by John Varley
I was in the hub, sitting at a table in a carousel bar, waiting to see how it all came out. I had a tall, bubbly glass of ginger ale in front of me, and I wished it were something a little stronger. I wished I had something to smoke, too, but all I'd ever liked was hemp, and I needed my wits about me. Some tobacco, that would be nice, though I'd never smoked it and heard it tasted vile. Humphrey Bogart, sitting here, would have had a smoke going, the cigarette stuck high up between his fingers. That hound-dog face that never seemed to look panicky. I could do Bogart if I had a smoke, and I wouldn't be so nervous.
I kept my eye on the rope lift constantly moving down from the hub—not the hub of Oberon, though that's where I was, but the hub of the pub, the pub-hub that was within the larger hub, to make myself perfectly opaque. The bar was for tourists and others who liked their drinks to stay in the glass and the glass to stay on the table. Therefore, it rotated, at a pretty good rate, enough to give one-third gee at the rim, where everybody sat. The place was small enough that you didn't want to stand up too quickly or the coriolanus force would knock you down. Your head would get a lot lighter than your feet.
I spotted her as she floated into the hub, glanced around, and selected the lift rope that would take her close to where I sat. It pulled her down at first, then somewhere when the forces were equalized she swung around with ease and grace and she was hanging from the strap, like a commuter only with her feet off the floor. The rope lowered her and she hit the ground walking. I was envious. A few hours before I had looked like all three stooges trying to do the same thing, and I'd landed on my butt. Toby had thought it was a neat trick, I think. He'd barked in delight.
Now he was curled up in one of the chairs at the table, his belly full of bar pretzels and beer nuts and ginger ale. Poly pulled out the third chair and sat down.
"I need a drink." She held up her hand and signaled to the bartender. I watched with interest, because this wasn't a mere finger gesture but a more elaborate sign language that resulted in what looked like a Bloody Mary being delivered to our table. I memorized the gestures. You never know when you'll need a bit of business to lend authenticity on the stage.
I let her take a deep drink.
"How'd it go?" I asked. She took another.
"Okay, I guess."
"What do you mean, you guess?"
"Well, it's kind of hard to tell, isn't it?" I could see she was having some of the same doubts I'd been entertaining. She'd had plenty of time to find fault with the plan on the elevator ride to the hub.
"I wouldn't know. I wasn't there." I looked at her pointedly, and she sighed, took another drink, and put the glass down.
"Okay. They weren't happy about it."
"I warned you they wouldn't be."
"But there wasn't anything they could do. Except make me feel small."
"I warned you about that, too."
Poly had been visiting with the Oberon police. I was glad it was her and not me, because what she told them was she was dropping her lawsuit against Isambard Comfort, and as far as she was concerned, he was free to go.
"They'd already told me the position he was taking," she said. We'd gone through that at her apartment, but I let her tell it her way. "How you killed his sister in self-defense, in spite of what it looked like. What sort of story he fed them to make it look that way I don't know, they didn't tell me, but it was clear they weren't buying it. I know they'd really like to talk to you about it, because they're sure the two of you wouldn't tell the same story. But as of now, there's nothing they can charge you with."
"Did anybody follow you?"
"I don't think so. I did what you said, and I didn't see anybody."
No way to tell, with an amateur. But if they really wanted to talk to me and had followed her, they'd probably already be here.
That Izzy was not going to finger me in his sister's death didn't surprise me, either. If I was in prison, it would be tougher for him to get at me. Oh, he could hire my death easily enough, but Charonese like to take care of matters like that themselves. They never testify in court, no matter what. If they have a beef with you, don't expect them to sue you.
"So I told them I had accepted the settlement the Charonese ambassador had offered me, that I'd already cashed the check. They tried to bluff me." She took another drink, and made another gesture to the bartender. "That was the scariest part. Said they intended to prosecute him under the criminal statutes, and they demanded my testimony. Said they'd prosecute me if I didn't take the stand. I told 'em that would go down great with the public, going after the victim. I said I wasn't going to testify, no matter what, that I was dropping all charges. They kept trying to frighten me—did frighten me, let me tell you—but I stuck to my story, like you said, and eventually they threw me out. She took a sip of her second drink.
"Threw you out."
"Told me to leave. Said they'd get back to me after they'd talked it over with the State's Attorney. So, I don't think they'll prosecute—"
"They won't, trust me."
"Don't make me laugh. Anyway, I'll be glad to get out of here." Right.
"I'd like to talk to you about that," I said.
She gave me a cold smile. "I'm not surprised."
"You're not?"
"Something in your quick agreement to my terms didn't, shall we say, play right."
"I'll stick to my agreement," I said, indignantly. "I just still think you're making a mistake, and I want to try to talk you out of it while there's still time. You've got the money now to—"
"You said that before." She reached into her purse. "Before you waste a lot of hot air, I want to show you something." She pulled a blue, eight-ounce thermos from the purse and held it up for me. There was a smiling picture of me—Sparky—on the side. She jiggled it, and something rattled inside.
I was stunned. "How did you...?" I was speechless, so I reached for the thermos. She pulled it back quickly, tucked it back into her purse.
"Naughty," she said, wagging her finger. "You wouldn't want to cause a disturbance, would you? Something that might bring the police." She had me, and she knew it. "While you went to the bathroom. Remember?"
"But the combination—"
"I've got a good memory. Shame, shame, Trevor. An old con man like you, not covering up when you opened that ridiculous traveling coffin."
I'd brought the Pantechnicon with me, naturally, since I expected to get out of Oberon fast if I got out at all. After I had her attention I'd taken it to her apartment, as without a bit of grisly show-and-tell I wasn't sure she'd buy my plan. And the bitch had foxed me. And what was this about ridiculous? I was as indignant about that as about the theft.
"That's mine," I said, as forcefully as I dared.
"And you'll get it back, I promise. As soon as you keep your promise."
I fumed, I bristled, and I blustered, but after five minutes of whispered argument to which she responded with nary a word, I admitted defeat. She was going with me.
* * *
The next hour would have been tense under the best of circumstances. Since we were more or less not speaking to each other, it was excruciating. Toby felt it, woke up, and kept looking back and forth between us. He thinks all his friends ought to like each other, and frets when they don't.
Poly bought a newspad and we hovered over it like miserable wraiths waiting for Godot. We kept it dialed to BREAKING STORIES, but since none were breaking at the moment we saw the same six stories a dozen times each, including a touching one about a mother cat who kept returning to a burning building until she had all four of her kittens. At least it was touching at first. By the eighth showing I would cheerfully have squashed all four of the mewling ratlike varmints under my heel until their heads cracked like walnuts and booted the mother like a singed and smoking football.
Then we had it.
"Live from Seventh District Prison. Notorious Charonese torturer and arsonist Isambard Comfort is to be released at this hour. Sources close to the warde
n tell us his victim, Polyhymnia—"
Poly slapped the cutoff switch and scaled the pad into a trash can. I admired the way she compensated for the spin in her aim.
"Let's go," she said. We hustled over to the rope lift and I grabbed a passing strap, tucking Toby under my free arm. I was tugged off my feet. This had to be easier than coming down, I figured.
It was, if banging your head on the hub was easier than falling flat on your ass.
* * *
We went to the taxi stand and piled into a cab. Poly had two big, battered old suitcases and her violin. I had Toby and the Pantech.
The cab pilot, who looked like a third-rate palooka who neveh coulda been a contendah, glanced at Toby. Then his crusty, unshaven face split in a wide grin.
"A Bichon Frise," he cooed, pronouncing it properly. He thrust a massive ham fist toward Toby, who froze in consternation at the sheer size of the thing, but stood his ground and, after a cautious sniff, allowed himself to be fondled. The palooka had a gentle touch, and soon Toby's mouth opened and his pink tongue lolled out. He looked at me and sniffed.
"Me and the wife have three of "em," the driver explained. "Won the best of breed in last year's All-Oberon. I'll bet the little fellow's got good lines." He looked at me expectantly, probably thinking I'd whip out Toby's papers and we'd spend a pleasant hour or so discussing his ancestry. I'd met this type before. "Ever breed him?"
"Toby breeds with whom he wants to breed with, and like any gentleman, he never discusses it with me."
"Gotcha. I bet this little fella's got half-breed pups all over the system." He meant it as a joke, and had no idea how accurate he was. "So, where to?"
I gave him the coordinates and he typed them into his launch control, and in a moment we were squirted out the end of the tube and streaking into black space.
It was as crowded as when I arrived, crowded as it always is. We dodged around angular behemoths, cargo ships and passenger liners. In only a few minutes we began our deceleration, and an apparition hove into view.
"Cheez," said the cabby. A truer word was never spoken.
Except for Mars landers, spaceships always operate in total vacuum—sorry, zero pressure. That means they usually look any way they damn well please. They tend to look like a disaster in a metal shop. Things are tacked onto old frames, old stuff is pulled away and big holes are left. Paint is solely for insulation, and who cares if the first quarter inch flakes off?
But if a real-estate agent can convince a rich person to buy a hanging mansion, hideously expensive to maintain and good for nothing but showing off, why shouldn't a solar-yacht broker (a direct descendant of a used-car salesman) get the same sucker to plunk down cash for something that looks like the first person ever to kick the tires might have been Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth Century? Or Duck Dodgers in the 24½th?
Later I had the ship's computer search the visual library for images comparable to the yacht. It found a Picasso nude, the carmine bee-stung lips of Madelon Theirry, the scarab-blue helmet of Ramses II, Minnie Mouse, and a 1953 Hudson Hornet. There were elements of all these visible as we approached the ship. It was not painted, but made from glossy metals that would not fade or chip in the harsh light of space: tangerine-flake, mother-of-pearl, crabapple red, and the aforementioned blue. It had a clutch of fins, and what looked like gleaming silver exhaust pipes. It was either the ugliest thing I ever saw, or the most beautiful. I changed my mind many times as we approached.
It was all glitz, of course. Nothing visible had any function except to look snazzy. It was the ultimate low-rider of the space lanes.
The cabbie docked quick and dirty. The condition of his docking collar hinted that this was his usual way of docking. As soon as he cycled the lock my ears popped and we heard a hissing sound. The seal was not as tight as it might be, but he didn't seem concerned about it.
"Don't leave yet," I told him, handing over a bill slightly more than twice the fare. We have to see if we're... ah, expected." He nodded, and Poly and I stuffed our luggage through the door and cycled the lock closed behind us. The hissing continued. The sooner out of this death trap, the better.
"Okay," I told her. "You can hand it over now."
She smiled at me, sweetly.
"Hand it over yourself. It's still in your trunk." She got the thermos and opened it. A few glass marbles floated out.
Hell, I know when I'm licked. In fact, I sort of admired her. It had been very slickly done.
"I picked this up at an antique store on the way to the elevator," she said, opening a disposal lock and putting the thermos in.
"Hey, that's worth a hundred dollars," I protested.
"You haven't checked the market lately, 'Sparky.' I paid five."
She cycled the lock and the thermos and marbles jetted out into space with a whoosh. Five dollars? For a priceless old Sparky Jug? How depressing. I was about to say so when there was a bright flash of light. We turned to the only port glass in the lock, and saw another marble as it flashed out of existence, followed in short order by all the rest, and the thermos, which took a little longer and was a lot brighter.
"A snark!" I said.
"Where? Where is it?" We both pressed our faces to the glass, hoping to get a look, but the little zapper could have been miles away. I sighed, opened the Pantech (this time shielding the code plate), and got out my own thermos. I opened it and steam came out. Nestled in chips of dry ice was a two-inch package wrapped in aluminum foil.
I shook Izzy's thumb out of the thermos and opened it. No freezer burn, but it was hard as a rock. It shouldn't matter.
Poly wrinkled her nose at the ugly little thing. The nail was a riot of purples and yellows. I took a deep breath.
"Okay. I've thumbed many a ride in my time, but never quite like this. Let's try it."
The security identiplate was a faintly glowing two-inch circle in the center of a brass escutcheon. Engraved on the brass were these words:
IPS 34903-D
COMETARY CLASS INTERPLANETARY YACHT
"HALLEY"
EXECUTIVE CHARTER SERVICE
PLUTO
* * *
That last word had been critical in my thinking when coming up with the plan. The ship's home port was Pluto. Had it come from Charon I wouldn't have dared this stunt. I pressed Izzy's thumb to the plate.
A thumbprint is a fairly good means of securing a valuable movable object. For something as expensive as the Halley they went a little further. A dead skin sample was being taken and subjected to a quick analysis to compare with Izzy's DNA. You could make a cast of a thumbprint, but there was no reasonable way to fake the DNA.
The key word there was, of course, "reasonable." What's a farfetched idea to a Plutonian might very well seem reasonable to the more bloody-minded Charonese. Izzy wouldn't have thought twice about severing my thumb, if I had a space yacht and he wanted to borrow it.
I've picked up a fair amount of knowledge concerning door locks in my checkered career. I boned up on more in the Oberon library. I thought I had a better than fifty-fifty chance of getting into the boat. If things went south after that, I still thought I could beat a retreat. A Charonese yacht, naturally, would have either slaughtered an intruder or held him for the later amusement of the owner and his family. Great fun for the kiddies; educational, too.
A green light appeared on the identiplate, and the lock cycled. We entered the ship.
I made my way directly to the control console and pressed the thumb to the second identiplate there. Another green light. And then nothing.
"Um..." I said. "Ah, can we make ready for departure?"
"Certainly, sir," came a voice. And then silence again.
"Ah... Luna. We want to go to Luna. Soon."
"How soon, sir?"
"Right now."
"I'm sorry, sir, I cannot boost right now."
My heart jumped into my throat. At my side, I saw Poly grow pale.
"The earliest departure would be in four min
utes. The reactor has to be brought into—"
"Fine, fine. Depart in four minutes, then."
"And what arrival time are you contemplating, sir?"
I gave him the date—all too close, terrifyingly close—that I needed to be on Luna.
There was a long pause. Entirely too long, when I thought about it later. I'd guess it was five or six seconds. That's a trillion years, in computer time.
"Yes, sir," the computer finally said. "Will you be charging this flight to the credit arrangements previously established?"
"Yes, that will be fine."
"Very good, sir. I suggest you leave your luggage in the lock; it is being secured against acceleration at this moment." I heard the lock door cycling. "I have warned the taxicab to stand clear for boost. He has cleared the lock and is on his way. You will have ample time to move into your staterooms when acceleration ends."
I heard sounds behind me as the ship readied itself for departure. A countdown clock started on the console. I looked around, and saw two acceleration couches—like water mattresses, seven feet long and three feet wide—had emerged from the floor. Beside them was a smaller unit with a cage on top. I realized it was a pet bed. I popped Toby into it, which didn't please him at all, with all this new space to explore, and these fascinating new smells to experience. He glared at me as I experimentally pushed on the surface of one of the couches. It conformed to the shape of my hand, and sprang back slowly. It would be like lying on soft putty.
"We have been cleared by the tower," the ship said.
"Yes. Uh, please turn off all but the necessary radio communication."
"Yes, sir." Another pause, this one short. "Sir, an odd datum. I was receiving a message from ground side when you ordered the radios shut off. A person claiming to be the legal lessee of this vessel was attempting to issue an order requiring me to deactivate the entry security system temporarily."
"What does that mean?" How many more surprises could I take?
"He would have had me deny access to anyone, until he could obtain a court order authorizing the local sheriff to accompany him and verify his identity."