The Man Who Staked the Stars Read online

of a hand that was Pop's favorite gesture,one Bryce had picked up from him himself.

  "He told me you're on the way up." Roy Pierce held him with a steadydark gaze. "I want a slice of that, and I want it the easy way,hitching my wagon to your rocket. You can use me. A big man is toopublic. You need a new hand and a new voice, one that does what youwant done, and can do it in the dark or the light, without yourname--a stand-in for alibis, and a contriver of accidents so theybreak for you without your motion. A left arm that your enemies don'trecognize as yours."

  He was asking to be Bryce's substitute in the things that had to bedone without connection to himself, and yet had to be done by Brycehimself, because no one could be trusted with the knowledge of them.

  Could he be trusted? His coming could be another trap by theunidentified enemy. It was almost too providential, almost too welltimed. "References and abilities?"

  Roy Pierce reached into his wallet and handed out an aptitude profilecard backed by the universal test score listings in training andskills on the other side. Bryce played with the card and studied theyouth. The boy was well dressed in a dark tailored suit of the kindBryce favored. He looked able, clean, cool and ruthless. "Armed?"Bryce asked.

  A thing like a very thick cigar suddenly appeared in Pierce's hand.The end of it pointing at him was solid except for a very small hole.A needle gun, obviously, loaded with two and a half inch grooved drugcarrying needles.

  "Sleep or death?" Bryce asked.

  "Sleep," Pierce said, putting it away. "It's licensed." Bryce wonderedwhat made him so sure he could trust this kid. He analyzed while hequestioned. He did not bother to look at the card.

  "Languages?"

  "Basic coast pidgin, symbolic and glot." Basic English and Poliglot,the two universals.

  "Detector proofed?" Lie detectors could be a nuisance, for they wereused casually and universally without needing the legal warrants anddeference to constitutional immunities and medical supervision ofhypno-questioning.

  Pierce smiled with a flash of white teeth. "First thing I ever savedmy money for."

  Though they spoke standard English, Bryce had placed his intonationsalmost to the block he grew up in. Almost to the half block! He was asfamiliar as Pop Yak, as familiar as his own face in the mirror, and asunderstandable. Bryce knew the inside of his mind as well as if itwere a suddenly attached lobe of his own. It was like looking backthrough time at himself younger and less complex.

  Pop Yak had turned out another on the same model, a younger simplerduplicate of himself. Pierce was doing exactly what he said, offeringservice to Bryce as he would offer him a sword, simply for the riskand delight of being an instrument in a power game with stakes as highas he had guessed Bryce's game to be. There was no danger of him beinga plant, and no danger of him squealing under pressure: the risk ofdeath or arrest was part of his pay.

  * * * * *

  "Okay," Bryce said. He gestured with his head to a corner of the roombehind him. "Sit over there. You're my cousin from Montehedo, and I'mshowing you the town." He turned to his appointment pad again andread. After Pierce had placed a chair in the indicated position, Brycesaid without turning. "This week I can use a bodyguard. Someone'shiring killers for me."

  There was no sound of motion for a moment. Bryce got the idea thatPierce was more surprised than the fact warranted. But his questionwas gentle and deadly. "Any idea who?"

  "The line forms to the left." Bryce said dryly, "Put away that needlegun and buy something legal that kills." He handed back a sheaf ofletters, memos and graphs. "Read these and learn." For some reason hefelt exhilarated.

  He turned back to work, routing shipments, shifting rates to balanceshifting costs, lowering rates for preliminary incentive on lines thatcould run at lower cost with a heavier load, occasionally using theBell communication load analyzer and Kesby's formula analysis for achoice of ways of averting bottlenecks and overload slow-down points,sometimes consulting the solar system maps on the walls.

  Good service built up customer demand and dependency on good service.Producers manufacturing now on Earth with the new materials shipped infrom space could not be cut off from access to the new materialswithout ruin to the manufacturers. Earth was becoming dependent onspace transport.

  Once the customers were given it, they grew to need it. He smiled atthe thought. It was another kind of drug traffic, and wielded thesame kind of potentially infinite power over the customers.

  One thing he had learned from the Economics tome he had struggled withfour nights ago, a simple inexorable principle he had recognized dimlybefore--that since it was difficult and more expensive to ship outgoods from Earth to space than it was to drop goods into Earth fromspace, eventually spacepeople might be independent of Earth, and Earthtotally dependent on space products.

  The potentialities of the business game were amazing past anything PopYak had ever hinted, but the funny thing was he had to find it outstep by step for himself. That kind of excitement wasn't in stories.The adventures of explorers, research men, and detectives were writteninto stories, but not money men. The life and growth and death andblackmail of individuals were in the stories he had read, but not themurder of planets and cities, the control and blackmail of wholepopulations, in this odd legal game with the simple rules. Funny therehadn't been lurid stories about this in the magazines he read as akid.

  He grinned--Well, the kids would read about _him_. In fifteen yearshe'd have everyone under his thumb and they'd smile and bow and befrightened just speaking to him.

  The work vanished rapidly, the pile of accumulated letters and reportsdwindling, and the phone ringing at intervals.

  Complaints he dealt with carefully, wording each letter in reply so asto give the impression that he, Bryce Carter, was personally breakingthe corporation policy to satisfy the complainer, and adding a word ofpraise on the intelligence and lucidity of the complaining letter. Sofar he had made a total of some six hundred letter-writing allies thatway. Complainants were usually loquacious, interfering types whoexpressed more than their share of public opinion, and many wouldglorify him to everyone whose ear they could hold, if only to have itknown that they were on pally terms with a Director of the great UT.

  Many of the letters were merely friendly and chatty, telling of moneytroubles, successes and family affairs. To these he recorded a fewfriendly remarks on wire spool, telling the same joke to each, andslipped each loop of wire into an envelope to be mailed.

  Pierce, studying a transport routing map, looked over and grinned atthe sixth repetition of the joke, and Bryce grinned back and continuedon recording a letter to an address in the Ozarks. "Got a young cousinof mine in from Montehedo, Miss Furnald, he's sitting here watching tosee how a big business office operates and he's grinning at me becauseit looks like I want to just sit and talk at my friends all day long.I have fifty-nine business letters here to answer--honest toGod--fifty-nine, I just counted them, so I guess I'll cut off and showthe young squirt how I can work. Send me that photo of your sister'snew baby."

  He hung up the record mouthpiece. One more voter and loyal friend topull for him when he was a public figure and the going got rough.

  He grinned. It was a strange life and a strange game.

  V

  When he left the office with Pierce, someone stepped out of a cornerof the corridor and clutched at his sleeve, speaking rapidly. Brycebrushed off the hand carelessly and walked on.

  "A junky," he remarked to Pierce. There was a quick flash of motionbehind them that sent them whirling to one side. Pierce stood asidewith the small needle gun in his palm waiting to see if it would beneeded, while Bryce finished the downstroke of his hand that sent theknife and the junky reeling to the rubbery corridor flooring.

  "Shall I report him?" Pierce asked, making his needle gun vanish inthe same smooth motion it had appeared, and indicating a phone sign.

  "No. It doesn't matter," Bryce walked on thoughtfully. "Everyone wantsto kill me at once."

&
nbsp; Pierce said, "It's easy to sway a miserable man to the point ofpinning all his troubles and hate on to one name, like Bryce Carter."

  "I know," said Bryce. He saw that the smiling dark young man wasalert, walking a little ahead of him and glancing quickly left andright as they approached corners and intersections and recesseddoorways where a man could wait unseen, doing his job as a bodyguardefficiently and inconspicuously. "If it's the man I think it is,"Bryce told him, falling into step again after they passed the turninto the tube trains, "he's working against a deadline. It's now ornever. There won't be any more of this after next month."

  Pierce answered after a glance at a passing mirror to see if they werefollowed, and a quick scan of the train platform. "Your