“I’m lookin’ for a fella named Crowder,” he said huskily. “That’s you, ain’t it?”
Crowder looked at him, his face instantly mask like. Hill’s looks matched his voiced. There was a scar under one eye. He had a cauliflower ear. He looked battered, and hard-boiled—and as if he had just recovered from some serious injury or illness. His skin was reddened in odd patches.
“My name is Crowder,” said Crowder suspiciously. “What is it?”
Hill sat down opposite him.
“My name’s Hill,” he said in the same husky voice. “There was a guy who was gonna come here tonight. He’d fixed it up to be stowed away on a Pipeline carrier to Pluto. I bought ‘im off. I bought his chance. I came here to take his place.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Crowder coldly.
But he did. Hill could see that he did. His stomach-muscles knotted. He was uneasy. Hill’s gaze grew scornful.
“You’re the night super of th’ Pipeline yards, ain’t you?” he demanded truculently.
Crowder’s face stayed mask like. Hill looked tough. He looked like the sort of yegg who’d get into trouble with the police because he’d never think things out ahead. He knew it and he didn’t care. Because he had gotten in trouble—often—because he didn’t think things out ahead. But he wasn’t that way tonight. He’d planned tonight in detail.
“Sure I’m the night superintendent of the Pipeline yards,” said Crowder shortly. “I came over for a drink. I’m going back. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hill’s eyes grew hard.
“Listen, fella,” he said truculently—but he had been really ill, and the signs of it were plain—“they’re payin’ five hundred credits a day in the mines out on Pluto, ain’t they? A guy works a year out there, he comes back rich, don’t he?”
“Sure!” said Crowder. “The wages got set by law when it cost a lot to ship supplies out. Before the Pipeline got going.”
“And they ain’t got enough guys to work, have they?”
“There’s a shortage,” agreed Crowder coldly. “Everybody knows it. The liners get fifty thousand credits for a one-way passage, and it takes six months for the trip.”
Hill nodded, truculently.
“I wanna get out to Pluto,” he said huskily. “See? They don’t ask too many questions about a guy when he turns up out there. But the space liners, they do, and they want too many credits. So I wanna go out in a carrier by Pipeline. See?”
Hill downed his drink and stood up.
“There’s a law,” Crowder said uncompromisingly, “that says the Pipeline can’t carry passengers or mails. The space lines jammed that through. Politics.”
“Maybe,” said Hill pugnaciously, “but you promised to let a guy stow away on the carrier tonight. He told me about it. I paid him off. He sold me his place. I’m takin’ it, see?”
“I’m night superintendent at the yards,” Crowder told him. “If there are arrangements for stowaways, I don’t know about them. You’re talking to the wrong man.”
He abruptly left the table. He walked across the room to the fidgety man, who seemed more and more uneasy because somebody hadn’t turned up. Crowder’s eyes were viciously angry when he bent over the fidgety man.
“Look here, Moore!” he said savagely, in a low tone. “That guy is on! He says he paid your passenger to let him take his place. That’s why your man hasn’t showed up. You picked him out and he sold his place to this guy. So I’m leaving it right in your lap! I can lie myself clear. They couldn’t get any evidence back, anyhow. Not for years yet. But what he told me is straight, he’s got to go or he’ll shoot off his mouth! So it’s in your lap!”
The eyes of Moore—the fidgety man—had a hunted look in them. He swallowed as if his mouth were dry. But he nodded.
Crowder went out. Hill scowled after him. After a moment he came over to Moore.
“Lookahere,” he said huskily. “I wanna know something. That guy’s night super for Pipeline, ain’t he?”
Moore nodded. He licked his lips.
“Lissen!” said Hill angrily, “there’s a Pipeline carrier leaves here every day for Pluto, and one comes in from Pluto every day. It’s just like gettin’ on a ‘copter and goin’ from one town to another on the Pipeline, ain’t it?”
Moore nodded again—this time almost unnoticeably.
“That’s what a guy told me,” said Hill pugnaciously. “He said he’d got it all fixed up to stow away on a carrier-load of grub. He said he’d paid fifteen hundred credits to have it fixed up. He was gonna leave tonight. I paid him off to let me take his place. Now this guy Crowder tells me I’m crazy!”
“I … wouldn’t know anything about it,” said Moore, hesitantly. “I know Crowder, but that’s all.”
Hill growled to himself. He doubled up his fist and looked at it. It was a capable fist. There were scars on it as proof that things had been hit with it.
“O.K.!” said Hill. “I guess that guy kidded me. He done me outta plenty credits. I know where to find him. He’s goin’ to a hospital!”
He stirred, scowling.
“W-wait a minute,” said Moore. “It seems to me I heard something, once—”
Carriers drifted on through space. They were motorless save for the tiny drives for the gyros in their noses. They were a hundred feet long, and twenty feet thick, and some of them contained foodstuffs in air-sealed containers—because everything will freeze, in space, but even ice will evaporate in a vacuum. Some carried drums of rocket fuel for the tugs and heaters and the generators for the mines on Pluto. Some contained tools and books and visiphone records and caviar and explosives and glue and cosmetics for the women on Pluto. But all of them drifted slowly, leisurely, unhurriedly, upon their two-billion-mile journey.
They were the Pipeline. You put a carrier into the line at Earth, headed out to Pluto. The same day you took a carrier out of space at the end of the line, at Pluto. You put one into the Earthbound line, on Pluto. You took one out of space the same day, on Earth. There was continuous traffic between the two planets, with daily arrivals and departures from each. But passenger-traffic between Earth and Pluto went by space liners, at a fare of fifty thousand credits for the trip. Because even the liners took six months for the journey, and the Pipeline carriers—well, there were over twelve hundred of them in each line going each way, a day apart in time and millions of miles apart in space. They were very lonely, those long cylinders with their white-painted numbers on their sides. The stars were the only eyes to look upon them while they traveled, and it took three years to drift from one end of the pipeline to the other.
But nevertheless there were daily arrivals and departures on the Pipeline, and there was continuous traffic between the two planets.
Moore turned away from the pay-visiphone, into which he had talked in a confidential murmur while the screen remained blank. The pugnacious, battered Hill scowled impatiently behind him.
“I’m not sure,” said Moore uneasily. “I talked to somebody I thought might know something, but they’re cagey. They’d lose their jobs and maybe get in worse trouble if anybody finds out they’re smuggling stowaways to Pluto. Y’see, the spacelines have a big pull in politics. They’ve got it fixed so the Pipeline can’t haul anything but freight. If people could travel by Pipeline, the space liners could go broke. So they watch close.”
He looked uneasy as he spoke. His eyes watched Hill almost alarmedly. But Hill said sourly: “O.K.! I’m gonna find that guy that sold me his place, and I’m gonna write a message on him with a blowtorch. The docs’ll have fun readin’ him, and why he’s in the hospital!”