Zach Hughes: Closed System

Corinne Tower had stood quietly by. From thetense look on her face he guessed that she hadrealized the danger of the random blinks. He setthe computer to work. This time the old boy hadreason to begin a 360-degree map. Pat didn't see a single familiar feature anywhere in space. The veryshape of the disk of the galaxy had rotated, alter­ing the appearance of the dense star clouds toward the core.

Random blinks are dangerous in more ways thanone. There is no theoretical limit to the distance covered by a blinking ship. The only limitation tothe length of a blink is a known, straight-line dis­tance between two previously determined points,the distance being free of solid objects. In punch­ing in random numbers, Pat had chosen numbersin the range of known blink coordinates, but thatdidn't guarantee anything. He could be anywherewithin ten parsecs or a thousand parsecs of Taratwo.Or, if his fingers had picked a rather funny number in his haste, Skimmer could be drifting alongsilently on the flux drive in an entirely different galaxy.

He left the computer to do its valiant duty andturned to face the woman. He wiped perspirationfrom his forehead.

"Four random blinks?" she asked. He noddedgrimly.

"Bad computer?"

"Not bad," he said. "Just cranky and slow."

"So you have no idea where we are," she said.

"Not a clue."

She sighed. "Is there anything I can do?"

Suddenly he was very tired. He checked the com­puter. The old man was muttering to himself, build­ing the maps steadily, cross-checking against all the charts of the galaxy.

"Yes," Pat said. "You can move your things outof my quarters. Put them in the mate's quarters."He pointed to the door. "And then I think you andI had better have a talk." He wanted to hit thesack, rest, sink into sleep while the computerputtered over the maps. It might take hours if theywere far from known blink routes.

At first an odd expression had crossed her face,then she smiled. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn'tnotice that the alarms and remotes were in that cabin."

He could have explained that, instead of merelyordering her out of his quarters, but he wasn't in avery polite mood.

"And," she said, "I guess I owe you that talk."She turned gracefully, started toward his cabin.The garment showed the litheness of her legs, therounded perfection of her. He sat down in thecommand chair, punched up coffee. She emergedcarrying her bag, put it in the mate's cabin, cameto sit on the bench facing him.

"How do you take it?" he asked, pointing hismug at her.

"Strong and black," she said with a smile. Inreal life her smile was even more impressive thanin holograph. He felt the anger and tension beginto fade out of him.

"All right," he said, as he handed her her mug."I was told that you would be a perfectly legalpassenger, that there'd be no hassle getting you offTaratwo. We seem to be in the clear now, but Iwould like to know, since I'm rather attached tothis ship and its main cargo, me, if I can expectany more surprises."

Her emerald eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and sheworried her lower lip with her perfect teeth for a moment. "I suppose the cruisers can follow us tothe point of emergence of the last blink."

"Let me worry about the technicalities," he said, his voice unnecessarily brusque. "What I want toknow is why they came after us and if we can,possibly, expect them to make another try, per­haps with knowledge of our destination so thatthey can intercept us as we come onto the chartedblink routes leading to Zede II."

"I don't think they'd dare use force in UP space,"she said.

"You're not being very informative," he said.

"I don't know why," she said. Her voice was full,vibrant.

"The Man didn't want you to leave?"

"He was away, in the outback." "But he was, ah, fond of you?" She smiled broadly. "Quite," she said. He realized that to get any information out ofher he was going to have to be persistent. "Whywere you

on Taratwo?" Was that a quick look of relief which crossed herface? "Brenden is a very good customer of the Zedeian conglomerate which produces my pic­tures," she said. "He was a great fan. He keptasking that I be sent

out to Taratwo on a public­ity tour, and apparently his arms business wasdesirable enough that my producer put pressureon me to go." Pat felt revulsion. "So you went," he said flatly."There were no other producers of pictures in thegalaxy,

so you obeyed." He had dirty little pic­tures of his own running through his mind.

Her eyes hardened as she stared directly at him."I made public appearances in the major cities, and I was a guest in Brenden's manor house. Ienjoy my work, but I don't prostitute myself forit." "Sorry," he said, thinking, yeah, yeah. "I'm justtrying for a scenario to explain why Brenden'smen were

willing to kill rather than let you go." "It doesn't occur to you that it was you theywere trying to stop?" "Hey, no sale on that idea. I'm just a free trader. They had no reason to want to stop me. If they'd

wanted to take back the gemstones I traded forthey had a perfect opportunity before you boarded." "Oh?" she asked. So why was he the one who was giving outinformation? He grinned at himself. He wanted tobelieve her,

believe that she had not been, as the men said in the space port's restaurant, Brenden'swhore. She was, by far, the most beautiful womanhe'd ever seen, and he was going to be alone with her on Skimmer for a couple of weeks,

"The security police killed a man who was prowl­ing around my ship," he said. Her hand went to her lips and her eyes widened."Oh, no," she said. "I—" Then she recoveredquickly. "You know something about that? Did you knowan old man named Murphy?" "Poor John," she whispered. "They killed him?" "Very, very dead." "But you have the diamond. I watched on thescreens as you took Murphy's bag out of a thrustertube." Pat tried to hide his surprise by lifting his coffeecup, hiding behind it for a moment, taking too biga gulp

so that it burned his mouth.

"He wasn't lying to you," she said. "We weregoing to give you half."

"We?" he asked.

"All right," she said. "I guess it's time to put itall up front and be honest."

"I'd deeply appreciate that," he said.

"Murphy knew that I'd be leaving Taratwo. Hegot my attention by sending me dozens of expen­sive bouquets, adoring fan letters, and finally Iagreed to see him. He had the diamond right therewith him in that same leather bag. He said that ifthe government or the government gem monopolyfound out that he had it they'd take it from him.

I felt sorry for him. He'd spent his life on variousout-planets and that was his first big strike. Healmost lost his life getting it, digging a diamondpipe that was quite near an active volcano, always in danger of being buried alive by an earthquakecollapsing his shaft. I guess I'm soft, but I thoughthe should enjoy the fruits of his luck and labor. Itold him I'd help, notify him when I was leaving,arrange a sale for the diamond when we were backon Zede II."

"You didn't have to help much," Pat said. "Hedid it all himself, contacted me, came to the shiphimself."

"But I told him about you, told him when youwould arrive and when you'd be leaving." A smalltear came to her right eye and fell, rolling downher cheek. "I thought he was aboard, hiding. I keptwaiting for you to tell me that there was another passenger."

"But you, you and Murphy, were going to giveme half of the sales value? How much was in it foryou?"

Her lips tensed in quick anger, then she shookher head. "Well, I don't really blame you for think­ing that."

"So what do we do now? Do we split it fifty-fifty?" He didn't know why, but there was some­thing in him that seemed to be driving him to beharsh with her when what he wanted to do was exactly 180 degrees away from harshness.