“Radiation!” Dane caught the word that meant the most to him. He was not given to many flashes of foreboding, insight, or what the emotion might be named that struck him now, but he was sure of disaster. Without another look at the newborn brach he demanded of Tau, “Is that portable?” He pointed to the box in the nest.
“Why?”
But the captain had seemingly caught Dane’s train of thought. “If it isn’t, we’ll have one that is!” He laid hand on the box while the medic stared at them as if they had suddenly developed space fever.
Then Jellico was at the com. “Ya, bring down a planet-side detect!”
With that Tau understood. “Radiation—in the ship! But—”
There were no buts about it as far as Dane was concerned. If what he suspected was true, then all the bits of the puzzle began to fall into place. The stranger would have brought it aboard, hidden it too well for their first search of the treasure hold, and—as Jellico had pointed out—the brach cage was above that.
Now he asked of Tau, “Damaging to the crew?”
“No. I tested for that, though maybe the brachs should be put in isolation. This beam is off the known
scale—”
“But what of the lathsmer embryos?” Again Dane’s speculation followed a logical course, and he was on his way to the treasure hold without waiting to hear Tau’s reply.
He pried off the seal he had thought such a protection for their cargo just as the captain arrived, Tau, Shannon, and Ya behind Jellico. Ya held the box meant to be carried on the belt of a planet-side explorer. Tau took it from him and made some adjustment. He had no more than done so when its tell-tale needle began the same swing as the one in sick bay.
They entered the hold. It took only seconds for the detect to show that what they hunted did lie in the direction of the embryo boxes—not among them, nor behind them where they had painstakingly searched earlier, but overhead. Dane jerked out some of the shelf panels not in use and, with that for a ladder, climbed above the containers. Jellico handed him the detect.
It registered wildly at a point on the ceiling, and this close Dane could see scratches there.
“Behind here.” He passed down the detect and brought out a small cutter from a belt sling. Not trying to be gentle about the plate, he set to work to pry loose the section that must have been cut out and reset. He
gouged at it until it loosened and fell out. There was a pocket there just large enough to hold a box, the box the probe had recalled to his mind.
“Don’t touch it with your bare hand!” Tau warned. “Wait for a suit glove.”
Rip disappeared to get one, and Dane examined the recess more carefully. The box did not rest on any shelf or hanger. It apparently adhered or was in some way fastened to the ship’s plates. Without the detect, they would not have found it. As hasty as the cutting and reclosing of the opening had been, it was skillfully done.
Rip returned, holding up one of the clumsy, well-insulated gloves he had unscrewed from a space suit.
Dane wriggled his hand into that and reached up to the box. It adhered all right, as if it had been welded to the metal. For a while as he jerked and pulled, tried to slip it back and forth, he thought they would have to bring a cutting torch to get it loose, perhaps irreparably damaging what it held.
Finally, as he gave it a last corkscrew twist, it came loose, and he brought it out of the hole, holding it well away as he dropped to the deck.
“Get Stotz on this with you,” Jellico told Ya. “We don’t know what it is, but don’t take any chances.”
Dane laid it on the deck well away from any cargo, slipped off the glove for Ya to take in turn, and watched the com-tech carry the find out, its destination Stotz’s workroom.
He no longer worried about the box. It was the condition of the embryos. If the radiation through the decking had had such an effect upon the brachs, what about their most precious cargo? Again Jellico was with him.
“Scanning or sensor examination?” The captain walked around the sealed container, frowning.
“Scanner and sensor both,” Tau replied promptly. “I have their correct reading on file. It will be easy to compare.”
“Was this aimed at the brachs, the lathsmers, or was it only chance?” Dane asked, though he knew they had no answers for him.
“Not chance!” The captain seemed very sure of that. “If all that was wanted was transportation for that thing, he could have more easily hidden it in your cabin. No, it was put here for a purpose. And I’m inclined to believe it was aimed at the lathsmers.”
With that Jellico faced the worst. They had the contract for the mail run, but to have cargo spoilage of such a nature on their first trip might mean blacklisting for the Queen. If they had not discovered the box in time, if radiation-treated lathsmers had been delivered to the settlers who had paid a small fortune for the embryos—? Dane, back at his files, looked into a bleak future. They might find themselves responsible for replacing a cargo worth more than any year’s profit. And the Queen was not prepared to take such a loss. If they could borrow, to be in debt would automatically break their mail contract, and the result would be ferrying jobs, risky and unrewarding for just as long as they could keep up payments.
I-S? It was the first answer that came to mind. But the Queen was so unimportant as far as Inter-Solar was concerned. Sure, they had ruined two I-S plays. But for a company to go to so much trouble for revenge on a Free Trader—he could not agree to that solution.
Dane could not help believing that the answer lay on Trewsworld. The man wearing his face must have intended to land there. And the box—maybe the captain was wrong and the placing of the box was only by chance. They only needed Tau’s report on the state of the embryos to know the extent of disaster.
The medic did not hurry to give that. He shut himself up in his lab and was left alone—the crew waiting restlessly for his verdict.
Stotz, always slow and sure, had his report first. The box could not be opened, short of disintegration, and it was the source of steady radiation. When he asked for permission to breach it by force, Jellico refused. Instead Ali suited up, went to the fin end of the Queen, and planted the thing against the outer hull of the ship, where it could do, the engineers decided, the least harm.
When Tau did at last get on the com, it was not to give them any answers but rather ask for certain of the captain’s collection of xenobiological tapes and a reader. Dane delivered those and caught only a glimpse of the medic as he opened his door long enough to snatch the material. Then he closed that portal firmly in the cargo master’s face.
They were close to the time to come out of hyper run when Mura called Jellico to look at the male brach. Dane, following, saw the steward and the captain kneeling in the corridor, registering concern.
The animal, which had earlier shown such a determined and intelligent desire to get free, was now balled in the far corner of the cage. Untouched food and water were cupped in the feeder. The sheen that had lightened its body fluff was gone, and that was matted about its nose as if it had not tried for some time to clean itself. Nor did it rouse when Mura chirped to it and showed it a juicy stalk of renton leaves through the bars.
“Tau had better have a look at it,” Jellico said.
Mura was already loosing the extra safeguards on the cage door. He had that half open and was stretching in a gentle hand to grasp the plainly sick animal when the brach came to life. The nose horn flashed, and Mura, with an exclamation, jerked back a hand on which blood ran. Then there was a scurry, and the brach was out, showing such speed as to avoid them in a way Dane had never seen before.