20
FINALE
They had Tom Kivelson in a private room at the hospital; he wassitting up in a chair, with a lot of pneumatic cushions around him,and a lunch tray on his lap. He looked white and thin. He could moveone arm completely, but the bandages they had loaded him with seemedto have left the other free only at the elbow. He was concentrating onhis lunch, and must have thought I was one of the nurses, or a doctor,or something of the sort.
"Are you going to let me have a cigarette and a cup of coffee, whenI'm through with this?" he asked.
"Well, I don't have any coffee, but you can have one of mycigarettes," I said.
Then he looked up and gave a whoop. "Walt! How'd you get in here? Ithought they weren't going to let anybody in to see me till thisafternoon."
"Power of the press," I told him. "Bluff, blarney, and blackmail. Howare they treating you?"
"Awful. Look what they gave me for lunch. I thought we were on shortrations down on Hermann Reuch's Land. How's Father?"
"He's all right. They took the splint off, but he still has to carryhis arm in a sling."
"Lucky guy; he can get around on his feet, and I'll bet he isn'tstarving, either. You know, speaking about food, I'm going to feellike a cannibal eating carniculture meat, now. My whole back'scarniculture." He filled his mouth with whatever it was they werefeeding him and asked, through it: "Did I miss Steve Ravick'shanging?"
I was horrified. "Haven't these people told you anything?" I demanded.
"Nah; they wouldn't even tell me the right time. Afraid it wouldexcite me."
So I told him; first who Bish Ware really was, and then who Ravickreally was. He gaped for a moment, and then shoveled in more food.
"Go on; what happened?"
I told him how Bish had smuggled Gerrit and Leo Belsher out on SecondLevel Down and gotten them to the spaceport, where Courtland's men hadbeen waiting for them.
"Gerrit's going to Terra, and from there to Loki. They want thenatives to see what happens to a Terran who breaks Terran law; teachthem that our law isn't just to protect us. Belsher's going to Terra,too. There was a big ship captains' meeting; they voted to reclaimtheir wax and sell it individually to Murell, but to retain membershipin the Co-op. They think they'll have to stay in the Co-op to getanything that's gettable out of Gerrit's and Belsher's money. OscarFujisawa and Cesario Vieira are going to Terra on the _Cape Canaveral_to start suit to recover anything they can, and also to petition forreclassification of Fenris. Oscar's coming back on the next ship, butCesario's going to stay on as the Co-op representative. I suppose heand Linda will be getting married."
"Natch. They'll both stay on Terra, I suppose. Hey, whattaya know!Cesario's getting off Fenris without having to die and reincarnate."
He finished his lunch, such as it was and what there was of it, and Irelieved him of the tray and set it on the floor beyond his chair. Ifound an ashtray and lit a cigarette for him and one for myself, usingthe big lighter. Tom looked at it dubiously, predicting that sometimeI'd push the wrong thing and send myself bye-byes for a couple ofhours. I told him how Bish had used it.
"Bet a lot of people wanted to hang him, too, before they found outwho he was and what he'd really done. What's my father think of Bish,now?"
"Bish Ware is a great and good man, and the savior of Fenris," I said."And he was real smart, to keep an act like that up for five years.Your father modestly admits that it even fooled him."
"Bet Oscar Fujisawa knew it all along."
"Well, Oscar modestly admits that he suspected something of the sort,but he didn't feel it was his place to say anything."
Tom laughed, and then wanted to know if they were going to hang MortHallstock. "I hope they wait till I can get out of here."
"No, Odin Dock & Shipyard claim he's a political refugee and theywon't give him up. They did loan us a couple of accountants to go overthe city books, to see if we could find any real evidence ofmisappropriation, and whattaya know, there were no city books. Thecity of Port Sandor didn't keep books. We can't even take that threehundred thousand sols away from him; for all we can prove, he savedthem out of his five-thousand-sol-a-year salary. He's shipping out onthe _Cape Canaveral_, too."
"Then we don't have any government at all!"
"Are you fooling yourself we ever had one?"
"No, but--"
"Well, we have one now. A temporary dictatorship; Bish Ware isdictator. Fieschi loaned him Ranjit Singh and some of his men. Thefirst thing he did was gather up the city treasurer and the chief ofpolice and march them to the spaceport; Fieschi made Hallstock buythem tickets, too. But there aren't going to be any unofficialhangings. This is a law-abiding planet, now."
A nurse came in, and disapproved of Tom smoking and of me being in theroom at all.
"Haven't you had your lunch yet?" she asked Tom.
He looked at her guilelessly and said, "No; I was waiting for it."
"Well, I'll get it," she said. "I thought the other nurse had broughtit." She started out, and then she came back and had to fuss with hiscushions, and then she saw the tray on the floor.
"You did so have your lunch!" she accused.
Tom looked at her as innocently as ever. "Oh, you mean these samples?Why, they were good; I'll take all of them. And a big slab of roastbeef, and brown gravy, and mashed potatoes. And how about some icecream?"
It was a good try; too bad it didn't work.
"Don't worry, Tom," I told him. "I'll get my lawyer to spring you outof this jug, and then we'll take you to my place and fill you up onMrs. Laden's cooking."
The nurse sniffed. She suspected, quite correctly, that whoever Mrs.Laden was, she didn't know anything about scientific dietetics.
* * * * *
When I got back to the _Times_, Dad and Julio had had their lunch andwere going over the teleprint edition. Julio was printing correctionson blank sheets of plastic and Dad was cutting them out and cementingthem over things that needed correcting on the master sheets. I gaveJulio a short item to the effect that Tom Kivelson, son of Captain andMrs. Joe Kivelson, one of the _Javelin_ survivors who had been burnedin the tallow-wax fire, was now out of all danger, and recovering. Dadwas able to scrounge that onto the first page.
There was a lot of other news. The T.F.N. destroyer _Simon Bolivar_,en route from Gimli to pick up the notorious Anton Gerrit, alias SteveRavick, had come out of hyperspace and into radio range. Dad hadtalked to the skipper by screen and gotten interviews, which would betelecast, both with him and Detective-Major MacBride of the ColonialConstabulary. The _Simon Bolivar_ would not make landing, but go intoorbit and send down a boat. Detective-Major MacBride (alias Dr. JohnWatson) would remain on Fenris to take over local police activities.
More evidence had been unearthed at Hunters' Hall on the fraudspracticed by Leo Belsher and Gerrit-alias-Ravick; it looked as thougha substantial sum of money might be recovered, eventually, from thebank accounts and other holdings of both men on Terra. ActingResident-Agent Gonzalo Ware--Ware, it seemed, really was his rightname, but look what he had in front of it--had promulgated moreregulations and edicts, and a crackdown on the worst waterfront diveswas in progress. I'll bet the devoted flock was horrified at whattheir beloved bishop had turned into. Bish would leave his diocese ina lot healthier condition than he'd found it, that was one thing forsure. And most of the gang of thugs and plug-uglies who had been usedto intimidate and control the Hunters' Co-operative had been gatheredup and jailed on vagrancy charges; prisoners were being put to workcleaning up the city.
And there was a lot about plans for a registration of voters, andorganization of election boards, and a local electronics-engineeringfirm had been awarded a contract for voting machines. I didn't thinkthere had ever been a voting machine on Fenris before.
"The commander of the _Bolivar_ says he'll take your story to Terrawith him, and see that it gets to Interworld News," Dad told me as wewere sorting the corrected master sheets and loading them into thephot
oprint machine, to be sent out on the air. "The _Bolivar_'ll makeTerra at least two hundred hours ahead of the _Cape Canaveral_.Interworld will be glad to have it. It isn't often they get a storylike that with the first news of anything, and this'll be a bigstory."
"You shouldn't have given me the exclusive by-line," I said. "You didas much work on it as I did."
"No, I didn't, either," he contradicted, "and I knew what I wasdoing."
With the work done, I remembered that I hadn't had anything to eatsince breakfast, and I went down to take inventory of therefrigerator. Dad went along with me, and after I had assembled alunch and sat down to it, he decided that his pipe needed refilling,lit it, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with me.
"You know, Walt, I've been thinking, lately," he began.
Oh-oh, I thought. When Dad makes that remark, in just that tone, it'sall hands to secure ship for diving.
"We've all had to do a lot of thinking, lately," I agreed.
"Yes. You know, they want me to be mayor of Port Sandor."
I nodded and waited till I got my mouth empty. I could see a lot ofsense in that. Dad is honest and scrupulous and public-spirited; toomuch so, sometimes, for his own good. There wasn't any question of hisability, and while there had always been antagonism between thehunter-ship crews and waterfront people and the uptown business crowd,Dad was well liked and trusted by both parties.
"Are you going to take it?" I asked.
"I suppose I'll have to, if they really want me. Be a sort ofobligation."
That would throw a lot more work on me. Dad could give some attentionto the paper as mayor, but not as much as now.
"What do you want me to try to handle for you?" I asked.
"Well, Walt, that's what I've been thinking about," he said. "I'vebeen thinking about it for a long time, and particularly since thingsgot changed around here. I think you ought to go to school some more."
That made me laugh. "What, back to Hartzenbosch?" I asked. "I couldteach him more than he could teach me, now."
"I doubt that, Walt. Professor Hartzenbosch may be an old maid introusers, but he's really a very sound scholar. But I wasn't thinkingabout that. I was thinking about your going to Terra to school."
"Huh?" I forgot to eat, for a moment. "Let's stop kidding."
"I didn't start kidding; I meant it."
"Well, think again, Dad. It costs money to go to school on Terra. Iteven costs money to go to Terra."
"We have a little money, Walt. Maybe more than you think we do. Andwith things getting better, we'll lease more teleprinters and get moreadvertising. You're likely to get better than the price of yourpassage out of that story we're sending off on the _Bolivar_, and thatwon't be the end of it, either. Fenris is going to be in the news fora while. You may make some more money writing. That's why I wascareful to give you the by-line on that Gerrit story." His pipe hadgone out again; he took time out to relight it, and then added:"Anything I spend on this is an investment. The _Times_ will get itback."
"Yes, that's another thing; the paper," I said. "If you're going to bemayor, you won't be able to do everything you're doing on the papernow, and then do all my work too."
"Well, shocking as the idea may be, I think we can find somebody toreplace you."
"Name one," I challenged.
"Well, Lillian Arnaz, at the Library, has always been interested innewspaper work," he began.
"A girl!" I hooted. "You have any idea of some of the places I have togo to get stories?"
"Yes. I have always deplored the necessity. But a great many of themhave been closed lately, and the rest are being run in a much moreseemly manner. And she wouldn't be the only reporter. I hesitate togive you any better opinion of yourself than you have already, but itwould take at least three people to do the work you've been doing.When you get back from Terra, you'll find the _Times_ will have a veryrespectable reportorial staff."
"What'll I be, then?" I wondered.
"Editor," Dad told me. "I'll retire and go into politics full time.And if Fenris is going to develop the way I believe it will, theeditor of the _Times_ will need a much better education than I have."
I kept on eating, to give myself an excuse for silence. He was right,I knew that. But college on Terra; why, that would be at least fouryears, maybe five, and then a year for the round trip....
"Walt, this doesn't have to be settled right away," Dad said. "Youwon't be going on the _Simon Bolivar_, along with Ravick and Belsher.And that reminds me. Have you talked to Bish lately? He'd be hurt ifyou didn't see him before he left."
* * * * *
The truth was, I'd been avoiding Bish, and not just because I knew howbusy he was. My face felt like a tallow-wax fire every time I thoughtof how I'd been trying to reform him, and I didn't quite know what I'dbe able to say to him if I met him again. And he seemed to me to be anentirely different person, as though the old Bish Ware, whom I hadliked in spite of what I'd thought he was, had died, and some totalstranger had taken his place.
But I went down to the Municipal Building. It didn't look like thesame place. The walls had been scrubbed; the floors were free fromlitter. All the drove of loafers and hangers-on had been run out, ormaybe jailed and put to work. I looked into a couple of offices;everybody in them was busy. A few of the old police force were stillthere, but their uniforms had been cleaned and pressed, they had allshaved recently, and one or two looked as though they liked being ableto respect themselves, for a change.
The girl at the desk in the mayor's outside office told me Bish had adelegation of uptown merchants, who seemed to think that reform wasall right in its place but it oughtn't to be carried more than a fewblocks above the waterfront. They were protesting the new sanitaryregulations. Then she buzzed Bish on the handphone, and told me he'dsee me in a few minutes. After a while, I heard the delegation goingdown the hall from the private office door. One of them was saying:
"Well, this is what we've always been screaming our heads off for. Nowwe've got it good and hard; we'll just have to get used to it."
When I went in, Bish rose from his desk and came to meet me, shakingmy hand. He looked and was dressed like the old Bish Ware I'd alwaysknown.
"Glad you dropped in, Walt. Find a seat. How are things on the_Times_?"
"You ought to know. You're making things busy for us."
"Yes. There's so much to do, and so little time to do it. Seems asthough I've heard somebody say that before."
"Are you going back to Terra on the _Simon Bolivar_?"
"Oh, Allah forbid! I made a trip on a destroyer, once, and once isenough for a lifetime. I won't even be able to go on the _CapeCanaveral_; I'll take the _Peenemuende_ when she gets in. I'm gladMacBride--Dr. Watson--is going to stop off. He'll be a big help. Don'tknow what I'd have done without Ranjit Singh."
"That won't be till after the _Cape Canaveral_ gets back from Terra."
"No. That's why I'm waiting. Don't publish this, Walt, I don't want tostart any premature rumors that might end in disappointments, but I'verecommended immediate reclassification to Class III, and there may bea Colonial Office man on the _Cape Canaveral_ when she gets in.Resident-Agent, permanent. I hope so; he'll need a little breakingin."
"I saw Tom Kivelson this morning," I said. "He seems to be gettingalong pretty well."
"Didn't anybody at the hospital tell you about him?" Bish asked.
I shook my head. He cursed all hospital staffs.
"I wish military security was half as good. Why, Tom's permanentlyinjured. He won't be crippled, or anything like that, but there wasconsiderable unrepairable damage to his back muscles. He'll be able toget around, but I doubt it he'll ever be able to work on a hunter-shipagain."
I was really horrified. Monster-hunting was Tom's whole life. I saidsomething like that.
"He'll just have to make a new life for himself. Joe says he's goingto send him to school on Terra. He thinks that was his own idea, but Isuggested it to him."
&nbs
p; "Dad wants me to go to school on Terra."
"Well, that's a fine idea. Tom's going on the _Peenemuende_, along withme. Why don't you come with us?"
"That would be great, Bish. I'd like it. But I just can't."
"Why not?"
"Well, they want Dad to be mayor, and if he runs, they'll all vote forhim. He can't handle this and the paper both alone."
"He can get help on both jobs."
"Yes, but ... Why, it would be years till I got back. I can'tsacrifice the time. Not now."
"I'd say six years. You can spend your voyage time from here crammingfor entrance qualifications. Schools don't bother about academiccredits any more; they're only interested in how much you know. Youtake four years' regular college, and a year postgrading, and you'llhave all the formal education you'll need."
"But, Bish, I can get that here, at the Library," I said. "We haveevery book on film that's been published since the Year Zero."
"Yes. And you'd die of old age before you got a quarter through thefirst film bank, and you still wouldn't have an education. Do you knowwhich books to study, and which ones not to bother with? Or which onesto read first, so that what you read in the others will becomprehensible to you? That's what they'll give you on Terra. Thetools, which you don't have now, for educating yourself."
I thought that over. It made sense. I'd had a lot of the very sort oftrouble he'd spoken of, trying to get information for myself in properorder, and I'd read a lot of books that duplicated other books I'dread, and books I had trouble understanding because I hadn't read someother book first. Bish had something there. I was sure he had. But sixyears!
I said that aloud, and added: "I can't take the time. I have to bedoing things."
"You'll do things. You'll do them a lot better for waiting those sixyears. You aren't eighteen yet. Six years is a whole third of yourpast life. No wonder it seems long to you. But you're thinking thewrong way; you're relating those six years to what has passed. Relatethem to what's ahead of you, and see how little time they are. Youtake ordinary care of yourself and keep out of any more civil wars,and you have sixty more years, at least. Your six years at school areonly one-tenth of that. I was fifty when I came here to this Creator'sblunder of a planet. Say I had only twenty more years; I spent aquarter of them playing town drunk here. I'm the one who ought to bein a rush and howling about lost time, not you. I ought to be in sucha hurry I'd take the _Simon Bolivar_ to Terra and let this place goto--to anywhere you might imagine to be worse."
"You know, I don't think you like Fenris."
"I don't. If I were a drinking man, this planet would have made adrunkard of me. Now, you forget about these six years chopped out ofyour busy life. When you get back here, with an education, you'll be akid of twenty-four, with a big long life ahead of you and your mindstocked with things you don't have now that will help you makesomething--and more important, something enjoyable--out of it."
* * * * *
There was a huge crowd at the spaceport to see us off, Tom and BishWare and me. Mostly, it was for Bish. If I don't find a monument tohim when I get back, I'll know there is no such thing as gratitude.There had been a big banquet for us the evening before, and I thinkBish actually got a little tipsy. Nobody can be sure, though; it mighthave been just the old actor back in his role. Now they were allcrowding around us, as many as could jam in, in the main lounge of the_Peenemuende_. Joe Kivelson and his wife. Dad and Julio and Mrs. Laden,who was actually being cordial to Bish, and who had a bundle for usthat we weren't to open till we were in hyperspace. Lillian Arnaz, thegirl who was to take my place as star reporter. We were going to sendeach other audiovisuals; advice from me on the job, and news from the_Times_ from her. Glenn Murell, who had his office open by now and wasgrumbling that there had been a man from Interstellar Import-Exportout on the _Cape Canaveral_, and if the competition got any stifferthe price of tallow-wax would be forced up on him to a sol a pound.And all the _Javelin_ hands who had been wrecked with us on HermannReuch's Land, and the veterans of the Civil War, all but Oscar andCesario, who will be at the dock to meet us when we get to Terra.
I wonder what it'll be like, on a world where you go to bed every timeit gets dark and get up when it gets light, and can go outdoors allthe time. I wonder how I'll like college, and meeting people from allover the Federation, and swapping tall stories about our home planets.
And I wonder what I'll learn. The long years ahead, I can't imaginethem now, will be spent on the _Times_, and I ought to learn things tofit me for that. But I can't get rid of the idea about carniculturegrowth of tallow-wax. We'll have to do something like that. The demandfor the stuff is growing, and we don't know how long it'll be beforethe monsters are hunted out. We know how fast we're killing them, butwe don't know how many there are or how fast they breed. I'll talk toTom about that; maybe between us we can hit on something, or at leastlay a foundation for somebody else who will.
The crowd pushed out and off the ship, and the three of us were alone,here in the lounge of the _Peenemuende_, where the story started andwhere it ends. Bish says no story ends, ever. He's wrong. Stories die,and nothing in the world is deader than a dead news story. But beforethey do, they hatch a flock of little ones, and some of them grow intobigger stories still. What happens after the ship lifts into thedarkness, with the pre-dawn glow in the east, will be another, a new,story.
But to the story of how the hunters got an honest co-operative andFenris got an honest government, and Bish Ware got Anton Gerrit theslaver, I can write
"The End."
* * * * *
_THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER_
FOUR-DAY PLANET ... where the killing heat of a thousand-hour "day"drives men underground, and the glorious hundred-hour sunset isfollowed by a thousand-hour night so cold that only an ExtremeEnvironment Suit can preserve the life of anyone caught outside.
and
LONE STAR PLANET ... a planet-full of Texans--they firmly believe theylive on the biggest, strongest, best planet in the galaxy. They herdcattle the size of boxcars for a living, and they defy the SolarLeague to prove that New Texas has even the slightest need of the"protection" that a bunch of diplomatic sissies can offer.
BRAVE NEW WORLDS FROM THECREATOR OF "LITTLE FUZZY"
--TOGETHER IN ONE VOLUME--
Also by H. Beam Piper
LITTLE FUZZYFUZZY SAPIENSSPACE VIKINGTHE COSMIC COMPUTER
all from Ace Science Fiction
ACESCIENCEFICTION
* * * * *
Four-Day Planet
Fenris isn't a hell planet, but it's nobody's bargain. With 2,000-hourdays and an 8,000-hour year, it alternates blazing heat with killingcold. A planet like that tends to breed a special kind of person:tough enough to stay alive and smart enough to make the best of it.When that kind of person discovers he's being cheated of wealth he'srisked his life for, that kind of planet is ripe for revolution.
Lone Star Planet
New Texas: its citizens figure that name about says it all. The SolarLeague ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task ofconvincing New Texans that a s'Srauff attack is imminent, anddangerous. Unfortunately it's common knowledge that the s'Srauff areevolved from canine ancestors--and not a Texan alive is about to bescared of a talking dog! But unless he can get them to act, and fast,there won't be a Texan alive, scared or otherwise!
* * * * *
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