"Leinster, Murray - Pipeline to Pluto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

Pipeline to Pluto


FAR, FAR OUT on Pluto, where the sun is only a very bright star and a frozen, airless globe circles in emptiness; far out on Pluto, there was motion. The perpetual faint starlight was abruptly broken. Yellow lights shone suddenly in a circle, and men in spacesuits waddled to a space tug-absurdly marked Betsy-Anne in huge white letters. They climbed up its side and went in the air lock. Presently a faint, jetting glow appeared below its drive tubes. It flared suddenly and the tug lifted, to hover expertly a brief distance above what seemed an unmarred field of frozen atmosphere. But that field heaved and broke. The nose of a Pipeline carrier appeared in the center of a cruciform opening. It thrust through. It stood half its length above the surface of the dead and lifeless planet. The tug drifted above it. Its grapnel dropped down, jetted minute flames, and engaged in the monster tow ring at the carrier's bow.
The tug's drive tubes flared luridly. The carrier heaved abruptly up out of its hiding place and plunged for the heavens behind the tug. It had a huge class mark and number painted on its side, which was barely visible as it whisked out of sight. It. went on up at four gravities acceleration, while the space tug lined out on the most precise of courses and drove fiercely for emptiness.
A long, long time later, when Pluto was barely a pallid disk behind, the tug cast off. The carrier went on, sunward. Its ringed nose pointed unwaveringly to the sun, toward which it would drift for years. It was one of a long, long line of carriers drifting through space, a day apart in time but millions of miles apart in distance.
They would go on until a tug from Earth came out and grappled them and towed them in to their actual home planet.
But the Betsy-Anne, of Pluto, did not pause for contemplation of the two-billion-mile-long line of ore carriers taking the metal of Pluto back to Earth. It darted off from the line its late tow now followed. Its radio locator beam flickered invisibly in emptiness. Presently its course changed. It turned about. It braked violently, going up to six gravities deceleration for as long as half a minute at a time. Presently it came to rest and there floated toward it an object from Earth, a carrier with great white numerals on its sides. It had been hauled off Earth and flung into an orbit which would fetch it out to Pluto. The Betsy-Anne's grapnel floated toward it and jetted tiny sparks until the towring was engaged. Then the tug and its new tow from Earth started back to Pluto.
There were two long lines of white-numbered carriers floating sedately through space. One line drifted tranquilly in to Earth. One drifted no less tranquilly out past the orbits of six planets to reach the closed-in, underground colony of the mines on Pluto.
Together they made up the Pipeline.
The evening Moon-rocket took off over to the north and went straight up to the zenith. Its blue-white rocket-flare changed color as it fell behind, until the tail end was a deep, rich crimson. The Pipeline docks were silent, now, but opposite the yard the row of flimsy eating and drinking-places rattled and thuttered to themselves from the lower-than-sound vibrations of the Moon-ship.
There was a youngish, battered man named Hill in the Pluto Bar, opposite the docks. He paid no attention to the Moon-rocket, but he looked up sharply as a man came out of the Pipeline gate and came across the street toward the bar. But Hill was staring at his drink when the door opened and the man from the dock looked the small dive over. Besides Hill-who looked definitely tough, and as if he had but recently recovered from a ravaging illness-there was only the bartender, a catawheel-truck driver and his girl having a drink together, and another man at a table by himself and fidgeting nervously as if he were waiting for someone. Hill's eyes flickered again to the man in the door. He looked suspicious. But then he looked back at his glass.
The other man came in and went to the bar.
"Evenin', Mr. Crowder," said the bartender.
Hill's eyes darted up, and down again. The bartender reached below the bar, filled a glass, and slid it across the mahogany.
"Evenin'," said Crowder curtly. He looked deliberately at the fidgety man. He seemed to note that the fidgety man was alone. He gave no sign of recognition, but his features pinched a little, as some men's do when they feel a little, crawling unease. But there was nothing wrong except that the fidgety man seemed to be upset because he was waiting for someone who hadn't come.
Crowder sat down in a booth, alone. Hill waited a moment, looked sharply about him, and then stood up. He crossed purposefully to the booth in which Crowder sat.
"I'm lookin' for a fella named Crowder," he said huskily. "That's you, ain't it?"
Crowder looked at him, his face instantly mask like. Hill's looks matched his voiced. There was a scar under one eye. He had a cauliflower ear. He looked battered, and hard-boiled-and as if he had just recovered from some serious injury or illness. His skin was reddened in odd patches.
"My name is Crowder," said Crowder suspiciously. "What is it?"
Hill sat down opposite him.
"My name's Hill," he said in the same husky voice. "There was a guy who was gonna come here tonight. He'd fixed it up to be stowed away on a Pipeline carrier to Pluto. I bought 'im off. I bought his chance. I came here to take his place."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Crowder coldly.
But he did. Hill could see that he did. His stomach-muscles knotted. He was uneasy. Hill's gaze grew scornful.
"You're the night super of the Pipeline yards, ain't you?" he demanded truculently.
Crowder's face stayed mask like. Hill looked tough. He looked like the sort of yegg who'd get into trouble with the police because he'd never think things out ahead. He knew it and he didn't care. Because he had gotten in trouble-often-because he didn't think things out ahead. But he wasn't that way tonight. He'd planned tonight in detail.
"Sure I'm the night superintendent of the Pipeline yards," said Crowder shortly. "I came over for a drink. I'm going back. But I don't know what you're talking about."
Hill's eyes grew hard.
"Listen, fella," he said truculently-but he had been really ill, and the signs of it were plain-"they're payin' five hundred credits a day in the mines out on Pluto, ain't they? A guy works a year out there, he comes back rich, don't he?"
"Sure!" said Crowder. "The wages got set by law when it cost a lot to ship supplies out. Before the Pipeline got going."
"And they ain't got enough guys to work, have they?"
"There's a shortage," agreed Crowder coldly. "Everybody knows it. The liners get fifty thousand credits for a one-way passage, and it takes six months for the trip."
Hill nodded, truculently.
"I wanna get out to Pluto," he said huskily. "See? They don't ask too many questions about a guy when he turns up out there. But the space liners, they do, and they want too many credits. So I wanna go out in a carrier by Pipeline. See?"
Hill downed his drink and stood up.
"There's a law," Crowder said uncompromisingly, "that says the Pipeline can't carry passengers or mails. The space lines jammed that through. Politics."
"Maybe," said Hill pugnaciously, "but you promised to let a guy stow away on the carrier tonight. He told me about it. I paid him off. He sold me his place. I'm takin' it, see?"
"I'm night superintendent at the yards," Crowder told him. "If there are arrangements for stowaways, I don't know about them. You're talking to the wrong man."
He abruptly left the table. He walked across the room to the fidgety man, who seemed more and more uneasy because somebody hadn't turned up. Crowder's eyes were viciously angry when he bent over the fidgety man.
"Look here, Moore!" he said savagely, in a low tone. "That guy is on! He says he paid your passenger to let him take his place. That's why your man hasn't showed up. You picked him out and he sold his place to this guy. So I'm leaving it right in your lap! I can lie myself clear. They couldn't get any evidence back, anyhow. Not for years yet. But what he told me is straight, he's got to go or he'll shoot off his mouth! So it's in your lap!"
The eyes of Moore-the fidgety man-had a hunted look in them. He swallowed as if his mouth were dry. But he nodded.
Crowder went out. Hill scowled after him. After a moment he came over to Moore.
"Lookahere," he said huskily. "I wanna know something. That guy's night super for Pipeline, ain't he?"
Moore nodded. He licked his lips.
"Lissen!" said Hill angrily, "there's a Pipeline carrier leaves here every day for Pluto, and one comes in from Pluto every day. It's just like gettin' on a 'copter and goin' from one town to another on the Pipeline, ain't it?"
Moore nodded again-this time almost unnoticeably.
"That's what a guy told me," said Hill pugnaciously. "He said he'd got it all fixed up to stow away on a carrier-load of grub. He said he'd paid fifteen hundred credits to have it fixed up. He was gonna leave tonight. I paid him off to let me take his place. Now this guy Crowder tells me I'm crazy!"
"I . . . wouldn't know anything about it," said Moore, hesitantly. "I know Crowder, but that's all."
Hill growled to himself. He doubled up his fist and looked at it. It was a capable fist. There were scars on it as proof that things had been hit with it.
"O.K.!" said Hill. "I guess that guy kidded me. He done me outta plenty credits. I know where to find him. He's goin' to a hospital!"