Part 13 (1/2)

Wolf winced at the figure.

”If all this works out,” he said, ”I'll get everything back. Otherwise, I'll be a slave to the USF for the rest of my life. Well, let's worry about that later.”

As they spoke, Green led the way through the long corridor that led to the final clearing section before the main living quarters. He was sliding along in the fast, economical lope that all USF people acquired in early childhood.

Wolf, not too successfully, tried to imitate it. The floor of fused rock felt slippery beneath his feet, and he had the curious feeling that the lunar gravity was a little lower than it had been on his last trip to Tycho City, many years before.

”No,” said Green in answer to his question. ”I think that physics here may be a little ahead of anywhere else in the system, but we still don't have an efficient generator. Gravity's one thing we haven't tamed so far. McAndrew came up with a method a long time ago for using s.h.i.+elded kernels for local gravity adjustments, and that's as far as anyone has been able to go. n.o.body's willing to try even that much, down on a planetary surface. What you're feeling is a change in oxygen content. We put it a fraction of a percent higher about three years ago. You'll find that you get used to it in a couple of days.”

”A couple of days! Park, I have no intention of being here in a couple of days. I want to be well on the way to the cl.u.s.ter. When can the s.h.i.+p leave? I hope it's today.”

Green stopped and looked at Wolf quizzically. ”Bey, you're dreaming. You just don't know the problems. First, there's no way they can get a s.h.i.+p ready in less than seventy-two hours. d.a.m.n it, it has to be equipped to support the two of us on a two-year trip-that's how long the Grand Tour can take. I know we're not really going on that, but they're getting her ready for it. Second-”

”What do you mean, support the two of us? Park, I'm not dragging you on this trip. It's a risky game that far out of the usual system s.h.i.+p routes, and it may all be a complete waste of time. I'm going solo.”

Green listened calmly, towering way above Wolf. He shook his head.

”Bey, you're a real expert on form-change, I'll be the first to admit that.

But you're a baby when it comes to s.p.a.ce operations. Oh, don't say it-I know very well that you have your license. That's just the beginning. It means you're toilet trained in s.p.a.ce-not that you're ready to hare off around the system on your own. I'm telling you, no matter how confident you feel aboutyour ability to look after yourself, the owners wouldn't agree. There's no way they'd even let you get near that s.h.i.+p unless I go with you-not once around the Moon, never mind the Grand Tour. It's got to be me, or you'll find they push some other USF pilot on to you-somebody you don't even know.”

Wolf looked at Green's calm confidence. It was obvious that the big man was telling the truth. He shrugged and resigned himself to the inevitable.

”It wasn't what I had in mind, Park. I wasn't proposing to drag you into all this when I asked you to help in checking Ling's records up here.”

Green smiled slightly and shook his head. ”Bey, you still don't understand it, do you? I'm not going along because I'm a kind-hearted martyr. I'm going along because I want to. d.a.m.n it, don't you realize that I've been itching to know what's been going on with John back on Earth since the minute that I set out to come back to Tycho City? You could almost say that it was my fault that John ever got changed to a Logian form. If I'd been a bit smarter and known what was happening, I might have been able to talk him out of injecting Logian DNA into himself. Get rid of the idea that I'm going along for your sake.”

Wolf was staring up at the other's earnest face. ”Sorry, Park,” he said in a subdued voice. ”I let my own compulsions blind me to everybody else's. You deserve to come along. I still wish we could beat that figure of seventy-two hours. I didn't plan on spending anything near that long here in Tycho City.”

Green was smiling again. ”You'll need that much time to prepare. And you still owe me some explanations. Your message from the s.h.i.+p set a new high for being cryptic. We're getting ready to go right out of the System and you still haven't told me why. I heard that John has disappeared, and I know the two things are connected.”

”We're not going out of the System, Park, just to the Egyptian Cl.u.s.ter.”

”Same thing, to a USF-er. Technically, you're right, of course. The System goes all the way out to the long-period comet aphelia. But so far as anybody in the USF is concerned, when you go to an orbit plane that far off the plane of the ecliptic, you might as well be right out of the System. The delta-v you need is so big, and there are so few things of interest up there. We just don't bother to do it very often. Do you know, I've never even met anybody who has been to a member of the Egyptian Cl.u.s.ter. I've been looking up the facts on it ever since you called me from the s.h.i.+p. I still can't imagine why you want to go there.”

They were approaching the big hemispherical chamber that marked the city edge.

Beyond it, slide ways led to the separate centers for manufacturing, maintenance, utilities, and habitation. Agriculture and power were located back up on the surface, 3,500 meters above their heads.

”I'll brief you on all the background as soon as we're settled in here,” said Bey. ”That won't take me more than a few hours. I don't know what plans you have to spend the rest of the time before we can leave, but I'd like to have another go at the data banks. There may still be things in there that I missed last time on Capman's activities here as Karl Ling.”

”You'll have time for that. There will be other things, too.” Green pointed ahead of them to where a small group of men and women was standing by a wall terminal. ”There's your fan club. I'm sorry, Bey, but I couldn't stop it.

Those are the Tycho City experts on regeneration methods. They want to hold a reception later in your honor, and nothing I've said has managed to dissuade them. You see the price of fame? Now, are you too tired, or shall we be nice to them while you're here?”

CHAPTER 19.

The Explanatory Supplement to the Ephemeris, 2190 Edition lists the mean orbital inclination for the asteroids of the Egyptian Cl.u.s.ter as fifty-eight degrees and forty-seven minutes to the plane of the ecliptic. The cl.u.s.ter's physical data are given at the very end of the reference section, a fair measure of its relative importance in the planetary scheme of things. Allcl.u.s.ter members have perihelion distances of about three hundred million kilometers, strongly supporting the idea of a common origin even though any cl.u.s.tering in a purely spatial sense has long since been dissipated. Pearl, with an almost circular orbit, crosses the ecliptic near the first point of Aries. Unfortunately she was riding high, far south of that, when Wolf and Green finally set out.

”Nearly a hundred and thirty million kilometers, Bey,” grumbled Green, hunched over the displays. ”It will take more fuel to get us there than it would to take us to Neptune. I hope you're right in all those guesses.”

Wolf was prowling restlessly through the s.h.i.+p, savoring the half-g acceleration and inspecting everything as he went.

”You say it would take just as much fuel, Park, if Pearl were heading through the ecliptic right now. All we would save is a little time. If I'm wrong on the rest of it, we'll have wasted a few weeks each.”

He paused by the radiation-s.h.i.+elded enclosure, eyeing it speculatively.

”It's a pity that doesn't have a form-change tank inside it,” he went on.

”This s.h.i.+p is plenty big enough to carry the equipment, if there were a suitable tank.”

Green looked up briefly. ”Remember, Bey, C-forms are still illegal here.”

”I know. I was just thinking that we could really use one now to slow down our metabolisms a few times. The Timeset form would do us nicely. How's the fuel supply look? Any problem?”

”No. We could do this twice if we had to. I told the provisioners that we might want to do some unusual out-of-ecliptic maneuvers during the trip. They gave us the biggest reserves the s.h.i.+p can hold.”

Green finished his final checking of the trajectory and straightened up. He looked at Wolf, who was still eyeing the closed compartment.

”Eyes off, Bey. You know the USF is ultra cautious on the use of C-form experiments. Really, you can't blame us. People are precious out here. We don't have a few billion to spare, the way that you do down on Earth. We'll let you do the wild experiments. It will be a few years before we're ready to play with the form Capman developed in Project Timeset. Meanwhile, we've got our own methods. Did you take a good look yet at the sleeping quarters?”

”A quick look. They're tolerable. I was going there next to look at a few bits of equipment that I didn't recognize. The place looked very cluttered. Why not use one compartment and save on s.p.a.ce?”

”That's what I mean, Bey.” Green switched off the display and swung the seat around. The legroom at the trajectory monitor had been meant for someone two feet shorter. He stretched his long limbs straight out in front of him.

”You see,” he went on, ”back on Earth you've been forced to develop methods that let people live on top of each other, millions of you where naturally there should only be thousands. Well, we have a different problem here in the USF. We have a lot of s.p.a.ce and not many people, but we've still had to worry about the situation where a small number of people live for a long time in very close contact-in a s.h.i.+p, or a mining colony, or an Outer System settlement. It's even worse than Earth, because there's no chance to vary the company you keep. You have to be able to live for months or years without murdering each other.”

Green swiveled his chair around to face Wolf and looked at him with a strange expression. ”Bey, answer me honestly. Just what do you think of me?”

Wolf, puzzled by the sudden change in subject, pulled up in mid-prowl. He looked at Green thoughtfully for a moment before he replied. ”I think I know where you're heading, Park, but I'll play the game. An honest answer, eh? All right. You're good-natured. You're a bit of a worrier. You're not stupid-in fact, you're pretty shrewd-but you're also a little bit lazy. You bore easily, and you hate things that are too theoretical and abstract for your taste.

We're off to a devil of a beginning here for a long trip together, but you did ask me.”

”Right.” Green sniffed. ”I have trouble with that evaluation-it all rings much too true. Now, let me tell you what you're like. You're as smart as Satan, butyou're a bit of a cold fish, and that sometimes throws off your judgment when it comes to people. In fact, you prefer ideas to people. You really love puzzles. You're stubborn, too. Once you get started on something, there's no way of shaking you off it. You're obsessive-but not about the usual human frailties. I'll hazard a guess, but I suspect that you've never formed a permanent link of any kind with either man or woman.”

Bey had winced at the accuracy of some of the comments, but he was smiling at the end.

”Park, I didn't realize that you knew me so well-better in some ways than I know myself. So what's the punch line? I presume that you are not proposing that we spend the next few weeks exchanging character a.s.sessments. If so, I'm not impressed with your USF ideas on the way to pa.s.s the time on a long trip.”

Green stood up carefully, looking with annoyance at the low ceiling. ”Not at all. Here, Bey, follow me.” He started forward, stooped over. ”This s.h.i.+p wasn't built for somebody my size. You should have no trouble, but watch your head anyway. I want to show you a few features of this s.h.i.+p that you weren't aware of on your first inspection. We just exchanged character comments, Bey, and we weren't complimentary. But we're still behaving in a civilized way toward each other-even though I'm sure neither one of us greatly enjoys having some of our defects pointed out, even though we know them well enough for ourselves.

”Let me a.s.sure you, though, what would happen if you and I were to be cooped up together for six months or a year with no outside contacts and no one else to speak to without a half-hour light-time delay. You may not believe me, but the USF has a couple of hundred years experience on this one. Things would change. Little things about me that you don't like would seem to get bigger and bigger. After three months I'd strike you as impossibly soft and stupid, incredibly big and clumsy, unendurably lazy. And in my eyes you'd be a cold monster, an untrustworthy, calculating madman. Do you find that hard to swallow?”

”Not really.” Wolf followed Green through into the separate sleeping quarters, quite large but full of odd pieces of equipment. ”I've read about the effects of prolonged small-group contacts, particularly where the people are short of real work to do. Are you telling me that the USF has developed a solution to that?”