Short stories complete, p.10
Short Stories Complete, page 10
Frye smiled for the first time since the accident. “Get to the hair, Clancy. What’s the problem? It will get stuffy in here by-and-by.”
Bevvins cleared his throat. “There are two enormous tufts of hair,” he said. “One: while wonderfully useful as analogs, gibbon monkeys are most definitely not human beings. God, there are so many, many unknowns! I shan’t be able to devise any sort of control at all, and I shall have to guess at dosages for each of us. And, if I’m wrong . . .”
“Guess good, Clancy. What’s the other?”
“Homeostatic control mechanisms in the body,” Bevvins said. “There are interesting push-pull phenomena called the Bohr and Haldane effects: carbon dioxide and oxygen work together because of some unique and fascinating properties of hemoglobin. Adding carbon dioxide to the blood tends to drive out oxygen, helping deliver it to the tissues, whereas adding oxygen helps drive out carbon dioxide through respiration. There are specialized nerve cells called chemoreceptors which constantly readout blood composition to the central nervous system, chemically controlling breathing. Bess has surgically implanted instrumentation which allows me to make certain adjustments. With ourselves, however, it will be hit . . . or miss.”
“Whoo-o-o-ie!” Gresham waxed his hands. “We’re home free!”
“Please, Lee,” said Bevvins worriedly, “I’ve tried not to paint too rosy a picture. I’ve oversimplified everything awfully. We are far from being out of the woods, believe me.”
Gresham stared at the physiologist. “You mean, you’re not sure it will work?”
“Uh, not at all certain, no. Not with us.”
Thad Frye beamed. “Why are you quibbling, Lee? If the odds were ten million to one, we’d still have to chance it.”
“Are the odds that high?” Gresham wanted to know.
“Oh. by no means! I should say the odds are no more than two to one. Eight to five would probably be closer.”
Gresham hesitated. “For, or . . . against?”
Bevvins sighed. “If I were less than honest, Lee, I would tell you the odds favored us. They do not.”
No one said anything for a dozen heartbeats. Bevvins pondered Jupiter, avoiding their eyes.
Then Gresham laughed. It was a brittle laugh, tinged with hysteria. “What the hell are we waiting for? Lead us to it, doc; I can’t wait to find out if your crazy jungle juice works!”
Bevvins ordered Gresham to bring three EVA-rated pressure suits up from the air lock service area, explaining that they would later need them to insure re-inspiring concentrated carbon dioxide. Bevvins went along with Gresham as far as his laboratory in the C deck quadrant opposite the commissary. He unlocked the refrigerator and withdrew a small vial of colorless fluid. He wrapped it securely in linen batting and zippered it into the slash pocket of his jumpsuit, then floated for a moment near the animal cages, watching the chattering gibbons.
Hector and his friends in the wire cages loved weightlessness. Each had a distinctive personality, and Bevvins had learned to know them well—Polly’s grumpiness, Robin’s avarice, Portia’s agile grace in flying to and fro in the larger cage.
“Can’t have you suffering, can we?” he muttered sadly. “Not enough to go round, I’m afraid.” He selected a syringe and filled it, his hands trembling ever so slightly. Soothing them one by one, he did what had to be done quickly and efficiently. There were tears in his eyes when he finished.
He went to the acrylic bubble, in which a black and tan gibbon reposed. “You’ll do, Bess,” he mumbled, reading the bioinstrumentation displays of a tan electronic console. “Sleep, girl; we’ll have you out of here in a jiffy. If we are very, very lucky,” he added thoughtfully.
Bevvins stopped by the infirmary and got out a sterile syringe boxed in a plastic tube. He put it in his bag, selected three tips, then pulled himself along the freefall line to the elevator. He met Gresham and Frye in the living quarters.
“First, a sedative,” Bevvins said. “We will want to remain absolutely immobile. Excitement, or even mild exertion, could induce hypernea—rapid breathing. My scheme is to inoculate you both, then monitor your progress as best I can until it’s time to close your fishbowls.”
Gresham swallowed noisily. “Can’t say I like the sound of it much,” he said.
Thad Frye grinned. “Just one more astrophysical vicissitude, Lee. It’s like growing old. Being my age isn’t so bad, when you consider the alternative.”
Neither Bevvins nor Gresham cracked a smile. Bevvins administered sedative to each, then checked blood pressures, pulse rates, and oral temperatures. He asked for their respective massweights and ages in both years and months.
When all was ready, all three men donned the cumbersome, radiation-shielded p-suits. Thad Frye allowed Bevvins to loosely affix the restraint straps binding him to his bunk. “Sock it to me, Clancy,” he said cheerfully.
Bevvins performed some calculations on a note pad, then prepared a syringe, and administered Bevvinase at Frye’s wrist.
Gresham watched, round-eyed and apprehensive, as Thad Frye’s chest heaved normally for three or four minutes. Then the physicist lapsed into very shallow breathing.
“First surge of Bevvinase.” Bevvins grunted something else under his breath. He did some additional calculations. “Bess was comatose for the first dozen hours, or so, Lee. Please don’t fret about Thad’s breathing. He seems to be taking hold rather well.”
“You’re . . . sure?”
Bevvins tried to make his smile reassuring. “I’m sure. We won’t close his fishbowl just yet.”
“Are you . . . ready for me, now?”
“Yes, Lee. On the bunk, if you will.”
Bevvins watched the astronomer closely. Gresham was very nervous, but the sedative was beginning to take effect. “There is no particular hurry,” he said. “We can talk for a while, if you’d like.”
Gresham’s half-smile was drowsy. “Naw, doc. Like Thad said: sock it to me.”
Bevvins attended to Gresham gently. He shoved himself away and took up the note pad, writing furiously for many minutes. He looked up at the chronometer now and again, checking their respiration rates. Finally, he decided it was time. He examined Frye exhaustively, then pulled down and sealed his fishbowl. When he had finished writing, he drifted over and did the same for Gresham.
The moment of truth had come. Bevvins had not taken sedative for a very good reason. He would have to stay conscious long enough to close his own fishbowl at the appropriate time. Timing was very critical; if he sealed himself off from the remaining air in the living quarters too soon, he would die of hypoxia before the Bevvinase could take hold. He had not seen fit to explain this to the others.
Clancy Bevvins readied himself in the bunk. Smiling secretly, he crossed his fingers, daubed his wrist with alcohol, and injected himself.
“He’s coming around,” someone said far away. “Look!”
Dr. Bevvins opened his eyes. He blinked several times, lifting his head. Lee Gresham was grinning at him from a hospital bed across the small compartment. Beside him, enjoying himself hugely, stood the lanky figure of Thaddeus Frye.
“Well, how you keeping, Clancy?” The black physicist walked to his bedside with a springy step, clasping his hand. “You did it! You said you could do it and, by God, you did it!”
Bevvins smiled thinly, still fully occupied by the process of reviving. “We seem to have made it, at that,” he said.
“And how!” Gresham bounced on the bed. “Weight! Feel it? Now that you’re awake, doc, see if you can help bust us out of quarantine. They come in here and feed us and look us over dressed in pressure suit-like coveralls—fishbowls and all. You’d think we were contagious.”
Bevvins used his arms to slowly erect himself into a sitting position. Thad Frye fluffed the pillow behind him. “I’m damned glad they read my instructions.” Bevvins said. “If they hadn’t—”
“Instructions!” Gresham swore. “We’re on Ganymede.” he insisted. “I want my clothes. I’m going for a romp down the midway, and maybe chase a stewardess or two. Most of all,” Gresham said fervently, “I want my pipe.”
Bevvins coughed politely. “Lee.” he said, “there is simply no way of breaking it to you gently. The stewardesses will have to wait, I’m afraid. As for the pipe, it wouldn’t be of any use to you, now.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Bevvins considered his answer carefully. “In Zipper One, I had only one patient—Bess,” he said. “Now I have four: Bess. Thad, you . . . and myself. Remember what I told you back there in Zipper’s commissary: the enzyme is self-re-generating. All of us have become true spacemen. At least, for the time being.”
Thad Frye met Bevvins’ inquiring look. “Yeah, I guessed it, Clancy,” he said. “I thought maybe it would be a good idea if you told him yourself.”
“You mean . .!” Gresham’s jaw dropped. He studied them with an agonized expression, looking as if he were about to cry.
“What a lousy, rotten way to quit smoking!” was all he said.
Interference
From the moon he called the stars—but the line was busy!
“GOOD afternoon, your honor.” The newsman rose as Judge M’bui Darrananga swept into his chambers, began divesting himself of his robes and wig.
The judge’s handshake was cordial, firm. “Barry, it’s a pleasure to see you again. “Sorry to make you wait—my charge to the jury took longer than I’d expected.”
“Don’t give it a thought.” The newsman winced as Darrananga’s huge hand enveloped his own. “I appreciate your fitting me into your schedule on such short notice,” he said. “I realize that the Lew trial—”
“Isn’t what you wanted to talk about,” interrupted the judge with a knowing, good-natured smile. “Ethically We shouldn’t discuss it until the jury reaches a verdict, you know.”
Darrananga stood six and one-half feet tall in his blue-black skin—his merry, patient eyes tended to miss nothing. Robust in his early sixties, he had been born in a Nairobi slum, disenfranchised and meager of prospect as any other black urchin. His climb from the gutters of East Africa to doctor of jurisprudence had culminated behind a bench in the United Nations High Court. There were those who insisted witchcraft had had something to do with it.
“You’re aware, of course, that the Lew. trial is only a gesture,” continued Darrananga, stuffing a calabash pipe with rough-cut tobacco he liked to blend himself. “Lew Chao Leung surely is no murderer—no more than you or I. His family forced the trial to satisfy their egos, their pride. The jury will weigh the evidence—if it can truly be called ‘evidence’—and rule Dr. Lew innocent of murder in the second degree. Posthumous trials are rarely meaningful, I’m afraid.”
The reporter’s grin was sheepish. “I hoped to learn your views on the Dallin incident, your honor.”
“Certainly you did. Everyone else is talking about Richard Dallin—why shouldn’t we?” Applying a match to the bole of his calabash, Darrananga lolled in the high-backed chair behind his desk, surrounded by a cloud of bluish smoke. “We may never learn what really happened put there,” he mused aloud. “The affairs’ more romantic overtones—aided by sensational press coverage—have kindled public fancy. We have a double homicide among working scientists in the field, then the otherworldly purpose and remote lunar farside base of Project Ozma itself—next a third death under unusual circumstances and finally a vanished astrophysicist whose diary records visiting aliens from the stars. And an incredible work of art—the photoscuplt. By the way, have you seen the Smithsonian exhibit?”
“Last month,” said the newsman. “Washington was a furnace.”
Darrananga chuckled. “Ah, yes—late summer isn’t the season to visit the American capital. But, didn’t you sense the nearness of the unknown in that skylighted gallery, Barry? Music pours from hidden speakers, making chills race along your spine once you know the details of the affair.”
“Music?” The reporter looked wary. “I remember the recorded music, yes, but—”
“In a moment, Barry—in a moment,” fended Darrananga. “I stood in the Smithsonian for twenty minutes, listening, watching the queue wind past. Chattering visitors would approach the pedestal, come face to face with that eight-inch plastic brick encapsulating diminutive, cameo-perfect human figurines and become suddenly rooted, held by the sort of rapt attention one finds at a showing of Van Gogh or Modigliani. They would stand transfixed until crowd pressure forced them on—to ask futile questions of the guards before wandering off, unsatisfied, toward the exit.”
“I suppose we’re all—unsatisfied.”
“We are indeed. Tell me—do you like music?” The judge leaned forward.
“I—yes, of course.”
“Sibelius, Beethoven, the heavier orchestral literature? Perhaps the Bruckner works?”
The newsman frowned, shifting his weight uneasily. “I’m not well acquainted with longhair works. Why do you ask?”
Darrananga reflected for a dozen heartbeats in silence. He slowly laid aside his pipe. “Richard Dallin loved music,” he said. “His was a sonorous plea for help, a cry in the night that may or may not have been answered.” The judge paused. “Don’t mistake me. There is no hint of deception or hoax in the Dallin incident—merely mystery, just an unsolved enigma. The photosculpt rests on its pedestal, an affront to reason and common sense, while the diary—”
“The diary?”
Judge Darrananga rubbed his chin. “The foreman asked for three copies of the diary to take into the jury room for study,” he said, looking directly into the newsman’s eyes. “I’ve decided to let you read my personal copy this afternoon, Barry.”
The reporter flinched in surprise, sat suddenly straighter. “But isn’t the diary still considered evidence?”
“Technically, yes. When the trial concludes Richard Dallin’s celebrated diary will at last be published in its entirety. Witholding the final portion to keep prospective jurors unprejudiced was silly, to say the least. I’m certain the Lew trial is in its last hour.”
The newsman’s eyes widened. “Believe me, I’ll consider permission to preview the diary a great privilege, your honor. “May I ask bluntly—have you formed an opinion about Dallin’s fate?”
“An opinion? As the Lord is my witness, I form a new opinion daily.” The judge opened the top drawer of his desk. He lifted out a thick, unbound stack of fascimiles, laying them reverently before the newsman. “I’ve earmarked those entries which seemed most pertinent with tape. Read them first. They’ll provide an overview. Later, if you wish, you may browse through the remainder at your leisure.”
“Thank you, Judge Darrananga. Thank you very much.” The reporter sounded sincere.
The judge rose stiffly. He stretched, strode briskly to the door, standing with one hand on the knob. “I’ve some calls to make. I’ll be back in an hour, or so.” He puffed his cheeks, regarding the newsman soberly. “Try to retain an open mind, Barry,” he said as if in afterthought. “Do try.”
The door eased shut. The newsman was alone. He eagerly fingered the first taped tab, then lifted and folded back a thick sheaf of early pages. At the top of the facing sheet was a heading written in precise cursive:
Site VII, Luna—26 August, 2026
Here at last! Writing in cubicle after dinner. Years from now Geraldine & I will read diary together & chuckle. All a silly diary’s good for anyhow.
Glad that hellish wait in quarantine & tedious crawler ride are behind me. Eighteen months of hard work & high bonus and I’ll strut back to Gerry & Tommy boy with a bundle. Joy!
Met here by Dr. Lew. “Welcome to the forty-oners,” says Lew [have no idea what he meant]. We invited the crawler crewmen in for coffee, then saw them off & Dr. Lew showed me around the station. The 600-meter instrument is the stopper, of course [staff calls it simply “The Rig”, but actually it’s the Karl G. Jansky Radio Telescope]. Be a helluva thrill working with it!
Discovered Dr. Lew stayed awake on presumption my arrival imminent [absolutely no communication with other lunar sites—a surprise], Mr. Tcharoff now on watch—Dr. Butler quietly sleeping. They’ve been short-handed—three men on rotating eight-hour shifts these past months. I had imagined four men on station at all times.
Turning in now. Lew advises that Dr. Butler will wake me & give formal orientation when he goes on watch. Breaking in to routine should be fun. Pleasant dreams!
28 August
Too pooped to write yesterday. Flopped, slept through sacktime & most of recreation time. Last sunlight halt left the Soviet Mountains, hence solar hash gone from sky & The Rig will be at maximum usefulness this next semi-lunar. We’re at 27° south latitude. Site III lies about 2,700 km northwest in Mari Crisium, while totally unexplored region around Sea of Moscow lies 1,400 km or so due north. Isolated. But that’s why I’m here. Most lunar satellites are in equatorial orbits, below our short horizon. Farside is kept completely free of radio noise. Policy will pay off when [if] extra-human contact is made.
Met everyone save Mr. Tcharoff. Will meet him next week when Dr. Butler reschedules to include me on duty roster. Butler, nominal chief astronomer, is nearly fifty, has goatee, small gray eyes & a sort of pompous manner. He kindly commented on the photosculpt of Gerry & Tommy I brought along [should be praiseworthy—squandered a big chunk of bonus money on it]. Figurines are perfectly lifelike & edgelighted to make plastic all but invisible.
Checked out in pressure suit today. Temperature in surface dust: minus 87° F. & falling. Butler is laconic as hell, but very explicit when technical explanation is needed. Duties: [lunar day] maintain transmitter station; housekeeping & galley chores [light, thank God!]; meteoroid inspection of The Rig & transmitting antenna station & emergency power & life support systems [including our tiny crawler]. Lunar night: likewise on all counts save meteoroid inspection.
