Lehman, and we become-how shall I say it?-jealous when other people enter the picture.
We would strongly prefer it, Gospozha Velasquez, if you would refrain from seeing
Gospodin Lehman again. We know how these shipboard romances can happen-as I
said, we are reasonable men-and if you never see Gospodin Lehman again you will
never see us again, either.
“You are about to vacation on Vesa, one of the Galaxy’s greatest playgrounds. There will
be more than ample opportunity to forget all about Gospodin Lehman. You are a very
attractive woman, Gospozha Velasquez, and I have no doubt there will be scores of
handsome men throwing themselves at your feet to compensate for the one you must
give up. You are also an intelligent woman, which is why I will not belabor the point of
how upset my friends and I would be if you should disregard our suggestions.
The man stood up again and came over to Gaspard. The tall man had not been knocked
completely unconscious by Yvette’s blow-she had been meaning to question him about
his reasons for following her-and had been quietly retching while his comrade was
speaking. Now he was slowly picking himself up, aided by his friend. Together, the two
of them went over and inspected Murgatroyd, who was still out cold.
Picking up their fallen companion, the two men headed for the door. As they stopped on
the threshold, the one who had done all the talking said, “Again, I offer our apologies for
the disturbance, Gospozha Velasquez. We hope you have a pleasant vacation on Vesa.
By the time the effects of the stunner wore off some ten minutes later it would be
impossible to track down the men. Yvette had to settle for lying awake in her bed all
night, staring up at the darkened ceiling and planning exactly what she would do to that
trio the next time she ran into them.
CHAPTER 5
Accidents
Jules’ second day at work on Vesa was much calmer than the first. The air was very
quiet; even people who hadn’t participated in the previous day’s brawl were walking on
eggshells, afraid to set off the dynamite that they knew instinctively was still buried in the
personalities of the men involved. A fragile tension buzzed through the air like a noisy fly
uncertain where to light.
Adding to the problem was the fact that the crew was shorthanded today. Brownsend
did not show up for work, and a quick call to his apartment by Fizcono yielded no results.
“Probably nursing his wounds,” the big man muttered. “He didn’t look so good when he
went home yesterday. He’d better be back tomorrow, though, or he’s fired. I won’t
tolerate jackdandles around here.
Rask went around sullenly, not speaking more than a couple of words to anyone as he
suited up. It was obvious he felt unfairly punished for the fracas-after all, it had been the
Chandakhari who had attacked first; he’d just tried to protect his friend, and had been
docked a week’s pay for it. The injustice of it all grated harshly on his ego.
The Chandakhari, in turn, were even more stand-offish, more clique-ish, more withdrawn
from the other workers. The young man who’d begun the actual fighting-Jules
remembered now that his name was Radapur-stood aloof and proud, glaring
occasionally across at Rask with a semi-sneer across his lips.
Jules was in the worst position of all, because nobody was quite sure where he stood on
the matter. During the fight he had come to the aid of both sides, and had earned enmity
each way. No one could bring himself to completely trust this newcomer, and so he
became the outcast for the day.
That was all just as well as far as he was concerned, because he had a good deal of
thinking to do. He had gone out yesterday after work, checking out the bars in the
shadier portions of the underground city. He had not been able to cover ‘it all in one night,
of course; the settlement that was Vesa comprised millions of square kilometers of
caverns and corridors, with more being added all the time as the moon’s wealth grew.
But even though he’d just seen a tiny fraction of the life here, a picture was beginning to
emerge that puzzled him greatly.
Vesa had quite a scandalous reputation throughout the Galaxy as a gambler’s haven, a
world of iniquity, where anything goes as long as the customer has enough rubles to pay
the price. Based on this reputation, Jules had expected to find the private life on Vesa
equally lascivious and wild. Instead, he found it just the reverse. The permanent
inhabitants of Vesa were, on the whole, a clean-living bunch. The handful of bars he
visited were orderly and sedate, with little raucous laughter and no fights breaking out at
an instant’s notice. There were the usual drunks and dyevkas, but they seemed
somehow set apart from the run of the ordinary people.
Jules saw little evidence, on that quick skim, of any major corruption, let alone an
enormous conspiracy to kill tourists. How could so quiet and civilized a people be
responsible for what all the evidence indicated was happening.
On the other hand, there was still the fascinating development of what happened during
the fight. Those Chandakhari had reacted like a well-rehearsed fighting unit. Each man
had known exactly where to go and what to do when the trouble started. That was not
the sort of thing he would expect of a group of farm peasants, or even dockmen used to
barroom brawls. There was a military precision to their actions that was frightening. The
Chandakhari would, Jules decided, bear closer inspection.
The first part of the day went evenly enough, even if the tension among the work crew
was thick enough to cut with a butter knife. Shortly after the lunch break, though, a minor
explosion occurred. One of the Chandakhari was using his crane to swing a cargo
section out of a ship’s hold and onto the flatbed carrier. It was Rask’s assignment to
clear the space for the section and guide it home, while others of the workers helped
steady the box. Somehow a signal was missed on one side or another, and the box went
tumbling out of control from the crane. It landed with a noiseless thud that jarred the
soles of everyone’s feet, not on the carrier but on the floor of the crater itself. The impact
was more than the container was built to withstand, and it smashed open, scattering its
contents all over the airless surface.
Rask’s anger flared like a supernova. “You filthy little kulyak!” he screamed over the
radio circuits for all the men to hear. “You missed my mark on purpose!.
The Chandakhar crane operator, a man named Forakhi, did not take kindly to being
compared with one of the least sanitary animals of the Galaxy, and yelled something
back in his own native tongue. It must have been pretty vile, because the other
Chandakhari seemed to wither at its usage. Then the crane man continued, “I didn’t miss
your mark-you deliberately gave me the wrong one so that I would drop the box.” “Are
you calling me a liar?” Rask roared.
Suddenly the presence of Laz Fizcono had insinuated itself between the two arguing
men, and that was a presence to be reckoned with. “I don’t want to hear any more talk
of things being done intentionally,” the big man bellowed, drowning out the noises Forakhi
and Rask were making. “I was watching it all very closely, and it was an accident pure
and simple. We’re all tense today; we’ll have to try harder to avoid mistakes.
He turned to look at the cargo that had spilled over the floor of the crater. The ruined
container had been filled with lettuce, tens of thousands of heads that now lay ruined all
around the carrier. Since lettuce is composed mostly of water, the harsh glare of Vesa’s
sunlight and the open vacuum combined to sizzle all the juices out of the scattered heads
and turn them almost instantly into disgusting lumps of brownish green slime.
“What we need to do right now,” the forman continued, “is get this mess cleaned up so
that we can get on with our work.” He turned to Jules. “DuChamps, I want you, Hastings,
Ktobu and Hassahman to clear out the area. Get rid of this stuff before it gets fried
completely to the ground. Me, I’ve got to go fill out the insurance forms on this, and that
always gives me a headache. The rest of you men can continue with what you were
doing; an accident is no excuse to stop working.
Jules and his there designated coworkers set about their new task at once. Racing back
to the hangar where equipment was stored, they located the special unit they needed
and drove it out to the site of the mishap. This machine, called the “scraper,” was