They were. There was a delay of perhaps three-quarters of a minute. Then there were clankings, reaching the air in Scott’s space suit through his metal soles. A lock-door swung out and open. Scott went unhurriedly to it. He entered, and the sudden tug of artificial gravity restored sensations of up and down. He very matter-of-factly closed the outer door. He felt his suit go limp as air came in. He opened the inner lock-door and walked out of the lock into the ship-turned-space buoy.
There was nobody to greet him. There was no one in sight at all. He heard faint music—Thallian mood-music. He stood still for a moment, awaiting challenge. Then he shrugged and got out of his space suit. He put it on a chair, tugged his uniform into shape, and walked briskly ahead. He knew, of course, that he was watched; if not directly, then by closed-circuit viewers set up somewhere.
He headed for the control room. It was the one part of the ship officially occupied by Patrol personnel, who operated the checkpoint equipment and occasionally adjusted the buoy’s position with reference to the marker-asteroid outside. The buoy had been elegant, once. High ceilings—there was no need to save room in a ship of space—and decorative woods and thick carpets gave this deck the look and feel of an old-fashioned hotel. There was a desk for a room clerk. Nobody was there. Scott passed the door of the dining saloon, which somehow looked more like a restaurant. At one side there was a tiny theater for solidograph film shows.
He saw a girl. She was seated as if watching a film on the round screen Scott couldn’t quite glimpse. There was muted music. She did not turn her head. She continued to look at the invisible screen as Scott passed the doorway.
He almost hesitated. He hadn’t guessed at women involved in this affair! But she must be watched. There was a specific line of action he must follow if the situation here was to be handled properly. Something had to be done and only he was available to try to do it.
He went confidently to the control room door. Since he was appointed to command here, it made a good impression for him to seem to know a lot about his ship and what he expected of it.
He opened the control room door and two men in Patrol uniforms hastily got to their feet. They weren’t Patrol personnel. Uniforms or no uniforms, they were civilians. They saluted with an obvious attempt to be military. Scott raised his eyebrows. He only nodded in reply. One didn’t salute on active duty in the Patrol. He glanced here and there. There was a sort of timetable that can be deduced from neglected military quarters. Some things show it if they’re not attended to every day. Other items of housekeeping became noticeable a little later. This control room had been occupied. Overflowing ashtrays proved it. But proper Patrol housekeeping hadn’t been done for nearly a week. He could tell.
The two civilians-in-uniform stood stiffly at what they thought was attention. Scott looked at them with a deliberately enigmatic air. Then he said drily, “Rest.”
They relaxed, apparently satisfied that they’d passed inspection. Scott went to the checkpoint commander’s desk and seated himself. He turned the chair around and faced them. Then he said, “Before he was killed, did Lieutenant Thrums say anything about the Five Comets?”
His predecessor in command had been named Thrums. Scott assumed casually that he was dead. The two pseudo-Patrol privates jumped a little.
“Ye—no, sir,” said one of the two. “He didn’t.”
“Maybe,” said Scott gently, “he didn’t confide it to you. But he was much concerned. Or maybe he didn’t have a chance to tell you before he was killed?”
This was hardly the line an unsuspicious new commanding officer would take. On the other hand it wasn’t the way a merely suspicious man would act. The two men in Patrol uniform gaped at him. One of them said uneasily, “He—Lieutenant Thrums, sir—he’d been glum for a long time. So one day he went into an air-lock and closed the inner door and opened the outer one. Then he—walked out, sir. We—we didn’t recover the body.”
Scott raised his eyebrows again.
“Remarkable!” he said in gentle irony. “It was a remarkable achievement! If the lock was pumped empty, anyone else would have died of oxygen-lack before the outer door could be opened. Or if he let the air escape to space by emergency bleed, explosive decompression would have knocked him cold and he couldn’t have opened the door anyhow. Think of a better story and tell it to me later, will you? But right now—”
He snapped at them.
“Go get the top civilian here! The boss! The man people take orders from! He’s gotten you into a hell of a fix. I have to get you out of it, if you’re to be gotten out.”
One of the badly uniformed men reached for a communicator. Scott barked, “I said go get him! I didn’t say phone him! Get him!”
The two pseudo-troopers almost fell over each other getting out of the door. They were evidently not part of the killing members of a criminal group. An enterprise like the one in hand would need more organization than a bank-robbery or a more or less normal attempt at kidnaping or murder. If it went on from the seizure of Lambda to the capture of the Golconda Ship, it would be even more complicated. Men who could handle blasters would be needed, of course. But men who could carry on ordinary checkpoint routine were called for, too. The Patrol uniform-wearers would be small crooks, called into this really big operation for some supposed special skills.
Scott leaned forward to the desk microphone and pressed the G.C. button for a general communication to every compartment in the checkpoint buoy.
“All personnel attention!” he said sharply. “I am Lieutenant Scott, Space Patrol, assigned to the command of this installation. I have just come aboard. The liner on which I came is lying off Lambda, ready to take on any passengers who may wish to avoid the danger the checkpoint faces. The Five Comets of Canis Lambda are headed sunward now. Computation has shown that the nuclei, the heads, of not less than four of the five will cross our orbit at just the time we should be there. The head of a comet is a swarm of meteoric bodies, hundreds of millions of them, traveling in a clump hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of miles across. Two previous robot check-points at this station were destroyed by such encounters. This installation is not able to move fully out of the way. It has only solar-system drive. But I intend to stay aboard and take emergency measures already planned. But it will be a risky business—an extremely risky business! I urge all passengers and as many of the crew as can be spared to transfer to the liner now waiting nearby. You will have to hurry. The liner will wait no longer than half an hour, because it has the safety of its own passengers to think of. Repeat. You will have to hurry! But I urge all non-essential personnel and all passengers to transfer immediately.”
He clicked off the microphone. He expected absolutely nothing from the announcement he’d made. Maybe those who now controlled the buoy would have a good laugh. But it would prepare their minds for uneasiness. Ultimately—
The traditions of the Patrol were many and varied. A Space Patrol man might send for help, but he never waited for it. When a problem seemed insoluble, a Patrol man did what he could to change some part of it, which at worst might cause confusion, and at best might cause it to fall apart. Scott had an appallingly complicated problem on his hands. But if he handled it right and had some luck, he might prevent the capture of the Golconda ship without allowing the destruction of the checkpoint. He might even manage to save the lives of legitimate passengers and crewmen—if any were left alive. But that was questionable. In any case he wasn’t planning to capture criminals right now. The Patrol saved lives before it made captures.