The Billion Dollar Boy

by Charles Sheffield

  Lana Trask was sitting by the bedside. She was examining the output from the telemetry sensors festooned about Grace's head and trunk and tenderly adjusting the IVs connected to her daughter's thin arms. She glanced up as Thurgood entered, tiptoeing silently in spite of the weight that he was carrying.

  He nodded to her.

  "Shel's doing fine." He spoke in a whisper, as though Shelby could neither hear him nor speak for himself. "Scrimshander, too." He gently lowered the bed so that Shelby lay on the other side of Lana from Grace. Thurgood said nothing more, but his face asked the question.

  "Internal hemorrhaging has stopped." Lana's own cheeks were almost as pale as Grace's. "But she's lost an awful lot of blood. I'm giving her stored plasma, but she needs another transfusion. We're running out of her type."

  "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I'll be glad to—"

  "Wrong blood type, Thurgood. We all are. She's type O. Everyone else on board is A, B, or AB. A transfusion from any of us would kill Grace."

  "I'm blood type O!" Even if Shelby had remembered Thurgood's order to remain silent, he would have ignored it. "You can take my blood, as much of it as you need."

  This time it was Lana Trask's face that asked Thurgood Trask the silent question.

  "Dislocations and sprains. No hemorrhaging." Thurgood stood and pondered. At last he nodded. "We could do it." He turned to Shelby. "But you have to understand what you're offering. There's some danger to you if you give blood in your condition, and it will definitely slow your own recovery."

  "I don't care." Shelby forced himself to turn his aching head toward Lana and Grace. "Who cares how long it takes me to get better? I'm not going anywhere. Do it. I'm ready right now."

  Thurgood was already moving toward the medical supply cabinets. He paused there with the transfusion equipment in his hands. "Are you absolutely sure of your own blood group?"

  "I'm sure. Get a move on!"

  "But if you're not type O—"

  "Shelby is right, Thurgood." Lana was over by Grace's side, examining the monitors again. "We can't afford to wait for another second. I'll take all responsibility for this, whatever happens."

  Lana's tone more than her words told Shelby just how close Grace was to death. He hardly felt the needle go into his own arm, but he saw the thin stream of red, curiously dark, as it moved along the tube of transparent plastic. He watched as Lana attached it carefully to the IV in Grace's arm.

  And then came the anticlimax. For minute after minute, absolutely nothing seemed to happen. The blood flowed on, milliliter by milliliter, with only the faint click of a flowmeter to tell him that anything was moving from his body to hers. Grace remained as pale and lifeless as ever.

  Even Thurgood was reduced to silence, his eyes fixed on the monitors, until at last he shook his head and muttered, "All so totally pointless. What the devil did they think they were doing? Cutting our cable like that, when if they had full holds they could just have ignored us and headed straight for the node and been first Sol-side."

  For the first time, Shelby realized that no one on the Harvest Moon had any real idea what had happened. He, Grace, and Scrimshander were the only ones who knew, and two of the three were unconscious. Scrimshander might have sent any number of messages from the corry while Shelby himself was doped with painkillers, but since they were in a communications blind spot for that whole period no one would have received them.

  "It had nothing to do with transuranics and full holds," he said. "It was a kidnap attempt. And it almost worked."

  Speaking in no more than a whisper, Shelby told everything that had happened from the moment that the collection cable was cut and he and Grace went flying off toward the reefs. He told of the mysterious appearance of the sounder, and the final fate of Pearl Mossman and Knute Crispin. And he explained how, when he and Grace seemed doomed to die, Scrimshander against all the odds had followed them, found them, and rescued them.

  "We would have died, too," he concluded, "if Knute Crispin hadn't taken the Cauthen starfire from Grace. It was his own greed that killed him."

  "Or may have killed him," Lana said. And, when both Thurgood and Shelby frowned at her in perplexity, "What you've just told me might explain something very strange. When you were lost I sent out calls to the other harvesters in the area, telling them that our cable had been cut and we had lost a corry. I asked them to keep a watch and to listen for any possible messages from you. Of course, they didn't hear or see anything. But a few hours ago I had a call back from the Dancing Lady, confirmed later by the Balaclava, They'd heard nothing from a corry, but making an all-frequency sweep they had both picked up a distress call from a harvester. It was Pearl Mossman—alive. She had some odd and garbled story that the Southern Cross had been swallowed up by a sounder. The strangest part, though, wasn't the message itself, it was the frequency that the other ships received it on. It was far lower than the standard frequency for distress calls. If that frequency change was caused by a Doppler shift, then when the message was sent the Southern Cross was traveling away at eighty percent of light speed."

  "Impossible," Thurgood Trask grunted. "If Pearl Mossman had accelerated to that speed in such a short time, she wouldn't be talking. She'd be flattened to a thin smear. It takes a full year at one-gee acceleration to reach eighty percent of the speed of light."

  "It does." Lana Trask had been studying Shelby's face, and now she stood up and cut off the flow of blood from Shelby to Grace. "I don't think we ought to take any more for the moment. But I wonder, Thurgood, if the sounders know something that we don't."

  "An inertialess method for acceleration?" Thurgood shook his head. "Hmph. Fat chance. I've heard talk of that since I was Doobie's age, and I'll believe it when I see it."

  "Maybe you saw it today. We'll have to go into this in detail with the other ships when we're all back Sol-side." But Lana did not continue, because she had heard a sound from behind her. She swung around. "Grace? Grace, love, can you hear me?"

  The pale lips moved. Grace uttered something between a faint sigh and a moan. Shelby, turning his head with effort in that direction, imagined he could see a touch more color in the waxen cheeks. As he watched, the long eyelashes fluttered.

  Thurgood Trask gave a snort of excitement. "Come on, girl," he muttered. "That's the stuff. A little bit more."

  Grace's eyes were still closed, but she was turning her head. As she did so she winced with pain. Shelby realized that in addition to her internal injuries she must have suffered the same agonizing stretches and sprains that he had.

  Her eyes were opening, to thin slits that showed a gleam of blue iris. She was looking right at him. He was convinced of it.

  "Grace? Grace, can you hear me?" He tried to lean toward her. "We made it, Grace. We're home. We're on board the Harvest Moon."

  Now he was sure that she was awake. Her eyes had opened farther. But as he watched he saw a tear form, run down to the corner of her eye, and trickle onto her cheek.

  "Grace, don't cry." He tried to reach over to her, but the pain in his arms and shoulders was too much. "You're home now. Muv's here, and so's Uncle Thurgood. Everyone's here. Everything is going to be all right." He had a new unpleasant thought. "Is it the pain? I know, it's awful. Just wait a minute and you'll have something for it. Grace, please don't cry."

  She was trying to shake her head, but all she could manage was a millimeter of movement from side to side. "It's not that." Her voice was the faintest whisper. "It's not the pain."

  "What is it, then? Scrim? He's all right, and so am I."

  "Good. But Shel"—a tear welled up in the other eye, and slid across the bridge of Grace's nose—"it isn't that. Shel, I'm so sad. I lost my beautiful starfire."

  Chapter Fifteen

  FOR almost a week the Harvest Moon had flown steadily toward the node. On the sixth day, when Grace felt well enough to talk, Shelby learned for the first time what she had known for days without being told. "Half our usual acceleration, at the most,
" she said. Shelby's bed remained where Thurgood Trask had put it down, alongside hers. "You ought to go flat out at this stage of the game if you have the fuel. And we have plenty of cumes."

  "So why?" Shelby was feeling good enough to try to get up, but Grace was nowhere near that point and a sense of guilt had kept him in bed. "Why are we dawdling along instead of flying?"

  "Because of us two. So we won't hurt. Or I won't. I don't think you're hurting much now, judging from the way you keep wiggling about."

  "But that's terrible. Suppose the Harvest Moon loses because of us?"

  "Then we lose." Grace was oddly matter-of-fact. "It's not a big deal, financially. We'll be in at the top of the market, even if we're a day or two behind the first ship through the node. You won't lose even half a percent of your share."

  "I thought it was a big deal about being first through. Everybody talks about it all the time."

  "Psychological. It shows who's the Cloud's top sniffer."

  Shelby felt a new and different guilt. "It's my fault, you know. Your mother's the best. She should have won."

  "There's no question of it being your fault, or my fault, or anybody's fault except Pearl Mossman and Knute Crispin. Everyone in the fleet knows what the Southern Cross did, and they'll understand if we're not first through."

  "If I hadn't insisted on going out so we could take another look at the reefs, none of this would have happened. And you'd still have your starfire."

  "You don't know that. If Pearl was out to get you, my bet is she'd have found a way."

  "She might not. And if I hadn't dragged you outside the ship when the sounder was closing in, you wouldn't have nearly been killed."

  "Rubbish." Grace was well enough to argue, and that was a good sign. "If you hadn't dragged me outside, the sounder would have swallowed us along with Pearl and Knute."

  "It didn't harm them. Uncle Thurgood listened to their message. He said they sounded scared, but they were all right."

  "Sure. Define all right. For a start, tell me where they are. Nobody's heard a word from them since that distress call, and it's been six days. If we'd stayed with the Southern Cross we might be dead. Or alive but a hundred light-years away, with no chance of ever getting back. Jilter is convinced that the sounders exploit some sort of space-time singularities before and after they sound. That's why they seem to come from nowhere, and why they just disappear afterward and you can't find them. I wish we had their trick of inertialess acceleration, though. We could do with it right now."

  Shelby sat up suddenly in bed, wincing at the stabbing pains along his back and in his hips. "How do you feel?"

  "Compared to what?"

  "Don't get smart. I mean, suppose I went along to your mother and said we were feeling well enough to take a higher acceleration for a run to the node. Would you be able to stand the extra weight?"

  "Maybe. First, you prove to me that you can walk to see Muv. Then I'll give you an answer."

  He had gone too far to back out. Shelby eased himself out of bed and balanced himself on legs that felt like someone else's. He took two careful, painful steps, holding the side of the bed.

  Grace giggled, and he glared at her. "I don't see anything funny."

  "You're not lying where I am. You're all bent and wobbly, like your own grandfather."

  "Wait 'til you get out of bed, before you laugh too hard." Shelby released his support hold on the bed and gradually forced himself to an upright position. "Well? I'm up, and I'm walking. Can you stand a higher acceleration?"

  "Of course I can. I'm healing fast."

  "You'd better be." Shelby took another tottering step. "You're not getting any more of my blood, you know, not even if the acceleration tears your stitches and splits you wide open."

  Grace giggled again, which spoiled the effect of his words. Shelby left the medical center with all the dignity that he could manage and headed for the control room. Once he was in the corridor he didn't have to show off for Grace's benefit, and he shuffled along stiff-legged and with tiny steps.

  Lana Trask was not in the ship's control room, but Jilter was. He listened to Shelby for about five seconds and shook his head.

  "Forget it. Lana will say no."

  "But we could lose the race to be first Sol-side."

  "No we couldn't. We already did. The Pride of Dundee and the Coruscation will hit the node tomorrow. We'll be third when we go Sol-side two days after that. No one else is even close. Speeding up now won't change anything."

  Sol-side. The realm of J. P. Cheever and Cheever Consolidated Enterprises. Shelby felt a moment's temptation to tell Jilter that it would be all right, that he and his father would make up for any financial loss suffered by the crew of the Harvest Moon since they were not first through.

  Then he decided not to—and not because he wouldn't be believed. He had had another thought. He made his way back to Grace as fast as his stranger's legs would carry him.

  "I failed," he said. "We won't be increasing acceleration."

  She visibly relaxed.

  "But I need your help," he went on. "Jilter says that The Pride of Dundee will pass through the node tomorrow and go Sol-side. You told me that on the voyages when the Harvest Moon was first through, other harvesters would ask you to carry messages for them back to the solar system."

  "That's right. There's a rule, though: good news only. Nothing about death, nothing about trouble—and nothing that might have commercial value."

  "That's all right. This is good news. But I don't know how to send it to The Pride of Dundee."

  "Jilter would have helped you. Or Muv. Anyone would."

  "I know. But I want this to be a surprise for them."

  Grace stared at him. "I shouldn't," she said at last. "But I can't resist it. Make me one promise, and I'll tell you how to send a message so The Pride of Dundee gets it and no one here but you and I knows it's been sent."

  "What's the promise?"

  Grace grinned, the first full-fledged and genuine grin since she had lost the Cauthen starfire. "Just make sure that I'm there when it happens, even if you have to carry me. I want to see Muv's face."

  Chapter Sixteen

  SHELBY wouldn't believe it until he experienced it for himself. His memory of the last time was too vivid. He tensed as the moment of the transition approached.

  "Relax." Grace was still in bed, but she was sitting up and very cheerful. "I'm telling you, it will be all right."

  "But I remember going through the node from Sol-side when I first came to the Cloud. My whole body was twisted and pulled. I thought I was coming apart. If that happens now, it will kill you."

  "You think Muv would take the ship through if she thought there was any chance that it might hurt us? I'm telling you, Shel, it's all in the mind."

  Shelby stared at the screen that Uncle Thurgood had set up at the foot of Grace's bed. He was unpersuaded. The pearly glow of the node entrance was only a few kilometers away, and he was not keen to go closer. The Harvest Moon had paused in its approach, performing some delicate and precise matching of position and velocity.

  And then the hesitation was over. The harvester was moving again, heading right into the shimmering hiatus of the node. Shelby tensed and held his breath, waiting for a twisting and tearing that would send agony through his still-bruised joints.

  The forces came. He was being pulled in every direction. And it didn't hurt a bit.

  Grace was right. The discomfort of passage through the node network was all in the mind. He allowed himself to breathe, and in that same instant the disk of Sol, shrunken and far-off, popped into existence on the viewing screen.

  "Yeh!" Grace waved her arm, free of its last IVs. "Hi there, Sun. We're home again."

  Shelby sought, and failed to find, any sign of Earth next to the Sun. He knew that it was much too small and dim to see, but he had to look anyway. "How long 'til we reach Terminal?"

  "About four hours. It was built close to the node on purpose." Grace pushed back
the covers.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm getting up." She was easing her legs over toward the side of the bed. "And you're going to help me."

  "You're not supposed to do that. You're too weak." But he obeyed her gesture, and went to stand next to her and support her.

  "We'll see how weak I am. Be reasonable, Shel. Look at it from my point of view. You'll be heading over to Terminal, and so will Muv and Doobie and Jilter. That's where all the action is. You think I'm going to sit here and fester, while you're off having fun? I intend to be there, no matter what."

  He allowed her to rest her weight on his arm as she slowly took a first hesitant step. Off having fun? He was not so sure of that. It had seemed such a brilliant idea to send a message back to Earth via The Pride of Dundee, announcing that Shelby Cheever was alive and well and would be arriving at the Terminal in the Kuiper Belt in two days' time, aboard the Harvest Moon. He could imagine Cheever Enterprises taking over the whole Terminal, and the harvester crews' amazement when they learned that all Shelby's stories were nothing more than the exact truth.