And everyone else was waking, too.
Something had knocked us all out at once. Which might mean the ship had an unconscious captain! I left the lounge at full speed, which was a wobbly walk.
The control-room door was open, which is bad practice. I reached to close it and changed my mind because the lock and doorknob were gone, replaced by a smooth hole nine inches across.
Margo drooped in her chair. I patted her cheeks until she stirred.
«What happened?» she wanted to know.
«We all went to sleep together. My guess is gas. Stun guns don't work across a vacuum.»
«Oh!» It was a gasp of outrage. She'd spotted the gaping hole in her control board, as smooth and rounded as the hole in the door. The gap where the hyperwave radio ought to be.
«Right,» I said. «We've been boarded, and we can't tell anyone about it. Now what?»
«That hole …» She touched the rounded metal with her fingertips.
«Slaver disintegrator, I think. A digging tool. It projects a beam that suppresses the charge on the electron, so that matter tears itself apart. If that's what it was, we'll find the dust in the air filters.»
«There was a ship,» said Margo. «A big one. I noticed it just after I ended the show. By then it was inside the mass limit. I couldn't go into hyperspace until it left.»
«I wonder how they found us.» I thought of some other good questions but let them pass. One I let out. «What's missing? We'd better check.»
«That's what I don't understand. We aren't carrying anything salable! Valuable, yes. Instruments for the base. But hardly black-market stuff.» She stood up. «I'll have to go through the cargo hold.»
«Waste of time. Where's the cargo mass meter on this hulk?»
«Oh, of course.» She found it somewhere among the dials. «No change. Nothing missing there, unless they replaced whatever they took with equivalent masses.»
«Why, so we wouldn't know they were here? Nuts.»
«Then they didn't take anything.»
«Or they took personal luggage. The lifesystem mass meter won't tell us. Passengers move around so. You'd think they'd have the courtesy to stay put just in case some pirates should — ung.»
«What?»
I tasted the idea and found it reasonable. More. «Ten to one Lloobee's missing.»
«Who?»
«Our famous, valuable Kdatlyno sculptor. The third Kdatlyno in history to leave his home planet.»
«One of the ET passengers?»
Oh, brother. I left, running.
Because Lloobee was the perfect theft. As a well-known alien artist who had been under the protection of Earth, the ransom he could command was huge. As a hostage his value would be equal. No special equipment would be needed; Lloobee could breathe Earth-normal air. His body could even use certain human food proteins and certain gaseous human anesthetics.
Lloobee wasn't in the lounge. And his cabin was empty.
With Lloobee missing and with the hyperwave smashed, the Argos proceeded to Gummidgy at normal speed. Normal speed was top speed; there are few good reasons to dawdle in space. It took us six hours in hyperdrive to reach the edge of CY Aquarii's gravity well. From there we had to proceed on reaction drive and gravity drag.
Margo called Gummidgy with a com laser as soon as we were out of hyperspace. By the time we landed, the news would be ten hours old. We would land at three in the morning, ship's time, and at roughly noon Gummidgy time.
Most of us, including me, went to our cabins to get some sleep. An hour before planetfall I was back in the lounge, watching us come in.
Emil didn't want to watch. He wanted to talk.
«Have you heard? The kidnappers called the base a couple of hours ago.»
«What'd they have to say?»
«They want ten million stars and a contract before they turn the Kdatlyno loose. They also —» Emil was outraged at their effrontery. «— reminded the base that Kdatlyno don't eat what humans eat. And they don't have any Kdat foodstuffs!»
«They must be crazy. Where would the base get ten million stars in time?»
«Oh, that's not the problem. If the base doesn't have funds, they can borrow money from the hunting parties, I'm sure. There's a group down there with their own private yacht. It's the contract that bothers me.»
Gummidgy was blue on blue under a broken layer of white, with a diminutive moon showing behind an arc of horizon. Very Earthlike but with none of the signs that mark Earth: no yellow glow of sprawling cities on the dark side, no tracery of broken freeways across the day. A nice-looking world, from up here. Unspoiled. No transfer booths, no good nightclubs, no tridee except old tapes and those only on one channel. Unspoiled –
With only half my mind working on conversation, I said, «Be glad we've got contracts. Otherwise we might get him back dead.»
«Obviously you don't know much about Kdatlyno.»
«Obviously.» I was nettled.
«They'll do it, you know. They'll pay the kidnappers ten million stars to give Lloobee back, and they'll tape an immunity contract, too. Total immunity for the kidnappers. No reprisals, no publicity. Do you know what the Kdatlyno will think about that?»
«They'll be glad to have their second-best sculptor back.»
«Best.»
«Hrodenu is the best.»
«It doesn't matter. What they'll think is, they'll wonder why we haven't taken revenge for the insult to Lloobee. They'll wonder what we're doing about getting revenge. And when they finally realize we aren't doing anything at all …»
«Go on.»
«They'll blame the whole human race. You know what the kzinti will think?»
«Who cares what the kzinti think?»
He snorted. Great. Now he had me pegged as a chauvinist.
«Why don't you drop it?» I suggested. «We can't do anything about it. It's up to the base MPs.»
«It's up to nobody. The base MPs don't have ships.»
Right about then I should have accidentally bitten my tongue off. I didn't have that much sense. I never do. Instead I said, «They don't need ships. Whoever took Lloobee has to land somewhere.»
«The message came in on hyperwave. Whoever sent it is circling outside the system's gravity well.»
«Whoever sent it may well be.» I was showing off. «But whoever took Lloobee landed. A Kdatlyno needs lots of room, room he can feel. He sends out a supersonic whistle — one tone — all his life, and when the echoes hit the tympanum above his mouth, he knows what's around him. On a liner he can feel corridors leading all around the ship. He can sense the access tubes behind walls and the rooms and closets behind doors. Nothing smaller than a liner is big enough for him. You don't seriously suggest that the kidnappers borrowed a liner for the job, do you?»
«I apologize. You do seem to know something about Kdatlyno.»
«I accept your apology. Now, the kidnappers have definitely landed. Where?»
«Have to be some rock. Gummidgy's the only planet-sized body in the system. Look down there.»
I looked out the window. One of Gummidgy's oceans was passing beneath us. The biggest ocean Gummidgy had, it covered a third of the planet.
«Circle Sea. Round as a ten-star piece. A whale of a big asteroid must have hit there when Gummidgy was passing through the system. Stopped it cold, or almost. All the other rocks in the system are close enough to the star to be half-molten.»
«Okay. Could they have built their own space station? Or borrowed one? Doubtful. So they must have landed on Gummidgy,» I concluded happily, and waited for the applause.
Emil was slowly nodding his head, up, down, up, down. Suddenly he stood up. «Let's ask Captain Tellefsen.»
«Hold it! Ask her what?»
«Ask her how big the ship was. She saw it, didn't she? She'll know whether it was a liner.»
«Sit down. Let's wait till we're aground, then tell the MPs. Let them ask Margo.»