Title: The Space Between
Author: Gilbert, Robert E.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Space Between" ***


                           THE SPACE BETWEEN

                       By ROBERT ERNEST GILBERT

               _Somewhat like Nathan Hale of old, Jak SP
             regretted having but one vitality to give for
             his Planet ... and the starry-eyed Drusilla._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Spring 1955.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


One hour and forty-one minutes before deceleration, the spacecopter
materialized off to right, matching precisely the 3360 kilometers per
second speed of the Box. Jak SP34509260 jerked erect in answer to
blinking red lights and screeching collision whistles. The dark glass
and liquid ozone of the control cabin windows gave but a distorted view
of space, although enough to show the sleek shape outside.

Drusilla GW414249834, asymmetric in a flowing, floreated, red robe,
clamped slender hands over her ears and squawled, "What now, Jak? You
know I have a headache! Can't you be considerate?"

Jak pressed a switch, to stop the whistles, and hoped she would not
faint again. His wide mouth drooping with concern, he said, "It's
O.K., sweetjet. That spacecopter did it. See?"

He activated all viewers.

With rotorwings and fins retracted, the spacecopter resembled a thick,
but sharply pointed, needle. Jak increased the magnification of Number
3 viewer until he could read the license, SE-YNWGR. "From Enceladus!"
he said. "Saturn's second moon. If I'd known she had a station, we
could have looked there for a doc. Did you take that tomato juice off
my uniform?"

Drusilla's gray eyes squinted. She stood with such rigidity that her
feet floated clear of the deck. She said, "I informed you I'll accept
no substitute for the Wollongong Obstetric Hospital on Earth, and I
didn't clean your uniform. That cleanser makes me vomit."

"Sorry, sweetjet," Jak mumbled. He wished he could say something just
once without upsetting her. He magnetized his shoes and pulled Drusilla
down from the ceiling. "I was thinking of you," he pleaded, "but don't
you worry. We'll be on Luna in a bit over four earth-days. From there
to--"

Drusilla pulled loose and flitted to Number 3 viewer. "Why couldn't
you have a plane like that?" she demanded with a dramatic gesture at
the needle shape. "The Box! That's what this wreck looks like, a
prehistoric boxcar!"

"But, sweetjet, I've told you. Streamlining is useless except in
atmosphere. The Box is the most economical construction for--"

"What's that insignia?" Drusilla interrupted. "Like a skull and two
bones. What is it?"

Jak turned the knob to maximum magnification. "Umm. I believe that's
an old pictograph for poison. Perhaps they're carrying some poisonous
cargo, and--"

"In a yatch?" Drusilla sneered. "Why can't you have a yatch?"

"My salary. I hoped to pick up enough ore in the Rings, this trip, but
we had to bring you back, and--"

"You act as if it were my fault!" Drusilla squeaked.

The plates of the Box vibrated slightly as the spacecopter threw out
magnetic grapplers and reeled in until the fuselages touched. The
airlock of the slender plane opened to release three spacesuited
figures. "Men!" Drusilla gasped. Her hands flew in instinctive twitches
to red tattooed lips, blue tattooed eyelids, and green dyed hair.

Jak's pointed chin seemed to grow longer. He sighed. He shook his head
and muttered, "Probably want to borrow a welding rod. I remember once
in the Albert Group, a miner boarded me looking almost devitalized,
and all he wanted was a can opener to--"

"Spare me the anecdotes," said Drusilla, surveying her surgically
tilted nose in a small mirror. "That's all I've heard for three months."

       *       *       *       *       *

Jak's shoulders heaved in a greater sigh. He hoped for no more trips
like this one. During endless earth-days he had cruised the Cassini
Division of the Rings of Saturn, picking up a little yttrium, antimony
and platinum, with Drusilla sunk in depths of boredom and rarely
leaving the plane. The arrival of the viewnote informing her that
her Self Portrait had won first prize in the Interearth Photographic
Salon had elated her for several days; but then she had announced, one
earth-morning, the development of an acute case of pregnancy. Since the
much published history of Lar BW16177 on Hungaria throbbed vivid in his
mind, Jak could do nothing except set a course for Luna, carrying half
empty ore bins and four months of unexpired leave.

A bulb on the instrument panel blinked to signal the opening of the
outer airlock door. Jak said, "If I can't greet them in uniform, I'll
have to go like this." He adjusted his trunks and stood by the airlock,
which placed him head down in relation to Drusilla posing by the
strangely silent radio.

Lar BW16177, stranded on the asteroid, had been devitalized horribly
when, under low gravity, the fetus had developed with unprecedented
rapidity. Jak had set the fastest course he thought safe for Drusilla,
6,240,000,000 kilometers at 1 G acceleration, 208,000,000 kilometers
in free fall, and 6,240,000,000 kilometers at 1 G deceleration. He
had tried to keep Drusilla occupied with her photographic hobby and
its current triumph, although he could not understand why her picture
had won first prize. It had no color, being done in blacks, grays,
and whites, and showed every detail of her face. It looked about
like something Daguerre would have done in 1839. Jak much preferred
modern photography with its soft colors, pleasing blurs, and striking
abstractions. His own hobby was woodcarving, because so few things were
made of wood.

The inner door of the airlock opened. The three men in space-suits
walked across the ceiling and down the bulkhead to the deck. Jak
saluted the faces almost invisible behind colored glass and made
gestures asking the visitors to remove their helmets. One of the men
turned and clanked off along the narrow passage. Another unsealed and
removed the helmet of the tall man who seemed to be the leader.

Drusilla actually blushed and giggled. Jak, who considered himself
above petty embarrassment, felt rather ashamed himself, for the
visitor had never had his facial hair removed. It grew profusely in a
disgusting fringe between nose and upper lip and formed a horrid black
triangle on the point of his chin. Jak rubbed a shaking hand over his
own smooth cheeks and shaven head and stammered, "Welcome to the--the
Box. How's your hobby? I--I am Jak SP345O926O, and this is Drusilla
GW414249834. How may we help?"

The man with the hairy lip paid little attention to the traditional
greeting, nor did he reply. His black eyes smoldered at Drusilla. In a
vibrant voice, he purred, "Drusilla, Latin, meaning 'with dewy eyes.'
How appropriate! What a rare and sweet old name! I detest these ugly
modern names."

The eyes flashed to Jak. "I presume your name is a horrid modern one?"

Jak, maddened with indignation, snapped, "I told you I'm Jak
SP345O926O. Who are you, and how may we help? In about an hour and a
half--"

"Silence!" shouted the visitor.

This brutal direction shocked Jak into acquiescence. An even greater
shock stunned him when the other man who had remained in the cabin
removed his helmet. This one, Jak decided, must be mentally deficient,
or else he would have had a plastidoc treat the red scar tissue
covering the left side of his face. Jak could not understand the
semicircle of black cloth over the man's left eye.

The leader bent his torso toward Drusilla as much as the spacesuit
allowed, and said, "My true name and serial number, you shall never
know, fair lady; but for practical purposes, I have adopted the name of
the most famous pirate of the early Twentieth Century, Earl Flim. You
may call me Captain Flim."

The third man came back through the passage. He looked ordinary enough,
although he had let his hair grow. He reported, "No one else aboard,
captain."

Flim said, "Excellent, Ger. Destroy all communication apparatus."

Ger pulled a wrench from his tool kit and took a preliminary slash at
the radio. Completely puzzled, Jak protested, "Wait! What do you mean
'pirate?' Pirate? What--"

"Silence!" Flim roared.

Only then did Jak notice the pistol. Since the successful conclusion
of the Crime War, when Organized Crime, the greatest blight that ever
sapped a planet, was eradicated, guns could be found only in museums.
Even before the War, guns had become a rarity among the law abiding
citizenry; since the slaughter of fifteen thousand people a year in
hunting and home accidents in the State of America alone had brought
about anti-firearm laws and sent the gun the way of the private
automobile.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of course, the small criminal divisions of the Earth Patrol and the
Space Patrol still carried pistols, although more as ornaments than
weapons. The pistol in the clip holster on Flim's right leg seemed to
be the standard Patrol arm--not a "needle gun," or a "disintegrater,"
or a "heat ray," or any other impractical dream weapon, but a Morgia,
30-shot, 6 mm, semi-automatic pistol with adjustable optical sight. The
Morgia alarmed Jak sufficiently to prevent him from interfering as Ger
tore into the radio with wrench and pliers.

Drusilla squeaked and drifted aside. "There, there, fair lady," Flim
crooned. "No harm shall come to you."

"Watch what you call her!" Jak rasped. "I demand to know what you're
doing! There's no time for your hobby. Drusilla needs obstetric
attention, and I'm--"

"Silence!" Flim turned to Drusilla. "Ah, fair one, you shall have every
attention, obstetric and otherwise. Fear not. Such gorgeous green hair!
Those lips! Do I detect the master touch of Per BT1414?"

Drusilla managed to subdue her blushing and said, "Yes. He did my
eyelids too. Do you like them?"

"Blue as the skies of Earth!" Flim's gaze dropped. "However, in that
robe, I cannot tell--"

"What--" Jak tried to shout in mounting disgust at this performance.

"Stupid!" Drusilla spat. "Can't you see what Captain Flim is? Don't you
remember that tridie we saw on Mars about Jean Lafitte? Daun TA1924 was
Jean, and he rode his Model T-Ford into New Orleans to help Olehickory
Jackson. He was a pirate, and that's what Captain Flim is."

Flim murmured, "True, fair lady. I follow a great tradition! Jean
Lafitte, Robert Kidd, Mary Ree, Henry Morgan, and Long John Ag! The
old Brotherhood of the Coast shall become the brotherhood of the space
between worlds ripe for plunder. Among the cosmic motes--"

"You need a psycodoc," Jak said, proud to create an interruption
himself for once. "How can you be a pirate? No one is. The Space Patrol
would put you in Corrective School for twenty semesters if you were.
That's a worse negative action than falsehood in advertising!"

"I am a pirate," Flim said in defiance of Jak's logic. "The Space
Patrol! Avast! The Space Patrol is fit for nothing but rescue and
exploration. No pirates? What of the Crime War? The noble cause of
Organized Crime put planes into the void. They sent one of the first to
Luna in the old days."

Jak could see no other course but to believe the man, whose brain had
obviously deteriorated. He said, "Check. You're a pirate. Why? Why is
he wrecking my equipment, and why are you armed?"

"Because there is nothing exciting!" Flim declaimed. "The whole Solar
System is humble drum. I would have ridden the star-plane to new
adventure, but they refused me. On Earth, they made me a microcataloger
maintainer. Me! Its sole benefit was to acquaint me with the great
piratical traditions of the past by revealing records available only to
qualified scholars. No, there is nothing both legitimate and exciting
to do any more."

Jak said, "Why don't you find a quick cure for dementia praecox? That
hasn't been done."

"I dislike your tone," Flim rasped. "Looge! Silence him!"

The scarred man, who had stood without moving, blinked his visible eye
and grunted, "Yer, uh, what?"

"Silence him!"

"Oh. Er, how?"

"Knock him down!" Flim cried. "Beat him! Use your fists!"

Drusilla giggled. "Now we'll see if you're brave as you always tell me,
Jak."

       *       *       *       *       *

Jak gaped at her in amazement. "Drusilla," he wheezed. "Are you turning
against me completely? After all--our child! I know you're attracted to
this man. All women are attracted by anything vulgar, but--"

Drusilla placed one hand on her hip and fluffed her hair with the
other. "All you've ever done for me is give me three boring months in
the Rings," she said.

Jak stood with open mouth, and Looge squeezed past Flim. Grasping his
right wrist with his left hand, Looge drew back his arm. "No, no," Flim
said. "Use one hand at a time!"

Looge mumbled and cocked his right arm. With no gravity, the force of
this movement yanked his magnetized boots from the deck and sent him
sprawling across the astrogator's couch.

Flim stroked the loathsome triangle of hair on his chin and sighed,
"How decadent we are these days! He does not even understand brutality."

"Bring over the rest of your crew," Jak said. "They may."

With nauseous pride, Flim bellowed, "This is my crew! We three against
the void! Ger, find a plank!"

Ger turned holding a mess of loosened wiring in his hand and asked, "A
what?"

"A plank."

Drusilla said, "I know what you mean. Jak has one in quarters. He does
woodcarving. Of all the silly hobbies--"

"Don't be so helpful," Jak told Drusilla. "Leave that plank alone. It's
the only piece of red cedar this side of Oak Ridge."

"You shall walk it," Flim predicted. "It is one of the most famous
piratical traditions. In shark infested waters, a plank was extended
over the side of the ship and all male prisoners were required to walk
out it until they fell to their--death."

Jak shuddered at the pirate's calm use of the ugly archaic word. Flim
inclined his head to Drusilla. "You, of course, fair lady, will be
spared so awful a fate. When this creature, who, I perceive, has used
you most cruelly, is no more, we shall see the stars together."

Drusilla simpered and tittered. Jak belched (the ultimate expression
of disgust) for he had never seen a woman behave in such an abnormal
manner. He resolved to discuss the matter with the Eugenics Counselor
as soon as he reached Earth, if he did. Flim's intention to devitalize
him seemed but an impossible threat since Jak had never seen anyone
go through the strange process nor reviewed any remains afterward. He
said, "I can't walk a plank in space. I would just drift back to the
plane, unless you made a sudden change in velocity. Besides, I can last
for weeks with the purifier in my suit."

"Who mentioned a spacesuit?" Flim sneered.

"Without it I couldn't walk at all."

Flim frowned ferociously. "True. Too true. Avast, how I wanted to see
you walk the plank. We could take you to Earth and land on a Pacific
island."

"That would take too long," Jak objected. "Let me speak for a minute."
Jak placed a hand over his heart. "Captain Flim, my indoctrination
makes your methods repellant, but, in my unconscious, I've a certain
admiration for you. There may be some of the old romance in me. I know
a way of--uh--of devitalization that you may not. I've always wished
that when my time came to--uh--go, this way would be used. It's even
more romantic than Walk the Plank. It's called the Firing Squad."

"The Firing Squad," Flim mused. "Never mind, Ger. Return the plank."
Ger, carrying a one meter length of red cedar, shrugged and drifted
back to the passage. Flim stroked the mess on his upper lip and said,
"Interesting. How does the Firing Squad operate? Do I soak you in
alcohol and ignite it?"

"No!" Jak gasped quickly. "The Firing Squad was men with weapons.
Rifles, I think. The person to be treated stood before a wall and
performed a rite called Smoking the Cigarette, whatever that was. Then
an officer gave commands, and the person was perforated by the riffles
or rifles."

"What a manner to death!" exclaimed Flim.

Exhibiting great self-control, Jak did not wince at the word, although
Drusilla giggled. Flim inexpertly dragged the 6 mm Morgia from the clip
holster and smirked at it. He said, "We have but the single weapon,
although I will have Ger and Looge stand by to simulate a complete
group. I have wanted to test this pistol ever since Ger pockpicked a
Patrolman in Mars Base. It is but an advanced model of the flintlock
used by noble pirates of old."

"Let me show you," Jak said. His fingers barely touched the knob of the
optical sight before Flim slapped them away.

"I am expert in these matters," the pirate affirmed. His gauntleted
hands fumbled until he succeeded in pulling back the slide and letting
it snap forward. "A wonderful modern improvement!" he exclaimed. "Henry
Morgan loaded his from the other end of the barrel."

Drusilla made an unseemly noise with her mouth. "I never thought you
were brave, Jak," she jeered. "Why didn't the big hero take that away
from the Captain?"

"How did I know he didn't have a shell in the chamber? I didn't want
you to be hurt--"

"Silence!" commanded the pirate. "Male prisoner, prepare to be
perforated. Which wall shall we use?"

"Outside. I wouldn't want Drusilla to see--"

"Yes, outside. We shall spare the fair lady any unpleasantness. Don
your armor, male prisoner."

"What?"

Flim said, "Your spacesuit." He bowed to Drusilla. "Soon, I shall
return to claim you, fair lady. Together, we shall approach the speed
of light."

Drusilla began to pant. Jak pulled his spacesuit from the rack and
squirmed into it. "Aren't you going to tell me seelata?" he asked.

"Seelata, Jak," Drusilla said absently, her eyes on Flim.

Several words, the meaning of which Jak did not know, seeped from his
unconscious mind. As they became vocal, Flim glanced at him with an
expression--indicative of faint admiration. The pirate said, "Avast, it
is the custom. All male prisoners must be deathed unless they join the
jolly crew. You wish to join?"

Clutching his helmet to his aluminum breast, Jak thrust out his wedge
of chin and cried, "Never! I regret having one vitality to give for my
planet!"

"I salute you," said Flim, and clamped on his helmet. Ger and Looge did
likewise; and Jak, with a despairing glance at the entranced Drusilla,
sealed his own. Flim adjusted Jak's tuning dial and said, "Hear me?"

"Yes."

"Men! Follow the prisoner. Forward!"

They stepped out on the dark side of the Box, a right quadrangular
prism of dull metal. A tube ran through the long axis of the craft with
a swivel-mounted Carver Atomicket located at the center of gravity and
steering jets slightly forward. By turning the Atomicket, acceleration
or deceleration could result without the necessity for rotating the
entire plane.

Their suits glowing with luminous paint, the four men stood for a
moment beneath the starry spectacle. Jupiter, the largest celestial
object in sight, appeared as a small belted moon to left. Flim placed
the muzzle of the Morgia against the face of Jak's helmet.

"That's not correct!" Jak protested.

Flim lowered the pistol slightly. He said, "Are you certain all this is
not a trick? I suspected something below."

Jak's heart shuddered. He wondered what would happen to Drusilla. This
mental case would never take her to Earth, the only place she would
have a chance. She should have realized her own peril instead of ogling
the pirate. He pleaded, "No. No trick."

Flim stated, "I am prepared to death you at any instant. Be careful.
How do you wish it arranged?"

"Stand at the tail, side by side, and I'll stand at the nose. That's
forty meters apart. A good distance for the Firing Squad."

Jak took two jerky steps which brought him into position over the
control cabin.

Jak said, "One last request. Shoot me through the faceplate. I'll
devitalize instantly whether you hit the brain or not."

Flim's voice crackled through the radio. "Out of respect for the fair
lady below, I shall avoid brutality and accommodate you. However, I am
placing Ger and Looge behind me. I still feel this may be a trick."

"That's not right. All three--"

"Behind me," Flim insisted. "What were the commands?"

Jak croaked, "Load, aim, fire."

"I'm already loaded. Aim!"

Flim extended his right arm at full length. Jak licked the dry inner
surfaces of his mouth with a drier tongue.

"Fire!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Sparks spurted from the muzzle of the Morgia. Flim, his magnetic boots
ripped from the plates by the recoil, crashed into Ger and Looge. A
tangle of spacesuited legs and arms accelerated back along the course
of the Box to become a luminous spot in the blackness.

Yanking a pair of snippers from his tool kit, Jak trudged along the
edge of the Box and cut the cables of the grapplers. He clutched the
low hand rail and shoved the curvilinear side of the spacecopter. For a
moment, he watched as the space between the weightless vessels widened.
He dropped into the airlock.

Drusilla reclined on the astrogator's couch. She had exchanged her
concealing red robe for a suit of skintight translucent cover-alls.
"Back so soon, captain?" she mewed. "Did he put up a last heroic
struggle, or did he devitalize like the coward he was?"

Jak said, "He didn't have to be heroic. He used his brains."

Drusilla looked up. Her face blanched even under the Deepurple she had
sprayed on. "Jak!" she squeaked.

Jak hung his helmet on the rack, swept some of the broken tubes and
severed wires from the control board, placed them in a jagged ball
in midair, and savagely canceled the flight plan. He activated the
calculator. In a voice like nothing he had heard issue from his own
throat, he said, "Your Captain Flim didn't know any more about a
pistol than the average citizen. At sea level on Earth, the 6 mm Morgia
bullet has a muzzle velocity of 1253 meters per second; and, at a range
of, say, 300 meters, the bullet rises 10.5 centimeters above the line
of sight at the top of the curve it traces. Out here, with no gravity
or air pressure, the bullet travels in a perfectly straight line. I
ran Flim's sight all the way up, and when he tried to hit my head as I
asked him, he missed me a mile--whatever that means. On Earth, he would
have hit regardless of the sights. He had only one shot, because the
cold of the dark side contracted the slide; and the recoil, terrific
without gravity, sent him and his crew flying."

Jak left the clicking calculator and stared at the motionless Drusilla.
"Don't worry about your sweetjet," he rasped. "He'll drift back to
his copter. We're changing course for the Patrol station on Callisto
to report and have them picked up. I hope the centrifugal force and
deceleration is enough to smear you!"

"But, Jak," Drusilla moaned, "you know--"

"Don't start that again!" Jak roared. "You told me a--a dis-truth!
What an act! You ought to be in tridies. At two months, Lar BW16177 on
Hungaria looked like--You wanted to go to Earth because of that prize
in the Photographic Salon! You wanted to taste your fame. What are you
trying to do, ruin me? You don't need the Wollongong Obstetric Hospital
any more than I do! I'm going back to the Rings, and you can sit on
Callisto till you--yes, till you death yourself!"

"Jak," Drusilla murmured. "I never knew you could be so domineering,
so," she giggled the naughty word, "masculine."

"Silence!" Jak bellowed. He darted down the passage to quarters and
spurted back carrying a gray uniform soaked with tomato juice. He
snarled, "I told you to clean this! Now do it!"

The silver crescent and rocket emblem of the Space Patrol still
glittered through the stain. Beneath that crest appeared Jak's serial
number, SP34509260.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Space Between" ***

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