The Science Fiction Anthology. Fritz Leiber

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СКАЧАТЬ very bad in a hot climate. If there are worse smells, they come from once-frozen eggs bursting from their shells when pressure outside them is relieved. In this case, trimmings were added by fermenting strawberries, moldy meat and badly decayed vegetables, all triumphantly making themselves known at the same instant.

      Cathy gasped and choked. Lon got her out of doors, gasping himself. It was not difficult to deduce what had happened.

      He opened the house windows from the outside, so the smell could go away. But he knew despair.

      “I—can’t show you the house, Cathy,” he said numbly. “My locker went bad and all the food followed suit.”

      “Lon!” wailed Cathy. “It’s terrible! How will you eat?”

      Lon began to realize that the matter was more serious than the loss of an opportunity for a sentimental inspection of the house. He had dreamed splendidly, of late. He didn’t quite know how he was going to manage it, but since his tractor was working magnificently he had come to picture himself and Cathy in the rôle of successful colonists, zestfully growing thanar leaves for the increasing multitudes of people who needed a milligram a day.

      He’d reverted to the pictured dreams in the Cetis Gamma Trading Company’s advertisements. He’d daydreamed of himself and Cathy as growing with the colony, thriving as it throve, and ultimately becoming moderately rich—in children and grandchildren, anyhow—with life stretching out before them in a sort of rosy glow. He’d negligently assumed that somehow they would also be rich from the royalties on his invention. But now he came down to reality.

      His house was uninhabitable for the time being. He could continue to cultivate his fields, but he wouldn’t be able to eat. The local plant-life was not suitable for human digestion. He had to live on food imported from Earth. Now he had to buy a new stock from the Company, and it would bankrupt him.

      With an invention worth more—probably—than the Cetis Gamma Company itself, if he could realize on it, he still was broke. His crop was mortgaged. If Carson learned about his substitute for a generator, the Company would immediately clamp down to get it away from him.

      He took Cathy back to Cetopolis. He feverishly appealed to other colonists. He couldn’t tell them about his generator substitute. If they knew about it, in time Carson would know. If they used it, Carson would eventually get hold of a specimen, to send back to Earth for pirating by the Cetis Gamma Trading Company. All Lon could do was try desperately to arrange to borrow food to live on until his crop came in, though even then he wouldn’t be in any admirable situation.

      He couldn’t borrow food in quantity. Other colonists had troubles, too. They’d give him a meal, yes, but they couldn’t refill his freezer without emptying their own. Which would compel them to buy more. Which would be charged against their crops. Which would simply hasten the day when they would become day-laborers on the Company’s thanar farm.

      Lon had about two days’ food in the kitchen locker. He determined to stretch it to four. Then he’d have to buy more. With each meal, then, his hopes of freedom and prosperity—and Cathy—grew less.

      Of course, he could starve....

      Rhadampsicus was enormously and pleasantly interested in what went on in Cetis Gamma’s photosphere. From the ninth planet, he scanned the prominences with enthusiasm, making notes. Nodalictha tried to take a proper wifely interest in her husband’s hobby, but she could not keep it up indefinitely. She busied herself with her housekeeping. She fashioned a carpet of tufted methane fibres and put up curtains at the windows. She enlarged the garden Rhadampsicus had made, adding borders of crystallized ammonia and a sort of walkway with a hedge of monoclinic sulphur which glittered beautifully in the starlight. She knew that this was only a temporary dwelling, but she wanted Rhadampsicus to realize that she could make any place a comfortable home.

      He remained absorbed in the phenomena of the local sun. One great prominence, after five days of spectacular existence, divided into two which naturally moved apart and stationed themselves at opposite sides of the sun’s equator. They continued to rotate with the sun itself, giving very much the effect of an incipient pinwheel. Two other minor prominences came into being midway between them. Rhadampsicus watched in fascination.

      Nodalictha came and reposed beside him on a gentle slope of volcanic slag. She waited for him to notice her. She would not let herself be sensitive about his interest in his hobby, of course, but she could not really find it absorbing for herself. A trifle wistfully, she sent her thoughts to the female biped on the second planet.

      After a while she said in distress, “Rhadampsicus! Oh, they are so unhappy!”

      Rhadampsicus gallantly turned his attention from the happenings on the sun.

      “What’s that, darling?”

      “Look!” said Nodalictha plaintively. “They are so much in love, Rhadampsicus! And they can’t marry because he hasn’t anything edible to share with her!”

      Rhadampsicus scanned. He was an ardent and sentimental husband. If his new little wife was distressed about anything at all, Rhadampsicus was splendidly ready to do something about it.

      Lon Simpson looked at his kitchen locker. The big deep-freezer was repaired now. Once a season, a truck came out from Cetopolis and filled it. The food was costly. A season’s supply was kept in deep-freeze. Once in one or two weeks, one refilled the kitchen locker. It was best to leave the deep-freeze locker closed as much as possible. But now the big deep-freeze was empty. He’d cleaned out the ghastly mess in it, and he had it running again, but he had nothing to put in it. To have it refilled would put him hopelessly at the Company’s mercy, but there was nothing else to do.

      Bitterly, he called the Trading Company office, and Carson answered.

      “This is Simpson,” Lon told him. “How much—”

      “The price for a generator,” said Carson, bored, “is the same as before. Do you want it sent out?”

      “No! My food locker broke down. My food store spoiled. I need more.”

      “I’ll figure it,” replied Carson over the beamphone. He didn’t seem interested. After a moment, he said indifferently, “Fifteen hundred credits for standard rations to crop time. Then you’ll need more.”

      “It’s robbery!” raged Lon. “I can’t expect more than four thousand credits for my crop! You’ve got three thousand charged against me now!”

      Carson yawned. “True. A new generator, fifteen hundred; new food supplies fifteen hundred. If your crop turns out all right, you’ll start the new season with two thousand credits charged up as a loan against your land.”

      Lon Simpson strangled on his fury. “You’ll take all my leaves and I’ll still owe you! Then credit for seed and food and—If I need to buy more machinery, you’ll own my farm and crop next crop time! Even if my crop is good! Your damned Company will own my farm!”

      “That’s your lookout,” Carson said without emotion. “Being a thanar farmer was your idea, not mine. Shall I send out the food?”

      Lon Simpson bellowed into the beamphone. He heard clicking, then Cathy’s voice. It was at once reproachful and sympathetic.

      “Lon! Please!”

      But Lon couldn’t talk to her. He panted at СКАЧАТЬ