Biggs

“ Biggs would sit beside him like a fate, a fate in a red blouse and a brown skirt. Perhaps even now they were pulling off his clothes. Terrible for George to have to do that, she thought, yet it seemed natural enough work for Mrs. Biggs, with her hard mouth and cold eyes, and no doubt she had often put him to bed in the lusty days of his carousals. Perhaps the dead could really see from under their stiff eyelids, and old Halkett would laugh at the difficulty with which they disrobed him for this last time. Perhaps he had been watching when George and she looked through the window. ”

“ Biggs looked like "Before" in the Are You a Man? advertisements. He was lean and lanky and gangly and awkward, and he walked like an anaemic stork on ice-skates. His chief topographical feature was an Adam's-apple that cavorted up and down his neck like a runaway elevator. I'd known Biggs six months, and still couldn't figure out whether he was a sixty horsepower genius or the luckiest mortal in space.
Right now, both he and Diane were wearing size 12 grins. With a prideful sidelong glance at her fiance, the skipper's gal demanded, "Wasn't it wonderful, Dad? ”

“ The original tank wherein Biggs had sprinkled the rose seeds was completely invisible, submerged beneath a crawling octopus of greenery. Writhing fronds spewed from the container to twist in tumultuous entanglement beneath our feet ... up the walls ... across the ceiling. Twining and spiraling around every piece of furniture, every bracket, any support to which suckered tendrils could cling. A heady perfume thickened the air; perfume from monstrous growths that no more resembled a rose than I look like a wasteland Martian.
Cap Hanson had been right. ”

“ After all, Lancelot Biggs and I are old buddies. Once we were bunkmates, even. There came back to me a measure of the confidence I had once had in him. And I nodded to Todd.
"Try it, Dick. We've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Give the order."
He did. Chief Garrity must have been startled but he was too good a spaceman to argue an order from the bridge. He said, succinctly, "Aye, sirr!" And then—
I felt the rocking plunge. The moment of brief, incredible dizziness of frightful speed being intensified to the limiting velocity of light. ”

“ Lancelot Biggs. Genius and crackpot, scarecrow and sage—and soon to become son-in-law of the skipper.
I said, "But why blame Biggs for this, Skipper? Is it his fault if the Home Office has gone squirrelly?"
"It is," grumbled Hanson savagely. "I never should have agreed to let Diane marry him. He started this mess at my house. Colonel Brophy and him was having dinner with me and Biggs told Brophy all about that new 'velocity intensifier' he invented—"
I shuddered. "You mean the gadget which got us all bolixed up in the negative universe? ”

“ Simple, once you grant that a man possess infinite loyalty, infinite courage, in one lean and gangling frame.
"Biggs saw," I said, "that there was only one way to save us all from death. Oh, he bad blundered, yes, but we all blunder sometimes. But not all of us pay the penalty as willingly, as bravely, as he did.
"Jupiter was upon us. Within minutes we would have crashed into the greatest of the solar planets. Only Biggs saw a way out. And that was—to make the speed of our ship exactly approximate the speed of light at the moment of impact!" ”

“ He wheeled about. The massive head had fallen limply among the pillows. Pallid lips were trying to form sentences without result. Then the great body seemed to subside immeasurably deeper into the covers and a death-like stillness fell upon the room.
Intuitively feeling that his master was worse than at any previous relapse, Biggs made every effort to revive him, gently at first, and then by vigorously shaking and calling to him in a heart-broken, piteous voice. But to no avail. The heavy figure looked pallid and corpse-like under the snowy sheets. ”

“ He chortled, "Hey, Cap—"
"Go 'way!" mourned Cap Hanson. "I'm thinking."
"But, look!" Biggs opened one hamlike paw. And there was a wee, gray ship-mouse. He placed it on the floor before him. "Look what I found in the No. 4 Bin. It acts so darned funny—"
"Go 'way!" repeated the skipper, still gloomily. "If you make me lose my temper—"
Biggs said, "But he does act funny—" And to tell you the truth, the little mouse did. Usually, you know, a mouse is the scaredyest thing alive. Put him down in a place like this, surrounded by giant humans, and he'll run like mad to the darkest corner. ”

“ Gilchrist studied it briefly, lifted his gimlet eyes.
"Not bad, Lieutenant. Not bad at all. A little old-fashioned, perhaps—"
That was more than I could stand. If Biggs wouldn't take his own part, I had to. I burst out, "But, Major, Biggs just graduated from the Academy two years ago! How could his astrogation be 'old-fashioned'? There's not a better plotter in space. Lance has yanked us out of more troubles—"
"Sparks!" That was Biggs, warning me with his voice and with his eyes. "Didn't the Major tell you to go turn off your batteries? You'd better run along." ”

“ Biggs's assurance that "it would ache more until it didn't ache so bad" comfort her much. She managed, however, to get into a chair, and took the coffee, and submitted to have her ankle bathed and bandaged and her foot slipped into an old felt shoe of Mrs. Biggs's, which was out at the toe and out at the side, but did not pinch at all.
"Your dress ain't dry. You'll catch your death of cold to have it on. You must wear one of mine," Mrs. Biggs said, producing a spotted calico wrapper, brown and white,—colors which Eloise detested. ”

“ After all, this was a question Biggs must decide for himself.
As it turned out, though, it was not I, nor the Old Man, nor Lancelot, who solved the problem. It was Mrs. Biggs. In a calm, decisive voice she said, "But, Lanse, dear—such commotion! Of course you will go!"
"What!" blurted Lanse. "And leave you? Never!"
"Stuff," sniffed Diane, "and nonsense! Stop talking like a cheap play. What earthly good are you doing here? Not a bit! But out there, men have died ... betrayed by a race of scoundrels. Brave men. Spacemen like yourself. Your duty is plain. You must go. You have no choice." ”

“ Biggs said soberly, "Now don't get upset, Sparks. It's not so silly as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most intelligent moves I've ever known the stuffed sh—I mean, the officials of our company to make. You see, flower seeds are a great deal more valuable than vegetable seeds."
"Oh, yeah! Sure! That's easy to prove, too. When a man's starving, just give him his choice between a loaf of bread and an orchid corsage—"
"No, Sparks, that's not the situation at all. You see, the problem here is not one of feeding the Iapetan colonists. They have plenty to eat. ”

“ And it is a strange, strange thing that he, who of all men looked least like a spaceman, should have lived and died the greatest of them all.
Tomorrow or the next day I must tell Diane. Hanson will not do it because he can't.
He dares not face her when she hears. And I, myself, would sell my soul to be free of that sad duty. But I was Lancelot Biggs' best friend, and this is the least last thing I can do in his memory.
There is nothing else to say. He is gone. Will I ever see him again? That gangling frame, that easy, fluent grin—lost in the nameless depths of the crypts of space. ”

“ The foremost was that of my long-time friend and shipmate, Lieutenant Lancelot Biggs; behind him was his uncle Prendergast, 1st Vice-president of the I.P.C. It was the older Biggs who spoke.
"It's all right, Sparks. These men are acting under company orders. They are medical officers assigned to give a physical examination to every man aboard the Saturn."
"Every man?" choked Cap Hanson. "Did you say every man, sir?" ”

“ As the minutes ticked by, and the Rocketeers' margin became momentarily more insurmountable, he first taunted us Wranglers, then insulted us by offering ridiculous odds against our winning, and finally accused us all of lacking sportsmanship.
Biggs, standing carefully aloof from Diane in order not to rouse the skipper's latent wrath, had a strange pallor on his cheeks. Not so strange, maybe. It's hard to stand by and watch everything you possess slipping down the skids. ”

“ Which sage—if time-worn—observation was the last comment our insanely sensible First Officer would offer on the case of Major Gilchrist vs. The-Rest-of-Us. And since the efficiency expert withdrew into his shell and stayed there for the rest of the trip, nothing more happened to disturb the peace and tranquillity of ye goode shippe Saturn that voyage.
So Biggs is back! A slightly older, slightly wiser, definitely more conventional Biggs, now that he's a married man with responsibilities. ”

“ In spite of Gilchrist's pork-patedness, I had felt a serene confidence that before danger actually threatened Lance Biggs would find some way to wangle us out of our difficulties. But now—
But now we were in a sorry mess indeed! Caught in a gravitational grip thousands of times greater than Jupiter's; a million times more deadly. Once, from afar, I had been the unwilling but horror-fascinated witness of the fate of a ship gripped by Sol's terrific attraction. A dark mote struggling futilely against the brazen magnet that beckoned ... ”

“ Captain Hanson let out a blat like an angry lion.
"Mister Biggs! I thought you were reclaiming those Forenzi jars?"
"Yes, sir. I was. I mean—I am. But—"
"Never mind the 'buts'! Get back to work!"
"Y-yes, sir!" Biggs saluted meekly; tossed me a grateful glance. "Thanks, Sparks. I've got an idea, and if I'm right—"
"Get out, Biggs!" roared the skipper.
"Yes, sir." Biggs backed out hastily. He was thumbing the pages as he disappeared. Hanson yanked his lower lip angrily.
"The Corporation goes busted. The Saturn goes under the hammer. We're all out of jobs. ”

“ And then—
"No!" whispered Biggs sibilantly. "That doesn't help, Skipper! The Cyclops will be here any minute, now!"
"—ammunition," droned Thaxton. "Boxes piled to the ceiling. Ah! And in the third bin—"
"Out of my way, you gutless wonder!" rasped Hanson viciously. "Let them come! If we die, we die like men!"
"But," said Lancelot Biggs quietly, "we don't die!" And calmly, easily, almost tenderly, he raised his voice.
"I speak to you, Thaxton," he said in the soothing tone of a parent. "Do you hear me? Do you hear me speak?"
"—two hundred rotor-guns," said Thaxton. ”

“ But this time, while I stood baffled, while Dick Todd frowned and looked puzzled, while Cap Hanson hemmed and hawed as restlessly as a frog on a hot griddle, Biggs stammered through an almost hopelessly tangled explanation. The way he described the operation of that audio, it would take a man approximately fourteen light years to tune in the nearest station in space.
Twice he fumbled for a word. Each time the little passenger, Thaxton, who was hanging intently on his fumbling fumbles, supplied the missing term. ”

“ It did look a lot, and Harris and I began to feel rather ashamed of it, though why we should be, I can’t see. No cab came by, but the street boys did, and got interested in the show, apparently, and stopped.
Biggs’s boy was the first to come round. Biggs is our greengrocer, and his chief talent lies in securing the services of the most abandoned and unprincipled errand-boys that civilisation has as yet produced. If anything more than usually villainous in the boy-line crops up in our neighbourhood, we know that it is Biggs’s latest. ”

“ The control room became as noisy as a well-populated tomb, and out of the terrible silence came the faint, thin voice of the skipper demanding, "What—what does this mean?"
Biggs boomed pleasantly, "It means, Captain, that you've lost your bets. You'll remember that all our wagers were based on the result of this year's game—which you are now listening to.
"It is unfortunate that human memories are so brief. Otherwise some of you gentlemen might have recognized the astonishing similarity of the broadcast we've just listened to with that of last year's game! ”

“ The sleeper stirred restlessly, raised himself painfully and slowly, and attempted to seek fleeting comfort in a new position. At the first movement Biggs was a shadow at the bedside, deftly manipulating the coverings and gently aiding the sick man with a tenderness born of long service and deep affection. ”

“ They sent us out to find polarium deposits, and if we don't come home with the best claim—"
Biggs said, "Polarium? Did you say polarium, Cap?"
"That's what I said," groaned the skipper. "Now be a good boy, Lanse. Go 'way and let me suffer in peace."
"Why," grinned Biggs, "I don't believe there's any reason to suffer, Captain. Because, you see, that strange new substance I mentioned—the one out of which I constructed my telekaleidoscope—is polarium! There are tremendous deposits of it here on Jupiter. Why not? This is the mother planet of Europa—"
So—there you are! ”

“ What's that?"
"I think the governor should be told the truth," said Biggs. "We should confess that our seeds are not a first class product. Might not, indeed, even flourish in the soil of Iapetus."
"Lanse!" I cried. "Do you know what you're saying? Don't talk like that!"
"Yes, Governor," nodded Lancelot Biggs sorrowfully, "I'm afraid that's true. Your colony wouldn't want our seeds. For one thing, they're all roses. The Cosmic Corporation offers you all kinds of flowers. For another thing, our seeds are not particularly hardy. ”

“ Most of us bent to our labors eagerly. Myself, for instance—I didn't know what Biggs had in mind, or what the final result of our efforts would be. But I knew damned well that Biggs never gave purposeless orders. Some good would be the end of this fantastic webwork of plates, wires and coils we were weaving through, in and about the Saturn.
Diane, despite the fact that her hands soon became raw and sore, insisted on doing a share of the manual labor.
"I must, Sparks!" she declared. "I'd never respect myself again if I didn't help in some small way. ”