"I don't understand you at all," said Henree in a low voice. Conway was obviously speechless.
"It was necessary. I had to introduce myself to the pirates without suspicion. If they found me on what they thought was a mapping ship, they would have shot me out of hand. On the other hand, if they found me on a booby-trapped ship the secret of which they had stumbled on by what seemed a stroke of fortune, they would have taken me at face value as a stowaway. Don't you see? On a mapping ship I'm only a member of the crew that didn't get away in time. On a booby trap, I'm a poor jerk who didn't realize what he was stowing away on."
"They might have shot you anyway. They might have seen through your double-cross and considered you a spy. In fact, they almost did."
"True! They almost did," admitted Lucky.
Conway finally exploded. "And what about the original plan. Were we or were we not going to explode one of their bases? When I consider the months we spent on the construction of the Atlas, the money that went into it-"
"What good would it have done to explode one of their bases? We spoke about a huge hangar of pirate ships, but actually that was only wishful thinking. An organization based upon the asteroids would have to be decentralized. The pirates probably don't have more than three or four ships in any one place. There wouldn't be room for more. Exploding three or four ships would mean very little compared with what would have been accomplished if I had succeeded in penetrating their organization."
"But you didn't succeed," said Conway. "With all your fool risks, you didn't succeed."
"Unfortunately the pirate captain who took the Atlas was too suspicious, or perhaps too intelligent for us. I'll try not to underestimate them again. But it's not all loss. We know for a fact that Sirius is behind them. In addition, we have my hermit friend."
"He won't help us," said Conway. "From what you've said about him, it sounds as though he were only interested in having as little to do with the pirates as possible. So what can he know?"
"He may be able to tell us more than he himself thinks is possible," said Lucky coolly. "For instance, there's one piece of information he can give us that will enable me to continue efforts at working against piracy from the inside."
"You're not going out there again," said Conway hastily.
"I don't intend to," said Lucky.
Conway's eyes narrowed. "Where's Bigman?"
"On Ceres. Don't worry. In fact," and a shadow crossed Lucky's face, "he should be here by now. The delay is beginning to bother me a little."
John Bigman Jones used his special pass card to get past the guard at the door to the Control Tower. He was muttering to himself as he half-ran along the corridors.
The slight flush on his pug-nosed face dimmed his freckles and his reddish hair stood up in tufts like fence pickets. Lucky had frequently told him he cultivated a vertical hair-do to make himself look taller, but he always denied that vigorously.
The final door to the Tower swung open as he broke the photoelectric beam. He stepped inside and looked about.
Three men were on duty. One with earphones sat at the sub-etheric receiver, another was at the calculating machine and the third was at the curved radarized visi-plate.
Bigman said, "Which one of you knotbrains called me Shortie?"
The three turned toward him in unison, their faces startled and scowling.
The man with the earphones pulled one away from his left ear. "Who in space are you? How the dickens did you get in here?"
Bigman stood erect and puffed out his small chest. "My name is John Bigman Jones. My friends call me Bigman. Everyone else calls me Mr. Jones. Nobody calls me Shortie and stays in one piece. I want to know which one of you made that mistake."
The man with the earphones said, "My name is Lem Fisk and you can call me anything you blame please as long as you do it somewhere else. Get out of here, or I'll come down, pick you up by one leg, and toss you out."
The fellow at the calculating machine said, "Hey, Lem, that's the crackpot who was haunting the port a while back. There's no point in wasting time on him. Get the guards to throw him out."
"Nuts," said Lem Fisk, "we don't need guards for that
guy." He took off his earphones altogether and set the sub-
etherics at automatic signal. He said, "Well, son, you came in here and asked us a nice question in a nice way. I'll give you a nice answer. I called you Shortie, but wait, don't get mad. I had a reason. You see you're such a real tall fellow. You're such a long drink of water. You're such a high-pockets. It makes my friends laugh to hear me call you Shortie."
He reached into his hip pocket and drew out a plastic container of cigarettes. The smile on his face was bland.
"Come down here," yelled Bigman. "Come down here and back up your sense of humor with a couple of fists."
"Temper, temper," said Fisk, clucking his tongue. "Here, boy, have a cigarette. King-size, you know. Almost as long as you are. Liable to create some confusion, though, come to think of it. We won't be able to tell whether you're smoking the cigarette or the cigarette is smoking you."
The other two Tower men laughed vigorously.
Bigman was a passionate red. Words came thickly to his tongue. "You won't fight?"
"I'd rather smoke. Pity you don't join me." Fisk leaned back, chose a cigarette, and held it before his face as though admiring its slim whiteness. "After all, I can't be bothered to fight children."
He grinned, brought his cigarette to his lips, and found them closing on nothingness.
His thumb and first two fingers still held their positions about three eighths of an inch apart, but there was no cigarette between them.
"Watch out, Lem," cried the man at the visiplate. "He has a needle-gun."
"No needle-gun," snarled Bigman. "Just a buzzer."
There was an important difference. A buzzer's projectiles, although needle-like, were fragile and nonexplo-sive. They were used for target practice and small game. Striking human skin, a buzz needle would do no serious damage, but it would smart like the devil.
Fisk's grin disappeared completely. He yelled, "Watch that, you crazy fool. You can blind a man with that."
Bigman's fist remained clenched at eye level. The thin snout of the buzzer projected between his two middle fingers. He said, "I won't blind you. But I can fix it so you won't sit down for a month. And as you can see, my aim isn't bad. And you," he called over his shoulder to the one at the calculator, "if you move an inch closer to the alarm circuit, you'll have a buzz needle right through your hand."
Fisk said, "What do you want?"
"Come down here and fight."
"Against a buzzer?"
"I'll put it away. Fists. Fair fight. Your buddies can see to that."
"I can't hit a guy smaller than I am."
"Then you shouldn't insult him, either." Bigman brought up the buzzer. "And I'm not smaller than you are. I may look that way on the outside, but inside I'm as big as you. Maybe bigger. I'm counting three." He narrowed one eye as he aimed.
"Galaxy!" swore Fisk. "I'm coming down. Fellas, be my witness that this was forced on me. I'll try not to hurt the crazy idiot too much."
He leaped down from his perch. The man at the calculating machine took his place at the sub-etherics.