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Ebook has 1030 lines and 51245 words, and 21 pages

The Last Space Ship

MURRAY LEINSTER

GALAXY PUBLISHING CORP. 421 HUDSON STREET NEW YORK 14, N. Y.

PART ONE

THE DISCIPLINARY CIRCUIT

PART TWO

THE MANLESS WORLDS

PART THREE

THE BOOMERANG CIRCUIT

PART ONE

THE DISCIPLINARY CIRCUIT

Citizens, be grateful to Kim Rendell, who shares with you the pleasure of contemplating this heirloom.

This is a space-ship, like those which for ten thousand years were the only means of travel between planets and solar systems. Even after matter-transmitters were devised, space-ships continued to be used for exploration for many years. Since exploration of the Galaxy has been completed and all useful planets colonized and equipped with matter-transmitters, space-ships are no longer in use.

Kim Rendell read it again. He was haggard and hungry. He had been guilty of the most horrifying crime imaginable to a man of his time. But the law would not, of course, allow him or any other man to be coerced by any violence or threat to his personal liberty.

A lector came up to him and bowed politely.

"Citizen," he said apologetically, "may I speak to you?"

"Why not?" asked Kim grimly. "I am not proud."

The lector said uncomfortably:

"I see that you are in difficulty. Your clothes are threadbare." Then he added with unhappy courtesy, "You are a criminal, are you not?"

"I am blocked," said Kim in a hard voice. "I was advised by the Prime Board to leave Alphin Three for my own benefit. I refused. They put on the first block. Automatically, after that, the other blocks came on one each day. I have not eaten for three days. I suppose you would call me a criminal."

"I sympathize deeply," the lector answered unhappily. "I hope that soon you will concede the wisdom of the advised action and be civilized again. But may I ask how you entered the museum? The third block prevents entrance to all places of study."

Kim pointed to the loan-card.

"I am Kim Rendell," he said drily. "The law does not allow me to be prevented access to my own property. I insisted on my right to visit this ship, and the Disciplinary Circuit for this building had to be turned off at the door so I could enter." He shivered. "It is very cold out-of-doors today, and I could not enter any other building."

The lector looked relieved.

"I am glad to know these things," he said gratefully. "Thank you." He glanced at Kim with a sort of fluttered curiosity. "It is most interesting to meet a criminal. What was your crime?"

Kim looked at him under scowling brows.

"I tried to nullify the Disciplinary Circuit."

For a hundred years, now, the ship had been a museum-piece, open to public inspection. But parts had been sealed off as uninstructive. Kim broke the seals. This was his property, but if he had not already been a criminal under block, the breaking of the seals would have made him one. At least, it would have had to be explained to a lector who, at discretion, could accept the explanation or refer it to a second-degree counsellor.

The counsellor might deplore the matter and dismiss it, or suggest corrective self-discipline.

If the seal-breaker did not accept the suggestion the matter would go to a social board whose suggestion, in turn, could be rejected. But when it reached the Prime Board--and any matter from the breaking of a seal to mass murder would go there if suggested self-discipline was refused--there was no more nonsense.

Now he was under block. His psychogram had been placed in the Disciplinary Circuit.

On the first day he was blocked from the customary complete outfit of new garments, clean, sterile, and of his own choice. These garments normally arrived by his bedside in the carrier which took away the old ones to be converted back to raw material for the garment machines.

On the second day he could enter no place of public recreation. An attempt to pass the door of any sport-field, theatre, or concert stadium caused the Disciplinary Circuit to act. His body began to tingle. He could turn back then. If he persisted, the tingling became more severe. If he was obstinate, it became agony, which continued until he turned back.

On the third day he found it impossible to enter any place of study or labor. The fourth day blocked him from any place where food or drink was served. On the fifth day his own quarters were barred to him.

But it happened that Kim was a matter-transmitter technician. It happened that he knew that the Disciplinary Circuit was tied in to the matter-transmitter, and blocked men were not sent to destinations of their own choosing.

Blocked men automatically went to Ades. And they did not come back. Ever.

Behind the sealed-off parts of the space-ship, Kim searched hungrily and worked desperately, not for food, of course. He had determined to attempt the impossible. He had accomplished only the first step toward it when he felt an infinitesimal tingling all over his body. He stood rigid for a second, and then smiled grimly. He closed the casing of the catalyzer he had examined and worked on.

"Just in time," he said. "The merciless brutes!"

He moved from the catalyzer. A moment later he heard footsteps. Someone came up the flush ladder and into the space-ship. Kim Rendell turned his head. Then he bent over the fuel-register, which amazingly showed the tanks to be almost one-twelfth full of fuel, and stood motionless.

The footsteps moved here and there. Presently they came cautiously to the engine-room. Kim did not stir. A man made an indescribable sound of satisfaction. Kim, not moving even his eyes, saw that it was the lector who had spoken to him outside the ship. He did not address Kim now. With a quite extraordinary air of someone about to pick up an inanimate object, the lector laid hands upon Kim to lift him off his feet.

"Citizen!" Kim said severely. "What does this mean?"

The lector gasped. He fell back. His mouth dropped open and his face went white.

"I--I thought you were paralyzed."

"I do not care what you thought," Kim said. "It is against the law for any citizen to lay violent hands upon another."

"You--you.... The Circuit failed to work!"

"You reported that I had entered this ship," Kim said drily. "There is some uneasiness about what I do, because of my crime. So the Circuit was applied to paralyze me, and you were ordered to bring me quietly to the matter-transmitter. As you observe, it is not practical. Go back and report it."

The lector said something incoherent, turned and fled. Kim followed him leisurely to the entry-port. He turned the hand-power wheels which put a barrier across the entrance. He went back to his examination of the ship. The first part of the impossible had been achieved, but there was much more, too much more, which must be done. He worked feverishly.

She was, in fact, one of the last and most useful space-ships ever constructed at the last space-ship yard in existence. She was almost certainly the last ever to be used. But she was only a museum-piece now and her switches were opened and her control-cables severed lest visitors to the museum injure her. But Kim's grandfather had lectured him at great length upon her qualities. The old gentleman had had an elderly man's distaste for modern perfectionism.

Kim threw switches here and there. He spliced cables wherever he found them cut. He was hungry and he was gaunt, and he worked with a bitter anticipation of failure. He had been in the museum for almost an hour, and in the ship for half of that, when voices called politely through the barrier-grille.

"Citizen Kim Rendell, may we enter?"

He made sure it was safe, then opened the way.

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