Two days later, at 1000 miles/second, the ram field was no longer doing anything useful. Brennan turned it off. “Home in forty-two hours,” he said. “I could skydive the sun and use the ram field in the solar wind, but what the hell. We’ve got plenty of fuel, and I sense somehow that you’re anxious to get down.”
“Oddly enough.” Roy wore a hungry grin. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed your company.” He had Home in the telescope screen. Home looked like Earth: deep blue swirled with the white frosting of clouds, the outlines of continents almost invisible. He felt a throb in his throat. This past year, his vision walls had showed only scenes from Home.
“Listen,” he said, “are we going to wait for the ferries or just go down?”
“I thought I’d put Protector in distant orbit and go down with the cargo ship. We may need it to refuel Protector. Homers haven’t done much with their asteroid resources. They may not have any cargo ships.”
“All right. Before you turn on the insystem drive, why don’t I just go over to the cargo ship and put it through a countdown?”
Brennan studied him for a moment. It was the kind of considering look that sometimes had Roy thinking he’d made a foolish suggestion. But, “All right. That’ll save some time. Call me when you’re aboard.”
Home was already naked-eye visible, a white star not far from the sun. Roy boarded, stripped off his suit, went to the controls and called Brennan. Shortly Protector was again underthrust, backing toward Home at one Home gravity.
Roy started his inspection with the life support systems. All okay. The drive system checked out as far as instruments could tell. Roy worried that the drive tube might have been bent out of alignment by the tidal force of Phssthpok’s Star. They had never had a chance to inspect for that. They wouldn’t, until the cargo ship cut loose from Protector.
There was no landing gear to inspect. He’d land in a harbor; the ship would float.
He put twelve hours into his countdown, then broke for a nap. By now Brennan would have called whatever passed for spaceport facilities on Home. In another twelve hours…
Under one Home gravity he slept less, and lightly. He woke in the dim light, remembering his odd suspicions of Brennan. There was a faint smile on his face.
He went over them again… expecting to see how ridiculous they were. He’d been a bit paranoid then. Man was not meant to live locked in with a not-quite-human being for six years.
He went over his suspicions again, and they were logical. The idea was still horrid, but he could not find the logical flaw.
That bothered him.
And he still didn’t know just what Brennan planned for Home.
He got up and prowled the ship. He found something Alice had stowed aboard, long ago: paints for a pressure suit. There had never been a design on the chest of Roy’s suit. He draped the suit across a chair and stood before it, waiting for inspiration. But the inspiration that came to him was a vivid flourescent target.
Sucker. If he was right — but he couldn’t be right.
He called Brennan. Have it out -
“All okay here,” said Brennah. “How’re things at your end?”
“Green bird, as far as I can tell without actually flying it.”
“Good.”
Roy found that he was stupidly trying to read expression in the hard face. “Brennan, something occurred to me a while ago. I never mentioned it—”
“’Bout two and a half years back? I thought something was bothering you besides the lack of a harem.”
“Maybe I’m nuts,” said Roy. “Maybe I was nuts then. It hit me that you’d have a lot easier job of talking the Home population into backing your war, if you first—” He almost didn’t say it. But of course Brennan had thought of it. “If you first seeded the planet with tree-of-life.”
“That wouldn’t be nice.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But will you please explain to me why it isn’t logical?”
“It isn’t logical,” said Brennan. “The crop would take too long to grow.”
“Yah,” Roy said in a burst of relief. Then, “Yah, but you kept me out of the hydroponics garden. Wasn’t that because some of the virus might get to me?”
“No. It was because the smell would get to you and you’d eat something.”
“And the same with the garden on Kobold.”
“Right.”
“The garden Alice and I wandered through without smelling anything at all.”
“You’re older now, idiot!” Brennan was losing his temper.
“Yah, of course. Sorry, Brennan. I should have thought of all this—” Brennan was losing his temper? Brennan? And — “Dammit, Brennan, I was only a month older when you told me never to enter the Flying Dutchman’s hydroponics garden!”
“Censor you,” said Brennan, and he clicked off.
Roy leaned back in the crash chair. Thick depression was on him. Whatever else he was, Brennan had been a friend and ally. Now -
Now, very suddenly, Protector surged under three gravities acceleration. Roy sagged back. His mouth went wide in shock. Then, with all the strength of a now-massive right arm, he reached up to the controls and found a red button.
It was under a guard lock.
The key was in his pocket. Roy dug for it, cursing steadily under his breath. Brennan wanted to immobilize him. It wasn’t going to work. He reached up against three gravities of pull, opened the guard, pushed the button.
The cable that linked him to Protector blasted free. He was falling.
It took him a full minute to bring the drive up to thrust. He started a ninety degree turn. Protector couldn’t possibly match the turning radius of the smaller cargo ship. Through the port he watched Protector’s drive flame drifting away to the side.
He saw it go out.
Why had Brennan turned off the drive?
Never mind. Next step: the com laser, and warn Home.
Assuming he was right… but he dared assume nothing else, now. Brennan could clear himself afterward: turn himself over to spacemen from Home, wearing nothing but a pressure suit, and tell them how Roy had gone mad. Perhaps it would be true.
He swung the com laser toward Home and began tuning it. He knew the frequency he wanted, and the spot… if it was on the right side of the planet. What would Brennan be doing now? What could he do? That was what he would be doing. There was little of free will in a protector… and Hell’s own weaponry in Protector’s weapons pod. He was going to kill Roy Truesdale.
Home seemed to be turning the wrong face. The colony was big, as big as a medium-sized nation, but it had stupidly turned its back! And where was Brennan’s killing beam? He had to use it.
And Protector’s drive was still out. Not trying to chase him down.
Was Brennan still aboard the ship?
Roy saw a possibility then. Irrational, but no time to think: he swarmed out of the crash chair and scrambled down a ladder. The weapons were in the airlock. And the inner door was still open. Roy dashed in, snatched one of the lasers off the wall, and leapt back before the door could close on him.
It hadn’t moved.
But if Brennan wasn’t aboard Protector…
Then, irrational as it certainly was, Brennan must be trying to save the situation and Roy Truesdale too. To do that he must board the cargo ship. A feat of impossible heroism… but Roy could see him setting Protectoes drive to cut off automatically, then dropping out of the airlock toward the cargo ship just as Roy cut the cable. Dropping onto the hull, welding a line before Roy could build up thrust. Then, down the line to the airlock.
Impossible? What was impossible to Brennan? Roy held the gun ready, waiting for the inner airlock door to close.