The Risk Profession Read online

outside?"

  I nodded.

  "Then you've seen Karpin and McCann. Exactly the same. It doesn't matterif a man's thirty or sixty or what. It doesn't matter what he was likebefore he came out here. If he's been here a few years, he looks exactlylike the bunch you saw outside there."

  "That's appearance," I said. "What I was looking for was personality."

  "Same thing," he said. "All of them. Close-mouthed, anti-social,fiercely independent, incurably romantic, always convinced that the bigstrike is just a piece of rock away. McCann, now, he was a bit morerealistic than most. He'd be the one I'd expect to take out a retirementpolicy. A real pence-pincher, that one, though I shouldn't say it ashe's dead. But that's the way he was. Brighter than most Belt boys whenit came to money matters. I've seen him haggle over a new piece ofequipment for their scooter, or some repair work, or some such thing,and he was a wonder to watch."

  "And Karpin?" I asked him.

  "A prospector," he said, as though that answered my question. "Same aseverybody else. Not as sharp as McCann when it came to money. That's whyall the money stuff in the partnership was handled by McCann. But Karpinwas one of the sharpest boys in the business when it came to mineralogy.He knew rocks you and I never heard of, and most times he knew them bysight. Almost all of the Belt boys are college grads--you've got to knowwhat you're looking for out here and what it looks like when you'vefound it--but Karpin has practically all of them beat. He's _sharp_."

  * * *

  "Sounds like a good team," I said.

  "I guess that's why they stayed together so long," he said. "Theycomplemented each other." He leaned forward, the inevitable prelude to aconfidential remark. "I'll tell you something off the record, Mister,"he said. "Those two were smarter than they knew. Their partnership wasnever legalized, it was never anything more than a piece of paper. Andthere's a bunch of fellas around here mighty unhappy about that today.Jafe McCann is the one who handled all the money matters, like I said.He's got IOU's all over town."

  "And they can't collect from Karpin?"

  He nodded. "Jafe McCann died just a bit too soon. He was sharp andcheap, but he was honest. If he'd lived, he would have repaid all hisdebts, I'm sure of it. And if this strike they made is as good as Ihear, he would have been able to repay them with no trouble at all."

  I nodded, somewhat impatiently. I had the feeling by now that I wastalking to a man who was one of those who had a Jafe McCann IOU in hispocket. "How long has it been since you've seen Karpin?" I asked him,wondering what Karpin's attitude and expression was now that his partnerwas dead.

  "Oh, Lord, not for a couple of months," he said. "Not since they wentout together the last time and made that strike."

  "Didn't Karpin come in to make his claim?"

  "Not here. Over to Chemisant City. That was the nearest M&R to thestrike."

  "Oh." That was a pity. I would have liked to have known if there hadbeen a change of any kind in Karpin since his partner's death. "I'lltell you what the situation is," I said, with a false air oftruthfulness. "We have some misgivings about McCann's death. Notsuspicions, exactly, just misgivings. The timing is what bothers us."

  "You mean, because it happened just after the strike?"

  "That's it," I answered frankly.

  He shook his head. "I wouldn't get too excited about that, if I wereyou," he said. "It wouldn't be the first time it's happened. A man makesthe big strike after all, and he gets so excited he forgets himself fora minute and gets careless. And you only have to be careless once outhere."

  "That may be it," I said. I got to my feet, knowing I'd picked up allthere was from this man. "Thanks a lot for your cooperation," I said.

  "Any time," he said. He stood and shook hands with me.

  I went back out through the chatting prospectors and crossed the echoingcavern that was level one, aiming to rent myself a scooter.

  * * * * *

  I don't like rockets. They're noisy as the dickens, they steer hard anddrive erratically, and you can never carry what _I_ would consider asafe emergency excess of fuel. Nothing like the big steady-ginterplanetary liners. On those I feel almost human.

  The appearance of the scooter I was shown at the rental agency didn't domuch to raise my opinion of this mode of transportation. The thing was agood ten years old, the paint scraped and scratched all over itsegg-shaped, originally green-colored body, and the windshield--a sillyterm, really, for the front window of a craft that spends most of itstime out where there isn't any wind--was scratched and pockmarked to thepoint of translucency by years of exposure to the asteroidal dust.

  The rental agent was a sharp-nosed thin-faced type who displayed thisrefugee from a melting vat without a blush, and still didn't blush whenhe told me the charges. Twenty credits a day, plus fuel.

  I paid without a murmur--it was the company's money, not mine--and paidan additional ten credits for the rental of a suit to go with it. Iworked my way awkwardly into the suit, and clambered into the driver'sseat of the relic. I attached the suit to the ship in all the necessaryplaces, and the agent closed and spun the door.

  Most of the black paint had worn off the handles of the controls, andinsulation peeked through rips in the plastic siding here and there. Iwondered if the thing had any slow leaks and supposed fatalisticallythat it had. The agent waved at me, stony-faced, the conveyor belttrundled me outside the dome, and I kicked the weary rocket into life.

  The scooter had a tendency to roll to the right. If I hadn't keptfighting it back, it would have soon worked up a dandy little spin. Iwas spending so much time juggling with the controls that I practicallymissed a couple of my beacon rocks, and that would have been just toobad. If I'd gotten off the course I had carefully outlined for myself,I'd never have found my bearings again, and I would have just floatedaround amid the scenery until some passerby took pity and towed me backhome.

  But I managed to avoid getting lost, which surprised me, and after fournerve-wracking hours I finally spotted the yellow-painted X of aregistered claim on a half-mile-thick chunk of rock dead ahead. As I gotcloser, I spied a scooter parked near the X, and beside it an inflatedportable dome. The scooter was somewhat larger than mine, but no newerand probably even less safe. The dome was varicolored, from repeatedpatching.

  This would be the claim, and this is where I would find Karpin, sittingon his property while waiting for the sale to go through. Prospectorslike Karpin are free-lance men, working for no particular company. Theyregister their claims in their own names, and then sell the rights towhichever company shows up first with the most attractive offer. There'sa lot of paperwork to such a sale, and it's all handled by the company.While waiting, the smart prospector sits on his claim and makes surenobody chips off a part of it for himself, a stunt that still happensnow and again. It doesn't take too much concentrated explosive to maketwo rocks out of one rock, and a man's claim is only the rock with his Xon it.

  I set the scooter down next to the other one, and flicked the toggle forthe air pumps, then put on the fishbowl and went about unattaching thesuit from the ship. When the red light flashed on and off, I spun thedoor, opened it, and stepped out onto the rock, moving very cautiously.It isn't that I don't believe the magnets in the boot soles will work,it's just that I know for a fact that they won't work if I happen toraise both feet at the same time.

  I clumped across the crude X to Karpin's dome. The dome had no viewportsat all, so I wasn't sure Karpin was aware of my presence. I rapped mymetal glove on the metal outer door of the lock, and then I was sure.

  But it took him long enough to open up. I had just about decided he'djoined his partner in the long sleep when the door cracked open an inch.I pushed it open and stepped into the lock, ducking my head. The doorwas only five feet high, and just as wide as the lock itself, threefeet. The other dimensions of the lock were: height, six feet six;width, one foot. Not exactly room to dance in.

  * * *

  When th
e red light high on the left-hand wall clicked off, I rapped onthe inner door. It promptly opened, I stepped through and removed thefishbowl.

  Karpin stood in the middle of the room, a small revolver in his hand."Shut the door," he said.

  I obeyed, moving slowly. I didn't want that gun to go off by mistake.

  "Who are you?" Karpin demanded. The M&R man had been right. Ab Karpinwas a dead ringer for all those other prospectors I'd seen back atAtronics City. Short and skinny and grizzled and ageless. He could havebeen forty, and he could have