The Planet Strappers Part 23

"This has been happening," he said. "We have limited facilities for this purpose. The U.N.S.F. even less. However, an escort is due in, now. We can move out again, with you, in seven hours."

"Thank you, sir," Nelsen responded.

Gimp Hines had the better part of the supplies to be purchased already lined up at the warehouses.

Nelsen counted the money he had left. "Figuring losses and gains, I have no idea how much I owe J. John--if anything," he laughed. "So I'll make it a grand--build up my ego... But we owe old Paul more than dough."

"All right, I'm another idiot--I'll mail J. John a similar draft," Ramos gruffed. "Paul's a problem. He can use money, but he never lived for it.

And you can't buy a friend. We'll have to rig something."

"Yeah--we will," Gimp said. "Couple of times I forgot J. John. But I lost my shirt on those loads that were lifted off you boneheads. The Kuzaks reimbursed me for half. Do you two want to cover the other half?

Aw--forget it! Who's got time to figure all this? That old coot doped himself out a nice catch-dollar scheme, making us promise. Or was it a leg pull on a highly elusive proposition, where big sums and the vastness of s.p.a.ce seem to match? h.e.l.l--I'm getting mixed up again..."

Dave Lester had wandered off embarra.s.sedly, there in the warehouse. But now he returned, clearing his throat for attention.

"Fellas," he said. "Helen and I want you to come out to our apartment, now, for dinner."

"Shucks, that's swell, Les," Ramos responded, suddenly curious.

"Here, also," Nelsen enthused.

"Sure," Gimp said. But his smile thinned.

In this gravity, going to Lester's place was a floating glide rather than a walk. Along a covered causeway, into a huge dome, up a wall with handholds, onto a wispy balcony. Nelsen and Ramos brought liquor and roses.

Much of what followed was painful and familiar--in a fantastic setting.

Two young people, recently married, struggling with problems that they hadn't been able to plan for very well.

While his wife was out of earshot, Lester put his hand on the back of a chair constructed entirely of fine golden wire--later it developed that he had made it, do-it-yourself fashion, to be economical--and seemed more intent on holding it down than to rest his hand.

"Gimp... Frank..." he began nervously. "You helped Helen and me to get married and get set up out here. The Archeological Inst.i.tute paid our way to Pallastown. But there were other expenses... Her--my father-in-law, died by his own hand while still awaiting trial...

Everything he owned is still tied up... Now, well--you know human biology... I hope you can wait a little longer for us to begin paying back your loan..."

Nelsen had a vagrant thought about how money now had to stand on its own commercial value, rather than rely on the ancient witchcraft of a gold standard. Then he almost suspected that Lester was being devious and clever. But he knew the guy too well.

"Cripes, Les!" he burst out almost angrily. "How about your services, just now, as an archeological consultant? If you won't consider that we might have meant to make you a gift. Pretty soon you'll have us completely confused!"

"What a topic for an evening of fun," Gimp complained. "Hey, Helen--can I mix the drinks?"

"Yes--of course, Mr. Hines. I'll get you the things," she said with apology in her eyes and voice, as if fussy celebrities had descended on her small, unsettled, and poor household.

"On the Moon you were a swell cook, Helen," Frank reminded her.

She flashed a small smile. "It was different, there. Things weighed something, and stayed in place. Here--just breathe hard and you have a kitchen accident. Besides, I had a garden. We'd like one here, but there's no room... And in the market..."

"Shucks--it's new here to us, too," Ramos soothed. "Riding an Archer in s.p.a.ce, at zero-G, is different from this..."

Things were a bit less strained, after that, through the skimpy meal, with its special devices, unique to the asteroids and their tiny gravity. Clamps to fasten plates to tables and victuals to plates.

Drinking vessels that were half-squeeze bottles. Such equipment was now available in what might once have been called a dime store--but with another price-level.

The visitors made a game of being awkward and inept, together. It was balm for Helen's sensitivity.

"Somebody's got to keep the camera for us, Mex," Frank Nelsen said presently.

"Yeah--I know. Les'll do it for us," Ramos answered. "He's the best, there. He can run through all the pictures--make copies with an ordinary camera... See if he can market them. Twenty percent ought to be about right for his cut."

Lester tried to interrupt, but Frank got ahead of him. "We owe Gimp for those loads we lost. Got to cut him into this, as a consultant. You'll be around Pallastown for a while, helping out with this end of the Twin's enterprises, won't you, Gimp?"

Hines grinned. "Probably. Glad you slobs got memories. Glad to be of a.s.sistance, anytime. Les is no louse--he'll help old friends. I'll bring him the camera, out of the safe at my hotel, as soon as we leave here..."

Lester smiled doubtfully, and then happily. That was how they worked the fabulous generosity of s.p.a.cemen in the chips on him.

Nelsen, Ramos and Hines escaped soon after that.

"Three hours left. I guess you guys want to get lost--separately," Gimp chuckled. "I'll say so long at the launching catapults, later. I've got some tough guards, fresh from the Moon, who will go along with you. Art and Joe need them..."

Frank Nelsen wandered alone in the recreation area. He heard music--_Fire Streak_, _Queen of Serene_... He searched faces, looking for an ugly one with shovel teeth. He thought, with an achy wistfulness, of a small hero-worshipping girl named Jennie Harper, at Serene.

He found no one he had ever seen before. In a joint he watched a girl with almost no clothes, do an incredible number of spinning somersaults in mid-air. He thought he ought to find himself a friend--then decided perversely, to h.e.l.l with it.

He thought of the trouble on Earth, of Ceres, of Tiflin and Igor, of Fanshaw, the latest leader of the Asteroid Belt toughs--the Jolly Lads--that you heard about. He thought about how terribly vulnerable to attack Pallastown seemed, even with its encirclement of outriding guard stations. He thought of Paul Hendricks, Two-and-Two Baines, Charlie Reynolds, Otto Kramer, Mitch Storey, and Miss Rosalie Parks who was his old Latin teacher.

He thought of trying to beam some of them. But h.e.l.l, they all seemed so long-lost, and he wasn't in the mood, now. He even thought about how it was, trying to give yourself a dry shave with a worn-out razor, inside an Archer. He thought that sometime, surely, perhaps soon, the Big Vacuum would finish him.

He wound up with a simple sentimental impulse, full of nostalgia and tenderness for things that seemed to stay steady and put. The way he felt was half-hearted apology for human moods in which murder would have been easy. He even had a strange envy for David Lester.

Into the synthetic cellulose lining of a small carton bought at a souvenir shop, he placed the sixty million-year old golden band with its odd arabesques and its glinting chips of mineral. Regardless of its mysterious intentional function, it could be a bracelet. To him, just then, it was only a trinket that he had picked up.

Before he wrapped and addressed the package, he put a note inside:

"Hi, Nance Codiss! Thinking about you and all the neighbors. This might reach you by Christmas. Remember me? Frank Nelsen."

Postage was two hundred dollars, which seemed a trifle. And he didn't quite realize how like a king's ransom a gift like this would seem in Jarviston, Minnesota.

On leaving the post office, he promptly forgot the whole matter, as hard, practical concerns took hold of him, again.

At the loading quays, special catapults hurled the gigantic bales of supplies clear of Pallas. To the Kuzaks, this shipment would now have seemed small, but it was much larger than the loads Ramos and Nelsen had handled before. Gimp and Lester saw them off. Then they were in s.p.a.ce, with extra ionics pushing the bales. The guard of six new men was posted. Nelsen wasn't sure that they'd be any good, or whether he could trust them all, but they looked eagerly alert. Riding a mile off was the s.p.a.ce Force patrol bubb.

All through the long journey--beam calls ahead were avoided for added safety--Nelsen kept wondering if he'd find the post in ruins, with what was left of Art and Joe drifting and drying. But nothing like that happened yet, and the shipment was brought through. Business with the asteroid-hoppers was started at once.

When there was a lull, Art Kuzak talked expansively in his office bubb:

"Good work, Frank. Same to you, Ramos--except that I know you're itching with your own ideas, and probably won't be around long. Which is your affair... Never mind what anybody says about Venus, or any other place.

The Belt, with its history, its metals, and its possibilities, is the best part of the solar system. Keep your defenses up, your line of communication covered, and you can't help but make money. There are new posts to set up, help to recruit and bring out, stellene plants and other factories to construct. There'll be garden bubbs, repair shops--everything. Time, work, and a little luck will do it. You listening, Frank?"

Nelsen got a bit cagy with Art, again. "Okay, Art--you seem like a formal fella. Mex and I joined up and helped out pretty much as informal company members. But as long as we've put in our dough, let's make it official, in writing and signed. The KRNH Enterprises--_K_uzak, _R_amos, _N_elsen and _H_ines. The 'H' could also stand for Hendricks--Paul Hendricks."

"I _like_ it that way, you suspicious slob," Art Kuzak chuckled.