Part 1

S.O.S. APHRODITE!

By STANLEY MULLEN

No wonder that signal stabbed out into the icy void. For it was a ship of hate and evil, and ISP patrolman Steve Coran trusted only one person--after strapping her in her bunk!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

On the high metallic wall across the street was a big sign: VENUS TRANSPORT and a smaller sign which read CONTAMINATION AREA--KEEP OUT! Steve Coran turned away from the window and faced the ISP official across the desk.

"From the time you leave this office, you'll be in deadly danger," the official said. "We aren't dealing with sporadic cases of space piracy. This is a well-organized group of saboteurs, pirates and assassins backed by a ring of powerful and unscrupulous men, some of them in high places. They have more on their minds than mere looting. They have certain political objectives--and will stop at nothing to cause unrest, even war or revolution, to gain their ends. Fishers in troubled waters...."

Coran laughed harshly. "Doesn't sound like a rest cure. Why'd you pick me for the job?"

The official opened a file drawer and riffled the cards. "You were recommended by the Ministry of Transport. I confess that I was dubious, because of your record. However, you were transferred from the Mars-Jupiter sector for the one reason that you're not known here. Any of our regular security agents or the ISP men would be recognized at once. Our original idea was to place you aboard a rocket transport as a crewman to spy out the weak links in our defensive measures. But a matter of graver importance has come up. The assignments will overlap, but we can no longer give you official backing."

"You'd better bring me up to date," Coran said bluntly.

"The pattern is usually the same. Barratry. Three of the Venus transports have been deliberately wrecked and looted. Of plutonium, for the most part. Members of this criminal group have infiltrated the crew. Even trusted officers have been forced, by blackmail or other methods, to aid the plotters. We can trust no one, not even the captain."

"I see. What is this other matter you spoke about?"

"Two days ago we arrested a man. The charge was barratry. We had no name, only a heliophoto from Venus. In his possession we found documents relating to political matters of vital importance. Release of the information contained in his portfolio would be disastrous at this time. It could cause chaos, perhaps even war."

Coran grunted. "Such documents have no right to exist."

"I agree. Unfortunately, this one does exist. And it's no longer in our custody. A woman, obviously an accomplice, got a blaster-gun to him. Two ISP men were killed, and the prisoner escaped. The documents went with him. I don't have to tell you that both of these fugitives must be apprehended or killed. And those papers must be brought back or destroyed. That's your job."

"I don't like it."

"Tact isn't your long suit, is it, Lieutenant? You weren't asked if you liked it. With two black marks against your record, you can't afford an opinion. One more and you're through as an officer in the space patrol--"

"I don't like working out of uniform."

"--and I wouldn't count too much on a friendship with Paul Jomian, if I were you, Coran. He's through here ... even if he was kicked upstairs into the transport ministry. We no longer approve his methods. His rough-shod, undisciplined methods may get by in a frontier civilization like that of the outer planets, but nowadays we require efficiency and complete co-operation in the ISP. The time is past when an ISP officer can forget to change his uniform and go without shaving for days at a time."

Coran's eyes glittered. "There was more to Paul Jomian than gold braid and pretty uniforms. He was a man. And he got things done so a lot of you pretty-boys could sit on your fat chairs and keep your hair unmussed. For your information, those black marks on my record are for tearing apart superior officers who made cracks about Paul Jomian. Do you want me to turn in my badge?"

The official smiled poisonously. "That would be the easy way out for you, Coran. What's the matter--the job too tough for you?"

"I can't stand the smell of perfume around here. And the jobs don't come too tough. Relax, big shot. I'll run your stinking little errand for you. But it's the last one. When I hand your two-vikdal bad man over to you, I'm through. Make out my resignation that way, and I'll sign it before I leave."

* * * * *

The official laughed and stood up. "Resignation accepted--upon completion of assignment. You're a hard case, Coran. Up to a point, you're even right. But you don't belong any more, not in this part of the universe. It took pioneers like you and Jomian to bang the holes in our fishbowl world, but we need men with dull routine minds to bring order into it. Unofficially, I'm sorry to see you go. Nowadays a man conforms or he gets out."

"Skip the bouquets and the funeral oration. What's the layout on the job you want done?"

The official threw a file card across the desk. "There's the man you want. The picture won't help you much, since he'll probably be wearing a plastic face-mask."

Coran glanced at it and shrugged. "Not much to go on. Any other leads?"

"Yes." The official glanced at his wrist-chron. "We know that he will be on the Venus transport X-1143--the _Aphrodite_--which leaves in three hours. Probably the woman, too. Whatever happens, they must not reach Venus alive."

* * * * *

Coran caught an implication in the words. "What do you mean 'Whatever happens?'"

"The _Aphrodite_ is an emigrant ship. It's a government secret that she's carrying plutonium for the power plants on Venus, but we're afraid the information may have leaked out. You may as well know that we're on the spot. It's too late to cancel the shipment without serious economic repercussions. And we haven't found any way to protect the passenger-carrying ships. Even if we armed them, which is against Interplanetary Law, they're too slow to run and too unwieldy to maneuver. Too much mass."

"What about convoy?"

"We tried that last time. The ship was disabled and driven off-orbit. Then a group of fast cruisers of unusual design showed up. The space patrol drove them off and gave chase. It was a trick, of course, to decoy our ships into space, then the main body of pirates moved in and cleaned out the ship."

Coran laughed. "When you're catching rabbits you have to be smarter than the rabbits."

The official flushed. "We're handicapped by lack of ships and lack of competent personnel. This is your chance to be smarter than the rabbits. The man you want is obviously a member of the same group. If there is trouble, he will try to contact his friends. It's up to you to find him first, and if you fail that, to make sure that he does not escape or turn over the documents to anyone else. We'll have an ISP squadron following six hours behind the _Aphrodite_. If you need help, get a signal to them--by helioflash, if you can. I suggest you find the man first, and through him, locate the woman. From there on, you know what to do...."

"It's a dirty job. Even with frosting, it's simple butchery--no trial, no evidence. Now I know why the Martians consider an ISP man just a hired thug."

"That's all he is. You have your orders and, whatever your private opinions may be, I'm sure you'll agree that lives are unimportant when we're playing for such stakes."

"Lives never are when politicians start dealing from the bottom of the deck," Coran snarled bitterly.

The official shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that. I'm just a yes-man. You can discuss it with Paul Jomian--your politician friend--when you see him. He'll be on the _Aphrodite_."

"Have you figured out how I'm to get on the _Aphrodite_? If she's an emigrant ship, they'll take only married couples. The altruistic Company wants settlers to colonize Venus and build up their plague-spot plantations for them."

"That's your problem. Marry someone if you have to, or hire a fake wife. It's been done. Anything, just so you don't give away your official position. Now get going. You've less than three hours till take-off time."

Coran bent over the desk and signed his resignation with an elaborate flourish, put an inked thumbprint beside the name, then stalked to the door clothespinning his nose between thumb and forefinger. "That's time enough to blow this stink off me," he said carelessly, wiping the inky thumb on his uniform jacket.

The official laughed. "You're right. It does stink."

* * * * *

Steve Coran was conscious of the girl merely as an obstacle between him and the ticket window. She was young, expensively dressed and too well-groomed, with blue-white hair, a haughty manner, and an icy stare in her violet eyes.

"I was here first," she said coldly.

Coran bowed mockingly. "I don't like you either. Besides, I never hit a lady in public. I hope this won't lead to one of those shipboard romances."

The beehive activity of the ticket office slackened as take-off time drew near. Coran studied her back as she stood ahead of him in the line and repressed a desire to pinch her and find out if she were real. The weasel-faced clerk was tired and his tone of long-suffering patience had worn to a thread of annoyance.

"I've told you before, miss. I can't sell single tickets--the company rules do not permit any but married couples aboard an emigrant transport. We feel that unattached women are trouble makers in a frontier society."

The girl made an arrogant gesture. "It's important. I must get to Venus. I don't care what it costs."

"Don't tell me. See the manager. I don't make the rules. Third office on the left. But you'd better hurry. I've only one double passage left."

Coran tapped the girl on her shoulder. She glared at him. "Take a tip from me, babe. See the boss. If he's a man, you'll get the tickets."

As she left the line, he pushed to the window. "I'll take those two tickets, bud."

"Do you have your marriage certificate?"

Coran reached through the window, snagged a coat lapel and had the man dragged half through the window in a flash. "Now I'll talk, punk, and you listen. Because I don't have a ring in my nose, don't get the idea I'm not married. Do I get those tickets, or do you give up mirrors for the next six weeks?"

The clerk looked at the gnarled fist under his nose and gave a wild nod of his head. "You get them."

The steel fingers relaxed and the clerk slid back inside his cage. "I'll report this," he stormed, shaking himself like a wet animal. "You'd better have your papers when you try to get past the purser." He handed out the tickets.

The girl followed Coran from the office. "I'll give you a thousand vikdals for those tickets."

Coran grinned savagely. "Not even if you said please."

"Please, and two thousand."

"Stop it--you're getting near my price. Besides, they wouldn't do you any good. You need a husband to go with 'em. Take the express rocket next month. It's a shorter orbit and you'll only lose two weeks."

"You take it then. My business won't wait. Three thousand."

Coran whistled. "What's your problem?"

"None of your business."

"Have it your own way. My business won't wait either. Now, if you don't mind, I'm in a hurry. I've less than two hours to find a honky-tonk and get myself a bride. I don't suppose you'd know where the nearest dive is. No, you wouldn't."

He turned away toward the elevators, but the girl clutched his arm desperately. "Six thousand.... It's all I have."

Coran stared at her. "I'm sorry for you, but you'd have to kill me to get these away. And I'm hard to kill. I'll make a deal though. I'll sell you half of my double for three thousand. You'd have to marry me, though."

"_Marry you!_" There was a word of loathing in her tone.

"It's been done. I'm on my way out now to look up a floozy. I'll even marry her, if she's dope enough to want it that way. I don't like the idea any better than you do, but I'd hock grandma's false teeth to get to Venus. Forget I mentioned it. If I'm to be stuck with a dame for four months, it might as well be a flamethrower as an icicle."

He buzzed for the elevator before she called after him. "I--I've changed my mind." She was pale, with a look of suppressed fury about her. "I guess I'd do even that."

Coran laughed wickedly. "Don't flatter yourself. You're just a ticket to Venus to me. Meet me at the marriage bureau in half an hour. We haven't much time, and you'll have to be psychographed. We really should know each other. I'm Steve Coran."

"I'm Gerda Mors. In half an hour."

* * * * *

The purser stopped at a door marked No. 200. He was a young, inadequate-looking man.

"You won't have to carry me over the threshold," Gerda said crisply. She went inside and shut the door. In shocked silence, he re-checked the sheaf of papers in his hand.

"She's shy around strangers," Coran explained. "When do we take-off?"

"In five minutes. We're making these emigrant runs under very crowded conditions. All passengers are expected to remain in their own staterooms most of the time. A certain amount of exercise is permitted, of course, once free flight is attained and the A-orbit corrections made. Until then, we recommend that everyone remain out of the crew's way. The safest place during acceleration is in bed."

Coran winked ponderously. "I'll make out all right. One thing, though. I believe I have a friend on board. Am I permitted to examine the passenger lists?"

"Of course, they're public property. See the captain. His office is up near the bow, just aft of the control rooms. But wait till we're out in space."

Coran knocked and entered the stateroom. Gerda was brushing her hair. She glanced up irritably. "This is my room," she told him shortly. "Find yourself another."

He laughed grimly. "The psychographs warned we were incompatible, but you'd better get used to me. It's 146 days to Venus, and we've only this stateroom between us. They practically lock us in, you know. We're going to be very good friends or most uncomfortable before we reach Venus."

Angry sparks shot from her violet eyes. "Did you know all this before?"

Coran nodded.

"You are a swine, aren't you? It won't do you any good. I'll tell the captain we're not married. I'll say it was all a fake, the certificate was a forgery, that you're a...."

"Go ahead. I wish for your sake it would help, but they'd only check and find out it was genuine. Even if it weren't, you'd only be forced to go through the ceremony again. The rules are very specific to cover just such situations."

Fear and anger blended unpleasantly in her voice. "I'll think of something...."

Warning alarms blared through the ship. Ripples of soundless shock stirred the bulk.

"We're getting under way," Coran warned. "You'd better come to bed."

"I'd rather die," she said sullenly.

"Suit yourself. But it's pretty unpleasant."

* * * * *

The rocket transport left its runway at an angle of 45 degrees, slanting up into the Sahara night with a blossom of pink-white flame flowering round its stern jets. A series of jarring vibrations smoothed to a muffled burr. The girl was flung heavily to the floor and lay there beside the porthole of fused quartz, retching feebly as the acceleration built up. Outside the port, what seemed the flank of a titanic mountain of moonlit sand fell rapidly astern. It tilted at an incredible angle.

Coran hunched himself off the bed and crawled to her. Gerda grimaced weakly and struck at him, then lapsed into unconsciousness. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, dumped her like a limp sack and clasped the straps about her. She did not rouse.

Her purse lay where she had dropped it. Coran went through it methodically. A small blaster-gun of the type women thugs carry in their handbags. It appeared to have been used recently. Four Lumipencils. The usual cosmetics. A pillbox with a poison label. And, in an ivory frame, a small colorphoto miniature of the man whose face was on the Security Headquarters dossier card. Coran neutralized the charge in the blaster and set it on safety, then carefully replaced everything. He wished he had a pocket magnascope to study the miniature in detail, but that could wait. He must check the passenger lists and find out where Paul Jomian's room was located. Paul should be warned, so that his surprise at seeing Coran would not give the show away.

The girl stirred and moaned feebly. Coran found the emergency medical locker and forced an anti-acceleration capsule between her tight-clenched teeth, following it with a water concentrate capsule. She would be wildly thirsty when she came out of it, and real water would have some unpleasant effects during A-shock. He leaned over and checked the straps. They were tight enough so she would never get out of that tie without help. Her eyes blinked open and she stared at him in panic.

"Just relax," he cautioned. "And don't get impatient. I'll be right back. Have to see a man about a...."

He went outside and made his way with difficulty up the bleak passage forward. The distorted gravity made walking extremely difficult. Once outside the main gravity field of Earth, artificial gravities would be turned on. Until then, only an experienced spaceman could get around safely. Coran was grateful for the rigorous training of the ISP.

A staccato bark of unintelligible verbal commands came through the half-opened doorway of the control room ahead. The captain's office should be somewhere about here. On Coran's right was a closed door marked CAPTAIN. Coran knocked twice without receiving any answer, then tried the door. It slid easily open. He stepped over the high threshold. Lights were flaring and dying away as if the generators were running unevenly. He peered about him, and at first the Spartan-like accommodations seemed unoccupied. He wondered if he should sit down and wait for the captain. A second look convinced him he would have a long wait.

Sprawled forward, half across the desk, was the captain's body. The upper part of his head had been blown away by a blaster-gun, evidently fired at close quarters.

A cry behind him swung Coran around. In the frame of the opened doorway stood the purser, mouth open, pointing at the dead man with a trembling finger. Instinctively, Coran started for the door. The purser sprang into action, leaped on Coran and caught him in a surprisingly strong grip for so slight a man. Coran made no attempt to struggle. In a moment the office was full of people. The burly first mate pulled the purser away from Coran.

"What is all this, Hamlin?" the mate demanded.

Coran had taken time to study the identification files on all the _Aphrodite's_ officers at headquarters before coming aboard. He recognized the three officers instantly as Harriman, first mate--Hamlin, the purser--and Nalson, the navigator or astronaut--but was careful not to give himself away.

"I heard a sound in the captain's office, and when I came in to investigate, I found him," Hamlin explained. "The captain's been murdered."

Mate Harriman looked Coran up and down. "Where's the gun?" he asked.

"How should I know? I just came in a minute ago. He was like this when I got here."

Harriman drove a fist into Coran's mouth. "Come now, you don't expect us to believe a yarn like that. Where is that gun?"

Coran spat blood from his mangled lips. "I don't know anything about it. The purser can tell you why I wanted to see the captain."

Hamlin spoke up. "I told him to wait till we were out in space," he snapped. "He said he wanted to check the passenger list."

"I demand to see the first mate," Coran said.

The words seemed to recall Harriman to his duties. "I am the first mate," he said. "I haven't time to bother with you now. I'll take care of you later. Throw him in the cells till we get out in space. I'll have to take over for the Old Man."

* * * * *

Coran was hustled roughly to the lower part of the ship and flung into the cramped quarters of the transport's brig. He settled back on the bunk and tried to straighten things out in his mind.

"At least I got a room to myself," he mused grimly. This was going to complicate things.

His wrist-chron had stopped, so he had no way of telling time, but they fed him four times and he slept twice before they came for him. Two crew men waited in the passage while Hamlin came in and sat down.

"You're in a bad spot, Coran. It's customary in cases of civilian infractions of ship's rules to appoint an officer as counsel for their defense. I'm yours. Sorry you got pushed around, but you were lucky at that. Harriman's a pretty tough character. You'd have got worse if Nalson and I hadn't been there. He's been disciplined for brutality before now. They're giving you a hearing in the wardroom. I'd suggest you co-operate with me by telling me anything that will help with your case. I don't mind telling you your story's too weak to hold up. I'll do all I can for you, but you'll have to help."

"What am I supposed to do?" Coran grunted.

"You might tell me the truth. We know the captain must have been killed just as the ship took off. Otherwise, someone would have heard the shot. If you could prove you were somewhere else at the time--"

"I was with my wife. She'll bear witness for me."

"It won't do, Coran. I should have told you that your wife is ill and won't be able to testify. I found her myself, strapped to the bunk in your cabin, Martian plague! I called the doctor who examined her, then quarantined the cabin. We left concentrated food and water, warned her not to leave, then locked and sealed the cabin. No one can see her."

Coran went cold with anger. "Someone must really be trying to foul me up," he raged. "She couldn't have the plague--she's never been off the earth."

"Your papers read that you just came from Mars," objected Hamlin.

"I did. We were married just before the ship left. If I were carrying the plague, I'd have it myself. She couldn't have it--"

Hamlin laughed nervously. "I wish you could convince the doctor of that. He's been taking blood tests of me ever since we left her. I'm sorry for you, Coran, but she has it. I saw the grey rash myself. It's horrible, horrible...."

Coran's mind worked like lightning. She had said she would think of something. Something to keep the stateroom to herself. There might even be a more sinister motive than that. After that picture of the man he wanted in her purse, he could believe anything of her. Maybe she even knew about him. She was faking, but how? How, since she had been securely tied when he left her? Had he started his quest at the wrong end? She must have been the woman accomplice who had got a gun through the security police guarding the prisoner.

"What am I charged with?" he asked.

"Deliberate murder and plotting against the welfare of the ship. If the officers agree on your guilt, you can be put to death immediately. They put you through an airlock. The regulations have to be pretty stringent on a space-ship."

Coran stood up. "Let's go up and get it over with," he said. "We'll see about your regulations."

Manacled between the two brawny crewmen, a sullen Coran rode up in the elevators. Outside the wardroom, the group stopped while Hamlin knocked. "I wish you'd let me help you," he said in a final attempt.

Coran shook his head. "I know what I'm doing."

Hamlin shrugged. "I hope you do."

* * * * *