The Space Merchants (9 page)

There were some score people frolicking in one party I passed and waved cheerily at. They seemed to be Chinese or Indians. What an adventure it must be for them! But, like indifferent swimmers hugging a raft, they did their frolicking almost under the shadow of Little America. Farther out there were some people playing a game I didn't know. They had posts with bottomless baskets set up at either end of a marked-off rectangular field, and the object was to toss a large silicone ball through the baskets. Still farther out there was a large skiing class with instructors in red suits.

I looked back after trudging for what seemed only a few minutes and couldn't see the red suits any more. I couldn't see details of Little America—just a gray-white shadow.
"Beep-beep, "
my R.D.F. said and I kept going. Runstead was going to hear from me. Soon.

The aloneness was eerie but not—not unpleasant. Little America was no longer visible behind me, not even as a gray-white blur. And I didn't care. Was this how Jack O'Shea felt? Was this why he fumbled for words to describe Venus and was never satisfied with the words he found?

My feet plunged into a drift, and I unshipped and opened the snowshoes. They snapped on, and after a little stumbling experiment, I fell into an easy, sliding shuffle that was a remarkably pleasant way of covering ground. It wasn't floating. But neither was it the solid jar of a shoe sole against a paved surface—all the walking I had known for thirty-odd years.

I marched the compass course by picking landmarks and going to them: an oddly-recurved ice hummock, a blue shadow on a swale of snow. The R.D.F. continued to confirm me. I was blown up with pride at my mastery of the wild, and after two hours I was wildly hungry all at once.

What I had to do was squat and open a silicone-tissue bell into which I fitted. Exposing my nose cautiously from time to time I judged the air warm enough in five minutes. I ravenously gulped self-heated stew and tea and tried to smoke a cigarette. On the second puff the little tent was thoroughly smoked and I was blinded with tears. Regretfully I put it out against my shoe, closed my face mask, stowed the tent, and stretched happily.

After another bearing I started off again. Hell, I told myself. This Runstead thing is just a difference of temperament. He can't see the wide-open spaces and you can. There's no malice involved. He just thinks it's a crackpot idea because he doesn't realize that there are people who go for it. All you've got to do is
explain
it—

That argument, born of well-being, crumbled at one touch of reason. Runstead was out on the glacier too. He most certainly could see the wide-open spaces if, of all the places on earth he could be, he chose the Starrzelius Glacier. Well, a showdown would shortly be forthcoming.
'"Beep-beep."

I sighted through the compass and picked a black object that was dead on my course. I couldn't quite make it out, but it was visible and it wasn't moving. I broke into a shuffling run that made me pant, and against my will I slowed down. It was a man.

When I was twenty yards away, the man looked impatiently at his watch, and I broke into the clumsy run again.

"Matt!" I said. "Matt Runstead!"

"That's right, Mitch," he said, as nasty as ever. "You're sharp today." I looked at him very slowly and very carefully, phrasing my opening remarks. He had folded skis thrust into the snow beside him.

"What's—what's—" I stammered.

"I have time to spare," he said, "but you've wasted enough of it. Good-by, Mitch." While I stood there dumbly he picked up his folded skis, swung them into the air, and poleaxed me. I fell backwards with pain, bewilderment, and shamed rage bursting my head. I felt him fumbling at my chest and then I didn't feel anything for a while.

I woke thinking I had kicked the covers off and that it was cold for early autumn. Then the ice-blue Antarctic sky knifed into my eyes, and I felt the crumbly snow beneath me. It had happened, then. My head ached horribly and I was cold. Too cold. I felt and found that the power pack was missing. No heat to the suit, gloves, and boots. No power to the R.D.F. coming or going. No use to pull the emergency signal.

I tottered to my feet and felt the cold grip me like a vise. There were footprints punched into the snow leading away—where? There was the trail of my snowshoes. Stiffly I took a step back along that trail, and then another, and then another.

The rations. I could thrust them into the suit, break the heat seals, and let them fill the suit with temporary warmth. Plodding step by step I debated: stop and rest while you drink the ration's heat or keep moving? You need a rest, I told myself. Something impossible happened, your head is aching. You'll feel better if you sit for a moment, open a ration or two, and then go on.

I didn't sit. I knew what that would mean. Painful step after painful step I fumbled a Comest can from its pocket with fingers that would barely obey me, and fumbled it into my suit. My thumb didn't seem strong enough to pop the seal and I told myself: sit down for a moment and gather your strength. You don't have to lie down, pleasant as that would be ... my thumb drove through the seal and the tingling heat was painful.

It became a blur. I opened more cans, and then I couldn't work them out of their pockets any more. I sat down at least once and got up again. And then I sat down, feeling guilty and ashamed of the indulgence, telling myself I'd get up in one more second for Kathy, two more seconds for Kathy, three more seconds for Kathy.

But I didn't.

I fell asleep on a mountain of ice; I woke up in a throbbing, strumming inferno, complete with red fire and brutish-looking attendant devils. It was exactly what I would have consigned a Taunton copysmith to. I was confused to find myself there.

The confusion did not last long. One of the attendant devils shook my shoulder roughly and said: "Gimme a hand, sleepy. I gotta stow my hammock." My head cleared and it was very plain that he was simply a lower-class consumer—perhaps a hospital attendant?

"Where's this?" I asked him. "Are we back in Little America?"

"Jeez, you talk funny," he commented. "Gimme a hand, will ya?"

"Certainly not!" I told him. "I'm a star-class copysmith."

He looked at me pityingly, said "Punchy," and went away into the strumming, red-lit darkness.

I stood up, swaying on my feet, and grabbed an elbow hurrying past from darkness to darkness. "Excuse me," I said. "Where is this place? Is it a hospital?"

The man was another consumer, worse-tempered than the first. "Leggo my yarm!" he snarled. I did. "Ya want on sick call, ya wait until we land," he said.

"Land?"

"Yah, land. Listen, Punchy, don't ya know what ya signed up for?"

"Signed up? No; I don't. But you're being too familiar. I'm a star-class copysmith—"

His face changed. "Ahah," he said wisely. "I can fix ya up. Justa minnit, Punchy. I'll be right back wit' the stuff."

He was, too. 'The stuff' was a little green capsule. "Only five hunnerd," he wheedled. "Maybe the last one on board. Ya wanta touch down wit' the shakes? Nah! This'll straighten ya out fer landing—"

"Landing
where?"
I yelled. "What's all this about? I don't know, and I don't want your dope. Just tell me where I am and what I'm supposed to have signed up for and I'll take it from there!"

He looked at me closely and said: "Ya got it bad. A hit in the head, maybe? Well, Punchy, yer in the Number Six Hold of the Labor Freighter
Thomas R. Malthus.
Wind and weather, immaterial. Course, 273 degrees. Speed 300, destination Costa Rica, cargo slobs like you and me for the Chlorella plantations." It was the rigmarole of a relieved watch officer, or a savage parody of it.

"You're—" I hesitated.

"Downgraded," he finished bitterly, and stared at the green capsule in the palm of his hand. Abruptly he gulped it and went on: "I'm gonna hit the comeback trail, though." A sparkle crept into his eyes. "I'm gonna introduce new and efficient methods in the plantations. I'll be a foreman in a week. I'll be works manager in a month. I'll be a director in a year. And then I'm gonna buy the Cunard Line and plate all their rockets with solid gold. Nothing but first-class accommodations. Nothing but the best for my passengers. I always kept her smooth on the Atlantic run. I'll build you a gold-plated imperial suite aboard my flag ship, Punchy. The best is none too good for my friend Punchy. If you don't like gold I'll get platinum. If you don't like—"

I inched away and he didn't notice. He kept babbling his hop-head litany. It made me glad I'd never taken to the stuff. I came to a bulkhead and sat down hopelessly, leaning against it. Somebody sat down beside me and said "Hello there" in a cozy voice.

"Hello," I said. "Say, are we really headed for Costa? How can I get to see a ship's officer? This is all a mistake."

"Oh," said the man, "why worry about it? Live and let live. Eat, drink, and be merry is my motto."

"Take your God-damned hands off me!" I told him.

He became shrill and abusive, and I got up and walked on, stumbling over legs and torsos.

It occurred to me that I'd never really known any consumers except during the brief periods when they were serving me. I wanted very badly to get out of Number Six Hold. I wanted to get back to New York, find out what kind of stunt Runstead had pulled and why, get back to Kathy, and my friendship with Jack O'Shea, and my big job at Fowler Schocken. I had things to do.

One of the red lights said Crash Emergency Exit. I thought of the hundreds of people jammed in the hold trying to crowd out through the door, and shuddered.

"Excuse me, my friend," somebody said hoarsely to me. "You'd better move." He began to throw up, and apparently airsickness containers weren't issued aboard labor freighters. I rolled the emergency door open and slid through.

"Well?" growled a huge Detective Agency guard.

"I want to see a ship's officer," I said. "I'm here by some mistake. My name is Mitchell Courtenay. I'm a copysmith with the Fowler Schocken Associates."

"The number," he snapped.

"16-156-187," I told him, and I admit that there was a little pride in my voice. You can lose money and health and friendship, but they can't take a low Social Security number away from you . . .

He was rolling up my sleeve, not roughly. The next moment I went spinning against the bulkhead with my face burning from a ham-handed slap. "Get back between decks, Punchy!" the guard roared. "Yer not on an excursion and I don't like yer funny talk!"

I stared incredulously at the pit of my elbow. The tatto read: "1304-9974-1416-156-187723." My own number was buried in it, but the inks matched perfectly. The style of lettering was very slightly off—not enough for anybody to notice but me.

"Waddaya waitin' for?" the guard said. "You seen yer number before, ain't ya?"

"No," I said evenly, but my legs were quivering. I was scared— terribly scared. "I never saw this number before. It's been tattooed around my real number. I'm Courtenay, I tell you. I can prove it. I'll pay you—" I fumbled in my pockets and found no money. I abruptly realized that I was wearing a strange and shabby suit of Universal apparel, stained with food and worse.

"So pay," the guard said impassively.

"I'll pay you later," I told him. "Just get me to somebody responsible—"

A natty young flight lieutenant in Panagra uniform popped into the narrow corridor. "What's going on here?" he demanded of the guard. "The hatchway light's still on. Can't you keep order between decks? Your agency gets a fitness report from us, you know." He ignored me completely.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kobler," the guard said, saluting and coming to a brace. "This man seems to be on the stuff. He came out and gave me an argument that he's a star-class copysmith on board by mistake—"

"Look at my number!" I yelled at the lieutenant.

His face wrinkled as I thrust my bared elbow under his nose. The guard grabbed me and snarled: "Don't you bother the—"

"Just a minute," said the Panagra officer. "I'll handle this. That's a high number, fellow. What do you expect to prove by showing me that?"

"It's been added to, fore and aft. My real number is 16-156-187. See? Before and after that there's a different lettering style! It's tampering!"

Holding his breath, the lieutenant looked very closely. He said: "Umm. Just barely possible . . . come with me." The guard hastened to open a corridor door for him and me. He looked scared.

The lieutenant took me through a roaring confusion of engine rooms to the purser's hatbox-sized office. The purser was a sharp-faced gnome who wore his Panagra uniform as though it were a sack. "Show him your number," the lieutenant directed me, and I did. To the purser he said: "What's the story on this man?"

The purser slipped a reel into the reader and cranked it. "1304-9974-1416-156-187723," he read at last. "Groby, William George; 26; bachelor; broken home (father's desertion) child; third of five sibs; H-H balance, male 1; health, 2.9; occupational class 2 for seven years; 1.5 for three months; education 9; signed labor contract B." He looked up at the flight officer. "A very dull profile, lieutenant. Is there any special reason why I should be interested in this man?"

The lieutenant said: "He claims he's a copysmith in here by mistake. He says somebody altered his number. And he speaks a little above his class."

"Tut," said the purser. "Don't let that worry you. A broken-home child, especially a middle sib from the lower levels, reads and views incessantly trying to better himself. But nevertheless you'll notice—"

"That's enough of that," I snarled at the little man, quite fed up. "I'm Mitchell Courtenay. I can buy you and sell you without straining my petty cash account. I'm in charge of the Fowler Schocken Associates Venus Section. I want you to get New York on the line immediately and we'll wind up this farce. Now jump, damn you!"

The flight lieutenant looked alarmed and reached for the phone, but the purser smiled and moved it away from his hand. "Mitchell Courtenay, are you?" he asked kindly. He reached for another reel and put it in the viewer. "Here we are," he said, after a little cranking. The lieutenant and I looked.