Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 4

“Please,” said the comedian softly, “I didn’t come here to quarrel with you. I want to end all that. Here and now, and for good.”

“We’ve got something he wants,” said Horowitz in a loud aside to Iris.

Heri Gonza closed his eyes and said, “You’re making this harder than it has to be. What can I do to make this a peaceful talk?”

“For one thing,” said Horowitz, “your simian friend is breathing and it bothers me. Make him stop.”

“Flannel,” said Heri Gonza, “get out.”

Glowering, the big man moved to the door, opened it, and stood on the sill. “All the way,” said the comedian. Flannel’s broad back was one silent mass of eloquent protest, but he went out and shut the door.

Deftly, with that surprising suddenness of nervous motion which was his stock in trade, Heri Gonza dropped to one knee to bring their faces on a level, and captured Iris’s startled hands. “First of all, Dr. Barran, I came to apologize to you for the way I spoke on the telephone. I had to do it —there was no alternative, as you’ll soon understand. I tried to call you back, but you’d already gone.”

“You followed me here! Oh, Dr. Horowitz, I’m sorry!”

“I didn’t need to follow you. I’ve had this place spotted since two days before you moved into it, Horowitz. But I’m sorry I had to strongarm my way in.”

“I yield to curiosity,” said Horowitz. “Why didn’t my locks alarm when you opened them? I saw Flannel’s palm-print eliminator, but dammit, they should have alarmed.”

“The locks were here when you rented the place, right? Well, who do you think had them installed? I’ll show you where the cutoff switch is before I leave. Anyhow—grant me this point. Was there any other way I could have gotten in to talk with you?”

“I concede,” said Horowitz sourly.

“Now, Dr. Barran. You have my apology, and you’ll have the explanation to go with it. Believe me, I’m sorry. The other thing I want to do is to accept, with thanks from the bottom of my heart, your very kind offer of the prize money. I want it, I need it, and it will help more than you can possibly realize.”

“No,” said Iris flatly. “I’ve promised it to Dr. Horowitz.”

Heri Gonza sighed, got to his feet, and leaned back against the lab bench. He looked down at them sadly.

“Go on,” said Horowitz. “Tell us how you need money.”

“The only two things I have never expected from you are ignorance and stupidity,” said Heri Gonza sharply, “and you’re putting up a fine display of both. Do you really think, along with all my millions of ardent fans, that when I land a two-million-dollar contract I somehow put two million dollars in the bank? Don’t be childish. My operation is literally too big to hide anything in. I have city, county, state and federal tax vultures picking through my whole operational framework. I’m a corporation and subject to outside accounting. I don’t even have a salary; I draw what I need, and I damn well account for it, too. Now, if I’m going to finish what I started with the disease, I’m going to need a lot more money than I can whittle out a chip at a time.”

“Then take it out of the Foundation money—that’s what it’s for.”

“I want to do the one thing I’m not allowed to do with it. Which happens to be the one thing that’ll break this horrible thing—it has to!”

“The only thing there is like that is a trip to Iapetus.”

To this, Heri Gonza said nothing—absolutely nothing at all. He simply waited.

Iris Barran said, “He means it. I think he really means it.”

“You’re a big wheel,” said Horowitz at last, “and there are a lot of corners you can cut, but not that one. There’s one thing the government—all governments and all their armed forces—will rise up in wrath to prevent, and that’s another landing and return from any place off earth—especially Iapetus. You’ve got close to four hundred dying kids on your hands right now, and the whole world is scared.”

“Set that aside for a moment.” The comedian was earnest, warm-voiced. “Just suppose it could be done. Horowitz, as I understand it you have everything you need on the iapetitis virus but one little link. Is that right?”

“That’s right. I can synthesize a surrogate virus from nucleic acids and exactly duplicate the disease. But it dies out of its own accord. There’s a difference between my synthetic virus and the natural one, and I don’t know what it is. Give me ten hours on Iapetus and half a break, and I’ll have the original virus under an electron mike. Then I can synthesize a duplicate, a real self-sustaining virus that can cause the disease. Once I have that, the antigen becomes a factory process, with the techniques we have today. We’ll have shots for those kids by the barrel lot inside of a week.”

Heri Gonza spread his hands. “There’s the problem, then. The law won’t allow the flight until we have the cure. We won’t have the cure unless we make the flight.”

Iris said, “A Nobel prize is an awful lot of money, but it won’t buy the shell of a space ship.”

“I’ve got the ship.”

For the first time Horowitz straightened up and spoke with something besides anger and hopelessness. “What kind of a ship? Where is it?”

“A Fafnir. You’ve seen it, or pictures of it. I use it for globe-trotting mostly, and VIP sightseeing. It’s a deepspace craft, crew of twelve, and twelve passenger cabins. But it handles like a dream, and I’ve got the best pilot in the world. Kearsarge.”

“Kearsarge, God yes. But look, what you call deepspace is Mars and Venus. Not Saturn.”

“You don’t know what’s been done to that ship. She’ll sleep four now. I have a lab and a shop in her, and all the rest is nothing but power-plant, shielding and fuel. Hell, she’ll make Pluto!”

“You mean you’ve been working on this already?”

“Man, I’ve been chipping away at my resources for a year and a half now. You don’t know what kind of footsie I’ve been playing with my business managers and the banks and all. I can’t squeak out another dime without lighting up the whole project. Dr. Barran, now do you see why I had to treat you like that? You were the godsend, with your wonderful offer and your vested interest in Billy. Can you astro-gate?”

“I—oh dear. I know the principles well enough. Yes, I could, with a little instruction.”

“You’ll get it. Now look, I don’t want to see that money. You two will go down and inspect the ship tomorrow morning, and then put in everything you’ll need beyond what’s already there. You’ve got food, fuel, water and air enough for two trips, let alone one.”

“God,” said Horowitz.

“I’ll arrange for your astrogation, Dr. Barran. You’ll have to dream up a story, secret project or long solitary vacation or some such. Horowitz, you can drop out of sight without trouble.”

“Oh, sure, thanks to you.”

“Dammit, this time you’re welcome,” said the comedian, and very nearly smiled. “Now, you’ll want one more crew member: I’ll take care of that before flight time.”

“What about the ship? What will you say?”

“Flight test after overhaul. Breakdown in space, repair, return—some such. Leave that to Kearsarge.”

“I freely admit,” said Horowitz, “that I don’t get it. This is one frolic that isn’t coming out of taxes, and it’s costing you a packet. What’s in it, mountebank?”

“You could ask that,” said the comedian sadly. “The kids, that’s all.”

“You’ll get the credit?”

“I won’t, I can’t, I don’t want it. I can’t tie in to this jaunt —it would ruin me. Off-earth landings, risking the lives of all earth’s kids—you know how they’d talk. No, sir: this is your cooky, Horowitz. You disappear, you show up one day with the answer. I eat crow like a hell of a good sport. You get back your directorship if you want it. Happy ending. All the kids get well.” He jumped into the air and clicked his heels four times on the way down. “The kids get well,” he breathed with sudden sobriety.