Then Larsen gave another order. He was no longer confident that the castaways must ultimately make a bargain with him for food. And Horn's various manoeuvreings had turned the Theban's crew into a nerve-racked pack of suspicious and dispirited cowards. They feared him, and each other, and that the treasure would not be found, and that it would. They were afraid to try to lift off in the Theban, and equally to try a lifeboat journey. They'd begun to realize that the Danae's being overdue must cause a landing at the Hermas and Carola beacons by a ship sent to check such items. And then the Theban's company would be doomed.
So Larsen had ordered the walkie-talkie left, and it played cheerful, brilliant, lively tunes to call attention to the fact that Larsen wanted to make a deal with the castaways or with Horn.
CHAPTER NINE
VERY often, in a series of events, exactly what happens is less important than when. The most painstaking of plans may collapse because the parts of the plan do not keep to schedule. Larsen's contrivance for securing forty million credits in interstellar credit notes should have been foolproof. No such scheme had been anticipated and provided against. The plan was perfect, allowing for every normal and predictable contingency except that the Theban's antiquated engines would signal approaching breakdown when they did. That had happened after the castaways supplies on Carola had been destroyed, and before the Theban landed on Hermas to wait for the Danae's coming as a derelict.
Warning of a coming breakdown at any other time whatever would have let the scheme go through. Without the destruction of the supplies on Carola - that is, if the Theban had gone on to Formalhaut for repairs before smashing the caches on Carola - the castaways, on arrival there, would have had no suspicions. When the Theban arrived they'd have welcomed it, they would have been murdered, and the Theban would have gone away with the money.
Again, if the Theban had landed on Hermas on schedule to wait for the coming of the derelict liner, she wouldn't have had Horn on board, because her engines would have given no signs of disaster. She'd have picked up the Danae, found the money gone, and headed for Carola. And she'd have broken down on the way. She'd have become a derelict herself on the way to Carola. In any case, the castaways on Carola would have died if the Theban's engines hadn't acted up exactly when they did. Earlier, they'd have been murdered. Later they'd have starved. But in one case the Theban's crew would have been enriched, and in the other it would have died when the tramp ship's air gave out. The thing that counted was when things happened, not where or why or how.
A matter of scheduling operated now, while Horn distastefully buried the Theban's engineer as well as he could. If he hadn't taken time for the burial, he'd have got to the beacon clearing quite half an hour before he did. Which would have had consequences. They might have been fatal ones, or they might not. But entirely different things would have taken place.
In any event, Horn buried the engineer, after a fashion. Then he retraced his steps, seemingly leaving a wild beast's tracks behind him. He headed for the beacon and the Theban. He didn't accept the invitation offered by the music to enter into negotiations with Larsen. That would tell Larsen where he was. If he left no man tracks by the walkie-talkie when he used it, the presence of animal tracks instead might hint at false hoofs and false trailmaking. Anyhow, Horn did not use the walkie-talkie as Larsen wanted him to. Which was good.
On the other hand, Horn had finished burying the engineer at just about the time the murder party got back to the ship. Since there were only so many men aboard the Theban, that was bad. Then, it was very late afternoon, close to sundown. If the engineer-led party had got back a little later, its members would have refused to go out in the dark and the night. That would have been good. But yet again -
The Danae's captain fussily organized the shelter under the big fallen tree. Naturally, he organized it as he thought things should be. This was neither good nor bad. But after he got things as tidy as possible, he announced that the crewmen and his own junior officer would join in making themselves as presentable as possible. They could not do much, but they could shave.
This was very, very, very bad.
They shaved in sequence, using the Danae's captain's own battery-operated pocket razor. He'd carried it in the tidy, flexible-plastic case that was watertight so perspiration would not affect the motor. The razor worked admirably. It shaved neatly and expeditiously and cleanly - and it made a spark disturbance which could be picked up at a distance of several miles by a walkie-talkie in operation.
It was the scheduling which made all this appalling. At any time no walkie-talkie was turned on, it would not have mattered. But the razor was used while one walkie-talkie played Dauda music to call somebody to it, and another one listened for what that somebody might say.
Horn, who was somebody, did not say anything. But the razor, which was not somebody, made the whining noise of a small electric motor, and Larsen heard it. Naturally!
It took only minutes to get a bearing on the motor whine which was the noise of a battery razor. It took no longer to get a second bearing. The giant fallen tree was no more than two miles from the Theban. In the rain the fugitives had marched at random. Horn knew he might have approached the space tramp. He'd worried about it. But the giant deadfall was miraculously what they needed. It had been better than he'd faintly hoped for, in the rain.
So he and the Danae's captain and everybody else had done their very best and behaved quite reasonably. But they'd happened to do reasonable things at unreasonable moments. Horn took time to conduct a funeral. The captain tidied up a treetrunk and then shaved. The Theban's full complement of men was in the ship at that very instant. It was the scheduling of thee events that made the trouble.
Horn reached the beacon clearing later than he'd expected. A second hunting party had left the ship while he followed the tracks back from a previous excursion that he couldn't know about. When he arrived, the storm clouds had retreated far to the west. They were dense and dark and they did not go to the horizon. The sun sank down behind them. Oddly, there were no brilliant colourings in the sunset today. The thick rainy season clouds were practically opaque. They cut off the sunshine before it reached the angle that produces sunset splendour.
Twilight fell. Horn made his way around the edge of the clearing, so he would seem to have approached from the west. He'd planned to arrive earlier. No spaceman likes to stay aboard his ship aground. Here there was nowhere to go and nothing to do, but from time to time somebody ought to come out of the ship, if only for some fresh air. With everybody finding some money, one might expect eager sallies after more currency. Horn had counted on that. But nobody came out of the ship.
He was disappointed. He'd meant to snipe at any man who came out of the Theban, and imprison the crew. They weren't wholly desperate yet because they still hoped to find the castaways and the money - and himself. But if a blast rifle were likely to open up on any man who poked his nose around the air lock door, the situation would be wholly changed again. And again the initiative would be Horn's and the problem Larsen's.
He grew irritated that nobody showed for him to fire at, while the light grew fainter and would presently shut off as if someone had flipped a switch.
Then, just as he began to consider alternative offensive possibilities, he saw a group of figures all the way over at the opposite side of the clearing. They came out of the jungle and made their way towards the ship. Horn strained his eyes. There were too many of them to be crewmen. There were more of them than the entire crew of the Theban. He saw two small figures. Children. The majority of the figures bore burdens. They made their way despairingly towards the Theban, with other marchers behind them. Horn made out blast rifles in the hands of the unburdened figures.