Early Days: More Tales From the Pulp Era

  “You can’t? We’ll see about that.”

  The Mordargan equivalent of a bar was a long, low-ceilinged place dimly lighted. Curious fumes of alcohol and other things drifted in the atmosphere. Mason could see Mordargans lying prostrate here and there, some of them totally unconscious, others contentedly sucking on feeding-tubes.

  There was no way to escape the obstinate conviviality of the alien who had encountered him. Mason’s only hope was to make a quick exit once the Mordargan had decided he was through drinking. “What’ll you have, Terran?”

  “You name it,” Mason said. “Match you drink for drink if you pay.”

  “Fair enough. Well start with gruuna. Straight?”

  “Why not?”

  “Two bowls of gruuna,” the alien bellowed.

  The drinks arrived. They were a murky, slimy-looking stuff that fizzed faintly and gave off a sour odor. Mason stared at his bowl unhappily.

  “Drink up, Earthman!” The Mordargan lifted his bowl in massive fingers and held it to his tooth-ringed mouth. He drained it in one long slurping gulp. Mason shrivered a little and picked up his own bowl.

  He sipped. The stuff was as mild as molten uranium and twice as potent. It seared its way down into his stomach and landed with a thunk. Mason wondered if the drink gave off alpha particles; it was that hot.

  The things a man has to do in the name of Solar System intelligence, he thought.

  He wondered what was happening to the Venusian. Impatience coursed through him. He had to get away, had to reach the dungeon before the Mordargans could interrogate Klon Darra with the telepath.

  Rick! Where are you? came the sudden anxious mental plea. The telepath’s here. They’ll be questioning me soon, and…

  I’m trying to get to you, Mason telepathed. But I’m having trouble. Stall if you can.

  “Ready for your second bowl, Earthman?” the Mordargan asked jovially.

  Mason shuddered. “I’m not through with this one,” he said.

  “Slow, eh? Drink it down!”

  Obediently Mason lifted the drink to his lips, took another shallow sip, winced as the ghastly stuff traveled down his gullet. Maybe gruuna was champagne to these evil-smelling so-and-sos, but it was no drink for an Earthman.

  And the telepath had arrived at the dungeon. Before long they’d know everything.

  He squinted around the edge of the bowl, eyeing the big Mordargan speculatively. Gruuna was potent stuff, he reflected; what would be the effect if I hurled a bowlful of it into the Mordargan’s eyes?

  It was worth a try. In one quick motion he lowered the bowl from his mouth, heaved its contents upward into the alien’s face and started to run. He heard a roar of pain and anger from behind.

  And the door slammed shut in his face.

  He hadn’t figured on that. The bartender probably could control the door manually from behind the bar and the moment Mason had broken away the signal to shut the door had been given.

  He turned. The alien was rumbling toward him, wiping his eyes, bellowing in rage. Mason started to reach for his blaster but there was no time. The giant crashed into him.

  He fought back gamely but the Mordargan was a foot taller and 125 pounds heavier, he didn’t stand a chance. Fists slammed into his stomach and chest; he beat them off feebly, hardly able to see in the dimness of the bar.

  Rick! Rick! Where are you? came the Venusian’s mental voice.

  But Mason was unable to answer. A barrage of mighty blows crashed in on him and he spun, clawing to keep his balance, and started to fold up. He heard Klon Darra saying, Here comes the telepath now. His head crashed against the wall and he blanked out.

  The amused laughter of the Mordargans seemed to follow him into unconsciousness.

  He awoke later—days, weeks, years later, it seemed. He felt mummified.

  His body ached; his eyes wouldn’t focus properly and in his mouth was the acrid, retch-inducing taste of the gruuna.

  But aside from the pain, aside from the physical miseries he felt, he sensed a stinging sense of personal failure. He was an agent of Solar System Intelligence, a member of the galaxy’s proudest and toughest organization…and he had failed to rescue his own partner.

  By now the telepath had probably drained Klon Darra’s mind of its secrets, had learned that there was another Intelligence agent loose on Mordarga, that Earth suspected the big planet of hostile intentions, that…

  It was all over. The team of Klon Darra and Rick Mason had been considered the tops of Intelligence but that rating looked pretty hollow now. The Venusian had gotten himself trapped on landing and Mason had flubbed a chance to rescue him. He had wound up lying somewhere—where?—with a hangover and a headache.

  He looked around. He was in an alley and by the smell of it it was the alley back of the bar. They had probably dumped him after the Mordargans had finished having their fun with him.

  Bright Sirius blazed high overhead. It was morning, probably getting toward noon. The Morning After.

  Mason? Are you awake?

  The soft mental whisper jolted him like a blast of raw energy. He just hadn’t expected to hear from the Venusian.

  Where are you, Klon Darra? What’s going on?

  I’m still in the dungeon, the Venusian said. They’ll be interrogating me again this afternoon. Why weren’t you here last night?

  Mason went red with shame. I ran into trouble. I’m sorry, Klon Darra. Damned sorry.

  There’s no time for feeling sorry now, came Klon Darra’s thought. Break our mental linkage and get off Mordarga in a hurry.

  And leave you here?

  I don’t matter. They know you’re here, Rick. Leave now, while you can. They’ve sent orders out to find you and bring you in. Get going!

  Mason shook his head obstinately, even though he knew the Venusian could not see the gesture. He got to his feet and leaned against the wall, rubbed his throbbing forehead. I’m not leaving you here, Klon Darra. I’ll be there inside the hour and this time I mean it.

  He started to walk out of the alley, groping unsteadily at the wall to keep from falling flat on his face.

  Slowly, strength returned. And purpose.

  He had fumbled last night. Now, he would make it up.

  The main palace was a tall, lopsided structure built of a coarse-grained granite-like stone. The noon sun struck slantwise against the slabs which sparkled weirdly. Rick Mason stood outside and directed a thought at the Venusian within.

  Klon Darra?

  Yes?

  I’m right outside the palace.

  I thought I told you to leave Mordarga at once.

  The hell with that, Mason said in an impatient mental snap. I’m here. Guide me in.

  Very well. I’m in a dungeon on the third sublevel of the palace. If you can get that far I’ll direct you the rest of the way.

  A Mordargan guard, his nose in the air, stood outside the main walk that led to the palace. Mason walked past him, nodded obsequiously, and kept going. The guard didn’t even bother to notice him.

  He didn’t need to. He was just a decoration. But the guard at the inner wall frowned suspiciously and said, “Where are you going, Earthman?”

  “Inside.” Mason’s voice was tight. “I want to look around a little.”

  “Do you have a pass?”

  “Sure. Right here in my hand.” The subminiaturized blaster in his palm flashed once, a brief bright spurt of energy that bored a pencil-thin hole through the Mordargan’s burly chest. Mason leaned forward, caught the guard as he started to fall, and eased him to a sitting position on a bench.

  The alien’s eyes were glazing. The shot had been instantly fatal.

  “You wait right here,” Mason told the dead Mordargan. “I’m going inside.”

  He ran up the broad stone steps of the palace, entered an empty corridor and ducked into a beckoning stairway. No one interfered with him as he circled downward, down into the palace’s depths.

  On the third level downward he
shot another beam of thought at the captive Venusian.

  I’m here, Klon Darra!

  You’re a crazy fool, but I’m glad you did it, came the reply. Go down the left-hand corridor about a hundred paces and turn right. There’s an alcove there and a half-stairway that descends about eight feet, I’m in a room at the bottom of that stairway. Got all that?

  You bet. I’m going to come in shooting—and we’ll be on our way out of here in no time.

  Following the Venusian’s instructions he tiptoed along the strangely silent corridor, looking for the alcove and the half-stairway.

  He found it.

  The door was unguarded. Palming the tiny blaster, he went quietly down the stairs, groped for the handle of the door.

  In the instant he threw the door open the Venusian’s mental voice wailed, Look out, it’s a trap!

  But it was too late. A rolling tide of mental force came thundering out and held him frozen.

  There were three people in the room. One was Klon Darra, lying on a table, his hands and legs strapped down with metal binding.

  The other two were Mordargans. One was tall and fierce-looking with bright white eyes glaring authoritatively from his gray face. The other was small—no taller than an Earthman—with an abnormally large, grotesque, swollen head. The head was light blue rather than the usual gray and was covered with the pulsing striations of veins—the telepath.

  The telepath was staring at Mason and holding him immobile.

  “Now we have both the spies,” said the big Mordargan in a rumbling voice. “Well done, Senibro. Very well done indeed.”

  Mason struggled to move, to muster enough coordination to fire the blaster he still held in his hand. But despite an effort that brought sweat to his face he was totally frozen, statuelike.

  The big Mordargan approached and casually relieved him of the blaster—and his other weapons as well. Impotently, Mason glared at him.

  “All right,” the big man said to the telepath. “You can relax the controls now. He’s weaponless.”

  Mason went limp as the mental force-field blinked out around him. He said, “What the hell is this? Who are you, and by what authority are you holding a citizen of the Solar System prisoner here?”

  The big Mordargan grinned. “I’m Levron Clargo. You may know me: I’m head of Security in Mordarga City. I’m holding this Venusian here by authority of my position, and you too. The Venusian was apprehended on suspicion of spying two days ago. We interrogated him and learned he had a partner at large on Mordarga. It was simpler to bring you here by a ruse than go looking for you.”

  “Ruse? But—”

  Levron Clargo smiled coldly. “We’ve been in possession of the mind of your Venusian aide since Senibro, here, interrogated him late yesterday.”

  Mason was stunned. The messages from Klon Darra today, the selfless plea that Mason leave Mordarga immediately and save himself—

  A ruse. A trap. A hoax.

  They had used reverse psychology, played on his Earthman nature, knowing that if they told him to leave he’d first try to rescue his partner.

  And now they had both. Mason felt like four kinds of idiot.

  “Senibro, we can now interrogate both of them. But be very careful. I want to learn the mechanism of this linkage between them. Such a linkage would be very useful to know.”

  Tensely Mason waited as the mutant telepath approached him. He looked away, avoiding the penetrating eyes. He glanced at the sleeping form of Klon Darra on the table—Klon Darra whose mind had probably watched helplessly as it had been manipulated to snare Mason.

  “Look at me,” the telepath ordered.

  Mason formed a plan of action. He decided to leap on the telepath, kill him if possible; Levron Clargo would kill him but that didn’t matter. Mason realized that if the aliens ever learned the secret of the telepathic linkage it would be disastrous for Earth.

  “Look at my eyes,” the alien repeated.

  Mason readied himself to spring.

  Don’t do it, whispered the mental voice of Klon Darra.

  That you, Klon?

  Yes. The mutant has relaxed control over me. Don’t jump him as you’re going to do. Let him start to probe you.

  Why? Mason asked. He was suspicious; Klon Darra’s mental voice had fooled him once already.

  Two minds are stronger than one, Rick. And we’re linked.

  Mason understood. Slowly he raised his head and stared levelly into the brooding, hypnotically-compelling eyes of the alien telepath.

  He felt the alien mind begin to enter his. Strange tendrils of thought probed within his skull. He held his breath, waiting, knowing now that Klon Darra had spoken the truth.

  “Find anything?” the Security chief asked.

  “Not yet,” replied the telepath. “There’s still some resistance. I—”

  And Mason struck.

  His mind, supported wholeheartedly by Klon Darra’s, lashed out viciously at the mind of the probing mutant. A solid red fist of mental force crashed through the telepath’s barriers. The Mordargan staggered, arms flailing.

  Hit him again! Mason thought triumphantly to Klon Darra, and the Venusian responded. Jointly they barraged the alien’s mind.

  “What’s happening, Senibro?” asked the Security Chief.

  The telepath moaned. “I—I—”

  He slumped and fell heavily.

  The Solar System agents gave the telepath an extra jolt, a final thrust, to finish burning out the sensitive mutated mind.

  “Senibro! Senibro!” the Security Chief roared. He fumbled for his blaster.

  But Mason had long since anticipated the clumsy move. The speed of thought is infinite; Mason and the Venusian, working jointly, easily immobilized the Mordargan. The blaster dropped to the floor.

  “Go easy on him,” Mason said aloud to his partner. “We’ll need him to get us out of the palace.”

  “Right.”

  Together they bound the alien in a hypnotic compulsion—to conduct the two Solarians safely out of the palace. Then Mason sent an inquisitive mind-probe into the Mordargan’s psyche.

  The yield of the probe was rich—data on Mordargan military movements, secret plans. Mason carefully memorized these things.

  Then he freed the Venusian. Klon Darra smiled in gratitude.

  “I was afraid you’d never get here,” he said. “After they caught me I thought we were both finished. But we fooled them.”

  Mason nodded. “We’re still a good team, Klon Darra. A little careless at times but who minds that as long as we bring home what we went out here for.”

  He turned to the stupefied Mordargan. “Let’s go, Levron Clargo.”

  When they returned to the ship, they would file their report. Mission—successful!

  PLANET OF PARASITES

  (1957)

  My career was off and running, but things were changing for me as 1957 drew to its close. I’ve already indicated that I had begun to write less and less for Amazing and Fantastic, my early standby markets, after Paul Fairman replaced Howard Browne as their editor, and by late 1957 I was doing nothing for them whatever. And my regular monthly deal with Bill Hamling was on the rocks, also. Hamling was having trouble with his distributor and his magazines were not doing well. He had built up a substantial inventory of Garrett/Silverberg stories, enough to last him a year or more, and early in the new year he let us know that the March, 1957 monthly package would be the last. His magazines would struggle along until the summer of 1958 as he ran out the inventory, and then they gave up the ghost.

  What might have been an economic catastrophe for me, though, left me undamaged, because Super-Science Fiction and its crime story companions, Trapped and Guilty, had emerged to fill the void left by the collapse of my deals with Amazing and Imagination, and then some. Super-Science was coming out six times a year, paying two cents a word, and its editor, W.W. Scott, was eager to have everything I could bring him, from short story length up to 12,000 words. (And a 12,0
00-worder, which I could write in two days, would earn me $240.) From the third issue of Super-Science onward, I had at least one story in every issue, and sometimes as many as three. Trapped and Guilty each appeared six times a year, paid a cent and a half a word, and ran stories of all lengths up to 10,000 words. With Harlan Ellison, the magazine’s mainstay, now in the army, the job of filling up those two magazines fell likewise to me, and for the next few years, after having done my regular stint for Super-Science, I would descend on W.W. Scott with my latest batch of tales of juvenile delinquents, blackmailers, adulterous husbands, and other unsavory sorts. Between the crime stories and the s-f stories, I was able to earn more than enough from these three magazines to make up for the loss of assured income from Hamling and Fairman.

  “Planet of Parasites” was the fourth of the 12,000-worders I did for Super-Science. I wrote it in August, 1957, and Scottie ran it in the April, 1958 issue, which was on the stands in February. He featured the story title on the cover (“Parasites” was misspelled “Parisites,” providing a nice Gallic touch, but they got it right inside the book) and the other two stories that were listed there indicated very neatly how little Scottie knew about our field, for one was a story by Isaac Asimov with his name misspelled “Issac” (again, done correctly inside) and the other was one by Jay Wallace, the only published story of this otherwise unknown author. (“Parasites” was published as by “Calvin M. Knox,” though I had one in the issue under the rather better known “Robert Silverberg” name as well, not mentioned on the cover. There was also one in the issue by the veteran writer Robert Moore Williams, but that didn’t make the cover either, and was concealed on the contents page by the opaque byline “Robert M. Williams.”)

  As for “Planet of Parasites,” it followed the pattern for lead stories in Super-Science that I had established myself and rigorously obeyed in issue after issue. Human explorers on an alien world getting into trouble? Check. A new expedition coming out from Earth and trying to find out what sort of problem its predecessor expedition had become entangled in? Check. The inevitable entanglement of the newcomers in the same problem? Check. Check. Check. The venerable and beloved old pulp magazine Planet Stories had run dozens of stories of that type while I was still in grade school, and now it was my turn. Planet was gone, discontinued just as my career was getting started, but my work of the late 1950s would have fit right in. The one wrinkle that made the Super-Science Stories novelet a little different is that W.W. Scott would allow the protagonist of the story to meet a grim fate, indeed rather preferred it that way, whereas the earlier pulp formula generally showed the resilient hero ultimately triumphing over the obstacles that assailed him. I guess that’s a spoiler, isn’t it? Well, so be it. Go ahead and read the story anyway. Perhaps in this one the veteran space medic Neale, faced with a sinister alien antagonist, will come out on top. Perhaps.