Miners in the Sky Read Free Page B

could know what had happened. When a ship dropped out of sight, it dropped out of sight. That was all. Nobody had to go to the Rings. It was their own decision, and they bought their own donkeyships and came to the Rings in full awareness that the death rate among space-miners was thirty per cent a year. The planetary government of Horus sent the pickup ships to supply their needs and bring back the treasure—the abyssal crystals—they found. But the pickup ships weren’t here to prevent or punish crime. That simply wasn’t practical. So Dunne wished bitterly that he’d said he’d killed Keyes instead of giving an excuse for guesses. In the Rings no governmental authority went outside the hull of a pickup ship. But curiosity had no limit.
    “Okay,” said the pickup ship’s booming voice. “Let’s get at it!” It read off a name. It was the first name recorded. “Waiting for you, now!”
    A pause. Then a man in a space-suit clambered out of a donkeyship. He carried a parcel. He went across the relatively flat surface of glittering metal. Magnetic-soled space-boots accounted for the fact of walking. A ladder reached down from the pickup ship. He climbed it. He was inside the larger space-vessel for some minutes. He came out and went leisurely over to the donkeyship from which he’d emerged.
    The pickup ship boomed a second name. Another man in a space-suit came out of another donkeyship. He went in the pickup. He came out and went back to his own small craft. Donkeyship by donkeyship, as the ship from Horus called their names, men went to the large and infinitely welcome pickup ship. They carried parcels—small parcels—into it. They came out without them.
    The man who’d said his name was Haney went in, swaggering even in his clumsy space-suit and with his magnetic-soled boots clinging as if sticky to the metal under him. Another man—the one who’d answered “Smithers.” Then Dunne answered to his name, and went. He was the last, because he’d arrived last. He turned over a parcel of abyssal crystals to the pickup-ship skipper. They were the reason for everything that happened in the Rings. He made the formal statement that he and Keyes had found a ring-fragment marked such-and-such, but obviously abandoned. They’d painted their own initials and a year on the rock. They were working it.
    “Yeah!” said the clerk who took down his statement. “I remember them!” He spoke of the former owners of that fragment. “Doin’ well, they were, when they just didn’t come back.”
    Dunne said, “Mail?”
    He didn’t expect any, but Keyes should have a letter. He had a sister on Horus and was deeply concerned about her. Not to get a letter on the pickup ship would disturb Keyes. Dunne asked for a second look. There was no letter.
    Dunne gave his order for oxygen and supplies. It would be made ready for delivery presently. He went back to his ship. A pause, seemingly for no particular reason. The booming voice of the ship said: “Any more? Any more coming in?”
    It was a call for any donkeyship that might still be on the way to Outlook. The call could be picked up an astonishing distance away. But there was no answer. Silence. The voice from the pickup said dryly:
    “All right, boys! Come aboard and spend your money!”
    Instantly there was activity all around the spaceport’s edge. Men emerged from each of the ships. They headed for the ship from Horus. Now there was no silence. They babbled via their space-phones as exuberantly as before the pickup ship’s arrival. They were starved for conversation with strangers. They were ravenous for experiences they did not have in their ships. There were two men from each of the ships, except Dunne and that of the man named Smithers.
    They trooped to the ladder of the supply-ship. They clambered up like small boys let out of school. They chattered like schoolchildren. Those who’d had mail were most exuberant of all. They went into the big cargo-lock which had