being blasted to hell by someone who didn't want them here? What about that, huh?”
“That would be serious,” Meg admitted, and several other crewmen nodded agreement. “Are you saying that's what it said?”
“I'm not saying nothing,” Badger said. “You can decide for yourselves.”
“You took the flight indicator?”
“I listened to it in the workshop. And now I'm going to play it for you. Once you've heard it, you can come to your own conclusions.”
“I hope you know what you're doing, Red,” Meg said. “I'm sure the captain is expecting you to give that to him immediately.”
“Don't worry,” Badger said. “The message on it is pretty short.”
41
The pod, with Norbert and Mac aboard, was dancing around like a leaf in a storm. Norbert had lost contact with the other pod containing the five volunteers. Wind force threw his pod up into the air, and crosscurrents spun it like a top. Mac howled, and Norbert just clung tight.
“Hang on, boy!” Norbert called. Mac, cradled in his arms, was whimpering, his eyes rolling, in a paroxysm of fear.
Norbert had brought along some extra equipment in case of distress to the dog. The trouble was getting to it. Norbert was practically compressed into the space of the pod, and his size made him take up more room than an Earthman. The little ship was swinging around violently, but Norbert did not suffer from vertigo. He managed to reverse one of his wrist joints and grabbed a large piece of felt he had brought along. He managed to wrap this around Mac, cushioning him. The dog gave a little yelp as the cloth came around him, but he seemed to appreciate it. His spastic movement became calmer, and he began to adjust to the violent movements.
The pod, descending on automatic, danced and veered in the wind. Norbert was tempted to manually override the pod's controls and see if he could ease out the movements. But he decided against it. The pod's autopilot had been designed with a program that softened out its jerks and slides. He couldn't hope to do better. He concentrated instead upon providing a firm platform for Mac and keeping the felt wrapped around the shivering beast without smothering him. Norbert himself didn't breathe, and he had to remind himself that all other creatures did.
The ground was coming up fast now to meet them. Wind shear, this close to the ground, added another factor to the dangerous uncertainties of the descent. (The pod's own pulsar beams had to slow them and absorb the shock as the ground rushed up to meet them.) Then they were bouncing across it, and finally, spinning, they came to a halt.
Then Dr. Myakovsky's voice: “Norbert, are you all right?”
“Perfectly all right, Doctor. And so is Mac.”
“Was the landing very difficult?”
Norbert had something new in his vocabulary, learned from Julie, and he hastened to use it now. “A piece of cake, Doctor. A walk in the park.”
“Hurry up and get the job done,” Stan said. “We want to get rich and get out of here.”
42
After Badger played the recorder for the crew, there was an utter silence for a brief moment. Spaceship crews, with their volatile mix of people from all walks of life, tend to have low boiling points. The crew of the
“What the hell does it mean?” Meg asked.
“It means that a ship like ours was fired upon and destroyed. If they did it to them, then why not to us?”
“Wait a minute!” one of the crew said. “They aren't allowed to do that!”
“What does it matter what they're allowed?” Badger said. “People with power do what they please.”
The crew began quarreling among themselves. Badger waited for them to sort it out. He was pretty sure what conclusion they'd come to. And if, by a remote chance, they didn't, he'd steer them toward it.
He knew that cons were always open to the charge that they were being exploited, a supposition that had proven true too many times in the past. The crew had listened to the flight recorder from the
It was obvious that there was danger out there. Danger that Captain Hoban would soon know about. Danger that impinged directly on the lives of the crew. So what would Hoban do about it?
After a while the first babble of talk died down, and Walter Glint said to Badger, “Captain Hoban will see this soon. What do you think he's going to do about it?”
“I'll tell you what he'll do,” Badger said. “Nothing, that's what he'll do! Hoban is paid by the crazy doctor. The one who's always zonked out on fire. The one who's got the robot alien that killed two of our shipmates. Hoban will do what the crazy doctor tells him to do, because he's gettin' paid plenty to take the risks. But what risks are you being paid to take? Tell me that, huh?”
It was easy to get a spaceship crew angry, less so to drive them to action. Excited and desperate though they were, it still required work to goad them into taking the law into their own hands. But they were halfway there, Red thought.
Badger was starting a rebellion, but he didn't know quite what he would do next. The quirks of his own mind had perplexed him since childhood. Although he was starting this revolt, paradoxically he felt a strong sympathy for Captain Hoban. At one time he had thought he was going to help him. After all, Hoban had gotten him out of prison. But that was before he saw the tapes, before he realized the extent of the danger they were running, before he decided to do what he could to prevent it.
It's necessary to get them moving, Badger thought Before there are more deaths.
43
“Dr. Myakovsky? This is Captain Hoban. Do you read me?”
“The atmospherics are difficult, Captain, but I am able to understand you. Please note that just a few minutes ago we launched the pods containing Norbert and Mac and the volunteers. We have them now in distant visual range.”
“Excellent, Doctor. I'm glad that part of the operation is going according to plan.”
With his sharpened senses, Stan caught the note of uncertainty in his captain's voice. “Is something the matter, Captain?”
“I'm afraid it is, sir. It concerns the flight recorder that we salvaged from the wreck I reported to you about. Before saying any more, let me play it for you, sir.”
“Okay, go ahead,” Stan said.
44
Stan, Julie, and Gill listened in attentive silence as the tape ran. They heard the exchange between Kuhn of
