Part 1

PHANTOM DUEL

By FORD McCORMACK

Illustrated by STALLMAN

_Farian jade was the most precious jewel in history--and the most deadly!_

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity Science Fiction, November 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Will Archer idly poked one of the array of keys which studded the wings of his control chair. The pattern of stars which sprayed into a twelve-foot black bowl from a knobbed projector above his head winked out and was promptly replaced by the rounding, yellow-green bulk of Vega VII, less than two diameters away.

He was not sorry that its image was receding steadily. Faria, as it was called in the Vega system, was about the size of Earth and its atmosphere was tolerable to humans--there the resemblance all but ended. For its weather was insufferably hot, its topography fantastically tortuous, and its life-forms, both animal and vegetable--and yes, mineral!--were of a general aspect that only a biologist could gaze on with fondness.

In order to do so, a whole group of kindred scientists had come all the way from far Earth six months before, and had chartered a ship at the interstellar base on Vega IX.

They had also required an experienced and reliable "local" crew. The pay had been good, and Will Archer was looking forward to spending most of it quickly and freely on Vega IX.

He released the key and the screen automatically reoriented itself to primary position--on course. The stars showing before him were actually almost directly above his head, allowing for "yaw" due to offset angular acceleration.

Eighty hours to reversal. A hundred more of "descent" to Vega IX. Will Archer shrugged. Eight days between him and the fanciest fleshpots in the system. With a little more squirt--say about one-point-six G, which anybody but a cardiac case could easily stand--they could cut the trip in half, and sit down with juice to spare. But the freak-chasers loved comfort, and with all those specimens to drool over, they'd probably just as soon start for Sol III on chem-drive! Well, they or their sponsors were footing the bill, so--

The concave screen suddenly flickered to fifth position, showing a 120° range of the firmament, rotated 90° clockwise, to the pilot's left. At the same time, a buzzer started droning, and a yellow light blinked on the gauge panel to his right.

Toward one side of the screen, the great disc of Vega, selectively dimmed in projection, glowed like a blue-white moon. Near the center, a twelve-inch ring of light appeared and began to move slowly to the right. Whatever the ring indicated was too small and too distant to see, but to the unaided judgment its motion bore a disturbing resemblance to a collision course.

Evidently the detector-system thought otherwise, or a red light would be flashing instead of a yellow one, an all-quarters alarm-bell would be sounding instead of a buzzer, and the controls would have operated automatically to deflect the ship by a safe margin--or to the limit of its occupants' capacity to absorb shock. Fortunately, such instances were vanishingly rare: space is incredibly roomy.

Beneath the yellow blinker, a set of clicking meters recorded the flight components of the foreign object. Its direction cosines were changing slowly in a characteristically orbital manner; the object was probably a ship approaching the planet, although its velocity was a bit high for this proximity. But that was another pilot's worry.

The ring was moving faster now, approaching the edge of the field. Just as it touched, it disappeared, and the screen flashed to first position. The ring reappeared at far left, shifted to the right with gathering speed. It swung past the center with a rush, slowed down again, and reached the far edge as the screen reoriented to third position. Very slowly now, the ring moved out from the left side of the field.

The nearest distance of the respective courses had been about 45 miles; of the ships themselves, about 70. The ring drifted on toward the center of the screen and seemed to hover there.

Will Archer looked back at the meters and shook his head. Too fast by far. And the negative acceleration was only a fraction of a G--_wait a minute!_ He stared at the meter in question. Its reading was positive!

* * * * *

That meant the other ship, or whatever it might be, was approaching the planet in something resembling a free fall. A crash was not inevitable--there was plenty of time to apply sufficient lateral thrust to insure a miss--but _why_? Time and fuel would be wasted before a landing would become possible.

The meters stopped clicking, the buzzer became silent, and the ring disappeared from the screen, which changed back to first position. The object had passed beyond accurate range.

Will Archer frowned and pressed a key to his left. After a moment, the face of the radio operator appeared on a small video plate: "Yes?"

"Any calls from outside in the last few minutes?"

The radio operator looked surprised. "No. Why?"

"Stay on audio." The pilot pressed another key, and the buzzer began droning again. This time, it would be heard in all parts of the ship. Captain's call. After perhaps ten seconds, the broad, placid face of Captain Rogan appeared on the screen: "Will? What's the trouble?"

The captain rested his claim to respect on an amazing percentage of sound decisions, and held formality very lightly.

"Cap, a ship just crossed our course in what looked like a free fall to the planet--too fast for a landing. No signals of any kind."

Archer added nothing to the simple facts, since Captain Rogan was as well qualified to speculate about them as anyone. He knew that the Vega system harbors few, if any, meteorites of the indicated size. There is no asteroid belt; apparently there have never been more than the present twenty-three planets.

The only answer which seemed consistent with the facts was an ugly one. The object was a ship out of control--its occupants either dead or helpless.

* * * * *

Captain Rogan's furrowed brow indicated that he had reached the same conclusion.

"Modify thrust to hold course and cut acceleration," he said quietly. "I'll send Berry up to make the layout." The video plate blanked out.

Berry, the navigator, had turned in shortly after the fix and was probably asleep by now. Archer would need him--it was going to be tricky to plot a follow-course this close to the planet with enough leeway to match velocities. And they would have to pour it on a little, in all probability, to insure a safe margin--he wondered how the paying guests would like that. Not that it would matter to Captain Rogan--the Space Code came first.

Will Archer pressed a key, and a high-pitched gong began to sound at one-second intervals. It would warn the ship's occupants of a change in acceleration, and would continue until the change was completed.

Berry came in, walking quite steadily with the flat-footed gait of one wearing magnetic shoe-plates. He nodded sleepily, ran a hand through his tousled blond hair, and strapped his slight frame into the seat at the computing table.

"I can tell you right now," he said glumly, "it's going to be rough. At 3 G tops, it'll take five elements and seven hours, at the very least. We won't get within 50 percent of optimum."

Archer read between the lines. Berry was a confirmed pessimist, and if he specified seven hours, it meant there was a fair chance of overtaking the other ship in less.

On the trip "down," Will Archer did not mind the roller-coaster effects nearly so much as his gradual loss of orientation. It was not his first experience with incrementing a free descent, but it was by all odds his longest one. In succession, the planet was "up," "down," sideways and all over the place. Only the screen remained relatively unconfused. Certainly no planet-evolved organism could hope to match its gyroscopic single-mindedness.

Some six hours later, the planet's projection occupied virtually the whole screen. The locator ring, now in shadow for contrast, picked out the other ship, which presently became visible as a black speck somewhat above the screen's center.

It grew, and became recognizable as a small ship of not more than six-man capacity. There was now little question of its being out of control--it was dropping toward the planet at an odd angle, and its jets were dead. The question was whether there would be sufficient thrust available to divert it from the planet's atmosphere. Unless power were applied within the next hour, Archer surmised, no reasonable amount of acceleration would do the trick.

Archer grinned. The same thing applied to this ship. How would the scientists react to the choice of jettisoning some of their heavy equipment and specimens or burdening their own frames with artificial avoirdupois to the point of black-out?

The final jockeying to match velocities was a delicate and nerve-wracking task, since overshooting even once would have meant considerable loss of time. There was a tense moment as they slid abreast of the smaller ship and Archer applied the last few pounds of thrust. It was precisely enough, and the two ships floated relatively motionless, though somewhat askew. The smaller ship showed no external signs of damage, yet no light showed through any of the visible portholes.

An extending rod, blackly silhouetted against the looming planet, stretched slowly across the field and touched the smaller ship's hull. Another moved out, farther away, and then a third, forming a magnetically clinging tripod which locked the two ships together.

The buzzer sounded intermittently and a blue light flashed on Archer's left. He flipped a key, and Captain Rogan's face appeared on the video plate.

"Will, get into your suit and come to the lock. Berry will take the controls. You're to go over with Stokely and see what can be done. And--better bring your gun, just in case."

It was a notion that had already occurred to Archer, and he toyed with it further while donning his pressure-suit. People occasionally go berserk in space--its awesome immensity affects some minds that way--and a few had been fairly successful in liquidating their fellows wholesale. Among those ships which had simply disappeared forever into the void, there were probably a few such cases. Yes, it was entirely possible that there might be one living occupant of the other ship--a madman.

* * * * *

Stokely, the burly, pink-haired chief engineer, was dressed for space, except for his head-globe, when Archer arrived at the lock. So were two others: Evans, a soft-spoken, sharp-faced member of the crew, and a tall and graying individual whom Will recognized as Dr. Hubert Grimwood, one of the more eminent of the scientists aboard. A sizable medical kit was slung from the doctor's middle.

"I must admit, Captain," he was saying apologetically, "that while I do have a medical degree, I have never practised except--ah--incidentally."

Captain Rogan shrugged. "There's no other medical doctor aboard, as I told you. All you can do is your best."

The captain took up his position at the observation port next to the lock. "Are you ready, gentlemen?"

With the others, Archer slipped on his radio headset, placed his head-globe in its rubber gasket and tightened the four clamps that held it. He cracked the compressed-air valve just enough to inflate the suit gently, and turned on the regulator unit. As he stepped into the airlock, the voice of Captain Rogan, slightly blurred in transmission, sounded in his ears:

"Stokely and Archer, being armed, will enter first. Stokely will report progress, if able--otherwise Archer, Evans, Grimwood, in that order. Please acknowledge."

The four men in the lock spoke their "Yes, sirs," in the order named, including Dr. Grimwood, whose response was nervously emphatic. He was plainly unaccustomed to activity during degravitation, but the set of his bony countenance showed his determination to go through with it.

Will Archer felt his suit stiffening as the gauge dropped toward zero, and he moved his arms and legs a little to test the ball joints. They moved freely, being precisely pivoted so that the volume of the suit remained constant regardless of position. A moment later, Stokely pulled open the outer hatch.

One of the contact rods projected from its sheath near the hatch to a point within reach of the other ship's lock. Stokely set out carefully, hand over hand, and Archer followed him, gripping the rod firmly with each hand in turn. This was no time to make a slip and go drifting off into nowhere. The pistol at his side would provide a means of getting back, but an awkward one, because one's center of gravity was difficult to judge accurately, and if the shot were not closely aligned to it, one stood an excellent chance of converting himself into a human pinwheel.

Archer waited near the hull of the other ship until Stokely drew himself out of the way, then, grasping a nearby rung, he made room for Evans and Grimwood. Stokely, though a few feet away, was in dense shadow and almost invisible, but his flashlight made a shifting oval of light on what appeared to be a pane of vitreon, and he spoke steadily:

"I'm looking through the porthole, but I can't see much. There are no lights aboard ship. Nothing seems to be out of place in the waist here, but of course I can't see the nose and tail compartments."

"How about the lock?" came Captain Rogan's voice. "Try the emergency control."

Archer could feel a slight vibration through the hull as Stokely changed his position, then spoke again:

"Seems to be in working order. The lock is evacuating. But it's going to be a squeeze for the four of us."

"Better go in two at a time. You and Archer first. And keep your suits operating, even if the air reads all right--there just might be some fancy bacteria floating around."

That was another grim possibility not unknown in space annals. Bacteria could mutate rapidly and strangely under extra-planetary conditions. On two or three occasions, "fancy" ones had nearly wiped out orbital laboratories devoted to bacteriological research.

If such were the case here, it was all the more important to see what could be done to avoid tainting the atmosphere of an inhabited planet.

* * * * *

In the air lock, the pressure balanced quickly with that of the interior, and the tension eased on the fabric of their suits. Stokely pushed the inner hatch open and they entered with guns drawn. The beams of their flashlights swept the chamber quickly, then more slowly.

There were only the bunks, storage lockers, air-processing equipment, and gyro-stabilizer unit to be expected amidships of such a craft. Stokely placed a hand on the stabilizer housing for a moment, then nodded. They had already judged from the ship's behavior that it must be functioning.

"Nothing out of the way here," reported Stokely in a low voice.

"Stay together, and look at the control room first," Captain Rogan ordered.

There was, of course, no central lift in a ship this size, but merely narrow ladders between the compartments. These were necessary only under the pull of gravity or acceleration, and under the present circumstances, to be avoided. Stokely led the way "up" the inner hull and across the "overhead," placing his magnetized boots as softly as possible.

The inter compartment hatch, about three feet in diameter, was wide open. Stokely pointed at Archer's flashlight and made a fanlike motion with his hands. Archer nodded, reached out and aimed the light through the hole, full flood, while Stokely peered through the other side, gun in hand. The stratagem was simple--anyone firing at the light might hit Archer's arm, but probably not Stokely's less expendable head.

Nothing happened. After a tense moment, Archer moved the light about slowly, then Stokely turned his own over the edge.

"There are two men in there," he said slowly. "Both dead, I think."

* * * * *

There was no doubt at all about one of them, whose corpse floated not six feet away, tied by one wrist to a conduit. Part of the face seemed to have been gouged out, and closer inspection showed the explanation: a sizable bullet-hole in the opposite temple.

Whether or not the other was dead, he was certainly not conscious, despite his normal sitting posture in the control chair. That was to be expected anyhow, in a free fall with the safety belt fastened. His squat frame was stripped to the waist, his small black eyes stared blindly, and his unshaven jaw was clenched in an ugly grin. His right hand loosely held a hypodermic syringe, and a pistol was stuck in his belt.

Stokely gave a brief description, and added: "He looks dead, all right. Maybe he tried to give himself an anti-tetanus injection, but was too late."

"Dr. Grimwood will please go in immediately," said Captain Rogan. "In the meantime, Stokely and Archer will look at the tail compartment."

The tail, or engine, compartment contained nothing of abnormal interest, as it turned out. The ship appeared to be in running order, with adequate fuel. Its power had evidently been cut deliberately, for whatever mysterious reason.

"Stokely will remain there," said Captain Rogan. "Archer will take the controls. We are withdrawing the contact rods, and will retard our fall, giving you enough clearance to align ship and test the power. If everything functions normally, the four of you will proceed to company base on Faria. Dr. Grimwood will exercise his judgment as to whether to remove your pressure-suits. Archer, as pilot, will take command."

Dr. Grimwood and Evans had removed the dead man from the control seat when Archer returned. The controls were fewer and less specialized, and in place of the all-seeing projection screen was a televiewer plate with fixed scanners, whose field was limited to the tailward sector of the heavens. Other observation was necessarily direct, through the several ports.

The televiewer became activated at the flip of the switch and revealed that Captain Rogan had withdrawn his ship to a safe distance.

Will Archer depressed a key which had the effect of applying a magnetic brake in the stabilizer unit to one of a pair of oppositely rotating flywheels, or "gyrotors," whose axis was athwartship. As the considerable speed of the gyrotor diminished, the ship began to turn with it in a slow somersault. Archer eased up on the key, and after some hundred and twenty degrees, released it. The gyrotor came up to speed again, stopping the spin nicely.

Archer paused with his hand on the power control. "Hang on, boys," he said. "There's going to be a floor."

The others got as close to it as they could, and Archer "raised" the thrust-control lever a few notches. Immediately, there was the welcome feeling of weight. This, as a dubious tribute to the adaptability of human flesh, became oppressive before the accelerometer showed one G.

"We're going to have to pour it on," said Archer. "Three G's for a safe margin. Since there's only one other chair here, maybe Evans had better go down with Stokely. There are two chairs there. And by the way, I think our two silent partners would be better off in the main storage compartment."

"Particularly," agreed Dr. Grimwood, "as they appear to have been dead two or three days. That would be one reason for keeping our suits on for a while." Gingerly, he picked up the hypodermic syringe from beside the sprawling corpse.

"It would be interesting to know what was in this. Maybe--" The doctor stooped again quickly. "But what's this?"

Will Archer looked down in time to see him force open the dead man's clenched left fist. As the fingers came back, a greenish, glowing object the size and shape of a brazil nut lay exposed. Or was it green? All the colors of the spectrum seemed to appear in flickering succession as Dr. Grimwood picked it up almost reverently, yet the predominant effect was of cold green fire.

After a moment, the doctor spoke softly: "So that's it! Farian jade!"

"Farian jade!" Archer echoed. "I've heard of it. Plenty valuable, isn't it?"

Dr. Grimwood nodded. "Fabulously. There are only a few hundred pieces known to exist, and their combined value could purchase a fair-sized, habitable planet!"

Evans' normally wide, dark eyes were bulging myopically. "Do you think these guys stole it?"

"Hard to say," said the doctor. "But, putting two and two together, it looks more like they made a find somewhere back on the planet. If so, there should be more of the stuff around, or some information--" He felt about in the dead man's clothing, and presently pulled some papers from an inner pocket.

"Here we are!" he said, unfolding them. "The Farian coordinates, a rough topographical map of the region, and written directions. They must have struck it rich--a find of only a dozen pieces could be worth twenty million dollars. They possibly decided to take out only a few pieces at a time and pass them off as stolen goods elsewhere in the system, legal protection being of dubious effectiveness where Farian jade is involved. But it was evidently too big a strike for their psyches to withstand."

Stokely stepped from the open hatch, his eyes fixed on the jewel in Dr. Grimwood's hand. He reached for it, held it up and studied it at several angles, then passed it back, his face inscrutable throughout the actions.

"It's about the only gem that can't be synthesized, isn't it?" he asked the doctor.

"Yes--that's the main reason for its enormous value. And it's my guess that it couldn't be synthesized for a long time even if we knew a lot more about it than we do. The reason we don't know much is absurdly simple: the stuff is just too damned expensive for a mere scientist to be permitted more than superficial analysis. But we do know this: synthesizing it would be tantamount to creating life."

"Don't look now," Will Archer interrupted calmly, "but there's a sizable planet breathing down our necks. So if you gentlemen would retire to your respective stations, I can guarantee to add considerable weight to the discussion."

* * * * *

"Not that the stuff is really alive, in any accepted sense," Dr. Grimwood went on a few minutes later, his breathing somewhat labored, but his enthusiasm not altogether squelched by three hundred and fifty added pounds. "But it certainly isn't jade at all, or anything similar. That misnomer has stuck because of its greenish glow--although if you examine it under a very strong light, it appears dead black. Actually, it's a microbiotic crystalline formation, the result of some age-long process believed to be conducted by a virus-like life-form. The 'jade' itself seems to be a borderline structure, having no obvious properties of life--yet there is the contradictory cold light, or bioluminescence, which would indicate some degree of electrochemical change. I'm not a bio-chemist myself, but I'll tell you there are one or two fellows on the other ship who would cut all our throats, in a charmingly objective manner, in order to lay their hands on this bauble. Some think that Farian jade may very possibly hold the secret of life itself."

With an effort, the doctor lifted his hand high enough so that, without altering his reclining position, he could peer over his own chin at the jewel. Archer found his eyes held by it almost hypnotically, as it pulsated through the gamut of hues, now blending, now contrasting with the dominant green.

"From what I've heard," said Archer, "the virus, or whatever makes it, is pretty deadly to humans. Is it true that you can't even tell you're infected until the final convulsions?"