Turnover Point Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April-May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  TURNOVER POINT

  By ALFRED COPPEL

  Illustrator: EMSH

  _Every era in history has had its Pop Ganlon's. Along in years and not successful and not caring much anyway. A matter of living out their years, following an obscure path to oblivion._

  _It was that way in ancient Egypt, just as it will be when the Solar System shrinks to our size. And once in a while such men are given an opportunity to contribute to the society that has forgotten them...._

  * * * * *

  Pop Ganlon was no hero--he was only a spaceman. A spaceman and afather. In fact, Pop was rather no-account, even in a profession thatabounded with drifters. He had made a meagre living prospectingasteroids and hauling light freight and an occasional passenger outin the Belt Region. Coffee and cakes, nothing more. Not many peopleknew Pop had a son in the Patrol, and even fewer knew it when the boywas blasted to a cinder in a back alley in Lower Marsport.

  Pop went on eating and breathing, but his life was over after that. Hehit the bottle a little harder and his ship, _The Luck_, grew rustierand tackier, and those were the only outward signs that Pop Ganlon wasa living dead man. He kept on grubbing among the cold rocks andpushing _The Luck_ from Marsport to Callisto and back with whateverlow-mass payloads he could pick up. He might have lived out his stringof years like that, obscure and alone, if it hadn't been for JohnKane. Kane was Pop Ganlon's ticket to a sort of personalimmortality--if there is such a thing for an old spaceman.

  It was in Yakki, down-canal from Marsport, that Kane found Pop. Thereis a small spaceport there--a boneyard, really--for buckets whoseskippers can't pay the heavy tariff imposed by the big ramp. All thewrecks nest there while waiting hopefully for a payload or agrubstake. They have all of Solis Lacus for a landing field, and ifthey spill it doesn't matter much. The drifting red sands soon coverup the scattered shards of dural and the slow, lonely life of Yakkigoes on like before.

  The Patrol was on Kane's trail and the blaster in his hand was stillwarm when he shoved it up against Pop Ganlon's ribs and made hisproposition.

  He wanted to get off Mars--out to Callisto. To Blackwater, to Ley'sLanding, it didn't matter too much. Just off Mars, and quickly. Hiseyes had a metallic glitter and his hand was rock-steady. Pop knew hemeant what he said when he told him life was cheap. Someone else'slife, not Kane's.

  * * * * *

  That's how it happened that _The Luck_ lifted that night from Yakki,outward bound for Ley's Landing, with Pop and Kane aboard her alone.

  Sitting at the battered console of _The Luck_, Pop watched hispassenger. He knew Kane, of course. Or rather, he knew of him. Akiller. The kind that thrives and grows fat on the frontiers. Thebulky frame, the cropped black hair, the predatory eyes that lookedlike two blaster muzzles. They were all familiar to Pop. Kane was allsteel and meanness. The kind of carrion bird that took what others hadworked for. Not big time, you understand. In another age he'd havebeen a torpedo--a hireling killer. But out among the stars he wasworking for himself. And doing well.

  Pop didn't care. His loyalty to the Patrol had stopped quite suddenlynot long before--in a dark alley in Lower Marsport. This was only ajob, he told himself now. A job for coffee and cakes, and maybe agrubstake to work a few more lonely rocks. Life had become a habit forPop, even if living had ended.

  "What are you staring at, Pop?" Kane's voice was like the rest of him.Harsh and cold as space itself.

  "At you, I guess," Pop said, "I was wondering what you'd done--andwhere--and to whom."

  "You're a nosey old man," Kane said. "Just get me to Ley's Landing.That's what I'm paying for, not a thing more."

  Pop nodded slowly and turned back to the control board. They wereabove the Belt by now, and a few short hours from turnover point. Thecranky drives of _The Luck_ needed all his attention.

  Presently he said, "We'll be turning over soon. Want to get somerest?"

  Kane laughed. "No thanks, old man. I'll stay here and watch you."

  Pop eyed the ready blaster and nodded again. He wondered vaguely howit would feel to die under the blast of such a weapon. It couldn't bevery painful. He hoped it wasn't painful. Perhaps the boy hadn'tsuffered. It would be nice to be sure, he thought.

  There wasn't much for Pop to remember about the boy. He'd never beenone for writing many letters. But the District Patrolman had come downto Yakki and looked Pop up--afterward. He'd said the boy was a goodofficer. A good cop. Died doing his job, and all that sort of thing.Pop swallowed hard. His job. What had 'his job' been that night inLower Marsport, he wondered. Had someone else finished it for him?

  He remembered about that time hearing on the Mars Radio that aTriangle Post Office had been knocked over by a gunman. That mighthave been it. The Patrol would be after anyone knocking over EMVTriangle property. The Earth-Mars-Venus Government supported thePatrol for things like that.

  Pop guided _The Luck_ skillfully above the Belt, avoiding withpracticed ease the few errant chunks of rock that hurtled up out ofthe swarms. He talked to Kane because he was starved fortalk--certainly not because he was trying to play Sherlock. Pop hadlong ago realized that he was no mental giant. Besides, he owed thePatrol nothing. Not a damned thing.

  "Made this trip often?" Pop tried to strike up a conversation withKane. His long loneliness seemed sharper, somehow, more poignant,when he actually had someone to talk to.

  "Not often. I'm no space pig." It was said with scorn.

  "There's a lot to spacing, you know," Pop urged.

  Kane shrugged. "I know easier ways to make a buck, old timer."

  "Like how?"

  "A nosey old man, like I said," Kane smiled. Somehow, the smile wasn'tfriendly. "Okay, Pop, since you ask. Like knocking off wacky oldprospectors for their dust. Or sticking up sandcar caravans out inSyrtis. Who's the wiser? The red dust takes care of the leftovers."

  Pop shook his head. "Not for me. There's the Patrol to think of."

  Kane laughed. "Punks. Bell-boys. They'd better learn to shoot beforethey leave their school-books."

  Pop Ganlon frowned slightly. "You talk big, mister."

  Kane's eyes took on that metallic glitter again. He leaned forward andthrew a canvas packet on the console. It spilled crisp new EMVcertificates. Large ones. "I take big, too," he said.

  Pop stared. Not at the money. It was more than he had ever seen in onepile before, but it wasn't that that shook him. It was the canvaspacket. It was marked: _Postal Service, EMV_. Pop suddenly felt cold,as though an icy wind had touched him.

  "You ... you killed a Patrolman for this," he said slowly.

  "That's right, Pop," grinned Kane easily. "Burned him down in an alleyin Lower Marsport. It was like taking candy from a baby...."

  Pop Ganlon swallowed hard. "Like taking candy from a ... baby. As easyas that...."

  "As easy as that, old man," Kane said.

  * * * * *

  Pop knew he was going to die then. He knew Kane would blast him rightafter turnover point, and he knew fear. He felt something else, too.Something that was new to him. Hate. An icy hate that left him shakenand weak.

  So the boy's job hadn't been finished. It was still to do.

  There was no use in dreaming of killing Kane. Pop was old. Kane wasyoung--and a ki
ller. Pop was alone and without weapons--save _TheLuck_....

  Time passed slowly. Outside, the night of deep space keenedsoundlessly. The stars burned bright, alien and strange. It was time,thought Pop bleakly. Time to turn _The Luck_.

  "Turnover point," he said softly.

  Kane motioned with his blaster. "Get at it."

  Pop began winding the flywheel. It made a whirring sound in theconfined space of the tiny control room. Outside, the night began topivot slowly.

  "We have to turn end-for-end," Pop said. "That way we can decelerateon the drop into Callisto. But, of course, you know all about that,Mr. Kane."

  "I told you I'm no space pig," Kane said brusquely. "I can handle alanding and maybe a takeoff, but the rest of it I leave for theboatmen. Like you, Pop."

  Pop spun the flywheel in silence, listening to the soft whir.Presently, he let the wheel slow and then stop. He straightened andlooked up at Kane. The blaster muzzle was six inches from his belly.He swallowed against the dryness in his throat.

  "You ... you're going to kill me," Pop said. It wasn't a question.Kane smiled, showing white teeth.

  "I ... I know you are," Pop said unsteadily. "But first, I want to saysomething to you."

  "Talk, old timer," Kane said. "But not too much."

  "That boy--that boy you killed in Marsport. He was my son," Pop said.

  Kane's face did not change expression. "Okay. So what?"

  Pop's lips twitched. "I just wanted to hear you say it." He looked atthe impassive face of the killer. "You made a mistake, Mr. Kane. Youshouldn't have done that to my boy."

  "Is that all?"

  Pop nodded slowly. "I guess that's all."

  Kane grinned. "Afraid, old man?"

  "I'm a space pig," Pop said. "Space takes care of its own."

  "You're in a bad way, old timer," Kane said, "and you haven't muchsense. I'm doing you a favor."

  Pop lifted his hands in an instinctive gesture of futile protection asthe blaster erupted flame.

  There was a smell in the control room like burnt meat as Kaneholstered his weapon and turned the old man over with a foot. Pop wasa blackened mass. Kane dragged him to the valve and jettisoned thebody into space.

  * * * * *

  Alone among the stars, _The Luck_ moved across the velvet night. Thesteady beat of flame from her tubes was a tiny spark of man-madevengeance on the face of the deeps.

  From her turnover point, she drove outward toward the spinning Jovianmoons. For a short while she could be seen from the EMV Observatory onCallisto, but very soon she faded into the outer darkness.

  Much later, the Observatory at Land's End on Triton watched herheading past the gibbous mass of Pluto--out into the interstellarfastnesses.

  The thrumming of the jets was still at last. A wild-eyed thing thatmay once have been a man stared in horror at the fading light of theyellow star far astern.

  It had taken Kane time to understand what had happened to him, and nowit was too late. Space had taken care of its own. The air in _TheLuck_ was growing foul and the food was gone. Death hung in the fetidatmosphere of the tiny control room.

  The old man--the boy--the money. They all seemed to spin in anarrowing circle. Kane wanted suddenly to shriek with laughter. Acircle. The turnover circle. The full circle that the old man had madeinstead of the proper half-turn of a turnover. Three hundred sixtydegrees instead of one hundred eighty. Three hundred sixty degrees toleave the nose of _The Luck_ pointing outward toward the stars,instead of properly toward the Sun. A full circle to pile G on G untilthe Jovian moons were missed, and the Uranian moons and Triton, too._Ad Astra per Ardua...._

  With the last fragment of his failing sanity, Kane thought of how PopGanlon and the boy must be laughing. He was still thinking that as thelong night closed in around him.

  * * * * *