Short Fiction

Short Fiction

By Frederik Pohl.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Asteroid of the Damned
4. Conspiracy on Callisto
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
5. Double-Cross
6. Let the Ants Try
7. The Tunnel Under the World
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
   6. VI
8. Pythias
9. The Day of the Boomer Dukes
   1. I: Foraminifera 9
   2. II: Shield 8805
   3. III: Cow
   4. IV: Sandy Van Pelt
   5. V: Priam’s Maw
10. The Engineer
11. My Lady Greensleeves
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
    6. VI
    7. VII
    8. VIII
12. Survival Kit
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
    6. VI
13. The Hated
14. The Knights of Arthur
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
    6. VI
15. Wolfbane
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
    6. VI
    7. VII
    8. VIII
    9. IX
    10. X
    11. XI
    12. XII
    13. XIII
    14. XIV
    15. XV
16. The Five Hells of Orion
    1. I
    2. II
    3. III
    4. IV
    5. V
17. Colophon
18. Uncopyright

Imprint

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This particular ebook is based on transcriptions from Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from the Internet Archive and the Luminist League.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

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Asteroid of the Damned

“Sorry, son,” MacCauley said with the barrel-scrapings of his patience. “I said no and I meant it. I haven’t got anything to give you. Now please stop waggling at me and go.”

The excited glitter of the Palladian’s luminiferous eyes died dispiritedly. MacCauley turned his back on the slight-bodied asterite and rapped his thumbnail against his drained glass. The bartender, a heavy and humorous man, expertly refilled Mac’s glass with oily, musky, milk-white synthetic liquor and said: “This Kiddie bothering you? Scat, you, or I’ll see that you never get into this place again.”

Mac shrugged as he watched the stripling strain to catch the bartender’s meaning by reading his lips, then mournfully disappear. “No more than they all do,” he answered. “What’s the matter with them, anyhow? They’re positively nutty on the subject of money.”

The bartender shook his head and snatched a quick drag on a smoldering cigar-stub. Replacing it on a ledge, he said: “Not money so much. You couldn’t bribe a Kiddie with a certified check for a couple of billion dollars. They’re not bright, exactly; they don’t regard paper as worth anything. It’s metal they want. If it happens to be precious, that’s all right, but any kind of metal will do. What they’re really crazy about, of course, is silver and copper. They’ll do just about anything for it, including murder and treason.”

Mac, listening too intently, gulped a bit more of his drink than even his spaceman’s gullet could take. When the red-hot lava stopped strangling him and he could see once more through the streaming fountains that had been his eyes, he managed to choke out: “What do they want it for? Do they eat it?”

The bartender laughed. “Nah. They don’t really eat anything. They drink some kind of stuff they find in the rocks⁠—like they used to find petroleum, on Earth. Radioactive, this stuff is. That’s all they need to live on. They don’t breathe at all. You can see that; they don’t even have a mouth or a real nose, just a sort of trunk that they drink through.⁠ ⁠… Wait a minute. Be back.”

The bartender rolled away. A couple of new customers had come into his side of the bar and were demanding attention.

Mac sighed and glanced at his watch. But the bartender was back and ready for more talk before Mac had made up his mind to leave. The bartender wanted to talk because this was a dull night in the café attached to Pallas’ largest gambling-room; for the same reason, MacCauley wanted to leave. He was here on business.

However, he might need to know something about the natives of Pallas for his business. And he really was shockingly uninformed about the creatures who inhabited the free-port asteroid. Other than that they were called Kiddies, looked like seven-year-old Earthly children, and didn’t breathe, he really knew nothing.

“Then what do they do with this metal if they don’t eat it?” he asked.

The bartender shrugged. “They probably know, but they’re too dopey to be able to tell you. I asked one of them once⁠—he wrote out an answer, the way they always do when they want to tell you something. Seems they generate electricity in their bodies. A Palladian’s idea of a real good time is to take a hunk of pure copper and hold it in his hands. The current runs from one hand to the other. They are like that. This one claimed that each metal gave them a different kind of thrill.”

“All right if you like,” MacCauley said absently. “Me, I’ll take my jolts out of a bottle.”

“Was that an order for