Chapter 6

ABOUT FOUR HOURS LATER the alarm woke him. He switched it off; it continued to ring-a glance at his screen showed him why. The Gargantuan cylindrical body of the New Frontiers lay close aboard. He switched off the radar alarm circuit as well and completed matching with her by the seat of his pants, not bothering with the ballistic calculator. Before he had completed the maneuver the communications alarm started beeping. He slapped a switch; the rig hunted frequencies and the vision screen came to life. A man looked at him. "New Frontiers calling: what ship are you?"

"Private vessel I Spy, Captain Sheffield. My compliments to your commanding officer. May I come onboard to pay a call?"

They were pleased to have visitors. The ship was completed save for inspection, trials, and acceptance; the enormous gang which had constructed her had gone to Earth and there was no one aboard but the representatives of the Jordan Foundation and a half dozen engineers employed by the corporation which had been formed to build the ship for the foundation. These few were bored with inactivity, bored with each other, anxious to quit marking time and get back to the pleasures of Earth; a visitor was a welcome diversion.

When the I Spy's airlock had been sealed to that of the big ship, Lazarus was met by the engineer in charge-technically "captain" since the New Frontiers was a ship under way even though not under power. He introduced himself and took Lazarus on a tour of the ship. They floated through miles of corridors, visited laboratories, storerooms, libraries containing hundreds of thousands of spools, acres of hydroponic tanks for growing food and replenishing oxygen, and comfortable, spacious, even luxurious quarters for a crew colony of ten thousand people. "We believe that the Vanguard expedition was somewhat undermanned," the skipper-engineer explained. "The socio-dynamicists calculate that this colony will be able to maintain the basics of our present level of culture."

"Doesn't sound like enough," Lazarus commented. "Aren't there more than ten thousand types of specialization?"

"Oh, certainly! But the idea is to provide experts in all basic arts and indispensable branches of knowledge. Then, as the colony expands, additional specializations can be added through the aid of the reference libraries-anything from tap-dancing to tapestry weaving. That's the general idea though it's out of my line. Interesting subject, no doubt, for those who like it."

"Are you anxious to get started?" asked Lazarus.

The man looked almost shocked. "Me? D'you mean to suggest that I would go in this thing? My dear sir, I'm an engineer, not a damn' fool."

"Sorry."

"Oh, I don't mind a reasonable amount of spacing when there's a reason for it-I've been to Luna City more times than I can count and I've even been to Venus. But you don't think the man who built the Mayflower sailed in her, do you? For my money the only thing that will keep these people who signed up for it from going crazy before they get there is that it's a dead cinch they're all crazy before they start."

Lazarus changed the subject. They did not dally in the main drive space, nor in the armored cell housing the giant atomic converter, once Lazarus learned that they were unmanned, fully-automatic types. The total absence of moving parts in each of these divisions, made possible by recent developments in parastatics, made their inner workings of intellectual interest only, which could wait. What Lazarus did want to see was the control room, and there he lingered, asking endless questions until his host was plainly bored and remaining only out of politeness.

Lazarus finally shut up, not because he minded imposing on his host but because he was confident that he had learned enough about the controls to be willing to chance conning the ship.

He picked up two other important data before he left the ship: in nine Earth days the skeleton crew was planning a weekend on Earth, following which the acceptance trials would be held. But for three days the big ship would be empty, save possibly for a communications operator-Lazarus was too wary to be inquisitive on this point. But there would be no guard left in her because no need for a guard could be imagined. One might as well guard the Mississippi River.

The other thing he learned was how to enter the ship from the outside without help from the inside; he picked that datum up through watching the mail rocket arrive just as he was about to leave the ship.

At Luna City, Joseph McFee, factor for Diana Terminal Corp., subsidiary of Diana Freight Lines, welcomed Lazarus warmly. "Well! Come in, Cap'n, and pull up a chair. What'll you drink?" He was already pouring as he talked-tax-free paint remover from his own amateur vacuum still. "Haven't seen you in... well, too long. Where d'you raise from last and what's the gossip there? Heard any new ones?"

"From Goddard," Lazarus answered and told him what the skipper had said to the V.I.P. McFee answered with the one about the old maid in free fall, which Lazarus pretended not to have heard. Stories led to politics, and McFee expounded his notion of the "only possible solution" to the European questions, a solution predicated on a complicated theory of McFee's as to why the Covenant could not be extended to any culture below a certain level of industrialization. Lazarus did not give a hoot either way but he knew better than to hurry McFee; he nodded at the right places, accepted more of the condemned rocket juice when offered, and waited for the right moment to come to the point.

"Any company ships for sale now, Joe?"

"Are there? I should hope to shout. I've got more steel sitting out on that plain and cluttering my inventory than I've had in ten years. Looking for some? I can make you a sweet price."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on whether you've got what I want."

"You name it, I've got it. Never saw such a dull market. Some days you can't turn an honest credit." McFee frowned. "You know what the trouble is? Well, I'll tell you-it's this Howard Families commotion. Nobody wants to risk any money until he knows where he stands. How can a man make plans when he doesn't know whether to plan for ten years or a hundred? You mark my words: if the administration manages to sweat the secret loose from those babies, you'll see the biggest boom in long-term investments ever. But if not well, long-term holdings won't be worth a peso a dozen and there will be an eat-drink-and-be-merry craze that will make the Reconstruction look like a tea party."

He frowned again. "What kind of metal you looking for?"

"I don't want metal, I want a ship."

McFee's frown disappeared, his eyebrows shot up. "So? What sort?"

"Can't say exactly. Got time to look 'em over with me?"

They suited up and left the dome by North Tunnel, then strolled around grounded ships in the long, easy strides of low gravity. Lazarus soon saw that just two ships had both the lift and the air space needed. One was a tanker and the better buy, but a mental calculation showed him that it lacked deck space, even including the floor plates of the tanks, to accommodate eight thousand tons of passengers. The other was an older ship with cranky piston-type injection meters, but she was fitted for general merchandise and had enough deck space. Her pay load was higher than necessary for the job, since passengers weigh little for the cubage they clutter-but that would make her lively, which might be critically important.

As for the injectors, he could baby them-he had herded worse junk than this.

Lazarus haggled with McFee over terms, not because he wanted to save money but because failure to do so would have been out of character. They finally reached a complicated three-cornered deal in which McFee bought the I Spy for himself, Lazarus delivered clear title to it unmortgaged and accepted McFee's unsecured note in payment, then purchased the freighter by endorsing McFee's note back to him and adding cash. McFee in turn would be able to mortgage the I Spy at the Commerce Clearance Bank in Luna City, use the proceeds plus cash or credit of his own to redeem his own paper-presumably before his accounts were audited, though Lazarus did not mention that.