The World of Ptavvs

by Larry Niven

  “I’ll never buy that,” Garner had answered. “But you’re right, there’s no point in crying for help. There may be a better answer.”

  And so they waited. If they were right, if the stolen ships were going to the eighth planet, they would be turning in six days. Luke and Anderson had nothing to do until the ET’s gave them their orders.

  Luke went to sleep, finally, smiling. He smiled because the gees were pulling on his cheeks. Anderson was sleeping too, letting the autopilot do the work.

  At twenty-one hundred the next day the last pair of strap-ons burned out, and were dropped. Now six tumbling pairs of thick-walled metal cylinders followed the Heinlein in a line millions of miles long. In a century all would reach interstellar space. Some would eventually pass between the galaxies.

  The ship went on at a comfortable one gee. Luke scowled ferociously to exercise his facial muscles, and Anderson stepped into the airlock to do isometric exercises.

  The rocks of the Belt slipped by below, faster every second.

  He was a clerkish-looking man with a droning voice, and he called himself Ceres Base. From his appearance he might never have had a name of his own. He wanted to know what an Earth Navy ship was doing in the Belt.

  “We have passage,” Anderson told him curtly.

  Yes, said Ceres, but what is the Heinlein’s purpose?

  Garner whispered, “Let me have the mike.”

  “Just talk. He can hear you.”

  “Ceres, this is Lucas Garner, Arm of the UN. Why the sudden shift?”

  “Mr. Garner, your authority does not exist here in—”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You just now realized we’re following the Golden Circle. Didn’t you?”

  “Are you really? To what purpose?”

  “None of your business. But I may tell one of your superiors, if you pick the right superior. Get him on fast, were getting further away every minute.”

  “The Belt will not allow you passage unless you explain your purpose here.”

  “The Belt won’t touch us. Good-by.”

  At the sound of the bell Marda rolled off the couch and walked smoothly into the phone booth. Already there was only a slight pull in her abdomen from the surgical cement, though the operation was just twelve hours old. A slight pull when she moved, to remind her of what she had lost.

  “Lit!” she called. “Ceres. It’s for you.”

  Lit trotted in from the garden.

  Cutter looked apprehensive for once. “Remember the two bandit ships from Topeka Base? Someone’s joined the procession.”

  “Took them long enough. We warned them days ago. When did it take off?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Two days, Cutter?”

  “Lit, the Heinlein gave us plenty of warning and an accurate course projection. She also used strap-on boosters. The time/position curve looks completely different from the curves for the bandits. It took me this long to see that everybody’s going in the same direction.”

  “Damn it, Cutter—never mind. Anything else?”

  “The Heinlein’s passing Ceres now. Do you want to talk to Lucas Garner, Arm of the UN?”

  “An Arm? No. What’s an Arm doing out here?”

  “He won’t say. He might tell you.”

  “What makes you so sure the Belt won’t stop us?”

  “Well, they can’t catch us and board us. All they could do is throw missiles at us, right?”

  “You make me so happy.”

  “Belters aren’t stupid, Anderson. Uh, oh.”

  A space-tanned Caucasian with black hair and wrinkled eyes looked out of the screen at them and said, “Do I have the honor of addressing Lucas Garner aboard the Heinlein?”

  “Right. Who’s this?”

  “Charles Martin Shaeffer. First Speaker, Belt Political section. May I ask—”

  “‘Little’ Shaeffer?”

  The mahogany man’s face froze for an instant, then barely smiled. “They call me Lit. What are you up to, Garner?”

  “You I’ll tell, Shaeffer. Now don’t interrupt, because it’s a long story…”

  It took fifteen minutes to tell. Shaeffer listened without comment. Then there were questions. Shaeffer wanted details, clarification. Then some of the questions were repeated. There were veiled accusations, which became less veiled. Anderson kept the beam fixed and sensibly let Luke do the talking. After an hour of question-and-answer, Luke shut it off.

  “That’s as much cross examination as I’m taking today, Shaeffer.”

  “What did you expect me to do, swallow your tale whole? Your opinion of Belters needs revision.”

  “No, Shaeffer, it doesn’t. I never expected to be believed. You can’t afford to believe me; the propaganda value would be enormous if Earth took you in on such a wild story.”

  “Naturally. On the other hand, what you’re trying to tell me is that an alien monster is threatening all of human civilization. In view of this it seems odd that you object to answering a few questions.”

  “Nuts. Shaeffer, do this. Send a few armed—”

  “I’m not taking orders—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Shaeffer. Send a few armed ships to follow me to Neptune. I’m sure that’s where they’re going; they’ve already passed turnover for most of the asteroids. It’ll take your ships a while to catch us. They may get there in time to help us out, and they may not. If you think I’m a liar, then send your ships along only to make sure I don’t do any poaching. Regardless of what you suspect me of, you’ll need ships to stop me, right? But arm them, Shaeffer. Arm them good.

  “Your only other choice is to start a war, right? Right. If you want my story confirmed call the Arms office in Los Angeles, then call the UN Comparative Cultures Exhibit in Brasilia Ciudad and ask if they’ve still got the Sea Statue. That’s all you can do. So call me back and tell me how many ships you’re sending.” Luke gestured to Anderson, who turned him off.

  “Jerk,” said Anderson, with feeling.

  “Not at all. He did the right thing. He’ll keep on doing it. First he’ll send ships after us, including one with antiradar which will have to get there later than the others because of the extra weight. He’ll call Earth and get my story confirmed as well as he can. The worst he can think of me then is that I’m thorough. Finally he’ll call us and tell us he’s sending one less ship than he is, leaving out the antiradar. That ship gives the Belt every chance to catch me red-handed, doing whatever illegal treaty-breaking thing they think I’m doing, especially since I don’t know the Belt’s discovered antiradar—”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But if they don’t catch me at anything then they cooperate with me.”

  “Uh huh. It’s perfect. But will they be able to handle it when we turn out to be telling the truth?”

  “Sure. They’ll be armed for us, and a weapon is a weapon. Besides which, some of them will believe me. Belters, they’re always waiting for the first alien contact. They’ll be armed for bear, regardless.” Garner rubbed his scalp. “I wonder what the Sea Statue is armed for?”

  A dry tooth socket is not extremely painful. The pain is mild. What drives the unfortunate victim to thoughts of suicide is, the pain never lets up. There is no escape.

  Marda felt the gentle, reminding pull in her abdomen every time she moved.

  Many Belt women were childless. Some had been spayed by solar storms. Some were frigid, and their frigidity let them endure the loneliness of a singleship. Some had undesirable recessive genes; and, contrary to popular terran belief, the Belt had fertility laws. Some could not conceive in free or nearly free fall. They were a special class, the exiles from Confinement.

  What was Lit doing in that phone booth? It had been over an hour.

  He was furious, she could see that. She’d never seen him so mad. Even after the screen went dark, he just sat there glaring at the screen.

  Something made Marda get
up and push open the soundproof door. Lit looked around. “That Arm. That flatlander. Marda, can you imagine an Arm getting huffy with me?”

  “He really pushed all your buttons, didn’t he? What happened, Lit?”

  “Oh…” Lit banged the heels of his hands together. “You remember those two ships that took off from Topeka Base without—”

  “I never heard about it.”

  “Right. I forgot.” She’d hardly been in a mood to listen then. “Well, two days ago…”

  By the time he finished he was almost calm. Marda felt safe in saying, “But, Lit, you cross-examined him for a full hour. What else could he do but cut you off or admit he was lying?”

  “Good point. What I’m really mad about is that tale he told me.”

  “You’re sure he was lying? It sounds almost too fantastic.”

  “Aw, honey. It is too fantastic.”

  “Then forget it.”

  “That’s not the point. What’s he want with Neptune? Why’s he need three ships? And why, in the name of Reason, does he commandeer the Golden Circle from Titan Enterprises?”

  “To back up his story?”

  “No. I think it’s the other way around. His story was tailored to fit the facts.”

  Slowly he turned back to face the blank screen. He sat for a while, with Marda watching him, and then he said, “I’m going to have to do just as he told me. That burns me. Remind me to tell you someday why I hate Arms.”

  “Okay. Later today, then.”

  “Good girl.” But he’d already forgotten her. Still he stared at the blank screen, not willing to give Ceres its orders until he’d thought them out completely. Finally he muttered, “I can get the jump on him. I’ll send the ships from the lead Trojans; he’ll be passing right over them. We’ll be after him faster than he thinks.” His hand darted out. “And—mph. I can send a radar proof. Operator? Get me a maser to Achilles, fast.”

  Of course, the whole ploy could be a red herring, he thought, waiting for the operator to call back. A distraction for something going on right here in the Belt. Well, they won’t get away with that either. Every ship that leaves Earth or the Moon is going to be questioned. We’ll board some of them, and follow the ones that won’t allow it. Earth will get its share too. I’ll make our espionage system think the end of the world is coming.

  Four and a half days later neither Kzanol nor Kzanol/Greenberg had turned ship. It seemed they really were going to Neptune. If so they would be turning in eighteen hours.

  It was already time for Anderson to turn ship. He did. “We’ll get there six hours ahead of them,” he told Garner.

  “Good.”

  “Of course, they could be headed for outer space. It could be a coincidence that they’re going in that direction. Then we’ll lose them.”

  “In those ships? Besides, I never doubted they were going to Neptune. I just didn’t want to take chances.”

  “Uh huh. I’m just hypothesizing. How about some lunch?”

  “Good.” It was high noon. The life-support system didn’t include enough room to walk around in, but it did have a mechanized kitchen; and one thing the space conquerors had learned early was that caviar is cheaper than corn flakes. Caviar has far more food value per payload ounce. So Garner and Anderson ate prefrozen crepes Veronique and wondered how long it would be before they could exercise off the extra pounds.

  While they were feeding the plates back into the food slot, Garner found something else to worry about. “Can we turn our telescope around?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “To follow the other ships. They’re still ahead of us, and we’re moving ass-backwards.”

  “We can’t see them now because the glare of our exhaust blocks our view. But we’ll be passing them in six hours, and we can watch them from then on.”

  “We’ll never catch them,” said the man in the lead ship. He was a tall, spindly Negro with prematurely white hair and an habitual poker face. “They’ll be three days ahead of us all the way. Poachers!”

  Somebody, Smoky from his accent, said, “It’d be four if we hadn’t started from Achilles.”

  “Something on the scope,” said one of the other ships. All five were singleships, hurriedly converted to war potential from their mining duties in the lead cluster of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

  “Like what?”

  “Specks of hydrogen light. Moving almost as fast as the Arm, judging by the red shift. Way ahead of him.”

  “Is it too late to call Ceres?”

  “Direct, yes. She’ll be behind the Trojans for a while.”

  “Tartov! Call Phoebe and say that there are three ships past Uranus, all en route to Neptune, all moving at approx the same speed. I want ETAs for each of them.”

  “I hear you, Lew.”

  The fleet of five ships looked like a small swarm of fireflies. They were only thousands of miles apart; they stayed that close to avoid irritating message delays. The distance would still have hidden them from each other if they had been using chemical fuels or ion jets, but the searing light of the fusion drives showed brighter than any of the surrounding stars.

  “Lew?”

  “Here.”

  “I’m sure one of them is a honeymoon special. It’s got a strong oxygen line in its spectrum.”

  “Yeah? The Arms are thorough, you’ve got to give them credit.”

  Tartov said, “They must be after something big. Something tremendous.”

  None of the others spoke. Perhaps they were reserving judgment. Behind the swarm, falling further behind with each second, a lone firefly struggled in pursuit.

  Something went by like a falling comet, if there were such a thing. “There goes Greenberg,” said Anderson, grinning. The blue-white light faded slowly into the background of stars.

  “The Golden Circle should be by in a few minutes,” he added. “Greenberg’s ship is just a touch faster.”

  Garner didn’t answer.

  Anderson turned to look at him. “Something bugging you?” he asked kindly.

  Garner nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it for days. I just now realized that there isn’t any good answer. It’s like trying to keep a teleport in jail.”

  “What is?”

  “Trying to keep either of those birds from picking up the amplifier.”

  He slapped his chair absently for the cigarette button, caught himself and scowled. “Look. We can’t get to it first. We don’t know how they plan to find it themselves. Probably they just remember where they put it. We don’t even know how big it is! We can’t arrest them; at least we can’t arrest the ET because he’d just turn us into spare butlers, and we’ll have trouble with Greenberg because he’s got an armed ship and Masney can use the guns. He may be better than you, son.” Garner looked horribly like a Greek tragic mask, but his voice was the voice of a very worried man. “It seems to me that the only thing we can do is shoot on sight.”

  “You can’t do that!” Anderson protested. “You’ll kill Greenberg and Masney both!”

  “I don’t want to kill anyone. Give me another choice!”

  “Well, give me a chance to! I haven’t even thought about it yet!” He screwed his young face into a smooth semblance of Garner’s. “Hey!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Yeah, I’ve got something. You don’t have to shoot on sight. You can wait to find out if what they’re looking for is really on Neptune.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “They could have left something on one of the moons, or in orbit. But if it’s on Neptune, they can’t get at it! Neither of their ships develops more than one gee. Neptune’s pull is higher than that. They can’t land.”

  “No good. The ET has a winged ship. But that’s good thinking anyway, son.”

  “You bet it is,” Anderson said angrily. “How the hell is he going to get back up?”

  Luke Garner looked like he’d seen a vision. After a moment he asked, “Son, have you ever thought of joining the Arms?”

  �
��Why—” Anderson began modestly.

  Who are you?

  The two stared at one another.

  WHO ARE YOU???????

  “Lucas Launcelot Garner. Arm.”

  “Leroy. George Anderson’s boy. The astronaut.”

  I DON’T WANT YOU FOLLOWING ME. The Mind was blasting, angry. Even when merely “thinking aloud,” it held Garner and Anderson physically and mentally paralyzed. Then it came to a decision. Anderson reached toward the control panel. His fingernails rapped against plastic. He began fumbling at the catches on the guard panel.

  Garner pushed him back with one hand.

  It lashed him. Garner felt it stop his heart, and he gasped, horribly. Right now? he wondered. His sight turned red and went out.

  He came back to life with a singing in his head. Anderson was looking terribly haggard. He had a spray hypo in his hand. “Thank God,” he blurted. “I thought you were gone.”

  “Heart stopped,” Garner wheezed. (Not this time.) “First time it’s ever happened. What did you use?”

  “Adrenalin in the heart. Are you all right?”

  “Sure. Considering.”

  The young pilot was still pale. “You know what he told me to do? I was going to turn off the fusion shield! They’d have seen it on Earth.” He shuddered. “In daylight they’d have seen it! Very lucky thing you stopped me. But how did you know?”

  “I knew what he wanted for a result. Never mind. How did you know it was my heart?”

  “I felt him do it. Well, we don’t have to worry about him until we get to Neptune. He went out of range right after he stopped your heart.”

  “We’ll have to shoot first with that bird.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” Anderson said furiously.

  Kzanol strained to hang onto the enemy minds, but it was no use. Not only was distance against him; the difference in velocities was even more of a barrier. A slight relativistic difference in time rates could make communication impossible, even between two thrints.

  He turned his attention back to the cards. The pilot, who was English, called this game Patience. It was well named. Kzanol was learning patience the hard way. The floor of the lounge was littered with scraps of torn plastic; but this one deck had already survived ten lost games. It was the last deck on board.