The next thing tossed down the hole was Fats.
Skinny landed on him seconds later. I backed off and held my dagger ready. Skinny ignored me, picked himself up, looked around, went to the water spout and got a drink. Fats was in no shape to do anything; his breath was knocked out.
I looked at him and thought what a nasty parcel he was. Then I thought, oh, what the deuce!-he had massaged me when I needed it. I heaved him onto his stomach and began artificial respiration. In four or five pushes his motor caught and he was able to breathe. He gasped, "That's enough!"
I backed off, got my knife out. Skinny was sitting against a wall, ignoring us. Fats looked at my feeble weapon and said, "Put that away, kid. We're bosom buddies now."
"We are?"
"Yeah. Us human types had better stick together." He sighed wretchedly. "After all we done for him! That's gratitude."
"What do you mean?" I demanded.
"Huh?" said Fats. "Just what I said. He decided he could do without us. So Annie doesn't live here any more."
"Shaddap," the skinny one said flatly.
Fats screwed his face into a pout. "You shaddap," he said peevishly. "I'm tired of that. It's shaddap here, shaddap there, all day long-and look where we are."
"Shaddap, I said."
Fats shut up. I never did find out what had happened, because Fats seldom gave the same explanation twice. The older man never spoke except for that tiresome order to shut up, or in monosyllables even less helpful. But one thing was clear: they had lost their jobs as assistant gangsters, or fifth columnists, or whatever you call a human being who would stooge against his own race. Once Fats said, "Matter of fact, it's your fault."
"Mine?" I dropped my hand to my tin-can knife.
"Yours. If you hadn't butted in, he wouldn't have got sore."
"I didn't do anything."
"Says you. You swiped his two best prizes, that's all, and held him up when he planned to high-tail it back here." "Oh. But that wasn't your fault."
"So I told him. You try telling him. Take your hand away from that silly nail file." Fats shrugged. "Like I always say, let bygones be bygones."
I finally learned the thing I wanted most to know. About the fifth time I brought up the matter of Peewee, Fats said, "What d'you want to know about the brat for?"
"I just want to know whether she's alive or dead."
"Oh, she's alive. Leastwise she was last time I seen her."
"When was that?"
"You ask too many questions. Right here."
"She's here?" I said eagerly.
"That's what I said, wasn't it? Around everywhere and always underfoot. Living like a princess, if you ask me." Fats picked his teeth and frowned. "Why he should make a pet out of her and treat us the way he did, beats me. It ain't right."
I didn't think so, either, but for another reason. The idea that gallant little Peewee was the spoiled darling of Wormface I found impossible to believe. There was some explanation-or Fats was lying. "You mean he doesn't have her locked up?"
"What's it get him? Where's she gonna go?"
I pondered that myself. Where could you go?-when to step outdoors was suicide. Even if Peewee had her space suit (and that, at least, was probably locked up), even if a ship was at hand and empty when she got outside, even if she could get into it, she still wouldn't have a "ship's brain," the little gadget that served as a lock. "What happened to the Mother Thing?"
"The what?"
"The-" I hesitated. "Uh, the non-human who was in my space suit with me. You must know, you were there. Is she alive? Is she here?"
But Fats was brooding. "Them bugs don't interest me none," he said sourly and I could get no more out of him.
But Peewee was alive (and a hard lump in me was suddenly gone). She was here! Her chances, even as a prisoner, had been enormously better on the Moon; nevertheless I felt almost ecstatic to know that she was near. I began thinking about ways to get a message to her.
As for Fats' insinuation that she was playing footy with Wormface, it bothered me not at all. Peewee was unpredictable and sometimes a brat and often exasperating, as well as conceited, supercilious, and downright childish. But she would be burned alive rather than turn traitor. Joan of Arc had not been made of sterner stuff.
We three kept uneasy truce. I avoided them, slept with one eye open, and tried not to sleep unless they were asleep first, and I always kept my dagger at hand. I did not bathe after they joined me; it would have put me at a disadvantage. The older one ignored me, Fats was almost friendly. I pretended not to be afraid of my puny weapon, but I think he was. The reason I think so comes from the first time we were fed. Three cans dropped from the ceiling; Skinny picked up one, Fats got one, but when I circled around to take the third, Fats snatched it.
I said, "Give me that, please."
Fats grinned. "What makes you think this is for you, sonny boy?"
"Uh, three cans, three people."
"So what? I'm feeling a mite hungry. I don't hardly think I can spare it."
"I'm hungry, too. Be reasonable."
"Mmmm-" He seemed to consider it. "Tell you what. I'll sell it to you."
I hesitated. It had a shifty logic; Wormface couldn't walk into Lunar Base commissary and buy these rations; probably Fats or his partner had bought them. I wouldn't mind signing I.O.U.s-a hundred dollars a meal, a thousand, or a million; money no longer meant anything. Why not humor him?
No! If I gave in, if I admitted I had to dicker with him for my prison rations, he would own me. I'd wait on him hand and foot, do anything he told me, just to eat.
I let him see my tin dagger. "I'll fight you for it."
Fats glanced at my hand and grinned broadly. "Can't you take a joke?"
He tossed me the can. There was no trouble at feeding times after that, We lived like that "Happy Family" you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently. Fats liked to talk and I learned things from him, when I could sort out truth from lies. His name-so he said-was Jacques de Barre de Vigny ("Call me ‘Jock.' ") and the older man was Timothy Johnson-but I had a hunch that their real names could be learned only by inspecting post office bulletin boards. Despite Jock's pretense of knowing everything, I soon decided that he knew nothing about Wormface's origin and little about his plans and purposes. Wormface did not seem the sort to discuss things with "lower animals"; he would simply make use of them, as we use horses.
Jock admitted one thing readily. "Yeah, we put the snatch on the brat. There's no uranium on the Moon; those stories are just to get suckers. We were wasting our time-and a man's got to eat, don't he?"
I didn't make the obvious retort; I wanted information. Tim said, "Shaddap!"
"Aw, what of it, Tim? You worried about the F.B.I.? You think the Man can put the arm on you-here?"
"Shaddap, I said."
"Happens I feel like talking. So blow it." Jock went on, "It was easy. The brat's got more curiosity than seven cats. He knew she was coming and when." Jock looked thoughtful. "He always knows-he's got lots of people working for him, some high up. All I had to do was be in Luna City and get acquainted-I made the contact because Tim here ain't the fatherly type, the way I am. I get to talking with her, I buy her a coke, I tell her about the romance of hunting uranium on the Moon and similar hogwash. Then I sigh and say it's too bad I can't show her the mine of my partner and I. That's all it took. When the tourist party visited Tombaugh Station, she got away and sneaked out the lock-she worked that part out her ownself. She's sly, that one. All we had to do was wait where I told her -didn't even have to be rough with her until she got worried about taking longer for the crawler to get to our mine than I told her." Jock grinned. "She fights pretty well for her weight. Scratched me some."