The Ophiuchi Hotline

"And the second reason?"

"I don't know if you'll believe this one, so you'd better think hard about the first. But for the record, I'm worried, I don't like the sound of that Hotline message. I don't like it at all. I think someone had better look into it, and it might as well be me. So I want to go out and hear it for myself."

Vaffa lowered her eyes for a moment and rubbed her bare scalp. Then she nodded, and sat down cross-legged on the tree limb.

"All right. I'm... I'm sorry. I said I'd trust you, and I will from now on. On the same terms as before, though, don't forget that. If you betray me, I'll hunt you down and kill you, no matter how long it takes."

"That's all I'm asking for." Lilo sat beside her. She stretched out with her arms behind her head.

"So how did it go with the holehunter?" Vaffa asked.

"Washed out. He won't do it."

"What?"

"Put your shirt on. That's why I'm late. I had him that close. We were talking terms."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You. Oh, not you personally. You and Cathay. He flatly refuses to take more than one passenger. None of us can go alone, for obvious reasons, so the deal had to fall through."

"But why? I checked him out. His ship would handle four easily over that distance."

Lilo sighed. "I know. You have to try and understand what these people are like. They don't like people. It was torture for him to consider taking me alone. Three people scared him so badly he could barely talk."

"I guess I still don't understand."

Lilo tried again, because she didn't, either. "Put yourself in his place. He's spent most of his life alone on that ship. It's like part of his body. He's slowly going insane here on Pluto, and he knows it. To him, sharing his ship is as repulsive as..." she flailed her hands helplessly, "...I don't know. Sharing a toothbrush. Think of your own metaphor. He just won't do it, not for anything."

"Then we're back where we started."

Lilo pursed her lips, then turned her head and smiled.

"Nooo. As it happens, we're not. I hired him as an expert consultant. Gave him enough for a stake at the tables. Asked him the big question: Is there anyone who might do what we need, do it faster than we could do it ourselves by buying our own ship? Or was it hopeless? Would every hunter react as he did?"

"Go on. What did he say?"

"He gave me a name. No promises, you understand. But if anyone will do it, she will. She's crazy, even by holehunter standards. And I'm going up to see her in two hours, on the next shuttle."

"Why didn't you say so in the first... no, never mind. I suppose I can't go."

"That's right. No sense in spooking her with the three of us right off. This will take finesse."

"Then that's you, obviously."

Lilo turned her head, looking to see if the other woman had been trying to make a joke. That would be a first. But Vaffa's face was as stolid as ever.

"What's her name?"

"Javelin."

17

The singular personage named Javelin lived in her ship, the Cavorite, which was currently stationed at the Pluto spaceport—the real one, as opposed to the vast plain over Florida which was the landing facility for shuttles. It was a vast zone of space, but rather crowded, as the radar screen of Lilo's scooter showed. There were a thousand factories, power stations, mirrors, and farms; nearly all the heavy industry and a lot of the agriculture of Pluto. She was happy to leave the driving to the traffic-control computer.

The scooter mated with the lock of the Cavorite. Lilo was surprised at the size of the other ship as she climbed over the struts of the scooter toward the open door. It had looked strange coming in; most of it was engine and fuel tank, like any holehunter ship, but even that looked oversized. As for the lifesystem... could that be brass?

The lifesystem was streamlined, for no apparent reason. It jutted like a golden nipple at one end of the massive fuel-tank cylinder. It had none of the haphazard, strung-together look Lilo associated with deep-space vessels. It was a fat bullet, blunt at the nose and tapering slightly at the end. Four stubby fins were positioned equidistantly around the stern, where it sat on the fuel tank. The nose had a lot of glass in it, and round portholes were visible in a line down one side.

The lock seemed ordinary enough until she saw the big brass air-pressure dials with scrollwork needles spi

She sat in a small room, about three times the size of the airlock. There was plush purple carpet on two facing walls, while the other four were paneled in mahogany. Bolted securely to each of the carpeted walls was a deep leather-covered chair with a carved ebony table beside it. On the tables were Tiffany lamps, crystal ashtrays, and an assortment of magazines. Lilo stared at the dates; the newest one she could see was two hundred years old.

There was no way out of the room except the door to the lock. In the wall opposite the lock was a circular hole large enough for Lilo to put her head through. Not that she was about to do that. She sat in one of the chairs, making that wall her temporary "floor," and looked up at the other chair on the "ceiling." She didn't care for the effect.

She had not recognized the square pane of glass in the wall opposite her chair for what it was: a sca

"So you want to charter a spaceship," Javelin said. "It's a novel request, I'll grant you that. I'm probably the only holehunter who might be intrigued by it. But I'm not intrigued enough, at this moment, to do business with you. Let's hear it, and it's going to have to be awfully good."

Lilo had been prepared for a long, circuitous discussion. The holehunters she had met seemed to operate that way. Javelin caught her a little off balance.

"Uh, could I ask one question? I thought you wanted me to come here so you could see me face-to-face. But it looks like I can't even get into your ship."

"This is face-to-face," Javelin said. "I've never bothered to install video transmission equipment. For me to see you, you had to come to this room. Now, where were you pla

"All right. I... that is, me, my wife, and... let me start over." Lilo was sweating. She had the uneasy feeling Javelin knew something about her, and it was obvious she wanted the truth. Maybe Quince had called and told her something.

"Me and two other people need to get out to the Hotline."

"Where on the Hotline? Are you talking about the transmitter at... 70 Ophiuchi? That would be quite a trip. But I suspect you mean you want to get to a point on the line that marks the area of strongest signal strength as it passes the Solar System."

"Exactly. Could you get us there?"

"Certainly. Why do you want to go?"

"I can't tell you that. I'm sorry. I just can't."

"That's all right. You're entitled to your little secrets." She looked thoughtful, and Lilo was worried. She sensed she was up against a shrewd person, possibly a very old one. There was no way to tell for sure; but she always got a strange feeling when she was around someone who was over three hundred.