C Kornbluth - His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

Ballister reported sick to Senator Beekman's successor. He said that the strain of the work had broken him down, that he needed a few months'

rest. And indeed he was a pitiable sight—haggard, unkempt, eyes dilated, rambling again and again from his subject. The committee head insisted that he take a vacation.

Once outside the Auditorium, the change in Ballister was nearly magical. He slicked back his hair, straightened like a ramrod and generally became his old dynamic self.

At the flying field he took up his 'gyro. He took it 'way up, twenty thousand feet and more. Then he headed southeast across the continent. Somewhere over Germany he realized that he was being followed. There were no less than two 'gyros on his tail, neither of them official.

Like his own craft they were converted warplanes, which, after the fighting had ceased, sold for a dime a dozen. Unlike his own, they carried no markings or national insignia.

Damning his thoughtlessness he set the controls for a straight course and went back to the tail compartment for arms. He found Kay curled up on a crate, blinking in the sudden light.

"Sweet," he snapped. "I'll bawl you out for this later. Right now there are two mean-looking rigs on our tail. Can you steer an eccentric course while I handle whatever guns there may be?"

"If there's two," she said, "we'd better both handle guns. You set her for flat loops at ceiling speed. I have a scattergun that throws its weight."

"Right," said Ballister. He stepped up the speed of the ship to its very top, and then jiggled twenty miles-per-hour more out of the exhaust turbines. He set the controls for a circle, tight and fast. As the setting took and the ship swung he braced himself hard against the wall.

The centrifugal force was enormous; all loose fixtures smacked against the outside wall; he couldn't lift them off without a crowbar. Kay was battling the inertia, dragging herself along the outside wall into the storage compartment again. After a bit of heavy-handed rummaging she let out a scream of delight.

"Oh boy!" she gloated. "Look!" Painfully she hauled out and displayed a wire net, the kind used for quick repairs of the nacelle. "Get it?"

"I get it," said Ballister, a slow grin spreading over his face. "Let's hope they don't get us first." The two ships had hauled up nearly alongside and were angling off to the attack. They fired a few tentative bursts at Banister's 'gyro, presumably to judge the quality of his reply.

Ballister didn't reply. It would have been practically impossible to handle a gun against the drag of the whirling ship. But he did unsnap the top hatch, ducking back as the hinges tore loose and the square of metal flew up and out.

"Take it," said Kay. "I can't handle this thing alone." He eased his way along the wall, skirting the open hatch. Getting two big handfuls of the repair net, he dragged it behind him, snagging a corner on a rivet. Kay spread the net on her side while Ballister made ready on his own.

"When I say the word," the girl ordered, "cast off." She squinted against the sun, hunting for the two planes. With a whoop and a holler they came out of the dazzle firing at the midriff of the 'gyro.

"Right," she said calmly, unsnagging the net and chucking it through the hatch simultaneously with Ballister's machine-like gestures. It spread beautifully in flight, came at the lead plane two square yards of metal moving at high speed.

The plane tried to shoot it out of the sky first, then tried to dodge. The metal netting slammed dead into the prop, splintering and wrecking as it passed on, balled up, into the stabilizer-vane.

The second plane pulled up sharply, fired a parting burst at the 'gyro and cold-bloodedly bombed the crippled and falling companion. There was nothing left but a few drifting fragments by the time Ballister had pulled out of the flat circles.

"Now why did he do that?" wondered Kay.

"It wasn't a mercy-shot by any means," said Ballister. "They have their secrets, whoever they are. Put that in your notebook: they don't let themselves be taken alive."

"Sinister people," said Kay with a small shudder. "They tend to distress me."

Progress

They were ready to fire on the ship that overtook them above the south of France, but Kay held back Ballister's hand.

"I'm blowed," she declared, "if I've ever seen a ship as big and fancy as that one with a single-passenger rating on its side. Probably some rich coot who wants to talk to us."

It was a magnificent ship—big, enormously roomy, considering that its regulation number registered it as a single-seater. It had one of the biggest and latest engines, capable of five hundred and upwards, was amphibian, had auxiliary parachute packs and all the trimmings of a luxury liner.

Ballister tuned in on his wave. "Stop crowding me," he snapped.

"There's lots of air for you."

A familiar voice came back: "Sorry, old man. I didn't want to contact you until I was sure it was you. This is Gaffney speaking, by the by."

There was a good-humored chuckle.

"Oh—Sir Mallory!" exclaimed Ballister, aghast. "Sorry I barked at you.

How come you're following me—if you are?"

"I am, right enough. Don't worry—I feel like a vacation, same as you.

And—", a sinister note of strain crept into the baronet's voice—"I know when my life's in danger. There've been no less than three attacks on me before I decided to light out. Used this old crate—gift from the grateful Royal Academy and all that—to follow you; you left a decently marked trail over Europe. One—ah—one presumes you're heading for the Pyrenese Peoples' Republic?"

"Exactly. I won't hobble your ship, Sir Mallory. You go on ahead and I'll taxi in. It ought to be a few minutes ahead. Have they got a landing field?"

"The best. I was talking with that delegate chap of theirs—Rasonho—

tells me that once the traditionally anarchistic Basques got together they've worked miracles in a dozen years. Mountains rich in ores—loan from Germany—got smelters and all."

Ballister looked down and saw the landing field he had been promised.

It was a honey; hard-surfaced, triple-tracked, on a small scale perhaps the best in Europe.

"Set it down, Sir Mallory. I'll follow." The big plane landed with mechanical ease; Ballister cross-winded and touched Mother Earth again. He emerged with Kay to shake hands with the nobleman.

"Charmed to see you here!" exclaimed Sir Mallory. "But—?" He left the question unanswered.

Sternly Ballister explained: "This young lady, with the romantic misconceptions common to the gentlemen and ladies of the press assumed that I was going off on a secret mission for the Conference.

Naturally she could think of no simpler way to spy on me than to stow away in the tail of my 'gyro."

"And a lucky thing for him that I did," snapped Kay. She explained the dodge, the attack, and the happy ending. The baronet was fascinated and enraged.

"Who could it be?" he exploded. "Russia? Germany? Britain?"

"Dunno," said Ballister. "Whoever it is has lots on the ball—and a couple of blind spots."

Mechanics, burly, tall fellows, drove out to their planes in a sort of motorbike. "Speak English?" asked one, after sizing them up.

"Rather well," answered the nobleman with a grin. "We're by way of being unofficial delegates of goodwill from the Anti-War Conference at Oslo. Whom do you suggest we see?"

"Mayor—Pedro Marquesch. We attend to planes—drive you into city.

We are honored."

They stowed the planes into solidly built hangars, then loaded the visitors into the back of a big, new-style car. "Autos," the mechanic explained, "were import from Germany. We use not many—twenty among us, perhaps."

The car sped along a neat, narrow highway chiseled from the living rock of the Pyrenees. Their mechanic, with a sort of stolid pride in his people, pointed out the waterworks, the gasworks and a couple of outlying factories. With a smile at Sir Mallory he explained: "All smells to leeward of city. Not like London."