“That’s so, but—”
“Please excuse me once more, sir—I’d like to ask just one more question. There is, of course, no reason for alarm in the lateness of Esmeralda, but wouldn’t you consider a ship as much as one hour overdue as possibly in danger? And wouldn’t the situation be rather alarming?”
“Well, one full hour, perhaps you would. Yes, I suppose so —but the eight-hour leeway, you understand—” I laid the phone down quietly on the1 desk and ripped through the Phoenix for yesterday. In the business section it said “Esmeralda due 0330.” And the big clock on the wall said 0458.
I hung up the phone and sprinted for the ethertype, with the successive stories clear in my head, ready to be punched and fired off to Marsboo for relay on the galactic trunk. I would beat out IS clanging bells on the printer and follow them with
INTERSTELLAR FLASH
IMMIGRANT SHIP ESMERALDA SCHEDULED TO LAND FROSTBITE WITH 1,000 FROM THETIS PRO-CYON ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS OVERDUE: OWNER ADMITS SITUATION “ALARMING/1 CRAFT “IN DANGER.”
And immediately after that a five-bell bulletin:
INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN
FROSTBITE—THE IMMIGRANT SHIP ESMERALDA, DUE TODAY AT FROSTBITE FROM THETIS PROCYON WITH 1,000 STEERAGE PASSENGERS ABOARD IS ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS OVERDUE. A SPOKESMAN FOR THE OWNERS, THE FRIMSTEDT ATOMIC AS-TROGATION COMPANY, SAID SUCH A SITUATION IS -ALARMING” AND THAT THE CRAFT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED “IN DANGER.” ESMERALDA IS AN 830 THOUSAND-TON FREIGHTER-STEERAGE PASSENGER CARRIER.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE PORT AT FROSTBITE ADMITTED THAT THERE HAVE BEEN RUMORS CIRCU-
LATINO ABOUT THE CONDITION OF THE CRAFTS ATOMICS THOUGH THESE WERE RATED “A” ONE YEAR AGO.
THE PURSER OF THE SPACESHIP, CONTACTED IN SPACE, WAS AGITATED AND INCOHERENT WHEN QUESTIONED. HE SAID—
“Get up, Spencer, get away from the machine.”
It was Joe Downing, with a gun in his hand.
“I’ve got a story to file,” I said blankly.
“Some other time.” He stepped closer to the ethertype and let out a satisfied grunt when he saw the paper was clean. “Port captain called me,” he said. “Told me you were nosing around.”
“Will you get out of here?” I asked, stupefied. “Man, Fve flash and bulletin matter to clear. Let me alone!”
“I said to get away from that machine or I’ll cut ya down, boy.”
“But why? Why?”
“George don’t want any big stories out of Frostbite.”
“You’re crazy. Mr. Parsons is a newsman himself. Put that damn-fool gun away and let me get this out!”
I turned to the printer when a new voice said, “No! Don’t do it, Mr. Spencer. He is a Nietzschean. He’ll kill you, all right. He’ll kill you, all right.”
It was Leon Portwanger, the furrier, my neighbor, the man who claimed he never knew Kennedy. His fat, sagging face, his drooping white mustache, his sad black eyes enormous behind the bull’s-eye spectacles were very matter-of-fact. He meant what he said. I got up and backed away from the ethertype.
“I don’t understand it,” I told them.
“You don’t have to understand it,” said the rat-faced collector of the port. “All you have to understand is that George don’t like it.” He fired one bullet through the printer and I let out a yelp. I’d felt that bullet going right through me.
“Don’t,” the steady voice of the furrier cautioned. I hadn’t realized that I was walking toward Downing and that his gun was now on my middle. I stopped.
“That’s better,” said Downing. He kicked the phone connection box off the baseboard, wires snapping and trailing. “Now go to the Hamilton House and stay there for a couple of days.”
I couldn’t get it through my head. “But Esmeralda’s a cinch to blow up,” I told him. “It’ll be a major space disaster. Half of them are women! I’ve got to get it out!”
“Ill take him back to his hotel, Mr. Downing,” said Portwanger. He took my arm in his flabby old hand and led me out while that beautiful flash and bulletin and the first lead disaster and the new lead disaster went running through my head to a futile obbligato of: “They can’t do this to me!” But they did it.
Somebody gave me a drink at the hotel and I got sick and a couple of bellboys helped me to bed. The next thing I knew I was feeling very clear-headed and wakeful and Chenery was hovering over.me looking worried.