Planet of Dread Page 7
someplausible planet. You can get such a clearance. Then you can return withbessendium coming out of the _Nadine's_ waste-pipes and people will besurprised but not suspicious. You'll file for mineral rights, and cashyour cargo. Everybody will get busy trying to grab off the mineralrights for themselves. You can clear out and let them try to find thebessendium lode. You'll be allowed to go, all right, and you can settledown somewhere rich and highly respected."
"Hmmm," said Burleigh. Then he said uncomfortably; "One wonders aboutthe original owners of the stuff."
"After a hundred and fifty years," said Moran, "who'd you divide with?The insurance company that paid for the lost ship? The heirs of thecrew? How'd you find them?" Then he added amusedly, "Only revolutionistsand enemies of governments would be honest enough to worry about that!"
Brawn came into the control-room. He said broodingly that breakfast wasready. Moran had never heard him speak in a normally cheerful voice.When he went out, Moran said;
"I don't suppose he'll be so gloomy when he's rich!"
"His family was wiped out," said Burleigh curtly, "by the government wewere fighting. The girl he was going to marry, too."
"Then I take back what I said," said Moran ruefully.
* * * * *
They went down to breakfast. Carol served it. She did not look well. Hereyes seemed to show that she'd been crying. But she treated Moranexactly like anyone else. Harper was very quiet, too. He took veryseriously the fact that Moran had saved his life at the risk of his onthe day before. Brawn breakfasted in a subdued, moody fashion. OnlyHallet seemed to have reacted to the discovery of a salvageable shipmentof bessendium that should make everybody rich,--everybody but Moran, whowas ultimately responsible for the find.
"Burleigh," said Hallet expansively, "says the stuff you brought backfrom the wreck is worth fifty thousand credits, at least. What's thewhole shipment worth?"
"I've no idea," said Moran. "It would certainly pay for a fleet ofspace-liners, and I'd give all of it for a ticket on one of them."
"But how much is there in bulk?" insisted Hallet.
"I saw that half a dozen boxes had been broken open and emptied for thelifeboat voyagers," Moran told him. "I didn't count the balance, butthere were several times as many untouched. If they're all full of thesame stuff, you can guess almost any sum you please."
"Millions, eh?" said Hallet. His eyes glistened. "Billions? Plenty foreverybody?"
"There's never plenty for more than one," said Moran mildly. "That's theway we seem to be made."
Burleigh said suddenly;
"I'm worried about getting the stuff aboard. We can't afford to loseanybody, and if we have to fight the creatures here and every time wekill one its carcass draws others."
Moran took a piece of bread. He said;
"I've been thinking about survival-tactics for myself as a castaway. Ithink a torch is the answer. In any emergency on the yeast surface, Ican burn a hole and drop down in it. The monsters are stupid. In mostcases they'll go away because they stop seeing me. In the others,they'll come to the hole and I'll burn them. It won't be pleasant, butit may be practical."
Burleigh considered it.
"It may be," he admitted. "It may be."
Hallet said;
"I want to see that work before I trust the idea."
"Somebody has to try it," agreed Moran. "Anyhow my life's going todepend on it."
Carol left the room. Moran looked after her as the door closed.
"She doesn't like the idea of our leaving you behind," said Burleigh."None of us do."
"I'm touched."
"We'll try to get a ship to come for you, quickly," said Burleigh.
"I'm sure you will," said Moran politely.
* * * * *
But he was not confident. The laws governing space-travel were verystrict indeed, and enforced with all the rigor possible. On theirenforcement, indeed, depended the law and order of the planets.Criminals had to know that they could not escape to space whenevermatters got too hot for them aground. For a spaceman to trifle withinterstellar-traffic laws meant at the least that they were grounded forlife. But the probabilities were much worse than that. It was mostlikely that Burleigh or any of the others would be reported tospace-port police instantly they attempted to charter a ship for anykind of illegal activity. Moran made a mental note to warn Burleighabout it.
By now, though, he was aware of a very deep irritation at the idea ofbeing killed, whether by monsters on this planet or men sent to pick himup for due process of law. When he made the grand gesture of seizing the_Nadine_, he'd known nothing about the people on board, and he hadn'treally expected to succeed. His real hope was to be killed withoutpreliminary scientific questioning. Modern techniques of interrogationwere not torture, but they stripped away all concealments of motive andto a great degree revealed anybody who'd helped one. Moran had killed aman in a fair fight the other man did not want to engage in. If he werecaught on Coryus or returned to it, his motivation could be read fromhis mind. And if that was done the killing--and the sacrifice of his ownfuture and life--would have been useless. But he'd been prepared to bekilled. Even now he'd prefer to die here on Tethys than in the strictlypainless manner of executions on Coryus. But he was now deeply resistantto the idea of dying at all. There was Carol....
He thrust such thoughts aside.
* * * * *
Morning was well begun when they prepared to transfer the wreck'streasure to the _Nadine_. Moran went first. At fifteen-foot intervals heburned holes in the curd-like, elastic ground-cover. Some of the holeswent down only four feet to the stone beneath it. Some went down six.But a man who jumped down one of them would be safe against attackexcept from directly overhead, which was an unlikely direction forattack by an insect. Carol had seen a wasp fly past the day before. Shesaid it was as big as a cow. A sting from such a monster would instantlybe fatal. But no wasp would have the intelligence to use its sting onsomething it had not seized. A man should be safe in such a fox-hole. Ifa creature did try to investigate the opening, a torch could come intoplay. It was the most practical possible way for a man to defend himselfon this world.
Moran made more than a dozen such holes of refuge in the line betweenthe _Nadine_ and the wreck. Carol watched with passionate solicitudefrom a control-room port as he progressed. He entered the wreck throughthe lock-doors he'd uncovered. Harper followed doggedly, not less thantwo fox-holes behind. Carol's voice reassured them, the while, thatwithin the half-mile circle of visibility no monster walked or flew.
Inside the wreck, Moran placed emergency-lanterns to light the darkinterior. He placed them along the particularly inconvenient passagewaysof a ship lying on its side instead of standing upright. He was at workbreaking open a box of bessendium when Harper joined him. Harper saidheavily;
"I've brought a bag. It was a pillow. Carol took the foam out."
"We'll fill it," said Moran. "Not too full. The stuff's heavy."
Harper watched while Moran poured purple crystals into it from hiscupped hands.
"There you are," said Moran. "Take it away."
"Look!" said Harper. "I owe you plenty--."
"Then pay me," said Moran, exasperatedly, "by shutting up! By makingBurleigh damned careful about who he tries to hire to come after me! Andby getting this cargo-shifting business in operation! The _Nadine's_almost due on Loris. You don't want to have the space-port police getsuspicions. Get moving!"
* * * * *
Harper clambered over the side of doorways. He disappeared. Moran wasalone in the ship. He explored. He found that the crew that hadabandoned the _Malabar_ had been guilty of a singular oversight for acrew abandoning ship. But, of course, they'd been distracted not only bytheir predicament but by the decision to carry part of the ship'sprecious cargo with them, so they could make it a profitable enterpriseto rescue them. They hadn't taken the trouble to follow all the
ruleslaid down for a crew taking to the boats.
Moran made good their omission. He was back in the cargo-hold when Brawnarrived. Burleigh came next. Then Harper again. Hallet came last of thefour men of the yacht. They did not make a continuous chain of menmoving back and forth between the two ships. Three men came, and loadedup, and went back. Then three men came again, one by one. There couldnever be a moment when a single refuge-hole in the soil could be neededby two men at the same time.
Within the first hour of work at transferring treasure, the bolt-holescame into use. Carol called