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Ch. 08 · The Man Who Staked The Stars

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  Chapter eight of The Man Who Stake the Stars by Catherine MacLean. This LibriVox
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  recording is in the public domain. Chapter eight. He stopped to set in
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  the coordinates of the Moon for the robot pilot, but he found himself still
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  wanting to talk. Man has reached space. Do you think he'll ever go
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  back to the ground. In space, he has gravity only when he wants
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  it, and any weight of gravity he likes, depending on how fast he
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  spins his house, and no gravity when he wants that. You see what
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  that means to engineers and the advantage of building things. No weight and transportation,
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  no weight and travel, limitless speed, and almost no cost. As
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  long as he stays away from planet pulls. His house is in the sky,
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  and when he steps out of it, he can fly like a bird.
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  And food to grow food. There is sunlight earth never dreamed of.
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  For heat and power, there is sunlight to focus. Space is flooded with
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  heat, irradiated with power. It's not child's play taming it, and those
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  on the ground don't see it yet. But the next step of mankind is
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  out into space, and it's never coming back. Pierce, sitting in one
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  of the shock tank armchairs, asked, what part do you have in this?
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  Bryce looked at him with a feeling almost of surprise, as if he
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  had been called back from a long distance me. He laughed, a little,
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  awed by the immensity of the goal and the ease of it. First
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  President of the Belt and political boss for life. That's enough enough to hold
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  the solar system in the palm of his hand if he chose, he who
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  rules space rules the planets. It was the first time he'd ever mentioned his
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  goal to anyone. Roy Pierce asked, what do I do about this friend
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  of yours who lays traps? The last attack had settled the question of who
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  was behind the other attacks and who had told Beldman, but Arilla would still
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  be a useful pawn. All that was necessary was to evade his attempts at
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  murder for a month or so until partnership tied them too close for murder.
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  Bryce explained some of that to Pierce, setting up a chessboard to pass away
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  the time until they arrived back at Moon Bay City. What's my next assignment,
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  Pierce asked. When they were several moves into the game, I recalled
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  a danger. He had made no move to guard against the board. Hired
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  a psychologist, a mind hunter to find out who's doing the undermining. He's
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  one of the Minoba group. Remember the name. Look it up and find
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  out what their methods are, how to recognize them, and report back what
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  to do about it. I'll take care of him, Roy Pierce said,
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  absently, moving his knight to threaten Bryce's bishop. No unnecessary trouble. Remember,
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  I have to keep my name clean. Bryce moved upon one step to
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  cover the bishop and leave room for his other bishop to menace the knight.
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  I'll be careful, there'll be no publicity. He won't get hurt, Pierce
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  said, moving the Knight into Bryce's second line, where it threatened the king
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  in a cornered castle. Check him, and he added, as if apologizing
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  for having delayed his move. I don't like to move until I'm sure what's
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  going on. The remark didn't seem to be suited to the game, as
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  if he had referred to something else. It was during dinner on the Moon
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  that he and Pierce loosened up for the first time since the ambush. Pierce
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  had been comparatively silent since the chess game on the trip back, and Bryce
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  too whether in sympathy with him, or in a naturally parallel mood, had
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  little to say. But now the tension had diffused, and with the stimulus
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  of aromatic food, they climbed out of their depression of emotional solemnity. The
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  decorations of the dining room were lush, while they ate. The materialism of
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  their lives was reinforced. From silvered and tappey street wall to wall. There
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  was life here, low key, with excitement in the blend of subdued talk
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  and the shifting artistry of lights and music. Their table was on in the
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  center of the islands of tables and potted trees, and around them were the
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  diners, their voices washing up at them, both inviting them with gentle tugs
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  to surrender the resistance, beckoning them into the sea of simple pleasures. We
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  owe ourselves some fun. Bryce. At Pierce's words, Bryce sharpened his eyes
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  on the face across the table. There was a touch of seriousness in those
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  words, more like a statement than a suggestion. Pierce smiled wiley and took
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  a vial out of his pocket and poured it into his drink. He spun
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  the empty bottle between thumb and fingers. We owe ourselves some fun. Pierce
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  repeated, We've nothing on the fire tonight, nothing to do that's crucial.
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  It's a good night to experiment. The warm waves, laughing at Bryce's mind
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  suddenly receded and left a chill with instinctive wariness. He thought of hypnotics and
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  single shot addictors. Piers couldn't have missed the emotionless freeze on the other's face,
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  still twirling the vile casually, he began to explain. It was a
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  new drug, he said, found being used by a tribe in Central Africa.
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  I've heard of it for some time, and what you mentioned a little
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  while back reminded me of it. Bryce caught the hidden reference Central Africa and
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  the Manoba group. So Pierce had not dismissed the mind Hunter from his thoughts
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  as a problem to be easily dealt with. It's still in the testing stage,
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  Pierce added, but some of it is circulating among medical students. The
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  tests have interesting effects, and as I say, tonight's a good night to
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  experiment. It's called binyab ioh. The chill in Bryce's head and spine was
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  thawing out. You're not conning me, he said it with a grin,
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  but there was an edge to the question which demanded an answer. Pierce gave
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  it to him for a brief moment. Deadly serious. You couldn't get addicted
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  if you swam in it, Bryce believed him. He stared at the glass.
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  What does it do to the IQ? We've got to collect some information
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  here and there this evening. I want to be able to read and talk,
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  he smiled, crookedly. No worse than usual, that is, either
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  raises the IQ or leaves it alone. What's the effect it affects different people
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  different ways? After hearing the reports, I'd like to see how it hits
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  us. Pierce pushed it towards him, grinning, Leave half for me.
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  Bryce's weary thoughts touched poison and immunity and murder, but inwardly he began to
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  scoff at his own habits of suspicion. However, before he could reach for
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  the glass, Peers had given a short snort, as though in recognition of
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  his presumptuousness, and drank his own share first. Then Bryce raised the cold
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  glass to his lips. As he put it down, he could feel a
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  change beginning to spread through his blood, warming and relaxing, bringing closer to
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  the memories of pleasure in good times. The restaurant was now completely seductive,
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  with the surf of voices pleasant in his ears, calling him to join the
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  world in its offers of uncomplicated pleasures. He felt himself blending with the ethereal
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  background mixture of light and sound. I like this, he decided, we
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  should take notes. Peers was smiling as he stuffed the empty vial back in
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  his pocket. The next day, Bryce looked back on that evening with pleasure.
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  Everybody had been and remarkably pleasant, friendly and considerate, and Pierce had
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  always had the right friendly word and gesture to reward them. Speaking for Bryce,
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  knowing his way around the cities of the Moon to the right places for
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  the information they sought. Always speaking for Bryce Carter, his employer, getting
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  him the things he wanted, giving the orders he wanted to give. Before
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  Bryce had even fully realized that he wanted them. Bryce had needed to say
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  nothing the whole time except right, that's it, and everything went as he
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  wanted it. A perfect left hand man, he smiled, stretching and turned
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  the polarization dial to let in the sunlight. The telephone rang. He picked
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  it up, and the dusk clerk said, in a deferentially hushed voice,
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  eight o'clock, mister Carter. For some reason, the hushed voice struck him
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  as fun. Thanks up. He hung up and stretched again. It was
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  soothing to have someone solicitous that he arose on time, if only a hotel.
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  The hotel had given him a lot of good service. He felt suddenly
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  grateful for all the pleasures and luxuries and small services they surrounded him with.
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  It was a good place. He was feeling good that morning, maybe because
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  the sun was so bright. He liked the look of the people passing in
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  the lobby as Pierce joined him, and he liked the look of the passengers
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  and the tube trains on the way to the office. They all looked more
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  friendly, And as he pushed through the second glass door into his offices,
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  he liked the clean shine of the glass and the rich blended colors and soft
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  rugs and gray textured dusks, and the soft, efficient hum of work in
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  progress. Bryce usually passed Kesby's office with a business like nod, but Pierce
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  smiled in stopping for an instant with Bryce, good morning, Kesby, We're
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  glad to see you. It was true enough and expressed what he felt.
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  Bryce exchanged a grin with kesby the boy's insolence, and then went on into
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  his office. It was a good day. It was a good day for
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  what he had to do. In the luxury of his inner office, he
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  sank into the deepest, softest chair, letting his cousin from Monte Hatos sort
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  the mail, agreeing with the boy's suggestions for action or sometimes issuing his own
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  instructions, keeping only half his mind on the routine day's business, relying on
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  Pierce, and concentrating the other half on the deed to be done. The
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  plan was set in his mind, but he had changes to make. He
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  was barely conscious of the time by as he lay rarely moving in his chair
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  while Pierce worked at top speed. By one o'clock the deck was cleared for
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  action. Bryce stood up, stretched and checked his watch again. It was
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  thirteen oh four hours. A telephone call was scheduled in about another hour and
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  five more successively, about a half hour apart. Order us some lunch,
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  Pierce before I lift the drawbridge. The food came in as he was instructing
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  his staff to leave them undisturbed for the rest of the afternoon. By the
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  time they had finished eating, their isolation was complete. The office was a
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  command post now, with only the slender unattended telephone wires connecting them with the
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  outside worlds. Bryce moved over behind his desk. He drew the telephone toward
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  him and dialed a number somewhere in the lock safe. The phone rang from
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  the case. He took a toy dial phone. Pierce's eyes were on it,
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  his eyebrows lifted quizzically, but Bryce offered no explanation. The boy was
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  due for a series of surprises, and when it was over, he would
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  know everything. Without any explanations and too late to interfere, hi Al,
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  Bryce said to the recorded Ya at the other end, He dialed a number
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  on the toy dial, the one receiver against the other's back. After the
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  usual ritual, Bryce said, Hello, George, how's everything going? This
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  is it? Bryce thought this was the first part of the final blow to
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  U TEA, and the only instrument he needed in his delightfully simple method was
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  a telephone. Originally, he had planned six brief warning calls to the six
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  key members of the ground organization. He would tell them to refuse to take
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  anything from the hands of the UT branch and break contact with them immediately after
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  accepting cash for miscellaneous items that would set the stage. The police trap would
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  close on all members of the UT branch of the organization while they were encumbered
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  with a maximum of incriminating objects to dispose of in too little time. Then
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  would come his anonymous tip to the police. He'd inform them that certain employees
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  of UT in a few listed cities would be found to be smuggling in large
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  quantities of drugs. The thing would be so simple, and the whole works
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  would blow up with the efficiency of the calculated explosion of nuclear reaction. That
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  had been his original plan. But things would be different now. The morning
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  in the easy Chair had changed his approach. The newer, more al program,
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  still remarkably simple, would bring down the whole structure within UT without the
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  help of the police, but by himself alone, planning it, initiating it,
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  executing it with no one's help, not even pierces. He heard himself
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  saying, this is hello, George. Listen to me and don't interrupt.
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  Somebody has talked. I've been betrayed myself. Get that, hello, George
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  is washed up right now? The cops are tapping this line. It doesn't
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  make any difference to me now, but it does to you. This is
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  an open warning from Hello George to you. Spread the word. I'll keep
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  making calls till they break in on me and cut this line. Meanwhile,
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  spread the word break connections with me and the whole organization. Get out of
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  range before the trap closes, But pass on this warning first, out against
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  questioning a short time. The police will get me eventually, of course,
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  and when they do they'll pump me dry. They'll get names and addresses.
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  The whole works'll get grabbed. Unless you move fast, spread the word.
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  Bryce paused and winked at Pearce, who was standing at his elbow. Any
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  questions, Yes, I'm sure, of course, I'm sure. Any other
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  questions, good luck? Okay. He hung up. As Caesar once said,
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  the dice were rolling. Pierce beside him through it all, simply stood
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  there, his eyes wide in his face sharp with curiosity and incredulity, his
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  body twitching now and then from the infection of the excitement which rippled over the
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  room. That excitement had been there, though Bryce had not permitted himself to
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  indulge in it in any visible way. He had showed Pierce a new facet
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  to his operations, one which Pierce could not anticipate immediately, one in which
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  only he Bryce could make the snap decisions and evaluate the immediate responses demanded of
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  him. That was with the first call. With the second one, Pierce
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  began to contribute, rising to the occasion as he had so often and quickly
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  done in the past. He began pacing up and down between calls, smoking
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  furiously and laughing under his breath. Tell him the police are breaking down the
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  door, he suggested. During the third call. Say you're hypno to hold
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  out against questioning five days at the most two hours more likely. His suggestions
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  were a howl. Bryce repeated them into the phone with counterfeit desperation, and
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  was rewarded by the sounds of panic at the other end. He and Pierce
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  chortled over the frantic queries and exclamations from the victim. The whole thing,
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  succincton pointed, and with the dramatic power of simplicity, was one super practical
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  joke which would set the entire solar system scurrying around for the next few weeks.
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  The ramifications would be endless. Persons would vanish abruptly and take up new
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  names and identities in the obscure countries. Others would draw out their heavy savings
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  and take the first rocket out from Earth. There would be a new influx
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  of refugees in the belt, new sellers to be honest, farmers and factory
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  workers and repairmen. Yes, the situation was dramatic. The day was a
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  good day, but as Bryce hung up on the last call, a depressing
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  sense of calamity, unsettlingly anti climactic, began to press down on him.
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  Pierce was talking about plans for the next week with an enthusiasm which should have
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  been completely contagious. But there was something wrong. There was something wrong,
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  well was it? Bryce felt Pierce's enthusiasm catch at him and start to sweep
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  them away. He savored the pleased glow produced by the shattering changes he had
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  managed to cram into one day. With six telephone calls, he had broken
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  the drug ring completely and forever, broken it, so completely that no member
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  of it would ever have dealings with any member of it again. All of
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  them were out of business, fleeing with the imaginary hounds of the law bang
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  at their heels. He smiled at the thought, and then his smile faded
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  for some strange reason, and he ceased listening to Pierce for a moment,
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  looked away, and ceased listening. For hearing Pierce just then distracted oddly from
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  the clarity of his thinking. He wanted to review what he had just done,
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  what was wrong? What? He struggled with a mounting confusion, the
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  desktop and telephones blurring as he tried to concentrate with desperate effort. Unexpectedly,
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  the question sprang into focus. It was as if the room turned inside out,
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  the day turned upside down. He had smashed himself, not ut why
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  why had he made those calls, changed his plans, and made those calls
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  With the most perfect and terrible clarity, He saw the results of what he
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  had done. The organization destroyed the contacts he had made fifteen years ago as
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  an anonymous young doctor can contacts that as Bryce Carter he could never make again,
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  vanishing, merging with the great mass of the public, becoming gray,
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  unknown figures, the building of years melting like a sugar castle melts into the
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  tide. The invisible army that had obeyed his sourceless voice without being able to
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  blackmail or rebel the perfectly balanced tool in his hands that could be used for
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  the bribing of venal politicians, with a limitless fund for the bribery, the
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  growing secret control of the most venal of the political machines of Earth, that
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  by the time he needed it, it would have been an irresistible weapon in
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  his hands for the single swift political blow that would rip the Belt from Earth
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  control and give it a seat on the Assembly of the Federated Nations and mastery
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  of the Solar System. But as he sat there, the organization dissolved.
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  He grasped the phone, but there was no one to call now, No
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  one would answer, He could never reach them again. This was sanity now,
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  But what had it been before? He was cheerfully destroying his future.
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  It seemed to him that there were two halves to his brain, each wanting
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  different things. For a moment, the one that had controlled the day was
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  gone and he was sane again. But how long would that moment last?
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  What sign had there been when it took control? Would he know it when
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  it came again? He remembered that in the tube train that morning, he
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  and Pierce had a half joking argument about the best short and merry life one
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  of the happy ones on the list had been the inc agent, because as
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  they spent so much of their lives working into smuggling gangs, that they had
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  all the pleasures and profits of being a crook and an honest man too.
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  Was that where he had slipped his cog. Looking back on the things he
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  had done that day, he saw that much of it had fitted an abstract
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  pattern of justice, as if he had been thinking of himself as an iron
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  sea man, or as if he thought of the things he had seen in
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  his childhood. That they had called zombies and jeered at and tormented without fear
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  of any retaliation or vengeance from their gray faced victims. Imprisoned men. They
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  looked normal, but they had been mentally imprisoned law zombies, memorizing and following
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  laws and being honest with a simple and terrifying literalness. He had not known
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  that he had any capacity for terror, Bryce Carter. He had his name,
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  his identity, and his memory, and they were his own. Sometimes
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  he'd had nothing else, only the pride and strength of knowing his identity,
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  that it was his and stronger than others, just as his hands were stronger,
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  a thing they couldn't take from him? Could they There was a nightmare
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  he had had more than once that he remembered suddenly for the first time,
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  with all its atmosphere of childish strangeness. The copsycles were after him. He
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  was trapped in a big room with lights, and they had his head open
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  and were chasing him around inside his head somehow, trying to catch him and
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  kill him. The hymn that lived in his mind. Would he know if
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  it was gone? The black, sharp edged shadows of the crater walls drawing
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  across the landing plane outside, bringing to a close the two weeks of daylight,
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  and the reflected sunlight was dimming in the room. He could hear the
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  rumble of the heavy ship of a cargo fleet lowering into a landing. His
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  assistant was sitting quietly on the edge of the desk, as he had been
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  for some time, motionlessly watching the thin plume of smoke that rose from a
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  cigarette in his hand. He was as still as if he were listening for
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  some subtle sound. Far away, rocket jets flashed, an orange glowed through
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  the Venetian blinds and fell in stripes of orange light across the dark young face.
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  The brief rumble of a rocket takeoff came transmitted through the ground in the
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  building. Smoke curling up from the cigarette was the only motion. Roy,
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  is Pierce your real name? The light flashed and faded in bars of orange
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  across the young face. He had thought it was like his own, the
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  boy he had thought had come from pop Yak. The quick, deep rumble
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  of sound came and faded in the walls around them. A fleeting smile touched
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  the face, and the dark eyes rested on his for a moment as Roy
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  Pierce gave the information casually, as if it were any other information, answering
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  the question that had been meant. It is my mother's name. We always
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  take our mother's names. I am a Manoba, a Manoba of Jiaco.
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  End of chapter eight read by Paul Hampton.