Intent on his own problem Dane climbed from level to level until he reached Rip’s confined quarters on the fringe of control territory. The astrogator-apprentice was huddled on a snap-down seat, a T-camera in his hands.
“I got a whole strip shot of the ruins,” he told Dane excitedly as the other paused in the doorway. “But that Rich-he’s a free-rider if I ever saw one. Wonder Sinbad didn’t hunt him out with the rest of the cargo gnawers and turn him in as legitimate prey-”
“What’s he done now?”
“With the biggest thing yet in Forerunner finds out there,” stabbing a finger towards the wall, “he’s sitting on it as if it is his own personal property. Told Captain Jellico that he didn’t want any of us going over to see things-that ‘the encroachment of untrained sightseers too often ruined unusual finds’! Untrained sightseers!” Rip repeated the words deep in his throat, and, for the first time since Dane had known him, he registered real resentment.
”Well,” Dane pointed out reasonably, “even with four to help him he can’t cover the whole planet. We’re going to send out a scouting team after the regular system, aren’t we? What’s to prevent your running down some class-A ruins of your own? I don’t think Rich’s found the only remains on the whole planet. And there’s nothing in the rules which says we can’t explore the ones we find.”
Rip brightened. “You’re blasting with all jets now, man!” He put the T-camera down.
“At least,” Kamil’s carefully enunciated words cut in from the corridor, “one can never accuse the dear Doctor of neglect of duty. The way he rushed off to the scene of his labours you’d think he expected to find some one there cutting large slices out of the best exhibits. The dear Doctor is a bit of a puzzle all around, isn’t he?”
Rip voiced his old suspicion. “He didn’t know about Twin Towers-”
“And that red-headed assistant of his carries an astrogator’s computer text in his kit bag.” Dane was very glad to have information of his own to add to the discussion, especially since Kamil was there to hear it. The quiet with which his statement was received was flattering. But as usual Ali provided the first prick.
“How did that amazing fact come to your attention?”
Dane decided to ignore the faint but unpleasant accent on “your”.
“He dropped his kit bag, the book rolled out, and he was in a big hurry to get it out of sight again.”
Rip reached out to pull open a cupboard. From within he produced a thick book with a water-and-use-proof cover. “You saw one like this?”
Dane shook his head. “His had a red band-like the one on Wilcox’s control cabin desk.”
Kamil whistled softly and Rip’s dark eyes went wide. “But that’s a master book!” he protested, “No one but a signed-on astrogator has one of those, and when he signs out of any ship that goes into the Captain’s safe until his replacement comes on board. There’s just one on every ship by Federation law. When a ship is decommissioned the master book for it is destroyed-”
Ali laughed. “Don’t be so naive, my friend. How do you suppose poachers and smugglers operate? Do they comb their computations out of the air? It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a brisk black market trade in computer texts long since supposed to be burnt.”
But Rip still shook his head. “They wouldn’t have the new data-that’s added on each planet as we check in. Why do you suppose Wilcox goes to the Field control office with our volume every time we set down on another world? That book is sent straight to the Survey office and is processed to add the latest dope. And you couldn’t present anything but a legit text-they’d spot it in a minute !”
“Listen, my innocent child,” drawled Kamil, “for every law the Federation produces in their idealist vacuum there is some bright boy-or boys-working day and night to break it. I’m not telling you how they work it, but I’m willing to wager all my cut of this particular venture that it’s being done. If Thorson saw a red badge text in that fellow’s possession, then it’s being done right here and now-on Limbo.”
Rip got to his feet, “We should tell Steen-”
“Tell him what? That Thorson saw a book which looked like a text fall out of that digger’s personal baggage? You didn’t pick it up, did you, Thorson, or examine it closely?”
Dane was forced to admit that he had not. And his deflation began. What proof had he that the man from the expedition possessed a forbidden master text? And Steen Wilcox, of all people, was the last man on the ship to approach with a story founded on anything but concrete evidence. Unless Dane had the volume in question in his hand and ready to show, he would have little chance of being believed.
“So you see,” Kamil turned back to Rip, “we’ll have to have much better proof in our hot little hands before we go bursting in on our elders in the guise of intrepid Fed Agents or Boy Patrolmen.”
Rip sat down again, as convinced of the reasonableness of that argument as Dane was. “But,” he pounced upon the bit of encouragement in that crushing speech, “you say ‘we’ll have to have’-Then you do believe that there’s something wrong with the Doctor!”
Kamil shrugged. “To my mind he’s as crooked as a Red Desert dust dancer, but that’s just my own private and confidential opinion, and I’m keeping it behind my nice white teeth until I can really impress the powers that be. In the meantime, we’re going to be busy on our own. We’re drawing for flitter assignments within the hour.”
The small flitters carried by the Queen for exploration work held with comfort a two-man crew-with crowding, three. Both of the planes had been carefully checked by the engineering section that afternoon while Dane had been busied with unloading the expedition supplies. And there was no doubt that the next morning would see the first of the scouting parties out on duty.
There were no lights to break the sombre dark of Limbo’s night. And the men of the Queen lost interest in the uniformly blank visa-screens which kept them in touch with the outside. It was after the evening meal that they drew for membership on the flitter teams. As usual the threefold organization of the shop determined the drawing; one man of the engineers, one of the control deck, and one of Van Rycke’s elastic department being grouped together.
Dane wanted to be teamed with Rip if he had open choice. He thought rather bitterly afterwards that maybe it was because of that strong desire that he was served just the opposite. For, when he drew his slip, he discovered that his running mates were Kamil and Tang. A re-arrangement by the Captain left him in the end with the Medic Tau in place of the Com-Tech who- for some purpose of his own-Jellico decreed must remain with the Queen.
More than a little disgusted at such luck he moved back into his old cabin. Curiosity led him to a minute search of the limited storage space, in a faint hope that perhaps he could find some forgotten possession of the enigmatic doctor. Now if this were a Tel-Video melodrama he, as the intrepid young hero, would discover the secret plans of-But that thought led him to remember Kamil’s common sense appraisal of their position with regard to unsubstantiated suspicions.
And then he was thinking of Kamil, trying to analyse why he so much disliked the engineer-apprentice. Ali’s spectacular good looks and poise were part of it. Dane was not yet past the time when he felt awkward and ill at ease on social occasions-he still bumped into objects-just as on the parade ground at the Pool the instructors had used him as an example of how not to execute any manoeuvre. And when he looked in the small mirror above him on the cabin wall, his eyes did not observe any outward charm. No, physically Kamil was all Dane was not.
In addition the Cargo-apprentice suspected that the other had a quickness of wit which also left him at the post. He, himself, was more of the bulldog type, slow and sure. While Kamil leaped ahead with grasshopper bounds. The right sort of bounds, too. That was the worst of it, Dane had argued himself into a rueful amusement. You wouldn’t dislike the engineer so much if he were wrong just once in a while. But so far Ali Kamil had proved to be disgustingly right.
Well, even though the Psycho fitted you to a ship and its crew you couldn’t be expected to like everyone on board. Machines had their limitations. He could rub along with most people, that was one good and useful thing he had learned at the Pool.