Part 1

The Love Song of Lancelot Biggs

By NELSON S. BOND

All Lt. Biggs wanted was a shipboard bouquet for his wife, but the seeds grew a little too well!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories September 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Well, it's just like I told you. The last time you friends, dopes, and country hicks lent me your ears I said the _Saturn_ was scheduled for an ordinary, routine, commonplace cargo shuttle to Uranus. But I also hunched it that inasmuch as my screwball pal, Lt. Lancelot Biggs, was treading the bridge almost anything was rather more than likely to happen.

And I was right. Only even in my wildest nightmares I didn't have any idea what was going to be chucked at us when we laid our lumbering old space-freighter down in the cradle at Sun City spaceport.

You see, the _Saturn_ shuttles back and forth between the planets of the solar system, carrying everything and anything. When you carry cargoes like that, you often find yourself loaded up with plenty of trouble, and I don't mean maybe! And with Lancelot Biggs, those cargoes can _do_ things!

What happened was that Johnston--he's the Interplanetary Corporation's port clearance official on Mars--came loping over to our jalopy like a hound in a hamburg orchard and closeted himself with Cap Hanson. For about a half hour they held privy council, as clubby as moths in an all-wool suit, and when they appeared again, the hush-hush was so loud it almost deafened you.

A few minutes later, stevedores started hauling into the _Saturn's_ cargo bins an accumulation of air-tight, leaden containers. These workmen, too, were furtive as clergymen at a crap game, and all I could get out of them by way of explanation was the one word sentence, "Idunnonothinaboutit!"

So I hunted up Lancelot Biggs, who generally knows practically everything about practically everything, and of course I found him standing with one gangling arm draped limply about the shoulders of his brand-new bride, Diane Biggs (_née_ Hanson), staring at a perfectly commonplace Martian sunset as though it were a gala world premiere presented especially for his benefit. And I complained, "Hey, Biggs! What's all the mystery about? What makes with the cargo?"

Biggs said, "Oh, hello, Sparks. Gorgeous evening, isn't it? You know, this magnificent sunset makes me think of that beautiful old Martian poem: '_To be with one's love when the scarlet orb._...'"

"Yeah," I said. "It's pretty, but unimportant. What I want to know is, who's hiding what from who? And if we're toting high explosives to Uranus, why doesn't the Old Man tell me so I can quit _now_?"

That got him. He snapped out of his trance and stared at me bewilderedly, his oversized Adam's-apple bobbling up and down in his throat like an unswallowed electric light bulb.

"What's that, Sparks? High explosives!"

And Diane said, "But that's impossible, Lancelot, dear. You _know_ Daddy would have told us, if--"

That's as far as she got with her iffing, for at that moment the skipper himself came waddling across the field like a pint-sized tornado on toes and rasped, "All right, let's get going! Everybody aboard! Sparks, audio all hands to rocket posts and get your clearance O.Q. Lancelot, set trajectory for Iapetus--and make it snappy! We're lifting gravs immediately, if not sooner."

"_Iapetus!_" gasped Diane. "But--but, Daddy, I thought we were shuttling a cargo to Uranus?"

"_Was!_" snapped the Old Man. "Not is. Orders have been changed. Get going, everybody!"

* * * * *

Well, there are limits. I planted my tootsies in good old terra firma and said stubbornly, "Not me, Skipper. I'm not stirring a step till I know what this is all about. Why this sudden shift of destination? And what were you and Johnston sneaking around corners to whisper about? And what are those lead cubes the cradle monks have been storing in our bin?"

"I ain't got time to explain now," said the Old Man. "Every minute counts. Now run along and--"

"Ah-hah!" I ah-hahed. "So it is explosives! O.Q., Skipper, consider me an ex-member of the _Saturn's_ crew, as of two minutes ago. Space travel's dangerous enough without lousing it up with dynamite which might or might not. My aim is to sail the spaceways in _peace_ ... not in _pieces_."

Cap Hanson's beefy face mottled dangerously, and he choked, "Confound you, Sparks, if there was another bug-pounder available I'd accept your resignation with whoops of glee. But as it is--Well, I'll tell you this much. It ain't explosives. It's something perfectly harmless but very valuable, which it's important we get to Iapetus before the Cosmic Corporation beats us there. _Now_--will you get goin', or do I have to--?"

"Oh, goody!" squealed Diane. "A race, eh, Daddy?"

"That's right," growled Hanson. "And a mighty important one, too, with about a quarter of a million credits hanging on it."

I sniffed. "Is that all? Then what's all the rush about? The race is not always to the swift."

"Oh, no?" The Skipper glared at me. "Says who?"

"Says a guy named Aesop."

"Well," snorted the Old Man, "all I got to say is that there Ee-sop friend of your'n didn't never bet on the ponies. Now, get goin', everybody, before I--"

So we went.

* * * * *

So we went, and of course with Lancelot Biggs on the bridge handling things it didn't take long to get going. Within a half hour we'd lifted gravs from Sun City, and in three shakes of a rocket's tail, Biggs had twisted our crate's nose about and pointed it at Saturn's eighth satellite, approximately 800,000,000 miles away.

Which left me with nothing to do till Slops gonged the dinner bell, so I was just sitting there reading the latest edition of _Spaceways Weekly_ when the door of my turret opened and in walked L. Biggs.

Well, call it "walked" if you want to. That overworked verb neither accurately nor truthfully describes Lanse Biggs' peculiar style of locomotion. His method of self-propulsion is a sort of cross between a sidle and a galumph. Think of a giraffe wading in oiled ball-bearings, or a Mexican jumping-bean on stalks, and you'll have some idea what I mean.

Anyhow, he came in, closed the door behind him and grinned at me triumphantly.

"Well, Sparks," he chortled, "I found out!"

"Yeah?" I snorted. "Well, now if you mosey around and find _in_, too, you'll have both sides of the swinging door, won't you? Found out what? What are you talking about?"

"Why, what you wanted to know. I found out what we're carrying to Iapetus."

My interest revived like a zombie at a Black Mass. "You did?" I exclaimed. "Finally wormed it out of the Old Man, eh? Well--what is it?"

"Seeds," said Lance.

"Huh?"

"Seeds."

I said, "Don't look now, but there must be something wrong with my ears. It keeps sounding like you're saying 'seeds'."

"That's exactly," said Biggs patiently, "what I _am_ saying, Sparks. We're carrying _seeds_ to Iapetus. You know, little round--"

"Doogummies," I finished for him, "with unfledged thingamajiggers in 'em. Yeah, I know what seeds are. But I'll be damned if I know why we're carrying seeds almost a billion miles across space to a hunk of rock so cold and bleak that you have to thaw out the air before you can breathe it."

"That's just it!" explained Biggs excitedly. "You see, until just recently it was thought that the climatic conditions on Iapetus made that world uninhabitable. But recently an exploration party has discovered that after you melt your way through a quarter mile sheathing of ice, the entire planet is honeycombed with a vast, connected, sponge-like series of caverns. Good, warm, habitable caverns with earth to grow things in, and--"

"Ice to cold storage them in," I concluded, "after you've grown 'em. It sounds enticing--in a horrible sort of way. So who wants to live there? Snowmen?"

* * * * *

Biggs said soberly, "Practically everybody who's heard about the discovery. You see, Sparks, they not only learned that Iapetus could sustain human life; they also discovered that the entire planet is one great storehouse of precious mineral ores.

"Miners, adventurers, homesteaders ... humans from all over the solar system are flocking there as fast as they can drive their space-craft. Iapetus is a boom planet. It's a gold rush that makes Sutter's Mill and the Klondike seem like a polite game of musical chairs."

I moaned feebly and pawed what by this time ought to be--even if it ain't--my graying thatch.

"What you're saying," I complained, "begins not to make sense faster than ever. Thousands of people flocking to the Iapetus mines with picks and shovels and dreams of wealth ... and we join the gold rush with a cargo of seeds. Why?"

"But, don't you see?" explained Biggs. "Where there are mines there are humans. Where there are humans there are communities. Where there are communities--"

"People get hungry!" I burst in. "Of course! Now I get it. We're bringing them the seeds to sow vegetables with, is that it? And--oboyoboy! If we get there first, it'll be worth millions."

Because I had remembered the "most favored company" clause in the General Space Regulations, the paragraph which grants an eleven year commercial monopoly on any product to that company which first introduces any product to a newly-developed outpost of civilization.

These extra-territorial rights are the prizes for which outfits like ours and the Cosmic Corporation vie eagerly, because when you gain such a privilege it's just like finding a free pass to an eleven year ride on the gravy train.

One of the lushest feathers on our company's commercial cap is the monopoly on electric refrigerators to the Mercurian outpost, just as the deepest lines were graven on the face of our Board of Directors when the Cosmic Corporation grabbed the atmosphere-conditioning privileges on methane-blanketed Uranus.

But my glee was shortlived, for Biggs looked embarrassed. He shuffled from one foot to another like a cow in a quagmire. And--

"It's--er--they're not vegetable seeds, Sparks," he said meekly.

"Huh?" I gasped. "Then what _are_ they? What other kinds of--?"

"Why--er--" said Lance, "they're flower seeds."

* * * * *

I said, "Flower seeds! Sweet howling serpents of Sirius! Curl my hair and call me a chrysanthemum! Has the whole darned I.P.S. gone lah-dee-dah? Why in the name of--"

Biggs said soberly, "Now don't get upset, Sparks. It's not so silly as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most intelligent moves I've ever known the stuffed sh--I mean, the officials of our company to make. You see, flower seeds are a great deal more valuable than vegetable seeds."

"Oh, yeah! Sure! That's easy to prove, too. When a man's starving, just give him his choice between a loaf of bread and an orchid corsage--"

"No, Sparks, that's not the situation at all. You see, the problem here is not one of feeding the Iapetan colonists. They have plenty to eat. The satellite is so near its mother planet that edible supplies can be imported in great quantities. And even though food concentrates are not always particularly tempting to the palate--"

"Like," I told him, "dead fish ain't always particularly pleasing to the nostrils--"

"Nevertheless," continued Lancelot Biggs, "the Iapetan miners will have plenty of food. But to borrow an expression from a wise old book, 'Man does not live by bread alone.' There is such a thing, you know, as maintaining public morale, and one of the best ways of doing this is to offer people some small but tender fragment of beauty. Something to delight the eye with its color, soften the air with its fragrance. In short--flowers.

"You know, it's like some old Indian philosopher said way back in the 20th Century: If a man has but two coins in his pocket, he should take one of them and buy 'hyacinths wherewith to feed the soul'."

"Nevertheless--" I interrupted doggedly.

"So," pursued Biggs, "our company is being very clever in hurrying this shipment of flower seeds to Iapetus. Not only because the people will love them, buy them, plant them eagerly for the pure, sensual pleasure of watching something grow--but also because there is big money in it.

"Didn't you ever hear of the famous Holland Tulip Market where fabulous prices were paid for unusual buds?[1] Who knows but that something like that might happen on Iapetus, and our company might make millions!"

[Footnote 1: "Every reader possibly knows of the 'Tulip Mania' in Holland (1634 to about 1638 A.D.) when speculation in bulbs became as wild as speculation has been at other times on the Stock Market. A record price of 13,000 florins (equal to about 260,000 florins today, or $104,000 American money) is reported to have been paid during the mania for one bulb of the variety _Semper Augustus_." Gager: _The Plant World_.--ED.]

"Out of which," I conceded grudgingly, "we might even collect a half day's pay as bonus. Well, maybe you've got something there, Lance. Maybe it _is_ a good idea. But when I signed up for space service I never thought I'd end up as flower boy to a cosmic wedding."

* * * * *

This last comment elicited an unexpected result. At the word "wedding," Biggs stiffened like the feature attraction at a post-mortem. A frenzied look glazed his eyes.

"Oh!" he gulped. "Wedding! Sparks, thanks a million. I had almost forgotten."

"Forgotten what?" I demanded.

"Why, my anniversary."

"Anniversary! Are you off your beam? Why, you and Diane have only been married--"

"Two months," nodded Lancelot Biggs. "Day after tomorrow is our third anniversary." He swallowed sort of shyly, which is hard to do when your emotion exhibits itself in the frenzied leaping of a laryngial elevator. "Diane and I--well, we celebrate our wedding every month on the anniversary of the day we were married."

"And no quicker road to the poor-house," I sniffed, "was ever macadamized. So what are you going to do by way of celebration, Romeo? Take her to the observation deck and treat her to a view of the starry firmament revolving in its courses? That's about all the excitement there is available on this crate."

Biggs had been thinking furiously, a process which is always demonstrated by the way he shuffles from one foot to another. Now he snapped his fingers.

"No--I've got it, Sparks. Something unusual. A real surprise. Something that will startle and delight her."

"I know," I hazarded. "A new frock. You're going to whip it up in your spare time out of tarpaulin and old tablecloths."

"No, Sparks, I'm going to give Diane--" He paused dramatically--"flowers. Fresh flowers!"

I stared at him stupidly. And no cracks about how I couldn't very well do anything else.

"Flowers?" I repeated. "But where in blazes are you going to get fresh flowers out here in the middle of space?"

Biggs jerked a knuckly thumb in the general direction of the ship's hold. "Why, down there, of course. From our cargo bin."

I stared at him disgustedly. "Oh, sure," I drawled. "Pardon me all to hell. I plumb forgot about them. But look: aren't you overlooking one tiny detail? Those blossoms are in what is technically known as the 'papoose' stage. Which means they're only about six weeks shy of blooming. Not to mention the fact that at present they're planted in air-tight lead containers."

* * * * *

Biggs shrugged easily. "Oh, _that_!" he scoffed. "A mere nothing. Haven't you ever heard of hydroponic culture, Sparks?"

"Hydro-whichic-whature?"

"Hydroponic culture," he repeated. "It's a method of growing plants artificially in tanks of water chemically treated with the constituents necessary to growth. It's very old. Over three hundred years."

"Maybe so," I granted. "But those seeds are very young. And you've only got seventy-two hours to work in. Even with artificial culture, how are you going to bring them to full bloom in three days?"

Biggs said happily, "That's the most wonderful part of it, Sparks. It so happens that only recently I have been conducting a series of experiments on plant culture. If my theories are right, I think I have discovered a way to speed up the growth of living vegetation tremendously. Of course, my ideas are still only in the experimental stage, but I'm practically certain they will work."

I said, "Oh-oh!" and started for the door.

Biggs stared at me anxiously. "What's the matter, Sparks? Where are you going?"

"I don't know," I told him, "but wherever it is, it's a long way from here. I've had experience with inventions of yours before.[2] If you're going to start fiddling around again with things you don't know anything about--"

[Footnote 2: For stories of Sparks' experiences with Lancelot Biggs' inventions, see copies of _Fantastic Adventures_ and _Amazing Stories_, 1940-1-2.--ED.]

"But I _do_ know _all_ about it, Sparks," wailed Lancelot. "And I'm almost positive my plan will work. Now, be a good fellow, will you? Help me carry one of those lead containers up to that spare chamber on A Deck, and, let's see--I'll need a tank, a quart of vitamin B extract, an ultraviolet ray lamp--"

So, you know me. Lollypop Donovan, the eternal sucker. I helped him.

* * * * *

By way of alibi, I might as well confess here and now that I didn't think anything would come of Biggs' experiment. Oh, I know that in the past he has pulled so many bunnies out of the _chapeau_ that his hat resembles a rabbit-warren. But this time I would have bet my somewhat battered immortal soul to the Black Gentleman with the Long Tail that Biggs had bitten off more than he could chew. 'Cause according to what my mama done tole me about the bees and the birds and the flowers, that biological phenomenon known as "life" requires a certain amount of time to establish itself.

But small items like impossibilities don't faze Mr. Biggs. He's the kind of a guy who never says die until he finds himself reporting for duty to the white-winged watchman at the Pearly Gates.

So for several hours he fiddled and diddled around with the complex array of gadgets he had accumulated, and finally he turned to me and said, with a smile of satisfaction, "Well, Sparks, there it is! How does it look?"

"It looks," I told him frankly, "like a nauseous bathtub on stilts. You mean you really expect to grow flowers in that overgrown fishbowl?"

"That's the idea."

"Well, how about the ultraviolet ray lamp? What's _that_ for?"

"Why," said Biggs, "that's an important part of my new invention. It isn't ... er ... exactly an ultraviolet ray lamp any more, Sparks. I made a few minor adjustments on it. It now emits rays in the Hertzian range. That is, between one M and one-tenth CM in length, electrical waves for which--up till the present time--no use has ever been found. But if my theory is correct, they should irradiate the growing seeds pods with--"

"Never mind," I interrupted him hastily. "You're just wasting your breath and my time. Let's turn on the juice and see what happens."

"All right," said Biggs. "Let's have that container. What have we here anyhow? Ah! _Rosa rugosa!_ They should be lovely. Diane will be delighted."

"Oh, hell!" I said. "Did we get the wrong container? Wait a minute. I'll go get one with flower seeds in it."

"No, Sparks. _Rosa rugosa_ is a type of beautiful red rose. These should be exquisite. Here, I've got the seals open. Help me scatter some of these seeds carefully on the surface of the water ... there ... that's it! Now, the radiation--"

* * * * *

He clicked a switch and the lamp turned on. That is, I suppose it turned on. I wouldn't know about that exactly, for it emitted no light. But it must have been emitting _something_, for it did funny things to the light already existing in the room. It turned things all topsy-turvy.

You know how it is when you stand in front of a photographer's shop where they have those violet incandescents? Your flesh sort of turns bilious green and your lips look like something the cat dragged out of the well? Well, that's what happened now. I looked at Biggs and grinned, and he looked at me and split lavender lips in a blue-fanged, terrifying smile.

"Well!" he said. "There we are. Seventy-two hours from now, when we reach Iapetus, Diane should have a magnificent bouquet of dewy-fresh Earth roses, the first ever to be worn on that outpost."

"And seventy-two _seconds_ from now," I told him, "I'm going to have the screaming meemies from looking at that grass-colored pan of yours. Let's get out of here."

* * * * *

Well, for the next couple of days nothing much happened. The _Saturn_ had been cut over to the V-I unit,[3] of course, and we were jogging along at a very tidy and comfortable rate of 185,000 m.p.h. toward our destination. Having helped Lancelot Biggs to the best of my abilities, I now co-operated in his further efforts (to the betterment of my sanity) by remaining away from his experimental chamber. He, too, remained pretty much in seclusion. The only time I saw him was on the second day after noon mess when he came wandering up to my turret mumbling to himself like a cow in a clover path.

[Footnote 3: The V-I (velocity-intensifier) unit is an invention of Lt. Lancelot Biggs which permits space-craft to attain velocities approaching the "limiting velocity" of light, i.e., approximately 186,000 miles per second.--ED.]

"Sparks," he demanded, "what rhymes with void?"

"Boid," I told him promptly. "Which I ain't ... and 'annoyed' which I am. Can't a hard-working radioman even catch up his slumbers around here without you getting in his hair? Why? When did you develop the poet complex?"

He flushed and laughed awkwardly, "Well, it--er--doesn't really matter," he temporized. "I was just trying to--Well, I thought it would be amusing to write a little poem to say to Diane when I gave her the roses. You know, a sort of a--love song."

"Some people," I snorted, "are born for trouble, and some people have trouble thrust upon them ... but you're the first guy I ever knew who went out of his way looking for it. Now it's love songs to go with the roses. By the way, how are the roses coming along?"

"Why, all right, I suppose," said Biggs. "I haven't been in to see them since yesterday. You see, I have the thermoes turned up to max in that room and it's pretty hot--"

"Not half so hot," I told him, "as the Old Man's going to be when he finds out you're the one who swiped that container from the cargo bin."

Biggs looked started. "Oh! Has he discovered one of them's gone?"

"You're darn tootin' he has! He came busting up here and asked me if I knew anything about it. I suggested maybe it was mice, but that didn't go over so big on account of mice don't generally build lead-covered bungalows. So if he happens to ask you, you'd better--"

"Better," interrupted an irate voice from the doorway, "what?"

* * * * *

The two of us spun like drunks in a revolving door. It was Cap Hanson himself, big as life and twice as furious. Biggs gulped.

"Oh--er--hello, Skipper. Sparks and I were just talking about--er--"

"About poetry," I finished. "Lanse was looking for a rhyme for--"