Public-domain ebook
by Emil Petaja
English405 downloads on Project GutenbergDownload EPUB
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #65874.
The opening · free to read
ORION was something new in science fiction magazines; it printed stories about aliens and passed them off as the truth--which they were!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy July 1952 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"He must die. It will look like an accident."
"Shouldn't we take him back with us?"
"We are far from through here. Don't tell me you are developing a sympathy for these miserable creatures?"
"Impossible. I merely assumed he might be of some further value in our great crusade."
"He must die."
Max Field was listening at the door. He moved back so he could breathe again. Those dozens of little wounds in his chest and on his arms and neck stung like fire. His amiable young features were tense but resigned. This was the end, period....
Outside the little cabin an owl hooted. It was a lonely sound. But it was a familiar earth sound, and it brought a lump to his throat.
If only there was some way to outwit them. But he had thought of everything; apparently so had they. That window, for instance, was shuttered and bolted from outside. A sudden noise would bring them in here in no time. The back wall was up against a cliff. There was no outside door in this room.
He was supposed to be drunk, befuddled. But he hadn't drank any of the champagne. In that, at least, he had outwitted them. He was to die. No question about that. The only question remaining was--how.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled out the little notebook he'd been, at odd moments, scribbling the whole story in. Force of habit, perhaps. Max was a science fiction writer. He flipped through the pencilled pages. Worth money, this story. He smiled ironically. Yet who would read it, much less believe it.
Somebody might, he decided. He would hide it somewhere in this room. Maybe slip it through a crack in the flooring, a few pages at a time.
He pulled out a stub of pencil and added that final shuddery scene. Alice. Alice....
Outside, the owl hooted.
"I am Wallace Starr." It was a funny voice. Funny-strange. It sounded a little like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together.
"Really?"
I pushed out my current Camel and sneaked in a few pecks at the old Underwood. So sandpaper-voice was Wallace Starr. Maybe I was supposed to turn handsprings.
"You don't know me," the heckler went on, "but I am very familiar with you and your work. I have an important project in mind. A new monthly science fiction magazine to be called Orion. I need a good assistant editor. You were suggested."
"_Orion_," I said.
"Yes. My book will feature a completely new approach. We will buy only the best material, and each story will concern itself with the constellation Orion and its various systems. All material will be correlated to this end. How does this strike you?"
"You won't find it so easy pinning the best writers down to Orion," I grinned. "Writers like Swain and St. Reynard and Ric Planter like elbow room."
"Orion is vast and complex. One hundred and seven solar systems, to be exact. That should provide ample elbow room."
I whistled. "Ought to. But what's the idea?"
"Novelty, Mr. Field. I have studied the imaginative magazines closely and it occurs to me that they are already beginning to specialize. One of them uses highly technical stories, another adheres to stories of other planets in this system. Orion will link each story with all the others in it. Instead of a hundred interpretations of the life patterns of Orion we shall have but one. Of course casual stories we buy will have to be revamped to fit in."
"That's where I come in," I guessed.
"Exactly. But don't you feel that we will wind up with a fascinating pseudo-history of Orion, and that such a magazine would create a furore with its realistic slant?"
"I guess so."
It tasted like my first olive. But Wallace Starr was obviously burning with enthusiasm. He sounded just a little like a crackpot. A rich crackpot, maybe.
"It will be hard work, Mr. Field. But rewarding. Are you prepared to accept my proposition?" He spoke like a man who means business.
I hesitated. It is well-known that the mortality rate among new fiction magazines is high. I had writing contracts to fill, I was doing okay. Editing a monthly is a full-time job.
"About salary--" I hinted.
He named a figure that made my hair curl. What could I say but, "When do we start, Boss?"
Starr wasn't like any editor I've known. He wasn't like an editor at all. He wasn't much like anybody I've known. Which puts him in a class all by himself. He was brown and thin and had peculiarly big eyes, like a grasshopper's.
He spent so much money getting started I figured he wasn't long for this racket. But he did have a knack and the first couple issues, while not wildly successful, went over well.
One morning he called me into his office. From the tone of that dry voice of his I knew I was in for it.
"What's all this?" he buzzed, rattling a manuscript in front of me. From the cheap yellow paper I knew it was the lead novelette of the forthcoming issue. Ric Planter was one of our top writers and also a very bad boy. Ric loved to put an editor on the spot, bless his little pointed head.
"Didn't he change that ending?" I asked. The tic in my left eye started up. I had never had this twitch until the first time I saw Starr. I think it was something about those eyes of his. Every time I looked at him....
"He changed it all right!" Starr hissed. "He turned the Kiriki into villains. When their benevolent plan to spread patterned contentment throughout the circle of outer planets was just taking hold he had the semi-civilized Green Ones rise up and destroy their power by smashing their means of telepathic communication."
"How could he do that?" I clucked.
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