pit-monkeys scurried about the great jet-slagged underside of the gordak, spraying fresh zircalloy in the aft tubes. spaceport officers were everywhere in their crisp white uniforms, checking cargo, giving terse directives to the crew of the gordak, lounging importantly at the foot of the gangplank.
"name?" one of them snapped at steve.
"stedman."
the man flipped through a list of the expedition's members. "stedman, huh? i don't see—oh, here it is, in pencil at the bottom. last minute addition, huh, stedman?"
"something like that," steve admitted.
"well, climb aboard."
and then steve was walking up the gangplank and into the cool metal interior of the gordak. his palms were clammy, and he wondered if any of the crewmen within the ship noticed the sweat beading his forehead. he'd managed to come this far with a surprising degree of objectivity, and only now did reaction set in, causing his heart to beat fiercely and his limbs to grow weak. that t. j. moore must have been spawned in hell, charlie had said—and now charlie was dead. because of t. j. moore? indirectly, perhaps, but t. j. moore was responsible. or, if you looked at it on a different level, the cut-throat competition between carmical enterprises and barling brothers interplanetary was to blame. it didn't matter, not really. charlie was dead. that alone mattered.
a big man with incredibly broad shoulders, hair the color of flame and a florid face to match it, came stalking down the companionway. steve said, "i wonder if you know where i can find t. j. moore."
the giant smiled. "you crew or expedition?"
"expedition," said steve, extending his hand: "steve stedman's my name."
the hand that gripped his was hard and calloused. "i'm kevin mcgann, boy. sort of a liaison man between the crew and the expedition, only they call me the exec to make everything official. better take some advice—don't look for t. j. now. t. j.'s busy doing last minute things, and t. j. hates to be disturbed. why don't you wait till after brennschluss, when we're out in space?"
"it can't wait. i've got to see that moore knows i'm aboard and under what conditions, because i don't want to be thrown off this ship at the space-station. if moore doesn't like the conditions, mr. carmical can be called. but after we blast off it'll be too late."
kevin mcgann shrugged. "it's only advice i gave you, boy. you'll find t. j. down on the third level looking over the cargo holds. good luck." and mcgann took a pipe from his pocket, tamping it full, lighting it and staring with frank, speculative curiosity at steve. "stedman, eh?" he mused. "the name's familiar."
"you think about it," said steve, and made his way toward the third level. perhaps some of them aboard the gordak had known charlie, and mcgann, being the exec, must have been around a long time.
the third was the lowest level of the gordak, or that part of the ship nearest the tubes with the exception of the fission-room itself. here on the third level were the cages which, in the months that followed, would hold the big game brought within the gordak. but the word cage, steve realized, can be misleading. a rectangular enclosure, its wall composed of evenly spaced bars—that's a cage. but the bubble-cages of the gordak were something else again; precisely as the name implied, they were huge bubbles of plastic, complete with remote-controlled airlocks. you could pump in any kind of atmosphere, from jupiter's lethal methane-ammonia mixture to the thin, oxygen-starved air of mars, and under any desired pressure, too.
and now on the third level a battery of experts was busy checking the bubble-cages for defects, since a leak after some noxious gas had been pumped into one of the bubbles could mean death for everyone aboard the gordak. steve stood there nervously for what seemed a long while. he let his gaze rove up and down the third level, but he only saw the coverall-clad technicians checking the bubble-cages. kevin mcgann had said he could find moore here, but unless moore zipped on a pair of coveralls himself and joined in the work—which certainly seemed unlikely—then moore wasn't around.
