Collected fiction, p.703
Collected Fiction, page 703
Mr. French, a serious young man, took the stage. He cleared his throat, hesitated and looked around as a brief burst of applause came from behind the Plutonian lepidoptera.
“Thank you,” he said. “Eh—many of you may be familiar with the old-time ship’s pool, in which passengers guessed the time of arrival in port. In space, of course, compensatory feed-back devices, effectors and subtractors control our ship so exactly that we know the Sutter will arrive in Xeria at exactly the posted time, which is—”
“Come, come, my man, get to the point,” an unidentified voice put in from the audience. Captain Ramsay was observed to glance sharply toward the Plutonian.
“Eh—quite,” said Mr. French. “Does anyone have a suggestion?”
“Guessing the date on a coin,” a voice said eagerly, but it was drowned out by a chorus of cries mentioning the word sphyghi.
“Sphyghi?” Captain Ramsay asked with hypocritical blankness. “The perfume stuff, ye mean?”
There was laughter. A mousy Callistan got the floor.
“Captain Ramsay,” he said. “How about running a sphyghi-seed lottery here, the way they do on Aldebaran Tau? The way it’s done, I think, is by betting on how many seeds there are in the first sphyghi fruit of the crop. The number always varies. Sometimes there are a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand and there’s no way of counting them until the fruit’s cut open. If Ess Pu could be induced to agree, perhaps—”
“Allow me,” Captain Ramsay said. “I’ll consult Ess Pu.”
He did so, while the crustacean looked blackly around. At first he was obdurate. But finally, in return for a half-share in the pool, he was prevailed upon to cooperate. Only the glamor of sphyghi and the unparalleled chance to boast about this lottery for the rest of their lives led the passengers to put up with his inordinate greed. But presently all was arranged.
“Stewards wull pass among ye,” Captain Ramsay said. “Write yer guess and yer name on these slips of paper and drop them in a box which wull be provided for the purpose. Aye, aye, Ess Pu. Ye wull be given a chance too if ye insist.”
The Algolian insisted. He wasn’t missing a bet. After long hesitation he put down a number, angrily scrawled the phonetic ideograph of his name and had turned to stalk away when something subder than sphyghi fragrance began to breathe through the salon. Heads turned. Voices died away. Ess Pu, glancing around in surprise, found himself facing the door. His infuriated bellow reverberated from the ceiling for several seconds.
Ao, standing on the threshold, paid no attention. Her lovely eyes gazed into the far distances. Concentric circles of magic drifted dreamily out from her. Already she was increasing the affective tone of all living organisms within the lounge, and Ess Pu was not excluded. However, as has already been disclosed, when an Algolian feels good his rage knows no bounds. Ao didn’t care.
“Mine!” Ess Pu mouthed, swinging toward the Captain. “The girl—mine!”
“Get ye claws awa’ from my face, mon,” Captain Ramsay said with dignity. “If ye wull join me in this quiet comer perhaps ye can state yer case in a more courteous fashion. Noo, what is it?”
ESS PU demanded Ao. He took out a certificate which appeared to state that he had travelled to Aldebaran Tau with Ao as her guardian. Ramsay fingered his jaw undecidedly. Meanwhile there was a scuffle among the thronging passengers who were pressing folded slips of paper upon the stewards. The breathless, rotund figure of Macduff burst out of the crowd just in time to snatch Ao from Ess Pu’s possessively descending claws.
“Back, lobster!” he ordered threateningly. “Lay a claw on that girl at your peril.” Towing her, he dodged behind the Captain as Ess Pu lunged.
“I thought so,” Ramsay said, lifting a cautioning finger at Ess Pu. “Were ye no specifically forbidden to mingle with the passengers, Macduff?”
“This is a matter of law enforcement,” Macduff said. “Ao is my ward, not that criminal lobster’s.”
“Can ye prove it?” Ramsay inquired. “That certificate of his—”
Macduff tore the certificate from Ess Pu’s grip, scanned it hastily, crumpled it into a ball and threw it on the floor.
“Nonsense!” he said scornfully, taking out a cablegram in an accusing manner. “Read this, Captain. As you will observe it is a cable from the Lesser Vegan Control Administration. It points out that Ao was illegally deported from Lesser Vega and that an Algolian is suspected of the crime.”
“Eh?” Ramsay said. “One moment, Ess Pu.” But the Algolian was already hastily clashing his way out of the salon. Ramsay scowled at the cablegram, looked up and beckoned to a Cephan double-brained attorney among the passengers. There was a brief colloquy, from which Ramsay came back shaking his head.
“Can’t do much about this, Macduff,” he said. “It isn’t a GBI offence, unfortunately. I find I’m empowered only to turn Ao over to her richtful guardian and since she has none—”
“Your error, Captain,” Macduff broke in. “You want her richt—I mean, her rightful guardian? You’re looking at him. Here’s the rest of that cablegram.”
“What?” Captain Ramsay demanded.
“Exactly. Terence Lao-T’se Macduff. That’s what it says. The Lesser Vegan Control Administration has accepted my offer to stand in loco parentis to Ao, pro tern.”
“Vurra weel,” Ramsay said reluctantly. “Ao’s yer ward. Ye wull have to take that up with the Xerian authorities when ye arrive, for as sure as my name is Angus Ramsay ye’ll gae head over basket doon the gangplank the minute we land on Xeria. Ye and Ess Pu can fight it oot there. In the meantime I dinna allow a crewman to mingle with my passengers. Go for-rard!”
“I demand the rights of a passenger,” Macduff said excitedly, backing up a step or two. “The price of the ticket includes the pool and I demand—”
“Ye are no passenger. Ye’re a dom insubordinate member of—”
“Ao’s a passenger!” Macduff contended shrilly. “She’s entitled to take part in the pool, isn’t she? Well, then, a slip, please, Captain.”
Ramsay growled under his breath. But finally he beckoned to the steward with the slotted box.
“Let Ao write her own guess,” he insisted stubbornly.
“Nonsense,” Macduff said. “Ao’s my ward. I’ll write it for her. Moreover, if by any miraculous chance she should happen to win the pool, it will be my duty to administer the dough in the best interests of her welfare, which obviously means buying us both tickets to Lesser Vega.”
“Och, why quibble?” Ramsay said suddenly. “If ye’re lucky enough to have a miracle happen, fair enough.”
Macduff, concealing what he wrote, scribbled busily, folded the paper and pushed it through the slot. Ramsay took a permaseal from the steward and ran it across the box-top.
“Personally,” Macduff said, watching him, “I feel slightly degraded by the atmosphere of the Sutter. What with condoning smuggling, shyster tactics and pure vicious gambling, I’m forced to the unsavory conclusion, Captain, that you’re running a crime ship. Come, Ao, let us seek purer air.”
Ao licked her thumb and thought of something very nice, perhaps the taste of her thumb. No one would ever know.
CHAPTER IV
The Xerian’s Dismay
TIME passed, both Bergsonian and Newtonian. On either scale it seemed probable that Macduff’s time was running rapidly out.
“Who sups wi’ Auld Clootie should hae a long spoon,” Captain Ramsay said to the acting first, on the day of the Sutter’s scheduled arrival at Xeria. “The wonder is that Macduff has evaded Ess Pus claws this long, the way he’s been trying to get at those sphyghi plants. What baffles me is what he hopes to accomplish by sneaking around the Algolian’s cabin with sodium iodide counters and microwave spectroscopes. Whatever he wrote doon in the lottery box canna be changed. The box is in my safe.”
“Suppose he finds a way to open the safe?” the acting first suggested.
“In addition to the time lock it is keyed to the alpha radiations of my own brain,” Captain Ramsay pointed out. “He canna possibly—ah, talk of the devil, Mr. French, look who’s coming.”
The rotund yet agile form of Macduff came scuttling rapidly along the corridor, one jump ahead of the Algolian. Macduff was breathing hard. At sight of the two officers he dived behind them like a quail going to cover. Ess Pu, blind with fury, snapped his claws in the Captain’s very face.
“Control yerself, mon!” Ramsay said sharply. The Algolian made a mindless gobbling sound and waved a paper wildly in the air.
“Man, indeed,” Macduff said with some bitterness, from his position of precarious safety. “He’s nothing but an acromegalic lobster. It’s getting so any object can be classified as humanoid these days, the way they keep broadening the requirements. Letting in all the riff-raff of the Galaxy. Martians were the opening wedge. Now the deluge. I can see the need for a certain amount of latitude, but we peril the dignity of true humanoids when we apply the proud name of Man to a lobster. Why, the creature isn’t even a biped. In fact, there’s a certain air of indecent exposure about where he wears his bones.”
“Tush, mon, ye ken the word’s a mere figure of speech. What is it, Ess Pu? What’s this paper ye keep thrusting at me?”
The Algolian was understood to gibber that Macduff had dropped it while fleeing. He recommended that the Captain read it carefully.
“Later,” Ramsay said, thrusting it in his pocket. “We’re due to land on Xeria vurra soon, and I must be in the control room. Go for-rard, Macduff.”
Macduff obeyed with surprising alacrity, at least until he was out of sight. Ess Pu, muttering thickly, followed. Only then did Ramsay pull the paper from his pocket. He studied it, snorted and handed it to the acting first. Macduff’s neat handwriting covered one side of the page, as follows:
Problem: Find out how many seeds in the first ripe sphyghi fruit. How look inside a sealed fruit in which all seeds may not be formed yet? Ordinary vision useless.
First day: Attempted to introduce radio-tracer in sphyghi so I could count radioactivity day by day and work out useful graphs. Failed. Ess Pu installed booby trap, sign of low criminal mentality. No harm done.
Second day: Attempt to bribe Ess Pu with Immortality Elixir. Ess Pu outraged. Forgot Algolians regard adolescence as despicable. Small minds value size inordinately.
Third day: Tried to focus infrared on sphyghi, to pick up secondary radiations with acoustical interferometer. Failed. Experimented in long-distance color staining of sphyghi cells with light waves. Failed.
Fourth day: Attempts to introduce chloroform into Ess Pu’s quarters failed also. Impossible to get near enough fruit to try analysis through positive ion emissions. Am beginning to suspect Ess Pu was responsible for Captain Masterson’s hospitalization back on Aldebaran Tau. Probably crept up from behind in dark alley. All bullies are cowards. Note: try to turn Xerians against Ess Pu on arrival. How?
There the quasi-diary ended. Mr. French looked up quizzically.
“I had na realized Macduff was applying science so thoroughly,” Ramsay remarked. “But this merely confirms what Ess Pu told me weeks ago. He said Macduff was constantly trying to get at the sphyghi. But he couldna and he canna and noo we must prepare for landing, Mr. French.”
He hurried away, trailed by the acting first. The corridor lay empty and silent for a little while. Then an intercom high in the wall spoke.
“General announcement,” it said. “Passengers and crew of the Sutter, your attention, please. Prepare for landing. Immediately afterwards, passengers will assemble in the grand lounge for the Xerian customs search. The results of the ship’s pool will also be announced. Your attendance is compulsory. Thank you.”
There was silence, a sound of heavy breathing and finally a new voice sounded. “That means you, Macduff,” it said grimly. “Ye ken? Aye, ye’d better.”
Four minutes later, the Sutter landed on Xeria.
YANKED protesting from his cabin, Macduff was dragged to the grand lounge, where everyone else had already assembled. A group of Xerian officials, repressing their joy with some difficulty, was also in evidence, making a rather perfunctory search of the passengers, while other Xerians went through the ship rapidly, testing for contraband.
But it was obvious that the contraband that excited them was the sphyghi. A table had been set up in the middle of the big room and upon it, each plant in its own little earthenware pot, the sphyghi stood. Plump golden fruit dangled from the branches, the pink glow of ripeness flushing their downy surfaces. An odor of pure delight exhaled from the plants. Ess Pu stood guardian, occasionally exchanging words with a Xerian official, who had already affixed a medal[4] on the Algolian’s carapace.
“Outrageous!” Macduff cried, struggling. “I merely needed another few minutes’ work with a vitally important experiment I was—”
“Close your blabber-mouth,” Captain Ramsay told him. “I shall take great pleasure in kicking you off the Sutter myself.”
“Leaving me to the tender mercies of that lobster? He’ll kill me! I appeal to our common humanoid—”
Captain Ramsay conferred briefly with the Xerian leader, who nodded.
“Quite right, Captain,” he or it said pedantically. “Under our laws debtors work out their debts, mayhem is assessed by its results and the aggressor forced to pay full reparations. Homicide naturally always carries the death penalty. Why do you ask?”
“That applies even to Ess Pu?” the Captain persisted.
“Naturally,” the Xerian said.
“Weel, then,” Ramsay said significantly to Macduff.
“Weel, then what? He’ll be so rich he won’t even mind paying reparations for the privilege of committing mayhem on my person. I bruise very easily.”
“But he wullna kill ye,” Ramsay said comfortingly. “And it wull be a fine lesson to ye, Macduff.”
“Then at least I intend to get in one good blow,” said Macduff, seizing a stout Malacca cane from a nearby avian and giving Ess Pu a resounding smack across the carapace. The Algolian let out a steam, whistle shriek of fury and lunged forward while Macduff, brandishing the cane like a rapier, danced pudgily backward, threatening even as he retreated.
“Come on, you overgrown shore dinner,” cried Macduff valiantly. “We’ll have it out now, humanoid to lobster!”
“Lay on, Macduff!” shouted an erudite and enthusiastic Ganymedan.
“Lay off!” bellowed Captain Ramsay, waving his officers to the rescue. But the Xerians were before them. They formed a quick barrier between the combatants and one of them twisted the cane from Macduff’s reluctant grasp.
“If he has harmed you, Ess Pu, he will make reparations,” the leader of the Xerians said. “Law is law. Are you injured?”
Despite Ess Pu’s inarticulate gobbles, it was obvious that he was not. And the Xerian jurisprudence takes no notice of injured pride. Termites are humble by nature.
“Let’s get this settled,” Captain Ramsay said, annoyed at having his grand lounge turned into a shambles. “There are only three passengers disembarking here. Ao, Ess Pu and Macduff.”
Macduff looked around for Ao, found her and, scuttling over, tried to hide behind her oblivious back.
“Ah, yes,” the leading Xerian said. “Ess Pu has already explained the matter of the ship’s pool. We will permit the lottery. However, certain conditions must be observed. No non-Xerian will be allowed to approach this table, and I will do the seed counting myself.”
“That wull be satisfactory,” Ramsay said, picking up the sealed ballot box and retreating. “If ye’ll cut open the ripest of the fruit and count the seeds I’ll then open this box and announce the winner.”
“Wait!” Macduff cried out but his voice was ignored. The leading Xerian had picked up a silver knife from the table, plucked the largest, ripest sphyghi fruit and cut it neatly in two. The halves rolled apart on the table—to reveal a perfectly empty hollow within the fruit.
The Xerian’s shout of dismay echoed through the lounge. The silver knife flashed, chopping the fruit to fragments. But not a single seed glittered in the creamy pulp. “What’s happened?” Macduff demanded. “No seeds? Obviously a swindle. I never trusted Ess Pu. He’s been gloating—”
“Silence,” the Xerian said coldly. In a subdued quiet he used the silver knife again and again in an atmosphere of mounting tension.
“No seeds?” Captain Ramsay asked blankly as the last fruit fell open emptily. The Xerian made no reply. He was toying with the silver knife and regarding Ess Pu.
The Algolian seemed as astounded as anyone else but as Macduff audibly remarked, it was hard to tell, with an Algolian. Captain Ramsay courageously broke the ominous silence by stepping forward to remind the Xerians that he was a representative of the GBI.
“Have no fear,” the Xerian said coldly. “We have no jurisdiction in your ship, Captain.”
Macduff’s voice rose in triumph.
“I never trusted that lobster from the start,” he announced, strutting forward. “He merely took your money and made a deal for seedless sphyghi. He is obviously a criminal. His hasty exit from Aldebaran Tau, plus his known addiction to Lethean dust—”
At that point Ess Pu charged down upon Macduff, raging uncontrollably. At the last moment Macduff’s rotund figure shot toward the open port and the thin Xerian sunlight outside. Ess Pu clattered after him, shrieking with fury, mouth membranes flaring crimson in his rage.
CHAPTER V
Pollen Double-Cross
AT the Xerian leader’s quick command, the other Xerians hurried after Macduff. There were distant, cryptic noises from outside. Presently Macduff reappeared, panting and alone.
“Awkward creatures, Algolians,” he said, nodding familiarly to the Xerian leader. “I see your men have—ah—detained Ess Pu.”
“Yes,” the Xerian said. “Outside, he is of course under our jurisdiction.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” Macduff murmured, drifting toward Ao.
