His chest and abdomen hurt and he wanted to get out of the seat and stretch, move around, do something. But that might be disastrous. If Altman was going to play any more tricks with his tubes, he would be ready to do it now, after the last box had been retrieved. And Brad realized it wouldn't be healthy being shaken around inside an erratically spinning compartment.
"That's the last one, Altman," he spoke dully into the mike.
"Say!" The irony was still in the other's voice. "Were you out there when we blasted to avoid collision?"
Brad said nothing.
"Sorry if we warmed your tail," Altman continued. "But you should'a stayed inside. Our instruments show you're getting close to spillthrough. Ain't you gonna do anything about it?"
Brad snapped to alertness. Now he realized the origin of the pains in his stomach and chest—the pin-prick sensations that seemed to be spreading throughout his flesh. He glanced out the direct-view port. Altman was right. The sky was no longer a grid of star streaks. The lines had shrunken; their lengths now stretched scarcely over three or four degrees. The scope showed the Queen was still there spatially, but the fuzziness of her outline indicated she was well out of danger—high up on the ascending node of the arc.
"What's on the program, Altman?" Brad asked bitterly. "Let me guess.... I slip through the barrier. Passage at slow speed makes pretty much of a pulpy mess out of my body. You pop the Queen through in a milli-second.... You got a nice story to tell: You arrived as I was slipping through. You couldn't do anything to stop me. You plunged through after me. With a dead skipper aboard, the ship and cargo were free to the first one who came along. You took the cargo, it being high priority stuff. You left the ship, it being outdated, battered, useless and drifting in normal interstellar where it would never be found. You took what was left of the skipper, it being good evidence to substantiate your tale."
"Now Brad, boy!" Altman stretched the words out in mock reprimand. "You know I wouldn't do a thing like that. You know the West Cluster contract doesn't mean that much to me!"
There was a long silence. Apparently Altman wasn't going to interrupt it. Brad looked back at the scope. The Queen had withdrawn spatially and hyperspatially.
The pains in his body rose sharply and he grimaced, biting down on his lips. A knife slipped into his abdomen, twisted and shot up through his chest and into his head. Then an incendiary bomb went off somewhere in his stomach.