But when he pushed the communicator aside and lit a cigarette I repressed the stomach retch that the mere sight of tobacco smoke had inspired and said, “Dak, isn’t it about time you told me the score?”
“Plenty of time for that on our way to Mars.”
“Huh? Damn your arrogant ways,” I protested feebly. “I don’t want to go to Mars. I would never have considered your crazy offer if 1 had known it was on Mars.”
“Suit yourself. You don’t have to go.”
“Eh?”
“The air lock is right behind you. Get out and walk. Mind you close the door.”
I did not answer the ridiculous suggestion. He went on, “But if you can’t breathe space the easiest thing to do is to go to Mars- and I’ll see that you get back. The Can Do-that’s this bucket-is about to rendezvous with the Go For Broke, which is a high-gee torchship. About seventeen seconds and a gnat’s wink after we make contact the Go For Broke will torch for Mars-for we’ve got to be there by Wednesday.”
I answered with the petulant stubbornness of a sick man. “I’m not going to Mars. I’m going to stay right in this ship. Somebody has to take it back and land it on Earth. You can’t fool me.”
“True,” Broadbent agreed. “But you won’t be in it. The three blokes who are supposed to be in this ship-according to the records back at Jefferson Field-are in the Go For Broke right now. This is a three-man ship, as you’ve noticed. I’m afraid you will find them stuffy about giving up a place to you. And besides, how would you get back through ‘Immigration’?”
“I don’t care! I’d be back on ground.”
“And in jail, charged with everything from illegal entry to mopery and dopery in the spaceways. At the very least they would be sure that you were smuggling and they would take you to some quiet back room and run a needle in past your eyeball and find out just what you were up to. They would know what questions to ask and you wouldn’t be able to keep from answering. But you wouldn’t be able to implicate me, for good old Dak Broadhent hasn’t been back to Earth in quite a spell and has unimpeachable witnesses to prove it.”
I thought about it sickly, both from fear and the continuing effects of spacesickness. “So you would tip off the police? You dirty, slimy–” I broke off for lack of an adequately insulting noun.
“Oh no! Look, old son, I might twist your arm a bit and let you think that I would cry copper-but I never would. But Rrringriil’s conjugate-brother Rrringlath certainly knows that old ‘Grill’ went in that door and failed to come out. He will tip off the noises. Conjugate-brother is a relationship so close that we will never understand it, since we don’t reproduce by fission.”
I didn’t care whether Martians reproduced like rabbits or the stork brought them in a little black bag. The way he told it I could never go back to Earth, and I said so. He shook his head. “Not at all. Leave it to me and we will slide you back in as neatly as we slid you out. Eventually you will walk off that field or some other field with a gate pass which shows that you are a mechanic who has been making some last-minute adjustment-and you’ll have greasy coveralls and a tool kit to back it up. Surely an actor of your skill can play the part of a mechanic for a few minutes?”
“Eh? Why, certainly! But-”
“There you are! You stick with ol’ Doc Dak; he’ll take care of you. We shuffled eight guild brothers in this current caper to get me on Earth and both of us off; we can do it again. But you would not stand a chance without voyageurs to help you.” He grinned. “Every voyageur is a free trader at heart. The art of smuggling being what it is, we are all of us always ready to help out one another in a little innocent deception of the port guards. But a person outside the lodge does not ordinarily get such co-operation.”