"In a Spacer Graveyard, of course. There isn't a landing field on the
planet we could go to."
"You mean we'll take off from a Graveyard? From a junk-heap of battered
old derelict ships?"
"Of course. It has some advantages, believe it or not. We'll work on the
ship nights. It needs plenty of work, let me tell you. But then the
Graveyard is a kind of parts department, isn't it?"
Ramsey couldn't argue with that.
They spent the next three days sleeping and slowly going stir-crazy.
They slipped out each night, though, and walked the two miles to the
Spacer Graveyard down near the river. It was on the other side of the
river, which meant they had to boat across. Risky, but there was no help
for it. Each night they worked on the ship, which Ramsey found to be a
fifty-year old Canopusian freighter in even worse condition than Margot
had indicated. The night was usually divided into three sections. First,
reviewing the work which had been done and planning the evening's
activities. Then, looking for the parts they would need in the jungle of
interstellar wrecks all about them. Finally, going to work with the
parts they had found and with the tools which Ramsey had discovered on
the old Canopusian freighter the first night.
* * * * *
As they made their way back across the river the first night, Ramsey
paddling slowly, quietly, Margot said:
"Ramsey, I--I think we're being watched."
"I haven't seen or heard a thing. You, Vardin?" Vardin was the Vegan
girl's name.
Vardin shook her head.
Ramsey was anxious all at once, though. Things had gone too smoothly.
They had not been interfered with at all. Personally, things hadn't gone
smoothly with Ramsey, but that was another story. He found himself
liking Margot Dennison too much. He found himself trying to hide it
because he knew she could read minds. Just how do you hide your thoughts
from a mind reader? Ramsey didn't know, but whenever his thoughts
drifted in that direction he tried thinking of something else--anything
else, except the proto-man letter.
"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," Margot said in the boat. "I can
read minds, so I'd know best if we were being watched. To get a clear
reading I have to aim my thoughts specifically, but I can pick up
free-floating thoughts as a kind of emotional tone rather than words.
Does that make sense?"
"If you say so. What else did you read in my mind?"
Margot smiled at him mysteriously and said nothing.
Ramsey felt thoughts of proto-man nibbling at his consciousness. He
tried to fight them down purely rationally, and knew he wouldn't
succeed. He grabbed Margot and pulled her close to him, seeking her
lips with his, letting his thoughts wander into a fantasy of desire.
Margot slapped his face and sat stiffly in her cloak while he paddled to
the other side of the river. Vardin sat like a statue. Ramsey had come
to a conclusion: he did not like letting Margot know how he felt about
her, but it was mostly on a straight physical level and he preferred her
discovering it to her learning that he'd read the proto-man letter from
her father. In his thoughts, though, he never designated it as the
proto-man letter from her father. He designated it as X.