The Other Side of Nowhere

Chapter 3

In the corridor outside the forecastle, Braden stopped. The skipper had strictly forbidden him to bother the steward, even though there were good grounds for believing that he'd taken Braden's blaster within minutes after overhearing that he had one. But it was not a good idea to have a blaster loose on a ship that was heaving out on a journey of a hundred and some-odd light-years. It was especially undesirable when the new crew of that ship acted like a tightly knit unit with a definite purpose in mind. It was even more undesirable when there were passengers aboard. When two of them were women, it couldn't be permitted. So something had to be done about it. Legally, if Braden took action the skipper disapproved, the skipper could do nothing but charge him with insubordination when the ship reached port - in practice, at any rate. And it seemed to Braden that worse things could happen, so far as the passengers were concerned. He reached a cabin door marked STEWARD.

He did not knock but opened it quickly and as quickly went inside. He was prepared for almost anything, but he found nothing. The steward's cabin was almost empty. It was a very comfortable snuggery. Stewards usually do themselves well and, unlike other crewmen, they are apt to stay with the same ship for voyage after voyage. So they tend to accumulate more possessions than will go into a shipbag. There were a few books. Braden knew some of them by their bindings. They were books a man might accumulate if he hoped some day to command a spaceship. On the other hand, they were also such books as a man might pick up out of curiosity about the operation of a ship in which normally he would have no part. There was a Practical Astrogator and a fourth-sector Space Directory. There were books on freight stowage and spaceport regulations and other subjects covering areas of activity a steward did not really need to know about. The assortment looked innocent enough, even admirable. But Braden had a prejudice against the steward. He stood just inside the door, surveying the cabin. The bunk was neatly made up, its pillow deftly fluffed and in place. The tidily emptied ashtray was conspicious. Uniforms were hung carefully on hangers instead of pegs. Everything indicated that the steward was a man with a steward's soul - tidy and meticulous and bookish. It might be true, but Braden didn't believe it. His eyes narrowed as he stood looking, thinking hard. If this exaggerated precision were a fake to convince the skipper, nevertheless the steward would have developed the habit of it in two long voyages. And where would a tidy- minded man hide a blaster he'd just taken from another man's ship-bag - which he'd then delicately repacked - when he needed to hurry somewhere else in the ship to establish an alibi? To the passengers' quarters, for example? Braden took three steps forward and reached under the utterly neat pillow on the utterly neat bunk. With gratified astonishment he pulled out his blaster and put it in his pocket. He restored the pillow to its old-maidishly precise arrangement. He went out, closing the door after him. He was still wryly surprised as he made his way back to the ship's control-room.

The door stood open. The skipper was in the act of putting the trip-tape in the instrument which would pass on the astrogational instructions to the astrogating unit itself. The operation of the ship would then become practically automatic between solar systems. The skipper turned his head when Braden entered.

"I said I'd give you ten minutes, Mr. Braden!" he rumbled severely. "You've taken twelve!"

"Yes, sir," said Braden. "I've another report for the log, sir."

The skipper turned his whole body. He blinked at Braden.

"What's that? Let's hear it."

"I found," said Braden curtly, "three blasters and four knives in the crew's ship-bags, sir."

The skipper blinked again.

"Come, come!" he rumbled genially. "You disappoint me, Mr. Braden! I'd no idea you'd go about searching other people's possessions! It's most illegal! Only by my orders, given for good cause, should you invade the privacy of the crew! And you should have had my order in writing before searching a man's ship-bag or his locker!"

"I didn't search them, sir," said Braden grimly. "The men emptied them themselves - all but one. That broke open."

"Ah!" said the skipper, somehow waggishly. "I woudn't mind betting, Mr. Braden, that you applied pressure to make our gallant crewmen do that! It is still probably most illegal!"

"I asked them to, sir," said Braden. "And they did it. Every bag but the one was opened and emptied by its owner. The owner was responsible for the one exception. He got in the way of it, sir."

The skipper's mood suddenly changed. He regarded Braden almost with hostility.

"Now I'm sorry that I signed you on for this voyage, Mr. Braden! You're interfering with a series of events I've looked forward to!"

Braden shrugged.

"I should like to put in the log, sir," he said politely, "that I've informed you that the crewmen had forbidden arms in their possession and that, considering our passengers, in my opinion it is extremely dangerous to proceed with the voyage with the present crew aboard."

"You'd like that in the log, eh?" said the skipper. "And your advice about the action I should take?"

"I advise, sir," said Braden, "that the Rim Star return to port and turn over the crew to the local authorities, and then sign on a new crew without any previous plans for - perhaps I should say insubordination. That's my formal opinion, given you because you asked for it. I'd like to put it in the log."

The skipper glowered at him. Then he turned and pushed a button. Braden made an involuntary movement. He scowled.

A harsh, rasping sound came from a speaker in the ceiling of the control-room. Through the door came resonant repetitions of the din. They seemed like echoes, but they were actually replicas of the original voice, emitted simultaneously by loud-speakers in every corridor and compartment of the ship. The effect was sepulchral.

"Attention!" boomed the speakers. "Prepare for overdrive. Overdrive coming in five seconds. Five-four-three-two-one..."

The universe seemed to reel. The images on the vision screens vanished completely. Braden felt the familiar, intolerable combination of nausea and dizziness and the feeling of falling in a contracting spiral which constitute the sensation of going into overdrive.

He swore. In overdrive, of course, a ship is effectively relieved of many of the hindrances affecting ships in normal space. In an overdrive field the physical constants of space are changed. The change is exactly the opposite of that made by the interatomic, intermolecular force-fields between the particles of transparent substances. In unstressed space, the speed of light is roughly 186,000 miles per second. In the positively stressed space between the atoms and molecules of glass, its speed is roughly only 120,000 miles per second. That is why lenses can do what they do. In the highly positively stressed space between the atoms of crystallized carbon - diamond - the speed of light is only 75,000 miles per second. But an overdrive field stresses space in what might be called the opposite direction. In negatively stressed space - in overdrive - the speed of light increases to incredible figures. In negatively stressed space, mass does not increase with velocity. It diminishes. Therefore the limitation of space travel to the speed of light or less does not apply.

As a consequence, in the first second of overdrive the Rim Star enclosed herself in a cocoon of negatively stressed space and traveled as far as starlight does in five minutes. As her mass decreased, her speed went up. In the first minute she traveled as far as light in five days. From there on, increase of field-strength had a lesser effect; but on long, straight, uninterrupted runs a full-powered ship could hurtle across the galaxy at the averaged-out rate of a light-year of distance for each ninety minutes on the ship's clocks. The skipper had put the Rim Star into overdrive. Now he said, rumbling formidably,

"As you see, Mr. Braden, I do not take your advice. It may be excellent, but I do not take it. You may complain about my refusal when we reach port. But I suspect you doubt we'll reach port if I am stubborn. Eh?"

Braden shrugged. The skipper did not ask if he'd recovered his own blaster. He didn't ask what had been done with the others he'd reported. But he pressed another question.

"Has the cat got your tongue, Mr. Braden? Do you think we won't reach port? Dear me!... Do you know why I chose you to be mate of this ship?"

He glowered at Braden.

"No, sir, I don't," Braden answered.

"I chose you," the skipper said, "because your papers list no next of kin to be notified should any accident happen to you! If I'd known you were so zealous a second-in-command I'd have ignored that admirable fact and continued to look for a mate with the qualities I prefer! And the qualities I prefer, Mr. Braden, include a complete absence of zeal! I said no zeal, Mr. Braden! No energy applied to alter matters I prefer to have go on as usual! No interference with the normal and comfortable operation of this ship!"

Braden said stiffly:

"How about the passengers?"

The skipper had seemed sardonic enough, before, but now he flared into anger.

"To the devil with the passengers! I've nothing to do with them! I haven't seen them! I won't see them! What happens to the passengers is their business! They took passage on this ship! I knew nothing about it! I am not responsible for their being here, and I will not be responsible for them now that they are here!"

"Two of them," said Braden, "are women."

The skipper reddened with fury. "That's their bad luck!" snapped the skipper. "And I'm on watch now, Mr. Braden, and you are not! I suggest that you get the devil out of this control- room!"

"Very well, sir," said Braden.

He turned and went out of the control-room. He liked the way things were shaping up less and less. It is the first duty of a merchant-space officer to consider the safety of his ship, which includes getting her to her destination. But he is also expected to take great pains regarding the welfare of any passengers who may be on board. He is expected to be solicitous of the crew. And in all these special duties he must maintain strict discipline and a proper respect for his superiors in authority.

Braden headed aft - downward - with four blasters and four very wicked sheath knives on his person. One of the blasters was his own. He hadn't reported its recovery because the skipper had ordered him to leave the steward alone. He had. He'd only not left the steward's cabin alone. He'd simply taken his blaster from under the steward's pillow.

He passed the galley, which was entirely unlike the food preparation arrangements in surface transportation. Here there were no stoves, no succulent odors of cooking foods, no dishwashers, practically no refrigerator. Instead, precooked meals, designed to look appetizing, were stored in nested plastic containers behind glass doors. Preparation of a meal consisted of putting this container or that in warming-cabinets, another container into a chilling unit, the dessert perhaps into a quick-freezer. The kitchen was odorless and hence put no burden on the ship's air-freshening system. Meals were served by quickly snipping the sealed plastic covers and placing the food on the table.

The steward was busy in the galley, preparing to serve the passengers. As Braden went past, he looked up and smiled brightly. He went back to his work with a fine air of absorption.

Braden stopped and went back to the door.

"Steward," he said coldly, "you were right about the crew having arms."

The steward looked up from his work and shook his head sorrowfully.

"I'm very apprehensive, sir," he said. "Things look bad, sir. I can't imagine how the word got out!" When Braden merely stood silently, he continued. "About the money, sir. For Handel's Planet. The men aground there were getting restless. It's not a lively business, unloading drone ships that come down by rocket, with every pound weight costing a fortune. There's no recreation. So it was decided to pay them off in cash. With money in his pocket a man can always amuse himself, sir. So we're not only carrying the grid and other equipment, sir, we're carrying money for the men to jingle in their pockets. There'll be some very fancy gambling after working-hours when that money's in circulation! The men will get action for their money. They'll have reason to go on working. But the fact that we're carrying some millions in cash for that purpose shouldn't have been allowed to leak out. That's bad, sir! Very bad!"

"Oh," said Braden.

He went on toward the passengers' quarters. He was much more than suspicious of the steward, but this statement might be true. He hadn't heard the rumor before he signed on, but it might have been common knowledge. If so, it was an excellent reason for five men of a certain type to sign on the Rim Star to get to Handel's Planet. But such an explanation was not consoling. Quite the contrary!

Braden found himself wondering skeptically if the steward would have been quite as chatty if he'd known of Braden's recovery of his blaster, and where it had been found.

Braden went into the passengers' quarters. Fortescue was fumbling with the vision-screen controls, trying to get an image. One doesn't see outside, in overdrive. There's nothing to see. The ship is surrounded by a shell of negatively stressed space which lets nothing come through. A ship in overdrive is practically in a private cosmos the size of its overdrive field.

"I hate to say it, Mr. Braden," said the actor amiably, "but we need the vision screens repaired. They're off."

"They'll come on again," Braden told him, "when we get where we're going. Not until then." He looked about.

"Where's Duckworth?"

It appeared that Duckworth was checking the cameras as Hardy and Diane unpacked them. When Braden would have left, Fortescue said amiably:

"Comforting man, that steward of yours! I had the quivers - this is my first trip in space, you know - and he stopped them. He said a trip in overdrive is like a term in jail. Is that right?"

"When you're lucky, yes," said Braden.

"I can't imagine anything more consoling," said Fortescue with a grin. "I took this job because I needed it, and of course if Derr makes a comeback I'll get a break. But... did you ever hear of an accident-prone person, Mr. Braden? A man who's always in accidents? Things that happen around him all the time in defiance of probability?"

"They used to call them Jonahs," said Braden.

"I'm not accident-prone," said Fortescue cheerfully. "Accidents don't happen around me more than around other people. But I'm excitement-prone. If I take a walk down the street, there's a hold-up or a suicide, or a manic-depressive switches cycles and starts to walk through crowded traffic on his hands. Or maybe a man catches his wife out with another man and tries to kill him, or a woman catches her husband out with another woman and tries to kill her. You've no idea how wearing it is, Mr. Braden!"

"No doubt," said Braden. "But..."

"I'm a tranquil person," said Fortescue amiably. "I like to smell flowers and read poetry. When in a mood for thrills, I may take a cup of especially strong tea. Last week I had a really bad day! There was a zoo scene being taped and I was looking on - I had nothing to do with it - and a Tralian wombat broke loose. Nobody was hurt, but it was a near thing. Enough to give anybody a heart condition. So after they caught the beast I left, and I was walking down the street, still feeling shaky, when suddenly everybody began to yell at me. Somebody was lowering something heavy from a window high up, right over my head. And one strand of the rope had snapped and they were trying to get the object down to the ground before the other strands snapped. And they did, about five feet along, and where I'd been just two seconds before! I scurried for my hotel. I wanted no more excitement! So I settled down resolutely to have a quiet evening - and smoke began to pour into my room and there were loud screams of 'Fire!' "

He paused dramatically, and then grinned again.

"It was a wastebasket. A cupful of water put the fire out. But that was a wearing day! Almost typical, though. So you can imagine how relieved I was when the steward said that there's never any excitement in space. When he assured me that our journey would have all the thrills of a term in jail, I loved him like a brother!"

"We'll try," said Braden grimly, "not to disappoint you."

He went into the cabin where Duckworth, the director, was fussily supervising the unpacking of tape cameras from their cases, to be set up on tripods. The cameraman with the harassed expression - Hardy - and the girl Diane seemed to be getting the equipment ready in spite of his help. Duckworth turned when Braden entered.

"Ah, Mr. Braden! I suppose it's all right about making those shots. We'll want to putter around a bit and find a good light-balance..."

"It's not all right," said Braden. "Will you come with me for a moment?"

Duckworth stared, but then he followed Braden. Derr Carmody came out of her cabin. She smiled regally at Braden.

The mate led Duckworth into the corridor outside the passenger space. The skipper's rooms might have a hidden microphone in them, and so might the control-room, but all the ship couldn't be bugged. There was too much of it.

"What's the matter?" demanded Duckworth. "Don't tell me the captain isn't willing for us to shoot those scenes!"

"I didn't ask him," said Braden. "Something much more serious hag turned up. It's developed that the crew signed on for this voyage with something more than their wages in mind. There's treasure aboard and it looks as if they hope to seize the ship. They're disarmed at the moment - so it seems - but it's not likely that they'll stay that way. I came to ask what weapons you've got. Can you defend yourselves if the skipper and I manage to hold the rest of the ship? I mean, defend yourselves against attack?"

Duckworth gasped and turned white. He explained agitatedly that his was a tape-drama production unit, not in search of adventure. They'd come on the Rim Star to shoot the ship- scene sequences for a play about an area somewhere in space where all physical laws were reversed. They were prepared to make special-effects shots.

"How about defending yourselves?" asked Braden. "It seems that the skipper and I can only depend on each other. If we have to look after you too, it won't be easy!"

Duckworth gestured in exasperation. He was a producer and director, he protested. He staged adventure dramas. He and his associates were passengers! They were theatrical people. They'd secured passage on the Rim Star with the implied guarantee...

"Subject," said Braden harshly, "to the hazards of space. Ship officers have the right to demand help even from passengers in time of emergency. One's coming up. How much help can you give?"

Duckworth swallowed.

"Any weapons?" demanded Braden. "They're waved around most of the tape plays I've seen! What have you got?"

Duckworth stammered, not wholly from fright but more from shock. Groundlings on ultra- civilized planets go in for melodrama as a pleasurable spectacle. They don't imagine being in danger themselves. Duckworth had to change the whole course of his thoughts in order to answer. He'd never considered facing real danger. It was almost impossible for him to readjust and think in terms of possible conflict with criminals who were not playing dramatic roles.

But he managed to answer eventually. Yes, they had weapons for their tape-drama production. They had blast-rifles and blast-pistols. But they were stage weapons. They looked like real blasters, and sounded like them. When they were fired, very convincing blaster-bolts shot out of their muzzles. But they were really only fireworks instead of deadly small vortexes of ball-lightning. In short, the tape-drama production unit was completely unarmed.

"I've a few pocket blasters for you," said Braden dourly. "You'll have to do the best you can. Who'll have the nerve to use them?"

Duckworth winced. He'd never fired even a stage weapon. Fortescue had played dramatic parts and could probably handle a weapon, more or less. Hardy could too, perhaps.

"If I... really had to count on somebody," said Duckworth rather desperately, "it would be Diane. If you've got just one pistol to pass out, give it to her. She won't use it unless she has to. She's a very fine girl. Worth two men like Fortescue - or me."

Braden growled. When a man admits that a woman is a better man than he is, he may be honest but he should be ashamed.

"Call her out here," he commanded. "And Fortescue."

He paced up and down the corridor while Duckworth went into the passengers' quarters and came out again with the actor and the girl. Braden grimly told them what he'd told Duckworth. Fortescue looked pained. Diane looked steadily at Braden until he'd finished.

"We'll get out the stage blasters," she said quietly. "If there's need, real ones and stage ones going off together ought to be almost as effective as if they were all real, because they'll be surprising."

"But I'm afraid of Derr," Duckworth said unhappily. "When she hears about this..."

"We won't let her," said Diane decisively. "She'd make a production out of the whole business. Everybody else, yes. But not her."

"Here are three blasters," said Braden. "Keep them handy. Maybe nothing will happen for days. Maybe we can stall off the whole business indefinitely. We'll try. But..."

He explained, curtly and with precision, how the emergency light system could be turned on. Where there were emergency supplies of food and water. How the passengers' compartment could be isolated from within, with its own air supply. He found that he was giving the explanation to Diane.

"Nothing may happen for days," he repeated, "and it's possible nothing will happen at all. But there's one thing . He hesitated, and then said angrily. "I've profound doubts about the steward. Don't take his word for anything. Especially no message that you can start shooting pictures. Especially no word from the skipper or me that would make you leave your quarters or be separated. If I've a message for you, I'll bring it. If the skipper has one, demand that he give it in person. Understand?"

T'hen he said urgently:

"I can't possibly have any designs that wouldn't be countered by the instructions I've given you. Stay together. Always be armed. Keep watch. You can't be anything but safer that way! And stay in your quarters!"

Later, he puzzled over his own urgency to make them - especially Diane - believe what he told them. It wasn't usual for him to reason with anybody. As the mate of the Rim Star his duty was to get the ship to her destination. He'd tried to have the skipper return and sign on another crew, simply to make her arrival at Handel's Planet more likely. He'd fought the five crewmen in the forecastle in an attempt to prevent any chance of a mutiny. But right now...

"I told you, Mr. Braden," Fortescue said wryly, "that I'm excitement-prone. Exciting things happen all around me. And I'd been looking forward to the sort of quiet life one has in jail!"

"Maybe," said Braden, "we can still arrange it."

But he didn't expect to. He left the passengers. He passed the steward in the corridor, part way up toward the bow, heading for the passengers' section with meals for five persons on a rolling cart. The steward gave him a cordial smile and went on.

Braden went to his cabin. In.substance, the skipper's order to get out of the control-room meant that he was to stay out of it until his time on-watch arrived. But once the ship was in overdrive there should be nothing to do but watch the instruments. Their readings were automatically recorded on the log-tape every so often. In between, any registration even fractionally off normal would set off a signal that would wake a man dozing in the control- room. If that went unheeded, there'd be a general alarm audible all over the ship. A vessel the size of the Rim Star actually required no larger crew than the smallest of yachts. The minimum crew for any size of spacecraft was the smallest number of men who could endure uneventfulness and each other's society for a long time.

Braden surveyed his own cabin. He still had a blaster in his pocket, after partly arming the passengers. He wasn't welcome in the control-room. He'd done all that could be done for the moment about the crew and the intentions of its members. Now he had nothing to do.

He unpacked his ship-bag and put its contents in the lockers and cupboards provided for the purpose. He could, of course, take a nap. Ability to sleep is useful in space; it passes the time. Reading is also valuable. But Braden was in no mood for either.

It occurred to him that since the skipper's quarters should more than probably be considered to be wired for eavesdropping, and since the control-room might be, it was conceivable that even the mate's cabin might be bugged. At least it would be useful to know.

He began to search. His action was out of all reason. Ships aren't wired for bugging. There's no sense in it, there can be no purpose to it. But the skipper's private quarters almost certainly were bugged. So, though it was irrational, Braden continued his search.

He found thread-thin wires coming out of the corner of a shoe-locker near the floor. They were almost invisible, for they had been painted over. Actually he saw less than an inch of paired unpainted wires in the locker at floor-level. But once he'd found those, it was possible to trace them.

He had the miniature microphone in his hand when the door of his cabin opened. He jerked his head toward it. The skipper stood there, frowning portentously. But when he saw the thing in Braden's hand, he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, his eyes fixed on the tiny object.

Braden held it so he could see it clearly. Braden's own expression was ironic. The skipper made a preliminary rumbling noise and then stopped. He gestured; Braden shrugged and turned his eyes back to what he'd found.

He examined it in detail while the skipper stood absolutely silent, watching. In a matter of minutes Braden had made the microphone inoperative. He did not cut the wires; hence any test of the circuit would show it was working. But the microphone would no longer transmit any sounds from the cabin. Anyone listening in would guess, most likely, either that the cabin was empty or that something was accidently pressing on the microphone and keeping it from transmitting.

The skipper nodded and waited until Braden had put everything back as before. Then he spoke, after the usual rumble.

"Very smart, Mr. Braden! Very smart! If you'd asked me, I'd have advised exactly that! You mentioned that I was overheard in my own quarters, which I knew, and you may have guessed at the control-room. If so, you were right. I was about to ask you to take a walk with me, for a confidential talk. But now we can talk here."

Braden got up from the floor where he'd disabled the microphone.

"Glad to have you, sir. Will you take a chair?"

The skipper grimaced. He sat down gingerly, like a man who has learned that not all chairs are to be entrusted with his weight.

"It won't take long, Mr. Braden. I begin to think well of you. I have written out an order which is completely useless, for you to carry out in case of emergency."

"Yes, sir," said Braden.

With an effort, the skipper removed from a pocket a bit of paper that had been folded many times. He handed it to Braden.

"You will be careful, Mr. Braden, not to let anyone know about this order. Keep it carefully - not that it will do any good. The substance of it is that if I should die or be disabled in any way that would remove me from active control of the ship, you are immediately to get the passengers into a spaceboat, smash all controls in the other boats and the ship - if possible, of course - and abandon ship."

Braden stiffened. An officer's first duty being to his ship, he should not abandon it except in the most extreme disaster - which it was his responsibility to prevent.

"That," the skipper rumbled sardonically, "is charity on my part. I am taking a great risk in giving it - and I do not like to take risks. So I will explain the situation aboard the Rim Star."

He looked at the door. Braden went to it, stepped out, and examined the corridor outside. It was empty. He did not like this order. It ran counter to every instinct and every rule and to all the traditions of space. He stepped back into the cabin.

"Very good!" said the skipper. "It is more important than you may dream, Mr. Braden, that I should not be overheard. I take this risk for your sake and that of the passengers - whom I have not seen, and whom I fervently hope I will not see! The reason is that it is almost inconceivable that the Rim Star will ever reach Handel's Planet. I have arranged matters that way for good and sufficient reason."

Braden stiffened. This violated everything he believed in as a merchant-space officer. It was unbelievable that a ship captain would do such a thing. But there'd been enough of the extraordinary on the Rim Star already, to make it believable if it explained what had happened up to now.

"This ship," said the skipper sardonically, "belongs to my son-in-law. He has suffered losses, and the Rim Star is nearly all he has left. But she is insured. If she is lost, so long as I am lost with her he will really lose very little - and I will be dead if the ship is lost! He will have money to reestablish himself with, instead of owning only a white elephant like this... You have to understand this to understand the rest. I would not willingly injure my daughter, and my son-in-law does not know what I plan."

Braden nodded, not to indicate understanding or agreement, but for the skipper to go on.

"My purpose," said the skipper flatly, "is to destroy the crew. Not the ship. If I can, I will complete the voyage - I hope with your assistance, Mr. Braden! But I shall destroy the crew!... Have you ever heard of the Melpomene, Mr. Braden?"

Braden thought hard for a moment, then shook his head. He was deeply suspicious. He was enraged at being involved in what might prove to be wrecking a ship for the insurance.

"She vanished in space five years ago, Mr. Braden," said the skipper evenly. "There were the usual rumors that she had blundered into the Other Side of Nowhere - which does not exist. The fact is that she was the victim of her crew, of pirates." He paused. "I have a married daughter now. But I did have another daughter. She and my wife were passengers on the Melpomene when the ship was taken by pirates."

Braden went to the door again, found the corridor still empty, and came back.

"The crew, Mr. Braden, rose up and killed the officers. In time they killed the passengers... In time! I say this because against all probability the wrecked Melpomene was found two years later. There was no publicity at the time, because reminding people that such things can happen discourages them from travel. It injures the passenger business! But it was plain that the officers were killed first, and the passengers - at least the women passengers - considerably later. But this was not publicized. Business might suffer!"

The skipper's tone was the quintessence of bitterness.

"I was told," he said bitterly, "so the identification of their bodies could be certain. My wife and my daughter were murdered. One crewmember was killed - but all the officers and passengers were. There were, of course, very exact descriptions of all the crewmembers and passengers on file. I spare you the details I cannot spare myself, but it is very clear that the crew rose up, that there was some fighting during which one crewman and all the officers were killed, and that then the ship and her passengers were in the pirates' hands. It is also clear that after an interval the passengers were murdered and the crew escaped in a space-boat with the loot obtained from the Melpomene."

The skipper stopped for a long minute. Although a huge man - even his eyes were rimmed with fat - he did not look humorous. He looked deadly.

"I had descriptions of the crew," he said with a sort of icy precision. "I had doubts from the beginning. I kept an eye open for them. After the wreck of the Melpomene was found I hunted for them. Once or twice I thought I saw one of them, but I found the steward more than a year and a half ago. I was reasonably sure about him, but I could be mistaken. Eventually I got him on my ship. I made the post of steward attractive. I pampered him. I trusted him foolishly. I gave him privileges. He became the skipper's pet. But... I could be mistaken. One man alone, though he fits a description perfectly, may still not be the man described. But six men together, each of them fitting the description of a member of the Melpomene's crew - That is something else!"

Then he said:

"Look out the door."

Braden obeyed. He came back and shook his head to indicate that the corridor was empty. The skipper went on icily.

"The steward picked these five others for this particular voyage. He has been with me for months. He has practically run the ship. He is convinced that I am a fool. I told him - it was reasonable to tell a man I trusted implicitly - that there would be treasure aboard... some millions of credits in cash. And he found a crew. Many men would not be willing to sign on for this voyage because there is no landing-grid at the other end of it. But he found men! And every man matches the description of a member of the Melpomene's crew. Six men match six descriptions! Tell me if their behavior bears out my belief! Tell me what they signed on for!"

Braden said wryly:

"I think you're very likely right, sir. But there is still a chance, however small..."

"Granted," said the skipper heavily. "I could be wrong. So I am waiting - and I shall wait - until the instant they make it perfectly clear that I am not mistaken. My plans from that moment on do not concern you, Mr. Braden. You might..." the skipper rumbled scornfully... "you might be shocked by them!"

"On the other hand," said Braden, "you might be killed."

"True," said the skipper. "I would be sorry for that! But surely you can't doubt that I've prepared for that! Once in every twenty-four hours, Mr. Braden, I press a little button. If during any twenty-four hours I do not press it - and the steward does not know about it, Mr. Braden - there will be no Rim Star. She will be blown to atoms. Therefore, if I am killed or disabled, I have ordered you to put the passengers into a space boat and abandon ship. It is a kindness on my part."

"Except," said Braden, "that a space-boat has an extreme range of five light-years. The odds aren't too good that there'll be a habitable planet so near - let alone a colonized one - if I have to leave the ship suddenly. Not in this part of space!"

The skipper rose to his feet.

"That's a better chance than you'll have otherwise, Mr. Braden. I've done all I can bring myself to do. I have risked everything I've lived this long for, out of charity for passengers I have not seen and will not see!"

He moved toward the cabin door. Then he paused and said evenly,

"You are quite right, Mr. Braden! I am a murderous monomaniac. But in my place you would be, too!"