“Man—” the astrogator-apprentice dropped down on a seat with a deep sigh, “well, we’re in once more and nothing cracked!”
Dane was honestly surprised. He was no astrogator, it was all right for him to feel some doubts. But that Rip should display relief at having his own particular share of duty behind him for a while was something else.
“What’s the matter?” Dane wondered if something had threatened to go wrong.
“Nothing, nothing,” the other waved a hand. “But we all feel easier after the jump.” Rip laughed now. “Man, you think we don’t sweat it out? We maybe hate it more than you do. What have you got to worry about until we planet again? Nothing—”
Dane bristled. “No? We’ve only cargo control, supplies, hydro—” he began to enumerate the duties of his section. “What good does a successful break-through do when your air goes bad—”
Rip nodded. “All right, none of us is dead weight. Though this trip—” he stopped suddenly and glanced over his shoulder in a way which surprised Dane.
“Did you ever meet an archaeologist before, Dane?”
The cargo-apprentice shook his head. “This is my first trip out, remember? And we don’t get much briefing in history at the Pool—except where it influences Trade—”
Rip lounged back on the bench, but kept his voice trained low, until it was hardly above a murmur.
“I’ve always been interested in the Forerunners,” he began. “Got the tapes of Haverson’s ‘Voyages’ and Kagle’s ‘Survey’ in my gear now. Those are the two most complete studies that have been made so far. I messed with Dr. Rich this morning. And I’ll swear he never heard of the Twin Towers!”
Since Dane had never heard of them either, he couldn’t quite see what Rip was trying to prove. But, before he could ask any questions, the blankness of his look must have betrayed his ignorance for the other made a quick explanation.
“Up to now the Twin Towers are about the most important Forerunner find Federation Survey has ever made. They’re on Corvo—standing right in the centre of a silicon desert—two hundred feet high, looking like two big fingers pointing into the sky. And as far as the experts have been able to discover, they’re solid clear through—made of some substance which is neither stone nor metal, but which certainly has lasting properties. Rich was able to cover his slip pretty well, but I’m sure he’d not heard of them.”
“But if they’re so important,” began Dane and then he grasped what the Doctor’s ignorance could mean.
“Yes, why doesn’t the Doctor know all about the most important find in his field? That presents a problem doesn’t it? I wonder if the Captain checked up on him before he took the charter—”
But Dane could answer that. “His ID was correct, we flashed it through to Patrol Headquarters. They gave us clearance on the expedition or we couldn’t have lifted from Naxos—”
Rip conceded that point. Field regulations on any planet in the Federation were strict enough to make at least ninety per cent sure that the men who passed them were carrying proper ID-s and clearance. And on the frontier worlds, which might attract poachers or criminals, the Patrol would be twice as vigilant about flight permission.
“Only he didn’t know about the Twin Towers,” the astrogator-apprentice repeated stubbornly.
And Dane was impressed by the argument. It was impossible to spend a voyage on any star ship with another man and not come to know him with an intimacy which was unknown by civilization outside the small dedicated band of those who manned the Galactic fleets. If Rip said that Dr. Rich was not what he seemed, then Rip was speaking the truth as far as he knew it and Dane was willing to back him.
“What about the law regarding Forerunner remains?” Shannon asked a moment later.
”Not much about it in the records. There’ve never been any big finds made by a Trader and claimed under Trading rights—”
“So there’s nothing we could quote as a precedent if we did find something worthwhile?”
“That can work both ways,” Dane pointed out. “Survey released Limbo for Trade auction. If they did that, it seems to me, they’ve forfeited any Federation claims on the planet. It would make a nice legal tangle—”
“A beautifully complicated case—” Van Rycke rumbled over their heads. “One which half the law sharks of the systems would be eager to see come to trial. It’s the sort of thing which would drag on for years, until all parties concerned were either heartily sick of it or safely dead. Which is just why we are travelling with a Federation Free Claim in our strong box.”
Dane grinned. He might have known that such an old hand in Trade as his superior officer would not be caught without every angle covered as far as it was humanly possible. A Free Claim to any finds on Limbo!
“For how long?” Rip was still ridden by doubts.
“The usual—a year and a day. I don’t think Survey is as impressed by the possibility of unusual finds as our passengers seem to be.”
“Do you think we’ll discover anything there, sir?” Dane struck in.
“I never advance any guesses on what we’ll find on any new planet,” Van Rycke answered tranquilly. “There are entirely too many booby-traps in our business. If a man gets away with a whole skin, a space-worthy ship, and a reasonable percentage of profit, the Lords of High Space have been good to him. We can’t ask for more.”
During the days which followed Rich’s men kept very much to themselves, using their own supplies and seldom venturing out of their very constrained quarters, nor did they in turn invite visitors. Mura reported that they seemed to spend more of their time either in sleep or engrossed in some complicated gambling game the Rigellian had introduced.
While Dr. Rich messed with the crew of the Queen, he dropped in for his meals at hours when there were few in the cabin. And, either by choice or a too well regulated coincidence, those few were generally members of the engineering staff. On the plea of studying the scene of his future operations he had tried to borrow the Survey tape of Limbo, but the time he had been allowed to use it was under the eye of the Cargo-Master. An eye which, Dane was certain, missed nothing, no matter how abstracted Van Rycke might appear to be.
The Queen made transition into normal space on schedule within Limbo’s system. Two of the other planets who shared this sun were so far away from that core of light and heat that they were frozen, lifeless worlds, but Limbo swung around on its appointed orbit at about the same range as Mars held in their native system. As they approached to come in on a “braking orbit,” allowing the friction of the planet’s atmosphere to slow the ship to landing speed, the Com-Tech switched on the vision screens throughout the ship. Strapped down on their pads, those not on duty watched the loom of the new world fill the screen.
The ugly brown-grey scars of the burn off faced them first, but as the ship bored in, always at an angle which would coast it along the layers of air gradually, the watchers sighted the fingers of green, and traces of small seas or large lakes which proved that Limbo was not wholly dead, blasted though she had been.
Day became night as they passed on, and then day again. If they had been following the strict regulations for landing on a normal “primitive” world they would have tried for a set-down in a desert country, planning to explore by flitter, learning something in secret of the inhabitants before they made open contact. But Limbo would have no intelligent inhabitants—they could use the best possible landing.
Wilcox had brought them through hyper-space by his reckoning, but it was Jellico who would set them down after choosing his site. And he was manoeuvring to place them on the very edge of the burned area with the healthy ground within easy reach.
It was a tricky landing, not the easy one any tyro could make on a cleared Field with a beam to ride in. But the Queen had made such landings before and Jellico nursed her down, riding her tail flames until she settled with a jar which was mild under the circumstances.