The cigarette lay smouldering on the deck.
Douglas scowled at the cigarette.
Nibley made wheezy laughter. He minced to his shock-hammock, zipped
into it. "Not bad, not bad, eh?"
The ship rumbled.
Angrily, Douglas snatched up the cigarette, carried it to his own
hammock, rolled in, zipped the zipper, then, deliberately, he flicked
the cigarette once more. It flew.
"Another miss," predicted Nibley.
Douglas was still glaring at the floored cigarette when the Rocket
burst gravity and shot up into space toward the asteroids.
* * * * *
Mars dwindled into the sun. Asteroids swept silently down the
star-tracks, all metal, all invisible, shifting and shifting to harry
the Rocket--
Nibley sprawled by the great thick visiport feeling the computators
giving him competition under the floor in the level below, predicting
meteors and correcting the Terra's course accordingly.
Douglas stood behind Nibley, stiff and quiet. Since he was
computant-mechanic, Nibley was his charge. He was to protect Nibley
from harm. Kroll had said so. Douglas didn't like it at all.
Nibley was feeling fine. It was like the old days. It was good. He
laughed. He waved at nothing outside the port. "Hi, there!" he called.
"Meteor," he explained in an aside to Douglas. "You see it?"
"Lives at stake and you sit there playing."
"Nope. Not playin'. Just warmin' up. I can see 'em beatin' like hell
all up and down the line, son. God's truth."
"Kroll's a damned fool," said Douglas. "Sure, you had a few lucky
breaks in the old days before they built a good computator. A few lucky
breaks and you lived off them. Your day's done."
"I'm _still_ good."
"How about the time you swilled a quart of rot-gut and almost killed a
cargo of civilian tourists? I heard about that. All I have to say is
one word and your ears'd twitch. Whiskey."
At the word, saliva ran alarmingly in Nibley's mouth. He swallowed
guiltily. Douglas, snorting, turned and started from the room. Nibley
grabbed a monkey-wrench on impulse, heaved it. The wrench hit the wall
and fell down. Nibley wheezed, "Wrench got an orbit like everything.
Fair bit of computation I did. One point over and I'd have flanked that
crumb!"
There was silence now, as he hobbled back and sat wearily to stare
into the stars. He felt all of the ship's men around him. Vague warm
electrical stirrings of fear, hope, dismay, exhaustion. All their
orbits coming into a parallel trajectory now. All living in the same
path with him. And the asteroids smashed down with an increasing
swiftness. In a very few hours the main body of missiles would be
encountered.
Now, as he stared into space he felt a dark orbit coming into
conjunction with his own. It was an unpleasant orbit. One that touched
him with fear. It drew closer. It was dark. It was very close now.
A moment later a tall man in a black uniform climbed the rungs from
below and stood looking at Nibley.
"I'm Bruno," he said. He was a nervous fellow, and kept looking around,
looking around, at the walls, the deck, at Nibley. "I'm food specialist
on board. How come you're up here? Come down to mess later. Join me in
a game of Martian chess."
Nibley said, "I'd beat the hell out of you. Wouldn't pay. It's against
orders for me to be down below, anyways."
"How come?"
"Never you never mind. Got things to do up here. I _notice_ things.
I'm chartin' a special course in a special way. Even Captain Kroll
don't know _every_ reason why I'm makin' this trip. Got my own personal
reasons. I see 'em comin' and goin', and I got their orbits picked neat
and dandy. Meteors, planets _and_ men. Why, let me tell you--"
Bruno tensed somewhat forward. His face was a little too interested.
Nibley didn't like the feel of the man. He was off-trajectory.
He--smelled--funny. He _felt_ funny.
Nibley shut up. "Nice day," he said.
"Go ahead," said Bruno. "You were saying?"
Douglas stepped up the rungs. Bruno cut it short, saluted Douglas, and
left.
Douglas watched him go, coldly. "What'd Bruno want?" he asked of the
old man. "Captain's orders, you're to see _nobody_."
Nibley's wrinkles made a smile. "Watch that guy Bruno. I got his orbit
fixed all round and arced. I see him goin' now, and I see him reachin'
aphelion and I see him comin' back."
Douglas pulled his lip. "You think Bruno might be working for the
Martian industrial _clique_? If I thought he had anything to do with
stopping us from getting to the Jovian colony--"
"He'll be back," said Nibley. "Just before we reach the _heavy_
Asteroid Belt. Wait and see."
The ship swerved. The computators had just dodged a meteor. Douglas
smiled. That griped Nibley. The machines were stealing his feathers.
Nibley paused and closed his eyes.
"Here come two more meteors! I beat the machine this time!"
They waited. The ship swerved, twice.
"Damn it," said Douglas.
* * * * *
Two hours passed. "It got lonely upstairs," said Nibley apologetically.
Captain Kroll glanced nervously up from the mess-table where he and
twelve other men sat. Williams, Simpson, Haines, Bruno, McClure,
Leiber, and the rest. All were eating, but not hungry. They all looked
a little sick. The ship was swerving again and again, steadily,
steadily, back and forth. In a short interval the Heavy Belt would be
touched. Then there would be real sickness.
"Okay," said Kroll to Nibley. "You can eat with us, this once. And only
this once, remember that."
Nibley ate like a starved weasel. Bruno looked over at him again and
again and finally asked, "How about that chess game?"
"Nope. I always win. Don't want to brag but I was the best outfielder
playing baseball when I was at school. Never struck out at bat,
neither. Damn good."