Stellar Assignment

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Trapped in the economic rat-race of the 21st century Kevin Blake had little going for him but an over-active imagination: an attribute which brought him to the notice of Paul Trevainen, who made Kevin an offer he couldn't resist. On the face of it the assignment was simple - to find the billionaire's daughter, bring her back to Earth and collect a dazzling reward. But Crystal was wilful, stubborn and hard to find. The quest forced Kevin to become an advocate in an alien court, turned him into a hunter, and made him the captive of giant, money-hungry frogs, a rebel against established authority, a fugitive, a criminal and in general one of the most harassed young men ever to have longed for adventure.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 173

Sample

From beneath the pillow the mellifluous voice said, “Wake up! Wake up! It’s a wonderful day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the wind rustles the leaves of the trees!”

Kevin Blake grunted and kept his eyes firmly closed.

“Wake up!” said the voice urgently. “You are full of vim, vigour and vitality! The blood is rushing through your veins! Today is a new beginning, a time of great opportunity, a period of tremendous promise! Wake up! Wake up!”

“Go to hell,” said Kevin thickly.

“Get up!” snapped the voice imperiously. “Rise and shine! It’s later than you think! Get up and get going! Wake!”

A pause of five seconds and a harsh, grating noise replaced the feminine tones. Ten seconds later it stopped and he felt a warm glow of satisfaction at having beaten the device. Just as he was sinking back into blissful oblivion a thousand red hot needles jabbed at his naked skin and he reared, yelling from the shock, slamming his hand at the pillow.

“You cow!” he stormed. “You vicious, sadistic, unfeeling bitch! I could have been ill, dying, but what would it matter to you?”

Nothing, of course, nothing at all. It was just a machine and, he thought, sitting on the edge of the bed, a lying one at that. There were no birds, no trees and if the sun was shining it was a safe bet that he wouldn’t be able to see it through the usual smog. And he wasn’t full of vim, vigour and vitality. He felt worn out, tired, beaten before the day had even started.

Wearily he padded to the shower, wondering at his fatigue. True he had worked late the previous evening but five hours should have been enough and, at his age, loss of sleep shouldn’t have dragged him down so low.

It’s worry, he decided as he smeared depilatory cream over cheeks and chin. The concern over the new book, the need to start another, the constant doubt as to whether he was writing the right stuff in the right way. And yet what else could he do? Television was out, lacking a union card he didn’t stand a chance even if he could produce the crap they demanded. Sex stories were a drug on the market and sadism didn’t pay for the paper to write them. To get a novel published meant that you had either to be an attractive woman with an intimate relationship with a publisher or a gigolo making up to his wife. Influence, he thought sourly, washing off the cream and dissolved stubble. Without it you get nowhere.

Teeth brushed, fingernails scrubbed, he left the bathroom and dressed in sober garments; maroon slacks, a scarlet cummerbund, yellow shoes and blouse topped with a maroon bolero. There was no coffee, no tea, no cocoa or yerba mate, not even enough powdered milk to flavour the hot water. Cursing he rose from the store-cupboard. Last night he’d come in late and flopped straight into bed but Duncan should have replaced the essentials. The nurd had probably been entertaining again, dispensing hospitality with a lavish hand, ignoring the needs of his room-mate.

Fuming Kevin strode from the room, slamming the door and heading down the passage towards the elevators. As usual there was a crowd waiting and he only managed to fight his way into the third cage. Fifty stories down and he emerged numb from the pressure into the concourse and headed for a cafeteria. He was lucky, it only took fifteen minutes in line before he collected his coffee and sinker. His luck held and he managed to get a seat. A pimple-faced girl simpered at the pressure of his thigh as he squeezed beside her and a man grunted as his elbow dug into his waist.

“Watch it, buster!”

“Slow down,” snapped Kevin. “You want all the room?”

“Just my share,” said the man. “I’ve a right to that, haven’t I?”

Kevin dunked his doughnut, not answering and the man gulped the last of his coffee.

“Some people,” said the girl as he left. “No consideration for others at all.” She moved a little closer, maintaining the contact between hip and knee. “You often eat here?”

“No.”

“Nor me. I think eating at home is so much better, don’t you? I’m on the sixtieth floor, room 601152, Sylvia Wharton. Another thirty minutes and I can go home. You?”

“Kevin Blake. 502046. I’m just leaving.”

“Kevin Blake? The author?” Her expression grew rapturous. “Did you write The Morals Of Mediaeval Man?”

“Yes,” said Kevin. “Did you like it?”

“I thought it wonderful!” she gushed, her face glowing. “So full of interesting little details about well, you know. Did they really have to wear chastity belts in those days? And did they have to sleep all together in halls and places? You must be a very clever person to have known all those intimate details.”

“Well,” said Kevin modestly. “I had to do quite a bit of research.”

“And The Sinful Seventies,” she continued. “I read it twice because it was so interesting. All that wife-swapping and the drugs and parties and things! I’m so pleased to have met you. Wait until I tell Lorna, that’s my sharer, about it. She’ll be green with envy. And I must get your other books. What is the latest?”

“Survival In Society,” said Kevin quickly. He had obviously misjudged the girl, instead of a pimple-faced nonentity she had charm and grace and a delicate cultural understanding. “I’ll autograph it for you if you buy a copy.”

“I must get it,” she burbled. “I’ll put in a request as soon as I get home. I’ll call the library right away.”

“The library?”

“Of course,” she said innocently. “I never buy books, I mean, not actually pay for them. That would be silly, wouldn’t it? After all, that’s what libraries are for, aren’t they?”

Kevin swallowed the last of his coffee and reminded himself that first impressions were usually the correct ones. The girl wasn’t cultured and charming at all. She was just a pimple-faced nuisance.

Firmly he rose. “It was nice to have met you,” he said. “Don’t forget to ask for that book.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “And you won’t forget my number, will you? 601152. Sylvia Wharton.”

“The book,” he insisted, before turning away. “Don’t forget it.”

After all, every little helped.

There was trouble on the subtrans and Kevin was thirty minutes late arriving for work. The checker, a stooped, middle-aged man with a perpetual frown and a lipless mouth stood by the clock, holding out his hand before Kevin could punch his card.

“You’re late, Blake,” he snapped. “You know the rules. More than two minutes late and you have to report to me. More than ten and you lose an hour. Over that and you have to ask permission to work the shift at all.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kevin. “I was going to report to you after I hit the clock.”

“You’re lying,” said the checker. “You were going to clock in and go straight to your desk. The floor overseer would think you’d reported to me and I’d allowed you in. It’s the last day of the week and the cards would go straight up to the pay office and, if I hadn’t been smarter than you figured I wouldn’t have known you’d been late at all. Right?”

Kevin sighed. “You’re right, Mr Edwards, as usual.”

Mollified the checker relaxed. “At least you’re not arguing about it. The trouble with most of you people is that you forget I know all the tricks. You don’t hold down a job like mine for thirty-five years without staying one jump ahead. The Transworld Trading Company doesn’t hire a fool to hold down a position like mine. Excuse?”

“The subtrans broke down. Someone jumped on the track, I think there was a forty-three minute delay.”

“Proof?” Edwards held out his hand. “The conductor would have given you a slip had you asked.”

“Sure,” agreed Kevin. “Me and all the rest of the passengers. It would have held me up the best part of an hour. But you know that,” he added. “And you can check that I’m telling the truth. If you find I’m lying I’ll lose a day’s pay.”

Edwards sucked in his cheeks. “Well –,” he began, then changed his mind. “All right, Blake, you’ve a good record so I’ll pass you in this time. See me after, eh? I reckon it’s worth an hour, don’t you?”

“Sure, Mr Edwards. And thanks.”

Savagely Kevin punched his card and handed it to the checker. He could argue but then the nurd would stand on his authority and he would lose the shift. If he neglected to pay he would have the checker riding on his neck. If he complained he would get exactly nowhere. After thirty-five years with the firm Edwards had friends in the right places.

Hepton looked up from his work as he passed his desk. Like Kevin he was a clerk, unlike him he was old, withered, hanging on to his job with a vicious desperation. He threw over a sheaf of bills.

“Top-office wants this checked in double-quick time. As you weren’t in I volunteered to take care of it. I told the overseer I figured you were sick.”

“That was nice of you,” said Kevin bitterly.

“Well, you know how it is. I like to help out when I can.”

“By making certain he knew I wasn’t in. Hell, with friends like you I don’t need enemies.”

“I was only trying to help.”

“I know what you were trying to do,” said Kevin. “Why didn’t you just keep that big mouth of yours shut instead?”

Glowering he studied the bills. A consignment of catfur mittens had been lost in transit to the colony on Tejat III. Another of diamond-tipped drills had never reached Ahmand of the Sirian System even though they had been paid for in advance. The Government of the Proxima Centauri Federation was annoyed at having received fifty tons of spangled cod-pieces instead of the cans of processed dog meat they had expected. The Ku Wang consortium of Achernar V could not understand why they had been sent a cargo of synthetic gills when they had most clearly ordered one of collapsible blowpipes together with poisoned darts for same.

A routine day’s work, thought Kevin sourly, something which any one of the five hundred clerks could have handled but Hepton had had to make himself look big and take the opportunity of making his colleague look small. Sickness was frowned on by the Transworld Trading Company. It would mean a black mark on his record.

Tiredly he began to stab buttons on his desk, checking consignments with the main computer, cross-checking, tracking down. The catfur mittens had been shipped by mistake to Sleeth. The drills were still in the warehouse waiting final clearance. The cod-pieces had been mislabelled and he arranged for the transfer of cargoes. The synthetic gills were a problem and it took him an hour to discover they should have been sent to Aquarion where, no doubt, the fish-folk were wondering how to use the blowpipes. Another arrangement to transfer cargoes and the thing was done.

Yawning Kevin assembled the papers, marked each with a note of the action taken and dropped the sheaf into the appropriate chute. Before he could reach for another stack from the pile accumulated on his desk the girl came round with the mid-shift coffee. She was a nice, well-built girl and he leaned back watching the play of her hips as she moved with her trolley between the desks.

“Women!” snapped Hepton spitefully. “That’s all you youngsters think about. Why, when I was your age I had to keep my nose to the grindstone. No time for day-dreaming then. It was work, work, work all the time.”

“Sure,” said Kevin. “And what has it got you?”

“A job. A pension in another ten years. Security.”

“Hell,” said Kevin.

“That’s what you think.” Hepton was defensive. “Let me tell you there are a lot worse things than having a steady job. You ever seen the dormitories? The jobless on the streets? The beggars? You don’t remember the riots like I do and you’re lucky. They were bad. So were the hunger years. I bet you’ve never had to share a room with five others. A small room at that.”

“I share,” said Kevin.

“Sure you do. We all do. But you share with one or two at the most.”

“One,” said Kevin.

“Twelve-hour turnabout,” said Hepton. “You call that sharing? I’ll bet there are days when you don’t even see each other. I remember when you had to wait for a man to get up so you could use the bed. Things were bad before they threw up the towers.”

“Knock it off,” said Kevin. “I’ve heard it all before.”

“Youngsters,” said Hepton. He gulped at his coffee and set aside the empty cup. “You don’t know when you’re well off.”

No, thought Kevin, finishing his coffee, that’s true enough. We’ve never known when we were well off. To some of the ancients this world would seem a paradise, warmth, food, clothing, non-physical work, entertainment, de. . .