Short Fiction - Poul Anderson (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

quarters and dialed Valeria McKittrick. She looked impatiently at him out of the screen. “Well,” she said, “what’s the matter? I thought we were blasting today.”

“Hadn’t you heard?” asked Bo. He found it hard to believe she could be ignorant, here where everybody’s life was known to everybody else. “Johnny’s dead. We can’t leave.”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… I’m sorry. He was such a nice little man⁠—I’ve been in the lab all the time, packing my things, and didn’t know.” A frown crossed her clear brow. “But you’ve got to get me back. I’ve engaged passage to Luna with you.”

“Your ticket will be refunded, of course,” said Bo heavily. “But you aren’t certified, and the Sirius is licensed for no less than two operators.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… damn! There won’t be another berth for weeks, and I’ve got to get home. Can’t you find somebody?”

Bo shrugged, not caring much. “I’ll circulate an ad if you want, but⁠—”

“Do so, please. Let me know.” She switched off.

Bo sat for a moment thinking about her. Valeria McKittrick was worth considering. She wasn’t beautiful in any conventional sense but she was tall and well built; there were good lines in the strong high boned face, and her hair was a cataract of spectacular red. And brains, too⁠ ⁠… you didn’t get to be a physicist with the Union’s radiation labs for nothing. He knew she was still young, and that she had been on Achilles for about a year working on some special project and was now ready to go home.

She was human enough, had been to most of the officers’ parties and danced and laughed and flirted mildly, but even the dullest rockhound gossip knew she was too lost in her work to do more. Out here a woman was rare, and a virtuous woman unheard-of; as a result, unknown to herself, Dr. McKittrick’s fame had spread through more thousands of people and millions of miles than her professional achievements were ever likely to reach.

Since coming here, on commission from the Lunar lab, to bring her home, Bo Jonsson had given her an occasional wistful thought. He liked intelligent women, and he was getting tired of rootlessness. But of course it would be a catastrophe if he fell in love with her because she wouldn’t look twice at a big dumb slob like him. He had sweated out a couple of similar affairs in the past and didn’t want to go through another.

He placed his ad on the radinews circuit and then went out to get drunk. It was all he could do for Johnny now, drink him a final wassail. Already his friend was cold under the stars. In the course of the evening he found himself weeping.

He woke up many hours later. Achilles ran on Earth time but did not rotate on it; officially, it was late at night, actually the shrunken sun was high over the domes. The man in the upper bunk said there was a message for him; he was to call one Einar Lundgard at the Comet Hotel soonest.

The Comet! Anyone who could afford a room to himself here, rather than a kip in the public barracks, was well fueled. Bo swallowed a tablet and made his way to the visi and dialed. The robo-clerk summoned Lundgard down to the desk.

It was a lean, muscular face under close cropped brown hair which appeared in the screen. Lundgard was a tall and supple man, somehow neat even without clothes. “Jonsson,” said Bo. “Sorry to get you up, but I understood⁠—”

“Oh, yes. Are you looking for a spaceman? I heard your ad and I’m available.”

Bo felt his mouth gape open. “Huh? I never thought⁠—”

“We’re both lucky, I guess.” Lundgard chuckled. His English had only the slightest trace of accent, less than Bo’s. “I thought I was stashed here too for the next several months.”

“How does a qualified spaceman happen to be marooned?”

“I’m with Fireball, was on the Drake⁠—heard of what happened to her?”

Bo nodded, for every spaceman knows exactly what every spaceship is doing at any given time. The Drake had come to Achilles to pick up a cargo of refined thorium for Earth; while she lay in orbit, she had somehow lost a few hundred pounds of reaction-mass water from a cracked gasket. Why the accident should have occurred, nobody knew⁠ ⁠… spacemen were not careless about inspections, and what reason would anyone have for sabotage? The event had taken place about a month ago, when the Sirius was already enroute here; Bo had heard of it in the course of shop talk.

“I thought she went back anyway,” he said.

Lundgard nodded. “She did. It was the usual question of economics. You know what refined fuel water costs in the Belt; also, the delay while we got it would have carried Earth and Achilles past optimum position, which’d make the trip home that much more expensive. Since we had one more man aboard than really required, it was cheaper to leave him behind; the difference in mass would make up for the fuel loss. I volunteered, even suggested the idea, because⁠ ⁠… well, it happened during my watch, and even if nobody blamed me I couldn’t help feeling guilty.”

Bo understood that kind of loyalty. You couldn’t travel space without men who had it.

“The Company beamed a message: I’d stay here till their schedule permitted an undermanned ship to come by, but that wouldn’t be for maybe months,” went on Lundgard. “I can’t see sitting on this lump that long without so much as a chance at planetfall bonus. If you’ll take me on, I’m sure the Company will agree; I’ll get a message to them on the beam right away.”

“Take us a while to get back,” warned Bo. “We’re going to stop off at another asteroid to pick up some automatic equipment, and won’t go into hyperbolic orbit till after that. About six weeks from here to Earth, all told.”

“Against six months here?” Lundgard laughed; it emphasized the bright charm of his manner. “Sunblaze. I’ll work