Anderson, Poul - Trader To The Stars

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POUL ANDERSON

TRADER TO THE STARS

1964

HIDING PLACE

Captain Bahadur Torrance received the news as befitted a

Lodgemaster in the Federated Brotherhood of Spacemen.

He heard it out, interrupting only with a few knowledge-

able questions. At the end, he said calmly, "Well done,

Freeman Yamamura. Please keep this to yourself till fur-

ther notice. I'll think about what's to be done. Carry on.

But when the engineer officer had left the cabin-the news

had not been the sort you tell on the intercom-he poured

himself a triple whiskey, sat down, and stared emptily at

the viewscreen.

He had traveled far, seen much, and been well rewarded.

However, promotion being swift in his difficult line of

work, he was still too young not to feel cold at hearing his

death sentence.

The screen showed such a multitude of stars, hard

and winter-brilliant, that only an astronaut could recog-

nize individuals. Torrance sought past the Milky Way un-

til he identified Polaris. Then Valhalla would lie so-and-so

many degrees away, in that direction. Not that he could

see a type-G sun at this distance, without optical instru-

ments more powerful than any aboard the Hebe G.B.

But he found a certain comfort in knowing his eyes were

sighted toward the nearest League base (houses, ships,

humans, nestled in a green valley on Freya) in this al-

most uncharted section of our galactic arm. Especially

when he didn't expect to land there, ever again.

The ship hummed around him, pulsing in and out of

fourspace with a quasi-speed that left light far behind and

yet was still too slow to save him.

Well. . . it became the captain to think first of the

others. Torrance sighed and stood up. He spent a moment

checking his appearance; morale was important, never

more so than now. Rather than the usual gray coverall

of shipboard, he preferred full uniform: blue tunic, white

cape and culottes, gold braid. As a citizen of Ramanujan

planet, he kept a turban on his dark aquiline head,

pinned with the Ship-and-Sunburst of the Polesotechnic

League.

He went down a passageway to the owner's suite. The

steward was just leaving, a tray in his hand. Torrance sig-

naled th.e door to remain open, clicked his heels and

bowed. "I pray pardon for the interruption, sir," he said.

"May I speak privately with you? Urgent."

Nicholas van Rijn hoisted the two-liter tankard which

had been brought him. His several chins quivered under

the stiff goatee; the noise of his gulping filled the room,

from the desk littered with papers to the Huy Brasealian

jewel-tapestry hung on the opposite bulkhead. Something

by Mozart lilted out of a taper. Blond, big-eyed, and thor-

oughly three-dimensional, Jeri Kofoed curled on a couch,

within easy reach of him where he sprawled in his lounger.

Torrance, who was married but had been away from home

for some time, forced his gaze back to the merchant.

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"Ahhh!" Van Rijn banged the empty mug down on a

table and wiped foam from his mustaches. "Pox and

pestilence, but the firSt beer of the day is good! Something

with it is so quite cool and-urn-by damn, what word do

I want?" He thumped his sloping forehead with one

hairy fist. "I get more absent in the mind every week. Ah,

Torrance, when you are too a poor old lonely fat man

with all powers failing him, you will look back and re-

member me and wish you was more good to me. But then

is too late." He sighed like a minor tornado and scratched

the pelt on his chest. In the near tropic temperature at

which he insisted on maintaining his quarters, he need

wrap only a sarong about his huge body. "Well, what be-

gobbled stupiding is it I must be dragged from my-all-

too-much work to fix up for you, ha?

His tone was genial. He had, in fact, been in a good

mood ever since they escaped the Adderkops. Who

wouldn't be? For a mere space yacht, even an armed one

with ultrapowered engines, to get away from three cruis-

ers, was more than an accomplishment; it was very nearly

a miracle. Van Rijn still kept four grateful candles burn-

ing before his Martian sandroot statuette of St. Dismas.

True, he sometimes threw crockery at the steward when

a drink arrived later than he wished, and he fired every-

body aboard ship at least once a day. But that was normal.

Jeri Kofoed arched her brows. "Your first beer, Nicky?

she mnrmured. "Now really! Two hours ago.

Ja, but that was before midnight time. If not Green-

wich midnight, then surely on some planet somewhere,

me? So is a new day." Van Rijn took his churchwarden

off the table and began stuffing it. "Well, sit down, Cap-

tain Torrance, make yourself to be comfortable and

lend me your lighter. You look like a dynamited custard,

boy. All you youngsters got no stamina. When I was a

Workingg spaceman, by Judas, we made solve all our own

problems. These days, death and damnation, you come

ask me how to wipe your noses! Nobody has any guts but

me." He slapped his barrel belly. "So what is be-jingle-

bang gone wrong now?

Torrance wet his lips. "I'd rather speak to you alone,

sir."

He saw the color leave Jeri's face. She was no coward.

Frontier planets, even the pleas~t ones like Freya, didn't

breed that sort. She had come along on what she knew

would be a hazardous trip because a chance like this to

get an in with the merchant prince of the Solar Spice &

Liquors Company, which was one of the major forces

within the whole Polesotechnic League--was too good for

an opportunistic girl to refuse. She had kept her nerve

during the fight and the subsequent escape, though death

came very close. But they were still far from her planet,

among unknown stars, with the enemy hunting them.

"So go in the bedroom," Van Rijn ordered her.

"Please," she whispered. "I'd be happier hearing the

truth."

The small black eyes, set close to Van Rijn's hook nose,

flared. "Foulness and fulminate!" he bellowed. "What is

this poppies with cocking? When I say frog, by billy damn,

you jump!"

She sprang to her feet, mutinous. Without rising, he

slapped her on the appropriate spot. It sounded like a

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pistol going off. She gasped, choked back an indignant

screech, and stamped into the inner suite. Van Rijn rang

for the steward.

"More beer this calls for," he said to-Torrence. "Well,

don't stand there making bug's eyes! I got no time for

fumblydiddles, even if you overpaid loafer do. I got to

make revises of all price schedules on pepper and nut-

meg for Freya before we get there. Satan and stenches!

At least ten percent more that idiot of a factor could

charge them, and not reduce volume of sales. I swear it!

All good saints, hear me and help a poor old man saddled

with oatmeal-brained squatpots for workers!"

Torrance curbed his temper with an effort. "Very well,

sir. I just had a report from Y amamura. You know we

took a near miss during the fight, which hulled us at the

engine room. The converter didn't seem damaged, but

after patching the hole, the gang's been checking to make

sure. And it turns out that about half the circuitry for the

infrashield generator was fused. We can't replace more

than a fraction of it. If we continue to run at full quasi-

speed, we'll bum out the whole converter in another fifty

hours."

"Ah, s-s-so." Van Rijn grew serious. The snap of the

lighter, as he toucbed it to his pipe, came startlingly

loud. "No chance of stopping altogether to make fixings?

Once out of hyperdrive, we would be much too small a

thmg for the bestinkered aderkops to find. Hey?"

"No, sir. I said we haven't enough replacement parts.

This is a yacht, not a warship."

"Hokay, we must continue in hyperdrive. How slow

must we go, to make sure we come within calling distance

of Freya before our engine bums out?"

"One-tenth of top speed. It'd take us six months."

"No, my captain friend, not so long. We never reach

Valhalla star at all. The Adderkops find us first."

"I suppose so. We haven't got six months' stores aboard

anyway." Torrance stared at the deck. "What occurs to

me is, well, we could reach one of the nearby stars.

There just barely might be a planet With an industrial

civilization, whose people could eventually be taught to

make the circuits we need. A habitable planet, at least-

maybe..."

"Nie!" Van Rijn shook his head till the greasy black

ringlets swirled about his shoulders. "All us men and one

woman for life on some garbagey rock where they have

not even wine grapes? I'll take an Adderkop shell and go

out like a gentleman, by damn!" The steward appeared.

"Where you been snoozing? Beer, With God's curses on

you! I need to make thinks! How you expect I can

think with a mouth like a desert in midsummer?"

Torrance chose his words carefully. Van Rijn would

have to be reminded that the captain, in space, was the

final boss. And yet the old devil must not be antagonized,

for he had a record of squirming between the horns of

dilemmas. "I'm open to suggestions, sir, but I can't take

the responsibility of courting enemy attack."

Van Rijn rose and lumbered about the cabin, fuming

obscenities and volcanic blue clouds. As he passed the

shelf where St. Dismas stood, he pinched the candles out

in a marked manner. That seemed to trigger something

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in him. He turned about and said, "Ha! Industrial civiliz-

ations, ja, maybe so. Not only the pest-begotten Adder-

cops ply this region of space. Gives some chance per-

haps we can come in detection range of an un-beat-up

ship, nie? You go get Yamamura to jack up our detector

sensitivities till we can feel a gnat twiddle its wings back

in my Djakarta office on Earth, so lazy the cleaners are.

Then we go off this direct course and run a standard naval

search pattern at reduced speed."

"And if we find a ship? Could belong to the enemy, you

know."

"That chance we take."

"In all events, sir, we'll lose time. The pursuit will gain

on us while we follow a search-helix. Especially if we

spend days persuading some nonhmuan crew who've never

heard of the human race, that we have to be taken to Val-

halla immediately if not sooner."

"We bum that bridge when we come to it. You have

might be a more hopeful scheme?"

"Well. . ." Torrance pondered a while, blackly.

The steward came in with a fresh tankard. Van Rijn

snatched it.

"I think you're right, sir," said Torrance. "I'll go

and-"

"Virginal!" bellowed Van Rijn.

Torrance jumped. "What?"

"Virginal! That's the word I was looking for. The first

beer of the day, you idiot!"

The cabin door chimed. Torrance groaned. He'd been

hoping for some sleep, at least, after more hours on deck

than he cared to number. But when the ship prowled

through darkness, seeking another ship which might or

might not he out there, and the hunters drew closer. . .

"Come in."

Jeri Kofoed entered. Torrance gaped, sprang to his feet,

and bowed. "Freelady! What-what-what a surprise! Is

there anything I can do?"

"Please." She laid a hand on his. Her gown was of

shimmerite and shameless in cut, because Van Rijn had-

n't provided any .other sort, but the look she gave Tor-

rance had nothing to do with that. "I had to come, Lodge-

master. If you've any pity at all, you'll listen to me."

He waved her to a chair, offered cigarettes, and struck

one for himself. The smoke, drawn deep into his lungs,

calmed him a little. He sat down on the opposite side of

the table. "If I can be of help to you, Freelady Kofoed,

you know I'm happy to oblige. Vh . . . Freeman Van

Rijn . . ."

"He's asleep. Not that he has any claims on me. I haven't

signed a contract or any such thing." Her irritation gave

way to a wry smile. "Oh, admitted, we're all his inferiors,

in fact as well as in status. I'm not contravening his wishes,

not really. It's just that he won't answer my questions,

and if I don't find out what's going on I'll have to

start screaming."

Torrance weighed a number of factors. A private expla-

nation, in more detail than the crew had required, might

indeed be best for her. "As you wish, Freelady," he said,

and related what had happened to the converter. "We can't

fix it ourselves," he concluded. "If we continued traveling

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at high quasi-speed, we'd bum it out before we arrived;

and then, without power, we'd soon die. If we proceed

slowly enough to preserve it, we'd need half a year to

reach Valhalla, which is more time than we have supplies

for. Though the Adderkops would doubtless track us down

within a week or two."

She shivered. "Why? I don't understand." She stared

at her glowing cigarette end for a moment, until a degree

of composure returned, and with it a touch of humor. "I

may pass for a fast, sophisticated girl on Freya, Captain.

But you know even better than I, Freya is a jerkwater

planet on the very fringe of human civilization. We've

hardly any spatial traffic, except the League merchant ship

and they never stay long in port. I really know nothing

about military or political technology. No one told me this

was anything more important than a scouting mission,

because I never thought to inquire. Why should the Ad-

derkops be so anxious to catch us?"

Torrance considered the total picture before framing a

reply. As a spaceman of the League, he must make an

effort before he could appreciate how little the enemy

actually meant to colonists who seldom left their home

world. The name "Adderkop" was Freyan, a tenn of

scorn for outlaws who'd been booted off the planet a

century ago. Since then, however, the Freyans had had

no direct contact with them. Somewhere in the unex-

plored deeps beyond Valhalla, the fugitives had settled on

some unknown planet. Over the generations, their num-

bers grew, and so did the numbers of their warships. But

Freya was still too strong for them to raid, and had no

extraplanetary enterprises of her own to be harried. Why

should Freya care?

Torrance decided to explain systematically, even if he

must repeat the obvious. "Well," he said, "the.-Adderkops

aren't stupid. They keep somewhat in touch with events,

and know the Polesotechnic League wants to expand its

operations into this region. They don't like that. It'd

mean the end of their attacks on planets which can't

fight back, their squeezing of tribute and their over-

priced trade. Not that the League is composed of sain1s;

we don't tolerate that sort of thing, but merely because

freebooting cuts into the profits of our member companies.

So the Adderkops undertook, not to fight a full-dress war

against us, but to harass our outposts till we gave it up as

a bad job. They have the advantage of knowing their own

sector of space, which we hardly do at all. And we were,

indeed, at the point of writing this whole region off and

trying someplace else. Freeman Van Rijn wanted to

make one last attempt. The opposition to doing so

was so great that he had to come here and lead the expedi-

tion himself.

"I suppose you know what he did. Used an unholy skill

at bribery and bluff, at extracting what little infonnation

the prisoners we'd taken possessed, at fitting odd facts

together. He got a clue to a hitherto untried segment. We

flitted there, picked up a neutrino trail, and followed it to

a human-colonized planet. As you know, it's almost cer-

tainly their own home world.

"If we bring back that information, there'll be no more

trouble with the Adderkops. Not after the League sends in

a few Staf class battleships and threatens to bombard

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their planet. They realize as much. We were spotted;

several warcraft jumped us; we were lucky enough to

get away. Their ships are obsolete, and so far we've shown

them a clean pair of heels. But I hardly think they've quit

hunting for us. They'll send their entire fleet cruising in

search. Hyperdrive vibrations transmit instantaneously, and

can be detected up to about one light-year distance. So if

any Adderkop picks up our 'wake' and homes in on it-

with us crippled-that's the end."

She drew hard on her cigarette, but remained otherwise

calm. "What are your plans?"

"A countermove. Instead of trying to make Freya-uh

-I mean, we're proceeding in a search-helix at medium

speed, straining our own detectors. If we discover another

ship, we'll use the last gasp of our engine to close in.

If it's an Adderkop vessel, well, perhaps we can seize it or

something; we do have a couple of light guns in our

turrets. It may be a nonhuman craft, though. Our intelli-

gence reports, interrogation of prisoners, evaluation of ex-

plorers' observations, and so on, all indicate that three or

four different species in this region possess the hyperdrive.

The Adderkops themselves aren't certain about all of

them. Space is so damned huge."

"If it does turn out to be nonhuman?"

"Then we'll do what seems indicated;"

"I see." Her bright head nodded. She sat for a while,

unspeaking, before she dazzled him with a smile. "Thanks,

Captain. You don't know how much you've helped me."

Torrance suppressed a foolish grin. "A pleasure, Free-

lady."

"I'm coming to Earth with you. Did you know that?

Freeman Van Rijn has promised me a very good job."

He always does, thought Torrance.

Jeri leaned closer. "I hope we'll have a chance on the

Earthward trip to get better acquainted, Captain. Or even

right now."

The alarm bell chose that moment to ring.

The Hebe G.B. was a yacht, not a buccaneer frigate.

When Nicholas van Rijn was aboard, though, the distinc-

tion sometimes got a little blurred. So she had more legs

than most ships, detectors of uncommon sensitivity, and

a crew experienced in the tactics of overhauling.

She was able to get a bearing on the hyperemission of

the other craft long before her own vibrations were ob-

served. Pacing the unseen one, she established the set

course it was following, then poured on all available

juice to intercept. If the stranger had maintained quasi-

velocity, there would have been contact in three or four

hours. Instead, its wake indicated a sheering off, an at-

tempt to flee. The Hebe G.B. changed course, too, and con-

tinued gaining on her slower quarry.

"They're afraid of us," decided Torrance. "And they're

not nmning back toward the Adderkop sun. Which two

facts indicate they're not Adderkops themselves, but do

have reason to be scared of strangers." He nodded, rather

grimly, for during the preliminary investigations he had

inspected a few backward planets which the bandit

nation had visited.

Seeing that the pursuer kept shortening her distance,

the pursued turned off their hyperdrive. Reverting to in-

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trinisic sublight velocity, converter throttled down to min-

imal output, their ship became an infinitesimal speck in

an effectively infinite space. The maneuver often works;

after casting about futilely for a while, the enemy gives up

and goes home. The Hebe G.B., though, was prepared. The

known superlight vector, together with the instant of cut-

off, gave her computers a rough idea of where the prey

was. She continued to that volume of space and then

hopped about in a well-designed search pattern, reverting

to normal state at intervals to sample the neutrino haze

which any nuclear engine emits. Those nuclear engin

known as stars provided most; but by statistical analy-

sis, the computers presently isolated one feeble nearby

source. The yacht went thither. . . and wan against the

glittering sky, the other ship appeared in her screens.

It was several times her size, a cylinder with bluntly

rounded nose and massive drive cones, numerous hous-

ings for auxiliary boats, a single gun turret. The prin-

ciples of physics dictate that the general conformation of

all ships intended for a given purpose shall be roughly

the same. But any spaceman could see that this one had

never been built by members of Technic civilization.

Fire blazed. Even with the automatic stopping-down of

his viewscreen, Torrance was momentarily blinded. In

struments told him that the stranger had fired a fusion

shell which his own robogunners had intercepted with a

missile. The attack had been miserably slow and feeble.

This was not a warcraft in any sense; it was no more a

match for the Hebe G.B. than the yacht was for one of

the Adderkops chasing her.

"Hokay, now we got that foolishness out of the way

and we can talk business," said Van Rijn. "Get them on

the telecom and develop a common language. Fast! Then

explain we mean no harm but want just a lift to Valhalla.

He hesitated before adding, with a distinct wince, "We

can pay well."

"Might prove difficult, sir," said Torrance. "Our ship is

identifiably human-built, but chances are that the only hu-

mans they've ever met are Adderkops.

"Well, so if it makes needful, we can board them and

force them to transport us, nie? Hurry up, for Satan's?

sake! If we wait too long here, like bebobbled snoozers,

we'll get caught.

Torrance was about to point out they were safe enough.

The Adderkops were far behind the swifter Terrestrial

ship. They could have no idea that her hyperdrive was

now cut off; when they began to suspect it, they could

have no measurable probiblity of finding her. Then he

remembered that the case was not so simple. If the par-

leying with these strangers took unduly long-more than a

week, at best-Adderkop squadrons would have pene-

trated this general region and gone beyond. They would

probably remain on picket for months: which the humans

could not do for lack of food. When a hyper drive did start

up, they'd detect it and run down this awkward merchant-

man with ease. The only hope was to hitch a ride to Val-

halla soon, using the head start already gained to offset the

disadvantage of reduced speed.

"We're trying all bands, sir," he said. "No response so

far." He frowned worriedly. "I don't understand. They

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must know we've got them cold, and they must have

picked up our calls and realize we want to talk. Why don't

they respond? Wouldn't cost them anything."

"Maybe they abandoned ship," suggested the communi-

cations officer. "They might have hyperdriven lifeboats."

"No." Torrance shook his head. "We'd have spotted

that.. . . Keep trying, Freeman Betancourt. If we haven't

gotten an answer in an hour, we'll lay alongside and

board."

The receiver screens remained blank. But at the end of

the grace period, when Torrance was issuing space armor,

Yamamura reported something new. Neutrino output

had increased from a source near the stem of the alien.

Some process involving moderate amounts of energy was

being carried out.

Torrance clamped down his helmet. "We'll have a look

at that."

He posted a skeleton crew-Van Rijn himself, loudly

protesting, took over the bridge-and led his boarding

party to the main air lock. Smooth as a glidIng shark (the

old swine was a blue-ribbon spaceman after all, the cap-

tain realized in some astonishment), the Hebe G.B.

clamped on a tractor beam and hauled herself toward the

bigger vessel.

It disappeared. Recoil sent the yacht staggering.

"Beelzebub and botulism!" snarled Van Rijn. "He went

back Into hyper, ha? We see about that!" The ulcerated

converter shrieked as he called upon it, but the engines

were given power. On a lung and a half, the Terrestrial

ship again overtook the foreigner. Van Rijn phased in so

casually that Torrance almost forgot this was a job con-

sidered difficult by master pilots. He evaded a frantic pres-

sor beam and tied his yacht to the larger hull with un-

shearable bands of force. He cut off his hyperdrive again,

for the converter couldn't take much more. Being within

the force-field of the alien, the Hebe G.B. was carried

along, though the "drag" of extra mass reduced quasi-

speed considerably. If he had hoped the grappled vessel

would quit and revert to nl!rmal state, he was disappoin-

ted. The linked hulls continued plunging faster than light,

toward an unnamed constellation.

Torrance bit back an oath, summoned his men, and

went outside.

He had never forced entry on a hostile craft before, but

assumed it wasn't much different from burning his way

into a derelict. Having chosen his spot, he set up a balloon

tent to conserve air; no use killing the alien crew. The

torches of his men spewed flame; blue actinic sparks

fountained backward and danced through zero gravity.

Meanwhile the rest of the squad stood by with blasters

and grenades.

Beyond, the curves of the two hulls dropped off to infin-

ity. Without compensating electronic viewscreens, the sky

was weirdly distorted by aberration and Doppler effect, as

if the men were already dead and beating through the

other existence toward Judgment. Torrance held his mind

firmly to praCtical worries. Once inboard, the nonhumans

made prisoner, how was he to communicate? Especially

if he first had to gun down several of them.

The outer shell was peeled back. He studied the inner

structure of the plate with fascination. He'd never se

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anything like it before. Surely this race had developed

space travel quite independently of mankind. Though

their engineering must obey the same natural laws, it

was radically different in detail. What was that tough

but corky substance lining the inner shell? And was the

circuitry embedded in it, for he didn't see any elsewhere?

The last defense gave way. Torrance swallowed hard and

shot a flashbeam into the interior. Darkness and vacuum

met him. When he entered the hull, he floated, weight-

less; artificial gravity had been turned off. The crew was

hiding someplace and . . .

And...

Torrance returned to the yacht in an hour. When he

came on the bridge, he found Van Rijn seated by Jed.

The girl started to spe~ took a closer look at the captain's

face, and clamped her teeth together.

"Well?" snapped the merchant peevishly.

Torrance cleared his throat. His voice sounded unfamil-

iar and faraway to him. "I think you'd better come have

a look, sir."

"You found the crew, wherever the sputtering hell they

holed up? What are they like? What kind of ship is this

we've gotten us, ha?"

Torrance chose to answer the last question first. "It

seems to be an interstellar animal collector's transport

vessel. The main hold is full of cages-environmentally

controlled compartments, I should say-with the damned-

est assortment of creatures I've ever seen outside Luna

City Zoo."

"So what the pox is that to me? Where is the collector

himself, and his fig-plucking friends?"

"Well, sir." Torrance gulped. "We're pretty sure by now,

they're hiding from us. Among all the other animals."

A tube was run between the yacht's main lock and the

entry cut into the other ship. Through this, air was

pumped and electric lines were strung, to illuminate

the prize. By some fancy juggling with the gravitic gen-

erator of the Hebe G.B., Yamamura supplied about one-

fourth Earth-weight to the foreigner, though he couldn't

get the direction uniform and its decks felt canted in

wildly varying degrees.

Even under such conditions, Van Rijn walked ponder-

ously. He stood with a salami in one hand and a raw

onion in the other, glaring around the captured bridge.

It could only be that, though it was in the bows rather

then the waist. The viewscreens were still in operation:

smaller than human eyes found comfortable, but reveal-

ing the same pattern of stars, surely by the same kind of

optical compensators. A control console made a semicircle

at the forward bulkhead, too big for a solitary human to

operate. Yet presumably the designer had only had one

pilot in mind, for a single seat had been placed in the mid-

dle of the arc.

Had been. A short metal post rose from the deck. Simi-

lar structures stood at other points, and boltholes showed

where chairs were once fastened to them. But the seats

had been removed.

"Pilot sat there at the center, I'd guess, when they

weren't simply running on automatic," Torrance haz-

arded. "Navigator and communications officer. . . here

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Pou...0Anderson%20-%20Trader%20To%20The%20Stars.txt (9 of 94) [10/16/2004 4:48:37 PM]

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Poul%20Anderson%20-%20Trader%20To%20The%20Stars.txt

and here? I'm not sure. Anyhow, they probably didn't use

a copilot, but that chair bollard at the after end of the

room suggests that an extra officer sat in reserve, ready to

take over." .

Van Rijn munched his onion and tugged his goatee.

"Pestish big, this panel," he said. "Must be a race of

bloody-bedamned octopussies, ha? Look how complicated.

He waved the salami around the half circle. The console,

which seemed to be of some fluorocarbon polymer, held

very few switches or buttons, but scores of flat luminous

plates, each about twenty centimeters square. Some of

them were depressed. Evidently these were the controls.

Cautious experiment had shown that a stiff push was

needed to budge them. The experiment had ended then

and there, for the ship's cargo lock had opened and a

good deal of air was lost before Torrance slapped the

plate he had been testing hard enough to make the hull

reseal itself. One should not tinker with the atomic-pow-

ered unknown; most especially not in galactic space.

"They must be strong like horses, to steer by this

system without getting exhhausted went on Van Rijn.

"The size of everything tells likewise, nei?"

Well, not exactly,sir," said Torrance. "The viewscreens

seem made for dwarfs. The meters even more so." He

pointed to a bank of instruments" no larger than buttons.

on each of which a single number glowed. (Or Ietter, or

ideogram, or what? They looked vaguely Old Chinese )

Occasionally a Symbol changed value. "A humnan couldn't

use these long without severe eyestrain. Of course, having

eyes better adapted to close work than ours doesn't prove

they are not giants. Certainly that switch couldn't be

reached from here without long arms, and it seems

meant for big bands. "By standing on tiptoe, he touched

it himself: an outsize double-poIe affair set overhead just

above the piolet's hypothetical seat.

The switch fell open.

A roar came from aft. Tonance lurcheded backward un-

der a sudden force. He caught at a shelf on the after

bulkhead to steady himself. Its thin metal buckeled as

he clutched. "Devilfish and dunderheads cried Van

Rijn. Bracing his columnar legs, he :reached up and shoved

the switch back into position. The noise ended. Normal-

ity returned. Torrance hastened to the bridge doorway,

a tall arch., and shouted down the corrider. beyond: "It's

okay! Don't worry! We've got it under control!"

"What the blue blinking bIazes happened?" demanded

Van Rijn. in somewhat more highpowered words.

Torrance mastered a slight case of shakes. "Emer-

gency switch, I'd say." His tone wavered. Turns on the

gravitic field full speed ahead, not wasting any force on

acceleration compensators. Of course, being in hyper-

drive, it wasn't very effective. Only gave us a--uh-less

than one G push, intrinsic. In normal state we'd have ac-

celerated several Gs, at least. It"s for quick getaways and

. . . and . . ."

"And you, with brains like fermented gravy and bana-

nas for fingers, went ahead and yanked it open.

Torrance felt himself redden "How was I to know, sir?

I must've applied less than half a kilo of force. Emergency

switches aren't hair-triggered, after all! Considering how

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Pou...0Anderson%20-%20Trader%20To%20The%20Stars.txt (10 of 94) [10/16/2004 4:48:37 PM]

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