DANE STEPPED INSIDE the Cargo-Master’s office cabin. The
man who sat there, surrounded by files of microtape and all the
other apparatus of an experienced trader, was not at all what he
expected. Those Masters who had given lectures at the Pool had been
sleek, well groomed men, their outward shells differing little from
the successful earth-bound executive. It had been difficult to
associate some of them with space at all.
But more than J. Van Rycke’s uniform proclaimed him of the
service. His thinning hair was white-blond, his broad face reddened
rather than tanned. And he was a big man—though not in fatty
tissue, but solid bulk. He occupied every inch of his cushioned
seat, eyeing Dane with a sleepy indifference, an attitude shared by
a large tiger-striped tom cat who sprawled across a third of the
limited desk space.
Dane saluted. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson come
aboard, sir,” he rapped out with the snap approved by Pool
officers, laying his ID on the desk when his new commander made no
attempt to reach for it.
“Thorson—” the bass voice seemingly rumbled
not from the broad chest but from deep in the barrel body facing
him. “First voyage?”
“Yes, sir.”
The cat blinked and yawned, but Van Rycke’s measuring
stare did not change. Then—
“Better report to the Captain and sign on.” There
was no other greeting.
A little at a loss Dane climbed on to the control section. He
flattened against the wall of the narrow corridor as another
officer swung along behind him at a hurried pace. It was the Com-tech
who had been eating with Rip and Kamil.
“New?” the single word came from him with some of
the same snap as the impulses in his communicators.
“Yes, sir. I’m to sign on—”
“Captain’s office—next level,” and he
was gone.
Dane followed him at a more modest pace. It was true that the
Queen was no giant of the spaceways, and she doubtless lacked a
great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company
ships boasted. But Dane, green as he was, appreciated the smartly
kept interior of the ship. Her sides might be battered and she had
a rakish, too worn appearance without—inside she was a smooth
running, tight-held vessel. He reached the next level and knocked
at a half open panel. At an impatient order he entered.
For one dazed moment he felt as if he had stepped into the
Terraport X-Tee Zoo. The walls of the confined space were a montage
of pictures—but such pictures. Off-world animals he had seen,
had heard described, overlapped others which were strictly culled
from more gruesome nightmares. In a small swinging cage sat a blue
creature which could only be an utterly impossible combination of
toad—if toads had six legs, two of them ending in
claws—and parrot. It leaned forward, gripped the cage bars
with its claws, and calmly spat at him.
Fascinated, Dane stood rooted until a rasping bark aroused
him.
“Well—what is it?”
Dane hastily averted his eyes from the blue horror and looked at
the man who sat beneath its cage. Grizzled hair showed an inch or
so beneath the Captain’s winged cap. His harsh features had
not been improved by a scar across one cheek, a seam which could
only have been a blaster-blister. And his eyes were as cold and
imperious as the pop ones of his blue captive.
Dane found his tongue. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson
come aboard, sir,” again he tendered the ID.
Captain Jellico caught it up impatiently. “First
voyage?”
Once more Dane was forced to answer in the affirmative. It would have been, he thought bleakly, so much better had he been
able to say “tenth”.
At that moment the blue thing sirened an ear piercing shriek and
the Captain swung back in his chair to strike the floor of the cage
a resounding slap which bounced its occupant into silence, if not
better manners. Then he dropped the ID into the ship’s
recorder and punched the button. Dane dared to relax, it was
official now, he was signed on as a crew member, he would not be
booted off the Queen.
“Blast off at eighteen hours,” the Captain told him.
“Find your quarters.”
“Yes, sir.” He rightly took that for dismissal and
saluted, glad to be out of Captain Jellico’s zoo—even
if only one inhabitant was living.
As he dropped down again to the cargo section, Dane wondered
from what strange world the blue thing had come and why the Captain
was so enamoured of it that he carried it about in the Queen. As
far as Dane could see it had no endearing qualities at all.
Whatever cargo the Queen had shipped for Naxos was already
aboard. He saw the hatch seals in place as he passed the hold. So
his department’s duties were done for this port. He was free
to explore the small cabin Rip Shannon had indicated was his and
pack away in its lockers his few personal belongings.
At the Pool he had lived in a hammock and locker; to him the new
quarters were a comfortable expansion. When the signal came to
strap down for blast off, he was fast gaining the contentment Artur
Sands had threatened to destroy.
They were space borne before Dane met the other members of the
crew. In addition to Captain Jellico, the control station was
manned by Steen Wilcox, a lean Scot in his early thirties who had
served a hitch in the Galactic Survey before going into Trade, and
now held a full rating as Astrogator. Then there was the Martian
Com-Tech—Tang Ya—and Rip, the apprentice.
The engine-room section was an equal number, consisting of the
Chief, Johan Stotz, a silent young man who appeared to have little
interest save his engines (Dane gathered from Rip’s
scraps of information that Stotz was in his way a mechanical genius who
could have had much better berths than the ageing Queen, but chose
to stay with the challenge she offered), and his
apprentice—the immaculate, almost foppish Kamil. But, Dane
soon knew, the Queen carried no dead weight and Kamil must—
in spite of his airs and graces—be able to meet the exacting
standards such a Chief as Stotz could set. The engine room staff
was rounded out by a giant-dwarf combination startling to see.
Karl Kosti was a lumbering bear of a man, almost bovine, but as
alert to his duties with the jets as a piece of perfectly working
machinery. While around him buzzed his opposite number, a fly about
a bull, the small Jasper Weeks, his thin face pallid with that
bleach produced on Venus, a pallor not even the rays of space could
colour to a natural brown.
Dane’s own fellows housed on the cargo level were a varied
lot. There was Van Rycke himself, a superior so competent when it
came to the matters of his own section that he might have been a
computer. He kept Dane in a permanent state of awe. There appeared
to be nothing concerning the fine points of Free Trade Van Rycke
had ever missed hearing or learning, and, having once added any
fact to his prodigious store of memories, it was embedded forever,
but he had his soft spot, his enduring pride that as a Van Rycke he
was one of a line stretching far back into the dim past when ships
only plied the waters of a single planet, coming of a family which
had been in Trade from the days of sails to the days of stars.
Two others who were partly of the cargo world shared this
section. The Medic, Craig Tau, and the Cook-Steward Frank Mura. Tau
Dane met in the course of working hours now and then, but Mura kept
so closely to his own quarters and labours that they seldom saw
much of him.
In the meantime the new apprentice was kept busy, labouring in
an infinitesimal space afforded him in the cargo office to check
the rolls, being informally but mercilessly quizzed by Van Rycke
and learning to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in
his training. Dane was speedily reduced to a humble wonder that Captain Jellico had ever shipped him at all—in spite
of the assignment of the Psycho. It was too evident that in his
present state of overwhelming ignorance he was more of a liability
than an asset.
But Van Rycke was not just a machine of facts and figures, he
was also a superb raconteur, a collector of legends who could keep
the whole mess spellbound as he spun one of his tales. No one but
he could pay such perfect tribute to the small details of the eerie
story of the New Hope, the ship which had blasted off with refugees
from the Martian rebellion, never to be sighted until a century
later—the New Hope wandering forever in free fall, its dead
lights glowing evilly red at its nose, its escape ports ominously
sealed—the New Hope never boarded, never salvaged because it
was only sighted by ships which were themselves in dire trouble, so
that “to sight the New Hope” had become a synonym for
the worst of luck.
Then there were the “Whisperers”, whose siren voices
were heard by those men who had been too long in space, and about
whom a whole mythology had developed. Van Rycke could list the
human demi-gods of the star lanes, too. Sanford Jones, the first
man who had dared Galactic flight, whose lost ship had suddenly
flashed out of Hyperspace, over a Sirius world three centuries
after it had lifted from Terra, the mummified body of the pilot
still at the frozen controls, Sanford Jones who now welcomed on
board that misty “Comet” all spacemen who died with
their magnetic boots on. Yes, in his way, Van Rycke made his new
assistant free of more than one kind of space knowledge.
The voyage to Naxos was routine. And the frontier world where
they set down at its end was enough like Terra to be unexciting
too. Not that Dane got any planet-side leave. Van Rycke put him in
charge of the hustlers at the unloading. And the days he had spent
poring over the hold charts suddenly paid off as he discovered that
he could locate everything with surprising ease.
Van Rycke went off with the Captain. Upon their bargaining
ability, their collective nose for trade, depended the next
flight of the Queen. And no ship lingered in port longer than it took
her to discharge one cargo and locate another.
Mid-afternoon of the second day found Dane unemployed. He was
lounging a little dispiritedly by the crew hatch with Kosti. None
of the Queen’s men had gone into the sprawling frontier town
half encircled by the bulbous trees with the red-yellow foliage,
there was too much chance that they might be needed for cargo
hustling, since the Field men were celebrating a local holiday and
were not at their posts. Thus both Dane and the jetman witnessed
the return of the hired scooter which tore down the field towards
them at top speed.
It slewed around, raising more dust, and came to a skidding stop
at the foot of the ramp. Captain Jellico leaped for that, almost
reaching the hatch before Van Rycke had pried himself from behind
the controls. And the Captain threw a single order at Kosti:
“Order assembly in the mess cabin!”
Dane stared back over the field, half expecting to see at least
a squad of police in pursuit. The officer’s return had
smacked of the need for a quick getaway. But all he saw was his own
superior ascending the ramp at his usual dignified pace. Only Van
Rycke was whistling, a sign Dane had come to know meant that all
was very well with the Dutchman’s world. Whatever the
Captain’s news, the Cargo-master considered it good.
As the latest and most junior member of the crew, Dane squeezed
into the last small portion of room just inside the mess cabin door
a few minutes later. From Tau to the usually absent Mura, the
entire complement of the ship was present, their attention for
Captain Jellico who sat at the head of the small table, moving his
finger tips back and forth across the old blaster scar on his
cheek.
“And what pot of gold has fallen into our hands this time,
Captain?” That was Steen Wilcox asking the question which was
in all their minds.
“Survey auction!” the words burst out of Jellico as
if he simply could not restrain them any longer.
Somebody whistled and someone else gasped. Dane blinked, he was too new to the game to understand at once. But when the
full purport of the announcement burst upon him he knew a surge of
red hot excitement. A survey auction—a Free Trader got a
chance at one of those maybe once in a life-time. And that was how
fortunes were made.
“Who’s in town?” Engineer Stotz’s eyes
were narrowed, he was looking at the Captain almost accusingly.
Jellico shrugged. “All the usual. But it’s been a
long trip, and there are four Class D-s listed as up for
bids—”
Dane calculated rapidly. The Companies would automatically scoop
up the A and B listings—there would be tussles over the C-s.
And four D-s—four newly discovered planets whose trading
rights auctioned off under Federation law would come within range
of the price Free Traders could raise. Would the Queen be able to
enter the contest for one of them? A complete five- or ten-year
monopoly on the rights of Trade with a just charted world could
make them all wealthy—if luck rode their jets.
“How much in the strong box?” Tau asked Van
Rycke.
“When we pick up the voucher for this last load and pay
our Field fees there’ll be—but what about supplies,
Frank?”
The thin little steward was visibly doing sums in his head.
“Say a thousand for restocking—that gives us a good
margin—unless we’re in for a rim haul—”
“All right, Van, cutting out that thousand—what can
we raise?” It was Jellico’s turn to ask.
There was no need for the Cargo-Master to consult his books, the
figures were part of the amazing catalogue within his mind,
“Twenty-five thousand—maybe six hundred
more—”
There was a deflated silence. No survey auctioneer would accept
that amount. It was Wilcox who broke the quiet.
“Why are they having an auction here, anyway? Naxos is no
Federation district planet.”
It was queer, come to think of it, Dane agreed. He had never
before heard of a trading auction being held on any world which was
not at least a sector capitol.
“The Survey ship Rimwald has been reported too long
overdue,” Jellico’s voice came flatly. “All
available ships have been ordered to conclude business and get into space to quarter for
her. This ship here—the Giswald—came in to the nearest
planet to hold auction. It’s some kind of legal rocket
wash—”
Van Rycke’s broad finger tips drummed on the table top.
“There are Company agents here. On the other hand there are
only two other independent Traders in port. Unless another planets
before sixteen hours today, we have four worlds to share between
the three of us. The Companies don’t want D-s—their
agents have definite orders not to bid for them.”
“Look here, sir,” that was Rip, “In that
twenty-five thousand—did you include the pay-roll?”
When Van Rycke shook his head Dane guessed what Rip was about to
suggest. And for a moment he knew resentment. To be asked to throw
one’s voyage earnings into a wild gamble— and that was
what would happen he was sure—was pretty tough. He
wouldn’t have the courage to vote against it
either—
“With the pay-roll in?” Tau’s soft, unaccented
voice questioned.
“About thirty-eight thousand—”
“Pretty lean for a Survey auction,” Wilcox was
openly dubious.
“Miracles have happened,” Tang Ya pointed out.
“I say—try it. If we lose we’re not any the
worse—”
It was agreed by a hand vote, no one dissenting, that the crew
of the Queen would add their pay to the reserve—sharing in
proportion to the sum they had surrendered in any profits to come.
Van Rycke by common consent was appointed the bidder. But none of
them would have willingly stayed away from the scene of action and
Captain Jellico agreed to hire a Field guard as they left the ship
in a body to try their luck.
The dusk of Naxos was early, the air away from the fuel vapours
of the Field scented with growing things, almost too much so to
suit their Terran nostrils. It was a typical frontier town, alive
with the flashing signs of noisy cafes. But the men from the Queen
went straight to the open market which was to be the auction
place.
A pile of boxes made a none-too-stable platform on which stood
several men, two in the blue-green uniforms of the Survey, one in
rough leather and fabric of the town, and one in the black and
silver of the Patrol. All the legalities would be strictly observed
even if Naxos was sparsely settled frontier.
Nor were the men gathering there all wearing brown Trade tunics.
Some were from the town, come to see the fun. Dane tried to check
the badges of rivals by the limited light of the portable flares.
Yes, there was an Inter-Solar man, and slightly to his left, the
triple circle of the Combine.
The A-s and B-s would be put up first—planets newly
contacted by Galactic Survey but with a high degree of civilization
—perhaps carrying on interplanetary trade within their own
systems, planets which the Companies would find worth dealing with.
The C-s—worlds with backward cultures—were more of a
gamble and would not be so feverishly sought. And the D-s, those
with only the most primitive of intelligent life, or perhaps no
intelligent life at all—were the chances within the reach of
the Queen.
“Cofort is here—” he heard Wilcox tell the
Captain and caught Jellico’s bitter answering
exclamation.
Dane looked more closely at the milling crowd. Which one of the
men without Company insignia was the legendary prince of Free
Traders, the man who had made so many strikes that his luck was
famous along the star lanes? But he could not guess.
One of the Survey officers came to the edge of the platform and
the noise of the crowd died. His cohort held up a box—the box
containing the sealed packets of micro-film—each with the
co-ordinates and the description of a newly discovered planet.
The A-s went. There were only three and the Combine man snaffled
two of them from the Inter-Solar bidder. But Inter-Solar did much
better with the B-s, scooping up both of them. And another Company
who specialized in opening up backward worlds plunged on the four
C-s. The D-s—
The men of the Queen pressed forward, until with a handful of their independent fellows they were right below the
platform.
Rip’s thumb caught Dane in the lower ribs and his lips
shaped the name, “Cofort!”
The famous Free Trader was surprisingly young. He looked more
like a tough Patrol Officer than a Trader, and Dane noted that he
wore a blaster which fitted so exactly to the curve of his hip that
he must never be without it. Otherwise, though rumour credited him
with several fortunes, he was little different in outward
appearance from the other Free Traders. He made no display of wrist
bands, rings or the single earring the more spectacular of the
well-to-do Traders flaunted, and his tunic was as plain and worn as
Jellico’s.
“Four planets—D class—” the voice of the
Survey officer brought Dane’s attention back to the business
at hand. “Number One—Federation minimum
bid—Twenty thousand credits—”
There was a concentrated sigh from the Queen’s crew. No
use trying for that. With such a high minimum they would be edged
out almost before they had begun. To Dane’s surprise Cofort
did not bid either and it went to a Trader from the rim for fifty
thousand.
But at the presentation of planet number two, Cofort came to
life and briskly walked away from the rest of the field with a bid
close to a hundred thousand. No one was supposed to know what
information was inside each of those packets, but now they began to
wonder if Cofort did have an advance tip.
“Planet Three—D Class—Federation
minimum—Fifteen thousand—”
That was more like it! Dane was certain Van Rycke would rise to
that. And he did, until Cofort over-topped him with a jump from
thirty to fifty thousand in a single offer. Only one chance left.
The men from the Queen drew together, forming a knot behind Van
Rycke as if they were backing the Cargo-Master in a do or die
effort.
“Planet Four—D class—Federation minimum bid
fourteen thousand—”
“Sixteen—” Van Rycke’s boom tripped over
the Survey announcement.
”Twenty—” that was not Cofort, but a dark man
they did not know.
“Twenty-five—” Van Rycke was pushing it.
“Thirty—” the other man matching him in
haste.
“Thirty-five!” Van Rycke sounded confident as if he
had Cofort’s resources to draw upon.
“Thirty-six—” the dark trader turned
cautious.
“Thirty-eight!” Van Rycke made his last offer.
There was no answer. Dane, glancing, saw that Cofort was passing
over a voucher and collecting his two packets. The dark man shook
his head when the Survey man turned to him. They had it!
For an instant the Queen’s men could hardly believe in
their good luck. Then Kamil let out a whoop and the staid Wilcox
could be seen pounding Jellico on the back as Van Rycke stepped up
to claim their purchase. They spilled out into the street, piling
in and on the scooter with but one thought in mind—to get
back to the Queen and find out what they had bought.
DANE STEPPED INSIDE the Cargo-Master’s office cabin. The
man who sat there, surrounded by files of microtape and all the
other apparatus of an experienced trader, was not at all what he
expected. Those Masters who had given lectures at the Pool had been
sleek, well groomed men, their outward shells differing little from
the successful earth-bound executive. It had been difficult to
associate some of them with space at all.
But more than J. Van Rycke’s uniform proclaimed him of the
service. His thinning hair was white-blond, his broad face reddened
rather than tanned. And he was a big man—though not in fatty
tissue, but solid bulk. He occupied every inch of his cushioned
seat, eyeing Dane with a sleepy indifference, an attitude shared by
a large tiger-striped tom cat who sprawled across a third of the
limited desk space.
Dane saluted. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson come
aboard, sir,” he rapped out with the snap approved by Pool
officers, laying his ID on the desk when his new commander made no
attempt to reach for it.
“Thorson—” the bass voice seemingly rumbled
not from the broad chest but from deep in the barrel body facing
him. “First voyage?”
“Yes, sir.”
The cat blinked and yawned, but Van Rycke’s measuring
stare did not change. Then—
“Better report to the Captain and sign on.” There
was no other greeting.
A little at a loss Dane climbed on to the control section. He
flattened against the wall of the narrow corridor as another
officer swung along behind him at a hurried pace. It was the Com-tech
who had been eating with Rip and Kamil.
“New?” the single word came from him with some of
the same snap as the impulses in his communicators.
“Yes, sir. I’m to sign on—”
“Captain’s office—next level,” and he
was gone.
Dane followed him at a more modest pace. It was true that the
Queen was no giant of the spaceways, and she doubtless lacked a
great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company
ships boasted. But Dane, green as he was, appreciated the smartly
kept interior of the ship. Her sides might be battered and she had
a rakish, too worn appearance without—inside she was a smooth
running, tight-held vessel. He reached the next level and knocked
at a half open panel. At an impatient order he entered.
For one dazed moment he felt as if he had stepped into the
Terraport X-Tee Zoo. The walls of the confined space were a montage
of pictures—but such pictures. Off-world animals he had seen,
had heard described, overlapped others which were strictly culled
from more gruesome nightmares. In a small swinging cage sat a blue
creature which could only be an utterly impossible combination of
toad—if toads had six legs, two of them ending in
claws—and parrot. It leaned forward, gripped the cage bars
with its claws, and calmly spat at him.
Fascinated, Dane stood rooted until a rasping bark aroused
him.
“Well—what is it?”
Dane hastily averted his eyes from the blue horror and looked at
the man who sat beneath its cage. Grizzled hair showed an inch or
so beneath the Captain’s winged cap. His harsh features had
not been improved by a scar across one cheek, a seam which could
only have been a blaster-blister. And his eyes were as cold and
imperious as the pop ones of his blue captive.
Dane found his tongue. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson
come aboard, sir,” again he tendered the ID.
Captain Jellico caught it up impatiently. “First
voyage?”
Once more Dane was forced to answer in the affirmative. It would have been, he thought bleakly, so much better had he been
able to say “tenth”.
At that moment the blue thing sirened an ear piercing shriek and
the Captain swung back in his chair to strike the floor of the cage
a resounding slap which bounced its occupant into silence, if not
better manners. Then he dropped the ID into the ship’s
recorder and punched the button. Dane dared to relax, it was
official now, he was signed on as a crew member, he would not be
booted off the Queen.
“Blast off at eighteen hours,” the Captain told him.
“Find your quarters.”
“Yes, sir.” He rightly took that for dismissal and
saluted, glad to be out of Captain Jellico’s zoo—even
if only one inhabitant was living.
As he dropped down again to the cargo section, Dane wondered
from what strange world the blue thing had come and why the Captain
was so enamoured of it that he carried it about in the Queen. As
far as Dane could see it had no endearing qualities at all.
Whatever cargo the Queen had shipped for Naxos was already
aboard. He saw the hatch seals in place as he passed the hold. So
his department’s duties were done for this port. He was free
to explore the small cabin Rip Shannon had indicated was his and
pack away in its lockers his few personal belongings.
At the Pool he had lived in a hammock and locker; to him the new
quarters were a comfortable expansion. When the signal came to
strap down for blast off, he was fast gaining the contentment Artur
Sands had threatened to destroy.
They were space borne before Dane met the other members of the
crew. In addition to Captain Jellico, the control station was
manned by Steen Wilcox, a lean Scot in his early thirties who had
served a hitch in the Galactic Survey before going into Trade, and
now held a full rating as Astrogator. Then there was the Martian
Com-Tech—Tang Ya—and Rip, the apprentice.
The engine-room section was an equal number, consisting of the
Chief, Johan Stotz, a silent young man who appeared to have little
interest save his engines (Dane gathered from Rip’s
scraps of information that Stotz was in his way a mechanical genius who
could have had much better berths than the ageing Queen, but chose
to stay with the challenge she offered), and his
apprentice—the immaculate, almost foppish Kamil. But, Dane
soon knew, the Queen carried no dead weight and Kamil must—
in spite of his airs and graces—be able to meet the exacting
standards such a Chief as Stotz could set. The engine room staff
was rounded out by a giant-dwarf combination startling to see.
Karl Kosti was a lumbering bear of a man, almost bovine, but as
alert to his duties with the jets as a piece of perfectly working
machinery. While around him buzzed his opposite number, a fly about
a bull, the small Jasper Weeks, his thin face pallid with that
bleach produced on Venus, a pallor not even the rays of space could
colour to a natural brown.
Dane’s own fellows housed on the cargo level were a varied
lot. There was Van Rycke himself, a superior so competent when it
came to the matters of his own section that he might have been a
computer. He kept Dane in a permanent state of awe. There appeared
to be nothing concerning the fine points of Free Trade Van Rycke
had ever missed hearing or learning, and, having once added any
fact to his prodigious store of memories, it was embedded forever,
but he had his soft spot, his enduring pride that as a Van Rycke he
was one of a line stretching far back into the dim past when ships
only plied the waters of a single planet, coming of a family which
had been in Trade from the days of sails to the days of stars.
Two others who were partly of the cargo world shared this
section. The Medic, Craig Tau, and the Cook-Steward Frank Mura. Tau
Dane met in the course of working hours now and then, but Mura kept
so closely to his own quarters and labours that they seldom saw
much of him.
In the meantime the new apprentice was kept busy, labouring in
an infinitesimal space afforded him in the cargo office to check
the rolls, being informally but mercilessly quizzed by Van Rycke
and learning to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in
his training. Dane was speedily reduced to a humble wonder that Captain Jellico had ever shipped him at all—in spite
of the assignment of the Psycho. It was too evident that in his
present state of overwhelming ignorance he was more of a liability
than an asset.
But Van Rycke was not just a machine of facts and figures, he
was also a superb raconteur, a collector of legends who could keep
the whole mess spellbound as he spun one of his tales. No one but
he could pay such perfect tribute to the small details of the eerie
story of the New Hope, the ship which had blasted off with refugees
from the Martian rebellion, never to be sighted until a century
later—the New Hope wandering forever in free fall, its dead
lights glowing evilly red at its nose, its escape ports ominously
sealed—the New Hope never boarded, never salvaged because it
was only sighted by ships which were themselves in dire trouble, so
that “to sight the New Hope” had become a synonym for
the worst of luck.
Then there were the “Whisperers”, whose siren voices
were heard by those men who had been too long in space, and about
whom a whole mythology had developed. Van Rycke could list the
human demi-gods of the star lanes, too. Sanford Jones, the first
man who had dared Galactic flight, whose lost ship had suddenly
flashed out of Hyperspace, over a Sirius world three centuries
after it had lifted from Terra, the mummified body of the pilot
still at the frozen controls, Sanford Jones who now welcomed on
board that misty “Comet” all spacemen who died with
their magnetic boots on. Yes, in his way, Van Rycke made his new
assistant free of more than one kind of space knowledge.
The voyage to Naxos was routine. And the frontier world where
they set down at its end was enough like Terra to be unexciting
too. Not that Dane got any planet-side leave. Van Rycke put him in
charge of the hustlers at the unloading. And the days he had spent
poring over the hold charts suddenly paid off as he discovered that
he could locate everything with surprising ease.
Van Rycke went off with the Captain. Upon their bargaining
ability, their collective nose for trade, depended the next
flight of the Queen. And no ship lingered in port longer than it took
her to discharge one cargo and locate another.
Mid-afternoon of the second day found Dane unemployed. He was
lounging a little dispiritedly by the crew hatch with Kosti. None
of the Queen’s men had gone into the sprawling frontier town
half encircled by the bulbous trees with the red-yellow foliage,
there was too much chance that they might be needed for cargo
hustling, since the Field men were celebrating a local holiday and
were not at their posts. Thus both Dane and the jetman witnessed
the return of the hired scooter which tore down the field towards
them at top speed.
It slewed around, raising more dust, and came to a skidding stop
at the foot of the ramp. Captain Jellico leaped for that, almost
reaching the hatch before Van Rycke had pried himself from behind
the controls. And the Captain threw a single order at Kosti:
“Order assembly in the mess cabin!”
Dane stared back over the field, half expecting to see at least
a squad of police in pursuit. The officer’s return had
smacked of the need for a quick getaway. But all he saw was his own
superior ascending the ramp at his usual dignified pace. Only Van
Rycke was whistling, a sign Dane had come to know meant that all
was very well with the Dutchman’s world. Whatever the
Captain’s news, the Cargo-master considered it good.
As the latest and most junior member of the crew, Dane squeezed
into the last small portion of room just inside the mess cabin door
a few minutes later. From Tau to the usually absent Mura, the
entire complement of the ship was present, their attention for
Captain Jellico who sat at the head of the small table, moving his
finger tips back and forth across the old blaster scar on his
cheek.
“And what pot of gold has fallen into our hands this time,
Captain?” That was Steen Wilcox asking the question which was
in all their minds.
“Survey auction!” the words burst out of Jellico as
if he simply could not restrain them any longer.
Somebody whistled and someone else gasped. Dane blinked, he was too new to the game to understand at once. But when the
full purport of the announcement burst upon him he knew a surge of
red hot excitement. A survey auction—a Free Trader got a
chance at one of those maybe once in a life-time. And that was how
fortunes were made.
“Who’s in town?” Engineer Stotz’s eyes
were narrowed, he was looking at the Captain almost accusingly.
Jellico shrugged. “All the usual. But it’s been a
long trip, and there are four Class D-s listed as up for
bids—”
Dane calculated rapidly. The Companies would automatically scoop
up the A and B listings—there would be tussles over the C-s.
And four D-s—four newly discovered planets whose trading
rights auctioned off under Federation law would come within range
of the price Free Traders could raise. Would the Queen be able to
enter the contest for one of them? A complete five- or ten-year
monopoly on the rights of Trade with a just charted world could
make them all wealthy—if luck rode their jets.
“How much in the strong box?” Tau asked Van
Rycke.
“When we pick up the voucher for this last load and pay
our Field fees there’ll be—but what about supplies,
Frank?”
The thin little steward was visibly doing sums in his head.
“Say a thousand for restocking—that gives us a good
margin—unless we’re in for a rim haul—”
“All right, Van, cutting out that thousand—what can
we raise?” It was Jellico’s turn to ask.
There was no need for the Cargo-Master to consult his books, the
figures were part of the amazing catalogue within his mind,
“Twenty-five thousand—maybe six hundred
more—”
There was a deflated silence. No survey auctioneer would accept
that amount. It was Wilcox who broke the quiet.
“Why are they having an auction here, anyway? Naxos is no
Federation district planet.”
It was queer, come to think of it, Dane agreed. He had never
before heard of a trading auction being held on any world which was
not at least a sector capitol.
“The Survey ship Rimwald has been reported too long
overdue,” Jellico’s voice came flatly. “All
available ships have been ordered to conclude business and get into space to quarter for
her. This ship here—the Giswald—came in to the nearest
planet to hold auction. It’s some kind of legal rocket
wash—”
Van Rycke’s broad finger tips drummed on the table top.
“There are Company agents here. On the other hand there are
only two other independent Traders in port. Unless another planets
before sixteen hours today, we have four worlds to share between
the three of us. The Companies don’t want D-s—their
agents have definite orders not to bid for them.”
“Look here, sir,” that was Rip, “In that
twenty-five thousand—did you include the pay-roll?”
When Van Rycke shook his head Dane guessed what Rip was about to
suggest. And for a moment he knew resentment. To be asked to throw
one’s voyage earnings into a wild gamble— and that was
what would happen he was sure—was pretty tough. He
wouldn’t have the courage to vote against it
either—
“With the pay-roll in?” Tau’s soft, unaccented
voice questioned.
“About thirty-eight thousand—”
“Pretty lean for a Survey auction,” Wilcox was
openly dubious.
“Miracles have happened,” Tang Ya pointed out.
“I say—try it. If we lose we’re not any the
worse—”
It was agreed by a hand vote, no one dissenting, that the crew
of the Queen would add their pay to the reserve—sharing in
proportion to the sum they had surrendered in any profits to come.
Van Rycke by common consent was appointed the bidder. But none of
them would have willingly stayed away from the scene of action and
Captain Jellico agreed to hire a Field guard as they left the ship
in a body to try their luck.
The dusk of Naxos was early, the air away from the fuel vapours
of the Field scented with growing things, almost too much so to
suit their Terran nostrils. It was a typical frontier town, alive
with the flashing signs of noisy cafes. But the men from the Queen
went straight to the open market which was to be the auction
place.
A pile of boxes made a none-too-stable platform on which stood
several men, two in the blue-green uniforms of the Survey, one in
rough leather and fabric of the town, and one in the black and
silver of the Patrol. All the legalities would be strictly observed
even if Naxos was sparsely settled frontier.
Nor were the men gathering there all wearing brown Trade tunics.
Some were from the town, come to see the fun. Dane tried to check
the badges of rivals by the limited light of the portable flares.
Yes, there was an Inter-Solar man, and slightly to his left, the
triple circle of the Combine.
The A-s and B-s would be put up first—planets newly
contacted by Galactic Survey but with a high degree of civilization
—perhaps carrying on interplanetary trade within their own
systems, planets which the Companies would find worth dealing with.
The C-s—worlds with backward cultures—were more of a
gamble and would not be so feverishly sought. And the D-s, those
with only the most primitive of intelligent life, or perhaps no
intelligent life at all—were the chances within the reach of
the Queen.
“Cofort is here—” he heard Wilcox tell the
Captain and caught Jellico’s bitter answering
exclamation.
Dane looked more closely at the milling crowd. Which one of the
men without Company insignia was the legendary prince of Free
Traders, the man who had made so many strikes that his luck was
famous along the star lanes? But he could not guess.
One of the Survey officers came to the edge of the platform and
the noise of the crowd died. His cohort held up a box—the box
containing the sealed packets of micro-film—each with the
co-ordinates and the description of a newly discovered planet.
The A-s went. There were only three and the Combine man snaffled
two of them from the Inter-Solar bidder. But Inter-Solar did much
better with the B-s, scooping up both of them. And another Company
who specialized in opening up backward worlds plunged on the four
C-s. The D-s—
The men of the Queen pressed forward, until with a handful of their independent fellows they were right below the
platform.
Rip’s thumb caught Dane in the lower ribs and his lips
shaped the name, “Cofort!”
The famous Free Trader was surprisingly young. He looked more
like a tough Patrol Officer than a Trader, and Dane noted that he
wore a blaster which fitted so exactly to the curve of his hip that
he must never be without it. Otherwise, though rumour credited him
with several fortunes, he was little different in outward
appearance from the other Free Traders. He made no display of wrist
bands, rings or the single earring the more spectacular of the
well-to-do Traders flaunted, and his tunic was as plain and worn as
Jellico’s.
“Four planets—D class—” the voice of the
Survey officer brought Dane’s attention back to the business
at hand. “Number One—Federation minimum
bid—Twenty thousand credits—”
There was a concentrated sigh from the Queen’s crew. No
use trying for that. With such a high minimum they would be edged
out almost before they had begun. To Dane’s surprise Cofort
did not bid either and it went to a Trader from the rim for fifty
thousand.
But at the presentation of planet number two, Cofort came to
life and briskly walked away from the rest of the field with a bid
close to a hundred thousand. No one was supposed to know what
information was inside each of those packets, but now they began to
wonder if Cofort did have an advance tip.
“Planet Three—D Class—Federation
minimum—Fifteen thousand—”
That was more like it! Dane was certain Van Rycke would rise to
that. And he did, until Cofort over-topped him with a jump from
thirty to fifty thousand in a single offer. Only one chance left.
The men from the Queen drew together, forming a knot behind Van
Rycke as if they were backing the Cargo-Master in a do or die
effort.
“Planet Four—D class—Federation minimum bid
fourteen thousand—”
“Sixteen—” Van Rycke’s boom tripped over
the Survey announcement.
”Twenty—” that was not Cofort, but a dark man
they did not know.
“Twenty-five—” Van Rycke was pushing it.
“Thirty—” the other man matching him in
haste.
“Thirty-five!” Van Rycke sounded confident as if he
had Cofort’s resources to draw upon.
“Thirty-six—” the dark trader turned
cautious.
“Thirty-eight!” Van Rycke made his last offer.
There was no answer. Dane, glancing, saw that Cofort was passing
over a voucher and collecting his two packets. The dark man shook
his head when the Survey man turned to him. They had it!
For an instant the Queen’s men could hardly believe in
their good luck. Then Kamil let out a whoop and the staid Wilcox
could be seen pounding Jellico on the back as Van Rycke stepped up
to claim their purchase. They spilled out into the street, piling
in and on the scooter with but one thought in mind—to get
back to the Queen and find out what they had bought.