'Uh. Okay, Smoky, you do it. Can you find us later with a maser?'
'Sure, boss. No secrets?'
'Hell, they know we're following them. Tell us anything we need to know. And find out where Garner is! If he's in the honeymooner I want to know it. Better beam Woody in Number Six too, and tell him to go wherever Garner is.'
'Of course, Pluto. Don't you get it yet?' It was not the first time Kzanol/Greenberg had had doubts about his former self's intelligence. The doubts were getting hard to ignore. He'd been afraid Kzanol would figure it out for himself. But-?
'No,' said Kzanol, glowering.
'The ship hit one of Neptune's moons,' Kzanol/Greenberg explained patiently, 'so hard that the moon was smacked out of orbit. The ship was moving at nearly lightspeed. The moon picked up enough energy to become a planet, but it was left with an eccentric orbit which still takes it inside Neptune at times. Naturally that made it easy to spot.'
'I was told that Pluto came from another solar system.'
'So was I. But it doesn't make sense. If that mass dived into the system from outside, why didn't it go back out again to complete the hyperbola? What could have stopped it? Well, I'm taking a gamble.
'There's only one thing that bothers me. Pluto isn't very big. Do you suppose the suit may have been blown back into space by the explosion when it hit?'
'If it was, I'll kill you,' said Kzanol.
'Don't tell me, let me guess,' begged Garner. 'Aha! I've got it. Smoky Petropoulos. How are you?'
'Not as good as your memory. It's been a good twenty-two years.' Smoky stood behind the two seats, in the airlock space, and grinned at the windshield reflection of the two men. There wasn't room to do much else. 'How the hell are you, Garner? Why don't you turn around and shake hands with an old buddy?'
'I can't, Smoky. We've been ordered not to move by a BEM that doesn't take no for an answer. Maybe a good hypnotherapist could get us out of this fix, but we'll have to wait 'til then. By the way, meet Leroy Anderson.'
'Hi.'
'Now give us a couple of cigarettes, Smoky, and put them in the corners of our mouths so we can talk. Are your boys chasing Greenberg and the BEM?'
'Yeah.' Smoky fumbled with cigarettes and a lighter. 'Just what is this game of musical chairs?'
'What do you mean?'
Old Smoky put their cigarettes where they belonged. He said, 'That honeymoon special took off for Pluto. Why?'
'Pluto!'
'Surprised?'
'It wasn't here,' said Anderson.
'Right,' said Garner. 'We know what they're after, and we know now they didn't find it here. But I can't imagine why they think it's on Pluto. Oops! Hold it' Garner puffed furiously at his cigarette: good honest tobacco with the tars and nicotine still in it. He didn't seem to have any trouble moving his face. 'Pluto may have been a moon of Neptune once. Maybe that has something to do with it. How about Greenberg's ship? Is it going in the same direction?'
'Uh uh. Wherever it is, its drive is off. We lost sight of it four hours ago.'
Anderson spoke up. 'If your friend is still aboard he could be in trouble.'
'Right,' said Garner. 'Smoky, that ship could be falling into Neptune with Lloyd Masney aboard. You remember him? A big, stocky guy with a mustache.'
'I think so. Is he paralyzed too?'
'He's hypnotized. Plain old garden-variety hypnotized, and if he hasn't been told to save himself, he won't. Will you?'
'Sure. I'll bring him back here.' Smoky turned to the airlock.
'Hey!' Garner yelped. 'Take the butts out of our mouths before our faces catch fire!'
From his own ship Smoky called Woody Atwood in Number Six, the radar proof, and told his story. 'It looks like the truth, Woody,' he finished. 'But there's no point in taking chances. You get in here and stick close to Garner's ship; if he makes a single move he's a bloody liar, so keep an eye open. He's been known to be tricky. I'll see if Masney is really in trouble. He shouldn't be hard to find.'
'Pluto's a week and a half away at one gravity,' said Anderson, who could do simple computations in his head. 'But we couldn't follow that gang even if we could move. We don't have the fuel.'
'We could refuel on Titan, couldn't we? Where the hell is Smoky?'
'Better not expect him back today.'
Garner growled at him. Space, free fall, paralysis, and defeat were all wearing away at his self- control.
'Hey,' he whispered suddenly.
'What?' The word came in an exaggerated stage whisper.
'I can wiggle my index fingers,' Garner snapped. 'This hex may be wearing off. And mind your manners.'
Smoky was back late the next day. He had inserted the pointed nose of his ship into Masney's drive tube to push Masney's ship. When he turned off his own drive the two ships tumbled freely. Smoky moved between ships with a jet pack in the small of his back. By this time Atwood had joined the little group, and was helping Smoky, for it would have been foolish to suspect trickery after finding Masney.
Not because Masney was still hypnotized. He wasn't. Kzanol had freed him from hypnosis in the process of taking him over, and had, kindly or thoughtlessly, left him with no orders when he departed for Pluto. But Masney was near starvation. His face bore deep wrinkles of excess skin, and the skin of his torso was a loose, floppy, folded tent over his ribcage. Kzanol/Greenberg had repeatedly forgotten to feed him, remembering only when hunger seemed about to break him out of hypnosis. Kzanol would never have treated a slave that way; but Kzanol, the real Kzanol, was far more telepathic than the false. And Kzanol/Greenberg hadn't learned to think of daily food intake as a necessity. So much food was a luxury, and a foolish one.
Masney had started an eating spree as soon as the Golden Circle was gone, but it would be some time before he was «stocky» again. His ship's fuel was gone, and he was found drifting in a highly eccentric orbit about Triton, an orbit which was gradually narrowing.
'Couldn't possibly be faked,' Smoky said when he called the Belt fleet. 'A little bit better fakery, and Masney would be dead. As it is, he's only very sick.'
Now the four ships fell near Nereid.
'We've got to refuel all these ships,' said Garner. 'And there's a way to do it.' He began to tell them.
Smoky howled. 'I won't leave my ship!'
'Sorry, Smoky. See if you can follow this. We've got three pilots, right? You, Woody, Masney. Me and Anderson can't move. But we've got four ships to pilot. We have to leave one.'
'Sure, but why mine?'
'Five men to carry in three ships. That means we keep both two-man ships. Right?'
'Right.'
'We give up your ship, or we give up a radar proof ship. Which would you leave?'
'You don't think we'll get to Pluto in time for the war?'
'We might as well try. Want to go home?'
'All right, all right.'
The fleet moved to Triton without Number Four, and with half of Number Four's fuel transferred to Masney's ship, the
