The skipper sat still, frozen, while Dunne juggled the little shells. Once he almost missed a catch.
“I was thinking,” said Dunne pleasantly, “how careful traffic controls are about things. For instance, you couldn’t lift off of Horus without lifeboats. You have to carry enough lifeboats not only for the crew you have, but the passengers you usually don’t.”
He seemed almost to miss a catch, again. The skipper went whiter still. But there was no possible way to stop Dunne.
“In fact,” said Dunne, “I was thinking that I brought enough crystals aboard, just now, to pay for a lifeboat and stores for it. I was thinking that it would be a very fine solution if you sold me a lifeboat. If you do, and launch me well away from Outlook, I’ll go and pick up my partner Keyes.”
The skipper, watching the twinkling shells, involuntarily cried out in an agonized tone as Dunne just barely caught one of them only inches from the floor—and destruction.
Dunne said soothingly, “It’s all right. I’m a little out of practice, but the knack seems to be coming back. I think I’ll try three in the air at once.”
He tossed a shell higher than usual, while he tried to pluck a third from his space-suit belt. The third seemed stuck. Dunne balanced off that difficulty by keeping two shells in the air with one hand while he tried to extract the stuck shell with the other. The skipper gulped.
“All right!” he said hoarsely. “All right! Stop the juggling! You can have the lifeboat!”
“Fine!” said Dunne politely. He ceased his juggling, but kept the two shells ready in his hands. “You make out a bill of sale. I’ll give you an order for the money. Next trip I’ll be here at the spaceport with the boat and Keyes, and we’ll all have a hearty laugh over it. Eh? Now, you arrange things.”
The pickup ship’s skipper stood up. He was obviously badly shaken. He might have defied threats, or disbelieved that Dunne would actually take any drastic measures. But Dunne had taken the one course to make the skipper believe that he must be supplied with what he demanded. He’d risked his life to do it, but nothing else would have done.
As the skipper moved to leave his cabin, Dunne said: “You might tell that girl that I’m going for her brother after all, and she can write him a letter. I’ll see that he gets it. And she can talk to him next time a pickup ship comes to Outlook.”
He relaxed. He even reflectively put one’ of the two bazooka-shells back in its pocket. But he kept the other ready in his hand, tossing it meditatively up and down.
The ship seemed very silent. Only by straining his ears to the utmost could Dunne detect small noises that were signs of movement on the pickup ship.:
It was half an hour before the skipper came back. He said grimly, “Here’s the charter agreement. I can’t sell you a lifeboat. I can only charter you one; and I don’t know how legal that is! But you make a deposit of the lifeboat’s full value. Sign this. Then I sign here, and that’s all I can do. The lifeboat’s stored and fueled.”
“Splendid,” said Dunne politely. He read and signed. “A most businesslike proceeding! You’ve told Miss Keyes what I’m doing? Did she write a letter for me to take?”
The pickup ship skipper snorted.
“She was told, of course. Come and get in your damned lifeboat. Of course, I hope you make out!”
Dunne followed him out of the cabin. He went along the patterned steel floorplates that were used everywhere on the ship that wasn’t considered a habitation. Nobody can live long in a completely artificial environment; but these were corridors in which nobody lived.
And here was the lifeboat. Dunne couldn’t see more than the quasi-vestibule between the ship and the lifeboat’s entrance-lock. He went in, looked over the control panel, and nodded. The seal-off door closed. A voice from a speaker in the ceiling of the tiny control. room made conventional reports. The pickup ship lifted and, as seen from near Outlook, dwindled to insignificance and vanished.
Dunne strapped himself in before the control board. He said, “Ready!” and on the outside of the big ship a pair of mussel-shell blister-doors opened. They were designed for the launching of lifeboats. From the direct-view ports Dunne could see that golden haze which was, actually, the rings of Thothmes.
“Ready to clear?” asked a booming voice from overhead.
“Ready,” said Dunne again. He frowned.
“Ejection coming,” said the speaker.
There was a shock. The lifeboat hurled itself violently to one side. It began to turn end-for-end, and he could see the pickup ship as a monstrous shadow, already with all details wiped out by the haze.
Up to this instant, Dunne had been almost satisfied. Not pleased, but confident. The miners of the Rings had every reason to believe that he was leaving Outlook as a passenger on the pickup ship. There hadn’t seemed anything else for him to do. Believing this, it would seem to most of the men in the Rings, convinced that the Big Rock Candy Mountain had been found again, that Dunne had sacrificed his partner to the secret of the Mountain—left him to die because Dunne couldn’t get to him and still keep the secret.
But then the speaker in the ceiling of the lifeboat’s control room boomed with the full volume of the ship’s transmitter. The voice of the pickup ship’s skipper came out.
“Luck to you, Dunne! You made me mad, and it’s crazy not to stay aboard. But luck to you anyhow!”
And then the pickup ship’s drive boomed, and the ship moved away. It accelerated swiftly. Almost immediately it was out of sight in the Ring mist. It vanished before Dunne could draw a single infuriated breath. He was speechless with fury. Anybody within a thousand miles could have picked up that foolish, that stupid, that damning three-sentence farewell of the pickup ship’s skipper.
Anybody who heard it would know that Dunne had been able to stay behind when the ship from Horus left. And anyone could reason that Dunne had gotten a lifeboat with which to go after his partner. The men who’d intended to trail Dunne’s donkeyship would now shift their attention to a lifeboat, as soon as they could locate it. And in particular, whoever had destroyed the donkeyship would now set about trying to destroy the lifeboat. Without turning on the drive, Dunne knew it would have a completely distinctive drive-sound, and couldn’t pass as just another donkeyship.
It needn’t have happened. It was unnecessary. It was more than infuriating. It could easily be fatal.
He heard a stirring in the central cabin of the lifeboat. He whirled, his hand going to his belt-weapon.
The door to the tiny control room opened wider. A girl stood there, very pale. She was Keyes’ sister, Nike.
“They told me,” she said shakily, “that you’d gotten this boat to—go get my brother. And I’ve got to see him. So I came along. I—stowed away.”
Dunne ground his teeth. The pickup ship was gone. It would be in overdrive by now, heading across the many millions of miles between Outlook and the inhabited planet Horus. There was no way to call it back. There was no place to which this girl could be taken for safety or simply to keep her from interfering with the troubles and the dangers of normal life in the Rings of Thothmes.
“I suppose,” said Dunne bitterly, “that you consider you’ve won the argument with me. Maybe you have. You’re going with me to see your brother! I’m taking you along because I can’t do anything else. But you’re going to be sorry!”
He clenched his fists. He repeated, with emphasis, “You’re going to be damned sorry!”
CHAPTER THREE
The galaxy went about its business, and Dunne went about his. There are various opinions about what the business of the cosmos may be, but there was no doubt about Dunne’s. At this particular time he needed, first, to stay alive and keep Nike from harm. He hadn’t asked for the latter responsibility, and he resented it. After that, it was necessary to get rid of the donkeyships prepared to follow him anywhere, under the delusion that ultimately he must lead them to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.