cent! Heavier grease than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even heard of! I’m as good an astrogator as Jones is” and a
damn sight better engineer. In electronics I maybe ain’t got the theory Pretty Boy has, but at building and repairing
the stuff I’ve forgot more than he ever will know. At practical stuff, and that’s all we give a whoop about” I lay over
both them sissies like a Lunar dome.”
“Oh, yeah?” Lopresto sneered. “How come you aren’t ticketed for subspace, then?”
“For hell’s sake, act your age!” Newman snorted in disgust. Eyes locked and held, but nothing happened. “D’ya think
I’m dumb? Or that them subspace Boy Scouts can be fixed? Or I don’t know where the heavy grease is at? Or I can’t
make the approach? Why ain’t you in subspace?”
“I see.” Lopresto forced his anger down. “But I’ve got to be sure we can get back without ’em.”
“You can be damn sure. I got to get back myself, don’t I? But get one thing down solid. I get the big peroxide
blonde.”
“You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellow head a lot better.”
Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: “And don’t think for a second you can make me
crawl, you small-time, chiselling punk. Rub me out after we kill them off and you get nowhere. You’re dead. Chew
on that a while, 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. Have you ever planned this kind of an operation or do you want me to?”
“You do it, Vince,” Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the qualities of a leader. “Besides, you already
have, ain’t you?”
“Of course. Ferdy will take Deston-” “No he won’t! He’s mine, the louse!”
“If you’re that dumb, a!! bets are off. What are you using for a brain? Can’t you see the guy’s chain lightning on ball
bearings?”
“But we’re going to surprise ’em, ain’t we?”
“Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give him an even break. You wouldn’t stand the chance of a snowflake
in hell, and if you’ve got the brains of a louse you know it.”
“OK, we’ll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see who-”
“I can draw twice to your once, but I suppose I’ll have to prove it to you. I’ll take Jones; you will gun the professor;
Moose will grab the dames, one under each arm” and keep ’em out of the way until the shooting’s over. The only
thing is, when? The sooner the better. Tomorrow?”
“Not quite, Vince. Let ’em finish figuring course, time, distance, all that stuff. They can do it a lot faster and some
better than I can. I’ll tell you when.”
“OK, 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 spoke thoughtfully. That is, as nearly thoughtfully as his
mental equipment would allow.
“I don’t like that ape, boss. Before you gun him, let me work him over just a little bit, huh?”
“It’ll be quite a while yet, but that’s a promise, Moose. As soon as his job’s done he’ll wish he’d never been born.
Until then, we’ll let him think he’s Top Dog. Let him rave. But Ferdy, any time he’s behind me or out of sight” watch
him like a hawk. Shoot him through the right elbow if he makes one sour move.”
“I get you, boss.”
A couple of 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; instead
of which he’s happy as a clam and working like a nailer . . . and I wouldn’t trust Vincent Lopresto or Ferdinand
Blaine as far as I can throw a brick chimney by its smoke. This whole situation stinks. There’s going to be shooting
for sure.”
“But they couldn’t do anything without you two!” Bernice exclaimed. “It’d be suicide . . . and with no motive . . .
could they, Ted, possibly?”
Jones’ dark face did not lighten. “They could, and I’m very much afraid they intend to. As a crewchief, Newman is a
jack-leg engineer and a very good practical `troncist; and if be’s what I think he is-” He paused.
“Could be,” Deston said, doubtfully. “In with a mob of normal space pirate-smugglers. I’ll buy that, but there
wouldn’t be enough plunder to-”
“Just a sec. So he’s a pretty good rule-of-thumb astrogator, too, and we’re computing every element of the flight.
As for motive-salvage. With either of us alive” none. With both of us dead, can you guess within ten million bucks
of how much they’ll collect?”
“Blockhead!” Deston slapped himself on the forehead. “I never even thought of that angle. That nails it down
solid.”
“With the added attraction,” Jones went on, coldly and steadily, “of having two extremely desirable women for
eleven months before killing them, too.”
Both girls shrank visibly, and Deston said: “Check. I thought that was the main feature, but it didn’t add up. This
does. Now, how will they figure the battle? Both of us at once, of-”
“Why?” Barbara asked. “I’d think they’d waylay you, one at a time.”
“Uh-uh. The survivor would lock the ship in null-G and it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel. Since we’re almost
never together on duty . . . and it won’t come until after we’ve finished the computations . . . they’ll think up a good
reason for everybody to be together, and that itself will be the tipoff. Ferdy will probably draw on me-”
“And he’ll kill you,” Jones said, flatly. “So I think I’ll blow his brains out tomorrow morning on sight.”.
“And get killed yourself? No . . . much better to use their own trap-”
“We can’t! Fast as you are, you aren’t in his class. He’s a professional-probably one of the fastest guns in space.”
“Yes” but . . . I’ve got a . . . I mean I think I can-” Bernice, grinning openly now, stopped Deston’s floundering. “It’s
high time you fellows told each other the truth. Bobby and I let our back hair down long ago we were both
tremendously surprised to know that both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are. Perhaps even more so.”
“Oh . . . so you get hunches, too?” Jones demanded. “So you’ll have plenty of warning?”
“All my life. The old alarm clock has never failed me yet. But the girls can’t start packing pistols now.”
“I wouldn’t know how to shoot one if I did,” Bernice laughed. “I’ll throw things I’m very good at that.” “Huh?” Jones
asked. He didn’t know his new wife very well, either. “What can you throw straight enough to do any good?”
“Anything I can reach,” she replied, confidently. “Baseballs, medicine balls, cannon balls, rocks, bricks, darts, dis-
cus, hammer, javelin-what-have-you. In a for-real battle I’d prefer . . . chairs, I think. Flying chairs are really hard to
cope with. Knives are too . . . uh-uh, I’d much rather have you fellows do the actual executing. I’ll start wearing a
couple of knives in leg-sheaths, but I won’t throw ’em or use ’em unless I absolutely have to. So who will I knock
out with the first chair?”
“I’ll answer that,” Barbara said, quietly. “If it’s Blaine against Babe, it’ll be Lopresto against Herc. So you’ll throw
your chairs or whatever at that unspeakable oaf Newman.”
“I’d rather brain him than anyone else I know, but that would leave that gigantic gorilla to . . . why, he’d . . . listen,
you’ll simply have to go armed.”
“I always do.” Barbara held out her hands. “Since they don’t want to shoot us two-yet-these are all the weapons I’ll
need.”
“Against a man-mountain like that? You’re that good? Really?”
“Especially against a man-mountain like that. I’m that good. Really,” and both Joneses began to realize what Deston
already knew-just how deadly those harmless seeming weapons could be.
Barbara went on: “We should have a signal, in case one of us gets warning first. Something that wouldn’t mean
anything to them . . . musical, say . . . Brahms. That’s it. The very instant any one of us feels their intent to signal
their attacks he yells ‘BRAHMS!’ and we all beat them to the punch. OK?”
It was OK, and the four-Adams was still hard at work in the lounge-went to bed.
And three days later, within an hour after the last flight datum bad been “put in the tank.” the four intended victims
allowed themselves to be inveigled into the lounge. Everything was peaceful; everyone was full of friendship and