All of a sudden, it had hit me. I'd been asking a lot of questions lately, and getting only partial answers. Now I had all the answers, and I hated every one of them.
The misdirection and lying on Weidmann's part was clear as a bell. It had been designed to get me off Earth and headed for Titan without anybody knowing the real reasons—even me. They knew that if the real secret ever leaked out, every renegade and pirate in the system would swarm down, battling to the death to get their hands on this ship.
So they pulled the purloined letter gag. They hid the ship and its mission in plain sight. They sent me off in her to deliver the engine parts to where the hyperspatial drive could be assembled, and from there I'd be able to fly her to whatever star they chose, ghosting along in a universe where the speed of light as we knew it was not the fastest speed a ship could hit.
They'd given me a good excuse, too. "Pile fuels!" A big enough cargo to justify using me and a special ship, but not so big that I couldn't handle the opposition I'd get from the Belt gangs, who'd fight for it, sure, but who'd try a lot less hard, and discourage a lot easier, than they would if they knew what was really up.
The only trouble with that was that they did know.
Sure—what else could it be? Earth was thick with two-bit sneaks and spies who sold information to anybody with the price. Even Earth government thought enough of them to cook up this big production. One of them must have dug deeper than anyone thought.
Thorsten knew, that was a cinch. He knew so well, that he hadn't even wanted to chance a fight out in space, where the drive might get shot up. He'd sent Pat out to decoy me into him.
I stood there, cursing, my big fists closed into sledges. Pat—Pat, that beautiful, wonderful actress. Pat, who was death with a gun and arson for me with her lips.
All my life, I'd been getting mad at people and things. During the war, I was crazy mad at Marties. Afterward, I was mad at anybody who wanted to push other people around. I got mad at Pat, because I thought she was playing me for a sucker.