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Title: Brimstone Bill
Author: Jameson, Malcolm (1891-1945)
Date of first publication: July 1942
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1942
   [New York: Street & Smith]
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 17 June 2016
Date last updated: 17 June 2016
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1331

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.






BRIMSTONE BILL

By Malcolm Jameson



    Bill was a crook, a hell-fire-damnation specialist in the
    art of collecting cash.  A marvelous orator--with gadgets.
    But Commander Bullard had a good use for a bad actor!




The prisoners were herded into the room and ranged against one of the
bulkheads.  Captain Bullard sat stiffly behind his desk regarding the
group of ruffians with a gaze of steely appraisal.  Lieutenant Benton
and a pair of pistoled bluejackets were handling the prisoners, while
Commander Moore stood at the back of Bullard's desk, looking on.  Then
Bullard gave a jerk of his head and the procession started.  One by one
they shuffled to the spot before his desk, clanking their heavy chains
at each dragging step.  And one by one the captain of the _Pollux_
surveyed them, critically and coldly, comparing their appearance and
their marks with the coded descriptions in the ethergram on his desk.

These were the survivors of the notorious Ziffler gang, captured on
Oberon the month before, after the encounter on the lip of a little
crater that the Polliwogs had already come to call the "Battle of the
Mirrors."  The first, of course, was Egon Ziffler himself, all his
arrogance and bluster melted away long since.  Then came Skul Drosno,
his chief aid, and there followed ten other plug-uglies who had
survived the holocaust of reflected fire.  All were big hulking brutes
of Callistans, ray-blackened, scarred and hairy.  The last and
thirteenth man was of a different type altogether.  Bullard waited in
silence until he had ranged himself before his desk.

"Paul Grogan," called Benton, checking the final name of the list.

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard, looking at the miserable specimen standing at a
grotesque version of "attention" before him, and then glancing at the
Bureau of Justice's ethergram summary of his pedigree.  After that he
studied the prisoner in detail.  He was a queer fish indeed to have
been caught in such a haul.

The self-styled Grogan was a wizened, under-fed little fellow and bore
himself with an astonishing blend of cringing and swagger.  The
strangest thing about him was his head, which was oversize for his
body.  He had a fine forehead topped with a leonine mane of iron-gray
hair, which after a cursory glance might have been called a noble head.
But there was an occasional shifty flicker of the eyes and a twitching
at the mouth that belied that judgment.  Bullard referred to the
Bureau's memo again.

"Grogan," it said, "probably Zander, alias Ardwell, alias Nordham, and
many other names.  Small-time crook and chiseler, card sharp,
confidence man.  Arrested often throughout Federation for petty
embezzlement, but no convictions.  Not known to have connection with
Ziffler gang."

"Hm-m-m," said Bullard again.  He had placed Grogan, et cetera, now in
his memory.  It had been a long time since the paths of the two had
crossed, but Bullard never forgot things that happened to him.  Nor did
he see fit to recall it too distinctly to his prisoner, for he was not
altogether proud of the recollection.  But to check his own powers of
retention, he asked:

"You operated on Venus at one time--as an itinerant preacher, if the
record is correct--under the name of Brimstone Bill?"

"Why, yes, sir, now that you mention it," admitted Brimstone Bill, with
a sheepish grin.  "But, oh, sir, I quit that long ago.  It didn't pay."

"Really?" remarked Bullard.  That was not his recollection of it.  He
had visited Venus in those days as a Passed Midshipman.  One night, in
the outskirts of Erosburg, they had curiously followed a group of
skymen into a lighted hall emblazoned with the sign, "Come, See and
Hear BRIMSTONE BILL--Free Admittance."  And they went, saw and heard.
That bit of investigation had cost the youthful Bullard just a month's
pay--all he had with him.  For he had fallen under the spell of the
fiery oratory of the little man with the big bushy head and flashing
eyes, and after groveling before the rostrum and confessing himself a
wicked boy, he had turned his pockets wrongside out to find some worthy
contribution to further "the cause."  Bullard winced whenever he
thought of it.

"No, sir, it didn't pay," said the little man.  "In money, yes.  But
not in other ways."

"The police, eh?"

"Oh, not at all, sir," protested Brimstone Bill.  "Everything I ever
did was strictly legal.  It was the suckers ... uh, the congregation,
that is.  They got wise to me.  A smart-Aleck scientist from the gormel
mills showed me up one night--"

He lifted his manacled hands and turned them so the palms showed
outward.  Deep in each palm was a bright-red, star-shaped scar.

"They crucified me.  When the police cut me down the next day, I swore
I'd never preach again.  And I won't, so help me."

"You are right about that," said Bullard grimly, satisfied that his
memory was as good as he thought it was.  "This last time you have
stretched your idea of what's legal beyond its elastic limit.  The gang
you were caught with is on its way to execution."

Brimstone Bill emitted a howl and fell to his knees, whining and
pleading.

"Save that for your trial," said Bullard harshly.  "Take 'em away,
Benton."



After they had all gone, Bullard sat back and relaxed.  He promptly
dismissed Ziffler and his mob from his mind.  The Oberon incident was
now a closed book.  It was one more entry in the glorious log of the
_Pollux_.  It was the future--what was to happen next--that mattered.

The _Pollux_ had stood guard over the ruined fortress of Caliban until
the relief ships arrived.  Now she was homeward bound.  At Lunar Base a
richly deserved and long-postponed rest awaited her and her men.  And
there was not a man on board but would have a wife or sweetheart
waiting for him at the receiving dock.  Leave and liberty were ahead,
and since it was impossible to spend money in the ship's canteen, every
member of the crew had a year's or more accrued pay on the books.
Moreover there would be bonuses and prize money for the destruction of
the Ziffler gang.  Never in the history of the service had a ship
looked forward to such a satisfactory homecoming, for everyone at her
arrival would be gayly waving bright handkerchiefs, laughing and
smiling.  Her chill mortuary chamber down below was empty, as were the
neat rows of bunks in the sick bay.  The _Pollux_ had achieved her
triumph without casualties.

It was on that happy day of making port that Bullard was idly dreaming
when the sharp double rap on the door informed him that Moore was back.
And the executive officer would hardly have come back so soon unless
something important had turned up.  So when Bullard jerked himself
upright again and saw the pair of yellow flimsies in Moore's hand, his
heart sank at once.  Orders.  Orders and always more orders!  Would
they never let the ship rest?

"Now what?" asked Bullard, warily.

"The Bureau of Justice," said Moore, laying down the first signal, "has
just ordered the immediate payment to all hands of the Ziffler bonus.
It runs into handsome figures."

Bullard grunted, ignoring the message.  Of course.  The men would get a
bonus and a handsome one.  But why at this particular moment?  He knew
that Moore was holding back the bad news.

"Go on," growled Bullard, "let's have it!"

Moore shuffled his feet unhappily, expecting an outburst of rage.
Then, without a word he handed Bullard the second message.  It read:


    _Pollux_ will stop at Juno Skydocks en route Luna to have hull
    scraped.  Pay crew and grant fullest liberty while there.  Implicit
    compliance with this order expected.

    Grand Admiral.


Bullard glared at the thing, then crushed it to a tight ball in his
fist and hurled it from him.  He sat for a moment cursing softly under
his breath during which the red haze of rage almost blinded him.  He
would have preferred anything to that order--to turn about and go out
of the orbit of Neptune for another battle, if there had been need for
It, would have been preferable.  But this!

He kicked his chair backward and began pacing the room like a caged
tiger.  It was such a lousy, stinking trick to do--and to him and his
_Pollux_ of all people!  To begin with, the ship had no sky-barnacles
on her hull, as the pestiferous little ferrous-consuming interplanetary
spores were called on account of the blisters they raised on the hull.
And if she had, Juno was no place to get rid of them.  Its skydock was
a tenth-rate service station fit only for tugs and mine layers.  The
twenty men employed there could not possibly be expected to go over the
hull under a month, and the regulations forbade the ship's crew working
on the hull while in a planetary dockyard.  The dockyard workers'
guilds had seen to that.  Moreover, Juno was not even on the way to
Luna, but far beyond, since from where the _Pollux_ was at the moment,
the Earth lay between her and the Sun, while Juno was in opposition.
It was damnable!

Bullard growled in midstride and kicked viciously at an electrician's
testing case that stood in his path.  That wasn't all--not by a
damsite!  Juno was one of the vilest dumps inside the Federation.  It
was an ore-gathering and provisioning point for the asteroid
prospectors and consequently was populated by as vicious a mob of
beachcombers and their ilk as could be found in the System.  Juno
literally festered with gin mills, gambling hells and dives of every
description.  No decent man could stand it there for three days.  He
either left or took to drink.  And, what with what was sold to drink on
Juno, that led to all the rest--ending usually in drugs or worse.  It
was in that hell hole that he had been ordered to set down his fine
ship for thirty days.  When he thought of his fine boys and the eager
women impatiently awaiting their homecoming, he boiled.

"Shall I protest the order, sir?" asked Moore, hopefully.

"Certainly not," snapped Bullard, halting abruptly and facing him.  "I
never protest orders.  I carry 'em out.  Even if the skies fall.  I'll
carry this one out, too, damn 'em.  But I'll make the fellow who
dictated it--"

He suddenly checked himself.  He had been about to add, "regret he ever
had," when he remembered in a flash that Moore's family was in some way
connected with the Fennings.  Only Senator Fenning could have inspired
the change of plans.  The grand admiral had issued the order and signed
it, of course, but he had inserted the clue as to why in its own last
redundant sentence.  "Implicit compliance is expected," indeed!  No
admiral would be guilty of such a tacit admission that perhaps not all
orders need be strictly complied with.  That sentence meant, as plainly
as if the crude words themselves had been employed, this:

"Bullard, old boy, we know this looks goofy and all wrong to you, but
we're stuck.  You've been chosen as the sacrificial goat this year, so
be a good sport and take it.  None of your tricks, old fellow.  We know
you can dope out a way to annul any fool order, but don't let us down
on this one."

The line of Dullard's mouth tightened.  He sat down quietly in his
chair and said to the expectant Moore as matter-of-factly as if he had
been arranging a routine matter:

"Have the course changed for Juno, and inform the admiral that he can
count on his orders being carried out to the letter."

Commander Moore may have been surprised at Bullard's tame surrender,
but, after all, one was more helpless sometimes in dealing with one's
own admiral than with the most ruthless and resourceful enemy.  He
merely said, "Aye, aye, sir," and left the room.



Two weeks rolled by, and then another.  They were well within the orbit
of Jupiter now, and indeed the hither asteroids.  Hungry eyes now and
then looked at the pale-blue tiny disk with its silvery dot companion
as it showed on the low-power visifield and thought of home.  Home was
so near and yet so far.  For the ship was veering off to the left, to
pass close inside Mars and then to cut through beyond the Sun and far
away again to where the miserable little rock of Juno rolled along with
its nondescript population.

During those days the usual feverish activity of the ship died down
until it became the dullest sort of routine.  Men of all ratings were
thinking, "What's the use?"  Moore and Benton were everywhere, trying
to explain away the unexplainable, but the men did not react very well.
Many were beginning to wonder whether the service was what it was
cracked up to be, and not a few were planning a big bust the very first
night they hit the beach on Juno.  It was not what they had planned,
but it seemed to be what was available.  Only Bullard and Lieutenant
MacKay kept apart and appeared to take little interest in what was to
happen next.

Alan MacKay was a newcomer to the service, and his specialty was
languages.  So he had filled in what time he had to spare from the
routine duties by frequenting the prison spaces and chatting with the
Callistans in the brig.  He had managed to compile an extraordinary
amount of information relating to the recent war as seen from behind
the scenes on the other side, and he was sure it was going to be of
value to the Department.  Moreover, he had gleaned additional data on
the foray to Oberon.  All of which would make the prosecutor's job more
thorough when the day of the trial came.  As for Bullard, he kept to
his cabin, pacing the deck for hours at a stretch and wrestling with
his newest problem.

His thoughts were leaping endlessly in a circuit from one item to the
next and on and on until he came back to the point of departure and
began all over again.  There was the ship, the crew, and the devoted
women waiting for the return of the crew, and the fat entries in the
paymaster's books that meant so much to them both.  And there was the
squalid town of Herapolis with its waiting, hungry harpies with a
thousand proven schemes for getting at that money for themselves; and
there was the cunning and avaricious overlord of the asteroids, their
landlord and creditor, who would in the end transfer the funds to his
own account.  That man also sat in the upper chamber of the Federation
Grand Council and was a power in Interplanetary politics.  His name was
Fenning--Senator Fenning--and he dominated the committee that dealt out
appropriations to the Patrol Force.  And from that point Bullard's mind
would jump to the Tellurian calendar and he would recall that it was
now March on Earth, and therefore just about the time that the annual
budget was in preparation.  Which in turn would lead him back to the
General Service Board, which dealt on the one hand with the Force as a
master, but with the Grand Council as perennial supplicant for funds on
the other.  Which naturally took him to the necessities of the grand
admiral and the needs of the Service as a whole.  Which brought him
back to the _Pollux's_ orders and started the vicious circle all over
again.

For Bullard was cynical and wise enough in the ways of the world to
have recognized at the outset that the ship's proposed stay at Juno
yard was neither more nor less than a concealed bribe to the honorable
senator.  Perhaps it had been a bad season in the asteroid mines and
his debtors had gotten behind.  If so, they would need a needling of
good, honest cash to square accounts.  Perhaps it was merely Fenning's
insatiable lust for ever more money, or maybe he only insisted on the
maneuver to demonstrate his authority.  Or perhaps, even, having
bulldozed the Patrol Force into erecting a small and inadequate skydock
where either an effective one or none at all was needed, he felt he
must have some use made of it to justify his prior action.  Whatever
Fenning's motives really were, they were ignoble.  No exigency of the
service required the _Pollux_ to visit Juno now--or ever.  And to
Bullard's mind, no exigency of politics or personal ambition could
condone what was about to be done to the _Pollux's_ crew.

It was the ethical content of the problem that bothered Bullard.
Practically it was merely annoying.  With himself on board, his veteran
officers and a not inconsiderable nucleus of tried and true men who had
been in the ship for years, she could not go altogether to hell no
matter how long they had to stay on Juno.  He knew he could count on
many--perhaps half--going ashore only occasionally; the other half
could be dealt with sternly should they exceed all reasonable bounds
for shore behavior after a hard and grueling cruise.  But in both
halves he would have to deal with discontent.  The decent, far-sighted,
understanding men already resented the interference with their plans,
since there was no sufficiently plausible reason given for it.  They
would accept it, as men have from the beginning of time, but not
gracefully or without grumbling.  Then the riotous element would feel,
if unduly harsh disciplinary measures were applied, that, somehow, they
had been let down.  Wasn't the very fact they had been sent to Juno for
liberty and paid off with it an invitation to shoot the works?

There were other courses of action open to him, Captain Bullard knew.
The easiest was inaction.  Let the men have their fling.  Given a few
months in space again, he could undo all the damage.  All?  That was
it.  Nothing could undo the disappointment of the women waiting at
Earth and Luna--nor the demoralization of the men at not getting there,
for that matter.  Nor could the money coaxed or stolen from them by the
Junoesque creatures of Fenning ever be recovered.  Moreover, the one
thing Bullard did not like was inaction.  If he was already half
mutinous himself, what of the men?  No.  He would do something about it.

Well, he could simply proceed to Luna, take the blame, and perhaps be
dismissed.  He could give the story to the magnavox in the hope that by
discrediting Senator Fenning and the System, his sacrifice might be
worth the making.  But would it?  Would the magnavox dare put such a
story on the ether?  And wouldn't that be letting the admirals down?
For they knew his dilemma quite as well as he did.  They had chosen,
chosen for the good of the Service.  The System could _not_ be broken,
or it would have been long ago.  It was the _Pollux's_ turn to
contribute the oil that greased the machine.

Bollard sighed.  Juno was less than a week away now, and he saw no way
out.  Time after time in his gloom he was almost ready to admit he was
beaten.  But the instincts and training of a lifetime kept him from the
actual confession.  There must be some way of beating Fenning!  It must
be a way, of course, which would cast no reflection on the grand
admiral.  Or the ship.  Or the crew.  And, to be really successful, no
ineradicable discredit upon himself.  Bullard got up, rumpled his hair,
and resumed his tigerish pacing.



It was Lieutenant MacKay who interrupted his stormy thoughts.  MacKay
had something to say about the prisoners.  He had just about finished
pumping them dry and was prepared to draw up the report.  There were
several recommendations he had to make, but he wanted his captain's
opinion and approval first.

"It's about that fellow Zander--the Earthman, you know--" he began.

"Oh, Brimstone Bill?" grinned Bullard.  He was rather glad MacKay had
broken in on him.  The sense of futility he had been suffering lately
had begun to ingrow and make him bitter.

"Yes, sir.  He's a highly undesirable citizen, of course, but I'm
beginning to feel a little sorry for him.  The old scalawag hadn't
anything to do with the Caliban massacre.  He just happened to be there
when Ziffler came, and escaped being killed only by luck.  He was
dealer in a _rango_ game when they landed, and his boss had a couple of
Callistan bouncers.  Ziffler gave 'em the chance of joining up with
him, which they did and took Brimstone along with 'em, saying he was
O.K.  Brimstone went along because it was that or else.  He had no part
in anything."

"I see," said Bullard, and thought a moment.  "But I haven't anything
to do with it.  What happens hereafter is up to the court.  You should
submit your report to them."

After MacKay left, Bullard's thoughts turned upon his first encounter
with the little charlatan many years before on Venus.  Somehow, the
fellow had had a profound effect on him at the time.  So much so, in
fact, that it came as something of a shock the day of his preliminary
examination to find that the man had been a fake all along.  Bullard
had been tempted to think him a good man who had eventually gone wrong.
Now he knew better.  But as he continued his train of reminiscence,
something suddenly clicked inside his head.

He sat bolt upright, and a gleam of hope began to dawn in his eyes.
Brimstone Bill had a peculiar talent which might come in very handy in
the trying weeks ahead.  Could he use it with safety to himself?  That
had to be considered, for dealing with a professional crook had risks.
Yet, according to Brimstone's own admission, it had been a gormel
engineer that had shown him up, and Bullard figured that if a
biophysics engineer could match wits with the grizzled trickster and
win, he could.  Perhaps--

But there was no perhaps about it.  Bullard's fingers were already
reaching for his call button, and a moment later Benton stood before
him.

"Go down to the brig," directed the captain, "and bring that man Zander
up here.  Take his irons off first as I do not like to talk to men
bound like animals.  The fellow is a cheap crook, but he is harmless
physically."

While he waited for Benton's return, Bullard explored the plan he had
already roughly outlined in his mind.  By pitting Brimstone Bill
against Fenning he hoped to foil the greater scoundrel.  But would he
fall between two stools in the doing of it?  He must also pit himself
against the swindler, or else he would simply have enabled one crook to
outsmart another without profit other than the gratification of spite.
He had also to think of the other possible costs.  The grand admiral
must have no cause for complaint that there had been any evasion of his
orders.  Likewise Fenning must have no grievance that he dared utter
out loud.  There remained the item of the reputation of the _Pollux_
and its men.

He puckered his brow for a time over that one.  Then he relaxed.  There
were reputations and reputations, and extremes both ways.  Some
regarded one extreme with great favor, others preferred the other.
Bullard liked neither, but for practical reasons preferred to embrace
one for a time rather than its alternate.  He would chance a little
ridicule.  After all, people might smile behind their hands at what a
Polliwog might do, but no one ever curled a lip in the face of one and
afterward had his face look the same.  _Pollux_ men had quite a margin
of reputation, when it came to that, so he dismissed the matter from
his mind.  From then on he sat and grinned or frowned as this or that
detail of his proposed course of action began to pop out in
anticipation.



When Brimstone Bill was brought in, there was no hint in Bullard's
bearing that he had softened his attitude toward the prisoner one whit.
He stared at him with cold, unsmiling sternness.  "Zander," he said,
drilling him with his eyes, "you are in a bad jam.  Do you want to die
along with those other gorillas?"

"Oh, no, sir," whined Brimstone, "I'll do anything....  I'll spill all
I know....  I'd--"

Bullard shut him off with an abrupt wave of the hand.

"As the arresting officer I am in a position to do you a great deal of
good or harm.  If you will play ball with me, I can guarantee you a
commutation.  Maybe more--much more."  He uttered the last words slowly
as if in some doubt as to how much more.  "Will you do it?"

"Oh, sir," cried Brimstone in an ecstasy of relief, for it was plain to
see he had suffered during his languishment in the brig, "I'll do
anything you say--"

"On _my_ terms?" Bullard was hard as a rock.

"On any terms--Oh, yes, sir ... just tell me--"

"Benton!  Kindly leave us now while I talk with this man.  Stay close
to the call signal."

Bullard never took his eyes off the receding back of his lieutenant
until the door clicked to behind it.  Then he dropped his hard-boiled
manner like a mask.

"Sit down, Brimstone Bill, and relax.  I'm more friendly to you than
you think."  He waved to a chair and Brimstone sat down, looking a
little frightened and uncertain.  Then, proceeding on the assumption
that a crook would understand an ulterior motive where he would
distrust an honest one, Bullard dropped his voice to a low
conversational--or rather conspiratorial--tone, and said:

"Everybody needs money.  You do.  And--well, a captain of a cruiser
like this has obligations that the admiralty doesn't think about.  _I_
could use money, too.  You are a clever moneymaker and can make it in
ways I can't.  I'm going to let you out of the jug and put you in the
way of making some."

Brimstone Bill was keenly listening now and the glint of greed
brightened his foxy eyes.  This man in uniform was talking his
language; he was a fellow like himself--no foolishness about him.
Brimstone furtively licked his lips.  He had had partners before, too,
and that usually worked out pretty well, also.  He might make a pretty
good bargain yet.

"We are on our way to Juno where we will stop awhile.  I am going to
let you go ashore there and do your stuff.  You'll be given my
protection, you can keep the money here in my safe, and you can sleep
here nights.  You had a pretty smooth racket there on Venus, as I
remember it.  If you work it here, we'll clean up.  After we leave,
we'll split the net take fifty-fifty.  That'll give you money enough to
beat the charges against you and leave you a stake.  All I want you to
do is preach the way you did on Venus."

While Bullard was talking, Brimstone grew brighter and brighter.  It
was beginning to look as if the world was his oyster.  But at the last
sentence he wilted.

"I can't do that," he wailed.  "I'm afraid.  And--"

"There are no gormel mills on Juno," Bullard reminded him, "only
roughneck asteroid miners, gamblers and chiselers."

"That ain't it, sir," moaned Brimstone.  "They smashed my gadgets,
'n'--"

"Gadgets?"

"Yeah.  I ain't no good without 'em.  And the fellow that made 'em is
dead."

He talked on a few minutes more, but Bullard interrupted him.  He
called in Benton and told him to take notes.

"Go on," he told Brimstone Bill.  "We'll make you a set."

It took about an hour before Benton had all the information he needed.
Brimstone was hazy as to some of the features of his racket, but
Bullard and the young officer were way ahead of him all the time.

"Can do?" asked Bullard, finally.

"Can do," declared Benton with a grin, slamming his notebook shut.
"I'll put the boys in the repair shop right at it.  They won't have the
faintest notion what we want to use 'em for."

Benton rose.  As far as that went, Benton himself was still somewhat in
the fog, but he had served with his skipper long enough to know that
when he was wearing a certain, inward kind of quizzical expression that
something out of the ordinary was cooking.  His talent for a peculiar
oblique approach to any insoluble problem was well known to those about
him.  Wise ones did as they were told and asked questions, if ever,
afterward.

"On your way out, Benton," added Bullard, "take our friend down to the
chaplain's room--we left Luna in such a hurry, you know, the chaplain
missed the ship--and let him bunk there.  I'll see that suitable entry
is made in the log.  And you might tell Commander Moore that I'd like
to see him."

When Benton and Brimstone had left, Bullard leaned back in his chair
and with hands clasped behind his neck gazed contemplatively at the
overhead.  So far, so good.  Now to break the news to Moore.

"I've been thinking, Moore," he said when his executive came in, "that
we have been a little lax in one matter.  I was thinking of ... uh,
spiritual values.  I'm sorry now that the chaplain missed the ship.  Do
you realize that we have made no pretense at holding any sort of
service since we blasted off on this cruise?"

Moore's eyes bugged a little.  The skipper, he was thinking, must have
overdone his recent worrying.  Or something.  Bullard had always been
punctiliously polite to the chaplain, but--

"So," went on Bullard calmly, still gazing placidly at the maze of
wires and conduits hanging from the deck plates over him, "I have made
appropriate arrangements to rectify that lack.  I find that the
Earthman we took along with the Ziffler outfit was not one of them but
a hostage they had captured.  He is an itinerant preacher--a free-lance
missionary, so to speak.  I have released him from the brig and
installed him in the chaplain's room, and after he has had a chance to
clean up and recover, he will talk to the men daily."

It was well that Moore's eyes were firmly tied to their sockets, for if
they had bugged before, they bulged dangerously now.  Bullard had
brooded too much.  Bullard was mad!

"Oh," assured Bullard, "there is nothing to worry about.  The man is
still a prisoner at large awaiting action by the Bureau of Justice.
But otherwise he will have the run of the ship.  And, I should add, the
run of the town while we are on Juno.  He calls himself, oddly enough,
Brimstone Bill, but he explains that he works close to the people and
they prefer less dignity."

Moore gasped, but there seemed to be nothing to say.  Bullard had not
consulted him, he had been merely telling him.  Unless he had the
boldness to pronounce his captain unwell and forcibly assume command,
there was nothing to do but accept it.  And with a husky, "Aye, aye,"
he did.



It was the night before they made Juno that the long unheard twitter of
bos'n's pipes began peeping and cheeping throughout the ship.  At the
call, the bos'n's mates took up the cry and the word, "Rig church in
the fo'c's'le ri-ight a-awa-a-ay!" went resounding through the
compartments.  Bullard clung tenaciously to the immemorial old ship
customs.  The sound of bunks being cleared away and the clatter of
benches being put up followed as the crew's living quarters were
transformed into a temporary assembly hall.  They had been told that
the missionary brought aboard at Oberon had a message for them.  They
had not been told what its subject was, but their boredom with black
space was immense and they would have gone, anyway, if only from
curiosity.  The text for the evening was "The Gates of Hell Are Yawning
Wide."

Two hours earlier Benton had reported that all was in readiness for the
test of Brimstone's persuasive powers and that the three petty officer
assistants picked by him had been instructed in their job.  A special
box had been rigged at one corner of the hall for the use of the
captain and executive.  Consequently, when "Assembly" went, Bullard
waited only long enough for the men to be seated when he marched in
with Moore and took his place at one corner of the stage that had been
set up.

Brimstone Bill appeared in a solemn outfit made up for him by the
ship's tailor.  The setting and the clothes had made a new man of him.
No longer was he the shifty-looking, cringing prisoner, but a man of
austerity and power whose flashing eyes more than made amends for his
poor physique.  He proceeded to the center of the stage, glared at his
audience a moment, then flung an accusing finger at them.

"Hell is waiting for you!" he exploded, then stepped back and shook his
imposing mane and continued to glare at them.  There was not a titter
or sneer in the crowd.  The men were sitting upright, fascinated,
looking back at him with staring eyes and mouths agape.  He had hit
them where they lived.  Moore looked about him in a startled way and
nudged Bullard.

"Can you tie that?" he whispered, awe-struck.  He had been in the ship
many years and had never seen anything like it.  All the skymen he knew
had been more concerned with the present and the immediate future than
the hereafter, and the Polliwogs were an especially godless lot.  The
followers of their own chaplain could be numbered on the fingers of the
two hands.

Brimstone Bill went on.  Little by little he warmed to his subject
until he soon arrived at a stage where he ranted and raved, jumped up
and down, tore his hair and beat his breast.  He thundered
denunciations, pleaded and threatened, storming all over the place
purple-faced.  His auditors quailed in their seats as he told off their
shortcomings and predicted the dire doom that they were sure to
achieve.  His theology was simple and primitive.  His pantheon
consisted of but two personages--the scheming devil and himself, the
savior.  His list of punishable iniquities was equally simple.  The
cardinal sins were the ordinary personal petty vices--drinking,
smoking, gambling, dancing and playing about with loose women.  There
was but one redeeming virtue, SUPPORT THE CAUSE!

That was all there was to it.  An hour of exhortation and a collection.
When he paused at the end of his culminating outpouring of fiery
oratory, he asked for volunteers to gather in the offerings.  Three
petty officers stood up, received commodious leather bags, and went
among the audience stuffing them with whatever the men present had in
their pockets.  For no one withheld anything, however trifling.  The
sermon, if it could be called that, was an impressive success.  Then
the lights came on bright, Brimstone Bill left the stage clutching the
three bags, and the men filed out.

"Amazing," said Moore, as he sat with Bullard and watched the show.
"Why, the fellow is an arrant mountebank!"

"Quite so," agreed Bullard, "but the men seem to like it.  Come, let's
go."

The next day saw a very different atmosphere in the ship.  About two
thirds of the crew had heard the preaching, the remainder being on
duty.  Those went about their tasks silently and thoughtfully, as if
pondering their manifold sins.  They had to take an enormous amount of
kidding from their shipmates and a good many black eyes were in
evidence by the time the ship slid down into her landing skids at Juno
Skydock.  Bullard did not let that disturb him; to him it was a
healthful sign.

As soon as the ship was docked, he went out and met the dockmaster,
who, as he had suspected, was an incompetent drone.  No, he had only
fourteen men available--he had not been expecting the ship--they would
get at the job tomorrow or next day--or at least part of them.  No,
there was a local rule against working overtime--no, the ship's force
could not help--six Earth weeks, he thought, barring accidents, ought
to do the trick.  Oh, yes, they would be very thorough.  At Juno they
were always thorough about everything.

Moore started threatening the man, stating he would report him to the
grand admiral for inefficiency, but all Bullard said was:

"Skip it, you're wasting breath.  These people have just two
speeds--slow ahead and stop.  Put pressure on them and they backfire.
Go back aboard and post the liberty notice.  Unlimited liberty except
for the men actually needed to stand watch.  And see that this goat
gets a copy."

Moore shook his head.  Something _had_ happened to Bullard.  Of course,
the man was up against a stone wall, but he could at least make a show
of a fight.  It was a terrible thing to see a fighting man give up so
easily.  In the meantime Bullard had walked away and was talking with
Brimstone Bill and Benton, who had just emerged from the lock and were
looking around.



There were lively doings ashore that night.  Most of the contingent
that had not heard the Rev. Zander's moving sermon went as early as
possible, ostensibly to look around and do a little shopping.  In the
end they wound up by getting gloriously drunk.  It was a bedraggled and
miserable-looking lot that turned up at the ship the next morning and
there were many stragglers.  A patrol had to be sent out to comb the
dives and find the missing ones.  Many had been robbed or cheated of
all they had, and some had been indiscreet enough to draw all their
money before they went.  Captain Bullard lined up the most serious of
the offenders at "mast" and handed out the usual routine punishments--a
few days' restriction to the ship.

After that things were different.  The next day Benton and Brimstone
had succeeded in renting an empty dance hall.  As Bullard had guessed,
things were dull that year in Herapolis.  A gang of enthusiastic
volunteers--Polliwog converts to Brimstone's strange doctrines--busied
themselves in making the place ready as a tabernacle.  The last touch
was a neon sign bearing the same wording Bullard had seen on that other
tabernacle in steamy Venus.  Brimstone Bill was about to do his stuff
in a wholesale way.

That afternoon when work was done, the entire liberty party marched in
formation to the hall and there listened to another of Brimstone's
fiery bursts of denunciation.  The denizens of the town looked on at
the swinging legs and arms of the marching battalion and wondered what
it was all about.  They supposed it was some newfangled custom of the
Patrol Force and that whatever it was, it would soon be over and then
they would have plenty of customers.  The barkeeps got out their rags
and polished the bars; gamblers made a last-minute check-up of the
magnetic devices that controlled their machines; and the ladies of the
town dabbed on the last coat of their already abundant make-up.

But no customers came that night.  For hours they could hear the
booming, ranting voice of Brimstone roaring about Hell and Damnation,
punctuated by periods of lusty singing, but except for an occasional
bleary-eyed miner, no patron appeared to burden their tills and lighten
their hearts.  At length the strange meeting broke up and the men
marched back to their ship in the same orderly formation they had come.

This went on for a week.  A few at a time, the members of the first
liberty party recovered from their earlier debauch and ventured ashore
again, but even those were soon snatched from circulation as their
shipmates persuaded them to hear Brimstone "just once."  Once was
enough.  After that they joined the nocturnal demonstration.  It was
uncanny.  It was unskymanlike.  Moreover, it was lousy business.  Spies
from the townspeople camp who peered through windows came back and
reported there was something funnier about it than that.  Every night a
collection was taken up, and it amounted to big money, often requiring
several men to carry the swag back.

Strong-arm squads searched the town's flophouses to find out where the
pseudo-evangelist was staying, but in vain.  They finally discovered he
was living on the _Pollux_.  A committee of local "merchants" called on
Captain Bullard and protested that the ship was discriminating against
them by curtailing the men's liberty.  They also demanded that
Brimstone Bill be ejected from the ship.

"Practically the entire crew goes ashore every day," said Bullard,
shortly, "and may spend the night if they choose.  What they do ashore
is their own affair, not mine.  If they prefer to listen to sermons
instead of roistering, that's up to them.  As far as the preacher is
concerned, he is a refugee civilian, whose safety I am responsible for.
He is in no sense under orders of the Patrol Force.  If you consider
you have a competitive problem, solve it in your own way."

The dive owners' impatience and perplexity turned into despair.
Something had to be done.  They did all that they knew to do.  They
next complained to the local administrator--a creature of Fenning's--of
the unfair competition.  That worthy descended upon the tabernacle
shortly thereafter, backed by a small army of suddenly acquired
deputies, to close the place as being an unlicensed entertainment.  He
was met by a determined Patrol lieutenant and a group of hard-faced
Polliwog guards who not only refused to permit the administrator to
serve his warrant, but informed him that the meeting was immune from
political interference.  It was not amusement, but religious
instruction, and as such protected by the Constitution of the
Federation.

The astounded administrator looked at the steely eyes of the officer
and down to the browned, firm hand lying carelessly on the butt of a
Mark XII blaster, and back again into the granite face.  He mumbled
something about being sorry and backed away.  He could see little to be
gained by frontal attack.  He went back to his office and sent off a
hasty ethergram to his esteemed patron, then sat haggardly awaiting
orders.  Already the senator had made several inquiries as to receipts
since the cruiser's arrival, but he had delayed reporting.

The answer was short and to the point.  "Take direct action," it said.
The administrator scratched his head.  Sure, he was the law on Juno,
but the _Pollux_ represented the law, too, and it had both the letter
of it and the better force on its side.  So he did the other thing--the
obvious thing for a Junovian to do.  He sent out a batch of ethergrams
to nearby asteroids and then called a mass meeting of all his local
henchmen.



It took three days for the armada of rusty little prospectors' ships to
finish fluttering down onto the rocky wastes on the far side of
Herapolis.  They disgorged an army of tough miners and bruisers from
every little rock in the vicinity.  The mob that formed that night was
both numerous and well-primed.  Plenty of free drinks and the mutual
display of flexed biceps had put them in the mood.  At half an hour
before the tabernacle meeting was due to break up, the dive keepers all
shut up shop, and taking their minions with them began to line the dark
streets between Brimstone's hall and the skydock.

"Yah!  Sissies!" jeered the mob, as the phalanx of bluejackets came
sweeping down, arm in arm and singing one of Brimstone's militant hymns
in unison.  By the dim street lights one could see that their faces
were lit up with the self-satisfaction of the recently purified.  In
the midst of the phalanx the little preacher trotted along, surrounded
by the inevitable trio of petty officers with the night's collection.

An empty bottle was flung, more jeers, and a volley of small meteoric
stones.  The column marched on, scorning to indulge in street brawling.
Then a square ahead they came to the miners, drawn up in solid
formation from wall to wall.  The prospectors were armed with pick
handles and other improvised clubs.  They did not jeer, but stood
silent and threatening.

"Wedge formation," called Benton, who was up ahead.  "Charge!"

The battle of the Saints and Sinners will be remembered long in Juno.
That no one was killed was due to the restraint exercised by Benton and
MacKay, who were along with the church party.  Only they and the
administrator had blasters, and the administrator was not there.
Having marshaled his army, he thought it the better part of valor to
withdraw to his office where he could get in quick touch with the
senator if need be.

Dawn found a deserted street, but a littered one.  Splintered clubs,
tattered clothes, and patches of drying blood abounded, but there were
no corpses.  The Polliwogs had fought their way through, carrying their
wounded with them.  The miners and the hoodlums had fled, leaving their
wounded sprawling on the ground behind, as is the custom in the rough
rocklets.  But the wounded suffered only from minor broken bones or
stuns, and sooner or later crawled away to some dive where they found
sanctuary.  There had been no referees, so there was no official way to
counteract the bombastic claims at once set up by both sides.  But it
is noteworthy that the Polliwogs went to church again the next night
and were unmolested by so much as a catcall on the way back.

"I don't like this, captain," Moore had said that morning as they
looked in on the crowded sick bay where the doctors were applying
splints and bandages.  "I never have felt that charlatan could be
anything but bad for the ship.  He gouges the men just as thoroughly as
the experts here would have.  Now this!"

"They would have thrown their money around, anyway," grinned Bullard,
"and fought, too.  It's better to do both sober than the other way."



That afternoon the administrator rallied his bruised and battered
forces and held a council of war.  None would admit it, but a formation
has advantages over a heterogeneous mob even in a free-for-all.  What
do next?  There was a good deal of heated discussion, but the ultimate
answer was--infiltration.  The tabernacle sign read, "Come one, come
all," and there was no admission.  So that night the hall was
surrounded by waiting miners and a mob of the local bouncers long
before the Rev. Zander arrived.  Tonight they would rough-house inside.

He beamed upon them.

"Come in, all of you.  There are seats for all.  If not, my regular
boys can stand in the back."

The roughs would have preferred to the standing position, but the thing
was to get in and mix.  So they filed in.  By the time Brimstone Bill
mounted the rostrum the house was crowded, but it could have held more
at a pinch.

He was in good form that night.  At his best.  "Why Risk Damnation?"
was his theme, and as he put it, the question was unanswerable.  It was
suicidal folly.  The gaping miners let the words soak in with
astonished awe; never had they thought of things that way.  Here and
there a bouncer shivered when he thought of the perpetual fires that
were kept blazing for him on some far-away planet called Hell.  They
supposed it must be a planet--far-off places usually were.  They were
not a flush lot, but their contribution to the "cause" that night was
not negligible.  There was little cash money in it, but a number of
fine nuggets, and more than one set of brass knuckles and a pair of
nicely balanced blackjacks.  Altogether Brimstone Bill was satisfied
with his haul, especially when he saw the rapt expressions on their
faces as they made their way out of the tabernacle.

The administrator raved and swore, but it did no good.  The chastened
miners were down early at the smelter office to draw what credits they
had due; the bouncers went back to their dives and quit their jobs,
insisting on being paid off in cash, not promises.  All that was for
the cause.  There were many fights that day between groups of the
converted and groups of the ones who still dwelt in darkness, but the
general results were inconclusive.  The upshot of it was that the
remainder of the town went to the tabernacle that night to find out
what monkey business had been pulled on the crowd they had sent first.

The collection that night was truly stupendous, for the sermon's effect
on the greater crowd was just what it had been on all the others.  Not
only was there a great deal of cash, but more weapons and much
jewelry--though a good deal of the jewelry upon examination turned out
to be paste.  The administrator had come--baffled and angry--to see for
himself.  He saw, and everyone was surprised to note how much cash he
carried about his person.  What no one saw was the ethergram he sent
off to the senator that night bearing his resignation and extolling the
works of one Brimstone Bill, preacher extraordinary.  He was thankful
that he had been shown the light before it was too late.

An extraordinary by-product of the evening was that early the next
morning a veritable army of miners descended upon the skydock and
volunteered to help scrape the cruiser's hull.  Brimstone's dwelling,
they said, should shine and without delay.  That night even the
dockmaster had to grudgingly pronounce that the ship was clean.  The
job was done.  She was free to go.

Bullard lost no time in blasting out.  Brimstone Bill was tearful over
leaving the last crop ungleaned.  He insisted that they had been caught
unawares the first night, and the second they were sure to bring more.
But Bullard said no, they had enough money for both their needs.  The
ship could stay no longer.  Bullard further said that he would be busy
with the details of the voyage for the next several days.  After that
they would have an accounting.  In the meantime there would be no more
preaching.  Brimstone Bill was to keep close to his room.

At once all the fox in Brimstone rose to the top.  This man in gold
braid had used him to exploit not only his own crew but the people of
an entire planetoid and adjacent ones.  Now he was trying to cheat him
out of his share of the take.

"I won't do it," said Brimstone, defiantly.  "I've the run of the ship,
you said.  If you try to double-cross me, I'll spill everything."

"Spill," said Bullard, calmly, "but don't forget what happened at
Venus.  The effect of the gadgets wears off, you know.  I _think_ you
will be safe in the chaplain's room if I keep a guard on the door.  But
if you'd rather, there's always the brig--"

"I get you," said Brimstone Bill, sullenly, and turned to go.  He knew
now he had been outsmarted, which was a thing that hurt a man who lived
by his wits.

"You will still get," Bullard hurled after him, "one half the net, as I
promised you, and an easy sentence or no sentence at all.  Now get out
of my sight and stay out."



It was a queer assembly that night--or sleep period--for a space
cruiser of the line.  They met in the room known to them as the
"treasure house."  Present were the captain, the paymaster, Lieutenant
Benton, and two of the petty officers who had acted as deacons of
Brimstone's strange church.  The third was missing for the reason he
was standing sentry duty before the ex-preacher's door.  Their first
job was to count the loot.  The money had already been sorted and
piled, the paper ten to one hundred sol notes being bundled neatly, and
the small coins counted into bags.  The merchandise had been appraised
at auction value and was stacked according to kind.

"Now let's see, Pay," said Bullard, consulting his notes, "what is the
total amount the men had on the books before we hit Juno?"

Pay told him.  Bullard kicked at the biggest stack of money of all.

"Right.  This is it.  Put it in your safe and restore the credits.
Now, how much did the hall cost, sign, lights and all?"

Bullard handed that over.

"The rest is net--what we took from the asteroid people.  Half is mine,
half is Brimstone's.  The total?"

Benton was looking uneasy.  He had wondered all the time about what the
fifty-fifty split meant.  He was still wondering what the skipper meant
to do with his.  But the skipper was a queer one and unpredictable.

"Fifty-four thousand, three hundred and eight sols," said the
paymaster, "including the merchandise items."

"Fair enough.  Take that over, too, into the special account.  Then
draw a check for half of it to Brimstone.  Put the other half in the
ship's amusement fund.  They've earned it.  They can throw a dance with
it when we get to Luna.  I guess that's all."

Bullard beckoned Benton to follow and left the storeroom, leaving the
two p.o.'s to help the paymaster cart the valuables away to his own
bailiwick.  There were still other matters to dispose of.  Up in the
cabin Benton laid the "gadgets" on the desk.

"What will I do with these, sir?" he wanted to know.  "They're honeys!
I hate to throw them into the disintegrator."

"That is what you will do, though," said Bullard.  "They are too
dangerous to have around.  They might fall into improper hands."

"Now that it's over, would you mind telling me how these worked?"

"Not at all.  We've known for a century that high-frequency sound waves
do queer things, like reducing glass to powder.  They also have
peculiar effects on organisms.  One frequency kills bacteria instantly,
another causes red corpuscles to disintegrate.  You can give a man
fatal anemia by playing a tune to him he cannot hear.  These gadgets
are nothing more than supersonic vibrators of different pitch such that
sounded together they give an inaudible minor chord that affects a
portion of the human brain.  When they are vibrated along with audible
speech, the listener is compelled to believe implicitly in every word
he hears.  The effect persists for two or three days.  That is why I
say they are too dangerous to keep.  Brimstone could just as well have
incited to riot and murder as preach his brand of salvation for the
money it brought."

"I see.  And the ones carried in our pockets by me and the boys were
counter-vibrators, so we didn't feel the effects?"

"Yes.  Like the ones you rigged in my box that night we had the try-out
up forward.  Neither I nor Commander Moore heard anything but ranting
and drivel."

"Pretty slick," said Benton.

Yes, pretty slick, thought Bullard.  He had stayed the prescribed time
on Juno and had paid off the crew and granted full liberty.  Outside
the five men in his confidence, not a member of the crew had had a hint
that it was not desired that he go ashore and waste his money and ruin
his health.

"I'm thinking that the _Pollux_ is not likely to be ordered back to
Juno soon," said Bullard absently.  But Benton wasn't listening.  He
was scratching his head.

"That little guy Brimstone," he said.  "He isn't such a bad egg, come
to think of it.  Now that he's pulled us out of our hole, do you think
you can get him out of his, sir?"

"He never was in the hole," said Bullard, reaching for the logbook.  "I
needn't have kept him at all once I let him out of the brig.  Read
it--it was on your watch and you signed it."

Benton took the book and read.


    "At 2204 captain held examination of prisoners; remanded all to
    brig to await action of the Bureau of Justice except one Ignatz
    Zander, Earthman.  Zander was released from custody, but will be
    retained under Patrol jurisdiction until arrival at base in the
    event the Bureau should wish to utilize him as witness."


Benton looked puzzled.

"I don't remember writing anything like that," he said.

"The official final log is prepared in this office," reminded Bullard,
softly.  "You evidently don't read all you sign."



THE END.






[End of Brimstone Bill, by Malcolm Jameson]
