Captain Edwards nodded. "I do. But the junketing around will give you
a bit of a rest and the seeking for this character will keep your mind
alert. So, Lieutenant Jeffries, go out and catch me Black Morgan, the
Pirate!"
Jeffries grinned. "And meanwhile I shall also make a landing on the
mythical planet Vulcan, locate the Gegenschein, and bring back a covey
of Voimaids with their equally mythical pet, the Hydrae."
Edwards laughed. "Yup," he said, still chuckling. "Now scat, because I
have work to do."
Jeffries nodded and saluted genially. "I'm it," he said. Then he turned
and left the office.
Captain Edwards looked after the leaving officer and nodded paternally.
Jeffries was an excellent officer. He was loyal, ambitious, and
zealous. Cases assigned to him came in after a reasonable length of
time, and they were sealed shut and glued down with all the necessary
evidence. Those cases that were not to go to court, complete, were
those in which the criminal preferred to shoot it out, and Lieutenant
Jeffries was both brave and an excellent shot--as well as being a good
strategist. He'd been working too hard, and as Edwards said, a real
vacation would have been boring.
The will-o'-the-wisp known as Black Morgan, the Pirate, would give him
a rest.
Jeffries went home to pack. Black Morgan was a space pirate and the
place to look for him was in space. That space piracy was impossible
for divers reasons seemed to make little difference to Black Morgan. He
did it.
Lieutenant Jeffries made his plans, knowing the facts. First was to
encounter Black Morgan. Theorizing how it would be possible to commit
piracy on a ship traveling at twenty-five hundred miles per second,
running at 3-Gs constant acceleration would do no good. It had been
agreed impossible. Yet Black Morgan did it.
So Jeffries must first encounter the villain and then take after him.
With but six months, Jeffries could not even begin to inspect the
corners of the solar system that _hadn't_ been covered before.
But unlike straight hunting, in which the hunter must locate his
quarry, when hunting rats, you bait rattraps and let the rat come to
you.
Accordingly, Lieutenant Jeffries made a personal call to the Office
of Shipping and requested confidential data on all shipments of high
value, and then picked out the first. To add to the certainty, Jeffries
called upon the editor of a sensation-seeking news agent and disclosed
the fact that he, Lieutenant Jeffries, was being sent on the _Martian
Queen_ to protect a shipment of radiosodium.
Then, when the time came, Lieutenant Jeffries went boldly to the space
line terminal and embarked.
The first part of the trip was uneventful. At 3-Gs, the ship's velocity
mounted swiftly as the hours passed under the constant acceleration.
Jeffries watched the crew and the passengers idly, because all of them
had been thoroughly investigated before the ship's take-off. They were
citizens about which there could be no doubt, and therefore anything
but a cursory watch was unnecessary. Jeffries divided his time between
the passengers and the Chief Signal Officer, Jones, who willingly gave
him whatever information he needed.
At one time, Lieutenant Jeffries asked Jones why space piracy was
considered so impossible.
"You mean Black Morgan," smiled Jones. "Well, space piracy isn't
impossible excepting the way he is supposed to do it. Piracy near
either terminal might go off. But when we're rattling through space
near mid-course at about two thousand miles per second, how could it be
done?"
"Don't follow," objected Jeffries.
"First, 3-Gs is about all that people can stand over any long period.
You can take five sitting down, and about eight lying on a pressure
mattress, and I've heard of men taking fifteen while immersed in a
pressure-pack that equals the specific gravity of the human body. But
taking even 5-Gs for any length of time will kill. Even three is a
strain for men who have been raised under one."
"Yes?" prompted Jeffries.
"It's the timing that would stop him," said Jones. "You can't possibly
lie await in space until we come into detector range because detector
range is about a million miles. At one thousand miles per second,
that's offering you one thousand seconds from extreme range to zero
range and another thousand from zero range to extreme range on the
other side--on the way out. Two thousand seconds is about thirty-three
minutes. To match our speed in that time would require an acceleration
of about twenty-five hundred feet per second, which is approximately
75-Gs. Impossible! Plus the fact that he would have to lie in space
within a million mile radius of our course."
"Supposing he picked up your trail close to Terra?"
Jones smiled. "If he could detect us, we'd detect him," laughed Jones.
"Supposing he had a better detector."
"We're at the theoretical limit of sensitivity now," said Jones. "And
we've been there for years. The noise level, thermal agitation in the
set itself, and a horde of other things limit the ultimate sensitivity
of any detector. And don't mention noise-eliminators. They aren't. You
can't stop electrons from rubbing one another and that's that!"
"But--?"
"We--as he may--also use both pulse-type detectors and aperiodic
receivers. People would have known that he was following them."
"Are you certain?"
Jones laughed. "Look, Lieutenant Jeffries, we're convoyed. There were
two Solar Guard spacecraft that took off as we did, for convoy duty.
Their job was to stick close by us all the way to Jupiter, right down
to the landing on Callisto. Now, they'd follow anything that they saw
suspicious. That's first. Secondly, we're at about three-quarters of
the way to turnover now--and neither of the convoys are visible on
the detector nor audible in the aperiodic receiver. If, Lieutenant
Jeffries, two Guard ships, bearing the best in instrument and
personnel, cannot stay within a million miles of us when they know our
predicted course, how can you expect a pirate to barge in upon us when
we're ramming space above two thousand miles per second? Detecting
at these distances and at these velocities brings about a situation
somewhat similar to Heisenberg's Uncertainty."
"Which is far above my policeman's mind," said Jeffries.
"You can detect where the spacecraft _was_ when the transmitted pulse
reached it and was echoed at X seconds ago. In order to know where it
is, in truth, you must assume a velocity which you must get from the
same gear. To assume the velocity, you must know exactly how far the
ship traveled between pulses, which because of the fact that the pulses
are transmitted different distances, is slightly difficult, especially
when the doppler is changing."
"O.K.," smiled Jeffries. "So piracy is impossible. Then how does
Black Morgan do it?"
"You know what I think?" said Jones.
"I'm a mind reader, of course," grinned Jeffries.
"Well, I wouldn't put it above certain blackguard spacecraft operators
to pirate their own ships and then put up a large tale about Black
Morgan. Does anybody ever really know--?"
"There have been authentic reports, made by reliable witnesses."
"O.K.," grunted Jones. "Then you tell me how it is done!"
"Me?" laughed Jeffries. "I'm hoping that Black Morgan will tell me in
person."
* * * * *
Lieutenant Jeffries, although his very appearance was "policeman," did
not act the part on this trip. He was the vacationer, the tourist. He
danced well, considering his bulk, drank moderately, spoke quietly
and intelligently, and made friends readily. He was always handy with
his camera when something interesting went on, and he borrowed the
spacecraft's darkroom to prepare the little tri-dimensional images of
his fellow passengers.
In the latter, Jeffries was well-liked because he managed to flub all
shots that were unflattering. Either he overexposed the block, or he
miscalculated the development time, or he was forced to apologize for
his clumsy fingers in the dark. At any rate, no pictures emerged from
any shot that might be viewed with the owner's distaste.
He discussed his project openly, and there was many an argument over
dinner. He thought, correctly, that people of honest lives would be
interested in the thoughts and methods of a policeman and he talked
openly. He had been a zealous policeman, and his store of incidents
seemed unlimited, and unlike many, these tales were not all told with
Lieutenant Jeffries as hero. In order to avoid the personal pronoun, he
often told stories about himself in the third person, giving credit to
some unknown member of the force.
And so by the time that the _Martian Queen_ reached turnover,
Lieutenant Jeffries was well-liked. He enjoyed this thoroughly, though
in his spare moments he hoped avidly for Black Morgan.
And, of course, Black Morgan was inevitable. The ship and its cargo had
been well publicized, as had been his intent. It was a set-up generated
for Black Morgan, and any pirate who thought enough of himself to take
on that name would never deny the challenge.
Black Morgan came a few hours after turnover. The ship's personnel and
passengers had--ritualistically--watched the heavens revolve about
their ship and had enjoyed the captain's dinner immediately afterwards.
The skipper had treated them with stories of his own and had explained
that it had been the original intention to serve the dinner during the
turnover, but all pilots were not as capable as the one they had now,
and the turnover had been known to be rough at times--and no space
line liked to have the job of removing spilled soup from fifty evening
gowns, let alone the bad publicity.
The dinner was finished, and the dancing was in full swing when the
alarm bells rang loud and clear above the pleasant strains of the music.
The acceleration dropped immediately to 1-G which gave several people
an internal stomach-wrangle similar to that not enjoyed by the stopping
of a high-speed elevator.
And there, a half mile from the _Martian Queen_, ran another ship. It
was black and chromium and deadly looking because of a triple-turret of
heavy rifles that led the _Martian Queen_ by exactly enough to make a
perfect hit. Marksman Jeffries knew it, and so did everybody who looked.
Signal Officer Jones nudged Jeffries. "There he is," he said bitterly.
"No myth, anyway," grunted Jeffries.
"Nope."
"How'd he come up?"
Jones growled in his throat. "I'll never know," he said sadly. "One
moment, the area was clean. Next moment, the celestial globe displayed
a large ship, the detectors went crazy, and here he was!"
"Here he _is_, you mean," came a heavy reply, and everybody turned
to see the menacing figure standing in the room, heavy automatics
in either hand. "I thank you for lining up, ladies and gentlemen. It
makes things so much easier. As you see, I've your captain under one
of these. I'll not bother shooting the first one that makes an offside
move. My first shot will kill the captain. My second will kill the
first officer. I'll have whatever valuables are handy, and then I'll
have that shipment of radiosodium."
"You'll ..." started Captain Phillips.
"I'll kill you if you don't," gritted the pirate.
And that was that. Black Morgan knew what he was about, and he did it
neatly and quickly. The valuables went into a sack and then they were
all herded into a cargo hold and locked in.
Gravity went off completely, leaving them floundering in the room.
The heavy shipment of radiosodium went out with only inertia to offer
resistance.
An hour later, they forced the door of the cargo hold and the ship
took up operations again. But Black Morgan was no longer in sight. The
detector recorder indicated a receding target that must have been the
leaving pirate craft, but that was all. Despite all arguments, Black
Morgan had come up, pirated the craft at two-thousand, three hundred
miles per second, under 3-Gs' deceleration from turnover, one hour and
twelve minutes previous.
Yes, it was impossible and everybody knew that matching such constants
in space could not be done, but Black Morgan had done it.
There was no merriment for the rest of the trip.
* * * * *
Back on Terra again, Lieutenant Jeffries found that he was in disgrace.
His landing was followed almost immediately by an official order, and
with sheer discouragement, Jeffries went to see Captain Edwards.
"That was a fine display," snapped his superior.
"But--"
"Look, Jeffries. You were sent forth to do a job. Anything you wanted
we'd furnish. But you went out with a brass band and a challenge,
and you were taken up and beaten. Not only that, but we lost a small
fortune in radiosodium."
"I'd hoped to--"
"Look, Jeffries, a mistake is a mistake. You laid a trap, and you also
got some sort of evidence, I presume. That's fine. But you also laid
yourself wide open to criticism. It's the people who are howling--the
people and the officials of the space lines."
"But I--"
"You didn't catch Black Morgan," grunted Edwards sourly. "And what do
you know about him?"
"He came up behind us at a velocity that apparently exceeded the speed
of light, caught us, robbed us, and then left quietly."
"Exceeded the speed of light?" scoffed Captain Edwards.
"According to the recorder, he did."
"Yeah, that we know," grunted Edwards. "He is always _supposed_ to. The
detector's repetition-rate is about one every ten seconds, permitting
ranges up to a million miles. The close-in detector runs one per
second, and Black Morgan comes in from maximum range to close-in range
between pulses. He hits once or twice on the close-in range--all of
which gives definite evidence that he exceeds the speed of light. And
he is instantly maneuverable! So he comes up behind you at a thousand
times your velocity and slows down to match you in microseconds. This
ain't possible--and everybody knows it!"
"Maybe he knows the answer," said Jeffries doggedly.
"Black Morgan has been doing that trick for eight years," snapped
Captain Edwards. "During which time every scientist in the system has
been seeking a means of copying it in some manner. Now don't tell me
that one man can think up a method of space drive that the rest of
the scientific world cannot even conceive as possible? Method--hell.
They won't even permit its being possible, let alone finding a method.
Now--you're it."
"I'm--it?"
Captain Edwards nodded solemnly. "I gave you this jaunt as a vacation.
You boggled it. I'd not have minded failure. But the service can't
stand having one of its men making monkeys out of everybody. Mere
failure was to be expected. But you advertised for it, wanted it, took
it, and then added the ignominy of having the space line lose a half a
million dollars worth of radiosodium."
"So what am I going to get now?"
"Look," grunted Edwards, "I'm forced into this. I'm going to issue an
official report that you are on the trail of Black Morgan and that the
loss of the radiosodium is only temporary. You'll be placed officially
on the case and this time, Jeffries, you'll either collect Black Morgan
or you'll find yourself in disgrace. Now go out and get him or you'll
lose your shirt!"
* * * * *
It was bad, admitted Jeffries. But it got worse as the weeks wore on.
To avoid making futile reports, Jeffries kept on the move, and every
time that he took to space, Black Morgan hounded him.
The pirate held up the _Callisto Clipper_ and took only personal
valuables. He pirated a million dollars worth of borts--black
tool-diamonds--from the _Venus Girl_ that Jeffries knew nothing
about until he read it in the paper in connection with his own
name--mentioned as protector! Black Morgan breached the _Brunnhilde
of Mars_ for the sole purpose of pirating all the liquor and stores
aboard. He stopped the _Lunar Lady_ to get a replacement for his own
celestial globe, leaving the ship without a detector for the rest of
the ship, for Black Morgan took not only the spares, but the operating
equipment as well.
And each time he appeared, Lieutenant Jeffries was the brunt of Black
Morgan's perverted sense of humor. He stole Jeffries' shoes once and
mailed them back to Terran Headquarters. He took the policeman's
cigarette lighter and returned it--engraved with a taunting message
from himself to the "Pride of the Solar Police." And Jeffries rode the
space lines to get away from himself but found Black Morgan hounding
him.
The lieutenant ignored repeated demands for action, dropping official
letters in the wastebasket because he knew what they contained. He
avoided his favorite haunts. He sought out of the way places, hoping
to learn something about that huge black spacecraft that came up from
behind at the speed of light and matched velocity in microseconds. He
sought the counsel of scientists who claimed it impossible. He read the
rosters of the ships of all ports, and he sought the manufacturers of
spacecraft, hoping to discover one that might have made the pirate's
ship. None had--or anything resembling that description.
For Jeffries took pictures for some time before he abandoned his camera
in dismay. The fun he'd had with it now seemed flat and odious. He
sold it in disgust in a small secondhand store on Mars. He sold his
personal belongings to get money, for his requests for funds were being
viewed with scorn, and a personal appearance with a request meant more
scathing remarks on his inefficiency. To avoid facing his failure,
Jeffries spent his own money. He changed his appearance because the
papers printed his picture as a failure every time there was piracy.
* * * * *
Black Morgan, on the other hand, was having the time of his life. He
said so. Holding the entire ship's body at the point of his guns, Black
Morgan taunted Lieutenant Jeffries: "I congratulate you, lieutenant,"
he said.
"You--!"
"Careful. I dislike profanity. I prefer this chase, Lieutenant
Jeffries. I'd have taken only what I needed, but you gave me new life.
Now I'm stealing for the fun of it--and to watch you combing space
for a ship that--impossibly--can not be! Would you like to join me,
lieutenant?"
Jeffries snarled, and the ship rang with the sound of Black Morgan's
raucous laughter.
That, of course, hit the headlines. And the next time Black Morgan
came, he said: "Ex-Lieutenant Jeffries! Pleased to meet you! Ensign
Jeffries, I'd promote you, not reduce you in rank. Join me?"
And again that laughter.
It haunted the policeman's sleep. Jeffries set up trap after trap to
locate the source of the pirate's information. For it was obvious
that Black Morgan was following him around from planet to planet for
the sole purpose of taunting him. When Jeffries sat in a restaurant,
he wondered whether the man at the next table was Black Morgan in
plain clothing, for the pirate wore fancy dress and a mask for his
depredations. He watched men with him in hotel and on the street; in
streetcar and drugstore. And when he took to space again, Black Morgan
would be there to taunt him.
Using his own spacecraft, Jeffries paced the space lines ships, and
found that keeping track of one was impossible. Even taking off at the
same instant and following their course, known to him, he lost them
after a few hours. He tried to put himself in the pirate's shoes, but
lacked the ability to contact any spacecraft in the depths of space.
Here the taunts were not direct. After landing, he was informed again
and again that Black Morgan had done this or had said that for his
benefit.
He became known as a curse. No ship would take off with him even
near--and often they took him to Venus when a ship was running to Mars
with a valuable cargo. Black Morgan, he discovered, was not multiple.
The pirate either hit his ship or the moneyed one, but never both.
But he was a marked man, hounded by the pirate. Eventually he became
known regardless of his appearance, and he was denied passage, or
even the knowledge of course, since his presence was asking for
piracy--unless there was value going elsewhere. But aside from twice
when they actually did send Jeffries with the valuables, thus fooling
Black Morgan, the space lines decided that not having him at all was
safer and cheaper in the long run.
Jeffries was--piracy-prone!
Ultimately he was asked for his resignation, and he gave it. He was
through!
* * * * *
He sat in his apartment for days after that. Just sat there, thinking.
He had been set to catch a pirate, and the pirate had been uncatchable.
Jeffries had even tried the trick of putting himself in the pirate's
place, hoping to follow a ship as Black Morgan had, and thus gain some
idea of how it could be done. That, too, had failed.
Everywhere was negative evidence. Rated "Inconclusive" by all men who
studied evidence as a means of extracting fact. Ex-Lieutenant Jeffries
was no scientist: he was a policeman. He worked with hard facts always,
and every case had its hidden clues of concrete fact. They all pointed
out who the criminal was; seldom did they point conclusively to all
possible suspects and point out who the criminal was not, save one.
Therefore Jeffries was not experienced in coping with reams of negative
evidence.
But he knew that he had nothing but negative evidence upon which to
work. So, blunderingly, he went to work on the long, arduous process of
elimination.
He wrote down his facts:
Black Morgan's ship was capable of exceeding the speed of light
according to data. This was claimed impossible by all who knew about
it and studied it.
Black Morgan, unerringly, was able to intercept a spacecraft traveling
at twenty-five hundred miles per second.
Black Morgan was capable of coming up at a speed exceeding light,
and decelerating to match the velocity of the ship in a matter of
milliseconds. This would produce untold decelerative gravities in the
ship--no man could hope to live and it was doubtful that any machine
could withstand that treatment. At least, any machine of the size of a
spaceship.
Black Morgan owned a large spacecraft of marked design. No
spacecraft construction company had made it, and the construction of
spacecraft is not a small project. This eliminates the possibility
of small-yard construction and definitely removes the possibility
of self-construction. Men have made boats in their basements, and
automobiles in their attics, but no man has ever built a battleship or
a spacecraft without owning a huge construction company.
The construction companies had all been investigated thoroughly. Black
Morgan was not operating one on the side. He had no connection large
enough to get a craft built and forgotten about. Besides, there was
a fantastic reward for information of that nature, enough that any
workman would be a fool to ignore it, and deliberately forget that he
had once driven a rivet into the spacecraft now known as the _Black
Morgan_.
Then Jeffries reread his statements. They added up to one thing: Black
Morgan did not exist! Black Morgan was the Impossible Pirate.
_So_, he thought, _if Morgan does not exist, then he is a fantasy, a
myth. The only evidence that is not strictly negative is the fact that
an armed man enters the spacecraft in a standard spacesuit and holds up
the passengers._
_Instruments do not lie, but it is possible to fudge up a detector.
Either from the inside or externally. As for items A, B, C, and the
rest, well--_
_Maybe Black Morgan didn't exist!_
_And if Black Morgan did not exist, ex-Lieutenant Jeffries knew how to
catch him!_
* * * * *
Black Morgan felt good. He permitted a single pang of sorrow for the
hapless Lieutenant Jeffries, and then discarded the unlucky man. He
looked to his gear, checked his instruments, and then inspected the
big ship on the spaceport outside. Take-off was about ready, he knew,
and they were carrying plenty. Life was less easy since Jeffries had
gone; while the lieutenant was there, he was a fair weathervane, save
for twice. But Jeffries as an indirect source of information was not
destined to last forever, and now Black Morgan was reduced to bribing
lower employees, watching the markets, and tapping the communications'
beams.
He watched, making certain of his plans, until the ship's ports closed.
Then he poised and made ready himself. Then from the ship's drivers
came that giveaway glare of violet-actinic light that seared the
eyeballs of he who looked. The ship trembled slightly, and lifted at
3-Gs--its acceleration with respect to Mars was three Terran G minus
the surface gravity of the Red Planet. It went up, gaining speed. The
actinic glow increased as the distance from ground increased, and it
cast its glare over the entire spaceport.
Then, unseen against the glare--he was but a small mote against a sea
of blinding violet--Black Morgan took off.
A-space, the glare died out. It was an atmosphere-ionization, and by
the time there was no atmosphere, Black Morgan was safe.
At turnover, the ship was hailed, as before. Black Morgan entered the
ship as he had done many times, looted the passengers and the vault,
made mocking jokes, and left. The ship went on, its passengers and crew
cowed and beaten.
Black Morgan laughed uproariously.
Again!
He exulted, and feeling certain of his future, Black Morgan waited
patiently. An hour--two--and then he was off toward Terra, laughing and
plotting more piracy.
Then his alarm rang. Morgan blinked. A meteor--but no meteor ever rang
the drive detector. That took energy output!
Morgan snarled and looked out of his port.
And there he saw a sight that terrified him. Through his mind passed
the recollection of all the thousands that had seen a similar sight,
though the markings were different. Instead of the chromium and black
pirate craft, there rode a quiet Guardship, big and potent. Morgan was
outgunned, for three solid turrets of three rifles each covered his
smaller ship in an inevadable bracket of heavy fire. Resistance was
impossible; he could not even fight like a cornered rat. He was forced,
if anything, to suicide. Ignominious suicide, for there would not even
be the chance to go out fighting.
The space door opened to admit a single man, clad in the uniform of the
Solar Guard.