Early Days: More Tales From the Pulp Era

  There were 10 million red eyes across the country that day—the eyes of girls whose ambition it had been to marry Brad Crayshaw and who saw that ambition forever demolished now.

  But there were some who didn’t give up that easily.

  One of them was Lora Laurence, a starlet heading for the top. After three minor roles in minor sollies she was signed on for a romantic lead opposite Brad Crayshaw in a costume drama called Across the Wild Frontier. The role, she knew, would be the beginning of her established stardom but snagging Brad Crayshaw would be the coup that would clinch things.

  Crayshaw had no objection to being romantic in front of the multiplex solidoscope cameras; it was just in private life that he grew reticent. He okayed the script even though it was a torrid one for a man of his privately unromantic nature.

  So the cameras began to roll and Crayshaw and Laurence swung into their big love scene.

  “Darling,” Crayshaw said. “I’m leaving, now. My regiment’s going to Illinois to fight the Indians.”

  “Oh—David! You’ll come back, won’t you?”

  “I hope so. Maybe not.” Bluntly, matter-of-factly, in the Crayshaw style.

  “David—darling! I love you so much! I’ve never told you, but—”

  She moved up against him, caressing him, running her fingers over his Revolutionary War costume, murmuring incoherent little words of love, while the battery of cameras snagged the scene from all directions and the cybernets picked up various tactile and olfactory sensations which would later be fed directly into the watching audience.

  Finally he tore himself away. “I must go now, darling!”

  “Darling—you said darling!” Lora moaned.

  “I must go now!” And he strode stiffly away.

  “Cut!” the director yelled.

  Between takes Crayshaw sipped a drink speculatively and mopped away sweat. It was funny, he thought; he had read the script and thought he had judged it correctly: a crudely-written potboiler, nothing more. And yet it had seemed to come oddly to life just that minute…

  He frowned suspiciously. And a moment later Lora Laurence drew near.

  “Brad—”

  “Yes, Miss Laurence?”

  “Call me Lora, will you? I wanted to tell you—I thought your acting was wonderful just now—I mean…”

  “Thank you, Miss Lau—Lora. You seemed particularly good yourself out there. Well, I guess we oughta get into costume for the next scene…”

  “No—Brad. There’s something I want to tell you.”

  “Well?”

  She clung to him suddenly. “I meant what I was saying, on the set. I mean, it wasn’t just lines in a sollie. You understand, Brad? Do you? Do you?”

  “Yes,” he said icily. “I’m afraid I do.”

  That night Brad Crayshaw’s name appeared for the first and last time in the Sollywood gossip sheets. “Crayshaw to wed Lora Laurence,” the headlines yelled.

  The following day Crayshaw issued a denial: a flat no. It wasn’t so. He had no plans for marrying Miss Laurence and furthermore he was going on an extended hunting trip beginning tomorrow and Director Hal Martin could do whatever he wanted with Across the Wild Frontier because he wasn’t going to appear in it.

  They talked him out of breaking his contract and he went through with the film but when it appeared Lora Laurence wasn’t in it. Crayshaw had insisted on her being replaced as the price of his continuing.

  No one tried to turn a sollie scene into a real-life wooing of Brad Crayshaw after that. For a while it seemed as if his wish to have nothing to do with the female sex was going to be respected.

  Then one day a new housekeeper arrived at the 28-room Crayshaw villa.

  Mrs. Stubbs, his old housekeeper, had been the one woman Crayshaw tolerated on the premises—but since she was 63, a grandmother seven times and not especially well preserved for her years, Crayshaw didn’t mind. Besides, she was untalkative and kept well out of his way.

  “I’m a friend of Mrs. Stubbs,” the new housekeeper said. “I’m Mrs. Higgins. Mrs. Stubbs is sick and asked me to fill in for her for a few days.”

  “Oh. Too bad. Sorry to hear that,” Crayshaw grunted. The new housekeeper looked even older and more shrunken than Mrs. Stubbs had so he shrugged and went on cleaning his rifle.

  Mrs. Higgins began to move through the room, dusting and wiping, and Crayshaw ignored her as he had ignored Mrs. Stubbs. One housekeeper was just as good as another, he thought.

  An hour later a soft voice said, “May I come in?”

  There was a girl standing at the door, smiling invitingly.

  “Who the blazes are you?” Crayshaw demanded. “How’d you get in here? Mrs. Higgins! Mrs. Higgins!”

  “Don’t call for her, Brad honey. She’s right here.”

  “You—you—”

  “They can do wonders with makeup, Brad. My name is Jodi Carpenter, and I’ve seen all your pictures. I’m wild about you, Brad! And I know that we’ll be happy together, darling.”

  It was nearly 10 seconds before Crayshaw could find his voice. Finally he sputtered in a high-pitched rasp that bore little resemblance to his usual basso boom, “Get out! Out!”

  “I want a robot housemaid,” Crayshaw told the salesman. “A mechanical that can dust, mop, cook—you know.”

  “Of course, sir.” The salesman chuckled confidentially. “You want a robot with all the advantages of a female and none of the…ah…drawbacks. Very well, sir. We have just the model for you.”

  He drew back a thick plush curtain and revealed a very lifelike female robot, looking much like a tall, slim blonde of 23 or so except for the faint glassiness of her eyes and the minute trademark on her forehead.

  “Model 103, Mr. Crayshaw—our very best.”

  Crayshaw frowned. “Don’t you have something that looks—well, a little more like a robot and a little less like a woman? I’m not interested in a pretty robot. I just want one that can empty ashtrays and wash dishes.”

  The salesman guffawed. “I see what you mean! But I’m sorry about that; we believe in tailoring our products to the demand and this number has proven tremendously popular. I’m afraid there just is no robot of the specifications you request. But you’ll find this model totally satisfactory.”

  “Okay. How much?”

  “Ah—$30,000, sir. Ours is a quality product, and…”

  “I’ll take it,” Crayshaw said.

  The robot did not arrive for nearly a week—a week which Crayshaw spent broodingly doing his own housework and hating it. A tearful Mrs. Stubbs showed up and protested that she hadn’t really meant to let that girl take her place that day but she had seemed so anxious to meet him, and…

  Crayshaw held up one hand for silence. He wasn’t interested. He gave Mrs. Stubbs two months’ pay and told her to find employment elsewhere.

  Finally the robot was installed. Model 103 was perfect, Crayshaw agreed. She—it—handled the task of tidying up the house to perfection, gliding silently from room to room, handling each chore easily and uncomplainingly. Her designers had left 100 blank memory tubes in her cooking circuits and Crayshaw was able to install 100 of his favorite recipes.

  Life was complete, Crayshaw thought. The robot never spoke—he had cut off her highly-developed speech centers for fear of being disturbed while studying scripts—and when her chores were done for the day she turned herself off and stood mutely in the closet until the following morning. No backchat, no nagging, none of the slushy sentimentality to which females are prone and which Crayshaw’s masculine soul hated so thoroughly.

  Until the disastrous day when Crayshaw tried to rehearse a scene from his forthcoming Passion and Poverty.

  He summoned Model 103 and told her, “I want you to read the parts in the script that are marked Lisa, and wait until I’ve read the words marked Paul. Got that?”

  She smiled and nodded. He activated her speech-circuits and they began.

  One thing surprised him immediately: she was as
tonishingly capable. She didn’t merely read off word by word, as he had expected; instead, she actually took the part, delivering it with skill. He rose to the lines, embodied them with passion, found himself emoting with an ardor he had never known in rehearsal before.

  When the scene was over he noticed that the robot’s glassy eyes were fixed on him strangely.

  “Very well done, I must say. We’ll have to rehearse again some time.”

  He reached out to snap off her voice circuits but she caught his hand and said, “Please—not just yet, Mr. Crayshaw.”

  “Eh?”

  “There’s something I want to tell you first. Something that’s been undergoing feedback within me ever since you bought me, something that finally crystallized just now, when we acted together. I must tell you—”

  “What must you tell me, 103?”

  The mechanized mouth drew back in a flawless smile; it seemed as if a light flush colored her soft plastic skin. She sighed lightly.

  “I love you, Mr. Crayshaw,” the robot said.

  RESCUE MISSION

  (1957)

  The final 1957 story here—Lord, that was a busy year for me!—is another Hamling item, which I wrote in February, 1957 and which came out in the December, 1957 issue of Imagination. It went in under my “Ralph Burke” pseudonym, but Hamling put my own name on it. (Garrett and I had three other stories in that issue, one bearing the Garrett byline and, I think, actually written by him, one by “S.M. Tenneshaw” that was my doing, and a “Robert Randall” story that was another Garrett product.) “Rescue Mission” is the sort of space opera that I could easily have sold to the new Super-Science for two cents a word, but my contractual obligations to Hamling compelled me to send it there for half as much. Such were the pitfalls of contract writing: Hamling gave me a guaranteed monthly income, but if I accidentally wrote a story that I could have sold at a higher price, I had to think of my monthly delivery requirements first. A fair trade-off, though: I lost a few dollars here and there, but I sidestepped the uncertainties of the freelance life, and, eight months out of college with a big monthly rent check to meet (at least it was big for those days) and not much of a savings cushion in the bank, that was an important consideration.

  ——————

  Rick Mason’s ship was still high over Mordarga, coming in for a landing, when the cry for help sounded in his audio phones.

  Rick frowned, reached to the control panel to turn up the amplification—then realized that the voice had not come over the audio after all. It had spoken in his mind.

  Help! Rick, they’ve caught me!

  There was urgency in the mental cry. Instantly, Mason sized up the situation.

  It was his partner, Klon Darra, the Venusian—the other half of this mentally-attuned Solar System intelligence team. Klon Darra was in trouble!

  He focussed his mental energies and replied: I read you, Klon Darra. What’s the problem?

  The response was blurred and indistinct, as if the Venusian were laboring under great mental strain. I…landed on schedule. Fell into hands of…ruler. In prison. Going to be tortured. I.

  Mason struggled to keep his attention on his descending spaceship while picking up the Venusian’s fading mental voice. Go ahead, Klon Darra. I hear you.

  They’re going to torture me. Help me, Mason. Help!

  Where are you? Mason asked.

  Dungeons of the main palace, Mordarga City. Hurry, Rick. There’s not much time.

  Mason switched on the fore visiplate and the mottled grey-and-blue surface of Mordarga became visible ahead of him. The planet Mordarga was one of the universe’s potential trouble-spots. That was why the Solar System Government had sent a team of its intelligence agents there.

  But they had planned on a leisurely, detailed reconnaissance of the planet, intending to return to home base with a full account of Mordarga’s weaknesses and future militaristic plans. Now, that was changed; Klon Darra would have to be rescued at once. The Mordargans probably knew by now that the Solar System had discovered Mordarga’s warlike aims.

  Rick began setting up his landing orbit. The tiny two-man ship curved sharply downward as his trained fingers played over the control console. The planet of Mordarga sprang up to meet the down-plunging ship.

  Mordarga was in the Sirius system, a big, ugly world inhabited by big, ugly humanoids. Mason landed in a secluded spot on the north continent of the planet, coming to rest in a foul-smelling valley between two looming mountains.

  Jutting angular blue-leaved trees stuck up around, and hoarse-voiced alien wildlife chattered and yawped in the background. Mason strapped his safety-kit to his side, flipped on the homing-switch he’d need to find his way back to the ship, and lightly swung down to the ground. He started to walk.

  Unless his figures were wrong Mordarga City lay three miles to the west. He kept his receptive mind attuned, hoping to hear from the Venusian again but Klon Darra was not sending.

  They made a good team, Mason and the Venusian. A pair of Earth-men somehow never were as efficient together as a mixed-planet outfit; the green-skinned Venusian had certain attributes Mason lacked and vice-versa. Together they were a well-nigh perfect intelligence team. Knowledge of Mordarga’s future intentions was essential to the safety and security of the Solar System.

  Suddenly Klon Darra’s voice sounded in his mind.

  Mason, have you landed yet?

  Yes. I’m on my way. You all right?

  They still don’t know why I’m on Mordarga. They picked me up on suspicion. If you can, get me out of here before they find out.

  I’m three miles out of Mordarga City. Can you hold out for another half hour? Mason asked.

  Silence for a moment. Then the Venusian said, I think so. So far they’ve just tried some elementary torture. Not kid stuff but I’m still okay.

  Mason grinned. A Venusian’s pain threshold was fantastically high; the Mordargans could torture Klon Darra for days without getting any essential information from him. But there were other methods.

  Klon Darra said: They’ve sent for a telepath. Once they penetrate my mind they’ll know why we’re here. We’ll both be cooked.

  Don’t worry, Mason telepathed. I’ll be there with bells on.

  There were occasional buildings now, he saw; the main bulk of Mordarga City lay up ahead, sprawling in a disorderly, confused fashion. The Mordargans, for all their neat precision of mind, cared little about the arrangement of their cities.

  Mason saw some of the Mordargans now—husky brutes seven feet tall, square-shouldered and thick-muscled. They were gray-skinned with blazing white eyes and savage fangs; they diverged most sharply from the humanoid pattern in the pair of thick, stubby antenna sprouting from their heavy-browed foreheads.

  Those antenna governed the extra Mordargan sense—the sense of balance, of perspective, of distance-judgment. It made them deadly in a hand-to-hand fight.

  A couple of the Mordargans looked at him suspiciously but without overt antagonism. Earth and Mordarga were still theoretically at peace and Earthmen on Mordarga were, if not common, at least not totally unknown.

  Mason kept his eyes to the ground and walked quickly past the Mordargans. They were a surly, unpredictable race; he didn’t want any trouble with them now.

  He tried a message to Klon Darra.

  Hey, Venusian! How’s it going?

  The telepath is due to arrive in one hour, Rick. Where are you now?

  On the outskirts, just coming into the city. I’ll be there to spring you in plenty of time.

  The main palace was visible ahead, about a mile further into the city. Mason quickened his pace. There was time but not much.

  He stepped between a pair of drunken Mordargans who were jostling each other on the narrow street. Suddenly one of them turned and said, “Hey, there’s an Earthman. Come on, Terran. Have a drink with us?”

  They were wobbling unsteadily. Mason caught his breath. He had little enough time to get to Klon Darra as it was.
He calculated the speed at which they could move and wondered if he could outrun them.

  “Sorry,” he snapped. “I’m too busy for a drink now.”

  He lowered his head and ran. They grunted in surprise and started to chase him. He heard their heavy feet clobbering along on the pavement. He cursed. They were probably just trying to be sociable but this was no time for that.

  “Ho, Earthman! You run fast but your legs are short!”

  He glanced back. They were gaining on him. A tangle of buildings loomed up ahead and he made for those.

  A rough hand clamped around the back of his neck and dragged him to a halt. Mason spun around and waded in without waiting for an introduction.

  His fist crashed into the stomach of the nearest Mordargan and sent him rocking back against his companion. Mason hit him again and he started to sag. The heavy body thudded against the pavement.

  But the other Mordargan was more sober. He stepped over his companion’s unconscious body and wrapped mighty arms around Mason’s middle.

  The Earthman gasped and turned purple. His fists pounded at the alien without avail.

  “Had enough, Earthman?”

  “You’re choking me! Let go!”

  “When a Mordargan invites you to drink with him, you drink!” The alien tightened his grip and Mason felt the universe reel. He could hardly see; his eyes were ready to pop. Against the 300 pound Mordargan he stood no chance at all.

  Suddenly the alien released him. Mason took several hesitant, dizzy steps, sucking in breath as fast as he could. The alien’s bearhug had nearly finished him.

  The big Mordargan was chuckling happily. “Earthman, you don’t know how close you came to death just then!”

  “Oh, yes I do!” Mason said rubbing his bruised body. There didn’t seem to be any obvious broken bones at any rate. But he was wasting valuable time.

  “Will you come now, Terran?”

  “I—I have an appointment,” Mason said. He realized the futility of trying to run away again. There was a blaster in his pocket but it was hardly possible to gun the creature down on a public street. “I can’t stay,” he said.