The Five Gold Bands

She looked through the bull's-eye in the lock, heart in her mouth.

Paddy lay crumpled, unconscious. The bubble around his head was cracked; air was whistling out-visibly, as the water-vapor condensed to fog. Blood was trickling from his nose, spreading along his face.

'Paddy!' cried Fay as if her soul were dissolving. She could not close the outer door as his leg hung out, twisted at an odd angle. She could not open the inner door lest she lose all the air inside the ship.

She bent her forehead into the palms of her hands, whimpered. Then rising, she ran to the air-suit rack. One leg-both legs-zip up the side-head-bubble, two snaps. She ran to the lock, tugged it open against the inner pressure and the blast of air nearly flung her out into space.

She caught hold of Paddy's arm, pulled his weightless body in against the dying current of air.

'Paddy,' whispered Fay. 'Are you dead?'

There was air in the cabin, warm clean air. Paddy lay on his bunk, one leg in a splint, a bandage around his head. Fay sat mopping at the trickle of blood which seeped from his nose.

Paddy sighed, shook in a delirium. Fay gave him a third injection of vivest-101, and spoke to him soothingly in a voice soft as summer grass.

Paddy gave a sudden jerk, then sighed, relaxed. Fay bent over him. 'Paddy?' He breathed, he slept.

Fay arose went to the port. Delta Trianguli was a small cold ball of light astem, the planet inconspicuous among brighter stars.

Three days passed. There had come no cruising shark of a Koton ship. Perhaps they were safe. Perhaps Zhri Khainga preferred the thought of his golden sheets to revenge.

Paddy awoke on the fourth day. 'Fay,' he muttered.

'Yes, Paddy dear.'

'Where are we?'

'We're safe, Paddy, I hope.'

'Still no power?'

'Not yet. But I found what happened and we can fix it as soon as you get well. I'm trying to pull it apart-a busbar that was shorted and fused. It made a terrible mess.'

Paddy lay still a moment. His face twitched, his mouth pulled up at the corners in a grimace. He said, as if to himself, 'Whatever happens, it's the Son that did it to himself and his own people. It was his own treachery his own fault, and none of mine…'

Fay bent over him anxiously. 'What do you mean, Paddy?'

Paddy muttered, 'I planned all the time to tell him, since I'm no murderer, before he ever used the sheets.'

'What did you do?'

Paddy sighed turned his head away. 'There's a wealth of destruction in a dot, Fay-a little dot.' Fay peered at his face. Was he asleep? No. 'Paddy, what are you talking about?'

'Fay,' said Paddy weakly, 'the space-drive has been my fascination ever since I first heard about it and it's like to been my death-twice, three, four, a dozen times. And one of the times was on Akhabats, where in my ignorance I thought I could burrow into the manifolding shop and curl them out by the dozen.

'I found that it wasn't so simple but a very delicate matter. Power floods into the tube from one end and there's fifteen coils and they pound it and kneed it and bind it and curl it like a big kick-hammer.

'When all the strengths are just right that great energy snarls and fights but it winds around on itself and there it stops-a tight little core of space-warp. But if one of the coils is off, then there's a weak spot and all the energy breaks out and knocks the world apart.

'When I tried my hand at it on Akhabats there wasn't any power in the line except a bit of static charge but the kick nearly blasted away the shop.'

'So?' asked Fay breathlessly.

'So-when Zhri Khainga, the Koton, pulls the switch-all hell will break loose.'

'But Paddy,' whispered Fay, 'why? Those were the sheets we got from the dead Sons.'

'There's two little decimal points that make the difference, Fay. Two little dots. On the Badau and the Loristan sheets, the duplicated numbers. I had just time for it. Two little marks.'

She straightened from her bent position, looked away.

'It was to be our ace in the hole,' said Paddy. 'Sure I'd have told him about it over space-wave once we got clean away because I'm no hand for the killing, Fay. but now whatever happens is through himself since he cut off our power and it's his hard luck.'

'It's the ninth day, Paddy,' said Fay.

'Humph. Two days for the ship to pick him up, four days back to Montras, three days. It should be time for news.'

He turned on the receiver, functioning feebly from the power of the cell in his flash-light.

A Shaul spoke, and they strained their ear to hear.

'Attention-word from Zhri Khainga, Son of Langtry from Koto. Paddy Blackthorn, the convict and assassin, has been killed on a dead-planet hide-out by a Koton patrol-ship. No further details have been released. Thus the greatest manhunt in the history of space comes to an end and interstar traffic returns to normal.'

'Is that all then?' Paddy asked pettishly. 'Merely that I'm dead? Sure that would be no news to me were it true. I'd be the first to know it. Are there no explosions, no disasters? Is Zhri Khainga so cautious that he doesn't trust the data of his father and his unhealthy uncles? Why does he wait then?'

'Hush, Paddy dear,' said Fay. 'You'll excite yourself. Let's get back to our work. In another day we'll be repaired and send a warning message.'

'Och,' said Paddy. 'The suspense is killing me. Why doesn't he drop the other shoe?'

Exclaimed Paddy, 'The news. Fay, it's time for the news.'

Fay wiped her face with a greasy hand. 'If you'd wait ten minutes we'd be done. There's just the clip and welding to be done on that gang-switch, and then we'd get the news on ship's power.

Paddy limped unheeding to the receiver and the thin whistle of space-wave sang through the cabin. Then, gong, gong, gong! rang the speaker-deep doleful sounds.

In a kind of numb attentiveness they heard the voice. '… stupendous crater… millions dead… for the dead Son, Zhri Khainga…'

Fay turned off the speaker. 'Well, there it is. Don't worry any more. It's done. There goes Zhri Khainga and all his nerve-suits.'

'I wouldn't have had it that way,' said Paddy dully.

She stepped over to him, took his face in her two small hands. 'Look here, Paddy Blackthorn, I'm tired of your moping! Now you come help me put in that switch. Then we'll fly home to Earth.'

Paddy sighed, stood up, threw his arms around her. 'That will be wonderful, Fay.'

'First we'll get rid of this space-drive information and then-'

'And then we'll be married. We'll buy up all of County Cork,' said Paddy with mounting enthusiasm. 'We'll build a house a mile long and as high as necessary and champagne will flow out of every spigot. We'll raise the finest horses ever seen at Dublin Meet and the lords of the universe will tip their caps to us.'

'We'll get fat, Paddy.'

'Nonsense! And once a year we'll climb into our space-boat and we'll visit all our scenes of adventure again, just for old time's sake. Akhabats, Space-Ace, the Langtry planets-and this time they'll be running after us, hoping for the privilege of carrying our bags.'

'And don't forget the Angry Dragon, Paddy,' said Fay. 'We could visit there and be all alone. But now-'

'But now?'

A minute later Fay stood back breathless. 'First, that switch! Now you get back to work, Paddy Blackthorn. There's only ten more minutes of it, and then we're home for Earth.'

'I regard myself so.'

'I set you in charge of Happy Valley. Take your folk home, before darkness falls.'

Bast Givven silently went to his people. They stirred, and presently departed Banbeck Vale.

Joaz crossed the valley floor to the tumble of rubble which choked Kergan's Way. He choked with fury as he looked upon the destruction, and for a moment almost wavered in his resolve. Might it not be fit to fly the black