The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

where problems could be settled with a sleep rod or a blaster and the Video screen was unknown.
    Having heard of what awaited them without, the men of the Queen were more content to be incarcerated in the quarantine section. But as time wore on and the Cargo-master did not return, their anxieties awoke. They were fairly sure by now that any penalty the Patrol or the Terrapolice would impose would not be too drastic. But a broken contract was another and more serious affair—a matter which might ground them more effectively than any rule of the law enforcement bodies. And Jellico took to pacing the room, while Tang and Wilcox who had started a game of four dimensional chess made countless errors of move, and Stotz glared moodily at the wall, apparentlytoo sunk in his own gloomy thoughts to rise from the mess table in the alcove.
    Though time had ceased to have much meaning for them except as an irritating reminder of the now sure failure of their Sargolian venture, they marked the hours into a second full day of detention before Van Rycke finally put in appearance. The Cargo-master was plainly tired, but he showed no signs of discomposure. In fact as he came in he was humming what he fondly imagined was a popular tune.
    Jellico asked no questions, he merely regarded his trusted officer with a quizzically raised eyebrow. But the others drew around. It was so apparent that Van Rycke was pleased with himself. Which could only mean that in some fantastic way he had managed to bring their venture down in a full fin landing, that somehow he had argued the Queen out of danger into a position where he could control the situation.
    He halted just within the doorway and eyed Dane, Ali, and Rip with mock severity. “You’re baaaad boys,” he told them with a shake of the head and a drawl of the adjective. “You’ve been demoted ten files each on the list.”
    Which must put him on the bottom rung once more, Dane calculated swiftly. Or even below—though he didn’t see how he could fall beneath the rank he held at assignment. However, he found the news heartening instead of discouraging. Compared to a bleak sentence at the moon mines such demotion was absolutely nothing and he knew that Van Rycke was breaking the worst news first.
    “You also forfeit all pay for this voyage,” the Cargo-master was continuing. But Jellico broke in.
    “Board fine?”
    At the Cargo-master’s nod, Jellico added. “Ship pays that.”
    “So I told them,” Van Rycke agreed. “The Queen’s warned off Terra for ten solar years—”
    They could take that, too. OtherFree Traders got back to their home ports perhaps once in a quarter century. It was so much less than they had expected that the sentence was greeted with a concentrated sigh of relief.
    “No earth-side leave—”
    All right—no leave. They were not, after their late experiences so entranced with Terraport that they wanted to linger in its environs any longer than they had to.
    “We lose the Sargol contract—”
    That did hurt. But they had resigned themselves to it since the hour when they had realized that they could not make it back to the perfumed planet.
    “To Inter-Solar?” Wilcox asked the important question.
    Van Rycke was smiling broadly, as if the loss he had just announced was in some way a gain. “No—to Combine!”
    “Combine?” the Captain echoed and his puzzlement was duplicated around the circle. How did Inter-Solar’s principal rival come into it?
    “We’ve made a deal with Combine,” Van Rycke informed them. “I wasn’t going to let I-S cash in on our loss. So I went to Vickers at Combine and told him the situation. He understands that we were in solid with the Salariki and that the Eysies are not. And a chance to point a blaster at I-S’s tail is just what he has been waiting for. The shipment will go out to the storm priests tomorrow on a light cruiser—it’ll make it on time.”
    Yes, a light cruiser, one of the fast ships maintained by the big Companies, could make the transition to Sargol with a slight margin to spare. Stotz nodded his approval at this practical solution.
    “I’m going with it—” That did jerk them all up short. For Van Rycke to leave the Queen— that was as unthinkable as if Captain Jellico had suddenly announced that he was about to retire and become a kelp farmer. “Just for the one trip,” the Cargo-master hastened to assure them. “I smooth their vector with the storm priests and hand over so the Eysies