He thought a moment, went back and put on a bulky suit of battle armor, and decided to try again.
He shoved open the hatch, and climbed out to look at the ship. Wherever he turned, guns bristled. Small turrets, meant for short-range defense, dotted the smooth armored surface. Amidships, a movable belt of fusion turrets faced aft, so that he was looking down their muzzles. Further forward, two large turrets, one behind and above the other, mounted fusion cannon big enough for a man to put his arm into. The sight of all these gun turrets, and of the snap-beam transceptor head steadily rotating atop its mast, gave Roberts a warm pleasant sensation, far different from what he’d felt the last time he’d been on this planet.
From above, where to one side the big hatch of the battered space yacht was now wide open, a rough masculine voice called down.
“The place hasn’t changed much, has it?”
Roberts looked up, to see a strongly built figure, somewhat foreshortened by his angle of vision, grinning down at him. This was Hammell, who’d been stranded here with him the last time.
“No,” said Roberts, automatically glancing around the clearing, and taking a quick look overhead. “Not out here, at least. Where’s Morrissey?”
“Up above. He just got through setting up the gear. Come on up, if you can stand to leave that flying fort of yours.”
Roberts grunted, took another quick look around, studied the ground below the curve of the patrol-ship’s hull, walked aft along one of the horizontal fins, and dropped off. The moment he was clear of the ship, there was a clang, and Roberts turned to see that the patrol-ship’s hatch had shut.
From overhead, Hammell laughed, and called, “You’ve got that thing trained.”
* * *
Roberts gave a second grunt, but no reply. The patrol ship was a sore point between them. Marooned on the planet earlier because of gravitor trouble, the three men had promised themselves to come back under better conditions, bringing with them an improved version of the device that had made their escape possible. One of the little details they hadn’t settled beforehand was what they would come back in. Hammell and Morrissey wanted something roomy, comfortable—if possible luxurious. Roberts wanted plenty of firepower, and as much armor between himself and the planet as possible. Hammell and Morrissey duly selected a large roomy yacht with a solitary energy-cannon mounted in the bow, but otherwise equipped like a luxury hotel. Roberts selected the much smaller patrol ship, cramped and functional perhaps, but armed to the teeth, and fitted with a powerful drive-unit. Neither side had compromised, and the argument was still going on.
Roberts, climbing the ladderlike recessed holds up to the space yacht’s big hatch, reminded himself that he, Hammell, and Morrissey were all equals in rank for the duration of their leave. At work, Roberts was captain of the fast interstellar transport Orion, Hammell was cargo-control officer, and Morrissey was communications officer. Possibly for this reason, there was a little extra friction now and then. Roberts was determined not to add to it if he could help it. But he didn’t intend to lean over backwards so far that he fell on his head, either.
He reached the top of the ladder, and Hammell reached down to help him up.
“It would be better if we were all in the same ship,” said Hammell. “You wouldn’t have to go around looking like a gorilla in an iron suit every time we have to get together. It would be a lot more convenient.”
“You take the convenience,” said Roberts, “and I’ll take the guns. Where’s Morrissey?”
“Up on the sixth level.”
Roberts thought a moment, and remembered that on the yacht, which set down upright on its tail, the horizontal levels started with the drive-unit and storage compartment at the base, below where they now stood. The sixth level would be the control room.
“Wouldn’t there be more room down one level?”
Hammell nodded. “That’s where he’s got the spy screen set up. But right now I think he’s back up in the control room checking the communicator again.”
“Good,” said Roberts. “We can get an idea whether things have changed much.”
Hammell touched a button beside the hatch, and the hatch swung silently shut. He and Roberts walked towards a softly-glowing oval on the deck. The right half of this oval was green, and the left half red. Roberts stepped carefully on the green, and at once the walls of the ship dropped downward, and with a soft murmur an oval section of the next level overhead slid back. One-by-one, the levels dropped past, disclosing entrances to a succession of medium-sized rooms with curving walls, designed for entertainment, eating, sleeping, and then they passed the level where Morrissey had set up the equipment, and reached the control room, which seemed comparatively small because of the inward-curving sides near the nose of the ship. Roberts caught a polished silvery bar, and stepped out of the lift. He nodded to the lean sandy-haired individual who glanced up with worried electric-blue eyes from the communicator.
“Hello, Morrissey,” said Roberts.
Morrissey blinked in momentary alarm at the battle armor.
“Sir,” he said automatically, then added. “Something’s changed since we were here before.”
“What?”
“The screen no longer gives continuous news broadcasts from the city.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It sure doesn’t. So we can see what’s happening, I’ve let go the spy-system pickups, set to tap into the city’s surveillance network. I hope that works.”
“Yes,” said Roberts, remembering that this had been Morrissey’s big worry. “When will we find out?”
“If nothing’s wrong, we ought to be able to pick up the relayed signals any time now. I came back up here because I didn’t want to sit down below chewing my nails.”
“Let’s go take a look now. If we can’t get that spy screen to work, we’re in a mess right at the beginning.”
They dropped down to the next lower level, to see with relief that the big spy screen, though still unfocused, was already lit up. As Morrissey and Hammell dragged over some chairs, Roberts climbed out of the battle armor.
* * *
They sat down in the three chairs, in front of the wide improvised control panel, and Roberts, in the center, adjusted the focus of the spy screen. At once, he had a sharply-detailed view of a potholed street strewn with trash. To the left was a large building with the windows knocked out. To the right was a park where rats scurried amidst the leafless dead trees and smoldering heaps of garbage. Straight ahead, in the center of the street, two small boys stood menacingly with short lengths of iron pipe, their legs wide apart, their clothes ragged and dirty save for armbands marked with triple lightning-bolt insignia. Just rolling onto the screen were a pair of roboid policemen, their whip antennas swaying, the sunlight flashing on the spokes of their high bicycle-type wheels.
Morrissey, to Roberts’ right, gave a surprised grunt.
Roberts said, “If this is typical, no wonder they aren’t broadcasting.”
Hammell nodded. “There’s nothing like disorder and violence to get people worked up. And there’s nothing like having people worked up to bring on disorder and violence.”
“And this is just the spot for it,” said Roberts. He was thinking of the gigantic slum-city, built by a beneficent foundation, and peopled from the slums of half-a-dozen older worlds. But it struck him suddenly that it applied to the whole planet as well.
He glanced out one of the space yacht’s portholes at the small bristling Interstellar Patrol ship below. Roberts had located the patrol ship in a salvage cluster, and the salvage operator had been only too happy to trade it for most of Roberts’ accumulated savings. There were quite a number of special devices on the patrol ship, any one of which was worth far more than the purchase price. But this didn’t affect the salvage operator’s delight in getting rid of the ship.
In the first place, his sharpest tools and hottest torches wouldn’t cut the patrol ship’s armor. In the second place, the patrol ship’s large and numerous weapons were controlled by a combat computer, which came on automatically whenever anyone tried anything that promised to blast off a chunk of high-grade metal. In the third place, worst of all, the ship was partially controlled by what was sometimes called a “symbiotic computer.” This computer had apparently existed in a special relationship with the former crewmen, and now it passed judgment on prospective purchasers, applying roughly the same standards that were necessary to enlist in the Interstellar Patrol. If the prospective purchaser wasn’t up to par—mentally, physically, or morally—the computer disdained him. As a result, nothing on the ship would work for him.
Roberts had barely squeezed by the computer’s forbidding scrutiny. But that was all he needed to do. The ship flew for him. Roberts soon found himself with a ship equipped with an armament fit to dent a planet. The salvage operator, for his part, relievedly blew a kiss after the dwindling speck in the distance, and resolved never again to touch anything like that unless he had a private dreadnought to break it up with.