Olcott made an impatient gesture. “Let’s go in.”
The control cabin showed signs of careful work; Duncan decided that Hartman knew his job. He moved to the controls and examined them with interest.
“Made any test-runs?”
“Without a pilot?” Olcott chuckled. “Hartman says it’ll fly, and that’s enough for me.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I see you’ve painted the ship black. That’ll make it difficult to spot. I’ll have only occlusion to worry about, and a fast course with this little boat will take care of that.” Duncan pulled at his lower lip. “I noticed you put rocket-screens on, too.”
“Naturally.” Rocket-screens, like gun-silencers, were illegal, and for a similar reason. The flare of the jets are visible across vast distances in space, but a dead-black ship, tubes screened, would be practically invisible.
“Okay,” Duncan said. “What about the Plutonians.”
It was Hartman who spoke this time. “Just what do you know about the Plutonians?”
“No more than anyone else. No ship’s ever landed on Pluto. The creatures are mental vampires. They can reach out, somehow, across space and suck the energy out of the brain.”