“Calling ship,” said Scott sharply. “Calling ship!”
He didn’t name the ship he was calling. Another passing vessel might pick up the name. He couldn’t know when his voice would reach the Golconda Ship. It could be seconds. It was more likely to be minutes. But checkpoint signals were expected to be fairly clear, even light-hours from the sun, and log broadcasts were received from distances nearly as great.
“Warning,” said Scott into the transmitter. “Do not make freight contact with this checkpoint at this time. I am Lieutenant Scott, appointed to command it. When I arrived here a few hours ago I found its original crew murdered and the checkpoint in the hands of blaster-men waiting for you to arrive—object, more murders. It was seized some six days ago. At this moment we are about to drive into the Five Comets, which are crossing our orbital path. When we emerge on the other side of the comets, you may reopen communication. I believe the situation will have changed. I urge extreme caution.”
He paused again.
“There is one passenger, a girl, who survived the murder of the other passengers and the legitimate crew. I very urgently request that you make an effort—taking whatever precautions you please—to pick her up. If you do not do this, please inform the Space Patrol of her predicament.”
He gave explicit instructions for the rescue of Janet. Nobody would be monitoring the checkpoint’s repetitious message: “Checkpoint Lambda. Report. Report.”
When he finished, he felt the first moment of actual relief since he’d boarded Lambda. He’d made the first crack in the situation that faced him when he came to take command. Now he had only to get through the comets, prevent his own murder, and then take real command of the buoy. After that there’d only be the matter of handling Bugsy and Chenery and their followers—he felt reasonably assured about handling Chenery, though—and then somehow manage to keep Checkpoint Lambda in operation all by himself until some sort of relief arrived.
He didn’t try to make plans for all these operations at once. In the nature of things some of them would have to be played by ear when the time came. But he had improved Janet’s chances of living out her life as she had the right to do. And he had warned the Golconda Ship.
He wasn’t too sure about the Golconda Ship, though. He was more or less skeptical—more skeptical as he thought it over. There is a point where money does things to the people who own it. Unpleasant things. The multi-multi-millionaires who were the Golconda Ship’s crew did not lead normal lives. Because they were rich they were lied to by people who hoped to gain by flattering them. They were schemed against by people who would cheat them. They were cajoled by people who would tempt them to dishonesty and provide accomplices to crimes to make a profit out of them. They had to hire guards lest they or their families be kidnaped or murdered if they did not pay blackmail. Men whose lives were filled with the feverish attempts of other people to get money from them were not likely to stay unaffected by those attempts. They might be poisoned by suspicion and Warped by the constant need to be wary.
In short, the men on the Golconda Ship might act like other men. But it wasn’t too likely. Warned by Scott, they might act like rich men; see to their own always precarious safety, go cautiously away, and politely tell the Space Patrol about Janet and Scott in their predicament in the space buoy circling Cards Lambda.
And if they did, Scott couldn’t really blame them.
But for the moment he felt relieved. And then he realized that to relax too early might be dangerous. There was Bugsy. He was probably convinced about the Five Comets now. But he had one single answer to all problems—violence. He hadn’t been able to threaten Scott before. But there was a way.
Scott suddenly realized that there was an exquisitely monstrous kind of violence Bugsy could practice, of which the mere threat would subdue Scott completely. There was a way by which he could be forced to take Lambda through the Five Comets, and afterward work desperately to bring the Golconda Ship alongside—contriving explanations for his broadcast as they were needed—so Bugsy could bloodily massacre its crew, while he astrogated that ship where-ever Bugsy pleased. And then be killed.
Scott found himself growing tense again. He tried to thrust away the idea that it could happen. But he suddenly berated himself bitterly for not having been more careful, more intelligent, more resourceful. Even that he hadn’t killed Bugsy in cold blood when it was possible.
Because Bugsy had gone away from the control room in such horrible fury that he staggered and stumbled as he walked. And only a little earlier he’d asked where Janet was.
Sweat came out on Scott’s face as he realized how helpless he was. Bugsy couldn’t be stopped from having his men search for Janet. Even now they might be hunting over the Lambda—exploring every nook and cranny; every compartment however small; looking even into every cupboard…
Sooner or later they’d think of the lifeboats.
He seemed to hear noises. He wasn’t sure, but he believed it. The search was beginning…
CHAPTER 6
There was another small whining sound from a tape reel on the control room wall. A passing ship had picked up the mechanical checkpoint call and had sent its taped log for Lambda to record and the Space Patrol to examine in case of need. That ship had gone back into overdrive and away before its broadcast reached the buoy. Such recordings were useful because, if that ship were to fail to reach its destination, an examination of its log to the last checkpoint might reveal the reason for its vanishing and help prevent another case of the same kind. But the system had other virtues, too. At least one meteor stream spanning the distance between two stars had been guessed at from such records. It had been hunted for and found, and was now a charted space-hazard which all ships avoided. And at least one totally disabled ship was found against all probability when its overdrive blew. But its log revealed some questionable instrument-readings and most of its crew was still alive when a Patrol ship found it.
But there was no record anywhere off Lambda of what might be the trouble there, now. If Lambda disappeared, the liner that had delivered Scott to it would report some irregularities. If the Golconda Ship picked up Scott’s message—which it might, or it might not—there would be more information. But there would still be too little to amount to definite knowledge. The record would show only that Lieutenant Scott, Space Patrol, had gone aboard Lambda to take command. It was his first command. And Lambda had vanished shortly afterward, like two robot checkpoints before it. Therefore it would be considered wise to avoid the Canis Lambda system, where two checkpoints and a manned buoy had vanished. So six space lanes would be shifted because it was not practical to avoid the dangers of this solar system—or perhaps because Lieutenant Scott was incompetent. There’d be no evidence for any other conclusion except the possibly garbled message to the Golconda Ship.
Scott didn’t like the idea. As a professional spaceman and an officer in the Patrol he felt that any disaster to anything he commanded should be reported and explained so it need never happen again. But as a man he considered that there were circumstances overriding even that obligation.
It was now time to act for the preservation of the space buoy. It no longer had any operating space drive, of course. Not even a hopelessly inadequate solar system drive unit. Used early enough, even that could have taken care of the comet problem. It should have been used. But Lieutenant Thrums had been murdered six days before Scott’s arrival and before it was time to use it. Now it was too late. The rest of the buoy’s crew had been murdered at the same time, so they couldn’t tell Chenery or Bugsy of the coming need to drive ten to twenty thousand miles out of orbit—even thirty thousand—to avoid the comet-crossing. When Scott came aboard it was quite too late for any such commonsense proceeding.