C. C. MacApp

“ He wondered if Waverill knew more than he pretended. He thought not; Murdoch's own knowledge was largely meticulous deduction. This much Murdoch knew with enough certainty to gamble his life on it: the treatments here involved a strange virus-like thing which multiplied in one's veins and, for presumably selfish or instinctive reasons, helped the body to repair and maintain itself. He knew for dead certain that the aliens always carefully destroyed the virus in a patient's veins before letting him go. ”

“ The Advertising Manager who had put the thing over had been fighting with all the formidable weapons of his breed to make his plant managers build up a stockpile. They had, but it went like a toupee in a wind tunnel. Competitive coffin manufacturers were caught napping, but by Wednesday after Thanksgiving they, along with the original one, were on a twenty-four hour, seven-day basis. ”

“ Through the spy cell Murdoch could see the stars as the hatch slowly opened. Waverill jumped off without hesitating. Murdoch liked the tough old man's guts, and hoped he'd make it all right.
He closed the hatch and fed new data into the autopilot. He sagged into the seat as the ship strained into a new course, then it eased off to a steady forward acceleration. He was ready to loop around another of Jupiter's moons, then around the giant planet itself, on a course that should defy pursuit unless it were previously known. ”

“ We have ways of knowing that the people of Coar, far more than our own, clamor at their government for any sort of peace.
"Coar's fleets are smashed and the remnants have fled from space.
"Clearly, courage has all but vanished from the Solar System; yet there is one place where courage has not wavered. That place is in the Fleet of Sennech.
"At this moment we are the only strength left in the Solar System. ”

“ The brain showed horrible and shrunk through the membrane. A pair of lidless idiot eyes stared unmovingly in Murdoch's direction. The whole jawless head was the size of Murdoch's two fists doubled up, if he could judge the size through the distortion of the ice.
Sick but unable to vomit, Murdoch forced his eyes away from the thing. Now the aliens spoke to him, from somewhere. "Pretty isn't he Murdoch. He makes a good bank for the virus. You were right you know it does offer great longevity but it has its own ideas of what a host should be." ”

“ When he reached the outskirts of Denver he realized something was amiss. He stood and gazed at the quiet scene. Nothing moved except some skinny packrats and a few sparrows foraging for grain among the unburied coffins. ”

“ Gods, however, achieve defeats as terrible as their victories."
Tulan laughed and sat down beside Jezef with some charts. "I think I'll appoint you Fleet Poet. Here's the plan. No one knows what I intend; we could be on our way around the sun to overtake Coar and either fight or surrender, or we might be diving into the sun in a mass suicide. That's why I broke off the siege and pulled all units away from Coar; the fact that they're coming back around to meet us will suggest something like that." ”

“ The problem was to smuggle out any viable amount of the virus. Even a few cells, he thought, would be enough if he could get away from here and get them into his own blood. For it would multiply; and what would be the going price for a drop of one's blood—for a thousandth of a drop—if it carried virtual immortality?
A man could very nearly buy Earth.
The voice was speaking again. "Move straight ahead. The field will be opened for you."
Murdoch got the ship moving. He was blanked out again by the melting ice until they popped free into air, with an odd hesitation and then a rush. ”

“ Sometime near dawn he gave up trying to sleep, dressed, and began composing orders. Presently Jezef came in with cups of steaming amber liquid. They sipped in silence for a while, then Jezef asked "You've heard about Grefen?"
Tulan felt something knot inside him. He shook his head, dreading what he knew was coming.
"He killed himself last night," Jezef said.
Tulan remembered the agony in the old Minister of War's eyes when he'd voted for surrender. Grefen had been Admiral in his day; the prototype of integrity and a swift sledgehammer in a fight; and Tulan's first combat had been under him. ”

“ Still, economists swore that the new boom couldn't last either. They reckoned without the Advertising Manager, whose eyes gleamed brighter all the time. People already had coffins, which they polished and kept on display, sometimes in the new "Coffin-ports" being added to houses. The Advertising Manager's reasoning was direct and to the point. He must get people to use the coffins ”

“ Can you give me back my eyes?"
"We can but first of all I must warn both of you against trying to steal anything from us or prying into our methods. Several Terrans have tried but none have escaped alive."
Waverill made an impatient gesture. "I've already got more money than I can count. I've spent a lot of it, a very great lot, on the metal you wanted, and I have it here in the ship."
"We have already perceived it and we do not care what it has cost you. We are not altruists."
That, thought Murdoch, could be believed. ”

“ That it projects matter through hyperspace and materializes it where you want it."
"Not exactly; the materialization is spontaneous. Mass somehow distorts hyperspace, and when the projected matter has penetrated a certain distance into such distortion, it pops back into normal space. The penetration depends mainly upon a sort of internal energy in the missile; you might think of it more as a voltage than as velocity. You've made it very hard for us to get reports, but I understand we successfully placed stuff in Sennech's crust." ”

“ From somewhere he heard the buzz of a bee. His mind leaped upon the sound. He stopped walking, and Waverill said, "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing. I—stepped on a big pebble."
"They all feel big to me. Damned outrage; taking away a man's...." Waverill's voice trailed off as he started experimenting with his eyes again.
There were more bees now, and presently Murdoch saw one loop over the edge of the building and search along the hedge. The first of them, he thought. There'll be more. ”

“ The Association of Pharmaceutical Retailers, who felt they had some claim to priority, tried to get court injunctions to keep caskets out of service stations, but were unsuccessful because the judges were all out buying caskets. Beauty parlors showed real ingenuity in merchandising. Roads and streets clogged with delivery trucks, rented trailers, and whatever else could haul a coffin. The Stock Market went completely mad. ”

“ He checked altitude, found they were free of the atmosphere, and ordered an acceleration that would take them halfway to the sun in fifty hours. It was uncomfortable now, with Sennech's gravity added, but that would fall off fast.
Jezef hauled himself in and dropped to a pad. "I wish I had your build," he said. "Do you really think we can pull this off?"
Tulan, in a good mood, grinned at him. "Have I ever led you into defeat yet, pessimist?"
"No; and more than once I'd have bet ten to one against us. That's why the Fleet fights so well for you; we have the feeling we're following a half-god. ”

“ Any place you can reach in this half of the grounds is open to you. The half where your ship is will remain cut off. You may amuse yourself as you wish so long as you do not willfully damage anything. We have gone to great effort to make this place comfortable for Terrans. Do not impair it for those who may come later."
Murdoch smiled inwardly. He'd known the walls would be solid; he'd only wanted to check the alien's watchfulness. Now he knew that there was more to it than just the robot, and that the voice was standard wherever it came from. ”

“ He gave people a short breathing spell to arrange their coffin payments and move the presents out of the front rooms. Then, late in January, his new campaign came down like a hundred-megatonner.
Within a week, everyone saw quite clearly that his Christmas models were now obsolete. The coffin became the new status symbol.
The auto industry was of course demolished. Even people who had enough money to buy a new car weren't going to trade in the old one and let the new one stand out in the rain. The garages were full of coffins. Petroleum went along with Autos. ”

“ Top Secret Orders...."
Shortly before noon the four-hundred-odd ships lifted out of Sennech's frosty atmosphere, still ignoring the furious demands from the radio. Fully armed, they couldn't be stopped.
Tulan's viewer gave a vivid picture of the receding fifth planet. The white mantle of ice and snow was a backdrop for blue artificial lakes and the dark green of forest-strips (hardy conifers from Teyr) alternated with the lighter shades of surface farms. The ice had been almost unbroken until men came, bringing more heat than Sennech had ever received from a far-off sun. ”

“ They used high energies to get it past the sun. As we realize now, a lot of it hit the planet deeper than at first, below the crust. Under such pressure a different set of fissionables was formed. Some of them burst out and poisoned the atmosphere, but most of them are still there." He leaned forward and eyed Tulan hard. "We've got to get an expedition out there to study things. Will you help?"
There was another of the palpable silences, and when he spoke Tulan's voice sounded unnatural. "I—yes; we'll help. Whatever you want. Is ... Sennech finished?" ”