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Ch. 01 · The Man Who Staked The Stars

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  The Man Who Staked the Stars by Katherine MacLean. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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  volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Man Who Staked the Stars by
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  Katherine MacLean, Chapter one. Bryce Carter could afford a smug smile, for
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  hadn't he risen gloriously from thieves row to director of famed ut was not Earth,
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  Moon and all the Belt at this very moment awaiting his command for the
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  grand coup? And wasn't his cousin from Monte Hido a star sent to help?
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  What do I do for a living, repeated the slim, dark skinned
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  young man in the next seat of the Earth Moonliner. I'm a witch doctor,
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  he answered, with completesgarity. What do you mean, I mean,
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  what do they hire you for? Asked Donahue, with understandable confusion and a
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  touch of nervousness. I'm registered as a psychotherapist, said the dark skinned young
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  man. He looked too young to be practicing a profession, barely nineteen,
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  but that could merely be a sign of talent. Donahue reflected the new teaching
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  and testing methods graduated them young. I know I'm a witch doctor because my
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  grandfather and his father and his father's father were witch doctors. And I learned
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  a special technique from my uncles, who are registered therapists with medical degrees like
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  mine. But the technique is not the one you find in the books.
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  It is unusual. They don't say where they learned it, but it's not
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  hard to guess. The dark skinned youth shrugged cheerfully. So I'm a witch
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  doctor. That's an interesting thought, said Donahue. It would be a long
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  on three day trip to the moon, and he had expected to be bored,
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  but this conversation was not boring. What do you do, he again
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  asked. Specifically. Donahue had rugged features, a dark tan, and attractively
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  sun bleached hair worn a little too long. He exuded a sort of rough
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  charm which branded him one of the class of politicians, and he knew how
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  to draw people out. So now he settled himself more comfortably for an extended
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  spell of listening. Tell me more and join me in a drink, he
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  signaled the hostess and continued with the right mixture of admiring interest in condescending skepticism.
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  You know chance spells and higher ghosts, do you not exactly? The
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  dark, innocent looking young man smiled with a cheerful flash of white teeth.
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  I'll tell you what I did to a man, a man named Bryce Carter.
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  A group of men sat in a skyscraper at Cape Hatteras, with their
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  table running parallel to a huge floored ceiling window that overlooked the clouded sky and
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  gray waves of the Atlantic. They were the respected directors of Union Transport,
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  and like most men of high position, they had a keen sense of self
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  preservation and a knowledge of ways and means that included little in the way of
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  scruples. The chairman rapped lightly, gentlemen, your attention please, I have
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  an announcement to me. The buzz of talk at the long table stopped,
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  and the fourteen men turned their faces. The meeting had been called a full
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  week early, and they expected some emergency as an explanation. A disturbing announcement.
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  I'm afraid someone is using this corporation for illegal purpose, says the Chairman's
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  voice was mild and apologetic. Bryce Carter, second from the opposite end,
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  was brought to a shock of tense balanced alertness. How much did he know?
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  He gave no sign of emotion, but reached for a cigarette to cover
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  any change in his breathing, fumbling perhaps more than usual. The men at
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  the long table waited, showing a variety of bored expressions that never had any
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  connection with their true reactions. The chairman was a small, inconspicuous, sandy
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  haired man whose ability they respected so deeply that they had elected him the chairman,
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  to have him where they could watch him. They knew he was not
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  one to mention trifles, and there was a moment of silence. All right,
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  John, said one, letting out his held breath and leaning back.
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  I'll bite what kind of illegal purposes? I don't know much? The small
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  man apologized, only that the crime rate has risen forty percent in the average
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  of the cities served by UT and in Kolastro City, Calastro and Panama City,
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  where we just put in a spaceport. It more than doubled. Funny
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  coincidence, someone grunted, Very funny, said another. If the police notice
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  it and the public hares of it. There was no man there who would
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  willingly have parted with his place at that table, No one who was unaware
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  that, inviting his way to a place at that table, he had seized
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  some part of control of the destiny of the solar system. UT Union Transport
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  spread the meshes of its transportation service through almost every city of Earth, and
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  the hamlets and roads and bus and railroad and airlines between, and even to
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  the few far ports where mankind had found a toe hold in space. But
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  its existence was precariously balanced on public trust. UT's unity from city to city
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  and country to country. Its spreading growth had saved the public much discomfort and
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  expense of overlapping costs and transfers and confusion, and so the public, on
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  the advice of economists, grudgingly allowed UT to grow ever bigger. There was
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  a conservative movement to put all such outsized businesses under government ownership, as had
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  been the trend in the last generation, but the economy was mushrooming too fast
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  for the necessary neatness, and the public rightly would not trust politicos in any
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  operation too confusing for them to be watched, and preferred to leave such businesses
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  to private operation, accepting the danger for the profit of efficient and penurious operation
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  dividends and falling costs. But all these advantages were barely enough to buy UT's
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  life from year to year. It had grown too big. Its directors held
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  power to make or break any city and the prosperity of its inhabitants by mere
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  small shifts and shipping fees, a decision to put in a line or a
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  terminal or a crossroad. The power was indirectly recognized in the honors and higher
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  offices, the free entertainment and lavish privileges available to them from any chamber of
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  commerce, and any political representative, lobbying discreetly for a slight bias of choice
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  that would place an airport or spaceport in their district rather than another. Perhaps
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  some of the directors use their position for personal pleasure and advantage, but power
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  used for the sake of controlling the direction of growth of races and nations.
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  Power for its own sake was the game which was played at that table,
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  its members playing the game of control against each other in the world for high
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  stakes of greater control, nursing behind their untelling faces. Who knows what megalomaniac
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  dreams of dominion. Yet they used their control discreetly, serving the public welfare
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  and keeping the public goodwill when it was possible. As always, Bryce Carter
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  sat relaxed, lazily, smiling, his expression not changing to his thoughts.
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  Who knows of this besides us? Someone asked, and answered mildly. It
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  was a company statistician in the publicity department who noticed it. He was looking
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  for favorable correlations, I believe. His pale blue eyes ranged across their faces,
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  touching Bryce Carter's face expressionlessly in passing. I requested that he tell no
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  one else till I had investigated. He added, apologetically. Commitments for drug
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  addiction correlate to that was worse news. Narcotics investigators are no fools, someone
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  said thoughtfully. Nie Swanger, a thin, orderly man near the head of
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  the table, pressed his fingertips together, frowning slightly. I take it then,
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  that our corporation is being used as a criminal means of large scale smuggling
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  of drugs, transport of criminals on false identification, and transport for resent of
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  the goods resulting from their thefts. Is that correct? Niswanger always like to
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  have things neatly listed. I think so, said the chairman. And would
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  you say that the organization responsible is centered in this corporation? It would seem
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  likely. Yes. The members of the board stirred uneasily, seeing a blast
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  of sensational headlines investigations which would spread to their private lives themselves, giving repetitive
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  testimony to inquisitive politicians and a glare of television lights, while the Federated Nation's
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  Anti Cartel Commission vivisected the ut Giant into puny separate, squabbling midgets. It
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  was not an appealing prospect. We'll have to stop it, of course,
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  said a lean blonde man whose name was Stout. He could be relied on
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  to say the obvious and keep a discussion dry to the point. I understand
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  we have a good detective agency. If we put them on this with payment
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  for speed and silence, and when we know who is responsible, asked Kneeswanger,
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  then what do we do? There was silence as they came to another
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  full stop in thinking turning culprits over to the police was out of the question,
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  an admission that such crimes had happened and could happen again. Firing the
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  few detected could not impress the undetected and unfired ones enough to discourage them from
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  their profitable criminality. Hire Some killings, said the round face mister Beldman,
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  with simplicity. The chairman laughed, you are joking, of course, mister
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  Beldman. Of course, said mister Beldman, and laughed barkingly, being well
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  aware of the permanent film record taken of all meetings. But he was not
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  joking. Nobody there was joking. The detective agency and the hired killers would
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  be arranged for. Bryce Carter leaned back with a slight cynical smile on his
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  lean face. That was his habitual expression. Suppose the top man is high
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  in the company, he suggested softly. What then? He did not need
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  to point out that the disappearance of such a man would be enough to start
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  a police and stockholder's investigation of the company in itself. The implication was clear.
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  Such a man could not be touched. A hypnotist, suggested rawl,
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  so one to make our top man backtrack and clean up his own mess.
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  Illegal, dangerous and difficult, mister Rayle Irving said sourly. There are extremely
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  severe penalties against any complicity in the unsupervised use of hypnotism or hypnotic drugs and
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  their use against the will of the subjects. A major crime, A circulating
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  company psychologist would be legal, suggested the lean blonde man whose name was Scout.
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  We have over seventy five of those on the company payrolls already, and
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  I failed to see what use one of the special high priced boys who iron
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  out kings and groups by joining them and working with them for a while.
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  Like that conference manager we had with us last year. Every member of the
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  group that hires one has to sign an application for treatment and a legal release.
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  They're very quiet and don't broadcast what they do or who they talked with.
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  But they have a good record of results. The groups who hire them
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  report better work and easier work. We could use one as a troubleshooter.
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  Are they a special organization, somebody asked, I think I've heard of them,
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  Yes, some sort of union. I can't remember the name. What
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  would you expect them to do for us, asked Irving. I hear Stout
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  said, vaguely, his eyes wandering from face to face, that they have
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  a special tough technique for hard case troublemakers. For those who knew him,
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  the vague look was a veil over some thought which pleased him. Presumably he
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  was thinking the thing which had occurred to them all the culprit might be a
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  member of the board. There was a sudden cheerful interest visible among them as
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  they wondered who was quarry for the tough treatment. I've heard of that,
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  said wan Land, remembering it has been said that they not only do not
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  inform others of the fact of treatment, but frequently do not inform the man
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  under treatment. But seemed to be only a new friend until poof, he
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  smiled. I think the guild name is Minoba, the Manoba group. Stout
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  said, they'll probably charge enough for the skill, wan said, smiling.
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  I also heard some idle rumor that in a few such cases discored within a
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  group was alleviated by sudden suicide. Presumably a psychologist can grow impatient, push
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  a certain button in the mind. Sounds like a good idea, Beldman said,
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  do you think if we offer this Manoba the right kind of money?
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  You don't mean that, mister Beldman cut in the chairman, reprovingly you're joking
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  again. We're all great jokers, said Beldman, and laughed. Everybody laughed.
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  I move, we vote a some for the hiring of a Minoba psychologist.
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  Second, how about five hundred thousand. I don't know their fees,
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  the chairman objected cautiously. You can turn back any surplus. We stand alone
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  lose more than that by several orders of magnitude. Spend it at your discretion.
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  Make it seven hundred thousand. Give them a little more room. I
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  saw move second it. Carry it to a vote. They slipped their hands
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  under the table edge before their respective seats, and each man ran his fingers
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  over two buttons concealed there before him, chose between the yes and the no
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  button, and pushed one. The choice of his fingers, unseen by the
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  others, two numbers lit up on the small divided panel before the chairman.
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  He looked at them with his mild face, expressionless. Rejected by one vote.
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  Unanimity was the law on board decisions, which, by a natural law,
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  was probably the reason why no love was lost among them. But this
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  time irritation was curbed by interest. They sat watching each other's expressions with glances
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  which seemed casual. Whose was the one vote? I moved that the vote
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  be repeated and made open. Someone said, seconded, all in favor of
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  the appropriation for the psychologist. Raise your left hand. The chairman requested.
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  They complied and looked at each other. All hands were up carried. On
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  the second vote, the Chairman said, without apparent interest, for my own
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  curiosity, will the gentleman who voted nay on the secret vote the first time
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  speak up and explain his objections and why he changed his mind on the open
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  vote. There was silence a moment. Nie Swanger looked at his knee fingernails.
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  Bryce Carter smoking and smiling slightly as he always smiled Stout leaning back,
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  casually, scanning his eyes from face to face. Beldman lit a cigar and
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  released a cloud of blue smoke with a contented sigh. No one spoke,
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  gentlemen, said the chairman. It is entirely likely that the culprit is among
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  us. Never mind the melodrama. John Irving tapped the table impatiently. We've
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  dealt with that. Let's get onto the next business. End of Chapter one
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  read by Paul Hampton