Then I lost a brass collar off the hull-brace, and since we didn't carry a reserve stock I had to ask Chief Lester to make me one. By the time that was ready, I'd busted a .44 coil cable lock, and had to jerry-rig a substitute.
Oh, it was a headache! But I wasn't the only guy on board the Aunty who was having troubles. Slops raised a howl to high heaven because his stove went on the squeegee. Gunner McCoy stalked into the officer's mess one afternoon demanding what such-and-such so-and-so had stripped the gears of his pet rotor-gun. Sparks burned out three vacuum tubes in one day, breaking contact with all transmitting stations and almost causing us to crack up on a rogue asteroid. Even Cap McNeally was visited by the plague. He came wailing to me, on the bridge, that the refrigeration units in the No. 3 storage bin had broken down.
"—and we've lost a whole binfull of clab, Brait! Worth at least six thousand credits on Earth. The Corporation will be mad as hell."
"That's tough," I said, "but there's nothing we can do about it. It wasn't your fault."
He eyed me curiously. "Brait—" he said.
"Yes, Cap?"
"I've been wondering—do you think there could be anything in what Moran said? About him being a—a—"
"Jonah?" I'd been thinking the same thing myself. "I don't know, Skipper. I wouldn't say yes, and I wouldn't say no. But there's no doubt about it, things have been going haywire ever since we picked him up. I'll be glad when he lifts gravs off the Aunty."
Cap said petulantly, "Of course it's just nonsense. Bad luck doesn't hang around one man like that. It's against the law of averages. Still, I wish you'd sort of keep an eye on him for the next three days, Brait. Till we land on Earth. I've got a notion—"
"So has Earth," I grinned. "Five of 'em. Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and the two Etceteras. What's yours?"