A Coffin for Jacob

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE Maggie suppressed a smile. "Don't be frightened, Ben. This is Simon—Simple Simon, we call him. His I. Q. isn't too high, but he makes a good helper and guard for me. He's been so anxious to see you, but I thought it'd be better if he waited until you were well." Ben nodded, fascinated by the apparent muscular solidity of the creature. It hadn't occurred to his numbed mind that he and Maggie were not the sole occupants of the dome. But Maggie had acted wisely, he thought. His nightmares had been terrifying enough without bringing Simple Simon into them. "Shake hands with Ben," she told the Venusian. Simple Simon lumbered forward, then paused. His eyes blinked. "No," he grated. Maggie gasped. "Why, Simple Simon, what's the matter?" The gray creature rasped, "Ben—he not one of us. He thinks—different. In thoughts—thinks escape. Earth." Maggie paled. "He is one of us, Simon." She stepped forward and seized the Venusian's arm. "You go to your room. Stand guard. You guard Ben just like you guard me. Understand?" Simple Simon grunted, "I guard. If Ben go—I stop him. I stop him good." He raised his huge hands suggestively. "No, Simon! Remember what Jacob told you. We hurt no one. Ben is our friend. You help him!" The Venusian thought for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I help Ben. But if go—stop." She led the creature out of the room and closed the door. "Whew," Ben sighed. "I'd heard those fellows were telepaths. Now I know ." Maggie's trembling hands reached for a cigarette. "I—I guess I didn't think, Ben. Venusians can't really read your mind, but they see your feelings, your emotions. It's a logical evolutionary development, I suppose. Auditory and visual communication are difficult here, so evolution turned to empathy. And that's why Jacob keeps a few Venusians in our group. They can detect any feeling of disloyalty before it becomes serious." Ben remembered Simple Simon's icy gaze and the way his rough hand had gripped his heat pistol. "They could be dangerous." "Not really. They're as loyal as Earth dogs to their masters. I mean they wouldn't be dangerous to anyone who's loyal to us." Silently, she helped him back to his bed. "I'm sorry, Maggie—sorry I haven't decided yet." She neither answered nor looked at him. Grimly, he realized that his status had changed. He was no longer a patient; he was a prisoner. A Venusian day passed, and a Venusian night. The dust swirled and wind blew, as constant as the whirl of indecision in Ben's mind. Maggie was patient. Once, when she caught him gazing at Jacob's photo, she asked, "Not yet?" He looked away. "Not yet." He learned that the little dome consisted of three rooms, each shaped like pieces of a fluffy pie with narrow concrete hallways between. His room served as a bedroom and he discovered that Maggie slept on a pneumatic cot in the kitchen. The third room, opening into the airlock, housed a small hydroponics garden, sunlamp, short-wave visi-radio, and such emergency equipment as oxygen tanks, windsuits, and vita-rations. It was here that Simple Simon remained most of the time, tending the garden or peering into the viewscreen that revealed the terrain outside the dome. Maggie prepared Ben's meals, bringing them to him on a tray until he was able to sit at a table. As his paralysis diminished, he helped her with cooking—with Simple Simon standing by as a mute, motionless observer. Occasionally Maggie would talk of her girlhood in a small town in Missouri and how she'd dreamed of journeying to the stars. "'Stars are for boys,' they'd tell me, but I was a queer one. While other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob." She laughed often—perhaps in a deliberate attempt to disguise the omnipresent tension. And her laughter was like laughter on Earth, floating through comfortable houses and over green fields and through clear blue sky. When she laughed, she possessed a beauty. Despite her pale face and lack of makeup, Ben realized that she was no older than he. If I'd only known her back on Earth , he thought. If I —And then he told himself, You've got enough problems. Don't create another one! Finally, except for a stiffness in his leg joints, he'd fully recovered. "How much time do I have?" he asked. "Before you decide?" "Yes." "Very little. Jacob's ship is on its way. It'll be here—well, you can't tell about these things. Two or three Earth days, maybe even tomorrow. It'll stay in Hoover City long enough to discharge and load cargo. Then it'll stop here for us and return to—to our new base." "What do you think Jacob would do if I didn't want to go with him?" She shook her head. "You asked me that before. I said I didn't know." Ben thought, I know a lot about you, Jacob. I know you're based on an asteroid. I know how many men you have, how many ships. I know where this dome is. I know you have men planted in the I. B. I. Would you let me go, knowing these things? How great is your immunity from the law? Do you love freedom so much that you'd kill to help preserve it? Fear crawled through his mind on icy legs. "Maggie," he said, "what would Jacob do if he were me?" She looked amused. "Jacob wouldn't have gotten into your situation. He wouldn't have struck Cobb. Jacob is—" "A man? And I'm still a boy? Is that what you mean?" "Not exactly. I think you'll be a man after you make your decision." He frowned, not liking her answer. "You think the dream of going into space is a boy's dream, that it can't belong to a man, too?" "Oh, no. Jacob still has the dream. Most of our men do. And in a man, it's even more wonderful than in a boy." Then her face became more serious. "Ben, you've got to decide soon. And it's got to be a complete decision. You can have no doubt in your mind." He nodded. "On account of Simon, you mean." She motioned for him to come to the window in his room. He gazed outward, following the line of her finger as she pointed. He saw a man-sized mound of stones, dimly visible beneath the wind-whipped dust. A grave. "He was a man like you," Maggie said softly. "God knows Simon didn't try to kill him. But he was escaping. He—he made the decision not to join us. Simon sensed it. There was a struggle. Simon's hands—well, he doesn't realize—" She didn't have to explain further. Ben knew what those mighty scaly paws could do. The moments were now like bits of eternity cloaked in frozen fear. Somewhere in the blackness of interplanetary space, Jacob's rocket was streaking closer and closer to Venus. How far away was it? A million miles? Fifty thousand? Or was it now—right now—ripping through the murky Venusian atmosphere above the dome? A complete decision, Maggie had said. Jacob didn't want a potential deserter in his group. And you couldn't pretend that you were loyal to Jacob—not with monstrosities like Simple Simon about. Soon Jacob, not Ben, might have to make a decision—a decision that could result in a second cairn of stones on the wind-swept desert. Ben shivered. Before retiring, he wandered nervously into the supply room. Maggie was poised over the visi-radio. Simple Simon was intently scanning the night-shrouded terrain in the viewscreen. "Any news?" Ben asked Maggie. The girl grunted negatively without looking up. Ben's gaze fell upon the array of oxygen masks, windsuits, vita-rations. Then, on a littered shelf, he spied a small Venusian compass. Almost automatically, his hand closed over it. His brain stirred with a single thought: A compass could keep a man traveling in a straight line. Simple Simon restlessly shifted. He turned to Ben, blinking in the frighteningly alien equivalent of a suspicious scowl. Ben's hand tightened about the compass. He tried to relax, to force all thought of it from his mind. He stared at the viewscreen, concentrating on the ceaseless drift of dust. The Venusian's eyes studied him curiously, as if searching his mind for the illusive echo of a feeling that had given him alarm. "I think I'll turn in," yawned Ben. "'Night, Maggie." Simon frowned, apparently frustrated in his mental search. "Ben—not one of us. I—watch." Without answering, Ben returned to his room, the compass hot and moist from the perspiration in his hand. He took a deep breath. Why had he taken the compass? He wasn't sure. Perhaps, he reflected, his decision had already been made, deep beneath the surface of consciousness. He stood before the window, peering into the night. He knew that to attempt to sleep was futile. Sleep, for the past few days an ever-ready friend, had become a hostile stranger. God , his brain cried, what shall I do? Slowly, the dust outside the window settled. The scream of wind was no longer audible. His startled eyes beheld dim, faraway lights—those of Hoover City, he guessed. It was as if, for the space of a few seconds, some cosmic power had silenced the Venusian fury, had guided him toward making his decision. He whipped up his compass. He barely had time to complete the measurement. "Sixty-eight degrees," he read. "Northeast by east." Fresh wind descended onto the plain. Dancing dust erased the vision of the lights. "Sixty-eight, sixty-eight," he kept muttering. But now there was nothing to do—except try to sleep and be ready. Strong hands shook him out of restless sleep. He opened his eyes and saw complete darkness. He thought at first that his eyesight had failed. "Ben! Wake up!" Maggie's voice came to him, crisp, commanding. "The rocket's coming. I've decoded the message. We only have a few minutes." The girl snapped on a small bulkhead light. She left him alone to dress. He slid out of bed, a drowsiness still in him. He reached for his clothing. Abruptly, the full implication of what she had said struck him. Jacob's rocket was coming. This was the time for decision, yet within his taut body there was only a jungle of conflicting impulses. Maggie returned, her face hard, her eyes asking the silent question. Ben stood frozen. The slow seconds beat against his brain like waves of ice. At last she said, "Ready, Ben?" She spoke evenly, but her searching gaze belied the all-important significance of her words. In the dim light, the photograph of Jacob was indistinguishable, but Ben could still see the image of the dead man. He thought, I can't run away with Jacob like a selfish, cowardly kid! No matter how bright the stars would be, that brightness couldn't destroy the image of a dead man with staring eyes. No matter what Jacob and Simon do to me, I've got to try to get back to Earth. He suddenly felt clean inside. He was no longer ashamed to hold his head high. "Maggie," he said. "Yes?" "I've made my decision." Outside the window, a waterfall of flame cascaded onto the desert, pushing aside the dust and the darkness. The deep-throated sound of rocket engines grumbled above the whining wind. The floor of the dome vibrated. "The rocket's here!" Maggie cried. The flaming exhaust from the ship dissolved into the night. The rocket thunder faded into the wind. The alarm on the dome's inner airlock bulkhead rang. Maggie ran like a happy child through the concrete corridor, Ben following. She bounded into the supply room, pushed Simple Simon aside, stopped before a control panel. Her fingers flew over switches and levers. The airlock door slid open. A short, stubble-bearded man clad in windsuit and transparalite helmet stomped in. He unscrewed the face plate of his helmet. His ears were too big and he looked like a fat doll. "We're ready for you, Mrs. Pierce," he said. Maggie nodded eagerly. She whirled back to Ben. " Hurry! Get your helmet and suit on!" She spun back to the big-eared little man. "Cargo unloaded? All set for the flight home?" Home , Ben thought. She calls a place she's never seen home. "Cargo's unloaded." "No trouble with the I. B. I.? No investigation?" "Not yet. We're good for a few more hauls, I guess." Ben slipped on his windsuit. He glanced at the control panel for the airlock. Yes, he could manipulate it easily. He contemplated the heat pistol at Simple Simon's hip. A tempting idea—but, no, he wanted no more of violence. Then he bit his lip. He cleared his mind of all thought. Simple Simon evidently had not noted the impulse that flicked his adrenals into pumping. The big-eared man stared strangely at Maggie. "Mrs. Pierce, before we go, I'd better tell you something." "You can do that on the rocket." Maggie stepped forward to seize her helmet. The man blocked her movement. "Mrs. Pierce, your husband—Jacob—was on the rocket." "What?" The girl released a broken, unbelieving little laugh. "Why, he wouldn't dare! That idiot, taking a chance like—" Alarm twisted her features. "He—he wasn't captured—" "No, he wasn't captured. And he took no chance, Mrs. Pierce." A moment of silence. Then she sucked in her breath. Ben understood. Words echoed in his mind: "Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth, not even to Hoover City—except dead." Maggie swayed. Ben and the big-eared little man jumped to her side, guided her back into the compartment used as a kitchen. They helped her to a chair. Ben turned on the fire beneath a coffee pot. Simple Simon watched silently. Her eyes empty and staring, Maggie asked, "How did it happen?" "We were heading into a clump of baby asteroids the size of peas. The radar warning was too slow. We couldn't pull away; we had to stop. The deceleration got him—crushed him. He lived for five minutes afterward." The little man produced a folded paper from a pocket of his suit. "Jacob said he had some ideas he had to get down on paper. God knows why, but during those five minutes he drew up this plan for improving our deceleration compensator." "Plans for—" she gasped. "He was a spaceman, Mrs. Pierce." The man handed her the paper. Ben caught a glimpse of scribbled circuits, relays, cathodes. "When he finished," the man continued, "he said to tell you that he loved you." She started to hand the paper back. The spaceman shook his head. "No, the original is yours. I've made copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City." Maggie kept talking to the little man, lost in the world he was creating for her. Ben was excluded from that world, a stranger. Then Ben saw his opportunity. Simple Simon's face was expressionless, but tears were zig-zagging down his gray, reptilian features. Ben stared for several seconds, wondering if his vision had deceived him. Till this instant, he'd somehow assumed that the big Venusian was devoid of emotion. But Simple Simon was crying. It was unlikely that the creature would peer into his mind at a moment like this. Step by step, Ben backed toward the open door in the rear of the compartment. Silently, he slipped through it. He attempted to move automatically, without feeling. He darted into the supply room. The continued drone of voices told him his action had not been observed. He didn't like it at all. Escaping this way was like crumpling Maggie's grief into an acid ball and hurling it into her face. But he had no other choice. A few seconds later, he was dressed in windsuit and oxygen helmet. A can of vita-rations was strapped to his back and his compass was in his hand. Heart refusing to stop pounding, he threw the levers and switches to open the airlock. He cringed under the grinding, scraping noise, as loud to him as the ringing clash of swords. But the murmur of voices continued. He stepped outside. The airlock door clanged shut. He was caught by the biting dust and the shrill banshee wind. He fell, then scrambled erect. To his right, he saw the silver sheen of Jacob's rocket shining behind a row of golden, eyelike portholes. Beneath it were black outlines of moving, helmeted figures. He bent low to study the luminous dial of his compass. Behind him was a grating and a sliding of metal. A movement in the darkness. He turned. Dimly illuminated by the glow from the rocket ports was the grim, stony face of Simple Simon. The Venusian was like a piece of the night itself, compressed and solidified to form a living creature. The impression was contradicted only by the glowing whiteness of his eyes. The reptilian body shuffled forward. The scales on his great face and chest reflected the lights from the rocket like Christmas tree ornaments dusted with gold. His hands reached out. Words thundered in Ben's memory: God knows Simon didn't try to kill him. Simon's hands—well, he doesn't realize— Ben hopped away from the groping hands, slipped the compass into his pocket, balled his fists. The wind caught at his body. He stumbled, then recovered his balance. Despite the wind and his suit's bulkiness, he was surprised at his own agility. He recalled that the gravitational pull of Venus was only four-fifths of Earth's. That was an advantage. Crouching against the wind, he stepped to his left, away from the rocket. He was reluctant to enter an area of greater darkness, but neither did he want to risk observation by the men he'd seen near Jacob's ship. Simple Simon followed. He moved like an automaton, functioning with awkward, methodical slowness. His hands, speckled with reflected light, rose up out of the darkness. Ben stepped back, wiped the dust from his clouded face-plate. One swoop of those hands, he knew, could shatter his helmet, destroy his oxygen supply, leave him choking on deadly methane and carbon dioxide. But, so far, Simon seemed bent on capture, not destruction. That fact gave Ben a second advantage. Scaly fingers, moving now with greater swiftness, closed over the shoulder of his suit. Ben felt himself being pulled forward, a child in the grasp of a giant. His brief surge of confidence vanished. Cold terror swept upon him. He lashed out wildly. His right fist found his target, found it so well that the skin split on his gloved knuckles. Simon's head snapped back. The grasping fingers slipped from Ben's suit. But still the Venusian lumbered ahead, an irresistible juggernaut, the hands continually groping. Ben ducked and slipped aside. The can of vita-rations was ripped from his back. He crouched low, fighting the wind, maneuvering for another blow. His lungs ached, but he had no opportunity to increase his helmet's oxygen flow. His weak leg muscles were beginning to pain as though with needles of fire. The hands crashed down upon his shoulders. This time, his fist found Simon's stomach. The creature released a grunt audible above the howling of wind. His body doubled up. Ben struck again and again. His lungs throbbed as if they'd break through his chest. A fresh layer of dust coated his face-plate, nearly blinding him. He fought instinctively, gauntleted fists battering. Simple Simon fell. Ben brushed away the dust from his face-plate, turned up his helmet's oxygen valve. Then he knelt by the fallen creature. A new fear came to Ben Curtis—a fear almost as great as that of being caught in Simon's crushing grip. It was the fear that he had killed again. But even in the near-darkness, he could distinguish the labored rise and fall of the massive chest. Thank God , he thought. From the direction of Jacob's ship, a flash of light caught his eye. The black shapes of helmeted men were becoming larger, nearer. Ben tensed. The spacemen couldn't have heard sounds of the struggle, but they might have noticed movement. Puffing, Ben plunged into the darkness to his left, slowing only long enough to consult the dial of his compass. "Sixty-eight degrees," he breathed. The compass dial was now his only companion and his only hope. It was the one bit of reality in a world of black, screaming nightmare. At first Ben Curtis fought the wind and the dust and the night. His fists were clenched as they had been while struggling with Simon. Each step forward was a challenge, a struggle and—so far, at any rate—a victory. But how far was the city? Five miles? Ten? How could you judge distance through a haze of alien sand? And were Simple Simon or Jacob's men following? How good was a Venusian's vision at night? Would the scaly hands find him even now, descending on him from out of the blackness? He kept walking, walking. Sixty-eight degrees. Gradually his senses grew numb to the fear of recapture. He became oblivious to the wailing wind and the beat of dust against his face-plate. He moved like a robot. His mind wandered back through time and space, a pin-wheel spinning with unforgettable impressions, faces, voices. He saw the white features of a dead man, their vividness fading now and no longer terrifying. A Space Officer Is Honest. A Space Officer Is Loyal. A Space Officer Is Dutiful. The words were like clear, satisfying music. He cursed at the image of a pop-eyed Martian boy. A tres fine table, monsieur. Close in the shadows. And yet, he told himself, the boy really didn't do anything wrong. He was only helping to capture a murderer. Maybe he was lonesome for Mars and needed money to go home. Ben thought of Maggie: While other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob.... If I'd only known her back on Earth— Maggie, sitting alone now with a wrinkled paper and its mass of scrawled circuits. Alone and hollow with grief and needing help. Ben's throat tightened. Damn it, he didn't want to think about that. What was it the little big-eared man had said? I've made copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City. Why had he said that? Why would renegades give their secrets to the Space Corps? The Corps would incorporate the discoveries in their ships. With them, they'd reach the asteroids. Jacob's group would be pushed even further outward. Ben stopped, the wind whipping at his suit and buffeting his helmet—but not as hard as the answer he had found. Jacob and his men had an existence to justify, a debt to pay. They justified that existence and paid that debt by helping humanity in its starward advance. Maggie had said, We carry cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's getting scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. If we want to risk our lives getting it, that's our business.... The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies. The wind pressed Ben back. The coldness of the Venusian night was seeping into his suit. It was as if his body were bathed, at once, in flame and ice. He slipped, fell, his face turned toward the sandy ground. He did not try to rise. Yet his mind seemed to soar above the pain, to carry him into a wondrous valley of new awareness. Man would never be content to stay on nine insignificant globes-not when his eyes had the power to stare into a night sky and when his brain had the ability to imagine. There would have to be pioneers to seek out the unknown horror, to face it and defeat it. There would have to be signposts lining the great road and helping others to follow without fear. For all the brilliancy of their dreams, those men would be the lonely ones, the men of no return. For all the glory of their brief adventure, they would give not only their cloaks, but ultimately their lives. Ben lay trembling in the darkness. His brain cried, You couldn't rig up a radar system or a deceleration compensator, but you could chart those asteroids. You can't bring a man named Cobb back to life, but you could help a thousand men and women to stay alive five or ten or twenty years from now. Ben knew at last what decision Jacob would have made. The reverse of sixty-eight on a compass is two-forty-eight. Like flashing knitting needles, strong hands moved about his face-plate, his windsuit, his helmet. Then they were wiping perspiration from his white face and placing a wet cloth on the back of his neck. "You were coming back," a voice kept saying. "You were coming back." His mouth was full of hot coffee. He became aware of a gentle face hovering above him, just as it had a seeming eternity ago. He sat up on the bed, conscious now of his surroundings. "Simon says you were coming back, Ben. Why? " He fought to grasp the meaning of Maggie's words. "Simon? Simon found me? He brought me back?" "Only a short way. He said you were almost here." Ben closed his eyes, reliving the whirlwind of thought that had whipped through his brain. He mumbled something about pioneers and a scrawled paper and a debt and a decision. Then he blinked and saw that he and Maggie were not alone. Simple Simon stood at the foot of his bed—and was that a trace of a smile on his reptilian mouth? And three windsuited spacemen stood behind Maggie, helmets in their hands. One was a lean-boned, reddish-skinned Martian. Simple Simon said, "Ben—changed. Thinks—like us. Good now. Like—Jacob." The little big-eared man stepped up and shook hands with Ben. "If Simon says so, that's good enough for me." A blond-haired Earthman helped Ben from the bed. "Legs okay, fellow? Think you're ready?" Ben stood erect unassisted. "Legs okay. And I'm ready." He thought for a moment. "But suppose I wasn't ready. Suppose I didn't want to go with you. I know a lot about your organization. What would you do?" The blond man shrugged untroubledly. "We wouldn't kill you, if that's what you mean. We'd probably vote on whether to take you with us anyway or let you go." His smile was frank. "I'm glad we don't have to vote." Ben nodded and turned to Maggie. "You're still coming with us?" She shook her head, a mist shining in her sad eyes. "Not on this trip. Not without Jacob. I'll get one of our desert taxis back to Hoover City. Then I'll be going to Earth for a while. I've got some thinking to do and thinking is done best on Earth. Out here is the place for feeling ." Her eyes lost a little of their pain. "But I'll be back. Jacob wouldn't stay on Earth. Neither will I. I'll be seeing you." The big-eared man put his hand on Ben's shoulder. "Think you can get us back to Juno?" he asked. Ben looked at Maggie and then at the big-eared man. "You're as good as there," he said confidently. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COFFIN FOR JACOB *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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