Space Tales (Seven For Space) Page 6

  I didn't know exactly what the term meant to a Meekluk, but I could guess. The title of the old Earthfilm classic flashed into my mind: THREE ON A MATTRESS.

  Giggling (and it's no fun, seeing a Meekluk giggle), they passed us through.

  "Didn't those bozos realize you were supposed to be rotting in a dungeon?" I asked, once we were inside the castle.

  Matilda shook her head. "They've never seen me before. When I first got here Turg took me in by the service entrance — the way Kennedy used to bring his girlfriends into the White House back in the Twentieth."

  "Boy, you're sure on top of your Earth history," I said.

  "I majored in Popcul at Red Sands University," she said. "That was before I switched to microscience. I have a soft spot for Earth culture, but I'm loyal to Mars. Which is why we're here — to do the Red Planet a big favor."

  "Tied in with Turg's doohickey?"

  "Exactly."

  "I'm a quivering bundle of curiosity," I told her. "Just what the hell has he invented?"

  "An advanced, catastrophically destructive anti-particle gun which manufactures and transmits negative atoms."

  "Run that by me again."

  "As each negative atom comes in contact with a positive atom solid matter is totally disintegrated."

  "How does he intend to use this thing?"

  "He's nasty. Turg intends to set off the ultimate environmental disaster by disintegrating the moons of Mars with a megacharge from his anti-particle gun. The countless trillions of fragments will form a gigantic cloud around Mars, blocking out the sun and resulting in a thousand-year nuclear winter."

  "Some slimebag like Turg snatched the Sun not so long ago," I told her. "Things got real cold real fast until I managed to get it back."

  "Then you can see how serious this situation is, and why we must stop Turg."

  I nodded. "So where is he?"

  "In his high bedchamber," she said as we made our way up a wide nearmarble stairway. "Turg always sleeps in the late afternoon. If we're lucky we'll catch him in the sack."

  We were. Lucky, that is. He was snoozing like an Earthbabe in his royal flowbed when we entered the chamber. (I'd cold cocked the door guard to get us in.)

  "Now what?" I whispered. "You're not gonna just melt him down, are you?"

  Matilda had the barrel of the flamer aimed at Turg's pulsating jelly belly.

  "No," she said. "We need him alive to take us to the gun. Go wake him."

  I approached the bed and tugged at one of his gooky arms. Like all Meekluks, he had five of them.

  "Yak, yug!" he sputtered, sitting up. Then he saw Matilda. "You're supposed to be rotting in my dungeon!"

  "Mr. Space got me out."

  I gave him a curt nod.

  "What's that you have pointed at me?"

  "I'll show you," grinned Matilda, and thumbed out a long tongue of sizzling flame. An ornate coftabe puffed into instant ash.

  Turg turned green. Well, he was already green — which is a Meekluk's natural skin color — but he got a lot greener. His fat eyes were nearly popping out of his squishy head.

  "Please," he whimpered. "I'll do anything you say!"

  "Then take us to your anti-particle gun," ordered Matilda. "Now! "

  Turg led us out of the bedchamber and down a series of hallways to his lab, where he palmed the slidedoor.

  "There," he squished. "There it is."

  The gun was big and fat and square. About the size of a Martian school bus. Its blunt nose poked though a slit in the lab's ceiling.

  "Too bad you'll never be able to use it," said Matilda, loosing a savage stream of writhing flame at the device.

  Nothing happened.

  "It's fireproof," said Turg. "Now, drop your flame weapon and turn around slowly — unless you wish to be vaporized."

  He nodded toward a balcony above us. A half dozen Meekluk castle guards were up there, weapons aimed.

  Matilda didn't hesitate; she whipped up the flame thrower and ran a long tongue of raw fire across the line of guards. "Maybe your gun's fireproof," she said in a ringing tone, "but they aren't!"

  The guards curled into instant ash, yet before Matilda could swing the barrel in Turg's direction the slimy little five-armed creep was gone.

  We never caught him.

  Maybe he disintegrated with his castle. That's what went down. Matilda figured out how the gun worked and reversed the charge. When all the negative atoms met all of the castle's positive ones — zingo! — no more castle.

  Matilda had set the gun for a delayed charge so we had time to clear out of the place before the Big Bang. Otherwise, I wouldn't be alive to tell you about this caper.

  Nor would I have been able to retrieve my classic hat after getting Daddy's girl home to Mars. And there's another thing I wouldn't have if I'd been deatomized: Matilda's ample thrusters pressing into my hairy chest.

  And that would have been one hell of a thing to miss.

  Timehop

  · · · · · · · · · · ·

  a story

  I was in love.

  That's right, me, Sam Space, the toughest private op on Mars, hitherto impervious to the wiles of women, hard-souled and hard-fisted, able to handle any crisis in the System. Yet here I was, daydreaming like some half-baked Earthbrat.

  It was windy in Bubble City, with sand rattling against the vents. I was in Albert, my hovercar, headed for my beloved's lifeunit on Twin Moon Avenue. I began to sob with joy at the thought of seeing her again.

  "Shape up, Space," the car growled. "You've gone soft as a soaked doughnut. What the freeb's wrong with you?"

  "I'm in love," I told the car. "For the first time in my life I'm deeply and truly in love." My voice throbbed with emotion.

  "You make me want to puke," declared the car. "It's bad enough, what you've been doing to your liver with the booze, but now you're all starry-eyed over some lousy dame."

  "She's not a lousy dame," I protested, "she's the most delightful creature in the System."

  "A triplehead from Venus?"

  "No, she's got just one head. From Allnew York, or, as the natives call it, New Old New York. Her name is Ginevra."

  "Got a big set of bazongas on her, right?"

  "Yes, she's amply endowed, but that's not why I —"

  The car snickered. "How'd you get tangled up with her?"

  "None of your beeswax," I snapped. "You already know too much about me."

  "To my sad regret," sighed the car.

  I popped out in front of a tri-deck plasto complex. Gin lived on deck two. "Go on home," I told the car. "If I want you I'll buzz."

  "Oke," said Albert. "Give my regards to the broad."

  And he zapped back into traffic.

  "Dearest! " said Ginevra, clasping me in her arms after I'd unzipped her unit door. "Darling! Sugarcake! Precious!"

  Her lush lips smashed into mine.

  "Wow! " I gasped. "You're driving me bats, the way you've been withholding yourself from me. I can't wait any longer to body shag. Let's run off to Jupiter and get married. I know a mouse preacher that will unite us."

  "That's just not possible, sweetums," she said. Her face glowed, and her supple body was pressed against me.

  "What isn't possible?"

  "Getting married. A machine can't get married."

  I stared at her. "A … machine?"

  She gave me one of her dazzling smiles. "Yep, that's me. I'm an android."

  "But you don't have a turn-off switch behind your ear!"

  "I'm a newer model. You turn me off by pressing my belly button." She giggled, driving her twin thrusters into my chest. "But it tickles."

  Numbly, I slumped into a dozechair. "I've fallen for a damn robot!"

  "Is that so terrible? " she asked.

  "Yeah … it is. I can't screw a machine." I glared at her. "You played me for a sap. All this time I thought —"

  She rubbed her flat tummy against my round tummy. Her tone was little-girl sweet. "Don't y
ou still love me?"

  "How can I? I'm a human and you're … a bunch of nuts and bolts."

  She pursed her full lips. "Kiss me, snookums, and let's forget I'm an android."

  "No way, babe. It's over. Finished. Kaput. Done. And I'm outta here." I got up, put on my classic hat, and left her unit.

  Then I buzzed Albert.

  Back in my office on Red Sands Avenue I was in a foul mood. My outdated plug-in secretary tried to cheer me up.

  "What you need to do is a good deed," she said. "Doing a good deed will cheer you up."

  "Suggest one."

  "Why not hop back to 1865 and save Abe Lincoln?"

  I raised an eyebrow. "That's not a bad idea," I admitted. "But how do I get back there?"

  "On that Timebike you rescued Matilda Scratch with … when you saved her from the Muckluks."

  "They were Meekluks," I corrected her.

  "Whatever," she shrugged. "Anyhow, Daddy Arnie probably still has the Timebike at his joint. You can use it to go back to 1865."

  "Yeah," I mused. "He'll still have it. Arnie is too cheap to get rid of anything."

  "You'd better unplug me before you leave," Edna told me.

  Arnie's joint was seedy, shabby, and stank of stale nearbeer. Arnie was the same: seedy, shabby, and stinking of nearbeer. He met me downstairs without his wheelie. I'd never seen Arnie walk before.

  "I put on my protolegs just for you," he said.

  "I'm flattered. Looks like you have both arms. What happened?"

  "I got to a doc who fed me a dose of Regrow. Brand new on the market. Grew my missing arm back."

  "Neat — o," I said. "Will it work on your legs?"

  "Dunno. I'm gonna try it this week and see."

  Arnie had lost both legs and an arm during the Zeeb war. But that didn't slow him down. He was one tough cookie.

  "You still got that Timebike I used to fetch Matilda back from Magna V?"

  "Yep. In the back room."

  "I want to borrow it."

  "For what?"

  "To save Abe Lincoln from being assassinated."

  "Oke. I'll rent it to you for six creds."

  Arnie was cheap. He never missed the chance to hook a profit.

  "I'm flat," I told him. "Got stiffed on my last caper. I still owe my apartment for last month and it won't let me back in. I've been sleeping at the office."

  "That's no skin off my ass," said Arnie. "I don't get six creds you don't get the bike."

  "You tight-fisted son of a bitch."

  "Go ahead, call me names. But all that counts is the moolah."

  "It's okay, pop," said a velvet voice from the doorway. "I'll pay you the six."

  It was Matilda, stunning as ever. A bosomy blonde darling. And certainly no android. I'd forgotten how chesty she was. Her twin thrusters poked deliciously out of her globlouse.

  "You've got an ulterior motive for doing this," I said to her.

  "How very perceptive of you, Sam," she said, smiling. "I've always wanted to go back to 1865 and meet Abe Lincoln. His beard is so attractive!"

  "Nertz on that, sister," I snapped. "Me, I travel solo."

  "Not this time," she said. "Either I go with you or no six creds. Deal … or no deal?"

  I sighed. "Deal."

  It was close. We got to Ford's Theater just as John Wilkes Booth was raising his weapon to shoot the President. I zapped him with a charge from my quick-grip Sheckley-Ellison .225 and he yelped like a stepped-on pup. Then he jumped from the balcony down to the stage and shook his fist at me, yelling something about death to tyrants.

  "Who the hell are you? " asked Lincoln.

  "My name is Samuel T. Space," I said. "I came here from the future to save your life."

  "Well, I'll be damned! " said Lincoln.

  "I never knew you swore," I said. "None of the history books mention it."

  "Screw the history books," said the President. "Written by pussies who don't know crap about me."

  "I'm glad you're okay," I told him. "I feel as if I've done a really good deed in saving you and it cheers me up."

  Lincoln turned to Matilda, taking her right hand in his. "And who is this charming young cunt?"

  "Boy, Mister President, you do use rough language," I said. "She's Matilda Scratch and she's very attracted to your beard."

  "It's so sexy," murmured Matilda. "And I love your mole too."

  "My wife Mary and I don't get along worth shit," said Lincoln. "For one thing, she's flat chested."

  Matilda giggled, rubbing her thrusters against his beard.

  "Ummm," said Lincoln. "What I'd like to do is to go back to my office and see what's under that tight little outfit of yours."

  Matilda gasped. "You want me butt naked?"

  "That's the idea," nodded Lincoln. "How about it?"

  Matilda giggled again. "How can I resist a beard like yours? " And they got it on in Lincoln's office.

  When I climbed back on the Timebike with Matilda in the saddle behind me the lousy thing wouldn't start.

  "Let me have a gander at it," said Lincoln. "I have a knack with machinery."

  And he fiddled with the powerpak. "Ummmm … looks like your triplugs are corroded. I can clean 'em for a price."

  "A price? " I raised an eyebrow.

  "Yep. I want to go back with you … see what the future looks like centuries from now."

  "I don't think the bike can handle three," I told him.

  "Sure it can," enthused Matilda. "I'll scrunch up against you and Abe can ride behind me."

  The thought of Matilda "scrunching" up against me with those marvelous thrusters led to a quick agreement on my part.

  Abe Lincoln would see the future.

  When we Timebiked back to Arnie's joint on Mars he was sacked out upstairs full of nearbeer. Lincoln was like a sweet-toothed kid in a candy shop. He devoured everything, eyes bugging.

  "I like this future," he said. "It's just goddamn wonderful!"

  "Your coming here is going to have a huge effect on history," I told him. "I'm not so sure it was a wise move on your part."

  "Wise, my ass," said the President. "I'm having fun." And he reached for Matilda, squeezing her left thruster.

  Then his face darkened.

  "What's wrong, Abe? " asked Matilda.

  "I'm given to fits of deep melancholy," said Lincoln. "Suddenly I feel terrible."

  "What can I do to help? " asked the girl.

  "Let me take the bike back to Ford's," said Abe. "I'll let John Wilkes Booth shoot me."

  "You mean you want to go back there and be assassinated? " I asked.

  "It's the only way to end these damn fits of depression," he said. "The Civil war was crappy. Very depressing. I'll never get over it."

  Matilda rubbed herself against Abe's beard. "Can't I do anything to end your depression?"

  He shook his head. "Afraid not, my little crumpet," he said. He removed his stovepipe hat and handed it to me. "Take this, Sam," he said, "as a souvenir."

  I accepted the stovepipe. "I don't know what to say."

  "Just say I can have the Timebike," Abe mumbled, holding his head. "I have a killer headache. Get 'em all the time. I just want to end things." He gave us a painful smile. "Hey … nobody lives forever."

  "Go ahead, take the bike," I said.

  "Arnie's gonna be pissed," said the President.

  "I'll explain things to pop," said Matilda, giving Lincoln a deep-tongue kiss. "Bye, Abe darlin'. I'll miss your lovely beard."

  "And I'll miss your ample chest," said Lincoln as he climbed aboard the timebike.

  "Have a safe trip," I said. And he disappeared in a shower of time sparks.

  So that's the story of my good deed gone bad. Abe's going back to be shot restored my foul mood.

  The red sand was blowing in Bubble City. A wicked storm had moved in, and some of the sand got down my neck.

  It was a lousy afternoon.

  All this happened seven Marsmonths ago.

  I st
ill have Abe's stovepipe hat under a bell jar on my desk.

  Bubblebeast

  · · · · · · · · · · ·

  a story

  I have never been a man given to petty complaints, but the inclement weather conditions in Bubble City on this particular morning had put me into something approaching a severe snit. Curtains of gritty red sand whirled and gusted around me as I exited the hovercab. Unsnapping my nearleather coinpurse, I consulted the glowcard which told me the fare was an even ten solarcredits. I carefully counted out the required ten, added two more as a tip, and slipped the coins into the tummy slot of the gum-chewing robo cabbie.

  "You call that a tip?" he growled. "This is the Christmas season, bud. How much Christmas cheer can I buy with two lousy solarcreds?"

  "I am well aware of the season," I told him. "And it seems to me, my dear fellow, that two solarcredits is an ample reward for your services in delivering me to this address. I shall not be badgered into giving you more."

  "Up yours," snarled the cabbie, climbing back into his egg-shaped machine and whisking off through the sand.

  Ungrateful clod! I gripped my cane in anger. Was it not enough that I had been forced to leave the comfortable lodgings at 221B to venture out on such a foul day upon the urgent request of my friend Sherlock Holmes? Must I also endure being insulted by a rude vulgarian? Indeed, the morning was ill begun.

  I shook sand from my cape and adjusted my bowler as I approached the offices of the man I had been dispatched to find. The hallway of the building reeked of boiled cabbage, which I found indeed peculiar. Was cooking allowed in a commercial business establishment? Well, this was a most unsavory section of town, and I supposed that the strictures of more civilized society did not apply here.

  Ah, the correct door, proclaiming, in sputtering, begrimed neon letters:

  SAMUEL T. SPACE

  Investigations

  On Earth, Mr. Space would be referred to as a "private orb." An entire body of cheap literature had burgeoned around such individuals, replete with punchouts, explosions of hand weaponry, violent pursuits, and rapid exchanges of lurid street argot. One would hope that here on Mars such excesses might be greatly modified.

  I opened the door and entered, expecting to encounter the usual secretary. Not so. The waiting room was unoccupied, although a desk and empty chair confronted me. At that moment the door to the inner office was opened by Mr. Space himself. His timeworn zipcoat, rumpled near-pants, and scuffed brown shoes told me I had the right man. Holmes had described his unwholesome attire in some detail.