“I thought it was that ship you mentioned earlier, the Yandro. Aren’t they all coming in on Titan to refuel?”
“They won’t come that close! Jehosaphat—it’s going to skin me for sure.” Webb whirled to the auto pilot and stopped the tapes. The bucket was now dropping tail-first toward Titan and he took over manual control to increase deceleration. After several minutes he cut the engines and glanced again at the radar.
“What did the teletype say? Read the last one.”
“Torcon to Xanthus,” she read aloud, “Alert. Floater off tape Amarcon to Titan. Clamoring. Approximate locus BG 90037YY crossed BA 34345YY. Ownership reward posted Amarcon advise if. X.”
“I can’t understand any part of it,” Kate commented.
Webb jotted down the figures and then compared them to his own. “Skinned!” he yelled at her, and again applied decelerating force. While the motors were still firing he turned attention to his steering rockets and loosed jets of pressurized gas, altering course a fraction of a degree. She could see no change in position of the blip on the screen but Webb seemed satisfied for the moment.
“What is Amarcon?” Kate asked. “Which tower is that?”
“Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo launched that ship.”
“But what happened to it?”
“How the devil would I know? anything could have happened—maybe it met a rock, there are rocks as big as houses out here.” He pulled the typed message from her fingers, studying it. “It’s wrecked, because the distress signal is clamoring. Off tape means that the impact, or whatever it was, damaged the auto pilot or ruined his tapes. He’s falling free in whatever direction he was kicked.”
“What is the meaning of that last line?”
“The owners have posted a recovery bond at Amarillo. Torcon wants to know if I’m going after it.”
“Are you?”
Webb eyed the blip carefully. “I might. I just might. I’ve lost tape now anyway—I’ll have to take it into refueling orbit on manual.” He swung around to grin at the woman. “I could use the money.”
“Of course. I imagine that you are penniless.”
The teletypewriter came to excited life to underscore her words. Webb flicked a meaningful finger and she pulled out the sheet to read it.
“Torcon to Xanthus; Emergency repeat emergency. Derelict riding you collision course 46 hours plus minus 12 minutes. Take evasive action. Advise. X.”
Webb rammed his hands into his pockets and laughed. “Hell, yes, I’m going after him! You can tell ‘em that.”
Webb found the silhouette looming before him and threw out his legs to land gently feet-first on the hull, knowing that the noise of his arrival could be heard by anyone within the ship—if it still contained air and if anyone was alive to listen. The derelict vessel was small and slimly rounded and he thought he recognized the type: a fast, sporty job, out-shopped at Toledo at premium prices for people who thought they could afford such jellyboats. Moving carefully, he crawled around the hull and was surprised to find the airlock open. A blinking light in the lock was the only thing to meet his startled gaze.
He slid in, closed the outer valve and punched for entry. The ship’s interior opened to him and he found a wide and wasteful corridor serving three rooms. Webb was astonished at the opulent waste—three rooms and a corridor under pressure! A quick glance forward revealed that the third and last room was the pilot’s hutch, but nearer at hand were two open doors giving glimpses of private cabins. Webb stepped into the corridor. The first cabin to fall under his scrutiny was empty and he passed it by, noting only that it contained a low bed—not a bunk.
In the second cabin the suited figure of a man lay supine on clean sheets. The man was alive and lifted a hand to wave a weak greeting. Webb returned the greeting and then stepped closer.
The survivor was handcuffed. His other hand was manacled to a small black box and the box was again cuffed to the stanchion supporting the bed.
“I’ll be damned!” Webb said aloud. “You a crook?”
“Courier,” was the whispered answer. “The pilot has the key.”
“I think the pilot stepped outside a long ways back,” Webb said brutally. He looked around the expensive cabin. The fellow stayed in bed because he was securely fastened to it; he could not reach the galley built into the opposite wall, nor the doorway, nor anyplace that was more than a foot or two distant from the stanchion. “How long have you been there?”
“I don’t know,” was the tired whisper. “Lost count.”
“What’s in the black box—must be pretty hot stuff?”
“Don’t know,” the courier repeated. “I wasn’t told.”
“Hell of a note,” Webb said. “I’ll look for a hacksaw or something.”
He quit the cabin and went forward to the pilot’s cubicle. The place was minute—actually cramped—but it contained everything a man would need or desire to move his ship between planets. In that first sweeping glance Webb knew an overpowering envy of that cockpit—it was the kind of a cockpit (and the kind of a ship) that he would never be able to afford, no matter how much money the damned bureaucrats dumped into his lap.
The radar was still operating and he saw his own bucket on the screen. A key hung above the radar, and Webb pulled it from its fastener in frowning wonder. There was no ignition lock on the control board to receive that key, and he found himself looking back down the corridor with puzzled concentration. The noise of the teletype brought him around. It was a wonderfully compact model, fitted into a recess in the bulkhead.
XANTHUS TO TORCON: WEBB
ENROUTE TO DERELICT,
WILL CLAIM BOND. PAYING
PASSENGER ORDERED TO
DISEMBARK TITAN, DESPITE
HER PROTESTS. UNHAPPY. X
“The hell you are!” he roared in anger. “Now, the hell you are. Ain’t that too goddam bad?” He ripped the message from the machine and tucked it into a flap pocket.
After a moment he remembered his mission and searched for the auto pilot. It was artfully concealed behind a sliding panel in the bulkhead, and a soft sticky plastic scattered over the base of the robot provided a clue to the riddle of the ship. The tapes were broken, of course, and with their parting the motors had stopped, setting off the distress signal. Webb traced a gloved finger through the fallen plastic and guessed how death had come to the sleek vessel. A hurtling rock or other bit of deadly something had pierced the hull at precisely the wrong spot, smashing through the twin hulls and the inner layer of insulating plastic to strike the auto pilot. Toledo couldn’t have prevented that.
Webb checked the pressure gauge and found it normal. After the piercing, then, the pilot had gone topside to repair the puncture, allowing the pressure to rebuild itself. The man’s next move should have been to call his tower and reassure them, but this man hadn’t returned from his patching chore; he was still out there somewhere in the darkness—the open airlock told that, and the drifting of the ship and the hungry, manacled courier underscored it. The damned fool had gone topside and tumbled off—or was knocked off. Too bad for him. The first mistake is the last and that pilot evidently committed it.
Webb made an entry in the vessel’s log to protect his recovery claim and quit the throne room.
The waiting courier revealed his surprise when Webb unlocked the cuffs. “Where did you get the key?”
“Top secret—security regulations, and all that bilge. What do you suppose is in that damned box?” Webb pulled the courier to his feet. “Let’s get going.” But he was dissatisfied with the courier’s slow progress and pulled his feet free of the deck to tow him.
They stopped in the airlock and Webb turned his head to look back. The first nagging doubt struck him there.
It was no more than a small jabbing suspicion but he couldn’t shake it off. Planting the courier, he moved back into the brilliantly lighted corridor and stared the empty length of it. The derelict seemed filled with his quick mistrust. Webb prowled cautiously
along the corridor, retracing his earlier route of exploration. Every detail fell beneath his doubting scrutiny. The first cabin with its door hanging awry (the cabin and the bed had been used), the next cabin and its door (of course it had been used, with immaculate sheets on both beds), the remaining cuffs still fastened to the stanchion, the tiny cockpit (complete to the last beautiful appointment). There seemed to be nothing amiss.
But something was.
Webb looked at the radar screen, at the pressure gauge, at the fuel indicators, at the clip that had held the key, at the broken tapes, at the scattered bits of plastic, at the teletype, at the star compass. What could be found wrong with all that? The vessel was in tidy order in those places where order was expected; it was in proper disorder in those places where disorder must be. Why then, should he be pricked with uncertainty? Why should he mistrust the derelict?
The haunting doubt remained.
In foul temper, Webb buckled the survivor to his belt and jumped for the Xanthus.
Kate Bristol’s eyes widened when she saw the courier but Webb missed that and the glances exchanged between them. He buckled the man into the lower bunk and said, “Feed him.” And then he went forward to the teletypewriter.
XANTHUS TO PROMISED
LAND TITAN: APPROACHING
YOU NINE HOURS LATE,
SHALL KEEP ASSIGNED ORBIT
OR WILL YOU SUBSTITUTE?
REQUIRE RE-PLOT, ORBIT TO
TOMBAUGH, MUST CLEAR
FAST. TWO PASSENGERS
DISEMBARKING TITAN: ONE
MONEY & TICKET GUESTHOUSE,
ONE HOSPITAL AMARCON
SPONSORSHIP. X
Not waiting for the reply, Webb dropped tools in his pocket and went below decks to begin the job of converting his engines to methane. The hatch slammed behind him.
Kate pushed herself toward the hatch and listened. When she was certain that Webb was really gone, she sped back to the courier in the bunk. The man was already twisting and squirming in his suit, seeking to reach something concealed inside. In a moment he brought out a tiny key and unlocked the box shackled to his wrist.
“Take this quickly,” the courier urged. “Give me your radio. Hurry, before he returns.”
“You are the last man I expected to see out here,” Kate exclaimed, still surprised at his appearance.
“Never mind that! Give me your radio—quickly!”
“But what are you doing here?”
“For heaven’s sake, Kate, I’m bringing you a new radio. Take it. Yours is defective—hadn’t you noticed?” And he pressed into her hand the counterpart to that emergency instrument given her by the communications office of the insurance company. “You’re fouling every screen within thousands of miles—hundreds of thousands of miles.”
“The ghost!” Kate exclaimed. “Yes. The boys in Communications realized the error as soon as this ship left Toronto; the interference vanished with your departure. Give me your radio!”
She whirled away to vanish behind the newly hung door. The courier watched the closed hatch fearfully, expecting Webb to return before she did. After some moments the woman was back and the courier snatched the defective radio from her grasp, to lock it away in the little black box.
“The radio will be dismantled after I land,” he said. “I don’t dare touch it now, lest he become suspicious.”
“But the derelict, the floater—”
“My ship is not now and never was a derelict. The pilot is still on board and he will continue to drift with the vessel until it is intercepted by the patrol, or until you are safely out of range. He concealed himself below deck. The piece was cut from whole cloth to trap Webb—our people gambled on Webb’s greed.”
“But it seemed such a genuine collision.”
“It would have been a genuine collision if Webb had not avoided it; the authenticity was necessary, don’t you see? Webb would avoid it, of course, and we knew he would also inspect the floater if it meant additional money to him.”
“But what would have happened if Webb simply dodged around you and went on his way?”
“We would have continued floating. But another man with another radio would have met you in orbit over Titan.”
“Another one!”
“Certainly. The supervisor was overlooking nothing.”
“Too bad,” Kate said. “Webb is booting me off the ship at Titan. He’s cancelling my charter.”
“I doubt that,” the courier replied. “The man who will meet you in orbit is an attorney. One of our people. Tell him your troubles if you wish to stay aboard.”
The teletypewriter said:
PROMISED LAND TITAN TO
XANTHUS: MAINTAIN ASSIGNED
ORBIT, SAME NOW OPEN TO
YOU. RE-PLOT READY SOON.
LAUNCH MEET YOU IN ORBIT
TO REMOVE TWO PASSENGERS.
WELCOME LADY. X
“A measure of fame, I suppose,” Kate commented.
When Webb returned to the cabin she was spooning hot soup into the courier. The man seemed to eat it greedily. Some of the soup spilled down onto his beard.
The government launch Kteic approached Webb’s ship, matched speeds and locked on. When the crew had secured the transfer tube from airlock to airlock, Kate Bristol and the courier were moved to the launch. Webb did not hide his relief at their going.
“I want to thank you, sir,” the courier said in parting. Taking me off the derelict means more than you know, and I am properly grateful.”
Webb waved him off. “Never mind that bilge. Just make sure that joker in Amarillo sends me my money.”
“I find that touching, Mr. Webb,” Kate intervened. “So much in character. As for myself, I am looking forward to a bath. I have endured more than three hundred and fifty hours on this—this tub, and I need a bath.”
“Get the hell off my ship!” Webb roared.
Within minutes after the launch had pulled away another gentle bump sounded on the hull as the methane tanker locked on topside, to begin refueling operations. Webb snatched up a pair of methane nozzles from the tool locker and sped aft to the engine room to complete the changeover. Not until he was finished did he realize that he hadn’t thoroughly inspected that derelict after all—he hadn’t gone below for a look at its power plant.
The two ships orbited together for nearly three hours, making the bucket ready for the long jump.
Minutes before departure the launch returned with the new tapes, alloting him one thousand, two hundred and twenty-six hours to reach the Tombaugh. Webb snatched the tapes and fitted them into his auto pilot, completing the job and turning to begin some other task before he realized that the launch had also brought him two newcomers. They stood just inside the hatch, looking at him.
Webb exploded with rage. “I told you to get the hell off ship!” he yelled at Kate Bristol. And to the man beside her, “Who are you? What the hell you doing here?”
“My name is Abraham Calkins, sir. May we come aboard?” He flourished a calling card and handed it to Webb.
“You are aboard—now get off!” Webb read the card. “A jackleg, a damned jackleg!”
A shadow passed over Calkins’ face but his voice remained smooth. “A brief moment, sir, and I shall be on my way. I realize you are facing a deadline of some few minutes, but I represent Miss Bristol in this matter.”
“I’m hauling out of here when those tapes fire,” Webb retorted. “I’ve got to catch the Tombaugh—I’m not going to go chasing a dirty ball of ice along the rim of the solar system,” He blinked. “What matter?”
“Miss Bristol’s passage, sir. The matter of the original charter.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I shall make it clear. Miss Bristol chartered this vessel at Toronto for a sum of money agreed upon in advance. The sum was paid and her acceptance is now a matter of record. It was her desire to engage transportation to one of the Outer Moons, and you agreed to lend your vessel for that purpos
e. You reserved the right to select the ultimate destination, subject to cargo demands, and she agreed to the reservation. All this is correct, is it not?”
“Keep talking—fast.”
“Very well. Now then, in due course you took on cargo which was consigned to the Tombaugh Station, on Pluto. Miss Bristol did not cancel the charter upon learning that information, nor did you. There was no refund of monies. Therefore the verbal contract between you, augmented by the written records on file at Toronto, remained in effect when you left that port. The contract is still binding, sir. The lady still retains charter on this vessel.”
“Bully! Are we all going to the Tombaugh? This bucket is jumping orbit pretty damned quick.”
“I am sorry, sir, but your vessel will not leave orbit without fulfilling the contract.” He displayed a legal form in blue binding. “I have here a writ of legal attachment on this vessel. A law enforcement officer is waiting in the launch. Unless I release you, the writ will be served and the launch will stand by to make sure you remain in orbit.”
“Damn you, you can’t hold me here!”
“I can and will, sir, with the assistance of the officer and the launch.” The attorney shrugged. “But you have your legal rights, of course. You are free to contest our claim in the courts. You may return to the Promised Land with us now, if you wish, and I am sure the case can be heard within two or three days.”
“I can’t wait two or three days,” Webb bellowed. “I’m jumping in two or three minutes! Get clear!”
“No, sir.”
“Damn you, I’m going to Pluto. I only agreed to take her to one of the moons.”
Time Exposures Page 19
