THOSE OF THE
QUEEN’S men who had no definite duties
engaging them elsewhere, drifted to the hatch which gave upon the
grey wool of the new Limbian landscape. They would have liked to
hole up close to the control section and Tang’s com, but the
presence of the Captain there was a dampener. It was better to
hunker down at the top of the ramp, look out into the mist, and
strain one’s ears for the motor purr of a flitter which did
not arrive.
“They’re smart,” observed Kosti for the
twentieth time. “They won’t risk their necks ploughing
through this muck. But Ali—that’s different. He was
snatched before this started.”
“You think it is poachers?” ventured Weeks.
His big partner considered the point. “Poachers?
Yeah—but on this Limbo what have they got to poach—tell
me that? We aren’t pulling a cargo of sveek furs, nor arlun
crystals—leastways I haven’t seen any of those lying
around waiting to be picked up. What about those dead things back
in that valley? Thorson,” he turned to Dane, “did they
look as if they had anything worth poaching?”
“They weren’t armed—or even clothed—as
far as we could tell,” Dane replied a bit absently.
“And their fields grew spicy stuff I never saw
before—”
“Drugs—could it be drugs now?” inquired
Weeks.
“A new kind then—Tau didn’t recognize the
leaves.” Dane’s head was up as he faced out into the
mist. He was almost sure— there—there it was again!
“Listen,” he caught at Kosti, dragged the big man out
on the ramp.
“Hear anything now?” he demanded a moment later.
There was sound in the fog, a fog which was now three parts night, through which the signal light on the nose of the Queen
could not cut. The regular beat of a true running motor was
magnified by some trick of the mist until it seemed that a whole
fleet of small flyers was bearing down upon the space ship from all
points of the compass.
Dane whirled and brought his hand down on the lever which
controlled the lights along the ramp. Even swirled in the fog as
they were, some faint gleam might break through to offer a landing
mark for the flitter. Weeks had disappeared. Dane could hear the
clatter of his space boots on the ladder within as he sped with the
news. But before the wiper could have reached control a new marker
blazed into view, the full powered searchlight from the nose, a
beacon which could not be blanketed out, no matter how its rays
were diffused.
And in that same instant a dark object swept by, so close that
Dane leaped back, certain it was going to graze the ramp. The beat
of the motor was loud, then it thinned, to grow into a roar once
more as the shadow appeared for a second time, circling closer to
the ground.
It landed with an audible, smacking grind which suggested that
the fog spoiled distance judgment. And to the foot of the ramp came
three figures which continued to be muffled shapes until they were
nearly at the hatch.
“Man—oh, man!” Rip’s rich voice came to
the ears of the watchers as he halted to pat the side of the ship.
“It’s good to see the old girl again—Lordy,
it’s good !”
“How did you make it back through this?” Dane
asked.
“We had to,” the astrogator-apprentice told him
simply. “There was no place back in the ranges to set down.
Those mountains are straight up and down—or they look that
way. We got on the beam—except when—say, what’s
the cause of that interference? We were thrown off twice by it.
Couldn’t cut it out—”
Steen Wilcox and Tau followed him at a slower pace. The Medic
moved wearily, his emergency kit in his hand. And Wilcox had only a
grunt for the reception party, pushing past them to climb to
control. But Rip lingered to ask another question.
“Ali—?”
Dane retold the story of what they had discovered in the valley
clearing.
“But how—?” was Rip’s second puzzled
question.
“We don’t know. Unless they went straight up. And it
wasn’t space enough to hold a flitter. But look how those
crawler tracks ran straight into the cliff. Rip, there’s
something queer about Limbo—”
“How far was that valley from the ruins?” the
astrogator-apprentice’s voice lost much of its warmth, it was
quieter, with a new crispness.
“We were nearer to those than to the Queen. But the fog
hit us on the way back and we didn’t see them—if we did
pass over the location.”
“And you couldn’t raise Ali on the com-unit after
that one interrupted signal?”
“Tang’s been trying. And we kept open all the time
we were out.”
“They might have stripped that off him at once,” Rip
conceded. “It would be a wise move for them. He could give us
a fix otherwise—”
“But could we get a fix on a com-unit? On one which no
one was using—” Dane began to see a thin chance.
“That is if its power was still working?”
“I don’t know. But the range would be pretty
limited. We could ask Tang—” Rip was already on his way
up the ladder to where the com-tech was on duty.
Dane glanced at his watch, making a swift calculation squaring
ship time with hours measured on Limbo. It was night. Suppose Tang
was able to pick up a call from Ali’s com-unit— they
could not trace it now.
They did not find the com-tech alone. All the officers of the
Queen were there and again Tang was holding the earphones well away
from his head so that they could hear the discordance which beat
out from some hidden point in the fog-bound world.
Wilcox spoke as the two younger men came in. “That’s
it! Cut right across the rider beam. I got two fixes on it.
But,” he shrugged, “with the atmospherics what they are and this
soup covering everything, how accurate those are is a big question.
It comes from the mountains—”
“Not just some form of static?” Captain Jellico
appealed to Tang.
“Decidedly not! I don’t think it’s a
signal—though it may be a rider beam. More like a big
installation—”
“What kind of installation would produce a broadcast such
as that?” Van Rycke wanted to know.
Tang put the earphones down on the snap desk at his elbow.
“A good sized one—about as big as the HG computer on
Terra!”
There was a moment of startled silence. An installation with the
same force as HG on this deserted world! They had to have time to
assimilate that. But, Dane noted, not one of them questioned
Tang’s statement.
“What is it doing here?” Van Rycke’s voice
held a note of real wonder. “What could it be used
for—?”
“It might be well,” Tang warned, “to know who
is running it. Remember, Kamil has been picked up. They probably
know a lot about us while we’re still in the
dark—”
“Poachers—” that was Jellico but he advanced
the suggestion as if he didn’t really believe in it
himself.
“With something as big as an HG com under their control?
Maybe—” but Van Rycke was plainly dubious.
“Anyway we can’t get out and look around until the fog
clears—”
The ramp was drawn in, the ship put under regular routine once
more. But Dane wondered how many of the crew were able to sleep. He
hadn’t expected to, until the fatigue produced from the
adventures of the past twenty-four hours of duty pushed him under
and he spun from one dream to another, always pursuing Ali through
crooked valleys and finally between the towering banks of the HG
computer, unable to catch the speeding engineer-apprentice.
His watch registered nine the next morning when he approached
the hatch open once more on Limbo. But it might have been the
depths of night—save that the grey of the mist was three or four shades lighter than it had been when he had seen
it last. To his eyes however it was as thick as in the hour when
they had returned to the ship.
Rip stood halfway down the ramp, wiping his hand on his thigh as
he lifted it from the dripping guide rope where the moisture
condensed in large oily drops. He raised a worried face to Dane as
the other edged along the slippery surface to join him.
“It doesn’t seem to be clearing any,” Dane
stated the obvious.
“Tang thinks he got a fix—a fix on Ali’s
unit!” Shannon burst out. He reached once more for the guide
rope and faced west, staring out into those cottony swirls hungrily
as if by will alone he could force the stuff away from his line of
vision.
“From where—north?”
“No, west!”
From the west where the ruins lay—where Rich’s party
were encamped! Then they were right, Rich had something to do with
Limbo’s mystery.
“That interference was cut out sometimes early this
morning,” Rip continued. “Conditions must have been
better for about ten minutes. Tang won’t swear to it, but
he’s sure himself that he caught the buzz of a live helmet
com.”
“Pretty far—the ruins,” Dane made the one
objection. But he was as certain as Rip that if the com-tech
mentioned it at all, it was because he had been nine-tenths sure he
was right. Tang was not given to wild guesses.
“What are we going to do about it?” the
cargo-apprentice added.
Rip twisted his big hands about the rope. “What can we do?” he wanted to know helplessly. “We can’t just
go off and hope to come up against the ruins. If they had a caster
on it would be different—”
“What about that? Aren’t they supposed to keep in
touch with the ship? Couldn’t a flitter get to them riding
in on their caster beam?” Dane asked.
“It could—if there were a beam,” Rip returned.
“They went off the air when the fog came in. Tang has been
calling them at ten minute intervals all night—had the emergency frequency
in use so they’d be sure and answer. Only they haven’t!”
And, without any caster beam to guide it, no flitter could
pierce this murk and be sure of landing at the ruins. Yet a
com-unit had registered there—perhaps Ali’s—and
that only a short time ago.
“I’ve been out there,” Rip pointed to the
ground they could not see from the ramp. “If I hadn’t
had a line fastened I’d been lost before I got four feet
away—”
Dane could believe that. But he knew the restlessness which must
be needling Rip now. To be kept prisoner here just when they had
their first clue as to where Kamil might be—! It was
maddening in a way. He edged down the slippery ramp, found the cord
Rip had left looped there, and took an end firmly in hand,
venturing out into the grey cloud.
The mist condensed in droplets on his tunic, trickled down his
face, left an odd metallic taint on his lips. He walked on, taking
one cautious step at a time, using the rope to keep him
oriented.
A dark object loomed out of the grey and he neared it warily,
only to recognize it with an embarrassed laugh as one of the
crawlers—the one which had made the journey back and forth to
deliver Rich’s material to his chosen camp site.
Back and forth—!
Dane’s hand closed on the tread. What if—? They
couldn’t be sure—they could only hope—
He used the cord to haul himself back to the ramp, the need for
haste making him stumble. If what he hoped was true—then they
had the answer to their problem. They could find the camp, make a
surprise descent upon the archaeologist, a descent which the other
might not be prepared to meet.
There was the ramp and Rip waiting. The astrogator-apprentice
must have guessed from Dane’s expression that he had
discovered something, but he asked no questions, only fell in
behind as the other hurried into the ship.
“Where’s Van Rycke—Captain Jellico?”
“Captain’s asleep—Tau made him take a
rest,” Rip answered. “Van Rycke is in his cabin, I
think.”
So Dane made his way to his own superior officer. If only what
he hoped was true ! It would be a stroke of luck—the
best luck they had had since that auction had brought them this
headache which was Limbo.
The cargo-master was stretched out on his bunk, his hands behind
his head. Dane hesitated in the doorway but Van Rycke’s blue
eyes were not closed and they did roll in his direction. He asked a
question first:
“Have you used the crawler in the past two days, sir?”
“To my knowledge no one has—why?”
“Then it was only used for one purpose here,”
Dane’s excitement grew, “and that was to carry Dr.
Rich’s supplies to his camp—”
Van Rycke sat up. Not only sat up, but reached for his boots and
pulled them on his feet.
“’And you think that the fix has been left on that
camp. It might just be, son, it might just be.” He was
tugging on his tunic now.
Rip caught on. “A guide all ready to go!” he
exulted.
“We hope,” Van Rycke applied a cautious warning.
It was the cargo-master who led the way out of the Queen once
more, back to the parked crawler. The low slung cargo shifter was
standing just as Dane had left it in the shelter of the
Queen’s fins, its blunt nose pointing forward, out of the
enclosure of the fins, to make a quarter turn to the west! The
auto-fix was still on the camp. Dane took a running jump for the
slow moving vehicle and brought it to a stop. But it was on a line
which would take it, fog or no fog, straight to the camp where it
had carried supplies two days before. And it would provide an
unerring guide for men roped to it. They had a chance now to locate
Ali.
The cargo-master made no comment but started towards the Queen,
the others following. Dance glanced over his shoulder at the
crawler.
“If we had one of those portable flamers—” he
muttered and Rip caught him up on that.
”A sonic screamer would be more to the point!”
Dane was startled. A flamer could be used as a threat or a tool
with which to force one’s way into a fortification. It need
not be a weapon. But a sonic screamer—there was no protection
against the unseen waves which could literally tear a man apart. If
Rip wanted a screamer he must fear real trouble. Since the Queen
was a law abiding ship and carried neither fitting the point must
remain purely academic.
Van Rycke climbed to control. And as he rapped at the
Captain’s private cabin they could hear the screaming of the
Hoobat. Jellico opened the panel, his face wearing a weary frown.
Before he greeted the cargo-master he slapped the cage of the blue
creature, setting it to oscillating crazily, but the shaking up did
nothing to discourage the throat splitting squalls.
The cargo-master watched the frenzied Hoobat. “How long
has Queex been acting that way, Captain?”
Jellico gave the caged captive a baneful glare and then stepped
into the corridor away from the din.
“Most of the night. The thing’s gone mad, I
think.” He shut the panel and the shrieks were muffled.
“I can’t see what sets it off like that.”
“Its hearing range goes into the super-sonic,
doesn’t it?” Van Rycke persisted.
“Four points, But what—” the Captain bit off
that “what” and his eyes narrowed. “That blasted
interference! Do you suppose that’s sonic?”
“Could be. Does Queex howl when it cuts out?”
“We can see—” Jellico made as if to return to
his cabin but Van Rycke caught his arm.
“Something more important on the launching cradle now,
Captain.”
“Such as what?”
“We’ve found a guide to take us to Rich’s
camp.” Van Rycke explained about the crawler. Jellico leaned
against the wall of the corridor, his face impassive. Van Rycke
might have been reciting the table of cargo stowing.
“Could just work,” was his only comment when the
cargo-master concluded. But he did not appear in any hurry to put it
to the proof.
Once more the crew assembled by order in the mess room—
without Tang, who stayed by the com. When Jellico came in he was
holding a small silver rod, fastened to a chain locked on his
belt.
“We’ve discovered,” he began without
preliminaries, “that the supply crawler is still on auto-beam
to Rich’s camp. It can act as a guide—”
He was answered by a murmur which separated into individual
demands to know when they could start. But these died as Jellico
hammered the rod on the table top for their attention.
“Lots—” he said.
Mura had them ready, slips of white straw he dropped into a bowl
and stirred about with his finger.
“Tang has to stay with the com,” Jellico reminded
them. “That leaves ten of us—the five with short straws
go—”
The steward passed around, holding the bowl above eye level of
the seated men. Each, Dane noticed, palmed his choice, not even
looking at it. When all had one they opened their hands together
displaying their luck.
Short straw! Dane felt a thrill—was it of pleasure or
apprehension. He looked around to see who would be his companions
on the trip. Rip—Rip’s straw was also short! And so was
the one between Kosti’s grimed fingers. Steen Wilcox showed
the next, and the last was Mura’s.
Wilcox would be in command—that was good. Dane had every
confidence in the taciturn astrogator. And it was odd how luck had
ruled. In a way, those whom fate had chosen were the most
expendable of the crew. Should disaster strike, the Queen could
safely lift from Limbo. Dane tried not to think of that.
Jellico grunted when he found himself ruled out of the
expedition. He got to his feet and crossed to the wall on the
right. There he applied the rod, unsealing some concealed panel.
There was a grating sound as if some catch had not been activated
for a long time.
Then a rack was revealed—a rack of hand blasters! And
below them holster belts swung on pegs, full refills glinting evilly
in the light. The arsenal of the Queen, which could only be opened
when the Captain deemed the situation highly serious.
One by one Jellico lifted out blasters, passing each in turn to
Stotz who inspected it closely, flipping the charge slot open and
shut before putting it down on the table. Five blasters, five belts
complete with recharges. It appeared that Jellico expected war.
The Captain closed the panel and locked it with that master
control rod which by Federation law could not leave his person day
or night. Now he returned to the table, facing the five who had
been chosen. He gestured to the arms. By training they knew how to
use blasters, but a Trader might not have to carry one more than
once in a lifetime among the stars.
“They’re all yours, boys,” he said. And he
needed to add nothing to impress upon them just how bad he
considered their task to be.
THOSE OF THE
QUEEN’S men who had no definite duties
engaging them elsewhere, drifted to the hatch which gave upon the
grey wool of the new Limbian landscape. They would have liked to
hole up close to the control section and Tang’s com, but the
presence of the Captain there was a dampener. It was better to
hunker down at the top of the ramp, look out into the mist, and
strain one’s ears for the motor purr of a flitter which did
not arrive.
“They’re smart,” observed Kosti for the
twentieth time. “They won’t risk their necks ploughing
through this muck. But Ali—that’s different. He was
snatched before this started.”
“You think it is poachers?” ventured Weeks.
His big partner considered the point. “Poachers?
Yeah—but on this Limbo what have they got to poach—tell
me that? We aren’t pulling a cargo of sveek furs, nor arlun
crystals—leastways I haven’t seen any of those lying
around waiting to be picked up. What about those dead things back
in that valley? Thorson,” he turned to Dane, “did they
look as if they had anything worth poaching?”
“They weren’t armed—or even clothed—as
far as we could tell,” Dane replied a bit absently.
“And their fields grew spicy stuff I never saw
before—”
“Drugs—could it be drugs now?” inquired
Weeks.
“A new kind then—Tau didn’t recognize the
leaves.” Dane’s head was up as he faced out into the
mist. He was almost sure— there—there it was again!
“Listen,” he caught at Kosti, dragged the big man out
on the ramp.
“Hear anything now?” he demanded a moment later.
There was sound in the fog, a fog which was now three parts night, through which the signal light on the nose of the Queen
could not cut. The regular beat of a true running motor was
magnified by some trick of the mist until it seemed that a whole
fleet of small flyers was bearing down upon the space ship from all
points of the compass.
Dane whirled and brought his hand down on the lever which
controlled the lights along the ramp. Even swirled in the fog as
they were, some faint gleam might break through to offer a landing
mark for the flitter. Weeks had disappeared. Dane could hear the
clatter of his space boots on the ladder within as he sped with the
news. But before the wiper could have reached control a new marker
blazed into view, the full powered searchlight from the nose, a
beacon which could not be blanketed out, no matter how its rays
were diffused.
And in that same instant a dark object swept by, so close that
Dane leaped back, certain it was going to graze the ramp. The beat
of the motor was loud, then it thinned, to grow into a roar once
more as the shadow appeared for a second time, circling closer to
the ground.
It landed with an audible, smacking grind which suggested that
the fog spoiled distance judgment. And to the foot of the ramp came
three figures which continued to be muffled shapes until they were
nearly at the hatch.
“Man—oh, man!” Rip’s rich voice came to
the ears of the watchers as he halted to pat the side of the ship.
“It’s good to see the old girl again—Lordy,
it’s good !”
“How did you make it back through this?” Dane
asked.
“We had to,” the astrogator-apprentice told him
simply. “There was no place back in the ranges to set down.
Those mountains are straight up and down—or they look that
way. We got on the beam—except when—say, what’s
the cause of that interference? We were thrown off twice by it.
Couldn’t cut it out—”
Steen Wilcox and Tau followed him at a slower pace. The Medic
moved wearily, his emergency kit in his hand. And Wilcox had only a
grunt for the reception party, pushing past them to climb to
control. But Rip lingered to ask another question.
“Ali—?”
Dane retold the story of what they had discovered in the valley
clearing.
“But how—?” was Rip’s second puzzled
question.
“We don’t know. Unless they went straight up. And it
wasn’t space enough to hold a flitter. But look how those
crawler tracks ran straight into the cliff. Rip, there’s
something queer about Limbo—”
“How far was that valley from the ruins?” the
astrogator-apprentice’s voice lost much of its warmth, it was
quieter, with a new crispness.
“We were nearer to those than to the Queen. But the fog
hit us on the way back and we didn’t see them—if we did
pass over the location.”
“And you couldn’t raise Ali on the com-unit after
that one interrupted signal?”
“Tang’s been trying. And we kept open all the time
we were out.”
“They might have stripped that off him at once,” Rip
conceded. “It would be a wise move for them. He could give us
a fix otherwise—”
“But could we get a fix on a com-unit? On one which no
one was using—” Dane began to see a thin chance.
“That is if its power was still working?”
“I don’t know. But the range would be pretty
limited. We could ask Tang—” Rip was already on his way
up the ladder to where the com-tech was on duty.
Dane glanced at his watch, making a swift calculation squaring
ship time with hours measured on Limbo. It was night. Suppose Tang
was able to pick up a call from Ali’s com-unit— they
could not trace it now.
They did not find the com-tech alone. All the officers of the
Queen were there and again Tang was holding the earphones well away
from his head so that they could hear the discordance which beat
out from some hidden point in the fog-bound world.
Wilcox spoke as the two younger men came in. “That’s
it! Cut right across the rider beam. I got two fixes on it.
But,” he shrugged, “with the atmospherics what they are and this
soup covering everything, how accurate those are is a big question.
It comes from the mountains—”
“Not just some form of static?” Captain Jellico
appealed to Tang.
“Decidedly not! I don’t think it’s a
signal—though it may be a rider beam. More like a big
installation—”
“What kind of installation would produce a broadcast such
as that?” Van Rycke wanted to know.
Tang put the earphones down on the snap desk at his elbow.
“A good sized one—about as big as the HG computer on
Terra!”
There was a moment of startled silence. An installation with the
same force as HG on this deserted world! They had to have time to
assimilate that. But, Dane noted, not one of them questioned
Tang’s statement.
“What is it doing here?” Van Rycke’s voice
held a note of real wonder. “What could it be used
for—?”
“It might be well,” Tang warned, “to know who
is running it. Remember, Kamil has been picked up. They probably
know a lot about us while we’re still in the
dark—”
“Poachers—” that was Jellico but he advanced
the suggestion as if he didn’t really believe in it
himself.
“With something as big as an HG com under their control?
Maybe—” but Van Rycke was plainly dubious.
“Anyway we can’t get out and look around until the fog
clears—”
The ramp was drawn in, the ship put under regular routine once
more. But Dane wondered how many of the crew were able to sleep. He
hadn’t expected to, until the fatigue produced from the
adventures of the past twenty-four hours of duty pushed him under
and he spun from one dream to another, always pursuing Ali through
crooked valleys and finally between the towering banks of the HG
computer, unable to catch the speeding engineer-apprentice.
His watch registered nine the next morning when he approached
the hatch open once more on Limbo. But it might have been the
depths of night—save that the grey of the mist was three or four shades lighter than it had been when he had seen
it last. To his eyes however it was as thick as in the hour when
they had returned to the ship.
Rip stood halfway down the ramp, wiping his hand on his thigh as
he lifted it from the dripping guide rope where the moisture
condensed in large oily drops. He raised a worried face to Dane as
the other edged along the slippery surface to join him.
“It doesn’t seem to be clearing any,” Dane
stated the obvious.
“Tang thinks he got a fix—a fix on Ali’s
unit!” Shannon burst out. He reached once more for the guide
rope and faced west, staring out into those cottony swirls hungrily
as if by will alone he could force the stuff away from his line of
vision.
“From where—north?”
“No, west!”
From the west where the ruins lay—where Rich’s party
were encamped! Then they were right, Rich had something to do with
Limbo’s mystery.
“That interference was cut out sometimes early this
morning,” Rip continued. “Conditions must have been
better for about ten minutes. Tang won’t swear to it, but
he’s sure himself that he caught the buzz of a live helmet
com.”
“Pretty far—the ruins,” Dane made the one
objection. But he was as certain as Rip that if the com-tech
mentioned it at all, it was because he had been nine-tenths sure he
was right. Tang was not given to wild guesses.
“What are we going to do about it?” the
cargo-apprentice added.
Rip twisted his big hands about the rope. “What can we do?” he wanted to know helplessly. “We can’t just
go off and hope to come up against the ruins. If they had a caster
on it would be different—”
“What about that? Aren’t they supposed to keep in
touch with the ship? Couldn’t a flitter get to them riding
in on their caster beam?” Dane asked.
“It could—if there were a beam,” Rip returned.
“They went off the air when the fog came in. Tang has been
calling them at ten minute intervals all night—had the emergency frequency
in use so they’d be sure and answer. Only they haven’t!”
And, without any caster beam to guide it, no flitter could
pierce this murk and be sure of landing at the ruins. Yet a
com-unit had registered there—perhaps Ali’s—and
that only a short time ago.
“I’ve been out there,” Rip pointed to the
ground they could not see from the ramp. “If I hadn’t
had a line fastened I’d been lost before I got four feet
away—”
Dane could believe that. But he knew the restlessness which must
be needling Rip now. To be kept prisoner here just when they had
their first clue as to where Kamil might be—! It was
maddening in a way. He edged down the slippery ramp, found the cord
Rip had left looped there, and took an end firmly in hand,
venturing out into the grey cloud.
The mist condensed in droplets on his tunic, trickled down his
face, left an odd metallic taint on his lips. He walked on, taking
one cautious step at a time, using the rope to keep him
oriented.
A dark object loomed out of the grey and he neared it warily,
only to recognize it with an embarrassed laugh as one of the
crawlers—the one which had made the journey back and forth to
deliver Rich’s material to his chosen camp site.
Back and forth—!
Dane’s hand closed on the tread. What if—? They
couldn’t be sure—they could only hope—
He used the cord to haul himself back to the ramp, the need for
haste making him stumble. If what he hoped was true—then they
had the answer to their problem. They could find the camp, make a
surprise descent upon the archaeologist, a descent which the other
might not be prepared to meet.
There was the ramp and Rip waiting. The astrogator-apprentice
must have guessed from Dane’s expression that he had
discovered something, but he asked no questions, only fell in
behind as the other hurried into the ship.
“Where’s Van Rycke—Captain Jellico?”
“Captain’s asleep—Tau made him take a
rest,” Rip answered. “Van Rycke is in his cabin, I
think.”
So Dane made his way to his own superior officer. If only what
he hoped was true ! It would be a stroke of luck—the
best luck they had had since that auction had brought them this
headache which was Limbo.
The cargo-master was stretched out on his bunk, his hands behind
his head. Dane hesitated in the doorway but Van Rycke’s blue
eyes were not closed and they did roll in his direction. He asked a
question first:
“Have you used the crawler in the past two days, sir?”
“To my knowledge no one has—why?”
“Then it was only used for one purpose here,”
Dane’s excitement grew, “and that was to carry Dr.
Rich’s supplies to his camp—”
Van Rycke sat up. Not only sat up, but reached for his boots and
pulled them on his feet.
“’And you think that the fix has been left on that
camp. It might just be, son, it might just be.” He was
tugging on his tunic now.
Rip caught on. “A guide all ready to go!” he
exulted.
“We hope,” Van Rycke applied a cautious warning.
It was the cargo-master who led the way out of the Queen once
more, back to the parked crawler. The low slung cargo shifter was
standing just as Dane had left it in the shelter of the
Queen’s fins, its blunt nose pointing forward, out of the
enclosure of the fins, to make a quarter turn to the west! The
auto-fix was still on the camp. Dane took a running jump for the
slow moving vehicle and brought it to a stop. But it was on a line
which would take it, fog or no fog, straight to the camp where it
had carried supplies two days before. And it would provide an
unerring guide for men roped to it. They had a chance now to locate
Ali.
The cargo-master made no comment but started towards the Queen,
the others following. Dance glanced over his shoulder at the
crawler.
“If we had one of those portable flamers—” he
muttered and Rip caught him up on that.
”A sonic screamer would be more to the point!”
Dane was startled. A flamer could be used as a threat or a tool
with which to force one’s way into a fortification. It need
not be a weapon. But a sonic screamer—there was no protection
against the unseen waves which could literally tear a man apart. If
Rip wanted a screamer he must fear real trouble. Since the Queen
was a law abiding ship and carried neither fitting the point must
remain purely academic.
Van Rycke climbed to control. And as he rapped at the
Captain’s private cabin they could hear the screaming of the
Hoobat. Jellico opened the panel, his face wearing a weary frown.
Before he greeted the cargo-master he slapped the cage of the blue
creature, setting it to oscillating crazily, but the shaking up did
nothing to discourage the throat splitting squalls.
The cargo-master watched the frenzied Hoobat. “How long
has Queex been acting that way, Captain?”
Jellico gave the caged captive a baneful glare and then stepped
into the corridor away from the din.
“Most of the night. The thing’s gone mad, I
think.” He shut the panel and the shrieks were muffled.
“I can’t see what sets it off like that.”
“Its hearing range goes into the super-sonic,
doesn’t it?” Van Rycke persisted.
“Four points, But what—” the Captain bit off
that “what” and his eyes narrowed. “That blasted
interference! Do you suppose that’s sonic?”
“Could be. Does Queex howl when it cuts out?”
“We can see—” Jellico made as if to return to
his cabin but Van Rycke caught his arm.
“Something more important on the launching cradle now,
Captain.”
“Such as what?”
“We’ve found a guide to take us to Rich’s
camp.” Van Rycke explained about the crawler. Jellico leaned
against the wall of the corridor, his face impassive. Van Rycke
might have been reciting the table of cargo stowing.
“Could just work,” was his only comment when the
cargo-master concluded. But he did not appear in any hurry to put it
to the proof.
Once more the crew assembled by order in the mess room—
without Tang, who stayed by the com. When Jellico came in he was
holding a small silver rod, fastened to a chain locked on his
belt.
“We’ve discovered,” he began without
preliminaries, “that the supply crawler is still on auto-beam
to Rich’s camp. It can act as a guide—”
He was answered by a murmur which separated into individual
demands to know when they could start. But these died as Jellico
hammered the rod on the table top for their attention.
“Lots—” he said.
Mura had them ready, slips of white straw he dropped into a bowl
and stirred about with his finger.
“Tang has to stay with the com,” Jellico reminded
them. “That leaves ten of us—the five with short straws
go—”
The steward passed around, holding the bowl above eye level of
the seated men. Each, Dane noticed, palmed his choice, not even
looking at it. When all had one they opened their hands together
displaying their luck.
Short straw! Dane felt a thrill—was it of pleasure or
apprehension. He looked around to see who would be his companions
on the trip. Rip—Rip’s straw was also short! And so was
the one between Kosti’s grimed fingers. Steen Wilcox showed
the next, and the last was Mura’s.
Wilcox would be in command—that was good. Dane had every
confidence in the taciturn astrogator. And it was odd how luck had
ruled. In a way, those whom fate had chosen were the most
expendable of the crew. Should disaster strike, the Queen could
safely lift from Limbo. Dane tried not to think of that.
Jellico grunted when he found himself ruled out of the
expedition. He got to his feet and crossed to the wall on the
right. There he applied the rod, unsealing some concealed panel.
There was a grating sound as if some catch had not been activated
for a long time.
Then a rack was revealed—a rack of hand blasters! And
below them holster belts swung on pegs, full refills glinting evilly
in the light. The arsenal of the Queen, which could only be opened
when the Captain deemed the situation highly serious.
One by one Jellico lifted out blasters, passing each in turn to
Stotz who inspected it closely, flipping the charge slot open and
shut before putting it down on the table. Five blasters, five belts
complete with recharges. It appeared that Jellico expected war.
The Captain closed the panel and locked it with that master
control rod which by Federation law could not leave his person day
or night. Now he returned to the table, facing the five who had
been chosen. He gestured to the arms. By training they knew how to
use blasters, but a Trader might not have to carry one more than
once in a lifetime among the stars.
“They’re all yours, boys,” he said. And he
needed to add nothing to impress upon them just how bad he
considered their task to be.