A grizzled spaceman came and sat beside Dunne. Dunne knew him. His name was Smithers and he was considered slightly cracked. He was the only donkeyship man in the Rings who habitually worked alone. He’d had a partner, and the partner disappeared; and from that time on, Smithers protested vociferously that his partner had been killed by gooks and that ultimately he’d avenge him. He talked about gooks—to anybody who’d listen, and probably between pickup ships he talked to himself.
“They’re calmin’ down now,” confided the grizzled man of the revelers about them. “They acted crazy at the beginnin’, but they’re calmin’ down now.”
Dunne nodded. He was inclined to grind his teeth because of his own folly. He’d given his order for oxygen and foodstuffs and mining supplies. His order was being made ready. Similar orders would be delivered to each donkeyship team, in the order of their arrival and delivery of their accumulation of crystals. Now Dunne had to wait his turn to receive them. But he’d become an object of suspicion. He was suspected of having found the Big Rock Candy Mountain. It was senseless. But it was very dangerous! Lonely, isolated men were apt to be cranks. This grizzled character was an example.
“Have y’heard,” he demanded of Dunne, “that there was gooks sighted down yonder? Fella named Sam. told me so last pickup ship time. He heard ’em first. Their drive don’t make a whine like a human drive does. It goes tweet… tweet… tweet instead.” He nodded portentously. “This fella Sam heard it. An’ then he saw a gook ship. It come for him. He lit out an’ lost it. But it was a gook ship!”
Then Smithers said, more portentously and more ominously still, “And Sam ain’t back this trip. He was here last time. He ain’t here this time. Somethin’ got him! It was gooks! We got to do somethin’ about gooks!”
Dunne shook his head, not paying attention. It was wholly likely that somebody’d been joking with Smithers, and Smithers didn’t see it. There had always been rumors of gooks in the Rings. The word meant something like “ghost.” Communicators occasionally picked up noises for which there was no explanation, but it did not follow that there must be alien entities to make them. Gooks were supposed to be inhabitants of the planet Thothmes, and some people believed that they’d made space-ships and came sneaking about the Rings, spying on humans and on occasion sniping them. But the evidence for them wasn’t good.
A world suitable for life to develop has to have heavy elements and rocks and metal compounds to provide the raw material for living things to be made of. But Thothmes, if one judged by its gravitational field, was not nearly as heavy as a same-sized globe of water. That ruled out the possibility of gooks. And it was believed that if there were a solid center under Thothmes’ turbulent veil of clouds, it must be frozen gas-ice or perhaps methane or ammonia. And life couldn’t originate or continue there!
The grizzled Smithers went on with sudden passion: “You listen here! You found the Big Rock Candy Mountain! Maybe you think you goin’ to keep it secret! Maybe you left Keyes behind on it to keep anybody else from minin’ it. But there’s gooks goin’ around, snipin’ men’s ships! All of us together, we c’n handle a lot of gooks! But you try it by y’self—”
Dunne said, “We didn’t find the Big Rock Candy Mountain!”
Smithers ignored the statement. He said firmly, “Remember what happened to Joe Griffiths. He found the Mountain! Everybody knows it. There’s millions an’ millions pilin’ up interest on Horus, waitin’ for the courts to find out who it belongs to. But what happened to him? The gooks got him, that’s what happened to him! Now you an’ Keyes, you found the Mountain, Keyes stayed on it to keep anybody else from bargin’ in. You go back to him without us fellas along to help fight off the gooks, an’ what’ll happen to you? The gooks!”
“We didn’t find the Big Rock Candy Mountain!” said Dunne.
“You better,” said Smithers ominously, “you better let us in on it. There’s plenty there for everybody, But you try to keep it all to yourself an’—pfft! You’re gone! There’s gooks watchin’ that Mountain! They know we lookin’ for it! They ain’t goin’ to let us have it if they can help themselves! That means you! You open up an’ talk, an’ you can lead two dozen men back to that there Mountain, an’ we can hold off any number 0’ gooks an’ clean up. You tool But try it by y’self an’ the gooks’ll get you sure! Certain! They’ll get you!”
“We haven’t found the Big Rock Candy Mountain!” said Dunne for the third time. “We simply haven’t found it!”
The grizzled Smithers said shrewdly, his eyes gleaming, “That wasn’t a ship’s officer that took you aside just now, was it? He didn’t take you off to try to get outa you where you found the Mountain? Huh? You just had ordinary luck, bringin’ in just enough crystals to keep you goin’ till another pickup ship comes by. Huh? That ship’s officer didn’t take anybody else off for a private talk about how much crystal they brought back! He did take you! I’m tellin’ you, there’s gooks sneakin’ around the Rings, an’ around the Big Rock Candy Mountain! You let us in with you; an’ we can fight em’ off an’ get rich besides. But you try to go back there by y’self— What’d that ship’s officer tell you? Didn’t he tell you the same thing?”
Dunne’s jaws clamped tightly. There was, perhaps, just one disclosure likely to make more trouble than belief in the Big Rock Candy Mountain. That one more menacing disclosure would be that there was a girl on the pickup ship. Nobody in the Rings had seen a girl since he’d been here. They’d been nearly hysterical simply because they were able to be out of their own ships for an hour or so while they bought supplies and oxygen. But if they saw a girl!
Smithers said warningly, “You better let us in on it! There’s the gooks!”
“We didn’t find the Big Rock Candy Mountain,” said Dunne, drearily, “and you can go to hell.”
Smithers, sputtering, went away. Later Dunne saw, him cornering other men. His idea was evidently to organize men who’d already resolved to track Dunne wherever he went after leaving the pickup ship.
Time passed. Smithers went from one to another of the men who’d come to Outlook in their donkeyships, He talked volubly. Each buttonholed man listened tolerantly, But, nobody took Smithers too seriously. Some men let him talk to them while they continued to stuff themselves at the nearly denuded tables. A few hunted for something to put into the formerly filled glasses. There were one or two clusterings of men who’d calmed down from their first exuberance and now talked (Dunne was sure) of the totally unprovable guess every man was only too ready to make: that Dunne and Keyes had found the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Presently a ship’s officer tapped a man on the shoulder. His ordered supplies were ready for him to take possession. He and his partner departed. Ordinarily they’d load up and get as far, as possible from Outlook before the next ship was supplied. That was to keep anybody from guessing where they mined a fragment floating in the Rings. Now, Dunne knew angrily, it wasn’t unlikely that they’d wait nearby to follow him when he departed. He began irritably to plan evasive tactics.
A second pair of donkeyship partners was tapped. They also seemed to leave. It was unlikely that they’d go off about their private affairs. They’d try to involve themselves in Dunne’s, It was pure silliness. Dunne had made a single unqualified statement, and instantly he was suspected of the success every other man had dreamed of! It was partly his fault. But Nike’s situation wasn’t! He wouldn’t take her into the Rings! He was desperately uneasy about Keyes, but he wouldn’t take Keyes’s sister into the Rings!
A loudspeaker barked: “Attention! Somebody’s moving about outside! If you want to check your ships, the lock’s ready!”