“The life support deck was also pressurized?”
“We normally keep it that way so we can get into it from inside the crew module. It’s really a very small space, crammed with tanks and pipes, but you can reach in there if you have to. When it was hit the inside hatches seized up automatically.”
“Now, this business about the wine crate . . .”
McNeil grinned sheepishly. “Yes, I did behave rather badly. I suppose I’m going to have to pay someone a pretty penny for the bottles I managed to down before Grant caught me.”
“That wine was the personal property of the director of the Hesperian Museum, Mr. Darlington,” Proboda grunted. “I imagine he’ll have something to say about it.
. . . But you say Grant put the partial crate back where you got it?”
“Yes, and then he changed the combination on the airlock so I couldn’t get back in.”
A feral gleam appeared in Proboda’s pale eye. “You claim the airlock of that hold hasn’t been opened since the day after the accident?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“But the top compartment of that hold is pressurized.
It’s a vessel almost half the volume of the command module.
And it was full of fresh air!”
“Aye, it was, and if we’d had another like it, Peter Grant would be alive today,” McNeil said quietly. “Originally we were to carry some seedlings. They wouldn’t have saved us, but the extra air that came with ’em might have.” He seemed to notice Proboda’s confusion for the first time. “Oh, I see your problem, sir. And you’re right, about the old ships . . . but Star Queen and most of the newer freighters are piped to allow any combination of gas exchange through all the airtight compartments, without having to open the airlocks. That allows us to carry cargo that the shipper wouldn’t want us to know about or get into, you see. If they’re willin’ to pay freight on the entire hold. Which is the usual procedure on military contracts.”
“So you had access to the air in that compartment even “Right. If we’d wanted, we could have pumped the air out of that hold and jettisoned the whole thing, got rid of the mass. In fact Grant ran some calculations, but we wouldn’t have saved enough time.”
Proboda was disappointed, but still he persisted. “But after Grant had, uh, left the ship . . . you could have found his new combination for the airlock, couldn’t you?”
“Could be, but I doubt it, even if I’d been interested.
I’m no computer whiz, and a man’s private files aren’t easy to crack into. But why would I have wanted to?”
Proboda glanced significantly at the empty bottle and glass beside McNeil’s half full plate. “Because there were still three and a half crates of wine in there, for one thing.
And no one to stop you from drinking it.”
McNeil studied the blond inspector with an expression that struck Sparta as calculating. “I like a glass as well as the next person, Inspector. Maybe better. Maybe a little too much better. I’ve been called a hedonist and maybe I am that, but I’m not a complete fool.” McNeil ground out the remains of his cigarette.
“What did you have to fear,” Proboda insisted, “beyond the commission of a felony, of course, if that really did concern you?”
“Just this,” McNeil said quietly, and the steel edge of his affable personality finally slid out from under the smile, glittering. “Alcohol interferes with the functioning of your lungs and constricts your blood vessels. If you’re going to die anyway, you might not mind that. But if you intend to survive in an oxygen-poor environment, you won’t be taking a drink.”
“And cigarettes? Do they interfere with the functioning of the lungs?”
“After two packs a day for twenty years, Inspector, two cigarettes a day are but a crutch for the nerves.”
Proboda was about to plunge on when Sparta interrupted.
“I think we ought to leave Mr. McNeil in peace for now, Viktor. We can continue at a later time.” She had watched the exchange with interest. As a cop, Proboda had his strong points—she liked his bulldog persistence even when he knew he looked foolish—but his shortcomings were numerous. He was easily sidetracked, having here fixated on the trivial issue of destruction of property— Sparta suspected that was due to an excessive concern for powerful interests in the Port Hesperus community—and he hadn’t done his homework, or he would have known about the hold airlocks.
But his most serious error was that he had already passed moral judgment on McNeil. McNeil was not to be judged so easily. Everything he had said about himself was true. He was not a fool. And he intended to survive.
Sparta rose and said, “You are free to go wherever you like on the station when the medics release you, Mr.
McNeil, although if you prefer to avoid the media this is probably the best place to do it. Star Queen is off limits, of course. I’m sure you understand.”
“Perfectly, Inspector. Thanks again for arrangin’ this lovely dinner.” He gave her a jaunty salute from the comfort of his bed.
Before they reached the corridor, Sparta turned to Proboda and smiled. “You and I make a good team, Viktor.
Good guy, bad guy, you know. We’re naturals.”
“Who’s the good guy?” he asked.
She laughed. “Right. You were hard on McNeil, but I read you as the good guy when it comes to your neighbors.
Whereas I intend to show them no mercy.”
“I don’t follow. How could anybody on Port Hesperus be involved in this?”
“Viktor, let’s go climb into spacesuits and take a look at that hole in the hull, shall we?”
“All right.”
“But first we’ve got to get through the mob.”
They stepped lightly through the clinic doors, into a crowd of waiting mediahounds. “Inspector Troy!” “Hey, Vik, old buddy . . .” “Please, Inspector, what have you got for us? You’ve got something for us, right . . . ?”
XIV
They left the howling newspack outside the security sector.
“I’ve never seen them like this,” Proboda muttered. “You’d think they’d never had a chance to report a real story before.”
Sparta had no experience with the media. She’d thought she could use the standard techniques of command and control, the voice and personality tricks, and they did work up to a point, but she had underestimated the mob’s ability to tear at her concentration, to sour her internal functions. “Viktor, excuse me—I’ve got to have a moment.” She paused in a corner of the empty passage, closing her eyes, floating in midair, willing the tension in her neck and shoulders to dissolve. Her mind emptied itself of conscious thought.
Proboda eyed her curiously, hoping no one would come along and he would have to explain. The formidable young Inspector Troy was suddenly vulnerable, her eyes closed and her head pitched forward, floating with her hands up like a small animal’s paws; he could see the down on the back of her slender white neck, bared where her straight blond hair had fallen clear.
Seconds later, Sparta allowed her eyes to open fully.
“Viktor, I need a spacesuit. I’m a size five and a half,” she said, and just like that her expression was firm again.
“I’ll see what I can find in the lockers.”
“And we’ll need some tools. Limpet clamps and suction cups. Grip struts. Inertial wrench with a full set of heads and bits. Bags and tape and stuff.”
“That’s all in a grade ten mechanic’s kit. Anything special?”
“No. I’ll meet you at the lock.”
She moved forward, toward the Star Queen docking tube, and Proboda went off to the tool shed.
Two patrollers were on duty beside the entrance to the tube, wearing blue spacesuits with helmets on, although unlatched. They were armed with stunguns—air rifles using rubber bullets that were capable of severely injuring a human, even one in a spacesuit, although not likely to puncture crucial space station systems. Metal cartridges and the weapons that fired them were barred on Port Hesperus.
Through the double glass windows behind the guards the enormous bulk of Star Queen almost filled the docking bay. Star Queen was of average size as freighters go, but she was much larger than the tenders, launches, and shuttles that normally docked inside Port Hesperus.
“Has anyone been here since McNeil was taken off the ship?” Sparta asked the guards.
They glanced at each other and shook their heads. “No, Inspector.” “No one, Inspector.” They betrayed it in their voices and they smelled of it: they were lying.
“Good,” she said. “I want you to report to me or Inspector Proboda if anyone attempts to get past you. Anyone at all, even someone from our office. Understood?”
“Right, Inspector.”
“Certainly, Inspector. You bet.”
Sparta went into the boarding tube. The red plastic seal was still in place over the rim of the hatch. She laid her hand over it and leaned close to it.