“Loud and clear, Captain,” said Stan. “What do you have to report?”
“We spotted some debris in orbit near us,” Hoban said. “Upon further inspection, I have found the wreck of a space freighter, just as you predicted. It's broken into several pieces, but there's a main section that could even contain human life. I doubt that'll be the case, however. This wreck looks like it's been there a long time.”
“Do you have any identification on it yet?” Stan asked.
“I've sent two men over to check it out,” Hoban said. “With a little luck well pick up a flight recorder and find out what happened.”
“Contact me as soon as you have it,” Stan said. That could be very important information.”
“I'm well aware of that, sir. I'll let you know first thing. Sir, ship's telemetry and remote survey equipment tells me you've put down the lander on potentially unstable ground.”
“Everything around here is unstable,” Stan said. “Except for the rock outcropping the hive stands on. You wouldn't want me to put down right beside the hive, would you, Captain?”
“Of course not, sir. I was just pointing out…”
“I know, I know,” Stan snapped. He took a deep breath and tried to get control of himself. He was getting weird flashes now from the drug. It seemed to be taking him on an elevator ride; one second his mood was up, the next minute down. And too soon, the pain was coming back. Take it easy, he told himself.
Still, his breath sobbed in his throat as he said, “I'm going to sign off now, Captain. We have to wait until the storm calms down before we can carry out the next step. I will use that time to get a little rest.”
“Yes, sir. Over and out.”
Captain Hoban's face faded from the screen. Stan closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Julie and Gill were both standing nearby, watching him. Stan felt a sudden shame at his own weakness, and at the pain that was mounting in intensity throughout his throat and chest. At a moment like this the only thing he could think of was the next ampoule of Xeno-Zip, nested in its padded box with the few others he had brought along.
He shook his head irritably. It was too early for another ampoule. He hadn't planned to take one just yet, he didn't know what it would do to him, but the pains were getting very bad, perhaps even affecting his judgment.
“I'll see you both later,” Stan said. Even before they turned to leave the control room, Stan's fingers were at the table drawer where he kept the box of royal jelly ampoules.
32
Julie and Gill returned to the aftercabin. They were alone except for Norbert, who stood silently against the curving wall like a futuristic basilisk, with Mac the dog asleep in his arms.
“Well, Gill,” Julie said, “what do you think of all this?”
Gill looked up from his inspection of the armament they had brought. His expression was mild, quizzical. “To what, specifically, do you refer?”
“Stan and his mad trip for royal jelly. This planet. Me.”
Gill took his time before answering. “I do not ask myself that sort of question, Miss Lish. And if I did…”
“Yes?”
“If I did, my conclusions would have no value. I am not like you humans. I am a synthetic.”
“How do you differ from real people?”
Gill looked disturbed, but managed to smile. “No soul, for one thing. Or so they say.”
“And for another?”
“No feelings.”
“None at all, Gill? Yet you look like a man.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
“Don't you even find me attractive?” Julie asked.
Again there was a long pause. Then Gill said, “There is an old saying of your people. 'Let sleeping dogs lie.' I would advise that here.”
“Why is that?”
“Because synthetic people with feelings are something the human race wants no part of.”
“That must be some other race,” Julie said. “Maybe I'm not part of it. I wouldn't mind it at all if you had feelings. You could tell me about yours and I'd tell you about mine.”
“Our feelings would be nothing alike,” Gill said.
“Are you so sure?” Julie said. “Sometimes I've felt that I've been set up to follow some program written by someone else. 'The Beautiful Thief,' this one is called. I sometimes wish I could just rewrite my programming. Do you ever wish that?”
“Yes,” Gill said. “I know what you mean.” Then he shook his head irritably. “Excuse me, Miss Lish, but I must go finish checking out these weapons. Dr. Myakovsky is going to need us at any time.”
“Do what you have to do,” Julie said. She walked away, and Gill watched her go.
33
Starlight glittered on his space armor as Red Badger left the Dolomite's air lock and soared weightlessly toward the freighter wreck. Behind him came his backup man, Glint, illuminating the wreck with a powerful duolite beam.
Badger gestured, though their destination was plain enough: the gray mass of the wreck, tying in several distinct parts, blocking the stars.
Getting there was simple: both men, on a signal from Badger, opened squirt cans that propelled them across the intervening space.
Badger said into his helmet radio, “You reading me okay, Glint?”
“Loud and clear,” Glint said.
They landed on the hulk's largest section with a clank of magnetic boots. Badger's power wrench opened the airtight door that led into the ship.
A lot of the freighter's metal covering had been peeled back by strong explosions. It was no trouble at all, once they were past the external armor, to slip in between two structural girders and make their way to the interior.
The searchlight picked out the bodies of men, trapped in the sudden inrushing vacuum when the ship's side had been pierced. Exploded bodies lay across girders and floated unsupported in the zero gravity.
Badger and Glint moved slowly, clumsy in their airtight space armor, their searchlights throwing brilliant swords of light through the gloom. A corpse, hanging over a loop of high-pressure hose, seemed to reach out and touch Badger's helmet, lightly, as if just saying hello….
The redheaded spaceman laughed and pushed the thing aside. The body floated slowly across the shattered compartment, its arms held out loosely in front of it like a swimmer doing the dead man's float.
They reached the flight deck. Here there were more bodies, some terribly mangled by the pieces of flying machinery that had taken on the power of exploding shrapnel as the ship had come apart, others looking strangely peaceful, as if they'd never known what hit them. Death had had a busy few moments here before the eternal silence of space had entombed them all.
“Here's the control section,” Glint said over the little space-helmet radio that connected the two men.
“Good enough,” said Badger. “Let's find what we came for and get the hell out of here.”
They floated past an operations console that looked as good as new. The ship's name was still stenciled on the bulkhead, and the paint looked almost new.
”Valparaiso Queen,” Glint spelled out. “She won't be going Earthside no more.”
“Tough luck for her,” Badger said, his tone flat and unemotional. “Here's what we're looking for.”
Under the command console was a panel with three fingertip-sized indentations. Badger pressed them in counterclockwise order, starting at twelve o'clock. The panel slid away. Badger directed Glint to shine the searchlight inside. Using wire cutters from the tool kit strapped to his waist, Badger cut the leads inside and withdrew a small heavy box made of a metalized plastic substance.
“This is what we came for. Now let's get out of here.”
34
Back aboard the Dolomite, Badger and Glint passed through the air lock and removed their suits. Glint started walking toward the elevator that led to the ship's command territory. He stopped when he saw that Badger was not following him.
“What's up, Red? Aren't we go
ing to give this to the captain?”
“Of course we are,” Badger said. “But not just yet.” He led the way down a passageway to a door marked WORKSHOP D — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Glint followed him.
“What're you doin'?” Glint asked. “You going to fix that gizmo?”
Badger stopped and looked scornful. “You really are some kind of a moron. No, I'm not going to fix the gizmo. Why do you think I volunteered us for this job?”
“I was wondering about that,” Glint said.
“I want to get a look at what's on this flight recorder before I give it to the captain. Fat chance Hoban would ever tell us.”
Glint looked admiringly at his partner, then hurried to catch up as Badger pressed the stud that operated the door to Workshop D.
35
The lander was too small to have separate staterooms. There was a cubbyhole in the rear with a deceleration couch that pulled down from the wall. Stan had lain down there. When Julie came in he was asleep, his glasses still on, his round face momentarily untroubled. Julie bent over to shake him, then hesitated. Stan looked so peaceful there. His large face was calm, and quiet handsome. She noticed what long eyelashes he had, and what delicate skin, fine-pored like a young boy's.
The most recent ingestion of Xeno-Zip had taken Stan's spirit far away, into the limitless perspectives that were the psychic environment of the drug. He was traveling through a place of pure light and color, and he smiled at the friendly shapes around him.
Julie stared at him almost in awe. She knew that Stan was moving down the visionary trail in some impossible dreamtime, walking down a hall of memory filled with all the images of everything that had ever been or would be. And these images were melting like wax in the warmth of the soul's embrace. Stan was a sorcerer forcing time itself to stand still and be accountable to the moment. He had found eternity in an instant, and he was balancing it on a needlepoint. He was in his own time now, a time that had no duration and no limit. He was in a place she could never get to. But, she wondered, out here in the world of solid objects and fiery forces, how much time did he have left? How much time was at Julie's disposal, for that matter? Could Stan see their time lines in that strange place where he was?
“Stan,” she whispered to him, “what are you dreaming about? Am I in the dream with you? Are we happy?”
Stan mumbled something but she couldn't catch the words. She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. His eyes snapped open, as if he had been waiting for this signal. She watched his face tense as pain returned to his consciousness. Then he had himself under control and said, “Julie … What is it?”
“Captain Hoban wants to speak to you again. He's pulled a flight recorder from that wreck.”
“Okay, fine.” Stan sat up, then got somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Julie's slender, hard arm was around him, supporting him, her warm fragrant hair was at his shoulder, and he breathed her fragrance gratefully.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Hey, don't mention it. We're a team, aren't we?”
He looked at her. Her eyes were enormous, brilliant, with dark pools at the center. He felt himself melting into them. A wave of emotion came over him.
“Julie …”
“Yes, Stan, what is it?”
“If you're doing this for my sake … please don't stop.”
36
The voices on the flight recorder were very clear.
“What ship is that?”
”This is the Valparaiso Queen, Captain Kuhn commanding, thirty-seven days out of Santiago de Chile. To whom am I speaking?”
”This is Potter of the Bio-Pharm ship Lancet. Do you realize you are trespassing?”
”I think you exaggerate, Captain. There's no trace of your claim in the recent issues of StarSwap.”
“We haven't chosen to go public with it just yet. But there are electronic warnings posted at the beginning of the quadrant. Surely you intercepted those warnings?”
“Oh, those!” Captain Kuhn laughed. “An electronic warning hardly constitutes a legal claim! No, Captain Potter, unless you publish your intent with the federal Department of Interplanetary Claims, it can't be said to exist. I have as much right here as you.”
Potter's voice was low, and hoarse with menace. “Captain Kuhn, I am a man of little patience. You have already used up my entire store. You have about one second to go into retrofire and get your ship out of there.”
Kuhn replied, “I do not take kindly to peremptory orders, Captain, especially from one who has no legal right to give them. I will leave this vicinity in my own time, when I'm good and ready. And you may be sure I will file a complaint with InterBureau over your attitude.”
“You will have more to complain about than an attitude, Captain Kuhn, but I doubt you will ever file that report.”
“Do not try to intimidate me!”
“The time for words is past. The torpedo that puts paid to your pretensions is now coming toward you at a speed well below that of light, but fast enough, I think you'll find.”
“Torpedo? How dare you, sir! Number two! Full power to the screens! Take evasive action!”
And then Badger had to turn down the volume as the recorded sound of the explosion shook the walls of Workshop D.
37
“What's the latest on the storm?” Stan asked.
Gill looked up, his long melancholy face half in a green glow from the ready lights on his control panel. On the screen above him, data waves danced in long wavering lines, the numbers changing with a rapidity that would defy the computational abilities of any but a synthetic man with a math coprocessor built into his positronic brain. Gill was such a man, and his computational abilities were enhanced by the rock-steadiness of his mind, which was not subject to the neurotic claims of love, duly, family, or country. Yet he was not completely emotionless. It had been found that intelligence of the highest order presupposes and is built upon certain fundamental emotional bases, of which the desire to survive and continue is the most fundamental of all. The designers of artificial men would have liked to have stopped there. But the uncertain nature of the materials they were using — in which minute differences in atomic structures eventually spelled big differences in output, as well as the inherent instability of colloidal structures — made this impossible. Gill was standard within his design parameters, but those parameters expressed only one part of him.
“The storm is abating,” Gill said. “There's been a twenty-percent diminution in the last half hour. Given the conditions here, I think that's about the best we're going to get. In fact, it's apt to get a lot worse before it gets better.”
“Then let's get on with it,” Stan said. He turned to Norbert, the big robot alien, who still crouched patiently in a corner of the lander. Mac the dog, growing impatient, whined to be put down, and Norbert obliged. The dog investigated the corners of the little lander and, finding nothing of interest, returned to curl up at Norbert's taloned feet.
“You ready, Norbert?”
“Of course, Dr. Myakovsky. Being robotic, I am always ready.”
“And Mac?”
“He is a dog, and so he is always ready, too.”
Stan laughed, and remarked to Julie, “I wish now I'd had more time to talk with Norbert. His horrible appearance belies his keen intelligence.”
“You are responsible for my appearance, Dr. Myakovsky,” Norbert said.
“I think you're beautiful,” Stan said. “Don't you think so, Julie?”
“I think you're both pretty cute,” she said.
38
In the forward cabin of the lander, the five volunteer crew members were sitting as comfortably as they were able in the cramped confines. Morrison, big and blond, an Iowa farmboy, had unwrapped an energy bar and was nibbling at it. Beside him, Skysky, fat and balding with a walrus mustache, decided to eat an energy bar of his own and fumbled it out of his pocket. Eka Nu, a flat-faced Burmese with skin a shade lighter than burned umber,
was mumbling over the wooden beads of his Buddhist rosary. Styson, his long face as mournful as ever, was playing his harmonica, monotonously repeating one phrase over and over. And Larrimer, a city boy from New York's south Bronx, was doing nothing at all except licking his dry lips and brushing his long lank hair out of his eyes.
They had been excited when they volunteered. It was a chance for some action, after the confines of the ship. They'd heard stories about the aliens, of course, but none of them had seen one. They hadn't even been born at the time of the alien occupation of Earth. Aliens now seemed an exotic menace, a weird kind of big bug that would fall easily to their guns. Morrison was fiddling with his carbine. He decided to insert a new feed ramp. He stripped the receiver and replaced the ramp, then snapped the connector into place. The ramp toggled through a diagnostic code and then clicked into place. He shoved a magazine into the carbine, touched the bolt control, and cycled a round into the firing chamber. The magazine's counter showed an even one hundred antipersonnel rounds ready to go.
“Hey, farm boy,” Skysky said, “you planning to shoot something?”
“If I get the chance,” Morrison said, “I'm going to bag me one of them aliens and bring home his horns.”
Eka Nu looked up from his rosary. “Aliens no got horns.”
“Well, whatever they got, I want to bring a piece of it home. A piece of skull maybe. Wouldn't that look good mounted over the mantel?”
Styson said, “You better just hope one of them critters doesn't nail your hide up over the mantel.”
“What're you talking about?” Morrison asked. “Them creatures ain't civilized. They ain't got mantels.”
Just then Stan's voice came over the loudspeaker. “You men! Get ready to embark into a pod. Check your weapons.”
“Okay,” Morrison said, getting to his feet. “Time we had ourselves a little hunting.”
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