Stairway to the Stars by Larry T. Shaw (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

steps, the machine cradled under her arm. Ray climbed up on the rail, poised there a second, then attempted a swan dive. John Andrew yelled at him as he arced forward, but it was too late. The old man dropped like a stone, flapping his arms, bounced slightly on the top step, then slid forward down several more steps on his faceplate.

Dor hesitated, her head just above water. She looked at the limp, diving-suited body beside her, then back at the launch and Farmer. Again, she came to a decision quickly.

Bending, leaving a trail of bubbles as her head went under, she set the Judge’s invention down on a lower step and picked up the Judge instead. Cradling him in her arms, she started back up again, calling to Farmer to be ready to take her burden aboard.

They got him on the boat with little difficulty, and John Andrew laid him on the deck as Dor sprang lithely over the rail again, showing interest in the little fellow’s condition. The diving helmet came off easily, not having been properly fastened down at all. Farmer bent anxiously over the Judge, looking for signs of life.

The diving suit had shipped some water, and the Judge had gotten a nasty crack on the head—but he was a tough bozo. There was no blood, his breathing seemed almost normal, and he already showed signs of returning consciousness.

John Andrew turned to Dor. “Well, I should thank you for bringing him back, I guess,” he muttered. “But now that you’re with us again” —he shot out a big paw and grabbed her by the wrist—“ how about explaining some of this?”

He was very gentle with the wrist. He didn’t want to hurt her; he was wondering already, in fact, what had made him get so rough at all. But she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’ve got to go quickly,” she told him. “I think Garf will be all right now, but he may take a notion to come back. And I have to see that the gate is closed before....”

“What gate? Get back where?” [78]Farmer managed to put more curiosity than impatience into his tone.

“Back to my own planet—Tamdivar, sun Nogore, member of the Galactic Federation,” she said patiently. “The gate is a matter-transmitter between my world and yours. It was once in constant use, but my government closed it when you people got to the point where you were running around in submarines, using depth bombs, and just noticing our aircraft too much.”

Somehow, what popped into Farmer’s head was the chorus of an old song he had sung in boy’s camp when very young. “There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea! There’s a log in the hole....”

“Your machine reactivated the gate from this side, even if that isn’t what you designed it to do,” Dor went on. “It’s a good thing I noticed the gate was open. Of course, the area affected isn’t large—it includes those steps and a lot of water around them.

“The gate’ll stay open now until it’s closed from our side—but I’ll have to take your outfit back and destroy it, anyway. Our cops would be tough with you if they found you operating the thing, and Federation Securitymen would be even tougher. Take it as a warning: don’t do it again.”

She turned to go, but Farmer held on. “What’s this about a Galactic Federation? And if they’ve banned all communication with Earth, why haven’t they just blasted the planet out of existence and gotten rid of it? Of course, I know we’re thoroughly uncivilized and too warlike for any other race to trust, and all that. I can see how Earth might be considered the plague spot of the universe....”

Dor gawked, and saw that he was very serious. Then she threw back her head and laughed a merry laugh. “Listen, friend,” she said at last. “The only real trouble with you Earth people is that you have a tremendous inferiority complex, collectively and individually—as you’ve just illustrated. Get over that and you’ll eliminate most of your trouble. As for the Federation, they let us in, and most member-races have wars occasionally; they’ll undoubtedly accept you, once you develop space travel.

“Just at the moment, of course, you’re at a crossroads. You could jump in either direction, blowing yourself up or taking the big step into space. I think you’ll turn out okay, but not everybody agrees—and the Federation can’t take even small chances. So you can’t be allowed to set off your atom bombs, or worse, where they might get through to another planet. We can’t actually interfere with you, so we’ve closed the gates; that’s all.”

John Andrew, thinking it over, said “Oh,” and let go of her wrist. She turned and went back to the rail again, after flashing him the most de luxe smile so far. Farmer came out of a philosophic haze to notice she was leaving. He said, “Hey!”

She looked over her shoulder. Farmer didn’t know what to say, but he wanted to delay her. Finally, he pointed to the nonapus, and said, “What about that monster? You’re not going to leave it here?”

She laughed again. “Oh, the robot? It’ll follow me. It’s designed to.... Oh damn!”

The damn was for something she saw in the water as she looked back over the rail again. John Andrew rushed to her side and looked as she got set for a dive. Garf, he saw immediately, had returned, and was picking up the Judge’s invention.

“Put that down!” Dor’s yell was high-pitched. Garf faced them, and Farmer could just make out his lazy, contemptuous smile through the murky water. The fishman raised his arm in one of the now-familiar gestures.

The boat heaved, wallowed, and sank.

Farmer thought desperately again that he couldn’t swim, and then he thought wildly of the Judge, who hadn’t regained full consciousness. He went under once, and came up choking [79]and sputtering. He decided his end had come—and he didn’t even know the identity of the enemy who had done him in. It was ironic. He should have asked Dor to tell him more about Garf—was he a traitor, or a Tamdivarian gangster, or what? John Andrew gasped and started sinking again....

To find himself hauled out of the water unceremoniously by the scruff of his neck. As he rose, ropy tentacles twined about him, and he saw what had saved him. He was being cradled, gently but firmly, by the nonapus, which had Judge Ray in another set of tentacles. And the nonapus, it became apparent, was not only a water-creature.

It could also fly.

Garf paddled idly around Dor’s apartment, pretending interest in the shell-paintings that decorated the walls. He had presented her a bouquet in which rare blossoms hid slimy, smelly weeds, and she was sore at him—again. As she finished her conversation and switched off the two-way radio, he turned to her. “Dor,” he said softly.

She looked at him haughtily. “Don’t speak to me!” she said. “I told you you’d have to stop your irresponsible practical joking and settle down. Some hard work wouldn’t hurt you even if you did inherit a fortune. I don’t mind so much when you pull these stunts on me, but when I think of how you practically drowned those poor, defenseless Earth-creatures....”

His mouth twisted. “Poor, defenseless Earth-creatures! How was I to know they couldn’t swim? Just imagine—beings that live on a world with almost as much water as ours, who can’t use their natural abilities any more than that! It’s ridiculous. I never saw such morons—the big, ugly one especially!”

He had intended that to sting, and it did. Dor raised her nose another notch. “I think he’s cute, and I’m learning he’s pretty intelligent, too. He catches on fast to everything I tell him. He and his little friend will have their spaceship finished soon now, and....”

“That’s another thing!” Garf snapped, keeping her on the defensive. “Maybe I violated Security by going to Earth when they accidentally opened the gate, but what are you doing? What would the Fed say if they knew you were giving out information the Earthmen hadn’t acquired by themselves—helping them get into space? What about that?”

Dor shrugged. “I’m not telling them anything, really. Just dropping a few hints of the most elementary sort. Things they’d have figured out soon anyway—and things they still have to work hard to make practicable. Even if some of the inventions they’ve worked out so far have enabled them to make enough money to live on nicely—after all, those things are the merest toys to us—what could it possibly matter?”

Garf considered. This bickering was, as usual, getting them exactly nowhere. He gave up. “All right, dear,” he said. “You win; you’re right, of course, and I’m wrong. I only hope you won’t bother so much with talking to that Earth-slug on the radio after we’re married.”

Dor laughed a tinkly laugh and came into his waiting arms. “Darling,” she cooed. “What a thing to say. I actually believe you’re jealous—and you know I only love you.”

Which wasn’t strictly true. The big Earthman was cute, she thought, and it was quaint of him to be in love with her, and to tell her so every day over the radio built into the robot-nonapus. Of course, he was inferior to her in every way, and she wouldn’t think of marrying him or anything like that. But even his inferiority was interesting, in a way.

Yes, it was nice to know he loved her.

And she loved him, too—like an amusing baby brother.