“Well, enough of this,” McNulty said. Hiskey didn’t know what means the Rilf had of summoning the tozien back to him, but for a moment he saw it motionless on the front of McNulty’s coat, a clinging glassy patch about the size of a man’s hand. Then it disappeared beneath the coat and McNulty closed the coat, and Hiskey breathed again.
“That illustrates my point,” McNulty told him. “The tozien remained audible while I might have counted to twenty, slowly. They are all like that now.”
Hiskey wiped his forehead. “If they adjust in a few seconds, I can’t see it makes much practical difference.”
McNulty shook his head reprovingly.
“Those few seconds might give someone time to be warned, find shelter, and escape, Jake! In a tozien attack there should be no escape for foreign life which is not already behind thick walls or enclosed in strong armor. That is the beauty of it! On my last contract I was in a crowd of alert armed men when I released my toziens. In an instant the air was full of a thousand invisible silent knives, striking simultaneously. Some of the humans gasped as they died, but there were no screams. A clean piece of work! That is how it must be when we demonstrate the toziens to our Earth employers. And since I will be the demonstrator, I shall blood my swarm on the asteroid, on its humans and their livestock, and then they will be ready again.”
“Well, that part of it is your business,” Hiskey said, rather shakily.
Along the perennial solar orbit it shared with Earthplanet, the Alston asteroid soared serenely through space. Earth was never visible from the asteroid because the sun remained between them. The asteroid’s inhabitants had no regrets about that; they were satisfied with what they could see, as they might be. The surface of what had been a ragged chunk of metal and mineral had been turned into an unobtrusively cultivated great garden. The outer atmosphere was only two hundred yards thick, held in by a shell of multiple force fields; but looking up, one would have found it difficult to say how it differed from the day and night skies of Earth. Breezes blew and clouds drifted; and a rainfall could be had on order. And if clouds, breezes, sky blueness and rainfall weren’t entirely natural phenomena, who cared? Or, at least, cared very much . . .
It had cost a great deal of money initially to bring the asteroid over from the Belt and install the machines which transformed its surface into a facsimile section of Earth, planted Earth gravity at its core, set it on Earth’s orbit and gave it measured momentum and a twenty-four hour spin. It cost considerably more money to bring in soil, selected plants, selected animals, along with all the other appurtenances of enclosed but very comfortable and purposeful human habitation and activity. But once everything had been set up, it cost nothing to keep the asteroid going. It was self-powered, very nearly self-maintaining and self-sustaining. A variety of botanical projects initiated by Professor Derek Alston, its present owner, incidentally produced crops of spices disposed of in Earthsystem, which more than covered current expenses.
On this morning Derek Alston sat cross-legged by the side of a miniature lake, listening to and sometimes taking part in the conversation between his wife Sally and Sally’s friend, Elisabeth Gage. Sally was a slightly tousled bronze blonde and Elisabeth had straight long jet-black hair sweeping about her shoulders, but Derek kept noticing points of resemblance between the two, in structure, motions and mannerisms, almost as if they had been rather closely related, say first cousins. Though they were, Derek thought, in fact simply two excellent examples of the type of tall comely young women Earthsystem seemed to produce in increasing numbers each year. They had been fellow students at Solar U before Sally’s marriage a little less than a year ago now, and, until Elisabeth arrived yesterday at the asteroid they hadn’t met in person since then. From what Sally had told him, Derek already knew a good deal about Elisabeth before he saw her.
The talk, naturally, mainly was about Elisabeth’s brother who should reach the asteroid in another hour or so. There was, Derek knew, in what was being said and in what was not being said between these two, a trace of awkwardness and uncertainty. Essentially, of course, it was an occasion for festivities and rejoicing. Elisabeth was happy. There was no question about that. Her face was filled with her reflections . . . dreamy dazed smiles, cheeks glowing, eyes brimming briefly now and then. Her brother was the only surviving member of her family, and they’d been very close throughout her childhood. And now there’d been eight years of separation, and she hadn’t known until Harold called that he’d come back to Earthsystem, or was even planning to come back. She’d had no reason to expect him. So she was happy, melting in happiness in fact. And Sally shared sympathetically in her friend’s feelings.
But there was the other side to this matter. It wasn’t to be mentioned now, but it couldn’t be dismissed either . . .
“His voice hasn’t changed at all—” Elizabeth had just said. There was a tiny silence then, because she had touched, inadvertently, the other side of the matter, and it seemed to Derek the right moment to speak.
“Only twenty-eight years old,” he remarked. “Your brother’s very young to have put eight years of outsystem travel behind him.”
Elisabeth looked at him a moment and smiled. “Yes, I suppose he is,” she said. “He was just twenty when he was graduated from navigation school at the SP Academy. Dad was with the SP in Mars Underground, and I know he thought Harold would stay with the force. But after Dad died, Earthsystem looked too tame to Harold. He wanted real adventure and he wanted to make his fortune. Captain Hiskey was putting together his crew just then, and Harold signed as navigator. The pay wasn’t much, but the crew was to share in ship’s profits.” She gave a small shrug. “I’m afraid Harold hasn’t made his fortune yet, but he’s certainly had adventures. Even from the little he’s told me, I know the ship often must have been doing very risky work.”
“What were Captain Hiskey’s qualifications for that kind of work—for outsystem commerce generally?” Derek asked.
Elisabeth’s eyes flickered. “Harold said Hiskey had been first officer on a big transsolar transport. Then he got money enough to buy his own ship.” She hesitated. “I guess they’ve tried about anything they could. But they never had a good enough streak of luck to do much better than break even . . . or else they’d get good luck mixed up with bad. Perhaps Harold will stay in Earthsystem now. But I have a feeling he won’t. He was always very stubborn when he set himself a goal.”
“You heard from him regularly?”
“No, not regularly. Not very often either. I’ve had seven message-packs from him in eight years. Somebody would get back to Earthsystem and drop the pack off at Mars Underground or Solar U, and I’d receive it that way. The last one was just six months ago. It didn’t say a word about the ship coming back. That’s why I can still hardly believe Harold’s here.”
The eyes had begun to brim again. Sally said quickly, “Perhaps he wasn’t sure he’d be coming back and didn’t want to build up your hopes.”
Elisabeth nodded. “I suppose that was it. And . . .”
Derek drew back mentally from what she was saying. An independent outsystem trader—not a very large ship, from what Elisabeth had told them. A crew working mainly on a gamble, willing to try anything, each man out to make his fortune, hit the big money by some means. At least some of the men on Captain Hiskey’s ship had pursued that objective for eight years without getting there.
Man played it dirty and rough on Earth, held back only by a few general rules which none dared break. In the outsystems the same games were played, as extensions of those on Earth, perhaps somewhat dirtier and rougher, with no enforceable rules of any kind. Drop an adventurous, eager twenty-year-old into that kind of thing after the quiet order of Mars Underground, the disciplines of the SP Academy . . . well, it might shape the twenty-year-old in one way or another, but shape him it would, thoroughly and fast, if he was to survive. Eight years should have worked quite a few changes in Harold Gage. The changes needn’t have been evident in the me
ssage-packs Elisabeth had received. But she was intelligent, and she knew in general what the outsystems were like. And so, unwillingly, she was apprehensive of what she would find in her brother.
It bothered Derek because he liked Elisabeth and thought that whatever her expectations were, she might still be in for a shock. He checked his watch, got to his feet, smiled at his wife and guest and excused himself. A few minutes later, seated at a transmitter, he dialed a number.
“Lieutenant Pierce,” a voice said. “Who is calling?”
“This is Derek Alston, Mike.”
“And what can the System Police do for Professor Alston today?” asked Michael Pierce.
“Do you have anything on an outsystem tramp trader called Prideful Sue? Captain-owner’s name is Hiskey. He might have checked in a day or two ago.”
“Hold on,” Pierce told him. Perhaps a minute passed before his voice resumed. “There’s a ship by that name and of that description in the territory, Derek. She’s Earthplanet registry. Last SP check was ten years ago. No record of present owners. First reported as having arrived from transsolar three days ago. We have a mild interest in the ship because the captain evidently has no intention of checking in or going through Customs. Of course, an SP check isn’t compulsory if his business is only and directly with Earthplanet and if we have no reason to suspect Class A contraband.
However he keeps shifting about the system as if he preferred to keep out of our way. Do you feel we should give him more attention?”
“I have no definite reason to think so,” Derek said. “But possibly you should.”
A number of things were disturbing Harold Gage. One of them was that Jake Hiskey had invited himself down on the asteroid with him. Jake had made no mention of such plans until the Prideful Sue eased in to a stop on the coordinates given them in the Alston asteroid’s gravity field and went on space anchor. Then Harold came forward to the comm room; and there was Jake, freshly shaved and in dress uniform, talking to the Alstons on viz screen. The matter was already settled. How Jake wrangled the invitation Harold didn’t know, but he was downright charming when he wanted to be; and undoubtedly he’d made the Alstons feel it would be impossibly rude not to include him in the party. Jake switched off the screen, looked at Harold’s face and grinned.
“Hell, Harold,” he said. “You’re not begrudging an old friend a few hours’ look at sheer luxury, are you?”
“No,” Harold said. “But in this case I felt I was already imposing on Elisabeth’s friends.”
“Ah—don’t be so sensitive. They invited you, didn’t they? And Professor Alston and that sweet-looking wife of his will get a boot out of me. These millionaire hermits must get mighty bored on their pretty-pretty asteroids where nothing ever happens. We’re transsolar spacers, man! We’ve been places and done things it would curl their hair to think about. We’re romantic!” He clapped Harold on the shoulder. “Come on! They told me your sister’s waiting at the lock. Hey, this is one place we don’t have to wear guns when we stick our noses outside—seems odd, doesn’t it?”
And then they were down; and there, first of all, was Elisabeth—not a girl any more but, startlingly, a beautiful woman. Harold wasn’t even sure he would have recognized her if she hadn’t run towards him, laughing and crying a little, as he stepped out of the skiff, and clung to him for long seconds. And there were the Alstons, pleasant people who immediately took Jake in hand and smoothly dissociated him and themselves from the Gages, so that in only minutes Harold and Elisabeth were wandering about alone in this sunlit, rather dreamlike garden of an asteroid.
He’d been afraid there’d be an awkwardness between them, but none developed. Elisabeth was a completely honest person, of the kind whose expression hides nothing because there is rarely anything in their minds they want to hide. She studied him frankly and gravely, his eyes, his mouth, his motions, listened to his voice and its inflections, her face telling him meanwhile that she realized he’d changed and something of the manner in which he’d changed, and that she was accepting it, perhaps with regret but without judgment and with no loss of affection. He knew, too, that this was a matter it wouldn’t be necessary to talk about, now or later . . . later meaning after the business on Earthplanet was concluded. What was left then was that he always would have to be a little careful of what he said to her, careful not to reveal too much. Because what Elisabeth didn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, was just how extensive the change had been.
He told himself it couldn’t have been helped. In the outsystems it could hardly have worked out otherwise. For a while they’d remained fairly selective about what they did with the Prideful Sue. If a job looked too raw, they didn’t touch it. But they weren’t making money, or not enough, and the raw jobs began to look less unacceptable. Then some of the crew dropped out, and some got killed, and the replacements were outsystem boys with outsystem ideas. On occasion they’d come close to straight raiding then; and if it had been up to Jake Hiskey alone, what difference was left finally mightn’t have mattered enough to count.
But a first-class navigator was the most valuable man on the ship in the outsystems; and Harold was a first-class navigator by then. If he hadn’t been one, he still would have been the most valuable man on the Prideful Sue; Hiskey had come to depend on him more and more. So he could put a stop to an operation if it looked too bad, and from time to time he did. It didn’t get him liked on board; but, as it happened, he’d also developed a first-class gun hand. If necessary the hand might get a little more blood on it, and Navigator Gage would get his way.
This last move now, the big one, the one which was to make the whole past eight years pay off extremely well, importing McNulty’s mercenaries and their devastating weapon, the Rilf toziens, to Earthplanet—he’d thought about it long and hard and had been at the point of backing out more than once. Hiskey, whose idea it had been, argued that it was a perfectly legitimate enterprise. It was, without question. Earthplanet’s criterion of permissible weaponry was the guaranteed limitation of effect. A tozien strike had an active period of less than two days, a target radius of less than twenty miles. It fell well within the allowable range.
And it would have the value of a completely unexpected innovation. Earthplanet hadn’t yet heard of the Rilfs. Hiskey had contacts who knew how to handle this kind of thing to best advantage all around. Everyone involved would share in the cut, and the cut was going to be a very large one. Of course, after the first dozen miniwars came to an abrupt end, that part of it would be over. McNulty would be in general demand and could get along without middlemen. There’d be no further payoffs to the crew of the Prideful Sue. But down to the last man on board, they’d be more than wealthy enough to retire.
It was, Jake Hiskey pointed out, no more of a dirty business, if one wanted to call it that, than other operations they’d carried out. The Earth gangs periodically slaughtered one another, and there was very little to choose between them. What great difference did it make to hand some of them a new weapon?
It wasn’t much of an argument, but what decided Harold was that this was Jake Hiskey’s last chance and that Jake knew it and was desperate. He was fifteen years older than Harold and looked a decade older than that. The outsystems had leached his nerve from him at last. If Harold pulled out, Hiskey wouldn’t be able to handle the deal with the Rilfs, wouldn’t be able to work a troop of them back to Earthsystem. He was no longer capable of it. And when one had flown and fought a ship for eight years with a man, had backed him and been backed by him in tight spots enough to do for a lifetime, it was difficult to turn away from him when he was finished. So all right, Harold had thought finally, one more play, dirty as it might be. Then he and Jake could split. There was nothing really left of their friendship; that had eroded along the line. If the SP didn’t manage to block them, they’d get the Rilfs to Earth. Afterwards they couldn’t be touched by Earthsystem, even if it became known what role they’d played. They’d have done nothing illegal.
“Mr. Gage! Elisabeth!”
He stopped, blinking. It was like an optical illusion. There was a steep smooth cliff of rock to the left of the path they were following; and in it, suddenly, an opening had appeared, a doorway, and Sally Alston had stepped out of it and was coming towards them, smiling. “I looked for you in the scanners,” she told Elisabeth. Then she turned to Harold. “Mr. Gage, why didn’t you let us know you had this extraordinary alien person on board? If Captain Hiskey hadn’t mentioned—”
“Alien person?” Elisabeth interrupted.
“Why, yes! Somebody called a Rilf. Derek is certain Solar U has no record of the species, and Captain Hiskey and Mr. Gage are taking him to Earthplanet on a commercial mission for his people. It’s really an historical event!”
Harold stared at her, completely dumbfounded. Had Jake gone out of his mind to mention McNulty and the Rilfs to the Alstons? Elisabeth gave him a quick glance which asked whether this was the big hush-hush business he’d been talking about.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 200