* * * * *
One of the coveralled figures approached them, a thick-thewed man whose
muscular strength couldn't be hidden by the baggy clothing. Not as tall
as Steve or the woman, he was broad of shoulder and thick through the
chest. He had a dark face and deep-set black eyes, and a thin scar ran
the length of his right cheek, from eye to chin. "Yes, Captain?"
"Stedman here is new. He questions my authority. I wondered if you'd
like to work him over some--"
"A pleasure," growled the stocky, gnarled Frenchman, and swung his
right fist up in a quick, blurring motion.
Steve didn't have time to parry it. The blow caught him flush on the
mouth and jarred his teeth, sent him crashing back against the wall
where he slid down slowly until he was sitting on the floor. Groggily,
he got to his feet, wiping his bloody lips with the fingers of one
hand. LeClarc, chuckling, hit him once more before he could quite pull
himself together. The right hand slammed against his stomach this time,
driving the wind from his lungs.
He started to fall, but he clawed at LeClarc's middle as he went down,
and held on. Still chuckling, LeClarc cuffed him about the ears almost
playfully, but the open-palmed blows stung him and sent wild rage
coursing through his blood. Clearly, that was the idea. LeClarc was
enjoying himself--but LeClarc wanted him to fight back.
Steve got a hand up in front of his body, palm up, and drove it against
the Frenchman's chin. He felt the neck snap back sharply, heard the
sudden click as LeClarc's teeth met with savage force. Bellowing,
the Frenchman came at him again, fighting southpaw and bringing a
roundhouse left from back behind his body.
But Steve's wind had returned and now he sobbed air in great gulps. He
ducked the wild swing and found the Frenchman wide-open, pounded lefts
and rights to the man's midsection. LeClarc, stunned now, brought his
guard down. Steve was in no hurry. He chased the dazed LeClarc around
an ever-widening circle, was dimly aware that the other technicians had
stopped their work to watch. He jabbed with his left hand, covering
the olive face with purple welts. He held the right cocked but did
not throw it. Soon, though, he could hear the other technicians--who
probably liked a good brawl--muttering. The idea, as they saw it,
wasn't to cut LeClarc up completely but instead, to win swiftly.
Shrugging, Steve realized that the anger he felt for the woman had
blinded him, and after that, he unleashed his right hand, felt the
searing contact with LeClarc's jaw, saw a couple of teeth clatter off
the wall as the Frenchman's mouth flew open. Sagging first at the
knees, then the waist, LeClarc fell to the floor and huddled there
inertly.
Steve turned to the woman, spoke out of fast-swelling lips. "You're the
Captain and I only work here, Teejay," he made the initials sound like
a name. "So I'll take your orders--provided they make sense. That one
about the cap didn't. If you want it picked up, you'd better stoop for
it yourself."
Not looking back, he climbed the stairs toward the second level, wiping
his bloody lips with a handkerchief.
* * * * *
It was Kevin McGann who showed him around the _Gordak_ after
_Brennschluss_. Newton's second law of motion carried the ship forward
through the near-vacuum of space now, and it would continue that way,
plowing ahead at seven miles per second until it was caught and slowed
by the space-station's gravity. There the bunkers would be reloaded
with slow-fission plutonium for the long dash sunward to Mercury.
" ... and through there you'll find the fission-room," Kevin was
saying. "That's about the size of it, boy. But I warn you to keep away
from the fission-room as long as that red light is blinking. Everything
inside gets pretty hot, and there's enough radiation to kill an army
unless the shields are up. Even then, I'd recommend a vac-suit."
"I'll remember that," Steve said, lighting a cigarette.
"Word gets around a ship like the _Gordak_ pretty fast. I didn't see
your fight with LeClarc, but I sure heard enough about it. There's only
one man aboard ship who can beat the Frenchman in a fair fight, and--"
"You?" Steve wanted to know. But it was hardly a question. It looked to
him like Kevin could take on two LeClarcs with no trouble at all.
"Yes, boy. Me. But now there are two of us, and you've made yourself an
enemy. LeClarc doesn't forget easy, so you'd better be on your guard."
"I'll remember that, too," said Steve, laughing. "But it looks like you
keep warning me about something all the time, Kevin. Why?"
"You're Charlie Stedman's kid brother, aren't you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, but how did--"
"How did I know, boy? It's written all over your face, and Charlie may
have been with _Barling Interplanetary_, but a lot of us knew him.
Charlie was the best, boy."
"Thanks. Kevin, how did Charlie die?"
The giant shrugged eloquently. "I don't know. It was T. J. who found
him out on Ganymede. She was out tracking an anthrovac, and you don't
track anthrovacs in crowds. Well, it seems Charlie had landed for
Barling, and Charlie had the same idea."
"He never told me Teejay was a woman, but he said once she must have
been reared in hell."
Again, Kevin shrugged. "It's open to question, boy. I don't like T. J.,
but I like working for her. You take a man like LeClarc, he'll die for
T. J. All she'd have to do is ask him, and he'd die. You see, boy, big
game hunters don't come any smarter. Trouble is, T. J. knows it and
flaunts it. Also, she's a woman but she's strong as a man and knows
that, too. She dares you to fight her every step of the way, and it
takes a big man to--"
"I thought you said Charlie was the best!"
"And I still do. But a man's got to have some flaws. Maybe he couldn't
take T. J. and had to let her know. The same thing happened to you,
after only five minutes. The gals have won their spurs in every field
which was strictly masculine a hundred years ago. Men tend to resent
that, especially when a talented woman like T. J. let's them know it,
and no bones about it. So, that's T. J."
"Yeah," said Steve, frowning. "That's Teejay."
"What's the trouble, boy?"
"I've got to find out what happened to Charlie, that's all. But
Teejay's going to be a problem."
"The grandmother of all problems, you mean. With all of that, though,
she can still be all female when she wants to be. Maybe Charlie fell
for her--"
"Charlie falling for that cheap, no good--"
"Careful, boy. She's my Captain, and a good one. I wouldn't ship out on
the _Gordak_ if I didn't think so. Careful." Then Kevin smiled. "You'll
learn, in time. Anyway, Charlie was a good-looker and attractive to the
girls, he was romantic--so maybe T. J. fell for him, too. Then they had
a parting of the ways and--"
"Sure!" Steve exploded. "Sure, they fell in love or something only
Charlie forgot to mention in any of his letters she was a woman. You're
barking up the wrong tree, Kevin."
"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm only talking off the top of my head, boy. But
it's worth considering." Kevin jabbed a thick finger against his
calloused palm. "What I'm getting at is this, whether they made love or
not, I don't think T. J. would kill anyone out of cold blood."
"I'll think about it," said Steve, and then a whistle shrilled through
the length of the ship. They were nearing the space-station, half as
far from Earth as Luna, and deceleration came upon them gradually
and would continue to increase until they all had to bed down in the
accel-hammocks for landing.
Unexpectedly, Teejay herself was checking in the members of the
expedition as their two-hour stop over at the station drew to an end.
As he approached her along the gangplank, Steve looked down and saw the
station-men wheeling the small but tremendously heavy plutonium bunkers
under the ship, each compact unit weighing a couple of tons with its
concrete shielding.
"Well, Stedman," said the woman, the broad black sand-cape wrapped
around her completely now, as if only the members of her crew had the
right to see what lay beneath it, "I see you've never watched a ship
getting ready for blast off."
"That's right," Steve admitted. "First trip out."
"You want some pretty sound advice? I'd suggest you stay here at the
station and wait for the first Earthbound ship."
"Thanks," said Steve. "But Mr. Carmical hired me at least as far as
Mercury, so that's where I'm going."
Teejay grinned. "You're a plucky kid, Stedman. All right, Mercury it
is--but LeClarc can do the honors when it's time to see you off the
_Gordak_ for good. He doesn't exactly like you, Stedman."
"I've been told that."
"All right, move along. There's a whole line of men I've got to check
in behind you."
A plucky kid, Steve thought, and laughed. She'd called him that,
although he knew she'd probably have a hard time matching his
twenty-five years. Well, she'd spent her life in space and on the
frontier worlds. Maybe that did make a difference.
Five minutes later, they blasted clear of the space-station on an orbit
that would intersect the Mercurian ellipse at perihelion. From there,
the _Gordak_ would visit Venus, Mars, the planetoid Ceres, the four
large Jovian moons, Titan and Uranus. Ten worlds in all the hunters
would touch on--and each world would offer up its native fauna for the
_Brody Carmical Circus_. Steve wondered if there'd be trouble with
_Barling Brothers Interplanetary_. There generally was. But then he
smiled without mirth, for the chances were he'd never get beyond the
first landing on Mercury, anyway.
* * * * *
There were fifty men in the _Gordak_'s crew and another thirty-odd in
the expedition, and a space ship being the complicated, labyrinthine
device that it is, it wasn't too strange that Steve failed to
encounter LeClarc until immediately before landing on Mercury. Then
the _Gordak_'s deceleration tubes had cut in and Steve found the most
readily available accel-hammock in the general lounge. The Frenchman
was stretched out on the cushions three feet from him.