» Tigian was an odd planet. Tigians were artists, and, therefore, a bit more liberal than most. On Tigian, whores were often invited to the best parties. It was a good living, and she was meeting some interesting people. Before Pete could get her to marry him he had to remind her of her New Earth upbringing, of the morality with which she'd been instilled as a young girl. He had to make her weep. They were together. Jan, being fairly new at her occupation, didn't know much about spacers. She knew only that they seemed to have money to burn when they were at the Spacer's Rest. She didn't know that in wooing her, Pete had spent most of the earnings from his last tour on a tug. She didn't know that the fine, spacious apartment where they honeymooned had been rented with an advance on Pete's next tour. When Pete came in with a one way ticket for one to New Earth she wept for the second time since she'd known him. «It's the only way, honey,» he'd told her. «You're asking me to go back to New Earth and wait? Wait for three years?» «I have to go back to work. We're broke. There's enough to get you home and give you living money until I can have the company send you more.» Pete had learned, then, the sort of woman he'd married. «I will not allow you to leave me,» she'd said. «You will not dump me somewhere for three years, damn you, just when I'm getting to like being with you.» At that time there were things about Jan that Pete didn't know. He didn't know that she'd come to dislike all men. Her idea of heaven was to be alone, totally alone, forever alone, never to be touched, never to hear a man's voice. She had joined with a loser for one reason—to get out of the Spacer's Rest. She'd agreed to marry Pete because, in her mind, having just one man touch her was preferable, but only slightly, to being touched by any man with the money in his pocket. Then she fell in love with this loser, and loved being touched by him, and he was going to ship her light-years away and go light-years away in the other direction and leave her alone for three years. «They take female crew on tugs,» she said. «I know they do. I've met women who work tugs.» The problem was that she had no experience. She had only a liberal-arts degree. She had been in space just once, the jump from New Earth to Tigian. Her technical ability was limited to knowing how to turn on the lights and music in the rented apartment. Pete didn't have much hope, but he liked the idea. If she thought she dreaded being away from him for three years, she should have been able to get inside his head and see the bleak, painful darkness which was growing there with just the thought of having to say goodbye to her. He found his personal heaven in the office of the procurement officer of the Stranden Corporation. Stranden was one of several tug companies operating off Tigian. It was not one of the leading companies. All tug men knew companies like Stranden, and, if they had a choice, worked for the big, glamour companies that furnished deep-space tug service along the most-traveled routes. All stations on all blink routes were allocated by bid, and the big companies could afford to bid high for the highly traveled routes because more traffic meant more ship breakdowns and more salvage money. Stranden Corporation's salvage record was terrible, because it was a low bidder on routes and stations so isolated, so little traveled, that the chance of a tug's getting a Lloyd's contract on a disabled ship were near zero. The big, prosperous companies didn't even bother to bid on stations such as the one occupied by the Stranden 47, or if they did, they bid so high that there wasn't a chance of getting the station. Most men went into tug service for two reasons— steady money and the hope, the chance, for big money. Tugs were free enterprise. The system was a holdover from thousands of years into the past of old Earth. Because of the long tours and the smallness of the tugs, because Space Service fleet ships were huge and luxurious and put into port often, the service got the cream of the spacegoing crop from each planet. Like the system itself, tug men were throwbacks. Tug men were often independent, not fond of taking orders. Some drank, lived for the months between tours. They earned good money, even if they didn't get to participate in a rescue or salvage operation, and they spent it in one continuous spree of drinking and women. Some tug men were rejects. Peter Jaynes fell into that category. To a smartly dressed member of the Space Service, freshly off a luxurious fleet liner, all tug men were weird. The weirdest of them signed three-year contracts with the fringe companies such as Stranden. Stranden's Mule Class tugs were safe, dependable, serviceable. They were old, however. Many of the Stranden's tugs had been phased out by the companies that could afford the new equipment, could afford to bid low enough to get the highly traveled stations. Those men and women who made careers of spending years at a time on a stationary ship at some designated pinpoint deep in space could pick and choose. They chose the companies with the best equipment and the best chance of salvage-money bonuses. Most companies, for example, had home-planet transmission of entertainment programs aboard their tugs. Stranden had only a film library. The quality of the entertainment didn't concern two losers. They had found each other. When Pete and Jan were dropped off to relieve the two-man crew of the Stranden 47, they spent the first six months just getting acquainted. Pete was glad it was an inactive post. He had gone into tug work with the idea that maybe he'd luck out and get a crewman's share of a big Lloyd's contract, maybe a freighter loaded with diamonds. He'd been aboard one tug which blinked a disabled, antique training ship back to the repair shops, and his share of the salvage money had been almost a quarter of his salary for the two-year tour, but he'd never hit the jackpot. Now he didn't care. He had all the treasure he would ever want. He had the universe in his arms each night. Pete was pleased in many ways. Stranden 47 was his first command. He took orders from no one. He was pleased when, in the first year, the total traffic handled by the 47 was one Blinkstat to be forwarded from a distant X&A ship toward New Earth Headquarters. He was more than content to have the 47 sit there in her designated spot, close by a blink beacon, for the rest of the tour. He had Jan. Two losers had won big. Two lonely people had discovered each other, and had found, in each other, the key element needed for individual personal completion. Rather spoiled by the inactivity, Pete resented the intrusion of the unexplained, weak, ghostly signal. He fingered the dent in his skull and worried about it. He looked forward to many more tours with Jan. But the tape had recorded a signal, a blink signal. It had come from down the New Earth range. «It's all right,» he told Jan, with a wry grin, when she told him to quit worrying. «I've lost my power of deductive reason, so I can't worry as deeply as most men can.» «That's not true,» she said. «It's impossible,» he said. «It was a glitch.» «It is impossible for the signal to be on the tape,» he said slowly, «unless, one, a ship sent it, or two, something happened to a ship at the beginning of a blink.» «Or three,» she said, «unless the equipment just hiccuped.» Pete had the training to repair non-major malfunctions. He began to review in his mind the procedure for testing the communications bank. It was a massive undertaking for one man. He'd be finished with it, maybe, just in time for the relief crew. In the event of a malfunction which he was unable to repair, he was required to report via Blinkstat to the home office on Tigian. A tug without communications is useless. If he reported the signal, and still couldn't account for its origin, they might have to take the ship back to Tigian before the end of his tour.
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