nearest one. Point three five, I make it.”
“But what’s the chance of its having a Tellus-Type planet?”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” Adams said. “Any planet will, it is virtually certain, enable us to
restore subspace communication.
“It’ll still be a mighty long haul,” Deston said. “The shape the engines are in, I doubt if
they’ll stand up under more than about one gee on a long pull. We can’t do much better
than that anyway, because we’ve got no grav-control-the Q-converters are all shot and
we can’t fix ’em.”
“We’ll travel at one gravity,” Barbara said. “Babies; remember?”
“I’ll figure it that way,” Deston said, and went to work with his slide-rule. A few minutes
later he reported, “Neglecting the Einstein Effect, which is altogether too hairy for a
slipstick, I make it about fourteen months. But since velocity at turnover will be crowding
six tenths of a light, that neglect makes it just a guess.”
“We’ll compute it tomorrow morning,” Jones said. “For your information, all, we’re
beading for that star now.”
Chapter 2
THE ZETA FIELD
The tremendous Chaytor engines of the Procyon were again putting out their wonted
torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on course at one gravity.
The lifecraft were in their berths, but the five and the four still lived in them rather than in
the vast and oppressive emptiness that the liner then was. And outside of working hours
the two groups did not mix.
In Lifecraft Three, four men sat at two tables. Ferdy Blaine and Moose Mordan were
playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size, lithe and poised, built of
rawhide and spring steel. Moose the Muscle was six feet five and weighed a good two
sixty. The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had many vitriolic
arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.
“Play it my way and we’ve got it made, I tell you!” Newman pounded the table with his
fist. “Seventy five megabucks if it’s a dime! Heavier loot than your second-string
syndicate ever even thought of in one haul! I’m almost as good an astrogator as Jones is
and a better engineer, and at practical electronics I’m just as good as Pretty Boy Deston
is.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lopresto sneered. “How come you’re only a crew-chief, then?”
“Only a crew-chief!” Newman yelled. “D’ya think I’m dumb or something? Or don’t know
where the big moola is at? Or ain’t in exactly the right spot to collect right and left? Or I
ain’t got exactly the right connections? With Mister Big himself? You ain’t that dumb!”
“Dumb or not, before I make a move I’ve got to be sure that we can get back without
’em.”
“You can be damn sure. I got to get back myself, don’t I? But paste this in your hat-I get
the big platinum blonde.”
“You can have her. Too big. The little yellow-head’s my dish.”
Newman sneered into Lopresto’s hard-held face. “But remember this, you small-time,
chiseling punk. Rub me out after we kill them and you get nowhere. You’re dead. Chew
on that awhile and you’ll know who’s boss.”
After just the right amount of holding back and objecting, Lopresto agreed. “You win,
Newman, the way the cards lay. So all that’s left is-when? Tomorrow?”
“Not quite. Let ’em finish figuring course, time, distance, turnover-all that stuff. They can
do it a lot faster and some better than I can. I’ll tell you when.”
“Okay, and I’ll give the signal. When I yell NOW we give ’em the business.”
Newman went to his cabin and the muscle called Moose said, “I don’t like that ape, boss.
Before you gun him, let me work him over a little, huh?”
“We’ll let him think he’s top dog for a while yet; then you can have him.”
A few evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said, “You’re worried, Babe, and
everything’s going so smoothly. Why?”
“Too smoothly altogether. That’s why. Newman ought to be doing a slow burn and
goldbricking all he dares, and he isn’t. And I wouldn’t trust Lopresto as far as I can throw
a brick chimney by its smoke. I smell trouble. Shooting trouble.”
“But they couldn’t do anything without you two!” Bernice protested. “Could they, Ted,
possibly?”
“They could, and I think they intend to. Being a crew chief, Newman is a jackleg
engineer, a good practical ‘troncist, and a rule-of-thumb astrogator, and we’re computing
every element of the flight. And if he’s what I think he is . . .” Jones paused.
“Could be,” Deston said. “One of an organized ring of pirate-smugglers. But there isn’t
enough plunder that they could get away with to make it pay.”
“No? Think again. Not plunder; salvage. With either of us alive, none. With both of us
dead, can you guess within ten megabucks of how much they’ll collect?”
“Blockhead!” Deston slapped himself on the forehead. “And they aren’t planning on killing
the girls until the last act.”
Both girls shrank visibly and Barbara said, “I see.” Deston went on, “They know they’ll
have to get both of us at once-the survivor would lock the ship in null-G and they’d be
sitting ducks … and it won’t be until we’ve finished the computations. We very seldom
work together. If we make it a point never to be together on duty . . .”
“And be sure to always have our talkies turned on,” Jones put in, grimly.
“Check. They’ll have to think up some reason for getting everybody together, which will
be the tip-off. Blaine will probably draw on me. ..”
“And he’ll kill you,” Jones said, flatly. “You’re fast, I know, but he’s a
professional-probably one of the fastest guns in all space.”
“Yes, but … I’ve got a … I mean I think I can . . .” Bernice, smiling now, stopped
Deston’s floundering. “Why don’t you fellows tell each other that you’re both very strongly
psionic? Bobby and I let our back hair down long ago.
“Oh-so you’ll have warning, too, Babe?” Jones asked. “That’s right; but the girls can’t
start packing pistols now.”
Bernice laughed. “I wouldn’t know how to shoot one if I did. “I’ll throw things-I’m very
good at that.”
Jones didn’t know his new wife very well yet, either. “What can you throw hard enough
and straight enough to do any good?”
“Anything that weighs less than fifty pounds,” she replied, confidently. “In this case . . .
chairs, I think. Flying chairs are really hard to cope with. I’ll start wearing a couple of
knives in leg-sheaths, but I won’t throw ’em unless I absolutely have to. Who will I knock
out with the first chair?”
“I’ll answer that,” Barbara said. “If it’s Blaine against Babe, it’ll be Lopresto against Here.
So you’ll throw your chair at that unspeakable oaf Newman.”
“I’d rather brain him than anyone else I know, but that would leave that gigantic gorilla to
… in that case, Bobby, you’ll simply have to go armed.”
Barbara held out her hands. “I always do.”
“Against a man-mountain like him? You’re that good? Really?”
“Especially against a man-mountain like him. I’m that good. Really. And we should have a
signal-an unusual word-so the first one of us to sense their intent yells `BRAHMS!’
Okay?”
That was okay, and the four went to bed.
Three days later, the intended victims allowed themselves to be inveigled into the lounge.
All was peace and friendship-until suddenly a four-fold “BRAHMS!” rang out an instant
ahead of Lopresto’s stentorian “NOW!”
It was all a very good thing that Deston had had warning for he was indeed competing
out of his class. As it was, his bullet crashed through Blaine’s head, while the gunman’s
went into the carpet. The other pistol duel wasn’t even close and Newman didn’t get to
aim his gun at Adams at all.
Bernice, even while shrieking the battle-cry, leaped to her feet, hurled her chair, and
reached for another; but one chair was enough. It knocked the half-drawn pistol from
Newman’s hand and sent his body crashing to the floor, where Deston’s second bullet
made it certain that he would stay there.
If Moose Mordan had had time to get set, he might have had a chance. His thought
processes, however, were lamentably slow; and Barbara Deston was very, very fast.
She reached him before he even realized that this pint-sized girl actually intended to hit
him; thus his belly- muscles were still completely relaxed when her left fist sank
half-forearm-deep into his solar plexus.
With an agonized “WHOOSH!” he began to double up, but she scarcely allowed him to
bend. The fingers of her right hand, tightly bunched, were already boring savagely into a
spot at the base of his neck. Then, left hand at his throat and right hand pulling hard at
his belt, she put the totalized and concentrated power of her whole body behind the knee