The red-haired man said truculently, "Who're you, you know so much?"
"His name's Horn," explained the operator. "He's a drive designer. He knows his stuff. Best man on this planet on space-drive engines."
"Yeah?" The red-headed man looked at Horn with scornful eyes. "What more d'you know?"
"Judging by the engines' sound," said Horn, "your drive probably started acting up three or four days ago. It made a whining noise. Your engineer may have been able to stop it, but later it started up again. Probably two days ago it got past adjustment and began to buzz. If that's what happened, it'll never be right until it's had a complete overhaul, and that's no quickie job - even if you can find a repair shop that will try it. You may have trouble on that because Riccardo drives are so far out of date."
The red-haired man said, "Wait a minute." He raised the walkie-talkie to his lips. "Skipper? You heard that?"
Horn raised his eyebrows. The walkie-talkie had been in operation all along. The skipper of the just-landed tramp ship had heard his emissary - presumably his mate - argue with the operator; had heard all the conversation until now. The red-haired man said, "You heard it? What'll I tell him?"
Horn saw the threadlike wire that led to a subminiature earphone in the red-headed man's ear. The Theban's mate had been speaking under instructions. Now he got detailed orders.
"Skipper says," he reported to Horn, ignoring the operator, "come take a look at the engines and see if you can patch them up. They acted like you said. You know your stuff. Come take a look at them."
Horn shook his head. "No need. I heard them. You need a complete overhaul."
"How much just to take a look?" demanded the red-haired man. "Five hundred credits?"
Horn said, "I might patch it, but it'd fail again. And a patched job wouldn't pass survey anyhow. You couldn't get lifted off."
The red-haired man said, "A thousand?"
"No," said Horn. "Engines in the state yours are in could go any second, quick patch or no quick patch."
"Two?"
"No!" said Horn. "If the repair shop here needs help, I'll try to give it to them. But you need an overhaul."
"How much?" insisted the red-haired man belligerently.
"I simply won't do it," said Horn. "If you never reached port again, it would be my fault for helping you. I won't do it."
The red-haired man lifted the walkie-talkie again.
"Skipper?" He listened. He nodded. He lowered tie instrument and said, "Skipper says skip it. You lose a good package of cash!" He turned towards the door, and then turned back. "Which way's the spaceport gate? Any place open for drinks on this hick planet?"
The grid operator gave him instructions. The red-haired man went out, followed by the two soiled men, who hadn't uttered a word since they entered the office. When they'd gone down the stairs the operator said peevishly, "Crazy! I'd lose my job and you'd lose your designer's licence if we broke regulations like he wants. What do they think we are?"
"Crazy," agreed Horn.
He went again to the window and looked across the tarmac at the just-landed ship. It was battered and antiquated. It might once have been a good ship of its kind, but that was a long time ago. The Riccardo drive had had one advantage in the early days of space traveclass="underline" it was possible, at enormous cost in fuel, to make a landing and a lift-off where there was no landing grid. There were some legitimate uses for such ships, but not many. Those that survived had mostly gravitated to very dubious ways. No more Riccardo drives were being made. But the Theban had probably seen some remarkable sights, and landed in some remarkable places, in her time. Now, though -
Horn shrugged. Nowadays ships went from scheduled port to scheduled port, and emergency rockets might let a ship down somewhere but would never lift it off again. And all explorations were made by the Space Patrol, and everything was law-abiding and commonplace. But it was curious that the Theban was in such urgent haste as to offer to bribe him to try to patch her engines for an illegal lift-off before dawn. It would have been a desperately risky business. For a moment or two Horn tried to guess what sort of emergency would make the Theban's skipper willing to take a chance like that. He couldn't think of one.
Then his mind went back to the subject that had occupied it most of the time these past few weeks: the Danae, of course, with Ginny on board, on her way to marry him. He turned away from the window.
"Where'd the Theban touch ground last?" he asked.
"Maybe Wolkem," the operator told him, "but I can't be sure. They'll report in last port and destination come morning, when the astrogation offices opens and they explain their emergency."
Horn shrugged. He continued to think of Ginny on the Danae, rather than the ship just landed.
"Anyhow, there's been no report of any new dangers to space mariners along the ship lane the Danae's using. Not at this end, anyhow."
"Not at this end, no," agreed the operator. "Your girl's all right. Quit worrying."
"I should," admitted Horn, "but a man doesn't get married very often. It's natural to worry some."
"You're making an occupation of it," grunted the operator.
Horn grimaced and went out, down the steps and towards the spaceport gate. There were no skimmers to hire, now when there were no ships scheduled to be in port. He had to walk. He might get a cruising night-owl skimmer at the gate to take him home.
All outdoors was still very quiet. There was a glow in the sky off to one side, where a city lay below the horizon. There was a feeling of vast emptiness, which the metal-lace structure of the grid emphasized. The only sound anywhere was the infinitely faint shrilling of insects whose ancestors had been brought from Earth centuries since when a terran ecological system was established here. It was a singular fact that living things from Earth invariably displaced native life systems when introduced on new worlds. There were people who considered this proof that mankind was destined to occupy all the universe, in time yet to come.
But Horn did not meditate on such abstractions. He headed for the spaceport gate, thinking about Ginny. They were peculiarly specific thoughts: the way she looked when she was absorbed in something, and the delight she could show when something pleased her. There were absurd mental pictures, of her making faces back at a child who'd made faces at her, of her playing with a dog. There was no system in the image sequence. He simply thought about Ginny and enormous emotions filled him. It was a long way to the gate, but he was absorbed. He was almost surprised when the gateway loomed up ahead of him. He fumbled for the pass to be shown to the gate guards. They knew him, but there had to be a record of everyone passing through. His footsteps echoed under the gate roof. Nobody came to take his pass and put it in the exit-recording machine. It was remarkable! Interstellar freight had to be protected, especially against pilferage. An unguarded spaceport gate was an invitation to theft. Patrons of the dives that clustered outside would react instantly to word that the gate was unattended. One needn't be a fanatic to be disturbed by such a prospect. Horn pushed open the door through which a guard should have come to record his pass. He went inside, and stumbled over something. It was a man, unconscious or dead - one of the guards. He saw another body on the floor. Then he heard the waspish humming sound of a stun pistol. He felt the intolerable pins-and- needles pricking sensation of a stun-weapon beam. But he heard it and felt it for only the fraction of a second. In that moment, though, he raged. He knew what was happening, and why, and he wanted horribly to kill somebody - preferably a man with red hair and a truculent expression. He felt himself falling. Then he felt nothing.