Lit turned his thoughts away from the coming storm. "Assign somebody to watch her and broadcast her course. Then write up a healthy bill for the service and send it to Titan Enterprises, Earth. If it isn't paid in two weeks we send a copy to the UN and demand action."
"Figures. 'Bye, Lit."
Conceived in free fall, gestated in free-fall for almost three months, the child was growing too fast. The question could smash a marriage: Let the 'doc abort now? Or wait, slow the child's growth with the appropriate hormone injections, and hope that it wouldn't be born a monster?
But there was no such hope.
Lit felt like he was drowning. With a terrible effort he kept his voice gentle. "There'll be other children, Marda."
"But will there? It's so risky, hoping I can get to Confinement before it's too late. Oh, Lit, let's wait until we're sure."
She'd waited three months between 'doc checks! But Lit couldn't say so now, or ever. Instead he said, "Marda, the autodoc is sure, and Dr. Siropopolous is sure. I'll tell you what I've been thinking, We could take a house right here in Confinement until you're pregnant again. It's been done before. Granted it's expensive-" The phone rang.
"Yes?" he barked. "Cutter, what's wrong now-"
"Two things. Brace yourself."
"Go ahead."
"One. The honeymooner is not going to Titan. It seems to be headed in the direction of Neptune."
"But- Better give me the rest of it."
"A military ship just took off from Topeka Base. It's chasing the honeymooner, and they didn't call us this time either!"
"That's more than peculiar. How long is the honeymooner on its way?"
"An hour and a half. No turnover yet, but of course it could be headed for any number of asteroids."
"Oh, that's just great." Lit closed his eyes for a moment. "It almost sounds like something's wrong with the honeymooner, and the other ship's trying a rescue mission. Could something have blown in the lifesupport system?"
"I'd guess not, not in the Golden Circle. Honeymooners have fail-safe on their fail-safe. But you'd better hear the punch line."
"Fire."
"The military ship took off from the field on its fusion drive."
"Then-" There was only one conceivable answer. Lit began to laugh. "Somebody stole it!"
Cutter smiled thinly. "Exactly. Once again, shall we turn either of them back?"
"Certainly not. For one thing, if we threaten to shoot we may have to do it. For another, Earth is very touchy about what rights they have in space. For a third, this is their problem, and their ships. For a fourth, I want to see what happens. Don't you get it yet, Cutter?"
"My guess is that both ships have been stolen." Cutter was still smiling.
"No, no. Too improbable. The military ship was stolen, but the honeymooner must have been sabotaged. We're about to witness the first case of space piracy!"
"O-o-oh. Fifteen couples, and all their jewels, plus, uh,
ransom you know, I believe you're right!" And Lit Shaeffer was the first man in years to hear Cutter laugh in public.
In the dead of August the Kansas countryside was a steam bath with sunlamps. Under the city's temperature umbrella it was a cool, somewhat breezy autumn, but the air hit Luke Gamer like the breath of Hell as his chair shot through the intangible barrier between Cool and Hot. From there he traveled at top speed, not much caring if his chair broke down as long as he could get into an air conditioned hospital.
He stopped at the spaceport checkpoint, was cleared immediately, and crossed the concrete like a ram on a catapult. The hospital stood like a wedge of Swiss cheese at the edge of the vast landing field, its sharp corner pointed inward. He got inside before heat stroke could claim him.
The line before the elevator was discouragingly long. His chair was rather bulky; he would need an elevator almost to himself. And people were no longer over-polite to their elders. There were too many elders around these days. Gamer inhaled deeply of cool air, then went back out.
Outside the doors he fumbled in the ashtray on the left arm of his chair. The motor's purr rose to a howl, and suddenly it wasn't a ground-effect motor any more.
If Masney could see him now! Six years ago Masney had profanely ordered him to get rid of the illegal power booster or be run in for using a manually operated flying vehicle. Anything for a friend, Luke had reasoned, and bad hidden the control in the ashtray.
The ground dwindled. The edge of the building shot downward past him: sixty stories of it. Now he could see the scars left by Greenberg and Masney. The wavering fusion flame had splashed molten concrete in all directions, had left large craters and intricate earthworm-track runnels, had crossed the entrance to a passenger tunnel and left molten metal pouring down the stairs. Men and machines were at work cleaning up the mess.
The sun deck was below him. Luke brought the travel chair down on the roof and scooted past startled sunbathing patients and into the elevator.
Going down it was dead empty. He got out on the fifty-second floor and showed his credentials to a nurse.
They were all in one ward. Miday, Sandier, Buzin, Katz- there were twenty-eight of them, the men who had been closest to Kzanol when he threw his tantrum. Seven were buried in plastic cocoons. The alien had forgotten to order them to cover, and they had been in the way of the blast when the Golden Circle took off. The others were under sleep-inducers. Their faces twisted sometimes with the violence of their dreams.
"I'm Jim Skarwold," said a blond, chubby man in an intern's uniform. "I've heard of you, Mr. Garner. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"There better be." Garner sent his glance down the line of treatment tanks. "Can any of these men stand a dose of scopolamine? They may have information I need."
"Scop? I don't think so. Mr. Garner, what happened to them? I took some psychiatry in college, but I never heard of anything like this. It isn't- withdrawal from reality, it isn't straight or crooked fear… They're in despair, but not like other people.
"I was told they got this way from contact with an ET. If you could tell me more about it, I'd have a better chance of treating them."
"Right. Here's what I know," said Garner. He told the doctor everything that had happened since the statue was retrieved from the ocean. The doctor listened in silence.
"Then it isn't just a telepath," he said when Garner finished. "It can control minds. But what could, it have ordered them to do that would produce this?" He gestured at the row of sleeping patients.
"Nothing. I don't think he was giving orders at the time. He just got a helluva shock and started feeling out loud." Luke dropped a huge hand on the doctor's shoulder, and Skarwold twitched his surprise at the weight. "Now, if I were planning to treat them, I'd find out first who they think they are. Themselves? Or the alien? The ET may have superimposed his own emotional pattern on theirs, or even his memory pattern.
"Being me, and an Arm, I want to know why both Greenberg and the ET separately stole spaceships and went rocketing off. They must know they've got interplanetary ships, not interstellar colony craft. Is there an alien base somewhere in the solar system? What are they after?
"Perhaps we can scratch both problems at the same time, Dr. Skarwold."
"Yes," said Skarwold slowly. "Perhaps you're right. Give me an hour to find the man with the strongest heart."
That was why Luke always carried paperbacks in the glove compartment of his chair. His career involved a lot of waiting.
Arthur T. Katz, qualified ramjet-rocket booster pilot (types C, D, and H-1), thrashed violently. His arms flailed without purpose. He began to make noises.
"It'll be a few minutes," said Skarwold. "He's out of the sleep-inducer, but he has to wake up naturally."
Garner nodded. He was studying the man intently, with his eyes narrowed and his lips tightened slightly. He might have been watching a strange dog, wondering whether it wanted to lick his face or tear his throat out.