very grimly into his helmet-phone, “This is a private rock, Smithers. I’m working it. If I didn’t know you I wouldn’t be talking. I’d be shooting! Move on!”
A pause. Then the battered donkeyship’s airlock opened. A figure in a space-suit appeared. It clipped a lifeline to an eyebolt and soared toward the floating rock that was also a mine. Dunne scowled. The soaring, monkeylike space-suited figure was familiar. The donkeyship was familiar. And Dunne was ready to kill. But a man ready to kill one specific man is not often anxious to kill anybody else. There is a feeling of economy, perhaps, as if one had an allowance of only one killing to be done with impunity, and therefore isn’t to be used on just anyone.
“I said this is a private rock, Smithers!” snapped Dunne.
The moving space-suit touched solidity. With an astonishing deftness and. agility it tossed a double loop around a protrusion of stone. With a strictly spaceman’s jerk, he had the loops tightened. Then the undersized space-suit faced Dunne.
“Shoot, dammit!” said Smithers’ voice vexedly. “But you’ll wish you hadn’t! I’m comin’ aboard where we can talk in air!”
He did something mysterious to the rope he’d just made fast. He suddenly had two loops in his two hands. With an extraordinary deftness he snagged a rocky irregularity with the loop in his left hand, and then another with the loop in his right. He advanced, holding himself to the jagged surface of the Ring-rock with the two loops alternately. It was as if he walked with two canes, save that these held him from floating away instead of holding him up against a fall.
Dunne raised his bazooka, suggestively and grimly. The small man made an inarticulate sound of disgust. He continued to advance. He offered no threat. To shoot him would be murder in cold blood. Dunne did not pull trigger. He knew the indignant frustration of a man forced to yield ground to keep his self-respect.
The little man made his way with astounding agility, for weightlessness, to the lifeboat’s airlock door. There he stopped. And now, certainly, if he’d made the slightest move to enter and close the airlock, leaving Dunne outside, Dunne would have had no choice but to kill him.
But he didn’t. He held his hands shoulder-high and waited for Dunne to join him in the lock. And, grinding his teeth, Dunne did.
For thirty seconds the two of them were in close physical contact. The sack of matrix crowded them. Dunne’s bazooka couldn’t be used in the lock, of course, but Dunne had another weapon ready.
The inner lock-door opened and Dunne put his belt-weapon back into its slightly clinging holster. He tossed the sack of matrix inside.
The little man turned his space-helmet and took it off. He grinned. Dunne took off his own helmet.
“Now, what’s this?” he demanded coldly. “I’ve every reason to shoot you, Smithers! Every reason!”
“Everybody has,” said the little man briskly. “But nobody does! When I come to a rock that looks promisin’, I always start hollerin’ about gooks while I’m comin’ up to it. If there’s somebody workin’ it, they know it’s me an’ they think I’m cracked, so they don’t start shootin’. If there’s nobody there, it’s no harm done.”
“And do you explain this,” asked Dunne sardonically, “when there is somebody working a rock and they know you can tell where they’re working and more or less what they’ve got?”
Smithers nodded.
“Sure! Sure I tell ’em. I just told you! But it ain’t often there’s anybody there. An’ anyhow, everybody knows I’m huntin’ gooks, not crystals. I just do enough minin’ to get supplies from the pickup ships. I’m huntin’ gooks, They killed my partner. I got to get even for that! I come mighty close to gooks plenty of times. But they’re smart! They come up the Rings from Thothmes. They spy on us. They hide from us! Now an’ then they get a chance to kill somebody an’—pfft!
A pause. Then the battered donkeyship’s airlock opened. A figure in a space-suit appeared. It clipped a lifeline to an eyebolt and soared toward the floating rock that was also a mine. Dunne scowled. The soaring, monkeylike space-suited figure was familiar. The donkeyship was familiar. And Dunne was ready to kill. But a man ready to kill one specific man is not often anxious to kill anybody else. There is a feeling of economy, perhaps, as if one had an allowance of only one killing to be done with impunity, and therefore isn’t to be used on just anyone.
“I said this is a private rock, Smithers!” snapped Dunne.
The moving space-suit touched solidity. With an astonishing deftness and. agility it tossed a double loop around a protrusion of stone. With a strictly spaceman’s jerk, he had the loops tightened. Then the undersized space-suit faced Dunne.
“Shoot, dammit!” said Smithers’ voice vexedly. “But you’ll wish you hadn’t! I’m comin’ aboard where we can talk in air!”
He did something mysterious to the rope he’d just made fast. He suddenly had two loops in his two hands. With an extraordinary deftness he snagged a rocky irregularity with the loop in his left hand, and then another with the loop in his right. He advanced, holding himself to the jagged surface of the Ring-rock with the two loops alternately. It was as if he walked with two canes, save that these held him from floating away instead of holding him up against a fall.
Dunne raised his bazooka, suggestively and grimly. The small man made an inarticulate sound of disgust. He continued to advance. He offered no threat. To shoot him would be murder in cold blood. Dunne did not pull trigger. He knew the indignant frustration of a man forced to yield ground to keep his self-respect.
The little man made his way with astounding agility, for weightlessness, to the lifeboat’s airlock door. There he stopped. And now, certainly, if he’d made the slightest move to enter and close the airlock, leaving Dunne outside, Dunne would have had no choice but to kill him.
But he didn’t. He held his hands shoulder-high and waited for Dunne to join him in the lock. And, grinding his teeth, Dunne did.
For thirty seconds the two of them were in close physical contact. The sack of matrix crowded them. Dunne’s bazooka couldn’t be used in the lock, of course, but Dunne had another weapon ready.
The inner lock-door opened and Dunne put his belt-weapon back into its slightly clinging holster. He tossed the sack of matrix inside.
The little man turned his space-helmet and took it off. He grinned. Dunne took off his own helmet.
“Now, what’s this?” he demanded coldly. “I’ve every reason to shoot you, Smithers! Every reason!”
“Everybody has,” said the little man briskly. “But nobody does! When I come to a rock that looks promisin’, I always start hollerin’ about gooks while I’m comin’ up to it. If there’s somebody workin’ it, they know it’s me an’ they think I’m cracked, so they don’t start shootin’. If there’s nobody there, it’s no harm done.”
“And do you explain this,” asked Dunne sardonically, “when there is somebody working a rock and they know you can tell where they’re working and more or less what they’ve got?”
Smithers nodded.
“Sure! Sure I tell ’em. I just told you! But it ain’t often there’s anybody there. An’ anyhow, everybody knows I’m huntin’ gooks, not crystals. I just do enough minin’ to get supplies from the pickup ships. I’m huntin’ gooks, They killed my partner. I got to get even for that! I come mighty close to gooks plenty of times. But they’re smart! They come up the Rings from Thothmes. They spy on us. They hide from us! Now an’ then they get a chance to kill somebody an’—pfft!
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