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POLICE YOUR PLANET
By ERIC VAN LHIN
SCIENCE FICTION
AVALON BOOKS
22 EAST 60TH STREET NEW YORK
Copyright, 1956, by Eric van Lhin
[Transcriber's note: This is a rule 6 clearance. A copyright
renewal could not be found.]
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 56-13313
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA
BY THE RYERSON PRESS, TORONTO
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC., CLINTON, MASSACHUSETTS
CONTENTS
I One Way Ticket
II Honest Izzy
III The Graft Is Green
IV Captain Murdoch
V Recall
VI Sealed Letter
VII Electioneering
VIII Vote Early and Often
IX Contraband
X Marriage of Convenience
XI The Sky's the Limit
XII Wife or Prisoner?
XIII Arrest Mayor Wayne!
XIV Full Circle
XV Murdoch's Mantle
XVI Get the Dome!
XVII Security Payoff
POLICE YOUR PLANET
Chapter I
ONE WAY TICKET
There were ten passengers in the little pressurized cabin of the
electric bus that shuttled between the rocket field and Marsport. Ten
men, the driver--and Bruce Gordon.
He sat apart from the others, as he had kept to himself on the ten-day
trip between Earth and Mars, with the yellow stub of his ticket still
stuck defiantly in the band of his hat, proclaiming that Earth had paid
his passage without his permission being asked. His big, lean body was
slumped slightly in the seat. There was no expression on his face.
He listened to the driver explaining to a couple of firsters that they
were actually on what appeared to be one of the mysterious canals when
viewed from Earth. Every book on Mars gave the fact that the canals were
either an illusion or something which could not be detected on the
surface of the planet.
He glanced back toward the rocket that still pointed skyward back on the
field, and then forward toward the city of Marsport, sprawling out in a
mess of slums beyond the edges of the dome that had been built to hold
air over the central part. And at last he stirred and reached for the
yellow stub.
He grimaced at the ONE WAY stamped on it, then tore it into
bits and let the pieces scatter over the floor. He counted them as they
fell; thirty pieces, one for each year of his life. Little ones for the
two years he'd wasted as a cop. Shreds for the four years as a kid in
the ring before that--he'd never made the top. Bigger bits for two years
also wasted in trying his hand at professional gambling; and the six
final pieces that spelled his rise from a special reporter helping out
with a police shake-up coverage, through a regular leg-man turning up
rackets, and on up like a meteor until.... He'd made his big scoop, all
right. He'd dug up enough about the Mercury scandals to double
circulation.
And the government had explained what a fool he'd been for printing half
of a story that was never supposed to be printed until all could be
revealed. They'd given Bruce Gordon his final assignment.
He shrugged. He'd bought a suit of airtight coveralls and a helmet at
the field; he had some cash, and a set of reader cards in his pocket.
The supply house, Earthside, had assured him that this pattern had never
been exported to Mars. With them and the knife he'd selected, he might
get by.
The Solar Security office had given him the knife practice, to make sure
he could use it, just as they'd made sure he hadn't taken extra money
with him beyond the regulation amount.
"You're a traitor, and we'd like nothing better than seeing your guts
spilled," the Security man had told him. "That paper you swiped was
marked top secret. But we don't get many men with your background--cop,
tinhorn, fighter--who have brains enough for our work. So you're bound
for Mars, rather than the Mercury mines. If..."
It was a big _if_, and a vague one. They needed men on Mars who could
act as links in their information bureau, and be ready to work on their
side when the expected trouble came. They wanted men who could serve
them loyally, even without orders. If he did them enough service, they
might let him back to Earth. If he caused trouble enough, they could
still ship him to Mercury.
"And suppose nothing happens?" he asked.
"Then who cares? You're just lucky enough to be alive."
"And what makes you think I'm going to be a spy for Security?"
The other had shrugged. "Why not, Gordon? You've been a spy for a yellow
scandal sheet. Why not for us?"
Gordon had been smart enough to realize that perhaps Security was right.
They were in the slums around the city now. Marsport had been settled
faster than it was ready to receive. Temporary buildings had been thrown
up, and then had remained, decaying into deathtraps. It wasn't a pretty
view that visitors got as they first reached Mars. But nobody except the
romantic fools had ever thought frontiers were pretty.
The drummer who had watched Gordon tear up his yellow stub moved forward
now. "First time?" he asked.
Gordon nodded, mentally cataloguing the drummer as the cockroach type,
midway between the small-businessman slug and the petty-crook spider
types that weren't worth bothering with. But the other took it as
interest.
"Been here dozens of times, myself. Risking your life just to go into
Marsport. Why Congress doesn't clean it up, _I'll_ never know!"
Gordon's mind switched to the readers in his bag. The cards were
plastic, and should be good for a week or so of use before they showed
wear. During that time, by playing it carefully, he should have his
stake. Then, if the gaming tables here were as crudely run as an
oldtimer he'd known on Earth had said, he could try a coup.
"... be at Mother Corey's soon," the fat little drummer babbled on.
"Notorious--worst place on Mars. Take it from me, brother, that's
something! Even the cops are afraid to go in there. See it? There, to
your left!"
The name was vaguely familiar as one of the sore spots of Marsport.
Bruce Gordon looked, and spotted the ragged building, half a mile
outside the dome. It had been a rocket-maintenance hangar once, then had
been turned into temporary dwelling for the first deportees, when Earth
began flooding Mars. Now, seeming to stand by habit alone, it radiated
desolation and decay.
He stood up, grabbing for his bag, and spinning the drummer aside. He
jerked forward, and caught the driver's shoulder. "Getting off!"
The driver shrugged his hand away. "Don't be crazy, mister! They--" He
turned, saw it was Gordon, and his face turned blank. "It's your life,
buster," he said, and reached for the brake. "I'll give you five minutes
to get into coveralls and helmet and out through the airlock."
Gordon needed less than that; he'd practiced all the way from Earth. The
transparent plastic of the coveralls went on easily enough, and his
hands found the seals quickly. He slipped his few possessions into a bag
at his belt, slid the knife into a spring holster above his wrist, and
picked up the bowl-shaped helmet. It seated on a plastic seal, and the
little air compressor at his back began to hum, ready to turn the thin
wisp of Mars' atmosphere into a barely breathable pressure. He tested
the Marspeaker--an amplifier and speaker in another pouch, designed to
raise the volume of his voice to a level where it would carry through
even the air of Mars.
The driver swore at the lash of sound, and grabbed for the airlock
switch.
* * * * *
Gordon moved down unpaved streets that zig-zagged along, thick with the
filth of garbage and poverty--the part of Mars never seen in the
newsreels, outside the shock movies. Thin kids with big eyes and sullen
mouths crowded the streets in their airsuits, yelling profanity. The
street was filled with people watching with a numbed hunger for any kind
of excitement.
It was late afternoon, obviously. Men were coming from the few bus
routes, lugging tools and lunch baskets, slumped and beaten from labor
in the atomic plants, the Martian conversion farms, and the industries
that had come inevitably where inefficiency was better than the high
prices of imports. The saloons were doing well enough, apparently, from
the number that streamed in through their airlock entrances. But Gordon
saw one of the bartenders paying money to a thickset person with an
arrogant sneer; he knew then that the few profits from the cheap beer
were never going home with the man. Storekeepers in the cheap little
shops had the same lines on their faces as they saw on those of their
customers.
Poverty and misery were the keynotes here, rather than the evil
half-world the drummer had babbled about. But to Gordon's trained eyes,
there was plenty of outright rottenness, too.
He grimaced, grateful that the supercharger on his airsuit filtered out
some of the smell which the thin air carried. He'd thought he was
familiar with human misery from his own Earth slum background. But there
was no attempt to disguise it here.
Ahead, Mother Corey's reared up--a huge, ugly half-cylinder of pitted
metal and native bricks, showing the patchwork of decades, before
repairs had been abandoned. There were no windows, though once there had
been; and the front was covered with a big sign that spelled out
_Condemned_. The airseal was filthy, and there was no bell.
Gordon kicked against the side, waited, and kicked again. A slit opened
and closed. He waited, then drew his knife and began prying at the worn
cement around the airseal, looking for the lock that had been there.
The seal suddenly quivered, indicating that metal inside had been
withdrawn. Gordon grinned tautly, stepped through, and pushed the blade
against the inner plastic.
"All right, all right," a voice whined out of the darkness. "You don't
have to puncture my seal. You're in."
"Then call them off!"
A wheezing chuckle answered him, and a phosphor bulb glowed weakly,
shedding some light on a filthy hall. "Okay, boys," the voice said,
"come on down. He's alone, anyhow. What's pushing, stranger?"
"A yellow ticket," Gordon told him, "and a government allotment that'll
last me two weeks in the dome. I figure on making it last six here, and
don't let my being a firster give you hot palms. My brother was Lanny
Gordon!"
It happened to be true, though Bruce Gordon hadn't seen his brother from
the time the man had left the family, as a young punk, to the day they
finally convicted him on his twenty-first murder. But here, if it was
like places he'd known on Earth, even second-hand contact with "muscle"
was useful.
It seemed to work. A huge man oozed out of the shadows, his gray face
contorting its doughy fat into a yellow-toothed grin, and a filthy hand
waved back the others. There were a few wisps of long, gray hair on the
head and face, and they quivered as he moved forward.
"Looking for a room?" he whined.
"I'm looking for Mother Corey."
"Then you're looking at him, cobber. Sleep on the floor, want a bunk,
squat with four, or room and duchess to yourself?"
There was a period of haggling, followed by a wait as Mother Corey
kicked four grumbling men out of a four-by-seven hole on the second
floor. Gordon's money had carried more weight than his brother's
reputation; for that, Corey humored his guest's wish for privacy. "All
yours, cobber, while your crackle's blue."
It was a filthy, dark place. In one corner was an unsheeted bed. There
was a rusty bucket for water, a hole kicked through the floor for waste
water. Plumbing, and such luxuries, apparently hadn't existed for
years--except for the small cistern and worn water-recovery plant in the
basement, beside the tired-looking weeds in the hydroponic tanks that
tried unsuccessfully to keep the air breathable.
"What about a lock on the door?" Gordon asked.
"What good would it do you? Got a different way here, we have. One
credit a week, and you get Mother Corey's word nobody busts in. And it
sticks, cobber--one way or the other."
Gordon paid, and tossed his pouch on the filthy bed. With a little work,
the place could be cleaned enough.
He pulled the cards out of his pouch, trying to be casual. Mother Corey
stood staring at the pack while Bruce Gordon changed out of his airsuit,
gagging faintly as the full effluvium of the place hit him. "Where does
a man eat around here?"
Mother Corey pried his eyes off the cards and ran a thick tongue over
heavy lips. "Eh? Oh. Eat. There's a place about ten blocks back. Cobber,
stop teasing me! With elections coming up, and the boys loaded with vote
money back in town--with a deck of cheaters like that--you want to
_eat_?"
He picked the deck up fondly, while a faraway look came into his clouded
eyes. "Same ones--same identical ones I wore out nigh twenty years ago.
Smuggled two decks up here. Set to clean up--and I did, for a while." He
shook his head sadly, and handed the deck back to Gordon. "Come on down.
For the sight of these, I'll give you the lay for your pitch. And when
your luck's made or broken, remember Mother Corey was your friend first,
and your old Mother can get longer use from them than you can."
He waddled off, telling of his plans to take Mars for a cleaning, once
long ago. Gordon followed him, staring at the surrounding filth.
His thoughts were churning so busily that he didn't see the blonde girl
until she had forced her way past them on the stairs. Then he turned
back, but she had vanished into one of the rooms.