is a traitor--"
Karrin sliced off the words with a quick gesture and shot a look at
Rhiannon. The tubemonkey was staring through the front port at the
stars, his face a caricature of bliss.
Janus shrugged, saying: "I thought you said he was _nicht_--" and swung
himself clumsily up the ladder. "Besides," he added, "weren't you going
to _convince_ him of the necessity for silence?" He disappeared into
the airlock. There was an airy _phoot_ sound as he let himself into the
void.
Karrin walked over to the front port and watched for Janus to become
visible on the near length of the line. Watched, too, Rhiannon's
reflection in the glass. The big man was gaping at the nebula and
twitching the thick muscles of his neck in ecstasy. Karrin felt an
urge to snicker.
"Good to get back, eh?" he asked.