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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae9f853 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68674 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68674) diff --git a/old/68674-0.txt b/old/68674-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 29140ba..0000000 --- a/old/68674-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2660 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blood on my jets, by Algis Budrys - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Blood on my jets - -Author: Algis Budrys - -Illustrator: EBEL - -Release Date: August 3, 2022 [eBook #68674] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOOD ON MY JETS *** - - - - - - BLOOD ON MY JETS - - BY ALGIS BUDRYS - - ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL - - They were the hired gun-rabble of the System, engaged - in the dirtiest, most thankless racket in all - the worlds. But Ash Holcomb was doing all right, - until the girl walked out of his past with high - stakes in her pockets and murder in her eyes! - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Rocket Stories, July 1953. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Rocket Row is the Joy Street of three planets. It's got neon lights, -crummy dives, cheap hotels, and women to match. Every man who's ever -rode a ship into space knows about Rocket Row. It runs along the far -side of Flushing Spaceport, down toward the Sound. - -The New Shanghai was full of dockworkers and crewmen on liberty. It was -noisy. I sat on a bar stool and watched the fog trying to infiltrate -the open door. It didn't have a chance against the tobacco smoke that -rolled out to meet it. Outside, the streets and alleys would be choked -with wet, creeping darkness, full of quiet footsteps, and the cops -would find empty-pocketed corpses behind the ashcans in the morning. - - * * * * * - -But none of that was any of my business. I was sick and tired of -fog--the real kind, the kind they grow on Venus--and I was sick of the -thought of blood. I'd seen too much of it, soaking into the hot mud, -and some of it spilled by my guns. I wanted to forget the night, and -fog that gave cover to every kind of dirty deal a man could imagine. I -wanted to pull the corners of my world together until all that was left -was the drink, the bar stool, and me. But it wasn't going to work out -that way, because I was in the New Shanghai on business. - -And my kind of business was the dirtiest, lousiest, most thankless -racket in the world. - -The bartender moved up to where I was sitting. "Have another one, Ash?" -he asked. - -"Yeah, sure, Ming," I said. "You still make the best Stingers in the -System. Maybe that's because you don't brew your own gin." - -"Could be, Ash, could be," he laughed. He shook up the drink and poured -it in my glass. "How'd it go on Venus?" - -"It went," I said. - -Ming was one of the few people who admitted knowing I was a D.O.--a -Detached Operative. It was a crummy job, but it suited me. - -We were the hired-gun rabble of the System, thrown together into the -damnedest police force there had ever been. Spacial expansion hadn't -really gotten underway until after the Terro-Martian War, and after it -ended every would-be bigshot there was had realized that all he really -needed to set himself up as a pocket-size dictator was some salvaged -gear from the mess the war had left, a crew that wasn't too particular, -and a good-looking piece of territory in the practically limitless -areas of space. Most of them had picked slices of Venus. There were a -few in the Asteroids, hooked up with renegade Marties, and one or two -that had actually grabbed sections of Mars. - -Sending regular law enforcement officers or Marines after each one of -these boys would have been physically impossible. Earth government had -come up with a cuter idea. - -It was a lot more economical to fight one big decisive battle than to -endure a series of inconclusive skirmishes. There were a lot of us -boys out in space, most of us just drifting from one port to the next, -picking up a living by our wits, and by our skill with a gun, some of -us. Earth government had quietly picked out the ones they considered -trustworthy, sworn us in, and turned us loose with a few standing -orders and a lot of dependence on our discretion. - - * * * * * - -Whenever something brewed between two of these minor warlords, we'd -come flocking in and hire ourselves out to whichever side we felt had -slightly more justice. Sometimes we wound up shooting at each other, -but you couldn't even be sure of that, since most of us didn't know, -beyond a guess or two, who the other D.O.'s were. Usually, though, we -had enough brains to pick the right side, and we'd make sure that was -the one that came out on top. - -It was a process of elimination, actually. The warlords were helped -to knock each other off until, eventually, those who remained either -proved themselves to be strong leaders, which was what frontier planets -needed, or else megalomaniacs, in which case it paid to devote a -full-scale military campaign to them. - -It was a highly informal system, but it had worked. It was tough on us, -but it wasn't any harder than freelance grifting had been. It left an -awful lot to personal discretion, and we paid ourselves out of whatever -came to hand, but there hadn't been any big totalitarian regimes -lately, either. - -"Yeah, I did pretty well," I repeated. - -Ming puckered his mouth and winked. I used to try and figure out how he -did it, standing behind his bar all day, never going out, never talking -much except to a few people like me. But I knew for sure that he could -have told me exactly how much I'd made on that Venus job--and the -gimmick I'd pulled to get it past Customs, too. - -But that was why I was in here. Something was up--something big, and I -wanted to find out what it was before every grifter and chiseler in the -System tried to cut a piece of it for himself. - -"I got a note in my mailbox today," I said casually. - -"Yeah?" he asked, just as quietly. - -"Must have been put there as soon as I touched down this morning. -Somebody wants me to go to work for them. They're paying high--too -high, maybe. Hear anything about a big job coming off somewhere?" - -Ming grinned. "If you mean that little letter from Transolar, yeah, I -know about that." He got serious, and moved closer. - -"But that's all I know, and nobody else knows even that much. Sure, -something's cooking, but nobody knows what it is. I--" He broke off. -"You've got company. Boy, _have_ you got company!" - -I looked in the backbar mirror. A girl had come in the doorway and -was walking toward me. Her dress tightened in intriguing places. Her -face was as much of a treat. High-cheeked, brown-eyed, with a small, -uptilted nose and a full mouth, it was framed by short curly hair the -color of new copper wire. I liked it. - -So did the spacemen and the dockworkers sitting at the bar. One or two -half-rose to invite her to join them, but they sat down again when they -saw who she was headed for. - -There was something about that hair. I'd seen it before, somewhere. - -The guy next to me got up and slid out of the way. I let my eyes stay -on the bottles on the backbar until she sat down beside me. I gave Ming -a look. He nodded, and moved down the bar. - -"Ash?" - -The voice was low, but crisp. It had whispers and murmurs in it, too, -and I knew I'd heard it before. - -"I'm Pat McKay." - -I turned my head and looked at her. Her dress, tight as paint from -hem to bodice, was mysteriously loose in the sleeves. Ruffles at each -shoulder hid bulges that Mother Nature never put there. They looked -more like twin shoulder holsters. They were. - - * * * * * - -And the last time I'd seen her, she was seventeen--eighteen, maybe--in -a ball gown, her hair long then, curling around her shoulders. - -And the voice hadn't been as controlled, or as crisp, but she'd been -saying, "You're a good dancer, Mr. Holcomb. Not much on the light -conversation, but a good leader." - -I'd swept her around another couple, and kept my cheek away from hers. -"The Academy is geared to the production of good leaders, Pat. Good -conversationalists, on the other hand, are born, not made." - -She laughed--a giddy party laugh from a girl who dated Academy boys -exclusively, who loved the glitter and pomp of graduation ceremonies, -who hung around the Academy all she could, who had been to Graduation -Balls before, and would certainly be to a number of them again, before -she managed to separate all the black and silver uniforms she'd danced -with and found herself a man from inside one of them. An Academy -drag--a number in a score of little black books. - -"Like Harry--oh, pardon me, it's Graduation Night--like Mr. Thorsten, -you mean?" And she looked up at me, raking my face with her green eyes. - -"If you will." - -"You're jealous, Mr. Holcomb," she said, breaking out her best little -tease manner. - -"Maybe." I knew she was trying to get me angry. She was getting there -fast, too. - -"Well, now, if you displayed some of Mr. Thorsten's other gifts, I -could forget about the conversation," she said lightly. - -"Meaning you'd like me to dance you out on the terrace and make a pass -at you?" - -"Maybe." - -She was daring me. - -I danced her out on the terrace, and found a darker corner. She looked -up at me, her eyes a little surprised, but her lips were parted. - -I tightened my arms and kissed her. It started gently--just a kiss -sneaked in between dances--but her arms were growing tighter too, and -her fingers were hooking. We held it, while I listened to the blood -running in my ears, until we broke apart, both of us dropping our arms, -standing and looking at each other, dragging air down our throats. - -"Ash! You--" - -She started to say something, and broke it. It sounded a little too -much like a movie heroine, all of a sudden. She was holding the pose -a little too long, too. "Hell, she's a kid--she's doing it the way -the grown-ups in the movies do it," I told myself, but I'd danced her -out here for a purpose. Maybe she didn't deserve it, but I was sick -to death of the little bits of fluff that hung around, drinking in -borrowed glamor, getting the big play from boys like Harry Thorsten. - -I reached out and grabbed. - -"Now comes the part you've really been asking for," I said. I crouched, -bent her over my knee, and brought my hand down. Hard. Three times in -all, putting everything I had into it. - -"Now," I said, letting her get up, "maybe you'll quit bothering guys -who worked all their lives to get in a spot where they could go out and -be of some help in the only job they ever wanted--the TSN. Do you think -you really stack up worth a damn beside the only thing that counts?" - -She just stood there, tears of rage in her eyes. I was never sure -whether it was what I'd done or what I said that had her so mad, but -the last thing I heard her say as I walked away was: "Damn you, Ash -Holcomb! Damn you for being such a snobbish stuck-up...." - -Well, maybe I was wrong and maybe I wasn't. I didn't know as much in -those days as I should have, either. But it was too late now--too late -by a war and a hundred revolutions, too late by all the men who'd gone -down before my guns, too late by years of loneliness and bitterness. - -But if it was too late, why did I remember it all now, with Thorsten up -in the Asteroids, a little king in his own right, with me in the New -Shanghai, a white ray-burn splashed through my hair, with the Academy a -dim thing behind both of us, and Pat-- - -Why was Pat here? What had she done through the years, while I fought -my way from one end of the System to the other, and Harry took the -easy way out during the war? - - * * * * * - -"Hello, Pat," I said. "I haven't seen you in a long time." Well, what -else was I going to say? - -I don't know what she had expected me to say. She kept her face in -profile, and didn't let me see what it was showing. - -"I'm here on business. I hear you're a good man, these days, for the -job I've got." She twisted the words like a knife. - -All right, if she wanted it that way, she'd get it. - -"So they tell me," I said. - -"Fifteen thousand for a month's work." - -She said it quietly, without any build-up. Maybe she figured fifteen -thousand didn't need one. - -I sat there for a minute, not saying anything, but thinking hard. What -kind of a setup was she offering me? Was this the big job that was -floating around? There's usually a sure way to find out. When someone -offers you a blind deal, argue. Maybe they'll get mad, or scared you -won't take it, and spill something. - -"No, thanks," I said. - -She frowned. "Don't try haggling with me, Ash. I can get somebody just -as good for less." - -"I don't doubt it. You could probably get three. That's why I don't -want any part of it. It's sucker bait." - -She looked at me for the first time, mouth twisted. - -"Since when does a hired gun like you turn down that kind of money? The -job's worth it, believe me." - -That hit me. But I couldn't afford to get touchy. - -"Probably is. But with standard pay at three thousand a month, plus -bounties and commissions, this little errand of yours, whatever it may -be, must break so many laws it could land me in a death house," I said, -watching her eyes. - -It didn't add up. Nothing added up. Why had she picked me, in the first -place? I had a reputation as one of the better gunnies, sure, but there -were at least twenty guys I'd never draw against, if I could help it, -and four or five of them were available. Because she'd known me? And -this job--what kind of hanky-panky was going on at these prices? - -I watched her eyes acquiring dangerous highlights. The temper that went -with that hair was beginning to stir. - -"Do you want to get in on the biggest deal that's ever been pulled off -in space or don't you?" she said. "Or are you going to chicken out?" -she added contemptuously. - -I let it slide off my shoulders. - -"I don't know," I said. I wanted to get a chance to really talk things -out with her, and this wasn't the place for it. "Anyway, this is no -place to talk business. Walk out of here as if I'd turned you down, and -go up the street. I'll catch up to you." - -"Okay." She got up and walked out. - -"Sorry, Honey," I called after her, loud enough for everybody to hear. -A snicker went up. I cut it off with a look at the characters lined up -against the bar, and got back to my drink. I finished it casually, put -it down, paid, and walked slowly to the door. I let everybody get a -good look at me turning down the street in the opposite direction from -the one Pat had taken. - -I ducked into the first cross street and moved swiftly over to the -alley that paralleled the street that Pat was on. I was thinking all -the way. - -Being a D.O. was one thing--getting into something solo was another. I -could get killed, for all I knew, and maybe by a lawman's gun. That was -a risk I ran on every job, but in this case, I didn't even know, yet, -what was going on. The smart thing to do would have been to pass the -word to my SBI contact, but that would take too much time. There was -nothing I could do but dive into this mess head-on, and hope I'd have -time to yell for help later. - -I was about to turn into another alley that ran back to the main street -when I heard the coughing of a Saro airgun and the faint sizzle of a -Colt in reply. - -Instantly, I was running silently up the alley. One hand unzipped the -chest of my coverall, and the other one dove in and grabbed the butt of -the heavy Sturmey that's my favorite man-killer. I reached the mouth of -the alley and stopped abruptly in the shadows. - -A man lay in the middle of the street, unnaturally flat against -the concrete slab. The street lamp up the block was dark, its base -surrounded by shattered glass. - -The Saro went into action again from the roof of a building across the -street. I saw the slugs chip cement from the railing of a flight of -steps four doors up. A pale blue flare winked from behind the railing, -and the man with the Saro ducked, but was up again as another gun raked -the stairs from a spot on my side of the street. I didn't like that -setup one bit. - -The Sturmey in my hand went _whoomp!_ and the man on the roof sailed -out over the street and landed with a crunch. The other gun cut off -abruptly. Two Colt beams probed for it from the stairs, and that -clinched it. It was Pat, all right, and somewhere, she'd become a fair -hand at street fighting. - -"Hey, Pat!" I yelled, and ducked away from the storm of bullets the -other gunman flung at me. The result was what I'd hoped for. The man -had exposed himself to Pat's fire by shooting at me. The Colts sizzled -viciously, and the burst of Saro noise stopped in mid-clip. - -A gun clattered on cement. I poked my head cautiously around the -corner. Silence blanketed Rocket Row, and then was tempered by a -scuffing noise. Up the street, a leather belt was being pressed against -the side of a building by the weight of a body that was sliding slowly -downwards. I spotted a glowing dot that was a tunic smoldering around a -Colt burn. - -"Ash!" - -"Yeah?" - -"You okay?" - -I grinned. She sounded a little worried. - -I sprinted across the street at a weaving run, and dove behind the -stairway. - -"What happened?" I asked. - -"I don't know--but I've got an idea. I got about a hundred yards up the -street when I spotted this guy tailing me. I yelled, and he ducked. At -the same time, this other fellow started running toward me across the -street. I burned him down, and ducked in here just as the bird on the -roof opened up. That's it, until you came along." - -I swore. I didn't go for three men gunning one girl. I looked over the -top of the railing. One or two people were starting to come out of -doorways. - -"Maybe we'd better get out of here," I said. - - * * * * * - -We ran up the street to another alley. She re-holstered her guns on the -way, revealing a lot of what the dress advertised. - -We stopped inside the alley and caught our breaths. "Well, anyway," I -said, "I know what you're in this for." - -She looked up sharply. "What?" - -"You need money to buy some underwear with." - -She slammed her hand into my face. I ducked back, and stood there, -blinking. - -"Look, Holcomb, as far as I'm concerned, the deal's on. Fine. Thanks -for helping me out back there, too. But just thanks--no further -payment. And no kidding around. This is a business deal. Have you got -that straight, or do I burn you down where you stand and find another -boy?" - -She meant it. I looked down at her hand, and one of the Colts was in it. - -"Okay." I hadn't meant that crack as a pass, but as long as the -question had come up, it was all right by me to have it settled right -here. "But put that thing away before I make you eat it." - -She grinned, suddenly, and put the gun back. "I'm sorry, Ash. But -it's the best way I've ever found to establish a clear-cut business -relationship. Partners?" - -She stuck out her hand, and I took it. - -"Deal." - -A siren rose and died on Rocket Row. Pat jumped back. "Damn it!" she -said. She shot a glance up the alley. "We'd better split up," she said. -"Look, Ash," she said hastily, "I'll get in touch with you. Meanwhile, -do what I tell you to, and don't waste time asking me why. I'll tell -you later. All you have to do now is take the job Transolar is going to -offer you. That's all. Take that job, and start to carry it out. I'll -be in touch with you somewhere along the line." - -She looked down toward the alley's mouth. I followed her glance, and -saw shadowy figures of men running by. - -"They'll be in here in a minute. I've got a car a couple of blocks -away. I'll see you, Ash." - -"Yeah. Hurry up," I added, as the first of the cops came warily into -the alley. - -I pulled my gun and ducked behind a barrel as she started to run. The -cop yelled and came after her. I snapped a shot over his head, and -that drove him into cover. Over the shouts that rose, I could hear her -footsteps fading out. - -I followed her cautiously, sliding from behind one ashcan to another, -keeping the cops down with an occasional shot. I made it out of the -alley and into the street, then ducked into a doorway, kicked the lock -loose, took the stairs two at a time to the roof, and got away over the -housetops. - -And all the time, I was wondering about Pat, the job that Transolar was -going to offer me, and how she'd known about it. - - - - -II - - -Mort Weidmann was the same Captain Weidmann who'd left an arm in the -cockpit of a K class scoutbomber that he'd flown through a formation of -Marties while he almost bled to death. He looked very military in his -blue and silver uniform. It wasn't a TSN uniform, of course, but even a -Transolar Express rig makes an old soldier feel better. - -He was another old friend of mine, like Thorsten. The three of us had -been touched by the war, each in our separate ways. Mort was the one -who didn't just feel a yearning for space, who didn't just ride on a -TSN uniform because it was the one available way. Mort had loved the -TSN itself, with a pride in the traditions that guys like Thorsten and -me hadn't quite had. He'd been a better officer because of it--and the -only one who couldn't have stayed. - -And, as we'd gone our separate ways, so our ways of thinking had -changed. Thorsten--well, he'd taken his choice, and some day I might -have to go into the Belt and do something about it, but Mort's attitude -hurt. He didn't have any respect for me--he couldn't have, for a man -who'd resigned his commission and become a planet-hopper. - -He stood at the window in his office, his phony arm tucked into a -pocket, his moustache moving up and down as he talked to me. - -"I don't know why they picked you, Ash," he said. - -I leaned back in my chair. "I don't either--unless maybe it's because -they couldn't find anybody else with my qualifications. Or maybe it's -because they can trust me, and they know it." I was getting pretty mad. -Weidmann was a right guy, but I was getting sick of being offered jobs -without being told what they were. Two in two days was a little too -much. - -Weidmann turned around. "Don't get edgy, Ash! I've got my orders--they -came down from the top brass, and I'll carry them, whether I approve or -not. But don't get me sore. I'm authorized to offer you ten thousand -dollars, plus expenses, for one trip to Titan and back. You'll be -carrying extremely valuable cargo, and you'll be expected to deliver it -intact. Do you want the job, or not?" - -I didn't answer him right away. What was wrong with him? There was more -than just dislike riding his voice. - -"I don't get," I stalled. "Like you've said, why me? And why Titan? -There's nothing out there. Besides, the Asteroid Belt is full of -Marties, to say nothing of Thorsten and his crew. Nobody in his right -mind would try to make that trip without a convoy." - -Weidmann flushed. "For your information," he said, "there's a small -scientific staff in a bubble on Titan. They need a new charge for their -power pile, and we've got the shipping contract. Our problem is to -get it to them without Thorsten or the Martians learning about it and -grabbing it up. That's why we dug you up. We need somebody who can fly -it out to them and fight off raiders at the same time. You're still the -best available." - -So that was the big job! No wonder there were so many phony things -going on! - -"For God, for Country, and for Transolar, huh?" I said, watching -the blood leave his face. "Now why should I help you pull your fat -contracts out of the fire? What's it to me if a bunch of technicians -don't get their damn fuel? The stuff'd be worth plenty to either -Thorsten or the Marties. Living in the Asteroids isn't fun--I've done -it, and it takes power to maintain a bubble. Believe me, they'll throw -everything they've got to keep a ship carrying a pile charge from -making it past them." - -I must have sounded pretty nasty about it, because Weidmann actually -yanked that murderous motorized artificial arm out of his pocket. He -pulled up his shoulders and looked at me like I was something floating -down a sewer, but he kept his voice even. - -"All right, Ash. Ten thousand, plus expenses. You'll be given a new -kind of ship. It's a model we picked up from a manufacturer who had his -contract cancelled by the TSN. She was originally designed for armed -reconnaissance, and we've installed the weapons called for in the -original specifications. She'll outfly anything with jets on it, and -stand off a cruiser, given room to maneuver. Does that soothe you, or -do you want a convoy, too?" he added scornfully. - -I lit a cigarette and pretended to think it over. Actually, of course, -I was going to take the job. I would have, anyway, but there were -two additional reasons why I wouldn't turn it down. There was Pat, -of course, and her orders. Most important though, had been the fact -that the message to report to Weidmann that I'd found in my mailbox at -the Spacemen's Hiring Hall had borne a slightly different Post Office -cancellation on the stamp than the usual. The "T" in United wasn't -quite formed the way it was on the regular stamp. It wasn't apparent -unless you looked for it--but it was as good as a big red sign that -spelled out "Official United Terrestrial Government Business--Act as -Directed Within," because that was what it meant. - -"Sounds better than I expected," I admitted. "All right. When do I go?" - -Weidmann didn't show any expression to indicate disappointment or -satisfaction. He simply said, "Tonight, after we check over the -details. The ship's equipped with standard TSN controls, and you'll -have lots of time to test her flight characteristics once you get out -in space." - -"What happens if she explodes? Don't I get to test her first?" - -"No--there isn't time, and it would be a dead giveaway." For the first -time, I saw something like satisfaction on Weidmann's face. "And if she -explodes ... well, frankly, Holcomb, that's your problem." - - * * * * * - -I spent the afternoon being briefed. One thing was off my mind--if I -had official orders to take this job, then the SBI would be keeping a -tab on me. It made a difference, knowing that no matter what kind of a -mess I got into, somebody would at least know what had happened to me, -and, most important, why. - -I was given a Company flight suit, and a hip rig for my Sturmey. I put -those on, and was taken to within a block of the port in a shuttered -car. - -Not going all the way to the spaceport was my idea. The reason I gave -Weidmann was good enough--there was no sense putting up neon markers -to indicate that I was up to something special--but I had a better one -than that. I had to give Pat a chance to get in touch with me. - -It didn't work out that way. - -I began walking down toward the Transolar revetment, using a shortcut -street, looking around for Pat. It was a cinch she'd had some kind of -a tail on me, and I was expecting to see her step out of almost any of -the doorways I passed. - -Instead, I heard something. - -Back up the street, the way I had come, boot soles whispered on -concrete. I turned around and looked, buried in shadow. - -I couldn't see anything. I turned back around, and kept on walking, and -I heard a holster being unsnapped. I stopped to listen, and there was -only silence. I moved, and somebody slipped a safety catch. - -I leaped suddenly to my right. My shoulders touched the wall of a -house. My hands blurred forward, one locking on my holster and holding -it down, the other scooping the Sturmey out and clear of the leather, -then blurring again as I shot my hand as far away from me as I could, -fired down the street, and spun myself away from the building. I fired -again, and the street lamp above my head smashed into bits. Then I -was in a deep doorway, crouched, waiting, while ribbons of light cut -creases in the wall where I'd been. - -That was how it began. There were endless minutes of silence, and then -someone would drag a heel or kick a step. There'd be the kick of my gun -against my palm, and once, the count on their side dropped from five to -four. - -A dot of light flickered from behind a high gutter, and rock chipped -off a wall near my head. I ducked, kissed the sidewalk with my belly, -slithered down a flight of steps to a basement alcove, rolled over, -and slid behind the stone. On the way down, I fired back, and I heard -a rasp of metal on stone. Not the momentary rake of a belt buckle or -button, but a gun, dragging its muzzle against curbing while the man -who'd fired it kicked his life away in the gutter. I heard it drop the -last inch to the street. - - * * * * * - -I knew they'd be flanking me pretty soon. I heard cloth whisper as two -of them slipped off to each side. The fellow they'd left behind began -firing from all angles, weaving back and forth to cover them. He put -too much pattern in his weave, though, and that was his mistake. The -pattern broke, and became random as the guns spun out of his hands -before he could even realize there was a shot coming. - -Two! I rolled away from behind the steps, crouched, and padded away -on the balls of my feet. My boots had special sponge soles on them, -but even so, a lance of blue slashed from down the street against my -calf. I plowed into the sidewalk, furrowing my face and tearing meat -off the knuckles wrapped around my gun. I tried not to catch my breath -too loudly as I dragged myself behind the ornamental outcrop of the -bannister on the next flight of steps. - -My leg felt like there was a railroad spike driven into it, and my -knuckles were numb and stiff. I worked my fingers to keep them from -freezing up on me, even though jolts of pain came up and hammered at -the backs of my eyes. My face felt wet and itchy. I lay there, waiting. - -I got one more of them. He decided I was dead, and poked his pale face -out against a black wall. The face vanished in a burst of red, and he -sprawled back. I chuckled. - -There wasn't much I could do but chuckle. The one guy left had me -cold. I had no idea where he was, but he'd seen the flash of my gun. I -couldn't shift position fast enough or quietly enough to get away. All -I could do was lie there. - -He took a chance and jumped me. I never heard him coming. - -A gun bounced off my head, and I went under--But not before I looked -up and saw that it was Pat herself. - - - - -III - - -I remember lying on my back for quite awhile before I wanted to open -my eyes. I knew I wasn't on the street. The air was warm, and heated, -and I was on a bed, or something like it. My leg was giving me hell -where it had been burned, but I could feel the pressure of a bandage. -I couldn't tell about my hand and face--they felt as if something had -been done about them, too, but I couldn't find out for sure without -looking or touching them, and I didn't want to do that yet. - -_Why the hell had Pat jumped me?_ I couldn't figure it. - -I opened my eyes, and she was standing over me, a gun dangling from one -hand. I threw a look at my watch, and saw I'd been out a half hour, at -most. - -"What the hell--" I began. - -She cut me off with a gesture of the gun. "Shut up," she said wearily. -"You'll have plenty of time to start lying later." She grimaced with -tired disgust. - -I shook my head, but I knew better than to go on talking. There was -anger working its way into the hurt look in her eyes. - -I got up, ignoring the feeling in my calf, and noticed several other -things. I'd been lying on a low couch. My flying boots were unzipped, -so that I couldn't move faster than a shuffle. The coveralls were loose -around my waist where my harness had been. - -I pressed my left upper arm against my ribs. As far as I could tell, -they hadn't found my insurance policy--a little singleshot burner -hidden between two of my ribs under a strip of what looked like skin. -There was collodion on my face, and tape on my knuckles. - -"Happy?" she asked. - -"Uh-huh. I'm Prince Charming, you're Snow White, and, as far as I can -add up, somebody's fresh out of dwarves. What's going on around here, -anyway?" - -"You double-crossed me, that's what happened. We made a deal, and -you sold out on it!" She was working herself to boiling mad, clear -through--and that explained why she'd looked at me the way she had. - -I shook my head again, trying to clear it. I was getting mad myself. - -"Look, Pat, I can take just so much mysterious crap, and no more," I -said, feeling the blood starting to work itself into my face. "I got -in from Venus, after winding up one of the prettiest insurrections you -ever saw. I got my belly full of the sound of guns and the smell of -death, and all I wanted to do was relax and spend the dough I made. No -sooner do I take my first drink of decent liquor in six months than you -walk up to me and start the goddamdest mess I've ever been in! - -"All right--we made a deal. As far as I know, I've carried out the -orders you gave me. I got the job for Transolar, and I started it. -Nobody but you and I know there's something funny going on, though I -suppose the cops are starting to suspect--seeing as I've killed five -men in two days, and helped you knock off two more. Now let's get a few -things straight around here! I've been shot at, slugged, and generally -treated like a supporting star in a cloak and dagger movie. Either I -get some fast answers, or I start slugging!" - -I'd been moving forward as I talked, getting madder and madder, and -closer to being ready to dive for that gun and rip it out of her hand. - -She was starting to lose some of her determination. The gun muzzle was -dipping. I reached out my hand. - -The gun was centered on me again in an instant, but the fire was gone -out of her eyes. - -"Hold it, Ash!" she said. "You sound too mad to be lying, but you -haven't convinced me yet. Just stay put a minute. You want to know -what's going on? You should have a pretty fair idea by now," she went -on, still keeping the gun on me. "I'm after that power pile you're -supposed to fly out to Titan. Harry needs it." - - * * * * * - -I should have known, I suppose. Well, maybe she was still space-struck. -Thorsten played rough, and he had some strange friends, but so far he -hadn't earned a full-scale visit from the TSN. It didn't mean as much -in this case, though. He would have been a tough nut to crack, sitting -out there in the Asteroids with a good-sized fleet behind him. Still-- - -But that was for another time. I let her see by my face that the -subject wasn't closed, and then I went on. - -"Yeah--keep talking. Who jumped you on Rocket Row last night? Why were -you trying to pot me a while ago?" - -"Because--goddam it, I don't know _what_ to think!" she said. "Those -were SBI men last night. I knew they were trailing me, but I thought -I'd gotten rid of them before I contacted you. Maybe I did--maybe -they picked me up again when I went back out on the street. Anyway, -we killed them, but the SBI knows damn well who did it. We did enough -yelling back and forth to let all of New York City know who it was." - -That had been a dumb play, all right. I didn't have time to curse my -stupidity, though. I didn't care one bit for the idea of me having shot -an SBI man. It was his own fault, but it wouldn't help my record any. - -"All right," I said, "so they were SBI men. That's tough--for them." - -"Why haven't we been picked up? I've been hiding out all day--but how -did you get away with walking in Transolar in broad daylight and coming -out again, if you didn't make some kind of deal?" She was gnawing on -her lip. "Damn it, give me a reasonable explanation, and I'll forget -the whole thing." - -That sent me off. I knew why I hadn't been picked up, all right--they -were waiting for me to blow this deal open for them. Maybe, if I did -that, they'd forget I'd killed one of them. I'd have to do a really -good job, though. - -But I wasn't doing too much reasoning, right then. I'd been mad all -night, but that was nothing to what I felt right then. - -I could feel a big red ball of pure rage building up inside me. My -fingers started to tremble, and my vision got hazy. - -I swung out my hand and slapped the muzzle of the gun as hard as -I could, and to hell with what it did to my bum hand. The gun went -spinning away, taking skin off her fingers as it went, and crashed into -a wall. I swung my hand back and slapped her across the face. She fell -back and hit the floor. She lay huddled in a corner, looking up at me, -her eyes wide and her mouth open with surprise. - -"You'll forget the whole thing, huh? All I have to do is explain away -some half-baked idea that came into your head, and you'll forgive me, -is that it?" I reached down, grabbed her shoulder, pulled her to her -feet, and held her there. Her mouth was still open, and she couldn't -get any words out of her throat. - -"You're going to _forgive_ me for getting me into a deal that involves -killing SBI men. You're going to forgive me for having a guy that used -to be a buddy of mine hate my guts, I suppose. You're going to forgive -me for slapping my face, and I'm going to get your gracious pardon for -having to fight it out for my life tonight against five guns. That's -just fine! Is that supposed to cover getting shot and knocked around -and slugged?" - -I hauled back and slapped her again. "And that's for pointing a gun -at me! Twice. I live by a gun, and I expect to die by one, someday. -But not at the hands of a woman who can't fight a man on his own -terms, and has to keep him off with a gun after she gets herself into -a mess. All right--you know how to use one. But, so help me, you wave -one of those things at me again, and I'll ram it down your throat -catty-cornered!" - -I pushed her away, and she slammed back against the wall. "One more -thing," I said. "Have you ever heard of the SBI fooling around making -deals with a guy that's killed one of their men? Not on your life! -They're a tough crew, and a smart one. If they thought I had anything -to do with that fracas last night, I'd be on my way to a Federal -gas chamber right now, if I was lucky enough to live through the -working-over they'd give me! Use your brains!" - -She stood against the wall, staring at me, making sounds in her throat. -One of her cheeks was starting to puff. - -I started for her again. Her eyes got even wider. - -"Ash!" - -Her voice was high and frightened. Somehow, it cut through the deadly -anger in my chest, and made me stop. - -"Ash! Please--Ash--I...." She put her hands up to her face and stood -there, sobbing into them. - -My nails were digging into my palms. I opened my hands, and saw blood -running over my knuckles where the tape had torn away. There was some -of my blood on her dress, where I'd grabbed her shoulder. - -"Ash! Please--I'm sorry--It--it's just that I didn't know what to -think." - -I don't know how I got over to her, but then I had my arms around -her, and she was digging her teeth into the cloth of my shoulder, and -sobbing. - -"Pat, why do you have to be this way? Why can't you--" I was saying, -and stroking that red-brown hair. She wasn't a tough, self-assured -woman who could gun a man down without blinking. She was a soft, hurt, -crying girl, mumbling through tears, her body shaking. - -I wasn't a guy who'd fought his way through a war and countless battles -since, either. - -She pulled her face away from me, and looked up. Her eyes were wet, but -she wasn't scared any more. - -I looked down at her. I started to say something, but she stopped me. - -"I had it coming, Ash," she said softly. "I didn't trust you. I should -have known better." - -She half-smiled. "I haven't met too many people who could get worked up -over not being trusted." - -I couldn't look at her. I was going to have to turn her over to the SBI -some day, and I couldn't look at her. - -"Ash, remember the night you spanked me? Remember what you did first?" - -I felt her hand on my face, turning it. Then she was kissing me, her -lips soft and fresh, her wet face under my glance, her long lashes down -over closed eyes. Her arms moved on my back, and her body was as light -as a dream in my arms. - -My own eyes closed. - - - - -IV - - -Flight coveralls are designed to be airtight when fully zipped. Hoods -with transparent face-plates and oxygen leads can be hermetically -sealed to the collars, and every ship has emergency plug-ins for the -oxygen tubes. In combat, all spacemen keep their hoods thrown back, -like mackinaw hoods, so that if a hole is blown in the hull, they can -slip the hoods on and plug into the emergency oxygen supply. Struggling -into a full-dress spacesuit is too complicated a job to entrust to the -few frantic minutes that spell the difference between life and death, -and meanwhile, the coveralls are far more comfortable in flight. - -Besides, anyone who'd seen what a spacesuit does to a figure like -Pat's will agree that it's a dirty shame. - -While Pat was climbing into her outfit, I was outlining the plan we'd -have to follow. As long as I was going to go along with this offer of -hers, temporarily, at least, I might as well do it right. - -"I got into a cab accident, or something," I said. "That accounts for -the shape I'm in. You're an old friend of mine, and since I'm in no -condition to fly and fight at the same time, I'm taking you along as -co-pilot. - -"Weidmann'll stick me for your pay, of course. I'll make sure he -does--that way there won't be much kick about you coming along, -especially if I make it a 'both or neither' proposition. - -"When we get out in space, you show me how to get to Thorsten's bubble -in the Asteroids, and that's it. We deliver the pile charge, shoot -back out into space, fake the signs of a big battle, and yell for help -over the radio. There'll be a squawk about you being a woman then, -of course, but hell, us spacebums are supposed to be devil-may-care, -aren't we?" - -It was a great little plan, all right. It would give SBI the location -of Thorsten's base, and it wouldn't hold up delivery of the pile -charge any longer than it would take to salvage it. Meanwhile, space -would be rid of Harry. - -"Sounds like it'll work, all right," she said. "I wish I was surer the -SBI didn't have anything big on me. It'll be a bad enough stink as it -is." She grinned. "But we'll make out." - - * * * * * - -Weidmann was out at the field, fuming over the fact that I was an hour -and a half late. - -He surprised me, though. He didn't boggle over taking Pat along, once I -gave him a story about being lightly hit by a car and having to take my -friend along. - -Pat had had a tight cloth strapped across her breasts, her hood over -her face, and I'd gotten her into the ship fast. - -"Okay, okay, who gives a damn what happens to you, as long as the job's -done," Weidmann said, but I couldn't believe him, somehow, when he -added, "I don't even care who does it, personally." - -He slipped an envelope into my pocket. "Something for you," he said. -"Don't open it until you're past Mars, and don't let your friend see -it--for awhile, anyway." He chuckled, and surprised me by doing it. He -looked secretly happy over something, as if he knew about something -awful that was going to happen to me. "You'll have some sweet -explaining to do to your friend, Holcomb. I'd love to see it." But -there was still that note of something more than laughter, more than -most feelings, in his voice. - -He wouldn't say more than that. He just shoved me into the ship and -slammed the hatch. - -I kept watching him in the starboard screens as we checked off the -instrument board. He was a little figure at the edge of the field, -staring wistfully up at the ship, his mechanical arm in his pocket. - -I couldn't wait until we were past Mars to open the letter, of course. -We'd be too close to the Belt by then. I read it while Pat was at the -controls. - - _Holcomb_: - - _I don't know exactly why--except that you're the best there is, I - guess--but you've been picked for this job._ - - _As you may have guessed, Transolar Express is a blind for some - pretty big Government bureaus. This isn't a ship the TSN cancelled, - of course. It's a top-secret job built according to the - specifications laid down by the Titan labs._ - - _When you hit Titan, turn the ship over to the technicians there, - and they'll install the additional equipment that's part of your - cargo of "pile fuels." The rest of your load really is fuel, but - it's not meant for the Titan pile--it's for the engines in the - ship._ - - _When it's ready, you'll fly the ship to God knows where. You won't - refuse, I know, because I wouldn't either, if I'd been given the - chance to fly the first ship into hyperspace._ - - _Luck, - - Weidmann._ - -When I'd finished it, I went back to the engine room and took a look at -the drive. Then I went to the cargo compartment and stood looking at -the hatches. They were sealed--welded shut. - -I went back up forward, and waited until Pat had to leave the controls -for a few minutes. - -The minute she dropped through the hatch I was over at an emergency -tool kit, and a few seconds later I was ripping off bulkhead -panels with a screwdriver. I got a fast look at banks of dials and -instruments, and slapped the panels back up before Pat got back. Then I -went down to my cabin and just sat on a bunk, staring at the wall. - -That cocky little bastard! That frozen-faced terrier of a man, cursing -me with all his heart because I was getting the chance he'd have had, -if he hadn't given his right arm too soon! - -And he had wished me luck. - -I was proud, then, of being an Earthman, of being a fighting man, of -having earned the right to get my name in the history books. - -I stood there, a big dumb jack-ass. - -All of a sudden, it had hit me. I'd been asking a lot of questions -lately, and getting only partial answers. Now I had all the answers, -and I hated every one of them. - -The misdirection and lying on Weidmann's part was clear as a bell. It -had been designed to get me off Earth and headed for Titan without -anybody knowing the real reasons--even me. They knew that if the real -secret ever leaked out, every renegade and pirate in the system would -swarm down, battling to the death to get their hands on this ship. - -So they pulled the purloined letter gag. They hid the ship and its -mission in plain sight. They sent me off in her to deliver the engine -parts to where the hyperspatial drive could be assembled, and from -there I'd be able to fly her to whatever star they chose, ghosting -along in a universe where the speed of light as we knew it was not the -fastest speed a ship could hit. - -They'd given me a good excuse, too. "Pile fuels!" A big enough cargo -to justify using me and a special ship, but not so big that I couldn't -handle the opposition I'd get from the Belt gangs, who'd fight for it, -sure, but who'd try a lot less hard, and discourage a lot easier, than -they would if they knew what was really up. - -The only trouble with that was that they did know. - -Sure--what else could it be? Earth was thick with two-bit sneaks and -spies who sold information to anybody with the price. Even Earth -government thought enough of them to cook up this big production. One -of them must have dug deeper than anyone thought. - -Thorsten knew, that was a cinch. He knew so well, that he hadn't even -wanted to chance a fight out in space, where the drive might get shot -up. He'd sent Pat out to decoy me into him. - - * * * * * - -I stood there, cursing, my big fists closed into sledges. Pat--Pat, -that beautiful, wonderful actress. Pat, who was death with a gun and -arson for me with her lips. - -All my life, I'd been getting mad at people and things. During the war, -I was crazy mad at Marties. Afterward, I was mad at anybody who wanted -to push other people around. I got mad at Pat, because I thought she -was playing me for a sucker. - -And Pat had taught me what hatred could do. She'd given me love to -replace it. - -And played me for a sucker. - -I stood there--Ash Holcomb, the toughest man in space, maybe. Not the -smartest--no, not the smartest. The dumbest, the stupidest chump who'd -ever fallen for the oldest gag in history. - -And nobody knew about it. Back on Earth, they were sure they'd gotten -away with it. Even Weidmann--Weidmann with the grin, Mort Weidmann who -had gone helling around in a hundred dives with me, who didn't need -obvious signs like long hair or breasts to spot a woman's figure--he -thought everything was all right, too. He was probably shaking his head -with envy, back on Earth, thinking of all the fun I'd be having in -hyperspace. - -Nobody knew the mess the System was in, except me. And nobody could do -anything about it, now, except me. - -That thought knocked me out of the raging mood I had been working -myself into. I couldn't afford to lose my head. - -I'd been wondering how Thorsten was going to work a rendezvous right in -the middle of the Belt, with renegade Marties that had held out from -the war swarming all over the place, just waiting for a prize like -this. - -The answer was simple--he'd worked out an alliance with them. Probably -the Marties thought they could use it to reconquer the System. If I -knew Harry, he had other plans, but they were probably just as bad. - -What in hell was I going to do? - -One more thought hit me, that was the worst one of all, because it held -out an impossible hope. - -It was all right to picture Weidmann getting a boot out of me taking a -woman along. Under ordinary circumstances, that might have been true. -But this was too big, too important. There were two alternatives. - -Weidmann must have known I was a D.O. I could assume that. But, knowing -how important the job was, Weidmann wouldn't have let Pat come along, -no matter what, _if he hadn't thought she and I were working together_. - -And that one stopped me cold. - -_Was she, or wasn't she?_ - - - - -V - - -What was Pat doing, tied up with Thorsten? She was a high grade -operator now, as far from the immature tease I'd known at the Academy -as I could imagine. Where had she learned to handle a gun like that? -Where had she gotten the experience that let her handle a job this -size by herself? - -I couldn't answer that--not any of it, and it was driving me nuts. -I stared over the control banks at the forward screen, watching the -stars, and beating my brains out. - -We'd been out in space for two days, and I hadn't dared to try and find -out. You don't, when you're alone with the woman you love. - -She was standing next to me, and I looked up at her. The coveralls gave -a pretty good indication of what lay beneath, and it was top grade. -Not that her figure was that spectacular--she had something more than -figures on a tape measure. There was a precision, a slim freshness and -freedom to the way one curve flowed into another. It sounds silly, but -the way she held herself reminded me of a thing I'd seen once; a rocket -transiting the sun, fire sparkling from the shimmering hull, and the -Milky Way behind it. - -I finally caught what I was trying to phrase; she looked as if she was -poised for flight. - -She grinned down at me. "Like it?" she asked, chuckling. Her green eyes -crackled with light, and there were little demons in her laugh. - -I tried to think of a clever comeback, but I couldn't. I just said, -"Yes." - -I did like it. And I hated it, at the same time. - - * * * * * - -The ship was fast, but space is big. I had a week to plan my next moves -while we worked our way through the area between Earth and Mars' orbit -where the TSN kept the raiders down. - -But the week went by, and I didn't think of anything. I'd be working -over the control board, and then I'd look up, and she'd be smiling at -me. I'd raise an eyebrow, and she'd stick her tongue out. We shared -cigarettes. I'd take a drag, hand her the butt, and she'd cuff me when -I blew smoke in her face. - -"Hey, Goon," she'd say from behind the plotting board, "d'ja hear the -one about the lady sociologist who wandered into Bessie's place on -Venus?" - -I taught her original verses to _The Song of the Wandering Spacemen_. -Then she taught me the verses she knew. - -We crossed Mars' orbit. I couldn't think of any way to find out what -I'd been killing myself over except to ask. - -"Ever hear of the D.O.'s?" I asked quietly. - -"Will chewing chlorophyl tablets cure 'em?" she asked. - -I laughed so hard that I cried. - -"I don't think so," I answered automatically, and got busy checking -the breech assembly on one of the ship's rocket launchers. - -"Lay off that, apeface," Pat said. "We won't need it." - -"How come?" - -"If anybody comes around looking unfriendly, just give 'em this on the -radio," she said, and whistled off a recognition signal in Martian. - -I turned slowly away from the launcher. - -Thorsten did have a deal with the Marties. What was more, Pat was in on -it. She had to be. - -She looked at my face. - -"What's the matter, Lump? Something you ate?" - -"Sit down, Pat," I said, pointing to the navigation table. "Go on, sit -down!" I yelled. - -She turned white. - -"You know what kind of a ship this is, don't you?" I said, feeling like -I was a hundred years old. - -"Sure." She nodded. She was beginning to get it. "You weren't supposed -to know about that." - -"I didn't. Not until we were spaceborne." - -Didn't she realize? Couldn't she see what she was doing to me? - -"Pat, do you know what'll happen if the Marties get this drive? They'll -be able to hit Earth and Venus with everything they've got, coming out -of nowhere and going back into hyperspace when they're through. The TSN -won't stand a chance against them." - -She shrugged. "They probably would, if they ever got it, but they -won't. Harry's going to assemble the drive, install it in his ships, -and then we'll take off. The Marties'll be stuck." - -"Wait a minute--you just mentioned taking off. Where to?" - -She looked up at me. "Harry says there's another planet out in -hyperspace, somewhere, circling another star. He says people can live -on it." Her eyes were shining, and I remembered a girl on a terrace, -back at the Academy, with a dream in her voice that I'd been too dumb -to recognize. - -"He does, does he? Can he prove it? How do you know what he's really -going to do?" - -"Because he's told me!" she flared. "He's going to by-pass the fumbling -bureaucrats who run things on Earth and take mankind out to the -stars--mankind, Ash, the toughest, the strongest men in space, and -their women. Space belongs to us, Ash, not to those Earthbound lilies!" - -"And whose speech are you repeating?" I said, getting more and more mad -every minute. "Thorsten's?" - -"Yes!" - -"All right, if you think so God damned much of him, suppose you tell -me what he is to you now?" I asked. - -"He's my husband." She didn't even hesitate. - - * * * * * - -I started for her, before I could think of words for the -doublecrossing.... - -She came off the navigation table like a coiled spring. She had a gun -in her hand. - -"Ash--get back! I don't want to hurt you. Ash--can't you see why? Do -you think I'm the kind who--?" - -I kept coming. "No," I said, "I can't see why. I'm not built so I could -see why. And yes, I do think you're the kind." - -"I don't know why I had to pick you!" she screamed then. "Maybe I -remembered something--maybe I found something out, after it was too -late--" - -She was crying, but she was bringing the gun up at the same time. - -I didn't care. I didn't care if she pulled the trigger or not. - -"I told you," I said between my teeth. - -She had the gun aimed right at me. Her face was gray, and her hand was -shaking. - -"I told you the last time what I'd do if you ever pointed a gun at me -again." My voice was coming out low, but it had absolutely nothing in -it. It was just words, coming out one by one. - -The gun muzzle was shaking badly. She put up her hand to steady it. - -"I--" she said. There were tears running down her cheeks in a steady -wet stream. - -She should have pulled the trigger. I think she should have. But she -didn't. - -I smashed my fist against the gun, and it was out of her hands, -crashing into metal somewhere. - -"Ash!" she screamed, and raked her nails across my face. - -She kicked up her knee, and fire exploded in my groin. I fell forward, -slamming her down on the deck, and threw my entire dead weight across -her shoulders. - -I didn't have to. Her head had hit the deck, and she lay unconscious, -blood seeping out through her hair. - - * * * * * - -She wouldn't talk to me. She lay on her bunk, her chest rising and -falling under the straps I'd buckled around her. - -I tried to explain, to make her understand, somehow. - -"Pat, I've got a responsibility to the people I work for. I've spent -the last ten years keeping characters like Harry Thorsten from taking -over this System. It's a rough job, and it's a dirty one. I can't help -that. I don't like it. Pat, it's got to be this way." - -She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't listen. I walked out of her -cabin, locking the door behind me. - -Locking a door and forgetting what's on the other side are two -different things. - -I went up to the control room and set a course for Titan. Maybe once we -got out there, I'd be able to convince her. - -It was a lousy hope. I didn't even understand her--she was like -something I'd never seen before. How could she be like she was? How, -goddam it, _how_? - - - - -VI - - -Titan lay ahead of me, pursuing its track around Saturn. - -My ship drove toward it, flaming out fuel in reckless amounts as I -poured on the acceleration. I had to get there fast. We'd already -missed our rendezvous time with Thorsten by two days. He was going to -figure out what happened--must have done so already--and would be hot -behind us. I had to land, get the engines installed, load supplies, and -take off into hyperspace before he hit. - -It was a race against time. I built up velocity to a point no sane -skipper would ever dream of, leaving just enough fuel to brake with, -knowing I wouldn't need it to get back. - -Part of me sat in the control room, plotting curves, charting fuel -consumption figures on a graph, watching the black line rise hour by -hour to the red crayon slash that meant I had done all I could. - -And part of me was down in the cabin with Pat, but if I'd let the two -parts mix.... - - * * * * * - -No ship in the System had ever hit the speed I begged out of my ship's -heaving engines. No human being had ever traveled as fast before, -tracing his track across the white stars in the blue fire of his jets. - -If I made it to Titan in time to get into hyperspace, I would have Pat -with me. There'd be stars to look at, and the worlds that circled them. -Star on star, marching past the ship, world after spinning world, fair -against the stars, and a million things to see, a thousand lifetimes to -live. - -Out there, where other beings lived, was adventure enough for both of -us, and enough of dreaming. Maybe she'd forget Thorsten, maybe some of -the things she'd said had been lies, maybe the whisperings in darkness -were true. - -If I could get to Titan in time. - -I might as well have walked. I knew there was no hope before I -finished landing. - -Titan was an empty moon. Where the project bubble had been was a circle -of fused concrete around a mess of melted alloys. A corpse in a TSN -spacesuit lay on its back and stared at Saturn. - -I looked down at it, cursing, my shoulders slumping under the weight of -my helmet. - -And I heard the voice on the command frequency. - -"Hey--you--you down by the bubble." The voice was weak, and getting -weaker. - -"Yeah!" I shouted into my mike. - -"Holcomb?" - -"Yeah, for Christ's sake! Where are you?" - -"Your right--about a hundred yards. Start walking over here. I'll talk -you in." - -I started off at a lope, kicking my way over the rough ground. That -voice was pitifully weak. - -I found him, curled around a rock, his head and arm supported on a -rifle that was leaned against the stone. - -"Holcomb--" - -"Yeah." He couldn't even turn his head to look at me. - -"I'm Foster--Lou Foster. Commanding, Marine guard detail." - -I remembered him. The one who filled a practice football with water. - -"Yeah, Lou. How's it?" - -"No damn good at all, Ash. I've been waiting for you." - -"Thorsten?" - -"Yeah--our old classmate, Harry the horse. About thirty-forty hours -back." - -"You been in that thing all this time!" - -"Sure--snap, if you breathe shallow and don't drink anything. Helps to -have a couple of spare tanks." He could still try to chuckle. - -"Well, hell, guy, let's get you over to my ship." - -"No can do, Ash. No sense to it." - -I was straining to hear the words now, even with his set right next to -mine, I knelt down and touched helmets with him. - -"Listen, Ash--he's got the stuff. The diagrams, the charts, the -figures--everything. He's even got the tech detail to put it together -for him." - -"All right, Lou. It figured. But can the yak. Come on, boy, over my -shoulder you go, and down to the can with you." - -"Lemme lay! Goddam it, quit tryin' to move me! I didn't walk over -here--I got flung when the dome let go!" He was screaming. - -"Sorry, Lou!" - -"S'all right." He bubbled a chuckle. "I see by my infallible little TSN -instruments that I'm gonna run outta breathin' material 'na couple -minutes. 'S'all right by me. Luck to ya, Ash." - -"Yeah." - -But he didn't strangle. He didn't choke in his helmet; there was still -air in his tanks when he died. - - * * * * * - -I went back to my ship and sat behind the control board, smoking a -cigarette. I rubbed a hand across my tired eyes, and wondered what I -was going to do next. - -Thorsten had thought of everything. He couldn't have found technicians -to assemble the drive anywhere else, so he'd come out here and -kidnapped them. That was an elementary move, obviously planned far in -advance. - -I'd been running a useless race. I would have realized it long ago, if -I hadn't been half-crazy about Pat. - -She laughed at me when I told her about it, but she laughed in a -peculiar way. - -"I could have told you," she said, laughing. "Ash Holcomb, the big -undercover agent, heading like mad for Titan! And what does he find?" - -"I found Lou Foster, Pat," I said, feeling the steel in my voice -slicing upward in my throat. - -"That wasn't anybody's fault!" she said quickly. "He happened to get -in Harry's way." - -"Go tell Andrea Foster," I said. - -"Stop it, Ash! You can keep bringing up horrible examples, but it still -doesn't mean anything, compared to travel to the stars." - -"What was wrong with the way it was going to be done?" I asked. - -But she was pulling her protective shell of mockery around her again. -"Oh, stop it, Ash! You're licked, and now you're trying to justify it -by claiming foul, the way losers always have." - -But the last thing she said, as I slammed out of the cabin, was: -"This time, you got the spanking, Ash. Now stop crying about it." But -somehow, she didn't sound as happy as she'd probably expected. - -I took the ship back out into space, finally, heading Sunward. All -I could do was hope I'd get within radio range of a TSN ship before -Thorsten found me. - -But that didn't happen. I wasn't anywhere near the Belt when I had to -sit and watch Thorsten's fleet come flaming at me out of space and -surround my ship, sliding into tight courses that held me on a deadly -and invisible leash. - -And I could feel things crumbling inside me. All the principles -the Academy had built in, and love, and fear--remorse, friendship, -bravery--none of it meant anything. They were things that human hearts -and minds were capable of, but when yesterday's love is today's -revulsion, when friends are deadly enemies, when all the world thinks -of you as just another space bum--what then? I had the destiny of the -System riding in the holds behind me, and nobody really knew or cared -that I'd break my heart to keep it safe. - -They were my eyes, but they weren't altogether normal as I stared out -of the control room screens at the waiting fleet. - -They kept their distances. They all had their launchers pointed at me, -and on a few of the old T Class rack-mounts I could see the homing -torps lying in wait on the flat upper decks. - -I went back to Pat's cabin. She was sitting up on her bunk, staring at -me. Fire lay buried deep in her eyes, but she kept her face smooth. - -"Okay, Pat," I said. "Thorsten's got his crew in a globe around me. He -wants this ship. Should I give it to him?" - -What I was saying didn't match my voice. I was tired, and mad, and I -couldn't look at her. I could feel my lower teeth sliding back and -forth against my upper ones. - -"No--I know you too well, Ash," she said. "Not the way you'd give it -to him." She pushed herself up and stood in front of me. Her eyes kept -getting wider and wider. "Ash! You're crazy. If you think you can fight -your way out of this--" her voice broke. "You know you don't have a -chance. I've seen Harry's fleet in action. This is one ship, Ash--_one -ship!_" - - * * * * * - -Her entire body was radiating urgency. She was standing stiff-legged, -every muscle quivering, trying to get her words through the desperate -red haze that was building up in front of my eyes. I couldn't see her -very clearly. - -But I could see her well enough to laugh at her. - -"Fight?" I said. "_Fight?_ I've had fighting--all the fighting I'm ever -going to do. I've been fighting too much, too often. I had a name and a -friend, once--and I had a girl, once, too. Now all I've got is a job, -and some orders, and a conscience, maybe. No--I'm not going to fight." -I threw back my head and laughed again. I reached out and grabbed her -arm. "Come on--you're going to have a grandstand seat." - -I pulled her up the companionway and into the control room, and threw -her into the co-pilot's seat. I pulled out my gun. - -"Reach for those controls," I said, "and I'll blow your hand off." She -sat in the chair, her face gray, staring out at Thorsten's fleet. - -I reached over and switched the radio to Thorsten's frequency. - -"Thorsten!" - -"Yes. Holcomb?" - -His, too, wasn't quite the same voice it had been. It was even, -clipped, used to commanding a crew that didn't enjoy being commanded. - -"I've got Pat," I said, keeping my gun on her. - -"Let's stick to relevancies, Holcomb. How much for the ship?" - -He'd given himself away! I could have laughed. - -"No, Thorsten, let's keep it where I want it--how much for Pat?" - -There was a pause on the other transmitter. I was playing my cards -right. Thorsten had me, and the ship. But I had his wife, and that -was swinging the scales my way. Why should he offer to pay me, now? -A bluff? No--he had a better one in the ships, with their launchers -ready. Why should he be willing to dicker for the ship? Because she was -in it, that was why. If I refused to give up, he could always blow me -out of space, or take the ticklish chance of trying to disable the ship -without wrecking the engines. But he wasn't going to do that. Pat was -worth too much to him. - -"Thorsten! You heard me--how much for your wife?" - -He cursed me. His voice was a lot lower than it had been. - -"I've got a gun on her, Thorsten." - -Suddenly, he sighed. "All right, Holcomb. You win--but not as much as -you'd think. I'll make a deal." - -I laughed at him, still keeping my gun pointed at Pat with a -rock-steady hand. "What am I supposed to think you've _been_ doing, -Thorsten?" - -It was getting to be too much for me. I could feel all the pressure -that had built up in the last ten days starting to come to a head, -ready to explode and to hell with who the pieces hit. - -"Oh, no, Thorsten--no deals. No bargains, no sell-outs, no compromises. -I'm up to here on doublecrossing and crisscrossing. I hired out to you -and Transolar, and before that I hired out to anybody who had money or -a chance for me to get some. And all the time, I was hired out to Earth -government. I've had too many jobs, Thorsten--my gun's been on the line -too long. There are too many oaths and too many loyalties. Too much of -my honor's been spread from one end of the System to the other. Now I'm -quitting. The towel's going in, and from now on, it's me that I fight -for." - -I had the mike up against my mouth, and I was yelling into it. "I know -what you're going to offer me, Thorsten. I know what I'd offer. You -want the girl and the ship. You want one as bad as the other, but you -won't settle for half. So you're offering me my life, and a free ride -to Earth. Well, you can take that deal and stuff it. Earth! Who the -hell would want to live on the Earth you'd leave, after you and your -Martie friends got through with it. No, Thorsten, it's no bargain. It's -a Heads you win, Tails I lose proposition, no matter how you slice it." - -I laughed again, enjoying it, because it was going to be my last laugh. - -"Holcomb!" He must have guessed what I was working myself up to do, -because there was sheer desperation in his voice, but I cut him off. - -"Shut up, Harry! I told you I was quitting. You know the racket I'm in. -You don't just quit it. You go out with your hand on the wheel and your -jets full on. _And here I come!_" - -I fed flame into my portside jets, throwing the mike away from me as -I grabbed the controls. The ship arced over, singing her death-song -in snapping stanchions and straining plates, in the angry howl of the -converters, in the drumfire of jets that coughed and choked as fuel -poured into them, but which opened their throats and bellowed just the -same. - -"Ash!" That was Pat. - -"Holcomb!" That was Thorsten. - -But I was pure metal-jacketed, fireborne death, howling silently toward -the sleek cruiser that was Thorsten's flagship, the best known and most -feared silhouette in space. - - * * * * * - -The gates of Hell opened in space. Every ship in the hemisphere ahead -of me vomitted fire as the ones behind me and beside me lanced out of -the way of the arrowing missiles. - -There was no way for Thorsten to avoid me. Fire blossomed at the -throats of his jets, and the flagship shot forward. - -I snarled, twisted the wheel, and kept my nose pointed for his bridge. - -Proximity torps began exploding all around me. They weren't doing -Thorsten a bit of good. Either they hit me, or, without air to carry -the shock, they were as good as not there at all. - -"Here's your hyperspacial drive, Harry!" I howled. "Here it -comes--compliments of Ash Holcomb, hired gun!" - -Suddenly a missile exploded under my bow. It was a clean hit. The ship -screamed escaping air, and shuddered, bucking upward. It wasn't just -stanchions ripping loose now, or buckling plates. It was snapping -girders, and metal spewing out into space like teeth from a broken -mouth. The trouble board winked solid fire at me. - -I didn't care about that. The ship was unhurt in the only place that -counted--her engine room--and the stern jets kept firing. But I was -bent over the wheel, sobbing in pure, white-hot, frustrated rage, -because I was going to miss. I'd been slammed up off my trajectory high -enough to miss, and Thorsten's ship was firing every tube he had to -drive herself down and away, behind a protective screen of other ships. - -I could hear the hysterical relief in Thorsten's laugh over the radio. - -I could hear something else, too. It hadn't mattered what Pat did, once -I'd swung the ship into line. I couldn't have pulled it out of the -collision course myself. It had taken an atomic rocket to blast me out -of the way. - -But it was different, now. - -I was folded over the wheel, blood running down my chin from my bitten -lip, my knuckles aching as I tightened my fists. - -Pat said: "Ash--I'm sorry." There was a sob in her voice. "But you -won't give up," she stumbled on. "You'll never give up, until you and -Harry are both dead. And I couldn't stand losing both of you." - -I never knew what she hit me with, but the back of my skull seemed -to explode inward, and I slid out of the seat to the deck. I started -crawling toward her. She sobbed, but she hit me again. - - - - -VII - - -The fleet had scattered back to the hundreds of hidden berths among the -farflung Asteroids. I came awake in a pressurized burrow dug out in -the particular rock Thorsten had chosen for himself and his crew. I'd -been dropped in a corner and searched down to my shorts. There wasn't -anything on me that I could use for a weapon. - -Except--no, I caught myself before there was even a quiver in my left -arm. Now wasn't the time to press against my ribs, to try to feel the -almost imperceptible bulge of the singleshot capsule between my ribs. - -I groaned and let my eyes flicker open. - -"How's it, Ash?" - -I looked up. Thorsten was standing a few feet away from me, looking -down from under his spreading black eyebrows. - -I put my hand up to my head. "Crummy. She hits hard." - -Harry chuckled. - -He wasn't a specially big man, but he was large enough. He had deep -black eyes under his brows, an aristocratic nose that had been broken, -a slightly off-center mouth whose lower lip was tighter on one side -than the other, and a firm jaw. His hair was black--almost as black as -mine, and as short. He hadn't changed much. - -His voice started in the pit of his stomach, and worked its way -up. When he chuckled, the sound was almost operatic, deeper than I -remembered it. - -"Why shouldn't I kill you, Holcomb?" he said. - -I climbed to my feet, and looked into those probing eyes. "Go ahead. -Give me half a chance, and I'll kill you." - -He laughed. "The old school tie," he said. His voice dropped an octave. -"Relax, Holcomb. You're alive, for the time being. Come on, let's get -some food." - -He reached out and slapped me on the back. - -Thorsten's mess hall was another pocket in the Asteroid. It was -connected to the burrow I'd been in by a tunnel in the rock, and as we -walked down it, I'd had a chance to get quick looks into branching -corridors and other burrows that were machine shops, arsenals, ration -dumps, and living quarters. Just before we turned into the mess hall, I -caught a glimpse of an airlock hatch at the end of the tunnel. That was -where Thorsten's ship had to be--and my own, too, unless I missed my -guess. - -As long as I had a functioning mind, I was going to use it. -Automatically, a map of as much of the layout as I'd seen was filed -away in my brain. - - * * * * * - -The mess hall must have been the largest single unit in the entire -chain of burrows that honeycombed the Asteroid. It was lit by clamp-on -units, like the rest of the place, but the lamps were spread a little -farther apart, so it was darker. Even so, I could see that most of the -space was filled with men sitting at the long mess tables. - -"Quite a setup, isn't it, Holcomb?" Thorsten asked, leading me toward a -table that was slightly set apart from the others. - -"Looks like an improved standard TSN base," I said. - -Thorsten chuckled again. He must have liked the sound of it. - -"In many ways, that's more or less what it is," he said, sounding -pleased. - -We got to the table, and stopped. - -All the other mess tables ran end to end from the far side of the -burrow to this. Thorsten's table was set at right angles to the others, -and a separate chair that was obviously his was placed so that he could -look over all the other men. The table had a snow-fresh cloth on it, -and was set in high-polish silver. Heavy napkins lay beside each of the -places. I glanced down at the other tables. They were bare-boarded, but -that wasn't going to make much difference to the men sitting at them. - -But all of that took about half a minute's looking. What stopped my -eye cold was Pat, dressed in an elaborate gown, seated at one end of -Thorsten's table. - -"Stop staring, Ash," Thorsten said, the laughter running under his -words like the whisper of a river. "Let's not keep our hostess waiting." - -"Hello, Pat," I said as I walked over to the chair that Thorsten -indicated was mine. I was sitting next to her. - -She half-smiled, but her eyes were uncertain. "Hello, Ash." She glanced -quickly over toward Thorsten, who had reached his own chair. - -Thorsten stopped next to the chair and laid his hand on its back. It -was a signal. - -"_Attention!_" - -A paradeground voice near the door wiped out every other sound in the -hall. - - * * * * * - -There were close to six hundred men in the mess hall. All of them -were suddenly on their feet, snapping to, the sound of boots on rock -thundering through the burrow. The men faced each other across the long -tables, staring straight ahead. - -The successive crashes of sound died out. I stood casually next to my -place. Pat was the only seated person in the hall. - -Thorsten stood where he was, his hand still on the chair, looking out -over his men. The silence held. - -"All right, men. Let's eat," Thorsten said casually. There was another -roll of sound through the hall as six hundred men sat down and long -platters of hot food were rushed out to them by table orderlies. - -Thorsten and I sat down, and the three of us at the table faced each -other. - -"Enjoy the show?" I asked Thorsten. He came back with a peeved look. - -It was my turn to chuckle, but I had enough sense to keep it inside. I -was right back to not being sure of what to think, as far as Pat was -concerned. How much of our affair had been pure bait, and how much of -it did Harry know about? - -He motioned to a waiting orderly, who stepped forward and poured wine -into the crystal goblets beside our plates. Thorsten reached forward -and picked his up. "A toast, Holcomb!" The black eyes bored into mine. -I picked up my glass. - -Thorsten turned toward Pat and raised his glass. I looked at her. Her -face was pale, and her eyes were oddly urgent. She couldn't seem to -take them off Thorsten's face. - -"To my wife!" Thorsten said, and drained his glass. - -I drank out of my own. It was good Burgundy--cold and dry in my mouth, -and warm as it came down my throat. I set the glass gently down. If -Thorsten was expecting me to react, he was disappointed. - -But he was laughing, the sound echoing through the burrow, none of the -men paying any attention to it. I looked at Pat. - -"Another toast!" Thorsten's glass had been refilled. - -"To Ash Holcomb--hired gun and angel of death!" He was laughing at me, -and at Pat. He knew, or guessed, and death was lightly hidden by his -laughter. - - * * * * * - -"_Don't do it, Holcomb!_" - -Thorsten's voice was ice. I looked at my hands. They were hooked into -talons, and I realized that there wasn't a muscle in my body that -wasn't tensed and ready to cannon me across the table. I could even -hear the snarl rumbling at the base of my throat. - -I looked to the side. A man with an open holster flap was standing -there, his eyes locked on me. - -"Do what, Harry," I asked casually, "propose another toast?" - -He looked uncertain for a moment. Then the smile and the laugh came -on, and Thorsten was Thorsten again. He didn't know about the chained -lightning that was running in my arteries instead of blood. He was a -dead man as he sat there, and he didn't know it. In a way, that was -funny enough to me to keep waiting. - -"A toast? It certainly is a night for toasts, isn't it?" Thorsten -murmured. - -Pat hadn't moved, and stopped looking at him. I didn't know if she'd -looked at me when I was ready to go for Thorsten's throat--but I didn't -think so. Now she smiled. I wonder how much it cost her because her -lower lip was gray where she'd had it between her teeth. - -I had my glass refilled. I nodded toward Pat--and gave Thorsten the -Academy toast. "Here's to space, and the Academy. To stars, to the men -that walk them, and to the flaming ships that fly." - -I looked at Thorsten for the first time since I'd raised my glass, and -it was my turn to laugh. - -He was gray, and somehow smaller in his thronelike chair. He stared -across the table at me, and then let his eyes fall. Hesitantly, he -spread the fingers of his hand, and looked at the pale circle where the -ring had been. - -And, incredibly, he laughed. - -"Score one for the opposition," he chuckled. "Nice going, Ash." - -I laughed with him, keeping it on a casual plane. I'd done what -I wanted to--hit him where he lived. Now, if I could give the -conversation a nudge in just the right direction, I might be able to -start him talking about his plans. I was that much closer to an outside -chance to do something about them. - -"What happened, Harry?" I asked. "How'd you get from the TSN into being -the top man in the Belt?" - -He bit. While Pat and I sat there, Pat nervously shifting her glance -from him to me, and me not daring to look at her because of the things -I'd say to myself, he told his story. The orderlies brought our -dinner, putting dishes down and taking them away as he talked between -mouthfuls. - -"They don't talk much about me, I guess," he began. "It's a pretty -ordinary story, anyway. I was in the war, with my own squadron. We ran -into some bad luck, combined with a set of orders that got mixed up. I -lost my men. I lost a leg, too." - -He leaned down and slapped his right thigh. It rang with metal. "I -didn't enjoy that. While I was in the hospital, they brought charges -against me. I wasn't given time to prepare an adequate defense, and -they threw several paragraphs of the book at me. I was dropped a rank -in grade, and slated for duty at a procurement office. I got my break, -then. The Marties, under Kull, hit the Moon at practically that time." - -I remembered that. They'd gotten a toehold and established a forward -base, and Earth had started getting hit with atomic missiles. - -"All of a sudden, anybody who could walk or be carried into a ship was -tossed into a raggle-taggle fleet the TSN dredged up. That included me." - -He grinned, "Only they made two mistakes. The first one was in -thinking I still owed Earth any kind of a debt. The second was the -bigger one--they gave me a crew raked out of every brig and detention -barracks in the fleet. I guess they didn't think I was fit to command -anything else." - -He grinned. "Pat was in a Wasp unit attached to the base. I took her -along." - - * * * * * - -He waved his hand at the men in the mess hall. "Some of my original -crew are still with me. I simply headed for the Belt, and sat out the -war. The boys didn't mind one bit. We had plenty of stores, and they -knew nobody would bother us while there were more important things -going on. Afterwards--well, we've done all right." - -He had. Some of the freight lines bribed him. Some didn't. - -Uncounted millions in rare minerals were scattered among the tumbling -rocks of the Belt, but nobody dared to mine them. He'd given refuge to -the stragglers from Mars' broken navies, and built a kingdom on blood -and loot. - -"I know what I'm called on Earth," he said. "I'm a butcher, a -brigand--all the names there are. Even another fighting man, like you, -Holcomb, thinks I'm a renegade and a traitor to humanity for throwing -in with the Marties. Well, they're blind, Holcomb!" - -His open palm came cracking down on the table. "They can't see that -Earth is rotten to the very marrow in its mis-shapen bones, that any -system that would do to a man what it did to me is based on stupid -bungling! The war--Holcomb, you were in that, you know it was the most -useless piece of imperialism the System has ever seen." - -He was staring intently into my face. I did him the favor of keeping my -expression blank, but if he expected me to nod, he was going to wait a -long time. I couldn't help thinking of Mort Weidmann. Mort left an arm -on Mars; he wasn't bitter about that, and he didn't think it had been a -useless war. It had been the Marties for System bosses or us, and they -wouldn't have been gentle overlords. - -But Thorsten was going on, and now he'd gotten to the part I wanted to -know. - -"There's got to be a change, Holcomb. Humanity isn't fit to go out to -the stars the way it is. It's not ready for the hyperspatial drive. - -"It's not going to get it." - -I was beginning to understand. Most important, I could finally -understand what was wrong with Thorsten. I could see the Messiah -complex building up in front of my eyes. The laugh--the easy, -chuckling, self-assured laugh--the laugh of a man who was never wrong, -and knew it. - -"I've got the drive, Holcomb, and I'm going to use it. _I'll_ be the -standard-bearer of the human race among the stars. There won't be any -fumbling and bumbling--no bureaucrats, Holcomb, no splinter groups, no -special interests, no lobbies." - -The dream was like a banner in his eyes. - -"Nobody but you, right?" I said. - -"Right!" the palm went down on the table again. The wine was beginning -to loosen him up. His voice was losing the first fine edge of control. - - * * * * * - -And I finally understood about Pat. She was looking at Thorsten, and -the same dream was plain on her face. That was all she saw--that, and -the man. She couldn't see the gray rockets bellowing above the burning -cities. - -"_Have_ you got the drive?" - -"Damn right! Those technicians I lifted from Titan are working on your -ship now. Then a test flight, and after that, a whole fleet--my fleet, -equipped with the drive and ready for the jump. - -"There's a planet out there, Holcomb. The Titan Project found it. A -planet, Holcomb! Earth-type! Do you think I'd let those idiots on -_Earth_ have it!" - -That locked it up. He was completely paranoid. - -Pat was still looking at him, lost in the dream. She couldn't be -bought, and she couldn't be taken. But she could be in love. Maybe, as -a man, I stacked higher up with her than Thorsten did--but I couldn't -rival the Dream. - -"Seems to me a thing like that will take more supplies than generations -of intercepting freight would give you. Where'll you get your -equipment?" I asked. - -I'd timed it right. A lot of Burgundy had gone down, followed by -Sauterne and Chablis. - -"That's where my Martian--friends come in," he said. Pat leaned -forward. This was a part she'd never heard before, an answer to a -question nobody but an old hand at expeditionary forces would ask. - -"The Marties think they're going to get the System back, some day." He -laughed. "They've been trying to persuade me to help them for a long -time, now. Well, I'm going to. After my fleet has the drive. We'll -invade Earth, then. The TSN won't be able to stand up to us--not when -torps start coming out of nowhere. Picture it--all of Earth, busy -fighting us off, all its attention on the invasion, and on nothing -else. Then, when the fighting's going nicely, my men and I will raid -a few choice supply dumps I've had spotted for a long time. We'll -load up on equipment and supplies, and take off, leaving some badly -disconcerted Marties to finish their little revolt any way they want -to--with no Earth for them to conquer!" - -"_What?_" It ripped out of me. Pat was sitting there, her mouth open -too, the same stunned question written on her face. - -Thorsten laughed his omnipotent laugh again. - -"Certainly! Didn't you know, Holcomb? Ordinarily, of course, a -hyperspatial ship will take off from a planet on standard atomic drive, -and cut to her hyperspatial engines when it's out in deep space. But -it's possible to take off directly into hyperspace--the only trouble -being that the warp changes a hundred cubic miles of adjacent mass to -C-T matter." - -"Seetee! You mean contraterrene?" That was Pat, tense-faced. - -I couldn't say anything. I sat there, staring at Thorsten--calm, -laughing, deliberate bringer of death to a world and its billions. - -Because C-T atoms, in contact with normal matter, reacted violently. A -hundred cubic miles, detonating instantaneously, would leave a ring of -dust where Earth and Moon now swung. - -"There will be no cancer of humanity in space!" Thorsten declared. - -I jumped for him. - -One slug caught my shoulder. The other plowed through the muscles of my -back. I lay bleeding among the broken glass and dishes on the table. -Thorsten swung a rabbit punch at my head, and laughed. - - - - -VIII - - -The cell was small, dark, and damp. There were stitches across my back, -under tape, and a traction splint and bandages on my shoulder. Let's -forget pain. Pain.... _Let's forget it! Forget it!_ - -I lay on my belly. I'd been on my belly for most of a week. And for -most of a week, I'd thought of how it would be to dig my fingernails -into my side, rip loose the phony skin over my ribs, and fire that one -shot into Thorsten's guts. - -All I needed was a chance. Here in the cell, in a corridor somewhere, -alone with him, surrounded by his men, chance of life or no--that -wasn't what counted. I wasn't sane myself, anymore. There were two -people in the Universe--Thorsten and me--and room for one! - -A chance. Lord God, a chance! - -But all I had was dampness and darkness. - -I was fed twice a day--or something like it. It was almost time for my -next meal, but that wasn't the important time. It was the helpless week -behind me, the week in which Thorsten's kidnaped technicians had had -time to assemble the ship's engines. The test flight was due, and after -that the production of engines for the other ships in Thorsten's fleet. -If I was going to do anything, I had to do it now. - -I dragged myself up the side of the cell, leaving meat from my fingers -on the rough stone. I staggered over to the wall beside the door and -waited. - -Time went by--hours or minutes--and a sound of feet came down the -tunnel leading to my cell. - -I couldn't use my back muscles, but I tensed them now, feeling stitches -give way. - -Tumblers clicked, and the door was opened. - -I kicked it shut and sprang, wrapping my hands around a dimly seen -throat, a thin and soft neck. - -"Ash!" Pat's voice was half-choked under my grip. - -"Pat!" I opened my hands, and she stumbled free. But not for long, -because an instant later she was pressed against me again, her mouth -over mine. - - * * * * * - -We stood together in the darkness and in hunger. Finally, she moved her -lips away. - -"Ash, Ash, you can stand!" She was sobbing with relief. - -"Yeah--I'm on my feet." - -"Can you fight?" - -"Nothing bigger than you," I said. "What's going on?" - -"He's crazy, Ash. That plan of his--I'd never heard it before. All he -told me was that he was going to take humanity out to the stars--he -said he didn't trust Earth government to do it." - -"Yeah. I know. For that dream, I would have done what you did, too." - -"I didn't love him, Ash. He--I don't know, he _was_ his dream, somehow, -and in spite of it all, he was a better, stronger man than anyone I -ever knew. Except you, Ash." - -That was good enough. That was good enough to give her everything I had -or could get. And that made my spot even worse. It wasn't just she that -was going to get hurt--but she was the most important one of them all. - -I couldn't even stay with her, here in the cell. - -But she knew that too, and there was more to her coming here than that. - -"Ash--they've finished assembling the drive in your ship. They've -finished repairs on her bow, too. They're going to run the tests in a -few hours. Everybody's sleeping, except for the maintenance crew, and -they're scattered through the base. Ash--I think we can get out of -here. If we don't run into any guards, we can make it to the airlock. -There'll be a few suits in a locker there. We can make a run for the -ship." Her voice was urgent, and full of hope, and bitterness for the -desertion of a dream--a sick, tainted dream, but her dream for so many -years at Thorsten's side. - -And I knew, for the first time in weeks, that Earth had a chance. I -knew, too, that Pat and I.... - -I could have kissed her then. But I had to be a damned fool. I didn't. - -The tunnels and corridors were empty. The machine shops and storage -rooms were dark, and the doors to the bunkrooms were closed. We reached -the airlock. - -All I had to do now was to get into a spacesuit and open the lock. The -ship lay beyond it. - -Then I heard Harry's laugh! - -He stood behind us, holding a slim handgun. - -"Running out, people?" he asked. "Bribing that orderly wasn't bright, -Pat. He not only gets to keep his money, but he gets a promotion from -me. That's the way I operate--that's my justice." - -Pat and I had turned half-way around, watching him carefully. - -"Justice!" Pat flared. "Worry some more about Earth. Worry about the -Universe. Teach them your justice!" - -Again the laughter. "I will, Pat." - -But the laughter broke. - -"Pat--you're my wife. You know my dream--you shared it. Why did you do -it?" - -"Yes, she knows your sick dream, Harry," I said. - -"Shut up, Ash;" he said quietly. "Don't die with your mouth open." - -He fired, but I was on the floor of the tunnel. - -"Ash!" That was Pat's voice, but I was rolling, and tearing at my side. - -"Get back, Pat!" Thorsten shouted. I was up on my knees, the singleshot -gun in my hand. I charged forward. - -He brought up his gun. The noise had awakened everybody in hearing -distance. Doors were opening, men were running. - -I pointed the slim tube at his belly and jammed my thumb down on the -firing stud. - -He screamed, cupping his hand over the smoking hole I had punched in -his stomach. His knees bent, and he sank backwards, toppling, finally, -as he lost his balance. He opened his mouth, choking, and blood welled -over his chin. - -One last shred of laughter bubbled up through his throat. - -And someone, down at the other end of the tunnel, fired at us. He -missed me as I crouched over Thorsten's body. - -"Ash--" - -I had Thorsten's gun in my hand, but I didn't fire back. I spun around, -and looked at Pat, crushed back against the tunnel wall. - -"Pat!" - -She slid down the wall, and huddled on the floor. - -"Pat!" I bent down beside her. It was bad. - -Her voice was thick. "How long have I got?" - -"Five minutes--maybe ten." I knew I was lying. It was less. - -"Ash ... you heard what he said. I was in a Wasp unit. Space was my -dream, too. Always." - -I wanted to tell her I knew, now--knew a lot of things. But there was -no use in holding a dying woman, kissing her, and caressing her tumbled -hair for one last time. No use at all, when a world depended on not -taking time for those things. - -I put Thorsten's gun in her hand. "Can you still shoot, Pat?" - -Her fingers tightened on the butt, and her eyes met mine just once more -before she turned her head. - -She was a beauty to watch. Sprawled on the tunnel floor, not looking -at anything but targets over the notch of her sights, calm and skilled -while she covered my retreat as her heartbeats slowed. She cauterized -the tunnel, weaving a fan of death that marched down the corridor, -encompassing and moving beyond huddled and broken men. - -I clamped on my suit helmet and spun the airlock controls. I snapped -one quick look back at her. Then the airlock hatch thudded shut behind -me. In a moment, I was on the surface of the Asteroid and running for -the ship. - - - - -IX - - -Earth lies ahead of me, green and safe. The muted atomics behind me -have brought me back from beyond Venus, where the split-second jump -into hyperspace threw me. - -Let Mort Weidmann have his farther stars--or anyone else who cares to -try. I've had all I want from the new drive. - - * * * * * - -I gave Pat a funeral pyre. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Blood on my jets</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Algis Budrys</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: EBEL</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 3, 2022 [eBook #68674]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOOD ON MY JETS ***</div> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>BLOOD ON MY JETS</h1> - -<h2>BY ALGIS BUDRYS</h2> - -<p>ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL</p> - -<p>They were the hired gun-rabble of the System, engaged<br /> -in the dirtiest, most thankless racket in all<br /> -the worlds. But Ash Holcomb was doing all right,<br /> -until the girl walked out of his past with high<br /> -stakes in her pockets and murder in her eyes!</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Rocket Stories, July 1953.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Rocket Row is the Joy Street of three planets. It's got neon lights, -crummy dives, cheap hotels, and women to match. Every man who's ever -rode a ship into space knows about Rocket Row. It runs along the far -side of Flushing Spaceport, down toward the Sound.</p> - -<p>The New Shanghai was full of dockworkers and crewmen on liberty. It was -noisy. I sat on a bar stool and watched the fog trying to infiltrate -the open door. It didn't have a chance against the tobacco smoke that -rolled out to meet it. Outside, the streets and alleys would be choked -with wet, creeping darkness, full of quiet footsteps, and the cops -would find empty-pocketed corpses behind the ashcans in the morning.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But none of that was any of my business. I was sick and tired of -fog—the real kind, the kind they grow on Venus—and I was sick of the -thought of blood. I'd seen too much of it, soaking into the hot mud, -and some of it spilled by my guns. I wanted to forget the night, and -fog that gave cover to every kind of dirty deal a man could imagine. I -wanted to pull the corners of my world together until all that was left -was the drink, the bar stool, and me. But it wasn't going to work out -that way, because I was in the New Shanghai on business.</p> - -<p>And my kind of business was the dirtiest, lousiest, most thankless -racket in the world.</p> - -<p>The bartender moved up to where I was sitting. "Have another one, Ash?" -he asked.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, sure, Ming," I said. "You still make the best Stingers in the -System. Maybe that's because you don't brew your own gin."</p> - -<p>"Could be, Ash, could be," he laughed. He shook up the drink and poured -it in my glass. "How'd it go on Venus?"</p> - -<p>"It went," I said.</p> - -<p>Ming was one of the few people who admitted knowing I was a D.O.—a -Detached Operative. It was a crummy job, but it suited me.</p> - -<p>We were the hired-gun rabble of the System, thrown together into the -damnedest police force there had ever been. Spacial expansion hadn't -really gotten underway until after the Terro-Martian War, and after it -ended every would-be bigshot there was had realized that all he really -needed to set himself up as a pocket-size dictator was some salvaged -gear from the mess the war had left, a crew that wasn't too particular, -and a good-looking piece of territory in the practically limitless -areas of space. Most of them had picked slices of Venus. There were a -few in the Asteroids, hooked up with renegade Marties, and one or two -that had actually grabbed sections of Mars.</p> - -<p>Sending regular law enforcement officers or Marines after each one of -these boys would have been physically impossible. Earth government had -come up with a cuter idea.</p> - -<p>It was a lot more economical to fight one big decisive battle than to -endure a series of inconclusive skirmishes. There were a lot of us -boys out in space, most of us just drifting from one port to the next, -picking up a living by our wits, and by our skill with a gun, some of -us. Earth government had quietly picked out the ones they considered -trustworthy, sworn us in, and turned us loose with a few standing -orders and a lot of dependence on our discretion.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Whenever something brewed between two of these minor warlords, we'd -come flocking in and hire ourselves out to whichever side we felt had -slightly more justice. Sometimes we wound up shooting at each other, -but you couldn't even be sure of that, since most of us didn't know, -beyond a guess or two, who the other D.O.'s were. Usually, though, we -had enough brains to pick the right side, and we'd make sure that was -the one that came out on top.</p> - -<p>It was a process of elimination, actually. The warlords were helped -to knock each other off until, eventually, those who remained either -proved themselves to be strong leaders, which was what frontier planets -needed, or else megalomaniacs, in which case it paid to devote a -full-scale military campaign to them.</p> - -<p>It was a highly informal system, but it had worked. It was tough on us, -but it wasn't any harder than freelance grifting had been. It left an -awful lot to personal discretion, and we paid ourselves out of whatever -came to hand, but there hadn't been any big totalitarian regimes -lately, either.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, I did pretty well," I repeated.</p> - -<p>Ming puckered his mouth and winked. I used to try and figure out how he -did it, standing behind his bar all day, never going out, never talking -much except to a few people like me. But I knew for sure that he could -have told me exactly how much I'd made on that Venus job—and the -gimmick I'd pulled to get it past Customs, too.</p> - -<p>But that was why I was in here. Something was up—something big, and I -wanted to find out what it was before every grifter and chiseler in the -System tried to cut a piece of it for himself.</p> - -<p>"I got a note in my mailbox today," I said casually.</p> - -<p>"Yeah?" he asked, just as quietly.</p> - -<p>"Must have been put there as soon as I touched down this morning. -Somebody wants me to go to work for them. They're paying high—too -high, maybe. Hear anything about a big job coming off somewhere?"</p> - -<p>Ming grinned. "If you mean that little letter from Transolar, yeah, I -know about that." He got serious, and moved closer.</p> - -<p>"But that's all I know, and nobody else knows even that much. Sure, -something's cooking, but nobody knows what it is. I—" He broke off. -"You've got company. Boy, <i>have</i> you got company!"</p> - -<p>I looked in the backbar mirror. A girl had come in the doorway and -was walking toward me. Her dress tightened in intriguing places. Her -face was as much of a treat. High-cheeked, brown-eyed, with a small, -uptilted nose and a full mouth, it was framed by short curly hair the -color of new copper wire. I liked it.</p> - -<p>So did the spacemen and the dockworkers sitting at the bar. One or two -half-rose to invite her to join them, but they sat down again when they -saw who she was headed for.</p> - -<p>There was something about that hair. I'd seen it before, somewhere.</p> - -<p>The guy next to me got up and slid out of the way. I let my eyes stay -on the bottles on the backbar until she sat down beside me. I gave Ming -a look. He nodded, and moved down the bar.</p> - -<p>"Ash?"</p> - -<p>The voice was low, but crisp. It had whispers and murmurs in it, too, -and I knew I'd heard it before.</p> - -<p>"I'm Pat McKay."</p> - -<p>I turned my head and looked at her. Her dress, tight as paint from -hem to bodice, was mysteriously loose in the sleeves. Ruffles at each -shoulder hid bulges that Mother Nature never put there. They looked -more like twin shoulder holsters. They were.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And the last time I'd seen her, she was seventeen—eighteen, maybe—in -a ball gown, her hair long then, curling around her shoulders.</p> - -<p>And the voice hadn't been as controlled, or as crisp, but she'd been -saying, "You're a good dancer, Mr. Holcomb. Not much on the light -conversation, but a good leader."</p> - -<p>I'd swept her around another couple, and kept my cheek away from hers. -"The Academy is geared to the production of good leaders, Pat. Good -conversationalists, on the other hand, are born, not made."</p> - -<p>She laughed—a giddy party laugh from a girl who dated Academy boys -exclusively, who loved the glitter and pomp of graduation ceremonies, -who hung around the Academy all she could, who had been to Graduation -Balls before, and would certainly be to a number of them again, before -she managed to separate all the black and silver uniforms she'd danced -with and found herself a man from inside one of them. An Academy -drag—a number in a score of little black books.</p> - -<p>"Like Harry—oh, pardon me, it's Graduation Night—like Mr. Thorsten, -you mean?" And she looked up at me, raking my face with her green eyes.</p> - -<p>"If you will."</p> - -<p>"You're jealous, Mr. Holcomb," she said, breaking out her best little -tease manner.</p> - -<p>"Maybe." I knew she was trying to get me angry. She was getting there -fast, too.</p> - -<p>"Well, now, if you displayed some of Mr. Thorsten's other gifts, I -could forget about the conversation," she said lightly.</p> - -<p>"Meaning you'd like me to dance you out on the terrace and make a pass -at you?"</p> - -<p>"Maybe."</p> - -<p>She was daring me.</p> - -<p>I danced her out on the terrace, and found a darker corner. She looked -up at me, her eyes a little surprised, but her lips were parted.</p> - -<p>I tightened my arms and kissed her. It started gently—just a kiss -sneaked in between dances—but her arms were growing tighter too, and -her fingers were hooking. We held it, while I listened to the blood -running in my ears, until we broke apart, both of us dropping our arms, -standing and looking at each other, dragging air down our throats.</p> - -<p>"Ash! You—"</p> - -<p>She started to say something, and broke it. It sounded a little too -much like a movie heroine, all of a sudden. She was holding the pose -a little too long, too. "Hell, she's a kid—she's doing it the way -the grown-ups in the movies do it," I told myself, but I'd danced her -out here for a purpose. Maybe she didn't deserve it, but I was sick -to death of the little bits of fluff that hung around, drinking in -borrowed glamor, getting the big play from boys like Harry Thorsten.</p> - -<p>I reached out and grabbed.</p> - -<p>"Now comes the part you've really been asking for," I said. I crouched, -bent her over my knee, and brought my hand down. Hard. Three times in -all, putting everything I had into it.</p> - -<p>"Now," I said, letting her get up, "maybe you'll quit bothering guys -who worked all their lives to get in a spot where they could go out and -be of some help in the only job they ever wanted—the TSN. Do you think -you really stack up worth a damn beside the only thing that counts?"</p> - -<p>She just stood there, tears of rage in her eyes. I was never sure -whether it was what I'd done or what I said that had her so mad, but -the last thing I heard her say as I walked away was: "Damn you, Ash -Holcomb! Damn you for being such a snobbish stuck-up...."</p> - -<p>Well, maybe I was wrong and maybe I wasn't. I didn't know as much in -those days as I should have, either. But it was too late now—too late -by a war and a hundred revolutions, too late by all the men who'd gone -down before my guns, too late by years of loneliness and bitterness.</p> - -<p>But if it was too late, why did I remember it all now, with Thorsten up -in the Asteroids, a little king in his own right, with me in the New -Shanghai, a white ray-burn splashed through my hair, with the Academy a -dim thing behind both of us, and Pat—</p> - -<p>Why was Pat here? What had she done through the years, while I fought -my way from one end of the System to the other, and Harry took the -easy way out during the war?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Hello, Pat," I said. "I haven't seen you in a long time." Well, what -else was I going to say?</p> - -<p>I don't know what she had expected me to say. She kept her face in -profile, and didn't let me see what it was showing.</p> - -<p>"I'm here on business. I hear you're a good man, these days, for the -job I've got." She twisted the words like a knife.</p> - -<p>All right, if she wanted it that way, she'd get it.</p> - -<p>"So they tell me," I said.</p> - -<p>"Fifteen thousand for a month's work."</p> - -<p>She said it quietly, without any build-up. Maybe she figured fifteen -thousand didn't need one.</p> - -<p>I sat there for a minute, not saying anything, but thinking hard. What -kind of a setup was she offering me? Was this the big job that was -floating around? There's usually a sure way to find out. When someone -offers you a blind deal, argue. Maybe they'll get mad, or scared you -won't take it, and spill something.</p> - -<p>"No, thanks," I said.</p> - -<p>She frowned. "Don't try haggling with me, Ash. I can get somebody just -as good for less."</p> - -<p>"I don't doubt it. You could probably get three. That's why I don't -want any part of it. It's sucker bait."</p> - -<p>She looked at me for the first time, mouth twisted.</p> - -<p>"Since when does a hired gun like you turn down that kind of money? The -job's worth it, believe me."</p> - -<p>That hit me. But I couldn't afford to get touchy.</p> - -<p>"Probably is. But with standard pay at three thousand a month, plus -bounties and commissions, this little errand of yours, whatever it may -be, must break so many laws it could land me in a death house," I said, -watching her eyes.</p> - -<p>It didn't add up. Nothing added up. Why had she picked me, in the first -place? I had a reputation as one of the better gunnies, sure, but there -were at least twenty guys I'd never draw against, if I could help it, -and four or five of them were available. Because she'd known me? And -this job—what kind of hanky-panky was going on at these prices?</p> - -<p>I watched her eyes acquiring dangerous highlights. The temper that went -with that hair was beginning to stir.</p> - -<p>"Do you want to get in on the biggest deal that's ever been pulled off -in space or don't you?" she said. "Or are you going to chicken out?" -she added contemptuously.</p> - -<p>I let it slide off my shoulders.</p> - -<p>"I don't know," I said. I wanted to get a chance to really talk things -out with her, and this wasn't the place for it. "Anyway, this is no -place to talk business. Walk out of here as if I'd turned you down, and -go up the street. I'll catch up to you."</p> - -<p>"Okay." She got up and walked out.</p> - -<p>"Sorry, Honey," I called after her, loud enough for everybody to hear. -A snicker went up. I cut it off with a look at the characters lined up -against the bar, and got back to my drink. I finished it casually, put -it down, paid, and walked slowly to the door. I let everybody get a -good look at me turning down the street in the opposite direction from -the one Pat had taken.</p> - -<p>I ducked into the first cross street and moved swiftly over to the -alley that paralleled the street that Pat was on. I was thinking all -the way.</p> - -<p>Being a D.O. was one thing—getting into something solo was another. I -could get killed, for all I knew, and maybe by a lawman's gun. That was -a risk I ran on every job, but in this case, I didn't even know, yet, -what was going on. The smart thing to do would have been to pass the -word to my SBI contact, but that would take too much time. There was -nothing I could do but dive into this mess head-on, and hope I'd have -time to yell for help later.</p> - -<p>I was about to turn into another alley that ran back to the main street -when I heard the coughing of a Saro airgun and the faint sizzle of a -Colt in reply.</p> - -<p>Instantly, I was running silently up the alley. One hand unzipped the -chest of my coverall, and the other one dove in and grabbed the butt of -the heavy Sturmey that's my favorite man-killer. I reached the mouth of -the alley and stopped abruptly in the shadows.</p> - -<p>A man lay in the middle of the street, unnaturally flat against -the concrete slab. The street lamp up the block was dark, its base -surrounded by shattered glass.</p> - -<p>The Saro went into action again from the roof of a building across the -street. I saw the slugs chip cement from the railing of a flight of -steps four doors up. A pale blue flare winked from behind the railing, -and the man with the Saro ducked, but was up again as another gun raked -the stairs from a spot on my side of the street. I didn't like that -setup one bit.</p> - -<p>The Sturmey in my hand went <i>whoomp!</i> and the man on the roof sailed -out over the street and landed with a crunch. The other gun cut off -abruptly. Two Colt beams probed for it from the stairs, and that -clinched it. It was Pat, all right, and somewhere, she'd become a fair -hand at street fighting.</p> - -<p>"Hey, Pat!" I yelled, and ducked away from the storm of bullets the -other gunman flung at me. The result was what I'd hoped for. The man -had exposed himself to Pat's fire by shooting at me. The Colts sizzled -viciously, and the burst of Saro noise stopped in mid-clip.</p> - -<p>A gun clattered on cement. I poked my head cautiously around the -corner. Silence blanketed Rocket Row, and then was tempered by a -scuffing noise. Up the street, a leather belt was being pressed against -the side of a building by the weight of a body that was sliding slowly -downwards. I spotted a glowing dot that was a tunic smoldering around a -Colt burn.</p> - -<p>"Ash!"</p> - -<p>"Yeah?"</p> - -<p>"You okay?"</p> - -<p>I grinned. She sounded a little worried.</p> - -<p>I sprinted across the street at a weaving run, and dove behind the -stairway.</p> - -<p>"What happened?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"I don't know—but I've got an idea. I got about a hundred yards up the -street when I spotted this guy tailing me. I yelled, and he ducked. At -the same time, this other fellow started running toward me across the -street. I burned him down, and ducked in here just as the bird on the -roof opened up. That's it, until you came along."</p> - -<p>I swore. I didn't go for three men gunning one girl. I looked over the -top of the railing. One or two people were starting to come out of -doorways.</p> - -<p>"Maybe we'd better get out of here," I said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We ran up the street to another alley. She re-holstered her guns on the -way, revealing a lot of what the dress advertised.</p> - -<p>We stopped inside the alley and caught our breaths. "Well, anyway," I -said, "I know what you're in this for."</p> - -<p>She looked up sharply. "What?"</p> - -<p>"You need money to buy some underwear with."</p> - -<p>She slammed her hand into my face. I ducked back, and stood there, -blinking.</p> - -<p>"Look, Holcomb, as far as I'm concerned, the deal's on. Fine. Thanks -for helping me out back there, too. But just thanks—no further -payment. And no kidding around. This is a business deal. Have you got -that straight, or do I burn you down where you stand and find another -boy?"</p> - -<p>She meant it. I looked down at her hand, and one of the Colts was in it.</p> - -<p>"Okay." I hadn't meant that crack as a pass, but as long as the -question had come up, it was all right by me to have it settled right -here. "But put that thing away before I make you eat it."</p> - -<p>She grinned, suddenly, and put the gun back. "I'm sorry, Ash. But -it's the best way I've ever found to establish a clear-cut business -relationship. Partners?"</p> - -<p>She stuck out her hand, and I took it.</p> - -<p>"Deal."</p> - -<p>A siren rose and died on Rocket Row. Pat jumped back. "Damn it!" she -said. She shot a glance up the alley. "We'd better split up," she said. -"Look, Ash," she said hastily, "I'll get in touch with you. Meanwhile, -do what I tell you to, and don't waste time asking me why. I'll tell -you later. All you have to do now is take the job Transolar is going to -offer you. That's all. Take that job, and start to carry it out. I'll -be in touch with you somewhere along the line."</p> - -<p>She looked down toward the alley's mouth. I followed her glance, and -saw shadowy figures of men running by.</p> - -<p>"They'll be in here in a minute. I've got a car a couple of blocks -away. I'll see you, Ash."</p> - -<p>"Yeah. Hurry up," I added, as the first of the cops came warily into -the alley.</p> - -<p>I pulled my gun and ducked behind a barrel as she started to run. The -cop yelled and came after her. I snapped a shot over his head, and -that drove him into cover. Over the shouts that rose, I could hear her -footsteps fading out.</p> - -<p>I followed her cautiously, sliding from behind one ashcan to another, -keeping the cops down with an occasional shot. I made it out of the -alley and into the street, then ducked into a doorway, kicked the lock -loose, took the stairs two at a time to the roof, and got away over the -housetops.</p> - -<p>And all the time, I was wondering about Pat, the job that Transolar was -going to offer me, and how she'd known about it.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - - -<p>Mort Weidmann was the same Captain Weidmann who'd left an arm in the -cockpit of a K class scoutbomber that he'd flown through a formation of -Marties while he almost bled to death. He looked very military in his -blue and silver uniform. It wasn't a TSN uniform, of course, but even a -Transolar Express rig makes an old soldier feel better.</p> - -<p>He was another old friend of mine, like Thorsten. The three of us had -been touched by the war, each in our separate ways. Mort was the one -who didn't just feel a yearning for space, who didn't just ride on a -TSN uniform because it was the one available way. Mort had loved the -TSN itself, with a pride in the traditions that guys like Thorsten and -me hadn't quite had. He'd been a better officer because of it—and the -only one who couldn't have stayed.</p> - -<p>And, as we'd gone our separate ways, so our ways of thinking had -changed. Thorsten—well, he'd taken his choice, and some day I might -have to go into the Belt and do something about it, but Mort's attitude -hurt. He didn't have any respect for me—he couldn't have, for a man -who'd resigned his commission and become a planet-hopper.</p> - -<p>He stood at the window in his office, his phony arm tucked into a -pocket, his moustache moving up and down as he talked to me.</p> - -<p>"I don't know why they picked you, Ash," he said.</p> - -<p>I leaned back in my chair. "I don't either—unless maybe it's because -they couldn't find anybody else with my qualifications. Or maybe it's -because they can trust me, and they know it." I was getting pretty mad. -Weidmann was a right guy, but I was getting sick of being offered jobs -without being told what they were. Two in two days was a little too -much.</p> - -<p>Weidmann turned around. "Don't get edgy, Ash! I've got my orders—they -came down from the top brass, and I'll carry them, whether I approve or -not. But don't get me sore. I'm authorized to offer you ten thousand -dollars, plus expenses, for one trip to Titan and back. You'll be -carrying extremely valuable cargo, and you'll be expected to deliver it -intact. Do you want the job, or not?"</p> - -<p>I didn't answer him right away. What was wrong with him? There was more -than just dislike riding his voice.</p> - -<p>"I don't get," I stalled. "Like you've said, why me? And why Titan? -There's nothing out there. Besides, the Asteroid Belt is full of -Marties, to say nothing of Thorsten and his crew. Nobody in his right -mind would try to make that trip without a convoy."</p> - -<p>Weidmann flushed. "For your information," he said, "there's a small -scientific staff in a bubble on Titan. They need a new charge for their -power pile, and we've got the shipping contract. Our problem is to -get it to them without Thorsten or the Martians learning about it and -grabbing it up. That's why we dug you up. We need somebody who can fly -it out to them and fight off raiders at the same time. You're still the -best available."</p> - -<p>So that was the big job! No wonder there were so many phony things -going on!</p> - -<p>"For God, for Country, and for Transolar, huh?" I said, watching -the blood leave his face. "Now why should I help you pull your fat -contracts out of the fire? What's it to me if a bunch of technicians -don't get their damn fuel? The stuff'd be worth plenty to either -Thorsten or the Marties. Living in the Asteroids isn't fun—I've done -it, and it takes power to maintain a bubble. Believe me, they'll throw -everything they've got to keep a ship carrying a pile charge from -making it past them."</p> - -<p>I must have sounded pretty nasty about it, because Weidmann actually -yanked that murderous motorized artificial arm out of his pocket. He -pulled up his shoulders and looked at me like I was something floating -down a sewer, but he kept his voice even.</p> - -<p>"All right, Ash. Ten thousand, plus expenses. You'll be given a new -kind of ship. It's a model we picked up from a manufacturer who had his -contract cancelled by the TSN. She was originally designed for armed -reconnaissance, and we've installed the weapons called for in the -original specifications. She'll outfly anything with jets on it, and -stand off a cruiser, given room to maneuver. Does that soothe you, or -do you want a convoy, too?" he added scornfully.</p> - -<p>I lit a cigarette and pretended to think it over. Actually, of course, -I was going to take the job. I would have, anyway, but there were -two additional reasons why I wouldn't turn it down. There was Pat, -of course, and her orders. Most important though, had been the fact -that the message to report to Weidmann that I'd found in my mailbox at -the Spacemen's Hiring Hall had borne a slightly different Post Office -cancellation on the stamp than the usual. The "T" in United wasn't -quite formed the way it was on the regular stamp. It wasn't apparent -unless you looked for it—but it was as good as a big red sign that -spelled out "Official United Terrestrial Government Business—Act as -Directed Within," because that was what it meant.</p> - -<p>"Sounds better than I expected," I admitted. "All right. When do I go?"</p> - -<p>Weidmann didn't show any expression to indicate disappointment or -satisfaction. He simply said, "Tonight, after we check over the -details. The ship's equipped with standard TSN controls, and you'll -have lots of time to test her flight characteristics once you get out -in space."</p> - -<p>"What happens if she explodes? Don't I get to test her first?"</p> - -<p>"No—there isn't time, and it would be a dead giveaway." For the first -time, I saw something like satisfaction on Weidmann's face. "And if she -explodes ... well, frankly, Holcomb, that's your problem."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I spent the afternoon being briefed. One thing was off my mind—if I -had official orders to take this job, then the SBI would be keeping a -tab on me. It made a difference, knowing that no matter what kind of a -mess I got into, somebody would at least know what had happened to me, -and, most important, why.</p> - -<p>I was given a Company flight suit, and a hip rig for my Sturmey. I put -those on, and was taken to within a block of the port in a shuttered -car.</p> - -<p>Not going all the way to the spaceport was my idea. The reason I gave -Weidmann was good enough—there was no sense putting up neon markers -to indicate that I was up to something special—but I had a better one -than that. I had to give Pat a chance to get in touch with me.</p> - -<p>It didn't work out that way.</p> - -<p>I began walking down toward the Transolar revetment, using a shortcut -street, looking around for Pat. It was a cinch she'd had some kind of -a tail on me, and I was expecting to see her step out of almost any of -the doorways I passed.</p> - -<p>Instead, I heard something.</p> - -<p>Back up the street, the way I had come, boot soles whispered on -concrete. I turned around and looked, buried in shadow.</p> - -<p>I couldn't see anything. I turned back around, and kept on walking, and -I heard a holster being unsnapped. I stopped to listen, and there was -only silence. I moved, and somebody slipped a safety catch.</p> - -<p>I leaped suddenly to my right. My shoulders touched the wall of a -house. My hands blurred forward, one locking on my holster and holding -it down, the other scooping the Sturmey out and clear of the leather, -then blurring again as I shot my hand as far away from me as I could, -fired down the street, and spun myself away from the building. I fired -again, and the street lamp above my head smashed into bits. Then I -was in a deep doorway, crouched, waiting, while ribbons of light cut -creases in the wall where I'd been.</p> - -<p>That was how it began. There were endless minutes of silence, and then -someone would drag a heel or kick a step. There'd be the kick of my gun -against my palm, and once, the count on their side dropped from five to -four.</p> - -<p>A dot of light flickered from behind a high gutter, and rock chipped -off a wall near my head. I ducked, kissed the sidewalk with my belly, -slithered down a flight of steps to a basement alcove, rolled over, -and slid behind the stone. On the way down, I fired back, and I heard -a rasp of metal on stone. Not the momentary rake of a belt buckle or -button, but a gun, dragging its muzzle against curbing while the man -who'd fired it kicked his life away in the gutter. I heard it drop the -last inch to the street.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I knew they'd be flanking me pretty soon. I heard cloth whisper as two -of them slipped off to each side. The fellow they'd left behind began -firing from all angles, weaving back and forth to cover them. He put -too much pattern in his weave, though, and that was his mistake. The -pattern broke, and became random as the guns spun out of his hands -before he could even realize there was a shot coming.</p> - -<p>Two! I rolled away from behind the steps, crouched, and padded away -on the balls of my feet. My boots had special sponge soles on them, -but even so, a lance of blue slashed from down the street against my -calf. I plowed into the sidewalk, furrowing my face and tearing meat -off the knuckles wrapped around my gun. I tried not to catch my breath -too loudly as I dragged myself behind the ornamental outcrop of the -bannister on the next flight of steps.</p> - -<p>My leg felt like there was a railroad spike driven into it, and my -knuckles were numb and stiff. I worked my fingers to keep them from -freezing up on me, even though jolts of pain came up and hammered at -the backs of my eyes. My face felt wet and itchy. I lay there, waiting.</p> - -<p>I got one more of them. He decided I was dead, and poked his pale face -out against a black wall. The face vanished in a burst of red, and he -sprawled back. I chuckled.</p> - -<p>There wasn't much I could do but chuckle. The one guy left had me -cold. I had no idea where he was, but he'd seen the flash of my gun. I -couldn't shift position fast enough or quietly enough to get away. All -I could do was lie there.</p> - -<p>He took a chance and jumped me. I never heard him coming.</p> - -<p>A gun bounced off my head, and I went under—But not before I looked -up and saw that it was Pat herself.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - - -<p>I remember lying on my back for quite awhile before I wanted to open -my eyes. I knew I wasn't on the street. The air was warm, and heated, -and I was on a bed, or something like it. My leg was giving me hell -where it had been burned, but I could feel the pressure of a bandage. -I couldn't tell about my hand and face—they felt as if something had -been done about them, too, but I couldn't find out for sure without -looking or touching them, and I didn't want to do that yet.</p> - -<p><i>Why the hell had Pat jumped me?</i> I couldn't figure it.</p> - -<p>I opened my eyes, and she was standing over me, a gun dangling from one -hand. I threw a look at my watch, and saw I'd been out a half hour, at -most.</p> - -<p>"What the hell—" I began.</p> - -<p>She cut me off with a gesture of the gun. "Shut up," she said wearily. -"You'll have plenty of time to start lying later." She grimaced with -tired disgust.</p> - -<p>I shook my head, but I knew better than to go on talking. There was -anger working its way into the hurt look in her eyes.</p> - -<p>I got up, ignoring the feeling in my calf, and noticed several other -things. I'd been lying on a low couch. My flying boots were unzipped, -so that I couldn't move faster than a shuffle. The coveralls were loose -around my waist where my harness had been.</p> - -<p>I pressed my left upper arm against my ribs. As far as I could tell, -they hadn't found my insurance policy—a little singleshot burner -hidden between two of my ribs under a strip of what looked like skin. -There was collodion on my face, and tape on my knuckles.</p> - -<p>"Happy?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Uh-huh. I'm Prince Charming, you're Snow White, and, as far as I can -add up, somebody's fresh out of dwarves. What's going on around here, -anyway?"</p> - -<p>"You double-crossed me, that's what happened. We made a deal, and -you sold out on it!" She was working herself to boiling mad, clear -through—and that explained why she'd looked at me the way she had.</p> - -<p>I shook my head again, trying to clear it. I was getting mad myself.</p> - -<p>"Look, Pat, I can take just so much mysterious crap, and no more," I -said, feeling the blood starting to work itself into my face. "I got -in from Venus, after winding up one of the prettiest insurrections you -ever saw. I got my belly full of the sound of guns and the smell of -death, and all I wanted to do was relax and spend the dough I made. No -sooner do I take my first drink of decent liquor in six months than you -walk up to me and start the goddamdest mess I've ever been in!</p> - -<p>"All right—we made a deal. As far as I know, I've carried out the -orders you gave me. I got the job for Transolar, and I started it. -Nobody but you and I know there's something funny going on, though I -suppose the cops are starting to suspect—seeing as I've killed five -men in two days, and helped you knock off two more. Now let's get a few -things straight around here! I've been shot at, slugged, and generally -treated like a supporting star in a cloak and dagger movie. Either I -get some fast answers, or I start slugging!"</p> - -<p>I'd been moving forward as I talked, getting madder and madder, and -closer to being ready to dive for that gun and rip it out of her hand.</p> - -<p>She was starting to lose some of her determination. The gun muzzle was -dipping. I reached out my hand.</p> - -<p>The gun was centered on me again in an instant, but the fire was gone -out of her eyes.</p> - -<p>"Hold it, Ash!" she said. "You sound too mad to be lying, but you -haven't convinced me yet. Just stay put a minute. You want to know -what's going on? You should have a pretty fair idea by now," she went -on, still keeping the gun on me. "I'm after that power pile you're -supposed to fly out to Titan. Harry needs it."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I should have known, I suppose. Well, maybe she was still space-struck. -Thorsten played rough, and he had some strange friends, but so far he -hadn't earned a full-scale visit from the TSN. It didn't mean as much -in this case, though. He would have been a tough nut to crack, sitting -out there in the Asteroids with a good-sized fleet behind him. Still—</p> - -<p>But that was for another time. I let her see by my face that the -subject wasn't closed, and then I went on.</p> - -<p>"Yeah—keep talking. Who jumped you on Rocket Row last night? Why were -you trying to pot me a while ago?"</p> - -<p>"Because—goddam it, I don't know <i>what</i> to think!" she said. "Those -were SBI men last night. I knew they were trailing me, but I thought -I'd gotten rid of them before I contacted you. Maybe I did—maybe -they picked me up again when I went back out on the street. Anyway, -we killed them, but the SBI knows damn well who did it. We did enough -yelling back and forth to let all of New York City know who it was."</p> - -<p>That had been a dumb play, all right. I didn't have time to curse my -stupidity, though. I didn't care one bit for the idea of me having shot -an SBI man. It was his own fault, but it wouldn't help my record any.</p> - -<p>"All right," I said, "so they were SBI men. That's tough—for them."</p> - -<p>"Why haven't we been picked up? I've been hiding out all day—but how -did you get away with walking in Transolar in broad daylight and coming -out again, if you didn't make some kind of deal?" She was gnawing on -her lip. "Damn it, give me a reasonable explanation, and I'll forget -the whole thing."</p> - -<p>That sent me off. I knew why I hadn't been picked up, all right—they -were waiting for me to blow this deal open for them. Maybe, if I did -that, they'd forget I'd killed one of them. I'd have to do a really -good job, though.</p> - -<p>But I wasn't doing too much reasoning, right then. I'd been mad all -night, but that was nothing to what I felt right then.</p> - -<p>I could feel a big red ball of pure rage building up inside me. My -fingers started to tremble, and my vision got hazy.</p> - -<p>I swung out my hand and slapped the muzzle of the gun as hard as -I could, and to hell with what it did to my bum hand. The gun went -spinning away, taking skin off her fingers as it went, and crashed into -a wall. I swung my hand back and slapped her across the face. She fell -back and hit the floor. She lay huddled in a corner, looking up at me, -her eyes wide and her mouth open with surprise.</p> - -<p>"You'll forget the whole thing, huh? All I have to do is explain away -some half-baked idea that came into your head, and you'll forgive me, -is that it?" I reached down, grabbed her shoulder, pulled her to her -feet, and held her there. Her mouth was still open, and she couldn't -get any words out of her throat.</p> - -<p>"You're going to <i>forgive</i> me for getting me into a deal that involves -killing SBI men. You're going to forgive me for having a guy that used -to be a buddy of mine hate my guts, I suppose. You're going to forgive -me for slapping my face, and I'm going to get your gracious pardon for -having to fight it out for my life tonight against five guns. That's -just fine! Is that supposed to cover getting shot and knocked around -and slugged?"</p> - -<p>I hauled back and slapped her again. "And that's for pointing a gun -at me! Twice. I live by a gun, and I expect to die by one, someday. -But not at the hands of a woman who can't fight a man on his own -terms, and has to keep him off with a gun after she gets herself into -a mess. All right—you know how to use one. But, so help me, you wave -one of those things at me again, and I'll ram it down your throat -catty-cornered!"</p> - -<p>I pushed her away, and she slammed back against the wall. "One more -thing," I said. "Have you ever heard of the SBI fooling around making -deals with a guy that's killed one of their men? Not on your life! -They're a tough crew, and a smart one. If they thought I had anything -to do with that fracas last night, I'd be on my way to a Federal -gas chamber right now, if I was lucky enough to live through the -working-over they'd give me! Use your brains!"</p> - -<p>She stood against the wall, staring at me, making sounds in her throat. -One of her cheeks was starting to puff.</p> - -<p>I started for her again. Her eyes got even wider.</p> - -<p>"Ash!"</p> - -<p>Her voice was high and frightened. Somehow, it cut through the deadly -anger in my chest, and made me stop.</p> - -<p>"Ash! Please—Ash—I...." She put her hands up to her face and stood -there, sobbing into them.</p> - -<p>My nails were digging into my palms. I opened my hands, and saw blood -running over my knuckles where the tape had torn away. There was some -of my blood on her dress, where I'd grabbed her shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Ash! Please—I'm sorry—It—it's just that I didn't know what to -think."</p> - -<p>I don't know how I got over to her, but then I had my arms around -her, and she was digging her teeth into the cloth of my shoulder, and -sobbing.</p> - -<p>"Pat, why do you have to be this way? Why can't you—" I was saying, -and stroking that red-brown hair. She wasn't a tough, self-assured -woman who could gun a man down without blinking. She was a soft, hurt, -crying girl, mumbling through tears, her body shaking.</p> - -<p>I wasn't a guy who'd fought his way through a war and countless battles -since, either.</p> - -<p>She pulled her face away from me, and looked up. Her eyes were wet, but -she wasn't scared any more.</p> - -<p>I looked down at her. I started to say something, but she stopped me.</p> - -<p>"I had it coming, Ash," she said softly. "I didn't trust you. I should -have known better."</p> - -<p>She half-smiled. "I haven't met too many people who could get worked up -over not being trusted."</p> - -<p>I couldn't look at her. I was going to have to turn her over to the SBI -some day, and I couldn't look at her.</p> - -<p>"Ash, remember the night you spanked me? Remember what you did first?"</p> - -<p>I felt her hand on my face, turning it. Then she was kissing me, her -lips soft and fresh, her wet face under my glance, her long lashes down -over closed eyes. Her arms moved on my back, and her body was as light -as a dream in my arms.</p> - -<p>My own eyes closed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - - -<p>Flight coveralls are designed to be airtight when fully zipped. Hoods -with transparent face-plates and oxygen leads can be hermetically -sealed to the collars, and every ship has emergency plug-ins for the -oxygen tubes. In combat, all spacemen keep their hoods thrown back, -like mackinaw hoods, so that if a hole is blown in the hull, they can -slip the hoods on and plug into the emergency oxygen supply. Struggling -into a full-dress spacesuit is too complicated a job to entrust to the -few frantic minutes that spell the difference between life and death, -and meanwhile, the coveralls are far more comfortable in flight.</p> - -<p>Besides, anyone who'd seen what a spacesuit does to a figure like -Pat's will agree that it's a dirty shame.</p> - -<p>While Pat was climbing into her outfit, I was outlining the plan we'd -have to follow. As long as I was going to go along with this offer of -hers, temporarily, at least, I might as well do it right.</p> - -<p>"I got into a cab accident, or something," I said. "That accounts for -the shape I'm in. You're an old friend of mine, and since I'm in no -condition to fly and fight at the same time, I'm taking you along as -co-pilot.</p> - -<p>"Weidmann'll stick me for your pay, of course. I'll make sure he -does—that way there won't be much kick about you coming along, -especially if I make it a 'both or neither' proposition.</p> - -<p>"When we get out in space, you show me how to get to Thorsten's bubble -in the Asteroids, and that's it. We deliver the pile charge, shoot -back out into space, fake the signs of a big battle, and yell for help -over the radio. There'll be a squawk about you being a woman then, -of course, but hell, us spacebums are supposed to be devil-may-care, -aren't we?"</p> - -<p>It was a great little plan, all right. It would give SBI the location -of Thorsten's base, and it wouldn't hold up delivery of the pile -charge any longer than it would take to salvage it. Meanwhile, space -would be rid of Harry.</p> - -<p>"Sounds like it'll work, all right," she said. "I wish I was surer the -SBI didn't have anything big on me. It'll be a bad enough stink as it -is." She grinned. "But we'll make out."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Weidmann was out at the field, fuming over the fact that I was an hour -and a half late.</p> - -<p>He surprised me, though. He didn't boggle over taking Pat along, once I -gave him a story about being lightly hit by a car and having to take my -friend along.</p> - -<p>Pat had had a tight cloth strapped across her breasts, her hood over -her face, and I'd gotten her into the ship fast.</p> - -<p>"Okay, okay, who gives a damn what happens to you, as long as the job's -done," Weidmann said, but I couldn't believe him, somehow, when he -added, "I don't even care who does it, personally."</p> - -<p>He slipped an envelope into my pocket. "Something for you," he said. -"Don't open it until you're past Mars, and don't let your friend see -it—for awhile, anyway." He chuckled, and surprised me by doing it. He -looked secretly happy over something, as if he knew about something -awful that was going to happen to me. "You'll have some sweet -explaining to do to your friend, Holcomb. I'd love to see it." But -there was still that note of something more than laughter, more than -most feelings, in his voice.</p> - -<p>He wouldn't say more than that. He just shoved me into the ship and -slammed the hatch.</p> - -<p>I kept watching him in the starboard screens as we checked off the -instrument board. He was a little figure at the edge of the field, -staring wistfully up at the ship, his mechanical arm in his pocket.</p> - -<p>I couldn't wait until we were past Mars to open the letter, of course. -We'd be too close to the Belt by then. I read it while Pat was at the -controls.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>Holcomb</i>:</p> - -<p><i>I don't know exactly why—except that you're the best there is, I -guess—but you've been picked for this job.</i></p> - -<p><i>As you may have guessed, Transolar Express is a blind for some pretty -big Government bureaus. This isn't a ship the TSN cancelled, of -course. It's a top-secret job built according to the specifications -laid down by the Titan labs.</i></p> - -<p><i>When you hit Titan, turn the ship over to the technicians there, and -they'll install the additional equipment that's part of your cargo of -"pile fuels." The rest of your load really is fuel, but it's not meant -for the Titan pile—it's for the engines in the ship.</i></p> - -<p><i>When it's ready, you'll fly the ship to God knows where. You won't -refuse, I know, because I wouldn't either, if I'd been given the -chance to fly the first ship into hyperspace.</i></p> - -<p class="ph2"><i>Luck,<br /> -Weidmann.</i></p></div> - -<p>When I'd finished it, I went back to the engine room and took a look at -the drive. Then I went to the cargo compartment and stood looking at -the hatches. They were sealed—welded shut.</p> - -<p>I went back up forward, and waited until Pat had to leave the controls -for a few minutes.</p> - -<p>The minute she dropped through the hatch I was over at an emergency -tool kit, and a few seconds later I was ripping off bulkhead -panels with a screwdriver. I got a fast look at banks of dials and -instruments, and slapped the panels back up before Pat got back. Then I -went down to my cabin and just sat on a bunk, staring at the wall.</p> - -<p>That cocky little bastard! That frozen-faced terrier of a man, cursing -me with all his heart because I was getting the chance he'd have had, -if he hadn't given his right arm too soon!</p> - -<p>And he had wished me luck.</p> - -<p>I was proud, then, of being an Earthman, of being a fighting man, of -having earned the right to get my name in the history books.</p> - -<p>I stood there, a big dumb jack-ass.</p> - -<p>All of a sudden, it had hit me. I'd been asking a lot of questions -lately, and getting only partial answers. Now I had all the answers, -and I hated every one of them.</p> - -<p>The misdirection and lying on Weidmann's part was clear as a bell. It -had been designed to get me off Earth and headed for Titan without -anybody knowing the real reasons—even me. They knew that if the real -secret ever leaked out, every renegade and pirate in the system would -swarm down, battling to the death to get their hands on this ship.</p> - -<p>So they pulled the purloined letter gag. They hid the ship and its -mission in plain sight. They sent me off in her to deliver the engine -parts to where the hyperspatial drive could be assembled, and from -there I'd be able to fly her to whatever star they chose, ghosting -along in a universe where the speed of light as we knew it was not the -fastest speed a ship could hit.</p> - -<p>They'd given me a good excuse, too. "Pile fuels!" A big enough cargo -to justify using me and a special ship, but not so big that I couldn't -handle the opposition I'd get from the Belt gangs, who'd fight for it, -sure, but who'd try a lot less hard, and discourage a lot easier, than -they would if they knew what was really up.</p> - -<p>The only trouble with that was that they did know.</p> - -<p>Sure—what else could it be? Earth was thick with two-bit sneaks and -spies who sold information to anybody with the price. Even Earth -government thought enough of them to cook up this big production. One -of them must have dug deeper than anyone thought.</p> - -<p>Thorsten knew, that was a cinch. He knew so well, that he hadn't even -wanted to chance a fight out in space, where the drive might get shot -up. He'd sent Pat out to decoy me into him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I stood there, cursing, my big fists closed into sledges. Pat—Pat, -that beautiful, wonderful actress. Pat, who was death with a gun and -arson for me with her lips.</p> - -<p>All my life, I'd been getting mad at people and things. During the war, -I was crazy mad at Marties. Afterward, I was mad at anybody who wanted -to push other people around. I got mad at Pat, because I thought she -was playing me for a sucker.</p> - -<p>And Pat had taught me what hatred could do. She'd given me love to -replace it.</p> - -<p>And played me for a sucker.</p> - -<p>I stood there—Ash Holcomb, the toughest man in space, maybe. Not the -smartest—no, not the smartest. The dumbest, the stupidest chump who'd -ever fallen for the oldest gag in history.</p> - -<p>And nobody knew about it. Back on Earth, they were sure they'd gotten -away with it. Even Weidmann—Weidmann with the grin, Mort Weidmann who -had gone helling around in a hundred dives with me, who didn't need -obvious signs like long hair or breasts to spot a woman's figure—he -thought everything was all right, too. He was probably shaking his head -with envy, back on Earth, thinking of all the fun I'd be having in -hyperspace.</p> - -<p>Nobody knew the mess the System was in, except me. And nobody could do -anything about it, now, except me.</p> - -<p>That thought knocked me out of the raging mood I had been working -myself into. I couldn't afford to lose my head.</p> - -<p>I'd been wondering how Thorsten was going to work a rendezvous right in -the middle of the Belt, with renegade Marties that had held out from -the war swarming all over the place, just waiting for a prize like -this.</p> - -<p>The answer was simple—he'd worked out an alliance with them. Probably -the Marties thought they could use it to reconquer the System. If I -knew Harry, he had other plans, but they were probably just as bad.</p> - -<p>What in hell was I going to do?</p> - -<p>One more thought hit me, that was the worst one of all, because it held -out an impossible hope.</p> - -<p>It was all right to picture Weidmann getting a boot out of me taking a -woman along. Under ordinary circumstances, that might have been true. -But this was too big, too important. There were two alternatives.</p> - -<p>Weidmann must have known I was a D.O. I could assume that. But, knowing -how important the job was, Weidmann wouldn't have let Pat come along, -no matter what, <i>if he hadn't thought she and I were working together</i>.</p> - -<p>And that one stopped me cold.</p> - -<p><i>Was she, or wasn't she?</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - - -<p>What was Pat doing, tied up with Thorsten? She was a high grade -operator now, as far from the immature tease I'd known at the Academy -as I could imagine. Where had she learned to handle a gun like that? -Where had she gotten the experience that let her handle a job this -size by herself?</p> - -<p>I couldn't answer that—not any of it, and it was driving me nuts. -I stared over the control banks at the forward screen, watching the -stars, and beating my brains out.</p> - -<p>We'd been out in space for two days, and I hadn't dared to try and find -out. You don't, when you're alone with the woman you love.</p> - -<p>She was standing next to me, and I looked up at her. The coveralls gave -a pretty good indication of what lay beneath, and it was top grade. -Not that her figure was that spectacular—she had something more than -figures on a tape measure. There was a precision, a slim freshness and -freedom to the way one curve flowed into another. It sounds silly, but -the way she held herself reminded me of a thing I'd seen once; a rocket -transiting the sun, fire sparkling from the shimmering hull, and the -Milky Way behind it.</p> - -<p>I finally caught what I was trying to phrase; she looked as if she was -poised for flight.</p> - -<p>She grinned down at me. "Like it?" she asked, chuckling. Her green eyes -crackled with light, and there were little demons in her laugh.</p> - -<p>I tried to think of a clever comeback, but I couldn't. I just said, -"Yes."</p> - -<p>I did like it. And I hated it, at the same time.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The ship was fast, but space is big. I had a week to plan my next moves -while we worked our way through the area between Earth and Mars' orbit -where the TSN kept the raiders down.</p> - -<p>But the week went by, and I didn't think of anything. I'd be working -over the control board, and then I'd look up, and she'd be smiling at -me. I'd raise an eyebrow, and she'd stick her tongue out. We shared -cigarettes. I'd take a drag, hand her the butt, and she'd cuff me when -I blew smoke in her face.</p> - -<p>"Hey, Goon," she'd say from behind the plotting board, "d'ja hear the -one about the lady sociologist who wandered into Bessie's place on -Venus?"</p> - -<p>I taught her original verses to <i>The Song of the Wandering Spacemen</i>. -Then she taught me the verses she knew.</p> - -<p>We crossed Mars' orbit. I couldn't think of any way to find out what -I'd been killing myself over except to ask.</p> - -<p>"Ever hear of the D.O.'s?" I asked quietly.</p> - -<p>"Will chewing chlorophyl tablets cure 'em?" she asked.</p> - -<p>I laughed so hard that I cried.</p> - -<p>"I don't think so," I answered automatically, and got busy checking -the breech assembly on one of the ship's rocket launchers.</p> - -<p>"Lay off that, apeface," Pat said. "We won't need it."</p> - -<p>"How come?"</p> - -<p>"If anybody comes around looking unfriendly, just give 'em this on the -radio," she said, and whistled off a recognition signal in Martian.</p> - -<p>I turned slowly away from the launcher.</p> - -<p>Thorsten did have a deal with the Marties. What was more, Pat was in on -it. She had to be.</p> - -<p>She looked at my face.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter, Lump? Something you ate?"</p> - -<p>"Sit down, Pat," I said, pointing to the navigation table. "Go on, sit -down!" I yelled.</p> - -<p>She turned white.</p> - -<p>"You know what kind of a ship this is, don't you?" I said, feeling like -I was a hundred years old.</p> - -<p>"Sure." She nodded. She was beginning to get it. "You weren't supposed -to know about that."</p> - -<p>"I didn't. Not until we were spaceborne."</p> - -<p>Didn't she realize? Couldn't she see what she was doing to me?</p> - -<p>"Pat, do you know what'll happen if the Marties get this drive? They'll -be able to hit Earth and Venus with everything they've got, coming out -of nowhere and going back into hyperspace when they're through. The TSN -won't stand a chance against them."</p> - -<p>She shrugged. "They probably would, if they ever got it, but they -won't. Harry's going to assemble the drive, install it in his ships, -and then we'll take off. The Marties'll be stuck."</p> - -<p>"Wait a minute—you just mentioned taking off. Where to?"</p> - -<p>She looked up at me. "Harry says there's another planet out in -hyperspace, somewhere, circling another star. He says people can live -on it." Her eyes were shining, and I remembered a girl on a terrace, -back at the Academy, with a dream in her voice that I'd been too dumb -to recognize.</p> - -<p>"He does, does he? Can he prove it? How do you know what he's really -going to do?"</p> - -<p>"Because he's told me!" she flared. "He's going to by-pass the fumbling -bureaucrats who run things on Earth and take mankind out to the -stars—mankind, Ash, the toughest, the strongest men in space, and -their women. Space belongs to us, Ash, not to those Earthbound lilies!"</p> - -<p>"And whose speech are you repeating?" I said, getting more and more mad -every minute. "Thorsten's?"</p> - -<p>"Yes!"</p> - -<p>"All right, if you think so God damned much of him, suppose you tell -me what he is to you now?" I asked.</p> - -<p>"He's my husband." She didn't even hesitate.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I started for her, before I could think of words for the -doublecrossing....</p> - -<p>She came off the navigation table like a coiled spring. She had a gun -in her hand.</p> - -<p>"Ash—get back! I don't want to hurt you. Ash—can't you see why? Do -you think I'm the kind who—?"</p> - -<p>I kept coming. "No," I said, "I can't see why. I'm not built so I could -see why. And yes, I do think you're the kind."</p> - -<p>"I don't know why I had to pick you!" she screamed then. "Maybe I -remembered something—maybe I found something out, after it was too -late—"</p> - -<p>She was crying, but she was bringing the gun up at the same time.</p> - -<p>I didn't care. I didn't care if she pulled the trigger or not.</p> - -<p>"I told you," I said between my teeth.</p> - -<p>She had the gun aimed right at me. Her face was gray, and her hand was -shaking.</p> - -<p>"I told you the last time what I'd do if you ever pointed a gun at me -again." My voice was coming out low, but it had absolutely nothing in -it. It was just words, coming out one by one.</p> - -<p>The gun muzzle was shaking badly. She put up her hand to steady it.</p> - -<p>"I—" she said. There were tears running down her cheeks in a steady -wet stream.</p> - -<p>She should have pulled the trigger. I think she should have. But she -didn't.</p> - -<p>I smashed my fist against the gun, and it was out of her hands, -crashing into metal somewhere.</p> - -<p>"Ash!" she screamed, and raked her nails across my face.</p> - -<p>She kicked up her knee, and fire exploded in my groin. I fell forward, -slamming her down on the deck, and threw my entire dead weight across -her shoulders.</p> - -<p>I didn't have to. Her head had hit the deck, and she lay unconscious, -blood seeping out through her hair.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She wouldn't talk to me. She lay on her bunk, her chest rising and -falling under the straps I'd buckled around her.</p> - -<p>I tried to explain, to make her understand, somehow.</p> - -<p>"Pat, I've got a responsibility to the people I work for. I've spent -the last ten years keeping characters like Harry Thorsten from taking -over this System. It's a rough job, and it's a dirty one. I can't help -that. I don't like it. Pat, it's got to be this way."</p> - -<p>She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't listen. I walked out of her -cabin, locking the door behind me.</p> - -<p>Locking a door and forgetting what's on the other side are two -different things.</p> - -<p>I went up to the control room and set a course for Titan. Maybe once we -got out there, I'd be able to convince her.</p> - -<p>It was a lousy hope. I didn't even understand her—she was like -something I'd never seen before. How could she be like she was? How, -goddam it, <i>how</i>?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VI</p> - - -<p>Titan lay ahead of me, pursuing its track around Saturn.</p> - -<p>My ship drove toward it, flaming out fuel in reckless amounts as I -poured on the acceleration. I had to get there fast. We'd already -missed our rendezvous time with Thorsten by two days. He was going to -figure out what happened—must have done so already—and would be hot -behind us. I had to land, get the engines installed, load supplies, and -take off into hyperspace before he hit.</p> - -<p>It was a race against time. I built up velocity to a point no sane -skipper would ever dream of, leaving just enough fuel to brake with, -knowing I wouldn't need it to get back.</p> - -<p>Part of me sat in the control room, plotting curves, charting fuel -consumption figures on a graph, watching the black line rise hour by -hour to the red crayon slash that meant I had done all I could.</p> - -<p>And part of me was down in the cabin with Pat, but if I'd let the two -parts mix....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>No ship in the System had ever hit the speed I begged out of my ship's -heaving engines. No human being had ever traveled as fast before, -tracing his track across the white stars in the blue fire of his jets.</p> - -<p>If I made it to Titan in time to get into hyperspace, I would have Pat -with me. There'd be stars to look at, and the worlds that circled them. -Star on star, marching past the ship, world after spinning world, fair -against the stars, and a million things to see, a thousand lifetimes to -live.</p> - -<p>Out there, where other beings lived, was adventure enough for both of -us, and enough of dreaming. Maybe she'd forget Thorsten, maybe some of -the things she'd said had been lies, maybe the whisperings in darkness -were true.</p> - -<p>If I could get to Titan in time.</p> - -<p>I might as well have walked. I knew there was no hope before I -finished landing.</p> - -<p>Titan was an empty moon. Where the project bubble had been was a circle -of fused concrete around a mess of melted alloys. A corpse in a TSN -spacesuit lay on its back and stared at Saturn.</p> - -<p>I looked down at it, cursing, my shoulders slumping under the weight of -my helmet.</p> - -<p>And I heard the voice on the command frequency.</p> - -<p>"Hey—you—you down by the bubble." The voice was weak, and getting -weaker.</p> - -<p>"Yeah!" I shouted into my mike.</p> - -<p>"Holcomb?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, for Christ's sake! Where are you?"</p> - -<p>"Your right—about a hundred yards. Start walking over here. I'll talk -you in."</p> - -<p>I started off at a lope, kicking my way over the rough ground. That -voice was pitifully weak.</p> - -<p>I found him, curled around a rock, his head and arm supported on a -rifle that was leaned against the stone.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Holcomb—"</p> - -<p>"Yeah." He couldn't even turn his head to look at me.</p> - -<p>"I'm Foster—Lou Foster. Commanding, Marine guard detail."</p> - -<p>I remembered him. The one who filled a practice football with water.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, Lou. How's it?"</p> - -<p>"No damn good at all, Ash. I've been waiting for you."</p> - -<p>"Thorsten?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah—our old classmate, Harry the horse. About thirty-forty hours -back."</p> - -<p>"You been in that thing all this time!"</p> - -<p>"Sure—snap, if you breathe shallow and don't drink anything. Helps to -have a couple of spare tanks." He could still try to chuckle.</p> - -<p>"Well, hell, guy, let's get you over to my ship."</p> - -<p>"No can do, Ash. No sense to it."</p> - -<p>I was straining to hear the words now, even with his set right next to -mine, I knelt down and touched helmets with him.</p> - -<p>"Listen, Ash—he's got the stuff. The diagrams, the charts, the -figures—everything. He's even got the tech detail to put it together -for him."</p> - -<p>"All right, Lou. It figured. But can the yak. Come on, boy, over my -shoulder you go, and down to the can with you."</p> - -<p>"Lemme lay! Goddam it, quit tryin' to move me! I didn't walk over -here—I got flung when the dome let go!" He was screaming.</p> - -<p>"Sorry, Lou!"</p> - -<p>"S'all right." He bubbled a chuckle. "I see by my infallible little TSN -instruments that I'm gonna run outta breathin' material 'na couple -minutes. 'S'all right by me. Luck to ya, Ash."</p> - -<p>"Yeah."</p> - -<p>But he didn't strangle. He didn't choke in his helmet; there was still -air in his tanks when he died.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I went back to my ship and sat behind the control board, smoking a -cigarette. I rubbed a hand across my tired eyes, and wondered what I -was going to do next.</p> - -<p>Thorsten had thought of everything. He couldn't have found technicians -to assemble the drive anywhere else, so he'd come out here and -kidnapped them. That was an elementary move, obviously planned far in -advance.</p> - -<p>I'd been running a useless race. I would have realized it long ago, if -I hadn't been half-crazy about Pat.</p> - -<p>She laughed at me when I told her about it, but she laughed in a -peculiar way.</p> - -<p>"I could have told you," she said, laughing. "Ash Holcomb, the big -undercover agent, heading like mad for Titan! And what does he find?"</p> - -<p>"I found Lou Foster, Pat," I said, feeling the steel in my voice -slicing upward in my throat.</p> - -<p>"That wasn't anybody's fault!" she said quickly. "He happened to get -in Harry's way."</p> - -<p>"Go tell Andrea Foster," I said.</p> - -<p>"Stop it, Ash! You can keep bringing up horrible examples, but it still -doesn't mean anything, compared to travel to the stars."</p> - -<p>"What was wrong with the way it was going to be done?" I asked.</p> - -<p>But she was pulling her protective shell of mockery around her again. -"Oh, stop it, Ash! You're licked, and now you're trying to justify it -by claiming foul, the way losers always have."</p> - -<p>But the last thing she said, as I slammed out of the cabin, was: -"This time, you got the spanking, Ash. Now stop crying about it." But -somehow, she didn't sound as happy as she'd probably expected.</p> - -<p>I took the ship back out into space, finally, heading Sunward. All -I could do was hope I'd get within radio range of a TSN ship before -Thorsten found me.</p> - -<p>But that didn't happen. I wasn't anywhere near the Belt when I had to -sit and watch Thorsten's fleet come flaming at me out of space and -surround my ship, sliding into tight courses that held me on a deadly -and invisible leash.</p> - -<p>And I could feel things crumbling inside me. All the principles -the Academy had built in, and love, and fear—remorse, friendship, -bravery—none of it meant anything. They were things that human hearts -and minds were capable of, but when yesterday's love is today's -revulsion, when friends are deadly enemies, when all the world thinks -of you as just another space bum—what then? I had the destiny of the -System riding in the holds behind me, and nobody really knew or cared -that I'd break my heart to keep it safe.</p> - -<p>They were my eyes, but they weren't altogether normal as I stared out -of the control room screens at the waiting fleet.</p> - -<p>They kept their distances. They all had their launchers pointed at me, -and on a few of the old T Class rack-mounts I could see the homing -torps lying in wait on the flat upper decks.</p> - -<p>I went back to Pat's cabin. She was sitting up on her bunk, staring at -me. Fire lay buried deep in her eyes, but she kept her face smooth.</p> - -<p>"Okay, Pat," I said. "Thorsten's got his crew in a globe around me. He -wants this ship. Should I give it to him?"</p> - -<p>What I was saying didn't match my voice. I was tired, and mad, and I -couldn't look at her. I could feel my lower teeth sliding back and -forth against my upper ones.</p> - -<p>"No—I know you too well, Ash," she said. "Not the way you'd give it -to him." She pushed herself up and stood in front of me. Her eyes kept -getting wider and wider. "Ash! You're crazy. If you think you can fight -your way out of this—" her voice broke. "You know you don't have a -chance. I've seen Harry's fleet in action. This is one ship, Ash—<i>one -ship!</i>"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Her entire body was radiating urgency. She was standing stiff-legged, -every muscle quivering, trying to get her words through the desperate -red haze that was building up in front of my eyes. I couldn't see her -very clearly.</p> - -<p>But I could see her well enough to laugh at her.</p> - -<p>"Fight?" I said. "<i>Fight?</i> I've had fighting—all the fighting I'm ever -going to do. I've been fighting too much, too often. I had a name and a -friend, once—and I had a girl, once, too. Now all I've got is a job, -and some orders, and a conscience, maybe. No—I'm not going to fight." -I threw back my head and laughed again. I reached out and grabbed her -arm. "Come on—you're going to have a grandstand seat."</p> - -<p>I pulled her up the companionway and into the control room, and threw -her into the co-pilot's seat. I pulled out my gun.</p> - -<p>"Reach for those controls," I said, "and I'll blow your hand off." She -sat in the chair, her face gray, staring out at Thorsten's fleet.</p> - -<p>I reached over and switched the radio to Thorsten's frequency.</p> - -<p>"Thorsten!"</p> - -<p>"Yes. Holcomb?"</p> - -<p>His, too, wasn't quite the same voice it had been. It was even, -clipped, used to commanding a crew that didn't enjoy being commanded.</p> - -<p>"I've got Pat," I said, keeping my gun on her.</p> - -<p>"Let's stick to relevancies, Holcomb. How much for the ship?"</p> - -<p>He'd given himself away! I could have laughed.</p> - -<p>"No, Thorsten, let's keep it where I want it—how much for Pat?"</p> - -<p>There was a pause on the other transmitter. I was playing my cards -right. Thorsten had me, and the ship. But I had his wife, and that -was swinging the scales my way. Why should he offer to pay me, now? -A bluff? No—he had a better one in the ships, with their launchers -ready. Why should he be willing to dicker for the ship? Because she was -in it, that was why. If I refused to give up, he could always blow me -out of space, or take the ticklish chance of trying to disable the ship -without wrecking the engines. But he wasn't going to do that. Pat was -worth too much to him.</p> - -<p>"Thorsten! You heard me—how much for your wife?"</p> - -<p>He cursed me. His voice was a lot lower than it had been.</p> - -<p>"I've got a gun on her, Thorsten."</p> - -<p>Suddenly, he sighed. "All right, Holcomb. You win—but not as much as -you'd think. I'll make a deal."</p> - -<p>I laughed at him, still keeping my gun pointed at Pat with a -rock-steady hand. "What am I supposed to think you've <i>been</i> doing, -Thorsten?"</p> - -<p>It was getting to be too much for me. I could feel all the pressure -that had built up in the last ten days starting to come to a head, -ready to explode and to hell with who the pieces hit.</p> - -<p>"Oh, no, Thorsten—no deals. No bargains, no sell-outs, no compromises. -I'm up to here on doublecrossing and crisscrossing. I hired out to you -and Transolar, and before that I hired out to anybody who had money or -a chance for me to get some. And all the time, I was hired out to Earth -government. I've had too many jobs, Thorsten—my gun's been on the line -too long. There are too many oaths and too many loyalties. Too much of -my honor's been spread from one end of the System to the other. Now I'm -quitting. The towel's going in, and from now on, it's me that I fight -for."</p> - -<p>I had the mike up against my mouth, and I was yelling into it. "I know -what you're going to offer me, Thorsten. I know what I'd offer. You -want the girl and the ship. You want one as bad as the other, but you -won't settle for half. So you're offering me my life, and a free ride -to Earth. Well, you can take that deal and stuff it. Earth! Who the -hell would want to live on the Earth you'd leave, after you and your -Martie friends got through with it. No, Thorsten, it's no bargain. It's -a Heads you win, Tails I lose proposition, no matter how you slice it."</p> - -<p>I laughed again, enjoying it, because it was going to be my last laugh.</p> - -<p>"Holcomb!" He must have guessed what I was working myself up to do, -because there was sheer desperation in his voice, but I cut him off.</p> - -<p>"Shut up, Harry! I told you I was quitting. You know the racket I'm in. -You don't just quit it. You go out with your hand on the wheel and your -jets full on. <i>And here I come!</i>"</p> - -<p>I fed flame into my portside jets, throwing the mike away from me as -I grabbed the controls. The ship arced over, singing her death-song -in snapping stanchions and straining plates, in the angry howl of the -converters, in the drumfire of jets that coughed and choked as fuel -poured into them, but which opened their throats and bellowed just the -same.</p> - -<p>"Ash!" That was Pat.</p> - -<p>"Holcomb!" That was Thorsten.</p> - -<p>But I was pure metal-jacketed, fireborne death, howling silently toward -the sleek cruiser that was Thorsten's flagship, the best known and most -feared silhouette in space.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The gates of Hell opened in space. Every ship in the hemisphere ahead -of me vomitted fire as the ones behind me and beside me lanced out of -the way of the arrowing missiles.</p> - -<p>There was no way for Thorsten to avoid me. Fire blossomed at the -throats of his jets, and the flagship shot forward.</p> - -<p>I snarled, twisted the wheel, and kept my nose pointed for his bridge.</p> - -<p>Proximity torps began exploding all around me. They weren't doing -Thorsten a bit of good. Either they hit me, or, without air to carry -the shock, they were as good as not there at all.</p> - -<p>"Here's your hyperspacial drive, Harry!" I howled. "Here it -comes—compliments of Ash Holcomb, hired gun!"</p> - -<p>Suddenly a missile exploded under my bow. It was a clean hit. The ship -screamed escaping air, and shuddered, bucking upward. It wasn't just -stanchions ripping loose now, or buckling plates. It was snapping -girders, and metal spewing out into space like teeth from a broken -mouth. The trouble board winked solid fire at me.</p> - -<p>I didn't care about that. The ship was unhurt in the only place that -counted—her engine room—and the stern jets kept firing. But I was -bent over the wheel, sobbing in pure, white-hot, frustrated rage, -because I was going to miss. I'd been slammed up off my trajectory high -enough to miss, and Thorsten's ship was firing every tube he had to -drive herself down and away, behind a protective screen of other ships.</p> - -<p>I could hear the hysterical relief in Thorsten's laugh over the radio.</p> - -<p>I could hear something else, too. It hadn't mattered what Pat did, once -I'd swung the ship into line. I couldn't have pulled it out of the -collision course myself. It had taken an atomic rocket to blast me out -of the way.</p> - -<p>But it was different, now.</p> - -<p>I was folded over the wheel, blood running down my chin from my bitten -lip, my knuckles aching as I tightened my fists.</p> - -<p>Pat said: "Ash—I'm sorry." There was a sob in her voice. "But you -won't give up," she stumbled on. "You'll never give up, until you and -Harry are both dead. And I couldn't stand losing both of you."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>I never knew what she hit me with, but the back of my skull seemed -to explode inward, and I slid out of the seat to the deck. I started -crawling toward her. She sobbed, but she hit me again.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VII</p> - - -<p>The fleet had scattered back to the hundreds of hidden berths among the -farflung Asteroids. I came awake in a pressurized burrow dug out in -the particular rock Thorsten had chosen for himself and his crew. I'd -been dropped in a corner and searched down to my shorts. There wasn't -anything on me that I could use for a weapon.</p> - -<p>Except—no, I caught myself before there was even a quiver in my left -arm. Now wasn't the time to press against my ribs, to try to feel the -almost imperceptible bulge of the singleshot capsule between my ribs.</p> - -<p>I groaned and let my eyes flicker open.</p> - -<p>"How's it, Ash?"</p> - -<p>I looked up. Thorsten was standing a few feet away from me, looking -down from under his spreading black eyebrows.</p> - -<p>I put my hand up to my head. "Crummy. She hits hard."</p> - -<p>Harry chuckled.</p> - -<p>He wasn't a specially big man, but he was large enough. He had deep -black eyes under his brows, an aristocratic nose that had been broken, -a slightly off-center mouth whose lower lip was tighter on one side -than the other, and a firm jaw. His hair was black—almost as black as -mine, and as short. He hadn't changed much.</p> - -<p>His voice started in the pit of his stomach, and worked its way -up. When he chuckled, the sound was almost operatic, deeper than I -remembered it.</p> - -<p>"Why shouldn't I kill you, Holcomb?" he said.</p> - -<p>I climbed to my feet, and looked into those probing eyes. "Go ahead. -Give me half a chance, and I'll kill you."</p> - -<p>He laughed. "The old school tie," he said. His voice dropped an octave. -"Relax, Holcomb. You're alive, for the time being. Come on, let's get -some food."</p> - -<p>He reached out and slapped me on the back.</p> - -<p>Thorsten's mess hall was another pocket in the Asteroid. It was -connected to the burrow I'd been in by a tunnel in the rock, and as we -walked down it, I'd had a chance to get quick looks into branching -corridors and other burrows that were machine shops, arsenals, ration -dumps, and living quarters. Just before we turned into the mess hall, I -caught a glimpse of an airlock hatch at the end of the tunnel. That was -where Thorsten's ship had to be—and my own, too, unless I missed my -guess.</p> - -<p>As long as I had a functioning mind, I was going to use it. -Automatically, a map of as much of the layout as I'd seen was filed -away in my brain.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The mess hall must have been the largest single unit in the entire -chain of burrows that honeycombed the Asteroid. It was lit by clamp-on -units, like the rest of the place, but the lamps were spread a little -farther apart, so it was darker. Even so, I could see that most of the -space was filled with men sitting at the long mess tables.</p> - -<p>"Quite a setup, isn't it, Holcomb?" Thorsten asked, leading me toward a -table that was slightly set apart from the others.</p> - -<p>"Looks like an improved standard TSN base," I said.</p> - -<p>Thorsten chuckled again. He must have liked the sound of it.</p> - -<p>"In many ways, that's more or less what it is," he said, sounding -pleased.</p> - -<p>We got to the table, and stopped.</p> - -<p>All the other mess tables ran end to end from the far side of the -burrow to this. Thorsten's table was set at right angles to the others, -and a separate chair that was obviously his was placed so that he could -look over all the other men. The table had a snow-fresh cloth on it, -and was set in high-polish silver. Heavy napkins lay beside each of the -places. I glanced down at the other tables. They were bare-boarded, but -that wasn't going to make much difference to the men sitting at them.</p> - -<p>But all of that took about half a minute's looking. What stopped my -eye cold was Pat, dressed in an elaborate gown, seated at one end of -Thorsten's table.</p> - -<p>"Stop staring, Ash," Thorsten said, the laughter running under his -words like the whisper of a river. "Let's not keep our hostess waiting."</p> - -<p>"Hello, Pat," I said as I walked over to the chair that Thorsten -indicated was mine. I was sitting next to her.</p> - -<p>She half-smiled, but her eyes were uncertain. "Hello, Ash." She glanced -quickly over toward Thorsten, who had reached his own chair.</p> - -<p>Thorsten stopped next to the chair and laid his hand on its back. It -was a signal.</p> - -<p>"<i>Attention!</i>"</p> - -<p>A paradeground voice near the door wiped out every other sound in the -hall.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There were close to six hundred men in the mess hall. All of them -were suddenly on their feet, snapping to, the sound of boots on rock -thundering through the burrow. The men faced each other across the long -tables, staring straight ahead.</p> - -<p>The successive crashes of sound died out. I stood casually next to my -place. Pat was the only seated person in the hall.</p> - -<p>Thorsten stood where he was, his hand still on the chair, looking out -over his men. The silence held.</p> - -<p>"All right, men. Let's eat," Thorsten said casually. There was another -roll of sound through the hall as six hundred men sat down and long -platters of hot food were rushed out to them by table orderlies.</p> - -<p>Thorsten and I sat down, and the three of us at the table faced each -other.</p> - -<p>"Enjoy the show?" I asked Thorsten. He came back with a peeved look.</p> - -<p>It was my turn to chuckle, but I had enough sense to keep it inside. I -was right back to not being sure of what to think, as far as Pat was -concerned. How much of our affair had been pure bait, and how much of -it did Harry know about?</p> - -<p>He motioned to a waiting orderly, who stepped forward and poured wine -into the crystal goblets beside our plates. Thorsten reached forward -and picked his up. "A toast, Holcomb!" The black eyes bored into mine. -I picked up my glass.</p> - -<p>Thorsten turned toward Pat and raised his glass. I looked at her. Her -face was pale, and her eyes were oddly urgent. She couldn't seem to -take them off Thorsten's face.</p> - -<p>"To my wife!" Thorsten said, and drained his glass.</p> - -<p>I drank out of my own. It was good Burgundy—cold and dry in my mouth, -and warm as it came down my throat. I set the glass gently down. If -Thorsten was expecting me to react, he was disappointed.</p> - -<p>But he was laughing, the sound echoing through the burrow, none of the -men paying any attention to it. I looked at Pat.</p> - -<p>"Another toast!" Thorsten's glass had been refilled.</p> - -<p>"To Ash Holcomb—hired gun and angel of death!" He was laughing at me, -and at Pat. He knew, or guessed, and death was lightly hidden by his -laughter.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"<i>Don't do it, Holcomb!</i>"</p> - -<p>Thorsten's voice was ice. I looked at my hands. They were hooked into -talons, and I realized that there wasn't a muscle in my body that -wasn't tensed and ready to cannon me across the table. I could even -hear the snarl rumbling at the base of my throat.</p> - -<p>I looked to the side. A man with an open holster flap was standing -there, his eyes locked on me.</p> - -<p>"Do what, Harry," I asked casually, "propose another toast?"</p> - -<p>He looked uncertain for a moment. Then the smile and the laugh came -on, and Thorsten was Thorsten again. He didn't know about the chained -lightning that was running in my arteries instead of blood. He was a -dead man as he sat there, and he didn't know it. In a way, that was -funny enough to me to keep waiting.</p> - -<p>"A toast? It certainly is a night for toasts, isn't it?" Thorsten -murmured.</p> - -<p>Pat hadn't moved, and stopped looking at him. I didn't know if she'd -looked at me when I was ready to go for Thorsten's throat—but I didn't -think so. Now she smiled. I wonder how much it cost her because her -lower lip was gray where she'd had it between her teeth.</p> - -<p>I had my glass refilled. I nodded toward Pat—and gave Thorsten the -Academy toast. "Here's to space, and the Academy. To stars, to the men -that walk them, and to the flaming ships that fly."</p> - -<p>I looked at Thorsten for the first time since I'd raised my glass, and -it was my turn to laugh.</p> - -<p>He was gray, and somehow smaller in his thronelike chair. He stared -across the table at me, and then let his eyes fall. Hesitantly, he -spread the fingers of his hand, and looked at the pale circle where the -ring had been.</p> - -<p>And, incredibly, he laughed.</p> - -<p>"Score one for the opposition," he chuckled. "Nice going, Ash."</p> - -<p>I laughed with him, keeping it on a casual plane. I'd done what -I wanted to—hit him where he lived. Now, if I could give the -conversation a nudge in just the right direction, I might be able to -start him talking about his plans. I was that much closer to an outside -chance to do something about them.</p> - -<p>"What happened, Harry?" I asked. "How'd you get from the TSN into being -the top man in the Belt?"</p> - -<p>He bit. While Pat and I sat there, Pat nervously shifting her glance -from him to me, and me not daring to look at her because of the things -I'd say to myself, he told his story. The orderlies brought our -dinner, putting dishes down and taking them away as he talked between -mouthfuls.</p> - -<p>"They don't talk much about me, I guess," he began. "It's a pretty -ordinary story, anyway. I was in the war, with my own squadron. We ran -into some bad luck, combined with a set of orders that got mixed up. I -lost my men. I lost a leg, too."</p> - -<p>He leaned down and slapped his right thigh. It rang with metal. "I -didn't enjoy that. While I was in the hospital, they brought charges -against me. I wasn't given time to prepare an adequate defense, and -they threw several paragraphs of the book at me. I was dropped a rank -in grade, and slated for duty at a procurement office. I got my break, -then. The Marties, under Kull, hit the Moon at practically that time."</p> - -<p>I remembered that. They'd gotten a toehold and established a forward -base, and Earth had started getting hit with atomic missiles.</p> - -<p>"All of a sudden, anybody who could walk or be carried into a ship was -tossed into a raggle-taggle fleet the TSN dredged up. That included me."</p> - -<p>He grinned, "Only they made two mistakes. The first one was in -thinking I still owed Earth any kind of a debt. The second was the -bigger one—they gave me a crew raked out of every brig and detention -barracks in the fleet. I guess they didn't think I was fit to command -anything else."</p> - -<p>He grinned. "Pat was in a Wasp unit attached to the base. I took her -along."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He waved his hand at the men in the mess hall. "Some of my original -crew are still with me. I simply headed for the Belt, and sat out the -war. The boys didn't mind one bit. We had plenty of stores, and they -knew nobody would bother us while there were more important things -going on. Afterwards—well, we've done all right."</p> - -<p>He had. Some of the freight lines bribed him. Some didn't.</p> - -<p>Uncounted millions in rare minerals were scattered among the tumbling -rocks of the Belt, but nobody dared to mine them. He'd given refuge to -the stragglers from Mars' broken navies, and built a kingdom on blood -and loot.</p> - -<p>"I know what I'm called on Earth," he said. "I'm a butcher, a -brigand—all the names there are. Even another fighting man, like you, -Holcomb, thinks I'm a renegade and a traitor to humanity for throwing -in with the Marties. Well, they're blind, Holcomb!"</p> - -<p>His open palm came cracking down on the table. "They can't see that -Earth is rotten to the very marrow in its mis-shapen bones, that any -system that would do to a man what it did to me is based on stupid -bungling! The war—Holcomb, you were in that, you know it was the most -useless piece of imperialism the System has ever seen."</p> - -<p>He was staring intently into my face. I did him the favor of keeping my -expression blank, but if he expected me to nod, he was going to wait a -long time. I couldn't help thinking of Mort Weidmann. Mort left an arm -on Mars; he wasn't bitter about that, and he didn't think it had been a -useless war. It had been the Marties for System bosses or us, and they -wouldn't have been gentle overlords.</p> - -<p>But Thorsten was going on, and now he'd gotten to the part I wanted to -know.</p> - -<p>"There's got to be a change, Holcomb. Humanity isn't fit to go out to -the stars the way it is. It's not ready for the hyperspatial drive.</p> - -<p>"It's not going to get it."</p> - -<p>I was beginning to understand. Most important, I could finally -understand what was wrong with Thorsten. I could see the Messiah -complex building up in front of my eyes. The laugh—the easy, -chuckling, self-assured laugh—the laugh of a man who was never wrong, -and knew it.</p> - -<p>"I've got the drive, Holcomb, and I'm going to use it. <i>I'll</i> be the -standard-bearer of the human race among the stars. There won't be any -fumbling and bumbling—no bureaucrats, Holcomb, no splinter groups, no -special interests, no lobbies."</p> - -<p>The dream was like a banner in his eyes.</p> - -<p>"Nobody but you, right?" I said.</p> - -<p>"Right!" the palm went down on the table again. The wine was beginning -to loosen him up. His voice was losing the first fine edge of control.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And I finally understood about Pat. She was looking at Thorsten, and -the same dream was plain on her face. That was all she saw—that, and -the man. She couldn't see the gray rockets bellowing above the burning -cities.</p> - -<p>"<i>Have</i> you got the drive?"</p> - -<p>"Damn right! Those technicians I lifted from Titan are working on your -ship now. Then a test flight, and after that, a whole fleet—my fleet, -equipped with the drive and ready for the jump.</p> - -<p>"There's a planet out there, Holcomb. The Titan Project found it. A -planet, Holcomb! Earth-type! Do you think I'd let those idiots on -<i>Earth</i> have it!"</p> - -<p>That locked it up. He was completely paranoid.</p> - -<p>Pat was still looking at him, lost in the dream. She couldn't be -bought, and she couldn't be taken. But she could be in love. Maybe, as -a man, I stacked higher up with her than Thorsten did—but I couldn't -rival the Dream.</p> - -<p>"Seems to me a thing like that will take more supplies than generations -of intercepting freight would give you. Where'll you get your -equipment?" I asked.</p> - -<p>I'd timed it right. A lot of Burgundy had gone down, followed by -Sauterne and Chablis.</p> - -<p>"That's where my Martian—friends come in," he said. Pat leaned -forward. This was a part she'd never heard before, an answer to a -question nobody but an old hand at expeditionary forces would ask.</p> - -<p>"The Marties think they're going to get the System back, some day." He -laughed. "They've been trying to persuade me to help them for a long -time, now. Well, I'm going to. After my fleet has the drive. We'll -invade Earth, then. The TSN won't be able to stand up to us—not when -torps start coming out of nowhere. Picture it—all of Earth, busy -fighting us off, all its attention on the invasion, and on nothing -else. Then, when the fighting's going nicely, my men and I will raid -a few choice supply dumps I've had spotted for a long time. We'll -load up on equipment and supplies, and take off, leaving some badly -disconcerted Marties to finish their little revolt any way they want -to—with no Earth for them to conquer!"</p> - -<p>"<i>What?</i>" It ripped out of me. Pat was sitting there, her mouth open -too, the same stunned question written on her face.</p> - -<p>Thorsten laughed his omnipotent laugh again.</p> - -<p>"Certainly! Didn't you know, Holcomb? Ordinarily, of course, a -hyperspatial ship will take off from a planet on standard atomic drive, -and cut to her hyperspatial engines when it's out in deep space. But -it's possible to take off directly into hyperspace—the only trouble -being that the warp changes a hundred cubic miles of adjacent mass to -C-T matter."</p> - -<p>"Seetee! You mean contraterrene?" That was Pat, tense-faced.</p> - -<p>I couldn't say anything. I sat there, staring at Thorsten—calm, -laughing, deliberate bringer of death to a world and its billions.</p> - -<p>Because C-T atoms, in contact with normal matter, reacted violently. A -hundred cubic miles, detonating instantaneously, would leave a ring of -dust where Earth and Moon now swung.</p> - -<p>"There will be no cancer of humanity in space!" Thorsten declared.</p> - -<p>I jumped for him.</p> - -<p>One slug caught my shoulder. The other plowed through the muscles of my -back. I lay bleeding among the broken glass and dishes on the table. -Thorsten swung a rabbit punch at my head, and laughed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VIII</p> - - -<p>The cell was small, dark, and damp. There were stitches across my back, -under tape, and a traction splint and bandages on my shoulder. Let's -forget pain. Pain.... <i>Let's forget it! Forget it!</i></p> - -<p>I lay on my belly. I'd been on my belly for most of a week. And for -most of a week, I'd thought of how it would be to dig my fingernails -into my side, rip loose the phony skin over my ribs, and fire that one -shot into Thorsten's guts.</p> - -<p>All I needed was a chance. Here in the cell, in a corridor somewhere, -alone with him, surrounded by his men, chance of life or no—that -wasn't what counted. I wasn't sane myself, anymore. There were two -people in the Universe—Thorsten and me—and room for one!</p> - -<p>A chance. Lord God, a chance!</p> - -<p>But all I had was dampness and darkness.</p> - -<p>I was fed twice a day—or something like it. It was almost time for my -next meal, but that wasn't the important time. It was the helpless week -behind me, the week in which Thorsten's kidnaped technicians had had -time to assemble the ship's engines. The test flight was due, and after -that the production of engines for the other ships in Thorsten's fleet. -If I was going to do anything, I had to do it now.</p> - -<p>I dragged myself up the side of the cell, leaving meat from my fingers -on the rough stone. I staggered over to the wall beside the door and -waited.</p> - -<p>Time went by—hours or minutes—and a sound of feet came down the -tunnel leading to my cell.</p> - -<p>I couldn't use my back muscles, but I tensed them now, feeling stitches -give way.</p> - -<p>Tumblers clicked, and the door was opened.</p> - -<p>I kicked it shut and sprang, wrapping my hands around a dimly seen -throat, a thin and soft neck.</p> - -<p>"Ash!" Pat's voice was half-choked under my grip.</p> - -<p>"Pat!" I opened my hands, and she stumbled free. But not for long, -because an instant later she was pressed against me again, her mouth -over mine.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We stood together in the darkness and in hunger. Finally, she moved her -lips away.</p> - -<p>"Ash, Ash, you can stand!" She was sobbing with relief.</p> - -<p>"Yeah—I'm on my feet."</p> - -<p>"Can you fight?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing bigger than you," I said. "What's going on?"</p> - -<p>"He's crazy, Ash. That plan of his—I'd never heard it before. All he -told me was that he was going to take humanity out to the stars—he -said he didn't trust Earth government to do it."</p> - -<p>"Yeah. I know. For that dream, I would have done what you did, too."</p> - -<p>"I didn't love him, Ash. He—I don't know, he <i>was</i> his dream, somehow, -and in spite of it all, he was a better, stronger man than anyone I -ever knew. Except you, Ash."</p> - -<p>That was good enough. That was good enough to give her everything I had -or could get. And that made my spot even worse. It wasn't just she that -was going to get hurt—but she was the most important one of them all.</p> - -<p>I couldn't even stay with her, here in the cell.</p> - -<p>But she knew that too, and there was more to her coming here than that.</p> - -<p>"Ash—they've finished assembling the drive in your ship. They've -finished repairs on her bow, too. They're going to run the tests in a -few hours. Everybody's sleeping, except for the maintenance crew, and -they're scattered through the base. Ash—I think we can get out of -here. If we don't run into any guards, we can make it to the airlock. -There'll be a few suits in a locker there. We can make a run for the -ship." Her voice was urgent, and full of hope, and bitterness for the -desertion of a dream—a sick, tainted dream, but her dream for so many -years at Thorsten's side.</p> - -<p>And I knew, for the first time in weeks, that Earth had a chance. I -knew, too, that Pat and I....</p> - -<p>I could have kissed her then. But I had to be a damned fool. I didn't.</p> - -<p>The tunnels and corridors were empty. The machine shops and storage -rooms were dark, and the doors to the bunkrooms were closed. We reached -the airlock.</p> - -<p>All I had to do now was to get into a spacesuit and open the lock. The -ship lay beyond it.</p> - -<p>Then I heard Harry's laugh!</p> - -<p>He stood behind us, holding a slim handgun.</p> - -<p>"Running out, people?" he asked. "Bribing that orderly wasn't bright, -Pat. He not only gets to keep his money, but he gets a promotion from -me. That's the way I operate—that's my justice."</p> - -<p>Pat and I had turned half-way around, watching him carefully.</p> - -<p>"Justice!" Pat flared. "Worry some more about Earth. Worry about the -Universe. Teach them your justice!"</p> - -<p>Again the laughter. "I will, Pat."</p> - -<p>But the laughter broke.</p> - -<p>"Pat—you're my wife. You know my dream—you shared it. Why did you do -it?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, she knows your sick dream, Harry," I said.</p> - -<p>"Shut up, Ash;" he said quietly. "Don't die with your mouth open."</p> - -<p>He fired, but I was on the floor of the tunnel.</p> - -<p>"Ash!" That was Pat's voice, but I was rolling, and tearing at my side.</p> - -<p>"Get back, Pat!" Thorsten shouted. I was up on my knees, the singleshot -gun in my hand. I charged forward.</p> - -<p>He brought up his gun. The noise had awakened everybody in hearing -distance. Doors were opening, men were running.</p> - -<p>I pointed the slim tube at his belly and jammed my thumb down on the -firing stud.</p> - -<p>He screamed, cupping his hand over the smoking hole I had punched in -his stomach. His knees bent, and he sank backwards, toppling, finally, -as he lost his balance. He opened his mouth, choking, and blood welled -over his chin.</p> - -<p>One last shred of laughter bubbled up through his throat.</p> - -<p>And someone, down at the other end of the tunnel, fired at us. He -missed me as I crouched over Thorsten's body.</p> - -<p>"Ash—"</p> - -<p>I had Thorsten's gun in my hand, but I didn't fire back. I spun around, -and looked at Pat, crushed back against the tunnel wall.</p> - -<p>"Pat!"</p> - -<p>She slid down the wall, and huddled on the floor.</p> - -<p>"Pat!" I bent down beside her. It was bad.</p> - -<p>Her voice was thick. "How long have I got?"</p> - -<p>"Five minutes—maybe ten." I knew I was lying. It was less.</p> - -<p>"Ash ... you heard what he said. I was in a Wasp unit. Space was my -dream, too. Always."</p> - -<p>I wanted to tell her I knew, now—knew a lot of things. But there was -no use in holding a dying woman, kissing her, and caressing her tumbled -hair for one last time. No use at all, when a world depended on not -taking time for those things.</p> - -<p>I put Thorsten's gun in her hand. "Can you still shoot, Pat?"</p> - -<p>Her fingers tightened on the butt, and her eyes met mine just once more -before she turned her head.</p> - -<p>She was a beauty to watch. Sprawled on the tunnel floor, not looking -at anything but targets over the notch of her sights, calm and skilled -while she covered my retreat as her heartbeats slowed. She cauterized -the tunnel, weaving a fan of death that marched down the corridor, -encompassing and moving beyond huddled and broken men.</p> - -<p>I clamped on my suit helmet and spun the airlock controls. I snapped -one quick look back at her. Then the airlock hatch thudded shut behind -me. In a moment, I was on the surface of the Asteroid and running for -the ship.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IX</p> - - -<p>Earth lies ahead of me, green and safe. The muted atomics behind me -have brought me back from beyond Venus, where the split-second jump -into hyperspace threw me.</p> - -<p>Let Mort Weidmann have his farther stars—or anyone else who cares to -try. I've had all I want from the new drive.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I gave Pat a funeral pyre. And now the lonely Asteroids have a star of -their own.</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOOD ON MY JETS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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