A Place in the Sun Read online

me help you."

  "No. Just leave me alone, will you?" Larry staggered off across thecrowded dance floor. He drew angry glances and muttered comments as hedisturbed the dancers waltzing to Carlotti's _Danube in Space_.

  Why don't you admit it, Grange, Larry thought as he staggered throughthe companionway toward his cabin. That's what you always wanted, isn'tit--a place of importance?

  A place in the sun, they call it.

  "You're going to get a place in the sun, all right," he mumbled aloud."Right smack in the middle of the sun with everyone else aboard thisship!"

  The humor of it amused him perversely. He smiled--but it was closer to aleer--and lunged into his cabin. What he said to Sheila was no joke. Hereally did have a splitting headache. It had come on suddenly and it waslike no headache he had ever known. It pulsed and throbbed and beatagainst his temples and held red hot needles to the backs of hiseyeballs, almost blinding him. It sapped all his strength, leaving himphysically weak. He was barely able to close the door behind him andstagger to the shower.

  An ice cold shower, he thought would help. He stripped quickly and gotunder the needle spray. By that time he was so weak he could barelystand.

  A place in the sun, he thought....

  Something grabbed his mind and wrenched it.

  * * * * *

  Johnny Mayhem awoke.

  Awakening came slowly, as it always did. It was a rising throughinfinite gulfs, a rebirth for a man who had died a hundred times andmight die a thousand times more as the years piled up and becamecenturies. It was a spinning, whirling, flashing ascent from blacknessto coruscating colors, brightness, giddiness.

  And suddenly, it was over.

  A needle spray of ice-cold water beat down upon him. He shuddered andreached for the water-taps, shutting them. Dripping, he climbed from theshower.

  And floated up--quite weightless--toward the ceiling.

  Frowning with his new and as yet unseen face, Johnny Mayhem propelledhimself to the floor. He looked at his arms. He was naked--at least thatmuch was right.

  But obviously, since he was weightless, he was not on Deneb IV. Duringhis transmigration he had been briefed for the trouble on Deneb IV. Thenhad a mistake been made somehow? It was always possible--but it hadnever happened before.

  Too much precision and careful planning was involved.

  Every world which had an Earthman population and a Galactic League--now,Galactic Federation--post, must have a body in cold storage, waiting forJohnny Mayhem if his services were required. No one knew when Mayhem'sservices might be required. No one knew exactly under what circumstancesthe Galactic Federation Council, operating from the Hub of the Galaxy,might summon Mayhem. And only a very few people, including those at theHub and the Galactic League Firstmen on civilized worlds and Observerson frontier planets, knew the precise mechanics of Mayhem's coming.

  * * * * *

  Johnny Mayhem, a bodiless sentience. Mayhem--Johnny Marlow then--whohad been chased from Earth a pariah and a criminal seven years ago, whohad been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the SagittarianSwarm, whose life had been saved--after a fashion--by the white magicof that planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as abodiless sentience, an _elan_, which could occupy and activate a corpseif it had been preserved properly ... an _elan_ doomed to wandereternally because it could not remain in one body for more than a monthwithout body and _elan_ perishing. Mayhem, who had dedicated hisstrange, lonely life to the services of the Galactic League--now theGalactic Federation--because a normal life and normal social relationswere not possible to him....

  It did not seem possible, Mayhem thought now, that a mistake could bemade. Then--a sudden change in plans?

  It had never happened before, but it was entirely possible. Something,Mayhem decided, had come up during transmigration. It was terriblyimportant and the people at the Hub had had no opportunity to brief himon it.

  But--what?

  * * * * *

  His first shock came a moment later. He walked to a mirror on the walland approved of the strong young body which would house his sentienceand then scowled. A thought inside his head said:

  _So this is what it's like to have schizophrenia._

  _What the hell was that?_ Mayhem thought.

  _I said, so this is what it's like to have schizophrenia. First theworld's worst headache and then I start thinking like two differentpeople._

  _Aren't you dead?_

  _Is that supposed to be a joke, alter ego? When do the men in the whitesuits come?_

  _Good Lord, this was supposed to be a dead body!_

  At that, the other sentience which shared the body with Mayhem snickeredand lapsed into silence. Mayhem, for his part, was astounded.

  _Don't get ornery now_, Mayhem pleaded. _I'm Johnny Mayhem. Does thatmean anything to you?_

  _Oh, sure. It means I'm dead. You inhabit dead bodies, right?_

  _Usually. Listen--where are we?_

  Glory of the Galaxy--_bound from Earth to Mars on perihelion._

  _And there's trouble?_

  _How do you know there's trouble?_

  _Otherwise they wouldn't have diverted me here._

  _We've got the president aboard. We're going to hit the sun._ Then,grudgingly, Larry went into the details. When he finished he thoughtcynically: _Now all you have to do is go outside yelling have no fear,Mayhem is here and everything will be all right, I suppose._

  Mayhem didn't answer. It would be many moments yet before he couldadjust to this new, unexpected situation. But in a way, he thought, itwould be a boon. If he were co-inhabiting the body of a living man whobelonged on the _Glory of the Galaxy_, there was no need to reveal hisidentity as Johnny Mayhem to anyone but his host....

  * * * * *

  "I tell ya," Technician First Class Ackerman Boone shouted, "therefrigeration unit's gone on the blink. You can't feel it yet, but Iought to know. I got the refrigs working full strength and we gained acouple of degrees heat. Either she's on the blink or we're too close tothe sun, I tell you!"

  Ackerman Boone was a big man, a veteran spacer with a squat, very strongbody and arms like an orangutan. Under normal circumstances he was avery fine spacer and a good addition to any crew, but he bore anunreasonable grudge against the officer corps and would go out of hisway to make them look bad in the eyes of the other enlisted men. A largecrowd had gathered in the hammock-hung crew quarters of the _Glory ofthe Galaxy_ as Boone went on in his deep, booming voice: "So I asked theskipper of the watch, I did. He got shifty-eyed, like they always do.You know. He wasn't talking, but sure as my name's Ackerman Boone,something's wrong."

  "What do you think it is, Acky?" one of the younger men asked.

  "Well, I tell ya this: I know what it _isn't_. I checked out the refrigsthree times, see, and came up with nothing. The refrigs are in jigorder, and if I know it then you know it. So, if the refrigs are in jigorder, there's only one thing it can be: we're getting too near thesun!" Boone clamped his mouth shut and stood with thick, muscular armscrossed over his barrel chest.

  * * * * *

  A young technician third class said in a strident voice, "You mean youthink maybe we're plunging into the sun, Acky?"

  "Well, now, I didn't say that. Did I, boy? But we _are_ too close and ifwe are too close there's got to be a reason for it. If we stay too closetoo long, O.K. Then we're plunging into the sun. Right now, I dunno."

  They all asked Ackerman Boone, who was an unofficial leader among them,what he was going to do. He rubbed his big fingers against the thickstubble of beard on his jaw and you could hear the rasping sound itmade. Then he said, "Nothing, until we find out for sure. But I got ahunch the officers are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of thempoliticians we got on board. That's all right with me, men. If they wantto, they got their reasons. But I tell ya this: they ain't going to pullany wool over
Acky Boone's eyes, and that's a fact."

  Just then the squawk box called: "Now hear this! Now hear this! Tech/1Ackerman Boone to Exec's office. Tech/1 Boone to Exec."

  "You see?" Boone said, smiling grimly. As yet, no one saw. His facestill set in a grim smile, Ackerman Boone headed above decks.

  * * * * *

  "That, Mr. President," Vice Admiral T. Shawnley Stapleton said gravely,"is the problem. We would have come to you sooner, sir, but frankly--"

  "I know it, Admiral," the President said quietly. "I could not havehelped you in any way. There was no sense telling me."

  "We have one chance, sir, and one only. It's irregular and it willprobably knock the hell out of the _Glory of the Galaxy_, but it maysave our lives. If we throw the ship suddenly into subspace we couldpass right through the sun's