Isaac Asimov - I’m in Marsport without Hilda

It worked itself out, to begin with, like a dream. I didnt have to make any arrangement. I didnt have to touch it. I just watched things work out.Maybe thats when I should have first smelled catastrophe.

It began with my usual months layoff between assignments. A month on and a month off is the right and proper routine for the Galactic Service. I reached Marsport for the usual three-day layover before the short hop to Earth.

Ordinarily, Hilda, God bless her, as sweet a wife as any man ever had, would be there waiting for me and wed have a nice sedate time of ita nice little interlude for the two of us. The only trouble with that is that Marsport is the rowdiest spot in the System, and a nice little interlude isnt exactly what fits in. Only, how do I explain that to Hilda, hey?

Well, this time, my mother-in-law, God bless her (for a change) got sick just two days before I reached Marsport, and the night before landing, I got a spacegram from Hilda saying she would stay on Earth with her mother and wouldnt meet me this one time.

I grammed back my loving regrets and my feverish anxiety concerning her mother and when I landed, there I was

I was in Marsport without Hilda!

That was still nothing, you understand. It was the frame of the picture, the bones of the woman. Now there was the matter of the lines and coloring inside the frame; the skin and flesh outside the bones.

So I called up Flora (Flora of certain rare episodes in the past) and for the purpose I used a video booth.Damn the expense; full speed ahead.

I was giving myself ten to one odds shed be out, shed be busy with her videophone disconnected, shed be dead, even.

But she was in, with her videophone connected, and Great Galaxy, was she anything but dead.

She looked better than ever. Age cannot wither, as somebody or other once said, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

Was she glad to see me? She squealed, Max! Its been years.

I know, Flora, but this is it, if youre available. Because guess what! Im in Marsport without Hilda.

She squealed again, Isnt that nice! Then come on over.

I goggled a bit. This was too much. You mean you are available? You have to understand that Flora was never available without plenty of notice. Well, she was that kind of knockout.

She said, Oh, Ive got some quibbling little arrangement, Max, but Ill take care of that. You come on over.

Ill come, I said happily.

Flora was the kind of girlWell, I tell you, she had her rooms under Martian gravity, 0.4 Earth-normal. The gadget to free her of Marsports pseudo-grav field was expensive of course, but if youve ever held a girl in your arms at 0.4 gees, you need no explanation. If you havent, explanations will do no good. Im also sorry for you.

Talk about floating on clouds.

I closed connections, and only the prospect of seeing it all in the flesh could have made me wipe out the image with such alacrity. I stepped out of the booth.

And at that point, that precise point, that very split-instant of time, the first whiff of catastrophe nudged itself up to me.

That first whiff was the bald head of that lousy Rog Crinton of the Mars offices, gleaming over a headful of pale blue eyes, pale yellow complexion, and pale brown mustache. I didnt bother getting on all fours and beating my forehead against the ground because my vacation had started the minute I had gotten off the ship.

So I said with only normal politeness, What do you want and Im in a hurry. Ive got an appointment.

He said, Youve got an appointment with me. I was waiting for you at the unloading desk.

I said, I didnt see you

He said, You didnt see anything.

He was right at that, for, come to think of it, if he was at the unloading desk, he must have been spinning ever since because I went past that desk like Halleys Comet skimming the Solar Corona.

I said, All right. What do you want?

Ive got a little job for you.

I laughed. Its my month off, friend.

He said, Red emergency alert, friend.

Which meant, no vacation, just like that. I couldnt believe it. I said, Nuts, Rog. Have a heart. I got an emergency alert of my own.

Nothing like this.

Rog, I yelled, cant you get someone else? Anyone else?

Youre the only Class A agent on Mars.

Send to Earth, then. They stack agents like micro-pile units at Headquarters.

This has got to be done before 11p.m. Whats the matter? You havent got three hours?

I grabbed my head. The boy just didnt know. I said, Let me make a call, will you?

I stepped back into the booth, glared at him, and said, Private!

Flora shone on the screen again, like a mirage on an asteroid. She said, Something wrong, Max? Dont say somethings wrong. I canceled my other engagement.

I said, Flora, baby, Ill be there. Ill be there. But somethings come up.

She asked the natural question in a hurt tone of voice and I said, No. Not another girl. With you in the same town they dont make any other girls. Females, maybe. Not girls. Baby! Honey! (I had a wild impulse but hugging vision screen is no pastime for a grown man.) Its business. Just hold on. It wont take long.

She said, All right, but she said it kind of like it was just enough not all right so that I got the shivers.

I stepped out of the booth and said, All right, Rog, what kind of mess have you cooked up for me?

We went into the spaceport bar and got us an insulated booth. He said, The Antares Giant is coming in from Sirius in exactly half an hour; at 8p.m. local time.

Okay.

Three men will get out, among others, and will wait for the Space Eater coming in from Earth at 11p.m. and leaving for Capella some time thereafter. The three men will get on the Space Eater and will then be out of our jurisdiction.

So.

So between 8:00 and 11:00, they will be in a special waiting room and you will be with them. I have a trimensional image of each for you so youll know which they are and which is which. You have between 8:00 and 11:00 to decide which one of the three is carrying contraband.

What kind of contraband?

The worst kind. Altered Spaceoline.

Altered Spaceoline?

He had thrown me. I knew what Spaceoline was. If youve been on a space-hop you know, too. And in case youre Earth-bound yourself the bare fact is that everyone needs it on the first space-trip; almost everybody needs it for the first dozen trips; lots need it every trip. Without it, there is vertigo associated with free fall, screaming terrors, semi-permanent psychoses. With it, there is nothing; no one minds a thing. And it isnt habit-forming; it has no adverse side-effects. Spaceoline is ideal, essential, unsubstitutable. When in doubt, take Spaceoline.

Rog said, Thats right, altered Spaceoline. It can be changed chemically by a very simple reaction that can be conducted in anyones basement into a drug that will give one giant-size charge and become your baby-blue habit the first time. It is on a par with the most dangerous alkaloids we know.

And we just found out about it?

No. The Service has known about it for years, and weve kept others from knowing by squashing every discovery flat. Only now the discovery has gone too far.

In what way?

One of the men who will be stopping over at this spaceport is carrying some of the altered Spaceoline on his person. Chemists in the Capellan system, which is outside the Federation, will analyze it and set up ways of synthesizing more. After that, its either fight the worst drug menace weve ever seen or suppress the matter by suppressing the source.

You mean Spaceoline.

Right. And if we suppress Spaceoline, we suppress space travel.