Methodically the keys tapped out:
THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG’S BACK. THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED—”
“A test,” said Johnny. “The operator at New Chicago is running a test.”
Then the machine stood motionless for a moment.
“Get going,” yelled Hart, pounding the machine cover with a clenched fist.
Again the keys moved, slowly, maddeningly methodical—: NEW CHICAGO, VENUS—DR. ANDERSON TROWBRIDGE, HEALTH OFFICER AND ONLY PHYSICIAN IN THIS TINY TRADING POST, ANNOUNCED TODAY HE HAD DISCOVERED A CURE FOR THE HUNGER DISEASE. THE CURE IS OBTAINED FROM AN HERB, KNOWN LOCALLY AS THE POLKA-DOT WEED. AN ANCIENT PLANT FROM THE PLANET MARS, BROUGHT HERE SIX YEARS AGO BY DR. JACOB HANSLER, WHO FOUND THE SEEDS IN A RUINED LABORATORY DATING BACK TO THE GENZIK DYNASTY, THE POLKA-DOT WEED IS—”
Hart rushed from the tiny cubbyhole housing the machine.
“Herb,” he shouted to his assistant editor, “get pictures of Dr. Jacob Hansler. Pictures of Bob Jackson. Pictures of Dr. Anderson Trowbridge—”
“Who in hell,” asked Herb, “is Dr. Anderson Trowbridge?”
“How in hell should I know?” roared. Hart. “Phone the International Medical Society. They’ll tell you. But get pictures! He’s the biggest news in ten years. Write headlines a foot high in three shades blacker than night. We roll in half an hour.”
He turned to Hap Folsworth.
“We’ll have them fighting to get this one,” he exulted. “We’ll get out the biggest damn extra and score the biggest scoop this city has ever seen.”
V
Bob Jackson sat on a log with Zeke Brown in front of Zeke’s cabin.
“Zeke,” said Bob, “you’ll have to realize that you and all the rest of the farmers here are rich. You’re just plain filthy rich. You couldn’t grow corn and you couldn’t keep chickens—but all the time you were growing the polka-dot weed. And for that you can ask your own price. This is the only place in the universe today where the polka-dot weed can be obtained. Even now ships are on their way from Earth and from Radium City to get a supply. And you boys can ask whatever you please.”
Zeke pushed back his hat and scratched his head.
“Well, you see,” he said, “it’s this way. Me and the rest of the boys ain’t hankering to hold nobody up. We understand that other people need this weed dang bad and that we can ask our own price. But all we want is a fair price. The past five years have been mighty hard years and we ought to make something out of it, but we ain’t aiming to profiteer on the misery of other folks.”
“Sure, I know about that,” said Bob. “But you fellows don’t want to be damn fools. This is your big chance. Here’s a chance to cash in on your five years and get paid well for every hour of them.”
Zeke shuffled to his feet.
“Somebody coming up the road,” he announced. “Heard a ship come in awhile ago. Maybe it’s somebody wanting the weed.”
“They haven’t had time to get here yet,” Bob pointed out.
Angus MacDonald led the party that plodded up the road through the everlasting red mud. There were five of them.
They halted outside the gate and Angus stepped forward.
“Zeke,” he said, “I got a paper to serve on you. Don’t like to do this, but it’s my duty.”
“Paper?” asked Zeke.
“Yes, a paper.” Angus reached into his inside coat pocket and drew forth a sheaf of documents.
“One of these for you,” he announced, thumbing through them.
“What’s the paper for?” asked Zeke, suspicion creeping into his voice.
“Claims you don’t own this land,” replied Angus. “Must be some mistake. You boys been living here for a good many years now. Seems if you didn’t own it, you could have found out before this.”
Cold anger dripped from Zeke’s words.
“Who claims they own it? If we don’t own it, who does own it?”
“The Venus Land Company says they own it,” declared Angus. “I sure hate to do this, Zeke.”
Zeke looked past Angus, to the other four who stood behind him.
“I suppose you snakes are the representatives for the Venus Land Company,” he stated bluntly.
One of the four stepped forward. “You’re right,” he said, “we are. And if I were you I wouldn’t try to start anything. We know how to handle smart guys when they try to make trouble.”
Bob saw that Zeke’s thumbs were hitched over his gun belt, his fingers poised over the butt of the flame at his hip.
And in that moment, Zeke was no longer a farmer dressed in dirty overalls and ragged shirt. He was something else, something that thrilled a man to see—a man ready to fight for his land.
Zeke’s words came slowly, unlike his usual drawl—and each was a danger warning, plain for all to see.
“If any of you polecats think you’re horning in on me now,” he said, “you are mistaken. And that goes for the rest of us around here, too. If you try to get rough, we’ll just naturally strew your guts all over a forty-acre pasture.”
“Don’t talk to me about the due process of law,” roared Arthur Hart. “Babble like that might impress some folks, but it leaves me cold. What I want to know is are you going to stand by and let a set of racketeers like Venus Land rob a bunch of poor Iowa farmers a second time—? Yes, I know that’s libelous, but it isn’t on paper and you can’t prove a thing. And let me tell you, mister, if you don’t act damn soon I’ll give you something you can bring a libel suit for. I’ll fix it so that you won’t get one single cock-eyed vote for any public office again. Before I get through with you you’ll think you’ve been hit by a windmill. I got three or four stories filed away that the public will fight to read. The Universal Power Trust case, just for one example. I’ll tell the people just what sort of a grafting old buzzard you are—and what’s more I’ll make it stick.”
The face in the visi-plate was purple with rage, but Interplanetary Chief Justice Elmer Phillips knew when he was beaten.
“Mr. Hart,” he said, “I don’t like your attitude. I deny every insinuation you have made. But I do see some merit in what you propose. I will do it.”
“You’re damn right you’ll do it,” snarled Hart, “and what’s more, you’ll do it right away. If you don’t give me a story saying that you have issued an injunction stopping Venus Land or anyone else from monkeying around with the polka-dot weed farms by the time we put our last edition to bed, I’ll have another story in its place that will blast you and your Interplanetary Justice commission right out of the water.”
“You can rest assured I will do it,” Justice Phillips told him. “I’m a man of my word.”
“And so am I,” said Hart.
The editor thrust the visa-phone receiver back in its cradle and swung around in his chair.
Hap Folsworth chased his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.
“I’ll say this for you,” he remarked, “when you get your tail up you don’t let a little thing like blackmail stop you.”
“That wasn’t blackmail,” Hart snapped. “The Justice and I understand one another. He knows well enough I could rip him wide open for some of the stunts the justice commission has pulled and he’s ready to play ball. That’s all.”
Hart’s collar was open, his necktie was twisted under one ear, his hair was rumpled.
“You look like you been in a street fight,” Hap observed.
“Listen, Hap,” said Hart, “I am in a fight. I’m fighting red tape and governmental stupidity and bureaucratic inefficiency. Fighting for the rights of some poor, simple-minded farmers who let a racketeering land company sell them worthless land on Venus. And now that the land has something on it that is valuable the land company wants to take it away from them again. I’m going to have the government declare the polka-dot weed a publ
ic utility and take control of it. That will keep out the rats and the slickers and will insure a fair price.”
Hap changed his cigar to the other corner of his mouth.
“You’ve still got ideals, Hart,” he mocked. “Ideals after 18 years in a newspaper office. That’s something.”
“Look here,” snarled Hart, “you get back to your silly prize fights and your asinine baseball games and leave me alone. I got a man’s job to do.”
Johnny Mason, a sheet of yellow paper gripped in his hand, stuck his head in the door.
“Got a load of bad news,” he said. “Funny news.”
“What is it?” asked Hart.
Johnny laid the paper in front of him.
“Three ships took off from Radium City for New Chicago,” Johnny said, “to get a shipment of polka-dot weed. They’ve disappeared. No radio contact. No reports. Nothing.”
Hart hummed under his breath. “Something funny here,” he said.
“And that’s not all,” Johnny told him. “The freighter that was sent out from New York to Venus for the weed is coming back. Got out just beyond the orbit of the moon and blew three tubes. Improper fuel mixture.”
Bob found Doc at a table in the Venus Flower saloon. “How’s Susan?” Bob asked.
“Getting along all right,” said Doc dolefully. “She’ll be up and around in a few days.”
Doc fondled his bottle, gazed mournfully at it and shoved it across the table to the reporter. Bob tilted it and the living fire of Martian bocca slashed down his throat. He set the bottle back on the table and coughed.
“Bob,” said Doc, “I feel lower than a snake’s belly. I have been sitting off to one side talking to myself and I am downright astounded at what I found out.”
“That’s a fine way for the man who discovered a cure for the Hunger Disease to be talking,” Bob remarked.
“That’s just it,” explained Doc. “You see, I didn’t discover that cure. I would never have guessed it in a hundred years. But you told the people I was the one who did it. And now the International Medical Society wants me to come to New York and be the guest of honor at a big banquet. They are going to decorate me. Just talked to the Society president over the radio.”
“That’s fine,” said Bob.
Doc shook his head.
“It isn’t fine,” he protested. “Long as I am out here, buried in this mud-hole, I’m a world hero because you’ve made me one. But it won’t take those doctors in New York five minutes to find I am a phony. I am just an old booze-hound. I haven’t got too much brain left any more. Liked liquor too well. About all I’m fit to be is a doctor out here. I can patch up a busted leg and I can pull an aching tooth and I can doctor colds, but that’s about all I’m good for any more.”
“You’re drunk,” Bob accused. “You’ll feel differently when you sober up. I made you a hero and I’m going to keep you a hero if I kill you doing it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Doc mumbled. “Anyhow, I’m not looking forward to that trip to New York.”
In silence they sat and watched the rain pour down, making a river of the street.
“How’s everything out at the farms?” Doc asked.
“Still peaceful,” Bob said. “I hope I can keep it that way until Hart gets the court to issue that injunction. There were about a dozen Venus Land men came over from Radium City in the ship. When Zeke showed some fight and Angus refused to serve any more papers, the ones who went out with Angus went back to the ship for reinforcements. Then the whole mob went back to Zeke’s place and found it deserted. Zeke and his wife had skinned out to warn their friends. So the Venus Land bunch moved in, figuring, I suppose, that they should establish some sort of possession rights. Zeke roused up his boys and that place is an armed camp. They have every path guarded and a ring thrown around Zeke’s cabin. They’re hoping the Venus Land boys make just one false move, so they can have an excuse to start shooting. But I got Zeke to promise he’d keep peaceable as long as possible.”
“If something don’t happen pretty soon,” said Doc, “we’ll have a posse from town going out there. Nobody around here has much love for Venus Land.”
“All we can do is wait,” Bob said. “Hart will move heaven and hell to get that injunction through. Those ships that were sent out to get the weed should be here pretty soon. Should have been here before now, in fact.”
VI
“What’s that?” Hart yelled into the phone. “I know what you have to say is important, but wait just a second. Get your breath. Talk slowly, so I can understand you.”
In the visi-plate Hart saw the reporter gulp and draw in a deep breath.
“It’s like this,” the reporter said, talking slowly, with clipped precise speech, as if he had applied an actual physical brake to his tongue. “The boys down here at Interplanetary Police headquarters have been working for the past several months on a tip some big plot was underway, aimed against the system government.
“That plot broke today when the police captured one of the men in the ring. They did some persuading and he talked. He said that the gang he was working with was responsible for the Hunger Disease. They had spread the bacteria that caused it all over both Venus and Earth. They had planned to spread it on Mars, too.”
“Edwards,” snarled Hart, “are you sure you got the right dope?”
“You bet I am,” said the reporter. “The chief down here just released the story.”
“Herb,” Hart roared to his assistant, “get on the extension and listen to this.”
“Now,” he said to the reporter, “go ahead.”
“It’s a screwy story, but it’s the straight dope,” the reporter cautioned.
“I don’t give a damn how screwy it is” yelled Hart. “If it’s news we print it.”
“The police didn’t give us the name of this fellow who confessed, but I saw him. He is a big man, a good deal larger than the average man, and his skin is a deep tan, almost black, as if he had been out in the sun a lot.”
“Say,” said Hart, “are you going to tell us what happened or are you going to spend the afternoon just blabbering around? I want facts and the quicker I get them the better it will be for you.”
“All right,” said Edwards, “here they are.
“The man the police rounded up told them that he was not really a Terrestrial. Said he came from Mars and was the member of some secret organization. I got that spelled out. Had the chief spell for me. G-e-n-z-i-k, Genzik. At one time he claimed his people ruled Mars. That was thousands of years ago. But the Martians rose up and ousted them, chased them out. Since then the tribe, or whatever it is, has been living out in the desert.”
“Edwards,” snarled Hart, “that’s all a matter of history. There was a Genzik dynasty on Mars thousands of years ago.”
“Oh, so that’s it,” said Edwards. “I couldn’t figure out that part of the story very well. Anyhow, this fellow told the police that for years and years the Genziks have planned to take over the three worlds of Mars, Earth and Venus. There weren’t enough of them to do any real fighting, so they developed this Hunger Disease bacteria. Seems that it was the bacteria of a disease that at one time almost wiped out all of Mars’ population. They sent their men all over Venus and Mars and spread the bacteria where it would do the most good. The police have sent out warnings to all police stations all over and they are trying to round up the rest of the gang. Far as I could make out, there are several thousand Genziks loose on Venus and Earth.”
“Say,” snapped Hart, “did the chief tell you that the Genziks were responsible for the disappearance of the three ships that left Radium city?”
“Yes,” said Edwards, “I was just getting around to that. And he said they were responsible for the wrecking of the Earth freighter that started out for Venus to get this polka-dot weed. You see, they knew about the polka-dot weed. T
hat was what saved Mars when the Hunger Disease threatened to wipe it out years ago. But they didn’t know there was any polka-dot weed growing any more until they read the New Chicago story in the papers late last night. This fellow claimed that after the Genziks were chased out by the Martians there wasn’t much science or knowledge left on Mars. The Genziks, he said, were the intellectual boys on that planet and had done a lot to help the Martians and that’s what made them so mad when the Martians turned against them. He said that the Genziks came from Earth a long time ago, thousands of years ago. From some place like Atlantic—”
“Atlantis?” asked Hart.
“Yeah, that’s it,” said Edwards, joyfully.
“Listen,” said Hart, “do you mean to tell me you don’t even know the old story of Atlantis? You don’t know enough Martian history to know who the Genziks were. You thought they were some kind of a gang. You figured maybe this was a big story, but you haven’t got any idea how damn big it is. Now, I want you to go back to police headquarters and try not to act too damn dumb. I’ll be sending some of the other boys down and when they get there you come back here. I’m going to try you out as a copy boy and if you don’t make good there, I’m going to bounce you right out on your ear.”
Hart slammed up the phone and switched around to face his assistant.
“You got that, Herb?” he asked, tensely.
Herb nodded.
“All right then,” said Hart, “get to work. Send one of the photographers down to try to get a shot of this bird the police caught. Send somebody down to replace Edwards. He’s too dumb to breathe. Have someone look up the history of the old Genziks and write a feature yarn. Use the revenge angle. Those boys have been hiding out somewhere up on Mars for centuries, frothing at the mouth and planning revenge ever since they were turned out by the Martians. Play up the Atlantis angle. Somebody once advanced the theory that the Genziks were either from Atlantis or Mu. Said they had built spaceships when our forefathers were still swinging around in trees and went out to Mars to establish the dynasty. Can’t remember who it was—but whoever it was got laughed at plenty.”