I wanted to find out who had been splashed, but Joe Kivelson was too
busy directing the new phase of the fight to hand out casualty reports
to the press, and besides, there were too many things happening all at
once that I had to get. I went around to the other side where the
incendiaries had met their end, moving slowly as close to the face of
the fire as I could get and shooting the burning wax flowing out from
it. A lot of equipment, including two of the three claw-derricks and a
dredger--they'd brought a second one up from the waterfront--were
moving to that side. By the time I had gotten around, the blowers had
been maneuvered into place and were ready to start. There was a lot of
back-and-forth yelling to make sure that everybody was out from in
front, and then the blowers started.
It looked like a horizontal volcanic eruption; burning wax blowing
away from the fire for close to a hundred feet into the clear space
beyond. The derricks and manipulators and the cars and jeeps with
grapnels went in on both sides, snatching and dragging wax away.
Because they had the wind from the blowers behind them, the men could
work a lot closer, and the fire wasn't spreading as rapidly. They were
saving a lot of wax; each one of those big sausages that the lifters
picked up and floated away weighed a thousand pounds, and was worth,
at the new price, eight hundred sols.
Finally, they got everything away that they could, and then the
blowers were shut down and the two dredge shovels moved in, scooping
up the burning sludge and carrying it away, scattering it on the
concrete. I would have judged that there had been six or seven million
sols' worth of wax in the piles to start with, and that a little more
than half of it had been saved before they pulled the last cylinder
away.
The work slacked off; finally, there was nothing but the two dredges
doing anything, and then they backed away and let down, and it was all
over but standing around and watching the scattered fire burn itself
out. I looked at my watch. It was two hours since the first alarm had
come in. I took a last swing around, got the spaceport people
gathering up wax and hauling it away, and the broken lake of fire that
extended downtown from where the stacks had been, and then I floated
my jeep over to the sandwich-and-coffee stand and let down, getting
out. Maybe, I thought, I could make some kind of deal with somebody
like Interworld News on this. It would make a nice thrilling
feature-program item. Just a little slice of life from Fenris, the
Garden Spot of the Galaxy.
I got myself a big zhoumy-loin sandwich with hot sauce and a cup of
coffee, made sure that my portable radio was on, and circulated among
the fire fighters, getting comments. Everybody had been a hero,
natch, and they were all very unbashful about admitting it. There was
a great deal of wisecracking about Al Devis buying himself a ringside
seat for the fire he'd started. Then I saw Cesário Vieira and joined
him.
"Have all the fire you want, for a while?" I asked him.
"Brother, and how! We could have used a little of this over on Hermann
Reuch's Land, though. Have you seen Tom around anywhere?"
"No. Have you?"
"I saw him over there, about an hour ago. I guess he stayed on this
side. After they started blowing it, I was over on Al Devis's side."
He whistled softly. "Was that a mess!"
There was still a crowd at the fire, but they seemed all to be
townspeople. The hunters had gathered where Joe Kivelson had been
directing operations. We finished our sandwiches and went over to join
them. As soon as we got within earshot, I found that they were all in
a very ugly mood.
"Don't fool around," one man was saying as we came up. "Don't even
bother looking for a rope. Just shoot them as soon as you see them."
Well, I thought, a couple of million sols' worth of tallow-wax, in
which they all owned shares, was something to get mean about. I said
something like that.
"It's not that," another man said. "It's Tom Kivelson."
"What about him?" I asked, alarmed.
"Didn't you hear? He got splashed with burning wax," the hunter said.
"His whole back was on fire; I don't know whether he's alive now or
not."
So that was who I'd seen screaming in agony while the firemen tore his
burning clothes away. I pushed through, with Cesário behind me, and
found Joe Kivelson and Mohandas Feinberg and Corkscrew Finnegan and
Oscar Fujisawa and a dozen other captains and ships' officers in a
huddle.
"Joe," I said, "I just heard about Tom. Do you know anything yet?"
Joe turned. "Oh, Walt. Why, as far as we know, he's alive. He was
alive when they got him to the hospital."
"That's at the spaceport?" I unhooked my handphone and got Dad. He'd
heard about a man being splashed, but didn't know who it was. He said
he'd call the hospital at once. A few minutes later, he was calling me
back.
"He's been badly burned, all over the back. They're preparing to do a
deep graft on him. They said his condition was serious, but he was
alive five minutes ago."
I thanked him and hung up, relaying the information to the others.
They all looked worried. When the screen girl at a hospital tells you
somebody's serious, instead of giving you the well-as-can-be-expected
routine, you know it is serious. Anybody who makes it alive to a
hospital, these days, has an excellent chance, but injury cases do
die, now and then, after they've been brought in. They are the
"serious" cases.
"Well, I don't suppose there's anything we can do," Joe said heavily.
"We can clean up on the gang that started this fire," Oscar Fujisawa
said. "Do it now; then if Tom doesn't make it, he's paid for in
advance."
Oscar, I recalled, was the one who had been the most impressed with
Bish Ware's argument that lynching Steve Ravick would cost the hunters
the four million sols they might otherwise be able to recover, after a
few years' interstellar litigation, from his bank account on Terra.
That reminded me that I hadn't even thought of Bish since I'd left the
_Times_. I called back. Dad hadn't heard a word from him.
"What's the situation at Hunters' Hall?" I asked.
"Everything's quiet there. The police left when Hallstock commandeered
that fire-fighting equipment. They helped the shipyard men get it out,
and then they all went to the Municipal Building. As far as I know,
both Ravick and Belsher are still in Hunters' Hall. I'm in contact
with the vehicles on guard at the approaches; I'll call them now."