Chapter 10: The Trigger

In the first instance of astonishment they were speechless. Later, Tom said it was the first time in his life that he had ever seen Greg totally without words; his brother jumped back, as if he had seen a ghost, and his mouth worked, but no sounds came out.

“Don’t worry, it’s me all right,” Tom said, “and I’m mighty hungry.”

Greg and Johnny stared at the black hole behind the grill ... and then Greg was pumelling him, pounding him on the back, so excited he couldn’t get a sentence out, and Johnny was hovering over them, incredulous but forced to believe his eyes, like a father overwhelmed by the impossible behavior of a pair of unpredictable children. It was a jubilant reunion. They broke open the cabinets and refrigerator in the back of the lounge and pulled out surro-ham and rolls, while Johnny got some coffee going. Tom was so famished he could hardly wait to make sandwiches of the ham. He ate it as fast as he got it.

But finally he slowed up, got his mouth empty enough to talk. “All right, let’s have the story,” Greg said, still looking as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. “The last we saw, you were blown into atoms out there in that Scavenger ... you’ve got some nerve turning up now and scaring us half out of our skins...”

“You want me to go back in my hole?”

“Just sit still and talk!”

Tom told them, then, starting from the beginning.

Through it all Greg stared in admiration. “We’ve got a genius among us, that’s all,” he said finally. “And I always thought you were the timid one...”

“But what else could I do?” Tom said. “You know what they say about grabbing a tiger by the tail ... once you get hold, you’ve got to hold on.”

“Okay,” Greg said, “but the next time I make a crack about your retiring nature, remind me to stick my foot in my mouth.”

“I’ll do it for him,” Johnny Coombs rumbled.

Tom nodded toward the open grill. “The only thing I don’t see is how you knew I was back there.”

Johnny grinned. “We were busy taking down the grill when you came along. We’d found three microphones in this place, and figured they might have one behind the grill. And then we heard somebody breathing back there ... we thought they’d posted a guard back there, just to snoop us.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t hit him any harder...”

Johnny started to say something, then stopped, cocked his head toward the door. There were footsteps in the corridor outside; they came closer, stopped by the door. “Quick,” Johnny hissed, “back inside!”

There was no time to look for other concealment. Tom leaped across the room, jumped up into the shaft again, and Greg slammed the grate up into place just as the hatchway door swung open.

Merrill Tawney walked into the room, with two burly guards behind him.

For the first few seconds, Greg was certain that they were lost. He stood with his back to the ventilator grill, frozen in his tracks as the fat little company man came in the room. He tried to keep his face blank, but he knew he wasn’t succeeding. He saw the puzzled frown form on Tawney’s face.

The company man motioned the guards into the room, peered suspiciously at Greg and Johnny. “Am I interrupting something, by any chance?”

“Nothing at all,” Johnny blurted. “We were just talking.”

“Talking.” Tawney repeated the word as if it were some strange language he didn’t quite understand. He looked at the guard. “Let’s just check them.”

While one guard patted down their clothes, the other withdrew a stunner, held it on ready. Tawney prowled the lounge. He glanced at the food on the table, then reached under the chair cushion and withdrew the disconnected microphone, looked at the loose wires, and tossed it aside.

“They’re clean,” the guard said.

Tawney’s face was a study of uneasiness, but he clearly could not pinpoint what the trouble was. Finally he shrugged, turned on the smile again, although his eyes remained watchful. “Well, maybe you won’t mind if I join in the talking for a while,” he said. “You’ve been comfortable? No complaints?”

“No complaints,” Greg said.

“Then I presume we’re ready to talk business.” He looked at Greg.

“You said you were ready to bargain,” Greg said, “but I haven’t heard any terms yet.”

“Terms? Very simple. You direct us to the lode, we give you half of everything we realize from it,” Tawney said, smiling.

“You mean you’ll write us a contract? With a U.N. witness to it?”

“Well, hardly ... under the circumstances. I’m afraid you’ll have to take our word.”

Greg looked at the company man, and shook his head. “Not that I don’t trust you,” he said, “but I’m afraid I can’t give you what you want,” Greg said.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know where Dad made his strike.”

The company man’s face darkened. “Somebody knows where it is. Your father would never have found something like that without telling his own sons...”

“Sorry,” Greg said. “Of course, I can tell you where you can find out, if you want to go look.”

“We’ve already searched his records...”

“Some of his records,” Greg said. “Not all of them. There was a compartment behind the main control panel in Dad’s orbit-ship. Dad used it to store deeds, claims, other important papers. There was a packet of notes in there before your men fired on the ship. But of course, maybe you searched more thoroughly, the second time.”

Tawney stared at him for a moment, then at Johnny. Johnny Coombs shrugged his shoulders solemnly, and shook his head. Without a word, the little company man walked to the intercom speaker on the wall. He spoke sharply into it, waited, then had a brief, pungent conversation with someone. Then he turned back to Greg, his face heavy with suspicion. “You saw these papers?”

“Certainly I saw them. I didn’t have time to read them through, but what else could they be?”

“Let me warn you,” Tawney said coldly, “if I send a crew out there on a wild goose chase, the party will be over when they get back, do you understand? You’ve been given every consideration. If this is a fool’s errand, you’ll pay for it very dearly.” He turned on his heel, snarled at one of the guards. “I want them watched every minute,” he said. “One of you stay with them constantly. It won’t take long to find out if this is a stall...”

He stalked out, and the hatchway clanged behind him. One guard went along; the big one with the stunner stayed behind, eyeing his prisoners unpleasantly. The stunner was in his hand, the safety off.

Johnny Coombs started across the room toward the kitchennette, passing close to the guard. Suddenly he turned, swung his fist heavily down on the guard’s neck. The stunner crackled, but Greg had jumped aside. Another blow from Johnny’s fist sent the gun flying. Another blow, and the guard’s legs slid out from under him. He fell unconscious to the floor.

In an instant they were across the room, lifting down the grill, helping Tom out of his hiding place. “Okay, boy,” Johnny said to Greg, “I guess you pulled the trigger with that story of yours.”

“Not me,” Greg said. “Tom did. He’s the one that showed us the way out ... the same way he came in.”

The guard was out for a while, they made sure of that first. Then there was a hasty consultation. “The airlocks are guarded,” Johnny said, “and if they tumble to the ventilator shafts, they can smoke us out in no time. How are we going to get a scout-ship without showing ourselves? For that matter, how are we going to get a scout-ship away from here without being blown up the way the Scavenger was blown up?”

“I think I know a way,” Tom said. “We have to have something to keep a lot of the crew busy. If we could get to the ship’s generators and put them out of commission somehow, it might do it.”

“Why?” Greg wanted to know.

“Because of the air supply,” Tom said. “Without the generators, the fans won’t run. They’ll have to get a crew to fix them or they’ll suffocate.”

“But that would only take a few men,” Johnny said. “As soon as the generators went out, they’d look for us, and if we were missing ... well, they’d have the whole crew beating the bushes for us. It wouldn’t be long before somebody thought of the ventilators.”