The Science Fiction Crime Megapack® Read online

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  ORIGINS OF GALACTIC LAW, by Edward Wellen

  DragNeuroNet, by John Gregory Betancourt

  DON’T GET TECHNATAL, by Ron Reynolds

  THE CEREBRAL LIBRARY, by David H. Keller, M.D.

  THE FIVE WAY SECRET AGENT, by Mack Reynolds

  LICENSE TO STEAL, by Louis Newman

  DELAYED ACTION, by Charles V. De Vet

  THE MAGIC OF JOE WILKS, by Robert Moore Williams

  LIFE GOES ON, by Nelson Bond

  MURDER FROM MARS, by Richard Wilson

  WOBBLIES IN THE MOON, by Frank Belknap Long

  THE FREELANCER, by Robert Zacks

  NO ESCAPE FROM DESTINY, by Arthur Leo Zagat

  SWEET DREAMS, by Edward Wellen

  THE LOCUS FOCUS, by Richard Wilson

  TRACK OF THE BEAST, by Charles V. De Vet

  THE VOICES, by Edward Wellen

  THE TOWER, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  THE MIRACLE OF KICKER MCGUIRE, by Robert Moore Williams

  OSCAR, DETECTIVE OF MARS, by James Norman

  OSCAR SAVES THE UNION, by James Norman

  DEATH WALKS IN WASHINGTON, by James Norman

  OSCAR AND THE TALKING TOTEMS, by James Norman

  DOUBLE TROUBLE FOR OSCAR, by James Norman

  THE THIEF OF THOTH, by Lin Carter

  The MEGAPACK® Ebook Series

  COPYRIGHT INFO

  The Science Fiction Crime Megapack® is copyright © 2017 by Wildside Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

  * * * *

  “DragNeuroNet,” by John Gregory Betancourt, was originally published in More Whatdunits. Copyright © 1993 by John Gregory Betancourt. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Origins of Galactic Law,” by Edward Wellen, was originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1953.

  “Don’t Get Technatal,” by Ron Reynolds, was originally published in Futuria Fantasia, Summer 1939.

  “The Cerebral Library,” by David H. Keller, M.D., was originally published in Amazing Stories, May 1931.

  “The Five Way Secret Agent,” by Mack Reynolds, was originally published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, April-May, 1969. Copyright © 1969 by Mack Reynolds. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

  “License to Steal,” by Louis Newman, was originally published in Galaxy Magazine, August 1959.

  “Delayed Action,” by Charles V. De Vet, was originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1953.

  “The Magic of Joe Wilks,” by Robert Moore Williams, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, September 1949.

  “Life Goes On,” by Nelson Bond, was originally published in No Time Like the Future, 1954.

  “Murder from Mars,” by Richard Wilson, was originally published in Astonishing Stories, April 1940.

  “Wobblies in the Moon,” by Frank Belknap Long, was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1943. Copyright © 1943 by Popular Library, Inc., renewed 1970. Reprinted by permission of Lily Doty, Mansfield M. Doty, and the family of Frank Belknap Long, Jr.

  “The Freelancer,” by Robert Zacks, was originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1955.

  “No Escape from Destiny,” by Arthur Leo Zagat, was originally published in Startling Stories, May 1948. Copyright © 1948 by © CBS Publications, Inc, renewed 1975. Reprinted by permission of the estate of Arthur Leo Zagat.

  “Sweet Dreams,” by Edward Wellen, was originally published in Infinity, July 1957.

  “The Locus Focus,” by Richard Wilson, was originally published in Science Fiction Quarterly, August 1957.

  “Track of the Beast,” by Charles V. De Vet, was originally published in Other Worlds, August 1952.

  The Voices, by Edward Wellen, was originally published in Universe, March 1954.

  The Tower, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, was originally published in 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Miracle of Kicker McGuire,” by Robert Moore Williams, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, May 1943.

  “Oscar, Detective of Mars,” by James Norman, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, October 1940.

  “Oscar Saves the Union,” by James Norman, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, March 1941.

  “Death Walks in Washington,” by James Norman, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, March 1941.

  “Oscar and the Talking Totems,” by James Norman, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, April 1942.

  “Double Trouble for Oscar,” by James Norman, was originally published in Fantastic Adventures, October 1942.

  The Thief of Thoth, by Lin Carter, was originally published in 1968. Copyright © 1968 by Lin Carter. Reprinted by permission of Lin Carter Properties.

  A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  Science fiction and crime go hand-in-tentacle, if you’ll pardon the expression. Many of the science fiction field’s greatest writers also wrote mysteries…and vice versa. And sometimes the science fiction stories were mysteries.

  I’m pleased to present our latest MEGAPACK®, which contains nothing but those blended SF-and-Mystery stories, by some of the greatest writers in the field. Enjoy!

  —John Betancourt

  Publisher, Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  ABOUT THE MEGAPACKS

  Over the last few years, our “Megapack” series of ebook anthologies has grown to be among our most popular endeavors. (Maybe it helps that we sometimes offer them as premiums to our mailing list!) One question we keep getting asked is, “Who’s the editor?”

  The Megapacks (except where specifically credited) are a group effort. Everyone at Wildside works on them. This includes John Betancourt (me), Carla Coupe, Steve Coupe, Bonner Menking, Colin Azariah-Kribbs, A.E. Warren, and many of Wildside’s authors…who often suggest stories to include (and not just their own!)

  A NOTE FOR KINDLE READERS

  The Kindle versions of our Megapacks employ active tables of contents for easy navigation…please look for one before writing reviews on Amazon that complain about the lack! (They are sometimes at the ends of ebooks, depending on your reader.)

  RECOMMEND A FAVORITE STORY?

  Do you know a great classic science fiction story, or have a favorite author whom you believe is perfect for the Megapack series? We’d love your suggestions! You can post them on our message board at http://movies.ning.com/forum (there is an area for Wildside Press comments).

  Note: we only consider stories that have already been professionally published. This is not a market for new works.

  TYPOS

  Unfortunately, as hard as we try, a few typos do slip through. We update our ebooks periodically, so make sure you have the current version (or download a fresh copy if it’s been sitting in your ebook reader for months.) It may have already been updated.

  If you spot a new typo, please let us know. We’ll fix it for everyone. You can email the publisher at [email protected] or use the message boards above.

  ORIGINS OF GALACTIC LAW, by Edward Wellen

  Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1953.

  Principle of self-punishment: provided the court concurs, any person pleading guilty to a crime may choose the punishment he deems fitting. (People v. Kilgore, 3380, 84 Un. 793)

  Paul Kilgore was a Terran pilot who was scheduled to make the first solo hop, in a faster-than-light craft, from Pluto to Alpha Centauri. Celebrating the coming event at the Universal Joint, a spacemen’s hangout on Mars, he met a former shipmate. He testified at his trial that, after a nebulous number of Venus vapor cocktails, he agreed to drop his friend off at Pluto.

  Kilgore said that while they were passing through the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter, he discovered that the flap of the kit attached to his uniform was open. Anxiously, he felt in the pocket. It was empty. His doppler pills, compounded especially for his projected flight, were missing. He testified that he searched the entire ship and failed to find the pills. Then, with growing suspicion and rage, he looked at his snoring passenger.

  He shook the limp figure of his friend and angrily asked if the latter had swallowed the pills. The friend made no answer except a foolish grin. Kilgore claimed that this was too much for him. Vengefully, he jammed his friend into a spacesuit and dumped him on one of the 50,000 or more mile-thick asteroids. Each pill, Kilgore testified, would hold up metabolism across 130 light-years. Long before the drug wore off, Kilgore said he believed, someone would come across his sleeping friend.

  Still fuming, Kilgore returned to Mars for a new supply of the pills. His first stop was the Universal Joint. He testified that the bartender seemed glad to see him and handed him a small pill box.

  The bartender said that Kilgore had dropped it there.

  When it came time for the judge to pronounce sentence, Kilgore asked to be allowed to impose his own punishment. The judge was surprised, but he heard Kilgore out. And he sanctioned the penalty, a harsher penalty than he had intended to impose. Kilgore spent the remainder of his life hunting the sleeping body of the
man he had marooned on one of the myriad asteroids.

  Psychic guilt: fitting the punishment to the criminal supersedes fitting the punishment to the crime. (People v. Nica, 3286, 70 Un. 1245)

  In the lobby of the Jovian hostel at which he was staying, Bor Nica, a Sagittarian, brushed against another guest, an Antarean. The Antarean, being unused to the gravity of Jupiter, fell and bruised himself considerably. When he had struggled up again, however, instead of rebuking Nica for jostling him and not offering to assist him to his feet, he passed the incident off lightly. He was about to hop on his way again when Nica, in an insane rage, felled him with a blow. This time the fall was fatal. Nica, instead of trying to escape, waited expectantly beside the body until a nickel led him off to detention. (Note: by 2012 U.E., inflation had caused nickel to replace copper as the designation for an officer of the law.) There he remained, happily awaiting trial, until word reached him that the widow of the Antarean he had murdered harbored no hatred for him, and had indeed forgiven him.

  Infuriated, Nica broke out of his cell, located the widow and killed her, too. Again he waited beside the body of his victim. And again he not only did not resist arrest, but seemed to welcome it.

  Smiling, he pleaded guilty to both murders and listened eagerly for the verdict. But the judge deferred passing sentence until sociologists could go into Nica’s background for a clue to his seemingly illogical actions.

  They found that Nica’s society had stabilized itself on a mass psychosis. Because of atrocities his people had committed in their history, they had piled up a vast unpaid debt of guilt. This weighed so heavily on them that every normal individual in Nica’s society had a compulsion to seek punishment.

  The judge studied this report. He reasoned that the greatest punishment Nica could receive would be no punishment. Any penalty he could impose would only gratify Nica instead of punishing him.

  Therefore he set Nica free. Frantic, Nica appealed the court’s judgment, but in vain. The Galactic Tribunal held that he could not place himself in double jeopardy. The Jovians deported Nica to his home planet. There he remained an outcast because of his humiliating failure to obtain the punishment they all sought. His honor was not restored until he bribed a passing Cygnian to shoot him in a carefully contrived hunting accident.

  Pro rata sentencing: terms of penal servitude are to be based upon comparative life expectancy. (People v. Gund, 3286, 70 Un. 1245)

  In the park on the vacation satellite orbiting around Altair VII was the body of a Vegan, beaten to death. Beside him lay the carcass of his pet ululu, also beaten to death. Erdo Gund, a Procyoni, voluntarily gave himself up. At his trial, Gund’s deposition, which he had signed by impressing his noseprint, was offered in evidence by the prosecutor.

  In this deposition, Gund admitted killing the pet’s master—but not the pet. In fact, he stated, his motive for killing the master was the anger he felt when he saw the Vegan brutally beating the pet. He struck the Vegan down, when the cumulative effect of witnessing nearly two hours of the master’s cruelty and the pet’s pain had proved unbearable.

  At this point the judge interrupted the reading of the deposition. He said he had understood other witnesses to state that the Vegan’s fatal beating of the ululu had lasted only ten minutes at most.

  The prosecutor said that His Honor was correct in his understanding. But, he said, the deposition was accurate, too. He explained to the judge that, to the Terran-type observer, the Procyoni’s span of life averaged two Earth years. In that length of time, the Procyoni lived—subjectively—as long as a centenarian Earthman.

  The prosecutor further said that in view of all the circumstances, he was of the opinion that Gund could not plead “not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.” However, added the prosecutor, he would ask His Honor to be lenient and take into account the temporal differential.

  The judge followed the prosecutor’s recommendation and sentenced Gund to 30 Earth hours of psychic guilt.

  Semantic jurisprudence: that branch of the law which systematizes forensic debate on questions of meaning. (U. of Venus v. Vac. Inc. et al., 2937, 63 Un. 8451)

  Vac., Inc., was a Terran corporation, supplying the vacuum of space for use in laboratory research. At its plant on Luna, it manufactured its product by welding two duralloy hemispheres lip to lip and thus sealing a vacuum inside the globe they formed.

  One container in a shipment to the University of Venus proved to be defective. The University sued for damages resulting from sudden failure of the built-in valve. These damages included the tearing of the elbow-beard of a visiting Ganymedean professor, which had been sucked into the globe.

  Attorney for the defendants asked for dismissal of the suit on the grounds that a vacuum was nothing, and that when both parties to the action had stipulated the loss of a vacuum, the plaintiff in effect admitted losing nothing. In support of this contention, attorney for the defandants exhibited the advertising slogan of Vac., Inc., “Nothing—but the best!”

  Attorney for the plaintiff countered the dismissal motion by stating that if this were true, then the defendants were confessing to the inequity of giving nothing in exchange for good hard cash. However, attorney for the plaintiff argued, no absolute vacuum exists in all space, there being a minimum of twelve molecules per cubic foot in the emptiest reaches. Therefore, she claimed, there is nothing in the Universe which one might name “nothing.”

  That last statement, attorney for the defendants replied scornfully, was self-contradictory. “Nothing” exists, he said; the space between the molecules is “nothing.”

  Quickly, attorney for the plaintiff exclaimed that now her learned opponent was arguing on the side of her client by agreeing that “nothing” is something.

  At this point the judge wearily recessed court, declaring that he intended to damp his brain waves with tonic chord therapy.

  As soon as court reconvened, the judge asked if either party objected to the swearing in of a panel of semanticists. There was no objection. And so, before deciding on the dismissal motion, the judge submitted the problem to the panel.

  With a squad of burly bailiffs keeping order among the venerable semanticists, the question finally came to a vote.

  The majority decided that a vacuum is “something.”

  The judge denied the defendants’ motion for dismissal, heard the case, and found for the plaintiff. He awarded to the University 40 million credits. But legal expenses and the adverse publicity bankrupted Vac., Inc.

  It paid nothing.

  Law of identity: any judgment of the court is a true judgment in all succeeding cases where the circumstances are the same. (Smith v. General Teletote, 3016, 24 Un. 612)

  Jak Smith, a clerk in the Titan branch of the First Solar Bank & Trust Co., filed a civil suit against General Teletote. He sought to recover damages for injuries he had sustained while utilizing the facilities of the passenger division of that firm.

  Under a governmental Class F priority (his heart could not stand the strain of spaceship travel), he had returned to his native Terra via teletote. He charged General Teletote with garbling him in transmission.

  General Teletote admitted that its tri-dimensional scanner had reassembled Smith improperly.

  The firm also conceded that its Terran operator had been out on a panjo drunk, leaving the receptor controls untended and incorrectly adjusted—permitting electronic snow to piebald Smith.

  But though it acknowledged its carelessness, General Teletote firmly disclaimed any liability. It produced the customary waiver that Smith had signed prior to transmission, absolving General Teletote of all responsibility for mishap in transit and/or upon reception.

  Smith replied that as he was now obviously not the same individual who had signed the waiver, its terms were not binding on him.

  General Teletote answered that if Smith was not the same individual, he could not claim damages in the other’s name.

  Having studied the briefs, the Galactic Tribunal ruled that even by the signing of a waiver, an individual cannot divest himself of his inalienable right to his own identity.

  Smith had just won his case when the “ghost image” of Smith came forward, pressing claims for a like award. To prove these claims, the ghost image produced witnesses who testified that Smith2 had emerged from the receptor shortly after Smith1, although records failed to show any other transmission scheduled for that time and place.