The Man Who Staked the Stars by Katherine MacLean
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Planet Stories July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE MAN WHO STAKED THE STARS
By CHARLES DYE
_Bryce Carter could afford a smug smile. For hadn't he risen gloriously from Thieves Row to director of famed U.T.? Was not Earth, Moon, and all the Belt, at this very moment awaiting his command for the grand coup? And wasn't his cousin-from-Montehedo a star-sent help?_
* * * * *
"What do I do for a living?" repeated the slim dark-skinned young manin the next seat of the Earth-Moon liner. "I'm a witch doctor," heanswered with complete sincerity.
"What do you do? I mean, what do they hire you for?" asked Donahuewith understandable confusion and a touch of nervousness.
_Bracing themselves, Bryce and Pierce gave the body acombined strong shove toward Earth. Two gone._]
"I'm registered as a psychotherapist," said the dark-skinned youngman. He looked too young to be practicing a profession, barelynineteen, but that could be merely a sign of talent, Donahuereflected. The new teaching and testing methods graduated them young.
"I know I am a witch doctor because my grandfather and his father andhis father's father were witch doctors and I learned a specialtechnique from my uncles who are registered therapists with medicaldegrees like mine. But the technique is not the one you find in thebooks, it is ... unusual. They don't say where they learned it butit's not hard to guess." The dark youth shrugged cheerfully. "So--I'ma witch doctor."
"That's an interesting thought," said Donahue. It would be a longthree day trip to the Moon and he had expected to be bored, but thisconversation was not boring. "What do you do?" he again asked."Specifically." Donahue had rugged features, a dark tan andattractively sun-bleached hair worn a little too long. He exuded asort of rough charm which branded him one of the class of politicians,and he knew how to draw people out, so now he settled himself morecomfortably for an extended spell of listening. "Tell me more and joinme in a drink." He signalled the hostess and continued with the rightmixture of admiring interest and condescending scepticism. "You don'tchant spells and hire ghosts, do you?"
"Not exactly." The dark innocent looking young face smiled with acheerful flash of white teeth. "I'll tell you what I did to a man, aman named Bryce Carter."
* * * * *
A group of men sat in a skyscraper at Cape Hatteras, with their tablerunning parallel to a huge floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked theclouded sky and gray waves of the Atlantic. They were the respecteddirectors of Union Transport, and, like most men of high position,they had a keen sense of self-preservation and a knowledge of ways andmeans that included little in the way of scruples.
The chairman rapped lightly. "Gentlemen, your attention please. I havean announcement to make."
The buzz of talk at the long table stopped and the fourteen men turnedtheir faces. The meeting had been called a full week early, and theyexpected some emergency as an explanation. "A disturbing announcement,I am afraid. Someone is using this corporation for illegal purposes."The chairman's voice was mild and apologetic.
Bryce Carter, second from the opposite end, was brought to a shock oftense balanced alertness. How much did he know? He gave no sign ofemotion, but reached for a cigarette to cover any change in hisbreathing, fumbling perhaps more than usual.
The men at the long table waited, showing a variety of boredexpressions that never had any connection with their true reactions.The chairman was a small, inconspicuous, sandy-haired man whoseability they respected so deeply that they had elected him thechairman to have him where they could watch him. They knew he was notone to mention trifles, and there was a moment of silence. "All right,John," said one, letting out his held breath and leaning back, "I'llbite. What kind of illegal purposes?"
"I don't know much," the small man apologized, "Only that the crimerate has risen forty percent in the average of the cities served byUT, and in Callastro City, Callastro, and Panama City, where we justput in a spaceport, it more than doubled."
"Funny coincidence," someone grunted.
"Very funny," said another. "If the police notice it, and the publichears of it--"
There was no man there who would willingly have parted with his placeat that table, no one who was unaware that in fighting his way to aplace at that table he had seized some part of control of the destinyof the solar system.
UT--Union Transport, spread the meshes of its transportation servicethrough almost every city of Earth and the hamlets and roads and busand railroad and airlines between--and even to the few far ports wheremankind had found a toehold in space. But its existence wasprecariously balanced on public trust.
UT's unity from city to city and country to country, its spreadinggrowth had saved the public much discomfort and expense of overlappingcosts and transfers and confusion, and so the public, on the advice ofeconomists, grudgingly allowed UT to grow ever bigger. There was aconservative movement to put all such outsize businesses undergovernment ownership as had been the trend in the last generation butthe economy was mushrooming too fast for the necessary neatness, andthe public rightly would not trust politicos in any operation tooconfusing for them to be watched, and preferred to leave suchbusinesses to private operation, accepting the danger for the profitof efficient and penurious operation, dividends and falling costs.
But all these advantages were barely enough to buy UT's life from yearto year. It had grown too big.
Its directors held power to make or break any city and the prosperityof its inhabitants by mere small shifts in shipping fees, a decisionto put in a line, or a terminal, or a crossroad. The power wasindirectly recognized in the honors and higher offices, the freeentertainment and lavish privileges available to them from any chamberof commerce and any political representative, lobbying discreetly fora slight bias of choice that would place an airport or spaceport intheir district rather than another.
Perhaps some of the directors used their position for personalpleasure and advantage, but power used for the sake of controlling thedirection of growth of races and nations, power for its own sake wasthe game which was played at that table, its members playing the gameof control against each other and the world for high stakes of greatercontrol, nursing behind their untelling faces who knows whatmegalomaniac dreams of dominion.
Yet they used their control discreetly, serving the public welfare andkeeping the public good-will. When it was possible.
As always Bryce Carter sat relaxed, lazily smiling, his expression notchanging to his thoughts.
"Who knows of this besides us?" someone asked.
The chairman answered mildly. "It was a company statistician in thepublicity department who noticed it. He was looking for favorablecorrelations, I believe." His pale blue eyes ranged across theirfaces, touching Bryce Carter's face expressionlessly in passing. "Irequested that he tell no one else until I had investigated." He addedapologetically, "Commitments for drug addiction correlate too."
That was worse news. "Narcotics investigators are no fools," someonesaid thoughtfully.
* * * * *
Neiswanger, a thin orderly man near the head of the table, pressed hisfingertips together, frowning slightly. "I take it then that ourcorporation is being used as a criminal means of large scale smugglingof drugs, tran
"I think so," said the chairman.
"And you would say that the organization responsible is centered inthis corporation?"
"It would seem likely, yes."
The members of the board stirred uneasily, seeing a blast ofsensational headlines, investigations which would spread to theirprivate lives, themselves giving repetitive testimony to inquisitivepoliticians in a glare of television lights while the FederatedNations anti-cartel commission vivisected the UT giant into puny,separate squabbling midgets.
It was not an appealing prospect.
"We'll have to stop it, of course," said a