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Read Ebook: The Spicy Sound of Success by Harmon Jim Francis Dick Illustrator
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Ebook has 198 lines and 8970 words, and 4 pages
THE SPICY SOUND OF SUCCESS
Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS
Now was the captain's chance to prove he knew less than the crew--all their lives hung upon it!
There was nothing showing on the video screen. That was why we were looking at it so analytically.
"Transphasia, that's what it is," Ordinary Spaceman Quade stated with a definite thrust of his angular jaw in my direction. "You can take my word on that, Captain Gavin."
"You'll get over feeling like that."
"I know. Then I'll become First Officer."
"But look at that screen, sir," Quade said with an emphatic swing of his scarred arm. "I've seen blank scanning like that before and you haven't--it's your first trip. This always means transphasia--cortex dissolution, motor area feedback, the Aitchell Effect--call it anything you like, it's still transphasia."
"I know what transphasia is," I said moderately. "It means an electrogravitational disturbance of incoming sense data, rechanneling it to the wrong receptive areas. Besides the human brain, it also effects electronic equipment, like radar and television."
"Obviously." Quade glanced disgustedly at the screen.
"Too obvious. This time it might not be a familiar condition of many planetary gravitational fields. On this planet, that blank kinescope may mean our Big Brother kites were knocked down by hostile natives."
"You are plain wrong, Captain. Traditionally, alien races never interfere with our explorations. Generally, they are so alien to us they can't even recognize our existence."
I drew myself up to my full height--and noticed in irritation it was still an inch less than Quade's. "I don't understand you men. Look at yourself, Quade. You've been busted to Ordinary Spaceman for just that kind of thinking, for relying on tradition, on things that have worked before. Not only your thinking is slipshod, you've grown careless about everything else, even your own life."
"That's a shallow excuse for complacency."
"Complacency! I've seen ten thousand wonders in twenty years of space, with a million variations. But the patterns repeat themselves. We learn to know what to expect, so maybe we can't maintain the reactionary caution the service likes in officers."
"I resent the word 'reactionary,' Spaceman! In civilian life, I was a lapidary and I learned the value of deliberation. But I never got too cataleptic to tap a million-dollar gem, which is more than my contemporaries can say, many of 'em."
"Captain Gavin," Quade said patiently, "you must realize that an outsider like you, among a crew of skilled spacemen, can never be more than a figurehead."
Was this the way I was to be treated? Why, this man had deliberately insulted me, his captain. I controlled myself, remembering the familiarity that had always existed between members of a crew working under close conditions, from the time of the ancient submarines and the first orbital ships.
"Quade," I said, "there's only one way for us to find out which of us is right about the cause of our scanning blackout."
"We go out and find the reason."
"Exactly. We go. You and me. I hope you can stand my company."
"I'm not sure I can," he answered reluctantly. "My hazard pay doesn't cover exploring with rookies. With all due respect, Captain."
I clapped him on the shoulder. "But, man, you have just been telling me all we had to worry about was common transphasia. A man with your experience could protect himself and cover even a rookie, under such familiar conditions--right?"
"Yes, sir, I suppose I could," Quade said, bitterly aware he had lost out somewhere and hoping that it wasn't the start of a trend.
"Looks okay to me," I said. Quade passed a gauntlet over his faceplate. "It's real. I can blur it with a smudged visor. When it blurs, it's solid."
The landscape beyond the black corona left by our landing rockets was unimpressive. The rocky desert was made up of silicon and iron oxide, so it looked much the same as a terrestrial location. Yellowish-white sand ran up to and around reddish brown rock clawing into the pink sunlight.
"I don't understand it," Quade admitted. "Transphasia hits you a foul as soon as you let it into the airlock."
"Don't sound smug, Captain. It's pitty-pattying behind you too."
The keening call across the surface of consciousness postponed my reply.
The wail was ominously forlorn, defiant of description. I turned my head around slowly inside my helmet, not even sure that I had heard it.
Quade nodded. "I've felt this before. It usually hits sooner. Let's trace it."
"I don't like this," I admitted. "It's not at all what I expected from what you said about transphasia. It must be something else."
"It couldn't be anything else. I know what to expect. You don't. You may begin smelling sensations, tasting sounds, hearing sights, seeing tastes, touching odors--or any other combination. Don't let it bother you."
"Of course not. I'll soothe my nerves by counting little shocks of lanolin jumping over a loud fence."
Quade grinned behind his faceplate. "Good idea."
"Then you can have it. I'm going to try keeping my eyes open and staying alive."
There was no reply.
His expression was tart and greasy despite all his light talk, and I knew mine was the same. I tested the security rope between our pressure suits. It was a taut and virile bass.
We scaled a staccato of rocks, our suits grinding pepper against our hides.
The musk summit rose before us, a minor-key horizon with a shifting treble for as far as I could smell. It was primitive beauty that made you feel shocking pink inside. The most beautiful vista I had ever tasted, it couldn't be dulled even by the sensation of beef broth under my skin.
"Is this transphasia?" I asked in awe.
"It always has been before," Quade remarked. "Ready to swallow your words about this being something an old hand wouldn't recognize, Captain?"
"I'm swallowing no words until I find out precisely how they taste here."
"Not a bad taste. They're pretty. Or haven't you noticed?"
"Quade, you're right! About the colors anyway. This reminds me of an illiscope recording from a cybernetic translator."
"It should. I don't suppose we could understand each other if it wasn't for our morphistudy courses in reading cross-sense translations of Centauri blushtalk and the like."
It became difficult to understand him, difficult to try talking in the face of such splendor. You never really appreciate colors until you smell them for the first time.
Before I could agree with one of his theories for once, a streak of spice shot past us. It bounced back tangily and made a bitter rip between the two of us. There was no time to judge its size, if it had size, or its decibel range, or its caloric count, before a small, sharp pain dug in and dwindled down to nothing in one long second.
The new odor pattern in my head told me Quade was saying something I couldn't quite make out.
Quade then pulled me in the direction of the nasty little pain.
"Wait a minute, Spaceman!" I bellowed. "Where the devil do you think you're dragging me? Halt! That's a direct order."
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