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voice was crying thinly:
"You're in the wrong game, Logger. Thirty years ago you'd have a future in hyper ships.
Not any more. There's a new wave coming up. Get out, or drown."
A red-eyed shadow leaned over him. Hilton fought out of his dream. Awkwardly he jerked
up his arm and knocked away the glass at his lips. The Canopian let out a shrill, harsh cry.
The liquid that had been in the glass was coalescing in midair into a shining sphere.
The glass floated-and the Canopian floated too. They were in hyper. A few lightweight
straps held Hilton to his bunk, but this was his own cabin, he saw. Dizzy, drugged
weakness swept into his brain.
The Canopian struck a wall, pushed strongly, and the recoil shot him toward Hilton. The
mate ripped free from the restraining straps. He reached out and gathered in a handful of
furry black plush. The Canopian clawed at his eyes.
"Captain!" he screamed. "Captain Danvers!"
Pain gouged Hilton's cheek as his opponent's talons drew blood. Hilton roared with fury.
He shot a blow at the Canopian's jaw, but now they were floating free, and the punch did
no harm. In midair they grappled, the Canopian incessantly screaming in that thin, insane
shrilling.
The door handle clicked twice. There was a voice outside-Wiggins, the second. A deep
thudding came. Hilton, still weak, tried to keep the Canopian away with jolting blows.
Then the door crashed open, and Wiggins pulled himself in.
"Dzann!" he said. "Stop it!" He drew a jet-pistol and leveled it at the Canopian.
On the threshold was a little group. Hilton saw Saxon, the Transmat man, gaping there,
and other crew members, hesitating, unsure. Then, suddenly, Captain Danvers' face
appeared behind the others, twisted, strained with tension.
The Canopian had retreated to a corner and was making mewing, frightened noises.
"What happened, Mr. Hilton?" Wiggins said. "Did this tomcat jump you?"
Hilton was so used to wearing deep-space armor that till now he had scarcely realized its
presence. His helmet was hooded back, like that of Wiggins and the rest. He pulled a
weight from his belt and threw it aside; the reaction pushed him toward a wall where he
gripped a brace.
"Does he go in the brig?" Wiggins asked.
"All right, men," Danvers said quietly. "Let me through." He propelled himself into
Hilton's cabin. Glances of discomfort and vague distrust were leveled at him. The skipper
ignored them.
"Dzann!" he said. "Why aren't you wearing your armor? Put it on. The rest of you-get to
your stations. You too, Mr. Wiggins. I'll handle this."
Still Wiggins hesitated. He started to say something.
"What are you waiting for?" Hilton said. "Tell Bruno to bring some coffee. Now beat it." He
maneuvered himself into a sitting position on his bunk. From the tail of his eye he saw
Wiggins and the others go out. Dzann, the Canopian, had picked up a suit from the corner
and was awkwardly getting into it.
Danvers carefully closed the door, testing the broken lock.
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r r
"Got to have that fixed," he murmured. "It isn't shipshape this way." He found a brace and
stood opposite the mate, his eyes cool and watchful, the strain still showing on his tired
face. Hilton reached for a ~cigarette.
"Next time your tomcat jumps me, I'll burn a hole through him," he promised.
"I stationed him here to guard you, in case there was trouble," Danvers said. "To take care
of you if we cracked up or ran into danger. I showed him how to close your helmet and
start the oxygen."
"Expect a haif-witted Canopian to remember that?" Hilton said. "You also told him to keep
drugging me." He reached toward the shining liquid sphere floating near by and pushed a
forefinger into it. He tasted the stuff. "Sure. Vakheesh. That's what you slipped in ~y drink
on Fria. Suppose you start talking, skipper. What's this Canopian doing aboard?"
"I signed him," Danvers said.
"For what? Supercargo?"
Danvers answered that emotionlessly, watching Hilton.
"Cabin boy."
"Yeah. What did you tell Wiggins? About me, I mean?"
"I said you'd got doped up," Danvers said, grinning. "You were doped, too."
"I'm not now." Hilton's tone rang hard. "Suppose you tell me where we are? I can find out.
I can get the equations from Ts'ss and run chart-lines. Are we on M-75-L?"
"No, we're not. We're riding another level."
'Where to?"
The Canopian shrilled, "I don't know name. Has no name. Double sun it has."
"You crazy!" Hilton glared at the skipper. "Are you heading us for a double primary?"
Danvers still grinned. "Yeah. Not only that, but we're going to land on a planet thirty
thousand miles from the suns-roughly."
Hilton fficked on his deadlight and looked at white emptiness. "Closer than Mercury is to
Sol. You can't do it. How big are the primaries?"
Danvers told him.
"All right. It's suicide. You know that. La Cucaracha won't take it."
"The old lady will take anything the Big Night can hand out."
"Not this. Don't kid yourself. She might have made it back to Earth
-with a Lunar landing-but you're riding into a meat grinder."
"I haven't forgotten my astrogation," Danvers said. "We're coming out of hyper with the
planet between us and the primaries. The pull will land us."
"In small pieces," Hilton agreed. "Too bad you didn't keep me doped. If you keep your
mouth shut, we'll replot our course to Earth and nobody'll get hurt. If you want to start
something, it'll be mutiny, and I'll take my chances at Admiralty."
The captain made a noise that sounded like laughter.
"All right," he said. "Suit yourself. Co look at the equations. I'll be in my cabin when you
want me. Come on, Dzann."
He pulled himself into the companionway, the Canopian gliding behind him as silently as a
shadow.
Hilton met Bruno with coffee as he followed Danvers. The mate grunted, seized the
covered cup, and sucked in the liquid with the deftness of long practice under antigravity
conditions. Bruno watched him.
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r r
"All right, sir?" the cook-surgeon said.
"Yeah. Why not?"
'Well-the men are wondering."
"What about?"
"I dunno, sir. You've never-you've always commanded the launchin~s, sir. And that
Canopian-the men don't like him. They think something's wrong." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]