first opportunity. There were two xenotechs in transit for the new planet, Aphrodite, at the time of his report. They will have reached Gateway Two by now, and we can expect their findings, probably, with the next out-pilot. Then we will call you again.”
She paused, looking at me, and I took it the interview was over. “Thanks a lot,” I said, and pushed myself toward the door. She let me get all the way to it before she said:
“One more thing. Mr. Ituno’s report mentions that you worked on loading and fabricating suits on Gateway Two. He authorizes a per diem payment to you amounting to, let me see, twenty-five hundred dollars. And your out-captain, Hester Bergowiz, has authorized payment of one percent of her bonus to you for services during the return flight; so your account has been credited accordingly.”
“I didn’t have a contract with her,” I said, surprised.
“No. But she feels you should have a share. A small share, to be sure. Altogether—” she looked under a paper, “it comes to twenty-five hundred plus fifty-five hundred — eight thousand dollars your account has been credited with.”
Eight thousand dollars! I headed for a dropshaft, grabbed an up-cable and pondered. It was not enough to make any real difference. It certainly would not be enough to pay the damages they would soak me for messing up a ship. There wasn’t enough money in the universe to pay that, if they wanted to charge me full replacement cost; there was no way to replace it.
Vessel 1-103, Voyage 022D18. Crew G. Herron.
Transit time out 107 days 5 hours.
Extract from log. “At 84 days 6 hours out the Q instrument began to glow and there was unusual activity in the control lights. At the same time I felt a change in the direction of thrust. For about one hour there were continuing changes, then the Q light went out and things went back to normal.”
Conjecture: Course change to avoid some transient hazard, perhaps a star or other body? Recommend computer search of trip logs for similar events.
On the other hand, it was eight thousand dollars more than I’d had.
I celebrated by buying myself a drink at the Blue Hell. While I was drinking it, I thought about my options. The more I thought about them, the more they dwindled away.
They would find me culpable, no doubt about that, and the least they’d assess me would be somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, I didn’t have it. It might be a lot more, but that didn’t make any difference; once they take away all you have, there isn’t anything left anyway.
So when you came right down to it, my eight thousand dollars was fairy gold. It could vanish with the morning dew. As soon as the xenotech’s report came in from Gateway Two the Board would reconvene and that would be the end of that.
So there was no particular reason to stretch my money. I might as well spend it.
There was no reason, either, to think about getting back my old job as an ivy-planter — even assuming I could get it, with Shicky fired from his job as straw-boss. The minute they made a judgment against me my credit balance would disappear. So would my prepaid per-capita payment. I would be subject to immediate defenestration.
If there happened to be an Earth-bound ship in port at the time I could just get on board, and sooner or later I would be back in Wyoming looking for my old job at the food mines. If there wasn’t a ship, then I was in trouble. I might be able to talk the American cruiser, or maybe the Brazilian one if Francy Hereira was in a position to pull strings for me, into taking me aboard for a while until a ship showed up. Or I might not.
Considered carefully, the chances were not very hopeful.
The very best thing I could do would be to act before the Board did, and there there were two choices.
I could take the next ship in port back to Earth and the food mines, without waiting for the Board’s decision.
Or I could ship out again.
They were two lovely choices. One of them meant giving up every chance of a decent life forever… and the other one scared me out of my mind.
Gateway was like a gentlemen’s club in which you never knew what members were in town. Louise Forehand was gone; her husband, Sess, was patiently holding the fort, waiting for her or their remaining daughter to return before shipping out again himself. He helped me move back into my room, which had been temporarily occupied by three Hungarian women until they had shipped out together in a Three. Moving took no great effort; I didn’t own anything anymore, except what I had just bought in the commissary.
The only permanent feature was Shicky Bakin, unfailingly friendly and always there. I asked him if he had heard from Klara. He had not. “Go out again, Rob,” he urged. “it is the only thing to do.”
“Yeah.” I did not want to argue it; he was incontestably right. Maybe I would.… I said, “I wish I weren’t a coward, Shicky, but I am. I just don’t know how I can make myself get into a ship again. I don’t have the courage to face a hundred days of fearing death every minute.”
He chuckled, and hopped off the chest of drawers to pat my shoulder. “You don’t need so much courage,” he said, flapping back to the chest. “You only need courage for one day: just to get in the ship and go. Then you don’t have to have courage anymore, because you don’t anymore have a choice.”
“I think I could have done it,” I said, “if Metchnikov’s theories about the color codes had been right. But some of the ’safe’ ones are dead.”
“It was only a statistical matter, Rob. It is true that there is a better safety record now, and a better success record, too. Only marginal, yes. But better.”
“The ones that died are just as dead,” I said. “Still — perhaps I’ll talk to Dane again.”
Shicky looked surprised. “He’s out.”
“When?”
“Around when you left. I thought you knew.”
I had forgotten. “Wonder if he found the soft touch he was looking for.”
Shicky scratched his chin with his shoulder, keeping himself balanced with lazy wing strokes. Then he hopped off the chest and fluttered over to the piezophone. “Let’s see,” he said, punched buttons. The locator board jumped
