Chapter 2: Jupiter Equilateral

For a moment, Major Briarton just stared at him. Then he was on his feet, shaking his head as he came around the desk. “Tom, use your head,” he said. “It’s as much of a shock to me as it is to you, but you can’t afford to jump to false conclusions...”

Tom Hunter looked up bitterly. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he’s dead. He must have died the instant of the explosion...”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“I wasn’t there at the time it happened, no.”

“Then who was?”

Major Briarton spread his hands helplessly. “Nobody was. Your father was alone. From what we could tell later, he’d left the Scavenger to land on one of his claims, using the ship’s scooter for the landing. He was on the way back to the Scavenger when the rear tank exploded. There wasn’t enough left of it to tell what went wrong ... but it was an accident, there was no evidence to suggest anything else.”

Tom looked at him. “You really believe that?”

“I can only tell you what we found.”

“Well, I don’t believe it for a minute,” Tom said angrily. “How long have you and Dad been friends? Twenty years? Twenty-five? Do you really think Dad would have an accident with a mining rig?”

“I know he was an expert engineer,” the major said. “But things can happen that even an expert can’t foresee, mining in the Belt.”

“Things like a fuel tank exploding? Not to Dad, they would never happen. I don’t care what anybody says...”

“Easy, Tom,” Greg said.

“Well, I won’t take it easy. Dad was too careful for something like that to happen. If he had an accident, somebody made it happen.”

Greg turned to the major. “What was Dad doing out there?”

“Mining.”

“By himself? No crew at all?”

“No, he was alone.”

“I thought the regulations said there always had to be at least two men working an asteroid claim.”

“That’s right. Your father had Johnny Coombs with him when he left Sun Lake City. They signed out as a team ... and then Johnny came back to Mars on the first shuttle ship.”

“How come?”

“Not even Johnny knows. Your father just sent him back, and there was nothing we could do about it then. The U.N. has no jurisdiction in the belt, unless a major crime has been committed.” Major Briarton shook his head helplessly. “If a man is determined to mine a claim all by himself out there, he can find a dozen different ways to wiggle out of the regulations.”

“But Dad would never be that stupid,” Greg said. “If he was alone when it happened, who found him?”

“A routine U.N. Patrol ship. When Roger failed to check in at the regular eight-hour signal, they went out to see what was wrong. But by the time they reached him, it was too late to help.”

“I just don’t get it,” Greg said. “Dad had more sense than to try to mine out there all by himself.”

“I know,” the major said. “I don’t know the answer. I had the Patrol ship go over the scene of the accident with a comb after they found what had happened, but there was nothing there to find. It was an accident, and that’s that.”

“What about Jupiter Equilateral?” Tom said hotly. “Everybody knows they were out to get Dad ... why don’t you find out what they were doing when it happened, bring them in for questioning...”

“I can’t do that, I haven’t a scrap of evidence,” the major said wearily.

“Why can’t you? You’re the Mars Coordinator, aren’t you? You act like you’re scared of them.”

Major Briarton’s lips tightened angrily. “All right, since you put it that way ... I am scared of them. They’re big, and they’re powerful. If they had their way, there wouldn’t be any United Nations control on Mars, there wouldn’t be anybody to fight them and keep them in check. There wouldn’t be any independent miners out in the Belt, either, because they’d all be bought out or dead, and Earth would pay through the nose for every ounce of metal that they got from the Asteroid Belt. That company has been trying to drive the U.N. off Mars for thirty years, and they’ve come so close to it that it scares me plenty.” He pushed his chair back sharply and rose to his feet. “And that is exactly why I refuse to stir up a mess over this thing, unhappy as it is, without something more than suspicions and rumors to back me up ... because all Jupiter Equilateral needs is one big issue to make us look like fools out here, and we’re through.”

He crossed the room to a wall cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a scarred aluminum box. “We found this in the cabin of the Scavenger. I thought you boys might want it.”

They both recognized it instantly ... the battered old spacer’s pack that Roger Hunter had used for as long as they could remember. It seemed to them, suddenly, as if a part of him had appeared here in the room with them. Greg looked at the box and turned away. “You open it,” he said to Tom in a sick voice.

There was nothing much inside ... some clothing, a pipe and tobacco pouch, a jack knife, half a dozen other items so familiar that Tom could hardly bear to touch them. At the bottom of the pack was the heavy leather gun case which had always held Roger Hunter’s ancient .44 revolver. Tom dropped it back without even opening the flap. He closed the box and took a deep breath. “Then you really believe that it was an accident and nothing more?” he said to the major.

Major Briarton shook his head. “What I think or don’t think doesn’t make any difference. It just doesn’t matter. In order to do anything, I’ve got to have evidence, and there just isn’t any evidence. I can’t even take a ship out there for a second look, with the evidence I have, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But you think that maybe it wasn’t an accident, just the same,” Tom pursued.

The major hesitated. Then he shook his head again. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to stand on what I’ve said. And I think you’d better stand on it, too. There’s nothing else to be done.”

It should have been enough, but it wasn’t. As Tom Hunter walked with his brother down the broad Upper Ramp to the business section of Sun Lake City, he could not shake off the feeling of helpless anger, the growing conviction that Roger Hunter’s death involved something more than the tragic accident in space that Major Briarton had insisted it was.

“He didn’t tell us everything he knew,” Tom said fiercely. “He didn’t say everything he wanted to say, either. He doesn’t think it was an accident any more than I do.”

“How do you know, are you a mind reader?”

“No.”

“Well, Dad wasn’t a superman, either. He was taking an awful risk, trying to work a mining rig by himself, and he had a bad break. Why do you have to have somebody to blame for it?”

“Keep talking,” Tom said. “You’ll convince yourself yet.”

Greg just jammed his hands in his pockets, and they walked in silence for a moment.

For Tom and Greg Hunter, Sun Lake City had always been home. Now they walked along the Main Concourse, Tom with the aluminum box under his arm, Greg with his own spacer’s pack thrown over his shoulder. They didn’t talk; rather than being drawn closer by the news of the tragedy, it seemed that they had drawn farther apart, as though the one common link that had held them together had suddenly been broken.

Finally Tom broke the silence. “At least there’s one thing we can do,” he said. “I’m going to call Johnny Coombs.”

He shortly found a phone booth and dialed a number. Johnny had been a friend of the family for years; he and Roger Hunter had been partners in many mining ventures in the Asteroid Belt before Roger had taken his position with Jupiter Equilateral. If Johnny had any suspicions that Roger Hunter’s accident had been more than an accident, he certainly would not hesitate to voice them...

After a dozen rings, Tom hung up, tried another number. There was no answer there, either. Frowning, Tom rang the city’s central paging system. “Put in a personal call for Johnny Coombs,” he said when the “record” signal flashed on. “Tell him to contact the Hunters when he comes in. We’ll be at home...”

They resumed their silent walk. When they reached H wing on the fourth level, they turned right down an apartment corridor, and stopped in front of a familiar doorway. Tom pressed his palm against the lock-plate, and the door swung open.

It was home to them, the only home they had ever known. Soft lights sprang up on the walls of the apartment as the door opened. Tom saw the old bookcases lining the walls, the drafting-board and light at the far end of the room, the simple chairs and dining table, the door which led into the bedroom and kitchen beyond. The room had the slightly disheveled look that it had had ever since Mom had died ... a slipper on the floor here, a book face down on the couch there...