‘Why did he eat him?’
‘Why, he was dead. I told you that. Just the same, I don’t think a man ought to eat his own partner, do you?’
The boys agreed that it was a breech of etiquette.
‘I think he ought to limit it to members of his own family, unless the two of them have got a signed and sealed contract. See any ghosts yet?’
The acceleration was so sharp that it left both the twins a bit confused. ‘Ghosts?’
‘You will. Many’s the time I’ve talked to High-Grade Henderson. Said he didn’t blame Lafe a bit, would ‘a’ done the same thing in his place. Ghosts all around here. All the rockmen that have died out here, they can’t get back to Earth. They’re in a permanent orbit — see? And it stands to reason that you can’t accelerate anything that doesn’t have mass.’ He leaned toward them confidentially. ‘Sometimes you see ’em, but mostly they whisper in your earphones. And when they do, listen — because that’s the only way you’ll ever find any of the big strikes that got found and then got lost again. I’m telling you this because I like you, see? So listen. If it’s too faint, just close your chin valve and hold your breath; then it comes clearer.’
They agreed and thanked him. ‘Now tell me about yourselves, boys.’ To their surprise he appeared to mean it; when they slowed down he taxed them for details, filling in only occasionally with his own disjointed anecdotes. At last Castor described the fiasco of the flat cats. ‘So that’s why we don’t have much food to trade with. But we do have some chocolate left and lots of other things.’
Charlie rocked back and forth from his perch in the air. ‘Flat cats, eh? I ain’t had my hands on a flat cat in a power of years. Nice to hold, they are. Nice to have around. Philosophical, if we just understand ’em.’ He suddenly fixed Castor with his eye. ‘What you planning to do with all those flat cats?’
‘Why, nothing, I guess.’
‘That’s just what I thought You wouldn’t mind giving a poor old man who hasn’t kith nor kin nor wife nor chick one of those harmless flat cats? An old man who would always give you a bite to eat and a charge for your suit bottle?’
Castor glanced at Pollux and agreed cautiously that any dicker they reached would certainly include a flat cat as a mark of faith in dealing. ‘Then what do you want? You talked about scooters. You know old Charlie hasn’t got a scooter — except the one I have to have myself to stay alive.’
Castor broached the notion about repairing old parts, fitting together a scooter. Charlie scratched an inch-long stubble. ‘Seems. to me I did have a rocket motor — you wouldn’t mind if it lacked a valve or two? Or did I trade that to Swede Gonzalez? No, that was another one. I think — just a second while I take a look.’ He was gone more nearly 600 seconds, buried in the mass; he came out dragging a piece of junk behind. ‘There you are! Practically new. Nothing a couple of bright boys couldn’t fix.’
Pollux looked at Castor. ‘What do you think it’s worth?’
Castor’s lips moved silently: ‘He ought to pay us to take it away.’ It took them another twenty minutes but they got it for three pounds of chocolate and one flat cat.
XVII — FLAT CATS FINANCIAL
It took the better part of two weeks to make the ancient oxy-alcohol engine work; another week to build a scooter rack to receive it, using tubing from Fries’ second-hand supply. It was not a pretty thing, but, with the Stone’s stereo gear mounted on it, it was an efficient way to get around the node. Captain Stone shook his head over it and subjected it to endless tests before he conceded that it was safe even though ugly.
In the meantime the Committee had decreed a taxi service for the doctor lady; every miner working within fifty miles of City Hall was required to take his turn at standby watch with his scooter, with a fixed payment in high grade for any run he might have to make. The Stones saw very little of Edith Stone during this time: it seemed as if every citizen of Rock City had been saving up ailments.