by Anthology
Tom Hunter scowled, trying to shake off the feeling of uneasiness that was nibbling at his mind. Asteroid mining was dangerous ... but Dad was no novice. Nobody on Mars knew how to handle a mining rig better than Roger Hunter did. He knew what he was doing out there, there was no real danger for him or was there....
Roger Hunter, a good man, a gentle and peaceful man, had finally seen all he could stomach of Jupiter Equilateral and its company mining policies six months before. He had told them so in plain, simple language when he turned in his resignation. They didn't try to stop him ... a man was still free to quit a job on Mars if he wanted to, even a job with Jupiter Equilateral. But it was an open secret that the big mining outfit had not liked Roger Hunter's way of resigning, taking half a dozen of their first-rate mining engineers with him. There had been veiled threats, rumors of attempts to close the markets to Roger Hunter's ore, in open violation of U.N. Council policies on Mars....
Tom fought the wheel as the big tractor lumbered up another rise, and the huge plastic bubble of Sun Lake City came into view far down the valley below.
He thought of Greg. Had Greg been summoned too? He closed his lips tightly as a wave of anger passed through his mind. If anything had happened, no matter what, he thought, Greg would be there. Taking over and running things, as usual. He thought of the last time he had seen his brother, and then deliberately blocked out the engulfing bitterness.
That had been more than a year ago. Maybe Greg had changed since then.
But somehow, Tom didn't think so.
The Sloppy Joe was on the valley floor now, and ahead the bubble covering the city was drawing closer. The sun was almost gone; lights were appearing inside the plastic shielding. Born and raised on Mars, Tom had seen the teeming cities of Earth only once in his life ... but to him none of the splendors of the Earth cities could match the simple, quiet beauty of this Martian outpost settlement. There had been a time when people had said that Sun Lake City could never be built, that it could never survive if it were, but with each successive year it grew larger and stronger, the headquarters city for the planet that had become the new frontier of Earth.
The radiophone buzzed, and the airlock guard hailed him when he returned the signal. Tom gave his routine ID. He guided the tractor into the lock, waited until pressure and atmosphere rose to normal, and then leaped out of the cab.
Five minutes later he was walking across the lobby of the Interplanetary Council building, stepping into the down elevator. Three flights below he stepped out into the office corridor of the U.N. Interplanetary Council on Mars.
If there was trouble, this was where he would find it.
He paused for a minute before the gray plastic door marked MAJOR FRANK BRIARTON in raised stainless steel letters. Then he pushed open the door and walked into the ante-room.
It was empty. Suddenly he felt a touch on his shoulder. Behind him, a familiar voice said, "Hello, Twin."
* * * * *
At first glance they looked like carbon copies of each other, although they were no more identical than identical twins ever are. Greg stood a good two inches taller than Tom. His shoulders were broad, and there was a small gray scar over one eye that stood out in contrast to the healthy tanned color of his face. Tom was of slighter build, and wirier, his skin much more pale.
But they had the same dark hair, the same gray eyes, the same square, stubborn line to the jaw. They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Then Greg grinned and clapped his brother on the shoulder.
"So you got here, finally," he said. "I was beginning to think I'd have to go out on the desert and find you."
"Oh, I got here, all right," Tom said. "I see you did too."
"Yes," Greg said heavily. "Can't argue with the major, you know."
"But what does he want?"
"How should I know? All he said was to get down here fast. And now he isn't even here himself."
"Is Dad on Mars?" Tom asked.
Greg looked at him. "I don't know."
"We could check the register."
"I already checked it. He has not logged in, but that doesn't mean anything."
"I suppose not," Tom said glumly.
They were silent for a moment. Then Greg said, "Look, what are you worried about? Nothing could have happened to Dad. He's been mining the Belt for years."
"I know. I just wish he were here, that's all. If he's in some kind of trouble...."
"What kind of trouble? You're looking for spooks."
"Spooks like Jupiter Equilateral, maybe," Tom said. "They could make plenty of trouble for Dad."
"With the U.N. in the driver's seat here? They wouldn't dare. Why do you think the major rides them so hard with all the claim-filing regulations? He'd give his right arm for a chance to break that outfit into pieces."
"I still wish somebody had gone out to the Belt with Dad," Tom said.
Just then the door opened. The newcomer was a tall, gray-haired man with U.N. Council stripes on his lapel, and major's rockets on his shoulders. "Sorry I'm late, boys," Major Briarton said. "I'd hoped to be here when you arrived. I'm sorry to pull you in here like this, but I'm afraid I had no choice. When did you boys hear from your father last?"
They looked at each other. "I saw him six weeks ago," Tom said. "Just before he left to go out to the Belt again."
"Nothing since then?"
"Not a word."
The major chewed his lip. "Greg?"
"I had a note at Christmas, I think. But what...."
"What did he say in the note?"
"He said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Dad isn't much of a letter writer."
"Nothing at all about what he was doing?"
Greg shook his head. "Look, Major, if there's some sort of trouble...."
"Yes, I'm afraid there's trouble," the major said. He looked up at them, and spread his hands helplessly. "There isn't any easy way to tell you, but you've got to know. There's been an accident, out in the Belt."
"Accident?" Greg said.
"A very serious accident. A fuel tank exploded in the scooter your father was riding back to the Scavenger. It must have been very sudden, and by the time help arrived...." The major broke off, unable to find words.
For a long moment there was utter silence in the room. Outside, an elevator was buzzing, and a typewriter clicked monotonously somewhere in the building.
Then Tom Hunter broke the silence. "Who was it, Major?" he said. "Who killed Dad? Tell us, or we'll find out!"
2. Jupiter Equilateral
For a moment, Major Briarton just stared at him. Then he was on his feet, shaking his head as he came around the desk. "Tom, use your head," he said. "It's as much of a shock to me as it is to you, but you can't afford to jump to false conclusions...."
Tom Hunter looked up bitterly. "He's dead, isn't he?"
"Yes, he's dead. He must have died the instant of the explosion...."
"You mean you don't know?"
"I wasn't there at the time it happened, no."
"Then who was?"
* * * * *
Major Briarton spread his hands helplessly. "Nobody was. Your father was alone. From what we could tell later, he'd left the Scavenger to land on one of his claims, using the ship's scooter for the landing. He was on the way back to the Scavenger when the rear tank exploded. There wasn't enough left of it to tell what went wrong ... but it was an accident, there was no evidence to suggest anything else."
Tom looked at him. "You really believe that?"
"I can only tell you what we found."
"Well, I don't believe it for a minute," Tom said angrily. "How long have you and Dad been friends? Twenty years? Twenty-five? Do you really think Dad would have an accident with a mining rig?"
"I know he was an expert engineer," the major said. "But things can happen that even an expert can't foresee, mining in the Belt."
"Things like a fuel tank exploding? Not to Dad, they would never happen. I don't care what anybody
says...."
"Easy, Tom," Greg said.
"Well, I won't take it easy. Dad was too careful for something like that to happen. If he had an accident, somebody made it happen."
Greg turned to the major. "What was Dad doing out there?"
"Mining."
"By himself? No crew at all?"
"No, he was alone."
"I thought the regulations said there always had to be at least two men working an asteroid claim."
"That's right. Your father had Johnny Coombs with him when he left Sun Lake City. They signed out as a team ... and then Johnny came back to Mars on the first shuttle ship."
"How come?"
"Not even Johnny knows. Your father just sent him back, and there was nothing we could do about it then. The U.N. has no jurisdiction in the belt, unless a major crime has been committed." Major Briarton shook his head helplessly. "If a man is determined to mine a claim all by himself out there, he can find a dozen different ways to wiggle out of the regulations."
"But Dad would never be that stupid," Greg said. "If he was alone when it happened, who found him?"
"A routine U.N. Patrol ship. When Roger failed to check in at the regular eight-hour signal, they went out to see what was wrong. But by the time they reached him, it was too late to help."
"I just don't get it," Greg said. "Dad had more sense than to try to mine out there all by himself."
"I know," the major said. "I don't know the answer. I had the Patrol ship go over the scene of the accident with a comb after they found what had happened, but there was nothing there to find. It was an accident, and that's that."
"What about Jupiter Equilateral?" Tom said hotly. "Everybody knows they were out to get Dad ... why don't you find out what they were doing when it happened, bring them in for questioning...."
"I can't do that, I haven't a scrap of evidence," the major said wearily.
"Why can't you? You're the Mars Coordinator, aren't you? You act like you're scared of them."
Major Briarton's lips tightened angrily. "All right, since you put it that way ... I am scared of them. They're big, and they're powerful. If they had their way, there wouldn't be any United Nations control on Mars, there wouldn't be anybody to fight them and keep them in check. There wouldn't be any independent miners out in the Belt, either, because they'd all be bought out or dead, and Earth would pay through the nose for every ounce of metal that they got from the Asteroid Belt. That company has been trying to drive the U.N. off Mars for thirty years, and they've come so close to it that it scares me plenty." He pushed his chair back sharply and rose to his feet. "And that is exactly why I refuse to stir up a mess over this thing, unhappy as it is, without something more than suspicions and rumors to back me up ... because all Jupiter Equilateral needs is one big issue to make us look like fools out here, and we're through."
He crossed the room to a wall cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a scarred aluminum box. "We found this in the cabin of the Scavenger. I thought you boys might want it."
They both recognized it instantly ... the battered old spacer's pack that Roger Hunter had used for as long as they could remember. It seemed to them, suddenly, as if a part of him had appeared here in the room with them. Greg looked at the box and turned away. "You open it," he said to Tom in a sick voice.
There was nothing much inside ... some clothing, a pipe and tobacco pouch, a jack knife, half a dozen other items so familiar that Tom could hardly bear to touch them. At the bottom of the pack was the heavy leather gun case which had always held Roger Hunter's ancient .44 revolver. Tom dropped it back without even opening the flap. He closed the box and took a deep breath. "Then you really believe that it was an accident and nothing more?" he said to the major.
Major Briarton shook his head. "What I think or don't think doesn't make any difference. It just doesn't matter. In order to do anything, I've got to have evidence, and there just isn't any evidence. I can't even take a ship out there for a second look, with the evidence I have, and that's all there is to it."
"But you think that maybe it wasn't an accident, just the same," Tom pursued.
The major hesitated. Then he shook his head again. "I'm sorry, but I've got to stand on what I've said. And I think you'd better stand on it, too. There's nothing else to be done."
* * * * *
It should have been enough, but it wasn't. As Tom Hunter walked with his brother down the broad Upper Ramp to the business section of Sun Lake City, he could not shake off the feeling of helpless anger, the growing conviction that Roger Hunter's death involved something more than the tragic accident in space that Major Briarton had insisted it was.
"He didn't tell us everything he knew," Tom said fiercely. "He didn't say everything he wanted to say, either. He doesn't think it was an accident any more than I do."
"How do you know, are you a mind reader?"
"No."
"Well, Dad wasn't a superman, either. He was taking an awful risk, trying to work a mining rig by himself, and he had a bad break. Why do you have to have somebody to blame for it?"
"Keep talking," Tom said. "You'll convince yourself yet."
Greg just jammed his hands in his pockets, and they walked in silence for a moment.
For Tom and Greg Hunter, Sun Lake City had always been home. Now they walked along the Main Concourse, Tom with the aluminum box under his arm, Greg with his own spacer's pack thrown over his shoulder. They didn't talk; rather than being drawn closer by the news of the tragedy, it seemed that they had drawn farther apart, as though the one common link that had held them together had suddenly been broken.
Finally Tom broke the silence. "At least there's one thing we can do," he said. "I'm going to call Johnny Coombs."
He shortly found a phone booth and dialed a number. Johnny had been a friend of the family for years; he and Roger Hunter had been partners in many mining ventures in the Asteroid Belt before Roger had taken his position with Jupiter Equilateral. If Johnny had any suspicions that Roger Hunter's accident had been more than an accident, he certainly would not hesitate to voice them....
After a dozen rings, Tom hung up, tried another number. There was no answer there, either. Frowning, Tom rang the city's central paging system. "Put in a personal call for Johnny Coombs," he said when the "record" signal flashed on. "Tell him to contact the Hunters when he comes in. We'll be at home...."
They resumed their silent walk. When they reached H wing on the fourth level, they turned right down an apartment corridor, and stopped in front of a familiar doorway. Tom pressed his palm against the lock-plate, and the door swung open.
It was home to them, the only home they had ever known. Soft lights sprang up on the walls of the apartment as the door opened. Tom saw the old bookcases lining the walls, the drafting-board and light at the far end of the room, the simple chairs and dining table, the door which led into the bedroom and kitchen beyond. The room had the slightly disheveled look that it had had ever since Mom had died ... a slipper on the floor here, a book face down on the couch there....
It looked as though Dad had just stepped out for an hour or so.
Tom was three steps into the room before he saw the visitor.
The man was sitting comfortably in Roger Hunter's easy chair, a short, fat man with round pink cheeks that sagged a little and a double chin that rested on his neck scarf. There were two other men in the room, both large and broad-shouldered; one of them nodded to the fat man, and moved to stand between the boys and the door.
The fat man was out of his seat before the boys could speak, smiling at them and holding out his hand. "I wanted to be sure to see you before you left the city," he was saying, "so we just came on in to wait. I hope you don't mind our ... butting in, so to speak." He chuckled, looking from one twin to the other. "You don't know me, I suppose. I'm Merrill Tawney. Representing Jupiter Equilateral, you know."
Tom took the card he was holding out, looked at the name and the tiny gold symbol in the corner, a letter "J
" in the center of a triangle. He handed the card to Greg. "I've seen you before," he told the fat man. "What do you want with us?"
Tawney smiled again, spreading his hands. "We've heard about the tragedy, of course. A shocking thing ... Roger was one of our group so recently. We wanted you to know that if there is anything at all we can do to help, we'd be only too glad...."
"Thanks," Greg said. "But we're doing just fine."
Tawney's smile tightened a little, but he hung onto it. "I always felt close to your father," he said. "All of us at Jupiter Equilateral did. We were all sorry to see him leave."
"I bet you were," Greg said, "he was the best mining engineer you ever had. But Dad could never stand liars, or crooked ways of doing business."
One of the men started for Greg, but the fat man stopped him with a wave of his hand. "We had our differences of opinion," he said. "We saw things one way, your father saw them another way. But he was a fine man, one of the finest...."
"Look, Mr. Tawney, you'd better say what you came to say and get out of here," Greg said dangerously, "before we give your friends here something to do."
"I merely came to offer you some help," Tawney said. He was no longer smiling. "Since your father's death, you two have acquired certain responsibilities. I thought we might relieve you of some of them."
"What sort of responsibilities?"
"You have an unmanned orbit-ship which is now a derelict in the Asteroid Belt. You have a scout-ship out there also. You can't just leave them there as a navigation hazard to every ship traveling in the sector. There are also a few mining claims which aren't going to be of much value to you now."