At 4:30, the bedside phone chimed. 'This Willie Egan,' a frightened voice said. 'You remember—on the desk at the Phoenix.' Desk, hell—he was a 17-year-old copyboy I'd tipped to alert me on any hot breaks.
'There's some kind of trouble with the Esmeralda,' he said. That big immigrant ship. They had a welcoming committee out, but the ship's overdue. I thought there might be a story in h. You got my home address? You better send the check there. Mr. Weems doesn't like us to do string work. How much do I get?'
'Depends,' I said, waking up abruptly. 'Thanks, kid.' I was into my clothes and down the street in five minutes. It looked good; mighty good.
The ship was overcrowded, the AA insurance rating I had was a year old—maybe it had gone to pot since then and we'd have a major disaster on our hands.
I snapped on the newsroom lights and grabbed the desk phone, knocked down one toggle on the key box and demanded: 'Space operator! Space operator!'
'Yes, sir. Let me have your call, please?'
'Gimme the bridge of the Esmeralda due to dock at the Frostbite spaceport today. While you're setting up the call gimme interplanetary and break in when you get the Etmeralda.'
'Yes, sir.' Click-click-click.
'Interplanetary operator.'
'Gimme Planet Gammadion. Person-to-person, to the public relations officer of the Frimstedt Atomic Astrogation Company. No, I don't know his name. No, I don't know the Gam-nadion routing. While you're setting up the call gimme the local operator and break in when you get my party.'
'Yes, sir.' Click-click-click.
'Your call, please.'
'Person-to-person, captain of the spaceport'
'Yes, sir.'
Click-click-click. 'Here is Esmeralda, sir.'
'Who's calling?' yelled a voice. 'This is the purser's of-fce, who's calling?'
'Interstellar News, Frostbite Bureau. What's up about the ihip being late?'
'I can't talk now! Oh, niy God! I can't talk now! They're going crazy in the steerage—' He hung up and I swore a little.
'Space operator!' I yelled. 'Get me Esmeralda again—if you can't get the bridge get the radio shack, the captain's cabin, anything in-board!'
'Yes, sir.'
Click-click-click. 'Here is your party, sir.'
'Captain of the port's office,' said the phone.
'This is Interstellar News. What's up about Esmeralda? I just talked to the purser in space and there's some trouble aboard.'
'I don't know anything more about it than you boys,' said the captain of the port. But his voice didn't sound right.
'How about those safety-standard stories?' I fired into the dark.
'That's a tomfool rumor!' he exploded. 'Her atomics are perfectly safe!'
'Still,' I told him, fishing, 'it was an engineer's report—'
'Eh? What was? I don't know what you're talking about.' He realized he'd been had. 'Other ships have been an hour late before and there are always rumors about shipping. That's absolutely all I have to say—
absolutely all!' He hung up.
Click-click-click. 'Interplanetary operator. I am trying to place your call, sir.' She must be too excited to plug in the right hole on her switchboard. A Frostbite Gammadion call probably cost more than her annual salary, and it was a gamble at that on the feeble and mysteriously erratic sub-radiation that carried voices across segments of the galaxy.
But there came a faint harumph from the phone. 'This is Captain Gulbransen. Who is calling, please?'
I yelled into the phone respectfully: 'Captain Gulbransen, this is Interstellar News Service on Frostbite.' I knew the way conservative shipping companies have of putting ancient, irritable astrogators into public-relations berths after they are ripe to retire from space. 'I was wondering, sir,' I shouted, 'if you'd care to comment on the fact that Esmeralda is overdue at Frostbite with 1,000 immigrants.'
'Young man,' wheezed Gulbransen dimly, 'it is clearly stated in our tariffs filed with the ICC that all times of arrival are to be read as plus or minus eight Terrestrial Hours, and that the company assumes no liability in such cases as—'
'Excuse me, sir, but I'm aware that the eight-hour leeway is traditional.
But isn't it a fact that the average voyage hits, the E.T.A. plus or minus only fifteen minutes T.H.?'
'That's so, but—'
'Please excuse me once more, sir—I'd like to ask just one more question. There is, of course, no reason for alarm in the lateness of Esmeralda, but wouldn't you consider a ship as much as one hour overdue as possibly in danger? And wouldn't the situation be rather alarming?'
'Well, one full hour, perhaps you would. Yes, I suppose so —but the eight-hour leeway, you understand—' I laid the phone down quietly on the1 desk and ripped through the Phoenix for yesterday. In the business section it said 'Esmeralda due 0330.' And the big clock on the wall said 0458.
I hung up the phone and sprinted for the ethertype, with the successive stories clear in my head, ready to be punched and fired off to Marsboo for relay on the galactic trunk. I would beat out IS clanging bells on the printer and follow them with
INTERSTELLAR FLASH
IMMIGRANT SHIP ESMERALDA SCHEDULED TO LAND FROSTBITE
WITH 1,000 FROM THETIS PRO-CYON ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS
OVERDUE: OWNER ADMITS SITUATION 'ALARMING' CRAFT 'IN
DANGER.'
And immediately after that a five-bell bulletin:
INTERSTELLAR BULLETIN
FROSTBITE—THE IMMIGRANT SHIP ESMERALDA, DUE TODAY AT
FROSTBITE FROM THETIS PROCYON WITH 1,000 STEERAGE
PASSENGERS ABOARD IS ONE AND ONE HALF HOURS OVERDUE. A SPOKESMAN FOR THE OWNERS, THE FRIMSTEDT ATOMIC ASTROGATION COMPANY, SAID SUCH A SITUATION IS -ALARMING' AND
THAT THE CRAFT MIGHT BE CONSIDERED 'IN DANGER.'
ESMERALDA IS AN 830 THOUSAND-TON FREIGHTER-STEERAGE
PASSENGER CARRIER.
THE CAPTAIN OF THE PORT AT FROSTBITE ADMITTED THAT THERE
HAVE BEEN RUMORS CIRCULATING ABOUT THE CONDITION OF THE
CRAFTS ATOMICS THOUGH THESE WERE RATED 'A' ONE YEAR AGO.
THE PURSER OF THE SPACESHIP, CONTACTED IN SPACE, WAS
AGITATED AND INCOHERENT WHEN QUESTIONED. HE SAID—
'Get up, Spencer, get away from the machine.'
It was Joe Downing, with a gun in his hand.
'I've got a story to file,' I said blankly.
'Some other time.' He stepped closer to the ethertype and let out a satisfied grunt when he saw the paper was clean. 'Port captain called me,' he said. 'Told me you were nosing around.'
'Will you get out of here?' I asked, stupefied. 'Man, Fve flash and bulletin matter to clear. Let me alone!'
'I said to get away from that machine or I'll cut ya down, boy.'
'But why? Why?'
'George don't want any big stories out of Frostbite.'
'You're crazy. Mr. Parsons is a newsman himself. Put that damn-fool gun away and let me get this out!'
I turned to the printer when a new voice said, 'No! Don't do it, Mr.
Spencer. He is a Nietzschean. He'll kill you, all right. He'll kill you, all right.'
It was Leon Portwanger, the furrier, my neighbor, the man who claimed he never knew Kennedy. His fat,
