The World of Ptavvs (23 page)

Four million miles respectful had been good enough for the Belter fleet. It would have to do for Garner. His ship and one other came to an easy one-gee stop in mid-space. The third had taken a divergent path, and was now several hundred miles above the still-shrouded surface.

"It's funny," said Smoky. "Every time you decide one of our ships is expendable, it turns out to be a Belt ship."

"Which ship would you have used, Old Smoky?"

"Don't confuse me with logic."

"Listen," said Masney.

Faintly but clearly, the radio gave forth a rising and falling scream like an air raid siren.

"It's the Lazy Eight's distress signal," said Anderson.

Number Six was now a robot. The *Heinlein*'s drive controls now operated the singleship's drive, and Anderson pushed attitude jet buttons and pulled on the fuel throttle as he watched the *Heinlein*'s screen which now looked through Number Six's telescope. They had had to use the singleship, of course. A two-man Earth ship must be just what the ET desperately needed.

"Well, shall we take her down?"

Woody said, "Let's see if Lew's all right."

Anderson guided the singleship over to where the lead ship circled Pluto, turned off the drive and used attitude jets to get even closer. At last he and four others looked directly through the frosted, jagged fragments of Lew's control bubble. There were heat stains on the metal rim. Lew was there, a figure in a tall, narrow metal armor spacesuit; but he wasn't moving. He was dead or paralyzed.

"We can't do anything for him now," said Smoky.

"Right," said Luke. "No sense postponing the dreadful moment. Take 'er down."

The distress signal was coming out of a field of unbroken snow.

Anderson had never worked harder in his life. Muttering ceaselessly under his breath, he held the ship motionless a mile over the distress signal while snow boiled and gave him way. Mist formed on the *Heinlein*'s screen, then fog. He turned on an infrared spotlight, and it helped-- but not much. Smoky winced at some of the things young Anderson was saying. Suddenly Anderson was silent, and all five craned forward to see better.

The *Golden Circle* came out of the ice.

Anderson brought the singleship down as gently as he knew how. At the moment of contact the whole ship rang like a brass bell. The picture in the screen trembled wildly.

In the ensuing silence, a biped form climbed painfully through the topside airlock in the *Golden Circle*. It climbed down and moved toward them across the snow.

***

The honeymooner was no longer a spaceship, but she made an adequate meeting hall-- and hospital. Especially hospital, for of the ten men who faced each other around the crap table, only two were in good health.

Larry Greenberg, carrying a thrintun spacesuit on each shoulder, had returned to find the *Golden Circle* nearly buried in ice. The glassy sheathing over the top of the ship was twenty feet thick. He had managed to burn his way through the hard way, with a welder in his suit kit, but his fingers and toes were frostbitten when he uncovered the airlock. For nearly three days he had waited for treatment. He was very little pleased to find Number Six empty, but he had gotten his message across by showing the watchers at her scope screen. All's safe; come down.

Smoky Petropoulos and Woody Atwood, doing all the work because they were still the only ones able, had moved the paralyzed Belters to the *Golden Circle* in the two-man ships. The four were still unable to use anything but their eyes and, now, their voices. Lew's hands and wrists and feet and neck all had a roasted look where the skin showed through the blisters. His sult cooling system had been unable to cope with the heat during those seconds of immersion in flaming gases. If the gas hadn't been so extremely thin, some plastic connection in his air pack or his cooling system would surely have melted as he would tell eager listeners again and again in the years to come. But that was for later. Later, the others would remember that they had all been wearing suits because they'd been forced to break their windshields, and that if Smoky and Woody hadn't found them that way they'd have starved in their ships. For now, they were safe.

Garner and Anderson were nearly over their induced paralysis, which now showed only in an embarrassing lack of coordination.

"So we all made it," said Luke, beaming around at the company. "I was afraid the Last War would start on Pluto."

"Me too," said Lew. His voice was barely slurred. "We were afraid you wouldn't take the hint when we couldn't answer your calls. You might have decided that was some stupid piece of indirection." He blinked and tightened his lips, dismissing the memory. "So what'll we do with the spare suit?"

Now he had everybody's attention. This was a meeting hall, and the suit was the main order of business.

"We can't let Earth have it," said Smoky. "They could open it. We don't have their time stopper." Without looking at Luke, he added, "Some inventions do have to be suppressed."

"You could get it with a little research," said Garner.

"Dump it on Jupiter," Masney advised. "Strap It to the *Heinlein*'s hull and let Woody and me fly it. If we both come back alive you know it got dumped on schedule. Right?"

"Right," said Lew. Garner nodded. Others in the lounge tasted the idea and found it good, despite the loss of knowledge which must be buried with the suit. Larry Greenberg, who had other objections, kept them to himself.

"All agreed?" Lew swept his eyes around the main lounge.

"Okay. Now, which one is the amplifier?"

There was a full two seconds of dismayed silence. Greenberg pointed. "The wrinkled one with both hands empty."

Once it had been pointed out, the difference was obvious. The second suit had wrinkles and bumps and bulges; the limbs were twisted; it had no more personality than a sack. But the suit that was Kzanol-- it lay in one corner of the lounge, knees bent, disintegrator half raised. Even in the curious shape of arms and legs, and in the expressionless mirror of its face, one could read the surprise and consternation which must have been the thrint's last emotions. There must have been fury too, frustrated fury that had been mounting since Kzanol first saw the fused, discolored spot which was the rescue switch on his second suit.

Garner tossed off his champagne, part of the stock from the honeymooner's food stores. "So it's settled. The Sea Statue goes back to the UN Comparative Cultures Exhibit. The treasure suit goes to Jupiter. I submit the Sun might be safer, but what the hell. Greenberg, where do you go?"

"Home. And then Jinx, I think." Larry Greenberg wore what Lucas Garner decided was a bittersweet smile, though even he never guessed what it meant. "They'll never keep Judy and me away now. I'm the only man in the universe who can read bandersnatchi handwriting."

Masney shook his head and started to laugh. He had a rumbling, helpless kind of laugh, as infectious as mumps. "Better not read their minds, Greenberg. You'll end up as a whole space menagerie if you aren't careful."

Others took up the laughter, and Larry smiled with them, though only he knew how true were Masney's words.

Or had Garner guessed? The old man was looking at him very strangely. If Garner guessed that, two billion years ago, Kzanol had taken a racarliw slave as a pet and souvenir--

Nonsense.

So only Larry would ever know. If the suit were opened it could start a war. With controlled hydrogen fusion as common today as electrical generators had been a century and a half back, any war might be the very last. So the suit had to go to Jupiter; and the doomed racarliw slave had to go with it, buried in dead, silent stasis for eternity.

Could Larry Greenberg have sacrificed an innocent sentient, even for such a purpose? To Larry plus dolphin plus thrint, it wasn't even difficult.

Just a slave, whispered Kzanol. Small, stupid, ugly: worth half a commercial at best.

Can't defend himself, thought Charley. He has no rights.

Larry made a mental note never to tell Judy, even by accident, and then went on to more pleasant thoughts.

What was he thinking? Garner wondered. He's dropped it now; I might as well stop watching him.

But I'd give my soul if I could read minds for an hour, if I could pick the hour.