The Billion Dollar Boy

by Charles Sheffield

  He decided to give it one more try. "According to the charts we're approaching Ushant Reef. I was going to ask your mother if I could take a corry out and do a harvester run for transuranics. Then after that was finished I was thinking of staying out and wandering over closer to the reef."

  "Why?"

  Another one-syllable reply, but at least this one invited a response.

  "I thought I might get lucky again. The last starfire was your discovery, you know, not mine. Even though I got equal benefit I didn't do anything." And, when Grace remained silent, "I don't know if your mother will let me go out alone. I think she'll probably want you to go with me."

  "She might."

  Two words. Progress. "But even if your mother did say yes to making a harvester run, I'm not sure she'd agree to my going near Ushant Reef. Not even if I promised to stay a safe distance away. What do you think? She's your muv, you know her a lot better than I do."

  "I don't know what she'd say." Grace looked at Shelby, and suddenly she smiled. "But there's one easy way to find out. We can go and ask her."

  As they headed together toward the control room, Shelby wondered what was going on. A refusal to speak to him for over a week; and then, for no apparent reason, all smiles and everything back to normal. What did it mean? It was what he had hoped for when he mentioned taking a corry outside, so in a way he could claim success. But he didn't know why. Here was another question for Jilter.

  The visit to Lana Trask, on the other hand, was definitely not a success.

  "You can take a corry out for a harvester run," she said. "In fact, if you hadn't come here I'd have been calling both of you. We all have to get to work, there's too much space still in the cargo holds. But you are to stay on the collection circle, and not wander off past it toward Ushant Reef. You hear me?"

  "We weren't planning on going close, Muv."

  "Your idea of close and mine are not the same. I can forgive Shel, he's a newcomer, but you, Gracie, you ought to know better. Ushant Reef is the least mapped and most dangerous reef in the Cloud. More rakehells have been lost there than anywhere else."

  "More Cauthen starfires found there, too."

  "That's not the point. You two have got your starfire. Be satisfied with it."

  As usual, Grace was wearing the stone in a pouch hung from her belt. She reached inside to take out the fist-sized gem and rub it and press it, something she did at least a hundred times a day. The starfire responded with a brighter display of its ever-changing inner fire. Thurgood Trask had told Grace that what they saw was nothing but a piezoelectric effect, but his words did nothing to explain the stone's beauty. This afternoon it glowed a cold and brilliant blue-green.

  "It would be great to find another." Grace stared down into the luminous depths. "No one in the harvester fleet owns a piece of two of them. I'd like to be the first."

  "Sure you would. That's called greed, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself." But Lana Trask must have felt something of the same urge herself, because she went on, "I'll tell you what. Two weeks from now we'll be back near the Portland and Lizard reefs, the place where you two made your find. It's a safer area, and I know it better. I just may consider allowing the two of you to make an exploration trip when we get there—if you work extra hard all the way until then."

  "We will." Grace and Shelby spoke in unison.

  "Good. Then get started on today's work—right now. Scat."

  "Do you really think she will?" asked Shelby, as they left the control room and headed for the cargo holds.

  "Let us explore, you mean?" Grace nodded. "If we work extra hard she will. You have to know Muv. She's too logical to live. Work real hard, and we explore the Portland and Lizard when we get there. Don't work real hard, and we can forget the exploration. So I guess we have to work. Let's get to it."

  She sounded resigned. Compared with the excitement of cruising out to a reef, harvesting transuranics was no treat for Grace. For Shelby, on the other hand, all tasks on the harvesters still had the fascination of newness. He wasn't much disappointed by Lana Trask's ruling.

  The outer collection cable had been deployed by Logan late the previous night. Now it was Grace and Shelby's job to follow the line along its multiple-hundred-kilometer length, examining the widely spaced collector spheres and bringing in-board any sack with an acceptable mass of transuranics. The detailed analysis of samples, with their clues as to where the harvester might want to go next, would be done later on board the main ship.

  It was hard work physically, with a required rhythm that made it essential for the two of them to work closely together. As they did so they could talk about anything they chose over the suit radios, either on the general channels or on the short-range and scrambled personal channel that guaranteed privacy. Grace, after her ten-day silence, was unusually chatty.

  "Muv's not lying, exactly," she said, "but she's stretching the truth. I checked with Uncle Thurgood, and he says we've never done as well before this early in the season. Keep it up, he says, and we'll be full hold and first through the node to Sol-side—again."

  "It happened last year?"

  "Sure did. Third year running. Muv's the best sniffer in the fleet. And there's your proof of it."

  She pointed out past the collection cable. Shelby, to his surprise, saw an unfamiliar corry outlined against the Cloud's blue glow. It was floating no more than a kilometer away.

  "That doesn't look like one of ours."

  "It isn't. Different design. For a bet it's from the Southern Cross. Wonder how long it's been there? Still trailing along behind us, and still trying to figure out how we do it. Uncle Thurgood gets mad 'til he's nearly foaming at the mouth, but Muv says he should relax and accept it as a compliment. We'll know for sure who it is in a few minutes— looks like they're coming this way."

  "What do they want?"

  "Maybe to compare notes. Maybe just being sociable. I don't think they're in any kind of trouble, because they're acting too casual."

  The other corry approached steadily until it was no more than thirty meters away, drifting on the other side of the collection cable. It halted and a suited figure waved an arm from the open floor.

  "Go to channel sixty-six, Shel," said Grace. "That's standard corry-to-corry."

  "Good afternoon to you," said a familiar and pleasant voice, as Shelby switched channels. "How are the pickings?"

  "Hi, Captain Mossman," Grace waved in reply. "We're getting a good haul. Anything we can do for you?"

  "No. I'm just out here sightseeing and taking a little constitutional. Really pretty today. Did you notice the pin-wheel?"

  "Yeah. Very strange. We had a good look, too." The Cloud beyond the Harvest Moon contained a strange swirl of hot pink, a striking feature that Grace swore had not been there on the way to Confluence. "Don't mind us if we keep on working."

  Their corry was crabbing its way steadily along the collection cable, with Grace and Shelby loading collectors as they went. The corry from the other ship kept pace. Pearl Mossman was watching them closely and edging a little nearer.

  "Who's that with you, Grace? I know from the style that it's not Thurgood or Scrimshander."

  "Give me a break." Grace laughed. "Do you see me coming out with Uncle Thurgood? Tar doesn't suit my complexion. This is Shel Cheever. He's our newest crew member."

  "We already met, back at Confluence." Pearl Mossman waved again, this time just for Shelby. "Hi, Shel. Welcome to corry work, the curse of the Cloud. Are you two regular partners?"

  The question sounded as if it were addressed to Shelby, but after the last ten days he wasn't sure of the answer. He turned to Grace. "Are we?"

  "I guess so." They looked at each other.

  "And hoping to find another starfire, I'll bet," said Pearl. She was now no more than ten meters away and edging nearer, close enough to study the smallest changes in facial expression.

  "Could be," Grace admitted, after another glance at Shelby.

  "Well, watc
h your step if you're heading for Ushant Reef."

  "We won't be going anywhere near it."

  "Me neither." The other corry slowly began to drift away from the collection cable. "I'll probably see you two outside again. Good hunting. Say hello to Jilter and Lana. And remind Scrim that he promised to make me look really beautiful when he carves me."

  "We'll tell him." Grace watched the little ship move off into the distance until it was no more than a darker dot against the blue glow. "I think Muv will find that little episode very interesting," she said slowly.

  "I thought you were used to the Southern Cross following you around."

  "Oh, we are. It's not that. It's that Pearl's corry didn't have any sign that it was working. They use machines for almost everything on the Southern Cross, but I didn't see a robot anywhere on board the corry. And you saw the bare floor."

  "She said she was out sightseeing."

  "I know. But harvester people don't go sightseeing during the season—not unless they're working at the same time. And she wasn't."

  "What do you think it means?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine. That's why I want to talk to Muv."

  "Right now?" Shelby's arms were aching, and he wouldn't mind at all if Grace said they had to hurry back instantly to the parent ship.

  "Sure—go home and get skinned by Muv and Uncle Thurgood for stopping halfway through a collection. We'd be sent right out again. Come on, Shel, back to the grind. A hundred kilometers to go." Grace leaned over the cable, leaving Shelby to try to puzzle out for himself what had just happened. Why would Pearl Mossman bring her corry sauntering around their collection system?

  Shelby couldn't think of anything plausible. There was no way that Pearl could hope to steal from their collectors and get away with it.

  Lana Trask, when they returned to the Harvest Moon with their corry loaded to the limit, at first seemed equally puzzled.

  "Sightseeing?" She shook her head at Grace. "That's a new one. I've known Pearl for a long time, and she cares even less for sightseeing than I do."

  "It's what she said. And she sure wasn't working."

  They were eating dinner, and now Lana laid down her knife and stared at the wall. "You know, it could make sense— if something that I heard at Confluence, and didn't believe, turned out to be true."

  "Full holds?" Jilter said quietly.

  "You heard it too?" Lana turned to Grace and Shelby. "No harvester has ever managed to fill the cargo holds by the time it gets to Confluence. Most don't come close until they're almost all the way back to the node. But it's not impossible. And during Confluence Pearl Mossman was going around and hinting that they were so close to full holds that all they needed was a few more days."

  Shelby had no idea what it took to fill a harvester's hold, but his commercial instinct took over with an automatic question. "Wouldn't any ship that filled its holds make straight for the node and head Sol-side with its harvest ahead of the rest? It wouldn't hang around to go looking at Cloud pictures."

  Lana stared at him as though she had never quite seen him before. "Good for you, Shel. You're absolutely right. A full harvester would be out of here with its tail on fire—unless it had other reasons to stick around in the Cloud. Thurgood? You spent a lot of time at the Confluence trading sessions. Any other deals going on for Mossman and Crispin that would make them stay Cloud-side when they had full holds?"

  "Never heard of a one." Thurgood shook his big balding head. "There were side deals involving Dancing Lady and Hope and Glory. And let's see now, I heard some rumors about Sweet Chariot and Coruscation and Once-Over-Lightly. The Southern Cross, though, not a murmur."

  "Which would make sense, if there really was some supersecret deal." Lana picked up her knife. "Well, if there is one it's going to remain a secret. We can't let speculation on what they might be doing affect our own plans. One other thing, though. Would you take a look through the scope, Doobie, and see if the Southern Cross is still sitting on our coattails?"

  Doobie was the fastest eater on the ship and his meal was long gone. He nodded and hustled out.

  Three minutes later he was back. The Southern Cross was still there, but it was at the limit of the range of their scope and was now little more than a silver dot. Assuming that the other harvester had the same viewing equipment on board as the Harvest Moon, the chance of Pearl Mossman gaining useful information about what they were doing was an absolute zero.

  "Which is as it should be, and about time." Uncle Thurgood was the only person who seemed really pleased by the news. "Tunnel and blast 'em, they've spied on us too much already."

  Everyone nodded. But they were more interested in Lana's next question. "Very true, Thurgood. So they're still trailing us, but they're too far away to learn a thing about our harvest. What are they up to?"

  No one could offer an answer.

  The two people who could have provided the answer were not about to do so. Pearl Mossman and Knute Crispin, comfortable in the automated interior of the Southern Cross, were reviewing the situation.

  "Now that I've seen things close up," Pearl said, "I'm even more sure that if it's done at all it has to be with the corry. Unless we're willing to go aboard the Harvest Moon and capture the whole place."

  "Which you're not."

  Pearl shook her head. "I'm not. Too many of them, and only two of us. You couldn't possibly watch all of them while I'm back Sol-side talking to J. P. Cheever. But we may have to take Grace Trask as well as the Cheever kid."

  "No problem. I can easy handle the two of 'em. Did you see any good way of making the grab? Preferably something that could be taken for an accident."

  "I know how to do it if we're willing to sacrifice a couple of our machines."

  "Permanently?"

  "I'm afraid so. Don't worry about that, Knute. Once we trade Cheever you'll never need robots again. You'll have human servants anytime you feel like them. But we'd have to leave the machines behind."

  "You mean, where the Harvest Moon could ask them what happened? That's sounds like a bad idea. The machines would tell 'em how to track us."

  "Not necessarily. Can't you fix it so there's a complete memory wipe of each robot five minutes after its part of the operation is finished? That way the Trasks may guess what we did, but they'll never know for sure from our machines."

  "A timed memory erasure? I can arrange that, no problem. But what's your scheme? Is there any risk to us, or to the Southern Cross?"

  "Not a smidgeon. Not if we wait and time it right." Pearl pulled a blank sheet to where Knute could see what she drew. "Here's the Harvest Moon." She made a small dot in the middle of the page. "And this is that ship's collection system, at its maximum extension." She drew a rough circle centered on the harvester, then shaded a long figure-eight loop far off to the right. "And here are the Portland and Lizard Reefs, and their overlap region."

  "We're nearly two weeks away from them. There's no guarantee that the Harvest Moon will pass that way to reach the node."

  "They've been there coming and going on that route for at least the past three seasons. They've done well so far this year, so I don't see why Lana Trask would change a successful plan. But if they do change, then we'll change, too. Let me tell you the rest of it." Pearl marked the point of the Harvest Moon's collection circle closest to the twin reefs of Portland and Lizard and held her pen steady there. "We wait until Cheever and Grace Trask go out for a harvest collection— we know the look of their corry—and we keep waiting until they've been right around the cable and have come to this point. It's a signal dead spot because of interference from the two reefs. No matter what they send from their suit radios, the transmission will arrive garbled at the Harvest Moon."

  "Where are we, then?" Knute was peering at the diagram. "If we're not careful we'll be in a dead spot, too."

  "We will. I'm counting on it. The Trasks won't know we're anywhere close. But we'll be waiting here." She marked a point even closer to the shaded double loop
of the reefs. "Say, a hundred kilometers beyond the collection circle."

  "Takes energy to stay there." Knute was looking dubious. "We'll feel a strong pull from both reefs."

  "We will—and so will the corry with Cheever in it. The corry won't move toward us or the reefs, of course, because it will be electromagnetically held to a collection cable centered on the Harvest Moon. But that's where our machines come in. We send them here and here"—Pearl marked two other points on the collection circle, one on each side of where Shelby and Grace were assumed to be—"and at the right moment, they sever the cable next to them simultaneously. I don't have to tell you what happens next."

  "The crew of the Harvest Moon go out of their mind, trying to save the severed collection cable." Knute finally seemed happy. "With the reef fields working on it it's going to tie itself up like a ball of string. And the corry comes slingshot out toward the Southern Cross. You said we'd be a hundred kilometers away? It will really be zipping out of there when it gets to us. Think we can catch it?"