His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

The ship roared over the face of Mars, and slowed above the Kalonin desert. Jerry found Salvage Field beneath him, and cut the rockets sharply to one side, swinging the Argol like the lash of a whip. They swooped down, and Jerry, drunk or sober, shifted his salvage neatly above the ponderous pneumatic cargo-table and cut it loose. It fell the thousand feet with a terrible crash, landing comparatively easy. At any rate he had not missed it. "So much for Wylie," he muttered.

The exhaust sputtered and died; the ship dove to within a hundred feet of the surface. On rockets! And down she drifted, landing without a jar.

Jerry held his head and groaned.

2 An Unexpected Rival

The owner, manager and founder of Leigh Salvage, Incorporated, was only human. In turn he visited the offices of the other salvage companies and said, in effect, "Ya-a-ah!" Or that was the plan.

Burke was first on his list: a sullen, red-headed man with a grudge against everybody. He threw Jerry out of his office before half the "Ya-a-ah" was out. The captain was too happy at the moment to start or finish a fight, so he brushed himself off for a call on Rusty Adams, of the Bluebell Salvage Company.

He entered their office and what appeared to be a secretary or receptionist or something said to him, "Can I help you?"

"Yes," he said absently, looking for Adams. "What are you doing tonight?" She scowled prettily. He noticed her hair, blonde. He noticed her eyes, blue-grey. He noticed, moreover, her face and figure, very neat—but this was business. "Is the proprietor of this ramshackle space-tuggery in?"

"Yes," she said, "the proprietor is in."

"Then drag the old dog out; I would have words with him."

"I," she said, "am the proprietor."

Jerry smiled gently. "Enough of this," he said. "I refer to the illustrious Francis X. Adams, alias the Rusty Nut, alias the Creaking Screw—"

He paused. Her eyes were full of tears. She looked up. "He was my father," she said, "You're Leigh, aren't you? They told me of your ways.

Father died while you were in space. I've come from Earth to take care of his business." She blew her nose on a silly little handkerchief, and said, "If there's anything I can do for you—"

Jerry felt lower than a snake's belly. He stammered an apology of some sort and went on, "As a matter of fact I did have a deal to talk over. I want to buy out your concern." As a matter of fact he had wanted to do nothing of the sort, but he thought it out quickly. The expense would cripple him for a while, but he'd be able to dispose of the Bluebell at a loss and get some operating capital, and one more job like that Argol and he'd be right back where he was now with only a little time wasted and she did have blue-grey eyes and what did a woman know about salvage anyway—

"Not for sale, Mr. Leigh," she said coolly.

That shocked him—he had thought that he was doing her a favor. He decided to be a big brother. "Miss Adams, I think you ought to accept.

Not for my sake, but for yours. You have had no experience at the work; you'll be at the mercy of your employees, and salvage men are the toughest mob in space. Your father could handle the company, but—"

She set her pretty jaw. "Just that," she said. "My father could handle them and so can I."

What was a man to do in the face of such madness? Perhaps—"What about a shipmaster, Miss Adams? Your profits will all run into his salary."

"No, Mr. Leigh—my father did it and I can do it. I'm going to pilot my own ship."

With that he exploded—no woman had ever piloted a rocket ship, he said; and also he said that no woman ever would pilot a rocket ship, and that if she thought she was going to learn to pilot a ship she was just plain crazy to try and learn on a salvage scow; and further he said that the salvage scow is notorious throughout all space as the crankiest, most perverted, perverse and persnickety brand of vessel that flies; that to run a scow you had to be born in the space-lanes and weaned on rocket-juice-

"I don't know about the rocket-juice," she said, "but I was born on the Jupiter-Earth liner." Jerry gasped for breath.

"Is there anything else?" she said. "Because if there isn't I'd like to get some work done on my father's accounts."

"No," said Jerry thickly. He was dangerously near apoplexy. "Nothing else." And he walked out of the office muttering, "Accounts …get some work done on my father's …" Dammit! A woman couldn't fly a scow, and she wouldn't believe that very obvious fact until she was smeared over half of the landing field.

Like a man in a dream he found himself at the offices of the Salvage Field Commission, paying his field dues. An official, dazed, asked if anything was wrong. Did he expect to die, or something?

"No," said Jerry thickly, "but I expect to get potted in about twenty-five minutes. Would you mind coming along?"

"Not at all," said the official. In fact he felt the need of a drink after having beheld the ungodly spectacle of the Leigh Salvage Company paying up on time.