"The Boss Canvasman? He doesn't know the first thing about moving cargo in free fall. He's not even suit-trained."
Fatlip Louie gave a bitter chuckle. "The Boss Canvasman says if anybody's going to dump the old rag, it's going to be him. I wasn't going to argue with him."
Pirate Jon moved to the lock cycle. The shuttle side was open. He pressed the button to close the shuttle port, but the red light remained on. He turned to Goofy. "He's jammed the shuttle port open."
"Duckfoot don't want any interference. You got to understand, Pirate, that to Duckfoot, that old rag is as much a part of his family as Sweetie Pie or the Queen."
"We have to dump it, boys, and everything else that we can. With the tops, sticks, rigging, blues, spool wagons, cats, and everything else in those shuttles gone, that'll be eight hundred plus tons less that the engines have to push against to make course corrections..." He looked around at the faces. "There's something else. What is it?"
Fatlip shrugged, then shook his head. "Duckfoot, he looked awful different when he went in there." He looked at Pirate. "With the back doors of that shuttle open, and the old rag sailing off behind to who knows where..." Fatlip shook his head. Goofy Joe placed a hand on Fatlip's shoulder and looked at Pirate.
"Fatlip was going to say that it wouldn't take much for Duckfoot to jump out after the old rag, just to keep it company."
Pirate bit his lip as he smacked the lock cycle in frustration, then he pushed away. "I can't hang around here; there are other shuttles to be unloaded." As he made his way down the corridor, he saw Diane and Sweetie Pie heading in the opposite direction. He pulled up short as they stopped next to him. Sweetie Pie's eyes were red. Pirate looked at Diane. "You heard?"
"Yes."
Pirate hung his head and averted his glance. "Maybe it'll be all right... I'm sorry."
Diane reached out a hand and placed it on Pirate's arm. "It's not your fault. Duckfoot has to do what he has to do." Diane looked down the corridor. "We ought to be waiting by the port." She released his arm, then the pair moved toward the number-ten shuttle.
Pirate Jon pushed into a cross-corridor, then at the center of the ship, he took another cross and moved to the dorsal passageway. As he reached the number-one shuttle port, he found Warts, the route book man, waiting. The bumpy Pendiian turned his head in Pirate's direction. "Ah, I have found you."
"So?" Pirate pulled himself to a stop.
"The Governor sent me to tell you that the cally-ope stays! Everything else on the flying squadron can go, but the horse piano stays."
"That thing weighs almost four tons!"
The Pendiian shrugged. "I only bear the bad news, Pirate. I didn't devise it." Warts lowered his voice. "As far as I am concerned, the horse piano should be the first thing to go."
Pirate frowned. "Are you crazy? You have a vacuum inside that lumpy skull? Ditch the cally-ope?"
Warts shrugged, then pushed off. "Tender ears and an unfortunately refined taste in music are my only excuses."
Pirate turned into the open port, and amidst the forest of lashed wagons, cookhouse, and kid show equipment, Dr. Weems sat at his calliope, fingering the keys to a silent song. The Doctor looked up as Pirate approached. "I was just saying good-by, Pirate. I've played many a ditty on these pipes."
"Well, say hello again. Mr. John says that it doesn't get dumped."
Dr. Weem's eyes grew wide. "The truth!? Tell me, Pirate, do you speak the truth."
Pirate nodded, then sighed. "But, that's four tons I'm going to have to carve out of something else."
Weems clapped his hands together, then scratched his chin. "Pirate, you know you could lighten this thing up a bit if you drained the water out of the boiler."
"Water? That's right! How much is there?"
"A hundred and twenty gallons... why?"
"Why didn't you say something? You know how short of water we are."
Weems shrugged. "I never thought of it for drinking. That stuff's pretty nasty. It's an iron boiler, you know."
"We can clean it up. A hundred and twenty gallons—that's another day on the company's ticket! More!"
The intercom signal sounded, and Pirate pushed his way to the docking port. He pressed the switch as he came to rest. "Pirate in number one."
"Pirate, this is Goofy outside of number ten. They're closing up the shuttle doors. Thought you'd want to know."
Pirate switched off and pushed his way into the corridor. In moments he found himself pulling up to the number-ten docking port. The lock was cycling, and as he came to rest, the hatch opened and a huge suited figure emerged. The ugly, unhelmeted head was Duckfoot's. Sweetie Pie pushed off and wrapped herself around the Boss Canvasman. "Hey!" He looked around at the grinning faces. "What's this?"
Diane moved next to Duckfoot and planted a kiss on his cheek. "This is just a welcoming party."
Duckfoot raised his eyebrows, then lowered them into the darkest of glowers. "You... you punks thought I was going to... jump? You think a show's nothing to me but a few yards of cloth?" He pushed away from the port, scattering his welcoming committee into the bulkheads. Sweetie Pie hung on and Diane kept up. She looked into Duckfoot's face and saw the tears. They entered the cross-corridor toward the family quarters. He pulled up in the center of the cross-corridor, placed one arm around Sweetie Pie and the other around Diane. "I swear it. I swear I saw the old rag wave good-by."
Jingles McGurk looked with disgust at his empty office. All of his furniture had been unbolted and tossed out along with his carefully kept ledgers, records, readers, and computer terminal.
One thing remained to be removed—the shoulder-high safe bolted to the deck in the corner of the compartment. One and a half tons, it had to go. But first, Jingles had to open it to allow the cargo crew to cut the bolts from the inside.
Jingles pushed away from the bulkhead and came to rest against the brightly decorated safe door. He sighed, placed his left palm against the sensor plate, then punched in the combination with his right forefinger. A whirr, a click, then Jingles pulled open the door. Banded sheafs of credit notes and bags of coin floated weightless inside. He reached inside, pulled forth a pack of bills, then smiled as he broke the band and pushed the bills into the air. Pack after pack, he pulled them from the safe, broke the bands, then threw them into the air where they hung, drifting lazily in the air currents. After loosing the bills, Jingles opened the coin bags and emptied them by swinging the bags around his head. The safe empty, Jingles looked at the compartment, the air filled with bills and whirling coins. The treasurer smiled, pushed off from the deck, and somersaulted into the center of it.
"Wheeeee!"
THIRTY-NINE
Route Book, O'Hara's Greater Shows May 1st, 2148
En route to star system 9-1134. Seven days to the star itself. Four planets can be easily seen, with three of them having orbits close enough to the star to make them uninhabitable. First course correction using the shuttle engines a total failure. Lisa "Bubbles" Raeder passed away. Kid show crew held services prior to her burial at space. Waldo Screener, the Ossified Man, has not been located after several intense searches, and is presumed to have joined his wife...
Jon Norden tightened the last nut on the fuel connection, then rolled over onto the deck. "That's it."
"We hope."
Pirate Jon raised his head and looked at the Animal, sitting on the deck, his back against the bulkhead. Jon sat up and pulled himself across the deck until he leaned against the bulkhead next to his second engineering officer. "Animal, are you thinking about how we're going to have to hold this thing in orbit until the shuttles get free?"