Space-weary rocketmen dreamed of an
asteroid Earth. But power-mad Norman
Haynes had other plans--and he
spread his control lines in a
doom-net for that oasis in space.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I found Nick Mavrocordatus scanning the bulletin board at the Haynes
Shipping Office on Enterprize Asteroid, when I came back with a load of
ore from the meteor swarms.
He looked at me with that funny curve on his lips, that might have been
called a smile, and said, "Hi, Chet," as casually as though we'd seen
each other within the last twenty-four hours.... "Queer laws they got
in the Space Code, eh? The one that insists on the posting of casualty
lists, for instance. You'd think the Haynes Company would like to keep
such things dark."
I didn't say anything for a moment, as my eyes went down those narrow,
typed columns on the bulletin board: Joe Tiffany--dead--space armor
defect.... Hermann Schmidt and Lan Harool--missing--vicinity of
Pallas.... Irvin Davidson--hospitalized--space blindness....
There was a score of names of men I didn't know, in that
space-blindness column. And beneath, there was a much longer line of
common Earth-born and Martian John-Henrys, with the laconic tag added
at the top--_hospitalized_--_mental_. Ditto marks saved the trouble of
retyping the tag itself, after each name.
One name caught my eye.
Ted Bradley was listed there. Ted Bradley from St. Louis, my and Nick
Mavrocordatus' home town. It gave me a little jolt, and a momentary
lump somewhere under my Adam's Apple. I knew the state Bradley would be
in. Not a man any more--no longer keen and sure of himself. A year out
here among the asteroids had changed all that forever.
Shoving from one drifting, meteoric lump to another, in a tiny space
boat. Chipping at those huge, grey masses with a test hammer that
makes no sound in the voidal vacuum. Crawling over jagged surfaces,
looking for ores of radium and tantalum and carium--stuff fabulously
costly enough to be worth collecting, for shipment back to the
industries of Earth, at fabulous freight rates, on rocket craft whose
pay-load is so small, and where every gram of mass is at premium.
No, Ted Bradley would never be himself again. Like so many others. It
was an old story. The almost complete lack of gravity, out here among
the asteroids, had disturbed his nerve-centers, while cosmic rays
seeped through his leaded helmet, slowly damaging his brain.
There was more to it than the airlessness, and absence of weight, and
the cosmic rays. There was the utter silence, and the steady stars, and
the blackness between them, and the blackness of the shadows, like the
fangs of devils in the blazing sunshine. All of this was harder than
the soul of any living being.
And on top of all this, there was usually defeat and shattered hope.
Not many futures were made among the asteroids by those who dug for
their living. Prices of things brought from Earth in fragile, costly
space craft were too high. Moments of freedom and company were too
rare, and so, hard-won wealth ran like water.
Ted Bradley was gone from us. Call him a corpse, really. In the
hospital here on Enterprize, he was either a raving maniac, or
else--almost worse--he was like a little child, crooning over the
wonder of his fingers.
It got me for a second. But then I shrugged. I'd been out here two
years. An old timer. I knew how empires were built. I knew, better
than most, how to get along out here. Be fatalistic and casual. Don't
worry. Don't plan too much. That way I'd stayed right-side-up. I'd even
had quite a lot of fun, being an adventurer, against that gigantic,
awesome background of the void.
I didn't consider my thoughts about Ted Bradley worth mentioning to
Nick Mavrocordatus. He was probably thinking about Ted, too, and that
was enough.
"Come on, Nick," I said. "They've got my ore weighed and analyzed for
content in the hopper rooms. I'm going into the pay-office and get my
dough. Then we might shove off to the Iridium Circle, or some other
joint, and have us a time, huh?"
Nick laughed, then, good-naturedly, triumphantly. I gave him a sharp
glance, noticing that under his faintly bitter air, there seemed to be
something big. Some idea that gripped him, confused him, thrilled him.
His small, knotty body was taut with it; his dark eyes, under the curly
black hair that straggled down his forehead, glowed with a far-away
look.
Of course, he was still very young--only twenty-two, which to me,
at twenty-five, with a six-months edge of asteroid-lore beyond his
year and a half of experience, made me feel old and disillusioned and
practical, by comparison.
"All right, Chet," he said at last. "Let's get your money. Celebrations
are in order--on me, though. But I guess we'd better soft-pedal them
some. I've got a lot to tell you, and more to do."
I didn't give his words proper attention, just then. I swaggered into
the pay office, where a couple of stenogs clicked typewriters, and
where Norman Haynes, acting head of the Haynes Shipping Company, sat at
his desk, under the painted portrait of his uncle, that grizzled old
veteran, Art Haynes, who had retired years ago, and who now lived on
Earth.
I knew old Art only by reputation. But that was enough to arouse my
deep respect. Between nephew and uncle there was a difference as great
as between night and day. The one, the founder, unafraid to dirty his
hands and face death, and build for the future. Tough, yes, but square,
and willing to pay bonuses to miners even while he'd been struggling
to expand his company, and open up vast, new space trails. The other,
an arm-chair director, holding on tight, now, to an asteroid empire,
legally free of his control, but whose full resources came eventually
into his hands at the expense of others, because he controlled the
fragile, difficult supply lines.
At sight of me, Norman Haynes arose from his chair. He was very tall,
and he wore an immaculate business suit. He was smooth-shaven, with a
neat haircut, in contrast to my shaggy locks and bristles. Across his
face spread a smile of greeting as broad as it was false.
"Well--Chet Wallace," he said. "You've done some marvelous meteor
mining, this trip: Nineteen hundred dollars' worth of radium-actinium
ore! Splendid! Maybe you'll do even better next time!"
* * * * *
Yeah! I'd seen and heard Norman Haynes act and talk like this before.
He handed out the same line to all of the miners. To me it was forever
irritating. Always I'd wanted to turn that long nose of his back
against his right ear. He and his words were both phony. Always he used
a condescending tone. And I felt that he was a bloodsucker. My anger
was further increased, now, because of Ted Bradley.
I guess I sneered. "Don't worry about those nineteen hundred dollars,
Mr. Haynes," I said. "When I buy grub, and a few things I need, and
have a little blow, you'll have the money all back."
Beside the office railing there was a machine--a cigarette vendor. Into
a roller system at its top, I inserted two five-dollar bills from my
pay. There was a faint whir as the robot photographic apparatus checked
the denominations of the notes, and proved their authenticity. Two
packs of cigarettes slipped down into the receiver arrangement.
"Five bucks apiece, Haynes," I said. "At a fair shipping rate,
cigarettes brought out from Earth aren't worth much more than three
bucks. But you're just a dirty chiseller, not satisfied with a fair
profit. Costs here in the asteroids are naturally plenty steep; but you
make a bad situation worse by charging at least twenty-five per-cent
more than's reasonable! A Venutian stink-louse is more of a gentleman
than you are, Haynes!"
Oh, there was a Satanic satisfaction in feeling the snarl in my throat,
and seeing Haynes' face go purplish red, and then white with surprise
and fury. Some other space men had entered the pay office, and they hid
their grins of pleasure behind calloused palms.
First I thought Norman Haynes would swing at me. But he didn't. He
lacked that kind of nerve. He began to sputter and curse under his
breath, and I thought of a snake hissing. I felt the danger of it,
though--danger that broods and plans, and doesn't come out into the
open, but waits its chance to strike. Knowing that it was there,
sizzling in Haynes' mind, gave me a thrill.
Casually I tossed one of the packs of cigarettes to Nick Mavrocordatus,
who had come with me into the pay office. He gave me a nudge, which
meant we'd better scram. When we were out of the building, he held
me off from going to any of the few tawdry saloons there under the
small, glassed-in airdome of Enterprize City, the one shabby scrap of
civilization and excuse for comfort.
"No drinks now, Chet," Nick whispered. "Can't chance it. Got to keep
on our toes. In one way I'm glad you talked down to that--whatever you
want to call him. But you've made us the worst possible enemy we could
have--now."
I shrugged. "What were you gonna tell me before, Nick?" I demanded. "I
gathered you had something plenty big in view."
He answered me so abruptly that I didn't quite believe my ears at
first. "Pa and Sis and Geedeh and I, have made good, Chet," he said.
"We found--not just pickings--but a real fortune in ore, on planetoid
439. So rich is the deposit that we could buy our own smelting and
purifying machinery, and hire ships under our own control, to take the
refined metals back to Earth!"
"You're kidding, Nick," I said amazedly.
"Not a bit of it," he returned.
* * * * *
Then I was pumping his hand, congratulating him. Really good luck was
a phenomenon among the asteroids. That friends of mine, among the
thousands of hopeful ones that I didn't know, should grab the jack-pot,
seemed almost impossible.
"I suppose you'll all be leaving us soon," I told him. "Going back to
Earth, living the lives of millionaires. I'm glad for you all, kid.
Your Pa can raise his flowers and grapes, instead of starting up in the
truck-garden business again. Your sis, Irene, can study her painting
and her music, like she wants to."
Anybody can see the way my thoughts were going just then. When you
start out green for the Minor Planets, that's part of what's in your
mind, first--get rich, come back to Earth.
Nick sighed heavily as we walked along. That funny smile was on
his lips again. He glanced around, and the emerald light of the
illuminators was on his young face.
Then he said, "I don't think it's quite safe to talk here, Chet.
Better come to our old space jaloppy, the _Corfu_."
The _Corfu_ was on the ways outside the dome. We put on space suits to
reach it. Inside, the old crate smelled of cooking odors, some of them
maybe accumulated over the eighteen months the Mavrocordatuses had been
asteroid mining. Old ships are hard to ventilate, with their imperfect
air-purifiers.
The instruments in the control room, were battered and patched; and
from the living quarters to the rear, issued a duet of snores--one
throaty and rattly, Pa Mavrocordatus' beyond doubt; and the other an
intermittent hiss, originating unquestionably in the dust-filtering
hairs in the larynx of Geedeh, the little Martian scientist, whom Nick
had befriended.
"I can't figure you out, Nick," I said. "Rich, and not leaving this
hell-hole of space. You're an idiot."
"So are you, Chet," he returned knowingly. "In my place, you wouldn't
go either--at least not without regrets. In spite of all hell, there's
something big here in space that gets you. You feel like nothing,
yourself. But you feel that you're part of something terribly huge and
terribly important. You'd be happy on Earth for a week; then you'd
begin to smother inside. The Minor Planets have become our home, Chet.
It's too late to break the ties."
Slowly it soaked into my mind that Nick was right.
"Not to say anything bad against old Mother Earth, Chet," he continued.
"Far from it! That's just what's needed out here--a little touch of
our native scene. Growing things. A piece of blue sky, maybe. Enough
gravity to make a man believe in solid ground again."
Right then I began to smell Nick's plan, not only what it was, but all
the impractical dreamer part of it.
I began to grin, but there was a kind of sadness in me, too. "Sure!
Sure, Nick!" I chided. "The idea's as old as the hills! Rejuvenate
some asteroid. Bring in soil and water and air from Earth. Install a
big gravity-generating unit. Ha! Have you any idea how many ships it
would take to bring those thousands and thousands of tons of stuff out
here--even to get started?"
* * * * *
I was talking loud. My voice was booming through the rusty hull of the
_Corfu_, making ringing echoes. So just about as I finished, they were
all around me. Pa Mavrocordatus, in pajamas and ragged dressing gown,
his handle-bar moustaches bristling. Geedeh, the tiny Martian, draped
in a checkered Earthly blanket, his great eyes blinking, and his tiny
fingers, with fleshy knobs at their ends instead of nails, twiddling
nervously near the center of his barrel-chest. And Irene, too, standing
straight and defiant and little, in her blue smock.
Irene hadn't been sleeping. Probably she'd been washing dishes, and
straightening up the galley after supper. She still had a dish towel in
her hands. Wealth hadn't altered the Mavrocordatus' mode of life, yet.
Irene looked like a bold little kewpie, her dark head of tousled, curly
hair, not up to my shoulder. She was exquisitely pretty; but now she
was somewhat irritated.
She shook a finger up at me, angrily. "You think Nick has a dumb idea,
eh, Chet Wallace?" she accused. "That's only because you don't know
what you're talking about! We won't have to bring a drop of water, or a
molecule of air or soil, out from Earth! You ask Geedeh!"
I turned toward the little Martian. The dark pupil-slits, and the
yellow irises of his huge eyes, covered me. "Irene has spoken the
truth, Chet," he told me in his slow, labored English. "The Asteroid
Belt, the many hundreds of fragments that compose it, are the remains
of a planet that exploded. So there is soil on many of the asteroids.
Dried out--yes--after most of the water and air disappeared into space,
following the catastrophe. But the soil can still be useful. And there
is still water, not in free, liquid form, but combined in ancient rock
strata; gypsum, especially. It is like on Mars, when the atmosphere
began to get too thin for us to breathe, and the water very scarce on
the dusty deserts."