Free Kenneth Bulmer by The Wizard of Starship Poseiden Page A

serum. They each made a joke of it, in character. Stella hoped it
wouldn't leave too much of a scar. Howland reassured her, bending over,
fiddling with his phials and bottles and ampoules. Mallow took his shot last
    "Just in case, Howland, old man,"
he said, with a smirk.
    Packing
up, feeling the tremble in his hands, Howland wondered if he had done the right
thing. If he had read the signs correctly then what he had just done was very
clever. If he'd been wrong—why then he'd go the way of Fingers Kirkup.
    The preliminary target date—the twentieth—set
by Professor Randolph arrived.
    Terence Mallow and his crew left.
    "Don't
be late at the rendezvous, Terence," said Randolph as Mallow left his
chambers. "We're all depending on you." If it was meant to be funny,
then Howland considered the joke had fallen flat.
    After
Mallow had gone, Randolph turned to his assistant and said, "Everything's
ready, Peter. I'm looking forward to buying the equipment we'll need on
Pochalin Nine!"
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    D udley H arcouht ,
Vice Chancellor of Lewistead, accepted Professor Cheslin Randolph's explanation
that he needed a rest. Randolph explained that he would be taking his new
assistant, Peter Howland, with him. They would, Randolph said with a faint and
disconcerting smile, not be away long; just a short restful cruise among the
stars.
    "I'm glad you've taken my advice,
Cheslin. One of the virtues of a stellar civilization is the ability to visit a
low-gravity world and live in absolute comfort, with all strain removed from the
heart and muscles."
    "If
you don't prolong your stay. Atrophy sets in with alarming rapidity."
Randolph chuckled; he was in excellent spirit. "Term finishes on the
twenty-fifth; but we'll be back before the vacation is through. I intend to
remain pretty active for a long time to come."
    As they spoke Randolph realized, with a wry
shock, that he would miss Harcourt and the games of chess that invariably
resulted in a general massacre of the Vice Chancellor's forces. Harcourt was
all right. Just that sometimes his position dictated actions alien to the man's
character.
    Like
now. Randolph listened carefully as Harcourt spoke. Any feelings about his
plans he might have possessed that would undermine his resolve vanished.
    "I'm
very glad, Cheslin, very glad indeed that you have taken the whole business of
the Fund as calmly as you have. I feel the University as a whole owes you an
explanation and an apology. But this is strictly between you and me; on a
personal level."
    "All
right, Dudley," said Randolph, wondering what was to come.
    "I know you saw Mahew, the Chancellor,
and I know you were sent away empty. I suppose Mahew told you the story that he
was in the hands of the Trustees and could do nothing? Yes? Well. I'm telling
you this, I insist, on a personal level; there may be a chance of a subsidiary
fund next year, or the year after. But ~k )rders for the disbursement for this year's
Maxwell Fund came straight from Mahew, straight from the government—"
    "But they can't interfere in University
matters!"
    "When the Chancellor is Secretary for
Extra-Solar Affairs, when the Trustees are almost all government men, the government
can—and does—say what happens to money to be spent by the University."
    "But this is monstrous!" Randolph
kept himself from fuming only by thought of the virus, and the whisde, and of
his nephew and his crew aboard their spaceship. "What has Mahew against
me? Why pick on me?"
    "Not
you, Cheslin. You were unfortunate that this happened to be your year for the
Fund. You see—the space Navy have been developing a brand new weapons system
and drive—revolutionize the whole tactic of space battle— and they just don't
have facilities for handling the problems involved. We have here some very fine
computers—among the best in the galaxy. With the Maxwell Fund the government
is already hard at work developing the biggest and best, turning it over
full-time to work