Orphans of the Sky (8 page)

      
Hugh thought quickly. This was a new aspect, a new possibility. His uncle? No, while they had always got along well, their minds did not meet—they would greet each other as strangers. He had never made friends easily; Ertz had been his obvious next friend and now look at the damned thing! Then he recalled his village chum, Alan Mahoney, with whom he had played as a boy. True, he had seen practically nothing of him since the time he was apprenticed to Nelson. Still—

      
"Does Alan Mahoney still live in our village?"
 

      
"Why, yes."

      
"I'd like to see him, if he'll come."

      
Alan arrived, nervous, ill at ease, but plainly glad to see Hugh and very much upset to find him under sentence to make the Trip. Hugh pounded him on the back. "Good boy," he said, "I knew you would come."

      
"Of course, I would," protested Alan, "once I knew. But nobody in the village knew it. I don't think even the Witnesses knew it."

      
"Well, you're here, that's what matters. Tell me about yourself. Have you married?"

      
"Huh, uh, no. Let's not waste time talking about me. Nothing ever happens to me anyhow. How in Jordan's name did you get in this jam, Hugh?"

      
"I can't talk about that, Alan. I promised Lieutenant Nelson that I wouldn't."

      
"Well, what's a
promise—that
kind of a promise? You're in a
jam,
fellow."

      
"Don't I know it!"
 

      
"Somebody have it in for you?"
 

      
"Well—our old pal Mort Tyler didn't help any; I think I can say that much."
 

      
Alan whistled and nodded his head slowly. "That explains a lot."
 

      
"How come? You know something?"
 

      
"Maybe, maybe not. After you went away he married Edris Baxter."
 

      
"So? Hm-m-m—yes, that clears up a lot." He remained silent for a time.
 

      
Presently Alan spoke up: "Look, Hugh. You're not going to sit here and take it, are you? Particularly with Tyler mixed in it. We gotta get you outa here."

      
"How?"

      
"I don't know. Pull a raid, maybe. I guess I could get a few knives to rally round and help us—all good boys, spoiling for a fight."

      
"Then, when it's over, we'd all be for the Converter. You, me, and your pals. No, it wont wash."
 

      
"But we've
got
to do something. We can't just sit here and wait for them to burn you."
 

      
"I know that." Hugh studied Alan's face. Was it a fair thing to ask? He went on, reassured by what he had seen. "Listen. You would do anything you could to get me out of this, wouldn't you?"

      
"You know that." Alan's tone showed hurt.

      
"Very well, then. There is a dwarf named Bobo. I'll tell you how to find him—"

      
Alan climbed, up and up, higher than he had ever been since Hugh had led him, as a boy, into fool-hardy peril. He was older now, more conservative; he had no stomach for it. To the very real danger of leaving the well-traveled lower levels was added his superstitious ignorance. But still he climbed.

      
This should be about the place—unless he had lost count. But he saw nothing of the dwarf.

      
Bobo saw him first. A slingshot load caught Alan in the pit of the stomach, even as he was shouting, "Bobo!"

      
Bobo backed into Joe-Jim's compartment and dumped his load at the feet of the twins. "Fresh meat," he said proudly.

      
"So it is," agreed Jim indifferently. "Well, it's yours; take it away."

      
The dwarf dug a thumb into a twisted ear. "Funny," he said, "he knows Bobo's name."

      
Joe looked up from the book he was reading—Browning's
Collected Poems,
L-Press, New York, London, Luna City, cr. 3/5. "That's interesting. Hold on a moment."

      
Hugh had prepared Alan for the shock of Joe-Jim's appearance. In reasonably short order he collected his wits sufficiently to be able to tell his tale. Joe-Jim listened to it without much comment, Bobo with interest but little comprehension.

      
When Alan concluded, Jim remarked, "Well, you win, Joe. He didn't make it." Then, turning to Alan, he added, "You can take Hoyland's place. Can you play checkers?"

      
Alan looked from one head to the other. "But you don't understand," he said. "Aren't you going to do anything about it?"

      
Joe looked puzzled. "Us? Why should we?"

      
"But you've
got
to. Don't you see? He's depending on you. There's nobody else he can look to. That's why I came. Don't you see?"

      
"Wait a moment," drawled Jim, "wait a moment. Keep your belt on. Supposing we did want to help him—which we don't—how in Jordan's Ship could we? Answer me that."

      
"Why—why—" Alan stumbled in the face of such stupidity. "Why, get up a rescue party, of course, and go down and get him out!"

      
"Why should we get ourselves killed in a fight to rescue your friend?"

      
Bobo pricked his ears. "Fight?" he inquired eagerly.
 

      
"No, Bobo," Joe denied. "No fight. Just talk."
 

      
"Oh," said Bobo and returned to passivity.
 

      
Alan looked at the dwarf. "If you'd even let Bobo

and me—"
 

      
"No," Joe said shortly. "It's out of the question. Shut up about it."
 

      
Alan sat in a corner, hugging his knees in despair. If only he could get out of there. He could still try to stir up some help down below. The dwarf seemed to be asleep, though it was difficult to be sure with him. If only Joe-Jim would sleep, too.

      
Joe-Jim showed no indication of sleepiness. Joe tried to continue reading, but Jim interrupted him from time to time. Alan could not hear what they were saying.

      
Presently Joe raised his voice. "Is that your idea of fun?" he demanded.

      
"Well," said Jim, "it beats checkers."

      
"It does, does it? Suppose you get a knife in your eye—where would I be then?"

      
"You're getting old, Joe. No juice in you any more."
 

      
"You're as old as I am."
 

      
"Yeah, but I got young ideas."

      
"Oh, you make me sick. Have it your own way—but don't blame me. Bobo!"

      
The dwarf sprang up at once, alert. "Yeah, Boss."

      
"Go out and dig up Squatty and Long Arm and Pig." Joe-Jim got up, went to a locker, and started pulling knives out of their racks.

      
Hugh heard the commotion in the passageway outside his prison. It could be the guards coming to take him to the Converter, though they probably wouldn't be so noisy. Or it could be just some excitement unrelated to him. On the other hand it might be—

      
It was. The door burst open, and Alan was inside, shouting at him and thrusting a brace of knives into his hands. He was hurried out of the door, while stuffing the knives in his belt and accepting two more.

      
Outside he saw Joe-Jim, who did not see him at once, as he was methodically letting fly, as calmly as if he had been engaging in target practice in his own study. And Bobo, who ducked his head and grinned with a mouth widened by a bleeding cut, but continued the easy flow of the motion whereby he loaded and let fly. There were three others, two of whom Hugh recognized as belonging to Joe-Jim's privately owned gang of bullies—muties by definition and birthplace; they were not deformed.

      
The count does not include still forms on the floor plates.

      
"Come on!" yelled Alan. "There'll be more in no time." He hurried down the passage to the right.

      
Joe-Jim desisted and followed him. Hugh let one blade go for luck at a figure running away to the left. The target was poor, and he had no time to see if he had drawn blood. They scrambled along the passage, Bobo bringing up the rear, as if reluctant to leave the fun, and came to a point where a side passage crossed the main one.

      
Alan led them to the right again. "Stairs ahead," he shouted.

      
They did not reach them. An airtight door, rarely used, clanged in their faces ten yards short of the stairs. Joe-Jim's bravoes checked their flight and they looked doubtfully at their master. Bobo broke his thickened nails trying to get a purchase on the door.

      
The sounds of pursuit were clear behind them.
 

      
"Boxed in," said Joe softly. "I hope you like it, Jim."
 

      
Hugh saw a head appear around the corner of the passage they had quitted. He threw overhand but the distance was too great; the knife clanged harmlessly against steel. The head disappeared. Long Arm kept his eye on the spot, his sling loaded and ready.

      
Hugh grabbed Bobo's shoulder. "Listen! Do you see that light?"

      
The dwarf blinked stupidly. Hugh pointed to the intersection of the glowtubes where they crossed in the overhead directly above the junction of the passages. "That light. Can you hit them where they cross?"

      
Bobo measured the distance with his eye. It would be a hard shot under any conditions at that range. Here, constricted as he was by the low passageway, it called for a fast, flat trajectory, and allowance for higher weight than he was used to.

      
He did not answer. Hugh felt the wind of his swing but did not see the shot. There was a tinkling crash; the passage became dark.

      
"Now!" yelled Hugh, and led them away at a run. As they neared the intersection he shouted, "Hold your breaths! Mind the gas!" The radioactive vapor poured lazily out from the broken tube above and filled the crossing with a greenish mist.

      
Hugh ran to the right, thankful for his knowledge as an engineer of the lighting circuits. He had picked the right direction; the passage ahead was black, being serviced from beyond the break. He could hear footsteps around him; whether they were friend or enemy he did not know.

      
They burst into light. No one was in sight but a scared and harmless peasant who scurried away at an unlikely pace. They took a quick muster. All were present, but Bobo was making heavy going of it.

      
Joe looked at him. "He sniffed the gas, I think. Pound his back."

      
Pig did so with a will. Bobo belched deeply, was suddenly sick, then grinned.

      
"He'll do," decided Joe.

      
The slight delay had enabled one at least to catch up with them. He came plunging out of the dark, unaware of, or careless of, the strength against him. Alan knocked Pig's arm down, as he raised it to throw.

      
"Let me at 'im!" he demanded. "He's mine!"
 

      
It was Tyler.
 

      
"Man-fight?" Alan challenged, thumb on his blade.
 

      
Tyler's eyes darted from adversary to adversary and accepted the invitation to individual duel by lunging at Alan. The quarters were too cramped for throwing; they closed, each achieving his grab in parry, fist to wrist.

      
Alan was stockier, probably stronger; Tyler was slippery. He attempted to give Alan a knee to the crotch. Alan evaded it, stamped on Tyler's planted foot. They went down. There was a crunching crack.

      
A moment later, Alan was wiping his knife against his thigh. "Let's get goin'," he complained. "I'm scared."

      
They reached a stairway, and raced up it, Long Arm and Pig ahead to fan out on each level and cover their flanks, and the third of the three choppers—Hugh heard him called Squatty—covering the rear. The others bunched in between.

      
Hugh thought they had won free, when he heard shouts and the clatter of a thrown knife just above him. He reached the level above in time to be cut not deeply but jaggedly by a ricocheted blade.

      
Three men were down. Long Arm had a blade sticking in the fleshy part of his upper arm, but it did not seem to bother him. His slingshot was still spinning. Pig was scrambling after a thrown knife, his own armament exhausted. But there were signs of his work; one man was down on one knee some twenty feet away. He was bleeding from a knife wound in the thigh.

      
As the figure steadied himself with one hand against the bulkhead and reached toward an empty belt with the other, Hugh recognized him.

      
Bill Ertz.

      
He had led a party up another way and flanked them, to his own ruin. Bobo crowded behind Hugh and got his mighty arm free for the cast. Hugh caught at it. "Easy, Bobo," he directed. "In the stomach, and easy."