Typical fullback thinking—that—taking off into space. If he'd wanted to hide, Earth was the place for it. Where could he get to with a clunk of a two seater? He was a navigator, granted. But he'd have to have something worthwhile to navigate.
Both the new pilot and the new robot master were young and properly respectful, space-dedicated boys, and my life, I knew, was going to be pleasant. And once I had mastered navigation, I was going to be damned near irreplaceable.
As we bored through space on the old familiar run, the thought came to me that probably Horse would head for his asteroid, and if he should make it, wouldn't that be something? Two men and one girl. I wonder how long Van would live.
Van was no fullback, nor a reasonably accurate facsimile thereof. Unless he had a weapon, he'd be no match for Horse.
The image of the girl came back to haunt me. I knew there'd been an expedition or two lost in asteroid alley on early exploratory trips, but they hadn't carried women. And her face was familiar.
I went to a library and thumbed through some old newsprints. Of course! The photograph fairly leapt at me. Elsbeth Parrish, the science hater, the woman who'd gone on a lecture tour ridiculing the powers that be, making converts first in the women's schools and then in the co-educational institutions. The 'Live for Love' girl, Elsbeth Parrish.
Naturally the government had cracked down and tried to deport her to Mars. She'd disappeared a week before the trial, and one of those old Interplan Rocket Sedans had disappeared with her. The government had given her up as lost in space.
I could understand now why Horse had made the confession at his trial and why he'd been so submissive on the return trip from Jupiter. He'd tricked me into swearing there was no life on the asteroid. And now he could safely head there, because I was the one man alive besides him and Van Elling who knew there was life there, and my future depended on my not revealing it.
But could he make it in an atomic two seater? And two men for one woman—if he did make it? I had to know the answer.