But that wasn't all he could imagine.
He supported Grace as she took another couple of steps. "Are you all right?"
She was grunting and cursing under her breath. "I don't hurt, if that's what you mean. But I'm so weak. You'd think I'd been lying around here for months." She released her hold on his arm and carefully stood without help. "When do you propose to go inside Terminal?"
"As soon as I can. As soon as we're docked."
"I was afraid you'd say that. So I've got maybe five hours. Not much, but it will have to do. Leave me alone now." She waved him away impatiently. "I have to get dressed, and then I want to sneak over to get a suit. Whatever you do, don't tell Muv. And no, I don't need more of your help. I'll see you later."
Dismissed, Shelby had no distraction from his own worries. He went wandering off to the forward observation port and stared out. Terminal, the great docking facility where all the harvesters and rakehells came to sell cargo on their return from the Cloud, was no more than a tiny spark of light among the background stars. He sat, watching and thinking, as the spark grew slowly to a blob, to a lopsided disk, and at last to a solid body with its own ports, locks, antennas, and long-armed gantries. He could see two harvesters already docked at Terminal. They must be the Coruscation and The Pride of Dimdee, which had carried Shelby's message back from the Messina Cloud.
Their crews would be inside Terminal.
And who else?
Shelby realized, for the first time in months, that he hardly knew his father at all. Which did nothing to explain why he was so afraid of him.
J. P. Cheever could not have explained Shelby's fear, either, even if he had known of it, any more than he could explain the secret of his own business success. So far as he was concerned he was just the same with Shelby as with anyone else: friendly, curious, interested, and direct. He knew that Shelby had never responded, but that was a different matter.
Given the news that his son had returned from the dead, surely anyone would behave just as he behaved. Drop everything; put trusted subordinates in charge of business with orders to make no major decisions; and commandeer the fastest method of travel from Earth to the Kuiper Belt.
Within thirty-six hours of receiving that astonishing message from The Pride of Dundee, Cheever had learned a surprising amount about harvesters and the Messina Cloud and was making the transition to the Kuiper Belt. Soon after that he had located and was meeting with a co-owner of the Harvest Moon. Mungo Trask was a huge, slow-moving and slow-speaking man who unself-consciously bounced three-year-old Danielle, the youngest of the Trasks, on his knee during the whole conversation and obviously had no thought of handing her over to anyone else to look after while they talked.
The discussion had little to do with Shelby Cheever, beyond the fact that he was J. P. Cheever's son and was now aboard the Harvest Moon. Shelby was not even a name to Mungo. The two men talked technology, harvesters, transuranics, and markets. Cheever had never before been beyond the Moon, but economics was economics. After three hours he understood the harvester business, as he told Mungo, "about enough to make a fool of myself." Then Danielle demanded food. The talk switched to children, and parenting, and the importance of the education that neither of the two men had ever had.
He left Mungo at last and went to watch The Pride of Dundee and the Coruscation unload their cargoes at Terminal. Later he talked his way into tours of the two vessels. He listened to the bargaining in Terminal's huge open market and felt rather than heard the subtle shift in negotiating positions that took place when the Harvest Moon finally came popping through the node.
And then it became harder to concentrate on business. The time he had spent with Mungo Trask had reassured him in one way. Shelby would have been treated decently aboard the Harvest Moon. But how had Shelby behaved? Cheever was under no illusions about his son. A pampered and sheltered childhood on Earth was poor preparation for life in the Messina Cloud—or anywhere else.
He watched the steady approach of the Harvest Moon, not knowing that Shelby in the forward observation port of the harvester was staring right back at Terminal, and he did not move until a safe docking had been achieved. Then he retreated from the staging area where the new arrivals would shed their suits and come aboard. He took up an inconspicuous position on a raised platform far at the back, sitting in the shadows with his short legs swinging free.
There were only three crew members when they finally appeared, one man and two women. J. P. Cheever's first inspection was disappointing. Then he took a second look at the man, who was supporting the younger woman on his arm. He saw past the thin body with its pained and careful invalid's walk to the youthful face.
It was Shelby. Fifty pounds lighter, pale, and apparently ten years older, but undeniably Shelby Cheever. Now his son was staring around him with an uneasy expression on his face.
Time to move. J. P. Cheever slipped off the platform and came up behind the three newcomers as they headed toward the open market.
"Captain Trask?" And, as she turned, "I'm Jerry Cheever. I want to thank you for saving my son's life, and for looking after him." He reached out and squeezed Shelby's arm, but he kept his gaze on Lana Trask's face.
Her reaction provided more reassurance. She did not gasp, or look baffled, or ask questions. She gave him one quick comprehending look, glanced at Shelby, and turned at once to the young girl holding on to his arm. "Grace! You must have been in on this. Who carried the message?"
"The Pride of Dundee."
"I thought as much. You and I will talk about that later."
And then she was turning back to J. P. Cheever, smiling, and saying, "Shel was an asset, not a liability. Any time he wants a crew position on the Harvest Moon, he has one."
"Glad to hear that. I must say I did wonder."
"But I thought you lived on Earth."
"I do."
"So how were you able to get here so quickly? The Pride of Dundee hasn't been Sol-side more than two days."
"I greased Emigration a little. And I took over the transportation system and the node network for a while."
Grace's hand tightened on Shelby's arm. His father's words were casual, but they implied the possession of enormous wealth. Shelby had told the truth about his background; and Lana Trask must realize now how wrong she had been.
But Grace was disappointed at her mother's reaction. You would never know from Lana Trask's face or voice what she was thinking. She merely nodded at J. P. Cheever and said, "You must want to spend time with your son. And I ought to go and see how my husband and other daughter are doing."
"They're both fine. Danielle is a beautiful little girl."
That produced at least a raised eyebrow from Lana. Shelby knew the feeling. He had been studying his father closely, and he noticed that J. P. Cheever was shorter than he remembered him. His father was quite a little man. He realized that it had never been the height or size or manner that was intimidating. It was J. P. Cheever's habit of always knowing a little more about everything than he could possibly know.
Lana did not ask questions. She merely moved Grace's hand from Shelby's arm to her own and said, "Maybe you two will join us for dinner? It's a tradition for the crew to get together and celebrate on the first night Sol-side. Shelby is a full-fledged crew member, of course, as much as me or Grace, and you will be very welcome, too."
"I'd be honored." Cheever stared at Grace with considerable curiosity, but he did not move or speak until he and Shelby were alone. Then he took his son by the shoulders and gave him a long and silent head-to-toe scrutiny. "What the devil did you and Grace Trask do to yourselves? She looks like she can hardly walk."
"Nothing much. We threaded the eye of the Portland Reef." Shelby spoke with some pride, then saw that his father had no idea what he meant. "How's—how's Mother?"
"She's fine. Really looking forward to seeing you." J. P. Cheever shook his head. "But no matter what I said, I couldn't talk her into coming out through the node network
with me. For the past three months she's regarded it as the monstrous scientific construct that killed her son. She's blamed everybody from me to the ship's crew to the people who built the node. I don't suppose you'd like to tell me what prompted you to make a node transition from the Bellatrix alone, and without adequate preparation?"
For the first time in his life, Shelby met his father eye to eye. "I was falling-down drunk. Everything that happened that day was my own stupid fault, and no one else's. Don't tell Mother, though."
"I wasn't planning to," J. P. Cheever said dryly. He grimaced, less the captain of Earth industry than the perplexed husband of Constance Cheever. "I'll keep quiet about the drinking, provided you don't go telling your mother that you got hurt in the Messina Cloud."
"Deal."
"You can tell me, though, anything you feel like." Cheever led the way through the Terminal, to the simple suite of rooms that he had reserved for him and Shelby. "For instance, what's the Portland Reef, and what's it mean to thread the eye? Mungo Trask never got to that."
Shelby settled down opposite his father and started to talk. He didn't intend to say much, but J. P. Cheever had the strange knack of drawing someone on and drawing him out, while barely saying a word himself. Before Shelby was finished he had rambled on about everything. He talked of waking hungover in the Messina Cloud with Logan, and how there were similar smart machines used everywhere but on Earth. He explained harvesting, and how he and Grace had met a sounder between the Portland and Lizard Reefs, and gained a Cauthen starfire and a mass of shwartzgeld. How they had later met the same sounder, lost the starfire, but escaped with their own lives. And how, when those lives again seemed lost, Lucky Jack Linden had steered them through the deadly eye of the reef.
"Except, like I said, he's Scrimshander Limes again now," Shelby explained. "You'll meet him tonight, him and Uncle Thurgood. They're a turn together you shouldn't miss."
"I'm looking forward to it." J.P. had absorbed every word, and he understood more than his son imagined. "Sounds like you really enjoyed yourself on the Harvest Moon."
"Not at first."
"But you'd go back?"
"Any time." Shelby's voice filled with enthusiasm. "It's where the future is. Lana Trask says we don't know one-tenth of what there is to learn in the Cloud. The sounders apparently have some form of inertialess drive. It permits unlimited acceleration, without any of the physical effects of a high-gee—"
"Whoa. You've lost me. Remember, you're talking to someone whose science education stopped when he left school and ran away at thirteen."
"You ran away?" Shelby stared at his father.
"Tell you about it some other time. Don't let it give you ideas. Anyway, the drive?"
"It's something that apparently people have talked about for centuries. But it won't be developed on Earth, because there's no particular use for it there. It's a tool for deep space. And the people in the Belt and the Cloud simply don't have enough development capital. You know, if you were just to take part of Cheever Consolidated Enterprises and move it to the Kuiper Belt and out to the Messina Cloud, there's no limit to what might be done."
"Could be. Who's been getting to you? Lana Trask or Grace? Both of them, I guess. Son, how old do you think I am?"
"Huh?" Shelby, lost in his own enthusiasm, stared at his father. "How old you are? I don't know. Fifty-five?"
"I'm seventy-three. I'm in good shape—for my age—but it's too late for a dog like me to learn new tricks. It's all I can do to keep on top of things on Earth. Space belongs to the Trasks, and to all the other miners and harvesters. They are earning the rights to it with every voyage and every kilo of metal and transuranics that's shipped down to Earth." He glanced casually away from Shelby. "But we owe Lana and the rest of your crew a great deal. I was just wondering how I can repay them. I can give them cash, of course. But how much?"
He saw from the corner of his eye the change in Shelby's face and heard the anguished "Not money! For God's sake don't offer them money. Especially not Captain Lana."
It was, to J. P. Cheever, a highly satisfying answer. "You think not?" he said. "All right, then, no money. What would you suggest?"
"We-e-ll. I have an idea for one of them." Shelby could finally ask a question that had plagued him since his first meeting with Doobie and Grace. "J.P.—"
"I'd prefer Dad."
"Uh—yeah. All right. Dad"—the change came out awkwardly—"I know I'm rich. But just how much money do I have?"
"Total? I have no idea. It would take the accountants a while to value your assets. And most of them aren't liquid, so you couldn't easily spend them. Why do you ask?"
"I wondered, could I buy a harvester if I wanted to?"
"I'm sure you could. You have enough ready money for that." J. P. Cheever was on solid ground with this one. He had been over the economics of Cloud harvesting with Mungo. "Haifa dozen of them, if you felt that way inclined. Are you considering it?"
"No. But I was thinking of buying a Cauthen starfire. For Grace. She lost hers, like I said, when we left the South-em Cross. It was the most precious thing in the world to her, and if I got her a replacement . . . What's wrong?"
J.P. Cheever could not see his own face, but he suspected that it had taken on the same look of distress with which Shelby had greeted the proposal of a cash reward to Lana Trask.
"Your money is your own, son. It's not my job to tell you how to spend it. But if you'll listen to a word of advice, I don't think you ought to buy Grace Trask a starfire."
"Why not?"
"Think about it. The two of you have a great adventure together, and you win a starfire. It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to her. Even if she does lose it, she'll always remember the thrill of how she got it. Then you come along, and you say, Hey, Gracie, you lost your starfire? No big deal, not for rich-boy Shelby. Here's another one I just bought for you—and I'll get you two or three more like that if you want 'em."
Looking at Shelby, J.P. Cheever realized that while he might not have known the son that he had lost very well, he certainly didn't yet know the one who had come back to him. He had gone on for far too long. Shelby had seen the point and looked stricken even before his father started to answer.
"What, then?" Shelby asked. "I'd like to give Grace and Lana and the rest of them something, and so would you. But what?"
"We'll have to stew on that. Mungo Trask gave me an idea or two, but I have to fit it in with some other plans." J. P. Cheever put his hand on Shelby's shoulder. "Let's sit awhile and talk about what you want to do next."
But Shelby was glancing at a clock on the wall. "It'll have to be later. I didn't realize we'd been sitting here talking so long. My fault—I've been babbling. But the final cargo tally for the Harvest Moon will be starting any minute, and I have to be there."
"The others can't do it without you?"
"Not so well." Shelby stood a little straighter, put one hand in his pocket, and stuck out his belly. It didn't work as well as it had once, because there was really no belly to push out. "I'm the best tallier on the ship. Even Uncle Thurgood says so, says I have a natural talent."
"Better get to it, then," J. P. Cheever said gravely. He had caught that faint reflection of the earlier Shelby. "Work is work. But I'd like to watch for a while. Come on, and we can talk as we go. Then I want another word or two with Lana and Mungo Trask."
The first dinner Sol-side, according to Grace Trask, was always a fun occasion. Everyone let his or her hair down and there were no rules.
So was it Shelby who was ruining everything, or his father, or something else? All he could be sure of was that the atmosphere while they ate wasn't relaxed at all. It was positively grim. Uncle Thurgood didn't bully Scrimshander once. He didn't rise to the bait when Doobie started to talk about "tar-farming" in the Messina Cloud. All he did was gloom over his food and scowl at J. P. Cheever. At the earliest possible moment he excused himself and dragged Scrimshander away with him.
; After he was gone, Lana Trask stared accusingly around the table. "All right. Who did it, and what was it?"
Jilter merely shook his head. Doobie said, "I haven't spoken one word to Uncle Thurgood, or to Scrimshander, since we finished tallying," and Shelby nodded agreement.
"Grace?" Lana turned to her daughter.
"I talked to him, sure I did. Just before dinner." Grace's face displayed bewilderment, but no trace of guilt. "He ought to have been pleased with what I told him."
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