Troubled Star, Page 2

  "That they haven't got yet. They're at the outpost stage; the scientific expedition stage. Their moon has less than a hundred people on it, their Mars has been visited only three times, and their Venus only once previously. This project that Dusty Britton is going on is the second Venus rocket, the first one being sent as an orbital, round-trip manned-job for observational purposes. So we can set up our barytrine field without causing a lot of distress, and then we can go on preparing our space beacon."

  Bren nodded and Chat said, "You're the handiest man with menslators and the like, Scyth. You're also the guy that can think fast on his feet. We elect you to go to the Earth and contact this Dusty Britton and explain to him so that he can tell his people what is going on."

  Bren nodded. "Take the ship and go, Scyth. But use the driver as little as possible. We'd still like to keep this rift secret, you know. We're working for Transgalactic, not the whole damned shipping business."

  Not long after, on its secondary drivers which did not radiate enough to make direction-finding much better than haphazard, the spacecraft rose from Mercury and headed toward Earth.

  Chapter II

  Dusty Britton entered the lower cabin of the three-stage rocket and flopped into a chair. "Quite a show," he said with a trace of scorn.

  Martin Gramer, the producer of the long series of Dusty Britton pictures, puffed his cigar and nodded with self-satisfaction. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all."

  "Gramer, how the hell long is this nonsense going to go on?"

  "Until you're ready to retire."

  "I'm ready now."

  "For good?"

  "I could do something else, you know. After all, I am an—"

  Martin Gramer eyed the husky young man with derision. "You say 'actor' and I'll blow a gasket," said Gramer.

  "Then what the hell am I doing here?" roared Dusty.

  "You're here because you have an honest-looking face and a pair of broad shoulders to go with it. You're the living embodiment of John Darling Trueheart, and you can act the part, providing some bright guy lays out the floor plan and coaches you."

  Dusty growled, "Why not hire the bright guy?"

  "Because he's got a face that would scare children and the physique of an underfed fieldmouse. Pull you out of that hero role you're in and you'd fall so flat on your face that folks would be calling you Old Doormat. Now snap out of it, Dusty, and be glad you've got hold of a good thing. Stop looking for something you couldn't handle."

  Angrily Dusty got up out of his chair. "I suppose you think it's fun to have to go roaming around the country wearing this jazzed-up surveyor's suit with a three-pound chunk of rusty iron chinking on my hip."

  "To date they've sold three and a quarter million replicas of that Dusty Britton Blaster you're so contemptuous of, and you've received ten cents for every one that crossed the counter. What's so damned bad about that?"

  "I feel silly."

  Gramer roared with laughter, then cut it to one short bark as he cooled down to eye Britton angrily. "What's so damned silly about being a model of honor and respect for several million kids?" he demanded.

  "Did you ever think how imbecilic it sounds to be Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol, with no space to patrol, wearing a blaster that doesn't blast? And wearing a pack of medals stamped out in the model shop? What does it all add up to?"

  Martin Gramer tossed the stump of his cigar at the disposal chute and faced Dusty with a hard expression. "It adds up to a lot, Dusty. It adds up to a damned good living for you. It adds up to—maybe something you're too dumb to understand, but I'll spiel it off anyway—being an ideal. Damn it, man, there's millions of kids in this world that eat, think and dream about the Space Patrol and Dusty Britton. You're an idol as well as an ideal, Dusty. Kids follow a big name man. It's a darned sight better that they follow an ideal rooted in virtue, strength, honesty and chivalry than to have them trying to emulate characters like Shotgun Hal Machin or Joseph Oregon."

  "Yeah," drawled Dusty, "But do you know what it means?"

  "You tell me your version, Dusty. As if I hadn't heard your gripe before."

  – – –

  The disgruntled actor took a deep breath, opened his mouth, but then closed it again. He let out most of the blast he was preparing and said, quietly but disgustedly, "Why waste my breath? Dusty Britton doesn't smoke. Dusty Britton drinks soda pop and milk. The only women in Dusty Britton's life are his aged mother and his younger sister. Dusty Britton's" biggest gamble is when he offers to bet a Saturnstone on this or that. Hell's Eternal Fire, Gramer, do you realize that I can't even date a dame for a dance because 'Kids don't care for the mush stuff!' and my private life is not my own? I can't even swear, goddammit!"

  Gramer eyed Dusty cynically. "You seem to get along."

  "Sure. I get along. When I shuck this monkey suit and dress like a human being. But you know what happens? When I turn up at some joint, do I get introduced as The Dusty Britton? Like hell I do. I'm treated like any of the rest of the dopey tourists. Herded like cattle to the rear seats, while a tomato like Gloria Bayle lushes in with her fourth husband and gets the works on the house."

  "You make my heart bleed, Dusty."

  "Your heart never bled anything but vouchers," snapped Dusty. He fumbled in his hip pocket and pulled out a flask.

  Gramer did not say a word.

  "Well, aren't you going to give me an argument?" demanded Dusty.

  "No. You can't be seen."

  "But someone's likely to smell bourbon on my breath."

  "No one that counts. And by the time we get back—"

  Dusty, stopped raising the flask in midair. "Get back—?" he roared. "Get back. Look, Gramer—"

  "Sit down, Dusty. Take it easy."

  "Gramer, what goes on here? You're not suggesting that we take off in this fire-breathing hot water boiler, are you?"

  "You've read all the advertisements."

  "Yeah, but nobody with sense would take ad-writer's copy for anything but guff."

  Outside, a bomb burst with an ear-splitting racket. A stentorian voice thundered, "X Minus Five Minutes!"

  "Ye Gods, you're really going through with this madman's publicity scheme?"

  Gramer smiled. "Sure. It's just to Venus; but you can bet your life that every kid that sees this take-off on video or here on the field will be dreaming of the fabulous adventures you'll be having. Those kids know this is for real, Dusty."

  "Include me elsewhere," mumbled Dusty. He started for the spacelock.

  "You can't let those kids down!" roared Gramer.

  Dusty paused at the sill of the space-lock. "Gramer,'' he said cynically, "I'm not letting anybody down. I'm just keeping the hide of Dusty Britton in one unscarred piece."

  "But the public—"

  "That's what you've got press agents for, Gramer. So you can get your high-priced publicity men to run a few miles of paper explaining how I happen to have left this shooting star four minutes before take-off!"

  "Dusty, you're a no-good louse."

  "But a whole one. And let me tell you this, Gramer, you're less worried about the state of youthful morals than you are about losing the thread of a good, high-selling series. So I'm going to sail out of here as though I was scared to death of rockets—which I sure as hell am—and you're going to tell some bright explainist to get busy earning the dough you pay him. And when the smoke is all cleared away, I'll be safe and you'll be safe, and Dusty Britton will continue to go rolling along and the box office will continue to come rolling in. Spend a few short months in space? Not while the geegees are running at Hialeah!"

  "But Dusty—"

  "Space? Bah! Nothing, floating gently from vacuum to void and back again. Not for Dusty Britton!"

  Dusty paused long enough to run splayed fingers through his hair and then he headed for the spacelock with a determined step.

  "Wait!" roared Gramer.

  Dusty paused.

  "The least you could do is to go out of here not lo
oking like Dusty Britton. Don't be an ass! I'll cover for you, but you've got to help!"

  "All right but—" Outside another bomb racketed and the amplifier announced laconically, "X Minus Three Minutes!" and startled Dusty with the realization that he did not have much time, "—make it quick!"

  "You—there!"

  A technician coming up the ladder looked startled.

  "Fifty bucks to swap clothing with Britton, here."

  "Done." and the tech started to peel. He balked at Dusty's famous 'Blaster? That's worth another—"

  "Another fifty—dammit!" agreed Gramer. "Now, wave out the door while Dusty leaves."

  The roar that went up was for their beloved hero waving out of the spacelock, not the tech that came down the ramp with a rush; followed by the portly Martin Gramer. The spacelock swung closed as the spaceport jeep pulled away with Dusty and Gramer in the back.

  They were a half mile away when the thunder came. No one even noticed them wending their way through the crowd, for every eye on the field was looking upwards, straining to see the spacecraft that was carrying Dusty Britton and The Space Patrol off to new adventures.

  – – –

  About a hundred miles off the coast of Baja, California, Scyth Radnor sat in the control room of the big spacecraft. The dome was awash. Scyth sat high in the dome watching the pleasantly lazy progress of a forty foot schooner that was coming in his direction. It was a pretty' sight and Scyth appreciated it even though he had been born on Marandis some thirty thousand years after the sail as a functional device had been outmoded. Sail, to Scyth, was strictly a vacation sort of thing, just as it was to Dusty Britton and a few billion other people whose lives are geared to a timetable except for vacation time.

  If there was any puzzlement over this, it was because Scyth's menslator was not following the rocket, now laboring in free flight towards Venus. Dusty, according to what Scyth had been able to pick up, should have been there instead of here. But Scyth was not the burning inquisitive type. He knew that there was some explanation and that he could afford to wait until it was given instead of wasting a lot of energy trying to figure out the motives of a member of a race unknown to him.

  He had better things to contemplate.

  In the field of his telescope he could see a sight he approved of.

  It was not Dusty Britton, lazing easily near the wheel of the schooner, keeping the helm steady with his left foot because his hands were occupied with a drink on one and a cigarette in the other. It was Barbara Crandall, lying on the cabin on a blanket. Her ankles were crossed and the arch of the upper foot was high and graceful. One thigh, slightly higher than the other, glinted from the sunshine, dark tan. Her breasts pointed at the sky, molded in dazzling white that contrasted sharply against the healthy, animal tan of her flat tummy. There were many more square feet of healthy hide showing than there were of the white sharkskin affair she, wore, and Scyth approved of the view.

  As he watched her, Dusty drained his drink, tossed his cigarette overboard, and called:

  "Hey, Barb! Get us another quart, will you?"

  Scyth did not hear it, for his menslator was by no means that competent a device. He just watched and wondered what they were saying.

  Barbara called back, "Out of it already?"

  "Yeah. I'd get it myself but someone's got to drive this rig."

  "Don't mind." She stretched languorously and stood up, stretching high; pulling in her stomach and arching her back with her arms stretched high above her head. Scyth whistled inadvertently as her body went taut against the wisps of dazzling white that crossed her breasts and hips. She came along the cabin top, dropped into the cockpit, and disappeared into the cabin. She came out a moment later with a bottle which she opened and handed to Dusty. She took the wheel while he poured. They toasted one another. They sat side by side, their shoulders touching.

  "Nice," she said quietly.

  "You bet."

  "Nice, quiet and peaceful."

  Dusty addressed his glass and held it high. "Here's to the G. D. Space Patrol."

  "What are you supposed to be doing?"

  Dusty laughed. "I don't know. I'll find out when we get back. Gramer will have some flanged-up explanation right and ready for me."

  "You'd better hope that the G. D. Space Patrol doesn't catch you all at sea with me."

  "Phooey," he said. He pursed his lips and Barbara gave him a gentle peck that made Scyth's blood bubble slightly.

  "Phooey nothing," she said. "You'd be—er—cashiered. Imagine a member of The Space Patrol consorting with a woman."

  "What's good enough for pappy is good enough for me."

  Barbara chuckled knowingly. "Where are we heading, if it's of any importance?"

  "There's an island dead ahead. We might camp on the beach for the night. It's fine clean sand and—"

  "You mean that hummock over there?"

  "Hummock—humm—Good Lord!"

  – – –

  The hummock, dome of Scyth's spacecraft, began to rise out of the sea. Yard after yard it rose, coming upward glistening wet, the sea water running down in rivulets along its sleek flank. Ponderously and inexorably it rose with a steadiness of living rock. Yet it carried the air of feather-lightness, of an untold monster of sheer power held in easy leash. This was no rocket, straining against the formidable pull of gravity; this was a thing above material forces, its engines idling, its control in complete command. Without a second glimpse it was no spacecraft of Earth.

  Up out of the sea it rose until its hundred yards towered above them. The spacelock was just above the waterline when the rising stopped and the alien spacecraft stopped, rock-steady. It was poised on its inexplicable driving forces with the same confident ease that an elevator shows when poised on its cables at the twentieth floor of a building. It stood rock-still and let the ocean waves break against its sleek, polished metal flank.

  Whatever it was, Dusty did not like it.

  He kicked the auxiliary engine into life, loosed the halyards and let the sails drop. He turned the helm hard as the engine roared into full throat. But the schooner defied its helm and aimed bow-sprit-on to the spacelock of the spacecraft, starting through the sea like a dolphin toward the ship of space. The engine raced without bite because the ship was being hauled forward by some unknown force faster than the screw could drive it; the helm shuddered but had no effect, it tried to slue the stern sidewise but only succeeded in making the hull strain out of line. The wheel whipped out of Dusty's hand and spun to dead-ahead.

  Dusty left the helm and dived into the cabin. He flipped on his radio and waited with rising panic while the tubes warmed and the meter rose to the red line that meant that it was ripe and ready for use. He grabbed the microphone, flipped the bandswitch to the Coast Guard Frequency, and yelled:

  "This is Dusty Britton of the schooner Buccaneer. We are about a hundred miles off the coast of Baja California. Help! We are attacked by an alien spacecraft! Help! This is—"

  He let his voice trail off because the output meter dropped abruptly to zero. Something had gone kaput.

  Chapter III

  Dumbly frightened at the face of the unknown, Dusty was far more frightened at being confined in the cabin of his schooner than he was of the nameless horror he would have to face above. He left the cabin in a hurry, and with mental desperation he turned deliberately to face the danger in the hope of getting it over with. He figured there would be less anguish if it came quickly.

  The spacelock door was open wide and a man was standing there with a fluted-barrelled thing in his hand. On the deck were droplets of copper still hot enough to send up little wisps of smoke from the deck. The stub end of the antenna was melted down in a blob. As Dusty looked from Scyth Radnor to his ruined antenna and back again, Scyth leaned back in the spacelock and dropped his weapon. Then he made a relaxed show of sitting on the sill of the airlock with his feet dangling almost to the tips of the waves. He looked relaxed and calm and the trace of a smi
le was on his face; the kind of smile that would open into honest pleasure if he were greeted with the same.

  "I am sorry," he said. "I am Scyth Radnor of Marandis. Despite the fact that I was forced to ruin your antenna, I do come on a peaceful mission, Dusty Britton."

  "Yeah—" mumbled Dusty stupidly. Barbara was leaning flat against the mast, white-faced under her tan.

  "Believe me, Dusty. I mean no harm. I did have to prevent you from broadcasting that which would bring a bad impression of me to your people."

  Scyth reached up and pressed a button in the wall of the spacelock above his head. The sill of the spacelock came out abruptly in an extensible runway, carrying Scyth forward over the deck of the Buccaneer. Scyth dropped to the deck and stood facing Dusty with a hand extended.

  "What do you want?" stammered Dusty. "And how come you talk our language?"

  Scyth pointed to the tiny case slung around his neck. "This is a menslator," he explained. "When used in direct conversation with a man of another tongue, it acts to translate for both parties their meaning. It isn't perfect by any means, but it does help to make people of different tongues understand one another." Scyth smiled and then said, "For a quick and amusing explanation, observe this." Scyth clicked the switch off and began to speak. His speech was utterly comprehensible to Dusty and Barbara at first, but Scyth clicked the little switch after he had said a few words. They heard Scyth like this:

  "Fa d snall id, an expression meaning to consign to the region of theological punishment, which when repeated through the menslator becomes 'Go to hell!' See?"

  Dusty nodded dumbly. Barbara relaxed slightly.

  "Now," said Scyth, "I am from Marandis. Marandis is a planet only a few thousand light years from the Galactic Center, which makes it nearly thirty thousand light years from here. Marandis is the seat of the Galactic Government. Look, Dusty, I came here to explain all this to you. There is a lot to say, and there is a lot you must take on faith until you know all of it. Let's relax. Will you come aboard my ship and have a drink? It's comfortable there and—"

  "No!" snapped Dusty.