Horn picked himself up. Only one leg would serve him. He said icily, "Well, I tried!"
"Sure!" said Larsen. "Sure! But things are breakin' my way. You figure what you can do to me. Not much. Then figure what I can do to her, an' the others. But I'll save her for last. Now, what's the matter with the engines?"
Horn said evenly, "They're worn out. I told you so before."
"What do they need to run good again?"
"You won't believe the answer."
"Tell me anyhow," rumbled Larsen. "Maybe I can check."
"When engines of this kind were new," said Horn with vast composure, "the Riccardo coils balanced. With use, they aged, and they aged differently. The changes could be compensated for up to a certain point. But these coils are past being compensated. You need new ones. But new ones aren't made any longer. So long as you use these they'll vibrate, vibration makes troubles, and sooner or later they'll blow."
Larsen rumbled to himself. "Yeah," he said presently. 'The last engineer said that. But they got to run. You got to make 'em." He grinned, as if anticipatively. "If you don't make 'em run I take one of the Danae's crowd an' show you what she'll get if you don't get 'em runnin'. And she'll get it!"
Horn bit his lips. Then he said fiercely, "There's a trick. It sounds crazy. Maybe you'll think I'm trying to put something over."
"I do," said Larsen. "But you tell me about it. I'm not as dumb as I look. Tell me!"
Horn swallowed. He began to speak with infinite care. There were times when what he said did not convince Larsen, and he scowled. Horn went over it, rephrasing it until what he'd said became lucid. It was, in effect, a beautifully clear lecture on the principles of the Riccardo drive. At the end, it seemed obvious that the Theban's drive was irreparably gone past any justifiable use. It could blow at any instant.
Larsen rumbled again. Then he said amusedly, "Too bad! I'll go get one of the Danae crowd -"
Horn said desperately, "There's a chance. Not a good one, but if it works we can be sure. But it's not a good chance."
Sweating, he traced diagrams in the air with his fingers. Every ship carried in its holds certain balance coils - actually miniature drives - which adjusted the centre of gravity of ship and cargo together so they drove straight, in the absence of a space rudder and without side drift or crabwise motion. Horn explained the trick. If a generator of a pressor beam - a miniature drive - were fixed so its powerful thrust tended to deform a Riccardo coil in the opposite direction to the effect of aging, it ought to make the engine rumble for a certain limited further time.
"It's a tricky job," said Horn fiercely, "but if it works there'll be no engine noises. I'm not sure I can do it. I don't promise how long it will work. If I can do it at all, I can nurse it along. But that's every damned thing I can do."
Larsen seemed to reflect. Horn watched his face. Presently the Theban's skipper gave a short bark of a laugh. "Everything's goin' my way," he said expansively. "Not everybody'd find a guy who knew that trick! Yeah, everything's goin' my way! I'll get one of those coils. You'll make it work. If you don't -"
He rose and went to the companion ladder. There he paused.
"She hasn't got anything to kill me with," he said humorously. "Don't figure on tryin' anything. Things are goin' my way!"
He went down the ladder. Ginny wrung her hands. She said drearily, "Your leg - is it bad?"
"It's the ankle," said Horn evenly. "I think it's broken. It doesn't matter."
There came more hangings from below - gunbutts banging on the air lock door. The crewmen of the Theban wanted to be let in.
Larsen came back, grinning. He carried a pressor-beam generator coil. Broken wires showed, that he'd simply wrenched it loose from the socket in which it fitted.
"The guys outside are getting impatient," he said humorously. "They want in. But they had their fun with the money. Now they can think about it, but I've got it. Everything!" He rolled the coil to Horn, not handing it to him. He said blandly, "Handle this easy! It'll be too bad if I figure you might throw it. It's heavy. I'm watchin'!"
He sat down, a drawn weapon in his hand. He grinned.
Horn, tight-lipped, stood on one leg to work out the exact position for the small coil which could thrust as a ship's drive engines do, against nothing at all, but can also thrust against any material thing on which it plays. He adjusted the small item painstakingly.
"Now," he said harshly, "we'll see if it works."
He threw a switch.
There was a crashing sound on the other side of the room. A pocket blaster hit the wall and stuck there. There was a more cushioned impact. A chair and Larsen, together, hit the side wall with violence. They stayed pressed against it. There were small, feeble movements of Larsen's head and body. They ceased.
"Stay where you are Ginny!" commanded Horn.
He waited, patiently. Nothing happened. The chair and Larsen remained as if welded to the wall. Larsen's cheeks ballooned, one inward, the other outwards, to flatten against the wall.
"I think," said Horn, "that he's out. We'll see."
He threw back the switch. The weapon against the wall dropped to the floor. He snapped for Ginny to retrieve it. She did. He threw the current back on. Larsen had seemed to slump in the chair when the pressor-beam cut off. Now he sagged again, but against the wall.
Ginny gave Horn the hand weapon when he gestured for it. It was a blaster. He burned through the chain around his ankle, then half-limped and half hopped to Larsen and bound him carefully. He took keys from Larsen's pockets.
"You might let the Danae's people out of the hold," he said evenly. "Make sure none of them opens the air lock."
When Ginny came back, followed by the shaken, incredulous, unbelieving passengers and crew of the Danae, Horn was sitting in the chair Larsen had occupied. He nodded at Larsen's figure on the floor, holding Larsen's weapon handy.
"I want," he said briefly to the Danae's captain, "to have Larsen let gently down by a rope from the control-room air lock. Then close the air lock, and we'll take measures to go where we belong."
Ginny shakenly asked questions.
"I don't want to touch him again," said Horn. "It's too much of a temptation. He'd have done you harm, Ginny. I want to kill him."
Ginny said uneasily that she didn't know what had happened, but -
"I got him to bring me a balance coil," said Horn, tonelessly. "He knew it balanced a ship by shifting its centre of gravity. He didn't realize that it pushed, like artificial gravity. So I put a beam of twenty-gravity thrust against him, and it pushed him against a side wall. Nobody can stay conscious more than minutes in eight-gee thrust. I. gave him twenty."
There was a dismal banging on the tail fin air lock door. Horn sat still. He quietly gave orders that nobody should answer those knocks. They were made with blast rifle butts. He listened interestedly when told that when Larsen was lowered from the control-room air lock, his dangling body had been received by the crewmen of the Theban.
"This is very satisfactory," he said sedately to the Danae's captain. "Will you take over this ship and astrogate us to Formalhaut? I seem to have a broken ankle. I want to get it set. And I've other - ah - business to attend to."
The Danae's captain looked uneasily at the gigantic engines of the Theban. They were ancient and massive and he didn't trust them.
"They're all right," Horn assured him. "They were Riccardo drive engines. I more or less rebuilt them on the way here. They're simplified Riccardos now. In fact they're exactly like the engines of the Danae, except that a lot of useless parts are still in place."
He continued to sit placidly in place when the "engines wanted" sign lighted up in the engineroom. He was unconcerned when the ship lifted off. Ginny came and sat down beside him. She asked questions. She agreed that it had been best to leave the Theban's crew marooned for somebody else to take care of.