Search the Sky by C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl (the best electronic book reader .txt) 📖

class='c007'>The young man put down the tray. Something in the way he looked at it prompted Ross to invite him: “Have some with me? More here than I can handle.”

“Thanks; I believe I will. I, uh, was supposed to take my break after I brought you this stuff.” He poured steaming brew into the cup that covered the jug, politely pushed it to Ross and swigged from the jug himself. “You’re with the starship?” he asked, around a mouthful of sandwich.

“Yes. I—the captain, that is—wants to contact an outfit called Cavallo Machine-Tool. You know where they are?”

“Sure. Biggest firm on the south side. Fifteen Street; you can’t miss them. The captain—is she the lady who was with Pilot Breuer?”

“Yes.”

The youngster’s eyes widened. “You mean you were in space—alone—with a lady?”

Ross nodded and chewed.

“And she didn’t—uh—there wasn’t—well—any problem?”

“No,” said Ross. “You have much trouble with that kind of thing?”

The boy winced. “If I’ve asked once I’ve asked a hundred times for a transfer. Oh, those jet pilots! I used to work in a roadside truck stop. I know truckers are supposed to be rough and tough; maybe they are. But you can’t tell me that deep down a trucker isn’t a lady. When you tell them no, that’s that. But a pilot—it just eggs them on. Azor City today, Novj Grad tomorrow—what do they care?”

Ross was fascinated and baffled. It seemed to him that they should care and care plenty. Back where he came from, it was the woman who paid and he couldn’t imagine any cultural setup which could alter that biological fact. 75He asked cautiously: “Have you ever been—in trouble?”

The boy stiffened and looked disapproving. Then he said with a sigh: “I might as well tell you. It’s all over the station anyway; they call me ‘Bernie the Pullover.’ Yes. Twice. Pilots both times. I can’t seem to say no——” He took another long pull from the jug and a savage bite from a second sandwich.

“I’m sure,” Ross said numbly, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“Try telling that to the judge,” Bernie the Pullover said bitterly. “The pilot speaks her piece, the medic puts the blood group tests in evidence, the doctor and crèche director depose that the child was born and is still living. Then the judge says, without even looking up, ‘Paternity judgment to the plaintiff, defendant ordered to pay one thousand credits annual support, let this be a warning to you, young man, next case.’ I shouldn’t have joined you and eaten your sandwiches, but the fact is I was hungry. I had to sell my meal voucher yesterday to meet my payment. Miss three payments and——” He jerked his thumb heavenward.

Ross thought and realized that the thumb must indicate the orbiting prison hulk “Minerva.” It was the man who paid here.

He demanded: “How did all this happen?”

Bernie, having admitted his hunger, had stopped stalling and seized a third sandwich. “All what?” he asked indistinctly.

Ross thought hard and long. He realized first that he could probably never explain what he meant to Bernie, and second that if he did they’d probably both wind up aboard “Minerva” for conspiracy to advocate equality. He shifted his ground. “Of course everybody agrees on the natural superiority of women,” he said, “but people seem to differ from planet to planet as to the reasons. What do they say here on Azor?”

“Oh—nothing special or fancy. Just the common-sense, logical thing. They’re smaller, for one thing, and haven’t got the muscles of men, so they’re natural supervisors. They accumulate money as a matter of course because men die younger and women are the beneficiaries. Then, 76women have a natural aptitude for all the interesting jobs. I saw a broadcast about that just the other night. The biggest specialist on the planet in vocational aptitude. I forget her name, but she proved it conclusively.”

He looked at the empty platter before them. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks for everything.”

“The pleasure was mine.” Ross watched his undernourished figure head for the station. He swore a little, and then buckled down to some hard thinking. Helena was his key to this world. He’d have to have a long skull-session or two with her; he couldn’t be constantly prompting her or there would be serious trouble. She would be the front and he would be the very inconspicuous brains of the outfit, trailing humbly behind. But was she capable of absorbing a brand-new, rather complicated concept? She seemed to be, he told himself uncomfortably, in love with him. That would help considerably....

Helena and Pilot Breuer showed up, walking with a languor that suggested a large and pleasant meal disposed of. Helena’s first words disposed with shocking speed of Ross’s doubts that she was able to acquire a brand-new sociological concept. They were: “Ah, there you are, my dear. Did the boy bring you something or other to eat?”

“Yes. Thanks. Very thoughtful of you,” he said pointedly, with one eye on Breuer’s reaction. There was none; he seemed to have struck the right note.

“Pilot Breuer,” said Helena blandly, “thinks I’d enjoy an evening doing the town with her and a few friends.”

“But the Cavallo people——”

“Ross,” she said gently, “don’t nag.”

He shut up. And thought: wait until I get her out into space. If I get her out into space. She’d be a damned fool to leave this wacked-up culture....

Breuer was saying, with an altogether too-innocent air, “I’d better get you two settled in a hotel for the night; then I’ll pick up Helena and a few friends and we’ll show her what old Novj Grad has to offer in the way of night life. Can’t have her batting around the universe saying Azor’s sidewalks are rolled up at 2100, can we? And then she can 77do her trading or whatever it is with Cavallo bright and early tomorrow, eh?”

Ross realized that he was being jollied out of an attack of the sulks. He didn’t like it.

The hotel was small and comfortable, with a bar crowded by roistering pilots and their dates. The glimpses Ross got of social life on Azor added up to a damnably unfair picture. It was the man who paid. Breuer roguishly tested the mattress in their room, nudging Helena, and then announced, “Get settled, kids, while I visit the bar.”

When the door rolled shut behind her Ross said furiously: “Look, you! Protective mimicry’s fine up to a point, but let’s not forget what this mission is all about. We seem to be suckered into spending the night, but by hell tomorrow morning bright and early we find those Cavallo people—”

“There,” Helena said soothingly. “Don’t be angry, Ross. I promise I won’t be out late, and she really did insist.”

“I suppose so,” he grumbled. “Just remember it’s no pleasure trip.”

“Not for you, perhaps,” she smiled sweetly.

He let it drop there, afraid to push the matter.

Breuer returned in about ten minutes with a slight glow on. “It’s all fixed,” she told Helena. “Got a swell crowd lined up. Table at Virgin Willie’s—oops!” She glanced at Ross. “No harm in it, of course,” she said. “Anything you want, Ross, just dial service. It’s on my account. I fixed it with the desk.”

“Thanks.”

They left, and Ross went grumpily to bed.

A secretive rustle in the room awoke him. “Helena?” he asked drowsily.

Pilot Breuer’s voice giggled drunkenly, “Nope. Helena’s passed out at Virgin Willie’s, kind of the way I figured she would be on triple antigravs. Had my eye on you since Azor City, baby. You gonna be nice to me?”

“Get out of here!” Ross hissed furiously. “Out of here or I’ll yell like hell.”

78“So yell,” she giggled. “I got the house dick fixed. They know me here, baby——”

He fumbled for the bedside light and snapped it on. “I’ll pitch you right through the door,” he announced. “And if you give me any more lip I won’t bother to open it before I do.”

She hiccupped and said, “A spirited lad. That’s the way I like ’em.” With one hand she drew a nasty-looking little pistol. With the other she pulled a long zipper and stepped out of her pilot’s coveralls.

Ross gulped. There were three ways to play this, the smart way, the stupid way, and the way that all of a sudden began to look attractive. He tried the stupid way.

He got the pistol barrel alongside his ear for his pains. “Don’t jump me,” Pilot Breuer giggled. “The boys that’ve tried to take this gun away from me are stretched end to end from here to Azor City. By me, baby.”

Ross blinked through a red-spotted haze. He took a deep breath and got smart. “You’re pretty tough,” he said admiringly.

“Oh, sure.” She kicked the coveralls across the room and moved in on him. “Baby,” she said caressingly, “if I seem to sort of forget myself in the next couple of minutes, don’t get any ideas. I never let go of my gun. Move over.”

“Sure,” Ross said hollowly. This, he told himself disgustedly, was the damnedest, silliest, ridiculousest....

There was a furious hiccup from the door. “So!” Helena said venomously, pushing the door wide and almost falling to the floor. “So!”

Ross flailed out of the bed, kicking the pistol out of Pilot Breuer’s hand in the process. He cried enthusiastically, “Helena, dear!”

“Don’t you ‘Helena-dear’ me!” she said, moving in and kicking the door shut behind her. “I leave you alone for one little minute, and what happens? And you!”

“Sorry,” Pilot Breuer muttered, climbing into her coveralls. “Wrong room. Must’ve had one anti-grav too many.” She licked her lips apprehensively, zipping her coveralls and sidling toward the door. With one hand on the knob, she said diffidently, “If I could have my gun back——? 79No, you’re right! I’ll get it tomorrow.” She got through the door just ahead of a lamp.

“Hussy!” spat Helena. “And you, Ross——”

It was the last straw. As Ross lurched toward her he regretted only one thing: that he didn’t have a hairbrush.

Pilot Breuer had been right. Nobody paid any attention to the noise.

“Yes, Ross.” Helena had hardly touched her breakfast; she sat with her eyes downcast.

“‘Yes, Ross’,” he mimicked bitterly. “It better be ‘Yes, Ross.’ This place may look all right to you, but it’s trouble. You don’t want to find yourself stuck here all your life, do you? Then do what I tell you.”

“Yes, Ross.”

He pushed the remains of his food away. “Oh, the hell with it,” he said dispiritedly. “I wish I’d never started out on this fool’s errand. And I double damn well wish I’d left you in the dye vats.”

“Yes, Ro——I mean, I’m glad you didn’t, Ross,” she said in a small voice.

He stood up and patted her shoulder absently. “Come on,” he said, “we’ve got to get over to the Cavallo place. I wish you had let me talk to them on the phone.”

She said reasonably, “But you said——”

“I know what I said. When we get there, remember that I do the talking.”

They walked through green-lit streets, filled with proud-looking women and sad-eyed men. The Cavallo Machine-Tool Corporation was only a few intersections away, by the map the desk clerk had drawn for Helena; they found it without trouble. It was a smallish sort of building for a factory, Ross thought, but perhaps that was how factories went on Azor. Besides, it was well constructed and beautifully landscaped with the purplish lawns these people seemed to prefer.

Helena led him through the door, as was right and proper. She said to the busy little bald-headed man who seemed to be the receptionist, “We’re expected. Miss Cavallo, please.”

80“Certainly, Ma’am,” he said with a gap-toothed smile, and worked a combination of rods and buttons on the desk beside him. In a moment, he said, “Go right in. Three up and four over; can’t miss it.”

They passed through a noisy territory of machines where metal was sliced, spun, hacked, and planed; no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Ross wondered who had built the machines, and had a sudden flash of realization as to where those builders were now: On “Minerva,” staring at the unattainable free sky.

Miss Cavallo was a motherly type with a large black cigar. “Sit right down,” she said heartily. “You, too, young man. Tell me what we in Cavallo Company can do for you.”

Helena opened her mouth, but Ross stopped her with a gesture. “That’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’ll take over. Miss Cavallo,” he declaimed from memory, “what follows is under the seal.”

“Is it indeed! What do you know,” she said.

Ross said, “Wesley.”

Miss Cavallo