He started to wave to the bartender, but Hawkes shot out an arm quickly
and blocked off the gesture. "He's an old man and he's tired. I'll go to
the bar and order." And before Steve could protest, Hawkes had slipped
smoothly out of the booth and was on his way forward to the bar.
Alan sat facing his brother. He felt pity. Steve had been through a lot;
the freedom he had longed for aboard ship had had a heavy price. And was
it freedom, to sit in a crowded games parlor on a dirty little planet
and struggle to get out of debt?
There was nothing further he could say to Steve. He had tried, and he
had failed, and Steve would remain on Earth. But it seemed wrong. Steve
_did_ deserve a second chance. He had jumped ship and it had been a
mistake, but there was no reason why he could not return to his old
life, wiser for the experience. Still, if he refused----
Hawkes came back bearing two drinks--another beer for himself and a
whiskey for Steve. He set them out on the table and said, "Well, drink
up. Here's hoping you make Class A and stay there."
"Thanks," Steve said, and drained his drink in a single loud gulp. His
eyes widened; he started to say something, but never got the words out.
He slumped down in his seat and his chin thumped ringingly against the
table.
Alan looked at Hawkes in alarm. "What happened to him? Why'd he pass
out?"
Hawkes smiled knowingly. "An ancient Earth beverage known as the Mickey
Finn. Two drops of a synthetic enzyme in his drink; tasteless, but
extremely effective. He'll be asleep for ten hours or more."
"How'd you arrange it?"
"I told the bartender it was in a good cause, and he believed me. You
wait here, now. I want to talk to that Bryson man about your brother's
debts, and then we'll spirit him out to the spaceport and dump him
aboard the _Valhalla_ before he wakes up."
Alan grinned. He was going to have to do some explaining to Steve later,
but by that time it would be too late; the starship would be well on its
way to Procyon. It was a dirty trick to play, he thought, but it was
justifiable. In Hawkes' words, it was in a good cause.
Alan put his arms around his brother's shoulders and gently lifted him
out of the chair; Steve was surprisingly light, for all his lack of
condition. Evidently muscle weighed more than fat, and Steve had gone to
fat. Supporting his brother's bulk without much trouble, Alan made his
way toward the entrance to the bar. As he went past the bartender, the
old man smiled at him. Alan wondered what Hawkes had said to him.
Right now Hawkes was three booths up, leaning over and taking part in an
urgent whispered conference with a thin dark-faced man in a sharply
tailored suit. They reached some sort of agreement; there was a
handshake. Then Hawkes left the booth and slung one of Steve's dangling
arms around his own shoulder, easing the weight.
"There's an Undertube that takes us as far as Carhill Boulevard and the
bridge," Hawkes said. "We can get a ground vehicle there that'll go on
through the Enclave and out to the spacefield."
The trip took nearly an hour. Steve sat propped up between Alan and
Hawkes, and every now and then his head would loll to one side or
another, and he would seem to be stirring; but he never woke. The sight
of two men dragging a third along between them attracted not the
slightest attention as they left the Undertube and climbed aboard the
spacefield bus. Apparently in York City no one cared much about what
went on; it made no difference to the busy Earthers whether Steve were
unconscious or dead.
The ground bus took them over the majestic arch of the bridge, rapidly
through the sleepy Enclave--Alan saw nobody he recognized in the
streets--and through the restricted area that led to the spacefield.
The spaceport was a jungle of ships, each standing on its tail waiting
to blast off. Most of them were small two-man cargo vessels, used in
travel between Earth and the colonies on the Moon, Mars, and Pluto, but
here and there a giant starship loomed high above the others. Alan stood
on tiptoes to search for the golden hull of the _Valhalla_, but he was
unable to see it. Since the starship would be blasting off at the end of
the week, he knew the crew was probably already at work on it, shaping
it up for the trip. He belonged on it too.
He saw a dark green starship standing nearby; the _Encounter_, Kevin
Quantrell's ship. Men were moving about busily near the big ship, and
Alan remembered that it had become obsolete during its last long voyage,
and was being rebuilt.
A robot came sliding up to the three of them as they stood there at the
edge of the landing field.
"Can I help you, please?"
"I'm from the starship _Valhalla_," Alan said. "I'm returning to the
ship. Would you take me to the ship, please?"
"Of course."
Alan turned to Hawkes. The moment had come, much too suddenly. Alan felt
Rat twitching at his cuff, as if reminding him of something.
Grinning awkwardly, Alan said, "I guess this is the end of the line,
Max. You'd better not go out on the spacefield with us. I--I sort of
want to thank you for all the help you've given me. I never would have
found Steve without you. And about the bet we made--well, it looks like
I'm going back on my ship after all, so I've won a thousand credits from
you. But I can't ask for it, of course. Not after what you did for
Steve."
He extended his hand. Hawkes took it, but he was smiling strangely.
"If I owed you the money, I'd pay it to you," the gambler said. "That's
the way I work. The seven thousand I paid for Steve is extra and above
everything else. But you haven't won that bet yet. You haven't won it
until the _Valhalla's_ in space with you aboard it."
The robot made signs of impatience. Hawkes said, "You'd better convoy
your brother across the field and dump him on his ship. Save the
goodbyes for later. I'll wait right here for you. Right here."
Alan shook his head. "Sorry, Max, but you're wasting your time by
waiting. The _Valhalla_ has to be readied for blastoff, and once I check
in aboard ship I can't come back to visit. So this is goodbye, right
here."
"We'll see about that," Hawkes said. "Ten to one odds."
"Ten to one," Alan said. "And you've lost your bet." But his voice did
not sound very convincing, and as he started off across the field with
Steve dragging along beside him he frowned, and did some very intense
thinking indeed in the few minutes' time it took him to arrive at the
shining _Valhalla_. He was beginning to suspect that Hawkes might be
going to win the bet after all.
_Chapter Twelve_
He felt a little emotional pang, something like nostalgia, as the
_Valhalla_ came into sight, standing by itself tall and proud at the far
end of the field. A cluster of trucks buzzed around it, transferring
fuel, bringing cargo. He spotted the wiry figure of Dan Kelleher, the
cargo chief, supervising and shouting salty instructions to the
perspiring men.
Alan tightened his grip on Steve's arm and moved forward. Kelleher
shouted, "You men back there, tighten up on that winch and give 'er a
hoist! Tighten up, I say! Put some muscle into----" He broke off.
"Alan," he said, in a quiet voice.
"Hello, Dan. Is my father around?"
Kelleher was staring with frank curiosity at the slumped figure of Steve
Donnell. "The Captain's off watch now. Art Kandin's in charge."
"Thanks," Alan said. "I'd better go see him."
"Sure. And----"