Sunday is Three Thousand Years Away and Other SF Classics Page 8

* * * *

  Sunward City was the Riviera of Venus. Situated in an equatorial, volcanic region, it was the one locality where the eternal fogs of Venus did not persist. The sun shone bright and warm on the sands of the Eastern Sea and the great resort that was Sunward City reeked with exclusiveness. The tremendously wealthy of both Earth and Venus wintered there, for it combined the best of a score of vacation climates.

  Robin was there, lying on the white sands, watching the lazy surge of the sea when Jason found her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen on Venus or Earth, he thought. But she was like himself in every respect. There was nothing of loyalty or trustworthiness in her, and she was constantly on the lookout for a higher bidder—for her affections. So far, Jason had managed to outbid the field, but Robin was becoming a very expensive diversion.

  “Darling!” she greeted him in surprise, “I didn’t know you had come. Shall we swim?”

  “Do, if you like, I think I’d like to just lie here and bake in the sun. It seems so long since I saw any real sunshine.”

  He lay on the sands, feeling the sensual warmth and the nostalgic sensation of the rough sand particles against his skin. It brought back memories of his boyhood days and the infrequent visits to the poor resorts of Mars, of hours wallowing in the cold dunes.

  He felt intense pride of possession in Robin. Her fiery beauty was something to possess with pride. But there was no contentment in it, he thought wearily.

  Her eyes were unceasingly scanning the beach for new and more intriguing companions. Anger surging silently through him, he wished he had gone to Drian. He was gambling his dreams for a weekend with Robin.

  And then on the second night as he and Robin were together after a late supper, a squad of photographers and private detectives forced the apartment door and burst in. Lights flashed in their faces. In the background, Lotta’s prim, indignant figure stood erect in majestic triumph.

  “It’s taken me a long time, Jason, but I’ve found you at last. The divorce will be handled by my lawyer. I’ll expect transportation to Earth and possession of our estates there. Goodnight, Jason.”

  It was all over so quickly that it might have been only a flashing dream. But he knew it was real.

  Jason felt unaccountably lonely as the door slammed and he and Robin were alone again. He shrugged her away as she attempted to put her arms around him. “Don’t worry.” she said. “We can be together all we like now, can’t we?”

  He rose. “I’m afraid not. I’m afraid we won’t ever be alone together again. In fact, I think I’ll say good-bye to you now before you have a chance to give me the last word.”

  He picked up his coat. Robin screamed at him shrilly as he opened the door. “Jason! Come back here! I’ll blackmail you for everything you’ve got, I know — “

  He didn’t hear the rest of her screamed threats. Perhaps it would be necessary to have Reamond take care of her, he thought.

  * * * *

  Back in Viamonde, Jason forced himself to concentrate on the affairs of business. Today was the day an important delegation of the Jovian Satellite Federation was coming to demand delivery on their contract.

  The original contract had been for a hundred thousand distorters, but Jason had no intention of delivering that many yet. The Martians had been able to accept only sixty thousand on a cash and carry basis, so it wouldn’t do to let the Jovians have more. That might end the war too quickly. Though he didn’t actually need an excuse to bluff his way along with the Jovians, the labor troubles with the Venusians gave him one.

  He tried to concentrate on what was to be done, and constantly his mind slipped back to Lotta. Her departure upset the background of his life. It was very true that for many years Lotta had been nothing but background, nevertheless she was familiar and comfortable background. He missed her, and he knew it would be ridiculous to ever consider Robin in Lotta’s place.

  What disturbed him most of all, however, was how Lotta had finally discovered his whereabouts. He felt sure that up to this time his deception had been perfect. No one knew of his presence in Sunward City except him and Robin. Someone must have recognized him somewhere along the line and notified Lotta.

  He would give her a divorce without question. But it was defeat for him, and defeat struck him like a disease to which he had no immunity. It fevered his mind and constricted his vitals.

  He glanced at the cat, Old Tom, who sat in the window washing his paws with meticulous care. That symbol of initial conquest brought his mind back to the present fruits of conquest and the precarious situation with respect to the Venusian workers.

  Jason called Reamond first for a report on the Bridgeman business and the results obtained in the case of the diluted antidote.

  Reamond’s ministerial calm was unusually disturbed as he came in answer to Jason’s call. His face was flushed and he was walking very fast.

  “What’s wrong?” Jason asked before Reamond spoke.

  “Plenty. My men bungled somewhere. They had arranged a flier crash for Bridgeman by disturbing the autocontrol with a false heterodyne of the guide beam.”

  “I don’t am what could have gone wrong with an arrangement of that kind.”

  “Plenty. There was a patrol car following Bridgeman. It put out a beam to avert the crash, and then caught my men by direction finders.”

  Jason felt his scalp tingle. “The fools! How did they give themselves away like that?”

  “Someone tipped Bridgeman off to the whole plot.”

  “Tipped him off ? That’s impossible. No one knew of it but you and me and the bungling fools you assigned to the job. None of us would have tipped him off.”

  “Obviously. Yet he was tipped off.”

  Jason sat back in the swivel chair. His mind, already in turmoil because of the defeat administered by Lotta, was stunned by the implications of this. How could information possibly have leaked on such a secret operation as Bridgeman’s removal?

  “It’s obviously a trick,” he said at last as if repeating something only to reinforce his own belief in it. “You and I know that Bridgeman could not have obtained information concerning our plans. There is no audio-detection operation in the plant, and certainly not in this room. Triple alarm screens would go off if there were any low or high-frequency radiation present to spy upon us. The telephone circuits are scrambled before they leave this office. There is no leak.”

  “Then how did he know?”

  “Deduction. He assumed that we would be after him because of his upholding my brother’s production of serum. Therefore, he obtained a constant guard until we tipped our hand. Then your men were caught. He’s smarter than we gave him credit for. All of which means that he must definitely be eliminated. But you’ll have to think of something a lot better than that last trick. What of the men the Patrol captured?”

  “They swallowed cyanide before they could be made to talk, of course. They knew it was death to be caught in such a crime.”

  “At least that avenue of information was stopped. Of course, they didn’t know they were working for Cartwright Enterprises.”

  “Of course not. They thought I was a small-time gangster. I keep a front down in the dock area.”

  “Good. It means then, that there was really no leak, simply an underestimation of Bridgeman. What charges has he made against us ?”

  “None, so far. That’s what I don’t understand.”

  “It’s easy. He expects us to make another attempt, and the patrol won’t believe that we’re connected with it. But they’ll give him a plenty big guard after this attempt. Your next idea will have to be a good one. What about the Venusians and their labor organization ?”

  * * * *

  Reamond shook his head slowly and stared out of the window over the silhouette of the cat, who was now immobile, as if on guard against some unexpected happening.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing! What do you mean?”

  “Just that. Nothing. Do you know what
they’ve done, Jason?”

  “What?”

  “They’re making immunes.”

  Jason’s glance swept to Old Tom, who returned his stare. Jason’s face slowly flushed and his jaws clenched. “This is some of Robert’s work. I warned him. He’s given the secret of his serum to the Venusians. Get him!”

  Reamond shook his head. “Lock the barn after the horse is gone? What good would it do? Besides, Robert had nothing to do with this. The Venusians discovered it themselves.”

  “His serum?”

  “No. All they do is inject some of the blood of an immune into an infant. Apparently, the presence of antibodies in the natural immunes is a mutation that has finally shown up and will eventually destroy jungle Dread, but the Venusians have been speeding it up. They’ve been doing it since the first Earthmen arrived and brought the rudiments of bacteriology and immunology with them. It’s so simple that it’s a wonder it wasn’t thought of long ago. But the Vemisians are rapidly becoming a race of immunes. There are hundreds of thousands now reaching maturity. So from the long view of things the Drian circumstance means nothing. It will do no good to go in there and fight them.

  “We’ve got to offer them something, much more than they’ve asked for or we’re gone. They can live without us, but we can’t do business without them—yet. Our days of unlimited exploitation are over. We must have sense enough to realize it.”

  Jason pinched his thick jowls. “I still think Robert had something to do with this.”

  But that was not important, now, he thought. What was vastly more important was the contracts and materials being worked in the vast Drian plants, materials whose destinations were known only to a handful of top executives of the company.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Jason at last. “We’ll offer them improved working conditions and increased pay that will make their eyes pop. But we’ll stick in one provision—that no immune will be hired. That will discourage the production of immunes, and prolong our period of control.”

  Reamond smiled slowly and watched the powerful visage of Jason Cartwright. Reamond’s trade had made him a student of men by necessity, and he could see in Jason already an obsolete type. The type had flourished during the cutthroat commerce of frontier days in every part of Earth and the Solar System, but now it was going. The frontiers were breaking down and civilization was coming. More so on Venus than on any other frontier because the retarded evolution of the Venusians was catching up. It seemed very probable that the Venusians would surpass Earthmen in numerous skills and branches of knowledge before many decades passed. Their evolution was rendering Jason and all like him rapidly obsolete. But Jason would be the last to know it.

  As for Reamond, he prided himself on his ability to change his characteristics to fit conditions, like a chameleon. Jason would go. Reamond saw his downfall as inevitable. But Reamond himself would go on forever, he knew.

  He said. “Whatever you like, Jason. I’ll see that it’s put through.”

  “All right. Go ahead. No, wait. Let me announce it to the workers myself. We’ll make a big occasion out of it. I’ll work out a program of changes and present it to them—but the provision for nonemployment of immunes must be included.”

  Reamond rose and started for the door. “I’ll be ready to do my part in the program whenever you say.”

  * * * *

  After he was gone, Jason’s mind went back to the failure in the case of Dr. Bridgeman. It was intolerable. Certainly, Reamond had hired a pair of fools to carry out the task—but the plan couldn’t have leaked. There was no possible way for it to have leaked out. Yet it was hard to credit the soft-spoken, dreamy-eyed Bridgeman with enough suspicion of anyone to anticipate the attempt on his life, merely because he had stood up for what he considered to be right. True, he had made the threat to resign, but it had never been carried out.

  And from this, Jason’s mind leaped to the mysterious manner in which Lotta had caught him at Sunward City. The two instances of others knowing intimate and well-concealed facts swirled in his mind in a confusing pattern of defeat.

  The outside line buzzed and Jason switched on the phone. The face of his personal physician, Dr. Wallace, appeared on the screen.

  “Hello, Jason, how’s the health these days?”

  “Fine, fine, Doc. Haven’t the slightest need of you. Going to live to be a hundred and fifty.”

  “Well, I think you ought to come in for your six-monthly check.”

  “Make it next month sometime. I’m just too busy right now. I couldn’t possibly make it.”

  “You pay me plenty, Jason. I like to earn my keep. But the thing I really wanted to say, is: Lay off the Teoqua. I hear you’re hitting the bottle again.”

  Jason felt his face suffusing. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Oh, that sort of thing gets around. People notice it when someone like you goes off the wagon. I forget exactly where I did hear it now, but you ought to lay off the stuff, Jason. It’s worth ten years of your life.”

  “Where did you hear it?” Jason thrust his face towards the pickup until his face filled the screen on Wallace’s phone.

  Wallace recoiled from that sudden burst. “I said I didn’t know, Jason. Surely it isn’t such a breach of confidence if your personal physician warns you — “

  “Sure not. Sure it isn’t, doctor.” Jason forced his voice to calmness. “It’s just that I naturally get irked about people sticking their noses into my business. Sorry. I’ll take your advice.”

  He cut off abruptly and sat back in the chair trembling. He was absolutely certain that since Dr. Wallace had last warned him against Teoqua no human being had seen him touch a drop of it. The only time he imbibed was in his private office, alone, and from the hidden miniature bar in the filing cabinet.

  But, of course. He had to have the stuff purchased. That’s how Wallace had got wind of it. He tried to recall the chain of handling. Lotta ordered the stuff, ostensibly for the household and guest supply. She had ordered a particularly big amount the last time because they’d given two large parties within a week. That was it. Someone in the liquor dispensary had observed the order going to the Cartwrights’, and that’s where the news had started.

  He cursed violently all the loose-tongued gossipers that had disturbed the Solar System since the beginning of time. Why couldn’t people learn to shut up? He glanced at Old Tom lying down now in the window, his eyes blinking sleepily as he tried to stay awake in spite of the warm sun shining upon him through a sudden rift in the eternal clouds of Venus.

  “At least you don’t babble what you hear.” Jason crossed and stroked the cat’s ears while he stared out at the muddy street below.

  After a time he glanced impatiently at the clock. The delegation of the Jovian Satellite Federation were already an hour late. They had not even announced their landing to the field control tower. At last he gave up and went out for lunch.

  He took Old Tom along and let him consume a mountainous helping of raw hamburger at the private table of the company officers in the cafeteria.

  When he returned, the Jovian delegation was waiting for him.

  * * * *

  The roughly anthropomorphic Satellite dwellers bowed low when Jason entered.

  “Our deepest apologies for not keeping our appointment on time,” said Suu Brok, the spokesman. And as be bowed low, Old Tom strode under his nose and took up a position on Jason’s desk.

  The delegates had difficulty in maintaining composure.

  “My closest confidante,” said Jason, with a wave towards the cat. “He never repeats what he hears, you know.”

  “An excellent choice,” said Suu Brok. “Especially in view of the many important matters that invite confidence in your magnificent office.”

  “Right. Sit down over here and let’s get down to business. You want to know, I presume, the state of production on the distorter contract.”

  “Correct,” said Suu Brok, “We also want to take the delivery o
f the first hundred thousand units, if that will be satisfactory.”

  “We’ve had some labor difficulties that have slowed production somewhat. You are aware, of course, that the Venusians are the only ones capable of the delicate handwork involved in construction of the distorters.

  It is difficult always to get the anticipated amount of production out of the Venusians.”

  “But you promised I” Suu Brok expostulated. “And we’ve set the hour of striking. Less than eight Solar Days from now we attack the Martian base at Juufrong.”

  “Aren’t you a little premature? Even a hundred thousand distorters would not warrant your striking that soon.”

  “We must! We’ve broken the Martian interstellar code and learned that they intend to strike at our Anterian outpost only two days later.”

  “Well, of course that’s no affair of ours. We have the weapons to sell if you have the money. I’ll guarantee completion of the order within three days.”

  “We can’t wait that long!”

  “You’ll have to. I’m going personally to the Drian plant today to assist in settling the difficulties among the workers. That will have to suffice.”

  The Jovians looked upon Jason Cartwright darkly. “It will suffice,” said Suu Brok stiffly.

  When the delegation had gone, Jason grinned broadly at the cat sitting on the desk. “Have to be careful when we’re playing both ends against the middle, eh, Tom?”

  He drew out a sheaf of papers from the filing cabinet. The Maltese cat looked down interestedly as Jason thumbed over the delivery records showing shipments of distorters to the Martians.

  The Martians possessed just a few more than sixty thousand of the deadly weapons according to Jason’s confidential papers. Therefore, that would be the limit on the Jovians’ present allotment. The war would have to be kept as evenly balanced as possible for the maximum sale of materials to both sides. Jason had long watched the growing conflict between the two races and anticipated it as the means of obtaining System-wide commercial superiority.

  If he handled things right, he could make Cartwright Enterprises the richest company in the System.