The World of Ptavvs (14 page)

"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.

"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.

Growling deep in his throat, like the carnivore he was, Kzanol scraped the cards together and shuffled them. He was learning coordination, too. And he had learned something about himself: he would not let a slave see him cheating at cards. He had cheated once, and the pilot had somehow guessed. He would not cheat again.

Kzanol jumped. Another one! This one was too far to the side to control, but easily dose enough to sense. And yet. the image had a fuzziness that had nothing to do with distance. As if the slave were asleep. But. different.

For half an hour it stayed within reach. In that time Kzanol satisfied himself that there was no other slave on board. He did not think of another thrint. He would have recognized the taste of a thrint command.

At six hundred hours the next morning, Greenberg's ship turned around. Three minutes later the Golden Circle did the same. Anderson found the prints in the scope camera when he woke up: two lights which stretched slowly into bright lines, then contracted with equal deliberation into somewhat brighter points.

***

The time passed slowly. Garner and Anderson were already deep in a tournament which they played on the viewer screen: a rectangular array of dots to be connected by lines, with victory going to the player who completed the most squares.

Almost every day they raised the stakes.

On the morning of the last day Garner got back to even. At one point he had been almost eleven thousand dollars in debt. "See?" he said. "You don't give up all your pleasures as you get older."

"Just one," Anderson said thoughtlessly.

"More than that," Garner admitted. "My taste buds have been wearing out for, lo, these many years. But I guess someday someone will find a way to replace them. Just like my spinal cord. That wore out too."

"Wore out? You mean it wasn't an accident? The nerves just died?"

"Just went into a coma would be more like it."

A swift change of subject was in order. "Have you got any better idea of what we do when we get to Neptune? Do we hide on one of the moons and watch?"

"Right," said Garner.

But half an hour later he asked, "Can we reach Earth from here?"

"Only by maser," Anderson said dubiously. "Everyone on Earth will be able to listen in. The beam will spread that far. Have you got any secrets from the man on the slidewalk?"

"Don't worry about it. Aim a maser at Earth."

It took half an hour for Anderson to center the beam and set it tracking. "If it's 'Love to Mother,' you're dead," he warned Garner.

"My mother passed away some time ago. In fact, it's been just about a century. And she thought she was an old woman! Hello, Arm Headquarters. This is Lucas Garner calling the United Nations Technological Police."

Anderson nudged him with an elbow. "Are you waiting for an answer, shnook?"

"Of course not!" Habits are hard to break. "This is Garner calling Arm Headquarters, Earth. Please aim your reply at Neptune. We urgently need the following information from Dorcas Jansky. Does his retarder field stop radar completely? Repeat, completely. Would the ET suit do the same?" He put down the mike. "Okay, son, repeat that a few times."