To the Tombaugh Station

by Wilson Tucker

  Webb eyed her dourly and grunted. “Come here.” He led the way to the toilet cubicle and flung the door open. “See those two levers mounted on the wall? You push one and then you push the other. One at a time. It’s an airlock and it dumps the waste matter. Simple, eh?”

  “Primitive, but simple,” she agreed.

  “Sure.” Webb slammed the door shut, venting his annoyance on the thing. “There’s always an hour or two in orbit; a man can knock around and take care of the little things while he’s waiting. Singleton got the bright idea that he wanted to use the head. Of all times, he waits until he reaches orbit and then wants to use the head. So he used it. And then the damned fool flushed away his air pressure. He was dead in fifty or a hundred seconds.”

  “But couldn’t someone have—”

  “He was alone,” Webb cut her off. “He was taking a load to the Arzachel Crater and he was so damned dumb he couldn’t get to the moon without killing himself. The kid was naked, he liked to ride that way, and he was passing time before die Van Allen belts. So he boiled to death in his own juice—blood, saliva, tears, everything boiled.”

  Kate said faintly, “Your ship should be equipped with safety devices.”

  “It is,” Webb retorted. “Use one hand and press one lever at a time. You can’t beat common sense as a safety device. Don’t lay on both of them with the length of your arm—that’s no way to handle airlock valves.”

  “But why was the other partner jailed?”

  “Suspicion of murder. Jimmy Cross had just overhauled several pieces of gear before the kid took off for the moon, and the cops figure Jimmy did something to foul the kid.” Webb rubbed the stubble of beard. “The insurance company must think so too—they haven’t paid off yet.”

  “Is it possible for a mechanic to jam the device?”

  “A good mechanic can fix or foul anything,” Webb said savagely. “The cops dug around in the bulkheads, looking for wires or something to prove that the two valves were rigged to open together—for all the good it did them. Singleton killed himself and that was that!”

  The drive motors cut off abruptly.

  Kate reached out a quick hand to steady herself and then braced her feet apart on the deck. “What’s the matter?” she asked in alarm.

  “Nothing. We’re coasting—it’s programmed on the tapes. You may as well get used to it, we’ll be doing it off and on all the way.” He grinned at her discomfiture. “You can’t drive an old bucket like this at speed all the time—it might fall apart.”

  She nodded and sat down on the deck, hugging her boots to hold herself there. She wondered at the mild surprise she had read on his face when the motors stopped.

  The old ship bored outward for endless hours and a pattern of life within the cramped confines of the cabin gradually asserted itself. They ate, slept, paced the narrow aisle, sat on it, lay on it, and picked or nagged at threads of conversation. She was plainly bored with the journey but Webb seemed to enjoy the solitude. The Xanthus drove for Titan in fitful spurts, destroying time and distance.

  Less than a hundred hours from their destination a Boater intercepted them.

  Webb was awakened in his bunk by Bristol shaking his shoulder. He pushed her off and rolled over to listen to his ship; it was a motion performed by habit each time he regained consciousness, a brief moment of total vigilance during which his senses tested the sound and feel of the vessel, for rightness.

  She said, “There are several messages on the teletype you should read, something about a floater. What is a floater?”

  “A derelict,” Webb grunted and placed the palm of his hand on the bulkhead to listen to the vibrations. “Let the damned thing float—I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  “I think you had better read these, Mr. Webb. And you should look at your radar screen.”

  He was out of the bunk before she finished, staring at the blip on the screen. “Where did that come from?”

  “It has been there for several hours.”

  “Why in the hell didn’t you wake me?” he barked. “The damned thing is too close—it might skin me.”

  “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 AS SIGNED 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.