haven’t contacted them yet. And—” he paused for a long moment before he added, “did you ever think it is just as well we haven’t found any of their installations? It’s been exactly ten years since the Crater War—”
His words trailed off into a thick silence which had a faint menacing quality Dane could not identify, though he understood what Kamil must be aiming at. Terrans fought, viciously, devastatingly. The Crater War on Mars had been only the tail end of a long struggle between home planet and colonist across the void. The Federation kept an uneasy peace, the men of Trade worked frantically to make that permanent before another and more deadly conflict might wreck the whole Service and perhaps end their own precarious civilization.
What would happen if weapons such as the Forerunners had wielded in their last struggle, or even the knowledge of such weapons, fell into the wrong Terran hands? Would Sol become a dead star circled by burnt off cinder worlds?
“Sure, it might cause trouble if we found weapons,” Rip had followed the same argument. “But they had other things besides arms. And maybe on Limbo—”
Kamil straightened. “Maybe on Limbo they left a treasure house stored with bags of Thork gems and Lamgrim silk—or their equivalent, sure. But I don’t think the Captain is in the mood to hunt for it. We’re twelve men and one ship—how long do you think it would take us to comb a whole planet? And our scout flitters eat fuel too, remember? How’d you like to be stranded dirt-side on some planet like this Naxos—have to turn farmer to get food? You wouldn’t care for it.”
Dane had to admit inwardly that he certainly wouldn’t care for that. And if the Queen did set down so— locked in some port for lack of funds to get her off-world again—he wouldn’t even have his back pay as a meagre stake to tide him over until he could get another ship. The others must be thinking of that also.
Sometime later Dane lay awake on his narrow bunk amazed at how quickly all their hopes had crashed. If Limbo had only proved to be what they first thought—or even if they only had a big enough reserve to go and inspect their purchase—But suddenly Dane sat up—there had been that other Trader who had bid against Van Rycke at the auction. Could be be persuaded to take Limbo off their hands at a big discount?
But with a burnt off, he wouldn’t want it even at half what they had paid Survey. The risk was too great—no one would make a dry-run on such short odds. Only a man with Cofort’s backing could take a chance—and Cofort had shown no interest in this particular “bargain”.
In the morning it was a glum crew who trailed in and out of the mess cabin. All of them carefully avoided the end of the table where a grim Captain Jellico sat sipping at a cup of Mura’s own secret brew which was usually served only at moments of rejoicing. This was no celebration—it must be that the steward believed they needed heartening.
Van Rycke came in, his tunic sealed trimly from his belt to his broad chin, his winged officer’s cap perched on his head, ready for a town visit. Jellico grunted and pushed away his cup as he arose to join him. And so daunting was the Captain’s scowl that not one of the others dared to wish them good luck on their mission.
Dane climbed down into the cargo hold, studying its empty space and making a few measurements of his own. If they were fortunate enough to get a pay load he wanted to be ready for its stowing. The hold was in two sections—a wide chamber which took in almost a third of the ship and a small cabin sized space above it in which choice or unusual items could be stored.
In addition, on the same level, was the tiny room where was shelved and boxed their “trade goods”, small items used to attract the attention of savages or backward civilizations—gadgets, mechanical toys, trinkets of glass, wire, enamelled metal. Dane, trying out his memorization of the store catalogue, made the rounds of the cases. He had been taken on two tours of instruction by Van Rycke, but he had not yet lost his sense of wonder at the kinds and quality of the goods, and the display of knowledge and imagination of the Cargo-Master who had assembled this collection. Here were the presents for chieftains and petty kings, the exciters which would bring the people of primitive villages flocking to view such off-world wonders. Of course the supply was strictly limited, but it had been chosen with such care, such insight into humanoid and X-Tee psychology, that it must go a long way to win customers for the Queen.
Only on Limbo such preparations would be useless. It was not possible that any intelligent life had survived the burn off. If there had been any natives the Survey team would certainly have reported them and that might have raised the value of the planet—even kept it out of the Trade auction until government men had more time to study it.
Dane tried to forget the fiasco of Limbo by applying himself to the study of the “contact” goods. Van Rycke had been patient with him on their rounds of this store house, using incidents from his own past to point up the use of each object in the cases or on the protected shelves. Some of the material, Dane gathered, was the handiwork of the crew.
Long drives through space, with the ship locked on its automatic controls, with few duties for her crew, tended to become monotonous. Boredom led to space mania and those who followed the Galactic lanes had early learned that skills of brain and hand were the answer. These could vary widely.
On board the Queen, Captain Jellico was a xenobiologist, far past amateur standing. While he could not bring back his specimens alive—save for such “pets” as the blue Hoobat now caged in his cabin—the tri-dee shots he had taken of animal life on unknown worlds had earned him fame among naturalists. Steen Wilcox, whose days were spent wrestling with obtuse mathematics, was labouring to transpose such formulae into musical patterns. And the oddest employ Dane had so far uncovered among his new companions was that of Medic Tau, who collected magic, consorting with witch doctors and medicine men of alien primitives, seeking to discover the core of truth lying beneath the mumbo-jumbo.
Dane picked up a piece of Mura’s handiwork, a plasta-crystal ball in which floated, to all examination alive, a rainbow winged insect totally unfamiliar to him. But a shadow gliding in the panel to his left brought him out of his absorption. Sinbad, the Queen’s cat, leaped gracefully to the top of a case and sat there, regarding the apprentice. Of all the native Terran animals the one which had most easily followed man into space was the feline.
Cats took to acceleration, to free fall, to all the other discomforts of star flight, with such ease that there were some odd legends growing up about their tribe. One was that Domestica Felinus was not really native to Terra, but had descended from the survivors of an early and forgotten invasion and in the star ships he was only returning to his former golden age.
But Sinbad and those of his species served a definite purpose on board ship and earned their pay. Pests, not only the rats and mice of Terra, but other and odder creatures from alien worlds, came aboard with cargo, sometimes not to be ordinarily detected for weeks, even months after they had set up housekeeping in the hidden corners of the ship. These were Sinbad’s concern. When and where he caught them the crew might never learn, but he presented the bodies of the slain to Van Rycke. And, from all accounts, on past voyages some of the bodies had been very weird indeed!
Dane held out his hand and Sinbad sniffed lazily at his fingers and then blinked. He accepted this new human. It was right and proper for Dane to be here. Sinbad stretched and then leaped down from the box to go about the room on regular patrol. He lingered near one bale with such profound sniffing that Dane wondered if he shouldn’t open it for the cat’s closer inspection. But a distant gong startled them both and Sinbad, one who never overlooked the summons to a meal, flashed out of the room, leaving Dane to follow at a more dignified pace.
Neither the Captain nor the Cargo-Master had returned, and the atmosphere at mess continued to be sober. With two other Free Traders in port any cargoes too small to tempt Company ships, would be at a premium, but they were all startled when the communication light from the outer hatch clicked on overhead.
Steen Wilcox jumped for the corridor and Dane was only seconds behind him. With Jellico and Van Rycke off ship, Wilcox was the nominal commander of the Queen, and Dane the representative of his section—on duty until the Cargo-Master returned.
A scooter was drawn up at the foot of the ramp, its driver sitting behind the controls. But a tall man, thin and burnt brown was climbing confidently up to the entrance hatch.
He wore a scuffed, hard duty leather tunic and frab-cord breeches, with thigh-high boots of corval skin, the dress of a field man on a pioneer world. On the other hand he did not affect the wide brimmed hat of the men Dane had seen in town. Instead his head was covered with a helmet of metaplast which had the detachable visor and the bubble ear pockets of a built in short wave receiver—the usual head gear of a Survey man.
“Captain Jellico?” his voice was crisp, authoritative, the voice of a man who was used to giving orders and having them unquestioningly obeyed.
The astrogator shook his head. “Captain’s planet-side, sir.”
