"A guess. You're Wendy Hilliard, aren't you?"
"Y-yes."
"He used to write me about you," Jansen said bitterly. "Girl Friday
or something. But when he started to go down you took off like the
well-known rats. Didn't you, Wendy?"
Her hand struck his cheek stingingly. "Now clear out," she said, her
voice catching on a sob.
He laughed harshly. "Well, what did you expect? It's why you had my
things searched on the ship, isn't it? It's why you had that big guy
follow me."
Wendy Hilliard's face was white. "I didn't have your things searched on
the ship," she said.
He looked at her searchingly: she meant that, he knew.
"Oh, don't you see?" she said, clutching his arm. "Don't you see? It
was Bareen, Mr. Jansen. I know you're here and Bareen knows it. It was
Bareen who had your brother killed and--"
"Why?" Jansen asked.
"Because he knew too much. Because Bareen is going to become the
richest man in the solar system and--and Ted got an inkling of what was
happening."
"You seem to know," Jansen said dryly. "But you're still here. So what
happened to Ted?"
"Look, Mr. Jansen. Let me give you about a five minute course in
Mercurian economics. Here at Sun-side station, we produce food for
Earth's teeming billions. Since directly or indirectly, all food is
stored solar energy and since we're much closer to the sun here,
food-energy is produced abundantly and not expensively."
"I know all that," Jansen said irritably.
"Let me finish. You'll see why. What we grow in the sun-side bogs is
chlorella, millions of tons of chlorella, which is converted into
synth-steak and other pseudo-meats on Earth. Now, there are two keys to
the production. The first, of course, is water. Chlorella must grow in
bogs, which means artificial irrigation. The second is the sub-space
tunnel. You know about that, Jansen. Call it a hole in space which
shortcuts the distance between Mercury and Earth. The chlorella is
shipped Earthward through this sub-space tunnel, not only instantly,
but cheaply.
"Bareen works the tunnel, Mr. Jansen. Bareen's men control the
irrigation station. Bareen is now in a position to demand any price
he wishes from Earth for the chlorella. If Earth doesn't agree, Earth
starves. That's why your brother was killed. He learned about this
before Bareen was ready to strike. He's almost ready now, Mr. Jansen."
"Where do you fit in? If Ted was killed--"
Wendy's face colored. "I wanted to go on living, Mr. Jansen. I didn't
want to die. I can't be an idealist if my own life--"
"What did you do?" His hand gripped her wrist. "Did you turn Ted over
to Bareen?"
She struck his face a second time. "I loved your brother. I wouldn't
have done a thing like that."
"Then what?"
"I told you what you wanted to know. I don't have to tell you more. Now
get out of here." She followed him to the door. "But you have to leave
Mercury at once, you see," she said. "Bareen can't afford to let you
live. Bareen will have you killed."
"The way they tell it on Earth, Bareen's a loner. If he goes, the whole
outfit folds and will play ball with Earth the way it ought to. Is that
the way you see it?"
"Yes, but--"
"You thought I was here for revenge? I am, baby. Don't get any wrong
ideas. But I've also got a job to do. Earth needs that chlorella." He
opened the door.
"Jansen--"
"Well?"
"Nothing. Just be careful."
He laughed harshly and walked out into the darkness.
* * * * *
The man's name was Dinnison. He had the bunk next to Jansen's in the
barracks and he, like Jansen, was a newcomer. He'd shipped to Mercury
from the Venusian dust-desert in search of greener pastures. Jansen
felt sorry for him, then ruthlessly beat down the feeling. He had no
time for pity.
While it was still dark he followed Dinnison outside the barracks and
thrust a mugging arm around his neck. Dinnison struggled, his arms
flailing, his legs drumming. Once he almost broke loose, but Jansen
held him until he had lost consciousness. _A day_, Jansen thought.
_Bareen knows I'm here, so all I can expect is a day now._
He dragged Dinnison into a storage shed. The slight effort left him
drenched with sweat, despite the insulsuit. He found rope and bound
Dinnison, then took tape from his pocket and gagged him.
Ten minutes later he returned to the barracks with Dinnison's
identification papers. _Andrew Dinnison_, he thought. _I'm Dinnison
now._ Bareen's men would be looking for Frank Jansen, he knew. But
unless Wendy Hilliard told them, they wouldn't know what Jansen looked
like.
_I'm Dinnison...._
He slept poorly. He dreamed but in the morning did not remember his
dreams. When he awoke, Mercury had wobbled sufficiently for the
twilight zone to be in sunlight again.
"Rise and shine, men!" a supervisor's voice blared over the
loudspeaker. "Got some gunk to harvest!"
Jansen watched the men get up, groaning and complaining, in the
barracks. Gunk was the supervisor's word for chlorella, Jansen thought.
Looking at the men he decided they had other words for it, none of them
printable. For, although the pay was good, it was sheer hell working on
Mercury and the average employee at the chlorella bogs didn't stay more
than three months.
With the others Jansen went outside and piled onto one of the half
dozen swamp-buggies which came for them. The buggies were surplus Army
amphibian vehicles and rattled noisily over dry ground. They formed
a line, single file, and headed through the domed corridor that
connected Sun-side city, which was actually in the twilight zone, with
the bogs themselves, which were on the sun-side of Mercury.
If it had been hot in the city, despite man's best air-conditioning
efforts, it was murderously hot in the bogs. The sun burned down on
the dome and through it; the irrigation water evaporated rapidly, so
rapidly that the dehumidifiers could not carry it away quickly enough.
As a result, the bogs were not only terribly hot, but humid as the
inside of a Turkish bath. Jansen felt washed out before he'd even begun
his work.
The swamp-buggies took them to a field of chlorella, the valuable plant
growing like a thick coating of slime on the bogs. The men, moving
slowly to conserve energy in the heat, climbed down from the buggies
and attacked the chlorella by sweeping the surface of the bogs with
their muscle-powered harvesters.
Jansen smiled in spite of himself. Agricultural methods five thousand
and more years old! It couldn't be helped on Mercury, of course.
Most available machinery was needed on Earth, for Earth's billions.
The metal for machinery was at a premium; the great iron mines of
two centuries before were almost exhausted and no new supply had
been found on any of the planets--at least none which could be mined
productively at slight enough cost. Result: the outworlds got along
with primitive methods or didn't get along at all.
Dinnison, Jansen discovered, had a rating of Six. It was not as bad as
it could have been, but a good deal worse than Jansen's own twelve. At
least Dinnison wasn't a harvester. Instead, Dinnison had been assigned
to the packing platforms, and that was where Jansen found himself
working. Here the chlorella was dried in the fierce sun and baled. The
baling, of course, was done by hand and the chlorella, dry enough for
baling but still sodden, was heavy. Afterwards, Jansen knew, it would
be taken to the sub-space tunnel and shipped to Earth without even the
necessity of dehydration.
All morning Jansen worked in hot, stifling silence. Whenever a
supervisor came in his direction he half-expected a heavy hand to fall
on his shoulder and an accusing voice to call out his real name.
At lunch hour he wandered off, all but exhausted, into the scant shade
of one of the compound shacks. He sat there, popping energy tablets
into his mouth. He was too weak to eat food although he saw it being
served from big trays perhaps fifty yards away.
"Jansen," a voice called softly.
* * * * *
He looked up quickly, his eyes taking seconds to focus in the almost
blinding glare. It was Wendy Hilliard, looking amazingly cool in her
insulsuit and shorts.
He reached up and grabbed her arm, pulling her down alongside him. "How
did you find me?" he demanded.
"It was an accident, although--" her voice trailed off.
"Although what?"
"You're hurting me!"
"Although what, Miss Hilliard?"
"I--well, I was looking for you, Jansen. I want to help you."
"Sure," he said, a trace of bitterness in his voice.