Andre Norton - Solar Queen 01 - Sargasso of Space

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Sargasso of Space
by Andre Norton
Scanning by Iczelion, proofing and layout by Nadie
Contents
* CHAPTER ONE—THE SOLAR QUEEN
* CHAPTER TWO—WORLDS FOR SALE
* CHAPTER THREE—CHARTERED GAMBLE
* CHAPTER FOUR—LIMBO LANDING
* CHAPTER FIVE—FIRST SCOUT
* CHAPTER SIX—SINISTER VALLEY
* CHAPTER SEVEN—SHIP OUT OF SPACE
* CHAPTER EIGHT—FOG BOUND
* CHAPTER NINE—BLIND HUNT
* CHAPTER TEN—THE WRECK
* CHAPTER ELEVEN—SARGASSO WORLD
* CHAPTER TWELVE—SHIP BESIEGED
* CHAPTER THIRTEEN—ATTACK AND STALEMATE
* CHAPTER FOURTEEN—TRUMPET OF JERICHO
* CHAPTER FIFTEEN—PRISONER’S MAZE
* CHAPTER SIXTEEN—THE HEART OF LIMBO
* CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—THE HEART CEASES TO BEAT
* CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—UP SHIP AND OUT
CHAPTER ONE:
THE SOLAR QUEEN
THE LANKY, VERY young man in the ill-fitting Trader’s tunic tried to stretch the cramp out of his long
legs. You’d think, Dane Thorson considered the point with a certain amount of irritation, the man who
designed these under-surface transcontinental cars would take into mind that there would be tall
passengers—not just midgets—using them. Not for the first time he wished that he could have used air
transport. But he had only to finger the money belt, too flat about his middle, to remember who and what
he was—a recruit new to the Service, without a ship or backer.
There was his muster pay from Training Pool, and a thin pad of crumpled credit slips which remained from
the sale of all those belongings which could not follow him into space. And he had his minimum kit—that
was the total sum of his possessions—except for that slender wafer of metal, notched and incised with a
code beyond his reading, which would be his passport to what he determined was going to be a brighter
future.
Not that he should question the luck he had had so far, Dane told himself firmly. After all, it wasn’t every
boy from a Federation Home who could get an appointment to the Pool and emerge ten years later an
apprentice Cargo Master ready for ship assignment off world. Even recalling the stiff examinations of the
past few weeks could set him to squirming now. Basic mechanics, astrogation grounding, and then the
more severe testing in his own specialization—cargo handling, stowage, trade procedure, Galactic markets,
Extra-terrestrial psychology, and all the other items he had had to try and cram into his skull until he
sometimes thought that he had nothing but bits and patches which he would never be able to sort into
common sense. Not only had the course been tough, but he had been bucking the new trend in selection,
too. Most of his classmates were from Service families—they had grown up in Trade.
Dane frowned at the back of the seat before him. Wasn’t Trade becoming more and more a closed clan?
Sons followed fathers or brothers into the Service—it was increasingly difficult for a man without
connections to get an appointment to the Pool. His luck had been good there—
Look at Sands, he had two older brothers, an uncle and a cousin all with Inter-Solar. And he never let
anyone forget it either. Just let an apprentice get assigned into one of the big Companies and he was set for
the rest of his life. The Companies had regular runs from one system to another. Their employees were
always sure of a steady berth, you could buy Company stock. There were pensions and administrative jobs
when you had to quit space—if you’d shown any promise. They had the cream of Trade—Inter-Solar, The
Combine, Deneb-Galactic, Falworth-Ignesti—
Dane blinked at the tela-screen set at eye level at the far end of the bullet-shaped car—not really seeing the
commercial which at that moment was singing the praises of a Falworth-Ignesti import. It all depended on
the Psycho. He patted his money belt again to be sure of the safety of his ID wafer, sealed into its most
secret pocket.
The commercial faded into the red bar announcing a station. Dane waited for the faint jar which signalized
the end of his two-hour trip. He was glad to be free of the projectile, able to drag his kit bag out of the
mound of luggage from the van.
Most of his fellow travellers were Trade men. But few of them sported Company badges. The majority
were drifters or Free Traders, men who either from faults of temperament or other reasons could not find a
niche in the large parental organizations, but shipped out on one independent spacer or another, the bottom
layer of the Trade world.
Dane shouldered his bag into the lift which swept him up to ground level and out into the sunshine of a
baking south-western summer day. He lingered on the concrete apron which rimmed this side of the take-
off Field, looking out over its pitted and blasted surface at the rows of cradles which held those ships now
readying for flight. He had scant attention for the stubby inter-planetary traders, the Martian and Asteroid
lines, the dull dark ships which ploughed out to Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons. What he wanted lay
beyond—the star ships—their sleek sides newly sprayed against dust friction, the soil of strange worlds
perhaps still clinging to their standing fins.
“Well, if it isn’t the Viking! Hunting for your long boat, Dane?”
Only someone who knew Dane very well could have read the real meaning in that twitch of his lower lip.
When he turned to face the speaker his expression was under its usual tight control.
Artur Sands had assumed the swagger of a hundred voyage man, which contrasted oddly, Dane was
pleased to note, with his too shiny boots and unworn tunic. But as ever the other’s poise aroused his own
secret resentment. And Artur was heading his usual chorus of followers too, Ricki Warren and Hanlaf
Bauta.
“Just come in, Viking? Haven’t tried your luck yet, I take it? Neither have we. So let’s go together to learn
the worst.”
Dane hesitated. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was to face the Psycho in Artur Sands’
company. To him the other’s supreme self-confidence was somewhat unnerving. Sands expected the best,
and judging from various incidents at the Pool, what Artur expected he usually got.
On the other hand Dane had often good reason to worry about the future. And if he were going to have
hard luck now he would rather learn it without witnesses. But there was no getting rid of Artur he realized.
So philosophically he checked his kit while the others waited impatiently.
They had come by air—the best was none too good for Artur and his crowd. Why hadn’t they been to the
cargo department assignment Psycho before this? Why had they waited the extra hour—or had they spent
their last truly free time sightseeing? Surely—Dane knew a little lift of heart at the thought—it couldn’t be
that they were dubious about the machine’s answer too?
But that hope was quenched as he joined them in time to hear Artur expound his favourite theme.
“The machine impartial! That’s just the comet dust they feed you back at the Pool. Sure, we know the story
they set up—that a man has to be fitted by temperament and background to his job, that each ship has to
carry a well integrated crew—but that’s all moon gas! When Inter-Solar wants a man, they get him—and
no Psycho fits him into their ships if they don’t want him! That’s for the guys who don’t know how to fire
the right jets—or haven’t brains enough to look around for good berths. I’m not worrying about being
stuck on some starving Free Trader on the fringe—”
Ricki and Hanlaf were swallowing every word of that. Dane didn’t want to. His belief in the
incorruptibility of the Psycho was the one thing he had clung to during the past few weeks when Artur and
those like him had strutted about the Pool confident about their speedy transition to the higher levels of
Trade.
He had preferred to believe that the official statements were correct, that a machine, a collection of
impulses and relays which could be in no way influenced, decided the fate of all who applied for
assignment to off-world ships. He wanted to believe that when he fed his ID plate into the Psycho at the
star port here it would make no difference that he was an orphan without kin in the service, that the flatness
of his money belt could not turn or twist a decision which would be based only on his knowledge, his past
record at the Pool, his temperament and potentialities.
But doubt had been planted and it was that lack of faith which worked on him now, slowing his pace as
they approached the assignment room. On the other hand Dane had no intention of allowing Artur or either
of his satellites to guess he was bothered.
So a stubborn pride pushed him forward to be the first of the four to fit his ID into the waiting slot. His
fingers twitched to snatch it back again before it disappeared, but he controlled that impulse and stood
aside for Artur.
The Psycho was nothing but a box, a square of solid metal— or so it looked to the waiting apprentices.
And that wait might have been easier, Dane speculated, had they been able to watch the complicated
processes inside the bulk, could have seen how those lines and notches incised on their plates were
assessed, matched, paired, until a ship now in port and seeking apprentices was found for them.
Long voyages for small crews sealed into star spacers, with little chance for recreation or amusement, had
created many horrible personnel problems in the past. Some tragic cases were now required reading in the
“History of Trade” courses at the Pool. Then came the Psycho and through its impersonal selection the
right men were sent to the right ships, fitted into the type of work, the type of crew where they could
function best with the least friction. No one at the Pool had told them how the Psycho worked—or how it
could actually read an ID strip. But when the machine decided, its decision was final and the verdict was
recorded—there was no appeal.
That was what they had been taught, what Dane had always accepted as fact, and how could it be wrong?
His thoughts were interrupted by a gong note from the machine, one ID strip had been returned, with a new
line on its surface. Artur pounced. A moment later his triumph was open.
“Inter-Solar’s Star Runner. Knew you wouldn’t let the old man down, boy!” He patted the flat top of the
Psycho patronizingly. “Didn’t I tell you how it would work for me?”
Ricki nodded his head eagerly and Hanlaf went so far as to slap Artur on the back. Sands was the magician
who had successfully pulled off a trick.
The next two sounds of the gong came almost together, as the strips clicked in the holder on top of one
another. Ricki and Hanlaf scooped them up. There was disappointment on Ricki’s face.
“Martian-Terran Incorporated—the Venturer,” he read aloud. And Dane noted that the hand with which he
tucked his ID into his belt was shaking. Not for Ricki the far stars and big adventures, but a small berth in a
crowded planetary service where there was little chance for fame or fortune.
“The Combine’s ‘Deneb Warrior’.” Hanlaf was openly exultant, paying no attention to Ricki’s
announcement.
”Shake, enemy!” Artur held out his hand with a grin. He, too, ignored Ricki as if his late close companion
had been removed bodily from their midst by the decision of the Psycho.
“Put her there, rival!” Hanlaf had been completely shaken out of his usual subservience by this amazing
good fortune.
The Combine was big, big enough to offer a challenge to Inter-Solar these past two years. They had
copped a Federation mail contract from under I-S’s nose and pounded through at least one monopolistic
concession on an inner system’s route. Artur and his former follower might never meet in open friendship
again. But at the present their mutual luck in getting posts in the Companies was all that mattered.
Dane continued to wait for the Psycho to answer him. Was it possible for an ID to jam somewhere in the
interior of that box? Should he hunt for someone in authority and ask a question or two? His strip had been
the first to go in—but it was not coming out. And Artur was waking up to that fact—
“Well, well, no ship for the Viking? Maybe they haven’t got one to fit your particular scrambled talents,
big boy—”
Could that be true, Dane hazarded? Maybe no ship now in the Port cradles needed the type of service his
strip said he had to offer. Did that mean that he would have to stay right here until such a ship came in?
It was as if Artur could read his thoughts. Sands’ grin changed from one of triumph to a malicious half-
sneer.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded. “Viking doesn’t know the right people. Going to bring in your kit and
camp out until Psycho breaks down and gives you an answer?”
Hanlaf was impatient. His self-confidence had been given a vast jolt towards independence, so that now he
dared to question Artur.
“I’m starved,” he announced. “Let’s mess—and then look up our ships—”
Artur shook his head. “Give it a minute or two. I want to see if the Viking gets his long boat—if it’s in
dock now—”
Dane could only do what he had done many times before, pretend that this did not matter, that Artur and
his followers meant nothing. But was the machine functioning, or had his ID been lost somewhere within
its mysterious interior? Had Artur not been there, watching him with that irritating amusement, Dane
would have gone to find help.
Hanlaf started to walk away and Ricki was already at the door, as if his assignment had removed him
forever from the ranks of those who mattered—when the gong sounded for the fourth time. With a speed
the average observer would not have credited to him, Dane moved. His hands flashed under Artur’s fingers
and caught the ID before the smaller youth could grab it.
There was no bright line of a Company insignia on it— Dane’s first glance told him that. Was—was he
going to be confined to the system—follow in Ricki’s uninspired wake?
But, no, there was a star on it right enough—the star which granted him the Galaxy—and by that emblem
the name of a ship—not a Company but a ship—the Solar Queen. It took a long instant for that to make
sense, though he had never considered himself a slow thinker.
A ship’s name only—a Free Trader! One of the roving, exploring spacers which plied lanes too dangerous,
too new, too lacking in quick profits to attract the Companies. Part of the Trade Service right enough, and
the uninitiated thought of them as romantic. But Dane knew a pinched sinking in his middle. Free Trade
was almost a dead end for the ambitious. Even the instructors at the Pool had skimmed over that angle in
the lectures, as carefully as the students were briefed. Free Trade was too often a gamble with death, with
plague, with hostile alien races. You could lose not only your profit and your ship, but your life. And the
Free Traders rated close to the bottom of the scale in the Service. Why, even Ricki’s appointment would be
hailed by any apprentice as better than this.
He should have been prepared for Artur’s hand over his shoulder to snatch the ID, for the other’s quick
appraisement of his shame.
“Free Trader!”
It seemed to Dane that Sands’ voice rang out as loudly as the telacast.
Ricki paused in his retreat and stared. Hanlaf allowed himself a snicker and Artur laughed.
“So that’s how your pattern reads, big boy? You’re to be a viking of space—a Columbus of the star
lanes—a far rover! How’s your blaster aim, man? And hadn’t you better go back for a refresher in X-Tee
contacts? Free Traders don’t see much of civilization, you know. Come on, boys,” he turned to the other
two, “we’ve got to treat the Viking to a super-spread meal, he’ll be on con-rations for the rest of his life no
doubt.” His grip tightened on Dane’s arm. And, though his captive might easily have twisted free, the
prisoner knew that he could better save face and dignity by going along with the plan and bottling down all
signs of anger.
Sure—maybe the Free Traders did not rate so high in the Service, maybe few of them swanked around the
big ports as did the Company men. But there had been plenty of fortunes made in the outer reaches and no
one could deny that a Free Trader got around. Artur’s attitude set Dane’s inborn stubbornness to finding
the good in the future. His spirit had hit bottom during the second when he had read his assignment, now it
was rising again.
There were no strict caste lines in Trade, the divisions were not by rank but by employer. The large dining
room at the port was open to every man wearing the tunic of active service. Most of the Companies
maintained their own sections there, their employees paying with vouchers. But transients and newly
assigned men who had not yet joined their ships drifted together among the tables by the door.
Dane got to an empty one first and triggered the check button. He might be a Free Trader but this party was
his, he was not going to eat any meal provided by Artur—even if this gesture swept away most of his
credits.
They had some minutes to look around them after dialing for meals. A short distance away a man wearing
the lightning flash badge of a Com-tech was arising from the table. He left two companions still
methodically chewing as he went off, his wide chest—that of a second or third generation Martian
colonist—unmistakable, though his features were those of a Terran Oriental.
The two he left behind were both apprentices. One bore on his tunic the chart insignia of an astrogator-to-
be and the other an engineer’s cogwheel. It was the latter who caught and held Dane’s gaze.
The cargo-apprentice thought that never before had he seen such a handsome, daredevil face. The crisp
black hair which framed the finely cut, space tanned features, was cropped short, but not short enough to
hide a wave. The heavy lidded eyes were dark, and a little amused smile held more than a hint of cynicism
as it quirked the corners of his too-perfectly cut lips. He was a Video idea of the heroic space man and
Dane disliked him on sight.
But the perfect one’s companion was as rough hewn as he was faceted. His naturally brown skin could
have taken no deeper tan for he was a Negro. And he was talking animatedly about something which
sparked languid answers from the budding engineer.
Dane’s attention was brought back to his own table by a waspish sting from Artur.
“Solar Queen.” he spoke the name much too loudly to suit Dane. “A Free Trader. Well, you’ll get to see
life, Viking that you will. At any rate we can continue to speak to you—since you aren’t on any rival
listing—”
Dane achieved something close to a smile. “That’s big-minded of you Sands. How dare I complain if an
Inter-Solar man is willing to acknowledge my existence?”
Ricki broke in. “That’s dangerous—the Free Trade, I mean—”
But Artur frowned. To a dangerous trade some glamour might still cling, and he refused to allow that. “Oh,
not all the Free Traders are explorers or fringe system men, Ricki. Some have regular runs among the
poorer planets where it doesn’t pay the Companies to operate. Dane’ll probably find himself on a back and
forth job between a couple of dome-citied worlds where he can’t even take a breath outside his helmet—”
Which is just what you would like, isn’t it? Dane concluded inside. The picture isn’t black enough to suit
you yet, is it, Sands. And for a second or two he wondered why Sands got pleasure out of riding him.
“Yes—” Ricki subsided fast. But Dane was aware that his eyes continued to watch the new Free Trader
wistfully.
“Here’s to Trade anyway you have it!” Artur raised his mug with a theatrical gesture. “Best of luck to the
Solar Queen. You’ll probably need it, Viking.”
Dane was stung anew. “I don’t know about that, Sands. Free Traders have made big strikes. And the
gamble—”
“That’s just it, old man, the gamble! And the chips can fall down as well as up. For one Free Trader who
has made a stroke, there’re a hundred or so who can’t pay their Field fees. Too bad you didn’t have some
pull with the powers-that-be.”
Dane had had enough. He pushed back from the table and looked at Artur straightly. “I’m going where the
Psycho assigned me,” he said steadily. “All this talk about Free Trading being so tough may be just meteor
light. Give us both a year in space, Sands, and then you can talk—”
Artur laughed. “Sure—give me a year with Inter-Solar and you a year in that broken down bucket. I’ll buy
the dinner next time, Viking, you won’t have credits enough to settle the bill— I’ll wager an extra ten on
that. Now,” he glanced at his watch, “I’m going to have a look at the Star Runner. Any of you care to join
me?”
It seemed that Ricki and Hanlaf would, at least they arose with dispatch to join him. But Dane remained
where he was, finishing the last of a very good dinner, certain that it would be a long time before he tasted
its like again. He had, he hoped, put up a good front and he was heartily tired of Sands.
But he was not left to his own company long. Someone slipped into Ricki’s chair across the table and
spoke: “You for the Solar Queen, man?”
Dane’s head snapped up. Was this to be more of Artur’s pleasantries? But now he was looking at the open
face of the astrogator-apprentice from the neighbouring table. He lost part of his bristling antagonism.
”Just been assigned to her.” He passed his ID across to the other.
“Dane Thorson,” the other read aloud. “I am Rip Shannon —Ripley Shannon if you wish to be formal.
And,” he beckoned to the Video hero, “this is Ali Kamil. We are both of the Queen. You are a cargo-
apprentice,” he ended with a statement rather than a question.
Dane nodded and then greeted Kamil, hoping that the stiffness he felt was not apparent in his voice or
manner. He thought that the other looked him over too appraisingly, and that in some mysterious way he
had been found wanting after the instant of swift measurement.
“We are going to the Queen now, come with us?” Rip’s simple friendliness was warming and Dane agreed.
As they boarded the scooter which trundled down the length of the Field towards the distant cradles of the
star ships, Rip kept up a flow of conversation and Dane warmed more and more to the big young man.
Shannon was older, he must be in his last year of apprenticeship, and the newcomer was grateful for the
scraps of information about the Queen and her present crew which were being passed along to him.
Compared to the big super ships of the Companies the Solar Queen was a negligible midget. She carried a
crew of twelve, and each man was necessarily responsible for more than one set of duties—there were no
air tight compartments of specialization aboard a Free Trader spacer.
“Got us a routine cargo haul to Naxos,” Rip’s soft voice continued. “From there,” he shrugged, “it may be
anywhere—”
“Except back to Terra,” Kamil’s crisper tone cut in. “Better say goodbye to home for a long while,
Thorson. We won’t be hitting this lane for some time. Only came in on this voyage because we had a
special run and that doesn’t happen once in ten years or more.” Dane thought that the other was getting
some obscure pleasure in voicing that piece of daunting information.
The scooter rounded the first of the towering cradles. Here were the Company ships in their private docks,
their needle points lifted to the sky, cargoes being loaded, activity webbing them. Dane stared in spite of
himself, but he did not turn his head to keep them in sight as the scooter steered to the left and made for the
other line of berths, not so well filled, where the half dozen smaller Free Trade ships stood awaiting blast
off. And somehow he was not surprised when they drew up at the foot of the ramp leading to the most
battered one.
But there was affection and honest pride in Rip’s voice as he announced, “There she is, man, the best
trading spacer along the lanes. She’s a real lady, is the Queen!”
CHAPTER TWO:
WORLDS FOR SALE
DANE STEPPED INSIDE the Cargo-Master’s office cabin. The man who sat there, surrounded by files of
microtape and all the other apparatus of an experienced trader, was not at all what he expected. Those
Masters who had given lectures at the Pool had been sleek, well groomed men, their outward shells
differing little from the successful earth-bound executive. It had been difficult to associate some of them
with space at all.
But more than J. Van Rycke’s uniform proclaimed him of the service. His thinning hair was white-blond,
his broad face reddened rather than tanned. And he was a big man—though not in fatty tissue, but solid
bulk. He occupied every inch of his cushioned seat, eyeing Dane with a sleepy indifference, an attitude
shared by a large tiger-striped tom cat who sprawled across a third of the limited desk space.
Dane saluted. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson come aboard, sir,” he rapped out with the snap approved
by Pool officers, laying his ID on the desk when his new commander made no attempt to reach for it.
“Thorson—” the bass voice seemingly rumbled not from the broad chest but from deep in the barrel body
facing him. “First voyage?”
“Yes, sir.”
The cat blinked and yawned, but Van Rycke’s measuring stare did not change. Then—
“Better report to the Captain and sign on.” There was no other greeting.
A little at a loss Dane climbed on to the control section. He flattened against the wall of the narrow
corridor as another officer swung along behind him at a hurried pace. It was the Com-tech who had been
eating with Rip and Kamil.
“New?” the single word came from him with some of the same snap as the impulses in his communicators.
“Yes, sir. I’m to sign on—”
“Captain’s office—next level,” and he was gone.
Dane followed him at a more modest pace. It was true that the Queen was no giant of the spaceways, and
she doubtless lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted.
But Dane, green as he was, appreciated the smartly kept interior of the ship. Her sides might be battered
and she had a rakish, too worn appearance without—inside she was a smooth running, tight-held vessel. He
reached the next level and knocked at a half open panel. At an impatient order he entered.
For one dazed moment he felt as if he had stepped into the Terraport X-Tee Zoo. The walls of the confined
space were a montage of pictures—but such pictures. Off-world animals he had seen, had heard described,
overlapped others which were strictly culled from more gruesome nightmares. In a small swinging cage sat
a blue creature which could only be an utterly impossible combination of toad—if toads had six legs, two
of them ending in claws—and parrot. It leaned forward, gripped the cage bars with its claws, and calmly
spat at him.
Fascinated, Dane stood rooted until a rasping bark aroused him.
“Well—what is it?”
Dane hastily averted his eyes from the blue horror and looked at the man who sat beneath its cage. Grizzled
hair showed an inch or so beneath the Captain’s winged cap. His harsh features had not been improved by
a scar across one cheek, a seam which could only have been a blaster-blister. And his eyes were as cold
and imperious as the pop ones of his blue captive.
Dane found his tongue. “Apprentice-Cargo-Master Thorson come aboard, sir,” again he tendered the ID.
Captain Jellico caught it up impatiently. “First voyage?”
Once more Dane was forced to answer in the affirmative. It would have been, he thought bleakly, so much
better had he been able to say “tenth”.
At that moment the blue thing sirened an ear piercing shriek and the Captain swung back in his chair to
strike the floor of the cage a resounding slap which bounced its occupant into silence, if not better
manners. Then he dropped the ID into the ship’s recorder and punched the button. Dane dared to relax, it
was official now, he was signed on as a crew member, he would not be booted off the Queen.
“Blast off at eighteen hours,” the Captain told him. “Find your quarters.”
“Yes, sir.” He rightly took that for dismissal and saluted, glad to be out of Captain Jellico’s zoo—even if
only one inhabitant was living.
As he dropped down again to the cargo section, Dane wondered from what strange world the blue thing
had come and why the Captain was so enamoured of it that he carried it about in the Queen. As far as Dane
could see it had no endearing qualities at all.
Whatever cargo the Queen had shipped for Naxos was already aboard. He saw the hatch seals in place as
he passed the hold. So his department’s duties were done for this port. He was free to explore the small
cabin Rip Shannon had indicated was his and pack away in its lockers his few personal belongings.
At the Pool he had lived in a hammock and locker; to him the new quarters were a comfortable expansion.
When the signal came to strap down for blast off, he was fast gaining the contentment Artur Sands had
threatened to destroy.
They were space borne before Dane met the other members of the crew. In addition to Captain Jellico, the
control station was manned by Steen Wilcox, a lean Scot in his early thirties who had served a hitch in the
Galactic Survey before going into Trade, and now held a full rating as Astrogator. Then there was the
Martian Com-Tech—Tang Ya—and Rip, the apprentice.
The engine-room section was an equal number, consisting of the Chief, Johan Stotz, a silent young man
who appeared to have little interest save his engines (Dane gathered from Rip’s scraps of information that
Stotz was in his way a mechanical genius who could have had much better berths than the ageing Queen,
but chose to stay with the challenge she offered), and his apprentice—the immaculate, almost foppish
Kamil. But, Dane soon knew, the Queen carried no dead weight and Kamil must— in spite of his airs and
graces—be able to meet the exacting standards such a Chief as Stotz could set. The engine room staff was
rounded out by a giant-dwarf combination startling to see.
Karl Kosti was a lumbering bear of a man, almost bovine, but as alert to his duties with the jets as a piece
of perfectly working machinery. While around him buzzed his opposite number, a fly about a bull, the
small Jasper Weeks, his thin face pallid with that bleach produced on Venus, a pallor not even the rays of
space could colour to a natural brown.
Dane’s own fellows housed on the cargo level were a varied lot. There was Van Rycke himself, a superior
so competent when it came to the matters of his own section that he might have been a computer. He kept
Dane in a permanent state of awe. There appeared to be nothing concerning the fine points of Free Trade
Van Rycke had ever missed hearing or learning, and, having once added any fact to his prodigious store of
memories, it was embedded forever, but he had his soft spot, his enduring pride that as a Van Rycke he
was one of a line stretching far back into the dim past when ships only plied the waters of a single planet,
coming of a family which had been in Trade from the days of sails to the days of stars.
Two others who were partly of the cargo world shared this section. The Medic, Craig Tau, and the Cook-
Steward Frank Mura. Tau Dane met in the course of working hours now and then, but Mura kept so closely
to his own quarters and labours that they seldom saw much of him.
In the meantime the new apprentice was kept busy, labouring in an infinitesimal space afforded him in the
cargo office to check the rolls, being informally but mercilessly quizzed by Van Rycke and learning to his
dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training. Dane was speedily reduced to a humble
wonder that Captain Jellico had ever shipped him at all—in spite of the assignment of the Psycho. It was
too evident that in his present state of overwhelming ignorance he was more of a liability than an asset.
But Van Rycke was not just a machine of facts and figures, he was also a superb raconteur, a collector of
legends who could keep the whole mess spellbound as he spun one of his tales. No one but he could pay
such perfect tribute to the small details of the eerie story of the New Hope, the ship which had blasted off
with refugees from the Martian rebellion, never to be sighted until a century later—the New Hope
wandering forever in free fall, its dead lights glowing evilly red at its nose, its escape ports ominously
sealed—the New Hope never boarded, never salvaged because it was only sighted by ships which were
themselves in dire trouble, so that “to sight the New Hope” had become a synonym for the worst of luck.
Then there were the “Whisperers”, whose siren voices were heard by those men who had been too long in
space, and about whom a whole mythology had developed. Van Rycke could list the human demi-gods of
the star lanes, too. Sanford Jones, the first man who had dared Galactic flight, whose lost ship had
suddenly flashed out of Hyperspace, over a Sirius world three centuries after it had lifted from Terra, the
mummified body of the pilot still at the frozen controls, Sanford Jones who now welcomed on board that
misty “Comet” all spacemen who died with their magnetic boots on. Yes, in his way, Van Rycke made his
new assistant free of more than one kind of space knowledge.
The voyage to Naxos was routine. And the frontier world where they set down at its end was enough like
Terra to be unexciting too. Not that Dane got any planet-side leave. Van Rycke put him in charge of the
hustlers at the unloading. And the days he had spent poring over the hold charts suddenly paid off as he
discovered that he could locate everything with surprising ease.
Van Rycke went off with the Captain. Upon their bargaining ability, their collective nose for trade,
depended the next flight of the Queen. And no ship lingered in port longer than it took her to discharge one
cargo and locate another.
Mid-afternoon of the second day found Dane unemployed. He was lounging a little dispiritedly by the crew
hatch with Kosti. None of the Queen’s men had gone into the sprawling frontier town half encircled by the
bulbous trees with the red-yellow foliage, there was too much chance that they might be needed for cargo
hustling, since the Field men were celebrating a local holiday and were not at their posts. Thus both Dane
and the jetman witnessed the return of the hired scooter which tore down the field towards them at top
speed.
It slewed around, raising more dust, and came to a skidding stop at the foot of the ramp. Captain Jellico
leaped for that, almost reaching the hatch before Van Rycke had pried himself from behind the controls.
And the Captain threw a single order at Kosti:
“Order assembly in the mess cabin!”
Dane stared back over the field, half expecting to see at least a squad of police in pursuit. The officer’s
return had smacked of the need for a quick getaway. But all he saw was his own superior ascending the
ramp at his usual dignified pace. Only Van Rycke was whistling, a sign Dane had come to know meant that
all was very well with the Dutchman’s world. Whatever the Captain’s news, the Cargo-master considered it
good.
摘要：

SargassoofSpacebyAndreNortonScanningbyIczelion,proofingandlayoutbyNadieContents*CHAPTERONE—THESOLARQUEEN*CHAPTERTWO—WORLDSFORSALE*CHAPTERTHREE—CHARTEREDGAMBLE*CHAPTERFOUR—LIMBOLANDING*CHAPTERFIVE—FIRSTSCOUT*CHAPTERSIX—SINISTERVALLEY*CHAPTERSEVEN—SHIPOUTOFSPACE*CHAPTEREIGHT—FOGBOUND*CHAPTERNINE—BLIND...

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