Short Fiction Robert Sheckley (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

“Sure,” Eddie said, “except I haven’t any retreads. I’ll have to ’port you new ones at five hundred apiece. Plus four hundred dollars ’porting charges. Fourteen hundred dollars, Mr. Morrison.”

“All right.”

“Yes, sir. Now if you’ll show me the cash, or a money order which you can send back with the receipt, I’ll get moving on it.”

“At the moment,” Morrison said, “I haven’t got a cent on me.”

“Bank account?”

“Stripped clean.”

“Bonds? Property? Anything you can convert into cash?”

“Nothing except this sandcar, which you sold me for eight thousand dollars. When I come back, I’ll settle my bill with the sandcar.”

“If you get back. Sorry, Mr. Morrison. No can do.”

“What do you mean?” Morrison asked. “You know I’ll pay for the tires.”

“And you know the rules on Venus,” Eddie said, his mournful face set in obstinate lines. “No credit! Cash and carry!”

“I can’t run the sandcar without tires,” Morrison said. “Are you going to strand me out here?”

“Who in hell is stranding you?” Eddie asked. “This sort of thing happens to prospectors every day. You know what you have to do now, Mr. Morrison. Call Public Utility and declare yourself a bankrupt. Sign over what’s left of the sandcar, equipment, and anything you’ve found on the way. They’ll get you out.”

“I’m not turning back,” Morrison said. “Look!” He held the telephone close to the ground. “You see the traces, Eddie? See those red and purple flecks? There’s precious stuff near here!”

“Every prospector sees traces,” Eddie said. “Damned desert is full of traces.”

“These are rich,” Morrison said. “These are leading straight to big stuff, a bonanza lode. Eddie, I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could stake me to a couple of tires⁠—”

“I can’t do it,” Eddie said. “I just work here. I can’t ’port you any tires, not unless you show me money first. Otherwise I get fired and probably jailed. You know the law.”

“Cash and carry,” Morrison said bleakly.

“Right. Be smart and turn back now. Maybe you can try again some other time.”

“I spent twelve years getting this stake together,” Morrison said. “I’m not going back.”

He turned off the telephone and tried to think. Was there anyone else on Venus he could call? Only Max Krandall, his jewel broker. But Max couldn’t raise fourteen hundred dollars in that crummy two-by-four office near Venusborg’s jewel market. Max could barely scrape up his own rent, much less take care of stranded prospectors.

“I can’t ask Max for help,” Morrison decided. “Not until I’ve found goldenstone. The real stuff, not just traces. So that leaves it up to me.”

He opened the back of the sandcar and began to unload, piling his equipment on the sand. He would have to choose carefully; anything he took would have to be carried on his back.

The telephone had to go with him, and his lightweight testing kit. Food concentrates, revolver, compass. And nothing else but water, all the water he could carry. The rest of the stuff would have to stay behind.

By nightfall, Morrison was ready. He looked regretfully at the twenty cans of water he was leaving. In the desert, water was a man’s most precious possession, second only to his telephone. But it couldn’t be helped. After drinking his fill, he hoisted his pack and set a southwest course into the desert.

For three days he trekked to the southwest; then on the fourth day he veered to due south, following an increasingly rich trace. The sun, eternally hidden, beat down on him, and the dead-white sky was like a roof of heated iron over his head. Morrison followed the traces, and something followed him.

On the sixth day, he sensed movement just out of the range of his vision. On the seventh day, he saw what was trailing him.

Venus’s own brand of wolf, small, lean, with a yellow coat and long, grinning jaws, it was one of the few mammals that made its home in the Scorpion Desert. As Morrison watched, two more sandwolves appeared beside it.

He loosened the revolver in its holster. The wolves made no attempt to come closer. They had plenty of time.

Morrison kept on going, wishing he had brought a rifle with him. But that would have meant eight pounds more, which meant eight pounds less water.

As he was pitching camp at dusk the eighth day, he heard a crackling sound. He whirled around and located its source, about ten feet to his left and above his head. A little vortex had appeared, a tiny mouth in the air like a whirlpool in the sea. It spun, making the characteristic crackling sounds of ’porting.

“Now who could be ’porting anything to me?” Morrison asked, waiting while the whirlpool slowly widened.

Solidoporting from a base projector to a field target was a standard means of moving goods across the vast distances of Venus. Any inanimate object could be ’ported; animate beings couldn’t because the process involved certain minor but distressing molecular changes in protoplasm. A few people had found this out the hard way when ’porting was first introduced.

Morrison waited. The aerial whirlpool became a mouth three feet in diameter. From the mouth stepped a chrome-plated robot carrying a large sack.

“Oh, it’s you,” Morrison said.

“Yes, sir,” the robot said, now completely clear of the field. “Williams 4 at your service with the Venus Mail.”

It was a robot of medium height, thin-shanked and flat-footed, humanoid in appearance, amiable in disposition. For twenty-three years it had been Venus’s entire postal service⁠—sorter, deliverer, and dead storage. It had been built to last, and for twenty-three years the mails had always come through.

“Here we are, Mr. Morrison,” Williams 4 said. “Only twice-a-month mail call in the desert, I’m sorry to say, but it comes promptly and that’s a blessing. This is for you. And this. I think there’s one more. Sandcar broke down, eh?”

“It sure did,” Morrison said, taking his letters.

Williams 4 went on rummaging through its bag. Although it was a superbly