Smith Troubled Star

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-859-1
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 109 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

An advanced alien race is considering our sun as a reference point on their star route, but must first determine if there are any intelligent life-forms in its solar system, since altering the sun would be fatal for all the system's life. The aliens seek to contact the most highly-regarded being on planet Earth, coming up with Dusty Britton of the Space Patrol. What they DON'T realize is that he's an actor, star of a hit sci-fi TV show! Egotistical Dusty quickly realizes that he must now play his TV role in real life in order to save the solar system from disaster. An excellent mix of space opera, humor, and suspense! (Goodreads)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, George O.

Leseproben

II
Dusty Britton entered the lower cabin of the three-stage rocket and flopped into a chair. "Quite a show," he said with a trace of scorn. Martin Gramer, the producer of the long series of Dusty Britton pictures puffed his cigar and nodded with self-satisfaction. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all." "Gramer, how the hell long is this nonsense going to go on?" "Until you're ready to retire." "I'm ready now." "For good?" "I could do something else, you know. After all, I am an—" Martin Gramer eyed the husky young man with derision. "You say 'actor' and I'll blow a gasket," said Gramer. "Then what the hell am I doing here?" roared Dusty. "You're here because you have an honest-looking face and a pair of broad shoulders to go with it. You're the living embodiment of John Darling Trueheart, and you can act the part, providing some bright guy lays out the floor plan and coaches you." Dusty growled, "Why not hire the bright guy?" "Because he's got a face that would scare children and the physique of an underfed fieldmouse. Pull you out of that hero role you're in and you'd fall so flat on your face that folks would be calling you Old Doormat. Now snap out of it, Dusty, and be glad you've got hold of a good thing. Stop looking for something you couldn't handle." Angrily Dusty got up out of his chair. "I suppose you think it's fun to have to go roaming around the country wearing this jazzed-up surveyor's suit with a three-pound chunk of rusty iron clanking on my hip." "To date they've sold three and a quarter million replicas of that Dusty Britton Blaster you're so contemptuous of, and you've received ten cents for every one that crossed the counter. What's so damned bad about that?" "I feel silly." Gramer roared with laughter, then cut it to one short bark as he cooled down to eye Britton angrily. "What's so damned silly about being a model of honor and respect for several million kids?" he demanded. "Did you ever think how imbecilic it sounds to be Dusty Britton of The Space Patrol, with no space to patrol, wearing a blaster that doesn't blast? And wearing a pack of medals stamped out in the model shop? What does it all add up to?" Martin Gramer tossed the stump of his cigar at the disposal chute and faced Dusty with a hard expression. "It adds up to a lot, Dusty. It adds up to a damned good living for you. It adds up to—maybe something you're too dumb to understand, but I'll spiel it off anyway—being an ideal. Damn it, man, there's millions of kids in this world that eat, think and dream about the Space Patrol and Dusty Britton. You're an idol as well as an ideal, Dusty. Kids follow a big name man. It's a darned sight better that they follow an ideal rooted in virtue, strength, honesty and chivalry than to have them trying to emulate characters like Shotgun Hal Machin or Joseph Oregon." "Yeah," drawled Dusty, "But do you know what it means?" "You tell me your version, Dusty. As if I hadn't heard your gripe before." The disgruntled actor took a deep breath, opened his mouth, but then closed it again. He let out most of the blast he was preparing and said, quietly but disgustedly, "Why waste my breath? Dusty Britton doesn't smoke. Dusty Britton drinks soda pop and milk. The only women in Dusty Britton's life are his aged mother and his younger sister. Dusty Britton's biggest gamble is when he offers to bet a Saturnstone on this or that. Hell's Eternal Fire, Gramer, do you realize that I can't even date a dame for a dance because 'Kids don't care for the mush stuff!' and my private life is not my own? I can't even swear, god-dammit!" Gramer eyed Dusty cynically. "You seem to get along." "Sure. I get along. When I shuck this monkey suit and dress like a human being. But you know what happens? When I turn up at some joint, do I get introduced as The Dusty Britton? Like hell I do. I'm treated like any of the rest of the dopey tourists. Herded like cattle to the rear seats, while a tomato like Gloria Bayle lushes in with her fourth husband and gets the works on the house." "You make my heart bleed, Dusty." "Your heart never bled anything but vouchers," snapped Dusty. He fumbled in his hip pocket and pulled out a flask. Gramer did not say a word. "Well, aren't you going to give me an argument?" demanded Dusty. "No. You can't be seen." "But someone's likely to smell bourbon on my breath." "No one that counts. And by the time we get back—" Dusty stopped raising the flask in midair. "Get back—?" he roared. "Get back. Look, Gramer—" "Sit down, Dusty. Take it easy." "Gramer, what goes on here? You're not suggesting that we take off in this fire-breathing hot water boiler, are you?" "You've read all the advertisements." "Yeah, but nobody with sense would take ad-writer's copy for anything but guff." Outside, a bomb burst with an ear-splitting racket. A stentorian voice thundered, "X Minus Five Minutes!" "Ye Gods, you're really going through with this madman's publicity scheme?" Gramer smiled. "Sure. It's just to Venus; but you can bet your life that every kid that sees this take-off on video or here on the field will be dreaming of the fabulous adventures you'll be having. Those kids know this is for real, Dusty." "Include me elsewhere," mumbled Dusty. He started for the spacelock. "You can't let those kids down!" roared Gramer. Dusty paused at the sill of the spacelock. "Gramer," he said cynically, "I'm not letting anybody down. I'm just keeping the hide of Dusty Britton in one unscarred piece." "But the public—" "That's what you've got press agents for, Gramer. So you can get your high-priced publicity men to run a few miles of paper explaining how I happen to have left this shooting star four minutes before take-off!" "Dusty, you're a no-good louse." "But a whole one. And let me tell you this, Gramer, you're less worried about the state of youthful morals than you are about losing the thread of a good, high-selling series. So I'm going to sail out of here as though I was scared to death of rockets—which I sure as hell am—and you're going to tell some bright explainist to get busy earning the dough you pay him. And when the smoke is all cleared away, I'll be safe and you'll be safe, and Dusty Britton will continue to go rolling along and the box office will continue to come rolling in. Spend a few short months in space? Not while the geegees are running at Hialeah!" "But Dusty—" "Space? Bah! Nothing, floating gently from vacuum to void and back again. Not for Dusty Britton!" Dusty paused long enough to run splayed fingers through his hair and then he headed for the spacelock with a determined step. "Wait!" roared Gramer. Dusty paused. "The least you could do is to go out of here not looking like Dusty Britton. Don't be an ass! I'll cover for you, but you've got to help!" "All right but—" Outside another bomb racketed and the amplifier announced laconically, "X Minus Three Minutes!" and startled Dusty with the realization that he did not have much time. "—make it quick!" "You—there!" A technician coming up the ladder looked startled. "Fifty bucks to swap clothing with Britton, here." "Done," and the tech started to peel. He balked at Dusty's famous 'Blaster'? "That's worth another—" "Another fifty—dammit!" agreed Gramer. "Now, wave out the door while Dusty leaves." The roar that went up was for their beloved hero waving out of the spacelock, not the tech that came down the ramp with a rush, followed by the portly Martin Gramer. The spacelock swung closed as the spaceport jeep pulled away with Dusty and Gramer in the back. They were a half mile away when the thunder came. No one even noticed them wending their way through the crowd, for every eye on the field was looking upwards, straining to see the spacecraft that was carrying Dusty Britton and The Space Patrol off to new adventures. About a hundred miles off the coast of Baja California, Scyth Radnor sat in the control room of the big spacecraft. The dome was awash. Scyth sat high in the dome watching the pleasantly lazy progress of a forty foot schooner that was coming in his direction. It was a pretty sight and Scyth appreciated it even though he had been born on Marandis some thirty thousand years after the sail as a functional device had been outmoded. Sail, to Scyth, was strictly a vacation sort of thing, just as it was to Dusty Britton and a few billion other people whose lives are geared to a time-table except for vacation time. If there was any puzzlement over this, it was because Scyth's menslator was not following the rocket, now laboring in free flight towards Venus. Dusty, according to what Scyth had been able to pick up, should have been there instead of here. But Scyth was not the burning inquisitive type. He knew that there was some explanation and that he could afford to wait until it was given instead of wasting a lot of energy trying to figure out the motives of a member of a race unknown to him. He had better things to contemplate. In the field of his telescope he could see a sight he approved of. It was not Dusty Britton, lazing easily near the wheel of the schooner, keeping the helm steady with his left foot because his hands were occupied with a drink on one and a cigarette in the other. It was Barbara Crandall, lying on the cabin on a blanket. Her ankles were crossed and the arch of the upper foot was high and graceful. One thigh, slightly higher than the other, glinted from the sunshine, dark tan. Her breasts pointed at the sky, molded in dazzling white...