Pohl, Frederik - The Gateway Trip

All the time I was picking up the same four or five tools, studying the serial numbers and putting them back. She didn't notice.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, what did you do on Earth, before you came here?"

"Oh, I worked in Boyce's office for a while."

That was encouraging. Maybe she'd remember something about his connection with Professor Hegramet. "What were you, a secret ary?"

She gave me an unfriendly look. "Something like that," she said.

Then I was embarrassed. She thought I was prying-I was, of course, but I wasn't looking for sordid details about how a pretty

young thing like her allowed herself to be seduced into being bed-mate for a dirty old man. Not least because Cochenour, old though he was and nasty as he might be when he chose, was also obviously a pretty powerfully attractive figure to women. I said, trying to be placating, "It's none of my business, of course."

"No," she said, "it isn't." And then she said, "What's that?"

That was an incoming call on the radio, that's what that was.

"So answer it," Cochenour snarled from across the airbody, looking up from his eggs.

I was glad enough for the interruption. The call was voice-only, which surprised me a little. I kept it that way. In fact, I took the call on the earjack, since it is my nature to be cautious about some things. Anyway, there isn't much privacy in an airbody, and I want what little crumbs of it I can find.

It was the base calling, a Communications sergeant I knew named Littleknees. I signed in irritably, watching Dorrie go back to sit protectively with Boyce Cochenour.

"A private word for you, Audee," said Sergeant Littleknees. "Is your sahib lurking about?"

Littleknees and I had exchanged radio chatter for a long time. There was something about the bright cheeriness of the tone that bothered me. I turned my back on Cochenour. I knew he was listening-but only to my side of the conversation, of course, because of the earjack. "In the area but not tuned in at present," I said. "What have you got for me?"

"Just a little news bulletin," the sergeant purred. "It came in over the synsat a couple of minutes ago, information only as far as we were concerned. That means we don't have to do anything about it, but maybe you do, honey."

"Standing by," I said, studying the plastic housing of the radio.

The sergeant chuckled. "Your sahib's charter captain would like to have a word with him when found. It's kind of urgent, 'cause the captain isrighteously pissed off."

"Yes, Base," I said. "Your signals received, strength ten."

Sergeant Amanda Littleknees made an amused noise again, but this time it wasn't a chuckle. It was a downright giggle. "The thing is," she said, "his check for the charter fee for the Yuri Gagarin went bouncy-bouncy. Do you want to know what the bank said? You'd never guess. 'Insufficient funds,' that's what they said."

The pain under my right lower ribs was permanent, but right then it seemed to get a lot worse. I gritted my teeth. "Ah, Sergeant Littleknees," I croaked. "Can you verify that estimate?"

"Sorry, honey," she buzzed in my ear, "but there's no doubt in the world. The captain got a credit report on your Boyce Cochenour fellow, and it turned up n.g. When your customer gets back to the Spindle there'll be a warrant waiting for him."

"Thank you for the synoptic estimate," I said hollowly. "I will verify departure time before we take off."

And I turned off the radio and gazed at my rich billionaire client.

"What the hell's the matter with you, Walthers?" he growled.

But I wasn't hearing his voice. I was only hearing what my happy sawbones at the Quackery had told me. The equations were unforgettable. Cash = new liver + happy survival. No cash = total hepatic failure + death. And my cash supply had just dried up.

x

When you get a really big piece of news you have to let it trickle through your system and get thoroughly absorbed before you do anything about it. It isn't a matter of seeing the implications. I saw those right away, you bet I did. It's a matter of letting the system reach equilibrium.

So I puttered for a few minutes. I listened to Tchaikovsky's swan hunters tooling up to meet the queen. I made sure the radio switch was off so as not to waste power. I checked the synoptic plot the thumpers were building up.

It would have been nice if there had been something wonderful beginning to show on it, but, the way things were going, there wouldn't be, of course. There wasn't. A few pale echoes were be. ginning to form. But nothing with the shape of a Heechee tunnel, and nothing very bright. The data were still coming in, but I knew there was no way for those feeble plots to develop into the mother lode that could save us all, even crooked, dead-broke, bastard Cochenour.

I even looked out at as much of the sky as I could manage through the windows, to see how the weather was. It didn't matter, but some of the big white calomel clouds were scudding among the purples and yellows of the other mercury halides; the sun was getting ready to rise in the west.

It was beautiful, and I hated it.

Cochenour had put away the last of his omelet and was watching me thoughtfully. So was Dorrie, back at the parts rack, once again holding the augers in their grease.paper wrap. I grinned at her. "Pretty," I said, referring to the music. The Auckland Philharmonic was just getting to the part where the baby swans come out arm in arm and do a fast, bouncy pas de quatre across the stage. It has always been one of my favorite parts of Swan Lake .. . but not now.

"We'll listen to the rest of it later," I said, and switched the

player off.

Cochenour snapped, "All right, Waithers. What's going on?"

I sat down on an empty igloo pack and lit a cigarette, because one of the adjustments my internal system had made was to calculate that we didn't need to worry much about coddling our oxygen supply anymore. "There are some questions that have been bothering me, Cochenour. For one, how did you happen to get in touch with Professor Hegramet?"

He grinned and relaxed. "Oh, is that all that's on your mind?

No reason you shouldn't know that. I did a lot of checking on

Venus before I came out here-why not?"

"No reason, except you let me think you didn't know a thing."

Cochenour shrugged. "If you had any brains at all you'd know I didn't get rich by being stupid. You think I'd travel umpty-million miles without knowing what I was going to find when I got here?"

"No, you wouldn't, but you did your best to make me think you would. No matter. So you went looking for somebody who could point you to whatever was worth stealing on Venus, and then that person steered you to Hegramet. Then what? Did Hegramet tell you that I was dumb enough to be your boy?"

Cochenour wasn't quite as relaxed, but he hadn't turned aggressive, either. He said mildly, "Hegramet did mention your name, yes. He told me you were as good a guide as any if I wanted to look for a virgin tunnel. Then he answered a lot of questions for me about the Heechee and so on. So, yes, I knew who you were. If you hadn't come to us I would have come to you; you just saved me the trouble."

I said, feeling a little surprise as I said it, "You know, I think you're telling me the truth. Except that you left out one thing."

"Which was?"

"It wasn't the fun of making more money that you were after, was it? It was just money, right? Money that you needed pretty badly." I turned to Dorotha, standing frozen with the augers in her hands. "How about it, Dorrie? Did you know the old man was broke?"

It wasn't too smart of me to put it to her like that. I saw what she was about to do just before she did it, and jumped off the igloo crate. I was a little too late. She dropped the augers before I could take them away from her, but fortunately they landed flat and the blades weren't chipped. I picked them up and put them away.