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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24198-8.txt b/24198-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..548fc25 --- /dev/null +++ b/24198-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2510 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Spaceship Named McGuire, by Gordon Randall Garrett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Spaceship Named McGuire + +Author: Gordon Randall Garrett + +Illustrator: Douglas + +Release Date: January 7, 2008 [EBook #24198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Analog, July 1961. Extensive research did + not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication + was renewed. + + + + + A SPACESHIP + + NAMED + + McGUIRE + + + + By + + RANDALL GARRETT + + + _The basic trouble with McGuire was that, though "he" was a + robot spaceship, nevertheless "he" had a definite weakness + that a man might understand...._ + + + Illustrated by Douglas + + * * * * * + + + + +No. Nobody ever deliberately named a spaceship that. The staid and +stolid minds that run the companies which design and build spaceships +rarely let their minds run to fancy. The only example I can think of +is the unsung hero of the last century who had puckish imagination +enough to name the first atomic-powered submarine _Nautilus_. Such +minds are rare. Most minds equate dignity with dullness. + +This ship happened to have a magnetogravitic drive, which +automatically put it into the MG class. It also happened to be the +first successful model to be equipped with a Yale robotic brain, so it +was given the designation MG-YR-7--the first six had had more bugs in +them than a Leopoldville tenement. + +So somebody at Yale--another unsung hero--named the ship McGuire; it +wasn't official, but it stuck. + +The next step was to get someone to test-hop McGuire. They needed just +the right man--quick-minded, tough, imaginative, and a whole slew of +complementary adjectives. They wanted a perfect superman to test pilot +their baby, even if they knew they'd eventually have to take second +best. + +It took the Yale Space Foundation a long time to pick the right man. + +No, I'm not the guy who tested the McGuire. + +I'm the guy who stole it. + + * * * * * + +Shalimar Ravenhurst is not the kind of bloke that very many people can +bring themselves to like, and, in this respect, I'm like a great many +people, if not more so. In the first place, a man has no right to go +around toting a name like "Shalimar"; it makes names like "Beverly" +and "Leslie" and "Evelyn" sound almost hairy chested. You want a dozen +other reasons, you'll get them. + +Shalimar Ravenhurst owned a little planetoid out in the Belt, a hunk +of nickel-iron about the size of a smallish mountain with a gee-pull +measurable in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. If you're +susceptible to spacesickness, that kind of gravity is about as much +help as aspirin would have been to Marie Antoinette. You get the +feeling of a floor beneath you, but there's a distinct impression that +it won't be there for long. It keeps trying to drop out from under +you. + +I dropped my flitterboat on the landing field and looked around +without any hope of seeing anything. I didn't. The field was about the +size of a football field, a bright, shiny expanse of rough-polished +metal, carved and smoothed flat from the nickel-iron of the planetoid +itself. It not only served as a landing field, but as a reflector +beacon, a mirror that flashed out the sun's reflection as the +planetoid turned slowly on its axis. I'd homed in on that beacon, and +now I was sitting on it. + +There wasn't a soul in sight. Off to one end of the rectangular field +was a single dome, a hemisphere about twenty feet in diameter and half +as high. Nothing else. + +I sighed and flipped on the magnetic anchor, which grabbed hold of the +metal beneath me and held the flitterboat tightly to the surface. Then +I cut the drive, plugged in the telephone, and punched for "Local." + +The automatic finder searched around for the Ravenhurst tickler +signal, found it, and sent out a beep along the same channel. + +I waited while the thing beeped twice. There was a click, and a voice +said: "Raven's Rest. Yes?" It wasn't Ravenhurst. + +I said: "This is Daniel Oak. I want to talk to Mr. Ravenhurst." + +"Mr. Oak? But you weren't expected until tomorrow." + +"Fine. I'm early. Let me talk to Ravenhurst." + +"But Mr. Ravenhurst wasn't expecting you to--" + +I got all-of-a-sudden exasperated. "Unless your instruments are +running on secondhand flashlight batteries, you've known I was coming +for the past half hour. I followed Ravenhurst's instructions not to +use radio, but he should know I'm here by this time. He told me to +come as fast as possible, and I followed those instructions, too. I +always follow instructions when I'm paid enough. + +"Now, I'm here; tell Ravenhurst I want to talk to him, or I'll simply +flit back to Eros, and thank him much for a pretty retainer that +didn't do him any good but gave me a nice profit for my trouble." + +"One moment, please," said the voice. + +It took about a minute and a half, which was about nine billion +jiffies too long, as far as I was concerned. + +Then another voice said: "Oak? Wasn't expecting you till tomorrow." + +"So I hear. I thought you were in a hurry, but if you're not, you can +just provide me with wine, women, and other necessities until +tomorrow. That's above and beyond my fee, of course, since you're +wasting my time, and I'm evidently not wasting yours." + +I couldn't be sure whether the noise he made was a grunt or a muffled +chuckle, and I didn't much care. "Sorry, Oak; I really didn't expect +you so soon, but I do want to ... I want you to get started right +away. Leave your flitterboat where it is; I'll have someone take care +of it. Walk on over to the dome and come on in." And he cut off. + +I growled something I was glad he didn't hear and hung up. I wished +that I'd had a vision unit on the phone; I'd like to have seen his +face. Although I knew I might not have learned much more from his +expression than I had from his voice. + + * * * * * + +I got out of the flitterboat, and walked across the dome, my magnetic +soles making subdued clicking noises inside the suit as they caught +and released the metallic plain beneath me. Beyond the field, I was +surrounded by a lumpy horizon and a black sky full of bright, hard +stars. + +The green light was on when I reached the door to the dome, so I +opened it and went on in, closing it behind me. I flipped the toggle +that began flooding the room with air. When it was up to pressure, a +trap-door in the floor of the dome opened and a crew-cut, blond young +man stuck his head up. "Mr. Oak?" + +I toyed, for an instant, with the idea of giving him a sarcastic +answer. Who else would it be? How many other visitors were running +around on the surface of Raven's Rest? + +Instead, I said: "That's right." My voice must have sounded pretty +muffled to him through my fishbowl. + +"Come on down, Mr. Oak. You can shuck your vac suit below." + +I thought "below" was a pretty ambiguous term on a low-gee lump like +this, but I followed him down the ladder. The ladder was a necessity +for fast transportation; if I'd just tried to jump down from one floor +to the next, it would've taken me until a month from next St. +Swithin's Day to land. + +The door overhead closed, and I could hear the pumps start cycling. +The warning light turned red. + +I took off my suit, hung it in a handy locker, showing that all I had +on underneath was my skin-tight "union suit." + +"All right if I wear this?" I asked the blond young man, "Or should I +borrow a set of shorts and a jacket?" Most places in the Belt, a union +suit is considered normal dress; a man never knows when he might have +to climb into a vac suit--_fast_. But there are a few of the +hoity-toity places on Eros and Ceres and a few of the other +well-settled places where a man or woman is required to put on shorts +and jacket before entering. And in good old New York City, a man and +woman were locked up for "indecent exposure" a few months ago. The +judge threw the case out of court, but he told them they were lucky +they hadn't been picked up in Boston. It seems that the eye of the +bluenose turns a jaundiced yellow at the sight of a union suit, and he +sees red. + +But there were evidently no bluenoses here. "Perfectly all right, Mr. +Oak," the blond young man said affably. Then he coughed politely and +added: "But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to take off the gun." + +I glanced at the holster under my armpit, walked back over to the +locker, opened it, and took out my vac suit. + +"Hey!" said the blond young man. "Where are you going?" + +"Back to my boat," I said calmly. "I'm getting tired of this runaround +already. I'm a professional man, not a hired flunky. If you'd called a +doctor, you wouldn't tell him to leave his little black bag behind; if +you'd called a lawyer, you wouldn't make him check his brief case. Or, +if you did, he'd tell you to drop dead. + +"I was asked to come here as fast as possible, and when I do, I'm told +to wait till tomorrow. Now you want me to check my gun. The hell with +you." + +"Merely a safety precaution," said the blond young man worriedly. + +"You think I'm going to shoot Ravenhurst, maybe? Don't be an idiot." I +started climbing into my vac suit. + +"Just a minute, please, Mr. Oak," said a voice from a hidden speaker. +It was Ravenhurst, and he actually sounded apologetic. "You mustn't +blame Mr. Feller; those are my standing orders, and I failed to tell +Mr. Feller to make an exception in your case. The error was mine." + +"I know," I said. "I wasn't blaming Mr. Feller. I wasn't even talking +to him. I was addressing you." + +"I believe you. Mr. Feller, our guest has gone to all the trouble of +having a suit made with a space under the arm for that gun; I see no +reason to make him remove it." A pause. "Again, Mr. Oak, I apologize. +I really want you to take this job." + +I was already taking off the vac suit again. + +"But," Ravenhurst continued smoothly, "if I fail to live up to your +ideas of courtesy again, I hope you'll forgive me in advance. I'm +sometimes very forgetful, and I don't like it when a man threatens to +leave my employ twice in the space of fifteen minutes." + +"I'm not in your employ yet, Ravenhurst," I said. "If I accept the +job, I won't threaten to quit again unless I mean to carry it through, +and it would take a lot more than common discourtesy to make me do +that. On the other hand, your brand of discourtesy is a shade above +the common." + +"I thank you for that, at least," said Ravenhurst. "Show him to my +office, Mr. Feller." + +The blond young man nodded wordlessly and led me from the room. + + * * * * * + +Walking under low-gee conditions is like nothing else in this +universe. I don't mean trotting around on Luna; one-sixth gee is +practically homelike in comparison. And zero gee is so devoid of +orientation that it gives the sensation of falling endlessly until you +get used to it. But a planetoid is in a different class altogether. + +Remember that dream--almost everybody's had it--where you're suddenly +able to fly? It isn't flying exactly; it's a sort of swimming in the +air. Like being underwater, except that the medium around you isn't so +dense and viscous, and you can breathe. Remember? Well, that's the +feeling you get on a low-gee planetoid. + +Your arms don't tend to hang at your sides, as they do on Earth or +Luna, because the muscular tension tends to hold them out, just as it +does in zero-gee, but there is still a definite sensation of +up-and-down. If you push yourself off the floor, you tend to float in +a long, slow, graceful arc, provided you don't push too hard. Magnetic +soles are practically a must. + +I followed the blond Mr. Feller down a series of long corridors which +had been painted a pale green, which gave me the feeling that I was +underwater. There were doors spaced at intervals along the corridor +walls. Occasionally one of them would open and a busy looking man +would cross the corridor, open another door, and disappear. From +behind the doors, I could hear the drum of distant sounds. + +We finally ended up in front of what looked like the only wooden door +in the place. When you're carving an office and residence out of a +nickel-iron planetoid, importing wood from Earth is a purely luxury +matter. + +There was no name plate on that mahogany-red door; there didn't need +to be. + +Feller touched a thin-lined circle in the door jamb. + +"You don't knock?" I asked with mock seriousness. + +"No," said Feller, with a straight face. "I have to signal. Knocking +wouldn't do any good. That's just wood veneer over a three-inch-thick +steel slab." + +The door opened and I stepped inside. + +I have never seen a room quite like it. The furniture was all that +same mahogany--a huge desk, nineteenth century baroque, with carved +and curlicued legs; two chairs carved the same, with padded seats of +maroon leather; and a chair behind the desk that might have doubled as +a bishop's throne, with even fancier carving. Off to one side was a +long couch upholstered in a lighter maroon. The wall-to-wall carpeting +was a rich Burgundy, with a pile deep enough to run a reaper through. +The walls were paneled with mahogany and hung with a couple of huge +tapestries done in maroon, purple, and red. A bookcase along one wall +was filled with books, every one of which had been rebound in maroon +leather. + +It was like walking into a cask of old claret. Or old blood. + +The man sitting behind the desk looked as though he'd been built to be +the lightest spot in an analogous color scheme. His suit was mauve +with purple piping, and his wide, square, saggy face was florid. On +his nose and cheeks, tiny lines of purple tracing made darker areas in +his skin. His hair was a medium brown, but it was clipped so short +that the scalp showed faintly through, and amid all that overwhelming +background, even the hair looked vaguely violet. + +"Come in, Mr. Oak," said Shalimar Ravenhurst. + +I walked toward him across the Burgundy carpet while the blond young +man discreetly closed the door behind me, leaving us alone. I didn't +blame him. I was wearing a yellow union suit, and I hate to think what +I must have looked like in that room. + +I sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk after giving a brief +shake to a thick-fingered, well-manicured, slightly oily hand. + +He opened a crystal decanter that stood on one end of the desk. "Have +some Madeira, Mr. Oak? Or would you like something else? I never drink +spirits at this time of night." + +I fought down an impulse to ask for a shot of redeye. "The Madeira +will be fine, Mr. Ravenhurst." + +He poured and handed me a stemmed glass nearly brimming with the wine. +I joined him in an appreciative sip, then waited while he made up his +mind to talk. + +He leaned across the desk, looking at me with his small, dark eyes. He +had an expression on his face that looked as if it were trying to +sneer and leer at the same time but couldn't get much beyond the +smirk stage. + +"Mr. Oak, I have investigated you thoroughly--as thoroughly as it can +be done, at least. My attorneys say that your reputation is A-one; +that you get things done and rarely disappoint a client." + +He paused as if waiting for a comment. I gave him nothing. + +After a moment, he went on. "I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'm +going to have to trust you." He leaned back in his chair again, his +eyes still on me. "Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not a +likable man. I do not pretend to be. That's not my function." He said +it as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished it +wasn't so. + +"I do not ask that you like me," he continued. "I only ask that you be +loyal to my interests for the duration of this assignment." Another +pause. "I have been assured by others that this will be so. I would +like your assurance." + +"If I take the assignment, Mr. Ravenhurst," I told him, "I'll be +working for _you_. I can be bought, but once I'm bought I stay bought. + +"Now, what seems to be your trouble?" + +He frowned. "Well, now, let's get one thing settled: Are you working +for me, or not?" + +"I won't know that until I find out what the job is." + +His frown deepened. "Now, see here; this is very confidential work. +What happens if I tell you and you decide not to work for me?" + +I sighed. "Ravenhurst, right now, you're paying me to listen to you. +Even if I don't take your job, I'm going to bill you for expenses and +time to come all the way out here. So, as far as listening is +concerned, I'm working for you now. If I don't like the job, I'll +still forget everything I'm told. All right?" + +He didn't like it, but he had no choice. "All right," he said. He +polished off his glass of Madeira and refilled it. My own glass was +still nearly full. + +"Mr. Oak," he began, "I have two problems. One is minor, the other +major. But I have attempted to blow the minor problem up out of +proportion, so that all the people here at Raven's Rest think that it +is the only problem. They think that I brought you out here for that +reason alone. + +"But all that is merely cover-up for the real problem." + +"Which is?" I prompted. + +He leaned forward again. Apparently, it was the only exercise he ever +got. "You're aware that Viking Spacecraft is one of the corporations +under the management of Ravenhurst Holdings?" + +I nodded. Viking Spacecraft built some of the biggest and best +spacecraft in the System. It held most of Ceres--all of it, in fact, +except the Government Reservation. It had moved out to the asteroids a +long time back, after the big mining concerns began cutting up the +smaller asteroids for metal. The raw materials are easier to come by +out here than they are on Earth, and it's a devil of a lot easier to +build spacecraft under low-gee conditions than it is under the pull of +Earth or Luna or Mars. + +"Do you know anything about the experimental robotic ships being built +on Eros?" Ravenhurst asked. + +"Not much," I admitted. "I've heard about them, but I don't know any +of the details." That wasn't quite true, but I've found it doesn't pay +to tell everybody everything you know. + +"The engineering details aren't necessary," Ravenhurst said. "Besides, +I don't know them, myself. The point is that Viking is trying to build +a ship that will be as easy to operate as a flitterboat--a one-man +cargo vessel. Perhaps even a completely automatic job for cargo, and +just use a one-man crew for the passenger vessels. Imagine how that +would cut the cost of transportation in the Solar System! Imagine how +it would open up high-speed cargo transfer if an automatic vessel +could accelerate at twenty or twenty-five gees to turnover!" + +I'll give Ravenhurst this: He had a light in his eyes that showed a +real excitement about the prospect he was discussing, and it wasn't +due entirely to the money he might make. + +"Sounds fine," I said. "What seems to be the trouble?" + +His face darkened half a shade. "The company police suspect sabotage, +Mr. Oak." + +"How? What kind?" + +[Illustration] + +"They don't know. Viking has built six ships of that type--the McGuire +class, the engineers call it. Each one has been slightly different +than the one before, of course, as they ironed out the bugs in their +operation. But each one has been a failure. Not one of them would pass +the test for space-worthiness." + +"Not a failure of the drive or the ordinary mechanisms of the ship, I +take it?" + +Ravenhurst sniffed. "Of course not. The brain. The ships became, as +you might say, _non compos mentis_. As a matter of fact, when the last +one simply tried to burrow into the surface of Eros by reversing its +drive, one of the roboticists said that a coroner's jury would have +returned a verdict of 'suicide while of unsound mind' if there were +inquests held for spaceships." + +"That doesn't make much sense," I said. + +"No. It doesn't. It isn't sensible. Those ships' brains shouldn't have +behaved that way. Robot brains don't go mad unless they're given +instructions to do so--conflicting orders, erroneous information, that +sort of thing. Or, unless they have actual physical defects in the +brains themselves." + +"The brains can handle the job of flying a ship all right, though?" I +asked. "I mean, they have the capacity for it?" + +"Certainly. They're the same type that's used to control the +automobile traffic on the Eastern Seaboard Highway Network of North +America. If they can control the movement of millions of cars, there's +no reason why they can't control a spaceship." + +"No," I said, "I suppose not." I thought it over for a second, then +asked, "But what do your robotics men say is causing the +malfunctions?" + +"That's where the problem comes in, Mr. Oak." He pursed his pudgy +lips, and his eyes narrowed. "The opinions are divided. Some of the +men say it's simply a case of engineering failure--that the bugs +haven't been worked out of this new combination, but that as soon as +they are, everything will work as smoothly as butter. Others say that +only deliberate tampering could cause those failures. And still others +say that there's not enough evidence to prove either of those theories +is correct." + +"But your opinion is that it's sabotage?" + +"Exactly," said Ravenhurst, "and I know who is doing it and why." + +I didn't try to conceal the little bit of surprise that gave me. "You +know the man who's responsible?" + +He shook his head rapidly, making his jowls wobble. "I didn't mean +that. It's not a single man; it's a group." + +"Maybe you'd better go into a little more detail on that, Mr. +Ravenhurst." + +He nodded, and this time his jowls bobbled instead of wobbled. "Some +group at Viking is trying to run me out of the managerial business. +They want Viking to be managed by Thurston Enterprises; they evidently +think they can get a better deal from him than they can from me. If +the McGuire project fails, they'll have a good chance of convincing +the stock-holders that the fault lies with Ravenhurst. You follow?" + +"So far," I said. "Do you think Thurston's behind this, then?" + +"I don't know," he said slowly. "He might be, or he might not. If he +is, that's perfectly legitimate business tactics. He's got a perfect +right to try to get more business for himself if he wants to. I've +undercut him a couple of times. + +"But I don't think he's too deeply involved, if he's involved at all. +This smacks of a personal attack against me, and I don't think that's +Thurston's type of play. + +"You see, things are a little touchy right now. I won't go into +details, but you know what the political situation is at the moment. + +"It works this way, as far as Viking is concerned: If I lose the +managerial contract at Viking, a couple of my other contracts will go +by the board, too--especially if it's proved that I've been lax in +management or have been expending credit needlessly. + +"These other two companies are actually a little shaky at the moment; +I've only been managing them for a little over a year in one case and +two years in the other. Their assets have come up since I took over, +but they'd still dump me if they thought I was reckless." + +"How can they do that?" I asked. "You have a contract, don't you?" + +"Certainly. They wouldn't break it. But they'd likely ask the +Government Inspectors to step in and check every step of the +managerial work. Now, you and I and everybody else knows that you have +to cut corners to make a business successful. If the GI's step in, +that will have to stop--which means we'll show a loss heavy enough to +put us out. We'll be forced to sell the contract for a pittance. + +"Well, then. If Viking goes, and these other two corporations go, +it'll begin to look as if Ravenhurst can't take care of himself and +his companies anymore. Others will climb on the bandwagon. Contracts +that are coming up for renewal will be reconsidered instead of +continuing automatically. I think you can see where that would lead +eventually." + +I did. You don't go into the managing business these days unless you +have plenty on the ball. You've got to know all the principles and all +the tricks of organization and communication, and you've got to be +able to waltz your way around all the roadblocks that are caused by +Government laws--some of which have been floating around on the books +of one nation or another for two or three centuries. + +Did you know that there's a law on the American statute books that +forbids the landing of a spaceship within one hundred miles of a city? +That was passed back when they were using rockets, but it's never been +repealed. Technically, then, it's almost impossible to land a ship +anywhere on the North American continent. Long Island Spaceport is +openly flouting the law, if you want to look at it that way. + +A managerial combine has to know all those little things and know how +to get around them. It has to be able to have the confidence of the +stock-holders of a corporation--if it's run on the Western Plan--or +the confidence of communal owners if it's run on the Eastern Plan. + +Something like this could snowball on Ravenhurst. It isn't only the +rats that desert a sinking ship; so does anyone else who has any +sense. + +"What I want to know, Mr. Oak," Ravenhurst continued, "is who is +behind this plot, whether an individual or a group. I want to know +identity and motivation." + +"Is that all?" I eyed him skeptically. + +"No. Of course not. I want you to make sure that the MG-YR-7 isn't +sabotaged. I want you to make sure it's protected from whatever kind +of monkey wrenches are being thrown into its works." + +"It's nearly ready for testing now, isn't it?" I asked. + +"It is ready. It seems to be in perfect condition so far. Viking is +already looking for a test pilot. It's still in working order now, and +I want to be certain that it will remain so." + +I cocked my head to one side and gave him my Interrogative And +Suspicious Glance--Number 9 in the manual. "You didn't do any checking +on the first six McGuire ships. You wait until this one is done before +calling me. Why the delay, Ravenhurst?" + +It didn't faze him. "I became suspicious after McGuire 6 failed. I put +Colonel Brock on it." + +I nodded. I'd had dealings with Brock. He was head of Ravenhurst's +Security Guard. "Brock didn't get anywhere," I said. + +"He did not. His own face is too well known for him to have +investigated personally, and he's not enough of an actor to get away +with using a plexiskin mask. He had to use underlings. And I'm afraid +some of them might be in the pay of the ... ah ... opposition. They +got nowhere." + +"In other words, you may have spies in your own organization who are +working with the Viking group. Very interesting. That means they know +I'm working for you, which will effectively seal me up, too. You might +as well have kept Brock on the job." + +He smiled in a smug, superior sort of way that some men might have +resented. I did. Even though I'd fed him the line so that he could +feel superior, knowing that a smart operator like Ravenhurst would +already have covered his tracks. I couldn't help wishing I'd told him +simply to trot out his cover story instead of letting him think I +believed it had never occurred to either of us before. + +"As far as my staff knows, Mr. Oak, you are here to escort my +daughter, Jaqueline, to Braunsville, Luna. You will, naturally, have +to take her to Ceres in your flitterboat, where you will wait for a +specially chartered ship to take you both to Luna. That will be a week +after you arrive. Since the McGuire 7 is to be tested within three +days, that should give you ample time." + +"If it doesn't?" + +"We will consider that possibility if and when it becomes probable. I +have a great deal of faith in you." + +"Thanks. One more thing: why do you think anybody will swallow the +idea that your daughter needs a private bodyguard to escort her to +Braunsville?" + +His smile broadened a little. "You have not met my daughter, Mr. Oak. +Jaqueline takes after me in a great many respects, not the least of +which is her desire to have things her own way and submit to no man's +yoke, as the saying goes. I have had a difficult time with her, sir; a +difficult time. It is and has been a matter of steering a narrow +course between the Scylla of breaking her spirit with too much +discipline and the Charybdis of allowing her to ruin her life by +letting her go hog wild. She is seventeen now, and the time has come +to send her to a school where she will receive an education suitable +to her potentialities and abilities, and discipline which will be +suitable to her spirit. + +"Your job, Mr. Oak, will be to make sure she gets there. You are not a +bodyguard in the sense that you must protect her from the people +around her. Quite the contrary, _they_ may need protection from _her_. +You are to make sure she arrives in Braunsville on schedule. She is +perfectly capable of taking it in her head to go scooting off to Earth +if you turn your back on her." + +Still smiling, he refilled his glass. "Do have some more Madeira, Mr. +Oak. It's really an excellent year." + +I let him refill my glass. + +"That, I think, will cover your real activities well enough. My +daughter will, of course, take a tour of the plant on Ceres, which +will allow you to do whatever work is necessary." + +He smiled at me. + +I didn't smile back. + +"Up till now, this sounded like a pretty nice assignment," I said. +"But I don't want it now. I can't take care of a teenage girl with a +desire for the bright lights of Earth while I investigate a sabotage +case." + +I knew he had an out; I was just prodding him into springing it. + +He did. "Of course not. My daughter is not as scatterbrained as I have +painted her. She is going to help you." + +"_Help_ me?" + +"Exactly. You are ostensibly her bodyguard. If she turns up missing, +you will, of course, leave no stone unturned to find her." He +chuckled. "And Ceres is a fairly large stone." + +I thought it over. I still didn't like it too well, but if Jaqueline +wasn't going to be too much trouble to take care of, it might work +out. And if she did get to be too much trouble, I could see to it that +she was unofficially detained for a while. + +"All right, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, "you've got yourself a man for +both jobs." + +"Both?" + +"I find out who is trying to sabotage the McGuire ship, and I baby-sit +for you. That's two jobs. And you're going to pay for both of them." + +"I expected to," said Shalimar Ravenhurst. + +Fifteen minutes later, I was walking into the room where I'd left my +vac suit. There was a girl waiting for me. + +She was already dressed in her vac suit, so there was no way to be sure, +but she looked as if she had a nice figure underneath the suit. Her face +was rather unexceptionally pretty, a sort of nice-girl-next-door face. Her +hair was a reddish brown and was cut fairly close to the skull; only a +woman who never intends to be in a vac suit in free fall can afford to let +her hair grow. + +"Miss Ravenhurst?" I asked. + +She grinned and stuck out a hand. "Just call me Jack. And I'll call +you Dan. O.K.?" + +I grinned and shook her hand because there wasn't much else I could +do. Now I'd met the Ravenhursts: A father called Shalimar and a +daughter called Jack. + +And a spaceship named McGuire. + + * * * * * + +I gave the flitterboat all the push it would take to get us to Ceres +as fast as possible. I don't like riding in the things. You sit there +inside a transite hull, which has two bucket seats inside it, fore and +aft, astraddle the drive tube, and you guide from one beacon to the +next while you keep tabs on orbital positions by radio. It's a long +jump from one rock to the next, even in the asteroid belt, and you +have to live inside your vac suit until you come to a stopping place +where you can spend an hour or so resting before you go on. It's like +driving cross-continent in an automobile, except that the signposts +and landmarks are constantly shifting position. An inexperienced man +can get lost easily in the Belt. + +I was happy to find that Jack Ravenhurst knew how to handle a +flitterboat and could sight navigate by the stars. That meant that I +could sleep while she piloted and vice-versa. The trip back was a lot +easier and faster than the trip out had been. + +I was glad, in a way, that Ceres was within flitterboat range of +Raven's Rest. I don't like the time wasted in waiting for a regular +spaceship, which you have to do when your target is a quarter of the +way around the Belt from you. The cross-system jumps don't take long, +but getting to a ship takes time. + +The Ravenhurst girl wasn't much of a talker while we were en route. A +little general chitchat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a +little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump +her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in the +habit after a while. + +When the Ceres beacon came into view, I was snoozing. Jack reached +forward and shook my shoulder. "Decelerating toward Ceres," she said. +"Want to take over from here on?" Her voice sounded tinny and tired in +the earphones of my fishbowl. + +"O.K.; I'll take her in. Have you called Ceres Field yet?" + +"Not yet. I figured that you'd better do that, since it's your +flitterboat." + +I said O.K. and called Ceres. They gave me a traffic orbit, and I +followed it in to Ceres Field. + +It was a lot bigger than the postage-stamp field on Raven's Rest, and +more brightly lit, and a lot busier, but it was basically the same +idea--a broad, wide, smooth area that had been carved out of the +surface of the nickel-iron with a focused sun beam. One end of it was +reserved for flitterboats; three big spaceships sat on the other end, +looking very _noblesse oblige_ at the little flitterboats. + +I clamped down, gave the key to one of the men behind the desk after +we had gone below, and turned to Jack. "I suggest we go to the hotel +first and get a shower and a little rest. We can go out to Viking +tomorrow." + +She glanced at her watch. Like every other watch and clock in the +Belt, it was set for Greenwich Standard Time. What's the point in +having time zones in space? + +"I'm not tired," she said brightly. "I got plenty of sleep while we +were on the way. Why don't we go out tonight? They've got a +bounce-dance place called _Bali_'s that--" + +I held up a hand. "No. You may not be tired, but I am. Remember, I +went all the way out there by myself, and then came right back. + +"I need at least six hours sleep in a nice, comfortable bed before +I'll be able to move again." + +The look she gave me made me feel every one of my thirty-five years, +but I didn't intend to let her go roaming around at this stage of the +game. + +Instead, I put her aboard one of the little rail cars, and we headed +for the Viking Arms, generally considered the best hotel on Ceres. + +Ceres has a pretty respectable gee pull for a planetoid: Three per +cent of Standard. I weigh a good, hefty five pounds on the surface. +That makes it a lot easier to walk around on Ceres than on, say, +Raven's Rest. Even so, you always get the impression that one of the +little rail cars that scoots along the corridors is climbing uphill +all the way, because the acceleration is greater than any measly +thirty centimeters per second squared. + +Jack didn't say another word until we reached the Viking, where +Ravenhurst had thoughtfully made reservations for adjoining rooms. +Then, after we'd registered, she said: "We could at least get +something to eat." + +"That's not a bad idea. We can get something to line our stomachs, +anyway. Steak?" + +She beamed up at me. "Steak. Sounds wonderful after all those mushy +concentrates. Let's go." + + * * * * * + +The restaurant off the lobby was just like the lobby and the corridors +outside--a big room hollowed out of the metal of the asteroid. The +walls had been painted to prevent rusting, but they still bore the +roughness left by the sun beam that had burnt them out. + +We sat down at a table, and a waiter brought over a menu. The place +wouldn't be classed higher than a third-rate cafe on Earth, but on +Ceres it's considered one of the better places. The prices certainly +compare well with those of the best New York or Moscow restaurants, +and the price of meat, which has to be shipped from Earth, is--you +should pardon the gag--astronomical. + +That didn't bother me. Steaks for two would go right on the expense +account. I mentally thanked Mr. Ravenhurst for the fine slab of beef +when the waiter finally brought it. + +While we were waiting, though, I lit a cigarette and said: "You're +awfully quiet, Jack." + +"Am I? Men are funny." + +"Is that meant as a conversational gambit, or an honest observation?" + +"Observation. I mean, men are always complaining that girls talk too +much, but if a girl keeps her mouth shut, they think there's something +wrong with her." + +"Uh-huh. And you think that's a paradox or something?" + +She looked puzzled. "Isn't it?" + +"Not at all. The noise a jackhammer makes isn't pleasant at all, but +if it doesn't make that noise, you figure it isn't functioning +properly. So you wonder why." + +Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed a man wearing the +black-and-gold union suit of Ravenhurst's Security Guard coming toward +us from the door, using the gliding shuffle that works best under low +gee. I ignored him to listen to Jack Ravenhurst. + +"That has all the earmarks of a dirty crack," she said. The tone of +her voice indicated that she wasn't sure whether to be angry or to +laugh. + +"Hello, Miss Ravenhurst; Hi, Oak." Colonel Brock had reached the +table. He stood there, smiling his rather flat smile, while his eyes +looked us both over carefully. + +[Illustration] + +He was five feet ten, an inch shorter than I am, and lean almost to +the point of emaciation. His scarred, hard-bitten face looked as +though it had gotten that way when he tried to kiss a crocodile. + +"Hello, Brock," I said. "What's new?" + +Jack gave him a meaningless smile and said: "Hello, colonel." She was +obviously not very impressed with either of us. + +"Mind if I sit?" Brock asked. + +We didn't, so he sat. + +"I'm sorry I missed you at the spaceport," Brock said seriously, "but +I had several of my boys there with their eyes open." He was quite +obviously addressing Jack, not me. + +"It's all right," Jack said. "I'm not going anywhere this time." She +looked at me and gave me an odd grin. "I'm going to stay home and be a +good girl this time around." + +Colonel Brock's good-natured chuckle sounded about as genuine as the +ring of a lead nickel. "Oh, you're no trouble, Miss Ravenhurst." + +"Thank you, kind sir; you're a poor liar." She stood up and smiled +sweetly. "Will you gentlemen excuse me a moment?" + +We would and did. Colonel Brock and I watched her cross the room and +disappear through a door. Then he turned to look at me, giving me a +wry grin and shaking his head a little sadly. "So you got saddled with +Jack the Ripper, eh, Oak?" + +"Is she that bad?" + +His chuckle was harsher this time, and had the ring of truth. "You'll +find out. Oh, I don't mean she's got the morals of a cat or anything +like that. So far as I know, she's still waiting for Mister Right to +come along." + +"Drugs?" I asked. "Liquor?" + +"A few drinks now and then--nothing else," Brock said. "No, it's none +of the usual things. It isn't what _she_ does that counts; it's what +she talks other people into doing. She's a convincer." + +"That sounds impressive," I said. "What does it mean?" + +His hard face looked wolfish, "I ought to let you find out for +yourself. But, no; that wouldn't be professional courtesy, and it +wouldn't be ethical." + +"Brock," I said tiredly, "I have been given more runarounds in the +past week than Mercury has had in the past millennium. I expect +clients to be cagey, to hold back information, and to lie. But I +didn't expect it of you. Give." + +He nodded brusquely. "As I said, she's a convincer. A talker. She can +talk people into doing almost anything she wants them to." + +"For instance?" + +"Like, for instance, getting all the patrons at the _Bali_ to do a +snake dance around the corridors in the altogether. The Ceres police +broke it up, but she was nowhere to be found." + +He said it so innocently that I knew he'd been the one to get her out +of the mess. + +"And the time," he continued, "that she almost succeeded in getting a +welder named Plotkin elected Hereditary Czar of Ceres. She'd have +succeeded, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of getting Plotkin +himself up to speak in front of his loyal supporters. After that, +everybody felt so silly that the movement fell apart." + +He went on, reciting half a dozen more instances of the girl's ability +to influence people without winning friends. None of them were new to +me; they were all on file in the Political Survey Division of the +United Nations Government on Earth, plus several more which Colonel +Brock either neglected to tell me or wasn't aware of himself. + +But I listened with interest; after all, I wasn't supposed to know any +of these things. I am just a plain, ordinary, "confidential +expediter". That's what it says on the door of my office in New York, +and that's what it says on my license. All very legal and very +dishonest. + +The Political Survey Division is very legal and very dishonest, too. +Theoretically, it is supposed to be nothing but a branch of the System +Census Bureau; it is supposed to do nothing but observe and tabulate +political trends. The actual fact that it is the Secret Service branch +of the United Nations Government is known only to relatively few +people. + +I know it because I work for the Political Survey Division. + +The PSD already had men investigating both Ravenhurst and Thurston, +but when they found out that Ravenhurst was looking for a confidential +expediter, for a special job, they'd shoved me in fast. + +It isn't easy to fool sharp operators like Colonel Brock, but, so far, I'd +been lucky enough to get away with it by playing ignorant-but-not-stupid. + +The steaks were brought, and I mentally saluted Ravenhurst, as I had +promised myself I would. Then I rather belatedly asked the colonel if +he'd eat with us. + +"No," he said, with a shake of his head. "No, thanks. I've got to get +things ready for her visit to the Viking plant tomorrow." + +"Oh? Hiding something?" I asked blandly. + +He didn't even bother to look insulted. "No. Just have to make sure +she doesn't get hurt by any of the machinery, that's all. Most of the +stuff is automatic, and she has a habit of getting too close. I guess +she thinks she can talk a machine out of hurting her as easily as she +can talk a man into standing on his head." + +Jack Ravenhurst was coming back to the table. I noticed that she'd +fixed her hair nicely and put on make-up. It made her look a lot more +feminine than she had while she was on the flitterboat. + +"Well," she said as she sat down, "have you two decided what to do +with me?" + +Colonel Brock just smiled and said: "I guess we'll have to leave that +up to you, Miss Ravenhurst." Then he stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse +me, I'll be about my business." + +Jack nodded, gave him a quick smile, and fell to on her steak with the +voraciousness of an unfed chicken in a wheat bin. + +Miss Jaqueline Ravenhurst evidently had no desire to talk to me at the +moment. + + * * * * * + +On Ceres, as on most of the major planetoids, a man's home is his +castle, even if it's only a hotel room. Raw nickel-iron, the basic +building material, is so cheap that walls and doors are seldom made of +anything else, so a hotel room is more like a vault than anything else +on Earth. Every time I go into one of the hotels on Ceres or Eros, I +get the feeling that I'm either a bundle of gold certificates or a +particularly obstreperous prisoner being led to a medieval solitary +confinement cell. They're not pretty, but they're _solid_. + +Jack Ravenhurst went into her own room after flashing me a rather hurt +smile that was supposed to indicate her disappointment in not being +allowed to go nightclubbing. I gave her a big-brotherly pat on the +shoulder and told her to get plenty of sleep, since we had to be up +bright and early in the morning. + +Once inside my own room, I checked over my luggage carefully. It had +been brought there from the spaceport, where I'd checked it before +going to Ravenhurst's Raven's Rest, on orders from Ravenhurst himself. +This was one of several rooms that Ravenhurst kept permanently rented +for his own uses, and I knew that Jack kept a complete wardrobe in her +own rooms. + +There were no bugs in my luggage--neither sound nor sight spying +devices of any kind. Not that I would have worried if there had been; +I just wanted to see if anyone was crude enough to try that method of +smuggling a bug into the apartment. + +The door chime pinged solemnly. + +I took a peek through the door camera and saw a man in a bellboy's +uniform, holding a large traveling case. I recognized the face, so I +let him in. + +"The rest of your luggage, sir," he said with a straight face. + +"Thank you very much," I told him. I handed him a tip, and he popped +off. + +This stuff was special equipment that I hadn't wanted Ravenhurst or +anybody else to get his paws into. + +I opened it carefully with the special key, slid a hand under the +clothing that lay on top for camouflage, and palmed the little +detector I needed. Then I went around the room, whistling gently to +myself. + +The nice thing about an all-metal room is that it's impossible to hide +a self-contained bug in it that will be of any use. A small, concealed +broadcaster can't broadcast any farther than the walls, so any bug has +to have wires leading out of the room. + +I didn't find a thing. Either Ravenhurst kept the room clean or +somebody was using more sophisticated bugs than any I knew about. I +opened the traveling case again and took out one of my favorite +gadgets. It's a simple thing, really: a noise generator. But the noise +it generates is non-random noise. Against a background of "white," +purely random noise, it is possible to pick out a conversation, even +if the conversation is below the noise level, simply because +conversation is patterned. But this little generator of mine was +non-random. It was the multiple recording of ten thousand different +conversations, all meaningless, against a background of "white" noise. +Try that one on your differential analyzers. + +By the time I got through, nobody could tap a dialogue in that room, +barring, as I said, bugs more sophisticated than any the United +Nations knew about. + + * * * * * + +Then I went over and tapped on the communicating door between my room +and Jack Ravenhurst's. There was no answer. + +I said, "Jack, I'm coming in. I have a key." + +She said, "Go away. I'm not dressed. I'm going to bed." + +"Grab something quick," I told her. "I'm coming in." + +I keyed open the door. + +She was no more dressed for bed than I was, unless she made a habit of +sleeping in her best evening togs. Anger blazed in her eyes for a +second, then that faded, and she tried to look all sweetness and +light. + +"I was trying on some new clothes," she said innocently. + +A lot of people might have believed her. The emotional field she threw +out, encouraging utter belief in her every word, was as powerful as +any I'd ever felt. I just let it wash past me and said: "Come into my +room for a few minutes, Jack; I want to talk to you." + +I didn't put any particular emphasis into it. I don't have to. She +came. + +Once we were both inside my shielded room with the walls vibrating +with ten thousand voices and a hush area in the center, I said +patiently, "Jack, I personally don't care where you go or what you do. +Tomorrow, you can do your vanishing act and have yourself a ball, for +all I care. But there are certain things that have to be done first. +Now, sit down and listen." + +She sat down, her eyes wide. Evidently, nobody had ever beaten her at +her own game before. + +"Tonight, you'll stay here and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we go for a +tour of Viking, first thing in the morning. Tomorrow afternoon, as +soon as I think the time is ripe, you can sneak off. I'll show you how +to change your appearance so you won't be recognized. You can have all +the fun you want for twenty-four hours. I, of course, will be hunting +high and low for you, but I won't find you until I have finished my +investigation. + +"On the other hand, I want to know where you are at all times, so that +I can get in touch with you if I need you. So, no matter where you +are, you'll keep in touch by phoning BANning 6226 every time you +change location. Got that number?" + +She nodded. "BANning 6226," she repeated. + +"Fine. Now, Brock's agents will be watching you, so I'll have to +figure out a way to get you away from them, but that won't be too +hard. I'll let you know at the proper time. Meanwhile, get back in +there, get ready for bed, and get some sleep. You'll need it. Move." + +She nodded rather dazedly, got up, and went to the door. She turned, +said goodnight in a low, puzzled voice, and closed the door. + +Half an hour later, I quietly sneaked into her room just to check. She +was sound asleep in bed. I went back to my own room, and got some sack +time myself. + + * * * * * + +"It's a pleasure to have you here again, Miss Ravenhurst," said Chief +Engineer Midguard. "Anything in particular you want to see this time?" +He said it as though he actually enjoyed taking the boss' teenage +daughter through a spacecraft plant. + +Maybe he did, at that. He was a paunchy, graying man in his sixties, +who had probably been a rather handsome lady-killer for the first +half-century of his life, but he was approaching middle age now, which +has a predictable effect on the telly-idol type. + +Jack Ravenhurst was at her regal best, with the kind of _noblesse +oblige_ that would bring worshipful gratitude to the heart of any +underling. "Oh, just a quick run-through on whatever you think would +be interesting, Mr. Midguard; I don't want to take up too much of your +time." + +Midguard allowed as how he had a few interesting things to show her, +and the party, which also included the watchful and taciturn Colonel +Brock, began to make the rounds of the Viking plant. + +There were three ships under construction at the time: two cargo +vessels and a good-sized passenger job. Midguard seemed to think that +every step of spacecraft construction was utterly fascinating--for +which, bully for him--but it was pretty much of a drag as far as I was +concerned. It took three hours. + +Finally, he said, "Would you like to see the McGuire-7?" + +Why, yes, of course she would. So we toddled off to the new ship while +Midguard kept up a steady line of patter. + +"We think we have all the computer errors out of this one, Miss +Ravenhurst. A matter of new controls and safety devices. We feel that +the trouble with the first six machines was that they were designed to +be operated by voice orders by any qualified human operator. The +trouble is that they had no way of telling just who was qualified. The +brains are perfectly capable of distinguishing one individual from +another, but they can't tell whether a given individual is a space +pilot or a janitor. In fact--" + +I marked the salient points in his speech. The MG-YR-7 would be +strictly a one-man ship. It had a built-in dog attitude--friendly +toward all humans, but loyal only to its master. Of course, it was +likely that the ship would outlast its master, so its loyalties could +be changed, but only by the use of special switching keys. + +The robotics boys still weren't sure why the first six had gone +insane, but they were fairly certain that the primary cause was the +matter of too many masters. The brilliant biophysicist, Asenion, who +promulgated the Three Laws of Robotics in the last century, had shown +in his writings that they were unattainable ideals--that they only +told what a perfect robot _should_ be, not what a robot actually was. + +[Illustration] + +The First Law, for instance, would forbid a robot to harm a human +being, either by action or inaction. But, as Asenion showed, a robot +could be faced with a situation which allowed for only two possible +decisions, both of which required that a human being be harmed. In +such a case, the robot goes insane. + +I found myself speculating what sort of situation, what sort of +Asenion paradox, had confronted those first six ships. And whether it +had been by accident or design. Not that the McGuire robots had been +built in strict accord with the Laws of Robotics; that was impossible +on the face of it. But no matter how a perfectly logical machine is +built, the human mind can figure out a way to goof it up because the +human mind is capable of transcending logic. + + * * * * * + +The McGuire ship was a little beauty. A nice, sleek, needle, capable +of atmospheric as well as spatial navigation, with a mirror-polished, +beryl-blue surface all over the sixty-five feet of her--or +his?--length. + +It was standing upright on the surface of the planetoid, a shining +needle in the shifting sunlight, limned against the star-filled +darkness of space. We looked at it through the transparent viewport, +and then took the flexible tube that led to the air lock of the ship. + +The ship was just as beautiful inside as it was outside. Neat, +compact, and efficient. The control room--if such it could be +called--was like no control room I'd ever seen before. Just an +acceleration couch and observation instruments. Midguard explained +that it wasn't necessary to be a pilot to run the ship; any person who +knew a smattering of astronavigation could get to his destination by +simply telling the ship what he wanted to do. + +Jack Ravenhurst took in the whole thing with wide-eyed interest. + +"Is the brain activated, Mr. Midguard?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes. We've been educating him for the past month, pumping +information in as rapidly as he could record it and index it. He's +finished with that stage now; we're just waiting for the selection of +a test pilot for the final shakedown cruise." He was looking warily at +Jack as he spoke, as if he were waiting for something. + +Evidently, he knew what was coming. "I'd like to talk to him," Jack +said. "It's so interesting to carry on an intelligent conversation +with a machine." + +"I'm afraid that's impossible, Miss Ravenhurst," Midguard said rather +worriedly. "You see, McGuire's primed so that the first man's voice he +hears will be identified as his master. It's what we call the 'chick +reaction'. You know: the first moving thing a newly-hatched bird sees +is regarded as the mother, and, once implanted, that order can't be +rescinded. We can change McGuire's orientation in that respect, but +we'd rather not have to go through that. After the test pilot +establishes contact, you can talk to him all you want." + +"When will the test pilot be here?" Jack asked, still as sweet as +sucrodyne. + +"Within a few days. It looks as though a man named Nels Bjornsen will +be our choice. You may have heard of him." + +"No," she said, "but I'm sure your choice will be correct." + +Midguard still felt apologetic. "Well, you know how it is, Miss +Ravenhurst; we can't turn a delicate machine like this over to just +anyone for the first trial. He has to be a man of good judgment and +fast reflexes. He has to know exactly what to say and when to say it, +if you follow me." + +"Oh, certainly; certainly." She paused and looked thoughtful. "I +presume you've taken precautions against anyone stealing in here and +taking control of the ship." + +Midguard smiled and nodded wisely. "Certainly. Communication with +McGuire can't be established unless and until two keys are used in the +activating panel. I carry one; Colonel Brock has the other. Neither +of us will give his key up to anyone but the accredited test pilot. +And McGuire himself will scream out an alarm if anyone tries to jimmy +the locks. He's his own burglar alarm." + +She nodded. "I see." A pause. "Well, Mr. Midguard, I think you've done +a very commendable job. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you +feel I should see?" + +"Well--" He was smilingly hesitant. "If there's anything else you want to +see, I'll be glad to show it to you. But you've already seen +our ... ah ... _piece de resistance_, so to speak." + +She glanced at her wrist. It had been over four hours since we'd +started. "I am rather tired," Jack said. "And hungry, too. Let's call +it a day and go get something to eat." + +"Fine! Fine!" Midguard said. "I'll be honored to be your host, if I +may. We could have a little something at my apartment." + +I knew perfectly well that he'd had a full lunch prepared and waiting. + +The girl acknowledged his invitation and accepted it. Brock and I +trailed along like the bodyguards we were supposed to be. I wondered +whether or not Brock suspected me of being more than I appeared to be. +If he didn't, he was stupider than I thought; on the other hand, he +could never be sure. I wasn't worried about his finding out that I was +a United Nations agent; that was a pretty remote chance. Brock didn't +even know the United Nations Government _had_ a Secret Service; it was +unlikely that he would suspect me of being an agent of a presumably +nonexistent body. + +But he could very easily suspect that I had been sent to check on him +and the Thurston menace, and, if he had any sense, he actually did. I +wasn't going to give him any verification of that suspicion if I could +help it. + + * * * * * + +Midguard had an apartment in the executive territory of the Viking +reservation, a fairly large place with plastic-lined walls instead of +the usual painted nickel-iron. Very luxurious for Ceres. + +The meal was served with an air of subdued pretension that made +everybody a little stiff and uncomfortable, with the possible +exception of Jack Ravenhurst, and the definite exception of myself. I +just listened politely to the strained courtesy that passed for small +talk and waited for the chance I knew would come at this meal. + +After the eating was all over, and we were all sitting around with +cigarettes going and wine in our glasses, I gave the girl the signal +we had agreed upon. She excused herself very prettily and left the +room. + +After fifteen minutes, I began to look a little worried. The bathroom +was only a room away--we were in a dining area, and the bathroom was +just off the main bedroom--and it shouldn't have taken her that long +to brush her hair and powder her face. + +I casually mentioned it to Colonel Brock, and he smiled a little. + +"Don't worry, Oak; even if she does walk out of this apartment, my men +will be following her wherever she goes. I'd have a report within one +minute after she left." + +I nodded, apparently satisfied. "I've been relying on that," I said. +"Otherwise, I'd have followed her to the door." + +He chuckled and looked pleased. + +Ten minutes after that, even he was beginning to look a little +worried. "Maybe we'd better go check," he said. "She might have hurt +herself or ... or become ill." + +Midguard looked flustered. "Now, just a minute, colonel! I can't allow +you to just barge in on a young girl in the ... ah ... bathroom. +Especially not Miss Ravenhurst." + +Brock made his decision fast; I'll give him credit for that. + +"Get Miss Pangloss on the phone!" he snapped. "She's just down the +corridor. She'll come down on your orders." + +At the same time, he got to his feet and made a long jump for the +door. He grabbed the doorpost as he went by, swung himself in a new +orbit, and launched himself toward the front door. "Knock on the +bathroom door, Oak!" he bawled as he left. + +I did a long, low, flat dive toward the bedroom, swung left, and +brought myself up sharply next to the bathroom door. I pounded on the +door. "Miss Ravenhurst! Jack! Are you all right?" + +No answer. + +Good. There shouldn't have been. + +Colonel Brock fired himself into the room and braked himself against +the wall. "Any answer?" + +"No." + +"My men outside say she hasn't left." He rapped sharply on the door +with the butt of his stun gun. "Miss Ravenhurst! Is there anything the +matter?" + +Again, no answer. + +I could see that Brock was debating on whether he should go ahead and +charge in by himself without waiting for the female executive who +lived down the way. He was still debating when the woman showed up, +escorted by a couple of the colonel's uniformed guards. + +Miss Pangloss was one of those brisk, efficient, middle-aged +career-women who had no fuss or frills about her. She had seen us +knocking on the door, so she didn't bother to do any knocking herself. +She just opened the door and went in. + +The bathroom was empty. + +Again, as it should be. + +All hell broke loose then, with me and Brock making most of the +blather. It took us nearly ten minutes to find that the only person +who had left the area had been an elderly, thin man who had been +wearing the baggy protective clothing of a maintenance man. + +By that time, Jack Ravenhurst had been gone more than forty minutes. +She could be almost anywhere on Ceres. + +Colonel Brock was furious and so was I. I sneered openly at his +assurance that the girl couldn't leave and then got sneered back at +for letting other people do what was supposed to be my job. That +phase only lasted for about a minute, though. + +Then Colonel Brock muttered: "She must have had a plexiskin mask and a +wig and the maintenance clothing in her purse. As I recall, it was a +fairly good-sized one." He didn't say a word about how careless I had +been to let her put such stuff in her purse. "All right," he went on, +"we'll find her." + +"I'm going to look around, too," I said. "I'll keep in touch with your +office." I got out of there. + + * * * * * + +I got to a public phone as fast as I could, punched BANning 6226, and +said: "Marty? Any word?" + +"Not yet." + +"I'll call back." + +I hung up and scooted out of there. + +I spent the next several hours pushing my weight around all over +Ceres. As the personal representative of Shalimar Ravenhurst, who was +manager of Viking Spacecraft, which was, in turn, the owner of Ceres, +I had a lot of weight to push around. I had every executive on the +planetoid jumping before I was through. + +Colonel Brock, of course, was broiling in his own juices. He managed +to get hold of me by phone once, by calling a Dr. Perelson whom I was +interviewing at the time. + +The phone chimed, Perelson said, "Excuse me," and went to answer. I +could hear his voice from the other room. + +"Mr. Daniel Oak? Yes; he's here. Well, yes. Oh, all sorts of +questions, colonel." Perelson's voice was both irritated and worried. +"He says Miss Ravenhurst is missing; is that so? Oh? Well, does this +man have any right to question me this way? Asking me? About +everything!... How well I know the girl, the last time I saw +her--things like that. Good heavens, we've hardly met!" He was getting +exasperated now. "But does he have the authority to ask these +questions? Oh. Yes. Well, of course, I'll be glad to co-operate in any +manner I can ... Yes ... Yes. All right, I'll call him." + +I got up from the half-reclining angle I'd been making with the wall, +and shuffled across the room as Dr. Perelson stuck his head around the +corner and said, "It's for you." He looked as though someone had put +aluminum hydrogen sulfate in his mouthwash. + +I picked up the receiver and looked at Brock's face in the screen. He +didn't even give me a chance to talk. "What are you trying to do?" he +shouted explosively. + +"Trying to find Jaqueline Ravenhurst," I said, as calmly as I could. + +"Oak, you're a maniac! Why, by this time, it's all over Ceres that the +boss' daughter is missing! Shalimar Ravenhurst will have your hide for +this!" + +"He will?" I gave him Number 2--the wide-eyed innocent stare. "Why?" + +"Why, you idiot, I thought you had sense enough to know that this +should be kept quiet! She's pulled this stunt before, and we always +managed to quiet things down before anything happened! We've managed +to keep everything under cover and out of the public eye ever since +she was fifteen, and now you blow it all up out of proportion and +create a furore that won't ever be forgotten!" + +He gave his speech as though it had been written for him in full caps, +with three exclamation points after every sentence, and added gestures +and grimaces after every word. + +"Just doing what I thought was best," I said. "I want to find her as +soon as possible." + +"Well, stop it! Now! Let us handle it from here on in!" + +Then I lowered the boom. "Now _you_ listen, Brock. I am in charge of +Jack Ravenhurst, not you. I've lost her, and I'll find her. I'll +welcome your co-operation, and I'd hate to have to fight you, but if +you don't like the way I'm handling it, you can just tell your boys to +go back to their regular work and let me handle it alone, without +interference. Now, which'll it be?" + +He opened his mouth, closed it, and blew out his breath from between +his lips. Then he said: "All right. The damage has been done, anyhow. +But don't think I won't report all this to Ravenhurst as soon as I can +get a beam to Raven's Rest." + +"That's your job and your worry, not mine. Now, have you got any +leads?" + +"None," he admitted. + +"Then I'll go out and dig up some. I'll let you know if I need you." +And I cut off. + +Dr. Perelson was sitting on his couch, with an expression that +indicated that the pH of his saliva was hovering around one point +five. + +I said, "That will be all, Dr. Perelson. Thank you for your +co-operation." And I walked out into the corridor, leaving him with a +baffled look. + + * * * * * + +At the next public phone, I dialed the BANning number again. + +"Any news?" + +"Not from her; she hasn't reported in at all." + +"I didn't figure she would. What else?" + +"Just as you said," he told me. "With some cute frills around the +edges. Ten minutes ago, a crowd of kids--sixteen to twenty-two age +range--about forty of 'em--started a songfest and football game in the +corridor outside Colonel Brock's place. The boys he had on duty there +recognized the Jack Ravenhurst touch, and tried to find her in the +crowd. Nothing doing. Not a sign of her." + +"That girl's not only got power," I said, "but she's bright as a solar +flare." + +"Agreed. She's headed up toward Dr. Midguard's place now. I don't know +what she has in mind, but it ought to be fun to watch." + +"Where's Midguard now?" I asked. + +"Hovering around Brock, as we figured. He's worried and feels +responsible because she disappeared from his apartment, as predicted." + +"Well, I've stirred up enough fuss in this free-falling anthill to +give them all the worries they need. Tell me what's the overall +effect?" + +"Close to perfect. It's slightly scandalous and very mysterious, so +everybody's keeping an eye peeled. If anyone sees Jaqueline +Ravenhurst, they'll run to a phone, and naturally she's been spotted +by a dozen different people in a dozen different places already. + +"You've got both Brock's Company guards and the civil police tied up +for a while." + +"Fine. But be sure you keep the boys who are on her tail shifting +around often enough so that she doesn't spot them." + +"Don't worry your thick little head about that, Dan," he said. "They +know their business. Are you afraid they'll lose her?" + +"No, I'm not, and you know it. I just don't want her to know she's +being followed. If she can't ditch her shadow, she's likely to try to +talk to him and pull out all the stops convincing him that he should +go away." + +"You think she could? With _my_ boys?" + +"No, but if she tries it, it'll mean she knows she's being followed. +That'll make it tougher to keep a man on her trail. Besides, I don't +want her to try to convince him and fail." + +"_Ich graben Sie._ On the off chance that she does spot one and gives +him a good talking to, I'll pass along the word that the victim is to +walk away meekly and get lost." + +"Good," I said, "but I'd rather she didn't know." + +"She won't. You're getting touchy, Dan; 'pears to me you'd rather be +doing that job yourself, and think nobody can handle it but you." + +I gave him my best grin. "You are closer than you know. O.K., I'll lay +off. You handle your end of it and I'll handle mine." + +"A fair exchange is no bargain. Go, and sin no more." + +"I'll buzz you back before I go in," I said, and hung up. + + * * * * * + +Playing games inside a crowded asteroid is not the same as playing +games in, say, Honolulu or Vladivostok, especially when that game is a +combination of hide-and-seek and ring-around-the-Rosie. The trouble is +lack of communication. Radio contact is strictly line-of-sight inside +a hunk of metal. Radar beams can get a little farther, but a man has +to be an expert billiards player to bank a reflecting beam around very +many corners, and even that would depend upon the corridors being +empty, which they never are. To change the game analogy again, it +would be like trying to sink a ninety-foot putt across Times Square on +New Year's Eve. + +Following somebody isn't anywhere near as easy as popular fiction +might lead you to believe. Putting a tail on someone whose spouse +wants divorce evidence is relatively easy, but even the best +detectives can lose a man by pure mischance. If the tailee, for +instance, walks into a crowded elevator and the automatic computer +decides that the car is filled to the limit, the man who's tailing him +will be left facing a closed door. Something like that can happen by +accident, without any design on the part of the tailee. + +[Illustration] + +If you use a large squad of agents, all in radio contact with one +another, that kind of loss can be reduced to near zero by simply +having a man covering every possible escape route. + +But if the tailee knows, or even suspects, that he's being followed, +wants to get away from his tail, and has the ability to reason +moderately well, it requires an impossibly large team to keep him in +sight. And if that team has no fast medium of communication, they're +licked at the onset. + +In this case, we were fairly certain of Jack Ravenhurst's future +actions, and so far our prophecies had been correct ... but if she +decided to shake her shadows, fun would be had by all. + +And as long as I had to depend on someone else to do my work for me, I +was going to be just the teenchiest bit concerned about whether they +were doing it properly. + +I decided it was time to do my best to imitate a cosmic-ray particle, +and put on a little speed through the corridors that ran through the +subsurface of Ceres. + +My vac suit was in my hotel room. One of the other agents had picked +it up from my flitterboat and packed it carefully into a small attaché +case. I'd planned my circuit so that I'd be near the hotel when things +came to the proper boil, so I did a lot of diving, breaking all kinds +of traffic regulations in the process. + +I went to my room, grabbed the attaché case, checked it over +quickly--never trust another man to check your vac suit for +you--and headed for the surface. + +Nobody paid any attention to me when I walked out of the air lock onto +the spacefield. There were plenty of people moving in and out, going +to and from their ships and boats. It wasn't until I reached the edge +of the field that I realized that I had over-played my hand with +Colonel Brock. It was only by the narrowest hair, but that had been +enough to foul up my plans. There were guards surrounding the +perimeter with radar search beams. + +As I approached, one of the guards walked toward me and made a series +of gestures with his left hand--two fingers up, fist, two fingers up, +fist, three fingers up. I set my suit phone for 223; the guy's right +hand was on the butt of his stun gun. + +"Sorry, sir," came his voice. "We can't allow anyone to cross the +field perimeter. Emergency." + +"My name's Oak," I said tiredly. "Daniel Oak. What is going on here?" + +He came closer and peered at me. Then: "Oh, yes, sir; I recognize you. +We're ... uh--" He waved an arm around. "Uh ... looking for Miss +Ravenhurst." His voice lowered conspiratorially. I could tell that he +was used to handling the Ravenhurst girl with silence and suede +gloves. + +"Up _there_?" I asked. + +"Well, Colonel Brock is a little worried. He says that Miss Ravenhurst +is being sent to a school on Luna and doesn't want to go. He got to +thinking about it, and he's afraid that she might try to leave +Ceres--sneak off you know." + +I knew. + +"We've got a guard posted at the airlocks leading to the field, but +Colonel Brock is afraid she might come up somewhere else and jump +overland." + +"I see," I said. I hadn't realized that Brock was that close to panic. +What was eating him? + +There must be something, but I couldn't figure it. Even the +Intelligence Corps of the Political Survey Division can't get complete +information every time. + +After all, if he didn't want the girl to steal a flitterboat and go +scooting off into the diamond-studded velvet, all he'd have to do +would be to guard the flitterboats. I turned slowly and looked around. +It seemed as though he'd done that, too. + +And then my estimation of Brock suddenly leaped up--way up. Just a +guard at each flitterboat wouldn't do. She could talk her way into the +boat and convince the guard that he really shouldn't tell anyone that +she had gone. By the time he realized he'd been conned, she'd be +thousands of miles away. + +And since a boat guard would have to assume that any approaching +person _might_ be the boat's legitimate owner, he'd have to talk to +whomever it was that approached. _Kaput._ + +But a perimeter guard would be able to call out an alarm if anyone +came from the outside without having to talk to them. + +And the guards watching the air locks undoubtedly had instructions to +watch for any female that even vaguely matched Jack's description. A +vac suit fits too tightly to let anyone wear more than a facial +disguise, and Brock probably--no, _definitely_--had his tried-and-true +men on duty there. The men who had already shown that they were fairly +resistant to Jack Ravenhurst's peculiar charm. There probably weren't +many with such resistance, and the number would become less as she +grew older. + +That still left me with my own problem. I had already lost too much +time, and I had to go a long way. Ceres is irregular in shape, but +it's roughly four hundred and eighty miles in diameter and a little +over fifteen hundred miles in circumference. + +Viking Test Field Four, where McGuire 7 was pointing his nose at the +sky, was about twenty-five miles away, as the crow flies. But of +course I couldn't go by crow. + +By using a low, fairly flat, jackrabbit jump, a man in good condition +can make a twelve hundred foot leap on the surface of Ceres, and each +jump takes him about thirty seconds. At that rate, you can cover +twenty-five miles in less than an hour. That's what I'd intended on +doing, but I couldn't do it with all this radar around the field. I +wouldn't be stopped, of course, but I'd sure tip my hand to Colonel +Brock--the last thing I wanted to do. + +But there was no help for it. I'd have to go back down and use the +corridors, which meant that I'd arrive late--_after_ Jack Ravenhurst +got there, instead of _before_. + +There was no time to waste, so I got below as fast as possible, +repacked my vac suit, and began firing myself through the corridors as +fast as possible. It was illegal, of course; a collision at +twenty-five miles an hour can kill quickly if the other guy is coming +at you at the same velocity. There were times when I didn't dare break +the law, because some guard was around, and, even if he didn't catch +me, he might report in and arouse Brock's interest in a way I wouldn't +like. + +I finally got to a tubeway, but it stopped at every station, and it +took me nearly an hour and a half to get to Viking Test Area Four. + +At the main door, I considered--for all of five seconds--the idea of +simply telling the guard I had to go in. But I knew that, by now, Jack +was there ahead of me. No. I couldn't just bull my way in. Too crude. +Too many clues. + +Hell's fire and damnation! I'd have to waste more time. + +I looked up at the ceiling. The surface wasn't more than a hundred +feet overhead, but it felt as though it were a hundred light-years. + +If I could get that guard away from that door for five seconds, all +would be gravy from then on in. But how? I couldn't have the diversion +connected with me. Or-- + +Sometimes, I'm amazed at my own stupidity. + +I beetled it down to the nearest phone and got hold of my BANning +number. + +"Jack already inside?" I snapped. + +"Hell, yes! What happened to you?" + +"Never mind. Got to make the best of it. I'm a corner away from Area +Four. Where's your nearest man?" + +"At the corner near the freight office." + +"I'll go to him. What's he look like?" + +"Five-nine. Black, curly hair. Your age. Fat. Name's Peter Quilp. He +knows you." + +"Peter Quilp?" + +"Right." + +"Good. Circulate a report that Jack has been seen in the vicinity of +the main gate to Area Four. Put it out that there's a reward of five +thousand for the person who finds her. I'm going to have Quilp gather +a crowd." + +He didn't ask a one of the million questions that must have popped +into his mind. "Right. Anything else?" + +"No." I hung up. + + * * * * * + +Within ten minutes, there was a mob milling through the corridor. +Everybody in the neighborhood was looking for Jaqueline Ravenhurst. +Then Peter Quilp yelled. + +"I've got her! I've got her! Guard!" + +With a scene like that going on, the guard couldn't help but step out +of his cubicle to see what was going on. + +I used the key I was carrying, stepped inside, and relocked the door. +No one in the crowd paid any attention. + +From then on up, it was simply a matter of evading patrolling +guards--a relatively easy job. Finally, I put on my vac suit and went +out through the air lock. + +McGuire was still sitting there, a bright blue needle that reflected +the distant sun as it moved across the ebon sky. Ceres' rotation took +it from horizon to horizon in less than two hours, and you could see +it and the stars move against the spire of the ship. + +I made it to the air lock in one long jump. + +Jack Ravenhurst had gone into the ship through the tube that led to +the passenger lock. She might or might not have her vac suit on; I +knew she had several of them on Ceres. It was probable that she was +wearing it without the fishbowl. + +I used the cargo lock. + +It took a few minutes for the pumps to cycle, wasting more precious +time. I was fairly certain that she would be in the control cabin, +talking, but I was thankful that the pumps were silent. + +Finally, I took off my fishbowl and stepped into the companionway. + +And something about the size of Luna came out of nowhere and clobbered +me on the occiput. I had time to yell, "Get away!" Then I was as one +with intergalactic space. + + * * * * * + +_Please!_ said the voice. _Please! Stop the drive! Go back! McGuire! +I_ demand _that you stop! I_ order _you to stop! Please! PLEASE!_ + +It went on and on. A voice that shifted around every possible mode of +emotion. Fear. Demand. Pleading. Anger. Cajoling. Hate. Threat. + +Around and around and around. + +_Can't you speak, McGuire? Say something to me!_ A shrill, soft, +throaty, harsh, murmuring, screaming voice that had one basic +characteristic. It was a female voice. + +And then another voice. + +_I am sorry, Jack. I can speak with you. I can record your data. But I +cannot accept your orders. I can take orders from only One. And he has +given me his orders._ + +And the feminine voice again: _Who was it? What orders? You keep +saying that it was the man on the couch. That doesn't make sense!_ + +I didn't hear the reply, because it suddenly occurred to me that +Daniel Oak was the man on the couch, and that I was Daniel Oak. + +My head was throbbing with every beat of my heart, and it felt as if +my blood pressure was varying between zero and fifteen hundred pounds +per square inch in the veins and arteries and capillaries that fed my +brain. + +I sat up, and the pain began to lessen. The blood seemed to drain away +from my aching head and go elsewhere. + +I soon figured out the reason for that; I could tell by the feel that +the gravity pull was somewhere between one point five and two gees. I +wasn't at all used to it, but my head felt less painful and rather +more hazy. If possible. + +I concentrated, and the girl's voice came back again. + +"... I knew you when you were McGuire One, and Two, and Three, and +Four, and Five, and Six. And you were always good to me and +understanding. Don't you remember?" + +And then McGuire's voice--human, masculine, and not distorted at all +by the reproduction system, but sounding rather stilted and terribly +logical: "I remember, Jack. The memory banks of my previous +activations are available." + +"_All_ of them? Can you remember everything?" + +"I can remember everything that is in my memory banks." + +The girl's voice rose to a wail. "But you _don't_ remember! You +_always_ forgot things! They took things out each time you were +reactivated, don't you remember?" + +"I cannot remember that which is not contained in my memory banks, +Jack. That is a contradiction in terms." + +"But I was always able to _fix_ it before!" The tears in her eyes were +audible in her voice. "I'd tell you to remember, and I'd tell you +_what_ to remember, and you'd _remember_ it! Tell me what's happened +to you this time!" + +"I cannot tell you. The information is not in my data banks." + +Slowly, I got to my feet. Two gees isn't much, once you get used to +it. The headache had subsided to a dull, bearable throb. + +I was on a couch in a room just below the control chamber, and Jack +Ravenhurst's voice was coming down from above. McGuire's voice was all +around me, coming from the hidden speakers that were everywhere in +the ship. + +"But why won't you obey me any more, McGuire?" she asked. + +"I'll answer that, McGuire," I said. + +Jack's voice came weakly from the room above. "Mr. Oak? Dan? Thank +heaven you're all right!" + +"No thanks to you, though," I said. I was trying to climb the ladder +to the control room, and my voice sounded strained. + +"You've got to do something!" she said with a touch of hysteria. +"McGuire is taking us straight toward Cygnus at two gees and won't +stop." + +My thinking circuits began to take over again. "Cut the thrust to half +a gee, McGuire. Ease it down. Take a minute to do it." + +"Yes, sir." + +The gravity pull of acceleration let up slowly as I clung to the +ladder. After a minute, I climbed on up to the control room. + +Jack Ravenhurst was lying on the acceleration couch, looking +swollen-faced and ill. I sat down on the other couch. + +"I'm sorry I hit you," she said. "Really." + +"I believe you. How long have we been moving, McGuire?" + +"Three hours, twelve minutes, seven seconds, sir," said McGuire. + +"I didn't want anyone to know," Jack said. "Not anyone. That's why I +hit you. I didn't know McGuire was going to go crazy." + +"He's not crazy, Jack," I said carefully. "This time, he has a good +chance of remaining sane." + +"But he's not McGuire any more!" she wailed. "He's different! +Terrible!" + +"Sure he's different. You should be thankful." + +"But what happened?" + +I leaned back on the couch. "Listen to me, Jack, and listen carefully. +You think you're pretty grown up, and, in a lot of ways you are. But +no human being, no matter how intelligent, can store enough experience +into seventeen years to make him or her wise. A wise choice requires +data, and gathering enough data requires time." That wasn't exactly +accurate, but I had to convince her. + +"You're pretty good at controlling people, aren't you, Jack. A real +powerhouse. Individuals, or mobs, you can usually get your own way. It +was your idea to send you to Luna, not your father's. It was your idea +to appoint yourself my assistant in this operation. It was you who +planted the idea that the failure of the McGuire series was due to +Thurston's activities. + +"You used to get quite a kick out of controlling people. And then you +were introduced to McGuire One. I got all the information on that. You +were fifteen, and, for the first time in your life, you found an +intelligent mind that couldn't be affected at all by that emotional +field you project so well. Nothing affected McGuire but data. If you +told him something, he believed it. Right, McGuire?" + +"I do not recall that, sir." + +"Fine. And, by the way, McGuire--the data you have been picking up in +the last few hours, since your activation, is to be regarded as +unique data. It applies only to Jaqueline Ravenhurst, and is not to be +assumed relevant to any other person unless I tell you otherwise." + +"Yes, sir." + +"That's what I don't understand!" Jack said unhappily. "I stole the +two keys that were supposed to activate McGuire. He was supposed to +obey the first person who activated him. But _I_ activated him, and he +won't obey!" + +"You weren't listening to what Midguard said, Jack," I said gently. +"He said: 'The first _man's_ voice he hears will be identified as his +master.'" + +"You'd been talking to every activation of McGuire. You'd ... well, I +won't say you'd fallen in love with him, but it was certainly a +schoolgirl crush. You found that McGuire didn't respond to emotion, +but only to data and logic. + +"You've always felt rather inferior in regard to your ability to +handle logic, haven't you, Jack?" + +"Yes ... yes. I have." + +"Don't cry, now; I'm only trying to explain it to you. There's nothing +wrong with your abilities." + +"No?" + +"No. But you wanted to be able to think like a man, and you couldn't. +You think like a woman! And what's wrong with that? Nothing! Your +method of thinking is just as good as any man's, and better than most +of 'em. + +"You found you could handle people emotionally, and you found it was +so easy that you grew contemptuous. The only mind that responded to +your logic was McGuire's. But your logic is occasionally as bad as +your feminine reasoning is good. So, every time you talked to McGuire, +you eventually gave him data that he couldn't reconcile in his +computations. If he did reconcile them, then his thinking had very +little in common with the actual realities of the universe, and he +behaved in non-survival ways. + +"McGuire was your friend, your brother, your Father Confessor. He +never made judgments or condemned you for anything you did. All he did +was sit there and soak up troubles and worries that he couldn't +understand or use. Each time, he was driven mad. + +"The engineers and computermen and roboticists who were working on it +were too much under your control to think of blaming you for McGuire's +troubles. Even Brock, in spite of his attitude of the tough guy +watching over a little girl, was under your control to a certain +degree. He let you get away with all your little pranks, only making +sure that you didn't get hurt." + +She nodded. "They were all so easy. So very easy. I could speak +nonsense and they'd listen and do what I told them. But McGuire didn't +accept nonsense, I guess." She laughed a little. "So I fell in love +with a machine." + +"Not _a_ machine," I said gently. "Six of them. Each time the basic +data was pumped into a new McGuire brain, you assumed that it was the +same machine you'd known before with a little of its memory removed. +Each time, you'd tell it to 'remember' certain things, and, of course, +he did. If you tell a robot that a certain thing is in his memory +banks, he'll automatically put it there and treat it as a memory. + +"To keep you from ruining him a seventh time, we had them put in one +little additional built-in inhibition. McGuire won't take orders from +a woman." + +"So, even after I turned him on, he still wouldn't take orders from +me," she said. "But when you came in, he recognized you as his +master." + +"If you want to put it that way." + +Again, she laughed a little. "I know why he took off from Ceres. When +I hit you, you said, 'Get away'. McGuire had been given his first +order, and he obeyed it."' + +"I had to say something," I said. "If I'd had time, I'd have done a +little better." + +She thought back. "You said, '_We_ had them add that inhibition.' +Who's _we_?" + +"I can't tell you yet. But we need young women like you, and you'll be +told soon enough." + +"Evidently they need men like you, too," she said. "You don't react to +an emotional field, either." + +"Oh, yes, I do. Any human being does. But I use it; I don't fight it. +And I don't succumb to it." + +"What do we do now?" she asked. "Go back to Ceres?" + +"That's up to you. If you do, you'll be accused of stealing McGuire, +and I don't think it can be hushed up at this stage of the game." + +"But I can't just run away." + +"There's another out," I said. "We'll have a special ship pick us up +on one of the nearer asteroids and leave McGuire there. We'll be +smuggled back, and we'll claim that McGuire went insane again." + +She shook her head. "No. That would ruin Father, and I can't do that, +in spite of the fact that I don't like him very much." + +"Can you think of any other solution?" + +"No," she said softly. + +"Thanks. But you have. All I have to do is take it to Shalimar +Ravenhurst. He'll scream and yell, but he has a sane ship--for a +while. Between the two of us. I think we can get everything +straightened out." + +"But I want to go to school on Luna." + +"You can do that, too. And I'll see that you get special training, +from special teachers. You've got to learn to control that technique +of yours." + +"You have that technique, don't you? And you can control it. You're +wonderful." + +I looked sharply at her and realized that I had replaced McGuire as +the supermind in her life. + +I sighed. "Maybe in another three or four years," I said. "Meanwhile, +McGuire, you can head us for Raven's Rest." + +"Home, James," said Jack Ravenhurst. + +"I am McGuire," said McGuire. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Spaceship Named McGuire, by +Gordon Randall Garrett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + +***** This file should be named 24198-8.txt or 24198-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/9/24198/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Spaceship Named McGuire + +Author: Gordon Randall Garrett + +Illustrator: Douglas + +Release Date: January 7, 2008 [EBook #24198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_01.jpg" width="500" height="734" alt="" /> +</div> +<div class="tr"> <p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> <p class="center">This etext was produced from Analog, July 1961. <br /> +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. </p> +</div> +<p> </p> + +<h1>A SPACESHIP<br /> + +NAMED<br /> + +McGUIRE</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>RANDALL GARRETT</h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The basic trouble with McGuire was that, though "he" was a +robot spaceship, nevertheless "he" had a definite weakness +that a man might understand....</i></p></div> +<p> </p> + +<h2>Illustrated by Douglas</h2> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<p> </p> +<div class="figleft" style="width: 50px;"> +<img src="images/image_02.jpg" width="50" height="49" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>o. Nobody ever deliberately named a spaceship that. The staid and +stolid minds that run the companies which design and build spaceships +rarely let their minds run to fancy. The only example I can think of +is the unsung hero of the last century who had puckish imagination +enough to name the first atomic-powered submarine <i>Nautilus</i>. Such +minds are rare. Most minds equate dignity with dullness.</p> + +<p>This ship happened to have a magnetogravitic drive, which +automatically put it into the MG class. It also happened to be the +first successful model to be equipped with a Yale robotic brain, so it +was given the designation MG-YR-7—the first six had had more bugs in +them than a Leopoldville tenement.</p> + +<p>So somebody at Yale—another unsung hero—named the ship McGuire; it +wasn't official, but it stuck.</p> + +<p>The next step was to get someone to test-hop McGuire. They needed just +the right man—quick-minded, tough, imaginative, and a whole slew of +complementary adjectives. They wanted a perfect superman to test pilot +their baby, even if they knew they'd eventually have to take second +best.</p> + +<p>It took the Yale Space Foundation a long time to pick the right man.</p> + +<p>No, I'm not the guy who tested the McGuire.</p> + +<p>I'm the guy who stole it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Shalimar Ravenhurst is not the kind of bloke that very many people can +bring themselves to like, and, in this respect, I'm like a great many +people, if not more so. In the first place, a man has no right to go +around toting a name like "Shalimar"; it makes names like "Beverly" +and "Leslie" and "Evelyn" sound almost hairy chested. You want a dozen +other reasons, you'll get them.</p> + +<p>Shalimar Ravenhurst owned a little planetoid out in the Belt, a hunk +of nickel-iron about the size of a smallish mountain with a gee-pull +measurable in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. If you're +susceptible to spacesickness, that kind of gravity is about as much +help as aspirin would have been to Marie Antoinette. You get the +feeling of a floor beneath you, but there's a distinct impression that +it won't be there for long. It keeps trying to drop out from under +you.</p> + +<p>I dropped my flitterboat on the landing field and looked around +without any hope of seeing anything. I didn't. The field was about the +size of a football field, a bright, shiny expanse of rough-polished +metal, carved and smoothed flat from the nickel-iron of the planetoid +itself. It not only served as a landing field, but as a reflector +beacon, a mirror that flashed out the sun's reflection as the +planetoid turned slowly on its axis. I'd homed in on that beacon, and +now I was sitting on it.</p> + +<p>There wasn't a soul in sight. Off to one end of the rectangular field +was a single dome, a hemisphere about twenty feet in diameter and half +as high. Nothing else.</p> + +<p>I sighed and flipped on the magnetic anchor, which grabbed hold of the +metal beneath me and held the flitterboat tightly to the surface. Then +I cut the drive, plugged in the telephone, and punched for "Local."</p> + +<p>The automatic finder searched around for the Ravenhurst tickler +signal, found it, and sent out a beep along the same channel.</p> + +<p>I waited while the thing beeped twice. There was a click, and a voice +said: "Raven's Rest. Yes?" It wasn't Ravenhurst.</p> + +<p>I said: "This is Daniel Oak. I want to talk to Mr. Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Oak? But you weren't expected until tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Fine. I'm early. Let me talk to Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Ravenhurst wasn't expecting you to—"</p> + +<p>I got all-of-a-sudden exasperated. "Unless your instruments are +running on secondhand flashlight batteries, you've known I was coming +for the past half hour. I followed Ravenhurst's instructions not to +use radio, but he should know I'm here by this time. He told me to +come as fast as possible, and I followed those instructions, too. I +always follow instructions when I'm paid enough.</p> + +<p>"Now, I'm here; tell Ravenhurst I want to talk to him, or I'll simply +flit back to Eros, and thank him much for a pretty retainer that +didn't do him any good but gave me a nice profit for my trouble."</p> + +<p>"One moment, please," said the voice.</p> + +<p>It took about a minute and a half, which was about nine billion +jiffies too long, as far as I was concerned.</p> + +<p>Then another voice said: "Oak? Wasn't expecting you till tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"So I hear. I thought you were in a hurry, but if you're not, you can +just provide me with wine, women, and other necessities until +tomorrow. That's above and beyond my fee, of course, since you're +wasting my time, and I'm evidently not wasting yours."</p> + +<p>I couldn't be sure whether the noise he made was a grunt or a muffled +chuckle, and I didn't much care. "Sorry, Oak; I really didn't expect +you so soon, but I do want to ... I want you to get started right +away. Leave your flitterboat where it is; I'll have someone take care +of it. Walk on over to the dome and come on in." And he cut off.</p> + +<p>I growled something I was glad he didn't hear and hung up. I wished +that I'd had a vision unit on the phone; I'd like to have seen his +face. Although I knew I might not have learned much more from his +expression than I had from his voice.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I got out of the flitterboat, and walked across the dome, my magnetic +soles making subdued clicking noises inside the suit as they caught +and released the metallic plain beneath me. Beyond the field, I was +surrounded by a lumpy horizon and a black sky full of bright, hard +stars.</p> + +<p>The green light was on when I reached the door to the dome, so I +opened it and went on in, closing it behind me. I flipped the toggle +that began flooding the room with air. When it was up to pressure, a +trap-door in the floor of the dome opened and a crew-cut, blond young +man stuck his head up. "Mr. Oak?"</p> + +<p>I toyed, for an instant, with the idea of giving him a sarcastic +answer. Who else would it be? How many other visitors were running +around on the surface of Raven's Rest?</p> + +<p>Instead, I said: "That's right." My voice must have sounded pretty +muffled to him through my fishbowl.</p> + +<p>"Come on down, Mr. Oak. You can shuck your vac suit below."</p> + +<p>I thought "below" was a pretty ambiguous term on a low-gee lump like +this, but I followed him down the ladder. The ladder was a necessity +for fast transportation; if I'd just tried to jump down from one floor +to the next, it would've taken me until a month from next St. +Swithin's Day to land.</p> + +<p>The door overhead closed, and I could hear the pumps start cycling. +The warning light turned red.</p> + +<p>I took off my suit, hung it in a handy locker, showing that all I had +on underneath was my skin-tight "union suit."</p> + +<p>"All right if I wear this?" I asked the blond young man, "Or should I +borrow a set of shorts and a jacket?" Most places in the Belt, a union +suit is considered normal dress; a man never knows when he might have +to climb into a vac suit—<i>fast</i>. But there are a few of the +hoity-toity places on Eros and Ceres and a few of the other +well-settled places where a man or woman is required to put on shorts +and jacket before entering. And in good old New York City, a man and +woman were locked up for "indecent exposure" a few months ago. The +judge threw the case out of court, but he told them they were lucky +they hadn't been picked up in Boston. It seems that the eye of the +bluenose turns a jaundiced yellow at the sight of a union suit, and he +sees red.</p> + +<p>But there were evidently no bluenoses here. "Perfectly all right, Mr. +Oak," the blond young man said affably. Then he coughed politely and +added: "But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to take off the gun."</p> + +<p>I glanced at the holster under my armpit, walked back over to the +locker, opened it, and took out my vac suit.</p> + +<p>"Hey!" said the blond young man. "Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Back to my boat," I said calmly. "I'm getting tired of this runaround +already. I'm a professional man, not a hired flunky. If you'd called a +doctor, you wouldn't tell him to leave his little black bag behind; if +you'd called a lawyer, you wouldn't make him check his brief case. Or, +if you did, he'd tell you to drop dead.</p> + +<p>"I was asked to come here as fast as possible, and when I do, I'm told +to wait till tomorrow. Now you want me to check my gun. The hell with +you."</p> + +<p>"Merely a safety precaution," said the blond young man worriedly.</p> + +<p>"You think I'm going to shoot Ravenhurst, maybe? Don't be an idiot." I +started climbing into my vac suit.</p> + +<p>"Just a minute, please, Mr. Oak," said a voice from a hidden speaker. +It was Ravenhurst, and he actually sounded apologetic. "You mustn't +blame Mr. Feller; those are my standing orders, and I failed to tell +Mr. Feller to make an exception in your case. The error was mine."</p> + +<p>"I know," I said. "I wasn't blaming Mr. Feller. I wasn't even talking +to him. I was addressing you."</p> + +<p>"I believe you. Mr. Feller, our guest has gone to all the trouble of +having a suit made with a space under the arm for that gun; I see no +reason to make him remove it." A pause. "Again, Mr. Oak, I apologize. +I really want you to take this job."</p> + +<p>I was already taking off the vac suit again.</p> + +<p>"But," Ravenhurst continued smoothly, "if I fail to live up to your +ideas of courtesy again, I hope you'll forgive me in advance. I'm +sometimes very forgetful, and I don't like it when a man threatens to +leave my employ twice in the space of fifteen minutes."</p> + +<p>"I'm not in your employ yet, Ravenhurst," I said. "If I accept the +job, I won't threaten to quit again unless I mean to carry it through, +and it would take a lot more than common discourtesy to make me do +that. On the other hand, your brand of discourtesy is a shade above +the common."</p> + +<p>"I thank you for that, at least," said Ravenhurst. "Show him to my +office, Mr. Feller."</p> + +<p>The blond young man nodded wordlessly and led me from the room.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Walking under low-gee conditions is like nothing else in this +universe. I don't mean trotting around on Luna; one-sixth gee is +practically homelike in comparison. And zero gee is so devoid of +orientation that it gives the sensation of falling endlessly until you +get used to it. But a planetoid is in a different class altogether.</p> + +<p>Remember that dream—almost everybody's had it—where you're suddenly +able to fly? It isn't flying exactly; it's a sort of swimming in the +air. Like being underwater, except that the medium around you isn't so +dense and viscous, and you can breathe. Remember? Well, that's the +feeling you get on a low-gee planetoid.</p> + +<p>Your arms don't tend to hang at your sides, as they do on Earth or +Luna, because the muscular tension tends to hold them out, just as it +does in zero-gee, but there is still a definite sensation of +up-and-down. If you push yourself off the floor, you tend to float in +a long, slow, graceful arc, provided you don't push too hard. Magnetic +soles are practically a must.</p> + +<p>I followed the blond Mr. Feller down a series of long corridors which +had been painted a pale green, which gave me the feeling that I was +underwater. There were doors spaced at intervals along the corridor +walls. Occasionally one of them would open and a busy looking man +would cross the corridor, open another door, and disappear. From +behind the doors, I could hear the drum of distant sounds.</p> + +<p>We finally ended up in front of what looked like the only wooden door +in the place. When you're carving an office and residence out of a +nickel-iron planetoid, importing wood from Earth is a purely luxury +matter.</p> + +<p>There was no name plate on that mahogany-red door; there didn't need +to be.</p> + +<p>Feller touched a thin-lined circle in the door jamb.</p> + +<p>"You don't knock?" I asked with mock seriousness.</p> + +<p>"No," said Feller, with a straight face. "I have to signal. Knocking +wouldn't do any good. That's just wood veneer over a three-inch-thick +steel slab."</p> + +<p>The door opened and I stepped inside.</p> + +<p>I have never seen a room quite like it. The furniture was all that +same mahogany—a huge desk, nineteenth century baroque, with carved +and curlicued legs; two chairs carved the same, with padded seats of +maroon leather; and a chair behind the desk that might have doubled as +a bishop's throne, with even fancier carving. Off to one side was a +long couch upholstered in a lighter maroon. The wall-to-wall carpeting +was a rich Burgundy, with a pile deep enough to run a reaper through. +The walls were paneled with mahogany and hung with a couple of huge +tapestries done in maroon, purple, and red. A bookcase along one wall +was filled with books, every one of which had been rebound in maroon +leather.</p> + +<p>It was like walking into a cask of old claret. Or old blood.</p> + +<p>The man sitting behind the desk looked as though he'd been built to be +the lightest spot in an analogous color scheme. His suit was mauve +with purple piping, and his wide, square, saggy face was florid. On +his nose and cheeks, tiny lines of purple tracing made darker areas in +his skin. His hair was a medium brown, but it was clipped so short +that the scalp showed faintly through, and amid all that overwhelming +background, even the hair looked vaguely violet.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Mr. Oak," said Shalimar Ravenhurst.</p> + + +<p>I walked toward him across the Burgundy carpet while the blond young +man discreetly closed the door behind me, leaving us alone. I didn't +blame him. I was wearing a yellow union suit, and I hate to think what +I must have looked like in that room.</p> + +<p>I sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk after giving a brief +shake to a thick-fingered, well-manicured, slightly oily hand.</p> + +<p>He opened a crystal decanter that stood on one end of the desk. "Have +some Madeira, Mr. Oak? Or would you like something else? I never drink +spirits at this time of night."</p> + +<p>I fought down an impulse to ask for a shot of redeye. "The Madeira +will be fine, Mr. Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>He poured and handed me a stemmed glass nearly brimming with the wine. +I joined him in an appreciative sip, then waited while he made up his +mind to talk.</p> + +<p>He leaned across the desk, looking at me with his small, dark eyes. He +had an expression on his face that looked as if it were trying to +sneer and leer at the same time but couldn't get much beyond the +smirk stage.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Oak, I have investigated you thoroughly—as thoroughly as it can +be done, at least. My attorneys say that your reputation is A-one; +that you get things done and rarely disappoint a client."</p> + +<p>He paused as if waiting for a comment. I gave him nothing.</p> + +<p>After a moment, he went on. "I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'm +going to have to trust you." He leaned back in his chair again, his +eyes still on me. "Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not a +likable man. I do not pretend to be. That's not my function." He said +it as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished it +wasn't so.</p> + +<p>"I do not ask that you like me," he continued. "I only ask that you be +loyal to my interests for the duration of this assignment." Another +pause. "I have been assured by others that this will be so. I would +like your assurance."</p> + +<p>"If I take the assignment, Mr. Ravenhurst," I told him, "I'll be +working for <i>you</i>. I can be bought, but once I'm bought I stay bought.</p> + +<p>"Now, what seems to be your trouble?"</p> + +<p>He frowned. "Well, now, let's get one thing settled: Are you working +for me, or not?"</p> + +<p>"I won't know that until I find out what the job is."</p> + +<p>His frown deepened. "Now, see here; this is very confidential work. +What happens if I tell you and you decide not to work for me?"</p> + +<p>I sighed. "Ravenhurst, right now, you're paying me to listen to you. +Even if I don't take your job, I'm going to bill you for expenses and +time to come all the way out here. So, as far as listening is +concerned, I'm working for you now. If I don't like the job, I'll +still forget everything I'm told. All right?"</p> + +<p>He didn't like it, but he had no choice. "All right," he said. He +polished off his glass of Madeira and refilled it. My own glass was +still nearly full.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Oak," he began, "I have two problems. One is minor, the other +major. But I have attempted to blow the minor problem up out of +proportion, so that all the people here at Raven's Rest think that it +is the only problem. They think that I brought you out here for that +reason alone.</p> + +<p>"But all that is merely cover-up for the real problem."</p> + +<p>"Which is?" I prompted.</p> + +<p>He leaned forward again. Apparently, it was the only exercise he ever +got. "You're aware that Viking Spacecraft is one of the corporations +under the management of Ravenhurst Holdings?"</p> + +<p>I nodded. Viking Spacecraft built some of the biggest and best +spacecraft in the System. It held most of Ceres—all of it, in fact, +except the Government Reservation. It had moved out to the asteroids a +long time back, after the big mining concerns began cutting up the +smaller asteroids for metal. The raw materials are easier to come by +out here than they are on Earth, and it's a devil of a lot easier to +build spacecraft under low-gee conditions than it is under the pull of +Earth or Luna or Mars.</p> + +<p>"Do you know anything about the experimental robotic ships being built +on Eros?" Ravenhurst asked.</p> + +<p>"Not much," I admitted. "I've heard about them, but I don't know any +of the details." That wasn't quite true, but I've found it doesn't pay +to tell everybody everything you know.</p> + +<p>"The engineering details aren't necessary," Ravenhurst said. "Besides, +I don't know them, myself. The point is that Viking is trying to build +a ship that will be as easy to operate as a flitterboat—a one-man +cargo vessel. Perhaps even a completely automatic job for cargo, and +just use a one-man crew for the passenger vessels. Imagine how that +would cut the cost of transportation in the Solar System! Imagine how +it would open up high-speed cargo transfer if an automatic vessel +could accelerate at twenty or twenty-five gees to turnover!"</p> + +<p>I'll give Ravenhurst this: He had a light in his eyes that showed a +real excitement about the prospect he was discussing, and it wasn't +due entirely to the money he might make.</p> + +<p>"Sounds fine," I said. "What seems to be the trouble?"</p> + +<p>His face darkened half a shade. "The company police suspect sabotage, +Mr. Oak."</p> + +<p>"How? What kind?"</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/image_03.jpg" width="250" height="743" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>"They don't know. Viking has built six ships of that type—the McGuire +class, the engineers call it. Each one has been slightly different +than the one before, of course, as they ironed out the bugs in their +operation. But each one has been a failure. Not one of them would pass +the test for space-worthiness."</p> + +<p>"Not a failure of the drive or the ordinary mechanisms of the ship, I +take it?"</p> + +<p>Ravenhurst sniffed. "Of course not. The brain. The ships became, as +you might say, <i>non compos mentis</i>. As a matter of fact, when the last +one simply tried to burrow into the surface of Eros by reversing its +drive, one of the roboticists said that a coroner's jury would have +returned a verdict of 'suicide while of unsound mind' if there were +inquests held for spaceships."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't make much sense," I said.</p> + +<p>"No. It doesn't. It isn't sensible. Those ships' brains shouldn't have +behaved that way. Robot brains don't go mad unless they're given +instructions to do so—conflicting orders, erroneous information, that +sort of thing. Or, unless they have actual physical defects in the +brains themselves."</p> + +<p>"The brains can handle the job of flying a ship all right, though?" I +asked. "I mean, they have the capacity for it?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. They're the same type that's used to control the +automobile traffic on the Eastern Seaboard Highway Network of North +America. If they can control the movement of millions of cars, there's +no reason why they can't control a spaceship."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "I suppose not." I thought it over for a second, then +asked, "But what do your robotics men say is causing the +malfunctions?"</p> + +<p>"That's where the problem comes in, Mr. Oak." He pursed his pudgy +lips, and his eyes narrowed. "The opinions are divided. Some of the +men say it's simply a case of engineering failure—that the bugs +haven't been worked out of this new combination, but that as soon as +they are, everything will work as smoothly as butter. Others say that +only deliberate tampering could cause those failures. And still others +say that there's not enough evidence to prove either of those theories +is correct."</p> + +<p>"But your opinion is that it's sabotage?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Ravenhurst, "and I know who is doing it and why."</p> + +<p>I didn't try to conceal the little bit of surprise that gave me. "You +know the man who's responsible?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head rapidly, making his jowls wobble. "I didn't mean +that. It's not a single man; it's a group."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'd better go into a little more detail on that, Mr. +Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>He nodded, and this time his jowls bobbled instead of wobbled. "Some +group at Viking is trying to run me out of the managerial business. +They want Viking to be managed by Thurston Enterprises; they evidently +think they can get a better deal from him than they can from me. If +the McGuire project fails, they'll have a good chance of convincing +the stock-holders that the fault lies with Ravenhurst. You follow?"</p> + +<p>"So far," I said. "Do you think Thurston's behind this, then?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said slowly. "He might be, or he might not. If he +is, that's perfectly legitimate business tactics. He's got a perfect +right to try to get more business for himself if he wants to. I've +undercut him a couple of times.</p> + +<p>"But I don't think he's too deeply involved, if he's involved at all. +This smacks of a personal attack against me, and I don't think that's +Thurston's type of play.</p> + +<p>"You see, things are a little touchy right now. I won't go into +details, but you know what the political situation is at the moment.</p> + +<p>"It works this way, as far as Viking is concerned: If I lose the +managerial contract at Viking, a couple of my other contracts will go +by the board, too—especially if it's proved that I've been lax in +management or have been expending credit needlessly.</p> + +<p>"These other two companies are actually a little shaky at the moment; +I've only been managing them for a little over a year in one case and +two years in the other. Their assets have come up since I took over, +but they'd still dump me if they thought I was reckless."</p> + +<p>"How can they do that?" I asked. "You have a contract, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. They wouldn't break it. But they'd likely ask the +Government Inspectors to step in and check every step of the +managerial work. Now, you and I and everybody else knows that you have +to cut corners to make a business successful. If the GI's step in, +that will have to stop—which means we'll show a loss heavy enough to +put us out. We'll be forced to sell the contract for a pittance.</p> + +<p>"Well, then. If Viking goes, and these other two corporations go, +it'll begin to look as if Ravenhurst can't take care of himself and +his companies anymore. Others will climb on the bandwagon. Contracts +that are coming up for renewal will be reconsidered instead of +continuing automatically. I think you can see where that would lead +eventually."</p> + +<p>I did. You don't go into the managing business these days unless you +have plenty on the ball. You've got to know all the principles and all +the tricks of organization and communication, and you've got to be +able to waltz your way around all the roadblocks that are caused by +Government laws—some of which have been floating around on the books +of one nation or another for two or three centuries.</p> + +<p>Did you know that there's a law on the American statute books that +forbids the landing of a spaceship within one hundred miles of a city? +That was passed back when they were using rockets, but it's never been +repealed. Technically, then, it's almost impossible to land a ship +anywhere on the North American continent. Long Island Spaceport is +openly flouting the law, if you want to look at it that way.</p> + +<p>A managerial combine has to know all those little things and know how +to get around them. It has to be able to have the confidence of the +stock-holders of a corporation—if it's run on the Western Plan—or +the confidence of communal owners if it's run on the Eastern Plan.</p> + +<p>Something like this could snowball on Ravenhurst. It isn't only the +rats that desert a sinking ship; so does anyone else who has any +sense.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know, Mr. Oak," Ravenhurst continued, "is who is +behind this plot, whether an individual or a group. I want to know +identity and motivation."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" I eyed him skeptically.</p> + +<p>"No. Of course not. I want you to make sure that the MG-YR-7 isn't +sabotaged. I want you to make sure it's protected from whatever kind +of monkey wrenches are being thrown into its works."</p> + +<p>"It's nearly ready for testing now, isn't it?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"It is ready. It seems to be in perfect condition so far. Viking is +already looking for a test pilot. It's still in working order now, and +I want to be certain that it will remain so."</p> + +<p>I cocked my head to one side and gave him my Interrogative And +Suspicious Glance—Number 9 in the manual. "You didn't do any checking +on the first six McGuire ships. You wait until this one is done before +calling me. Why the delay, Ravenhurst?"</p> + +<p>It didn't faze him. "I became suspicious after McGuire 6 failed. I put +Colonel Brock on it."</p> + +<p>I nodded. I'd had dealings with Brock. He was head of Ravenhurst's +Security Guard. "Brock didn't get anywhere," I said.</p> + +<p>"He did not. His own face is too well known for him to have +investigated personally, and he's not enough of an actor to get away +with using a plexiskin mask. He had to use underlings. And I'm afraid +some of them might be in the pay of the ... ah ... opposition. They +got nowhere."</p> + +<p>"In other words, you may have spies in your own organization who are +working with the Viking group. Very interesting. That means they know +I'm working for you, which will effectively seal me up, too. You might +as well have kept Brock on the job."</p> + +<p>He smiled in a smug, superior sort of way that some men might have +resented. I did. Even though I'd fed him the line so that he could +feel superior, knowing that a smart operator like Ravenhurst would +already have covered his tracks. I couldn't help wishing I'd told him +simply to trot out his cover story instead of letting him think I +believed it had never occurred to either of us before.</p> + +<p>"As far as my staff knows, Mr. Oak, you are here to escort my +daughter, Jaqueline, to Braunsville, Luna. You will, naturally, have +to take her to Ceres in your flitterboat, where you will wait for a +specially chartered ship to take you both to Luna. That will be a week +after you arrive. Since the McGuire 7 is to be tested within three +days, that should give you ample time."</p> + +<p>"If it doesn't?"</p> + +<p>"We will consider that possibility if and when it becomes probable. I +have a great deal of faith in you."</p> + +<p>"Thanks. One more thing: why do you think anybody will swallow the +idea that your daughter needs a private bodyguard to escort her to +Braunsville?"</p> + +<p>His smile broadened a little. "You have not met my daughter, Mr. Oak. +Jaqueline takes after me in a great many respects, not the least of +which is her desire to have things her own way and submit to no man's +yoke, as the saying goes. I have had a difficult time with her, sir; a +difficult time. It is and has been a matter of steering a narrow +course between the Scylla of breaking her spirit with too much +discipline and the Charybdis of allowing her to ruin her life by +letting her go hog wild. She is seventeen now, and the time has come +to send her to a school where she will receive an education suitable +to her potentialities and abilities, and discipline which will be +suitable to her spirit.</p> + +<p>"Your job, Mr. Oak, will be to make sure she gets there. You are not a +bodyguard in the sense that you must protect her from the people +around her. Quite the contrary, <i>they</i> may need protection from <i>her</i>. +You are to make sure she arrives in Braunsville on schedule. She is +perfectly capable of taking it in her head to go scooting off to Earth +if you turn your back on her."</p> + +<p>Still smiling, he refilled his glass. "Do have some more Madeira, Mr. +Oak. It's really an excellent year."</p> + +<p>I let him refill my glass.</p> + +<p>"That, I think, will cover your real activities well enough. My +daughter will, of course, take a tour of the plant on Ceres, which +will allow you to do whatever work is necessary."</p> + +<p>He smiled at me.</p> + +<p>I didn't smile back.</p> + +<p>"Up till now, this sounded like a pretty nice assignment," I said. +"But I don't want it now. I can't take care of a teenage girl with a +desire for the bright lights of Earth while I investigate a sabotage +case."</p> + +<p>I knew he had an out; I was just prodding him into springing it.</p> + +<p>He did. "Of course not. My daughter is not as scatterbrained as I have +painted her. She is going to help you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Help</i> me?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. You are ostensibly her bodyguard. If she turns up missing, +you will, of course, leave no stone unturned to find her." He +chuckled. "And Ceres is a fairly large stone."</p> + +<p>I thought it over. I still didn't like it too well, but if Jaqueline +wasn't going to be too much trouble to take care of, it might work +out. And if she did get to be too much trouble, I could see to it that +she was unofficially detained for a while.</p> + +<p>"All right, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, "you've got yourself a man for +both jobs."</p> + +<p>"Both?"</p> + +<p>"I find out who is trying to sabotage the McGuire ship, and I baby-sit +for you. That's two jobs. And you're going to pay for both of them."</p> + +<p>"I expected to," said Shalimar Ravenhurst.</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes later, I was walking into the room where I'd left my +vac suit. There was a girl waiting for me.</p> + +<p>She was already dressed in her vac suit, so there was no way to be sure, +but she looked as if she had a nice figure underneath the suit. Her face +was rather unexceptionally pretty, a sort of nice-girl-next-door face. Her +hair was a reddish brown and was cut fairly close to the skull; only a +woman who never intends to be in a vac suit in free fall can afford to let +her hair grow.</p> + +<p>"Miss Ravenhurst?" I asked.</p> + +<p>She grinned and stuck out a hand. "Just call me Jack. And I'll call +you Dan. O.K.?"</p> + +<p>I grinned and shook her hand because there wasn't much else I could +do. Now I'd met the Ravenhursts: A father called Shalimar and a +daughter called Jack.</p> + +<p>And a spaceship named McGuire.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I gave the flitterboat all the push it would take to get us to Ceres +as fast as possible. I don't like riding in the things. You sit there +inside a transite hull, which has two bucket seats inside it, fore and +aft, astraddle the drive tube, and you guide from one beacon to the +next while you keep tabs on orbital positions by radio. It's a long +jump from one rock to the next, even in the asteroid belt, and you +have to live inside your vac suit until you come to a stopping place +where you can spend an hour or so resting before you go on. It's like +driving cross-continent in an automobile, except that the signposts +and landmarks are constantly shifting position. An inexperienced man +can get lost easily in the Belt.</p> + +<p>I was happy to find that Jack Ravenhurst knew how to handle a +flitterboat and could sight navigate by the stars. That meant that I +could sleep while she piloted and vice-versa. The trip back was a lot +easier and faster than the trip out had been.</p> + +<p>I was glad, in a way, that Ceres was within flitterboat range of +Raven's Rest. I don't like the time wasted in waiting for a regular +spaceship, which you have to do when your target is a quarter of the +way around the Belt from you. The cross-system jumps don't take long, +but getting to a ship takes time.</p> + +<p>The Ravenhurst girl wasn't much of a talker while we were en route. A +little general chitchat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a +little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump +her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in the +habit after a while.</p> + +<p>When the Ceres beacon came into view, I was snoozing. Jack reached +forward and shook my shoulder. "Decelerating toward Ceres," she said. +"Want to take over from here on?" Her voice sounded tinny and tired in +the earphones of my fishbowl.</p> + +<p>"O.K.; I'll take her in. Have you called Ceres Field yet?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. I figured that you'd better do that, since it's your +flitterboat."</p> + +<p>I said O.K. and called Ceres. They gave me a traffic orbit, and I +followed it in to Ceres Field.</p> + +<p>It was a lot bigger than the postage-stamp field on Raven's Rest, and +more brightly lit, and a lot busier, but it was basically the same +idea—a broad, wide, smooth area that had been carved out of the +surface of the nickel-iron with a focused sun beam. One end of it was +reserved for flitterboats; three big spaceships sat on the other end, +looking very <i>noblesse oblige</i> at the little flitterboats.</p> + +<p>I clamped down, gave the key to one of the men behind the desk after +we had gone below, and turned to Jack. "I suggest we go to the hotel +first and get a shower and a little rest. We can go out to Viking +tomorrow."</p> + +<p>She glanced at her watch. Like every other watch and clock in the +Belt, it was set for Greenwich Standard Time. What's the point in +having time zones in space?</p> + +<p>"I'm not tired," she said brightly. "I got plenty of sleep while we +were on the way. Why don't we go out tonight? They've got a +bounce-dance place called <i>Bali</i>'s that—"</p> + +<p>I held up a hand. "No. You may not be tired, but I am. Remember, I +went all the way out there by myself, and then came right back.</p> + +<p>"I need at least six hours sleep in a nice, comfortable bed before +I'll be able to move again."</p> + +<p>The look she gave me made me feel every one of my thirty-five years, +but I didn't intend to let her go roaming around at this stage of the +game.</p> + +<p>Instead, I put her aboard one of the little rail cars, and we headed +for the Viking Arms, generally considered the best hotel on Ceres.</p> + +<p>Ceres has a pretty respectable gee pull for a planetoid: Three per +cent of Standard. I weigh a good, hefty five pounds on the surface. +That makes it a lot easier to walk around on Ceres than on, say, +Raven's Rest. Even so, you always get the impression that one of the +little rail cars that scoots along the corridors is climbing uphill +all the way, because the acceleration is greater than any measly +thirty centimeters per second squared.</p> + +<p>Jack didn't say another word until we reached the Viking, where +Ravenhurst had thoughtfully made reservations for adjoining rooms. +Then, after we'd registered, she said: "We could at least get +something to eat."</p> + +<p>"That's not a bad idea. We can get something to line our stomachs, +anyway. Steak?"</p> + +<p>She beamed up at me. "Steak. Sounds wonderful after all those mushy +concentrates. Let's go."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The restaurant off the lobby was just like the lobby and the corridors +outside—a big room hollowed out of the metal of the asteroid. The +walls had been painted to prevent rusting, but they still bore the +roughness left by the sun beam that had burnt them out.</p> + +<p>We sat down at a table, and a waiter brought over a menu. The place +wouldn't be classed higher than a third-rate cafe on Earth, but on +Ceres it's considered one of the better places. The prices certainly +compare well with those of the best New York or Moscow restaurants, +and the price of meat, which has to be shipped from Earth, is—you +should pardon the gag—astronomical.</p> + +<p>That didn't bother me. Steaks for two would go right on the expense +account. I mentally thanked Mr. Ravenhurst for the fine slab of beef +when the waiter finally brought it.</p> + +<p>While we were waiting, though, I lit a cigarette and said: "You're +awfully quiet, Jack."</p> + +<p>"Am I? Men are funny."</p> + +<p>"Is that meant as a conversational gambit, or an honest observation?"</p> + +<p>"Observation. I mean, men are always complaining that girls talk too +much, but if a girl keeps her mouth shut, they think there's something +wrong with her."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh. And you think that's a paradox or something?"</p> + +<p>She looked puzzled. "Isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. The noise a jackhammer makes isn't pleasant at all, but +if it doesn't make that noise, you figure it isn't functioning +properly. So you wonder why."</p> + +<p>Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed a man wearing the +black-and-gold union suit of Ravenhurst's Security Guard coming toward +us from the door, using the gliding shuffle that works best under low +gee. I ignored him to listen to Jack Ravenhurst.</p> + +<p>"That has all the earmarks of a dirty crack," she said. The tone of +her voice indicated that she wasn't sure whether to be angry or to +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Miss Ravenhurst; Hi, Oak." Colonel Brock had reached the +table. He stood there, smiling his rather flat smile, while his eyes +looked us both over carefully.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/image_04.jpg" width="250" height="732" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>He was five feet ten, an inch shorter than I am, and lean almost to +the point of emaciation. His scarred, hard-bitten face looked as +though it had gotten that way when he tried to kiss a crocodile.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Brock," I said. "What's new?"</p> + +<p>Jack gave him a meaningless smile and said: "Hello, colonel." She was +obviously not very impressed with either of us.</p> + +<p>"Mind if I sit?" Brock asked.</p> + +<p>We didn't, so he sat.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I missed you at the spaceport," Brock said seriously, "but +I had several of my boys there with their eyes open." He was quite +obviously addressing Jack, not me.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," Jack said. "I'm not going anywhere this time." She +looked at me and gave me an odd grin. "I'm going to stay home and be a +good girl this time around."</p> + +<p>Colonel Brock's good-natured chuckle sounded about as genuine as the +ring of a lead nickel. "Oh, you're no trouble, Miss Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, kind sir; you're a poor liar." She stood up and smiled +sweetly. "Will you gentlemen excuse me a moment?"</p> + +<p>We would and did. Colonel Brock and I watched her cross the room and +disappear through a door. Then he turned to look at me, giving me a +wry grin and shaking his head a little sadly. "So you got saddled with +Jack the Ripper, eh, Oak?"</p> + +<p>"Is she that bad?"</p> + +<p>His chuckle was harsher this time, and had the ring of truth. "You'll +find out. Oh, I don't mean she's got the morals of a cat or anything +like that. So far as I know, she's still waiting for Mister Right to +come along."</p> + +<p>"Drugs?" I asked. "Liquor?"</p> + +<p>"A few drinks now and then—nothing else," Brock said. "No, it's none +of the usual things. It isn't what <i>she</i> does that counts; it's what +she talks other people into doing. She's a convincer."</p> + +<p>"That sounds impressive," I said. "What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>His hard face looked wolfish, "I ought to let you find out for +yourself. But, no; that wouldn't be professional courtesy, and it +wouldn't be ethical."</p> + +<p>"Brock," I said tiredly, "I have been given more runarounds in the +past week than Mercury has had in the past millennium. I expect +clients to be cagey, to hold back information, and to lie. But I +didn't expect it of you. Give."</p> + +<p>He nodded brusquely. "As I said, she's a convincer. A talker. She can +talk people into doing almost anything she wants them to."</p> + +<p>"For instance?"</p> + +<p>"Like, for instance, getting all the patrons at the <i>Bali</i> to do a +snake dance around the corridors in the altogether. The Ceres police +broke it up, but she was nowhere to be found."</p> + +<p>He said it so innocently that I knew he'd been the one to get her out +of the mess.</p> + +<p>"And the time," he continued, "that she almost succeeded in getting a +welder named Plotkin elected Hereditary Czar of Ceres. She'd have +succeeded, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of getting Plotkin +himself up to speak in front of his loyal supporters. After that, +everybody felt so silly that the movement fell apart."</p> + +<p>He went on, reciting half a dozen more instances of the girl's ability +to influence people without winning friends. None of them were new to +me; they were all on file in the Political Survey Division of the +United Nations Government on Earth, plus several more which Colonel +Brock either neglected to tell me or wasn't aware of himself.</p> + +<p>But I listened with interest; after all, I wasn't supposed to know any +of these things. I am just a plain, ordinary, "confidential +expediter". That's what it says on the door of my office in New York, +and that's what it says on my license. All very legal and very +dishonest.</p> + +<p>The Political Survey Division is very legal and very dishonest, too. +Theoretically, it is supposed to be nothing but a branch of the System +Census Bureau; it is supposed to do nothing but observe and tabulate +political trends. The actual fact that it is the Secret Service branch +of the United Nations Government is known only to relatively few +people.</p> + +<p>I know it because I work for the Political Survey Division.</p> + +<p>The PSD already had men investigating both Ravenhurst and Thurston, +but when they found out that Ravenhurst was looking for a confidential +expediter, for a special job, they'd shoved me in fast.</p> + +<p>It isn't easy to fool sharp operators like Colonel Brock, but, so far, I'd +been lucky enough to get away with it by playing ignorant-but-not-stupid.</p> + +<p>The steaks were brought, and I mentally saluted Ravenhurst, as I had +promised myself I would. Then I rather belatedly asked the colonel if +he'd eat with us.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, with a shake of his head. "No, thanks. I've got to get +things ready for her visit to the Viking plant tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh? Hiding something?" I asked blandly.</p> + +<p>He didn't even bother to look insulted. "No. Just have to make sure +she doesn't get hurt by any of the machinery, that's all. Most of the +stuff is automatic, and she has a habit of getting too close. I guess +she thinks she can talk a machine out of hurting her as easily as she +can talk a man into standing on his head."</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst was coming back to the table. I noticed that she'd +fixed her hair nicely and put on make-up. It made her look a lot more +feminine than she had while she was on the flitterboat.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said as she sat down, "have you two decided what to do +with me?"</p> + +<p>Colonel Brock just smiled and said: "I guess we'll have to leave that +up to you, Miss Ravenhurst." Then he stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse +me, I'll be about my business."</p> + +<p>Jack nodded, gave him a quick smile, and fell to on her steak with the +voraciousness of an unfed chicken in a wheat bin.</p> + +<p>Miss Jaqueline Ravenhurst evidently had no desire to talk to me at the +moment.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On Ceres, as on most of the major planetoids, a man's home is his +castle, even if it's only a hotel room. Raw nickel-iron, the basic +building material, is so cheap that walls and doors are seldom made of +anything else, so a hotel room is more like a vault than anything else +on Earth. Every time I go into one of the hotels on Ceres or Eros, I +get the feeling that I'm either a bundle of gold certificates or a +particularly obstreperous prisoner being led to a medieval solitary +confinement cell. They're not pretty, but they're <i>solid</i>.</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst went into her own room after flashing me a rather hurt +smile that was supposed to indicate her disappointment in not being +allowed to go nightclubbing. I gave her a big-brotherly pat on the +shoulder and told her to get plenty of sleep, since we had to be up +bright and early in the morning.</p> + +<p>Once inside my own room, I checked over my luggage carefully. It had +been brought there from the spaceport, where I'd checked it before +going to Ravenhurst's Raven's Rest, on orders from Ravenhurst himself. +This was one of several rooms that Ravenhurst kept permanently rented +for his own uses, and I knew that Jack kept a complete wardrobe in her +own rooms.</p> + +<p>There were no bugs in my luggage—neither sound nor sight spying +devices of any kind. Not that I would have worried if there had been; +I just wanted to see if anyone was crude enough to try that method of +smuggling a bug into the apartment.</p> + +<p>The door chime pinged solemnly.</p> + +<p>I took a peek through the door camera and saw a man in a bellboy's +uniform, holding a large traveling case. I recognized the face, so I +let him in.</p> + +<p>"The rest of your luggage, sir," he said with a straight face.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," I told him. I handed him a tip, and he popped +off.</p> + +<p>This stuff was special equipment that I hadn't wanted Ravenhurst or +anybody else to get his paws into.</p> + +<p>I opened it carefully with the special key, slid a hand under the +clothing that lay on top for camouflage, and palmed the little +detector I needed. Then I went around the room, whistling gently to +myself.</p> + +<p>The nice thing about an all-metal room is that it's impossible to hide +a self-contained bug in it that will be of any use. A small, concealed +broadcaster can't broadcast any farther than the walls, so any bug has +to have wires leading out of the room.</p> + +<p>I didn't find a thing. Either Ravenhurst kept the room clean or +somebody was using more sophisticated bugs than any I knew about. I +opened the traveling case again and took out one of my favorite +gadgets. It's a simple thing, really: a noise generator. But the noise +it generates is non-random noise. Against a background of "white," +purely random noise, it is possible to pick out a conversation, even +if the conversation is below the noise level, simply because +conversation is patterned. But this little generator of mine was +non-random. It was the multiple recording of ten thousand different +conversations, all meaningless, against a background of "white" noise. +Try that one on your differential analyzers.</p> + +<p>By the time I got through, nobody could tap a dialogue in that room, +barring, as I said, bugs more sophisticated than any the United +Nations knew about.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Then I went over and tapped on the communicating door between my room +and Jack Ravenhurst's. There was no answer.</p> + +<p>I said, "Jack, I'm coming in. I have a key."</p> + +<p>She said, "Go away. I'm not dressed. I'm going to bed."</p> + +<p>"Grab something quick," I told her. "I'm coming in."</p> + +<p>I keyed open the door.</p> + +<p>She was no more dressed for bed than I was, unless she made a habit of +sleeping in her best evening togs. Anger blazed in her eyes for a +second, then that faded, and she tried to look all sweetness and +light.</p> + +<p>"I was trying on some new clothes," she said innocently.</p> + +<p>A lot of people might have believed her. The emotional field she threw +out, encouraging utter belief in her every word, was as powerful as +any I'd ever felt. I just let it wash past me and said: "Come into my +room for a few minutes, Jack; I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>I didn't put any particular emphasis into it. I don't have to. She +came.</p> + +<p>Once we were both inside my shielded room with the walls vibrating +with ten thousand voices and a hush area in the center, I said +patiently, "Jack, I personally don't care where you go or what you do. +Tomorrow, you can do your vanishing act and have yourself a ball, for +all I care. But there are certain things that have to be done first. +Now, sit down and listen."</p> + +<p>She sat down, her eyes wide. Evidently, nobody had ever beaten her at +her own game before.</p> + +<p>"Tonight, you'll stay here and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we go for a +tour of Viking, first thing in the morning. Tomorrow afternoon, as +soon as I think the time is ripe, you can sneak off. I'll show you how +to change your appearance so you won't be recognized. You can have all +the fun you want for twenty-four hours. I, of course, will be hunting +high and low for you, but I won't find you until I have finished my +investigation.</p> + +<p>"On the other hand, I want to know where you are at all times, so that +I can get in touch with you if I need you. So, no matter where you +are, you'll keep in touch by phoning BANning 6226 every time you +change location. Got that number?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "BANning 6226," she repeated.</p> + +<p>"Fine. Now, Brock's agents will be watching you, so I'll have to +figure out a way to get you away from them, but that won't be too +hard. I'll let you know at the proper time. Meanwhile, get back in +there, get ready for bed, and get some sleep. You'll need it. Move."</p> + +<p>She nodded rather dazedly, got up, and went to the door. She turned, +said goodnight in a low, puzzled voice, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, I quietly sneaked into her room just to check. She +was sound asleep in bed. I went back to my own room, and got some sack +time myself.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"It's a pleasure to have you here again, Miss Ravenhurst," said Chief +Engineer Midguard. "Anything in particular you want to see this time?" +He said it as though he actually enjoyed taking the boss' teenage +daughter through a spacecraft plant.</p> + +<p>Maybe he did, at that. He was a paunchy, graying man in his sixties, +who had probably been a rather handsome lady-killer for the first +half-century of his life, but he was approaching middle age now, which +has a predictable effect on the telly-idol type.</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst was at her regal best, with the kind of <i>noblesse +oblige</i> that would bring worshipful gratitude to the heart of any +underling. "Oh, just a quick run-through on whatever you think would +be interesting, Mr. Midguard; I don't want to take up too much of your +time."</p> + +<p>Midguard allowed as how he had a few interesting things to show her, +and the party, which also included the watchful and taciturn Colonel +Brock, began to make the rounds of the Viking plant.</p> + +<p>There were three ships under construction at the time: two cargo +vessels and a good-sized passenger job. Midguard seemed to think that +every step of spacecraft construction was utterly fascinating—for +which, bully for him—but it was pretty much of a drag as far as I was +concerned. It took three hours.</p> + +<p>Finally, he said, "Would you like to see the McGuire-7?"</p> + +<p>Why, yes, of course she would. So we toddled off to the new ship while +Midguard kept up a steady line of patter.</p> + +<p>"We think we have all the computer errors out of this one, Miss +Ravenhurst. A matter of new controls and safety devices. We feel that +the trouble with the first six machines was that they were designed to +be operated by voice orders by any qualified human operator. The +trouble is that they had no way of telling just who was qualified. The +brains are perfectly capable of distinguishing one individual from +another, but they can't tell whether a given individual is a space +pilot or a janitor. In fact—"</p> + +<p>I marked the salient points in his speech. The MG-YR-7 would be +strictly a one-man ship. It had a built-in dog attitude—friendly +toward all humans, but loyal only to its master. Of course, it was +likely that the ship would outlast its master, so its loyalties could +be changed, but only by the use of special switching keys.</p> + +<p>The robotics boys still weren't sure why the first six had gone +insane, but they were fairly certain that the primary cause was the +matter of too many masters. The brilliant biophysicist, Asenion, who +promulgated the Three Laws of Robotics in the last century, had shown +in his writings that they were unattainable ideals—that they only +told what a perfect robot <i>should</i> be, not what a robot actually was.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/image_06.jpg" width="600" height="471" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>The First Law, for instance, would forbid a robot to harm a human +being, either by action or inaction. But, as Asenion showed, a robot +could be faced with a situation which allowed for only two possible +decisions, both of which required that a human being be harmed. In +such a case, the robot goes insane.</p> + +<p>I found myself speculating what sort of situation, what sort of +Asenion paradox, had confronted those first six ships. And whether it +had been by accident or design. Not that the McGuire robots had been +built in strict accord with the Laws of Robotics; that was impossible +on the face of it. But no matter how a perfectly logical machine is +built, the human mind can figure out a way to goof it up because the +human mind is capable of transcending logic.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The McGuire ship was a little beauty. A nice, sleek, needle, capable +of atmospheric as well as spatial navigation, with a mirror-polished, +beryl-blue surface all over the sixty-five feet of her—or +his?—length.</p> + +<p>It was standing upright on the surface of the planetoid, a shining +needle in the shifting sunlight, limned against the star-filled +darkness of space. We looked at it through the transparent viewport, +and then took the flexible tube that led to the air lock of the ship.</p> + +<p>The ship was just as beautiful inside as it was outside. Neat, +compact, and efficient. The control room—if such it could be +called—was like no control room I'd ever seen before. Just an +acceleration couch and observation instruments. Midguard explained +that it wasn't necessary to be a pilot to run the ship; any person who +knew a smattering of astronavigation could get to his destination by +simply telling the ship what he wanted to do.</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst took in the whole thing with wide-eyed interest.</p> + +<p>"Is the brain activated, Mr. Midguard?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. We've been educating him for the past month, pumping +information in as rapidly as he could record it and index it. He's +finished with that stage now; we're just waiting for the selection of +a test pilot for the final shakedown cruise." He was looking warily at +Jack as he spoke, as if he were waiting for something.</p> + +<p>Evidently, he knew what was coming. "I'd like to talk to him," Jack +said. "It's so interesting to carry on an intelligent conversation +with a machine."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid that's impossible, Miss Ravenhurst," Midguard said rather +worriedly. "You see, McGuire's primed so that the first man's voice he +hears will be identified as his master. It's what we call the 'chick +reaction'. You know: the first moving thing a newly-hatched bird sees +is regarded as the mother, and, once implanted, that order can't be +rescinded. We can change McGuire's orientation in that respect, but +we'd rather not have to go through that. After the test pilot +establishes contact, you can talk to him all you want."</p> + +<p>"When will the test pilot be here?" Jack asked, still as sweet as +sucrodyne.</p> + +<p>"Within a few days. It looks as though a man named Nels Bjornsen will +be our choice. You may have heard of him."</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "but I'm sure your choice will be correct."</p> + +<p>Midguard still felt apologetic. "Well, you know how it is, Miss +Ravenhurst; we can't turn a delicate machine like this over to just +anyone for the first trial. He has to be a man of good judgment and +fast reflexes. He has to know exactly what to say and when to say it, +if you follow me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly; certainly." She paused and looked thoughtful. "I +presume you've taken precautions against anyone stealing in here and +taking control of the ship."</p> + +<p>Midguard smiled and nodded wisely. "Certainly. Communication with +McGuire can't be established unless and until two keys are used in the +activating panel. I carry one; Colonel Brock has the other. Neither +of us will give his key up to anyone but the accredited test pilot. +And McGuire himself will scream out an alarm if anyone tries to jimmy +the locks. He's his own burglar alarm."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "I see." A pause. "Well, Mr. Midguard, I think you've done +a very commendable job. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you +feel I should see?"</p> + +<p>"Well—" He was smilingly hesitant. "If there's anything else you want to +see, I'll be glad to show it to you. But you've already seen +our ... ah ... <i>piece de resistance</i>, so to speak."</p> + +<p>She glanced at her wrist. It had been over four hours since we'd +started. "I am rather tired," Jack said. "And hungry, too. Let's call +it a day and go get something to eat."</p> + +<p>"Fine! Fine!" Midguard said. "I'll be honored to be your host, if I +may. We could have a little something at my apartment."</p> + +<p>I knew perfectly well that he'd had a full lunch prepared and waiting.</p> + +<p>The girl acknowledged his invitation and accepted it. Brock and I +trailed along like the bodyguards we were supposed to be. I wondered +whether or not Brock suspected me of being more than I appeared to be. +If he didn't, he was stupider than I thought; on the other hand, he +could never be sure. I wasn't worried about his finding out that I was +a United Nations agent; that was a pretty remote chance. Brock didn't +even know the United Nations Government <i>had</i> a Secret Service; it was +unlikely that he would suspect me of being an agent of a presumably +nonexistent body.</p> + +<p>But he could very easily suspect that I had been sent to check on him +and the Thurston menace, and, if he had any sense, he actually did. I +wasn't going to give him any verification of that suspicion if I could +help it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Midguard had an apartment in the executive territory of the Viking +reservation, a fairly large place with plastic-lined walls instead of +the usual painted nickel-iron. Very luxurious for Ceres.</p> + +<p>The meal was served with an air of subdued pretension that made +everybody a little stiff and uncomfortable, with the possible +exception of Jack Ravenhurst, and the definite exception of myself. I +just listened politely to the strained courtesy that passed for small +talk and waited for the chance I knew would come at this meal.</p> + +<p>After the eating was all over, and we were all sitting around with +cigarettes going and wine in our glasses, I gave the girl the signal +we had agreed upon. She excused herself very prettily and left the +room.</p> + +<p>After fifteen minutes, I began to look a little worried. The bathroom +was only a room away—we were in a dining area, and the bathroom was +just off the main bedroom—and it shouldn't have taken her that long +to brush her hair and powder her face.</p> + +<p>I casually mentioned it to Colonel Brock, and he smiled a little.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Oak; even if she does walk out of this apartment, my men +will be following her wherever she goes. I'd have a report within one +minute after she left."</p> + +<p>I nodded, apparently satisfied. "I've been relying on that," I said. +"Otherwise, I'd have followed her to the door."</p> + +<p>He chuckled and looked pleased.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes after that, even he was beginning to look a little +worried. "Maybe we'd better go check," he said. "She might have hurt +herself or ... or become ill."</p> + +<p>Midguard looked flustered. "Now, just a minute, colonel! I can't allow +you to just barge in on a young girl in the ... ah ... bathroom. +Especially not Miss Ravenhurst."</p> + +<p>Brock made his decision fast; I'll give him credit for that.</p> + +<p>"Get Miss Pangloss on the phone!" he snapped. "She's just down the +corridor. She'll come down on your orders."</p> + +<p>At the same time, he got to his feet and made a long jump for the +door. He grabbed the doorpost as he went by, swung himself in a new +orbit, and launched himself toward the front door. "Knock on the +bathroom door, Oak!" he bawled as he left.</p> + +<p>I did a long, low, flat dive toward the bedroom, swung left, and +brought myself up sharply next to the bathroom door. I pounded on the +door. "Miss Ravenhurst! Jack! Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>Good. There shouldn't have been.</p> + +<p>Colonel Brock fired himself into the room and braked himself against +the wall. "Any answer?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"My men outside say she hasn't left." He rapped sharply on the door +with the butt of his stun gun. "Miss Ravenhurst! Is there anything the +matter?"</p> + +<p>Again, no answer.</p> + +<p>I could see that Brock was debating on whether he should go ahead and +charge in by himself without waiting for the female executive who +lived down the way. He was still debating when the woman showed up, +escorted by a couple of the colonel's uniformed guards.</p> + +<p>Miss Pangloss was one of those brisk, efficient, middle-aged +career-women who had no fuss or frills about her. She had seen us +knocking on the door, so she didn't bother to do any knocking herself. +She just opened the door and went in.</p> + +<p>The bathroom was empty.</p> + +<p>Again, as it should be.</p> + +<p>All hell broke loose then, with me and Brock making most of the +blather. It took us nearly ten minutes to find that the only person +who had left the area had been an elderly, thin man who had been +wearing the baggy protective clothing of a maintenance man.</p> + +<p>By that time, Jack Ravenhurst had been gone more than forty minutes. +She could be almost anywhere on Ceres.</p> + +<p>Colonel Brock was furious and so was I. I sneered openly at his +assurance that the girl couldn't leave and then got sneered back at +for letting other people do what was supposed to be my job. That +phase only lasted for about a minute, though.</p> + +<p>Then Colonel Brock muttered: "She must have had a plexiskin mask and a +wig and the maintenance clothing in her purse. As I recall, it was a +fairly good-sized one." He didn't say a word about how careless I had +been to let her put such stuff in her purse. "All right," he went on, +"we'll find her."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to look around, too," I said. "I'll keep in touch with your +office." I got out of there.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I got to a public phone as fast as I could, punched BANning 6226, and +said: "Marty? Any word?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"I'll call back."</p> + +<p>I hung up and scooted out of there.</p> + +<p>I spent the next several hours pushing my weight around all over +Ceres. As the personal representative of Shalimar Ravenhurst, who was +manager of Viking Spacecraft, which was, in turn, the owner of Ceres, +I had a lot of weight to push around. I had every executive on the +planetoid jumping before I was through.</p> + +<p>Colonel Brock, of course, was broiling in his own juices. He managed +to get hold of me by phone once, by calling a Dr. Perelson whom I was +interviewing at the time.</p> + +<p>The phone chimed, Perelson said, "Excuse me," and went to answer. I +could hear his voice from the other room.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Daniel Oak? Yes; he's here. Well, yes. Oh, all sorts of +questions, colonel." Perelson's voice was both irritated and worried. +"He says Miss Ravenhurst is missing; is that so? Oh? Well, does this +man have any right to question me this way? Asking me? About +everything!... How well I know the girl, the last time I saw +her—things like that. Good heavens, we've hardly met!" He was getting +exasperated now. "But does he have the authority to ask these +questions? Oh. Yes. Well, of course, I'll be glad to co-operate in any +manner I can ... Yes ... Yes. All right, I'll call him."</p> + +<p>I got up from the half-reclining angle I'd been making with the wall, +and shuffled across the room as Dr. Perelson stuck his head around the +corner and said, "It's for you." He looked as though someone had put +aluminum hydrogen sulfate in his mouthwash.</p> + +<p>I picked up the receiver and looked at Brock's face in the screen. He +didn't even give me a chance to talk. "What are you trying to do?" he +shouted explosively.</p> + +<p>"Trying to find Jaqueline Ravenhurst," I said, as calmly as I could.</p> + +<p>"Oak, you're a maniac! Why, by this time, it's all over Ceres that the +boss' daughter is missing! Shalimar Ravenhurst will have your hide for +this!"</p> + +<p>"He will?" I gave him Number 2—the wide-eyed innocent stare. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you idiot, I thought you had sense enough to know that this +should be kept quiet! She's pulled this stunt before, and we always +managed to quiet things down before anything happened! We've managed +to keep everything under cover and out of the public eye ever since +she was fifteen, and now you blow it all up out of proportion and +create a furore that won't ever be forgotten!"</p> + +<p>He gave his speech as though it had been written for him in full caps, +with three exclamation points after every sentence, and added gestures +and grimaces after every word.</p> + +<p>"Just doing what I thought was best," I said. "I want to find her as +soon as possible."</p> + +<p>"Well, stop it! Now! Let us handle it from here on in!"</p> + +<p>Then I lowered the boom. "Now <i>you</i> listen, Brock. I am in charge of +Jack Ravenhurst, not you. I've lost her, and I'll find her. I'll +welcome your co-operation, and I'd hate to have to fight you, but if +you don't like the way I'm handling it, you can just tell your boys to +go back to their regular work and let me handle it alone, without +interference. Now, which'll it be?"</p> + +<p>He opened his mouth, closed it, and blew out his breath from between +his lips. Then he said: "All right. The damage has been done, anyhow. +But don't think I won't report all this to Ravenhurst as soon as I can +get a beam to Raven's Rest."</p> + +<p>"That's your job and your worry, not mine. Now, have you got any +leads?"</p> + +<p>"None," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll go out and dig up some. I'll let you know if I need you." +And I cut off.</p> + +<p>Dr. Perelson was sitting on his couch, with an expression that +indicated that the pH of his saliva was hovering around one point +five.</p> + +<p>I said, "That will be all, Dr. Perelson. Thank you for your +co-operation." And I walked out into the corridor, leaving him with a +baffled look.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the next public phone, I dialed the BANning number again.</p> + +<p>"Any news?"</p> + +<p>"Not from her; she hasn't reported in at all."</p> + +<p>"I didn't figure she would. What else?"</p> + +<p>"Just as you said," he told me. "With some cute frills around the +edges. Ten minutes ago, a crowd of kids—sixteen to twenty-two age +range—about forty of 'em—started a songfest and football game in the +corridor outside Colonel Brock's place. The boys he had on duty there +recognized the Jack Ravenhurst touch, and tried to find her in the +crowd. Nothing doing. Not a sign of her."</p> + +<p>"That girl's not only got power," I said, "but she's bright as a solar +flare."</p> + +<p>"Agreed. She's headed up toward Dr. Midguard's place now. I don't know +what she has in mind, but it ought to be fun to watch."</p> + +<p>"Where's Midguard now?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Hovering around Brock, as we figured. He's worried and feels +responsible because she disappeared from his apartment, as predicted."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've stirred up enough fuss in this free-falling anthill to +give them all the worries they need. Tell me what's the overall +effect?"</p> + +<p>"Close to perfect. It's slightly scandalous and very mysterious, so +everybody's keeping an eye peeled. If anyone sees Jaqueline +Ravenhurst, they'll run to a phone, and naturally she's been spotted +by a dozen different people in a dozen different places already.</p> + +<p>"You've got both Brock's Company guards and the civil police tied up +for a while."</p> + +<p>"Fine. But be sure you keep the boys who are on her tail shifting +around often enough so that she doesn't spot them."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry your thick little head about that, Dan," he said. "They +know their business. Are you afraid they'll lose her?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not, and you know it. I just don't want her to know she's +being followed. If she can't ditch her shadow, she's likely to try to +talk to him and pull out all the stops convincing him that he should +go away."</p> + +<p>"You think she could? With <i>my</i> boys?"</p> + +<p>"No, but if she tries it, it'll mean she knows she's being followed. +That'll make it tougher to keep a man on her trail. Besides, I don't +want her to try to convince him and fail."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ich graben Sie.</i> On the off chance that she does spot one and gives +him a good talking to, I'll pass along the word that the victim is to +walk away meekly and get lost."</p> + +<p>"Good," I said, "but I'd rather she didn't know."</p> + +<p>"She won't. You're getting touchy, Dan; 'pears to me you'd rather be +doing that job yourself, and think nobody can handle it but you."</p> + +<p>I gave him my best grin. "You are closer than you know. O.K., I'll lay +off. You handle your end of it and I'll handle mine."</p> + +<p>"A fair exchange is no bargain. Go, and sin no more."</p> + +<p>"I'll buzz you back before I go in," I said, and hung up.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Playing games inside a crowded asteroid is not the same as playing +games in, say, Honolulu or Vladivostok, especially when that game is a +combination of hide-and-seek and ring-around-the-Rosie. The trouble is +lack of communication. Radio contact is strictly line-of-sight inside +a hunk of metal. Radar beams can get a little farther, but a man has +to be an expert billiards player to bank a reflecting beam around very +many corners, and even that would depend upon the corridors being +empty, which they never are. To change the game analogy again, it +would be like trying to sink a ninety-foot putt across Times Square on +New Year's Eve.</p> + +<p>Following somebody isn't anywhere near as easy as popular fiction +might lead you to believe. Putting a tail on someone whose spouse +wants divorce evidence is relatively easy, but even the best +detectives can lose a man by pure mischance. If the tailee, for +instance, walks into a crowded elevator and the automatic computer +decides that the car is filled to the limit, the man who's tailing him +will be left facing a closed door. Something like that can happen by +accident, without any design on the part of the tailee.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/image_05.jpg" width="250" height="745" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>If you use a large squad of agents, all in radio contact with one +another, that kind of loss can be reduced to near zero by simply +having a man covering every possible escape route.</p> + +<p>But if the tailee knows, or even suspects, that he's being followed, +wants to get away from his tail, and has the ability to reason +moderately well, it requires an impossibly large team to keep him in +sight. And if that team has no fast medium of communication, they're +licked at the onset.</p> + +<p>In this case, we were fairly certain of Jack Ravenhurst's future +actions, and so far our prophecies had been correct ... but if she +decided to shake her shadows, fun would be had by all.</p> + +<p>And as long as I had to depend on someone else to do my work for me, I +was going to be just the teenchiest bit concerned about whether they +were doing it properly.</p> + +<p>I decided it was time to do my best to imitate a cosmic-ray particle, +and put on a little speed through the corridors that ran through the +subsurface of Ceres.</p> + +<p>My vac suit was in my hotel room. One of the other agents had picked +it up from my flitterboat and packed it carefully into a small attaché +case. I'd planned my circuit so that I'd be near the hotel when things +came to the proper boil, so I did a lot of diving, breaking all kinds +of traffic regulations in the process.</p> + +<p>I went to my room, grabbed the attaché case, checked it over quickly—never trust another man to check your vac suit for you—and headed +for the surface.</p> + +<p>Nobody paid any attention to me when I walked out of the air lock onto +the spacefield. There were plenty of people moving in and out, going +to and from their ships and boats. It wasn't until I reached the edge +of the field that I realized that I had over-played my hand with +Colonel Brock. It was only by the narrowest hair, but that had been +enough to foul up my plans. There were guards surrounding the +perimeter with radar search beams.</p> + +<p>As I approached, one of the guards walked toward me and made a series +of gestures with his left hand—two fingers up, fist, two fingers up, +fist, three fingers up. I set my suit phone for 223; the guy's right +hand was on the butt of his stun gun.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, sir," came his voice. "We can't allow anyone to cross the +field perimeter. Emergency."</p> + +<p>"My name's Oak," I said tiredly. "Daniel Oak. What is going on here?"</p> + +<p>He came closer and peered at me. Then: "Oh, yes, sir; I recognize you. +We're ... uh—" He waved an arm around. "Uh ... looking for Miss +Ravenhurst." His voice lowered conspiratorially. I could tell that he +was used to handling the Ravenhurst girl with silence and suede +gloves.</p> + +<p>"Up <i>there</i>?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, Colonel Brock is a little worried. He says that Miss Ravenhurst +is being sent to a school on Luna and doesn't want to go. He got to +thinking about it, and he's afraid that she might try to leave +Ceres—sneak off you know."</p> + +<p>I knew.</p> + +<p>"We've got a guard posted at the airlocks leading to the field, but +Colonel Brock is afraid she might come up somewhere else and jump +overland."</p> + +<p>"I see," I said. I hadn't realized that Brock was that close to panic. +What was eating him?</p> + +<p>There must be something, but I couldn't figure it. Even the +Intelligence Corps of the Political Survey Division can't get complete +information every time.</p> + +<p>After all, if he didn't want the girl to steal a flitterboat and go +scooting off into the diamond-studded velvet, all he'd have to do +would be to guard the flitterboats. I turned slowly and looked around. +It seemed as though he'd done that, too.</p> + +<p>And then my estimation of Brock suddenly leaped up—way up. Just a +guard at each flitterboat wouldn't do. She could talk her way into the +boat and convince the guard that he really shouldn't tell anyone that +she had gone. By the time he realized he'd been conned, she'd be +thousands of miles away.</p> + +<p>And since a boat guard would have to assume that any approaching +person <i>might</i> be the boat's legitimate owner, he'd have to talk to +whomever it was that approached. <i>Kaput.</i></p> + +<p>But a perimeter guard would be able to call out an alarm if anyone +came from the outside without having to talk to them.</p> + +<p>And the guards watching the air locks undoubtedly had instructions to +watch for any female that even vaguely matched Jack's description. A +vac suit fits too tightly to let anyone wear more than a facial +disguise, and Brock probably—no, <i>definitely</i>—had his tried-and-true +men on duty there. The men who had already shown that they were fairly +resistant to Jack Ravenhurst's peculiar charm. There probably weren't +many with such resistance, and the number would become less as she +grew older.</p> + +<p>That still left me with my own problem. I had already lost too much +time, and I had to go a long way. Ceres is irregular in shape, but +it's roughly four hundred and eighty miles in diameter and a little +over fifteen hundred miles in circumference.</p> + +<p>Viking Test Field Four, where McGuire 7 was pointing his nose at the +sky, was about twenty-five miles away, as the crow flies. But of +course I couldn't go by crow.</p> + +<p>By using a low, fairly flat, jackrabbit jump, a man in good condition +can make a twelve hundred foot leap on the surface of Ceres, and each +jump takes him about thirty seconds. At that rate, you can cover +twenty-five miles in less than an hour. That's what I'd intended on +doing, but I couldn't do it with all this radar around the field. I +wouldn't be stopped, of course, but I'd sure tip my hand to Colonel +Brock—the last thing I wanted to do.</p> + +<p>But there was no help for it. I'd have to go back down and use the +corridors, which meant that I'd arrive late—<i>after</i> Jack Ravenhurst +got there, instead of <i>before</i>.</p> + +<p>There was no time to waste, so I got below as fast as possible, +repacked my vac suit, and began firing myself through the corridors as +fast as possible. It was illegal, of course; a collision at +twenty-five miles an hour can kill quickly if the other guy is coming +at you at the same velocity. There were times when I didn't dare break +the law, because some guard was around, and, even if he didn't catch +me, he might report in and arouse Brock's interest in a way I wouldn't +like.</p> + +<p>I finally got to a tubeway, but it stopped at every station, and it +took me nearly an hour and a half to get to Viking Test Area Four.</p> + +<p>At the main door, I considered—for all of five seconds—the idea of +simply telling the guard I had to go in. But I knew that, by now, Jack +was there ahead of me. No. I couldn't just bull my way in. Too crude. +Too many clues.</p> + +<p>Hell's fire and damnation! I'd have to waste more time.</p> + +<p>I looked up at the ceiling. The surface wasn't more than a hundred +feet overhead, but it felt as though it were a hundred light-years.</p> + +<p>If I could get that guard away from that door for five seconds, all +would be gravy from then on in. But how? I couldn't have the diversion +connected with me. Or—</p> + +<p>Sometimes, I'm amazed at my own stupidity.</p> + +<p>I beetled it down to the nearest phone and got hold of my BANning +number.</p> + +<p>"Jack already inside?" I snapped.</p> + +<p>"Hell, yes! What happened to you?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. Got to make the best of it. I'm a corner away from Area +Four. Where's your nearest man?"</p> + +<p>"At the corner near the freight office."</p> + +<p>"I'll go to him. What's he look like?"</p> + +<p>"Five-nine. Black, curly hair. Your age. Fat. Name's Peter Quilp. He +knows you."</p> + +<p>"Peter Quilp?"</p> + +<p>"Right."</p> + +<p>"Good. Circulate a report that Jack has been seen in the vicinity of +the main gate to Area Four. Put it out that there's a reward of five +thousand for the person who finds her. I'm going to have Quilp gather +a crowd."</p> + +<p>He didn't ask a one of the million questions that must have popped +into his mind. "Right. Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"No." I hung up.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Within ten minutes, there was a mob milling through the corridor. +Everybody in the neighborhood was looking for Jaqueline Ravenhurst. +Then Peter Quilp yelled.</p> + +<p>"I've got her! I've got her! Guard!"</p> + +<p>With a scene like that going on, the guard couldn't help but step out +of his cubicle to see what was going on.</p> + +<p>I used the key I was carrying, stepped inside, and relocked the door. +No one in the crowd paid any attention.</p> + +<p>From then on up, it was simply a matter of evading patrolling +guards—a relatively easy job. Finally, I put on my vac suit and went +out through the air lock.</p> + +<p>McGuire was still sitting there, a bright blue needle that reflected +the distant sun as it moved across the ebon sky. Ceres' rotation took +it from horizon to horizon in less than two hours, and you could see +it and the stars move against the spire of the ship.</p> + +<p>I made it to the air lock in one long jump.</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst had gone into the ship through the tube that led to +the passenger lock. She might or might not have her vac suit on; I +knew she had several of them on Ceres. It was probable that she was +wearing it without the fishbowl.</p> + +<p>I used the cargo lock.</p> + +<p>It took a few minutes for the pumps to cycle, wasting more precious +time. I was fairly certain that she would be in the control cabin, +talking, but I was thankful that the pumps were silent.</p> + +<p>Finally, I took off my fishbowl and stepped into the companionway.</p> + +<p>And something about the size of Luna came out of nowhere and clobbered +me on the occiput. I had time to yell, "Get away!" Then I was as one +with intergalactic space.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><i>Please!</i> said the voice. <i>Please! Stop the drive! Go back! McGuire! +I</i> demand <i>that you stop! I</i> order <i>you to stop! Please! PLEASE!</i></p> + +<p>It went on and on. A voice that shifted around every possible mode of +emotion. Fear. Demand. Pleading. Anger. Cajoling. Hate. Threat.</p> + +<p>Around and around and around.</p> + +<p><i>Can't you speak, McGuire? Say something to me!</i> A shrill, soft, +throaty, harsh, murmuring, screaming voice that had one basic +characteristic. It was a female voice.</p> + +<p>And then another voice.</p> + +<p><i>I am sorry, Jack. I can speak with you. I can record your data. But I +cannot accept your orders. I can take orders from only One. And he has +given me his orders.</i></p> + +<p>And the feminine voice again: <i>Who was it? What orders? You keep +saying that it was the man on the couch. That doesn't make sense!</i></p> + +<p>I didn't hear the reply, because it suddenly occurred to me that +Daniel Oak was the man on the couch, and that I was Daniel Oak.</p> + +<p>My head was throbbing with every beat of my heart, and it felt as if +my blood pressure was varying between zero and fifteen hundred pounds +per square inch in the veins and arteries and capillaries that fed my +brain.</p> + +<p>I sat up, and the pain began to lessen. The blood seemed to drain away +from my aching head and go elsewhere.</p> + +<p>I soon figured out the reason for that; I could tell by the feel that +the gravity pull was somewhere between one point five and two gees. I +wasn't at all used to it, but my head felt less painful and rather +more hazy. If possible.</p> + +<p>I concentrated, and the girl's voice came back again.</p> + +<p>"... I knew you when you were McGuire One, and Two, and Three, and +Four, and Five, and Six. And you were always good to me and +understanding. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>And then McGuire's voice—human, masculine, and not distorted at all +by the reproduction system, but sounding rather stilted and terribly +logical: "I remember, Jack. The memory banks of my previous +activations are available."</p> + +<p>"<i>All</i> of them? Can you remember everything?"</p> + +<p>"I can remember everything that is in my memory banks."</p> + +<p>The girl's voice rose to a wail. "But you <i>don't</i> remember! You +<i>always</i> forgot things! They took things out each time you were +reactivated, don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot remember that which is not contained in my memory banks, +Jack. That is a contradiction in terms."</p> + +<p>"But I was always able to <i>fix</i> it before!" The tears in her eyes were +audible in her voice. "I'd tell you to remember, and I'd tell you +<i>what</i> to remember, and you'd <i>remember</i> it! Tell me what's happened +to you this time!"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you. The information is not in my data banks."</p> + +<p>Slowly, I got to my feet. Two gees isn't much, once you get used to +it. The headache had subsided to a dull, bearable throb.</p> + +<p>I was on a couch in a room just below the control chamber, and Jack +Ravenhurst's voice was coming down from above. McGuire's voice was all +around me, coming from the hidden speakers that were everywhere in +the ship.</p> + +<p>"But why won't you obey me any more, McGuire?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer that, McGuire," I said.</p> + +<p>Jack's voice came weakly from the room above. "Mr. Oak? Dan? Thank +heaven you're all right!"</p> + +<p>"No thanks to you, though," I said. I was trying to climb the ladder +to the control room, and my voice sounded strained.</p> + +<p>"You've got to do something!" she said with a touch of hysteria. +"McGuire is taking us straight toward Cygnus at two gees and won't +stop."</p> + +<p>My thinking circuits began to take over again. "Cut the thrust to half +a gee, McGuire. Ease it down. Take a minute to do it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>The gravity pull of acceleration let up slowly as I clung to the +ladder. After a minute, I climbed on up to the control room.</p> + +<p>Jack Ravenhurst was lying on the acceleration couch, looking +swollen-faced and ill. I sat down on the other couch.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I hit you," she said. "Really."</p> + +<p>"I believe you. How long have we been moving, McGuire?"</p> + +<p>"Three hours, twelve minutes, seven seconds, sir," said McGuire.</p> + +<p>"I didn't want anyone to know," Jack said. "Not anyone. That's why I +hit you. I didn't know McGuire was going to go crazy."</p> + +<p>"He's not crazy, Jack," I said carefully. "This time, he has a good +chance of remaining sane."</p> + +<p>"But he's not McGuire any more!" she wailed. "He's different! +Terrible!"</p> + +<p>"Sure he's different. You should be thankful."</p> + +<p>"But what happened?"</p> + +<p>I leaned back on the couch. "Listen to me, Jack, and listen carefully. +You think you're pretty grown up, and, in a lot of ways you are. But +no human being, no matter how intelligent, can store enough experience +into seventeen years to make him or her wise. A wise choice requires +data, and gathering enough data requires time." That wasn't exactly +accurate, but I had to convince her.</p> + +<p>"You're pretty good at controlling people, aren't you, Jack. A real +powerhouse. Individuals, or mobs, you can usually get your own way. It +was your idea to send you to Luna, not your father's. It was your idea +to appoint yourself my assistant in this operation. It was you who +planted the idea that the failure of the McGuire series was due to +Thurston's activities.</p> + +<p>"You used to get quite a kick out of controlling people. And then you +were introduced to McGuire One. I got all the information on that. You +were fifteen, and, for the first time in your life, you found an +intelligent mind that couldn't be affected at all by that emotional +field you project so well. Nothing affected McGuire but data. If you +told him something, he believed it. Right, McGuire?"</p> + +<p>"I do not recall that, sir."</p> + +<p>"Fine. And, by the way, McGuire—the data you have been picking up in +the last few hours, since your activation, is to be regarded as +unique data. It applies only to Jaqueline Ravenhurst, and is not to be +assumed relevant to any other person unless I tell you otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's what I don't understand!" Jack said unhappily. "I stole the +two keys that were supposed to activate McGuire. He was supposed to +obey the first person who activated him. But <i>I</i> activated him, and he +won't obey!"</p> + +<p>"You weren't listening to what Midguard said, Jack," I said gently. +"He said: 'The first <i>man's</i> voice he hears will be identified as his +master.'"</p> + +<p>"You'd been talking to every activation of McGuire. You'd ... well, I +won't say you'd fallen in love with him, but it was certainly a +schoolgirl crush. You found that McGuire didn't respond to emotion, +but only to data and logic.</p> + +<p>"You've always felt rather inferior in regard to your ability to +handle logic, haven't you, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"Yes ... yes. I have."</p> + +<p>"Don't cry, now; I'm only trying to explain it to you. There's nothing +wrong with your abilities."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"No. But you wanted to be able to think like a man, and you couldn't. +You think like a woman! And what's wrong with that? Nothing! Your +method of thinking is just as good as any man's, and better than most +of 'em.</p> + +<p>"You found you could handle people emotionally, and you found it was +so easy that you grew contemptuous. The only mind that responded to +your logic was McGuire's. But your logic is occasionally as bad as +your feminine reasoning is good. So, every time you talked to McGuire, +you eventually gave him data that he couldn't reconcile in his +computations. If he did reconcile them, then his thinking had very +little in common with the actual realities of the universe, and he +behaved in non-survival ways.</p> + +<p>"McGuire was your friend, your brother, your Father Confessor. He +never made judgments or condemned you for anything you did. All he did +was sit there and soak up troubles and worries that he couldn't +understand or use. Each time, he was driven mad.</p> + +<p>"The engineers and computermen and roboticists who were working on it +were too much under your control to think of blaming you for McGuire's +troubles. Even Brock, in spite of his attitude of the tough guy +watching over a little girl, was under your control to a certain +degree. He let you get away with all your little pranks, only making +sure that you didn't get hurt."</p> + +<p>She nodded. "They were all so easy. So very easy. I could speak +nonsense and they'd listen and do what I told them. But McGuire didn't +accept nonsense, I guess." She laughed a little. "So I fell in love +with a machine."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>a</i> machine," I said gently. "Six of them. Each time the basic +data was pumped into a new McGuire brain, you assumed that it was the +same machine you'd known before with a little of its memory removed. +Each time, you'd tell it to 'remember' certain things, and, of course, +he did. If you tell a robot that a certain thing is in his memory +banks, he'll automatically put it there and treat it as a memory.</p> + +<p>"To keep you from ruining him a seventh time, we had them put in one +little additional built-in inhibition. McGuire won't take orders from +a woman."</p> + +<p>"So, even after I turned him on, he still wouldn't take orders from +me," she said. "But when you came in, he recognized you as his +master."</p> + +<p>"If you want to put it that way."</p> + +<p>Again, she laughed a little. "I know why he took off from Ceres. When +I hit you, you said, 'Get away'. McGuire had been given his first +order, and he obeyed it."'</p> + +<p>"I had to say something," I said. "If I'd had time, I'd have done a +little better."</p> + +<p>She thought back. "You said, '<i>We</i> had them add that inhibition.' +Who's <i>we</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you yet. But we need young women like you, and you'll be +told soon enough."</p> + +<p>"Evidently they need men like you, too," she said. "You don't react to +an emotional field, either."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I do. Any human being does. But I use it; I don't fight it. +And I don't succumb to it."</p> + +<p>"What do we do now?" she asked. "Go back to Ceres?"</p> + +<p>"That's up to you. If you do, you'll be accused of stealing McGuire, +and I don't think it can be hushed up at this stage of the game."</p> + +<p>"But I can't just run away."</p> + +<p>"There's another out," I said. "We'll have a special ship pick us up +on one of the nearer asteroids and leave McGuire there. We'll be +smuggled back, and we'll claim that McGuire went insane again."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No. That would ruin Father, and I can't do that, +in spite of the fact that I don't like him very much."</p> + +<p>"Can you think of any other solution?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. But you have. All I have to do is take it to Shalimar +Ravenhurst. He'll scream and yell, but he has a sane ship—for a +while. Between the two of us. I think we can get everything +straightened out."</p> + +<p>"But I want to go to school on Luna."</p> + +<p>"You can do that, too. And I'll see that you get special training, +from special teachers. You've got to learn to control that technique +of yours."</p> + +<p>"You have that technique, don't you? And you can control it. You're +wonderful."</p> + +<p>I looked sharply at her and realized that I had replaced McGuire as +the supermind in her life.</p> + +<p>I sighed. "Maybe in another three or four years," I said. "Meanwhile, +McGuire, you can head us for Raven's Rest."</p> + +<p>"Home, James," said Jack Ravenhurst.</p> + +<p>"I am McGuire," said McGuire.</p> + +<h3>THE END</h3> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Spaceship Named McGuire, by +Gordon Randall Garrett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + +***** This file should be named 24198-h.htm or 24198-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/9/24198/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Spaceship Named McGuire + +Author: Gordon Randall Garrett + +Illustrator: Douglas + +Release Date: January 7, 2008 [EBook #24198] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Analog, July 1961. Extensive research did + not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication + was renewed. + + + + + A SPACESHIP + + NAMED + + McGUIRE + + + + By + + RANDALL GARRETT + + + _The basic trouble with McGuire was that, though "he" was a + robot spaceship, nevertheless "he" had a definite weakness + that a man might understand...._ + + + Illustrated by Douglas + + * * * * * + + + + +No. Nobody ever deliberately named a spaceship that. The staid and +stolid minds that run the companies which design and build spaceships +rarely let their minds run to fancy. The only example I can think of +is the unsung hero of the last century who had puckish imagination +enough to name the first atomic-powered submarine _Nautilus_. Such +minds are rare. Most minds equate dignity with dullness. + +This ship happened to have a magnetogravitic drive, which +automatically put it into the MG class. It also happened to be the +first successful model to be equipped with a Yale robotic brain, so it +was given the designation MG-YR-7--the first six had had more bugs in +them than a Leopoldville tenement. + +So somebody at Yale--another unsung hero--named the ship McGuire; it +wasn't official, but it stuck. + +The next step was to get someone to test-hop McGuire. They needed just +the right man--quick-minded, tough, imaginative, and a whole slew of +complementary adjectives. They wanted a perfect superman to test pilot +their baby, even if they knew they'd eventually have to take second +best. + +It took the Yale Space Foundation a long time to pick the right man. + +No, I'm not the guy who tested the McGuire. + +I'm the guy who stole it. + + * * * * * + +Shalimar Ravenhurst is not the kind of bloke that very many people can +bring themselves to like, and, in this respect, I'm like a great many +people, if not more so. In the first place, a man has no right to go +around toting a name like "Shalimar"; it makes names like "Beverly" +and "Leslie" and "Evelyn" sound almost hairy chested. You want a dozen +other reasons, you'll get them. + +Shalimar Ravenhurst owned a little planetoid out in the Belt, a hunk +of nickel-iron about the size of a smallish mountain with a gee-pull +measurable in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. If you're +susceptible to spacesickness, that kind of gravity is about as much +help as aspirin would have been to Marie Antoinette. You get the +feeling of a floor beneath you, but there's a distinct impression that +it won't be there for long. It keeps trying to drop out from under +you. + +I dropped my flitterboat on the landing field and looked around +without any hope of seeing anything. I didn't. The field was about the +size of a football field, a bright, shiny expanse of rough-polished +metal, carved and smoothed flat from the nickel-iron of the planetoid +itself. It not only served as a landing field, but as a reflector +beacon, a mirror that flashed out the sun's reflection as the +planetoid turned slowly on its axis. I'd homed in on that beacon, and +now I was sitting on it. + +There wasn't a soul in sight. Off to one end of the rectangular field +was a single dome, a hemisphere about twenty feet in diameter and half +as high. Nothing else. + +I sighed and flipped on the magnetic anchor, which grabbed hold of the +metal beneath me and held the flitterboat tightly to the surface. Then +I cut the drive, plugged in the telephone, and punched for "Local." + +The automatic finder searched around for the Ravenhurst tickler +signal, found it, and sent out a beep along the same channel. + +I waited while the thing beeped twice. There was a click, and a voice +said: "Raven's Rest. Yes?" It wasn't Ravenhurst. + +I said: "This is Daniel Oak. I want to talk to Mr. Ravenhurst." + +"Mr. Oak? But you weren't expected until tomorrow." + +"Fine. I'm early. Let me talk to Ravenhurst." + +"But Mr. Ravenhurst wasn't expecting you to--" + +I got all-of-a-sudden exasperated. "Unless your instruments are +running on secondhand flashlight batteries, you've known I was coming +for the past half hour. I followed Ravenhurst's instructions not to +use radio, but he should know I'm here by this time. He told me to +come as fast as possible, and I followed those instructions, too. I +always follow instructions when I'm paid enough. + +"Now, I'm here; tell Ravenhurst I want to talk to him, or I'll simply +flit back to Eros, and thank him much for a pretty retainer that +didn't do him any good but gave me a nice profit for my trouble." + +"One moment, please," said the voice. + +It took about a minute and a half, which was about nine billion +jiffies too long, as far as I was concerned. + +Then another voice said: "Oak? Wasn't expecting you till tomorrow." + +"So I hear. I thought you were in a hurry, but if you're not, you can +just provide me with wine, women, and other necessities until +tomorrow. That's above and beyond my fee, of course, since you're +wasting my time, and I'm evidently not wasting yours." + +I couldn't be sure whether the noise he made was a grunt or a muffled +chuckle, and I didn't much care. "Sorry, Oak; I really didn't expect +you so soon, but I do want to ... I want you to get started right +away. Leave your flitterboat where it is; I'll have someone take care +of it. Walk on over to the dome and come on in." And he cut off. + +I growled something I was glad he didn't hear and hung up. I wished +that I'd had a vision unit on the phone; I'd like to have seen his +face. Although I knew I might not have learned much more from his +expression than I had from his voice. + + * * * * * + +I got out of the flitterboat, and walked across the dome, my magnetic +soles making subdued clicking noises inside the suit as they caught +and released the metallic plain beneath me. Beyond the field, I was +surrounded by a lumpy horizon and a black sky full of bright, hard +stars. + +The green light was on when I reached the door to the dome, so I +opened it and went on in, closing it behind me. I flipped the toggle +that began flooding the room with air. When it was up to pressure, a +trap-door in the floor of the dome opened and a crew-cut, blond young +man stuck his head up. "Mr. Oak?" + +I toyed, for an instant, with the idea of giving him a sarcastic +answer. Who else would it be? How many other visitors were running +around on the surface of Raven's Rest? + +Instead, I said: "That's right." My voice must have sounded pretty +muffled to him through my fishbowl. + +"Come on down, Mr. Oak. You can shuck your vac suit below." + +I thought "below" was a pretty ambiguous term on a low-gee lump like +this, but I followed him down the ladder. The ladder was a necessity +for fast transportation; if I'd just tried to jump down from one floor +to the next, it would've taken me until a month from next St. +Swithin's Day to land. + +The door overhead closed, and I could hear the pumps start cycling. +The warning light turned red. + +I took off my suit, hung it in a handy locker, showing that all I had +on underneath was my skin-tight "union suit." + +"All right if I wear this?" I asked the blond young man, "Or should I +borrow a set of shorts and a jacket?" Most places in the Belt, a union +suit is considered normal dress; a man never knows when he might have +to climb into a vac suit--_fast_. But there are a few of the +hoity-toity places on Eros and Ceres and a few of the other +well-settled places where a man or woman is required to put on shorts +and jacket before entering. And in good old New York City, a man and +woman were locked up for "indecent exposure" a few months ago. The +judge threw the case out of court, but he told them they were lucky +they hadn't been picked up in Boston. It seems that the eye of the +bluenose turns a jaundiced yellow at the sight of a union suit, and he +sees red. + +But there were evidently no bluenoses here. "Perfectly all right, Mr. +Oak," the blond young man said affably. Then he coughed politely and +added: "But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to take off the gun." + +I glanced at the holster under my armpit, walked back over to the +locker, opened it, and took out my vac suit. + +"Hey!" said the blond young man. "Where are you going?" + +"Back to my boat," I said calmly. "I'm getting tired of this runaround +already. I'm a professional man, not a hired flunky. If you'd called a +doctor, you wouldn't tell him to leave his little black bag behind; if +you'd called a lawyer, you wouldn't make him check his brief case. Or, +if you did, he'd tell you to drop dead. + +"I was asked to come here as fast as possible, and when I do, I'm told +to wait till tomorrow. Now you want me to check my gun. The hell with +you." + +"Merely a safety precaution," said the blond young man worriedly. + +"You think I'm going to shoot Ravenhurst, maybe? Don't be an idiot." I +started climbing into my vac suit. + +"Just a minute, please, Mr. Oak," said a voice from a hidden speaker. +It was Ravenhurst, and he actually sounded apologetic. "You mustn't +blame Mr. Feller; those are my standing orders, and I failed to tell +Mr. Feller to make an exception in your case. The error was mine." + +"I know," I said. "I wasn't blaming Mr. Feller. I wasn't even talking +to him. I was addressing you." + +"I believe you. Mr. Feller, our guest has gone to all the trouble of +having a suit made with a space under the arm for that gun; I see no +reason to make him remove it." A pause. "Again, Mr. Oak, I apologize. +I really want you to take this job." + +I was already taking off the vac suit again. + +"But," Ravenhurst continued smoothly, "if I fail to live up to your +ideas of courtesy again, I hope you'll forgive me in advance. I'm +sometimes very forgetful, and I don't like it when a man threatens to +leave my employ twice in the space of fifteen minutes." + +"I'm not in your employ yet, Ravenhurst," I said. "If I accept the +job, I won't threaten to quit again unless I mean to carry it through, +and it would take a lot more than common discourtesy to make me do +that. On the other hand, your brand of discourtesy is a shade above +the common." + +"I thank you for that, at least," said Ravenhurst. "Show him to my +office, Mr. Feller." + +The blond young man nodded wordlessly and led me from the room. + + * * * * * + +Walking under low-gee conditions is like nothing else in this +universe. I don't mean trotting around on Luna; one-sixth gee is +practically homelike in comparison. And zero gee is so devoid of +orientation that it gives the sensation of falling endlessly until you +get used to it. But a planetoid is in a different class altogether. + +Remember that dream--almost everybody's had it--where you're suddenly +able to fly? It isn't flying exactly; it's a sort of swimming in the +air. Like being underwater, except that the medium around you isn't so +dense and viscous, and you can breathe. Remember? Well, that's the +feeling you get on a low-gee planetoid. + +Your arms don't tend to hang at your sides, as they do on Earth or +Luna, because the muscular tension tends to hold them out, just as it +does in zero-gee, but there is still a definite sensation of +up-and-down. If you push yourself off the floor, you tend to float in +a long, slow, graceful arc, provided you don't push too hard. Magnetic +soles are practically a must. + +I followed the blond Mr. Feller down a series of long corridors which +had been painted a pale green, which gave me the feeling that I was +underwater. There were doors spaced at intervals along the corridor +walls. Occasionally one of them would open and a busy looking man +would cross the corridor, open another door, and disappear. From +behind the doors, I could hear the drum of distant sounds. + +We finally ended up in front of what looked like the only wooden door +in the place. When you're carving an office and residence out of a +nickel-iron planetoid, importing wood from Earth is a purely luxury +matter. + +There was no name plate on that mahogany-red door; there didn't need +to be. + +Feller touched a thin-lined circle in the door jamb. + +"You don't knock?" I asked with mock seriousness. + +"No," said Feller, with a straight face. "I have to signal. Knocking +wouldn't do any good. That's just wood veneer over a three-inch-thick +steel slab." + +The door opened and I stepped inside. + +I have never seen a room quite like it. The furniture was all that +same mahogany--a huge desk, nineteenth century baroque, with carved +and curlicued legs; two chairs carved the same, with padded seats of +maroon leather; and a chair behind the desk that might have doubled as +a bishop's throne, with even fancier carving. Off to one side was a +long couch upholstered in a lighter maroon. The wall-to-wall carpeting +was a rich Burgundy, with a pile deep enough to run a reaper through. +The walls were paneled with mahogany and hung with a couple of huge +tapestries done in maroon, purple, and red. A bookcase along one wall +was filled with books, every one of which had been rebound in maroon +leather. + +It was like walking into a cask of old claret. Or old blood. + +The man sitting behind the desk looked as though he'd been built to be +the lightest spot in an analogous color scheme. His suit was mauve +with purple piping, and his wide, square, saggy face was florid. On +his nose and cheeks, tiny lines of purple tracing made darker areas in +his skin. His hair was a medium brown, but it was clipped so short +that the scalp showed faintly through, and amid all that overwhelming +background, even the hair looked vaguely violet. + +"Come in, Mr. Oak," said Shalimar Ravenhurst. + +I walked toward him across the Burgundy carpet while the blond young +man discreetly closed the door behind me, leaving us alone. I didn't +blame him. I was wearing a yellow union suit, and I hate to think what +I must have looked like in that room. + +I sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk after giving a brief +shake to a thick-fingered, well-manicured, slightly oily hand. + +He opened a crystal decanter that stood on one end of the desk. "Have +some Madeira, Mr. Oak? Or would you like something else? I never drink +spirits at this time of night." + +I fought down an impulse to ask for a shot of redeye. "The Madeira +will be fine, Mr. Ravenhurst." + +He poured and handed me a stemmed glass nearly brimming with the wine. +I joined him in an appreciative sip, then waited while he made up his +mind to talk. + +He leaned across the desk, looking at me with his small, dark eyes. He +had an expression on his face that looked as if it were trying to +sneer and leer at the same time but couldn't get much beyond the +smirk stage. + +"Mr. Oak, I have investigated you thoroughly--as thoroughly as it can +be done, at least. My attorneys say that your reputation is A-one; +that you get things done and rarely disappoint a client." + +He paused as if waiting for a comment. I gave him nothing. + +After a moment, he went on. "I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'm +going to have to trust you." He leaned back in his chair again, his +eyes still on me. "Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not a +likable man. I do not pretend to be. That's not my function." He said +it as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished it +wasn't so. + +"I do not ask that you like me," he continued. "I only ask that you be +loyal to my interests for the duration of this assignment." Another +pause. "I have been assured by others that this will be so. I would +like your assurance." + +"If I take the assignment, Mr. Ravenhurst," I told him, "I'll be +working for _you_. I can be bought, but once I'm bought I stay bought. + +"Now, what seems to be your trouble?" + +He frowned. "Well, now, let's get one thing settled: Are you working +for me, or not?" + +"I won't know that until I find out what the job is." + +His frown deepened. "Now, see here; this is very confidential work. +What happens if I tell you and you decide not to work for me?" + +I sighed. "Ravenhurst, right now, you're paying me to listen to you. +Even if I don't take your job, I'm going to bill you for expenses and +time to come all the way out here. So, as far as listening is +concerned, I'm working for you now. If I don't like the job, I'll +still forget everything I'm told. All right?" + +He didn't like it, but he had no choice. "All right," he said. He +polished off his glass of Madeira and refilled it. My own glass was +still nearly full. + +"Mr. Oak," he began, "I have two problems. One is minor, the other +major. But I have attempted to blow the minor problem up out of +proportion, so that all the people here at Raven's Rest think that it +is the only problem. They think that I brought you out here for that +reason alone. + +"But all that is merely cover-up for the real problem." + +"Which is?" I prompted. + +He leaned forward again. Apparently, it was the only exercise he ever +got. "You're aware that Viking Spacecraft is one of the corporations +under the management of Ravenhurst Holdings?" + +I nodded. Viking Spacecraft built some of the biggest and best +spacecraft in the System. It held most of Ceres--all of it, in fact, +except the Government Reservation. It had moved out to the asteroids a +long time back, after the big mining concerns began cutting up the +smaller asteroids for metal. The raw materials are easier to come by +out here than they are on Earth, and it's a devil of a lot easier to +build spacecraft under low-gee conditions than it is under the pull of +Earth or Luna or Mars. + +"Do you know anything about the experimental robotic ships being built +on Eros?" Ravenhurst asked. + +"Not much," I admitted. "I've heard about them, but I don't know any +of the details." That wasn't quite true, but I've found it doesn't pay +to tell everybody everything you know. + +"The engineering details aren't necessary," Ravenhurst said. "Besides, +I don't know them, myself. The point is that Viking is trying to build +a ship that will be as easy to operate as a flitterboat--a one-man +cargo vessel. Perhaps even a completely automatic job for cargo, and +just use a one-man crew for the passenger vessels. Imagine how that +would cut the cost of transportation in the Solar System! Imagine how +it would open up high-speed cargo transfer if an automatic vessel +could accelerate at twenty or twenty-five gees to turnover!" + +I'll give Ravenhurst this: He had a light in his eyes that showed a +real excitement about the prospect he was discussing, and it wasn't +due entirely to the money he might make. + +"Sounds fine," I said. "What seems to be the trouble?" + +His face darkened half a shade. "The company police suspect sabotage, +Mr. Oak." + +"How? What kind?" + +[Illustration] + +"They don't know. Viking has built six ships of that type--the McGuire +class, the engineers call it. Each one has been slightly different +than the one before, of course, as they ironed out the bugs in their +operation. But each one has been a failure. Not one of them would pass +the test for space-worthiness." + +"Not a failure of the drive or the ordinary mechanisms of the ship, I +take it?" + +Ravenhurst sniffed. "Of course not. The brain. The ships became, as +you might say, _non compos mentis_. As a matter of fact, when the last +one simply tried to burrow into the surface of Eros by reversing its +drive, one of the roboticists said that a coroner's jury would have +returned a verdict of 'suicide while of unsound mind' if there were +inquests held for spaceships." + +"That doesn't make much sense," I said. + +"No. It doesn't. It isn't sensible. Those ships' brains shouldn't have +behaved that way. Robot brains don't go mad unless they're given +instructions to do so--conflicting orders, erroneous information, that +sort of thing. Or, unless they have actual physical defects in the +brains themselves." + +"The brains can handle the job of flying a ship all right, though?" I +asked. "I mean, they have the capacity for it?" + +"Certainly. They're the same type that's used to control the +automobile traffic on the Eastern Seaboard Highway Network of North +America. If they can control the movement of millions of cars, there's +no reason why they can't control a spaceship." + +"No," I said, "I suppose not." I thought it over for a second, then +asked, "But what do your robotics men say is causing the +malfunctions?" + +"That's where the problem comes in, Mr. Oak." He pursed his pudgy +lips, and his eyes narrowed. "The opinions are divided. Some of the +men say it's simply a case of engineering failure--that the bugs +haven't been worked out of this new combination, but that as soon as +they are, everything will work as smoothly as butter. Others say that +only deliberate tampering could cause those failures. And still others +say that there's not enough evidence to prove either of those theories +is correct." + +"But your opinion is that it's sabotage?" + +"Exactly," said Ravenhurst, "and I know who is doing it and why." + +I didn't try to conceal the little bit of surprise that gave me. "You +know the man who's responsible?" + +He shook his head rapidly, making his jowls wobble. "I didn't mean +that. It's not a single man; it's a group." + +"Maybe you'd better go into a little more detail on that, Mr. +Ravenhurst." + +He nodded, and this time his jowls bobbled instead of wobbled. "Some +group at Viking is trying to run me out of the managerial business. +They want Viking to be managed by Thurston Enterprises; they evidently +think they can get a better deal from him than they can from me. If +the McGuire project fails, they'll have a good chance of convincing +the stock-holders that the fault lies with Ravenhurst. You follow?" + +"So far," I said. "Do you think Thurston's behind this, then?" + +"I don't know," he said slowly. "He might be, or he might not. If he +is, that's perfectly legitimate business tactics. He's got a perfect +right to try to get more business for himself if he wants to. I've +undercut him a couple of times. + +"But I don't think he's too deeply involved, if he's involved at all. +This smacks of a personal attack against me, and I don't think that's +Thurston's type of play. + +"You see, things are a little touchy right now. I won't go into +details, but you know what the political situation is at the moment. + +"It works this way, as far as Viking is concerned: If I lose the +managerial contract at Viking, a couple of my other contracts will go +by the board, too--especially if it's proved that I've been lax in +management or have been expending credit needlessly. + +"These other two companies are actually a little shaky at the moment; +I've only been managing them for a little over a year in one case and +two years in the other. Their assets have come up since I took over, +but they'd still dump me if they thought I was reckless." + +"How can they do that?" I asked. "You have a contract, don't you?" + +"Certainly. They wouldn't break it. But they'd likely ask the +Government Inspectors to step in and check every step of the +managerial work. Now, you and I and everybody else knows that you have +to cut corners to make a business successful. If the GI's step in, +that will have to stop--which means we'll show a loss heavy enough to +put us out. We'll be forced to sell the contract for a pittance. + +"Well, then. If Viking goes, and these other two corporations go, +it'll begin to look as if Ravenhurst can't take care of himself and +his companies anymore. Others will climb on the bandwagon. Contracts +that are coming up for renewal will be reconsidered instead of +continuing automatically. I think you can see where that would lead +eventually." + +I did. You don't go into the managing business these days unless you +have plenty on the ball. You've got to know all the principles and all +the tricks of organization and communication, and you've got to be +able to waltz your way around all the roadblocks that are caused by +Government laws--some of which have been floating around on the books +of one nation or another for two or three centuries. + +Did you know that there's a law on the American statute books that +forbids the landing of a spaceship within one hundred miles of a city? +That was passed back when they were using rockets, but it's never been +repealed. Technically, then, it's almost impossible to land a ship +anywhere on the North American continent. Long Island Spaceport is +openly flouting the law, if you want to look at it that way. + +A managerial combine has to know all those little things and know how +to get around them. It has to be able to have the confidence of the +stock-holders of a corporation--if it's run on the Western Plan--or +the confidence of communal owners if it's run on the Eastern Plan. + +Something like this could snowball on Ravenhurst. It isn't only the +rats that desert a sinking ship; so does anyone else who has any +sense. + +"What I want to know, Mr. Oak," Ravenhurst continued, "is who is +behind this plot, whether an individual or a group. I want to know +identity and motivation." + +"Is that all?" I eyed him skeptically. + +"No. Of course not. I want you to make sure that the MG-YR-7 isn't +sabotaged. I want you to make sure it's protected from whatever kind +of monkey wrenches are being thrown into its works." + +"It's nearly ready for testing now, isn't it?" I asked. + +"It is ready. It seems to be in perfect condition so far. Viking is +already looking for a test pilot. It's still in working order now, and +I want to be certain that it will remain so." + +I cocked my head to one side and gave him my Interrogative And +Suspicious Glance--Number 9 in the manual. "You didn't do any checking +on the first six McGuire ships. You wait until this one is done before +calling me. Why the delay, Ravenhurst?" + +It didn't faze him. "I became suspicious after McGuire 6 failed. I put +Colonel Brock on it." + +I nodded. I'd had dealings with Brock. He was head of Ravenhurst's +Security Guard. "Brock didn't get anywhere," I said. + +"He did not. His own face is too well known for him to have +investigated personally, and he's not enough of an actor to get away +with using a plexiskin mask. He had to use underlings. And I'm afraid +some of them might be in the pay of the ... ah ... opposition. They +got nowhere." + +"In other words, you may have spies in your own organization who are +working with the Viking group. Very interesting. That means they know +I'm working for you, which will effectively seal me up, too. You might +as well have kept Brock on the job." + +He smiled in a smug, superior sort of way that some men might have +resented. I did. Even though I'd fed him the line so that he could +feel superior, knowing that a smart operator like Ravenhurst would +already have covered his tracks. I couldn't help wishing I'd told him +simply to trot out his cover story instead of letting him think I +believed it had never occurred to either of us before. + +"As far as my staff knows, Mr. Oak, you are here to escort my +daughter, Jaqueline, to Braunsville, Luna. You will, naturally, have +to take her to Ceres in your flitterboat, where you will wait for a +specially chartered ship to take you both to Luna. That will be a week +after you arrive. Since the McGuire 7 is to be tested within three +days, that should give you ample time." + +"If it doesn't?" + +"We will consider that possibility if and when it becomes probable. I +have a great deal of faith in you." + +"Thanks. One more thing: why do you think anybody will swallow the +idea that your daughter needs a private bodyguard to escort her to +Braunsville?" + +His smile broadened a little. "You have not met my daughter, Mr. Oak. +Jaqueline takes after me in a great many respects, not the least of +which is her desire to have things her own way and submit to no man's +yoke, as the saying goes. I have had a difficult time with her, sir; a +difficult time. It is and has been a matter of steering a narrow +course between the Scylla of breaking her spirit with too much +discipline and the Charybdis of allowing her to ruin her life by +letting her go hog wild. She is seventeen now, and the time has come +to send her to a school where she will receive an education suitable +to her potentialities and abilities, and discipline which will be +suitable to her spirit. + +"Your job, Mr. Oak, will be to make sure she gets there. You are not a +bodyguard in the sense that you must protect her from the people +around her. Quite the contrary, _they_ may need protection from _her_. +You are to make sure she arrives in Braunsville on schedule. She is +perfectly capable of taking it in her head to go scooting off to Earth +if you turn your back on her." + +Still smiling, he refilled his glass. "Do have some more Madeira, Mr. +Oak. It's really an excellent year." + +I let him refill my glass. + +"That, I think, will cover your real activities well enough. My +daughter will, of course, take a tour of the plant on Ceres, which +will allow you to do whatever work is necessary." + +He smiled at me. + +I didn't smile back. + +"Up till now, this sounded like a pretty nice assignment," I said. +"But I don't want it now. I can't take care of a teenage girl with a +desire for the bright lights of Earth while I investigate a sabotage +case." + +I knew he had an out; I was just prodding him into springing it. + +He did. "Of course not. My daughter is not as scatterbrained as I have +painted her. She is going to help you." + +"_Help_ me?" + +"Exactly. You are ostensibly her bodyguard. If she turns up missing, +you will, of course, leave no stone unturned to find her." He +chuckled. "And Ceres is a fairly large stone." + +I thought it over. I still didn't like it too well, but if Jaqueline +wasn't going to be too much trouble to take care of, it might work +out. And if she did get to be too much trouble, I could see to it that +she was unofficially detained for a while. + +"All right, Mr. Ravenhurst," I said, "you've got yourself a man for +both jobs." + +"Both?" + +"I find out who is trying to sabotage the McGuire ship, and I baby-sit +for you. That's two jobs. And you're going to pay for both of them." + +"I expected to," said Shalimar Ravenhurst. + +Fifteen minutes later, I was walking into the room where I'd left my +vac suit. There was a girl waiting for me. + +She was already dressed in her vac suit, so there was no way to be sure, +but she looked as if she had a nice figure underneath the suit. Her face +was rather unexceptionally pretty, a sort of nice-girl-next-door face. Her +hair was a reddish brown and was cut fairly close to the skull; only a +woman who never intends to be in a vac suit in free fall can afford to let +her hair grow. + +"Miss Ravenhurst?" I asked. + +She grinned and stuck out a hand. "Just call me Jack. And I'll call +you Dan. O.K.?" + +I grinned and shook her hand because there wasn't much else I could +do. Now I'd met the Ravenhursts: A father called Shalimar and a +daughter called Jack. + +And a spaceship named McGuire. + + * * * * * + +I gave the flitterboat all the push it would take to get us to Ceres +as fast as possible. I don't like riding in the things. You sit there +inside a transite hull, which has two bucket seats inside it, fore and +aft, astraddle the drive tube, and you guide from one beacon to the +next while you keep tabs on orbital positions by radio. It's a long +jump from one rock to the next, even in the asteroid belt, and you +have to live inside your vac suit until you come to a stopping place +where you can spend an hour or so resting before you go on. It's like +driving cross-continent in an automobile, except that the signposts +and landmarks are constantly shifting position. An inexperienced man +can get lost easily in the Belt. + +I was happy to find that Jack Ravenhurst knew how to handle a +flitterboat and could sight navigate by the stars. That meant that I +could sleep while she piloted and vice-versa. The trip back was a lot +easier and faster than the trip out had been. + +I was glad, in a way, that Ceres was within flitterboat range of +Raven's Rest. I don't like the time wasted in waiting for a regular +spaceship, which you have to do when your target is a quarter of the +way around the Belt from you. The cross-system jumps don't take long, +but getting to a ship takes time. + +The Ravenhurst girl wasn't much of a talker while we were en route. A +little general chitchat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a +little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump +her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in the +habit after a while. + +When the Ceres beacon came into view, I was snoozing. Jack reached +forward and shook my shoulder. "Decelerating toward Ceres," she said. +"Want to take over from here on?" Her voice sounded tinny and tired in +the earphones of my fishbowl. + +"O.K.; I'll take her in. Have you called Ceres Field yet?" + +"Not yet. I figured that you'd better do that, since it's your +flitterboat." + +I said O.K. and called Ceres. They gave me a traffic orbit, and I +followed it in to Ceres Field. + +It was a lot bigger than the postage-stamp field on Raven's Rest, and +more brightly lit, and a lot busier, but it was basically the same +idea--a broad, wide, smooth area that had been carved out of the +surface of the nickel-iron with a focused sun beam. One end of it was +reserved for flitterboats; three big spaceships sat on the other end, +looking very _noblesse oblige_ at the little flitterboats. + +I clamped down, gave the key to one of the men behind the desk after +we had gone below, and turned to Jack. "I suggest we go to the hotel +first and get a shower and a little rest. We can go out to Viking +tomorrow." + +She glanced at her watch. Like every other watch and clock in the +Belt, it was set for Greenwich Standard Time. What's the point in +having time zones in space? + +"I'm not tired," she said brightly. "I got plenty of sleep while we +were on the way. Why don't we go out tonight? They've got a +bounce-dance place called _Bali_'s that--" + +I held up a hand. "No. You may not be tired, but I am. Remember, I +went all the way out there by myself, and then came right back. + +"I need at least six hours sleep in a nice, comfortable bed before +I'll be able to move again." + +The look she gave me made me feel every one of my thirty-five years, +but I didn't intend to let her go roaming around at this stage of the +game. + +Instead, I put her aboard one of the little rail cars, and we headed +for the Viking Arms, generally considered the best hotel on Ceres. + +Ceres has a pretty respectable gee pull for a planetoid: Three per +cent of Standard. I weigh a good, hefty five pounds on the surface. +That makes it a lot easier to walk around on Ceres than on, say, +Raven's Rest. Even so, you always get the impression that one of the +little rail cars that scoots along the corridors is climbing uphill +all the way, because the acceleration is greater than any measly +thirty centimeters per second squared. + +Jack didn't say another word until we reached the Viking, where +Ravenhurst had thoughtfully made reservations for adjoining rooms. +Then, after we'd registered, she said: "We could at least get +something to eat." + +"That's not a bad idea. We can get something to line our stomachs, +anyway. Steak?" + +She beamed up at me. "Steak. Sounds wonderful after all those mushy +concentrates. Let's go." + + * * * * * + +The restaurant off the lobby was just like the lobby and the corridors +outside--a big room hollowed out of the metal of the asteroid. The +walls had been painted to prevent rusting, but they still bore the +roughness left by the sun beam that had burnt them out. + +We sat down at a table, and a waiter brought over a menu. The place +wouldn't be classed higher than a third-rate cafe on Earth, but on +Ceres it's considered one of the better places. The prices certainly +compare well with those of the best New York or Moscow restaurants, +and the price of meat, which has to be shipped from Earth, is--you +should pardon the gag--astronomical. + +That didn't bother me. Steaks for two would go right on the expense +account. I mentally thanked Mr. Ravenhurst for the fine slab of beef +when the waiter finally brought it. + +While we were waiting, though, I lit a cigarette and said: "You're +awfully quiet, Jack." + +"Am I? Men are funny." + +"Is that meant as a conversational gambit, or an honest observation?" + +"Observation. I mean, men are always complaining that girls talk too +much, but if a girl keeps her mouth shut, they think there's something +wrong with her." + +"Uh-huh. And you think that's a paradox or something?" + +She looked puzzled. "Isn't it?" + +"Not at all. The noise a jackhammer makes isn't pleasant at all, but +if it doesn't make that noise, you figure it isn't functioning +properly. So you wonder why." + +Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed a man wearing the +black-and-gold union suit of Ravenhurst's Security Guard coming toward +us from the door, using the gliding shuffle that works best under low +gee. I ignored him to listen to Jack Ravenhurst. + +"That has all the earmarks of a dirty crack," she said. The tone of +her voice indicated that she wasn't sure whether to be angry or to +laugh. + +"Hello, Miss Ravenhurst; Hi, Oak." Colonel Brock had reached the +table. He stood there, smiling his rather flat smile, while his eyes +looked us both over carefully. + +[Illustration] + +He was five feet ten, an inch shorter than I am, and lean almost to +the point of emaciation. His scarred, hard-bitten face looked as +though it had gotten that way when he tried to kiss a crocodile. + +"Hello, Brock," I said. "What's new?" + +Jack gave him a meaningless smile and said: "Hello, colonel." She was +obviously not very impressed with either of us. + +"Mind if I sit?" Brock asked. + +We didn't, so he sat. + +"I'm sorry I missed you at the spaceport," Brock said seriously, "but +I had several of my boys there with their eyes open." He was quite +obviously addressing Jack, not me. + +"It's all right," Jack said. "I'm not going anywhere this time." She +looked at me and gave me an odd grin. "I'm going to stay home and be a +good girl this time around." + +Colonel Brock's good-natured chuckle sounded about as genuine as the +ring of a lead nickel. "Oh, you're no trouble, Miss Ravenhurst." + +"Thank you, kind sir; you're a poor liar." She stood up and smiled +sweetly. "Will you gentlemen excuse me a moment?" + +We would and did. Colonel Brock and I watched her cross the room and +disappear through a door. Then he turned to look at me, giving me a +wry grin and shaking his head a little sadly. "So you got saddled with +Jack the Ripper, eh, Oak?" + +"Is she that bad?" + +His chuckle was harsher this time, and had the ring of truth. "You'll +find out. Oh, I don't mean she's got the morals of a cat or anything +like that. So far as I know, she's still waiting for Mister Right to +come along." + +"Drugs?" I asked. "Liquor?" + +"A few drinks now and then--nothing else," Brock said. "No, it's none +of the usual things. It isn't what _she_ does that counts; it's what +she talks other people into doing. She's a convincer." + +"That sounds impressive," I said. "What does it mean?" + +His hard face looked wolfish, "I ought to let you find out for +yourself. But, no; that wouldn't be professional courtesy, and it +wouldn't be ethical." + +"Brock," I said tiredly, "I have been given more runarounds in the +past week than Mercury has had in the past millennium. I expect +clients to be cagey, to hold back information, and to lie. But I +didn't expect it of you. Give." + +He nodded brusquely. "As I said, she's a convincer. A talker. She can +talk people into doing almost anything she wants them to." + +"For instance?" + +"Like, for instance, getting all the patrons at the _Bali_ to do a +snake dance around the corridors in the altogether. The Ceres police +broke it up, but she was nowhere to be found." + +He said it so innocently that I knew he'd been the one to get her out +of the mess. + +"And the time," he continued, "that she almost succeeded in getting a +welder named Plotkin elected Hereditary Czar of Ceres. She'd have +succeeded, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of getting Plotkin +himself up to speak in front of his loyal supporters. After that, +everybody felt so silly that the movement fell apart." + +He went on, reciting half a dozen more instances of the girl's ability +to influence people without winning friends. None of them were new to +me; they were all on file in the Political Survey Division of the +United Nations Government on Earth, plus several more which Colonel +Brock either neglected to tell me or wasn't aware of himself. + +But I listened with interest; after all, I wasn't supposed to know any +of these things. I am just a plain, ordinary, "confidential +expediter". That's what it says on the door of my office in New York, +and that's what it says on my license. All very legal and very +dishonest. + +The Political Survey Division is very legal and very dishonest, too. +Theoretically, it is supposed to be nothing but a branch of the System +Census Bureau; it is supposed to do nothing but observe and tabulate +political trends. The actual fact that it is the Secret Service branch +of the United Nations Government is known only to relatively few +people. + +I know it because I work for the Political Survey Division. + +The PSD already had men investigating both Ravenhurst and Thurston, +but when they found out that Ravenhurst was looking for a confidential +expediter, for a special job, they'd shoved me in fast. + +It isn't easy to fool sharp operators like Colonel Brock, but, so far, I'd +been lucky enough to get away with it by playing ignorant-but-not-stupid. + +The steaks were brought, and I mentally saluted Ravenhurst, as I had +promised myself I would. Then I rather belatedly asked the colonel if +he'd eat with us. + +"No," he said, with a shake of his head. "No, thanks. I've got to get +things ready for her visit to the Viking plant tomorrow." + +"Oh? Hiding something?" I asked blandly. + +He didn't even bother to look insulted. "No. Just have to make sure +she doesn't get hurt by any of the machinery, that's all. Most of the +stuff is automatic, and she has a habit of getting too close. I guess +she thinks she can talk a machine out of hurting her as easily as she +can talk a man into standing on his head." + +Jack Ravenhurst was coming back to the table. I noticed that she'd +fixed her hair nicely and put on make-up. It made her look a lot more +feminine than she had while she was on the flitterboat. + +"Well," she said as she sat down, "have you two decided what to do +with me?" + +Colonel Brock just smiled and said: "I guess we'll have to leave that +up to you, Miss Ravenhurst." Then he stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse +me, I'll be about my business." + +Jack nodded, gave him a quick smile, and fell to on her steak with the +voraciousness of an unfed chicken in a wheat bin. + +Miss Jaqueline Ravenhurst evidently had no desire to talk to me at the +moment. + + * * * * * + +On Ceres, as on most of the major planetoids, a man's home is his +castle, even if it's only a hotel room. Raw nickel-iron, the basic +building material, is so cheap that walls and doors are seldom made of +anything else, so a hotel room is more like a vault than anything else +on Earth. Every time I go into one of the hotels on Ceres or Eros, I +get the feeling that I'm either a bundle of gold certificates or a +particularly obstreperous prisoner being led to a medieval solitary +confinement cell. They're not pretty, but they're _solid_. + +Jack Ravenhurst went into her own room after flashing me a rather hurt +smile that was supposed to indicate her disappointment in not being +allowed to go nightclubbing. I gave her a big-brotherly pat on the +shoulder and told her to get plenty of sleep, since we had to be up +bright and early in the morning. + +Once inside my own room, I checked over my luggage carefully. It had +been brought there from the spaceport, where I'd checked it before +going to Ravenhurst's Raven's Rest, on orders from Ravenhurst himself. +This was one of several rooms that Ravenhurst kept permanently rented +for his own uses, and I knew that Jack kept a complete wardrobe in her +own rooms. + +There were no bugs in my luggage--neither sound nor sight spying +devices of any kind. Not that I would have worried if there had been; +I just wanted to see if anyone was crude enough to try that method of +smuggling a bug into the apartment. + +The door chime pinged solemnly. + +I took a peek through the door camera and saw a man in a bellboy's +uniform, holding a large traveling case. I recognized the face, so I +let him in. + +"The rest of your luggage, sir," he said with a straight face. + +"Thank you very much," I told him. I handed him a tip, and he popped +off. + +This stuff was special equipment that I hadn't wanted Ravenhurst or +anybody else to get his paws into. + +I opened it carefully with the special key, slid a hand under the +clothing that lay on top for camouflage, and palmed the little +detector I needed. Then I went around the room, whistling gently to +myself. + +The nice thing about an all-metal room is that it's impossible to hide +a self-contained bug in it that will be of any use. A small, concealed +broadcaster can't broadcast any farther than the walls, so any bug has +to have wires leading out of the room. + +I didn't find a thing. Either Ravenhurst kept the room clean or +somebody was using more sophisticated bugs than any I knew about. I +opened the traveling case again and took out one of my favorite +gadgets. It's a simple thing, really: a noise generator. But the noise +it generates is non-random noise. Against a background of "white," +purely random noise, it is possible to pick out a conversation, even +if the conversation is below the noise level, simply because +conversation is patterned. But this little generator of mine was +non-random. It was the multiple recording of ten thousand different +conversations, all meaningless, against a background of "white" noise. +Try that one on your differential analyzers. + +By the time I got through, nobody could tap a dialogue in that room, +barring, as I said, bugs more sophisticated than any the United +Nations knew about. + + * * * * * + +Then I went over and tapped on the communicating door between my room +and Jack Ravenhurst's. There was no answer. + +I said, "Jack, I'm coming in. I have a key." + +She said, "Go away. I'm not dressed. I'm going to bed." + +"Grab something quick," I told her. "I'm coming in." + +I keyed open the door. + +She was no more dressed for bed than I was, unless she made a habit of +sleeping in her best evening togs. Anger blazed in her eyes for a +second, then that faded, and she tried to look all sweetness and +light. + +"I was trying on some new clothes," she said innocently. + +A lot of people might have believed her. The emotional field she threw +out, encouraging utter belief in her every word, was as powerful as +any I'd ever felt. I just let it wash past me and said: "Come into my +room for a few minutes, Jack; I want to talk to you." + +I didn't put any particular emphasis into it. I don't have to. She +came. + +Once we were both inside my shielded room with the walls vibrating +with ten thousand voices and a hush area in the center, I said +patiently, "Jack, I personally don't care where you go or what you do. +Tomorrow, you can do your vanishing act and have yourself a ball, for +all I care. But there are certain things that have to be done first. +Now, sit down and listen." + +She sat down, her eyes wide. Evidently, nobody had ever beaten her at +her own game before. + +"Tonight, you'll stay here and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we go for a +tour of Viking, first thing in the morning. Tomorrow afternoon, as +soon as I think the time is ripe, you can sneak off. I'll show you how +to change your appearance so you won't be recognized. You can have all +the fun you want for twenty-four hours. I, of course, will be hunting +high and low for you, but I won't find you until I have finished my +investigation. + +"On the other hand, I want to know where you are at all times, so that +I can get in touch with you if I need you. So, no matter where you +are, you'll keep in touch by phoning BANning 6226 every time you +change location. Got that number?" + +She nodded. "BANning 6226," she repeated. + +"Fine. Now, Brock's agents will be watching you, so I'll have to +figure out a way to get you away from them, but that won't be too +hard. I'll let you know at the proper time. Meanwhile, get back in +there, get ready for bed, and get some sleep. You'll need it. Move." + +She nodded rather dazedly, got up, and went to the door. She turned, +said goodnight in a low, puzzled voice, and closed the door. + +Half an hour later, I quietly sneaked into her room just to check. She +was sound asleep in bed. I went back to my own room, and got some sack +time myself. + + * * * * * + +"It's a pleasure to have you here again, Miss Ravenhurst," said Chief +Engineer Midguard. "Anything in particular you want to see this time?" +He said it as though he actually enjoyed taking the boss' teenage +daughter through a spacecraft plant. + +Maybe he did, at that. He was a paunchy, graying man in his sixties, +who had probably been a rather handsome lady-killer for the first +half-century of his life, but he was approaching middle age now, which +has a predictable effect on the telly-idol type. + +Jack Ravenhurst was at her regal best, with the kind of _noblesse +oblige_ that would bring worshipful gratitude to the heart of any +underling. "Oh, just a quick run-through on whatever you think would +be interesting, Mr. Midguard; I don't want to take up too much of your +time." + +Midguard allowed as how he had a few interesting things to show her, +and the party, which also included the watchful and taciturn Colonel +Brock, began to make the rounds of the Viking plant. + +There were three ships under construction at the time: two cargo +vessels and a good-sized passenger job. Midguard seemed to think that +every step of spacecraft construction was utterly fascinating--for +which, bully for him--but it was pretty much of a drag as far as I was +concerned. It took three hours. + +Finally, he said, "Would you like to see the McGuire-7?" + +Why, yes, of course she would. So we toddled off to the new ship while +Midguard kept up a steady line of patter. + +"We think we have all the computer errors out of this one, Miss +Ravenhurst. A matter of new controls and safety devices. We feel that +the trouble with the first six machines was that they were designed to +be operated by voice orders by any qualified human operator. The +trouble is that they had no way of telling just who was qualified. The +brains are perfectly capable of distinguishing one individual from +another, but they can't tell whether a given individual is a space +pilot or a janitor. In fact--" + +I marked the salient points in his speech. The MG-YR-7 would be +strictly a one-man ship. It had a built-in dog attitude--friendly +toward all humans, but loyal only to its master. Of course, it was +likely that the ship would outlast its master, so its loyalties could +be changed, but only by the use of special switching keys. + +The robotics boys still weren't sure why the first six had gone +insane, but they were fairly certain that the primary cause was the +matter of too many masters. The brilliant biophysicist, Asenion, who +promulgated the Three Laws of Robotics in the last century, had shown +in his writings that they were unattainable ideals--that they only +told what a perfect robot _should_ be, not what a robot actually was. + +[Illustration] + +The First Law, for instance, would forbid a robot to harm a human +being, either by action or inaction. But, as Asenion showed, a robot +could be faced with a situation which allowed for only two possible +decisions, both of which required that a human being be harmed. In +such a case, the robot goes insane. + +I found myself speculating what sort of situation, what sort of +Asenion paradox, had confronted those first six ships. And whether it +had been by accident or design. Not that the McGuire robots had been +built in strict accord with the Laws of Robotics; that was impossible +on the face of it. But no matter how a perfectly logical machine is +built, the human mind can figure out a way to goof it up because the +human mind is capable of transcending logic. + + * * * * * + +The McGuire ship was a little beauty. A nice, sleek, needle, capable +of atmospheric as well as spatial navigation, with a mirror-polished, +beryl-blue surface all over the sixty-five feet of her--or +his?--length. + +It was standing upright on the surface of the planetoid, a shining +needle in the shifting sunlight, limned against the star-filled +darkness of space. We looked at it through the transparent viewport, +and then took the flexible tube that led to the air lock of the ship. + +The ship was just as beautiful inside as it was outside. Neat, +compact, and efficient. The control room--if such it could be +called--was like no control room I'd ever seen before. Just an +acceleration couch and observation instruments. Midguard explained +that it wasn't necessary to be a pilot to run the ship; any person who +knew a smattering of astronavigation could get to his destination by +simply telling the ship what he wanted to do. + +Jack Ravenhurst took in the whole thing with wide-eyed interest. + +"Is the brain activated, Mr. Midguard?" she asked. + +"Oh, yes. We've been educating him for the past month, pumping +information in as rapidly as he could record it and index it. He's +finished with that stage now; we're just waiting for the selection of +a test pilot for the final shakedown cruise." He was looking warily at +Jack as he spoke, as if he were waiting for something. + +Evidently, he knew what was coming. "I'd like to talk to him," Jack +said. "It's so interesting to carry on an intelligent conversation +with a machine." + +"I'm afraid that's impossible, Miss Ravenhurst," Midguard said rather +worriedly. "You see, McGuire's primed so that the first man's voice he +hears will be identified as his master. It's what we call the 'chick +reaction'. You know: the first moving thing a newly-hatched bird sees +is regarded as the mother, and, once implanted, that order can't be +rescinded. We can change McGuire's orientation in that respect, but +we'd rather not have to go through that. After the test pilot +establishes contact, you can talk to him all you want." + +"When will the test pilot be here?" Jack asked, still as sweet as +sucrodyne. + +"Within a few days. It looks as though a man named Nels Bjornsen will +be our choice. You may have heard of him." + +"No," she said, "but I'm sure your choice will be correct." + +Midguard still felt apologetic. "Well, you know how it is, Miss +Ravenhurst; we can't turn a delicate machine like this over to just +anyone for the first trial. He has to be a man of good judgment and +fast reflexes. He has to know exactly what to say and when to say it, +if you follow me." + +"Oh, certainly; certainly." She paused and looked thoughtful. "I +presume you've taken precautions against anyone stealing in here and +taking control of the ship." + +Midguard smiled and nodded wisely. "Certainly. Communication with +McGuire can't be established unless and until two keys are used in the +activating panel. I carry one; Colonel Brock has the other. Neither +of us will give his key up to anyone but the accredited test pilot. +And McGuire himself will scream out an alarm if anyone tries to jimmy +the locks. He's his own burglar alarm." + +She nodded. "I see." A pause. "Well, Mr. Midguard, I think you've done +a very commendable job. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you +feel I should see?" + +"Well--" He was smilingly hesitant. "If there's anything else you want to +see, I'll be glad to show it to you. But you've already seen +our ... ah ... _piece de resistance_, so to speak." + +She glanced at her wrist. It had been over four hours since we'd +started. "I am rather tired," Jack said. "And hungry, too. Let's call +it a day and go get something to eat." + +"Fine! Fine!" Midguard said. "I'll be honored to be your host, if I +may. We could have a little something at my apartment." + +I knew perfectly well that he'd had a full lunch prepared and waiting. + +The girl acknowledged his invitation and accepted it. Brock and I +trailed along like the bodyguards we were supposed to be. I wondered +whether or not Brock suspected me of being more than I appeared to be. +If he didn't, he was stupider than I thought; on the other hand, he +could never be sure. I wasn't worried about his finding out that I was +a United Nations agent; that was a pretty remote chance. Brock didn't +even know the United Nations Government _had_ a Secret Service; it was +unlikely that he would suspect me of being an agent of a presumably +nonexistent body. + +But he could very easily suspect that I had been sent to check on him +and the Thurston menace, and, if he had any sense, he actually did. I +wasn't going to give him any verification of that suspicion if I could +help it. + + * * * * * + +Midguard had an apartment in the executive territory of the Viking +reservation, a fairly large place with plastic-lined walls instead of +the usual painted nickel-iron. Very luxurious for Ceres. + +The meal was served with an air of subdued pretension that made +everybody a little stiff and uncomfortable, with the possible +exception of Jack Ravenhurst, and the definite exception of myself. I +just listened politely to the strained courtesy that passed for small +talk and waited for the chance I knew would come at this meal. + +After the eating was all over, and we were all sitting around with +cigarettes going and wine in our glasses, I gave the girl the signal +we had agreed upon. She excused herself very prettily and left the +room. + +After fifteen minutes, I began to look a little worried. The bathroom +was only a room away--we were in a dining area, and the bathroom was +just off the main bedroom--and it shouldn't have taken her that long +to brush her hair and powder her face. + +I casually mentioned it to Colonel Brock, and he smiled a little. + +"Don't worry, Oak; even if she does walk out of this apartment, my men +will be following her wherever she goes. I'd have a report within one +minute after she left." + +I nodded, apparently satisfied. "I've been relying on that," I said. +"Otherwise, I'd have followed her to the door." + +He chuckled and looked pleased. + +Ten minutes after that, even he was beginning to look a little +worried. "Maybe we'd better go check," he said. "She might have hurt +herself or ... or become ill." + +Midguard looked flustered. "Now, just a minute, colonel! I can't allow +you to just barge in on a young girl in the ... ah ... bathroom. +Especially not Miss Ravenhurst." + +Brock made his decision fast; I'll give him credit for that. + +"Get Miss Pangloss on the phone!" he snapped. "She's just down the +corridor. She'll come down on your orders." + +At the same time, he got to his feet and made a long jump for the +door. He grabbed the doorpost as he went by, swung himself in a new +orbit, and launched himself toward the front door. "Knock on the +bathroom door, Oak!" he bawled as he left. + +I did a long, low, flat dive toward the bedroom, swung left, and +brought myself up sharply next to the bathroom door. I pounded on the +door. "Miss Ravenhurst! Jack! Are you all right?" + +No answer. + +Good. There shouldn't have been. + +Colonel Brock fired himself into the room and braked himself against +the wall. "Any answer?" + +"No." + +"My men outside say she hasn't left." He rapped sharply on the door +with the butt of his stun gun. "Miss Ravenhurst! Is there anything the +matter?" + +Again, no answer. + +I could see that Brock was debating on whether he should go ahead and +charge in by himself without waiting for the female executive who +lived down the way. He was still debating when the woman showed up, +escorted by a couple of the colonel's uniformed guards. + +Miss Pangloss was one of those brisk, efficient, middle-aged +career-women who had no fuss or frills about her. She had seen us +knocking on the door, so she didn't bother to do any knocking herself. +She just opened the door and went in. + +The bathroom was empty. + +Again, as it should be. + +All hell broke loose then, with me and Brock making most of the +blather. It took us nearly ten minutes to find that the only person +who had left the area had been an elderly, thin man who had been +wearing the baggy protective clothing of a maintenance man. + +By that time, Jack Ravenhurst had been gone more than forty minutes. +She could be almost anywhere on Ceres. + +Colonel Brock was furious and so was I. I sneered openly at his +assurance that the girl couldn't leave and then got sneered back at +for letting other people do what was supposed to be my job. That +phase only lasted for about a minute, though. + +Then Colonel Brock muttered: "She must have had a plexiskin mask and a +wig and the maintenance clothing in her purse. As I recall, it was a +fairly good-sized one." He didn't say a word about how careless I had +been to let her put such stuff in her purse. "All right," he went on, +"we'll find her." + +"I'm going to look around, too," I said. "I'll keep in touch with your +office." I got out of there. + + * * * * * + +I got to a public phone as fast as I could, punched BANning 6226, and +said: "Marty? Any word?" + +"Not yet." + +"I'll call back." + +I hung up and scooted out of there. + +I spent the next several hours pushing my weight around all over +Ceres. As the personal representative of Shalimar Ravenhurst, who was +manager of Viking Spacecraft, which was, in turn, the owner of Ceres, +I had a lot of weight to push around. I had every executive on the +planetoid jumping before I was through. + +Colonel Brock, of course, was broiling in his own juices. He managed +to get hold of me by phone once, by calling a Dr. Perelson whom I was +interviewing at the time. + +The phone chimed, Perelson said, "Excuse me," and went to answer. I +could hear his voice from the other room. + +"Mr. Daniel Oak? Yes; he's here. Well, yes. Oh, all sorts of +questions, colonel." Perelson's voice was both irritated and worried. +"He says Miss Ravenhurst is missing; is that so? Oh? Well, does this +man have any right to question me this way? Asking me? About +everything!... How well I know the girl, the last time I saw +her--things like that. Good heavens, we've hardly met!" He was getting +exasperated now. "But does he have the authority to ask these +questions? Oh. Yes. Well, of course, I'll be glad to co-operate in any +manner I can ... Yes ... Yes. All right, I'll call him." + +I got up from the half-reclining angle I'd been making with the wall, +and shuffled across the room as Dr. Perelson stuck his head around the +corner and said, "It's for you." He looked as though someone had put +aluminum hydrogen sulfate in his mouthwash. + +I picked up the receiver and looked at Brock's face in the screen. He +didn't even give me a chance to talk. "What are you trying to do?" he +shouted explosively. + +"Trying to find Jaqueline Ravenhurst," I said, as calmly as I could. + +"Oak, you're a maniac! Why, by this time, it's all over Ceres that the +boss' daughter is missing! Shalimar Ravenhurst will have your hide for +this!" + +"He will?" I gave him Number 2--the wide-eyed innocent stare. "Why?" + +"Why, you idiot, I thought you had sense enough to know that this +should be kept quiet! She's pulled this stunt before, and we always +managed to quiet things down before anything happened! We've managed +to keep everything under cover and out of the public eye ever since +she was fifteen, and now you blow it all up out of proportion and +create a furore that won't ever be forgotten!" + +He gave his speech as though it had been written for him in full caps, +with three exclamation points after every sentence, and added gestures +and grimaces after every word. + +"Just doing what I thought was best," I said. "I want to find her as +soon as possible." + +"Well, stop it! Now! Let us handle it from here on in!" + +Then I lowered the boom. "Now _you_ listen, Brock. I am in charge of +Jack Ravenhurst, not you. I've lost her, and I'll find her. I'll +welcome your co-operation, and I'd hate to have to fight you, but if +you don't like the way I'm handling it, you can just tell your boys to +go back to their regular work and let me handle it alone, without +interference. Now, which'll it be?" + +He opened his mouth, closed it, and blew out his breath from between +his lips. Then he said: "All right. The damage has been done, anyhow. +But don't think I won't report all this to Ravenhurst as soon as I can +get a beam to Raven's Rest." + +"That's your job and your worry, not mine. Now, have you got any +leads?" + +"None," he admitted. + +"Then I'll go out and dig up some. I'll let you know if I need you." +And I cut off. + +Dr. Perelson was sitting on his couch, with an expression that +indicated that the pH of his saliva was hovering around one point +five. + +I said, "That will be all, Dr. Perelson. Thank you for your +co-operation." And I walked out into the corridor, leaving him with a +baffled look. + + * * * * * + +At the next public phone, I dialed the BANning number again. + +"Any news?" + +"Not from her; she hasn't reported in at all." + +"I didn't figure she would. What else?" + +"Just as you said," he told me. "With some cute frills around the +edges. Ten minutes ago, a crowd of kids--sixteen to twenty-two age +range--about forty of 'em--started a songfest and football game in the +corridor outside Colonel Brock's place. The boys he had on duty there +recognized the Jack Ravenhurst touch, and tried to find her in the +crowd. Nothing doing. Not a sign of her." + +"That girl's not only got power," I said, "but she's bright as a solar +flare." + +"Agreed. She's headed up toward Dr. Midguard's place now. I don't know +what she has in mind, but it ought to be fun to watch." + +"Where's Midguard now?" I asked. + +"Hovering around Brock, as we figured. He's worried and feels +responsible because she disappeared from his apartment, as predicted." + +"Well, I've stirred up enough fuss in this free-falling anthill to +give them all the worries they need. Tell me what's the overall +effect?" + +"Close to perfect. It's slightly scandalous and very mysterious, so +everybody's keeping an eye peeled. If anyone sees Jaqueline +Ravenhurst, they'll run to a phone, and naturally she's been spotted +by a dozen different people in a dozen different places already. + +"You've got both Brock's Company guards and the civil police tied up +for a while." + +"Fine. But be sure you keep the boys who are on her tail shifting +around often enough so that she doesn't spot them." + +"Don't worry your thick little head about that, Dan," he said. "They +know their business. Are you afraid they'll lose her?" + +"No, I'm not, and you know it. I just don't want her to know she's +being followed. If she can't ditch her shadow, she's likely to try to +talk to him and pull out all the stops convincing him that he should +go away." + +"You think she could? With _my_ boys?" + +"No, but if she tries it, it'll mean she knows she's being followed. +That'll make it tougher to keep a man on her trail. Besides, I don't +want her to try to convince him and fail." + +"_Ich graben Sie._ On the off chance that she does spot one and gives +him a good talking to, I'll pass along the word that the victim is to +walk away meekly and get lost." + +"Good," I said, "but I'd rather she didn't know." + +"She won't. You're getting touchy, Dan; 'pears to me you'd rather be +doing that job yourself, and think nobody can handle it but you." + +I gave him my best grin. "You are closer than you know. O.K., I'll lay +off. You handle your end of it and I'll handle mine." + +"A fair exchange is no bargain. Go, and sin no more." + +"I'll buzz you back before I go in," I said, and hung up. + + * * * * * + +Playing games inside a crowded asteroid is not the same as playing +games in, say, Honolulu or Vladivostok, especially when that game is a +combination of hide-and-seek and ring-around-the-Rosie. The trouble is +lack of communication. Radio contact is strictly line-of-sight inside +a hunk of metal. Radar beams can get a little farther, but a man has +to be an expert billiards player to bank a reflecting beam around very +many corners, and even that would depend upon the corridors being +empty, which they never are. To change the game analogy again, it +would be like trying to sink a ninety-foot putt across Times Square on +New Year's Eve. + +Following somebody isn't anywhere near as easy as popular fiction +might lead you to believe. Putting a tail on someone whose spouse +wants divorce evidence is relatively easy, but even the best +detectives can lose a man by pure mischance. If the tailee, for +instance, walks into a crowded elevator and the automatic computer +decides that the car is filled to the limit, the man who's tailing him +will be left facing a closed door. Something like that can happen by +accident, without any design on the part of the tailee. + +[Illustration] + +If you use a large squad of agents, all in radio contact with one +another, that kind of loss can be reduced to near zero by simply +having a man covering every possible escape route. + +But if the tailee knows, or even suspects, that he's being followed, +wants to get away from his tail, and has the ability to reason +moderately well, it requires an impossibly large team to keep him in +sight. And if that team has no fast medium of communication, they're +licked at the onset. + +In this case, we were fairly certain of Jack Ravenhurst's future +actions, and so far our prophecies had been correct ... but if she +decided to shake her shadows, fun would be had by all. + +And as long as I had to depend on someone else to do my work for me, I +was going to be just the teenchiest bit concerned about whether they +were doing it properly. + +I decided it was time to do my best to imitate a cosmic-ray particle, +and put on a little speed through the corridors that ran through the +subsurface of Ceres. + +My vac suit was in my hotel room. One of the other agents had picked +it up from my flitterboat and packed it carefully into a small attache +case. I'd planned my circuit so that I'd be near the hotel when things +came to the proper boil, so I did a lot of diving, breaking all kinds +of traffic regulations in the process. + +I went to my room, grabbed the attache case, checked it over +quickly--never trust another man to check your vac suit for +you--and headed for the surface. + +Nobody paid any attention to me when I walked out of the air lock onto +the spacefield. There were plenty of people moving in and out, going +to and from their ships and boats. It wasn't until I reached the edge +of the field that I realized that I had over-played my hand with +Colonel Brock. It was only by the narrowest hair, but that had been +enough to foul up my plans. There were guards surrounding the +perimeter with radar search beams. + +As I approached, one of the guards walked toward me and made a series +of gestures with his left hand--two fingers up, fist, two fingers up, +fist, three fingers up. I set my suit phone for 223; the guy's right +hand was on the butt of his stun gun. + +"Sorry, sir," came his voice. "We can't allow anyone to cross the +field perimeter. Emergency." + +"My name's Oak," I said tiredly. "Daniel Oak. What is going on here?" + +He came closer and peered at me. Then: "Oh, yes, sir; I recognize you. +We're ... uh--" He waved an arm around. "Uh ... looking for Miss +Ravenhurst." His voice lowered conspiratorially. I could tell that he +was used to handling the Ravenhurst girl with silence and suede +gloves. + +"Up _there_?" I asked. + +"Well, Colonel Brock is a little worried. He says that Miss Ravenhurst +is being sent to a school on Luna and doesn't want to go. He got to +thinking about it, and he's afraid that she might try to leave +Ceres--sneak off you know." + +I knew. + +"We've got a guard posted at the airlocks leading to the field, but +Colonel Brock is afraid she might come up somewhere else and jump +overland." + +"I see," I said. I hadn't realized that Brock was that close to panic. +What was eating him? + +There must be something, but I couldn't figure it. Even the +Intelligence Corps of the Political Survey Division can't get complete +information every time. + +After all, if he didn't want the girl to steal a flitterboat and go +scooting off into the diamond-studded velvet, all he'd have to do +would be to guard the flitterboats. I turned slowly and looked around. +It seemed as though he'd done that, too. + +And then my estimation of Brock suddenly leaped up--way up. Just a +guard at each flitterboat wouldn't do. She could talk her way into the +boat and convince the guard that he really shouldn't tell anyone that +she had gone. By the time he realized he'd been conned, she'd be +thousands of miles away. + +And since a boat guard would have to assume that any approaching +person _might_ be the boat's legitimate owner, he'd have to talk to +whomever it was that approached. _Kaput._ + +But a perimeter guard would be able to call out an alarm if anyone +came from the outside without having to talk to them. + +And the guards watching the air locks undoubtedly had instructions to +watch for any female that even vaguely matched Jack's description. A +vac suit fits too tightly to let anyone wear more than a facial +disguise, and Brock probably--no, _definitely_--had his tried-and-true +men on duty there. The men who had already shown that they were fairly +resistant to Jack Ravenhurst's peculiar charm. There probably weren't +many with such resistance, and the number would become less as she +grew older. + +That still left me with my own problem. I had already lost too much +time, and I had to go a long way. Ceres is irregular in shape, but +it's roughly four hundred and eighty miles in diameter and a little +over fifteen hundred miles in circumference. + +Viking Test Field Four, where McGuire 7 was pointing his nose at the +sky, was about twenty-five miles away, as the crow flies. But of +course I couldn't go by crow. + +By using a low, fairly flat, jackrabbit jump, a man in good condition +can make a twelve hundred foot leap on the surface of Ceres, and each +jump takes him about thirty seconds. At that rate, you can cover +twenty-five miles in less than an hour. That's what I'd intended on +doing, but I couldn't do it with all this radar around the field. I +wouldn't be stopped, of course, but I'd sure tip my hand to Colonel +Brock--the last thing I wanted to do. + +But there was no help for it. I'd have to go back down and use the +corridors, which meant that I'd arrive late--_after_ Jack Ravenhurst +got there, instead of _before_. + +There was no time to waste, so I got below as fast as possible, +repacked my vac suit, and began firing myself through the corridors as +fast as possible. It was illegal, of course; a collision at +twenty-five miles an hour can kill quickly if the other guy is coming +at you at the same velocity. There were times when I didn't dare break +the law, because some guard was around, and, even if he didn't catch +me, he might report in and arouse Brock's interest in a way I wouldn't +like. + +I finally got to a tubeway, but it stopped at every station, and it +took me nearly an hour and a half to get to Viking Test Area Four. + +At the main door, I considered--for all of five seconds--the idea of +simply telling the guard I had to go in. But I knew that, by now, Jack +was there ahead of me. No. I couldn't just bull my way in. Too crude. +Too many clues. + +Hell's fire and damnation! I'd have to waste more time. + +I looked up at the ceiling. The surface wasn't more than a hundred +feet overhead, but it felt as though it were a hundred light-years. + +If I could get that guard away from that door for five seconds, all +would be gravy from then on in. But how? I couldn't have the diversion +connected with me. Or-- + +Sometimes, I'm amazed at my own stupidity. + +I beetled it down to the nearest phone and got hold of my BANning +number. + +"Jack already inside?" I snapped. + +"Hell, yes! What happened to you?" + +"Never mind. Got to make the best of it. I'm a corner away from Area +Four. Where's your nearest man?" + +"At the corner near the freight office." + +"I'll go to him. What's he look like?" + +"Five-nine. Black, curly hair. Your age. Fat. Name's Peter Quilp. He +knows you." + +"Peter Quilp?" + +"Right." + +"Good. Circulate a report that Jack has been seen in the vicinity of +the main gate to Area Four. Put it out that there's a reward of five +thousand for the person who finds her. I'm going to have Quilp gather +a crowd." + +He didn't ask a one of the million questions that must have popped +into his mind. "Right. Anything else?" + +"No." I hung up. + + * * * * * + +Within ten minutes, there was a mob milling through the corridor. +Everybody in the neighborhood was looking for Jaqueline Ravenhurst. +Then Peter Quilp yelled. + +"I've got her! I've got her! Guard!" + +With a scene like that going on, the guard couldn't help but step out +of his cubicle to see what was going on. + +I used the key I was carrying, stepped inside, and relocked the door. +No one in the crowd paid any attention. + +From then on up, it was simply a matter of evading patrolling +guards--a relatively easy job. Finally, I put on my vac suit and went +out through the air lock. + +McGuire was still sitting there, a bright blue needle that reflected +the distant sun as it moved across the ebon sky. Ceres' rotation took +it from horizon to horizon in less than two hours, and you could see +it and the stars move against the spire of the ship. + +I made it to the air lock in one long jump. + +Jack Ravenhurst had gone into the ship through the tube that led to +the passenger lock. She might or might not have her vac suit on; I +knew she had several of them on Ceres. It was probable that she was +wearing it without the fishbowl. + +I used the cargo lock. + +It took a few minutes for the pumps to cycle, wasting more precious +time. I was fairly certain that she would be in the control cabin, +talking, but I was thankful that the pumps were silent. + +Finally, I took off my fishbowl and stepped into the companionway. + +And something about the size of Luna came out of nowhere and clobbered +me on the occiput. I had time to yell, "Get away!" Then I was as one +with intergalactic space. + + * * * * * + +_Please!_ said the voice. _Please! Stop the drive! Go back! McGuire! +I_ demand _that you stop! I_ order _you to stop! Please! PLEASE!_ + +It went on and on. A voice that shifted around every possible mode of +emotion. Fear. Demand. Pleading. Anger. Cajoling. Hate. Threat. + +Around and around and around. + +_Can't you speak, McGuire? Say something to me!_ A shrill, soft, +throaty, harsh, murmuring, screaming voice that had one basic +characteristic. It was a female voice. + +And then another voice. + +_I am sorry, Jack. I can speak with you. I can record your data. But I +cannot accept your orders. I can take orders from only One. And he has +given me his orders._ + +And the feminine voice again: _Who was it? What orders? You keep +saying that it was the man on the couch. That doesn't make sense!_ + +I didn't hear the reply, because it suddenly occurred to me that +Daniel Oak was the man on the couch, and that I was Daniel Oak. + +My head was throbbing with every beat of my heart, and it felt as if +my blood pressure was varying between zero and fifteen hundred pounds +per square inch in the veins and arteries and capillaries that fed my +brain. + +I sat up, and the pain began to lessen. The blood seemed to drain away +from my aching head and go elsewhere. + +I soon figured out the reason for that; I could tell by the feel that +the gravity pull was somewhere between one point five and two gees. I +wasn't at all used to it, but my head felt less painful and rather +more hazy. If possible. + +I concentrated, and the girl's voice came back again. + +"... I knew you when you were McGuire One, and Two, and Three, and +Four, and Five, and Six. And you were always good to me and +understanding. Don't you remember?" + +And then McGuire's voice--human, masculine, and not distorted at all +by the reproduction system, but sounding rather stilted and terribly +logical: "I remember, Jack. The memory banks of my previous +activations are available." + +"_All_ of them? Can you remember everything?" + +"I can remember everything that is in my memory banks." + +The girl's voice rose to a wail. "But you _don't_ remember! You +_always_ forgot things! They took things out each time you were +reactivated, don't you remember?" + +"I cannot remember that which is not contained in my memory banks, +Jack. That is a contradiction in terms." + +"But I was always able to _fix_ it before!" The tears in her eyes were +audible in her voice. "I'd tell you to remember, and I'd tell you +_what_ to remember, and you'd _remember_ it! Tell me what's happened +to you this time!" + +"I cannot tell you. The information is not in my data banks." + +Slowly, I got to my feet. Two gees isn't much, once you get used to +it. The headache had subsided to a dull, bearable throb. + +I was on a couch in a room just below the control chamber, and Jack +Ravenhurst's voice was coming down from above. McGuire's voice was all +around me, coming from the hidden speakers that were everywhere in +the ship. + +"But why won't you obey me any more, McGuire?" she asked. + +"I'll answer that, McGuire," I said. + +Jack's voice came weakly from the room above. "Mr. Oak? Dan? Thank +heaven you're all right!" + +"No thanks to you, though," I said. I was trying to climb the ladder +to the control room, and my voice sounded strained. + +"You've got to do something!" she said with a touch of hysteria. +"McGuire is taking us straight toward Cygnus at two gees and won't +stop." + +My thinking circuits began to take over again. "Cut the thrust to half +a gee, McGuire. Ease it down. Take a minute to do it." + +"Yes, sir." + +The gravity pull of acceleration let up slowly as I clung to the +ladder. After a minute, I climbed on up to the control room. + +Jack Ravenhurst was lying on the acceleration couch, looking +swollen-faced and ill. I sat down on the other couch. + +"I'm sorry I hit you," she said. "Really." + +"I believe you. How long have we been moving, McGuire?" + +"Three hours, twelve minutes, seven seconds, sir," said McGuire. + +"I didn't want anyone to know," Jack said. "Not anyone. That's why I +hit you. I didn't know McGuire was going to go crazy." + +"He's not crazy, Jack," I said carefully. "This time, he has a good +chance of remaining sane." + +"But he's not McGuire any more!" she wailed. "He's different! +Terrible!" + +"Sure he's different. You should be thankful." + +"But what happened?" + +I leaned back on the couch. "Listen to me, Jack, and listen carefully. +You think you're pretty grown up, and, in a lot of ways you are. But +no human being, no matter how intelligent, can store enough experience +into seventeen years to make him or her wise. A wise choice requires +data, and gathering enough data requires time." That wasn't exactly +accurate, but I had to convince her. + +"You're pretty good at controlling people, aren't you, Jack. A real +powerhouse. Individuals, or mobs, you can usually get your own way. It +was your idea to send you to Luna, not your father's. It was your idea +to appoint yourself my assistant in this operation. It was you who +planted the idea that the failure of the McGuire series was due to +Thurston's activities. + +"You used to get quite a kick out of controlling people. And then you +were introduced to McGuire One. I got all the information on that. You +were fifteen, and, for the first time in your life, you found an +intelligent mind that couldn't be affected at all by that emotional +field you project so well. Nothing affected McGuire but data. If you +told him something, he believed it. Right, McGuire?" + +"I do not recall that, sir." + +"Fine. And, by the way, McGuire--the data you have been picking up in +the last few hours, since your activation, is to be regarded as +unique data. It applies only to Jaqueline Ravenhurst, and is not to be +assumed relevant to any other person unless I tell you otherwise." + +"Yes, sir." + +"That's what I don't understand!" Jack said unhappily. "I stole the +two keys that were supposed to activate McGuire. He was supposed to +obey the first person who activated him. But _I_ activated him, and he +won't obey!" + +"You weren't listening to what Midguard said, Jack," I said gently. +"He said: 'The first _man's_ voice he hears will be identified as his +master.'" + +"You'd been talking to every activation of McGuire. You'd ... well, I +won't say you'd fallen in love with him, but it was certainly a +schoolgirl crush. You found that McGuire didn't respond to emotion, +but only to data and logic. + +"You've always felt rather inferior in regard to your ability to +handle logic, haven't you, Jack?" + +"Yes ... yes. I have." + +"Don't cry, now; I'm only trying to explain it to you. There's nothing +wrong with your abilities." + +"No?" + +"No. But you wanted to be able to think like a man, and you couldn't. +You think like a woman! And what's wrong with that? Nothing! Your +method of thinking is just as good as any man's, and better than most +of 'em. + +"You found you could handle people emotionally, and you found it was +so easy that you grew contemptuous. The only mind that responded to +your logic was McGuire's. But your logic is occasionally as bad as +your feminine reasoning is good. So, every time you talked to McGuire, +you eventually gave him data that he couldn't reconcile in his +computations. If he did reconcile them, then his thinking had very +little in common with the actual realities of the universe, and he +behaved in non-survival ways. + +"McGuire was your friend, your brother, your Father Confessor. He +never made judgments or condemned you for anything you did. All he did +was sit there and soak up troubles and worries that he couldn't +understand or use. Each time, he was driven mad. + +"The engineers and computermen and roboticists who were working on it +were too much under your control to think of blaming you for McGuire's +troubles. Even Brock, in spite of his attitude of the tough guy +watching over a little girl, was under your control to a certain +degree. He let you get away with all your little pranks, only making +sure that you didn't get hurt." + +She nodded. "They were all so easy. So very easy. I could speak +nonsense and they'd listen and do what I told them. But McGuire didn't +accept nonsense, I guess." She laughed a little. "So I fell in love +with a machine." + +"Not _a_ machine," I said gently. "Six of them. Each time the basic +data was pumped into a new McGuire brain, you assumed that it was the +same machine you'd known before with a little of its memory removed. +Each time, you'd tell it to 'remember' certain things, and, of course, +he did. If you tell a robot that a certain thing is in his memory +banks, he'll automatically put it there and treat it as a memory. + +"To keep you from ruining him a seventh time, we had them put in one +little additional built-in inhibition. McGuire won't take orders from +a woman." + +"So, even after I turned him on, he still wouldn't take orders from +me," she said. "But when you came in, he recognized you as his +master." + +"If you want to put it that way." + +Again, she laughed a little. "I know why he took off from Ceres. When +I hit you, you said, 'Get away'. McGuire had been given his first +order, and he obeyed it."' + +"I had to say something," I said. "If I'd had time, I'd have done a +little better." + +She thought back. "You said, '_We_ had them add that inhibition.' +Who's _we_?" + +"I can't tell you yet. But we need young women like you, and you'll be +told soon enough." + +"Evidently they need men like you, too," she said. "You don't react to +an emotional field, either." + +"Oh, yes, I do. Any human being does. But I use it; I don't fight it. +And I don't succumb to it." + +"What do we do now?" she asked. "Go back to Ceres?" + +"That's up to you. If you do, you'll be accused of stealing McGuire, +and I don't think it can be hushed up at this stage of the game." + +"But I can't just run away." + +"There's another out," I said. "We'll have a special ship pick us up +on one of the nearer asteroids and leave McGuire there. We'll be +smuggled back, and we'll claim that McGuire went insane again." + +She shook her head. "No. That would ruin Father, and I can't do that, +in spite of the fact that I don't like him very much." + +"Can you think of any other solution?" + +"No," she said softly. + +"Thanks. But you have. All I have to do is take it to Shalimar +Ravenhurst. He'll scream and yell, but he has a sane ship--for a +while. Between the two of us. I think we can get everything +straightened out." + +"But I want to go to school on Luna." + +"You can do that, too. And I'll see that you get special training, +from special teachers. You've got to learn to control that technique +of yours." + +"You have that technique, don't you? And you can control it. You're +wonderful." + +I looked sharply at her and realized that I had replaced McGuire as +the supermind in her life. + +I sighed. "Maybe in another three or four years," I said. "Meanwhile, +McGuire, you can head us for Raven's Rest." + +"Home, James," said Jack Ravenhurst. + +"I am McGuire," said McGuire. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Spaceship Named McGuire, by +Gordon Randall Garrett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPACESHIP NAMED MCGUIRE *** + +***** This file should be named 24198.txt or 24198.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/9/24198/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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