The Second Science Fiction Megapack Read online

  He did not suspect the kind of stress that would be applied to him within a few short months.

  CHAPTER II

  The hotel manager was a small-minded man with a narrow-minded outlook and a brain that was almost totally unable to learn. He was, in short, a “normal” Earthman. He took one look at the card that had been dropped on his desk from the chute of the registration computer and reacted. His thin gray brows drew down over his cobralike brown eyes, and he muttered, “Ridiculous!” under his breath.

  The registration computer wouldn’t have sent him the card if there hadn’t been something odd about it, and odd things happened so rarely that the manager took immediate notice of it. One look at the title before the name told him everything he needed to know. Or so he thought.

  The registration robot handled routine things routinely. If they were not routine, the card was dropped on the manager’s desk. It was then the manager’s job to fit everything back into the routine. He grasped the card firmly between thumb and forefinger and stalked out of his office. He took an elevator down to the registration desk. His trouble was that he had seized upon the first thing he saw wrong with the card and saw nothing thereafter. To him, “out of the ordinary” meant “wrong”—which was where he made his mistake.

  There was a man waiting impatiently at the desk. He had put the card that had been given him by the registration robot on the desk and was tapping his fingers on it.

  The manager walked over to him. “Morgan, Harry?” he asked with a firm but not arrogant voice.

  “Is this the city of York, New?” asked the man. There was a touch of cold humor in his voice that made the manager look more closely at him. He weighed perhaps two-twenty and stood a shade over six-two, but it was the look in the blue eyes and the bearing of the man’s body that made the manager suddenly feel as though this man were someone extraordinary. That, of course, meant “wrong.”

  Then the question that the man had asked in rebuttal to his own penetrated the manager’s mind, and he became puzzled. “Er…I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, ‘Is this York, New?’” the man repeated.

  “This is New York, if that’s what you mean,” the manager said.

  “Then I am Harry Morgan, if that’s what you mean.”

  The manager, for want of anything better to do to cover his confusion, glanced back at the card—without really looking at it. Then he looked back up at the face of Harry Morgan. “Evidently you have not turned in your Citizen’s Identification Card for renewal, Mr. Morgan,” he said briskly. As long as he was on familiar ground, he knew how to handle himself.

  “Odd’s Fish!” said Morgan with utter sadness, “How did you know?”

  The manager’s comfortable feeling of rightness had returned. “You can’t hope to fool a registration robot, Mr. Morgan,” he said “When a discrepancy is observed, the robot immediately notifies a person in authority. Two months ago, Government Edict 7-3356-Hb abolished titles of courtesy absolutely and finally. You Englishmen have clung to them for far longer than one would think possible, but that has been abolished.” He flicked the card with a finger. “You have registered here as ‘Commodore Sir Harry Morgan’—obviously, that is the name and anti-social title registered on your card. When you put the card into the registration robot, the error was immediately noted and I was notified. You should not be using an out-of-date card, and I will be forced to notify the Citizen’s Registration Bureau.”

  “Forced?” said Morgan in mild amazement. “Dear me! What a terribly strong word.”

  The manager felt the hook bite, but he could no more resist the impulse to continue than a cat could resist catnip. His brain did not have the ability to overcome his instinct. And his instinct was wrong. “You may consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Morgan.”

  “I thank you for that permission,” Morgan said with a happy smile. “But I think I shall not take advantage of it.” He stood there with that same happy smile while two hotel security guards walked up and stood beside him, having been called by the manager’s signal.

  Again it took the manager a little time to realize what Morgan had said. He blinked. “Advantage of it?” he repeated haphazardly.

  Harry Morgan’s smile vanished as though it had never been. His blue eyes seemed to change from the soft blue of a cloudless sky to the steely blue of a polished revolver. Oddly enough, his lips did not change. They still seemed to smile, although the smile had gone.

  “Manager,” he said deliberately, “if you will pardon my using your title, you evidently cannot read.”

  The manager had not lived in the atmosphere of the Earth’s Citizen’s Welfare State as long as he had without knowing that dogs eat dogs. He looked back at the card that had been delivered to his desk only minutes before and this time he read it thoroughly. Then, with a gesture, he signaled the Security men to return to their posts. But he did not take his eyes from the card.

  “My apologies,” Morgan said when the Security police had retired out of earshot. There was no apology in the tone of his voice. “I perceive that you can read. Bully, may I say, for you.” The bantering tone was still in his voice, the pseudo-smile still on his lips, the chill of cold steel still in his eyes. “I realize that titles of courtesy are illegal on earth,” he continued, “because courtesy itself is illegal. However, the title ‘Commodore’ simply means that I am entitled to command a spaceship containing two or more persons other than myself. Therefore, it is not a title of courtesy, but of ability.”

  The manager had long since realized that he was dealing with a Belt man, not an Earth citizen, and that the registration robot had sent him the card because of that, not because there was anything illegal. Men from the Belt did not come to Earth either willingly or often.

  Still unable to override his instincts—which erroneously told him that there was something “wrong”—the manager said: “What does the ‘Sir’ mean?”

  Harry Morgan glowed warmly. “Well, now, Mr. Manager, I will tell you. I will give you an analogy. In the time of the Roman Republic, twenty-one centuries or so ago, the leader of an Army was given the title Imperator. But that title could not be conferred upon him by the Senate of Rome nor by anyone else in power. No man could call himself Imperator until his own soldiers, the men under him, had publicly acclaimed him as such. If, voluntarily, his own men shouted ‘Ave, Imperator!’ at a public gathering, then the man could claim the title. Later the title degenerated—” He stopped.

  The manager was staring at him with uncomprehending eyes, and Morgan’s outward smile became genuine. “Sorry,” he said condescendingly. “I forgot that history is not a popular subject in the Welfare World.” Morgan had forgotten no such thing, but he went right on. “What I meant to say was that the spacemen of the Belt Cities have voluntarily agreed among themselves to call me ‘sir’. Whether that is a title of ability or a title of courtesy, you can argue about with me at another time. Right now, I want my room key.”

  Under the regulations, the manager knew there was nothing else he could do. He had made a mistake, and he knew that he had. If he had only taken the trouble to read the rest of the card—

  “Awfully sorry, Mr. Morgan,” he said with a lopsided smile that didn’t even look genuine. “The—”

  “Watch those courtesy titles,” Morgan reprimanded gently. “‘Mister’ comes ultimately from the Latin magister, meaning ‘master’ or ‘teacher’. And while I may be your master, I wouldn’t dare think I could teach you anything.”

  “All citizens are entitled to be called ‘Mister’,” the manager said with a puzzled look. He pushed a room key across the desk.

  “Which just goes to show you,” said Harry Morgan, picking up the key.

  He turned casually, took one or two steps away from the registration desk, then—quite suddenly—did an about-face and snapped: “What happened to Jack Latrobe?”

  “Who?” said the manager, his face gaping stupidly.

  Harry Morgan knew human beings, and he
was fairly certain that the manager couldn’t have reacted that way unless he honestly had no notion of what Morgan was talking about.

  He smiled sweetly. “Never you mind, dear boy. Thank you for the key.” He turned again and headed for the elevator bank, confident that the manager would find the question he had asked about Jack Latrobe so completely meaningless as to be incapable of registering as a useful memory.

  He was perfectly right.

  CHAPTER III

  The Belt Cities could survive without the help of Earth, and the Supreme Congress of the United Nations of Earth knew it. But they also knew that “survive” did not by any means have the same semantic or factual content as “live comfortably”. If Earth were to vanish overnight, the people of the Belt would live, but they would be seriously handicapped. On the other hand, the people of Earth could survive—as they had for millennia—without the Belt Cities, and while doing without Belt imports might be painful, it would by no means be deadly.

  But both the Belt Cities and the Earth knew that the destruction of one would mean the collapse of the other as a civilization.

  Earth needed iron. Belt iron was cheap. The big iron deposits of Earth were worked out, and the metal had been widely scattered. The removal of the asteroids as a cheap source would mean that iron would become prohibitively expensive. Without cheap iron, Earth’s civilization would have to undergo a painfully drastic change—a collapse and regeneration.

  But the Belt Cities were handicapped by the fact that they had had as yet neither the time nor the resources to manufacture anything but absolute necessities. Cloth, for example, was imported from Earth. A society that is still busy struggling for the bare necessities—such as manufacturing its own air—has no time to build the huge looms necessary to weave cloth…or to make clothes, except on a minor scale. Food? You can have hydroponic gardens on an asteroid, but raising beef cattle, even on Ceres, was difficult. Eventually, perhaps, but not yet.

  The Belt Cities were populated by pioneers who still had not given up the luxuries of civilization. Their one weakness was that they had their cake and were happily eating it, too.

  Not that Harry Morgan didn’t realize that fact. A Belt man is, above all, a realist, in that he must, of necessity, understand the Laws of the Universe and deal with them. Or die.

  Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was well aware of the stir he had created in the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel. Word would leak out, and he knew it. The scene had been created for just that purpose.

  “Grasshopper sittin’ on a railroad track,

  Singin’ polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!

  A-pickin’ his teeth with a carpet tack,

  Singin’ polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!”

  He sang with gusto as the elevator lifted him up to the seventy-fourth floor of the Grand Central Hotel. The other passengers in the car did not look at him directly; they cast sidelong glances.

  This guy, they seemed to think in unison, is a nut. We will pay no attention to him, since he probably does not really exist. Even if he does, we will pay no attention in the hope that he will go away.

  On the seventy-fourth floor, he did go away, heading for his room. He keyed open the door and strolled over to the phone, where a message had already been dropped into the receiver slot. He picked it up and read it.

  COMMODORE SIR HARRY MORGAN, RM. 7426, GCH: REQUEST YOU CALL EDWAY TARNHORST, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE OF GREATER LOS ANGELES, SUPREME CONGRESS. PUNCH 33-981-762-044 COLLECT.

  “How news travels,” Harry Morgan thought to himself. He tapped out the number on the keyboard of the phone and waited for the panel to light up. When it did, it showed a man in his middle fifties with a lean, ascetic face and graying hair, which gave him a look of saintly wisdom.

  * * * *

  “Mr. Tarnhorst?” Morgan asked pleasantly.

  “Yes. Commodore Morgan?” The voice was smooth and precise.

  “At your service, Mr. Tarnhorst. You asked me to call.”

  “Yes. What is the purpose of your visit to Earth, commodore?” The question was quick, decisive, and firm.

  Harry Morgan kept his affability. “That’s none of your business, Mr. Tarnhorst.”

  Tarnhorst’s face didn’t change. “Perhaps your superiors haven’t told you, but—and I can only disclose this on a sealed circuit—I am in sympathy with the Belt Cities. I have been out there twice and have learned to appreciate the vigor and worth of the Belt people. I am on your side, commodore, in so far as it does not compromise my position. My record shows that I have fought for the rights of the Belt Cities on the floor of the Supreme Congress. Have you been informed of that fact?”

  “I have,” said Harry Morgan. “And that is precisely why it is none of your business. The less you know, Mr. Tarnhorst, the safer you will be. I am not here as a representative of any of the City governments. I am not here as a representative of any of the Belt Corporations. I am completely on my own, without official backing. You have shown yourself to be sympathetic towards us in the past. We have no desire to hurt you. Therefore I advise that you either keep your nose out of my business or actively work against me. You cannot protect yourself otherwise.”

  Edward Tarnhorst was an Earthman, but he was not stupid. He had managed to put himself in a position of power in the Welfare World, and he knew how to handle that power. It took him exactly two seconds to make his decision.

  “You misunderstand me, commodore,” he said coldly. “I asked what I asked because I desire information. The People’s Government is trying to solve the murder of Commodore Jack Latrobe. Assuming, of course, that it was murder—which is open to doubt. His body was found three days ago in Fort Tryon Park, up on the north end of Manhattan Island. He had apparently jumped off one of the old stone bridges up there and fell ninety feet to his death. On the other hand, it is possible that, not being used to the effects of a field of point nine eight Standard gees, he did not realize that the fall would be deadly, and accidentally killed himself. He was alone in the park at night, as far as we can tell. It has been ascertained definitely that no representative of the People’s Manufacturing Corporation Number 873 was with him at the time. Nor, so far as we can discover, was anyone else. I asked you to call because I wanted to know if you had any information for us. There was no other reason.”

  “I haven’t seen Jack since he left Juno,” Morgan said evenly. “I don’t know why he came to Earth, and I know nothing else.”

  “Then I see no further need for conversation,” Tarnhorst said. “Thank you for your assistance, Commodore Morgan. If Earth’s Government needs you again, you will be notified if you gain any further information, you may call this number. Thank you again. Good-by.”

  The screen went blank.

  * * * *

  How much of this is a trap? Morgan thought.

  There was no way of knowing at this point. Morgan knew that Jack Latrobe had neither committed suicide nor died accidentally, and Tarnhorst had told him as much. Tarnhorst was still friendly, but he had taken the hint and got himself out of danger. There had been one very important piece of information. The denial that any representative of PMC 873 had been involved. PMC 873 was a manufacturer of biological products—one of the several corporations that Latrobe had been empowered to discuss business with when he had been sent to Earth by the Belt Corporations Council. Tarnhorst would not have mentioned them negatively unless he intended to imply a positive hint. Obviously. Almost too obviously.

  Well?

  Harry Morgan punched for Information, got it, got a number, and punched that.

  “People’s Manufacturing Corporation Ey-yut Seven Tha-ree,” said a recorded voice. “Your desire, pu-leeze?”

  “This is Commodore Jack Latrobe,” Morgan said gently. “I’m getting tired of this place, and if you don’t let me out I will blow the whole place to Kingdom Come. Good bye-eye-eye.”

  He hung up without waiting for an answer.

  Then he looked around the hotel suite he had rented
. It was an expensive one—very expensive. It consisted of an outer room—a “sitting room” as it might have been called two centuries before—and a bedroom. Plus a bathroom.

  Harry Morgan, a piratical smile on his face, opened the bathroom door and left it that way. Then he went into the bedroom. His luggage had already been delivered by the lift tube, and was sitting on the floor. He put both suitcases on the bed, where they would be in plain sight from the sitting room. Then he made certain preparations for invaders.

  He left the door between the sitting room and the bedroom open and left the suite.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was walking down 42nd Street toward Sixth Avenue. On his left was the ancient Public Library Building. In the middle of the block, somebody shoved something hard into his left kidney and said. “Keep walking, commodore. But do what you’re told.”

  Harry Morgan obeyed, with an utterly happy smile on his lips.

  CHAPTER IV

  In the Grand Central Hotel, a man moved down the hallway toward Suite 7426. He stopped at the door and inserted the key he held in his hand, twisting it as it entered the keyhole. The electronic locks chuckled, and the door swung open.

  The man closed it behind him.

  He was not a big man, but neither was he undersized. He was five-ten and weighed perhaps a hundred and sixty-five pounds. His face was dark of skin and had a hard, determined expression on it. He looked as though he had spent the last thirty of his thirty-five years of life stealing from his family and cheating his friends.

  He looked around the sitting room. Nothing. He tossed the key in his hand and then shoved it into his pocket. He walked over to the nearest couch and prodded at it. He took an instrument out of his inside jacket pocket and looked at it.

  “Nothin’,” he said to himself. “Nothin’.” His detector showed that there were no electronic devices hidden in the room—at least, none that he did not already know about.

  He prowled around the sitting room for several minutes, looking at everything—chairs, desk, windows, floor—everything. He found nothing. He had not expected to, since the occupant, a Belt man named Harry Morgan, had only been in the suite a few minutes.