Chapter I: Front Matter

MIRAGE FOR PLANET X

By STANLEY MULLEN

_The prize was sealed, its contents unknown.
Yet scavengers from a dozen barbaric Moons;
adventurers from nameless, semi-explored
asteroids, arrived for the deathless
auction.... To bid on Roper's notorious loot._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

They were bringing in the prisoners who had escaped from Phobos. Sand skimmer ambulances had raced to the spaceport outside the terraced Martian city and waited. Dust devils danced on the wide, wind-whipped Martian plains. Grannar of the Police and his silent companion examined each body as it was lowered from the rescue ship.

Death anywhere is an ugly business. On Mars, you get used to bodies that never rot. Deep-freeze temperatures hold down decay bacteria, and the dry, cold air quickly dessicates the tissue. Bodies turn into mummies that look and weigh like so much shredded wheat. But these corpses were worse--they were meaningless parodies that might never have been men. In primal disgust, Torry studied each one in turn, then shuddered and shook his head.

Grannar was tough minded, or stronger stomached. Police routines had taught him not to shudder.

"You can get used to this," he observed, enjoying Torry's revulsion. "Since you'd known Roper, we thought you could help us identify him. Thanks for coming along."

"Had I a choice?" asked Torry bitterly.

The policeman's laugh was brutal, explosive. "There is always a choice. You can do as you're told or be dragged in screaming."

Torry grimaced. "Much more of this and I'll be dragged out screaming."

The prisoner-escapees, what was left of them, were an unpleasant sight. Explosive decompression in airless space does curious things to men's bodies. Blood boils in the veins and flesh bursts from internal pressures. Also, there are heat-cold curiosities, with half a body burnt raw on the sunward side, and the rest frozen iron-hard with a lacy overlay of snowflake patterns in red.

Holden was still alive, by a miracle. Forward compartments had held together when the makeshift spacer blew its flimsy self inside out. He was alive but not talking. They brought the bulging mass of pulped, purple flesh back to Mars and dumped it in a basket. There was no face, no eyes, no recognizable hands or feet. For the time that remained to him, Holden would be less than a functioning animal, fed by tube, cared for by people he could not see or hear, living a precarious existence on the raw, black fringe of life. Holden was through talking. And for any practical purpose, through living.

"Too bad," said Grannar, looking into the basket. "He could have told us about a lot of things ... if he'd wanted to."

"Holden was a nice guy before he knew Bart Roper," Torry snapped angrily.

"You sound pretty bitter about Roper."

"I should be. I know him better than you do. I am bitter about Roper."

"Because of Holden?" pressed Grannar.

"Not ... Holden. But it might as easily have been me in that basket. Six years ago I was Roper's partner. I got out quickly when I found out some of his business methods. And I had very little he could steal from me then. A lot of people have a variety of good reasons to hate Roper. Just say that I'm one of them."

Grannar whistled a Martian tune. The sound was shrill and eery in the thin air.

"You may as well ride back to the city in the police car with me," he suggested. "We can talk--"

"Talk!" blurted Torry. He swore savagely. "All this ugly business for nothing. You haven't found Roper yet. You don't even know if he made good his escape from your prison moon. In short, you don't know anything."

"True, up to a point," agreed the policeman quietly. "There are always many things I don't know. So I concentrate on the few things I do know. For example, you're very much interested in finding Roper. I'm wondering why. You can tell me about that on our way back to the city. About Roper himself, I know a few minor facts. Nobody has ever escaped from Phobos, the prison moon, but Roper may have managed it. With outside help, he got materials and fittings smuggled in to construct a scratch spacer. It blew up, as we know, but Roper may have expected that. In a good spacesuit, he could have survived. Since we still haven't found him, dead or alive, he's probably circling somewhere in a private orbit, waiting to be picked up."

"It could be a long wait. One man is hard to find in all that space."

"Not necessarily. A code transmitter powered by transuranic alloys would keep sending indefinitely. And Roper could have agreed upon being picked up at some point of a fixed orbit by his outside friends. We'll find him, I think. In the meantime, we have you ... and some questions. Wait in my car. I'll be with you as soon as I thumbprint some papers."

* * * * *

Torry stumbled across the barren sand wastes of the spaceport, pitted or glazed here and there by old take-off blasts. Without trouble he located the half track vehicle bearing police insignia. He got in and settled himself sourly to await Grannar's probing third degree. He meditated grimly on Roper, himself, and his reasons for coming to Mars....

Had it only been last night he arrived? It seemed eternities ago. Coming in from Earth by short orbit express, green with deceleration sickness, he had wondered why he was in such a rush. After four years a cold trail would not get any colder. It had not, of course. It was hot when he arrived and had been getting hotter by the minute. Only the fact of being aboard the express at the time of the prison break had cleared him in Grannar's eyes of being involved physically. And even that alibi did not erase suspicion from Grannar's suspicious nature.

Grannar was shrewd and deadly, a born hunter of men. Since the Martians never trust each other, most of the policing is done by hirelings from other planets. Grannar was an Earthman originally. But he was a long way from home, and twenty years on Mars had made him more Martian than the natives. He was hard, smart, dangerous, and a tough man to fool.

Torry had learned that at once last night.

But Grannar's return to the police car cut short his reverie. Torry watched the official cross the spaceport toward him, impressed by the lithe grace and sureness of movement over treacherous sand. Mars does something to a man who stays there. The body dries up and the soul withers, but if he survives, a man grows into something lean and leathery with pantherish strength and easy, poised motions.

Grannar vaulted to the driver's seat and slammed on power. With a skirl of steering runners, the half track took off toward the bubble city of New Chicago, named without tenderness by some long forgotten exile. Grannar drove with careless violence, but the half track skimmer shot among the dunes and low, lichen-clad hills without incident.

There is no truth to the charge that it takes as long to get from the spaceport to New Chicago as it does to reach Mars from Earth. But the distance is impressive and the going rough. Grannar talked as he drove, seeming casual, but his questioning had the same icy skill and unerring judgment.

"We'll start at the beginning," he said.

"There is no beginning," Torry jerked out angrily. "I got in last night. Fresh from the spaceport and customs, I put a coin in the public visiphone and asked Central Information about Roper. Central had no information and returned my coin. It was a police trap. Your men picked me up, searched me with a Geiger counter and found the coin. You keep faintly radioactive coins in the visiphone machines for Central to return when someone is curious about police business. It came out even. You found out I was curious about Roper, and I found out he is police business, and his case is current. Do you think I'd be fool enough to call such attention to myself if I knew about Roper's prison break?"

"You might be. And it might be smart. That way you'd find out what the police knew and what they were doing. And it could be an alibi in case the breakout was delayed. We'll skip those possibilities for now. You were mulish last night about certain questions. I'm still not clear about why you are so desperate to find Roper. Why?"

Torry smiled coldly. "That's easy. I have to find him for a legal release. Preferably dead, which will make things easier for everybody. But if he's alive, I want his signature and prints on some papers."

"Why? What papers?"

Torry hesitated. "It's a touchy subject. A personal matter. Nothing to do with the police."

"I'll be the judge of that. Keep talking."

"Have you ever spent five years on an asteroid all by yourself?"

Grannar grunted. "Fortunately not. Twenty years on Mars is bad enough for me. Have you?"

Torry's face twisted in bitterness. "I have. I cracked up my one-man spacecan while prospecting in the asteroids. I was there five years until a survey ship happened by. There were minerals, low grade transuranics, but good enough to work when you had nothing else to do. I worked out the whole asteroid and had a good payload for the survey ship when it brought me back. Not a big fortune, but a stake that looked pretty good to me. I'm not rich now, but I can get along without skipping meals."

"What's the connection with Roper?"

"None in that part of it. I went prospecting after I'd dissolved my partnership with Roper. Times were bad, and I couldn't tie up with a decent job. There was a girl--"

"There usually is. Who was she?"

"Rose Mead, then. She promised to wait for me. She didn't. She's Roper's wife now. Not that I blame her too much. A year can be a long time, and five years is longer when you're a castaway on a small asteroid. Nothing to look at but a skyful of stars. Nothing to breathe but hydroponic-cycle air. No food but your homemade synthetics and the green stuff you grow in your chemical vats. You work and eat and sleep, and any idea can become an obsession. Sometimes it's one woman, sometimes an imaginary harem. I had a 3-d picture of Rose. It helped to hold me together, or maybe it just channeled an idea that was bound to go haywire."

"You're beginning to make sense," commented Grannar. "So you have an obsession about Roper's wife?"

"I call it that. But I figure that all my money is not worth much if it won't buy just one thing I've dreamed about for five long years. There's a technicality about divorcing a man who's away from Earth, in space. Rose is funny about it. But she's agreed that her marriage was a mistake. She'll marry me if I can prove Roper is dead, or can get a release from him."

"Is the girl worth all this trouble?"

* * * * *

Torry grinned cynically. "Probably not. But Rose is a good, sound, practical minded girl. Maybe my money looks good to her. Roper left her four years ago with hardly any resources. For myself, after five years of dream stuff, a solid human girl like Rose looks pretty good. Dream stuff looks fragile, but it's mighty tough eating for a daily diet."

"So you want to find Roper. Preferably dead, you say. Does that include pushing him off a cliff if you find him?"

Torry snorted. "It could. That depends on Roper."

The policeman echoed the snort. "Roper is dangerous. You may have forgotten how tricky and ruthless he can be. Sounds to me like hunting a tiger with a butterfly net."

Torry smiled viciously. "Even that can be done ... if the net is big enough and strong enough. I'm counting on a curious twist in Roper's mind. I'm a challenge to him--the one man so far he failed to swindle or corrupt. He pulled a fast one about Rose, but he knows I wasn't there to fight back. It galls him. And if he knows I'm here, alive, and looking for him, maybe he'll find me and try to wipe out the one flaw in his record."

Grannar shot a glance of grudging admiration, but shook his head. "At the moment, I wouldn't count on it. He'll be busy and we'll see to it that he is. But if you want to go looking for him, maybe I can help you."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, but I can give you some hints where to look."

"Why?" Torry was baffled.

"Two reasons. Maybe more, but two will do. I'm a cop, so I hate men like Roper. If he's on Mars I'll get him sooner or later because I'm a good cop. And it's my job. I hate crooks, so I'll kill him or catch him and send him to Phobos for keeps. The second reason is that I hate Mars. It's a tough world--what government there is is corrupt and vicious. Offend the wrong people or stir things up, and you're out without your pension. You can even get hurt. I want out while I'm still ahead, with enough money to go back to Earth and live decently. And so far I haven't that kind of money."

"I don't see the connection," protested Torry.

Grannar's bushy eyebrows crawled up and down like caterpillars.

"There's big money in this Roper business. There has to be for anyone to take the risk of arranging a breakout from Phobos that costs plenty."

"Roper must have something pretty good this time to attract help like that. What is it?"

Grannar shrugged. "I don't know. My guess is transuranics--the heavy metals beyond uranium in the atomic table; the stuff that powers planets. Without it our whole economy breaks down, and we can't even afford to make air for places like Mars. But you've mined it yourself. You know how rare and valuable it is."

"I know," said Torry. "You think Roper has a new source?"

"Maybe that, and maybe he's discovered or stolen a cheaper way to process or transport it."

"It figures," admitted Torry. "Roper was always interested in transuranics, and always looking for a squeeze play like that. He'd be able to make his own terms, wouldn't he? Including squaring the charges against him?"

"Just about any terms he dictated," grated the detective.

"Why tell me this?"

Grannar's eyes narrowed. "You want Roper for your own good reasons. I want him for mine. My hands are tied but yours are not. If you want him, go after him. I'll help, short of risking my job. I'm offering to make a deal with you. It occurs to me that a couple of smart men could make a real killing by knowing the right time to buy a few shares of stock in transuranics. A man like me might even make enough to retire to Earth, comfortably."

"You're beginning to make sense," said Torry. "What makes you so sure I'll cut you in for a slice?"

Grannar laughed harshly. "My nuisance value, for one thing. My usefulness for another. I'm an honest cop. But there's nothing in the rule book that says I can't pick up valuable information on the side while I'm doing my job. And nothing that says I can't put pressure on you to help me do it. Besides, why should you balk at doing me a favor when you're doing yourself one at the same time?"

"I'm still listening."

"New to Mars, aren't you?"

"New enough. I've been here before, but a long time ago and not for long then. Why?"

"Do you know anything about the local set-up, the governments?"

"Not much. It's a kind of anarchy, I think. The big companies and even the labor racketeers have private armies like the old goon squads. Legal government is just a front for feudal gangs, with the police sitting politely on the lid. Lobbies and pressure groups are the real bosses. Is that right?"

* * * * *

Grannar whistled his aimless Martian tune. "You said it. I didn't. Not out loud. I never even think it in a room that might have microphones or scanners. Mars is interesting, beautiful, with shreds and tatters of an old, picturesque culture clinging to ivy-patterns to the new, modern, cosmopolitan, industrial set-up. It says that in the books and travel ads. Out here in the clean and lifeless air of a worn-out planet I can have the precarious luxury of hating it. I want out, and you're going to help me get out."

"Why stay anyhow?"

"Because I'm a cop and it's the only job I know. And bad as it is, it's better than nothing. You've heard the yarn of the brash young rookie in Earth's Sahara City, the guy famous for arresting the police commissioner's daughter. I'm that cop. I hung a ticket on her for traffic violation. It turned out she was drunk and speeding away from an accident that killed somebody. The mess was too ugly to hush up, so she went to prison and I went to the sticks for keeps. I resigned and came here. So I learned to keep my mouth shut, do as I was told, and never to move an inch out of line with the people who count."

"You're breaking my heart," Torry said bitterly. "Go on."

"Roper's not alone in this. Somebody with money and political influence arranged that escape, probably picked him up off the wreck. Before he went to Phobos he was mixed up with Trans-Uranic Miners Union, and also with a Martian pressure group headed by old Sen Bas, the importer. He may still be. I want no trouble with either. With you it doesn't matter. Maybe you'll dig up a lot of interesting facts before you get yourself killed."

"Get to the point."

"Spacefreight. Two large boxes consigned to Roper and Holden, his partner. Still unopened, held in the unclaimed spacefreight warehouse. Charges are high and Roper was broke. He tried to get money from Trans-U and the Martians, but neither was buying a pig in a poke. Not then. Maybe they are now. He must have convinced his backers, somehow. But they can't get the space crates either unless I say so. Roper and his pal tried robbery to raise money and landed on Phobos. I put the crates under police seal."

"Why weren't they condemned and opened?"

"Too much red tape and money. The transport company can sell the stuff legally for charges, but only at public auction, unopened, and bids start at charges plus storage. Are you interested?"

Torry frowned. "My funds are not unlimited...."

"That's a chance we'll both have to take. I'm taking a chance on you anyhow, but don't try any smart tricks. I always cover bets. The boxes will be officially released for tomorrow's auction. All I ask is a look inside at Roper's gimmick, whatever it is, so I'll know whether to buy transuranics or not. If you buy the boxes the contents are yours. Fair enough?"

Torry grunted. "If they sell low enough you'll get your look after I've had mine."

"See that I do," warned Grannar. "And a word of advice. You can't import weapons to Mars, but there's no law says you can't buy one here and sleep with it. Shall I drop you at your hotel?"

The half track was nearing the domed city. A gigantic half bubble of polarized plastic rose from the plain to enclose both the old Martian town and the bustling, strident metropolis of New Chicago. From the desert the dome was nearly invisible, but the architectural jumbles looked like a forest of lighted Christmas trees appearing by magic in the swift dusk of the red planet.

Torry grinned. "You're forgetting I spent my first night in jail."

Grannar scoffed, "Routine, one in jail, one in a hotel, the next in the morgue...."