“Sir—” Dane dared to put a hand on the table to attract attention.
The Captain looked up, and his eyes were bleak and cold. “Yes?”
“There’s a man at the Queen, sir. He’s asking about a charter. Mr. Van Rycke sent me for you—”
“Charter!” The tankard went over on its side, to bump to the floor. Captain Jellico flung a piece of the local metal money on the table and was already on his way to the door, Dane hurrying after him.
Jellico took control of the scooter, starting off at a wild pace.
But before they had gone the length of the street the Captain slowed and when they drew up before the Queen no one could have guessed they were in a hurry.
It was two hours later that the crew assembled once more to hear the news. And the stranger sat with Jellico as the Captain told the crew of their luck.
“This is Dr. Salzar Rich,” he made a brief introduction. “He is one of the Federation experts on Forerunner remains. It seems that Limbo isn’t such a flame out after all, men. The Doctor informs me that Survey located some quite sizeable ruins on the northern hemisphere. He’s chartered the Queen to transport his expedition there—”
“And,” Van Rycke smiled benignly, “this in no way interferes with our own trading rights. We shall have a chance to explore too.”
“When do we lift?” Johan Strotz wanted to know.
“When can you be ready, Dr. Rich?” Jellico turned to the archaeologist.
“As soon as you can stow my equipment and men, Captain. I can bring my supplies up right away.
Van Rycke got to his feet. “Thorson.” He brought Dane to him with that call, “we’ll make ready to load. Send in your material as soon as you wish, Doctor.”
CHAPTER FOUR:
LIMBO LANDING
During the next few hours Dane learned more in practice about the stowage of cargo than he had ever been taught in theory at the Pool. And, cramped as the crew of the Queen were, they also discovered that they must find space for not only Rich but for three assistants as well.
The supplies went into the large cargo hold, most of the work being volunteer labour on the part of Rich’s men, since the Doctor hammered home the fact that delicate instruments and perishable goods were included and he had no intention of allowing any of the boxes to be tossed about by the hustlers hired by the Field.
But inside the ship the final stowage of material was, as Van Rycke speedily let him know, solely the problem of the crew. And they could do it without any amateur advice. So Dane and Kosti sweated, swore and tugged, with the Cargo-Master himself not above lending a hand, until all the supplies were in place according to the mechanics of weight for take-off. Then they sealed the hatch for the duration of the flight.
On their way up they discovered Mura in the smaller cargo compartment rigging space hammocks for Rich’s assistants. The accommodations were crude, but the archaeologist had been warned of that before he had thumbprinted the charter contract—the Queen had no extra passenger cabins. And none of the newcomers were grumbling.
Like their leader they were a type new to Dane, giving an impression of tough endurance—a quality which, he supposed, was very necessary in any field man sent out to prospect on strange worlds for the relics of vanished races. One of them wasn’t even human—the green-tinted skin and hairless head stamped him a Rigellian. But his faintly scaled body, in spite of its odd sinuosity, was clad just like the others. Dane was trying not to stare at him when Mura came up and touched his arm.
“Dr. Rich is in your cabin. You’ve been moved into the store cubby—along here—”
A little irked by being so high-handedly assigned to new quarters, Dane followed Mura down to the domain which was the steward’s own. There was the galley, the food storage freezers, and, beyond, the hydro garden which was half Mura’s concern, half Tau’s, as air officer.
“Dr. Rich,” Mura explained as they went, “asked to be near his men. He made quite a point of it—”
Dane looked down at the small man. Just why had Mura added that last?
More than any of the crew Mura presented an enigma to Dane. The steward was of Japanese descent—and the apprentice had been familiar from his early training days with the terrifying story of what had happened to those islands which had once existed across the sea from his own native country. Volcanic action, followed by tidal waves, had overwhelmed a whole nation in two days and a night—so that Japan had utterly ceased to be—washed from the maps of Terra.
“Here,” Mura reached the end of the corridor and waved Dane through a half-open panel.
The steward had made no effort to decorate the walls of his private quarters, and the extreme neatness of the cabin tended to have a bleak effect. But on a pull-down table rested a globe of plasta-crystal and what it contained drew Dane’s attention.
A Terran butterfly, its jewelled wings spread wide, hung by some magic in the very centre of the orb, sealed so for all time, and yet giving every appearance of vibrant life.
Mura, noting Dane’s absorption, leaned forward and tapped the top of the globe lightly. In answer to that touch the wings seemed to quiver, the imprisoned beauty moved a fraction.
Dane drew a deep breath. He had seen the globe in the store room, he knew that Mura collected the insect life of a hundred worlds to fashion his balls—there were two others on board the Queen. One a tiny world, an aquatic one with fronds of weed curling to provide shelter for a school of gemmed insect-fish which were stalked by a weird creature two legged, two armed, but equipped with wing-like fins and a wicked pronged spear. That was in a place of honour in Van Rycke’s cabin. Then there was the other—a vista of elfin towers of silver among which flitted nearly transparent things of pearly lustre. That was the Com-Tech’s particular treasure.
“One may create such, yes,” Mura shrugged. “It is a way of passing time—like many others.”
He picked up the globe, rolled it in protecting fibre and stowed it away in a partitioned drawer, cushioned against the take-off of the Queen. Then he pulled aside a second panel to show Dane his new quarters.
It was a secondary store room which Mura had stripped and refurnished with a hammock and a foot locker. It was not as comfortable as his old cabin, but on the other hand it was no worse than the quarters he had had on both the Martian and Lunar training ships during his Pool cruises.
They blasted off for Limbo before dawn and were space borne before Dane aroused from an exhausted sleep. He had made his way to the mess hall when the warning sounded again and he clutched the table, swallowing painfully as he endured the vertigo which signalized their snap into Hyper-space. Up in the control compartment Wilcox, the Captain, and Rip would be at their stations, not able to relax until the break-through was assured.
He wouldn’t, Dane decided not for the first time since he had entered training for space, be an astrogator for any reward the Federation could dream up. One fractional mistake in calculations—even with two computers taking most of the burden of the formula run-off—would warp your ship into a totally unknown lane, might bring you out inside a planet instead of the necessary distance off its surface. He had had the theory of the break-through pounded into him, he could go through the motions of setting up a course, but he privately doubted if he would ever have the courage to actually take a ship into Hyper-space and out again.
Frowning at the unoffending wall he was once more listing his own shortcomings when Rip called.