Crashlander

Julian Forward was a Jinxian, short and wide, with arms as thick as legs and legs as thick as pillars. His skin was almost as black as his hair: a Sirius suntan, probably maintained by sunlights. He perched on the edge of a massage chair. «Carlos Wu!» he said with flattering enthusiasm. «Are you the same Carlos Wu who solved the Sealeyharn Limits problem?»

Carlos said he was. They went into a discussion of mathematics, a possible application of Carlos's solution to another limits problem, I gathered. I glanced at Ausfaller — not obtrusively, because for Forward he wasn't supposed to exist — and saw him pensively studying his side view of Forward.

«Well,» Forward said, «what can I do for you?»

«Julian Forward, meet Beowulf Shaeffer,» said Carlos. I bowed. «Bey was giving me a lift home when our hyperdrive motor disappeared.»

«Disappeared?»

I butted in for verisimilitude. «Disappeared, futzy right. The hyperdrive motor casing is empty. The motor supports are sheared off. We're stuck out here with no hyperdrive and no idea how it happened.»

«Almost true,» Carlos said happily. «Dr. Forward, I do have some ideas as to what happened here. I'd like to discuss them with you.»

«Where are you now?»

I pulled our position and velocity from the computer and flashed them to Forward Station. I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but Ausfaller had time to stop me, and he didn't.

«Fine,» said Forward's image. «It looks like you can get here a lot faster than you can get to Earth. Forward Station is ahead of you, within twenty a.u. of your position. You can wait here for the next ferry. Better than going on in a crippled ship.»

«Good! We'll work out a course and let you know when to expect us.»

«I welcome the chance to meet Carlos Wu.» Forward gave us his own coordinates and rang off.

Carlos turned. «All right, Bey. Now you own an armed and disguised warship. You figure out where you got it.»

«We've got worse problems than that. Forward Station is exactly where the ship eater ought to be.»

He nodded. But he was amused.

«So what's our next move? We can't run from hyperdrive ships. Not now. Is Forward likely to try to lull usr

«If we don't reach Forward Station on schedule, he might send ships after us. We know too much. We've told him so,» said Carlos. «The hyperdrive motor disappeared completely. I know half a dozen people who could figure out how it happened, knowing just that.» He smiled suddenly. «That's assuming Forward's the ship eater. We don't know that. I think we have a splendid chance to find out one way or the other.»

«How? Just walk in?»

Ausfaller was nodding approvingly. «Dr. Forward expects you and Carlos to enter his web unsuspecting, leaving an empty ship. I think we can prepare a few surprises for him. For example, he may not have guessed that this is a General Products hull. And I will be aboard to fight.»

True. Only antimatter could harm a GP hull … though things could go through it, like light and gravity and shock waves. «So you'll be in the indestructible hull,» I said, «and we'll be helpless in the base. Very clever. I'd rather run for it myself. But then, you have your career to consider.»

«I will not deny it. But there are ways in which I can prepare you.»

* * *

Behind Ausfaller's cabin, behind what looked like an unbroken wall, was a room the size of a walk-in closet. Ausfaller seemed quite proud of it. He didn't show us everything in there, but I saw enough to cost me what remained of my first impression of Ausfaller. This man did not have the soul of a pudgy bureaucrat.

Behind a glass panel he kept a couple of dozen special-purpose weapons. A row of four clamps held three identical hand weapons, disposable rocket launchers for a fat slug that Ausfaller billed as a tiny atomic bomb. The fourth clamp was empty. There were laser rifles and pistols, a shotgun of peculiar design with four inches of recoil shock absorber, throwing knives, an Olympic target pistol with a sculpted grip and room for just one.22 bullet.

I wondered what he was doing with a hobbyist's touch-sculpting setup. Maybe he could make sculptures to drive a human or an alien mad. Maybe something less subtle: maybe they'd explode at the touch of the right fingerprints.

He had a compact automated tailor's shop. «I'm going to make you some new suits,» he said. When Carlos asked why, he said, «You can keep secrets? So can I.»

He asked us for our preference in styles. I played it straight, asking for a falling jumper in green and silver with lots of pockets. It wasn't the best I've ever owned, but it fit.

«I didn't ask for buttons,» I told him.

«I hope you don't mind. Carlos, you will have buttons, too.»

Carlos chose a fiery red tunic with a green and gold dragon coiling across the back. The buttons carried his family monogram. Ausfaller stood before us, examining us in our new finery, with approval.

«Now, watch,» he said. «Here I stand before you, unarmed.»

«Right.»

«Sure you are.»