His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

Many hours later all that was left of the two was a very small noise in the corner of a saloon on Broadway, at the corner of Le Bourse. Half of the small—very small—noise was saying to the other half at intervals,

"Wimmin can't never fly …Wimmin can' never fly …Wimmin can' never fly …" And the second half of the very small noise was replying to the first, " Yeh …they cer'nly don't …" At length the proprietor told a hackie to please take them away, and what happened to the official nobody ever found out, but Jerry awoke next morning in his hotel room with a pair of blue eyes wavering in front of his face. They weren't real, though—vanished with the first draught of bicarb.

His phone rang, and he winced. It was the Salvage Field Commission, and they wanted to know what he had done with Sweeny. Sweeny? Oh, yeah—no; he didn't remember a thing. To hell with Sweeny. Were there any jobs to be done? He wanted to get off Mars before he got drunk again. There was a long pause while the commission looked up today's sheet. Yes—one bullion ship wrecked between Mercury and Venus.

Carrying iridium. Speed was essential; therefore the agreement was on a strictly competitive basis; any or all salvage companies registered could try for it simultaneously. The owner of the ship agreed to buy back the cargo falling to the salvager at market quotations out of hand.

First scow to get a grapple on, had her. Laufer and Burke had filed intention claims, and were starting off in a couple of hours; so had Bluebell.

"Who? What master?"

"Er …Adams. Holy smokes! Alice Adams!"

Jerry swore. "You'll have to stop that kid. She doesn't know how to fly."

"You'd better come down, then. You seem to know more about this mess than I do. Hurry up if you want a crack at the Carpathia—that's the bullion ship."

"Expect me in twenty minutes or less." Hastily he dressed, his hangover forgotten, muttering to himself things about slap-happy blondes.

Schopenhauer, he decided, had approximately the right idea.

For the second or third time in his life he was not late for an appointment; twenty minutes saw him bursting through to the office of the commissioner.

"Well?" he demanded violently. "Are you going to let her fly? In a race like this is going to be, she'll not only smash up herself and her crew but any of the rest of us who get in what she seems to think is her way."

The body wrapped around the telephone voice answered heavily,

"There's nothing to be done about it. For some obscure reason the 'sons or other issue of the deceased licensee shall retain the towage and salvage permits of the deceased, and all appurtenances thereof,'

according to regulations.

"The license for towage, etc., includes an operator's card; therefore we discovered that a crack-brained female who has never flown before inherits a flying permit without physical examination or experience.

I'm going to write my congressman; that seems to be all that anyone can do about it just now. Shall I fill out an intention for you on that Carpathia?"

"Yeah. I won't be back," he snapped, half way through the door.

He found Sven in a cheap rooming-house near the port.

"You round up the rest of the crew!" he yelled, "and be at the field by twelve noon or you're all fired and busted." He tore away and jumped into a taxi. "To the salvage field, buddy, in a helluva rush!"

He was oiling the space lock when the others arrived, led by Big Sven.

He stared at them. "Often," he said, "I have wondered what happens to space lice when they crawl off the ship. I now perceive that I should have known." Each and every man of them had at least one black eye; each had cuts and bruises about the temples. "Well—forget the good times. There's iridium drifting free between Mercury and Venus, and we're going to snag it. And if we don't sink our grapples into that hulk before any other space-tramp, you worms go hungry. Clear? Now get to stations; in ninety seconds we take off. I said ninety!'

The men filed into the stubby ship holding their heads. A hangover is nothing to take with you on a spaceflight. If they could have left their heads behind they would have done it. With creakings of abused muscles and battered bones, they strapped themselves into hammocks and pads.

The crew of Leigh Salvage, Incorporated was in a bad way.

The takeoff was uneventful as such things go; Jerry mentally noted that he had blown away a small corner of the salvage-table, just another item to subtract from the profit, if any.

Once again in space, the captain was at the look-out plate, eyes and hands and brain bent five hundred kilos out into the vacuum. "Particle sighted ahead," he droned, "in our third quadrant. Salvage scow Bluebell. Full speed ahead to pass her." His fingers played over the master's board, and the blunt ship roared ahead. They were near—

dangerously near—the Bluebell. A blast from the steering fins and the scow jolted into a new course. Jerry never took chances—hardly ever.