“Planet Three-D Class-Federation minimum-Fifteen thousand-”
That was more like it! Dane was certain Van Rycke would rise to that. And he did, until Cofort over-topped him with a jump from thirty to fifty thousand in a single offer. Only one chance left. The men from the Queen drew together, forming a knot behind Van Rycke as if they were backing the Cargo-Master in a do or die effort.
“Planet Four-D class-Federation minimum bid fourteen thousand-”
“Sixteen-” Van Rycke’s boom tripped over the Survey announcement.
”Twenty-” that was not Cofort, but a dark man they did not know.
“Twenty-five-” Van Rycke was pushing it.
“Thirty-” the other man matching him in haste.
“Thirty-five!” Van Rycke sounded confident as if he had Cofort’s resources to draw upon.
“Thirty-six-” the dark trader turned cautious.
“Thirty-eight!” Van Rycke made his last offer.
There was no answer. Dane, glancing, saw that Cofort was passing over a voucher and collecting his two packets. The dark man shook his head when the Survey man turned to him. They had it!
For an instant the Queen’s men could hardly believe in their good luck. Then Kamil let out a whoop and the staid Wilcox could be seen pounding Jellico on the back as Van Rycke stepped up to claim their purchase. They spilled out into the street, piling in and on the scooter with but one thought in mind-to get back to the Queen and find out what they had bought.
CHAPTER THREE: CHARTERED GAMBLE
THEY WERE ALL in the mess cabin again, the only space in the Queen large enough for the crew to assemble. Tang Ya set a reader on the table while Captain Jellico slit the packet and brought out the tiny roll of film it contained. Dane believed afterwards that few of them drew a really deep breath until it was fitted into place and the machine focused on the wall in lieu of the regular screen.
“Planet-Limbo-only habitable one of three in a yellow star system-” the impersonal voice of some bored Survey clerk droned through the cabin.
On the wall of the Queen appeared a flat representation of a three world system with the sun in the centre. Yellow sun-perhaps the planet had the same climate as Terra! Dane’s spirits soared. Maybe they were in luck-real luck.
“Limbo-” that was Rip wedged beside him. “Man, oh, man, that’s no lucky name-that sure isn’t!”
But Dane could not identify the title. Half the planets on the trade lanes had outlandish names didn’t they-any a Survey man slapped on them.
“Co-ordinates-” the voice rippled out lines of formulae which Wilcox took down in quick notes. It would be his job to set the course to Limbo.
“Climate-resembling colder section of Terra. Atmosphere-” more code numbers which were Tau’s concern. But Dane gathered that it was one in which human beings could live and work.
The image in the screen changed. Now they might be hanging above Limbo, looking at it through their own view ports. And that vision was greeted with at least one exclamation of shocked horror.
For there was no mistaking the cause of those brown-grey patches disfiguring the land masses. It was the leprosy of war-a war so vast and terrible that no Terran could be able to visualize its details.
“A burnt off!” that was Tau, but above his voice rose that of the Captain’s.
“It’s a filthy trick!”
“Hold it!” Van Rycke’s rumble drowned out both outbursts, his big hand shot out to the reader’s control button. “Let’s have a close up. North a bit, along those burn scars-”
The globe on the screen shot towards them, enlarging so that its limits vanished and they might have been going in for a landing. The awful waste of the long ago war was plain, earth burned and tortured into slag, maybe still even poisonous with radioactive wastes. But the Cargo-Master had not been mistaken, along the horrible scars to the north was a band of strangely tinted green which could only be vegetation. Van Rycke gave a sigh of satisfaction.
“She isn’t a total loss-” he pointed out.
“No,” retorted Jellico bitterly, “probably shows just enough life so we can’t claim fraud and get back our money.”
“Forerunner ruins?” the suggestion came from Rip, timidly as if he felt he might be laughed down.
Jellico shrugged. “We aren’t museum men,” he snapped. “And where would we have to go to make a deal with them-off Naxos anyway. And how are we going to lift from here now without cash for the cargo bond?”
He had hammered home every bad point of their present situation. They owned ten-year trading rights to a planet which obviously had no trade-they had paid for those rights with the cash they needed to assemble a cargo. They might not be able to lift from Naxos. They had taken a Free Trader’s gamble and had lost.
Only the Cargo-Master showed no dejection. He was still studying the picture of Limbo.
“Let’s not go off with only half our jets spitting,” he said mildly. “Survey doesn’t sell worlds which can’t be exploited-”
”Not to the Companies, no,” Wilcox commented, “but who’s going to listen to a kick from a Free Trader-unless he’s Cofort!”
“I still say,” Van Rycke continued in the same even tone, “that we ought to explore a little farther-”
“Yes?” Jellico’s eyes held a spark of smouldering anger. “You want us to go there and be stranded? She’s burnt off-so she’s got to be written off our books. You know there’s never any life left on a Forerunner planet that was assaulted-”
“Most of them are just bare rock now,” Van Rycke said reasonably. “It looks to me as if Limbo didn’t get the full treatment. After all-what do we know about the Forerunners-precious little! They were gone centuries, maybe even thousands of years, before we broke into space. They were a great race, ruling whole systems of planets, and they went out in a war which left dead worlds and even dead suns swinging in its wake. All right.
“But maybe Limbo was struck in the last years of that war, when their power was on the wane. I’ve seen the other blasted worlds-Hades and Hel, Sodom, and Satan, and they’re nothing but cinders. This Limbo still has vegetation. And because it isn’t as badly hit as those others I think we might just have something-”
He is winning his point, Dane told himself-noticing the change of expression on the faces around the table. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to believe that we’ve been taken so badly, because we want to hope that we can win even yet. Only Captain Jellico looked stubbornly unconvinced.
“We can’t take the chance,” he repeated, his lips in an obstinate line. “We can fuel this ship for one trip-one trip. If we make it to Limbo and there’s no return cargo-well,” he slapped his hand on the table, “you know what that will mean-dirt-side for us!”
Steen Wilcox cleared his throat with a sharp rasp which drew their attention. “Any chance of a deal with Survey?” he wanted to know.
Kamil laughed, scorn more than amusement in the sound. ”Do the Feds ever give up any cash once they get their fingers on it?” he inquired.
No one answered him until Captain Jellico got to his feet, moving heavily as if some of the resilience had oozed out of his tough body.
“We’ll see them in the morning. You willing to try it, Van?”
The Cargo-Master shrugged. “All right, I’ll tag along. Not that it’ll do us any good.”
“Blasted-right off course-”
Dane stood again at the open hatch looking out into a night made almost too bright by Naxos’ twin moons. Kamil’s words were not directed to him, he was sure. And a moment later that was confirmed by an answer from Rip.
“I don’t call luck bad, man, ’til it up and slaps me in the face. Van had an idea-that planet wasn’t blasted black. You’ve seen pictures of Hel and Sodom, haven’t you? They’re cinders, as Van said. This Limbo, now-it shows green. Did you ever think, Ali, what might happen if we walked on to a world where some of the Forerunners’ stuff was lying around?”
“Hm-” the idea Rip presented struck home. “But would trading rights give us ownership of such a find?”
“Van would know-that’s part of his job. Why-” for the first tune Rip must have sighted Dane at the hatch, “here’s Thorson. How about it, Dane? If we found Forerunner material, could we claim it legally?”
Dane was forced to admit that he didn’t know. But he determined to hunt up the answer in the Cargo-Master’s tape library of rules and regulations.
“I don’t think that the question has ever come up,” he said dubiously. “Have they ever found usable Forerunner remains-anything except empty ruins? The planets on which their big installations must have been are the burnt off ones-”