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Ch. 03 · The Man Who Staked The Stars

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  Chapter three of The Man Who Staked the Stars by Catherine MacLean. This LibriVox
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  recording is in the public domain. Chapter three. In his luxurious hotel,
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  Bryce checked his watch eight o'clock. A telephone call was scheduled for some time
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  in the half hour. He filed the question of who was behind the knight's
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  attack and picked up the phone. The dial system was an automatic contact with
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  any city in the world. He dialed somewhere in a city, a phone
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  rang. It rang, unheard for it was locked into a safe in a
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  tiny rented office with some unusual mechanisms attached. The ringing was stopped abruptly,
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  and a recorded voice answered ya. Bryce took a dial phone from the night
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  table where it had been sitting innocently like a toy he had for some child.
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  Hiaw, he said, cheerfully to the automatic mechanism at the other end.
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  Listen, I think I've got a new phrase for that transition theme.
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  How's this? He put the receiver against the back of the toy and dialed
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  the toy dial It responded to each letter and number with a ringing note of
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  different pitch that played a short, unmelodious tune. The pitch notes went over
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  the line and entered the mechanism making the contacts within it that dialed the number
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  he had dialed on the toy phone. How's that, Bryce said, cheerfully.
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  The recorded voice said, sounds good. I'll see what I can do
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  with it. Somewhere far away and unheard, another phone had begun to ring.
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  Want to speak to George? Sure? A phone rang in a pay
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  booth somewhere in a Great City railroad station, and someone browsing at him magazine
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  stand or sitting on a suitcase, apparently waiting for a train, strolled casually
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  to answer it. Hello, said a non committal voice, prepared to claim
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  that he was merely a stranger answering the phone because it was ringing in public.
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  Hello, George, how's everything going, Bryce asked. Those words were
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  his trademark, the passwords that identified him to everyone as the voice who gave
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  tips. Among the Monster organization, which had grown from the proven reliability of
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  those tips, the voice was known as Hello George. Hello. George's tips
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  were always good, so they had come to be followed as blindly as tips
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  from God, even when they were not understood. Certainty was one thing men
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  in the fencing and drug smuggling business most sorely loaded. They communicated only by
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  phone. They transmitted their wares by leaving them in public lockers and mailing the
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  key. They never saw each other's faces or heard each other's names. But
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  even the use of a key could be a trap that would bring a circle
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  of narcotic agents of I n C around the unfortunate who attempted to open the
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  locker far away over the bulge of the earth between a man sat in a
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  pham booth waiting for his tip. Pretty well, no complaints. How's with
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  you any news? I think you'd better cut connections with Union Transport. They're
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  getting pretty sloppy. I think they might spill something. What'd you say,
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  asked the man at the other end, cautiously, I didn't get you.
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  Better stop using ut for shipping, Bryce repeated, wording his sentence carefully.
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  They aren't careful enough anymore. You don't want them to break an ink case
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  wide open? Do you ink? Was the International Narcotics Control Agency of the
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  FN but the conversation would have sounded like an innocent discussion of shipping difficulties to
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  any chance listener on the telephone lines. The flat tones were plaintive and aggrieved.
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  But we're expecting a load of stuff Friday. Our buyers are expecting it.
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  Stuff was drug and expecting was a mild word for the need of drug
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  addicts. And we've got a lot of loads of miscellaneous items to go out.
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  The contact was a small man in the organization, but he evidently knew
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  just how hot fence goods could be. That can't wait. He had planned
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  this. Maybe they are all right for shipments this week. I'll chew them
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  out to be careful, check up and call back Friday. Meanwhile, break
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  with them. Tell him a few things from me. The distant voice added
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  a surprising string of derogatory adjectives. Friday. On Friday, about about six,
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  the double about confirmed the signal for a telephone appointment that was general for
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  all contact numbers. Friday about six. Okay, there was a faint click
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  that meant he had hung up, and the phone in the safe was open
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  for more dialings on his toy dial. Bryce hung up, leaned back on
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  his bed, and pushed a button that turned on the radio to a semi
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  classical program. Soothing music came into the room, and slow waves of colored
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  light moved across the ceiling. He tuned to a book player and chose a
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  heavy economic study from the current seller list of titles which appeared on the ceiling.
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  The Daily Moonship was scheduled to blast off at five point thirty its optimum
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  at this week's position of the moon. By this time tomorrow night, he
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  and all the other members of the board would be out of reach of any
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  easy observation or analysis by their hired psychological mind hunter. With a slight chilling
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  of the skin, he remembered the cop psychos the gangs had warned him about
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  in his scrambling and desperate childhood, and what they were supposed to do to
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  you when they caught you in a third offense. He had been born into
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  an ex European quarter in a Chinese city, a descendant of something prideful and
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  forgotten called an empire builder, and grew with the mixed gangs of children of
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  all colors who roamed the back streets at night, looting and stealing and breaking.
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  Population control was almost impossible in the land where the only social security against
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  starvation and old age was suns and social security was impossible in a land so
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  corrupted by the desperation of famines, so little able to spare the necessary taxes.
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  The nation was too huge to be fed from outside, and so had
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  been left by the FN to stew in its own misery until its people solved
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  their basic problem. So in an enlightened, clean and wealthy world, Bryce
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  Carter had grown up in a slum whose swarming viciousness was a matter of take,
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  steal, kill, climb or die. Perhaps under those special circumstances,
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  police penal compulsion had to be brutally strong, stronger than the drive for life
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  itself, as brutal as the lurid tales he had heard. Perhaps in other
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  countries the methods were different. A hypno converted man not a horror to his
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  friends ends, but he had had no time to study an investigate if it
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  were so, and the horror and hatred remained. But there was no need
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  to think about the psycho hunter the board had put on him, for by
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  the time the hunter could reach him, Ut would have fallen as a legal
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  entity, its corruption would be completely public, and the psychologist would be called
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  off before discovering anything. Bryce thought of the slight nervousness he had let show
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  at the first words of the chairman's announcement. The only witness against him was
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  himself. His control wasn't perfect, no one's was, but he was safe.
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  He concentrated on the opening pages of the Basic Principles of Economies in the
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  darkened u T Building, which could be seen from his window, a few
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  lights still burned, where the night shift dealt with emergencies. In a small
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  projection room on the fifty fifth floor, a man sat and looked at a
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  film of the UT Board meeting of that day. He played only a certain
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  small twenty minute interval, listening closely to the voices. Gentlemen, your attention
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  please, watching the faces? Did the police know this? Do you think
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  if we offered this Manoba the right kind of money? Will the gentleman who
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  voted nay on the secret vote the first times speak up and explain? It
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  is entirely likely that the conspirators among us on the screen showed the apparently bored
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  faces and relaxed poses of men accustomed to the power game, habitually masking their
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  feelings from each other, shifting their positions slightly, sometimes some smoking. We've
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  dealt with that. Let's get onto the next business. The watcher stopped the
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  film and silently reset it. It began again, with the Chairman on the
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  screen, wrapping the table slightly, gentlemen, your attention. In the darkened
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  projection room, the chairman sat to one side, smoking and thinking while the
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  psychologist played the film through for the fourth time. The chairman was wondering just
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  how seriously the watcher was taking mister Beldman's proposals about what he should do to
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  the culprit and whether he would raise his fee. The telephone rang four thirty.
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  Mister Carter, said the voice of the night clerk in the receiver.
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  It was time to catch the five thirty moonship. He splashed cold water on
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  his face in the back of his neck until he was awake, took a
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  hot shower, dressed rapidly, and gave up his key at the desk at
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  four forty five. A letter for you, mister Carter, she smiled,
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  handing it to him from the wall. Speaker's a mild but penetrating voice began
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  repeating. Bus line for Spaceport leaving in twelve minutes. All passengers for Luna
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  City, moon base, asteroid belt and points out, please go to the
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  landing deck. Bus line for Spaceport, leaving in twelve minutes. He opened
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  the letter when he'd settled down in a comfortable Morris chair in the air bos.
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  The letter had said Manoba Group Psychotherapeutic Research and Conference Management. One sheet
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  of it was a half page contract in fine print, apparently a standard form,
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  with the name of Union Transport Corporation typed in the appropriate blanks above.
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  It was printed in clear English and large type for the benefit of those readers
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  unaccustomed to contracts. Warning, after you have signed this release, you will
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  have no legal recourse or claim as an individual against any physical or mental injury
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  or inconvenience you may claim to have sustained as a result of the activities of
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  this contracted psychotherapists in the course of group therapy. Your group is the responsible
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  agent. It must make all claims and complaints as a unit, and may
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  withdraw from the contract as a unit. Those who withdraw from the group withdraw
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  from participation in the contract. Bryce smiled, or in other words, if
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  you didn't like it, you could quit your job and get out. The
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  other sheet he glanced at casually. It seemed to be an explanatory page to
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  the effect that the Manoba's work was strictly confidential, and they were under no
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  obligation to explain what they had done or were doing, or give their identities
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  to any member of the corporation who had hired them. There was nothing resembling
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  a sales talk about results, and the only thing approaching it was a stiff
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  last sentence referring anyone who was curious about the results of such treatment to the
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  National Certified Analytical Statistics of professional standing in such and such bullets of such and
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  such ears. He signed the contract smiling, and mailed it at a handy
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  postal and telegraph window at the spaceport. Before boarding the spaceship, the phone
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  was ringing. Bryce rolled over sleepily and picked it up. Eight am.
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  Lsss, Sir, said the soft voice of the dust clerk. Okay,
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  he grunted, glancing at his watch and hanging up. It was two minutes
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  after eight, but he didn't check her up on it. If he placed
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  the voice rightly, it belonged to an exceptionally pretty brunette. He had not
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  tried to date her yet, but she looked accessible and Mona was becoming tiresome.
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  He turned the dial in the headboard that reversed the polarization of the window
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  and rose reluctantly, stretching a sunlight flood of the room. It was daylight
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  on Moon Bay City. It had been daylight for a week, and it
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  would be daylight still for another week. Through the softening filter of the airtight
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  glass, the view of distant crater walls and the air sealed towers of Moon
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  Bay City shone in etched magnificence, but he gave it only a glance.
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  It was always the same. There was no weather on the moon and no
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  variety of view. Good morning, he smiled, passing a bellboy in the
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  luxurious, deep colored halls. Good morning, mister Carter, the boy answered
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  rapidly, with an eager, nervous smile. Bryce had caught the management up
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  sharply on several small lapses, and they all knew him now. He strode
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  on pleased efficiency. No one gave him a second glance or noticed him in
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  the tube trains, but he was not irritated by it. Someday they would,
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  some day, the whole world would know his face as well as they
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  knew their own. He promised that to them silently, and then settled down
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  to concentrate on some constructive planning before reaching the office. He was not going
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  to waste his time gawking at ads or listening to the music like the others.
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  Mister Carter said a hesitant voice behind him, as he was reaching for
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  the handle of the office doors. What is it, he asked, crisply
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  turning, But as he saw who had spoken, he knew exactly what it
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  would be. Bardon me, mister Carter, But it was a spaceman,
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  a skinny wreck of a man in clothes that hung on him, a junkie,
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  a drug addict. Bryce knew the signs. He had spent all his
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  money and gone without food for his drug, and now he had remembered from
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  belt talk that Bryce Carter was a soft touch for a loan. Never mind,
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  Bryce snarled, reaching for the door again. He assisted the smuggling of
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  the stuff, but that did not mean he had to admire the fools who
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  took it. The man was muttering something about a loan when the door shut
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  and cut off his words. The loan would be spent on more junk.
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  If he had wanted food, he could have signed into a state hospital to
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  take the cure and be imprisoned and fed until the hunger for his drug had
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  passed and released him. The cure was a brief hell, but it was
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  fair payment for having had his fun, and if the attic had any guts,
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  he would face it. Any time. He was ready to pay the
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  price of exit, he could go back to being a man. Bryce strode
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  through the offices irritably. It did not matter if Earthlings chose to waste their
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  time in artificial ecstasy, but it was different to see a good belt spaceman
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  let himself go. The receptionist looked up with frightened her eyes as he passed,
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  and gave him a special good morning with a smile that was tremulous and
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  very eager to please. He still had her in the stage of new employment,
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  where she was kept afraid of losing her new job with a bad reference.
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  It was best to put them all over the hurdles. At first.
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  He gave her a condescending smile as he went through into the inner offices.
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  Good morning. She was shaky enough. A few well faked cold rages against
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  minor errors had done well. From now on she would need only smiles to
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  give the utmost inloyalty and hard work. What had Maggiavelli said, make them
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  fear your wrath, and they will be grateful for your forbearance. He did
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  not bother to speak to Kesby when he passed his open office door. Kesby
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  didn't need smiles or praise. He worked loyally, just for the rare Curt
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  acknowledgment that he had done well. Three years of managing had made him a
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  good lieutenant, completely faithful. When Bryce quit Union Transport, Kesby would follow
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  him. End of Chapter three read by Paul Hampton