Chapter 3

The tremendous engines of the Procyon were again putting out their wonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on course at one gravity. The lifecraft were in their slots, but the five and the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressive emptiness that the ship itself now was. And socially, outside of working hours, the two groups did not mix.

Clean-up was going nicely, at the union rate of six hours on and eighteen hours off. Deston could have set any hours he pleased, but he didn’t. There was plenty of time. Eleven months in deep space is a fearfully, a tremendously long time.

“Morning,” “afternoon,” “evening,” and “night” were, of course, purely conventional terms. The twenty-four-hour “day” measured off by the brute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee, expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity.

One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in the main room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and Moose Mordan, were playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size; compact rather than slender; built of rawhide and spring steel. Lithe and poised, he was the epitome of leashed and controlled action. Moose was six-feet-four and weighed a good two-forty--stolid, massive, solid. Ferdy and Moose; a tiger and an elephant; both owned in fee simple by Vincent Lopresto.

The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had many vitriolic arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.

“Play it my way and we’ve got it made, I tell you!” Newman pounded the table with his fist. “Seventy million if it’s a cent! Heavier grease than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even heard of! I’m as good an astrogator as Jones is, and a damn sight better engineer. In electronics I maybe ain’t got the theory Pretty Boy has, but at building and repairing the stuff I’ve forgot more than he ever will know. At practical stuff, and that’s all we give a whoop about, I lay over both them sissies like a Lunar dome.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lopresto sneered. “How come you aren’t ticketed for subspace, then?”

“For hell’s sake, act your age!” Newman snorted in disgust. Eyes locked and held, but nothing happened. “D’ya think I’m dumb? Or that them subspace Boy Scouts can be fixed? Or I don’t know where the heavy grease is at? Or I can’t make the approach? Why ain’t you in subspace?”

“I see.” Lopresto forced his anger down. “But I’ve got to be sure we can get back without ‘em.”

“You can be damn sure. I got to get back myself, don’t I? But get one thing down solid. I get the big peroxide blonde.”

“You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellowhead a lot better.”

Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: “And don’t think for a second you can make me crawl, you small-time, chiseling punk. Rub me out after we kill them off and you get nowhere. You’re dead. Chew on that a while, and you’ll know who’s boss.”

After just the right amount of holding back and objecting, Lopresto agreed. “You win, Newman, the way the cards lay. Have you ever planned this kind of an operation or do you want me to?”

“You do it, Vince,” Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the qualities of a leader. “Besides, you already have, ain’t you?”

“Of course. Ferdy will take Deston--”

“No he won’t! He’s mine, the louse!”

“If you’re that dumb, all bets are off. What are you using for a brain? Can’t you see the guy’s chain lightning on ball bearings?”

“But we’re going to surprise ‘em, ain’t we?”

“Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give him an even break. You wouldn’t stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you’ve got the brains of a louse you know it.”

“O. K., we’ll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see who--”

“I can draw twice to your once, but I suppose I’ll have to prove it to you. I’ll take Jones; you will gun the professor; Moose will grab the dames, one under each arm, and keep ‘em out of the way until the shooting’s over. The only thing is, when? The sooner the better. Tomorrow?”

“Not quite, Vince. Let ‘em finish figuring course, time, distance, all that stuff. They can do it a lot faster and some better than I can. I’ll tell you when.”

“O. K., and I’ll give the signal. When I yell ‘NOW’ we give ‘em the business.”

Newman went to his cabin and the muscle called Moose spoke thoughtfully. That is, as nearly thoughtfully as his mental equipment would allow.

“I don’t like that ape, boss. Before you gun him, let me work him over just a little bit, huh?”

“It’ll be quite a while yet, but that’s a promise, Moose. As soon as his job’s done he’ll wish he’d never been born. Until then, we’ll let him think he’s Top Dog. Let him rave. But Ferdy, any time he’s behind me or out of sight, watch him like a hawk. Shoot him through the right elbow if he makes one sour move.”

“I get you, boss.”

A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: “You’re worried, Babe, and everything’s going so smoothly. Why?”

“Too smoothly altogether. That’s why. Newman ought to be doing a slow burn and goldbricking all he dares; instead of which he’s happy as a clam and working like a nailer ... and I wouldn’t trust Vincent Lopresto or Ferdinand Blaine as far as I can throw a brick chimney by its smoke. This whole situation stinks. There’s going to be shooting for sure.”

“But they couldn’t do anything without you two!” Bernice exclaimed. “It’d be suicide ... and with no motive... could they, Ted, possibly?”

Jones’ dark face did not lighten. “They could, and I’m very much afraid they intend to. As a crew-chief, Newman is a jack-leg engineer and a very good practical ‘troncist; and if he’s what I think he is--” He paused.

“Could be,” Deston said, doubtfully. “In with a mob of normal-space pirate-smugglers. I’ll buy that, but there wouldn’t be enough plunder to--”

“Just a sec. So he’s a pretty good rule-of-thumb astrogator, too, and we’re computing every element of the flight. As for motive--salvage. With either of us alive, none. With both of us dead, can you guess within ten million bucks of how much they’ll collect?”

“Blockhead!” Deston slapped himself on the forehead. “I never even thought of that angle. That nails it down solid.”

“With the added attraction,” Jones went on, coldly and steadily, “of having two extremely desirable female women for eleven months before killing them, too.”

Both girls shrank visibly, and Deston said: “Check. I thought that was the main feature, but it didn’t add up. This does. Now, how will they figure the battle? Both of us at once, of--”

“Why?” Barbara asked. “I’d think they’d waylay you, one at a time.”

“Uh-uh. The survivor would lock the ship in null-G and it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel. Since we’re almost never together on duty ... and it won’t come until after we’ve finished the computations ... they’ll think up a good reason for everybody to be together, and that itself will be the tip-off. Ferdy will probably draw on me--”

“And he’ll kill you,” Jones said, flatly. “So I think I’ll blow his brains out tomorrow morning on sight.”

“And get killed yourself? No ... much better to use their own trap--”

“We can’t! Fast as you are, you aren’t in his class. He’s a professional--probably one of the fastest guns in space.”

“Yes, but ... I’ve got a ... I mean I think I can--”

Bernice, grinning openly now, stopped Deston’s floundering. “It’s high time you fellows told each other the truth. Bobby and I let our back hair down long ago--we were both tremendously surprised to know that both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are. Perhaps even more so.”

“Oh ... so you get hunches, too?” Jones demanded. “So you’ll have plenty of warning?”

“All my life. The old alarm clock has never failed me yet. But the girls can’t start packing pistols now.”

“I wouldn’t know how to shoot one if I did,” Bernice laughed. “I’ll throw things I’m very good at that.”

“Huh?” Jones asked. He didn’t know his new wife very well, either. “What can you throw straight enough to do any good?”