It mattered nothing to Edouard Blanchard that bubbles left human wreckage in their wake, that on his departure all available buying power for this planet would go as well. Ten thousand homely souls, whose only crime had been hope, would be consigned to grubbing without finance, tools or imported food for a questionable living on a small orb bound on a forgotten track in space. Such concerns rarely trouble the consciences of the Edouard Blanchards.
The agate eyes fastened upon an ambling Martian named Dart, who with his mask to take out forty percent of the oxygen from this atmosphere and so permit him to breathe, looked like some badly conceived and infinitely evil gnome.
“Dart,” said Blanchard, “take a run over to that medical ship and find out what a Soldier of Light is doing in a place like this.”
The Martian fumbled with his mask and then uneasily hefted his blaster belt. He squirmed and wriggled as though some communication of great importance had met a dam halfway up to the surface. Blanchard stared at him. “Well? Go! What are you waiting for?”
Dart squirmed until a small red haze of dust stood about his boots. “I’ve always been faithful to you, Captain. I ain’t never sold you out to nobody. I’m honest, that’s what I am.” His dishonest eyes wriggled upwards until they reached the level of Blanchard’s collar.
Blanchard came upright. There was a sadistic stir in his hands. Under this compulsion Dart wilted and his voice from a vicious whine changed to a monotonous wail. “That was the ship Miss Elston ran to. I’m an honest man and I ain’t going to tell you no different.”
“But you said she escaped and I’ve had twelve men searching for her for the past day. Damn you, Dart. Why couldn’t you have told me this?”
“I just thought she’d fly away and that would be all there was to it. I didn’t think she’d come back. But you ain’t got nothing to be afeared of, Mr. Captain Blanchard. No Soldier of Light can monkey with politics. The Universal Medical Society won’t interfere.”
Captain Blanchard’s hands, long, thin, twisted anew as though they were wrapping themselves around the sinews in Dart’s body and snapping them out one by one. He restrained the motion and sank back. “You know I’m your friend, Dart. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. You know it’s only those who oppose my will whom I, shall I say, remove. You know that you are safe enough.”
“Oh yes, Captain Blanchard, I know you are my friend. I appreciate it. You don’t know how I appreciate it. I’m an honest man and I don’t mind saying so.”
“And you’ll always be honest, won’t you, Dart?” said Blanchard, white hands twitching. He smiled. From a deep pocket he extracted first a long knife with which he regularly pared his nails, then a thick sheaf of money, and finally, amongst several deeds, a communication which Mr. Elston had been attempting to bring to Spico. He read it through in all its damning certainty. It said that the Procyon-Sirius Spaceways would not use this planet. Then, striking a match to light a cigar, he touched it to the document and idly watched it burn. The last flaming fragment was suddenly hurled at the Martian.
“Get over there instantly,” said Blanchard, “and find out what you can. If Miss Elston comes away from that ship unattended, see that she never goes back to it. And make very certain, my honest friend, that the Soldier on that ship doesn’t find out anything.”
But before Dart had more than beaten out the fire on the skirt of his coat, a youthful, pleasant voice addressed them. Blanchard hastily smoothed out his hands, veiled his eyes, and with a smile which he supposed to be winning faced the speaker.
Ole Doc, having given them his “good morning,” continued guilelessly as though he had not heard a thing.
“My, what a beautiful prospect you have here. If I could only find the man who sells the lots—”
Blanchard stood up instantly and grasped Ole Doc Methuselah by the hand, which he pumped with enormous enthusiasm. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, stranger. I am Captain Blanchard and very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr—”
“Oh, Captain Blanchard, I have heard a great deal about you,” said Ole Doc, his blue eyes very innocent. “It is a wonderful thing you are doing here. Making all these people rich and happy.”
“Oh, not my doing, I assure you,” said Captain Blanchard. “This project was started by a Mr. Elston of New York City, Earth. I am but his agent trying in my small way to carry out his orders.” He freed his hand and swept it to take in the dreary, dusty and being-cluttered prospect. “Happy, happy people,” he said. “Oh, you don’t know what pleasure it gives me to see little homes being created and small families being placed in the way of great riches. You don’t know.” Very affectedly he gazed down at the dirt as though to let his tears of happiness splash into it undetected. However, no tears splashed.
After a little he recovered himself enough to say, “We have only two lots left and they are a thousand dollars apiece.”
Ole Doc promptly dragged two bills from his breast pocket and handed them over. If he was surprised at this swift method of doing business, Captain Blanchard managed to again master his emotion. He quickly escorted Ole Doc to the clapboard shack which served as the city hall so that the deeds could be properly recorded.
As they entered the flimsy structure a tall, prepossessing individual stopped Blanchard and held him in momentary converse concerning a program to put schools into effect. Ole Doc, eyeing the man, estimated him as idealistic but stupid. He was not particularly surprised when Blanchard introduced him as Mr. Zoran, the mayor of Junction City.
Here, thought Ole Doc, is the fall guy when Blanchard clears out.
“I’m very glad to make your acquaintance Mr. . . .” said Mayor Zoran.
“And I yours,” said Ole Doc. “It must be quite an honor to have ten thousand people so completely dependent upon your judgment.”
Mayor Zoran swelled slightly. “I find it a heavy but honorable trust, sir. There is nothing I would not do for our good citizens. You may talk of empire builders, sir, but in the future you cannot omit mention of these fine beings who make up our population in Junction City. We have kept the riffraff to a minimum, sir. We are families, husbands, wives, small children. We are determined, sir, to make this an Eden.” He nodded at this happy thought, smiled. “To make this an Eden wherein we all may prosper, for with the revenue of the Spaceways flooding through our town, and with our own work in the fields to raise its supplies, and with the payroll of the atomic plant which Captain Blanchard assures us will begin to be built within a month, we may look forward to long, happy and prosperous lives.”
Ole Doc looked across the bleak plain. A two-year winter would come to Spico soon, a winter in which no food could be raised. He looked at Mayor Zoran. “I trust, sir, that you have reserved some of your capital against possible emergencies, emergencies such as food, or the cost of relief expeditions coming here.”
Captain Blanchard masked a startled gleam which had leaped into his agate eyes. “I am sure that there is no need for that,” he said.
Mayor Zoran’s head shook away any thought of such a need. “If land and building materials have been expensive,” he said, “I am sure there will be more money in the community as soon as the Spaceways representatives arrive, and there is enough food now for three weeks. By the way,” he said, turning to Blanchard, “didn’t you tell me that today was the day the officials would come here?”
Blanchard caught and hid his hands. “Why, my dear mayor,” he said, “there are always slight delays. These big companies, you know, officials with many things on their minds, today, tomorrow, undoubtedly sometime this week.”
Mayor Zoran was reassured and, shaking hands with Ole Doc and Captain Blanchard, strode off into the street where he made a small procession of his progress. People stopped him here and there and asked him eagerly for news.
Inside at the desk a small sleepy clerk woke up long enough to get out his records book, but before the transaction could be begun Ole Doc took back the two one-thousand-dollar b
ills.
“There are two or three things which I would like to know,” said Ole Doc innocently. “I wonder if there are going to be schools?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Blanchard. “I didn’t know that you were a family man.”
“And will there be medical facilities?” said Ole Doc.
“Why, yes, just this morning a ship of the Universal Medical Society landed here. It won’t be long before they start work on the hospitals.”
“But,” said Ole Doc smoothly, “the Universal Medical Society does only research and major planning. Certainly they would not take cognizance of Spico.”
“Well now, I wouldn’t be too sure,” said Captain Blanchard. “And besides we have the usual common run of physicians here, three of them.”
Ole Doc repressed his humph at this and smiled. “Well, I suppose you know more about it than I do,” he said. “But what about your water supply? Is it adequate?”
Here Captain Blanchard began to assume his most expansive and guileless pose and would have carried on for some time about the excellence of the water supply if Ole Doc had not interrupted him.
“You say you have three reservoirs already. Now, are these community owned or would it be possible to buy them?”
Captain Blanchard had not expected that morning that his stars would arise so luckily. His thin white hands began to twitch as though already plucking gold from the pockets of his victim. “But this would require,” said Captain Blanchard, “a great deal of money. Yes, indeed, a great deal of money.”
Ole Doc smiled as though this were an easy matter. “For the water company,” he said, “I would be willing to pay a very reasonable amount.”
The sleepy clerk was sleepy no longer. His eyes widened. Here he was observing the captains of industry at work.
“For, let us say, twenty thousand dollars,” said Ole Doc, “I would be willing—”
“My dear fellow,” said Blanchard, “twenty thousand dollars would not be enough to buy the piping system which we have installed.”
Ole Doc shrugged. “Then I suppose that’s all there is to it,” he said.
Captain Blanchard’s hands did a particularly spasmodic bit of twitching. “Oh no, it isn’t,” he said. “Oh no, indeed. I’m sure that we might be able to come to some sort of an understanding on this. Ah . . . perhaps forty thousand dollars—”
“No, twenty thousand is all the cash I have,” said Ole Doc.
“Why, then, this is very simple; if you give us your note of hand for, let us say, twenty thousand dollars at proper interest and cash to the sum of twenty thousand dollars, why, we can arrange the matter right here. I have the power of attorney, you know, to sign for all these things for Mr. Elston.”
“Done,” said Ole Doc, and felt himself seized immediately by the eager Blanchard who pumped his hand so hard that he nearly broke the wrist bones. The clerk was now thoroughly popeyed. And he was all thumbs and blots as he attempted to make out the papers for the transaction. But finally his difficulties were dispensed with and Ole Doc, signing the name of William Jones and paying across the proper sums and notes, found himself the possessor, proud owner and manager of the waterworks of Junction City.
Blanchard seemed to be anxious to depart immediately and left Ole Doc to his own devices. For some hours the doctor wandered through the city looking in at the temporary dwellings, watching men struggle to raise out of secondhand materials livable or usable establishments. He patted children on the head, diagnosed to himself various diseases and deformities, and was generally a Harun al-Rashid.
Hope was the prevailing emotion and there was not a man there who did not consider himself a potential millionaire to such a degree that they were giving each other notes of hand payable thirty days hence to enormous sums. But so far as actual cash was concerned, from what Ole Doc could glean, there remained but a few dollars in the whole town. The rest he correctly judged was safely drowned in the depths of Edouard Blanchard’s safe. The town was restricted between a river and a ridge and every inch of ground between these natural boundaries was deeded to someone other than Edouard Blanchard, as Ole Doc, later in the afternoon, ascertained after a short session with the clerk. He was forced to waken the clerk several times during his inspection of the books. That gentleman was happily asleep when some of the ledgers not generally opened were closely inspected.
Ole Doc stood in the sunlight for a while, thoughtful, barely avoiding a blaster fight which broke out in a swill parlor. Finally he understood that Edouard Blanchard probably intended to leave the area for good before another dawn came.
Ole Doc had for some time been aware of shadowing of the Morgue. But before he went back to his ship he decided to take an unusual step.
This did not consume many minutes, for there were only five space vessels in the crude port and all of these had come from more or less regular runs amongst known systems. His business transacted, he went back to the golden vessel.
That evening, after a pleasant dinner over which Miss Elston graciously presided, Ole Doc and Hippocrates left the ship on an expedition. They had reached the bottom of the ladder when Ole Doc turned to his slave.
“Hippocrates, over there on the left you behold some trees. Under them you will find a Martian. You will make a wide circuit and come up upon him while I distract his attention from in front. Without injury to the fellow you will hold him and make him prisoner. We will then put him away safely in the Morgue and go about our business.”
Dart, squirming and shuddering a little bit in the cold, and perhaps with a premonition that he should not expect the evening to deliver anything but evil, suddenly felt himself struck solidly and expertly from behind. As he went down he half drew a blaster but there was no chance to use it. Dreaming peacefully of his beloved canals, he was carried back to the ship and consigned to an escape-proof compartment.
In a businesslike way then Hippocrates picked up his burden and trudged after Ole Doc around the outskirts of the town toward the higher level of ground where the river had been diverted into three reservoirs which provided the water supply.
Hippocrates was under a double burden, the sack which he carried on his back and the burden which lay in his mind. As they made their way through the night, the heavy little being shaking the solid ground of Spico with every step no matter how light he intended it, and Ole Doc regarding the stars with a musing eye, Hippocrates rattled off the code from start to finish. Then he began again. Soon, newer arguments for sanity occurred to him and he started to quote at length:
On Woman
The stronger the woman
The safer the man
As he ventures afar
On the Spaces that span.
For love may be lovely
In summer’s soft haze
And days may be sweeter
When fond passions blaze.
But far out on Astri
With light frying hot
Adventure can’t live
When there’s naught in the pot.
Her sweet curling ringlets
Can’t warm you at night
And the dew in her eyes
May but lead you to fight.
No! Take woman stronger
Than Vega’s bright blare
For then you live longer
Yea, live to get there!
(Tales of the Space Rangers)
Hippocrates finished this quotation with considerable satisfaction which lasted only long enough to see that Ole Doc hadn’t even heard it. He glumly subsided, despairing, for there was no mistaking the elasticity of Ole Doc’s step, nor the softness of his eye.
It was a beautiful night. Spico’s several moons made the ground iridescent and played in triangular patterns upon the reservoirs. Ole Doc was very cheerful. “Now there,” he said, “dump a third of that sack in each one of these and back we’ll go.”
It was not until now that Hippocrates gave way to the most gloomy forebodings. He had seen Ole Doc busy with his tubes.
He had seen this white powder gushing out into the sacks but he had not associated it with the population of Junction City. Even if his reasoning powers might be feeble, it took no great effort on his part to see that Ole Doc fully intended to poison every person there. Hippocrates hesitated.
He was trembling, so great was the effort to disobey Ole Doc. He had no conversation to match his feelings about this. He could only look mutely, appealingly, and stand still.
“Go ahead,” said Ole Doc. And then, focusing more closely upon his slave, he suddenly realized that that being was considerably afraid.
Hippocrates tried to begin the Universal Medical Code once more but failed.
Although it greatly taxed his strength, Ole Doc picked up the bag and began the task himself. The white powder went instantly into solution and one could see it spreading far out across the reservoir in the moonlight. When he had treated all three of the repositories he gave the empty sack back to Hippocrates. Such was the manner of the giving that Ole Doc’s anger was clearly demonstrated in it.
All the way back to the Morgue Hippocrates lagged behind, head heavy against his barrel chest, gypsum tears dripping slowly onto his doublet. It was the first time Ole Doc had ever been angry with him.
Chapter Four
The strains of various instruments and occasional shouts came on the night wind from the more lawless quarter of Junction City. Closer at hand a campfire burned and about it clustered the flame-bathed faces of pioneers. They listened to a faint and plaintive Magri song which hung over them like some sad ghost of night.
Ole Doc passed close to the group but paused to listen to the woman who sang. In his present mood he could understand the notes if not the words of the melody. They called before his eyes the cascades of bright hair which he supposed waited for him over at the Morgue. A wind was blowing softly from Spico’s white plains but there was a chill in it and those about the fire huddled closer. They listened in deeper silence.