Subway to the Stars Read online

  SUBWAY

  TO THE STARS

  by

  Raymond F. Jones

  I

  The ad said:

  No Golfing

  No Fishing

  No Boating

  No Skiing

  Sweat and guts Engineering Only

  It gave an address. Harry Wiseman glanced at it and tossed the paper across the room. Some Madison Avenue funny man was trying a switch on the old country-club appeal to engineers. Obviously, he expected it to bring in those who saw themselves as hairy-chested types, immune to the lures of soft suburban living.

  Harry's visitor picked up the paper and folded it neatly and laid it on the sofa beside him.

  "I'm hardly interested in a kook outfit like that," said Harry.

  The visitor raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "We thought you might be," he said, "considering your past record and the fact that you have been out of work for -- let's see -- it's almost six months, now, isn't it?" He looked at the ceiling as if his careful mental calculations must not be disturbed.

  "Who the devil are you?" Harry demanded. "CIA?"

  He could imagine no other outfit with the crust to demand he take a specified employment because they wanted him to. He could think of nothing, either, that could have brought him to their attention. That Vietnam deal --

  The visitor remained expressionless.

  "And what do you mean about my past record?" Harry said. "I've kept my nose clean."

  "Sure. You've just moved it around too much. Like leaving your Vietnam assignment half finished, for someone else to clean up."

  "I had been there almost eighteen months," said Harry.

  "Dropping a multi-million dollar operation in midstream -- you cost the Government a lot of money."

  "Not if they'd quit buying from outfits owned by Senators' brothers-in-law."

  "Technical Contract Negotiator for the Air Force. GS-18. Not a bad salary per diem and income tax rebate for foreign residence. But you walked out. Said you wanted to get back to straight engineering."

  "I walked out because I flipped my lid," said Harry. "My wife chose that precise time to surprise me with a divorce suit and I got drunk for three months."

  "In the divorce action your wife brought out the fact that you were notably unstable in your work activities. You moved so often you obtained a pretty widely known reputation as a floater."

  "You're saying it," said Harry bitterly. "You seem to know all about me."

  "So much so that we feel it rather urgent to insist you take this job opening which Smith Industries has available."

  "And if I don't?"

  "If you don't, I can promise that you're not going to get an engineering job anywhere, not even as second assistant foreman in a button hook factory."

  "So you are CIA," said Harry.

  "Let's say we are able to keep our promises."

  An awful illumination burst upon Harry. "It's you who have been keeping me out of work since I got back!"

  "The visitor shook his head. "You just don't walk out without notice from top-drawer engineering jobs. Not unless you want a blackball tied permanently to your tail. And that's what you have got. The word has gone out: Harry Wiseman is most unreliable."

  "How do you know this Smith Industries will hire me -- with a blackball tied to my tail?"

  "They're looking for your type. Independents they want."

  "Then I could get a job with them on my own. Your threats don't mean anything!"

  "Not quite. We'd be forced to let them know it was undesirable to hire you under those circumstances. They'd see it our way. Operating in foreign countries as they do, it's essential that Smith Industries have Government sanction."

  "All right," said Harry wearily. What do you want me to do?"

  "Apply for a job with Smith tomorrow. Then report to us regularly on what you are doing, what kind of a job and what kind of a firm you are with."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "Why can't you find out without all this flummery?"

  "Because Smith plays it close. We've tried to get a man into his shop before. He takes only top engineering talent and he knows it when he sees it. But we didn't try very hard last time. Now it's urgent that we find out."

  "Why?"

  "Because they may get wiped off the map at any moment."

  "And me with them?"

  "Possibly."

  "Smith's ad doesn't build up the deal much, and you sure are not doing anything for it."

  The visitor ignored Harry's comment. "Smith operates in one of the New Nations of Africa. It's a few thousand square miles right in the middle of the continent. When it was a British Protectorate, Smith obtained a mining concession, and he's managed to hang on to it. The local government of Gambua is made up of spear-throwing natives who still wear white men's teeth as necklaces, but Smith has survived so far. The New Nation next door is the Addabas, hereditary foes of the Gambuans. But they don't throw spears any more. They've got Russian missiles on mobile launchers, and one of them is in place right now with a bead on Smith's operation. We want to know what that operation is before the missile is fired."

  "You said it was a mining concession."

  "It is -- as a cover for whatever Smith is really doing. He has nearly two hundred people, and he hasn't shipped out any ore for ten years. Maybe the operation is simply a dud. But maybe it's something we ought to know about, since the Communists are willing to expend a few million rubles worth of missiles on it."

  "Do the Commies actually know what it is?"

  The visitor shook his head. "We don't know. They may be only setting up another provocation, a political probe. Or maybe sheer cussedness. Who knows? We want to find out."

  "And I'm to walk into a target area for Russian missiles that might be fired at any moment."

  "There's a nice bonus for you when you get back."

  "If I get back."

  The visitor shrugged. "That's the risk we all take. Maybe tomorrow's sunrise will be a Russian fireball. It's the modern way of life."

  "How do I know you're on the level?"

  The man rose. "Don't force us to pressure you. It won't do either of us any good. My name is Collins, by the way."

  II

  Harry stayed motionless in his chair as his visitor left, closing the door quietly. Beyond the window, the lights of Manhattan were distant, cold, and unfriendly. Harry felt an exhaustion as if he had been running for a long time. As if he didn't have enough troubles, why did one of the snoop agencies have to pick on him?

  It seemed as if it had been like that ever since Marcia walked out. She had turned out the light in his world when she left. He'd tried to cut every tie with engineering chores he'd once proudly called his career. Gadgets for the Great Society. he's walked out without notice. And so the word had been passed around: Harry Wiseman is not reliable. A hundred personnel offices had that in their files. And now he was vulnerable to Collins and his kind.

  He turned on the table lamp and picked up the paper again. Smith Industries. No Golfing. No Boating. No Etcetera. If it were on the level it might be something he'd be interested in. He should have seen it himself before Collins walked in. Maybe he could have been in Africa by now, and Collins would still be looking for his sucker contact.

  Who wanted to go to Africa? To a New Nation, where the natives still wear white men's teeth for necklaces?

  The office was in one of the slick new buildings off Fifth Avenue. It had pastel carpeting, Danish furniture, and op art on the walls. There was no sign of either sweat or guts.

  A half dozen engineering types were ahead of him. Collins or no Collins, he could come back some other time without getting in that line of has-beens
.

  The blonde at the desk stopped him. "It won't be long, Mr -- "

  "Wiseman. Harry Wiseman," Harry said. "I'm too busy to wait. Is the head man ready to see me?"

  "If you'll just fill out this application card, Mr. Smith can see you in a few minutes." The blonde smiled persuasively. "It's just a small card -- "

  "All right," he said grudgingly. "If I can borrow a pen -- "

  It would have to be a guy named Smith. Couldn't they be more original? But the blonde was right. After ten minutes of filling out the small yellow card, Harry was alone. The other six types were gone, and Harry was invited into the office of Mr. Smith.

  Smith was a Civil Engineering type. His history was written on his weather-tough face. A dam or a pipeline foreman in his twenties in some desert country. A project supervisor in his thirties. Vice-president and world-wide troubleshooter in his forties. Now in the home office in his fifties. But -- interviewing recruits? It didn't fit.

  Harry wondered how much Collins's interest in the company was justified.

  Smith looked at Harry's application. "What's your specialty?"

  "Microwave. Over-the-horizon radar," said Harry.

  "Nice," said Mr. Smith. "Very good." He glanced up. "Married?"

  "Was," said Harry. "No more."

  "We like our people to be married," said Mr. Smith with sudden fatherliness. "We provide the opportunity." He turned away to a filing cabinet and extracted a folder. He opened it and faced Harry again.

  "I'm afraid you have a rather unenviable job record," he said.

  There it was again. The same tune Collins had played. Harry wondered if they worked together.

  "What do you mean, unenviable?" he flared. "Guyw with forty-grand houses and garden-club wives would give an eye for a job record like mine. I was at Thule when their BMEWS radar was burned in."

  "And dismissed shortly thereafter -- "

  "The main work was done. No use banging around. Besides, they were already getting behind the state of the art and didn't want good advice on how to update. I was in Korea as Systems Engineer, troubleshooting the -- but that system is still too classified to talk about."

  "You walked off that job," said Smith, "when it was half finished and left someone else to clean up. You were making thirty grand a year and you walked off the job." He shook his head. "And now in Vietnam -- How could you do a thing like that?"

  Harry looked at the floor, his face slack. "I had problems. He looked up again, pulling his facial muscles into position. "But they're all solved now. Besides, how do you know so much about me? I'm supposed to be answering the questions."

  Mr. Smith tapped the folder. "An arrangement with the local employment counselors -- I have a dossier on most unemployed engineers in the locality. I like to be prepared when you come in."

  "All right. So you're going to tell me I'm a no-good boomer and your stable little organization can't use a man wh hasn't seen eye to eye with all the dumb supervisors he's encountered in the last twenty years -- and who happens to recognize that the average engineering job can be filled by a well-fed trained seal. Technical knowledge is doubling every 10 to 15 years! Trivia is doubling!"

  "On the contrary," said Mr. Smith mildly. "I like what I see. We're what you might call a maverick organization ourselves -- and we sort of run to maverick types in our personnel. Still, with your job record I don't know where you could go unless you decide to team up with us."

  "You mean you'll take me on?" Harry hated himself for the eagerness he couldn't keep out of his voice. Collins's threats had nothing to do with it.

  "That depends," said Mr. Smith. "That all depends. Shall we get down to business?"

  Business turned out to be a wringer that squeezed out every bit of data pertaining to Harry Wiseman's existence, as if he were a computer tape dumped for total readout. It lasted three days. Three days of EEG's, IQ's, dexterity tests, aptitude, physical ability, and psychological endurance tests. He had supposed such things happened only to captured secret agents. When it was over, Mr. Smith knew more about Harry Wiseman than Harry had ever known about himself. And Harry knew a few things he wished he didn't know.

  There was only one thing lacking. No one had told him what the job was.

  "You'll learn as you go along," Mr. Smith said kindly to a drained, exhausted Harry. "We operate according to good, on-the-job training principles."

  Three days of probing, analyzing, and embarrassing inquiries had lowered Harry's threshold of tolerance. He felt suddenly enraged. "I don't think I'm interested!" And if it hadn't been for Collins, he might have meant it.

  "You should know now that I understand you far better than you understand yourself. Go home and rest up. Come back tomorrow, and we'll complete the details."

  He left the building for the first time since entering three days ago. He left hating Smith's guts. But he hated Collins more. There was no way out.

  In his apartment he closed the door and leaned against it, feeling still the fury of his resentment against Smith. It was growing dark over the city, and he walked to the window without turning on any of the apartment lights.

  The trouble was, Collins and Smith were both right. He could not get a job with a button hook company right now. Marcia had been right, too -- before she walked out. Other engineers his age had given their wives forty-grand homes by now. Their kids had swimming pools and private LSD parties. But Harry Wiseman had always been the smart guy who was going to find the big one just over the horizon.

  Yet -- could this be it? Three days ago he had been desperate for a job. Now, he had two -- if Smith took him on. One job with Smith, and one with Collins. He wondered if Collins would give him a decent burial if one of those Russian missiles was fired while he was there. Except there would not be anything to bury.

  He was fascinated by Smith, however. The operation smacked of crackpots. But no crackpots had devised the probing analysis to which he had been subjected. Smith radiated a fierce and rational energy that had swept up Harry in his presence. Harry had to admit an attraction by the very force and power of the man. He knew he would have followed through even if Collins was not in the background.

  Of course, it was possible that what they were doing was strictly illegal. But he'd handled tougher customers. Up to now, however, he'd always had an idea what he was getting into. If he bought this, however, he'd be going blind.

  Still, there was no choice. Not even a button hook company --

  "Good morning," said Smith. "You look as if you had a good night's sleep."

  "From what you said last night, I take it I'm hired."

  "I thought you understood that."

  "How much?"

  "We'll start at twelve thousand. Maybe a little better as time goes on. Maybe not."

  "I was doing better than twice that."

  "Of course," said Smith. He spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. "But you wouldn't want to go back for three times the amount. We'll feed you and provide your clothers and pay you the twelve thousand. What more do you want? Remote control devices for airplanes! Any two-bit engineer can do that. You want better things."

  "All right. Where's the job? And what is it?"

  "It's almost precisely in the center of Africa," said Mr. Smith. And, as I told you, you'll find out what you are to do when you get there. Here are your tickets. You leave from Kennedy Airport at noon."

  III

  He went from New York to Rome to Cape Town by commercial airliner. At Cape Town, he boarded a private, ten-passenger jet with black and orange markings. Three fellow passengers boarded with him. A young Chinese. An East Indian. And a man from South America named Roberto Roderiguez. Only Roderiguez spoke English. But he wouldn't talk. He seemed apprehensive. All of them did.

  The pilot accepted the credentials supplied by Smith and said nothing.

  They flew straight north, past Tanganyika, over the depths of what was once called Darkest Africa and which was now a bevy of Emerging Nations. Harry knew that would m
ake no difference if the plane were forced down. The ship's occupants might be crucified upside down and roasted over a slow fire.

  Where the hell were they going, anyway?

  In the late afternoon, a large clearing appeared off the starboard wing. The pilot banked the jet and began a long swing around the clearing, which Harry estimated was about two miles in diameter, roughly circular. The plane dipped toward a runway near the south edge, where a group of buildings crouched. The rest of the area was bare of vegetation or artifact. Harry detected the line of a metal fence against the jungle. And, faintly, there seemed to be a pair of oblate hexagonal markings in the sand of the northern two thirds of the clearing.