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POLICE YOUR PLANET
By ERIC VAN LHIN
SCIENCE FICTION AVALON BOOKS 22 EAST 60TH STREET NEW YORK
Copyright, 1956, by Eric van Lhin
[Transcriber's note: This is a rule 6 clearance. A copyright renewal could not be found.]
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 56-13313
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY THE RYERSON PRESS, TORONTO
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC., CLINTON, MASSACHUSETTS
CONTENTS
I One Way Ticket
II Honest Izzy
III The Graft Is Green
IV Captain Murdoch
V Recall
VI Sealed Letter
VII Electioneering
VIII Vote Early and Often
IX Contraband
X Marriage of Convenience
XI The Sky's the Limit
XII Wife or Prisoner?
XIII Arrest Mayor Wayne!
XIV Full Circle
XV Murdoch's Mantle
XVI Get the Dome!
XVII Security Payoff
POLICE YOUR PLANET
Chapter I
ONE WAY TICKET
There were ten passengers in the little pressurized cabin of theelectric bus that shuttled between the rocket field and Marsport. Tenmen, the driver--and Bruce Gordon.
He sat apart from the others, as he had kept to himself on the ten-daytrip between Earth and Mars, with the yellow stub of his ticket stillstuck defiantly in the band of his hat, proclaiming that Earth had paidhis passage without his permission being asked. His big, lean body wasslumped slightly in the seat. There was no expression on his face.
He listened to the driver explaining to a couple of firsters that theywere actually on what appeared to be one of the mysterious canals whenviewed from Earth. Every book on Mars gave the fact that the canals wereeither an illusion or something which could not be detected on thesurface of the planet.
He glanced back toward the rocket that still pointed skyward back on thefield, and then forward toward the city of Marsport, sprawling out in amess of slums beyond the edges of the dome that had been built to holdair over the central part. And at last he stirred and reached for theyellow stub.
He grimaced at the ONE WAY stamped on it, then tore it intobits and let the pieces scatter over the floor. He counted them as theyfell; thirty pieces, one for each year of his life. Little ones for thetwo years he'd wasted as a cop. Shreds for the four years as a kid inthe ring before that--he'd never made the top. Bigger bits for two yearsalso wasted in trying his hand at professional gambling; and the sixfinal pieces that spelled his rise from a special reporter helping outwith a police shake-up coverage, through a regular leg-man turning uprackets, and on up like a meteor until.... He'd made his big scoop, allright. He'd dug up enough about the Mercury scandals to doublecirculation.
And the government had explained what a fool he'd been for printing halfof a story that was never supposed to be printed until all could berevealed. They'd given Bruce Gordon his final assignment.
He shrugged. He'd bought a suit of airtight coveralls and a helmet atthe field; he had some cash, and a set of reader cards in his pocket.The supply house, Earthside, had assured him that this pattern had neverbeen exported to Mars. With them and the knife he'd selected, he mightget by.
The Solar Security office had given him the knife practice, to make surehe could use it, just as they'd made sure he hadn't taken extra moneywith him beyond the regulation amount.
"You're a traitor, and we'd like nothing better than seeing your gutsspilled," the Security man had told him. "That paper you swiped wasmarked top secret. But we don't get many men with your background--cop,tinhorn, fighter--who have brains enough for our work. So you're boundfor Mars, rather than the Mercury mines. If..."
It was a big _if_, and a vague one. They needed men on Mars who couldact as links in their information bureau, and be ready to work on theirside when the expected trouble came. They wanted men who could servethem loyally, even without orders. If he did them enough service, theymight let him back to Earth. If he caused trouble enough, they couldstill ship him to Mercury.
"And suppose nothing happens?" he asked.
"Then who cares? You're just lucky enough to be alive."
"And what makes you think I'm going to be a spy for Security?"
The other had shrugged. "Why not, Gordon? You've been a spy for a yellowscandal sheet. Why not for us?"
Gordon had been smart enough to realize that perhaps Security was right.
They were in the slums around the city now. Marsport had been settledfaster than it was ready to receive. Temporary buildings had been thrownup, and then had remained, decaying into deathtraps. It wasn't a prettyview that visitors got as they first reached Mars. But nobody except theromantic fools had ever thought frontiers were pretty.
The drummer who had watched Gordon tear up his yellow stub moved forwardnow. "First time?" he asked.
Gordon nodded, mentally cataloguing the drummer as the cockroach type,midway between the small-businessman slug and the petty-crook spidertypes that weren't worth bothering with. But the other took it asinterest.
"Been here dozens of times, myself. Risking your life just to go intoMarsport. Why Congress doesn't clean it up, _I'll_ never know!"
Gordon's mind switched to the readers in his bag. The cards wereplastic, and should be good for a week or so of use before they showedwear. During that time, by playing it carefully, he should have hisstake. Then, if the gaming tables here were as crudely run as anoldtimer he'd known on Earth had said, he could try a coup.
"... be at Mother Corey's soon," the fat little drummer babbled on."Notorious--worst place on Mars. Take it from me, brother, that'ssomething! Even the cops are afraid to go in there. See it? There, toyour left!"
The name was vaguely familiar as one of the sore spots of Marsport.Bruce Gordon looked, and spotted the ragged building, half a mileoutside the dome. It had been a rocket-maintenance hangar once, then hadbeen turned into temporary dwelling for the first deportees, when Earthbegan flooding Mars. Now, seeming to stand by habit alone, it radiateddesolation and decay.
He stood up, grabbing for his bag, and spinning the drummer aside. Hejerked forward, and caught the driver's shoulder. "Getting off!"
The driver shrugged his hand away. "Don't be crazy, mister! They--" Heturned, saw it was Gordon, and his face turned blank. "It's your life,buster," he said, and reached for the brake. "I'll give you five minutesto get into coveralls and helmet and out through the airlock."
Gordon needed less than that; he'd practiced all the way from Earth. Thetransparent plastic of the coveralls went on easily enough, and hishands found the seals quickly. He slipped his few possessions into a bagat his belt, slid the knife into a spring holster above his wrist, andpicked up the bowl-shaped helmet. It seated on a plastic seal, and thelittle air compressor at his back began to hum, ready to turn the thinwisp of Mars' atmosphere into a barely breathable pressure. He testedthe Marspeaker--an amplifier and speaker in another pouch, designed toraise the volume of his voice to a level where it would carry througheven the air of Mars.
The driver swore at the lash of sound, and grabbed for the airlockswitch.
* * * * *
Gordon moved down unpaved streets that zig-zagged along, thick with thefilth of garbage and poverty--the part of Mars never seen in t
henewsreels, outside the shock movies. Thin kids with big eyes and sullenmouths crowded the streets in their airsuits, yelling profanity. Thestreet was filled with people watching with a numbed hunger for any kindof excitement.
It was late afternoon, obviously. Men were coming from the few busroutes, lugging tools and lunch baskets, slumped and beaten from laborin the atomic plants, the Martian conversion farms, and the industriesthat had come inevitably where inefficiency was better than the highprices of imports. The saloons were doing well enough, apparently, fromthe number that streamed in through their airlock entrances. But Gordonsaw one of the bartenders paying money to a thickset person with anarrogant sneer; he knew then that the few profits from the cheap beerwere never going home with the man. Storekeepers in the cheap littleshops had the same lines on their faces as they saw on those of theircustomers.
Poverty and misery were the keynotes here, rather than the evilhalf-world the drummer had babbled about. But to Gordon's trained eyes,there was plenty of outright rottenness, too.
He grimaced, grateful that the supercharger on his airsuit filtered outsome of the smell which the thin air carried. He'd thought he wasfamiliar with human misery from his own Earth slum background. But therewas no attempt to disguise it here.
Ahead, Mother Corey's reared up--a huge, ugly half-cylinder of pittedmetal and native bricks, showing the patchwork of decades, beforerepairs had been abandoned. There were no windows, though once there hadbeen; and the front was covered with a big sign that spelled out_Condemned_. The airseal was filthy, and there was no bell.
Gordon kicked against the side, waited, and kicked again. A slit openedand closed. He waited, then drew his knife and began prying at the worncement around the airseal, looking for the lock that had been there.
The seal suddenly quivered, indicating that metal inside had beenwithdrawn. Gordon grinned tautly, stepped through, and pushed the bladeagainst the inner plastic.
"All right, all right," a voice whined out of the darkness. "You don'thave to puncture my seal. You're in."
"Then call them off!"
A wheezing chuckle answered him, and a phosphor bulb glowed weakly,shedding some light on a filthy hall. "Okay, boys," the voice said,"come on down. He's alone, anyhow. What's pushing, stranger?"
"A yellow ticket," Gordon told him, "and a government allotment that'lllast me two weeks in the dome. I figure on making it last six here, anddon't let my being a firster give you hot palms. My brother was LannyGordon!"
It happened to be true, though Bruce Gordon hadn't seen his brother fromthe time the man had left the family, as a young punk, to the day theyfinally convicted him on his twenty-first murder. But here, if it waslike places he'd known on Earth, even second-hand contact with "muscle"was useful.
It seemed to work. A huge man oozed out of the shadows, his gray facecontorting its doughy fat into a yellow-toothed grin, and a filthy handwaved back the others. There were a few wisps of long, gray hair on thehead and face, and they quivered as he moved forward.
"Looking for a room?" he whined.
"I'm looking for Mother Corey."
"Then you're looking at him, cobber. Sleep on the floor, want a bunk,squat with four, or room and duchess to yourself?"
There was a period of haggling, followed by a wait as Mother Coreykicked four grumbling men out of a four-by-seven hole on the secondfloor. Gordon's money had carried more weight than his brother'sreputation; for that, Corey humored his guest's wish for privacy. "Allyours, cobber, while your crackle's blue."
It was a filthy, dark place. In one corner was an unsheeted bed. Therewas a rusty bucket for water, a hole kicked through the floor for wastewater. Plumbing, and such luxuries, apparently hadn't existed foryears--except for the small cistern and worn water-recovery plant in thebasement, beside the tired-looking weeds in the hydroponic tanks thattried unsuccessfully to keep the air breathable.
"What about a lock on the door?" Gordon asked.
"What good would it do you? Got a different way here, we have. Onecredit a week, and you get Mother Corey's word nobody busts in. And itsticks, cobber--one way or the other."
Gordon paid, and tossed his pouch on the filthy bed. With a little work,the place could be cleaned enough.
He pulled the cards out of his pouch, trying to be casual. Mother Coreystood staring at the pack while Bruce Gordon changed out of his airsuit,gagging faintly as the full effluvium of the place hit him. "Where doesa man eat around here?"
Mother Corey pried his eyes off the cards and ran a thick tongue overheavy lips. "Eh? Oh. Eat. There's a place about ten blocks back. Cobber,stop teasing me! With elections coming up, and the boys loaded with votemoney back in town--with a deck of cheaters like that--you want to_eat_?"
He picked the deck up fondly, while a faraway look came into his cloudedeyes. "Same ones--same identical ones I wore out nigh twenty years ago.Smuggled two decks up here. Set to clean up--and I did, for a while." Heshook his head sadly, and handed the deck back to Gordon. "Come on down.For the sight of these, I'll give you the lay for your pitch. And whenyour luck's made or broken, remember Mother Corey was your friend first,and your old Mother can get longer use from them than you can."
He waddled off, telling of his plans to take Mars for a cleaning, oncelong ago. Gordon followed him, staring at the surrounding filth.
His thoughts were churning so busily that he didn't see the blonde girluntil she had forced her way past them on the stairs. Then he turnedback, but she had vanished into one of the rooms.