I had three major errands. The first thing I had to do was double-check my equipment to make sure it would still stand up against all the nastiness Venus can visit on a machine-or a person. The second was to go to the local union office and register a contract with Boyce Cochenour for validation, with a commission clause for Vastra.
The third was to see my doctor. The liver hadn't been giving me much trouble for a while, but then I hadn't been drinking much grain alcohol for a while.
The equipment turned out to be all right. It took me about an hour to complete the checks, but by the end of the time I was reasonably sure that I had all the gear and enough spare parts to keep us going. The Quackery was on the way to the union office, so I stopped in to see Dr. Morius first. It didn't take long. The news was no worse than I had been ready for. The doctor put all his instruments on me and studied the results carefully-about a hundred and fifty dollars worth of carefully-and then expressed the guarded hope that I would survive three weeks away from his office, provided I took all the stuff he gave me and wandered no more than usual from the diet he insisted on. 'And when I get back?' I asked.
'Same as I've been telling you, Audee,' he said cheerily. 'You can expect total hepatic collapse in, oh, maybe ninety days.' He patted his fingertips, looking at me optimistically. 'I hear you've
got a live one, though. Want me to make a reservation for your transplant?'
'How live did you hear my prospect was?' I asked.
He shrugged. 'The price is the same in any case,' he told me good-naturedly. 'Two hundred K for the new liver, plus the hospital, anesthesiologist, pre-op psychiatrist, pharmaceuticals, my own fee-you've already got the figures.'
I did. And I had already calculated that with what I might make from Cochenour, plus what I had put away, plus a loan on the airbody I could just about meet it. Leaving me broke when it was over, of course. But alive.
'Happens I've got one in stock now that's just your size,' Dr. Morius said, half-kidding.
I didn't doubt him. There are always plenty of spare parts in the Quackery. That's because people are always getting themselves killed, one way and another, and their heirs do their best to fatten up the estate by selling off the innards. I dated one of the quacks once or twice. When we'd been drinking she took me down to the Cold Cuts department and showed me all the frozen hearts and lungs and bowels and bladders, each one already dosed with antiallergens so it wouldn't be rejected, all tagged and packed away, ready for a paying customer. It was a pity I wasn't in that class, because then Dr. Morius could have pulled one out, warmed it up in the
microwave, and slapped it in. When I joked-I told her I was joking-about swiping just one little liver for me, the date went sour, and not long after that she packed it in and went back to Earth.
I made up my mind.
'Make the reservation,' I said. 'Three weeks from today.' And I left him looking mildly pleased, like a Burmese hydro-rice planter watching the machines warm up to bring in another crop. Dear Daddy. Why hadn't he sent me through medical school instead of giving me an education?
It would have been nice if the Heechee had been the same size as human beings, instead of being just that little bit shorter. It was reflected in their tunnels. In the smaller ones, like the one that led to the Local 88 union office, I had to half crouch all the way.
The deputy organizer was waiting for me. He had one of the very few good jobs on Venus that didn't depend on tourism-or at least not directly. He said, 'Subhash Vastra's been on the line. He says you agreed to thirty percent, and besides you took off without paying your bar bill to the Third of his house.'
'Admitted, both ways.'
He made a note. 'And you owe me a little too, Audee. Three hundred for the powder-fax copy of my report on your pigeon. A hundred for validating your contract with Vastra. And you're going to need a new guide's license; sixteen hundred for that.'
I gave him my currency card, and he checked the total out of my account into the local's. Then I signed and card-stamped the contract he'd drawn up. Vastra's thirty percent would not be on the whole million dollars, but on my net. Even so, he was likely to make as much out of it as I would, at least in liquid cash, because I was going to have to pay off the outstanding balances on equipment. The banks would carry a man until he scored, but then they wanted to get paid in full. .. because they knew how long it might be until he scored again.
The deputy verified the signed contract. 'That's that, then. Anything else I can do for you?'
'Not at your prices,' I told him.
He gave me a sharp look, with a touch of envy in it. 'Ah, you're putting me on, Audee. 'Boyce Cochenour and Dorotha Keefer, traveling S.S. Yuri Gagarin, Odessa registry, carrying no other passengers,' ' he quoted from the report he'd intercepted for us. 'No other passengers! Why, you can be a rich man, Audee, if you work this customer right.'
'Rich man is more than I ask,' I told him. 'All I want is to be a living one.'
It wasn't entirely true. I did have some little hope-not much, not enough to talk about, and in fact I'd never said a word about it to anyone-that I might be coming out of this rather better than just alive.
There was, however, a problem.
The problem was that if we did find anything, Boyce Cochenour would get most of it. If a tourist like Cochenour goes on a guided hunt for new Heechee tunnels, and he happens to find something valuable-tourists have, you know; not often, but enough to keep them hopeful-then it's the charterer who gets the lion's share. Guides get a taste, but that's all. We just work for the man who pays the bills.
Of course, I could have gone out by myself at any time and prospected on my own. Then anything I found would be all mine. But in my case, that was a really bad idea. If I staked myself to a trip and lost I wouldn't just be wasting my time and fifty or a hundred K on used-up supplies and wear and tear on the airbody. If I lost, I would be dead shortly thereafter, when that beat-up old liver finally gave out.
I needed every penny Cochenour would pay me just to stay alive. Whether we struck it rich or not, my fee from him would take care of that.
Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I had a notion that I knew
where something very interesting might be found; and my problem was that, as long as I had the standard charterer'srights contract with Cochenour, I really couldn't afford to find it.
The last stop I made was in my sleeping room. Under my bed, keystoned into the rock, was a guaranteed break-proof safe that held some papers I wanted to have in my pocket from then on.
See, when I first came to Venus it wasn't scenery that interested me. I wanted to make my fortune.
