Bookspot - Neon Goldfish by S. C. Jensen

Bookspot - Neon Goldfish by S. C. Jensen 

Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up detective who might be the only one crazy enough to take them on.

A darkly funny mashup for fans of space opera, cyberpunk, and hard-boiled noir thrillers. Delve into the secrets of this gritty future world, and buckle up for an adventure full of unusual characters, dark humour, and non-stop action.

When Bubbles Marlowe discovers a jaw-dropping bounty on a pair of stolen diamonds, she agrees to find the jewels and bring the thief to justice.

But she soon realizes she’s not the only one after the infamous ice, and the competition is brutal.

The case takes a turn for the depraved when she finds out the true reason the diamonds were stolen.

By the time she gets wise, she’s in way over her head…

Neon Goldfish is the third stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space series.

Alien by George O. Smith

 

Alien

by George O. Smith

The telephone rang and the lieutenant of police Timothy McDowell grunted. He put down his magazine, and hastily covered the partially-clad damsel on the front cover before he answered the ringing phone.

"McDowell," he grunted.

"McDowell," came the voice in his ear. "I think ye'd better come overe here."

"What's up?"

"Been a riot at McCarthy's on Boylston Street."

"That's nothing new," growled McDowell, "excepting sometimes it's Hennesey's on Dartmouth or Kelley's on Massachusetts."

"Yeah, but this is different."

"Whut's so different about a riot in a jernt like McCarthy's on a street like Boylston?"

"Well, the witnesses say it wuz started by a guy wearin' feathers instead uv hair."

"A bird, you mean."

"Naw. 'Twas a big fella, according to tales. A huge guy that refused to take off his hat and they made a fuss. They offered to toss him out until he uncovered, and when he did, here was this full head of feathers. There was a general titter that roared up into a full laugh. The guy got mad."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He got mad and made a few swings. 'Twas quite a riot."

"What did McCarthy expect – a dance? When a guy gets laughed at for having feathers instead of hair. … Holy St. Patrick! Feathers, did ye say?"

"Yup."

"Look, O'Leary," growled McDowell angrily, "you've not been drinkin' yourself, have ye?"

"Nary a drop, lieutenant."

"So this bird takes off his hat and shows feathers. The crowd laughs and he gets mad. Then what?"

"Well, he tossed the bartender through the plate glass window, clipped McCarthy on the button and tossed him across the bar and wrecked about fifteen hundred dollars worth of fine Irish whiskey. Then he sort of picked up Eddy, the bouncer, and hit Pete, the waiter, with him. Then, having started and finished his own riot, the guy takes his drink, downs it, and stamps out, slamming the door hard enough to break the glass."

"Some character," glowed McDowell, admiringly. "But what am I supposed to do?"

"McCarthy wants to swear out a warrant for the guy. But before we do, I want to know more about this whole thing. First off, what's a man doing wearing feathers instead of honest hair?"

"Ask him," grunted McDowell.

"Shall I issue the warrant?"

"Yeah – disturbing the peace. He did that, anyway. And if it's some advertising stunt – this feathers business – I'll have some wiseacre in jail in the morning. Look, O'Leary, I'll meet you at McCarthy's in ten minutes." He hung up the phone and snapped the button on his communicator.

"Doc?" he barked. "Come along if you want to. We've got us a guy wearing feathers instead of hair!"

"Trick," growled the doctor. "Go away. No one can grow feathers instead of hair."

"That's why I want you along. Come on, Doc. This is an order!"

"Confound you and your orders." He hung up angrily, and the lieutenant heard him breaking up the poker game as he snapped his own switch closed.

* * * * *

It was ten minutes to the second when the car pulled up before McCarthy's. O'Leary was already inside, talking to a man holding a chunk of raw beef to his eye.

"Now," said McDowell, entering with the doctor on his heels, "what's this about feathers?"

"Swear it, lieutenant. An' I want the devil clapped in jail where he belongs."

"Sure now," said McDowell in a mollifying tone, "and you can prove them feathers were really growin'?"

"Sure," snapped McCarthy. "Here!" and he handed Lieutenant McDowell something slightly bloody. It was a bit of skin, to which was attached three tiny feathers. "Just before he bopped me I got me hands in his scalp to see if they wuz real. They wuz, because they came hard and he howled and went madman."

McDowell handed the specimen to Doc. "Examine it, Doc. One, are they real feathers? Two, is that real human skin, and three, is that human blood?"

"That'll take time," said the doctor looking at the bloody bit. "Bet that hurts, though."

"Hurts?" grunted McDowell. "So what?"

"By which I mean that he'll be visiting a doctor or a hospital for treatment. That's no home-remedy job!"

"O.K.," smiled McDowell cheerfully. "Now look, McCarthy. We'll get right on it. You've got your warrant and can prefer charges. Meanwhile there's nothing I can do here. We'll go back to the station and go to work."

"How about the damages?" growled the owner.

"I'm a policeman, not a civil lawyer," returned McDowell. "Take it to court when we catch our – bird."

"A fine force we got," grumbled McCarthy belligerently.

McDowell grunted angrily and turned to O'Leary. "He don't like us," he said.

"McCarthy, have you been closing promptly at midnight on Saturday night?" demanded O'Leary. "That's a bad law to break, you know."

"I've been lawful," returned the barkeep. "And I'll watch me step in the future."

McDowell laughed and he and the Doc left the place.

* * * * *

Back at the station, reporters met them with questions. McDowell held up a hand. "Look, boys," he said with a grin, "this may be something you can print. It may also be an attempt to ridicule the force. I'll tell you this much: There was a guy apparently wearing feathers instead of hair that started a riot in McCarthy's on Boylston a little while ago. Now if you'll hold off phoning that in until we check, we'll tell you whether the guy was wearing feathers – or growing them! Also – whether he was human. Mind waiting?"

"We'll wait," came the chorused reply.

"Whatcha going to use for lead?" asked one reporter of another.

"I don't know yet. It depends whether he was having a frat initiation or was really one of our fine feathered friends."

McDowell followed the doctor in – and the reporters followed the lieutenant in. Gag or not, thought McDowell, these guys will be as good to me as I am to them. And if it is a gag, we'll show 'em that we know how to find out about such, anyway.

Doc ignored the room teeming with people, and went to work. He made test after test, and then pored through a couple of volumes from his bookcase. Finally he gave that up and faced the group, casting a glance at McDowell.

McDowell said: "This is off the record until I find out what he's got to say. If it's O.K., you get it first hand, O.K.?"

The reporters nodded.

Doc cleared his throat. "The skin is human – so is the blood. Indications are the feathers were growing out of the skin, not merely inserted."

"You're certain?" gasped one reporter.

"I'm reasonably sure," qualified the doctor. "Skin ... well, skin has certain tests to prove it. This stuff is human skin, I'm certain. It couldn't be anything else. The feathers – I tried to classify them, but it will take a professional ornithologist to do that."

"But Doc," queried the reporter, "if that's human skin, how can feathers be growing out of it?"

"Ask me another," said the doctor, puzzled.

"Huh," grunted the reporter. "Man from – ?" He shut his trap but quick, but the words carried enough connotation.

"Look," said McDowell, "you can use that Man from Mars gag if you want to, but don't say we said so. It's your own idea, see?"

"Right, lieutenant," they said, happy to get this much. It would make a bit of reading, this item.

"Now," said McDowell. "Doc and I are going over to Professor Meredith's place and ask him if he knows what kind of feathers these are."

One reporter spoke up quickly. "I'm holding mine until we get Meredith's report," he said. "And I've got a station wagon outside. Come on, lieutenant and Doc – and any of you mugs that want to ride along."

There was a grand rush for the door.

* * * * *

Professor Meredith looked the feather over carefully, classifying it as best he could. He sorted through several books, consulted many notes of his own, and made careful counts of the spines-per-inch along the shaft of the feather. He noted its coloring carefully and called for a general statement as to the color, size, and general shape of the feather.

"This is done somewhat like you file fingerprints," he told the lieutenant. "But here at home I'm stumped. I've never seen that kind before. However, over at the university we have a punched-card sorter. We can run through all known birds and see if any of the feathers agree with this specimen."

This time they took Professor Meredith along with them. Using official sanction, the professor opened the laboratory and entered the building. It was three hours later that the professor made his official statement to the police and to the press.

"This feather is not known to the scientific world," he said. "However, it does exist, and that proves that the scientific world does not know everything there is. I would say, however, that the animal from which this came is not known in any regular part of the civilized world."

"Explain that, Professor Meredith," requested McDowell.

"It is a small feather – fully grown. It is in an advanced stage of evolution. Feathers, you know, evolved from scales and we can tell how far they have come. It must come from a small bird, which is also evidenced by the fact that it is not known to man. There are places in the backwaters of the Amazon where man has not been, and certain spots in Africa and the part of the world near Malaya. Oceania, and others."

"May we quote you on this, professor?" asked the Press.

"Why – yes. But tell me now, where did you get that feather?"

McDowell explained. And Professor Meredith gasped. "I'll revise my statements," he said with a smile. "This feather is not known to exist in the scientific world. If the story is true, that this feather emerged from the scalp of a man, it is a scientific curiosity that would startle the world – and make a mint for the owner in any freak show."

The reporter from the Press said: "Professor, you state that this feather is not known to the scientific world. Is there any chance that this – creature – is utterly alien?"

"Since the disclosure of the affair at Hiroshima and Nagasaki," smiled the professor, "a lot of people have been thinking in terms of attaining the stars – interplanetary travel. As a member of a certain society known as the Forteans, one of our big questions has been this: If interplanetary travel is possible, why hasn't someone visited us? Gentlemen, I'd not like to hear myself quoted as giving the idea too much credulence, but it is something to ponder."

That did it. There was another general rush for the car. There was a wild ride following, in which the man from the Press displayed that he had two things – a careful disregard for traffic laws, plus illegal ownership of a siren. But they delivered Professor Meredith to his home, the policemen to their station, and then the party broke up heading for their respective telephones.

Three hours later Lieutenant McDowell was reading a headline stating: "Hub of world to be Hub of Universe?"

* * * * *

McDowell groaned. "Everything happens to Boston, and everything in Boston happens on Boylston Street. And everything that happens on Boylston Street happens to me."

Doc smiled sourly. "Now what?"

"We've canvassed the medical profession from Brookline to Everett, including the boys on Scollay Square and a bouquet of fellows who aren't too squeamish about their income. Not a sign. Furthermore, that feather specimen was telephotoed to the more-complete libraries at New York, Chicago, Washington, and Berkeley. The Audubon Society has been consulted, as well as have most of the big ornithologists in the world. The sum total is this:

"That feather is strictly unlike anything known. The skin is human – or as one dermatologist put it, is as human as possible considering that it is growing feathers instead of hair. The blood is the same story."

Doc nodded. "Now what?" he repeated, though the sense of his words was different.

"We wait. Boy, there's a big scareline in all the papers. The Press is hinting that the guy is from outer space, having been told that there were intelligent humans here by that series of atom bomb explosions."

"If we were really intelligent, we could get along with one another without atom bombs," grunted the Doc.

"Well, the Sphere claims that the character is a mutant resulting from atom bomb radiation by-products, or something. He quotes the trouble that the photographic manufacturers are having with radioactive specks in their plants. The Tribune goes even further. He thinks the guy is an advance spy for an invasion from outer space, because his gang of feather-bearing humans are afraid to leave any world run loose with atom bombs.

"The ultraconservative Events even goes so far as to question the possibility of a feather-bearing man growing to full manhood without having some record of it. Based on that premise, they build an outer space yarn about it, too."

Doc grunted. "Used to be invasions from Mars," he said.

"They're smarter now," explained McDowell. "Seems as how the bright boys claim that life of humanoid varieties couldn't evolve on any planet of this system but the Earth. Therefore if it is alien, it must come from one of the stars. If it came from Mars it would be green worms, or seven-legged octopuses. Venus, they claim, would probably sprout dinosaurs or a gang of talking walleyed pike. Spinach, I calls it."

Doc smiled. "Notice that none of 'em is claiming that they have the truth? It's all conjecture so far."

"Trouble is that I'm the fall guy," complained McDowell. "It landed in my lap and now I'm it – expected to unravel it myself or be the laughingstock of the country, Canada, and the affiliations of the Associated Press."

* * * * *

The phone rang, and McDowell groaned. "Some other guy wanting to climb on the wagon with us. Been ringing all morning, from one screwbell or another with theories, ideas, un-helpful suggestions as to how to trap the alien, and so forth. My own opinion is to treat him nice, apologize for our rather fool behavior, and see that he don't take a bad statement home with him. If he tells 'em about us from what he's seen – Hello," he bawled into the phone.

"I am Mrs. Donovan, on Tremont Street. I wanted to report that the fellow with the feathers on his head used to pass my window every morning on his way to work."

"Fine," said McDowell, unconvinced. "Will you answer me three questions?"

"Certainly."

"First, how do you know – seems he never took his hat off?"

"Well, he was large and he acted suspicious –"

"Sure," growled McDowell, hanging up the phone.

He turned again to Doc. "It's been like this. People who think they've seen him; people who are sure they've had him in for lunch, almost. Yet they missed calling about a character growing feathers instead of hair until there's a big fuss – just as though a guy with a head covered with feathers was quite the ordinary thing until he takes a swing at a guy in a saloon."

Doc said: "You've canvassed all the medics in Boston and environs?"

"In another hour we'll have all the medics in Massachusetts. Give us six hours and we'll have 'em all over New England and part of Canada, New York, and the fish along the Atlantic Ocean."

"Have you tried the non-medics?"

"Meaning?"

"Chiropodists, and the like. They aren't listed in the Medical Register, but they will often take care of a cut or scrape."

McDowell laughed. "Just like a stranger to go to a foot specialist to get a ripped scalp taken care of."

"Well, it is farfetched, but might be."

"I'm going to have the boys chalk all sorts, and we'll follow up with the pharmacists. Does that feather-headed bird know how much money he's costing the city, I wonder?" McDowell gritted his teeth a bit as the phone rang again. "I wonder what this one has to say," he snarled, and then barked: "McDowell," into the instrument.

"I have just seen the feather-headed man on Huntington Avenue," replied a gruff voice. "This is Dr. Muldoon, and I'm in a drugstore on the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts."

"You've seen him? How did you know?"

"His hat blew off as he came out of the subway entrance here."

"Subway -?"

The doctor chuckled. "The Boston Elevated, they call it. He headed toward Symphony Hall just a moment ago – after collecting his hat."

"How many people were there?"

"Maybe a dozen. They all faded out of sight because they're a bit scared of that alien-star rumor. He grabbed his hat rather quickly, though, and hurried out of the way as I came here to telephone."

"Stay there," snapped McDowell, "and I'll be right over."

McDowell and Doc jumped into the car and went off with the siren screaming. McDowell cursed a traffic jam at Copley Square and took the corner on one and one-half wheels into Huntington. They ignored the red light halfway up Huntington, and they skidded to a stop at Massachusetts Avenue to see a portly gentleman standing on the corner. He wasted no time, but jumped in the car and introduced himself as Dr. Muldoon.

"He went this way," pointed the doctor. The car turned roughly and started down the street. They combed the rabbit-warren of streets there with no sign of the feather-headed man at all.

McDowell finally gave up. "There are a million rooming houses in this neighborhood," he said sorrowfully. "He could lose himself in any one of them."

"I'm sorry," said the doctor. "It's funny that this cut scalp hasn't caused him to turn up somewhere."

"That's what we'd hoped for," said McDowell. "But either the guy is treating himself or he's got an illegal medic to do the job."

"From what you say – a piece of scalp ripped loose – it is nothing to fool around with. How big was the piece?"

"About as big as a fingernail," grinned McDowell.

"Most dangerous. He might die of infection."

"I wonder if he knows that?"

"I wouldn't know," said Dr. Muldoon.

"Well, I've combed the doctors. Now I'm going after the dermatologists, chiropodists, osteopaths, and pharmacists. I might as well take a swing at the chiropractors, too, and maybe hit that institution down on Huntington near Massachusetts. They might know about him."

McDowell looked up at the second-story offices that bordered Massachusetts Avenue between Huntington and Boylston and shook his head. "A million doctors, dentists, and what-nots. And what is a follicologist?"

"A hair specialist."

"A what?" exploded McDowell. He jammed on the brakes with a hundred and seventy pounds of man aided with some muscle-effort against the back of the seat. The police car put its nose down and stopped. But quick. Traffic piled up and horns blasted notice of impatience until McDowell jumped out, signaled to a traffic cop to unsnarl the mess. Then McDowell raced into the office.

* * * * *

He paused at the door marked: Clarence O'Toole, Follicologist. McDowell paused, listening, for two voices were coming through the door. One was rumbling, low. The other was in a familiar brogue.

"But this hurts," complained the rumble.

"Naturally. Any scalping hurts. But money will ease any hurt."

"But where's this money?"

"You are to get ten percent of my profit for a year. That plus a good head of hair. Isn't that enough?"

"Ordinarily, yes. But I'm in a jam, now. The police are looking for me with blood in their eyes."

"Now, surrender yourself," said the brogue. "Go to this Lieutenant McDowell. Explain the error. Tell them that you were afraid, that you'd been hiding because of the ridicule attendant to the feathers on your scalp. Then go to the press and demand satisfaction for their ridicule, libel; throw the book at them. That will get us the publicity we want, and as soon as the thing is explained, people will come in droves. But first you can explain to McDowell –"

"And start now!" exploded McDowell, bursting in angrily. He pointed the business-end of his revolver at them and waved them back. "Sit down," he barked. "And talk!"

"It was him," accused the feather-headed one. "He wanted me to do this – to get into an argument. To get publicity. He can grow hair – I've been as bald as an onion."

"Sure," drawled McDowell. "The jury will decide." He turned to O'Toole. "Are you a doctor?"

"I am not a licensed Doctor of Medicine."

"We'll see if what you are doing can be turned into a charge of practicing with no license."

"I'm not practicing medicine. I'm a follicologist."

"Yeah? Then what's this feather-business all about?"

"Simple. Evolution has caused every genus, every specimen of life to pass upward from the sea. Hair is evolved from scales and feathers evolved also from scales.

"Now," continued O'Toole, "baldness is attributed to lack of nourishment for the hair on the scalp. It dies. The same thing often occurs in agriculture –”

"What has farming to do with hair-growing?" demanded McDowell.

"I was coming to that. When wheat will grow no longer in a field, they plant it with corn. It is called 'Rotation of Crops.' Similarly, I cause a change in the growth-output of the scalp. It starts off with a light covering of scales, evolves into feathers in a few days, and the feathers evolve to completion. This takes seven weeks. After this time, the feathers die because of the differences in evolutionary ending of the host. Then, with the scalp renewed by the so-called Rotation of Crops."

"Uh-huh. Well, we'll let the jury decide!"

Two months elapsed before O'Toole came to trial. But meantime, the judge took a vacation and returned with a luxuriant growth of hair on his head. The jury was not cited for contempt of court even though most of them insisted on keeping their hats on during proceedings. O'Toole had a good lawyer.

And Judge Murphy beamed down over the bench and said: "O'Toole, you are guilty, but sentence is suspended indefinitely. Just don't get into trouble again, that's all. And gentlemen, Lieutenant McDowell, Dr. Muldoon, and Sergeant O'Leary, I commend all of your work and will direct that you, Mr. McCarthy, be recompensed. As for you," he said to the ex-featherhead. "Mr. William B. Windsor, we have no use for foreigners -"

Mr. Windsor never got a chance to state that he was no foreigner; his mother was a Clancy.

You can check out George O. Smith's wikipedia page here

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Outstanding Science Fiction October 1946. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).

The First Man on the Moon by Alfred Coppel

 

The First Man on the Moon

by Alfred Coppel

The ship lay at a crazy angle on the stark whiteness of the pumice plain. The rocket nozzles were a fused lump of slag; the fire-darkened hull crumpled and warped by the impact of landing. And there was silence … complete and utter silence.

There could be no return. Thurmon realized this. At first the thought had brought panic, but, as the scope of his achievement dawned on him, the fear retreated. Bruised, giddy, half-crazed … the certainty of death held no terrors. Not yet. And it was worth it! Fame … immortality! Glory … in return for the last few years of a blighted, embittered, over-shadowed life. Yes, it was well worth it. And, except for the crash-landing and the certainty of no return, it had all come to pass just as he had planned it for so long.

On his knees he caressed the gritty soil. He lifted his arms toward the Day Star flaming in the day-night of space and knew completion. Tears streaked his stubbled face, and strange noises came from his slack mouth. The ecstasy of success was almost unbearable. For this, he had labored a lifetime. For this, he had murdered a friend. …

Across the abyss, the whole world waited for word. The transmitter in the rocket had survived the crash. The word would come, thought Thurmon … when he was ready to send it. And sending it, he would place the official seal of immortality on his brow. The book would close. But wonderfully, satisfyingly. There would be no other to steal his rightful glory. Only Wayne could have done that … and Wayne was dead. He laughed weirdly within his helmet. So simply done!

The Sea of Serenity stretched out before him in weird magnificence. In the far distance a mountain range rose precipitously from the wilderness of pumice to hump its spiny backbone at the brilliant stars. A limbo of black shadows and stark white talus slopes. Moonscape! Thurmon stumbled to his feet and fought the wave of nausea that surged over him as his equilibrium teetered from the low gravity. Then in an instant his discomfort was forgotten. Standing on the brink of the cosmos, his ego drank of grandeur. All the splendor of Creation lay before him like a jeweled carpet. All his! All for John Thurmon, genius … explorer … murderer! For John Thurmon … first man on the Moon!

With an effort he dragged his eyes from the sky. Slowly, his reason was returning. There was work to do. Wayne must be hidden. The next to come must never know. And it should be done quickly. Time would fly and in the last hours the fear would return. He knew that. Right now his triumph sustained him.

There was the broadcast to look forward to. A billion people waited for his words. It was a sop to his ego, but it could not make him forget that this was costing him his life. On occasion, Thurmon could be realistic, and he knew that, when there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for the end, he would be afraid. Terribly, hideously afraid and alone. It was the only flaw in his plan for immortality. Yet, his life had been a barren thing, devoid of love or any real success. It was little enough to trade. And this was his only chance for lasting fame. He could not let it go.

The plan was working … almost of its own inertia. He was alone. He was on the Moon, where no man had ever been before him. Not even Wayne. Wayne, who designed the rocket and guided it. Wayne, who had stolen every chance Thurmon had ever had for recognition! Well, Wayne was dead now. He had never put a living foot on the soil of the Moon. Only Thurmon had done that. And it was his passport to eternal glory! No one, no one could take that away from him! Weighed in the loaded balance of his mind, it more than compensated for dying alone and on an alien world. In fact, even the dying would add to the legends, and Thurmon would live forever. The first man on the Moon!

He ran his tongue over dry lips and stooped to pick up the thing at his feet. Wayne's corpse was still bloated from internal pressures, and the naked flesh was drying fast to a parchment-like consistency. Moisture was still seeping in awful little globules from the shattered skull where Thurmon's unseen blow had landed.

Thurmon found himself shuddering. The murder had been the hardest part … but now it was done … and all that remained was to give his dead companion a secret resting-place somewhere in the vast expanse of pumice that lay out there under the blistering sun. …

Thurmon's unsteady mind swerved from high elation to sadness. Poor Wayne! He felt he could afford to be generous now. So many years of work so soon to be forgotten. Just one quick blow, and poor, poor Wayne slipped into the limbo of the Earth's forgotten. …

Under the light gravity, he carried the naked, grisly bundle easily. And, as he walked out into the Mare Tranquilitatis, his spirits rose again. How wonderful it was to be certain that no one could steal his triumph! Not even Wayne. Particularly not Wayne. He looked down at the thing in his arms and chuckled. The sound was uncanny within the pyrex bubble of his helmet.

After what seemed a long time, Thurmon stopped and set down his burden. With his pack-spade he set to work digging a trench in the pumice. As he dug, he found himself crooning happily to the corpse. His voice was high-pitched and hysterical, but of course he did not notice it.

"There, there ... Wayne, old friend ... see? I am making a grave for you. The very first grave, Wayne ... and you shall have it, old friend! Yours the grave and mine the glory!" He laughed hilariously at the thought. "I'll say you didn't make it alive. You didn't, did you? But I made it, Wayne. Me! Alone ... all alone! With no help from you, do you hear?"

Thurmon chattered on, the sound of his crazed voice dying within the confines of his helmet, while all around him the eternal silence of the Sea of Serenity continued unbroken. The stars shown steadily in the airless sky, and the sun flamed in impotent splendor, furiously silent.

At last the pit was done, and Thurmon lowered the nude corpse into the shadows. "Goodbye, Wayne. You see, you shouldn't have come here with me. You shouldn't have tried to steal my success. That was a wrong thing. But you're sorry now, aren't you, old friend? Don't feel too badly, Wayne. I'll join you soon. Goodbye, Wayne. Goodbye.…" Laboriously, he shoveled pumice into the pit and tamped it down with his leaded boots. Then he smoothed the surface of the dig until it was as smooth as the rest of the surrounding plain. Satisfied, he turned his back on the grave and started for the rocket.

He sang on the way back, so happy was he to have done with his ghastly companion. Recklessly prodigal of his oxygen supply, he ran toward the open valve of the ship. Breath coming hard, he stumbled into the rocket and across the buckled deck-plates to the radarphone. The tiny atomic batteries hummed as he removed the cadmium dampers. Power flickered the needles of the main set. Thurmon adjusted the selector to "relay" and tuned in his suit radio. Then he returned to sit in the open valve and call the monitoring station.

He smiled with satisfaction as the response cut through the blanket of hissing solar static.

"Hello! Hello, ES-1! This is White Sands! My Lord, we'd given you up for lost! Where are you?"

Thurmon took a steadier grip on his dancing mind and replied:

"Listen carefully. Carefully, you understand? This is John Thurmon. I am on the westernmost edge of the Sea of Serenity on the Moon. Wayne is dead ... he didn't make it. Died during acceleration and I had to dispose of his body in space. Did you get that? I am alone here. The ship crashed on landing. I can't get back ... but it's worth it! I haven't much time left ... but I want everyone to know that I made it. It will be easier now for others ... after I've pointed the way. I'm the first and it's worth it! Did you get that?"

There was a long silence. Finally, the radarman spoke respectfully. "Yes, Thurmon, we got that. Your transmission is being shunted onto the commercial bands. Can you tell us what you see up there? And ... and Thurmon, we all want you to know that our prayers are with you." Tears were flowing on Earth now, Thurmon knew. Tears for a martyr to science doomed to death alone on an alien world. He smiled thinly. Even this tiny taste of deference and respect was heady wine to his frustrated psyche.

Thurmon stepped through the valve and lowered himself to the plain. His heart was pounding triumphantly. Carefully, painstakingly, he began to describe his surroundings, interspersing his words with scientific data. He played the hero well. There was no hysteria recognizable in his voice ... and, if it trembled slightly, there was reason enough for that.

He rounded the bulge of the rocket's nose and looked for the first time at the western edge of the Mare. In the near distance an irregularly-shaped outcropping of rock caught his eye. Transmitting as he went, he made his way toward it.... He drew nearer. And as he did, fear began to stir within him. His steps faltered, but some awful power drew him on. His voice became a shrill rasp in his ears, and on Earth a billion people gasped with horror....

"Wayne!"

Thurmon shouted the name in fear and threw his arm over his face. But the thing remained. It was real!

"Wayne ... no! IT CAN'T BE! NO...."

But the figure did not move. The vast colossus loomed stark white and naked in the brilliant sunlight. Legs apart, arms folded on its breast, it stared with brooding eyes at the vast emptiness of the lunar plain.

Thurmon howled with terror and fury.

"Damn you! Damn you! Why don't you answer me? I killed you once … I'll kill you again! I'm the first one here! Do you hear me? I'll kill you again!"

He lowered his head and charged. The last thing he remembered was the soundless tinkle of his shattering helmet, and the terrible pain as his skull cracked under the suddenly shifting pressures....

* * * * *

"... And strangely enough, the story of the race's first conquest of space is the story of one man, Sargon, the Lemurian Immortal, who led his people to the Moon in the misty past of Earth's youth. The Lemurians are gone now, but on the westernmost edge of the Sea of Serenity there stands a statue of Sargon. It stands in magnificent isolation, a monument to the first man on the Moon."

You can check out Alfred Coppel's wikipedia page here

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1950. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).

Art - Jae Cheol Park

 Art - Jae Cheol Park

City - ap - b

City - f-17

Drift City

Transport Hangar

s-f city b

ship interior

Spaceship

The Big Trip Up Yonder by Kurt Vonnegut

 

The Big Trip Up Yonder

by Kurt Vonnegut

Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane-tip and shout, "Hell, we did that a hundred years ago!"

Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony, where they had been seeking that 2185 A.D. rarity – privacy – were obliged to take seats in the back row, behind Lou's father and mother, brother and sister-in-law, son and daughter-in-law, grandson and wife, granddaughter and husband, great-grandson and wife, nephew and wife, grandnephew and wife, great-grandniece and husband, great-grandnephew and wife – and, of course, Gramps, who was in front of everybody. All save Gramps, who was somewhat withered and bent, seemed, by pre-anti-gerasone standards, to be about the same age – somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties. Gramps looked older because he had already reached 70 when anti-gerasone was invented. He had not aged in the 102 years since.

"Meanwhile," the commentator was saying, "Council Bluffs, Iowa, was still threatened by stark tragedy. But 200 weary rescue workers have refused to give up hope, and continue to dig in an effort to save Elbert Haggedorn, 183, who has been wedged for two days in a ..."

"I wish he'd get something more cheerful," Emerald whispered to Lou.

* * * * *

"Silence!" cried Gramps. "Next one shoots off his big bazoo while the TV's on is gonna find hisself cut off without a dollar –" his voice suddenly softened and sweetened – "when they wave that checkered flag at the Indianapolis Speedway, and old Gramps gets ready for the Big Trip Up Yonder."

He sniffed sentimentally, while his heirs concentrated desperately on not making the slightest sound. For them, the poignancy of the prospective Big Trip had been dulled somewhat, through having been mentioned by Gramps about once a day for fifty years.

"Dr. Brainard Keyes Bullard," continued the commentator, "President of Wyandotte College, said in an address tonight that most of the world's ills can be traced to the fact that Man's knowledge of himself has not kept pace with his knowledge of the physical world."

"Hell!" snorted Gramps. "We said that a hundred years ago!"

"In Chicago tonight," the commentator went on, "a special celebration is taking place in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital. The guest of honor is Lowell W. Hitz, age zero. Hitz, born this morning, is the twenty-five-millionth child to be born in the hospital." The commentator faded, and was replaced on the screen by young Hitz, who squalled furiously.

"Hell!" whispered Lou to Emerald. "We said that a hundred years ago."

"I heard that!" shouted Gramps. He snapped off the television set and his petrified descendants stared silently at the screen. "You, there, boy –"

"I didn't mean anything by it, sir," said Lou, aged 103.

"Get me my will. You know where it is. You kids all know where it is. Fetch, boy!" Gramps snapped his gnarled fingers sharply.

Lou nodded dully and found himself going down the hall, picking his way over bedding to Gramps' room, the only private room in the Ford apartment. The other rooms were the bathroom, the living room and the wide windowless hallway, which was originally intended to serve as a dining area, and which had a kitchenette in one end. Six mattresses and four sleeping bags were dispersed in the hallway and living room, and the daybed, in the living room, accommodated the eleventh couple, the favorites of the moment.

On Gramps' bureau was his will, smeared, dog-eared, perforated and blotched with hundreds of additions, deletions, accusations, conditions, warnings, advice and homely philosophy. The document was, Lou reflected, a fifty-year diary, all jammed onto two sheets – a garbled, illegible log of day after day of strife. This day, Lou would be disinherited for the eleventh time, and it would take him perhaps six months of impeccable behavior to regain the promise of a share in the estate. To say nothing of the daybed in the living room for Em and himself.

"Boy!" called Gramps.

"Coming, sir." Lou hurried back into the living room and handed Gramps the will.

"Pen!" said Gramps.

* * * * *

He was instantly offered eleven pens, one from each couple.

"Not that leaky thing," he said, brushing Lou's pen aside. "Ah, there's a nice one. Good boy, Willy." He accepted Willy's pen. That was the tip they had all been waiting for. Willy, then – Lou's father – was the new favorite.

Willy, who looked almost as young as Lou, though he was 142, did a poor job of concealing his pleasure. He glanced shyly at the daybed, which would become his, and from which Lou and Emerald would have to move back into the hall, back to the worst spot of all by the bathroom door.

Gramps missed none of the high drama he had authored and he gave his own familiar role everything he had. Frowning and running his finger along each line, as though he were seeing the will for the first time, he read aloud in a deep portentous monotone, like a bass note on a cathedral organ.

"I, Harold D. Ford, residing in Building 257 of Alden Village, New York City, Connecticut, do hereby make, publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament, revoking any and all former wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made." He blew his nose importantly and went on, not missing a word, and repeating many for emphasis – repeating in particular his ever-more-elaborate specifications for a funeral.

At the end of these specifications, Gramps was so choked with emotion that Lou thought he might have forgotten why he'd brought out the will in the first place. But Gramps heroically brought his powerful emotions under control and, after erasing for a full minute, began to write and speak at the same time. Lou could have spoken his lines for him, he had heard them so often.

"I have had many heartbreaks ere leaving this vale of tears for a better land," Gramps said and wrote. "But the deepest hurt of all has been dealt me by –" He looked around the group, trying to remember who the malefactor was.

Everyone looked helpfully at Lou, who held up his hand resignedly.

Gramps nodded, remembering, and completed the sentence –"my great-grandson, Louis J. Ford."

"Grandson, sir," said Lou.

"Don't quibble. You're in deep enough now, young man," said Gramps, but he made the change. And, from there, he went without a misstep through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for which were disrespectfulness and quibbling.

* * * * *

In the paragraph following, the paragraph that had belonged to everyone in the room at one time or another, Lou's name was scratched out and Willy's substituted as heir to the apartment and, the biggest plum of all, the double bed in the private bedroom.

"So!" said Gramps, beaming. He erased the date at the foot of the will and substituted a new one, including the time of day. "Well – time to watch the McGarvey Family." The McGarvey Family was a television serial that Gramps had been following since he was 60, or for a total of 112 years. "I can't wait to see what's going to happen next," he said.

Lou detached himself from the group and lay down on his bed of pain by the bathroom door. Wishing Em would join him, he wondered where she was.

He dozed for a few moments, until he was disturbed by someone stepping over him to get into the bathroom. A moment later, he heard a faint gurgling sound, as though something were being poured down the washbasin drain. Suddenly, it entered his mind that Em had cracked up, that she was in there doing something drastic about Gramps.

"Em?" he whispered through the panel. There was no reply, and Lou pressed against the door. The worn lock, whose bolt barely engaged its socket, held for a second, then let the door swing inward.

"Morty!" gasped Lou.

Lou's great-grandnephew, Mortimer, who had just married and brought his wife home to the Ford menage, looked at Lou with consternation and surprise. Morty kicked the door shut, but not before Lou had glimpsed what was in his hand – Gramps' enormous economy-size bottle of anti-gerasone, which had apparently been half-emptied, and which Morty was refilling with tap water.

A moment later, Morty came out, glared defiantly at Lou and brushed past him wordlessly to rejoin his pretty bride.

Shocked, Lou didn't know what to do. He couldn't let Gramps take the mousetrapped anti-gerasone – but, if he warned Gramps about it, Gramps would certainly make life in the apartment, which was merely insufferable now, harrowing.

Lou glanced into the living room and saw that the Fords, Emerald among them, were momentarily at rest, relishing the botches that the McGarveys had made of their lives. Stealthily, he went into the bathroom, locked the door as well as he could and began to pour the contents of Gramps' bottle down the drain. He was going to refill it with full-strength anti-gerasone from the 22 smaller bottles on the shelf.

The bottle contained a half-gallon, and its neck was small, so it seemed to Lou that the emptying would take forever. And the almost imperceptible smell of anti-gerasone, like Worcestershire sauce, now seemed to Lou, in his nervousness, to be pouring out into the rest of the apartment, through the keyhole and under the door.

* * * * *

The bottle gurgled monotonously. Suddenly, up came the sound of music from the living room and there were murmurs and the scraping of chair-legs on the floor. "Thus ends," said the television announcer, "the 29,121st chapter in the life of your neighbors and mine, the McGarveys." Footsteps were coming down the hall. There was a knock on the bathroom door.

"Just a sec," Lou cheerily called out. Desperately, he shook the big bottle, trying to speed up the flow. His palms slipped on the wet glass, and the heavy bottle smashed on the tile floor.

The door was pushed open, and Gramps, dumbfounded, stared at the incriminating mess.

Lou felt a hideous prickling sensation on his scalp and the back of his neck. He grinned engagingly through his nausea and, for want of anything remotely resembling a thought, waited for Gramps to speak.

"Well, boy," said Gramps at last, "looks like you've got a little tidying up to do."

And that was all he said. He turned around, elbowed his way through the crowd and locked himself in his bedroom.

The Fords contemplated Lou in incredulous silence a moment longer, and then hurried back to the living room, as though some of his horrible guilt would taint them, too, if they looked too long. Morty stayed behind long enough to give Lou a quizzical, annoyed glance. Then he also went into the living room, leaving only Emerald standing in the doorway.

Tears streamed over her cheeks. "Oh, you poor lamb – please don't look so awful! It was my fault. I put you up to this with my nagging about Gramps."

"No," said Lou, finding his voice, "really you didn't. Honest, Em, I was just –"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, hon. I'm on your side, no matter what." She kissed him on one cheek and whispered in his ear, "It wouldn't have been murder, hon. It wouldn't have killed him. It wasn't such a terrible thing to do. It just would have fixed him up so he'd be able to go any time God decided He wanted him."

"What's going to happen next, Em?" said Lou hollowly. "What's he going to do?"

* * * * *

Lou and Emerald stayed fearfully awake almost all night, waiting to see what Gramps was going to do. But not a sound came from the sacred bedroom. Two hours before dawn, they finally dropped off to sleep.

At six o'clock, they arose again, for it was time for their generation to eat breakfast in the kitchenette. No one spoke to them. They had twenty minutes in which to eat, but their reflexes were so dulled by the bad night that they had hardly swallowed two mouthfuls of egg-type processed seaweed before it was time to surrender their places to their son's generation.

Then, as was the custom for whoever had been most recently disinherited, they began preparing Gramps' breakfast, which would presently be served to him in bed, on a tray. They tried to be cheerful about it. The toughest part of the job was having to handle the honest-to-God eggs and bacon and oleomargarine, on which Gramps spent so much of the income from his fortune.

"Well," said Emerald, "I'm not going to get all panicky until I'm sure there's something to be panicky about."

"Maybe he doesn't know what it was I busted," Lou said hopefully.

"Probably thinks it was your watch crystal," offered Eddie, their son, who was toying apathetically with his buckwheat-type processed sawdust cakes.

"Don't get sarcastic with your father," said Em, "and don't talk with your mouth full, either."

"I'd like to see anybody take a mouthful of this stuff and not say something," complained Eddie, who was 73. He glanced at the clock. "It's time to take Gramps his breakfast, you know."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" said Lou weakly. He shrugged. "Let's have the tray, Em."

"We'll both go."

Walking slowly, smiling bravely, they found a large semi-circle of long-faced Fords standing around the bedroom door.

Em knocked. "Gramps," she called brightly, "break-fast is rea-dy."

There was no reply and she knocked again, harder.

The door swung open before her fist. In the middle of the room, the soft, deep, wide, canopied bed, the symbol of the sweet by-and-by to every Ford, was empty.

A sense of death, as unfamiliar to the Fords as Zoroastrianism or the causes of the Sepoy Mutiny, stilled every voice, slowed every heart. Awed, the heirs began to search gingerly, under the furniture and behind the drapes, for all that was mortal of Gramps, father of the clan.

* * * * *

But Gramps had left not his Earthly husk but a note, which Lou finally found on the dresser, under a paperweight which was a treasured souvenir from the World's Fair of 2000. Unsteadily, Lou read it aloud:

"'Somebody who I have sheltered and protected and taught the best I know how all these years last night turned on me like a mad dog and diluted my anti-gerasone, or tried to. I am no longer a young man. I can no longer bear the crushing burden of life as I once could. So, after last night's bitter experience, I say good-by. The cares of this world will soon drop away like a cloak of thorns and I shall know peace. By the time you find this, I will be gone.'"

"Gosh," said Willy brokenly, "he didn't even get to see how the 5000-mile Speedway Race was going to come out."

"Or the Solar Series," Eddie said, with large mournful eyes.

"Or whether Mrs. McGarvey got her eyesight back," added Morty.

"There's more," said Lou, and he began reading aloud again: "'I, Harold D. Ford, etc., do hereby make, publish and declare this to be my last Will and Testament, revoking any and all former wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made.'"

"No!" cried Willy. "Not another one!"

"'I do stipulate,'" read Lou, "'that all of my property, of whatsoever kind and nature, not be divided, but do devise and bequeath it to be held in common by my issue, without regard for generation, equally, share and share alike.'"

"Issue?" said Emerald.

Lou included the multitude in a sweep of his hand. "It means we all own the whole damn shootin' match."

Each eye turned instantly to the bed.

"Share and share alike?" asked Morty.

"Actually," said Willy, who was the oldest one present, "it's just like the old system, where the oldest people head up things with their headquarters in here and –"

"I like that!" exclaimed Em. "Lou owns as much of it as you do, and I say it ought to be for the oldest one who's still working. You can snooze around here all day, waiting for your pension check, while poor Lou stumbles in here after work, all tuckered out, and –"

"How about letting somebody who's never had any privacy get a little crack at it?" Eddie demanded hotly. "Hell, you old people had plenty of privacy back when you were kids. I was born and raised in the middle of that goddamn barracks in the hall! How about –"

"Yeah?" challenged Morty. "Sure, you've all had it pretty tough, and my heart bleeds for you. But try honeymooning in the hall for a real kick."

"Silence!" shouted Willy imperiously. "The next person who opens his mouth spends the next sixth months by the bathroom. Now clear out of my room. I want to think."

A vase shattered against the wall, inches above his head.

* * * * *

In the next moment, a free-for-all was under way, with each couple battling to eject every other couple from the room. Fighting coalitions formed and dissolved with the lightning changes of the tactical situation. Em and Lou were thrown into the hall, where they organized others in the same situation, and stormed back into the room.

After two hours of struggle, with nothing like a decision in sight, the cops broke in, followed by television cameramen from mobile units.

For the next half-hour, patrol wagons and ambulances hauled away Fords, and then the apartment was still and spacious.

An hour later, films of the last stages of the riot were being televised to 500,000,000 delighted viewers on the Eastern Seaboard.

In the stillness of the three-room Ford apartment on the 76th floor of Building 257, the television set had been left on. Once more the air was filled with the cries and grunts and crashes of the fray, coming harmlessly now from the loudspeaker.

The battle also appeared on the screen of the television set in the police station, where the Fords and their captors watched with professional interest.

Em and Lou, in adjacent four-by-eight cells, were stretched out peacefully on their cots.

"Em," called Lou through the partition, "you got a washbasin all your own, too?"

"Sure. Washbasin, bed, light – the works. And we thought Gramps' room was something. How long has this been going on?" She held out her hand. "For the first time in forty years, hon, I haven't got the shakes – look at me!"

"Cross your fingers," said Lou. "The lawyer's going to try to get us a year."

"Gee!" Em said dreamily. "I wonder what kind of wires you'd have to pull to get put away in solitary?"

"All right, pipe down," said the turnkey, "or I'll toss the whole kit and caboodle of you right out. And first one who lets on to anybody outside how good jail is ain't never getting back in!"

The prisoners instantly fell silent.

* * * * *

The living room of the apartment darkened for a moment as the riot scenes faded on the television screen, and then the face of the announcer appeared, like the Sun coming from behind a cloud. "And now, friends," he said, "I have a special message from the makers of anti-gerasone, a message for all you folks over 150. Are you hampered socially by wrinkles, by stiffness of joints and discoloration or loss of hair, all because these things came upon you before anti-gerasone was developed? Well, if you are, you need no longer suffer, need no longer feel different and out of things.

"After years of research, medical science has now developed Super-anti-gerasone! In weeks – yes, weeks – you can look, feel and act as young as your great-great-grandchildren! Wouldn't you pay $5,000 to be indistinguishable from everybody else? Well, you don't have to. Safe, tested Super-anti-gerasone costs you only a few dollars a day.

"Write now for your free trial carton. Just put your name and address on a dollar postcard, and mail it to 'Super,' Box 500,000, Schenectady, N. Y. Have you got that? I'll repeat it. 'Super,' Box 500,000 ..."

Underlining the announcer's words was the scratching of Gramps' pen, the one Willy had given him the night before. He had come in, a few minutes earlier, from the Idle Hour Tavern, which commanded a view of Building 257 from across the square of asphalt known as the Alden Village Green. He had called a cleaning woman to come straighten the place up, then had hired the best lawyer in town to get his descendants a conviction, a genius who had never gotten a client less than a year and a day. Gramps had then moved the daybed before the television screen, so that he could watch from a reclining position. It was something he'd dreamed of doing for years.

"Schen-ec-ta-dy," murmured Gramps. "Got it!" His face had changed remarkably. His facial muscles seemed to have relaxed, revealing kindness and equanimity under what had been taut lines of bad temper. It was almost as though his trial package of Super-anti-gerasone had already arrived. When something amused him on television, he smiled easily, rather than barely managing to lengthen the thin line of his mouth a millimeter.

Life was good. He could hardly wait to see what was going to happen next.

You can check out Kurt Vonnegut's wikipedia page here

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1954. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).