“So we stick with the original terms of the deal. And I’m being generous doing so—because you and the Cuchulain are in no position to fly us home, which is what you agreed to do. I suggest that you go and inform the rest of the crew of that, wherever they are.”
Tom Toole laughed, and Danny Shaker frowned at him in disapproval. “I don’t think that the original terms are relevant, doctor,” he said. “James Swift may know how to fly the Godspeed ship, but he will not be doing so. For several reasons. Here’s one of them.”
He turned and gave the fluting whistle that I had first heard at Muldoon Spaceport. Patrick O’Rourke entered the control room. Floating along behind, dragged by his mop of red hair gripped in O’Rourke’s huge hand, came the body of Jim Swift. His face was a bloody mess. When O’Rourke released him, he came drifting toward us.
Doctor Eileen gasped. She was already moving forward. On Erin or in space, a patient took priority over everything.
I felt sure that Jim Swift was dead, but Doctor Eileen was feeling for a pulse and lifting an eyelid.
“His own doing entirely,” Shaker said. “He became involved in a dispute with Alan Kiernan—and Swift was the one who started it. Isn’t that right, Pat?”
O’Rourke nodded. “Bloody fool took a swing at Alan. Lucky he’s not a dead man. If I hadn’t stepped in…” His voice deepened to a chesty rumble.
Doctor Eileen had finished her first examination. “Doesn’t seem too serious,” she said. “His nose is broken, and that’s where all the blood is coming from. This bruise on his temple is what knocked him out. He’ll feel awful when he comes around, but he won’t be unconscious for more than a few minutes. It won’t stop him from flying us home.”
Danny Shaker was standing with his arms folded. He made a little gesture of his head toward Pat O’Rourke and Tom Toole. They left the control room without a word.
Shaker moved to stand in front of Doctor Eileen. “I mentioned that there are several reasons why Doctor Swift will not be flying you home on the Godspeed ship. The fight was just one of them, and not the most important. As you remarked, doctor, the crew wants to change the deal. But not in the way that you seem to be thinking.”
“In what way, then?” Doctor Eileen was busy wiping the blood from Swift’s face with the front of his own shirt. She did not look up.
“My crew believe that they are the legal owners of the Godspeed ship and the Godspeed Drive, and that you have no claim to either. They are spacers, and space salvage rights traditionally go only to spacers. You and your group are Downsiders, and have no such rights. However, the crew does not wish to be unreasonable. They are willing to give you the Cuchulain.”
Doctor Eileen froze in place, her fingers at Jim Swift’s temple. “That is a totally preposterous suggestion, as you well know. The Cuchulain is not fit to fly. You told me yourself that it’s in no condition to take us back to Erin.”
“I told you that if I had to make this ship fly to Erin, I would find a way to do so.” Shaker might have been discussing a minor change in flight plans for all the emotion in his voice. “But I do not have to fly the Cuchulain, Doctor. You do. You and Doctor Swift. Just half an hour ago, he was boasting to the crew of his abilities as an engineer and space navigator as well as a scientist. He will have an opportunity to prove himself.”
Danny Shaker turned to me, and the coldness left his voice. “But you, Jay, you don’t need to prove anything. The crew agrees that you already did that. You made your decision when we left Paddy’s Fortune, to become a spacer and a crew member. And you’ve been blooded. When it came to the point you killed your man. The crew’s vote was unanimous: Joe Munroe deserved what he got. There’s a place for you with us.”
“A vote.” Doctor Eileen let Jim Swift float free and stood up to glare at Danny Shaker. “There’s no voting on any ship of yours, Captain Shaker, and you know it. The crew takes your orders. You don’t take theirs. My God, what an idiot I’ve been, to trust you and believe you for so long. If there’s a plot to rob us of our rights—and of our lives, too, from what I can see of it—then it’s not a scheme hatched by the crew. They don’t have the brains for it. Anything like that starts in your head, and nowhere else.”
“You flatter me, Doctor.” Shaker uncrossed his arms and stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. “A ship can have only one captain, true, or it will run into chaos. But I’m the servant of my crew more than their master. They, not me, decided that the Godspeed ship was theirs. They, not me, offered a place among us to Jay Hara—although I certainly agree with that decision.” He turned again to face me. “You’ve not said one word, Jay, though it’s you we’re talking about. How about it? I’d love to have you aboard. I wouldn’t ever mention this with Tom Toole or Pat O’Rourke present, but you have more potential than any crewman on the Cuchulain. Sign on with me, and I’ll teach you everything I know.”
Those words were designed to tempt me, and they came close. But suddenly all I could think of was what Danny Shaker knew how to teach. How to hunt down Paddy Enderton, and hound him to his death. How to manipulate Doctor Eileen, and me, and Mel, and who knew how many others, so that he would be led to the Godspeed Base and the Godspeed Drive. How to trick his own twin brother, so that the hands of Stan Shaker would become those now reaching deep into Danny Shaker’s coat pockets.
I thought all that, but I was not fool enough to say it. Doctor Eileen and Jim Swift and I would never be able to fly the Cuchulain home to Erin. I knew that, and so surely did Danny Shaker. He might be able to fix the Cuchulain, but we could not. Leaving us behind while they flew off on the Godspeed ship was sentencing us to a slow death, drifting in space as our supplies of food, water, and air slowly dwindled away.
Our only hope was to fight now, when Danny Shaker was alone and unarmed. Then we might be able to get back to the upper level living quarters, and find the weapons that Doctor Eileen had taken to Paddy’s Fortune.
I thought I could hear faint sounds outside the control room. No one entered, but it reminded me that Tom Toole or Pat O’Rourke might be back at any minute.
I had to make Shaker relax by thinking that I was tilting his way, and I had to do it fast.
“I want to come with you,” I said. “But what about Mel Fury? Is there any way that she can—”
I never could carry off a lie. My face must have showed the inside of my head, because Shaker at once pulled his right hand out of his coat pocket. It was holding a pistol.
“Nice try, Jay, but I’m too old for that.” He saw me start forward. “Don’t even think of it. Normally I don’t carry weapons, but there have to be exceptions to every rule. And I’d never carry a gun that wasn’t loaded.”
He was standing with his back to the entrance of the control room. No more sounds came from that direction, but I thought I saw something: a flicker of movement in the big convex mirror that hung in the doorway.
Someone was in the corridor. It might be Tom Toole or one of the other crew members—or, just possibly, it might be Mel. She’d have to be crazy to come out of hiding.
But Mel was crazy, that was part of her charm.
“You didn’t answer my question.” I tried to speak loudly, but instead my voice cracked and squeaked. “You were the one who wanted Mel to come onto the Cuchulain. You encouraged her.”
I could see the reflection. It was not Mel. It was too big to be Mel.
I felt a moment of despair. And then I realized that the new arrival was Duncan West. He was at the entrance to the control room, and he was holding a gun—Walter Hamilton’s white-handled pistol.