Edward Elmer Smith - The Galaxy Primes

The guardian struggled to immobilize the beast's gigantic talons as the frightened girl leaped to the safety of Garlock's arms.

Her hair was a brilliant green. So was her spectacularly filled halter. So were her tight shortshorts, her lipstick, and the lacquer on her fingerand toenails. As she strolled into the Main of the starship, followed hesitantly by the other girl, she drove a mental probe at the blackhaired, powerfullybuilt man seated at the instrumentbanked console.

Blocked.

Then at the other, slenderer man who was rising to his feet from the pilot's bucket seat. His guard was partially down; he was telepathing a pleasant, if somewhat reserved greeting to both newcomers.

She turned to her companion and spoke aloud. "So these are the system's best." The emphasis was somewhere between condescension and sneer. "Not much to choose between, I'd say 'port me a tenthpiece, Clee? Heads, I take the towhead."

She flipped the coin dexterously. "Heads it is, Lola, so I get JimJames James James the Ninth himself. You have the honor of pairing with Cleeor should I say His Learnedness Right the Honorable Director Doctor Cleander Simmsworth Garlock, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Science, Prime Operator, President and First Fellow of the Galaxian Society, First Fellow of the Gunther Society, Fellow of the Institute of Paraphysics, of the Institute of Nuclear Physics, of the College of Mathematics, of the Congress of Psionicists, and of all the other topbracket braingangs you ever heard of? Also, for your information, his men have given him a couple of informal degreesP.D.Q. and S.O.B."

The big psionicist's expression of saturnine, almost contemptuous amusement had not changed; his voice came flat and cold. "The less you say, Doctor Bellamy, the better. Obstinate, swellheaded women give me an acute rectal pain. Pitching your curves over all the vizzies in space got you aboard, but it won't get you a thing from here on. And for your information, Doctor Bellamy, one more crack like that and I take you over my knee and blister your fanny."

"Try it, you big, clumsy, musclebound gorilla!" she jeered. "That I want to see! Any time you want to get both arms broken at the elbows, just try it!"

"Now's as good a time as any. I like your spirit, babe, but I can't say a thing for your judgment." He got up and started purposefully toward her, but both noncombatants came between.

"Jet back, Clee!" James protested, both hands against the heavier man's chest. "What the hell kind of show is that to put on?" And, simultaneously:

"Belle! Shame on you! Picking a fight already, and with nobody knows how many million people looking on! You know as well as I do that we may have to spend the rest of our lives together, so act like civilized beingspleaseboth of you! And don't ."

"Nobody's watching this but us," Garlock interrupted. "When pussy there started using her claws I cut the gun."

"That's what you think," James said sharply, "but Fatso and his number one girl friend are coming in on the tight beam."

"Oh?" Garlock whirled toward the hitherto dark and silent threedimensional communications instrument. The face of a bossylooking woman was already bright.

"Garlock! How dare you try to cut Chancellor Ferber off?" she demanded. Her voice was deeppitched, blatant with authority. "Here you are, sir."

The woman's face shifted to one side and a man's appeareda face to justify in full the nickname "Fatso."

""Fatso", eh?" Chancellor Ferber snarled. Pale eyes glared from the fat face. "That costs you exactly one thousand credits, James."

"How much will this cost me, Fatso?" Garlock asked.

"Five thousandand, since nobody can call me that deliberately, demotion three grades and probation for three years. Make a note, Miss Foster."

"Noted, sir."

"Still sure we aren't going anywhere," Garlock said. "What a brain!"

"Sure I'm sure!" Ferber gloated. "In a couple of hours I'm going to buy your precious starship in as junk. In the meantime, whether you like it or not, I'm going to watch your expression while you push all those pretty buttons and nothing happens."

"The trouble with you, Fatso," Garlock said dispassionately, as he opened a drawer and took out a pair of cutting pliers, "is that all your strength is in your glands and none in your alleged brain. There are a lot of thingsincluding a lot of testsyou know nothing about. How much will you see after I've cut one wire?"

"You wouldn't dare!" the fat man shouted. "I'd fire youblacklist you all over the sys ."

Voice and images died away and Garlock turned to the two women in the Main. He began to smile, but his mental shield did not weaken.

"You've got a point there, Lola," he said, going on as though Ferber's interruption had not occurred. "Not that I blame either Belle or myself. If anything was ever calculated to drive a man nuts, this farce was. As the only female Prime in the system, Belle should have been in automaticallyshe had no competition. And to anybody with three brain cells working the other place lay between you, Lola, and the other three female Ops in the age group."

"But no. Ferber and the rest of the Boardstupidity uber alles!think all us Ops and Primes are psycho and that the ship will never even lift. So they made a Grand Circus of it. But they succeeded in one thingwith such abysmal stupidity so rampant I'm getting more and more reconciled to the idea of our not getting backat least, for a long, long time."

"Why, they said we had a very good chance ." Lola began.

"Yeah, and they said a lot of even bigger damn lies than that one. Have you read any of my papers?"

"I'm sorry. I'm not a mathematician."

"Our motion will be purely at random. If it isn't, I'll eat this whole ship. We won't get back until Jim and I work out something to steer us with. But they must be wondering no end, outside, what the score is, so I'm willing to call it a drawtemporarilyand let 'em in again. How about it, Belle?"

"A draw it istemporarily." Neither, however, even offered to shake hands.

"Smile pretty, everybody," Garlock said, and pressed a stud.

" the matter? What's the matter? Oh ." the worried voice of the System's ace newscaster came in. "Power failure already?"

"No," Garlock replied. "I figured we had a couple of minutes of privacy coming, if you can understand the meaning of the word. Now all four of us tell everybody who is watching or listening au revoir or goodbye, whichever it may turn out to be." He reached for the switch.

"Wait a minute!" the newscaster demanded. "Leave it on until the last poss ." His voice broke off sharply.

"Turn it back on!" Belle ordered.

"Nix."

"Scared?" she sneered.

"You chirped it, birdbrain. I'm scared purple. So would you be, if you had three brain cells working in that gloryhound's head of yours. Get set, everybody, and we'll take off."