IV
Flight coveralls are designed to be airtight when fully zipped. Hoods with transparent faceplates and oxygen leads can be hermetically sealed to the collars, and every ship has emergency plug-ins for the oxygen tubes. In combat, all spacemen keep their hoods thrown back, like mackinaw hoods, so that if a hole is blown in the hull, they can slip the hoods on and plug into the emergency oxygen supply. Struggling into a full-dress spacesuit is too complicated a job to entrust to the few frantic minutes that spell the difference between life and death, and meanwhile, the coveralls are far more comfortable in flight.
Besides, anyone who’d seen what a spacesuit does to a figure like Pat’s will agree that it’s a dirty shame.
While Pat was climbing into her outfit, I was outlining the plan we’d have to follow. As long as I was going to go along with this offer of hers, temporarily, at least, I might as well do it right.
“I got into a cab accident, or something,” I said. “That accounts for the shape I’m in. You’re an old friend of mine, and since I’m in no condition to fly and fight at the same time, I’m taking you along as copilot.
“Weidmann’ll stick me for your pay, of course. I’ll make sure he does—that way there won’t be much kick about you coming along, especially if I make it a ‘both or neither’ proposition.
“When we get out in space, you show me how to get to Thorsten’s bubble in the Asteroids, and that’s it. We deliver the pile charge, shoot back out into space, fake the signs of a big battle, and yell for help over the radio. There’ll be a squawk about you being a woman then, of course, but hell, us spacebums are supposed to be devil-may-care, aren’t we?”
It was a great little plan, all right. It would give S.B.I. the location of Thorsten’s base, and it wouldn’t hold up delivery of the pile charge any longer than it would take to salvage it. Meanwhile, space would be rid of Harry.
“Sounds like it’ll work, all right,” she said. “I wish I was surer the S.B.I. didn’t have anything big on me. It’ll be a bad enough stink as it is.” She grinned. “But we’ll make out.”
Weidmann was out at the field, fuming over the fact that I was an hour and a half late.
He surprised me, though. He didn’t boggle over taking Pat along, once I gave him a story about being lightly hit by a car and having to take my friend along.
Pat had had a tight cloth strapped across her breasts, her hood over her face, and I’d gotten her into the ship fast.
“Okay, okay, who gives a damn what happens to you, as long as the job’s done,” Weidmann said, but I couldn’t believe him, somehow, when he added, “I don’t even care who does it, personally.”
He slipped an envelope into my pocket. “Something for you,” he said. “Don’t open it until you’re past Mars, and don’t let your friend see it—for awhile, anyway.” He chuckled, and surprised me by doing it. He looked secretly happy over something, as if he knew about something awful that was going to happen to me. “You’ll have some sweet explaining to do to your friend, Holcomb. I’d love to see it.” But there was still that note of something more than laughter, more than most feelings, in his voice.
He wouldn’t say more than that. He just shoved me into the ship and slammed the hatch.
I kept watching him in the starboard screens as we checked off the instrument board. He was a little figure at the edge of the field, staring wistfully up at the ship, his mechanical arm in his pocket.
I couldn’t wait until we were past Mars to open the letter, of course. We’d be too close to the Belt by then. I read it while Pat was at the controls.
Holcomb:
I don’t know exactly why—except that you’re the best there is, I guess—but you’ve been picked for this job.
As you may have guessed, Transolar Express is a blind for some pretty big Government bureaus. This isn’t a ship the T.S.N. cancelled, of course. It’s a top-secret job built according to the specifications laid down by the Titan labs.
When you hit Titan, turn the ship over to the technicians there, and they’ll install the additional equipment that’s part of your cargo of “pile fuels.” The rest of your load really is fuel, but it’s not meant for the Titan pile—it’s for the engines in the ship.
When it’s ready, you’ll fly the ship to God knows where. You won’t refuse, I know, because I wouldn’t either, if I’d been given the chance to fly the first ship into hyperspace.
When I’d finished it, I went back to the engine room and took a look at the drive. Then I went to the cargo compartment and stood looking at the hatches. They were sealed—welded shut.
I went back up forward, and waited until Pat had to leave the controls for a few minutes.
The minute she dropped through the hatch I was over at an emergency tool kit, and a few seconds later I was ripping off bulkhead panels with a screwdriver. I got a fast look at banks of dials and instruments, and slapped the panels back up before Pat got back. Then I went down to my cabin and just sat on a bunk, staring at the wall.
That cocky little bastard! That frozen-faced terrier of a man, cursing me with all his heart because I was getting the chance he’d have had, if he hadn’t given his right arm too soon!
And he had wished me luck.
I was proud, then, of being an Earthman, of being a fighting man, of having earned the right to get my name in the history books.
I stood there, a big dumb jackass.
All of a sudden, it had hit me. I’d been asking a lot of questions lately, and getting only partial answers. Now I had all the answers, and I hated every one of them.
The misdirection and lying on Weidmann’s part was clear as a bell. It had been designed to get me off Earth and headed for Titan without anybody knowing the real reasons—even me. They knew that if the real secret ever leaked out, every renegade and pirate in the system would swarm down, battling to the death to get their hands on this ship.
So they pulled the purloined letter gag. They hid the ship and its mission in plain sight. They sent me off in her to deliver the engine parts to where the hyperspatial drive could be assembled, and from there I’d be able to fly her to whatever star they chose, ghosting along in a universe where the speed of light as we knew it was not the fastest speed a ship could hit.
They’d given me a good excuse, too. “Pile fuels!” A big enough cargo to justify using me and a special ship, but not so big that I couldn’t handle the opposition I’d get from the Belt gangs, who’d fight for it, sure, but who’d try a lot less hard, and discourage a lot easier, than they would if they knew what was really up.
The only trouble with that was that they did know.
Sure—what else could it be? Earth was thick with two-bit sneaks and spies who sold information to anybody with the price. Even Earth government thought enough of them to cook up this big production. One of them must have dug deeper than anyone thought.
Thorsten knew, that was a cinch. He knew so well, that he hadn’t even wanted to chance a fight out in space, where the drive might get shot up. He’d sent Pat out to decoy me into him.
I stood there, cursing, my big fists closed into sledges. Pat—Pat, that beautiful, wonderful actress. Pat, who was death with a gun and arson for me with her lips.
All my life, I’d been getting mad at people and things. During the war, I was crazy mad at Marties. Afterward, I was mad at anybody who wanted to push other people around. I got mad at Pat, because I thought she was playing me for a sucker.
And Pat had taught me what hatred could do. She’d given me love to replace it.
And played me for a sucker.
I stood there—Ash Holcomb, the toughest man in space, maybe. Not the smartest—no, not the smartest. The dumbest, the stupidest chump who’d ever fallen for the oldest gag in history.
And nobody knew about it. Back on Earth, they were sure they’d gotten away with it. Even Weidmann—Weidmann with the grin, Mort Weidmann who had gone helling around in a hundred dives with me, who didn’t need obvious signs like long hair or breasts to spot a woman’s figure—he thought everything was all right, too. He was probably shaking his head with envy, back on Earth, thinking of all the fun I’d be having in hyperspace.
Nobody knew the mess the System was in, except me. And nobody could do anything about it, now, except me.
That thought knocked me out of the raging mood I had been working myself into. I couldn’t afford to lose my head.
I’d been wondering how Thorsten was going to work a rendezvous right in the middle of the Belt, with renegade Marties that had held out from the war swarming all over the place, just waiting for a prize like this.
The answer was simple—he’d worked out an alliance with them. Probably the Marties thought they could use it to reconquer the System. If I knew Harry, he had other plans, but they were probably just as bad.
What in hell was I going to do?
One more thought hit me, that was the worst one of all, because it held out an impossible hope.
It was all right to picture Weidmann getting a boot out of me taking a woman along. Under ordinary circumstances, that might have been true. But this was too big, too important. There were two alternatives.
Weidmann must have known I was a D.O. I could assume that. But, knowing how important the job was, Weidmann wouldn’t have let Pat come along, no matter what, if he hadn’t thought she and I were working together.
And that one stopped me cold.
Was she, or wasn’t she?