Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 (2 page)

 
          
“This
is ghastly,” he said at last. “They have to suck up to that poor plant—ugh!”

 
          
“That
is but one little encampment of many such,” Buckalew told him. “Shall we stop
at the fringe of Pulambar when we go back?
To see the
water-lines?”

 
          
“Water-lines?”
repeated Stover. “Are they like bread-lines used to be on Earth?”

 
          
“Very
much like that.
Long processions of wretched poor, coming to
get half-pint rations.”

 
          
“I
don’t want to see that,” Stover told him. “Let’s get back to something gay.”

 
          
“Back
to my apartment,” Buckalew told the pilot. To Stover he said: “We'll visit the
Zaarr tonight—best public house in Pulambar.”

 
         
ZAARR,
in the slurring language of Mars, means Unattached. The public house mentioned
by Buckalew was almost what the name implied—a dome-shaped edifice of silvery
alloy, floating at a fixed point among four tall towers. From each tower
flashed a gravity-lock beam, like an invisible girder, to moor the Zaarr in
space. The only way there was by heliocopter, short-shot rocket, or other sky
vehicle.

 
          
Admission
was by appointment, costing high.

 
          
The
table of Stover and Buckalew was at the raised end of the inner hall. Below
them, the crystal floor revealed the pageant of Pulambar’s lower levels a mile
below. A Terrestrial orchestra, best in the Solar System, played in a central
pit while brigades of entertainers performed. Over all, at the highest point of
the dome, hung a light that changed tint constantly, a Martian “joy-lamp” whose
rays brought elevated visions to Martians, and sometimes madness and violence
to Terrestrials.

 
          
It
would have been more of a treat

 
          
to
Stover if he hadn’t kept remembering that other
dome-shaped structure he had seen earlier where four wretched Martian paupers
prisoned themselves to suck miserable life from the distillations of a poor
plant. Again he wanted to shudder, and beat down the impulse. He was here to
enjoy himself. Pulambar was the most exciting spot in the habitable universe,
and the Zaarr
it’s
greatest focus of fun.

 
         
HE
CONTRASTED all this with his familiar Ozark home, white utilitarian walls,
laboratory benches and surrounding greenery, inhabited by sober technicians and
caretakers. In the changing joy-light, the guests seemed the more exotic and
picturesque, clad in all colors and richnesses, their hair—male and female—
dressed and curled and often dyed with gay colors.

 
          
No
hysterical howl at the Zaarr. Here was society, restrained even under the
joy-lamp. Most of them were Terrestrials or Terrestrial-descended Jovians, for
such had most of the money in the System. There was just a sprinkling of
Venusians, and the only Martian anywhere in sight was the proprietor, Prrala,
over by a service entrance.

 
          
The
attendants were robots, great gleaming bodies with cunning joints and faces
blank save for round white lamps.

 
          
To
Dillon Stover, who had never seen such things, they looked like animated suits
of ancient armor.

 
          
“Intriguing
to notice,” he said to Buckalew in his gentle voice, “how, after so many
millennia, people still turn to the same basic items of entertainment—sweet
sounds, stimulating drink or other narcotics, palatable food, and parades of
lovely girls.” He eyed with mild admiration the slim, tawny young woman who
stood on the brink of the orchestra pit and sang a farce novelty number about a
rich man who was sick.

 
          
“That
entertainer,” commented
Buckalew,
“might fit as well
into an ancient Roman banquet scene, a tournament of song in old
Thuringia
, or the
New York
theatrical world of the twentieth century.
There’s been nothing new, my young friend, since the day before history’s
dawn.”

 
          
Stover
looked at the girl with more interest. He replied only because Buckalew seemed
to expect some sort of a reply.

 
          
“That’s
new, to me at least,” he argued, jerking his head toward the joylamp. It shot a
sudden white beam to light him up, and he was revealed as easily the handsomest
man“of all those present.

 
          
Even
sitting, he showed great length and volume of muscle inside his close-fitting
cloth of gold. His hair, shorter than fashionable,
gleamed
only less golden than his tunic.

 
          
His
young face was made strong by the bony aggressiveness of nose and jaw. His
intensely blue eyes carried the darkly glowing light of hot temper in them.

 
          
“I’m
trying not to let that lamp stir me up too much,” he went on. “It seems to
intoxicate everybody except you.”

 
          
“I’m
saturated,” retorted Buckalew. “Well, how will you like to go to work when this
holiday’s done?”

 
          
“Let
work be left out of the present conversation,” Stover pleaded. “I want complete
relaxation and excitement. Tomorrow I’ll visit the lower levels, Mr. Buckalew.”

 
          
“They
get rough down there,” Buckalew reminded.
“Lots of rowdy
customers—space-crews on leave, confidence men, and all that.”

 
          
“I
can get rough, too,” said Stover. “You know, I feel a scrap coming on. I won’t
deny I’m a fighter by temperament, Mr. Buckalew.”

 
          
“Your
grandfather was a fighter, too,” said Buckalew, his deep, dark eyes
introspective as if gazing down corridors of the past.
“Much
like you in his youth—big, happy, strong.
Later he turned his back on
all this, Pulambar and other pleasure points, and became the highest rated
natural philosopher of his time. You inherited his job, you tell me—the
unfinished job of perfecting the condenser ray.”

 
          
“A
job that ought to be done,” nodded Stover.

           
“A job that must be done,” rejoined
Buckalew earnestly. ‘‘You tell me how much you like Pulambar, but doesn’t that
extravagant lake down below make you feel a trifle vicious? Don’t you stop to
think that the poor thirsty deserts of Mars could suck up a thousand times that
much water without showing it?

 
          
“Don’t
you understand how this great planet, with what was once the greatest
civilization in the known universe, is dying for lack of water— or, rather, for
the ability to keep that water? And that’s what the condenser ray will do. By
the way, you may call me Robert, if you like. That’s what your grandfather
called me.”

 
          
Stover
turned back to a remark he had begun earlier. “I said I’d like to fight—Robert.
That’s because I think, and keep thinking, of this man Mal- brook who seems to
own Pulambar and this wasteful lake and all. Why doesn’t he divide the water
with the unfortunate poor?”

 
          
“Because
he’s Malbrook,” replied Buckalew shortly. “He won’t like it, at that, if you
make water too easy to get. That’s what will happen if your condenser ray
works. It’ll condense all the water vapor that has been escaping up to now,
giving rain and returning fertility to this planet.”

 
          
“Grandfather
used to talk like that,” remembered Stover. “I’m not as brilliant as he is, but
I’ll work as hard— after awhile. Just now I want to get the ugly thought of
those poor thirsty devils out of my mind. I’ll have a drink.”

 
          
“Your
grandfather used to take
guil
in his
wine,” informed Buckalew.

 
          
Stover
looked at his companion, and suddenly found it more believable that here was an
old friend of his grandfather. For all the ungrayed hair and smooth face,
Buckalew had eyes that might have been born with the first planets. Not old,
but ageless. Stover began to frame in his mind a polite inquiry as to how these
things might be. At that moment a strange voice, clear and low, broke in upon
his meditations.

 
          
“Gentlemen,
the management suggests that I say how glad we are to see you at the Zaarr once
again.”

 
         
BOTH
rose, bowing. The speaker was the girl who had sung. “Please sit down,” begged
Stover, holding a chair.

 
          
She
smiled and did so. Her eyes were large and dark, her chin smoothly pointed.
Even without her heavy makeup she would be lovely. Beside Stover she seemed no
larger than a child.

 
          
Buckalew
signaled a robot waiter, who clanked across with drink, a healthful Terrestrial
wine laced with powerful Jovian
guil.

 
          
“This
is a pleasure, Miss—” Stover stumbled.

 
          
“My
name is Bee MacGowan,” the singer supplied, smiling.

 
          
“I’ve
been admiring your singing,” added Stover, blushing. “A pleasure, I say.”

 
          
“Not
to that young man,” murmured Buckalew, his eyes flicking toward a lean,
glowering fellow who sat alone at a near table.

 
          
This
guest, with his close-fitting black garments, the mantle flung over the back of
his chair, and his pallid scowl beneath a profusion of wavy dark hair, might
have sat for a burlesque portrait of Hamlet.

 
          
“Oh,
he?” said Bee MacGowan. “He’s a little difficult, but I owe him nothing.
Anyway, this is only a professional conference, eh?”

 
          
Buckalew
continued studying the youth with the angry face. “Isn’t he Amyas Crofts, the
son of a vice-president or something in Spaceways?
Mmmm.
You’d think a dark ray of the joy-lamp had flicked him, while a bright one
strikes my young friend here. You’re a bit of a joy-lamp yourself, Miss
MacGowan.”

 
          
It
was Stover’s turn to laugh. “Nothing affects Buckalew, though.
Neither joy-lamp, nor wine.
As a matter of fact, I’ve never
seen him drink. His intoxication must be of the spirit.” Buckalew’s smooth dark
head bowed. “Yes, of the spirit. See, isn’t that Mace Malbrook?”

 
          
The
music had paused, and all stirred at their tables. One or two even rose, as
though to greet high nobility. And as far as Pulambar’s society was concerned
high nobility was present.
 
           
Mace Malbrook was huge and soft,
draped and folded around with a togalike mantle of fiery red. His huge arrogant
head, crowned with luxuriant waves of chestnut hair, turned this way and that.
His face was
Romanly
masterful, for all its softness.
The eyes were bright and deep-set, like fires in caves. His mouth looked hard
even as he smiled at the respectful hubbub around him.

 
          
“So
that’s the man who rules Pulambar,” said young Dillon Stover.

 
          
“Just
as his grandfather ruled when your grandfather and I were young together here,”
nodded Buckalew. “The Malbrooks and Fieldings have gathered most of the
property rights and concessions in Pulambar. They’re also partners in the Polar
Corporation that distributes water by canal over Mars.”

 
          
Malbrook
was being offered the best table. But he had sighted the little group across
the room.

 
          
“I
don’t like people who stare at me,” said Stover audibly.

 
          
And
those seated nearest him flinched as at a blasphemy. But he meant it. The great
Malbrook was to him a rude water-thief, no more and no less.

 
          
“Easy,
Dillon,” counselled Buckalew softly. “Malbrook’s the law here.’’

 
          
“What’s
the matter, Miss MacGowan,” Stover asked the girl beside him. “You’re pale.
Does he frighten you?”

 
          
“I
think he does,” she replied softly and woefully.

 
          
Malbrook
was striding across toward them. Reaching their table, he bowed with a heavy
flourish. The room was expectantly silent.

 
          
“Aren’t
you the girl who sings?” he purred, as if sure of his welcome. “I have decided
to give you some of my time and attention. These gentlemen will excuse you, I
am sure.” And he looked a command at Stover.

 
          
DILLON
STOVER stood up, towering over Malbrook, who was not particularly small.