The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 76

"Yes, my son, I did try. But if I had attempted to feign emotions I did not feel your mother would have seen through the pretense. She would then have turned from me completely. Without her I could not have had you, my son."

"And now, father, what will we do?"

"Now the s.h.i.+p has been repaired and is waiting for us. Every day for eight years I went to the hill and worked on the s.h.i.+p. It was badly wrecked, my son, but now my patience has been rewarded, and every damaged astronavigation instrument has been replaced."

"You never went to the office, father? You never went at all?"

"No, my son. My stand-in worked at the office in my place. I instilled in your mother's mind an intense dislike and fear of the office to keep her from ever coming face to face with the stand-in. She might have noticed the difference. But I had to have a stand-in, as a safeguard. Your mother might have gone to the office despite the mental block."

"She's gone now, father. Why did you send for her?"

"To avoid what she would call a scene, my son. That I could not endure. I had the stand-in summon her on the office telephone, then I withdrew all vitality from it. She will find it quite lifeless. But it does not matter now. When she returns we will be gone."

"Was constructing the stand-in difficult, father?"

"Not for me, my son. On Mars we have many androids, each constructed to perform a specific task. Some are ingenious beyond belief--or would seem so to Earthmen."

There was a pause, then the weaker of the two voices said, "I will miss my mother. She tried to make me happy. She tried very hard."

"You must be brave and strong, my son. We are eagles, you and I. Your mother is a sparrow, gentle and dun-colored. I shall always remember her with tenderness. You want to go with me, don't you?"

"Yes, father. Oh, yes!"

"Then come, my son. We must hurry. Your mother will be returning any minute now."

Sally stood motionless, listening to the voices like a spectator sitting before a television screen. A spectator can see as well as hear, and Sally could visualize her son's pale, eager face so clearly there was no need for her to move forward into the room.

She could not move. And nothing on Earth could have wrenched a tortured cry from her. Grief and shock may paralyze the mind and will, but Sally's will was not paralyzed.

It was as if the thread of her life had been cut, with only one light left burning. Tommy was that light. He would never change. He would go from her forever. But he would always be her son.

The door of Tommy's room opened and Tommy and his father came out into the hall. Sally stepped back into shadows and watched them walk quickly down the hall to the stairs, their voices low, hushed. She heard them descend the stairs, their footsteps dwindle, die away into silence ...

You'll see a light, Sally, a great glow lighting up the sky. The s.h.i.+p must be very beautiful. For eight years he labored over it, restoring it with all the s.h.i.+ning gifts of skill and feeling at his command. He was calm toward you, but not toward the s.h.i.+p, Sally--the s.h.i.+p which will take him back to Mars!

How is it on Mars, she wondered. My son, Tommy, will become a strong, proud adventurer daring the farthest planet of the farthest star?

You can't stop a boy from adventuring. Surprise him at his books and you'll see tropical seas in his eyes, a pearly nautilus, Hong Kong and Valparaiso resplendent in the dawn.

There is no strength quite like the strength of a mother, Sally. Endure it, be brave ...

Sally was at the window when it came. A dazzling burst of radiance, starting from the horizon's rim and spreading across the entire sky. It lit up the cottage and flickered over the lawn, turning rooftops to molten gold and gilding the long line of rolling hills which hemmed in the town.

Brighter it grew and brighter, gilding for a moment even Sally's bowed head and her image mirrored on the pane. Then, abruptly, it was gone ...

Contents

A PLACE IN THE SUN.

A "Johnny Mayhem" Adventure By Stephen Marlowe

Mayhem, the man of many bodies, had been given some weird a.s.signments in his time, but saving The Glory of the Galaxy wasn't difficult--it was downright impossible!

The SOS crackled and hummed through subs.p.a.ce at a speed which left laggard light far behind. Since subs.p.a.ce distances do not coincide with normal s.p.a.ce distances, the SOS was first picked up by a Fomalhautian freighter bound for Capella although it had been issued from a point in normal s.p.a.ce midway between the orbit of Mercury and the sun's corona in the solar system.

The radioman of the Fomalhautian freighter gave the distress signal to the Deck Officer, who looked at it, blinked, and bolted 'bove decks to the captain's cabin. His face was very white when he reached the door and his heart pounded with excitement. As the Deck Officer crossed an electronic beam before the door a metallic voice said: "The Captain is asleep and will be disturbed for nothing but emergency priority."

Nodding, the Deck officer stuck his thumb in the whorl-lock of the door and entered the cabin. "Begging your pardon, sir," he cried, "but we just received an SOS from--"

The Captain stirred groggily, sat up, switched on a green night light and squinted through it at the Deck Officer. "Well, what is it? Isn't the Eye working?"

"Yes, sir. An SOS, sir...."

"If we're close enough to help, subs.p.a.ce or normal s.p.a.ce, take the usual steps, lieutenant. Surely you don't need me to--"

"The usual steps can't be taken, sir. Far as I can make out, that s.h.i.+p is doomed. She's bound on collision course for Sol, only twenty million miles out now."

"That's too bad, lieutenant," the Captain said with genuine sympathy in his voice. "I'm sorry to hear that. But what do you want me to do about it?"

"The s.h.i.+p, sir. The s.h.i.+p that sent the SOS--hold on to your hat, sir--"

"Get to the point now, will you, young man?" the Captain growled sleepily.

"The s.h.i.+p which sent the SOS signal, the s.h.i.+p heading on collision course for Sol, is the Glory of the Galaxy!"

For a moment the Captain said nothing. Distantly, you could hear the hum of the subs.p.a.ce drive-unit and the faint whining of the stasis generator. Then the Captain bolted out of bed after unstrapping himself. In his haste he forgot the s.h.i.+p was in weightless deep s.p.a.ce and went sailing, arms flailing air, across the room. The lieutenant helped him down and into his magnetic-soled shoes.

"My G.o.d," the Captain said finally. "Why did it happen? Why did it have to happen to the Glory of the Galaxy?"

"What are you going to do, sir?"

"I can't do anything. I won't take the responsibility. Have the radioman contact the Hub at once."

"Yes, sir."

The Glory of the Galaxy, the SOS s.h.i.+p heading on collision course with the sun, was making its maiden run from the a.s.sembly satellites of Earth across the inner solar system via the perihelion pa.s.sage which would bring it within twenty-odd million miles of the sun, to Mars which now was on the opposite side of Sol from Earth. Aboard the gleaming new s.h.i.+p was the President of the Galactic Federation and his entire cabinet.

The Fomalhautian freighter's emergency message was received at the Hub of the Galaxy within moments after it had been sent, although the normal s.p.a.ce distance was in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand light years. The message was bounced--in amazingly quick time--from office to office at the hub, cutting through the usual red tape because of its top priority. And--since none of the normal agencies at the Hub could handle it--the message finally arrived at an office which very rarely received official messages of any kind. This was the one unofficial, extra-legal office at the Hub of the Galaxy. Lacking official function, the office had no technical existence and was not to be found in any Directory of the Hub. At the moment, two young men were seated inside. Their sole job was to maintain liaison with a man whose very existence was doubted by most of the human inhabitants of the Galaxy but whose importance could not be measured by mere human standards in those early days when the Galactic League was becoming the Galactic Federation.

The name of the man with whom they maintained contact was Johnny Mayhem.

"Did you read it?" the blond man asked.

"I read it."

"If it got down here, that means they can't handle it anywhere else."

"Of course they can't. What the h.e.l.l could normal slobs like them or like us do about it?"

"Nothing, I guess. But wait a minute! You don't mean you're going to send Mayhem, without asking him, without telling--"

"We can't ask him now, can we?"

"Johnny Mayhem's elan is at the moment speeding from Canopus to Deneb, where on the fourth planet of the Denebian system a dead body is waiting for him in cold storage. The turnover from League to Federation status of the Denebian system is causing trouble in Deneb City, so Mayhem--"

"Deneb City will probably survive without Mayhem. Well, won't it?"

"I guess so, but--"

"I know. The deal is we're supposed to tell Mayhem where he's going and what he can expect. The deal also is, every inhabited world has a body waiting for his elan in cold storage. But don't you think if we could talk to Mayhem now--"

"It isn't possible. He's in transit."

"Don't you think if we could talk to him now he would agree to board the Glory of the Galaxy?"

"How should I know? I'm not Johnny Mayhem."

"If he doesn't board her, it's certain death for all of them."

"And if he does board her, what the h.e.l.l can he do about it? Besides, there isn't any dead body awaiting his elan on that s.h.i.+p or any s.h.i.+p. He wouldn't make a very efficacious ghost."

"But there are live people. Scores of them. Mayhem's elan is quite capable of possessing a living host."

"Sure. Theoretically it is. But d.a.m.n it all, what would the results be? We've never tried it. It's liable to damage Mayhem. As for the host--"

"The host might die. I know it. But he'll die anyway. The whole s.h.i.+pload of them is heading on collision course for the sun."

"Does the SOS say why?"

"No. Maybe Mayhem can find out and do something about it."

"Yeah, maybe. That's a h.e.l.l of a way to risk the life of the most important man in the Galaxy. Because if Mayhem boards that s.h.i.+p and can't do anything about it, he'll die with the rest of them."

"Why? We could always pluck his elan out again."

"If he were inhabiting a dead one. In a live body, I don't think so. The attraction would be stronger. There would be forces of cohesion--"

"That's true. Still, Mayhem's our only hope."

"I'll admit it's a job for Mayhem, but he's too important."

"Is he? Don't be a fool. What, actually, is Johnny Mayhem's importance? His importance lies in the very fact that he is expendable. His life--for the furtherance of the new Galactic Federation."

"But--"

"And the President is aboard that s.h.i.+p. Maybe he can't do as much for the Galaxy in the long run as Mayhem can, but don't you see, man, he's a figurehead. Right now he's the most important man in the Galaxy, and if we could talk to him I'm sure Mayhem would agree. Mayhem would want to board that s.h.i.+p."

"It's funny, we've been working with Mayhem all these years and we never even met the guy."

"Would you know him if you saw him?"

"Umm-mm, I guess not. Do you think we really can halt his elan in subs.p.a.ce and divert it over to the Glory of the Galaxy?"

"I take it you're beginning to see things my way. And the answer to your question is yes."

"Poor Mayhem. You know, I actually feel sorry for the guy. He's had more adventures than anyone since Homer wrote the Odyssey and there won't ever be any rest for him."

"Stop feeling sorry for him and start hoping he succeeds."

"Yeah."

"And let's see about getting a bead on his elan."

The two young men walked to a tri-dim chart which took up much of the room. One of them touched a b.u.t.ton and blue light glowed within the chart, pulsing brightly and sharply where s.p.a.ce-sectors intersected.

"He's in C-17 now," one of the men said as a gleaming whiteness was suddenly superimposed at a single point on the blue.

"Can you bead him?"

"I think so. But I still feel sorry for Mayhem. He's expecting to wake up in a cold-storage corpse on Deneb IV but instead he'll come to in a living body aboard a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p on collision course for the sun."

"Just hope he--"

"I know. Succeeds. I don't even want to think of the possibility he might fail."

In seconds, the gleaming white dot crawled across the surface of the tri-dim chart from sector C-17 to sector S-1.

The Glory of the Galaxy was now nineteen million miles out from the sun and rus.h.i.+ng through s.p.a.ce at a hundred miles per second, normal s.p.a.ce drive. The Glory of the Galaxy thus moved a million miles closer to fiery destruction every three hours--but since the sun's gravitational force had to be added to that speed, the s.h.i.+p was slated to plunge into the sun's corona in little more than twenty-four hours.