The Space Opera Novella Page 3

  For a few moments, Lane Shannon had been completely swept away by the fury of his dark ambition. For a few moments he had forgot the sensation of wrongness that had nagged him. Suddenly the sight of Marla Wylie’s strained, white face brought it back.

  She was standing midway between the desk and the door, facing him, her head up and her eyes blazing a strange, deep fire.

  “Mr. Shannon.” The very softness of Marla’s words made them cut like a knife. “You won’t understand what I’m going to tell you, I’m afraid. But I can only try. Please listen to me. Four years ago, Dad Leverance organized Venus Freight Line to crystallize a dream of his own. Most of us started with him then, shared his dream, helped him fight the battle he was never destined to win. I don’t expect you to understand, Mr. Shannon. I’m not blaming you. But we talked this over when the news of the sale came through, and we guessed you bought Venus for some such purpose.

  “We made our decision then. I—I’m tendering my two weeks’ notice now. The others will do the same when you’re ready to see them. Meanwhile, we’ll cooperate all we can to help you get a new staff assembled and functioning. You may ring if you want me.”

  She went out, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Shannon stood rigid for a full minute, staring at the wall. Then he turned and groped his way heavily to the old desk. He knew now what had seemed wrong, what had dulled the sharp edge of his first triumph.

  He knew that Titus Conway wasn’t the only enemy he faced. There was another—a ghost.

  The ghost of John Leverance, who had also once dreamed dreams.

  CHAPTER IV

  Rebellion

  Lane Shannon paced the worn carpet, slapping clenched fists against his thighs, fighting to suppress the rage that was building up inside him. Beyond the desk, ten feet away from him, stood the four men who were temporarily his employees.

  There was Al Spaine, dark and sneering; Mike Killmer, thin and coldly unfriendly; little “Mitie” Ohrbeck, his boyish face white and tense. Of the four, only Tubby Martin had shaken Shannon’s hand. Even his greeting had been strained, almost elaborately casual. He was standing back silently now, his eyes watchful.

  Shannon stopped his pacing and leaned white-knuckled fists on the desktop.

  “You’re fools!” he snarled with blunt harshness. “You can’t eat dead dreams. I’m offering twice what you’d make with anyone else—even offering to deposit a year’s salary to your accounts in any bank you designate, so you’ll know your hay is safe.

  “What more do you want? Venus Line is a washout anyhow. You couldn’t have kept it going. You’d have ended up slaving for Conway’s peanuts, eventually taking what I got. This way, you work a little longer, clear some money and end in a blaze of glory.”

  “Yeah,” Allen Spaine said with carefully cultivated nastiness. “I can dimly remember something about fifty-eight people who probably ended in a blaze—but not of glory.”

  Shannon flushed, then went white. For a moment he fought the impulse to smash his fists into that dark, sardonic, taunting face. He swallowed with an effort.

  “All right.” He spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. “The woods are full of spacemen with sense. If you won’t stick, you won’t stick, that’s all. My money will buy a new crew.”

  “Nothing else would,” Mike Killmer drawled. “People don’t give loyalty to a heel.”

  That hurt Shannon, hurt worse than any taunts or insults he had taken in his three years as an outcast. Loyalty to a heel! Was that what he was asking of proud, capable men? He thrust the doubt aside. Titus Conway bought what he wanted with money. While it lasted, Lane Shannon’s money was as good.

  He whirled toward the silent Tubby Martin.

  “How about you? Are you riding or walking, Tubby? I haven’t heard the details but I can guess you’ve no reason to love Conway. You’re too good a maintenance man to be throwing in with a bankrupt outfit like Venus, unless you’d been blacklisted among the big companies. That’s just one of the tricks of lovable old Titus Conway.”

  “Right,” Martin said flatly. “Mack Drummond and I had an idea maybe a certain kid pilot deserved a break. We sent bottles of that old Standard mush around to some independent testing laboratories, figuring a report on how bad it was might persuade the Board of Inquiry to reopen the probe of the CC-4.”

  He grinned lopsidedly, without humor.

  “The ‘independent’ labs weren’t independent after all,” Martin explained. “How could we know Conway owned them, too? We had our choice of crawling on our little pink tummies or getting out. I got out. Mack had a family to support. He crawled. So they split his pay and put him to flying the oldest tub on the Swampedge run.”

  “I knew you’d play along, Tubby,” Shannon said, almost happily. “Maybe we can pull Mack down to take over communi—”

  “Hold the jets, Lane,” Martin interrupted, his gaze level. “I’ve been waiting three years to ask one question. Was that amnesia story completely on the level?”

  * * * *

  Shannon’s eyes were as level as Martin’s.

  “Absolutely, Tubby.”

  “Okay. I’m glad about that, Lane. Mack and I never knew for sure. Lying to a court or an inquiry board isn’t like lying to your friends.”

  “Then I can count on you?” Martin’s gaze slid away.

  “I don’t know—yet. Let me think about it until tomorrow.”

  “All right.” Shannon sat down heavily, waved a hand without looking up. “See me tomorrow, Tubby. That’s all, for all of you.”

  He sat for a long time after the door had closed, brooding at the desktop, plowing trembling fingers through his hair. At last he turned and looked up at the face of the man he had never known—John Leverance. It was a blunt, honest face, with smile crinkles edging the wide eyes and the faintest upward quirk touching the wide lips.

  “Confound you!” Shannon whispered fiercely.

  He turned, snapped the visiphone. Marla Wylie’s voice came on instantly, cool, crisp and impersonal.

  “Get me the head of employment over at the Spacemen’s Association.”

  He did not bother to thumb on the televisor screen connection. After a moment a masculine voice came on the line.

  “Spacemen’s?” Shannon barked. “This is Venus Freight Line. We need some good men and need ’em fast. A traffic expert, a good beam operator who knows dispatching, a couple of pilots—Oh, yes,” Shannon swallowed a sudden tightness in his throat, “and a first-class private secretary who knows the interplanetary freight game. We’ll pay fifty percent over the standard salary for the right girl—”

  “Hold on,” the voice cut in sharply. “Venus Line, did you say? Well, now I’d like to accommodate you, mister. But the fact of the matter is, we haven’t any available help right now.”

  “What?” Shannon roared, strangling the instrument. “Don’t give me that tube-wash! You’ve got fifty men over there, crying for jobs. All right. Seventy-five percent above—”

  “Sorry. Nobody available right now. Try us again in maybe sixty days or so. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  The line went dead. Shannon slammed up the instrument, sat staring at the wall, breathing heavily. The war was on. He’d won the first encounter by snatching Venus Freight Line from under Conway’s nose. But it began to look as though Titus Conway was taking the second engagement.

  The enormity of the goal Shannon had set for himself began to filter into his mind and to shake his confidence. He had started with a million and a quarter profits from the sale of his Vedalian concession to Pluto Enterprises. Half of this came to him in cash, and most of that went to buy Venus. The second half was due in six months. Beyond that, there was nothing.

  Maybe he was licked before he could even start.

  “No, by Jupiter!” Shannon swore and slammed a hard fist onto the desktop
. “I beat him to Venus and I’ll beat him again.”

  * * * *

  He whirled, thumbed through a ragged directory and called a number. This time he snapped on the televisor screen. Presently it brought him the image of a square bulldog face under straight black hair. The square jaw moved and thin lips parted.

  “Mulbach Detective Agency. Hanson Mulbach speaking.”

  Shannon studied the face for a moment.

  “How about it? Has your outfit the nerve to go up against Titus Conway?”

  Hard eyes narrowed under jutting black brows.

  “How about it?” Mulbach snapped back. “Have you the dough to pay for that kind of nerve?”

  “I have.”

  “Then stop handing out insults and get down to business. My time is valuable.”

  Lane Shannon chuckled mirthlessly.

  “Good. Here’s what I want. I want a list of spacemen—pilots, maintenance, operations, clerical—whom Titus Conway has ruined. Men he’s kicked out on framed charges, blacklisted around the spaceports, men who hate the very air Titus Conway breathes. Men who’d give what little they have left for a chance to hit back at Conway, no matter what the price.

  “I want to know who they are, where they are—and I want them notified that Venus Freight Line is hiring. I want that and I want it in five—no, four days. No longer.”

  “You might get a fine collection of broken-down has-beens, potential murderers and frustrated rats,” Mulbach growled. “When Conway kicks a man down, he kicks him all the way.”

  “Right,” Shannon snapped. “That’s exactly what I want. Get to work!” He switched off.

  A moment later his office door suddenly slammed open and Tubby Martin burst through. The chunky little maintenance man’s face was wet with tears, his lips worked wildly and there was plain fury in his brimming eyes. Shannon went around his desk in two strides, caught Martin’s coat in hard fists.

  “Tubby! What is it? What happened?”

  “Mack!” Tubby Martin burst out. “Mack, the best doggone white man in the Solar System! He loved every, wire and coil of that mess of junk they called a transmitter, but what did Trans-Venus do? They jerked him out and made him pilot a ferry at half pay. Well, he won’t take their kicking around any longer. His ship was overloaded, couldn’t clear Nason Peak on the new route over Moulin Range this morning.”

  “Dead?” Shannon said huskily.

  “They took him out in pieces, but he saved their payload. The news-beam just brought it through.”

  Martin jerked away from Lane Shannon’s grip, faced him with blazing eyes.

  “You want an answer to what you asked a while ago? I’ll give it to you—right now! You bet I’m with you. With you and ahead of you. Mack was the best friend I ever had. Give me one good chance to smash Titus Conway and it’s all I’ll ever ask!”

  “Good!” Shannon whirled to his desk, punching the call key.

  Marla Wylie appeared in the door. “I transferred some money to the Venus account this morning,” Shannon said. “Start spending some of it. Call somebody and make arrangements for a trust fund to be set up, with regular monthly payments for life to Mrs. Macklin Drummond. Get her address from Tubby. She’ll never draw a nickel compensation out of Trans-Venus. That’s what Titus Conway hires lawyers for. And there was a child, wasn’t there?”

  “One,” Martin choked. “A boy, going on two years old.”

  “Include an educational fund for the boy, to see him through whatever technical training he decides on later. And keep my name out of it entirely. Okay?”

  Tubby Martin was staring at Shannon, chewing at his lip. Marla Wylie gave him a long, level look that seemed somehow less impersonal than before. She started to leave and suddenly turned back.

  “I’m sorry. I almost forgot, Mr. Shannon. There’s a call for you. Mr. Titus Conway is calling.”

  CHAPTER V

  Strategy of War

  Shannon’s eyes flashed fire.

  “Cut him in,” he ordered. “Tubby, sit over there, out of range of the scanner, and don’t miss any tricks.”

  Forcing himself to any icy calm, Shannon thumbed the receptor stud. The screen flickered, cleared. The face of Titus Conway appeared.

  Three years had made little change in the all-powerful spaceways tycoon, beyond a deepening of the leathery furrows around his thin lips, a graying of complexion and hair. The restless energy still flamed in the pale eyes, and there was the same electric crackle in his domineering voice when he spoke. He was still Titus Conway, Rex.

  “What do you want?” Shannon demanded harshly.

  “To look at you. I’m always interested in the biggest of everything—even fools.” He studied Shannon narrowly, wolfishly, showing food-soiled fangs below the curl of his lip. “You feel pretty puffed up about snatching Venus Freight Line from under my nose, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Shannon said flatly. “I’m a jump ahead and I mean to stay that way. No one else ever stood up to you and won even the first skirmish. It’s an omen. And it proves you’re human—and vulnerable.”

  “So you think you’ll take business away from Conway Cargoes on the Earth-Venus run?” the man sneered. Shannon laughed.

  “No. But your heaviest tonnage on that line is in perishable freight—costly Vro leaves, agraba roots, fresh swamp-fruit and mist-apples. Stuff that fresh is worth more than its weight in gold; spoiled, it isn’t worth a Martian pfeg. You tell me how much of that business you’ll hold when word gets out that a below-the-belt freight war is on, with no holds barred!”

  From across the room, Shannon heard Tubby Martin’s breath sucked in sharply. Titus Conway’s face was expressionless, so expressionless that Shannon knew behind the cold mask his brain was whirling furiously, weighing and measuring the impact of the blow. “Your idea might hurt,” Conway admitted at last, “except for one thing. It doesn’t matter much to my customers whether a buyer pays for their load or the insurance company foots the bill, so long as they get their money.”

  Shannon grinned and took his time lighting a cigarette before answering.

  “I happen to know you don’t hold a majority block of stock in any insurance company,” he said at last. “Maybe that’s why you aren’t so familiar with Department of Interplanetary commerce insurance rules. A company that operates safely and soundly gets coverage at a standard rate. But because of the uncertainties of interplanetary transportation, an outfit that has trouble loses that privilege.

  “After three full claims are paid, the premium rate doubles, because then you’re no longer considered a safe risk. I took the trouble to find out that Conway Cargoes had two claims adjusted inside the last contract period. One more and your insurance rate doubles.”

  “All right,” Conway growled, breathing heavily. “I can pay it. I’ll pay more than that to smash you.”

  “You will,” Shannon, agreed pleasantly. “After five claims, your insurance is canceled entirely. Forgot that?”

  He laughed and blew a thick cloud of smoke at the screen. Instinctively, although miles of distance separated them, Titus Conway blinked in reflex at the spurting vapors. Chuckling, Shannon snapped the switch on that vision—Titus Conway, flinching.

  “Lane!” Tubby Martin gasped, mopping his face. “That I should ever live to see the day!”

  Shannon mashed out his cigarette, reached up and patted Tubby Martin’s arm.

  “Half my battle is to keep him worried, Tubby. This is only the beginning. Listen.”

  * * * *

  He turned to the visiphone, put in a low-voiced call and snapped on the screen. An obsequious clerk with pencil-line mustache came into view.

  “Alderny, Keene and Company.”

  “Tom Keene,” Shannon said. Then, in an aside to Tubby Martin: “The biggest stock brokers in the country. I contacted them yesterday, as soon as I
knew my purchase of Venus was airtight.”

  A thin-faced man came into the screen.

  “Ah, how do you do, Mr. Shannon.”

  “How are you coming on my order to buy all outstanding stock in System Mutual Cargo Insurance Company?” Shannon asked.

  “Splendidly. We already have all but a few outstanding shares and we’ll get those today. Spaceline Insurance has a wonderful future, but it’s still too uncertain for most investors today. They demand more security. I am indeed happy that you—”

  “Freeze onto it,” Shannon cut in. “There’ll be a buying rush on it within twenty-four hours. I’ll sell—when the price reaches double what I’ve paid. Is that clear?”

  “Double?” Keene looked startled. “Y-yes, sir. But isn’t that expecting a great deal of the market when—”

  “Double, or don’t sell. And my name must never appear in any transaction. Keep me posted.”

  He cleared the screen, swung toward Tubby Martin. That individual’s eyes were glowing.

  “Lane, you’re doing it! You’ve scared Titus Conway into grabbing for control of an insurance company and you’re making him finance you to get it. But what if he meets your price and gets control? Then your plan to beat him through insurance costs is blown up.”

  Shannon chuckled comfortably.

  “Not exactly. There’s one block of stock frozen where neither Conway nor I can get it. It belongs to a man who’s gone on a space expedition and can’t be located or reached for a year. Without that block, nobody can secure a controlling interest. I paid plenty to bury that information where Conway won’t find it until it’s too late, when he’s already grabbed my stock.

  “I’m rushing him now, not giving him time to dig up all the angles before he acts. That’s the essence of my plan—to get him on the griddle and keep him there, hopping like a singed flea:”

  “Now I am scared!” Tubby whispered.

  “Why?”

  “It just ain’t logical, Lane. You’re taking Titus Conway, hitting him on three or four fronts and connecting on every blow. Something’s bound to go wrong.”