by Andre Norton
"Your gift has no real effect, then?" he asked thoughtfully.
"It might in a sense. I proved remarkably able at triage, and I could single out the most serious cases present, the heart attacks as opposed to the bad sprains."
"What about during the plague?"
She shook her head. "I wasn't conscious of anything particular then except for the constant fear and grief, but I was only a child, and we were all scared. I may have been picking something up, and I suppose I might have developed some inborn ability for handling the pressure, but I can't recall anything of the sort. I know the rest, such as it is, developed as I grew. It was a major factor in my choosing medicine as my specialty."
Rael seemed to slip into her own thoughts and said nothing more for several seconds. She roused herself abruptly and faced him. "What now. Captain?"
"We head back to the Queen." His hands rested On the controls, but he did not activate them immediately. "I don't know what life is like in the Cofort organization, but the Solar Queen welcomes whatever talents her crew has. That extends to passengers and temporary hands. Bear that in mind if yours start working on you again."
Iniceal brought the machine to a halt again just before they reached the outskirts of Canuche Town's suburbs.
Rael was surprised, but when she looked to the Captain for clarification, she found him staring straight ahead, his gaze apparently fixed on some point in the far distance. "Is something wrong?" she inquired anxiously.
"Wrong, no, but the Queen will be lifting tomorrow."
"Aye. By midafternoon if nothing delays delivery of the last Caledonia shipment."
"Are you going to accept Macgregory's offer?"
"No."
"Think carefully, Rael. He meant every word of it. You're not likely to run into a chance like this'again."
"Do you want me to accept it?" she asked carefully.
"What I want's irrelevant. It's your life, and this is a major decision."
The woman shook her head. "No, I'm not going to accept. I don't like Canuche of Halio. She's Adroo Macgregory's homeworld, and he naturally loves her. I'm not going to tell him how I feel about her, but of all the Federation's habitable planets on which I might eventually choose to settle, this one's pretty near the bottom of the list. Besides, I don't want to leave the starlanes. That's where I was born, and that's where I belong."
Jellico's eyes dropped. He realized he had been gripping the controls so tightly that his knuckles glistened white under the stretched skin and hastily eased his hold. "I think that's the wiser choice, though maybe not the most financially sound one," he told her.
She studied him gravely. "I answered your question.
Now answer mine. Did you wish me to accept Mr. Macgregory's offer?"
"No. No, I did not. It would've been a disaster. Macgregory's every inch an autocrat—benevolent maybe, but a despot all the same. A Free Trader's too independent to stay under the thumb of someone like that long-term."
"You'd have let me go ahead despite that?"
"I had no right to stop you, Rael, though I would've raised the question for your consideration and stressed it pretty strongly had you given me a different answer."
His eyes were somber. "That'll leave you at loose ends once we lift. Do you have anything particular in mind?"
Cofort nodded. "I was planning to approach Deke Tatarcoff. I've never known him not to be shorthanded, and I've given him good reason to respect my abilities. If that doesn't work out, I'll just hang around for a while. This port's busy enough that I'm bound to pick up a berth in fairly short order, even if it's just another single-voyage hop to some backwater hole."
She saw him start to frown and shrugged delicately. "If it looks like there's going to be a delay, I have no objection to taking on-world work for a time to keep body, soul, and store of credits together. Some of the hospitals in Canuche Town can probably use a part-time Medic, and should worse come to worse, I might even try to wrangle a temporary job out of Adroo Macgregory."
"It sounds reasonable," he said without looking at her. "I have to confess that I had some reservations about just leaving you here."
"I'm not one who's ever likely to let herself starve."
"No."
Her voice softened. "Thank you, Miceal Jellico," she said. She sat a little straighter. "Let's go back and develop those tri-dees. I'm dying to see what we gained for our efforts."
Jellico shivered. Even this far from the shore, the sea breeze was sharp and cold and would remain so for a while yet, until Halio had warmed the land sufficiently to reverse the thermal currents and bathe the city in dry, hot, inland currents.
That alteration in the flow of the breeze, quite independent of the predominant prevailing winds, which moved parallel to the land, was a real blessing to the inhabitants of the city during the blistering months of the summer. A heat haze might shimmer over Canuche Town's streets by day, but at night, people slept well beneath light blankets.
Rael joined Jellico at the hatch, and they descended together. Both had business in the city. The Captain intended to get the flier back to the rental agency before he had to pay a second day's charges for it, and she had asked to accompany him since he would be passing close to the Caledonia plant. She wanted to give Macgregory her answer face-to-face or at least deliver a personal letter to his office if he should not be there this early rather than merely calling in her refusal over the Queen's transceiver as they prepared her for space. He deserved the courtesy of the greater effort on her part.
She smiled as she took her place in the passenger seat.
The vehicle had done them good service the previous evening ferrying them all to the restaurant the crew had chosen for their last-night dinner. It had been a fine affair all around. If their eatery had not been another Twenty-Two. the food had been good, and they had enjoyed it and themselves, Ali Kamil as thoroughly as any of his comrades. He had seemed more at ease than she had hitherto seen him, certainly more so than he had been since they had planeted on Canuche ofHalio. The confirmation of the industrial planet's apparently dark history and the reality of the peril still hanging over her had affirmed and the reality of his gift. That was a relief in itself, and it was a relief that they would soon be leaving the dangerous world behind.
"We'll cut around by the Cup," Miceal told her as they started out. "It's a bit longer that way, but I want to get a good look, at the ships."
"You're the skipper. Besides, I'd like to see them close up myself." She stifled a yawn. "After crawling out of my bunk so soon in order to see Mr. Macgregory, I hope he is an early riser."
"That one? You can put credits down oh it. He won't squander valuable daylight hours in bed."
"You needn't squander any time, either," she told him,
"at least not waiting for me. Once you drop me off, just turn the flier in and go on back to the Queen. I'll find my way home."
"Not a chance. Van'd be asking what happened to my wits if I failed to make so obvious a courtesy call on our illustrious client."
They soon came within sight of the ocean. Only two large vessels were at dock in the Cup, the low, squat Regina Maris and another slightly larger craft with the name Sally Sue displayed on her prow and sides. A number of small boats attended to the freighters' needs or to their own.
Both of the big ships were the center of considerable
activity. Miceal slowed the flier down to hover to better observe the scene. "Look at that, Rael," he said softly. "It's like a moment frozen in time. A few centuries back, that's what we'd have been doing."
She nodded. If that was all there was, they would be part of it. Trade was in their souls, and neither of them would have been content with the role of sedentary shopkeeper.
She frowned somewhat disapprovingly as she continued to study the on-worlders working around the Regina Maris.
A bit of concentrated study stripped some of the perfection from the picture for one who was familiar with the management of bulk cargo.
"They go in for a lot of fuss, don't they?" she remarked. There was not half this ado when a starship was being loaded.
Jellico started to agree, but then he frowned. Commotion was one thing; idleness was another. There were a lot of dock laborers just standing about, leaving the cargo lying where it was. Those people were paid by the hour.
Whether he traversed a single planet's seas or the starlanes, no ship's master would tolerate a pack of idlers leeching away his always tight port expense funds. "She's in trouble," he announced sharply even as he sent the flier surg ing forward.
In another moment, they came to a stop beside a group
of longshoremen. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"What's it to you, space hound?" one countered. There was no real hostility in the question, just a petty enjoyment in momentary superiority over the off-worlder with his supposedly more interesting lifeway.
"Most Captains sympathize with a ship in trouble," he responded more mildly than he would have done with one of his own kind.
"A bit of a fire on the Man's," the speaker told him.
Miceal's expression registered his concern, and the longshoreman continued quickly. "It's not the same thing as you chaps have to face in space," he assured them, "at least not here in port where the crew can get off quickly. This is nothing, anyway. They'll probably have it out in a few
minutes."
"Maybe," interjected the older man standing beside him.
Jellico eyed him curiously. "You have your doubts?"
"I was the one who smelled the smoke and alerted her Captain. To my mind, he should forget about saving the. cargo and really pour in water and foam. Masters have lost ships before by playing around with steam for too long."
He nodded. "Live steam. It replaces the oxygen in the air, smothering a blaze while being reasonably kind to the goods stored around it. It's most useful in the early stages of a tightly confined fire, though. Give the flames any chance to spread, to escape into the hull between the holds, and you've got big trouble."
"You think that's happened here?"
"Well, it's not for me to say, but a fire large enough for me to sniff out just by walking near an open hatch is a deal more than a spark, and I'm willing to put down a few credits that they haven't gotten it licked even yet."
"How long have they been at it?"
"Full blast? Only about ten minutes. — Uh-oh, there goes the alarm. They want the Fire Department. That means they're kissing the cargo good-bye. — See, the crew're being sent ashore."
"There shouldn't be all that much to be damaged, should there?" the Medic asked, trying to recall what Macgregory had told them about the kinds of goods the Regina Man's was taking on. "Just the rope. Her insurance should cover that."
"Sure, and the rest, too, but exporters don't like to ship with vessels that sacrifice their cargoes too willingly. Also, the season's rush on nitrate'll be over soon ... "
Rael Cofort's face went white. "What?"
"Ammonium nitrate. A fertilizer. My lads loaded fourteen hundred tons of it in her number two hold and another eight hundred and twenty tons in number four yesterday evening. The fire's between them in number three where the rope's stowed. Both're likely to be drenched and ruined . . ."
"Spirit of Space . . . ," she whispered.
"It's a common substance," he told her in surprise.
"Until you bring a flame or too much heat near it," Jellico said tersely. "Then it's a bomb."
"Bomb! What in . . ."
"Recently we saw an experiment to illustrate that. If that ship goes up, it'll be like a low-grade planetbuster. You people would be smart to take off, pick up your families, and keep going until this is all over."
"Right," one of the women standing near them cut in.
"We'd find something left out of our paychecks if we tried that."
"Better lose a few hours' pay to panic than not be able to collect it at all because you're dead."
"I'll take responsibility," their chief informant declared, confirming the spacers' impression that he was the group's foreman. "I've got a kid up the slope in the Cup school. I'm taking him, my wife, and her mother and heading for the hardpan. The rest of you do the same."
He glanced at the pair in the flier. "What about you two?"
"We like living," the Captain replied.
The Canucheans wasted no time in clearing after that.
Rael did not watch them go. Her eyes were fixed on Jellico. "Miceal, we can't . . ."
He gave an impatient shake of his head. "These eateries should all have public surplanetary transceivers, and they'll be empty with everyone out watching the fire. I'll
warn the Queen and spaceport. You tell Macgregory and the Stellar Patrol."
As Jellico predicted, they found available booths in the first eating place they entered and both hastened to sound the alarm before the dreaded explosion rendered it worthless.
Tang Ya was on duty at the Solar Queen's transceiver.
He, like the rest of the crew, had heard his comrades' report of the Caledonia experiment and required no detailed explanation. "We're ready to go now," he told him. "All the rest of us are on board, praise the Spirit of Space. How long do we give you?" He hated to ask that, but for the sake of the ship and the bulk of her company, there had to be a limit on the time they could afford to wait.
"Lift at once and make for the hardpan outside the city.
Set down again a mile or so to the south of it to get you out of direct line with any residual blast effects, and wait there until I tell you the fire's out here or until the commotion stops. If the Man's does go up, they'll be needing help at that point. Rael and I'll either make our way out to you or be tied up with the rescue effort ourselves."
Most likely, they would either be in need of saving or beyond it, but his Captain was as aware of that as he was. "Will do. We'll pass the word to the others here as well."
"Thanks, Tang."
Miceal's head bowed as he stepped from the booth. He loved the Solar Queen and had always imagined he would
meet his death aboard her or striving in some manner for her.
The spacer squared his shoulders and looked up. Death on Canuche of Halio might be a distinct possibility, but it was by no means a certainty for either of them. There was ' no reason to blindly assume that he and Rael Cofort would not be returning to the starship and to the cold, dark reaches of interstellar space that was her domain.
He had to wait a few minutes for his companion, but she nodded gravely when she finally joined him. "I got to them both," she told him. "Mr. Macgregory's starting a full evacuation immediately. He'll also contact the Fire Department to let them know what we're facing and warn the hospitals to move as much of their gear as they can, especially their emergency facilities, out onto the hardpan so they'll be ready to start taking on cases at once if need be. Colonel Cohn's putting in calls for aid to the other towns all along the coast. — What about our own people?"
"They'll do what they must."
They found the battle against the ship fire raging in full fury when they went outside again, with fireboats and fliers pouring streams of foam and seawater into the Regina Maris's hold, augmented by the closer attention of the small firetransports crowding the dock and the men and women carrying the fight to the deck itself.
As the efforts to contain the fire became ever more spectacular, so the crowd gathered to watch it increased in proportion. Laborers delayed upon leaving their shifts or before going to their tasks; office workers left their desks to congregate outside their buildings or stood by windows offering grandstand views; messengers and passersby with more time to spare shouldered their way through to the dock itself to secure as unobstructed as possible an observation post. Rael judged that there had to be in excess of four thousand people in and around the Cup's seafront alone and easily that many again scattered farther away along the banks and on the opposite shore. A number of small merchant and pleasure craft had also drawn near, ke
eping just far enough away as not to interfere with the work of the fireboats.
"The smoke's coming up white now," her companion observed. "It looks like they've just about got it licked."
"I sincerely hope so. I won't object one bit if I come out looking like a total vacuum-brain in all of this." Her mouth hardened. It was not over yet, not quite. "If anything does happen, most and probably all of these people are going to be killed."
Before Jellico realized what she was doing, she had started pushing through the onlookers, showing consummate skill in weaseling her way with the deft aid of elbow and foot into minute spaces that had not seemed to exist a moment before. He was hard pressed to keep up with her.
The Medic did not stop until she had reached the fire- transport that was her target. Its crew, engrossed as both were in managing the big fire gun, did not notice her until she had leapt aboard.
"This thing's got a public address system?" she demanded before either could recover enough from his surprise to order her off.
"Of course ... "
"Switch it on!"
He complied, moved by her earnestness and air of authority. Besides, the fire was well under control, and he was curious.
"You people," the woman called into the mike he handed her, "the show's almost over, but the danger isn't.
Until the last spark and hot spot has been extinguished, there's the chance of a serious explosion. You're exposed to the full force of it out here."
Miceal mentally nodded his approval. Even now, with the fire on the Regina Marts almost out, knowledge of the full peril she represented too suddenly imparted to all these people could provoke a panic that would almost certainly claim a large number of the lives they were striving to preserve.
A siren sounded farther up the shore. Rael glanced in the direction of the noise, then raised the mike again. "I spoke with Adroo Macgregory of Caledonia, Inc., before coming here. See, he has already evacuated his plant and ordered his people out of the city."