_Every era in history has had its Pop Ganlon's. Along in
years and not successful and not caring much anyway. A
matter of living out their years, following an obscure path
to oblivion._
_It was that way in ancient Egypt, just as it will be when
the Solar System shrinks to our size. And once in a while
such men are given an opportunity to contribute to the
society that has forgotten them...._
* * * * *
Pop Ganlon was no hero--he was only a spaceman. A spaceman and a
father. In fact, Pop was rather no-account, even in a profession that
abounded with drifters. He had made a meagre living prospecting
asteroids and hauling light freight and an occasional passenger out
in the Belt Region. Coffee and cakes, nothing more. Not many people
knew Pop had a son in the Patrol, and even fewer knew it when the boy
was blasted to a cinder in a back alley in Lower Marsport.
Pop went on eating and breathing, but his life was over after that. He
hit the bottle a little harder and his ship, _The Luck_, grew rustier
and tackier, and those were the only outward signs that Pop Ganlon was
a living dead man. He kept on grubbing among the cold rocks and
pushing _The Luck_ from Marsport to Callisto and back with whatever
low-mass payloads he could pick up. He might have lived out his string
of years like that, obscure and alone, if it hadn't been for John
Kane. Kane was Pop Ganlon's ticket to a sort of personal
immortality--if there is such a thing for an old spaceman.
It was in Yakki, down-canal from Marsport, that Kane found Pop. There
is a small spaceport there--a boneyard, really--for buckets whose
skippers can't pay the heavy tariff imposed by the big ramp. All the
wrecks nest there while waiting hopefully for a payload or a
grubstake. They have all of Solis Lacus for a landing field, and if
they spill it doesn't matter much. The drifting red sands soon cover
up the scattered shards of dural and the slow, lonely life of Yakki
goes on like before.
The Patrol was on Kane's trail and the blaster in his hand was still
warm when he shoved it up against Pop Ganlon's ribs and made his
proposition.
He wanted to get off Mars--out to Callisto. To Blackwater, to Ley's
Landing, it didn't matter too much. Just off Mars, and quickly. His
eyes had a metallic glitter and his hand was rock-steady. Pop knew he
meant what he said when he told him life was cheap. Someone else's
life, not Kane's.
* * * * *
That's how it happened that _The Luck_ lifted that night from Yakki,
outward bound for Ley's Landing, with Pop and Kane aboard her alone.
Sitting at the battered console of _The Luck_, Pop watched his
passenger. He knew Kane, of course. Or rather, he knew of him. A
killer. The kind that thrives and grows fat on the frontiers. The
bulky frame, the cropped black hair, the predatory eyes that looked
like two blaster muzzles. They were all familiar to Pop. Kane was all
steel and meanness. The kind of carrion bird that took what others had
worked for. Not big time, you understand. In another age he'd have
been a torpedo--a hireling killer. But out among the stars he was
working for himself. And doing well.
Pop didn't care. His loyalty to the Patrol had stopped quite suddenly
not long before--in a dark alley in Lower Marsport. This was only a
job, he told himself now. A job for coffee and cakes, and maybe a
grubstake to work a few more lonely rocks. Life had become a habit for
Pop, even if living had ended.
"What are you staring at, Pop?" Kane's voice was like the rest of him.
Harsh and cold as space itself.
"At you, I guess," Pop said, "I was wondering what you'd done--and
where--and to whom."
"You're a nosey old man," Kane said. "Just get me to Ley's Landing.
That's what I'm paying for, not a thing more."
Pop nodded slowly and turned back to the control board. They were
above the Belt by now, and a few short hours from turnover point. The
cranky drives of _The Luck_ needed all his attention.
Presently he said, "We'll be turning over soon. Want to get some
rest?"