"You mean," said Crup, "that you'd undertake to remodel the vessel before you left?"
"I would certainly promise to remodel it," said Heller.
Wait, wait, wait, I cried silently. This would take time!
Crup looked at old Atty. Then they both shrugged.
"But there is another hitch," said Crup.
My hopes rocketed up.
"Ordinarily," the commander continued, but this time looking at me, "if Jet wanted this ship he could simply sign for it and fly it away. In this case, he can't." I was eager to hear his next words.
"For some reason or other," said Crup, tapping the Grand Council orders, "the directive that the mission be undertaken assigns it to the Exterior Division. I can't imagine how the Exterior Division also got a Fleet man. ..."
"They probably didn't have nobody who knew how to run a spaceship," sneered old Atty. "Certainly nobody like Jet."
"... but in any event," continued Crup, "I cannot transfer a unit of the Emergency Fleet Reserve to the Exterior Division, much less its 'drunks.' Their Lordships in the Fleet would have my head." Relief! I had been rescued!
"However . . ." said Crup, getting some papers out of his case.
My hopes faltered.
He found what he was looking for. ". . . we quite routinely sell supernumerary spaceships to commercial companies engaging in peaceful interplanetary traffic. We simply strip out their guns and sensitive equipment and transfer ownership. Any transaction that can be done with commercial companies can be done with the Exterior Division. Tug Onehas no guns or sensitive battle equipment so . . ." He had a list. "The price of constructing Tug Onewas four million credits . . . the refit done on her by Admiral Wince was about two million credits . . . that's six million in round figures." My hopes rose. We only had an allocation of three million total. Six was way, way out of our price range.
Crup was pulling a finger down a column of figures. "But, of course, a resale figure wouldn't be that high." I held my breath. Please, please and please now give a figure in excess of three million.
"Ah," said Crup. "Here's a note about Tug One:Due to the Fleet having in excess of two thousand service tugs of the normal type, and if any purchaser will undertake upon the sales papers not to hold the Fleet responsible if this vessel blows up, the resale price is hereby fixed at a half a million credits.
My hopes crashed with a loss of all hands. "Perfectly agreeable," said Heller. "You sure you will remodel?" said Crup. "Absolutely," said Heller.
"Good," said Crup and he began to scribble and copy numbers and add conditions to a fatal paper that would transfer Tug Onefrom the Fleet to the Exterior Division. But just before he asked for my identoplate he spoke again. "I don't think you can take it today. You don't have any engineer for her." There was not even a flicker of life in the dead ashes of my hopes.
And sure enough, old Atty said, "But he'll just need somebody to run the auxiliaries. They're simple! If you'll give me the rest of the day off, Commander, I'm his man!" He cackled. "Just so long as he don't ask me to turn on the Will-be Was main engines and just sticks to the planetary drives, I'll chief engineer for him! Today only." I am extremely well trained at hiding my feelings. I was certain that I had permitted no slightest trace of my reactions to show on my face. So I could not account for the possible malice in old Atty's voice as he turned to me and said, "I got a wife, kids, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren but I'm a lot too young to die at the throttles of time drives!" An idiot remark. It seemed to amuse him out of all proportion. He went tearing off to steal some spare fuel rods from a nearby ship.
Crup had to joggle me twice. He was holding out the completed documents.
With a feeling I was putting my own seal on my own death warrant, I pushed my identoplate against the paper.
Tug Onehad just become the mission ship for Mission Earth! And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Not right here anyway.
Chapter 5
Heller was over by my airbus. My driver appeared to have breakfasted well on supplies in back. He was looking at Heller with a keen eagerness while the combat engineer gave him some very exact instructions. What was Heller telling him? Apparently there was something not entirely clear for Heller whipped out a notebook and wrote something very rapidly on it, tore out the sheet and handed it over. I was about to interrupt what might be a violation of security but before I reached them, Heller handed him some money. My driver, without even asking permission from me, took off. Oh, well. I'd grill him later.
The Commander had gotten on the old watchman's triwheeler. Heller went over and they shook hands and I heard the tail end of Crup's farewell. ". . . if you know what you're doing. Remember you promised to fix her up. Well, if I never see you again, good luck anyway." I shuddered. Crup backed the triwheeler to a safe distance and sat there to watch our departure.
Heller sort of hazed me into the ship the way they do animals that have gotten out of the pasture. He got me up the ladders and into the flight deck. There was still only his own beamlight and the dust motes made it look like muddy water. I could hear old Atty banging and swearing in the auxiliary engine room just below us. He seemed to be having a lot of trouble and must be using a sledgehammer to fix it.
There were two gravity flight chairs; Heller pressed me gently down into one of them. The dust clouds absolutely geysered. "Now this is the star navigator's seat you're in and we won't be going to any stars just yet. I'll be sitting right over there in the local maneuvering seat. We don't have time to unseal the ports and all the view-screens are around the other seat, but don't worry just because you can't see anything." He was buckling clasp-straps around me. The dust was horrible. I began to cough and tried to sit up to cough better but he just shoved me back. "Now this is a tug," he said when he had finished. "A tug is the quickest maneuvering ship ever built. Don't lift your head out of those pads or you could snap your neck. A tug can move sideways, up, down, back and forward in the flash of an eye. They have to be able to, so as to position themselves around battleships. So don'tlift your head! Even on auxiliary drives, these things can be deadly fast. Understand?" All I understood was that I was choking to death on dust.
If he was so careful to tuck me in, how come he simply went over and perched on the edge of the local maneuvering chair?
The banging still went on in the nearest engine room. Then old Atty yelled, "You got power there yet?" Heller took his finger and ran it along a huge line of switches like a musician makes a run up the keyboard of an instrument. "Everything on. No lights!" More swearing from the engine room. Then, "(Bleep) it, Jet, we'll just have to run her on emergency lighting!" A feeble glow came on. The dust flying around made it look like green soup.
"I got the (bleeped) rods in," shouted Atty. Two more huge bangs. "I think the throttles will move now.
Let me get strapped down here where I can reach 'em." A long spell of coughing: must be dusty down there, too!
Jet said, "Let me see. Been three years since I touched a tug's controls." He was perched on the edge of the chair looking at what must be two thousand switches. He yelled, "You all set, Atty?"
"Set as I'll ever be."
"Give me power and local control." There was a shudder throughout the tug as Atty engaged the engines.
Heller looked thoughtfully over the array. "Hey, the viewscreens came on. What do you know." He hit a switch.