Part 2

"Thurston's outfit is trying to oust Ravenhurst from the managership of Viking and take over the job. Baedecker Metals & Mining Corporation, which is managed by Baedecker himself, wants to force Viking out of business so that BM&M can take over Ceres for large-scale processing of precious metals.

"Between the two of 'em, they're raising all sorts of minor hell around here, and it's liable to become major hell at any time. And we can't stand any hell--or sabotage--around this planetoid just now!"

"Now wait a minute," I said, still playing ignorant, "I thought we'd pretty well established that the 'sabotage' of the McGuire series was Jack Ravenhurst's fault. She was the one who was driving them nuts, not Thurston's agents."

"Perfectly true," he said agreeably. "We managed to block any attempts of sabotage by other company agents, even though it looked as though we hadn't for a while." He chuckled wryly. "We went all out to keep the McGuires safe, and all the time the boss' daughter was giving them the works." Then he looked sharply at me. "I covered that, of course. No one in the Security Guard but me knows that Jack was responsible."

"Good. But what about the Thurston and Baedecker agents, then?"

He took a hefty slug of his drink. "They're around, all right. We have our eyes on the ones we know, but those outfits are as sharp as we are, and they may have a few agents here on Ceres that we know nothing about."

"So? What does this have to do with me?"

He put his drink on the table. "Oak, I want you to help me." His onyx-brown eyes, only a shade darker than his skin, looked directly into my own. "I know it isn't part of your assignment, and you know I can't afford to pay you anything near what you're worth. It will have to come out of my pocket because I couldn't possibly justify it from operating funds. Ravenhurst specifically told me that he doesn't want you messing around with the espionage and sabotage problem because he doesn't like your methods of operation."

"And you're going to go against his orders?"

"I am. Ravenhurst is sore at you personally because you showed him that Jack was responsible for the McGuire sabotage. It's an irrational dislike, and I am not going to let it interfere with my job. I'm going to protect Ravenhurst's interests to the best of my ability, and that means that I'll use the best of other people's abilities if I can."

I grinned at him. "The last I heard, you were sore at me for blatting it all over Ceres that Jaqueline Ravenhurst was missing, when she sneaked aboard McGuire."

He nodded perfunctorily. "I was. I still think you should have told me what you were up to. But you did it, and you got results that I'd been unable to get. I'm not going to let a momentary pique hang on as an irrational dislike. I like to think I have more sense than that."

"Thanks." There wasn't much else I could say.

"Now, I've got a little dough put away; it's not much, but I could offer you--"

I shook my head, cutting him off. "Nope. Sorry, Brock. For two reasons. In the first place, there would be a conflict of interest. I'm working for Ravenhurst, and if he doesn't want me to work for you, then it would be unethical for me to take the job.

"In the second place, my fees are standardized. Oh, I can allow a certain amount of fluctuation, but I'm not a physician or a lawyer; my services are not necessary to the survival of the individual, except in very rare cases, and those cases are generally arranged through a lawyer when it's a charity case.

"No, colonel, I'm afraid I couldn't possibly work for you."

He thought that over for a long time. Finally, he nodded his head very slowly. "I see. Yeah, I get your point." He scowled down at his drink.

"_But_," I said, "it would be a pleasure to work _with_ you."

He looked up quickly. "How's that?"

"Well, let's look at it this way: You can't hire me because I'm already working for Ravenhurst; I can't hire you because _you're_ working for Ravenhurst. But since we may need each other, and since we're both working for Ravenhurst, there would be no conflict of interest if we co-operate.

"Or, to put it another way, I can't take money for any service I may render you, but you can pay off in services. Am I coming through?"

His broad smile made the scars on his face fold in and deepen. "Loud and clear. It's a deal."

I held up a hand, palm toward him. "Ah, ah, ah! There's no 'deal' involved. We're just old buddies helping each other. This is for friendship, not business. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. Fair?"

"Fair. Come on down to my office; I want to give you a headful of facts and figures."

"Will do. Let me finish my guzzle."

* * * * *

Seven and a half hours later, the phone in the bedroom of the company apartment that Brock had arranged for me made loud musical sounds, and I rolled over in bed and slapped at the "_audio only_" switch.

"Yeah?" I said sleepily.

"You asked to be called at oh eight hundred, sir." said a pleasant feminine voice.

"Yah. O.K., thanks. I'm awake."

"You're welcome, sir."

I cut off and blinked the sleep out of my eyes. I'd spent an hour and a half in Brock's office, soaking up all the information he gave me and giving him all the information I could. I hoped that he had been more honest and straightforward with me than I had been with him. The trouble with being a double agent is that you frequently have to play dirty with someone you like, respect, and trust.

I looked at the watch on my wrist. Oh eight oh six, Greenwich Standard Time. The girl had been a little late in calling, but it didn't matter that much.

All over the Solar System, except on Earth itself, the clocks read the same as they do in Greenwich, England. Time zones don't mean anything anywhere except on Earth, where the natives feel that the sun should be at the zenith when the clock says twelve. An irrational concept, to say the least.

Well, not really. Let's say that it's an emotional concept. A man feels better if he has the comfortable notion that the position of the sun has something to do with the numbers on the clock. It gives him a sense of security. Only the fact that a man in the Belt--or anywhere else in the System, for that matter--is not dependent on Sol for lighting purposes makes it possible to establish a Standard Time for everyone.

Oddly enough, Greenwich Standard Time serves an emotional and religious purpose, too. It's only by the clock that a Jew can tell when the Sabbath begins; it's only by the clock a Catholic can tell when to begin his abstinence on Friday; it's only by the clock that a Moslem can tell when to begin and end the fasts of Ramadan.

And it is only by the clock that the various eight-hour work shifts can operate in the Belt. On Earth, the four-hour workday is standard, but there's a lot more work to be done in the Belt.

I got up and got dressed and took the tubeway to Viking Test Area Four, where McGuire was the ruler of the roost. The guard at the main door took one look at my pass, smiled me in, and headed for his phone as soon as I went inside. By the time I had arrived at the office of Chief Engineer Sven Midguard, the whole staff had been alerted, and the top men were waiting for me in Midguard's office.

Midguard himself met me in his outer office--a graying man in his sixties, still handsome in the telly-idol way, but running a bit to paunch now that he was approaching middle age.

"Mr. Oak! So glad to see you! So glad we could get you to help us."

"Happy to be of service," I said.

"Yes, yes, of course. Come along, come on in and meet the staff. They're ... uh ... anxious to meet you."

I'd have bet they would be. As far as they knew, I was just the guy who was supposed to take the boss' daughter to school on Luna, empowered only to make sure she didn't get into trouble, and had accidentally become McGuire's lord and master when I'd gone to take her off the ship. I was an errand boy who'd managed to get control of a spaceship that was worth millions, a layman who was holding up the work of responsible scientists and technicians. In simple words, a jerk.

In spite of the socially acceptable smiles on all their faces, every one of them managed to convey his or her opinion of me by facial expression alone when Miguard introduced me around.

* * * * *

Ellsworth Felder was short, big-bellied, round-faced, and slightly red-nosed, like a well-shaved Santa Claus. He was introduced as the head of the Viking robotics staff, and he shook hands firmly when he said he was glad to meet me.

Irwin Brentwood, the electronocist, was a slight, spare man with the body of a young boy and a gentle, soft tenor voice. His "How do you do, Mr. Oak" was almost apologetic, and his small hand in mine exerted more pressure than I'd expected.

Theodore Videnski looked more like a wrestler than a robotics expert. He was as tall as I was and much wider and heavier, and his expression and voice conveyed the idea that he could have lived a good deal longer without missing my acquaintance.

Vivian Devereaux was the only one of the five who gave the impression that she could, if given a chance, begin to like me. She was a tough-cored, no-nonsense, finely-muscled, alert, and very pretty woman in her late twenties--a not uncommon type in the Belt, although they usually don't come as lovely as that. The red, silver, and blue pattern of her union suit didn't at all distract my attention from the magnificently molded body beneath; I made a mental note to write a letter to the editor of a certain psychological journal. I decided that if this gal could think as good as she looked, she was probably one hell of a fine mathematician.

The conference room was small, cozy, and ringed with couches. On Earth, they would have been called padded benches, and they would have been uncomfortably hard, but you don't need innersprings and sponge rubber when your weight has dropped by ninety-seven per cent.

Midguard served coffee all around while we all kept up a patter of chatter that served to get us acquainted before we launched into deep thinking and heavy conversation.

"Well," said Midguard, when he finally sat down, "now that Mr. Oak is here, I suggest we begin scheduling our program."

There was a momentary silence, then the boyish Brentwood said, "I think we ought to explain to Mr. Oak just what our problem is."

That was generally agreed on, and for the next half hour I heard another re-run of information I already had. I just tried to look receptive and kept my mouth shut.

"... So you see," Midguard finally wound up, "in order to put McGuire through his paces, your co-operation is vitally necessary."

"The first thing to do," rumbled the barrel-chested Videnski, "is to run a verbal check on him, to see how the brain is functioning."

"His circuits should be checked, too," said Brentwood softly. "But that can be done later. I'll get my testing equipment ready, so that I can hook it in immediately after you get through with the verbal check." He looked over at Miss Deveraux. "Vivian?"

"I thought perhaps it might be quicker if we ran a few straight math checks on him before the verbal check," she said. "It wouldn't take long, and if there's anything wrong in that area, we'll know what to look for in the later checks. Would that be all right with you, Ted?"

Videnski nodded. "Certainly, certainly. Save us some backtracking, maybe."

Nobody asked me anything. I was just a tool; I was the switch that would turn on the machine these people wanted to play with, that was all. I could see a long, boring day ahead for Daniel Oak.

* * * * *

If anything, my prediction was short-sighted. Not only was that day boring, but so were the next three. In effect, I told McGuire that he should let the nice people into his hull and answer all their pretty questions.

After that, there was nothing much to do but stand around and watch while the others worked. Mostly, I watched Brentwood doing his circuit checks; it was a great deal more interesting to watch lights flash and meter needles wiggle and lines dancing on oscilloscope plates than it was to listen to conversations that sounded as if they'd been lifted from C. L. Dodgson's treatise on logic.

"A man is marooned on an asteroid without food or water and only one day's supply of air in the tanks of his vac suit. If there is an emergency air tank on the asteroid, it contains enough air to last him for two weeks. If there is a flare bomb on the asteroid, then there is an air tank. There is either a dismantled communicator on the asteroid or an emergency water supply, but not both. There is either an emergency food package, or flare bomb, or a single hibernine injection; or there is both an emergency food package and a flare bomb, but no hibernine. If there is an emergency water supply, it contains enough water to last the man four days. If there is a hibernine injection, then there is a dismantled communicator on the asteroid. If there is an emergency food package, there is enough in it to last him for one day, and there is a dismantled communicator, but if they are not both there, then neither is there. If there is emergency air tank, then there is an emergency water supply.

"If there is a flare bomb, he can set it off immediately, and rescue will arrive within two days. If there is a dismantled communicator, it will take the man one day to put it together before he can call for help, and rescue will arrive in an additional two days.

"If there is an emergency water tank, there is either a single hibernine injection or a food package or both. If there is a hibernine injection, the man can use it to put himself into suspended animation for exactly twenty-four hours, during which time he will need neither air, nor food, nor water. If there is air, or water, or food on the asteroid, or any two of them or all three, the man will use each at the normal rate until it is exhausted, or the man dies, or he is rescued.

"Assuming that, without hibernine, the man can live for exactly two days without water, exactly one week without food, and exactly five minutes without air, can he be rescued? If so, how long will it be before he is rescued? If not, what is his maximum survival time?

"Does this problem have more than one valid answer? If so, give and explain both.

"Or is the problem unsolvable as given? If so, explain why it is unsolvable."

Sit around listening to that sort of stuff for very long, and you begin to wish you _were_ out on an uninhabited asteroid somewhere. Problems like that are the sort of thing that any simple-minded computer can solve in a fraction of a second if they're reduced to binary notation first, but poor McGuire had to do his own mathematical interpretations from English, and the things got more complicated as they went along.

And McGuire went right on answering them in his calm, matter-of-fact baritone.

I remember that particular problem because, while Videnski was reciting it, Brentwood pointed at an oscilloscope plate that had nothing on it but a wide, bright, flickering band of light that wavered a little around the upper and lower edges.

"See that?" he asked in his tenor voice. "That's a tracing of McGuire's thinking processes. Actually, it's a very thin, very bright tracing, but it's moving over that area so fast that you can't see it. A high-speed camera could pick it up, and if the film were projected at normal speed, you could see every little bit of data being processed." Then he patted a small instrument that was sitting near the oscilloscope plate. "Of course, we don't go to all that trouble; we record it directly and analyze it later."

* * * * *

"And that analysis can be pretty maddening at times," said a very lovely voice behind me. I turned around and gave Vivian Deveraux my best smile. Her close-cropped blond hair looked a little disheveled, but it didn't make her any the less beautiful.

"What does Videnski say?" I asked. "Is McGuire still passing his exams?"

She smiled. "Ted says that if this keeps up, we can get McGuire a scholarship at Cal Tech." Then she frowned slightly. "It all depends on the analysis, of course. We'll have to see how his timing is, and how many actual computations he's using for each problem. It'll take a lot of work."

I could hear Videnski's voice still droning away in the control room, alternating with an occasional answer from McGuire. Normally, McGuire only used the speaker in whatever compartment I happened to be in, but I'd given him orders to stick with Videnski during the testing. I'd also had him shut off his pick-ups every-where in the control room, so that our chatter wouldn't be going into his brain along with Videnski's.

In the lounge, where we were, Brentwood had removed a panel that gave him access to the testing circuits. To actually get into McGuire's inner workings and tamper with him would be a lot tougher. McGuire wouldn't allow it unless I told him to, but even if he did, getting to the brain required three separate keys and the knowledge of the combination on the dial of the durasteel door to the tank that held his brain. Explosives would wreck the brain if they were powerful enough to open the door, and so would a torch. Viking Spacecraft had taken every precaution to make sure that nobody stole their pet.

"How long before we can give McGuire his test flight?" I asked. McGuire had been into space once, but it hadn't been a shakedown cruise.

Vivian looked at Brentwood. "Tomorrow, unless something unforeseen shows up, huh, Irwin?"

"That's what the schedule says," murmured Brentwood.

"Great," I said. "Just great. There's schedule, and no one's told me anything about it. Anything else I should know about, perhaps? Some little thing like where we're going, or whether I should pack a bag, or whether I'm even invited along?"

Vivian Devereaux blinked. It was a very pretty blink. "Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry. I guess we haven't kept you very much in touch, really, have we? We're so used to working together that...." She let the words trail off with a sheepish smile.

Brentwood chuckled a soft, good-humored chuckle. "I thought the Chief had told you." By "the Chief," he meant Ellsworth Felder, the head robotocist. As far as these people were concerned, Sven Midguard was just a spacecraft engineer.

"Not a word," I said, mentally making a note to find out why Santa Claus Felder had failed to notify me.

"Well, bring a suitcase," Vivian said. "We--or, rather, you--are taking McGuire on a test hop to Phobos. Mars is pretty close right now, so it'll be an easy drive sunwards.

"If all goes well, you're to set him down at Syrtisport, for his first planet landing. Then to Luna for a day or two. Then directly to Earth and Long Island Spaceport. We should know by then how he behaves."

"Why Earth?" I asked. There didn't seem much point to it.

"Keep it under your hat," she said. "Manager Ravenhurst is planning a big publicity campaign. First ship to make the voyage without a human hand at the controls, and all that. I don't know why, but he wants to make a big splash on Earth if McGuire has checked out perfectly as far as Luna."

"Oh. Well, Ravenhurst's the boss." I knew why. The general public didn't know how shaky Viking Spacecraft was, and neither, presumably, did the robotics staff. That knowledge was strictly managerial level. But a big splash on Earth would boost Viking's prestige tremendously, with a possible rise in stock values which would take some of the shakiness out of Viking.

* * * * *

By the time the day's work was over, I'd heard all of Videnski's rumbling baritone that I wanted to hear. I was grateful to get back to the relative silence of my apartment.

I opened a beer, lit a cigarette, and relaxed on my bed for a few minutes before I made a phone call. I punched BANning 6226, and got an answer almost immediately. The screen didn't come to life, but a voice said: "Marty here. Hullo, Oak." He could see me, even if I couldn't see him. If anyone punched that number by accident, Marty would simply turn on a recording that said: "The number you have punched is not a working number; please disconnect and punch again; this is a recorded message." There is no point in letting just anyone get in touch with the Ceres branch of the Political Survey Division through their secret channels.

"Marty," I said, "the test hop is tomorrow." I gave him all the details as I knew them.

"Hm-m-m." He sounded thoughtful. "If either Thurston or Baedecker agents are going to try anything, it seems as though this would be the time to do it."

"I think so, too. Do you have any new information at all?"

"Not much. Thurston's men don't know what Baedecker is up to, as far as we can gather. But the Baedecker agents have an idea that Thurston is trying to take over Viking, and they don't mind at all; they're evidently hoping that the Ravenhurst-Thurston battle will create enough confusion so that it won't take much push on their part to topple the whole mess and take control. We know most of the regular agents on both sides, and we've managed to get a lot of that information to Colonel Brock so that he can handle quite a bit of the work for us." Marty chuckled a little. "That's what I call a _really_ secret agent. Brock has no idea that he's an agent for a service he doesn't even know exists."

"Harrington Brock is a good man, Marty. Don't underestimate him."

"I don't. It's a shame he just doesn't have quite what it takes to be good PSD material."

"I hate to be referred to as 'material', good or bad. Do you have any idea how Baedecker or Thurston might be going to pull the grand-stand play?"

"Not a one, so far. How about that robotics team, or the engineers who are working on the ship? Think any of them could be in the pay of a rival?"

"It's possible," I said, "but I don't know which one or ones it might be. I've been watching them for three days, and they all seem on the up-and-up to me. And that worries me."

"How so?"

"You'd think that at least one of them would behave suspiciously by accident once in a while. You know--nerves or jumpiness from purely personal reasons. Hang-over, maybe, or woman trouble. But, no."

"The clue of the dog in the night, huh? Does that mean you suspect all of them?" he asked dryly.

"Sure. Isn't that what a good detective is supposed to do?"

"I wouldn't know; I'm just an information post. I will say this, though: If any of that bunch is connected with either Baedecker or Thurston, he isn't a professional. He's someone who's been contacted secretly and offered a heavy bribe. We're checking back on all of them now, to see if there's anything in their pasts which might indicate that their ethics are not what they should be. Or any unusual circumstance that might indicate blackmail or financial pressure."

"Nothing so far, though?"

"Nothing."

I thought for a second, then said: "Is there any known rival agent in any position to sabotage McGuire on Phobos, Mars, or Luna?"

"Several, in each place. But we'll have agents there to keep an eye on them. To be honest with you, Oak, I don't think there's much to worry about. I don't mean you shouldn't keep your eyes open, but--"

"I know what you mean," I said. "Do my own worrying, and don't worry you with it. All right. Meanwhile, if you get anything I can use, call me. And I'll let you know at this end."

"Fair enough. Good luck."

I wished him the same, and cut off.

* * * * *

I had time for one drag off my cigarette and one swallow of beer before the phone chimed. I put my beer down and pushed the switch for the audio only.

"Yes?" I said.