Short Fiction · Asteroid of the Damned (3/3)

“I don’t know whether you’re really Kittrell or not⁠—probably you are,” Mac muttered. “But if you’re in T.P.L. now, you’ll be out pretty soon. As soon as I tell them you’re a hophead.”

Kittrell’s face had gone white. Other than that there was no change as his bleak eyes bored steadily into MacCauley’s. “What are you talking about?” he said evenly. “Take that thing out of my stomach.”

“Oh, no!” Mac shook his head decisively. “You killed one of my witnesses; you’ll take his place. You’re going to tell me how to find the guy that sells you the narcophene.”

“Sorry,” said Kittrell, tautening still more, “but I can’t.” At the last possible second his eyes flicked behind and over Mac’s shoulder.

The thing that hit MacCauley on the back of the neck first didn’t quite knock him out. He was stunned, but in the half-second before the next blow jolted him into complete darkness, he heard Kittrell conclude, most casually: “You see, I am the guy who sells the narcophene.”

A shiver rippled along Mac’s spine, and another one. That was his first waking impression. He was cold, frozen stiff, he decided next, when his limbs failed to react to the stimuli of his neural commands. As the fog cleared away from his aching head he discovered that his hands were tightly bound behind him, hobbles on his feet to keep him from walking far or fast.

Not that he could have gone anywhere much. He was in a bare little metal room, lying on the grating that supplanted decks in most modern spacers. Not much point in getting up, he realized, and merely hitched himself into a more comfortable position in a corner, moving as well as he could under the unaccustomed drag of full Earth gravity.

He was in the lock-room, the chamber before an airlock. He felt vaguely unhappy. Whatever was coming, he was sure he wouldn’t like it.

Behind him a heavy door eased open. Boots thumped hollowly on the grids and a familiar voice sounded, echoing from the bare metal walls. “Hello, MacCauley. How’s the head?”

“Go to hell,” Mac suggested. He craned his neck and stared full into Kittrell’s face. There was a curious mixture of emotions there; faint sorrow, an unpleasant sort of crooked leer, and an air of boredom⁠—each was visible. Kittrell shrugged.

“I guess you know what you’re up against?”

“Sure.” MacCauley tried to shrug, too, but succeeded only in tearing a patch of skin from his wrists where the wire bonds were tightest. “You’re going to shove me out.”

“I’m afraid so. Believe me, I’d rather not. I think you’re a good chap; once I wanted to be like you⁠—loyal to the service. They stuck me out here and made a desk clerk of me, when I would have given my arm to do some real work. I got a good salary; there was prestige enough whenever I could get back to Boston and show off. It was a good job, in a way. But there was nothing to do. Then I intercepted a load of narcophene. Like everybody else, I thought I could beat it. I didn’t. I tried it and couldn’t stop.”

He stopped abruptly and scanned MacCauley’s face through narrowed eyes. “You see how it is?” he questioned.

MacCauley tried to stall for time. Tensing his chest muscles against the bruises, he said, “Give me a cigarette, Kittrell? That’s the usual privilege of the condemned man.” The lunatic obligingly popped a brown-paper cylinder between his lips, squeezed the tip to light it. Mac suddenly heard more footsteps, lighter ones but many of them. “What’s that?”

“Just my Kiddies,” the dope peddler explained, as a dozen of them trotted into the room and ranged themselves, immobile, along the walls. “They’ve never seen an air-breather⁠—that’s you⁠—in empty space, and they don’t believe it will be fatal. You don’t mind if they watch, do you?”

Mac could hold it in no longer. “Kittrell,” he blurted, “you’re crazy as a coot!”

Kittrell, wading through Kiddies whose faces shone an excited red, turned a surprised stare. “I’ve been afraid of that,” he said worriedly over his shoulder. His long fingers pressed a stud by the ’lock, and the inner valve whined open. “You see, that’s the trouble with narcophene. You know what’s happening to you, but you just don’t give a damn. God, it’s cold in this ’lock!”

He stood there, one foot on the coaming of the ’lock, peering around the dark, icy chamber. The lawman braced his back to the wall, shoved up. “It’s a hell of a death, Kittrell,” he said, his voice strained.

Kittrell replied dreamily. “Is it? I don’t know. It isn’t bad. It’s clean, at least, and the worms don’t get you.” Absently he fended off the crew of impatient, crowding Kiddies. He stared silently into nothingness, for a long minute.

MacCauley found he could reach his pocket, and his heart tried to impale itself on his palate. Eagerly he tore more flesh from his raw wrists, strained his fingers to plumb the depths of the pocket. A weapon⁠—anything.

And his fingers found nothing. He remembered; that this was the pocket the dead asterite had picked; nothing there but a slit.

On the automatic return trip, his fingers, numbed by disheartenment, sent a message to his brain; a message of cold. He disregarded it for a split second.

Then, just as Kittrell was opening his mouth to speak, the correct interpretation of that coolness penetrated Mac’s consciousness. Desperately he fumbled at the thing that was woven to his broad belt: wrenched at it with every atom of strength at his command. It came free; he twisted suddenly and something metallic jingled musically in the far corner of the ’lock, sending vibrations through the grid flooring to be picked up by the Palladians. The jingle of metal⁠—and the Kiddies loved metal insanely!

“Money!” roared MacCauley. And, “Money! In the ’lock! Copper⁠—metal! Go get it!”

Kittrell vanished, washed into the airlock by an overflowing wave of Palladians. Hands fumbling desperately behind him for the control switch⁠—where was it!⁠—Mac cursed his stiff, ineffectual fingers and his inability to see behind his back. He touched a switch⁠—no, not that one!⁠—and another, jabbed at it. Motors hummed softly, the scrambling noise died away as the inner door swung shut⁠—so slowly!⁠—and then for a second the only sound in the chamber was the harsh sobbing of Mac’s breath as he slumped weakly against the chill metal wall.

Until that semi-silence was broken by the descending siren-scream of the outer door’s opening, abruptly terminating in a whooosh as the last molecules of air tore into the vacuum without, dragging with irresistible force at the chunks of matter, living and dead, that tried to obstruct its passage.⁠ ⁠…

“And that’s the story.” MacCauley turned away from the recorder. “Here’s the notebook I found among Kittrell’s things.” He flipped a thin, black pad at the major. “I think you’ll be able to break the code easily enough, as there are enough names known for you to work on. It seems to include his whole organization.”

Major Copeland glanced at the cabalistic signs incuriously, then ticketed the book and slipped it into a pneumatic tube.

“What bothers me,” he complained, “is why Kittrell didn’t claw his way out of the ’lock. Sounds to me as though he had plenty of time.”

Mac gestured inquiringly at his superior, received a nod, and with a sigh unclipped his Sam Browne. “Kittrell? Probably stumbled and slammed his head against a rivet.” He stood up suddenly, savagely snubbed out a freshly lit cigarette. “Oh, hell! I’ll tell you what I really think, Major⁠—I don’t believe Kittrell tried to get out of there. I don’t think he cared, and I haven’t forgotten what he said about dying that way.”

“Could be,” Copeland agreed. “And what did you say that stuff was that saved your life?”

Mac smiled. “Money, of a sort. You know where I was stationed last year?”

“Some place on Earth, wasn’t it?”

MacCauley nodded. “China. Got to know some of the people there. Got kind of chummy with one of them; she gave me a present when I left, as a keepsake. A string of what they call ‘cash.’ It’s a kind of money they used to use; square pieces of copper with holes in the middle. Had ’em strung together and sewn onto a belt. Well, you know how Palladians feel about copper.” His eyes crinkled again. “That was a pretty good keepsake⁠—not worth much, but it bought my life.”

Both men were silent for a while. Then, “What are your plans now, MacCauley? I’ve recommended you for promotion, to fill Kittrell’s job on Pallas. You’ll get a higher rating, more pay⁠—and all the time in the world to yourself.”

MacCauley shook his head. “Sorry, Major,” he said, “but that’s not what I want. My plans are extra-special. Say,” he went on, sitting down and staring earnestly at Copeland, “have you ever heard the story of how Manhattan Island⁠—that’s part of New York City⁠—was bought from the ancient Indians? Twenty-four dollars’ worth of junk beads⁠—that’s what they paid the Indians for it. Now the land is worth billions of dollars⁠—a square foot of it brings the best part of a million.”

“So?” The major was interested but lacked comprehension. “What’s that got to do with your resignation?”

MacCauley smiled. “A lot,” he answered. “Did it ever occur to you that intelligent salesmanship can do wonders? And did you ever think of the possibilities that you could realize on Pallas with⁠—say⁠—a couple of dozen thousand dollars’ worth of copper and other metal junk?”

The major looked startled. “No⁠—not till now,” he added, understanding dawning. “And what you’re going to do is⁠—?”

“What I’m going to do,” MacCauley beamed, “is convert reward money into junk. And then, Major, I’ll begin to convert the junk⁠—into a kingdom. I’m going to buy up a world⁠—a wide-open world⁠—with a boatload of scrap metal!”