Satellite System

by H. B. Fyfe

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  SATELLITE

  SYSTEM

  By H. B. FYFE

  _Fyfe's quite right ... there's nothing like a satellite system for a cold storage arrangement. Keeps things handy, but out of the way...._

  Illustrated by Summers

  * * * * *

  Having released the netting of his bunk, George Tremont floatedhimself out. He ran his tongue around his mouth and grimaced.

  "Wonder how long I slept ... feels like too long," he muttered. "Well,they would have called me."

  The "cabin" was a ninety-degree wedge of a cylinder hardly eight feethigh. From one end of its outer arc across to the other was just overten feet, so that it had been necessary to bevel two corners of thehinged, three-by-seven bunk to clear the sides of the wedge. Lockersflattened the arc behind the bunk.

  Tremont maneuvered himself into a vertical position in the eighteeninches between the bunk and a flat surface that cut off the point ofthe wedge. He stretched out an arm to remove towel and razor from oneof the lockers, then carefully folded the bunk upward and hooked itsecurely in place.

  With room to turn now, he swung around and slid open a double door inthe flat surface, revealing a shaft three feet square whose center wasalso the theoretical intersection of his cabin walls. Tremont pulledhimself into the shaft. From "up" forward, light leaked through apartly open hatch, and he could hear a murmur of voices as hejackknifed in the opposite direction.

  "At least two of them are up there," he grunted.

  He wondered which of the other three cabins was occupied, meanwhilepulling himself along by the ladder rungs welded to one corner of theshaft. He reached a slightly wider section aft, which boastedentrances to two air locks, a spacesuit locker, a galley, and a head.He entered the last, noting the murmur of air-conditioning machineryon the other side of the bulkhead.

  Tremont hooked a foot under a toehold to maintain his position facinga mirror. He plugged in his razor, turned on the exhauster in the slotbelow the mirror to keep the clippings out of his eyes, and began toshave. As the beard disappeared, he considered the deals he had cometo Centauri to put through.

  "A funny business!" he told his image. "Dealing in ideas! Can youreally sell a man's thoughts?"

  Beginning to work around his chin, he decided that it actually waspractical. Ideas, in fact, were almost the only kind of import worthbringing from Sol to Alpha Centauri. Large-scale shipments ofnecessities were handled by the Federated Governments. To carry evenprecious or power metals to Earth or to return with any type ofmanufactured luxury was simply too expensive in money, fuel, effort,and time.

  On the other hand, traveling back every five years to buy up plans andlicenses for the latest inventions or processes--_that_ was profitableenough to provide a good living for many a man in Tremont's business.All he needed were a number of reliable contacts and a good knowledgeof the needs of the three planets and four satellites colonized inthe Centaurian system.

  Only three days earlier, Tremont had returned from his most recenttrip to the old star, landing from the great interstellar ship on theouter moon of Centauri VII. There he leased this small rocket--the_Annabel_, registered more officially as the AC7-4-525--for his localtraveling. It would be another five days before he reached theinhabited moons of Centauri VI.

  He stopped next in the galley for a quick breakfast out of tubes,regretting the greater convenience of the starship, then returned thetowel and razor to his cabin. He decided that his slightly rumpledshirt and slacks of utilitarian gray would do for another day. Aboutthirty-eight, an inch or two less than six feet and muscularly slim,Tremont had an air of habitual neatness. His dark hair, thinning atthe temples, was clipped short and brushed straight back. There weresmile wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes and grooving his leancheeks.

  He closed the cabin doors and pulled himself forward to enter thecontrol room through the partly open hatch. The forward bulkheadoffered no more head room than did his own cabin, but there seemed tobe more breathing space because this chamber was not quartered. Deckspace, however, was at such a premium because of the controls,acceleration couches, and astrogating equipment that the hatch was thelargest clear area.

  Two men and a girl turned startled eyes upon Tremont as he rose intotheir view. One of the men, about forty-five but sporting a youngishmanner to match his blond crewcut and tanned features, glanced quicklyat his wrist watch.

  "Am I too early?" demanded Tremont with sudden coldness. "What are youdoing with my case there?"

  The girl, in her early twenties and carefully pretty with her longblack hair neatly netted for space, snatched back a small hand fromthe steel strongbox that was shaped to fit into an attache case. Thesecond man, under thirty but thick-waisted in a gray tee-shirt, saidin the next breath, "Take him!"

  Too late, Tremont saw that the speaker had already braced a footagainst the far bulkhead. Then the broad face with its crooked blob ofa nose above a ridiculous little mustache shot across the chamber athim. Desperately, Tremont groped for a hold that would help him eitherto avoid the charge or to pull himself back into the shaft, but he wascaught half in and half out.

  He met the rush with a fist, but the tangle of bodies immediatelybecame confusing beyond belief as the other pair joined in.

  Something cracked across the back of his head, much too hard to havebeen accidental.

  When Tremont began to function again, it took him only a few secondsto realize that life had been going on without him for some littletime.

  For one thing, the heavy man's nosebleed had stopped, and he wastenderly combing blood from his mustache with a fingertip.

  For another, they had managed to stuff Tremont into a spacesuit andhaul him down the shaft to the air lock. Someone had noosed the thumbsof the gauntlets together and tied the cord to the harness supportingthe air tanks.

  Tremont twisted his head around to eye the three of them withoutspeaking. He was trying to decide where he had made his mistake.

  Bill Braigh, the elderly youth with the crewcut? Ralph Peters, thepilot who had come with the ship? Dorothy Stauber, the trim brunettewho had made the trip from Earth on the same starship as Tremont? Hecould not make up his mind without more to go on.

  Then he remembered with a sinking sensation that _all_ of them hadbeen clustered about his case of papers and microfilms when he hadinterrupted them.

  "I trust you aren't thinking of making us any trouble, Tremont,"drawled Braigh. "Give up the idea; you've been no trouble at all."

  "Where do you think this is getting you?" demanded Tremont.

  Braigh chuckled.

  "Wherever it would have gotten you," he said. "Only at less expense."

  "Ask him for the combination," growled Peters.

  Braigh scrutinized Tremont's expression.

  "It would probably take us a while, Ralph," he decided regretfully."It's simpler to put him outside now and be free to use tools on thebox."

  Tremont opened his mouth to protest, but Braigh clapped the helmetover his head and screwed it fast.

  "You'll never read the code!" yelled Tremont, struggling to breakfree. "Those papers are no good to you without me!"

  Someone slammed him against the bulkhead and held him there with hisface to it. He could do nothing with his hands
, joined as they were,and very little with his feet. It dawned upon him that they could nothear a word, and he fell silent. Twisting his head to peer out theside curve of his vision band, he caught a glimpse of Peters suitingup.

  A few minutes later, they opened the inner hatch of the air lock andshoved Tremont inside. Peters followed, gripping him firmly about theknees from behind.

  "Here we go!" grunted Peters, and Tremont realized that he couldcommunicate again, over their suit radios.

  "You won't get far, trying to read the code I have those paperswritten in," he warned. "You'd better talk this over before you make amistake."

  "Ain't no mistake about it," said Peters, pressing toward the outerhatch. "So you chartered the rocket. You felt you oughta go out to seeabout a heavy dust particle hitting the hull. You fell off an' wenever found you."

  "How will you explain not going yourself? Or not