His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"A long time later a first class pirate ship landed. We crawled across the snow to her—two hundred kilos. They took us in because they hadn't a mechanic worth the name, and all of us were fine tech men. I said I could fix her, and I could. Then one night my men killed all the crew of this new ship and I patched it with stuff from the other two rockets so we took off and sneaked into Mars.

"I had been a fool once, and that was enough, so I meant to do it the right way this time. You don't strike without warning if you want to be a success; you give plenty of warning through agents and policemen you've hired, and steer them just a bit the wrong way so that they suspect nothing and honestly believe that they'll get you the next time.

"I met a lot of friends I knew on Mars, and made some new ones when I'd disposed of the ship's cargo. The boys and I have been cruising around for some time now, doing nothing spectacular—it doesn't pay.

We've been knocking off a ship here and there, laying the blame square onto a rival or somebody. Our home is still Pluto—we don't like it, in a way, for what it did to us, but in a way we do because nobody else does, and it's so damn far away from anything half the time.

"I'm sorry that you didn't get the Carpathia. I thought that with a father like yours you could fly sideways and beat any other scow in the ether to a contract."

She stared at the madman. "What did you know about my father?"

"He was my instructor on Venus. He got me out of a piece of trouble when I killed a man that swore at me. He was a good instructor, and I'm pleased that I have the chance to do him a favor through you. You see, I wrecked that bullion ship for you. Then I was going to pick you up and the junk, but I see I've only got you. Well—perhaps that's enough. You can't return to Mars even if you want to. I suppose the police have their cruisers out looking for you and your crew. I buttered the crime onto you for both our advantages. I hope you don't mind?"

"No," she said, "and you wanted to do my father a favor by permitting me to join your—band?"

"Exactly," came from the muffled features. "And you will?"

The girl sobbed, "Never! Space is clean and cold; why must you make it a thing of Terror? Isn't that pain enough without you and your kind?"

The pirate laughed. "The whimsical butcher is not displeased," he said.

"You will have your uses anyhow. It will be a long time before a soul suspects King Cole—the late King Cole—of the atrocities perpetrated by Miss Alice Adams and her cutthroat crew. I know how the police mind works. That's my business, now. Good day—you may ring for food." He left, and the door closed behind him.

Vainly the girl sprang to the door and tried the knob. It was locked firm.

She returned to the bed and shut her eyes, trying to blot out the memory of that grey, horribly seamed face.

In Marsport Jerry had not been idle. He had been to see the major again, and tried to convince him of the truth so self-evident to the younger man's mind, but the placid old idiot listened blandly and blankly. When Jerry was finished he said, "Through an accident, I believe, we were cut off in our telephone conversation a while ago. I was about to describe the position in which Ironface and I found ourselves—"

But Jerry was gone with great curses on his lips. Patiently Skeane sighed. It had been six years since he had been able to finish that story; the last man to hear it complete had been a convict extradited to Venus from Jupiter. Skeane had strapped him down in the little two-man rocket and whiled away the long hours of space travel with the tale in its gruesome entirety. He thought, now, that it would be nice if he could find somebody else to strap down and tell the story to. He was even a bit afraid that he was forgetting the details himself …

A taxi was driving through the muddy streets of Marsport; Jerry snapped a bill under the hackie's nose. "This for you if you step on it,"

he said. They pulled up, brakes squealing horribly, before a battered, weatherbeaten tenement. Jerry took four stairs at a time and burst into the close, dirty room. He shook the sleeping figure. "Sven! Sven, dammit! Wake up, you loose-brained lump of soggy Norwegian caviar!

We have the biggest job we've tackled yet!"

The helmsman rolled over, and dizzily asked, "We tow, Captain?"

"Yeah, we tow—a full-armed battleship that doesn't want to be towed.

Get the men to the field in twenty minutes—fare is on Leigh Salvage, Incorporated."

As the big man struggled into his clothes Jerry was down the stairs and into a taxi. "Salvage Field," he snapped, "in a helluva rush."