There hadn't been time enough to get a ship in the area that could
blast the freighter off course. And there hadn't been any ship even on
Mars equipped for such action, not even an old slightly serviceable
derelict that could be placed in the runaway ship's path for
deflection.
The long-range scope still had the runaway ship in focus. It looked
like a little painted miniature in the trideo, with a very slowly
moving spangled background. A faint superimposed image of Mars
appeared. The announcer was talking about forces, vectors, and other
navigational terminology, plus nonsensical chatter of probability
factors. The picture faded and was replaced with an artist's animated
conception of the impending tragedy. It showed the present location of
the ship, the calculated course and trajectory of the ship through the
atmosphere to the point of impact--right in the center of the
industrial area. It ended with a big question mark before the image of
the ship returned.
During the sequence of the collision course, I was trying in my mind
to figure out just how far off Willy's asteroid would be. I could
figure it roughly in my head, remembering the original figures I'd
gotten from Artie. The asteroid would be no fewer than a million and a
half miles from the runaway ship, at its nearest point. Besides, it
wouldn't emerge from sub-space until it was near Earth, a good seventy
million miles from Mars at that time.
It had taken some belligerent persuasion to get Artie to conjure up
the figures and tapes I gave Goil.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced up. Simon, one of the tug
pilots, was pointing toward the back of the room. I looked back.
Artie was there with a worried look on his face looking at me. His
eyes moved quickly toward where Goil sat, and then back at me. His
head gave a little backwards jerk.
Feeling real unhappy all of a sudden as premonition nudged my mind, I
got up quietly and went back.
Artie had stepped outside in the hall. When he saw me step out of the
rec room doorway, he motioned me down the hall farther. Gloom was all
over his face, even in his motions. He said:
"Sam, I don't know what's going on around here between Willy, Goil,
and you. But I thought you'd like to know Goil was in to see me a
little while ago. Before I had much of a chance to think about it, I
gave him the figures and tapes for that course I plotted for Willy. I
don't know how Goil knew about them, but he asked for them directly."
"Which figures, Art?" I asked anxiously.
"Why, the ones I made for you. Is there something wrong, Sam?"
My alarm must have shown in my face. I said, "No, Art. I thought maybe
you might have given him that other course I asked you to plot."
"You mean that false course? Hell, Sam. I didn't know--"
"It's all right, Art. You didn't know." And I left him standing there
puzzled. I went back to the rec room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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