Read Ebook: 4-1/2B Eros by Jameson Malcolm

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Ebook has 117 lines and 8244 words, and 3 pages

On the fourth try, Hank Karns managed to ground his ship not far from the office door. This time he landed to leeward and had to make his way up-wind by crawling, assisted by a Mercurian "staff," or one of the rakes among his trade goods. As he crawled, he observed he was being watched from a loophole beside the door. But as he drew himself erect, the door opened and a man came out to greet him.

"Hello, Captain," said the man, cordially, "we're very glad to see you. Come in and rest yourself." The man, Karns observed, was dressed in a heavily quilted suit and was breathing heavily. But he had a full head of hair and a luxuriant mustache.

"Howdy, yourself," returned the Lone Trader. "Phew! It's shore dusty hereabouts--I've heard of the place but I never seen it. The far Trojans is my bailiwick and the asteroids in that corner...."

"Really?" said the man, helping his visitor through the door. The office was a single room, and no one else was in it. There was a bottle of voilet-hued liquor on the table and two glasses. "Have a drink? This is home brew--our Mercurian version of comet-dew--made from flowers that grow under the glacier lips."

"Don't care ef I do," remarked Karns, and sat down in the seat indicated. "As I was saying, I thought I'd look in on this place, seeing as how I had to make the perihelion hop home. Have to git home to see my oldest grandchild married."

"Wouldn't be interested in a bit of cargo, would you?" asked the man. "Our own ship is overdue, and I have some freight for Venus."

"I'm allus interested in a bit of cargo," said Karns, "but this trip I can't stop by Venus--time's too short."

"Oh, well," said his host, indifferently, "it doesn't matter about that. I was thinking of shipping some boxes of claws and hides to our agent at Venusberg for sale there. We are a new company and have no outlets on Terra yet, unless you wanted to speculate on your own account and buy them outright."

"Oh, we won't quarrel about that," laughed the man. "The hides are a by-product with us--this is a pharmaceutical outfit. We make a preparation from the hormones of these beasts. You can have the horns at almost any price."

At last they shook on the bargain--and a bargain it most obviously was from the trader's point of view. Mr. Raoul Dement, or so the company man styled himself, presented the visiting captain two flasks of the violet liquor after the old custom of the trade.

"Nice stuff," observed Hank Karns, licking his lip. "The best I ever."

"There's twelve cases of it in the warehouse," said Dement, with a wink. "Now, if you were the smuggling sort, there would be a nice profit for you. But, of course...."

"Hell," exploded Hank Karns, "running comet-dew's no sin. Wisht I had a decimo for every gallon I've hauled. Once in a coon's age I get stuck with a little fine, but shucks--the customer'll allus pay that for you."

There followed more dickering, but the upshot of it was that Hank Karns signed up for everything that had been offered him.

"Bon voyage," said Mr. Dement. "If you ever pass this way again, drop in and visit."

"Sure will," said Hank Karns, looking his man in the eye. He was interested in his host's forehead. About an inch from the right temple there was a slight depression--the ineradicable scar of an old skull injury.

"Step alive there, Billy, we got lots to do."

All the blandness, all the gullibility and child-like faith were gone from Hank Karns' face now. He looked much more like work-ridden gnome than an emaciated Santa Claus. For they had unpacked every case and strewn its contents on the deck, looking for contraband of a more serious nature than the harmless comet-dew. But no case contained anything except what the invoice declared. Hank left the job of repacking to the boy and went about a minute search of the ship itself.

In that he was not a moment too soon. Behind the control board--hidden under the vine-like mass of electric leads--were two thermobombs. Their detonating coils were already hot. The control board was divided into three panels, each controlling an opposite pair of the six tubes which were arranged hexagonally about the stern. Two of the panels were about to be ruined by fire.

Hank Karns' first impulse was to snatch the bombs loose and let them burn out harmlessly on the deck, but suddenly he checked it. Instead he withdrew his hand and stuck his blistered fingers in his mouth. Then he shouted a warning to Billy Hatch.

"Hey! Stand by for a blast. Bring an extinguisher, quick!"

"Pretty neat," said Hank Karns, admiringly, contemplating his ruined controls.

"I did the best I could, Cap'n," said Billy, modestly, thinking the compliment was meant for him.

"You did all right, son," said the skipper. "Supposing you turn in now. I'll do what's left."

Suddenly he arose and unlocked his little safe. From its lead container he withdrew a small pellet of radium and set up his fluoroscope. Then he dragged out one of the trockelbeck hides. He searched it systematically from horn to stubby tail, from the scaly back to the claws of the feet. Then he put his fluoroscope away. Grinning into his beard, he went aft and got a pair of pliers, a hammer and a cold chisel.

One of the horns came away as he screwed it off. He knew already from its fluorescence that it was hollowed out and filled with some substance, but he wanted to make sure. He shook the pale green powder inside out into his palm and sniffed it. Yes, that was it. There was the unmistakable odor of crushed cherries and the sickish sweetness of the hashish of the skies--trilibaine! Ah, now he was getting somewhere. And as he split a few back scales at random he found that each had a few grams of the insidious drug within it. One such hide would supply a retail peddler for many months, each scale a separate delivery.

He delayed no longer. He shifted his course toward Venus and at the same time sat down to his radio key. He sent:

"URGENT: Venusberg Sky Yard. Attention assistant dockmaster. Four tubes disabled account switchboard fire. Please reserve for me berth twenty-three. Litigation in prospect. Can you recommend lawyer? Hank Karns, captain, TS Swapper."

"Well," he said to himself as he carefully swept up the tell-tale green dust from the deck and added it to the bundle of broken scales and neatly bored and threaded horns preparatory to firing it all through the garbage tube into his wake, "I've shot my wad. Now let's see how smart Mr. Brown turns out to be."

Hank Karns cut his rockets and went to the airlock to await the arrival of the cruiser. It was not long in coming.

Two smartly uniformed young officers sprang in.

"Let's see your manifest," ordered one, curtly, while the other headed for the hold. In a moment the second came back with two flasks of the pale violet comet-dew.

"The old boy is lousy with the stuff," he reported to the other. "Cases and cases of it."

"Yes," said the first, "and not a damn word about it in the manifest. This makes the second one of these old coots we've hauled up this month--what do you say, shall we call this one conspiracy?"

"Why not?" countered the other.

Karns said nothing beyond the usual blustering protests that would be expected of him. Then he lapsed into silence as the two took over after ordering their own vessel to proceed.

They did not go to the commercial sky-yard, but to the official one. Other officers met them, and Hank Karns was led straight away to jail. He protested every step of the way, demanding to be taken before the Terrestrial resident commissioner, or to be booked in the usual way. Both those demands were refused, whereupon he asked for a lawyer.

"Don't kid yourself, old man," said one of his guards. "You're in Venus now. Here you are."

There he was. There was no question about that. The barred door slammed behind his departing escort with an air of utter finality.

"Hi-ya, pop!" screamed some hoodlum down the corridor. "Whatcha in for?"

After that nothing happened. Hank Karns looked about him at his cramped cell and settled down to make the best of it. It would be tiresome, locked up alone this way, but in a day or so perhaps the mysterious Mr. Brown would put in his appearance.

The next day came, but no Mr. Brown. However, early in the morning another visitor came in his place. Karns heard footsteps approaching and the jangle of keys. His door was flung open and a tall stranger stepped in. The man was quite old and clad in the blue uniform, faded and patched, of a space skipper. He was obviously a lone trader, but if he was, he was the only one in the universe that Hank Karns did not know. For this man, with his beetling gray eyebrows and hard steely eyes beneath, he had never laid eyes on before.

"Two minutes, no more," warned the guard, and stood back in the corridor where he could both see and hear.

"Yeah, Tom, I know," said Hank Karns, penitently, trying not to look at the eavesdropping guard. Inwardly he was seething with doubt and curiosity. Could it be that this was some minion of the collector trying to trick him, or was he acting for Mr. Brown? He remembered telling the fellow in the wickerware place that what he really needed was a man of his own type. Maybe they had found one. At any rate, he chose to pretend he knew him.

"Anyhow," went on the stranger, "I looked up a feller named Brown that I know here and asked him what to do. He said things looked pretty black and his advice was to plead guilty and say nothing. Might get off with a fine or something. And that he had a little money of yours. He got me this pass, but said he couldn't work it twice. Now tell me, Hank, what do you want me to do? I gotta get out of here for Mercury in a day or so."

Hank Karns looked at the man steadily for a moment. He was on the spot. The man was evidently from Brown, but he knew neither of them personally. But worse, the guard was listening to every word, and there were doubtless dictaphones as well. But the two minutes were running out and there would not be a second visit.

"Time's up," snapped the guard, coming forward.

"All right, you old scalawag," said the phony trader captain, jovially, "I'll do my best. But watch your step with that jedge. He's tough."

"I know," said Hank Karns, despondently, and settled his face in his hands.

The door slammed and the footsteps withdrew, ringing emptily down the metal passage.

Dreary day followed dreary day. Time after time Karns heard footsteps ringing in the corridor, and as often he heard the rattle of keys as some door was opened and another unfortunate was ordered out to meet his doom--the sentence that was to change his state from slow dry rot to the swift wet rot of the Swamp. But it was never Karns' door.

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