S.T.A.R. Flight Read online

  “I’ll watch it. Now move.”

  Milt always felt a little odd walking into a Gate. You’ve nothing to be afraid of, he told himself. They won’t eat you, kidnap you, hold you back. But still he couldn’t get over the feeling that now he was on alien territory. They could do anything they liked to him and no one could do anything about it. He’d left the U.S.A. and now … somewhere else. Still on Earth, still in the city of New York, but technically on ground which belonged to the Kaltich. Alien soil.

  He approached the building, walked around it to the right place, pushed open a door and handed the docket to the man inside. He was completely dressed in white. He took the docket without speaking and turned from the hatch. Milt sat down on a bench against the wall. As always he stared around and with the same result. Just a bare room with a bench and the hatch through which the man had stared. Nothing else. Boldly he stood up and approached the hatch. He could see a small room, a desk with an intercom, a chair and a second hatch on the far side. The man stood before it. As Milt watched he turned and headed towards him. He wore a thick glove on the hand which carried the package.

  “Here.” He dropped it and held out a printed form. “Sign.”

  “Just a minute.” Milt was examining the box. It was of grey fibre, light but colder than ice. He wiped frost from the label. “Heart,” he read. “Human male. Tissue type 382795193.”

  “Sign,” said the man.

  Milt signed, took up the box, ran back to his bike and opened the compartment on the pillion. Vapour rose from the dry ice with which it was packed. He dropped in the package, slammed shut the compartment and roared away.

  He felt good, a little like the knights of old when they did something big for their dames. He’d gone out into the world and won a prize for his lady. The fact that Hilda Thorenson didn’t know him from Adam made no difference. He knew her. He was in love with her. He would, if she asked, die for her.

  The road cleared and he opened his throttle, climbing up through the gears. The bike would do, had done, more than a hundred miles an hour. In the city it was enough.

  Wind pressed against his face, forced grit into his eyes. He blinked, seeing vague shapes ahead as if through water, dancing shapes which grew suddenly huge. He leaned over in an effort to avoid them. He felt the jar, the hard yet soggy shock of impact, the sickening realization that he had lost control, was hurtling through the air. The helmet, he thought. I’ve got no helmet!

  Ed Lever swallowed, feeling sick, feeling shaken and totally helpless. It happens like this, he thought. One minute, second even, everything’s all right. The next … God, he thought. I’ll never forget this as long as I live.

  He looked down the road to where the motorcyclist was lying. Brains made a red-grey pool from the shattered skull. Well, that’s him finished, thought Ed. They can’t give him a new brain. He walked to where William Preston had been flung. He lay face upwards, blind eyes staring. He must be all smashed up inside, thought Ed. He looked around, guiltily. People were coming but were still some distance away. Quickly he slipped a hand into the dead man’s pocket. Quickly he put the cash into his own.

  “I’ll pay Martin back,” he told the dead man. “I promise that.”

  He walked away, quickly, heading towards the Gate. The money would buy him life. Bill couldn’t use it now.

  The Prestdale Debt Collection Agency occupied a tiny room in the heart of a run-down business complex which had no elevators, no central heating and no hot running water. All these things had disappeared during the past sixty years. At times Martin wished that the building had followed the amenities.

  Climbing the stairs he pushed open the door and caught his partner in a dubious act.

  “What the hell?” Tony Dale, his chair leaning back against the wall, yelled at the intruder. Lucile Jones, a pert brunette, squealed as she jumped from his lap and hastily smoothed down her skirt. “Martin!” Tony let the front legs of his chair down with a bang. “I thought you were a client,” he said. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  “I was,” said Martin. “I got bounced by an alien,” he lied. “He wanted in and I had to get out.”

  “Tough.” Tony rose from his chair. “That’s the worst of those toffee-nosed places,” he said. “No regard for the natives.” He looked at the secretary. “How about some coffee, kitten?”

  “Never mind,” said Martin.

  “It won’t take a minute,” promised Lucile.

  “Forget it.” Martin looked at his partner. “What’s the matter? No more debts to collect?”

  “Sure, but —”

  “You won’t collect them sitting down,” said Martin dryly. “No matter what the temptation.”

  Tony swallowed then, to change the subject. “Your old man was in,” he said. “He didn’t know you were back. He wanted a grand. Said that it was money you were holding for him. I got him to sign for it. Did I do right?”

  Martin frowned. “What did he want it for?”

  “His treatment. He wanted to beat the deadline — haven’t you heard the news?” He explained as Martin shook his head. “It made good sense so I let him have it. I figured you wouldn’t object.”

  “I don’t,” said Martin. He felt a sudden warmth for his father. He was thinking of me, he thought. He was trying to save me money.

  “I’d have thought you’d have known about it,” said Tony. “It was on all the screens.”

  Martin hadn’t been watching. All morning he’d been busy. At midday the rough handling he’d had from the ICPM had demanded either rest or treatment. He’d spent the afternoon in a Turkish bath. “All right,” he said. “As I’m back I may as well get on with the job. We both may as well,” he said meaningfully. “Dish them out, Lucile, and let’s get moving.”

  Late afternoon found him in a sleazy quarter of the town with a half-dozen wasted calls behind him. This would be his last for the day. Outside a tenement he paused, checked a slip, examined the names stuck on peeling paper beside a row of pushbuttons. He scowled. It was just his luck that the man he wanted lived on the top floor. Jabbing his thumb against the button, he waited for the lock to click, then commenced his climb.

  Clancy was an old man with furtive eyes and a voice which held a built-in whine. He looked at Preston as he stood outside the door and cupped a hand behind his ear. “Hey?” he said. “What’s that again?”

  Preston took a deep breath. “I’m from the Prestdale Collection Agency,” he yelled. “You owe money — I’ve come to collect it.”

  “Money?” Clancy screwed up his face. He looked, thought Martin, like a monkey. He smelt like a zoo. “I’ve got no money.”

  “Too bad.” Preston pushed past the old man and entered the apartment. He kicked the door shut behind him. “You alone?”

  “Hey?”

  “Are you — hell, never mind.” The apartment consisted of two rooms. He checked it in five seconds. The old man was alone. “Look, Pop,” he shouted. “There’s a court order against you for 20.70. You got it, I’ll go.”

  “How much?”

  Irritably Preston showed him the order. He blinked at it with his furtive eyes. “Hell, son,” he said in an aggrieved whine, “I ain’t got that much. Nowhere near that much.”

  “Then I’ll take something to sell.” Preston looked around. There was a television set in one corner — too big and heavy if there was anything else. Some pots and pans, worthless. An electric fire; an oil-burning heater rusty and probably useless; a set of cutlery, stained and unused in a shabby leatherette case. Some moldering clothes. A battered clock. “Hell, Pop,” he said disgustedly. “Haven’t you got anything worth 20.70?”

  “No, son. Like a drink?”

  “I’d like 20.70,” said Preston. It’s another bust, he thought. Another crumb without a minim to his name. Why do shops give these old people credit when they know all the time they won’t be able to pay? But then, he told himself, they don’t have to do the dirty work. They exp
ect us to do that. “Look,” he yelled. “You pay me or I’ll take stuff to sell. That,” he said, looking around, “means I’ll take it all. The TV, the fire, the cutlery …” He broke off, thinking. Snatching up a knife he examined it. It was black with tarnish and he doubted if it would have cut butter.

  “That’s a fish knife,” said Clancy. “They’re all fish knives, forks too. Real silver. I had ’em for a wedding present,” he said, “forty years ago now.” His eyes grew cunning. “They’re worth a lot,” he said. “Twice what I owe. You take them and give me the balance in cash.”

  An optimist, thought Preston. Well, you can’t blame him for trying. He filled out a form and held the pad to the old man. “I’ll take them in settlement of your debt,” he said. “Is that all right with you?”

  “What about the cash difference?”

  “No cash. I’ll sell them and you can collect anything over by applying to the office within seven days.” He wouldn’t of course, none of them ever did. “If you agree sign and press your thumb on that square.” He tore off the bottom copy and gave it to the old man. Clancy took it.

  “Is this all I get?”

  “Yes,” said Preston. “That’s all.”

  Outside in the street Preston felt the familiar weight of defeat. The knives and forks were probably only worth a score when brand, shining new. He’d be lucky to get a third of that. He’d bought the debt for a quarter-value. Less than two units profit, he thought. How not to get rich fast!

  It was close to dusk. He was tired and decided to call it a day. He heard the ring of the phone as he reached his utiliflat, hurrying when he realized that perhaps his father would still be out. The place smelt of coffee, soy bean soup and stale cigarlet smoke. He snatched up the phone, listened, slowly put it down.

  Efficient, he thought dully. That’s one thing about the municipal authorities you can’t complain about. They were damned efficient — especially when it came to demanding the charge for ambulance and crematorial services.

  He’s dead, he told himself. My father, dead. I’ll never see him again. We’ll never make plans for the future because now, for him, there is no future. Killed in the street, picked up, cremated immediately because they simply haven’t the room to hold a corpse longer than they have to. And they send me the news with the bill.

  Suddenly he was sick of it, the whole stinking mess. I’m wasting my life, he thought. The only bit of decent living I’ve ever known was at the schloss and that didn’t last. Damn the Kaltich, he thought with sudden fury. They killed him. Doubling the charges like that. If they hadn’t he would still be here, alive, not ashes in a sewer.

  He looked down, found the phone book, searched for a number. Impatiently he punched it out.

  He heard the click of an answering machine.

  “Miss Thorenson is not at home but you may record any message you wish to leave. Miss Thorenson is not at home but —”

  “This is Martin Preston,” he said curtly. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  SIX

  Hilda Thorenson had more than beautiful hands. Nude, she displayed the idealised figure of a Scandinavian statue. She dived and swam with the speed and grace of a porpoise. Three times Preston tried to catch her and each time she left him standing. Finally they left the pool and sat basking in the sun.

  “I’m not going to ask you why you changed your mind,” she said. “That’s your business. But this isn’t a game and you could get yourself killed. You realise that?”

  “I’ve had three days to think about it,” he said dryly.

  “I’m sorry but … busy, busy, busy. A surgeon’s work is never done.”

  Just as well, he thought. Hilda Thorenson lived in the penthouse of an apartment building standing in the most fashionable part of town. It had fifteen rooms, a sauna bath and a private theatre. Outside were a garden, barbecue pit and a swimming pool. Retractable plastic covers protected the exterior from inclement weather. He couldn’t begin to guess at the rent but it must have been astronomical. When he said so she shrugged.

  “You are ill,” she said. “You need a new heart and you will die without it. How much is it worth to you?”

  He hesitated.

  “All you own,” she said. “What’s the good of money when you’re dead?”

  “So you get well paid,” he said.

  “I get very well paid,” she corrected. “I’m good at my work. I know it and my clients know it. A lot of them are grateful.” She looked at him. “You’re young,” she said. “Handsome. You have a lot to lose.”

  “And quite a bit to gain,” he reminded. “What are the odds?”

  “Of you collecting that two million? Small,” she said honestly. “You won’t be the first to have tried. Some of the best minds of Earth have grappled with the problem. The Kaltich are smart. They’ve got us in a stranglehold. Have you ever wondered,” she said, “why the governmental forces haven’t just gone in and grabbed a Gate? Just taken it over?”

  He nodded.

  “They have. Five years after the Kaltich appeared they tried it. In Estonia. The Soviets sent in armed troops. They managed to get what they were after and found they had nothing at all. The Kaltich had retreated and closed the Gate after them.”

  “What happened?”

  “For thirty years no member of the Communist Part was granted longevity treatment. The heads of the party were old men. No government has dared try it since. That’s why the Kaltich have us in a stranglehold. Your worst enemies are those of your own kind.”

  “Are you saying that STAR is against me?”

  “No. We are the ones who are for you, but how many belong to STAR? Not many,” she said, not waiting for an answer. “And we could be wrong. The UNO thinks that we are. Chung Hoo preaches patience — all will come if we wait long enough. I think that he is lying. Not consciously but actually. He doesn’t want to recognize the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “The Gates will never be opened,” she said. “Not as they’ve promised. Not so that the people of Earth can enjoy new worlds. We’re trapped,” she said. “Beaten by our own greed. Tell me,” she demanded. “Do you know how far science has advanced since the aliens came?”

  He shook his head.

  “Hardly at all. Oh, we’ve made some slight progress, perfected some skills, tied up a few loose ends, but that’s about all. We haven’t made any really significant progress during the past fifty years. Can you guess why?”

  It was obvious. “Why beat your brains out trying to do something that has already been done? All we need to do is to wait and the Kaltich will drop the answer to every question right smack in our lap.”

  “Exactly. They’ve even killed our initiative.”

  An inflated rubber duck lay at the edge of the pool. He picked it up and threw it into the water. Idly he watched it drift. The sunshine made rainbows on the tiny puddles where they had dripped water when climbing out.

  “Wait,” he said. “For how long?”

  “Until we’re so helplessly dependent on the Kaltich that we’ll be no better than slaves.” She stretched, breasts high and firm. “I’m a surgeon,” she said. “Did you know that spare-part surgery was possible as far back as the middle of last century? The point is that we could have had our own spare-part organic banks by this time. In fact, we did. Then the Kaltich offered to keep us supplied. They taught us their method of tissue-typing. Now, when we need anything, we send to a Gate.” She rolled, looking directly at him. “Where,” she asked meaningfully, “do they get those spare parts?”

  Moodily he lit a cigarlet. You’re avoiding the issue, he thought. STAR has already gone into these questions. She’s marking time for some reason of her own. Idly he wondered how a woman like her, rich, beautiful, had come to join the organization.

  “I deal with a varied clientele,” she explained. “One of them spoke to me about STAR, so I joined.

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, no,” she admitted. “At first I co
ntributed funds, then advice, then I took a more active part. The love of adventure, I suppose,” she said. “The thrill of belonging to a secret organization. Surgery can be very boring.” She stretched, the soft flesh of her breasts flattening on the marble edging the pool as she reached for one of his cigarlets. “And you?”

  “I don’t really know,” he said broodingly. “I was bored too, I guess, eager for a little excitement. No,” he admitted. “It wasn’t that. I just don’t like the Kaltich. I don’t like the way they lord it around. The way they whip people.” Unconsciously his hand lifted to touch his cheek. “This plan of yours,” he said. “When are you going to tell me about it?”

  “In a minute.” She moved her knee, one long, curved thigh sliding over the inside of the other. Her skin was like velvet, soft, enticing with the promise of tactile pleasure. Tiny blonde hairs shone like a golden down in the bright sunshine. “We were talking of spare-parts,” she said. “The aliens can supply them and they can come from only one place — here on Earth. The tissue is too similar for them to have come from anywhere else.”

  “The people they let pass through the Gate,” he said. “The young selectees.”

  “It could be. We think so. It makes sense.”

  Then why use them? he thought, but knew the answer. To a dying man morals and ethics have little meaning. And, he thought bitterly, what you don’t know doesn’t hurt.

  “They do it for money,” she said. “Have you ever worked out just how much money they make?”

  “Tell me.”

  “They charged a thousand units for one longevity treatment. Now it’s doubled. Everyone over fifty wants one. They want to look and feel like thirty again. So they pay.” She removed the cigarlet from between her lips and examined the glowing tip. “We estimate that, from North America alone, they collect ten thousand million units a year. That’s just for the longevity treatment. No one knows how much they collect for the sale of spare parts.”

  “That’s ten million times the average income,” he said thoughtfully. “And soon to be doubled. What do they do with it?”