Gordon Dickson - 8 Short Stories and Novellas Part 12

He turned. As he did so he went for the floor and heard the first shot go by his ear. As he hit the floor another shot hit the deck beside him and ricocheted into his side. But by that tune he had the heavy riot gun aimed and he pressed the firing b.u.t.ton. The stream of darts knocked the man backward out of the entrance to the Control Room to lie, a still and huddled shape, in the corridor outside.

Cully got to his feet, feeling the single dart in his side. The room was beginning to waver around him, but he felt that he could hold on for the necessary couple of minutes before the people from the s.h.i.+p moving in alongside could breach the lock and come aboard. His jacket was loose and would hide the bleeding underneath. None of those facing him could know he had been hit.

"All right, folks," he said, managing a grin. "It's all over but the shouting " And then Lucy broke suddenly from the group and went running across the room toward the entrance through which Cully had come a moment or so earlier.

"Lucy " he barked at her. And then he saw her stop and turn by the control table near the entrance, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the little handgun he had left there. "Lucy, do you want to get shot?"

But she was bringing up the little handgun, held in the grip of both her hands, and aiming it squarely at him. The tears were running down her face.

"It's better for you, Cully " she was sobbing. "Better . . ."

He swung the riot gun to bear on her, but he saw she did not even see it.

"Lucy, I'll have to kill you!" he cried. But she no more heard him, apparently, than she saw the muzzle-on view of the riot gun in his hands. The wavering golden barrel in her grasp wobbled to bear on him.

"Oh, Cully!" she wept. "Cully " And pulled the trigger.

"Oh,h.e.l.l! " said Cully in despair. And let her shoot him down.

When he came back, things were very fuzzy there at first. He heard the voice of the man in the white jacket, arguing with the voice of Lucy.

"Hallucination " muttered Cully. The voices broke off.

"Oh, he said something!" cried the voice of Lucy.

"Cully?" said the man's voice. Cully felt a two-finger grip on his wrist in the area where his pulse should be if, that was, he had a pulse. "How're you feeling?"

"s.h.i.+p's doctor?" muttered Cully, with great effort. "You got theStar of the North ?"

"That's right. All under control. How do you feel?"

"Feel fine," mumbled Cully. The doctor laughed.

"Sure you do," said the doctor. "Nothing like being shot a couple of times and having a pellet and a dart removed to put a man in good shape."

"Not Lucy's fault " muttered Cully. "Not understand." He made another great effort in the interests of explanation. "Stars'n eyes."

"Oh, what does he mean?" wept Lucy.

"He means," said the voice of the doctor harshly, "that you're just the sort of fine young idealist who makes the best sort of sucker for the sort of propaganda the Old Worlds Confederation dishes out."

"Oh, you'd say that!" flared Lucy's voice. "Of course, you'd say that!"

"Young lady," said the doctor, "how rich do you think our friend Cully, here, is?"

Cully heard her blow her nose, weakly.

"He's got millions, I suppose," she said, bitterly. "Hasn't he hilifted dozens of s.h.i.+ps?"

"He's hilifted eight," said the doctor, dryly, "which, incidentally, puts him three s.h.i.+ps ahead of any other contender for the t.i.tle of hilifting champion around the populated stars. The mortality rate among single workers and you can't get any more than a single 'lifter aboard Confederation s.h.i.+ps nowadays hits ninety per cent with the third s.h.i.+p captured. But I doubt Cully's been able to save millions on a salary of six hundred a month, and a bonus of one tenth of one per cent of salvage value, at Colonial World rates."

There was a moment of profound silence.

"What do you mean?" said Lucy, in a voice that wavered a little.

"I'm trying," said the doctor, "for the sake of my patient and perhaps for your own to push aside what Cully calls those stars in your eyes and let a crack of surface daylight through."

"But why would he work for a salary like that?" Disbelief was strong in her voice.

"Possibly," said the doctor, "just possibly because the picture of a bloodstained hilifter with a knife between his teeth, carousing in Colonial bars, shooting down Confederation officers for the fun of it, and dragging women pa.s.sengers off by the hair, has very little to do with the real facts of a man like Cully."

"Smart girl," managed Cully. "S'little mixed up, s'all " He managed to get his vision cleared a bit. The other two were standing facing each other, right beside his bed. The doctor had a slight flush above his cheekbones and looked angry. Lucy, Cully noted anxiously, was looking decidedly pale. "Mixed up "

Cully said again.

"Mixed up isn't the word for it," said the doctor angrily, without looking down at him. "She and all ninety-nine out of a hundred people on the Old Worlds." He went on to Lucy. "You met Cully Earthside.

Evidently you liked him there. He didn't strike you as the sc.u.m of the stars, then.

"But all you have to do is hear him tagged with the name 'hilifter' and immediately your att.i.tude changes."

Lucy swallowed.

"No," she said, in a small voice, "it didn't . . . change."

"Then who do you think's wrong you or Cully?" The doctor snorted. "If I have to give you reasons, what's the use? If you can't see things straight for yourself, who can help you? That's what's wrong with all the people back on the Old Worlds."

"I believe Cully," she said. "I just don't know why I should."

"Who has lots of raw materials the raw materials to support trade but hasn't any trade?" asked the doctor. She frowned at him.

"Why . . . the New Worlds haven't any trade on their own," she said. "But they're too undeveloped yet, too young "

"Young? There's three to five generations on most of them!"

"I mean they haven't got the industry, the commercial organization " She faltered before the slightly satirical expression on the doctor's face. "All right, then; you tell me! If they've got everything they need for trade, why don't they? The Old Worlds did; why don't you?"

"In what?"

She stared at him.

"But the Confederation of the Old Worlds already has the s.h.i.+ps for interworld trade. And they're glad to s.h.i.+p Colonial products. In fact they do," she said.

"So a load of miniaturized surgical power instruments made on Asterope in the Pleiades has to be s.h.i.+pped to Earth and then s.h.i.+pped clear back out to its destination on Electra, also in the Pleiades. Only by the time they get there they've doubled or tripled in price, and the difference is in the pockets of Earth s.h.i.+ppers." She was silent.

"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that girl who was with you mentioned something about your coming from Boston, back in the United States on Earth. Didn't they have a tea party there once? Followed by a revolution? And didn't it all have something to do with the fact that England at that time would not allow its colonies to own and operate their own s.h.i.+ps for trade so that it all had to be funneled through England in English s.h.i.+ps to the advantage of English merchants?"

"But why can't you build your own s.h.i.+ps?" she said. Cully felt it was time he got in on the conversation.

He cleared his throat, weakly.

"Hey " he managed to say. They both looked at him; but he himself was looking only at Lucy.

"You see," he said, rolling over and struggling up on one elbow, "the thing is "

"Lie down," said the doctor.

"Go jump out the air lock," said Cully. "The thing is, honey, you can't build s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps without a lot of expensive equipment and tools, and trained personnel. You need a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p-building industry. And you have to get the equipment, tools, and people from somewhere else to start with. You can't get 'em unless you can trade for 'em. And you can't trade freely without s.h.i.+ps of your own, which the Confederation, by forcing us to s.h.i.+p through them, makes it impossible for us to have.

"So you see how it works out," said Cully. "It works out you've got to have s.h.i.+pping before you can build s.h.i.+pping. And if people on the outside refuse to let you have it by proper means, simply because they've got a good thing going and don't want to give it up then some of us just have to break loose and go after it any way we can."

"Oh, Cully!"

Suddenly she was on her knees by the bed and her arms were around him.

"Of course the Confederation news services have been trying to keep up the illusion we're sort of half jungle-jims, half wild-west characters," said the doctor. "Once a person takes a good look at the situation on the New Worlds; though, with his eyes open " He stopped. They were not listening.

"I might mention," he went on, a little more loudly, "while Cully here may not be exactly rich, he does have a rather impressive medal due him, and a commission as Brevet-Admiral in the upcoming New Worlds s.p.a.ce Force. The New Worlds Congress voted him both at their meeting just last week on Asterope, as soon as they'd finished drafting their Statement of Independence "

But they were still not listening. It occurred to the doctor then that he had better uses for this time here on this vessel where he had been s.h.i.+p's doctor ever since she first lifted into s.p.a.ce than to stand around talking to deaf ears.

He went out, closing the door of the sick bay on the formerPrincess of Argyle quietly behind him.

CONTENTS.

I have a personal weakness for zany stories and demented heroes (they're easier for me to identify with), but that's not why I like this story so much. Most of us writers are a bit superst.i.tious about creativity we don't like to examine the creative process in any detail; we shy away from trying to discover where all those funny little ideas come from. Perhaps we think of the Muse as a timid unicorn, who will flee forever if we beat the bushes for her. Or perhaps we are wary of getting locked in a Centipede's Dilemma.

Gordy wades right in, of course.

What is genius? A good question. And when it's asked by a genius, it's a courageous one.

Ah, forget it. Have fun.

IDIOT SOLVANT.

The afternoon sun, shooting the gap of the missing slat in the venetian blind on the window of Art Willoughby's small rented room, splashed fair in Art's eyes, blinding him.

"Blast!" muttered Art. "Got to do something about that sun."

He flipped one long, lean hand up as an eyes.h.i.+eld and leaned forward once more over the university news sheet, unaware that he had reacted with his usual gesture and litany to the sun in his eyes. His mouth watered. He spread out his sharp elbows on the experiment-scarred surface of his desk and reread the ad.

Volunteers for medical research testing. $1.60 hr., rm., board. Dr. Henry Rapp, Room 432, A Bldg., University Hospital.

"Board " echoed Art aloud, once more unaware he had spoken. He licked his lips hungrily.Food , he thought. Plus wages. And hospital food was supposed to be good. If they would just let him have all he wanted . . .

Of course, it would be worth it for the dollar-sixty an hour alone.

"I'll be sensible," thought Art. "I'll put it in the bank and just draw out what I need. Let's see one week's work, say seven times twenty-four times sixteen. Twosix-eight-eight to the tenth. Two hundred sixty-eight dollars and eighty cents . . ."

That much would support him for mentally, he totted up his daily expenses. Ordinary expenses, that was. Room, a dollar-fifty. One-and-a-half-pound loaf of day-old bread at half price thirteen cents. Half a pound of peanut b.u.t.ter, at ninety-eight cents for the three-pound economy size jar seventeen cents roughly. One all-purpose vitamin capsule ten cents. Half a head of cabbage, or whatever was in season and cheap approximately twelve cents. Total, for shelter with all utilities paid and a change of sheets on the bed once a week, plus thirty-two hundred calories a day two dollars and two cents.

Two dollars and two cents. Art sighed. Sixty dollars and sixty cents a month for mere existence. It was heartbreaking. When sixty dollars would buy a fine double magnum of imported champagne at half a dozen of the better restaurants in town, or a 1954 used set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the parts from a mail-order house so that he could build himself a little ocean-hopper shortwave receiver so that he could tune in on foreign language broadcasts and practice understanding German, French, and Italian.

Art sighed. He had long ago come to the conclusion that since the two billion other people in the world could not very well all be out of step at the same time, it was probably he who was the odd one.

Nowadays he no longer tried to fight the situation, but let himself reel uncertainly through life, sustained by the vague, persistent conviction that somewhere, somehow, in some strange fas.h.i.+on destiny would eventually be bound to call on him to have a profound effect on his fellowmen.

It was a good twenty-minute walk to the university. Art scrambled lankily to his feet, s.n.a.t.c.hed an ancient leather jacket off the hook holding his bagpipes, put his slide rule up on top of the poetry anthologies in the bookcase so he would know where to find it again that being the most unlikely place, Q.E.D.

turned off his miniature electric furnace in which he had been casting up a gold p.a.w.n for his chess set, left some bread and peanut b.u.t.ter for his pet racc.o.o.n, now asleep in the wastebasket, and hurried off, closing the door.

"There's one more," said Margie Hansen, Dr. Hank Rapp's lab a.s.sistant. She hesitated. "I think you'd better see him." Hank looked up from his desk, surprised. He was a short, cheerful, tough-faced man in his late thirties.

"Why?" he said. "Some difficulties? Don't sign him up if you don't want to."

"No. No . . . I just think maybe you'd better talk to him. He pa.s.sed the physical all right. It's just . . .

well, you have a look at him."