“I know. The present situation is a temporary expedient while we work it out.”
“And I’m the man for the job. I’ve got to be, I’m the only agent on the loose that either one of you can afford to trust. Now listen-”
Eight minutes later Ford was nodding his head slowly and saying, “It might work. It might. Anyway, you start your preparations. I’ll have a letter of credit waiting for you at Goddard.”
“Can you cover your tracks on that? I can’t flash a letter of credit from the Administrator; people would wonder.”
“Credit me with some intelligence. By the time it reaches you it will appear to be a routine banking transaction.”
“Sorry. Now how can I get through to you when I need to?”
“Oh, yes-note this code combination.” Ford recited it slowly. “That puts you through to my desk without relay. No, don’t write it down; memorize it.”
“And how can I talk to Zack Barstow?
“Call me and I’ll hook you in. You can’t call him directly unless you can arrange a sensitive circuit.”
“Even if I could, I can’t cart a sensitive around with me. Well, cheerio-I’m clearing.”
“Good luck!”
Lazarus left the phone booth with restrained haste and hurried back to reclaim his hired ship. He did not know enough about current police practice to guess whether or not the High Chief Provost had traced the call to the Administrator; he simply took it for granted because he himself would have done so in the Provosts’ shoes. Therefore the nearest available proctor was probably stepping on his heels-time to move, time to mess up the trail a little.
He took off again and headed west, staying in the local, uncontrolled low level until he reached a cloud bank that walled the western horizon. He then swung back and cut air for Kansas City, staying carefully under the speed limit and flying as low as local traffic regulations permitted. At Kansas City he turned his ship in to the local U-push-it agency and flagged a ground taxi, which carried him down the controlway to Joplin. There he boarded a local jet bus from St. Louis without buying a ticket first, thereby insuring that his flight would not be recorded until the bus’s trip records were turned in on the west coast.
Instead of worrying he spent the time making plans.
One hundred thousand people with an average mass of a hundred and fifty-no, make it a hundred and sixty pounds, Lazarus reconsidered-a hundred and sixty each made a load of sixteen million pounds, eight thousand tons. The I Spy could boost such a load against one gravity but she would be as logy as baked beans, It was out of the question anyhow; people did not stow like cargo; the I Spy could lift that dead weight-but “dead” was the word, for that was what they would be.
He needed a transport.
Buying a passenger ship big enough to ferry the Families from Earth up to where the New Frontiers hung in her construction orbit was not difficult; Four Planets Passenger Service would gladly unload such a ship at a fair price. Passenger trade competition being what it was, they were anxious to cut their losses on older ships no longer popular with tourists. But a passenger ship would not do; not only would there be unhealthy curiosity in what he intended to do with such a ship, but-and this settled it-he could not pilot it single-handed. Under the Revised Space Precautionary Act, passenger ships were required to be built for human control throughout on the theory that no automatic safety device could replace human judgment in an emergency.
It would have to be a freighter.
Lazarus knew the best place to find one. Despite efforts to make the Moon colony ecologically self-sufficient, Luna City still imported vastly more tonnage than she exported. On Earth this would have resulted in “empties coming back”; in space transport it was sometimes cheaper to let empties accumulate, especially on Luna where an empty freighter was worth more as metal than it had cost originally as a ship back Earthside.
He left the bus when it landed at Goddard City, went to the space field, paid his bills, and took possession of the I Spy, filed a request for earliest available departure for Luna. The slot he was assigned was two days from then, but Lazarus did not let it worry him; he simply went back to the docking company and indicated that he was willing to pay liberally for a swap, in departure time. In twenty minutes he had oral assurance that he could boost for Luna that evening.