Читать книгу The Hell Fruit - John Russell Fearn - Страница 3

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The year a.d. 2200, and in the main a world and Solar System at peace—for no other reason than that men had discovered that weapons had become so incredibly destructive as to make war impossible.

Control of the elements, travel between the inner worlds—as opposed to the still-unexplored giants of the System—the mastery of mind control over the body in the place of archaic medical and surgical remedies, abundant food, regulated employment, long life.... Man had all these hard-earned amenities, and it was into this era of calm prosperity that there came one Earmar Brown, half Earthman, half Martian, the only living interplanetary half-breed on Earth.

His father had been Robertson Brown, wealthy owner of the Inner Space-ways, and his mother a delectable Martian of high caste—courteous, immensely intelligent, as became her race, far advanced beyond Earth, even at its highest attainable peak. Earmar Brown was indeed unique. Interplanetary law, about the time of his birth, had commanded that the offspring of all interplanetary marriages should be exterminated, chiefly because the progenitors were usually rocket-men, scum of the space-ways, and low-born Martian women. Rather than clutter up the faultless social orders of Mars and Earth, the ruthless edict had gone forth, and been carried out.

Not so with Earmar Brown. The wealth of his father and the affection of his mother had kept him hidden until he had reached the age of five, and was consequently beyond jurisdiction. Now he was thirty; his parents were dead. He had his father’s wealth and doggedness and his mother’s charm.... He was a shining light in a society from which crime had been outlawed....

Or so the majority believed.... The fact that this was not entirely true was first signalled when the FG/86, a meteor-scarred old space-freighter, touched down at London’s commercial space-port on June 9th, 2200. Commander Holden, bearded, taciturn, square-shouldered, promptly made his way to the big administrative building to declare his cargo. Nobody spoke to him as he entered the big room. Stern and unapproachable, there were few who liked him—and even the check clerk’s genial banter was met with a flinty stare of ice-blue eyes.

“Get these filed and give me my clearance pass,” Holden requested briefly, and threw a bundle of advice notes and manifests on the broad desk.

The clerk nodded and went into action with his red pencil and rubber stamp.

“Three tons of tacos weed,” he muttered, “eighteen tons of West Venusian tobacco, sixteen tons of milnothite fuel, seventy-two cases of Venusian Tropica cherries.... Yes, everything seems to be in order.”

“Naturally,” Holden said brusquely. “What else did you expect?”

The clerk gave him a surprised look. He knew from experience that Commander Holden was a short-tempered man, but on this occasion there even seemed to be a nervous tension in the sting behind his words. He was plainly disturbed over something, constantly glancing about him and shifting his feet restlessly.

“Have a bad trip, Commander?” the clerk asked, writing out the clearance pass for the Interplanetary Customs.

“No. And hurry up, can’t you? I’ve no time to waste. I’m behind schedule as it is. Just time to unload, re-fuel, give my boys a few hours’ Earth-leave—then back again into space.”

“There’s certainly no thrill any more in flying through the void,” the clerk agreed, handing over the pass. “My wife was saying only this morning——”

Holden was not even listening. He as good as snatched the pass and strode from the room—back across the wide, metallic take-off ground, and so to his freighter. Passing through the airlock, he snapped on the microphone.

“Okay, boys, get her unloaded. Fast as you can!”

The crew instantly went to work, all except the navigator and first mate. Their positions were intellectually above the man-handling of cargo.

“Any trouble, Skip?” the first mate asked, as Holden turned from the microphone.

“None. Why should there be? Who’s to know the difference between Venusian Tropica cherries and kurna berries? They look identical.”

“Until somebody tastes ’em,” the navigator grinned.

Holden shrugged and looked out of the port on to the busy loading and goods bays, ablaze with cold, unquivering light.

“Nobody here will bother tasting them,” he said. “If I’d believed that possible I wouldn’t have taken the risk. And it is a risk,” he added grimly. “You realize that, I hope?”

“Smuggling always is,” the first mate responded. “But the pay makes it worth it. Not that I fully understand what the idea is back of it.”

“Not our place to question that,” Holden told him. “All we know is that Anziba of Venus is paying us something close to a fortune to deliver these kurna berries to Earth in the place of the usual Tropica cherries which have the blessing of the Earth and Venusian Governments.... We know what we have to do when the berries are safely through the Customs. Notify the people Anziba told us about and let them handle the distribution.”

The first mate was looking puzzled. “All that we know, Skip—but what does Anziba get out of it? That’s what I don’t see. He doesn’t even ask for the money return on selling these damned berries, and even if he did he wouldn’t be able to use it. As an outlaw he’s been kicked out of Venusian society and lost all civil rights. Or have I got the idea wrong?”

“You have it right,” Holden answered. “And keep it to yourself. Nobody is ever to know what we’re doing; nobody must ever know that agents of Anziba contacted us on Venus and got us to handle this smuggling job. Don’t forget that the penalty for smuggling is to be outlawed to the penal settlement in the lunar catacombs.”

This sobering thought brought silence down on the first mate and navigator. It had been one thing to accept the illegal offer of the Venusian insurgent: the thought of the penalty was something very different. Those outlawed to the penal settlement within the moon never returned. They finished their lives in the artificial light and air-conditioned catacombs, mining the valuable minerals of which Earth, owner of the moon, had constant need.

Brooding to himself, Holden turned again to the airlock and watched his men at work. Altogether it took them three hours to unload the cargo, after which they lined up for pay and were given eight hours’ Earth-leave. Then again they would be at work, loading up quite legitimate cargo intended for Venusian colonists; but on the return trip more illegal kurna berries would be brought in, alongside genuine Tropica cherries, one of the most delectable fruits the torrid equatorial regions of Venus could produce.

Commander Holden spent his own few hours of Earth-leave in completing the details of the mission entrusted him by Anziba’s agents. He contacted many men and women whom he had never seen in his life before, most of them in the questionable dives fringing the edge of the great commercial space-grounds. He suspected that some of them were Venusians who had reached Earth on faked passports. Being not unlike Earth-people, except for a dead whiteness of skin and slit-pupil eyes like those of a cat, which they could hide with tinted glasses, they could manage to get away with it. In any case, Commander Holden was not interested in this aspect. He merely handed on the distribution instructions he had received, and left it at that, though here and there he did have an uneasy moment as he wondered what exactly was behind this peculiar business of the little-known kurna berries.

Once he had completed his business he retired to a spaceman’s hostel to sleep, then, as dawn was breaking over the mighty city, he was on the move again, refreshed, and ready for the sixty-million-mile hop which was more or less a part of his life.

And from the distribution centres where the kurna berries had been taken there went transport after transport, loaded with the cases, the purveyors being under the impression they were getting their usual consignment of Tropica cherries.... In all parts of the city, and indeed throughout the country, in the fruit markets, stores, and higher-class restaurants there appeared the counterfeit cherries—and, as of yore, they were bought by all those who could afford them. Where peaches and grapes had once taken the fancy of the masses, it was now Venusian cherries, and had been for nearly ten years. So stable had the market become that the Interplanetary Customs never even thought of the possibility of pseudo-cherries. In fact, hardly anybody knew there were berries on Venus which exactly duplicated their luscious cousins in everything except substance.

Four days after the kurna berries had been eaten the head of London’s Department of Public Affairs was a much-worried man. Anything appertaining to the health of the community had long been abolished, so completely had the mind-healers got man’s various fleshly ailments in hand. Yet here were reports of mounting trouble, of hundreds of men, women, and children mysteriously thrown off balance by eating Tropica cherries. The thing did not make sense. The Tropica cherries had been consumed for years and were renowned for their nourishing properties.

A victim of the “fruit poisoning” was selected and subjected to voluntary examination by the experts, and the result was surprising. The man seemed to be semi-intoxicated, and yet he had complete control over his limbs and other reactions and could walk a toe-line when asked to do so. The outstanding features of his “complaint” seemed to be his intense reaction to high-pitched sounds and his declaration that he could hear things denied to him in the ordinary way.... All of which set the scientists and mind-experts a pretty problem. Naturally they investigated the so-called cherries, but failed to detect anything vitally wrong with them, chiefly because the plant chemistry of Venus was so much at variance with that of Earth, otherwise they would have recognized certain rare drugs which reacted powerfully on the brain-centres.

Then came the next phase. The pseudo-cherries produced the most desperate craving. Those who had eaten them had to have more—and more—and still more, in much the same fashion as drug addicts of old had sold themselves and their possessions for opium and heroin. All of which was very gratifying to the distributors, but a deadly puzzle to the authorities.

In the main the affair was hushed up for fear of vilification concerning incompetence in high quarters—but certain newspapers and teleview stations with an axe to grind did not hesitate to scatter what little information they could obtain. And one of those who heard the garbled details was Earmar Brown.

He took no immediate interest in the situation, even though on past occasions his specialized knowledge of science and profound understanding of Venus, Mars, and Earth had made him an invaluable consultant to the forces of law and order. At the moment he was full of schemes for the exploration of the outer planets of the System, for they had got to be conquered one day and used to extend Man’s ever-growing dominance over the wastes of space. With Vanita, the ash-blonde who was presumably his confidential secretary, though some averred that she was his wife even if only for reasons of propriety, he was in the Starlight Café when the matter of the Venusian fruits came directly to his notice.

His reason for being in the exclusive night-spot was quite legitimate. His plans for exploration of Jupiter were complete: he and Vanita were at the end of many weeks of hard mental planning and arranging. What more natural than to take a night off before plunging into the unpredictable hazards of investigating an unknown and gigantic planet? There was also another reason. Earmar Brown loved gaiety. From his mother’s bright, intelligent make-up he had inherited the love of brilliant lights, scintillating music, costly wines and foods, exquisite clothes, sophisticated conversation. And to the best of his knowledge only Vanita was capable of making his evening complete. Though entirely a woman of Earth, she had the highest intellectual faculties combined with a subtle humour, which to Earmar Brown was entirely satisfying. Those who believed she was his wife were incorrect. Because he was a being of two worlds, Earmar Brown considered himself a confirmed bachelor, even a man without a world, since neither would agree that he belonged exclusively to them.

“To us, Vanita,” he said, smiling, and raised a glass of sparkling sapphire-blue wine. “Blue as your eyes, and blue as my spirits would become if you ever leave me.”

The girl smiled, raising her own glass of Martian essence, the costliest drink in the System, but calculated to make one feel life could be everlasting.

“I’ll not leave you, Earmar—not as long as you continue to pay me such a thumping salary.”

“So that is the reason? I was egoist enough to think it was because of my looks.”

The girl drank without comment. Earmar Brown had justification for his remark, but Vanita did not consider it her place to say so. A man is worth the approval of any feminine eye, surely, when he stands seven feet in height and has the carriage of an emperor? Such a stature had Earmar Brown, from his Martian side. In features he had the best derivatives of both parents—abysmal blue eyes, space-black hair, and the hooked nose, arrogant chin, and humorous mouth of his father. This, coupled with his high intellectual attainments, had made Earmar Brown one of Nature’s specialized children.

Most men liked Earmar Brown, and those who did not were afraid of him. Actual enemies he did not seem to possess: he was too genial to incur anybody’s wrath. As a rule it was Vanita at whom the men looked—with her softly rounded figure, her merry smile, her frank blue eyes, and tumbled masses of pale gold hair which no beautician had ever yet managed to cluster into any semblance of order. Vanita was not beautiful in the accepted sense, but she was immensely attractive. Just the same, no man except Earmar Brown ever claimed her attention. There was between these two the indissoluble bond of understanding, and mental, if not physical, matehood.

“Is dancing on the agenda?” Earmar asked presently, holding forth his cigarette case. “I sincerely hope not. For one thing, I always feel like Gulliver when on a dance-floor; and for another, it seems to me an intolerable waste of time and energy. However, if you——”

“Earmar Brown, or I’m a comet!”

The voice was quite distinct over the foot-tingling rhythm of the dance orchestra. It was a hard, commercial-sounding voice, as though it spent its existence driving bargains. And in a sense it did. It was owned by Carlton T. Meadows, one of London’s greatest food distributors.

Earmar closed his eyes for a moment, then, with a resigned glance at the girl, he rose to his feet majestically and stood towering over the loud, pot-bellied little man who always seemed like a throwback to a species of mankind long extinct.

“Where’ve you been putting yourself, eh?” Meadows demanded, giving Earmar a playful dig in the midriff. “You’re too much of a show-piece to hide yourself, Earmar! Or have you forgotten who I am?”

“That would hardly be possible,” Earmar murmured. “I recall I aided you in some scientific analysis or other——”

“That’s it! About a year ago. You found a new sort of bug was eating the insides outa that consignment of Martian pears I got. I’ll never know how you did it, but you certainly saved me a packet.... You and the young lady.”

Carlton T. bobbed and blinked at the girl, and she smiled rather woodenly.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” Carlton T. asked, as though the possibility had just dawned upon him. “I just saw you as I was crossing the room, and I thought I should pay my respects.”

“Very appreciative,” Earmar Brown approved.

“Not doing anything about this cherry business, are you?”

Earmar’s expression changed slightly. “You mean the illness which appears to have overtaken everybody who ate the cherries? No, I haven’t done anything about it. Many other things on my mind, sir—many other things.”

“Just keep ’em there, then.” Carlton T. winked and delivered another nudge to Earmar’s midriff. “Once you start solving what’s wrong with those cherries bang goes the chance of making a fortune, if you see what I mean?”

“The connection escapes me,” Earmar confessed.

“Why, it’s straight, plain, and simple. The demand for these cherries is staggering—positively staggering. I’ve got tens of thousands of cases on order, and I’m not the only one, either. Point is, the folk who eat these cherries get one helluva craving for more of ’em—and up go the sales!”

“Are you sure,” Vanita put in, “that the Government will allow any more cherries to be imported? From what I saw in the news-scanners this morning there’s talk of banning them until it is discovered what is peculiar about them.”

Carlton T. chuckled. “Don’t you believe it, miss! If the folks who’ve had cherries don’t get more they’ll go crazy, or die, or something. No Government can risk that possibility....” He reflected for a moment. “The only uncomfortable possibility is that somebody extra smart, like you, Earmar, may be asked to investigate—— But you haven’t been approached yet?”

“Not yet, Mr. Meadows. Nor am I much interested.”

The distributor rubbed his hands gleefully. “Just let it stop that way, sir, and everybody in my line’ll be happy. Now I must be going. Sorry if I upset a taty-taty.”

He winked and grinned again, and then went on his way, leaving Earmar Brown gazing in some wonder after him.

“Extraordinary person,” he commented, seating himself again. “With all the civilizing influences of a modern community he still remains vulgar. ... Just the same, Van, he has started me thinking.”

“About the cherries?”

“Yes. There’s something more than passing queer about the way they have affected people——”

Earmar broke off his conversation and looked about him in surprise as a sudden commotion burst forth from the rear of the exclusive establishment. That such a thing could happen in so highbrow a place was enough to make the manager drop dead. But happening it was. The surprised diners had a brief glimpse of a man in a big overcoat hurrying from one of the rear doorways, blundering into tables in his desperate effort to get away. Suddenly he right-turned—a lean, frightened-looking man, hatless, his skin pale and sweating with exertion.

“What on earth’s going on?” Vanita asked in bewilderment.

Earmar did not reply. He waited until the man came tumbling past, then he shot out one of his long legs. Immediately the man tripped, reeled sideways, and finally collapsed on the floor. At the same moment the rear door opened again and there came in view two plain-clothes men and a uniformed inspector of police.

“Stop that man!” came a shout from the Inspector.

Earmar stood up, raised the struggling man, and held on to him. The man hesitated, then seemed to give up all idea of trying to escape the grip of the seven-foot giant rearing over him.

“Good work, Mr. Brown,” the Inspector gasped, coming up. “He gave us the slip.”

“So I gathered.” Earmar handed over his charge. “And how are you, Inspector? Quite a time since I’ve seen you.”

“I’m worried—damned worried!” The Inspector watched the two plain-clothes men take the man firmly between them and lead him towards the back regions from which he had escaped. “I just don’t know whether I’m coming or going at the moment. Four murders in one night! Can you beat that?”

“I don’t know,” Earmar reflected. “I never tried murder.”

The Inspector glared. “This isn’t funny, Mr. Brown! And I’ll stake everything I’ve got that that fellow you stopped for us is another cherry man!”

Earmar exchanged a swift look with the listening Vanita.

“See you again,” the Inspector growled. “This is no place to talk, anyhow. Too many people gaping——”

“A moment.” Earmar caught at the Inspector’s arm as he turned to go. “You’re getting me interested, Inspector. Where can I have a word with you? About cherries, I mean?”

“Come to the ante-room with me, if you like. Private enough there. I wouldn’t advise you to bring the young lady. There’s been a murder, and the body’s in there.”

“Murder by our pasty-faced friend, you mean?”

“No doubt.”

Vanita rose to her feet. “If you’d seen some of the ghastly things Earmar thinks up in his laboratory, Inspector, you’d realize that a little thing like murder can’t shock me—and in any case I have to be present as secretary.”

The Inspector shrugged and led the way across the great room, ignoring the stares which followed him and the genial giant and eager girl in the rear.

“This may be something interesting, Van,” Earmar murmured, bending from his immense height.

“Maybe—but don’t forget we’re leaving for Jupiter tomorrow. Don’t start burdening yourself with assignments. Cherries are beneath your notice, surely?”

“Depends ...” There was a thoughtful gleam in Earmar’s dark blue eyes as he followed the girl into the ante-room—and at a corner table of the café a dough-skinned man wearing tinted glasses raised a micro-radio set from the artificial flower in his buttonhole.

“Zilfa?” he questioned. “Nujas speaking. I’m in the Starlight Café, and I don’t particularly like the way things are going, either. One of the killers has been caught.”

“You mean three,” murmured the voice at the other end. “I have seen two caught myself. Nothing to worry about. They are too dazed to give a rational explanation.”

“That isn’t the point.” Nujas’ face was grim. “Earmar Brown has come into the picture. Once he starts he’ll root out everything. I’ll keep tabs on him and let you know what happens. At all costs he’s got to be stopped.”

Nujas switched off and returned the radio to his buttonhole; and in the ante-room back of the café Earmar was looking under the big tablecloth which covered the corpse lying on the sofa.

“I recognize Richard Walton Denning,” he said. “A famous politician and very much connected with the Organization for Venusian Settlement.”

“Right,” the Inspector acceded, his square face grim: then he looked at the pale, frightened man between the two plain-clothes men. “Well, you murdered him. We got the tip off just in time to see you do it. What’s the explanation?”

The man was silent. There was even something vaguely pitiable about the vacancy in his face and the hunted-animal light in his eyes.

“Tip off?” Earmar enquired. “You knew this murder was going to happen?”

“Yes. There have been three others tonight. In two cases the murderers—men like this one here—were caught, and one escaped. In the pocket of one of them was a list of those down for ‘elimination’, and Richard Walton Denning was one of them. We found his whereabouts, but were too late. From all accounts he got a fake visiphone call and was asked to answer it here in the privacy of this ante-room. This man was evidently hiding in here. We arrived just as he was pulling out the knife with which he’d stabbed his victim to death.”

“And he nearly got away?” Vanita asked.

“He probably would have, but for Mr. Brown’s intervention.” The Inspector meditated for a moment, then, “I think the whole thing is some kind of political intrigue. Each man who has been killed tonight was a well-known member of the Organization for Venusian Settlement, though what the devil that is I’ll be hanged if I know.”

“It is quite a worthy movement,” Earmar assured him, “and has the backing of both the Earth and Venusian authorities. Put in its simplest terms it refers to the allocation of various land areas of Venus for the settlement of colonists from Earth. Many Venusians are also included in the settlement, of course. Certain factions on Venus, however, object to the idea, and for some time past have been causing quite a deal of trouble. This would appear to be a concerted effort to eliminate the main men at the back of the movement.”

The Inspector shrugged. “At least it gives us motive....” He turned back to the silent killer. “I’m giving you a chance to defend yourself, my friend. If you’ve any statement to make, make it now. It may help you at the trial.”

There was no answer.

“I’ll gamble he’s got cherries in his pocket, same as the other killers,” the Inspector muttered. “Have a look, Davis.”

One of the plain-clothes men complied, and from the killer’s overcoat pocket produced a dozen or so cherries and rolled them significantly in his palm.

“I’ll take them,” the Inspector said. “I suppose they’ll be used as a grand excuse by the defence counsel for testifying that the killers acted without being conscious of what they were doing.”

“That may be more true than you think, Inspector,” Earmar remarked. “May I? Just a couple?”

He held out his big hand, and the Inspector passed two of the cherries over. In thoughtful silence Earmar studied them, then finally he pulled the stalk from one of them and sniffed at where it had been.

“Very interesting,” he commented. “You may quote me, Inspector, as saying quite definitely that these are not Venusian Tropica cherries, but a deadly fruit almost identically resembling them—as alike in appearance, indeed, as the Earth mushroom is to the toadstool, and with correspondingly different effects on the human system. These are kurna berries, a product of the inner forests of Venus.”

“How do you know?” the Inspector asked suspiciously.

“By the aroma they give off at the stalk root. A smell like cloves. The normal cherry of Venus’ tropic regions has no smell whatever. Not that one can blame the distributors: they would not know what to look for. I happen to know the flora of Venus extremely well, thanks to my extensive travels.”

The Inspector frowned. “Then—then some bright baby is importing these infernal things instead of the genuine cherries?”

“I would imagine they are being sent with the genuine cherries, so as to get past the Customs. In what percentage we don’t know.”

“But what’s the sense of it? Who’d want to poison the human race like this?”

“We cannot be sure that they do poison,” Earmar replied. “They seem to produce some kind of mental metamorphosis, not death from poisoning. And of course there is the craving to continue consuming them, which is presumably why each murderer has been caught with some in his pocket. ... All very fascinating. I’ve never tried the effect of these berries, but maybe I should to completely analyse what they do.”

“Don’t forget Jupiter,” Vanita murmured. “You’ve no time to be eating cherries, Earmar.”

“My dear Van, I have time for anything interesting, and I am sure Jupiter can wait for awhile. He’s been there for some myriads of years, so a slight delay in exploring him will not signify. These cherries—or rather berries—fascinate me.”

“All of which means what?” the Inspector asked. “That you are going to investigate officially? I know you’ve given a hand now and again in the past, but——”

“Nothing official, Inspector. Just for the fun of it. I feel there is significance in the fact that each murdered man was a member of the O.V.S. Also significant is the fact that the kurna berries come from the interior Venusian jungles, to which soul-frying region a certain vindictive Venusian by the name of Anziba was outlawed about a year ago. He was the leader of a band of insurgents who resented the new colonization laws and, as I recall, no mean scientist either.” Earmar smiled thoughtfully. “I’d quite welcome a brush with Anziba: he has always impressed me as being a particularly foul piece of living matter.”

The Inspector glanced about him, then at his watch.

“Nothing much more I can do here, anyway. I’ll take my man in and see if we can make him talk. You’ll keep in touch with us, Mr. Brown?”

“Certainly,” Earmar promised, wrapping the berries in his handkerchief and putting them in his pocket. “If things are going the way I think they are the Government and Customs may both have to take sweeping measures.”