Fiction complete, p.51
Fiction Complete, page 51
Here he comes, thought Redkirk, as he brought into perfect focus on his main screen the image of a nonhuman.
The distant operator was chunky, as tentacled and rounded, with several hooded eyes. Behind him, the scene was flat and shadowless, which in this case meant to Redkirk that it was as j, dim as might be preferred by beings in the system of an M8 red star.
He keyed off a sequence of universal signals. After a moment, the tentacled one replied with a similar standard message.
“He can get them,” Redkirk told the Lunar operator as soon as he got him back on the screen. “Get your party on!”
A few minutes later, he had an Earthman on screen One and another from the Centaurian colonies showing on Two—the beam picked up by his receiver and the one he was transmitting. He listened a while to make sure everything meshed, and caught fragments of a conversation about something or other to be sent back to Sol in the next interstellar ship.
Redkirk flicked a finger at the Lunar man as the latter withdrew from the main screen to attend to other affairs. Then he leaned back in the chrome and leather chair, thinking idly of the years he had spent piloting such ships as the two men were discussing.
Oh, well, he thought, I had it for a while and I shouldn’t gripe at having to stay here spinning around Mars. Many a good man would like nothing better than to have a shift at the main interstellar station of the Solar System.
Demand for the job did not worry him, however, for he recalled that the company owed it to him for the rest of his life if he chose to keep it.
He had been on the desk about an hour of his four-hour shift, during which the tiny satellite would move around the spaceward side of Mars and back to intersect the orbit ahead of the planet. In another hour, Johnny would come in with coffee, and two hours after that, Gamier would relieve him.
“Not that I’m anxious about it,” he murmured. “I’d stay a day at a time, if they’d let me.”
He switched the main screen to a view through the exterior scanner and focused in a view of Mars. Half of the mottled red planet showed above the jagged horizon of Phobos. He knew that if he watched the ruddy disk long enough, it would give the impression of rotating backward upon its axis. The speed of the tiny moon was such that i-t made better than three revolutions in a Martian day. Redkirk manipulated the controls to scan the sky, and other viewers set along a band about the satellite came into action. Against the black void, the stars shone hotly, watching, waiting, drawing his consciousness out of reality toward them.
A series of beeps signaled a call from the Lunar station. Redkirk snapped out of his reverie and replied.
“Got a nice one this time,” Oberhof told him. “Mr. Secretary Rawlins, of the Solar State Department, wants to talk to Ambassador Morelli.”
“All right,” said Redkirk agreeably. “Where is he?”
“Only aboard the space liner Iris, SL-3-525, which is presumably”—he referred to a note before him—“about three-quarters of the way to Procyon right now.”
“Oh, fine!” groaned Redkirk, rolling his eyes upward. “How about sending the message to be recorded on Procyon V and held for Morelli’s arrival?”
Oberhof grimaced.
“That’s what I said. No go. He wants him in person, so they can use a scrambled signal and exchange dope in private.”
Redkirk chuckled.
“How private can you get, shouting for light-years through space in this day and age? Well, I’ll see if I can pick them up.”
He switched beam C to the direction of Procyon, expecting little trouble in sweeping the volume of space containing the ship. Unless the latter had moved fantastically off course, the spread of the beam would catch it as well as the planets of Procyon. The trouble was that a moving ship in subspace drive often had difficulty in picking up signals sent after it by a process resembling its own method of propulsion. Any little maladjustment or interference, even a thin cloud of cosmic dust, was enough to prevent reception.
Redkirk set a tape to beeping out a repetitive call signal, and glanced up to meet Oberhof’s eye.
“If it doesn’t work,” he promised, “I’ll get Procyon V to tell them to call me.”
“Fair enough,” said Oberhof. “I’ll let you know if His Nibs objects to doing it that way.”
“Any time,” said Redkirk. “I’ll be out of touch with you for a couple of hours soon, but you can pick me up again when we swing around Mars.”
The Lunar operator hesitated, and the other saw his shoulder move as if he had dropped his hand from the cut-off switch.
“What kind of shift do you pull?” he asked Redkirk. “I haven’t been on the station long enough to know everybody yet.”
“About four hours, once in sixteen.
Actually, it’s figured according to the time it takes Phobos to get around its orbit. Pretty near to what you pull, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Oberhof, “but I heard that you . . . uh, you used to be a pilot, didn’t you?”
Redkirk grinned, and some of the traces of pain disappeared from his thin face.
“You mean you’ve been hearing stories of how I piled up a Martian liner on the Lake of the Sun?”
Oberhof managed to look polite and curious at the same time.
“Well . . . they say you got it pretty bad, and being it was mechanical failure, you could have a pension.”
“So why do I work at Phobos?” finished Redkirk. “But why not? A man’s got to do something.”
The Lunar operator seemed about to ask further questions, but manners got the better of interest, and he switched off after a few aimless remarks.
Redkirk tried the ship’s code signal at intervals, but failed to get an answer.
“They wouldn’t leave their receiver off out there,” he muttered to himself.
“I must be-running into some dust or other interference.”
He had to put the problem aside when a call boomed up from the surface of Mars. The Solar Exploration Department, in the person of the regional office in Sand City—now beneath the position of Phobos—wanted to contact its current expedition on Pluto.
Redkirk ran his finger down the row of buttons marking beam settings for Solar System bodies, found “Pluto,” and put out an automatically aimed call.
Within the planetary system, the possible error due to the mechanism’s not precisely matching the motion of the planet was trifling, and he had an answer coming back before he had time to think about any correction.
“Your headquarters on Mars wants to talk,” he told the square-faced man who appeared on his main screen.
The latter grimaced slightly, then nodded as if resigned to wasting time that might be better employed in the long overlooked task of studying the frigid planet.
“Put them through,” he said. “If they’re willing to talk to the assistant chief, I’ll try to tell them what they want to hear. Tell them you have Hodges; the boss is out on the ice.”
Redkirk checked the Martian operator, and presently had a two-way conversation flowing through Three and Four. Seeing that the relay of the series of routine messages through Six and Eight had been completed, leaving those screens blank, he switched off his C and D beams. Except for a few minutes when he had to arrange film recording of more such messages from some asteroid stations to be retransmitted to Martian townships as Phobos circled into a favorable position for it, he listened in to the beam from Pluto.
The report was weighted with statistics and technical requisitions until the square-faced Hodges withdrew from the screen in order to show his superiors an example of the party’s boring toward the planet’s surface through ice and frozen gases.
Redkirk followed with eager interest the process of thermite-drilling a well down through strata of congealed substances. The film recording of the first blast revealed an unearthly kaleidoscope of colors on the dark surface of the planet from whose position Sol was merely a bright star. Then, artificial lights showed the spacesuited figures preparing for further penetration. Subsequent scenes displayed samples of the walls as the passage probed downward.
Redkirk was sorry when the directors on Mars were brought up to date with a view of the bottom of the digging. Switching off after the communication had been completed, he realized that for a quarter of an hour he had forgotten where he was.
“Comfortable little hole, though,” he murmured, gazing about at his eight-by-ten office. “Lot warmer than Pluto.”
The quiet sough of the air-conditioning unit had heightened his imagination of nonexistent, freezing blasts of wind whipping across the chill waste on the screen. He decided he was just as happy to hear Johnny clattering coffee cups in the outer office.
A moment later, his young assistant thrust his head inside.
“Got time for coffee, Harry?” he asked.
“Fill ’er up!” called Redkirk. “I’ve just been talking to Pluto, and I need something to warm my bones.”
Johnny brought in the coffee and sat with his on the corner of the stand-by desk after handing Redkirk a full cup.
“Much doing?” he asked.
“Nothing special,” answered his chief. “Except one for a spaceship almost to Procyon. I can’t pick them up.”
He thought a moment, savoring the hot liquid.
“Johnny,” he directed, “look up the Iris in the Solarian Register, and see if her code signal is really . . . uh . . . SL-3-525. Maybe Luna didn’t have it right.”
The youth took down a volume from the shelf of such reference books and leafed through it, holding his coffee cup in one hand. When he found the ship on the list, the call signal was correct.
“Then I’m just not hitting her,” said Redkirk. “Luna won’t be on our necks for a while, till we come out from behind Mars, but I’d like to have something to tell Oberhof by then.”
“Why don’t you relay through some Procyon planet?”
“Oh, there’s some big jet on our end. Oberhof thinks it’s diplomatic and secret.”
He frowned over the problem until Johnny went out to refill their cups. Deciding that he would contact Procyon only as a last resort, Redkirk pressed the button that would aim his A beam at Pluto.
“Could you do me a little favor?” he greeted the square-faced Hodges when the latter appeared.
“Sure,” said the explorer woodenly. “Want me to run down to the corner for a beer or a blonde?”
Redkirk repressed a grin, realizing vaguely what a lonely life the other was leading at the moment, and explained his situation.
“Either they’re not able to pick up my signal,” he concluded, “or something is screening me out. Remember last month when you had trouble getting Phobos because a flock of asteroids distorted your beam?”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” promised Hodges. “Don’t forget—I haven’t the power you have at that big station.”
“If you can just get them to call me,” said Redkirk, “it will tell what the score is.”
The man on Pluto nodded and faded out. Five or ten minutes went by before he reappeared. His broad face showed a trace of excitement.
“By golly, I picked up a weak answer!” he exclaimed. “I can just about focus a blurry image. What do you want me to tell them?”
“Have them give me a call,” directed Redkirk.
He waited, scanning the instruments that would report any reception too faint to appear as sound or picture. One needle, after a while, wavered reluctantly. That was all.
He adjusted the same antenna for Pluto, as a check, and Hodges came in clear and strong.
“I can’t pick them up,” said Redkirk. “Now, listen, and tell me if you can do this—call the Lunar station and let them know you have the Iris. Then relay if they can’t catch her signal. I’m out of it both ways, at least till Phobos swings further around Mars.” „
He sat back after Hodges had faded out, grinning at the feeling of having pulled strings all around the System. He doubted that Oberhof could pick up the ship’s beam; whatever was damping it before it reached Phobos would probably take care of’ Earth also.
In a few minutes, he discovered that he was not entirely cut off from the operation. Hodges worked manfully to feed the images through Pluto to Luna at one end and the Iris at the other, and Redkirk’s receiver picked up the beam relayed inward from the frigid planet.
Ambassador Morelli was a blurry white face with dark blurs for eyes and black hair. Evidently, however, he was recognizable to his superior, for the conversation continued quite a while.
“Wish I could figure out what he’s talking about,” murmured the Phobos operator.
Morelli, in stilted, guarded phrases which he chose like a man selecting a life insurance policy, indicated where the “information” desired might be found. That is, he seemed to be naming a place—Redkirk did not believe the Department could employ so many people with such curious cognomens.
Well, if it is a code, it’s probably none of my business, he thought regretfully.
He decided that he was getting to be a busybody, and was relieved when the time came to send some of the transcribed messages down to the Martian cities. This kept him intermittently busy for some time.
Shortly after the last message was cleared, a call came across the System from Venus. Someone had to speak to Altair VII about certain Altairian microorganisms desired for urgent medical research. Since it turned out to be a conference hookup with several personages at the terminal screens, Redkirk and the Altairian operator kept in constant contact’ on a companion beam to monitor the transmission.
The Altairian struck Redkirk as being oddly human in movements and bodily attitudes despite a strikingly unhuman physique. There was no actual separation of head from body, and the numerous short, one-sectioned arms ending in powerful claws suggested that the distant being had evolved from something that had crawled. His skin gleamed, between areas of warty protuberances, with brown and golden tints reminiscent of either polished leather or some metallic substance.
“Do you happen to speak Solarian?” Redkirk asked him, having glanced again at the beams focused on screens One and Two.
“Some.”
The answering voice boomed slightly, and Redkirk realized that it was produced by the vibrating membranes of air sacs that swelled out below the wide, blubbery jaws.
“I have never been to Altair hi person,” said the Earthman. “Would you have time to show me an outside view near your station?”
“What . . . purpose?”
“Just curiosity,” Redkirk told him. “I want to see what things look like in the light of a white, Class A star. Sol is G, you know, and yellow.”
“Last part slow again?”
Redkirk repeated.
“I’ll show you scenes of Solarian planets, if you like,” he offered in conclusion.
“Would like,” the Altairian assured him.
He faded from the screen and Redkirk took the opportunity to consult his list of filed films for what he needed. While searching for scenes of Mars and Earth, he had the outside scanner pick up the part of the crescent of Mars that showed above the jagged horizon of Phobos, and sent it out through screen Four.
He chose a few representative scenes of Martian deserts and of mountains, oceans, and cities of Earth, and fed them into the series as he watched what the other operator sent back—stealing a second here and there to check on the main business going through.
Even with reception automatically adapted to human vision, the landscape of Altair seemed bright and shadowless. The glare of the white star burned down upon great expanses of flat land covered by low-growing shrubs, with pale, fleshy leaves. In the distance, several mountain peaks glittered, some of them smoking with evidence of volcanic action.
Even an ocean scene made Redkirk feel hot, as if he were exposed to the glare of Earthly tropics. He decided that there was good reason for the Altairians he saw swimming to sport such heavy hides.
The distant operator had just switched in a view of one of his system’s satellites, not unlike the scarred face of Luna, when the conference broke up.
Redkirk hastily brought the private showing to an end. Before switching off, he thanked the Altairian.
“Most pleasure,” the other assured him in drumming tones. “If call again, ask for Delki Loori-Kam-Dul.”
“Thank you, I will. I am Redkirk . . . Red-kirk . . . yes, that’s right.” He punched a button to record the number of the station’s film copy of the transmission for the commercial department or other future reference, and cut the beam. He also made a mental note of a new acquaintance, sixteen light-years away in the constellation Aquila.
He leaned back in his swivel chair for a few moments, thinking about the harsh surface of the planet he had just seen. He was aroused from this reverie when a call beeped in from Luna.
“Say! I’ve been waiting to come in line with you again,” he greeted Oberhof. “I wanted to ask you about that message.”
“The one to the Iris? You wouldn’t want me to give away diplomatic secrets, would you?”
Redkirk’s eyebrows went up.
“Was it that hush-hush?” he demanded, incredulously.
Oberhof put on a knowing expression and shifted his ground.
“Later, if I think I’m not being spied on,” he muttered. “Right now, I think you better take this call.”
“Who’s it for?” asked Redkirk.
“A personal for you,” replied the Lunar operator. “From a . . . uh . . . Mrs. Nina Redkirk, of Earth. There’s also a film. Shall I send that on my B band while you talk?”
“Shoot!” said Redkirk.
He cut in his recorder via screen Five, then leaned back to take the personal on his main screen. In a moment, the features of a young woman with reddish hair and a pert nose came in clearly.
“Hello, Nina,” said Redkirk.
She smiled, a shade too cheerfully, for he could see concern in her eyes.
“Harry! It’s good to see you! How is everything?”
