judgment.
“I'll see you both later,” Stan said. Even before they turned to leave the control room, Stan's fingers were at the table drawer where he kept the box of royal jelly ampoules.
32
Julie and Gill returned to the aftercabin. They were alone except for Norbert, who stood silently against the curving wall like a futuristic basilisk, with Mac the dog asleep in his arms.
“Well, Gill,” Julie said, “what do you think of all this?”
Gill looked up from his inspection of the armament they had brought. His expression was mild, quizzical. “To what, specifically, do you refer?”
“Stan and his mad trip for royal jelly. This planet. Me.”
Gill took his time before answering. “I do not ask myself that sort of question, Miss Lish. And if I did…”
“Yes?”
“If I did, my conclusions would have no value. I am not like you humans. I am a synthetic.”
“How do you differ from real people?”
Gill looked disturbed, but managed to smile. “No soul, for one thing. Or so they say.”
“And for another?”
“No feelings.”
“None at all, Gill? Yet you look like a man.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
“Don't you even find me attractive?” Julie asked.
Again there was a long pause. Then Gill said, “There is an old saying of your people. 'Let sleeping dogs lie.' I would advise that here.”
“Why is that?”
“Because synthetic people with feelings are something the human race wants no part of.”
“That must be some other race,” Julie said. “Maybe I'm not part of it. I wouldn't mind it at all if you had feelings. You could tell me about yours and I'd tell you about mine.”
“Our feelings would be nothing alike,” Gill said.
“Are you so sure?” Julie said. “Sometimes I've felt that I've been set up to follow some program written by someone else. 'The Beautiful Thief,' this one is called. I sometimes wish I could just rewrite my programming. Do you ever wish that?”
“Yes,” Gill said. “I know what you mean.” Then he shook his head irritably. “Excuse me, Miss Lish, but I must go finish checking out these weapons. Dr. Myakovsky is going to need us at any time.”
“Do what you have to do,” Julie said. She walked away, and Gill watched her go.
33
Starlight glittered on his space armor as Red Badger left the
Badger gestured, though their destination was plain enough: the gray mass of the wreck, tying in several distinct parts, blocking the stars.
Getting there was simple: both men, on a signal from Badger, opened squirt cans that propelled them across the intervening space.
Badger said into his helmet radio, “You reading me okay, Glint?”
“Loud and clear,” Glint said.
They landed on the hulk's largest section with a clank of magnetic boots. Badger's power wrench opened the airtight door that led into the ship.
A lot of the freighter's metal covering had been peeled back by strong explosions. It was no trouble at all, once they were past the external armor, to slip in between two structural girders and make their way to the interior.
The searchlight picked out the bodies of men, trapped in the sudden inrushing vacuum when the ship's side had been pierced. Exploded bodies lay across girders and floated unsupported in the zero gravity.
Badger and Glint moved slowly, clumsy in their airtight space armor, their searchlights throwing brilliant swords of light through the gloom. A corpse, hanging over a loop of high-pressure hose, seemed to reach out and touch Badger's helmet, lightly, as if just saying hello….
The redheaded spaceman laughed and pushed the thing aside. The body floated slowly across the shattered compartment, its arms held out loosely in front of it like a swimmer doing the dead man's float.
They reached the flight deck. Here there were more bodies, some terribly mangled by the pieces of flying machinery that had taken on the power of exploding shrapnel as the ship had come apart, others looking strangely peaceful, as if they'd never known what hit them. Death had had a busy few moments here before the eternal silence of space had entombed them all.
“Here's the control section,” Glint said over the little space-helmet radio that connected the two men.
“Good enough,” said Badger. “Let's find what we came for and get the hell out of here.”
They floated past an operations console that looked as good as new. The ship's name was still stenciled on the bulkhead, and the paint looked almost new.
”
“Tough luck for her,” Badger said, his tone flat and unemotional. “Here's what we're looking for.”
Under the command console was a panel with three fingertip-sized indentations. Badger pressed them in counterclockwise order, starting at twelve o'clock. The panel slid away. Badger directed Glint to shine the searchlight inside. Using wire cutters from the tool kit strapped to his waist, Badger cut the leads inside and withdrew a small heavy box made of a metalized plastic substance.
“This is what we came for. Now let's get out of here.”
34
Back aboard the
“What's up, Red? Aren't we going to give this to the captain?”
“Of course we are,” Badger said. “But not just yet.” He led the way down a passageway to a door marked WORKSHOP D — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Glint followed him.
“What're you doin'?” Glint asked. “You going to fix that gizmo?”
Badger stopped and looked scornful. “You really are some kind of a moron. No, I'm not going to fix the gizmo. Why do you think I volunteered us for this job?”
“I was wondering about that,” Glint said.
“I want to get a look at what's on this flight recorder before I give it to the captain. Fat chance Hoban would ever tell us.”
Glint looked admiringly at his partner, then hurried to catch up as Badger pressed the stud that operated the door to Workshop D.
