Aftershocks

Di

“Hullo, David, old chum! So good to catch up with you again!” The voice on the other end of the line was cheerful, English, educated-and familiar. Recognizing it at once, Goldfarb wished he hadn’t.

“Roundbush,” he said, and then, his voice harsh, “What do you want with me?”

“You’re a smart lad. I daresay you can figure that out for yourself,” Basil Roundbush answered cheerfully. “You didn’t do as you were told, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to pay for that.”

Automatically, Goldfarb’s eyes went to the gadget that showed the numbers of incoming calls. If he knew where the RAF officer who’d given him so much trouble was, he might be able to do something about him, or have the authorities do something about him. But the screen on the device showed no number at all. As far as it was concerned, nobody was on the other end of the call.

With a laugh, Roundbush said, “I know you’ve flanged up something from the Lizards’ telephone switching gear. That won’t help you. You know I’ve got plenty of chums among the Race. There are times when they need to neutralize such circuits, and they haven’t any trouble doing it.”

He obviously knew whereof he spoke. “Sod off and leave me alone,” Goldfarb growled. “I don’t want anything to do with you, and I don’t want anything to do with your bleeding chums, either.”

“You’ve made that plain enough.” Roundbush still sounded happy. “But no one cares very much about your view of things, you know. You’ve been uncooperative, and now you’re going to have to pay the price. I rather wish it were otherwise: you had promise. But such is life.” He hung up.

So did Goldfarb, cursing under his breath. “Who was that?” Naomi called as she set the table.

“Basil Roundbush.” Goldfarb wished he could have come up with a comforting, convincing lie.

The gentle clatter of plates and silverware stopped. His wife hurried out into the living room. “What did he want?” she asked. “I thought we were rid of him for good.”

“I thought we were, too,” David answered. “I wish we were, but no such luck.” He sighed. “He didn’t come right out and say what he wanted, but he didn’t have to, not really. I already know that: he wants a piece of my hide.” His right hand folded into a fist. “He’ll have a devil of a time getting it, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Glen Johnson stared into space. From the control room of the Lewis and Clark, in solar orbit not far from the asteroid Ceres, there was a lot of space to see. The stars blazed clear and steady against the black sky of hard vacuum. The glass that held the vacuum at bay had been coated to kill reflections; except for knowing that it kept him alive, Johnson could ignore it.

Turning to Mickey Fly

“Sixty-three percent,” Fly

“How do you know that?” Johnson asked. He was prepared to take the figure as gospel truth. Fly

“Simple,” he said now, beaming as if the entire magnificent show out there beyond the window had been created for his benefit alone. “I made it up.”

He had a splendid deadpan; if he’d claimed he’d read it somewhere or done some arcane calculations to prove it, Johnson would have believed him.

As things were, Johnson snorted. “That’ll teach me to ask you a serious question.”

“No,” Fly

All it got him was another snort from Glen Johnson. Johnson peered ahead toward Jupiter, on which Ceres and the Lewis and Clark were slowly gaining. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to see the Galilean moons with the naked eye.”

“When Jupiter’s in opposition in respect to us, you will be able to,” Fly

“So help you Ha

“Lieutenant Colonel Johnson! Lieutenant Colonel Glen Johnson!” His name rang out over the Lewis and Clark’s PA system. Oh, Christ! he thought. What have I done to piss off the commandant now? But it wasn’t the commandant: the PA operator went on, “Report to scooter launching bay one immediately! Lieutenant Colonel Johnson. Lieutenant Colonel-”

“See you later,” Johnson said to Fly

“And I’ll be glad to be seen,” Fly

“What’s going on?” Johnson asked when he got to the launch bay.

A technician was giving the scooter-a little rocket with a motor mounted at the front and another at the rear-a once-over. He said, “There’s some kind of medical trouble in Dome 27, on that rock with the big black vein through it.”

“Okay, I know the one you mean,” Johnson said. “About twenty miles rearward of us, right?” He waited for the tech to nod, then went on, “Is it bad enough that they want me to bring a doctor over?” One of the things going out into space had done was let people find new ways to maim themselves.

But the technician said, “No. What they want you to do is bring the gal back here so the doc can look her over, see what’s going on.”

“Gal?” Johnson clicked his tongue between his teeth. Women made up only about a third of the Lewis and Clark’s crew. Losing anybody hurt. Losing a woman… The idea shouldn’t have hurt twice as much, but somehow it seemed to. “What’s wrong with her? She hurt herself?”

“No,” the tech said again. “Belly pain.”

“Okay. I’ll go get her.” The Lewis and Clark had a chamber that could be spun to simulate gravity-only about.25g, but that was enough for surgery. Operating in weightlessness, with blood floating everywhere, wasn’t even close to practical. The chamber, so far as Johnson knew, hadn’t been used yet, but there was a first time for everything.

“You’re ready,” the tech said. “You’re fully fueled, oxygen supply is full, too, batteries are good, radio checks are all nominal.”

“Let me in, then.” Johnson glided past the technician and into the scooter. After he closed the gas-tight canopy, he ran his own checks. It was his neck, after all. Everything looked the way the tech said it was. Johnson would have been astonished-and furious-had that proved otherwise. As things were, he spoke into the radio mike: “Ready when you are.”

“Okay.” A gas-tight door slid shut behind the scooter. A moment later, another one slid open in front of it. A charge of compressed air pushed the little rocket out of its bay. Johnson waited till it had drifted far enough away from the Lewis and Clark, then lit up his attitude jets and his rear motor and started off toward Dome 27.

He smiled in enormous pleasure as he made the trip. Mickey Fly

“In a scooter, I’m the hottest damn pilot in the whole solar system,” he said after making sure he wasn’t transmitting. Without false modesty, he knew he was right. His years as a combat flier and in Earth-orbital missions gave him a feel for the little rocket nobody else aboard the Lewis and Clark came close to matching. This was spaceflight, too, spaceflight in its purest form, spaceflight by the seat of his pants.

He made only one concession to his instruments: he kept an eye on the radar screen, to make sure his Mark One eyeball didn’t miss any tumbling rocks that might darken his day if they smacked into the scooter. He had to be especially watchful heading toward Dome 27, since he was going, so to speak, against the flow.

He spied one large object on the radar that he couldn’t see at all, but he didn’t let it worry him. He supposed it was inevitable that the Lizards should have sent out unma

Their spy ship was well off the track between the Lewis and Clark and Dome 27, so Johnson didn’t waste more than a moment’s thought on it. He fired up the radio once more: “Dome 27, this is the scooter. I say again, Dome 27, this is the scooter. I understand you have a pickup for me. Over.”

“That’s right, Scooter,” said whoever was ma

“Sounds about right,” Johnson agreed. “I’ll get her back, and the doc’ll figure out what’s going on with her. Hope everything turns out okay. Out.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Liz Brock-that’s not so good.” She was the ship’s number-one expert on electrolyzing ice to get oxygen for breathing and fuel and hydrogen for fuel. She was also a nice-looking blonde. She’d never shown the least interest in Johnson, but he didn’t believe in wasting valuable natural resources.