Poul Anderson - Poul Anderson - Sci-Fi Boxed Set

Dyann shrugged and went on unpacking. She hung an extra sword on the wall, unshipped her armor and put it up, and slipped into a loose fur-trimmed robe. Urushkidan slithered to the floor and opened his own trunk, pulling out a score of fat books which he placed on the shelf over his bunk and expropriated the little table for his papers, pencils, and humidor.

"You know—ah—Dr. Urushkidan—" said Ballantyne uneasily, "I wish you weren't going to Jupiter."

"And why not?" asked the Martian belligerently.

"Well, doesn't your reformulation of general relativity indicate a way to build a ship which can go faster than light?"

"Among oter tings, yes." Urushkidan blew a malodorous cloud of smoke.

"Well, I don't think the Jovians are interested in science for its own sake. I think they want to get you and your knowledge so they can build such ships themselves which would be the last thing they need to take over the Solar System."

"A Martian," said Urushkidan condescendingly, "is not concerned wit te squabblings of te lower animals. Noting personal, of course."

Dyann pulled an idol from her trunk and put it on her shelf. It was a small wooden image, gaudily painted and fiercely tusked, each of its six arms holding some weapon. One, Ballantyne noticed, was a carved Terrestrial tommy-gun. "Qviet, please," she said, raising one arm. "I am about to pray to Ormun the Terrible."

"Barbarian," guffawed Urushkidan.

Dyann took a pillow and stuffed it in his mouth. "Qviet, please, I said." She smiled gently and prostrated herself before the god.

After a while she got up. Urushkidan was still speechless with rage. She turned to Ballantyne and asked, "Do the ships here carry live animals? I vould like to make a small sacrifice too."

Table of Contents

The bulletin board said that in the present orbital positions of the planets, the Jovian Queen would make her voyage at one Earth-gravity acceleration in six days, forty-three minutes, and twelve seconds, plus or minus ten seconds. That might be pure braggadocio, though Ballantyne wouldn't have been surprised to learn that it was sober truth. He hoped the time was overestimated. His cabin mates were a little wearing on the nerves. Urushkidan filling the room with smoke, sitting up till all hours covering paper with mathematical symbols and screaming at any interruption. Dyann was nice-looking but rather overwhelming. In some ways she was reminiscent of Catherine Vanbrugh. The Engineer shuddered.

He slouched moodily into the bar and ordered a martini he could ill afford. The place was quiet, discreetly lit, not very full. His eyes fell on the stiff-laced Jovian colonel, still clutching his portfolio like grim death, but talking with unusual animation to a stunning Terrestrial redhead. It was clear that ideas about the purity of the Jovian stock—"hardened in the fire and ice of outer space, tempered and beaten into the new and dominant mankind"—had been temporarily shelved.

If I had some money, thought Ballantyne gloomily, I could detach her from him and enjoy this trip.

The bartender informed him, with some awe, that the man was Colonel Ivan Hosea Domenico Roshevsky-Feldkamp, late military attaché of Jupiter's Terrestrial embassy and an officer who had served with distinction in suppressing the Ionian revolt and in asserting Jupiter's rightful claims to Saturn. Ray was more interested in the girl's name and antecedents. Just as he'd thought, an heiress on a pleasure trip. Expensive.

A couple of genial Earthmen moved up and began talking to him. Before long they suggested a friendly game of poker.

Oh-ho! thought Ray, who knew that sort. "Sure," he said.

They played most of the time for a couple of days. Luck went back and forth but in general Ray won, and toward the end he was a couple of thousand U. N. credits to the good. He let his eyes glitter with febrile cupidity, and the sharks—there were three of them all told—almost licked their lips.

"Excuse me a minute," said Ray, pocketing his winnings. "I'll be back, and then we'll play for real stakes."

"You bet," said the sharks. They sat back, lit anticipatory cigars, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Ray found the redhead remarkably easy to pry from the colonel.

The girl thought it would be just too much fun to go slumming and have the captain's dinner with him in the third-class saloon. He led her down the thrumming corridor, thinking wistfully that before he knew it he'd be in Ganymede City and as broke as he'd been to start with.

Urushkidan crawled slowly by, waving an idle tentacle at him. The Martian walking system was awkward under Earth gravity and, their table manners being worse than atrocious, they ate in a separate section. It was Dyann who really started the trouble. She strode up behind Ray and clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Vere have you been?" she asked reproachfully. "You have not been in our cabin for two days and nights now."

The redhead blushed.

"Oh hullo, Dyann," said Ray, annoyed. "I'll see you later."

"Of course you vill." She smiled. "Ah, you dashin' glamorous Earthmen, you make me feel so small and veak." She topped him by a good two inches.

They came into the doorway of the saloon and three familiar figures barred Ray's passage.

"What the hell became of you, Ballantyne?" demanded one. His geniality was quite gone. "You was going to play some more with us."

"I forgot," said Ray huskily. The three men looked bigger than they had, somehow.

"It's not sporting to quit when you're so far ahead," said another.

"Yeah," said a third. "You ought at least to give us our money back."

"I haven't got it," said Ray.

"Look, pal, things happen to people that ain't good sports. They ain't very pop-u-lar, and things happen to them. Where's that money?"

They crowded in, hemming him against the wall. Beyond them, he could see Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp staring coldly at the tableau. Ray wondered if he hadn't put the players up to this. They wouldn't have dared start trouble without some kind of sub rosa official hint.

* * * * *

"Come on back to our cabin and we'll talk this over, pal."

The redhead squeaked and shrank aside. A meaty hand closed on Ray's arm and dragged him half off his feet. Dyann bristled, one hand clapped to her sword. "Are these men annoyin' you, Ray?" she asked.

"No, we just want a quiet little private talk with our friend," said one of them. "Just come along easy, Ballantyne."

"Dyann, I think they are annoying me," said the engineer, the words rattling in a suddenly dry and tightened throat.

"Oh, vell, in that case—" She smiled, reached out, and grabbed a collar.

There was a minor explosion. The man catapulted into the air, hit the ceiling, caromed off a wall, and bounced on the floor. Sheer reflex sent knives flying into the hands of the other two.

"Ormun is good!" shouted Dyann joyously. She gave the nearest gambler a fistful of knuckles, tossed him into the air, clutched his ankles as he came down, and whirled him against the wall.

The third was stabbing at her back. Blindly, Ray grabbed his arm and pulled him away. He snarled and lunged at the engineer, who tumbled backward clutching after the nearest weapon. It happened to be Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp's massive briefcase. He grabbed it free and brought it down on the gambler's head. It hit with a dull thwack and the fellow lurched. Ray hit him again. The briefcase burst open and papers snowed through the air. Then Dyann got the enemy from behind and proceeded to tie him in knots.

The redhead had already departed, screaming. Ray sank to one shaky knee and looked up into the colonel's livid face.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir," he gasped. "Here, let me help—"