The Risk Profession Page 5

over to the left wasn't as much of a clutter as it looked. Therewas a Geiger counter, an automatic spectrograph, two atmosphere suits, atorsion densimeter, a core-cutting drill, a few small hammers and picks,two spare air tanks, boxes of food concentrate, a paint tube, a doorlessjimmy-john and two small metal boxes about eight inches cube. These lastwere undoubtedly Karpin's and McCann's pouches, where they kept whateverletters, money, address books or other small bits of possessions theyowned. Back of this mound of gear, against the wall, stood the airreconditioner, humming quietly to itself.

  In this small enclosed space there was everything a man needed to keephimself alive. Everything except human company. And if you didn't needhuman company, then you had everything. Just on the other side of thatdome, there was a million miles of death, in a million possible ways. Onthis side of the dome, life was cozy, if somewhat Spartan and very hot.

  I knew for sure I was going to get a head cold. My body had adjusted tothe sixty-eight degrees inside the suit, finally, and now was veryannoyed to find the temperature shooting up to ninety again.

  Since Karpin didn't seem inclined to talk, and I would rather spend mytime thinking than talking anyway, I took a hint from him and did somecleaning. I'd noticed a smeared spot about nose-level on the faceplateof my fishbowl, and now was as good a time as any to get rid of it. Ithad a tendency to make my eyes cross.

  My shirt was sodden and wrinkled by this time anyway, having first beenused to wipe sweat from my face and later been rolled into a ball andleft on the chair when I went outside, so I used it for a cleaning rag,buffing like mad the silvered surface of the faceplate. Faceplates aresilvered, not so the man inside can look out and no one else can lookin, but in order to keep some of the more violent rays of the sun fromgetting through to the face.

  I buffed for a while, and then I put the fishbowl on my head and lookedthrough it. The spot was gone, so I went over and reattached it to therest of the suit, and then settled back in my chair again and lit acigarette.

  Karpin spoke up. "Wish you wouldn't smoke. Makes it tough on theconditioner."

  "Oh," I said. "Sorry." So I just sat, thinking morosely about non-forgedcash-return forms, and coincidences, and likely spots to hide a body inthe Asteroid Belt.

  * * *

  Where would one dispose of a body in the asteroids? I went back throughmy thinking on that topic, and I found holes big enough to driveKarpin's claim through. This idea of leaving the body on some worthlesschunk of rock, for instance. If Karpin had killed his partner--and I wasdead sure he had--he'd planned it carefully and he wouldn't be leavinganything to chance. Now, an asteroid isn't worthless to a prospectoruntil that prospector has landed on it and tested it. _Karpin_ mightknow that such-and-such an asteroid was nothing but worthless stone, butthe guy who stops there and finds McCann's body might _not_ know it.

  No, Karpin wouldn't leave that to chance. He would get rid of that body,and he would do it in such a way that nobody would _ever_ find it.

  How? Not by leaving it on a worthless asteroid, and not by just pushingit off into space. The distance between asteroids is large, but so's thetravel. McCann's body, floating around in the blackness, might just befound by somebody.

  And that, so far as I could see, eliminated the possibilities. McCann'sbody was in the Belt. I'd eliminated both the asteroids themselves andthe space around the asteroids as hiding places. What was left?

  The sun, of course.

  I thought that over for a while, rather surprised at myself for havingnoticed the possibility. Now, let's say Karpin attaches a small rocketto McCann's body, stuffed into its atmosphere suit. He sets the rocketgoing, and off goes McCann. Not that he aims it toward the sun, thatwouldn't work well at all. Instead of falling into the sun, the bodywould simply take up a long elliptical orbit _around_ the sun, and wouldcome back to the asteroids every few hundred years. No, he would aimMcCann _back_, in the direction opposite to the direction or rotation ofthe asteroids. He would, in essence, slow McCann's body down, make itpractically stop in relation to the motion of the asteroids. And then itwould simply _fall_ into the sun.

  None of my ideas, it seemed, were happy ones. If McCann's body were evenat this moment falling toward the sun, it was just as useful to me as ifit were on some other asteroid.

  But, wait a second. Karpin and McCann had worked with the minimum ofequipment, I'd already noticed that. They didn't have extras ofanything, and they certainly wouldn't have extra rockets. Except for onefast trip to Chemisant City--when he had neither the time nor the excuseto buy a jato rocket--Karpin had spent all of his time since McCann'sdeath right here on this planetoid.

  So that killed that idea.

  While I was hunting around for some other idea, Karpin spoke up again,for the first time in maybe twenty minutes. "You think I killed him,don't you?" he said, not looking around from his cleaning job.

  I considered my answer. There was no reason at all to be overly politeto this sour old buzzard, but at the same time I am naturally thesoft-spoken type. "We aren't sure," I said. "We just think there aresome odd items to be explained."

  "Such as what?" he demanded.

  "Such as the timing of McCann's cash-return form."

  "I already explained that," he said.

  "I know. You've explained everything."

  "He wrote it out himself," the old man insisted. He put down hiscleaning cloth, and turned to face me. "I suppose your company checkedthe handwriting already, and Jafe McCann is the one who wrote thatform."

  He was so blasted sure of himself. "It would seem that way," I said.

  "What other odd items you worried about?" he asked me, in a rustyattempt at sarcasm.

  "Well," I said, "there's this business of going to Chemisant City. Itwould have made more sense for you to go to Atronics City, where youwere known."

  "Chemisant was closer," he said. He shook a finger at me. "That companyof yours thinks it can cheat me out of my money," he said. "Well, itcan't. I know my rights. That money belongs to me."

  "I guess you're doing pretty well without McCann," I said.

  His angry expression was replaced by one of bewilderment. "What do youmean?"

  "They told me back at Atronics City," I explained, "that McCann was themoney expert and you were the metals expert, and that's why McCannhandled all your buying on credit and stuff like that. Looks as thoughyou've got a pretty keen eye for money yourself."

  "I know what's mine," he mumbled, and turned away. He went back toscrubbing the stove coils again.

  I stared at his back. Something had happened just then, and I wasn'tsure what. He'd just been starting to warm up to a tirade against thedirty insurance company, and all of a sudden he'd folded up and shut uplike a clam.

  And then I saw it. Or at least I saw part of it. I saw how thatcash-return form fit in, and how it made perfect sense.

  Now, all I needed was proof of murder. Preferably a body. I had the restof it. Then I could pack the old geezer back to Atronics City and getproof for the part I'd already figured out.

  I'd like that. I'd like getting back to Atronics City, and having thisall straightened out, and then taking the very next liner straight backto Earth. More immediately, I'd like getting out of this heat and backinto the cool sixty-eight degrees of--

  And then it hit me. The whole thing hit me, and I just sat there andstared. They did not carry extras, Karpin and McCann, they did not carryone item of equipment more than they needed.

  I sat there and looked at the place where the dead body was hidden, andI said, "Well, I'll be a son of a gun!"

  He turned and looked at me, and then he followed the direction of mygaze, and he saw what I was staring at, and he made a jump across theroom at the revolver lying on the cot.

  * * *

  That's what saved me. He moved too fast, jerked his muscles too hard,and went sailing up and over the cot and ricocheted off the dome wall.And that gave me plenty of time to get up from the chair, moving morecautiously tha
n he had, and get my hands on the revolver before he couldget himself squared away again.

  I straightened with the gun in my hand and looked into a face white withfrustration and rage. "Okay, Mister McCann," I said. "It's all over."

  He knew I had him, but he tried not to show it. "What are you talkingabout? McCann's dead."

  "Sure he is," I said. "Jafe McCann was the money-minded part of theteam. He was the one who signed for all the loans and all the equipmentbought on credit. With this big strike in, Jafe McCann was the one who'dhave to pay all that money."

  "You're babbling," he snapped, but the words were hollow.

  "You weren't satisfied with half a loaf," I said. "You should have been.Half a loaf is better than none. But you wanted every penny you couldget your hands on, and you wanted to pay out just as little money as youpossibly could. So when you killed Ab Karpin, you saw a way to kill yourdebts as well. You'd _become_ Ab Karpin, and it would be Jafe McCann whowas dead, and the debts dead with him."

  "That's a lie," he said, his voice getting shrill. "_I'm_ Ab Karpin, andI've got papers to prove it."

  "Sure. Papers you stole from a dead man. And you might have gotten awaywith it, too. But you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?Not satisfied with having the whole claim to yourself, you switchedidentities with your victim to avoid your debts. And not satisfied with_that_, you filled out a cash-return form and tried to collect yourmoney as your own heir. _That's_ why you had to go to Chemisant City,where nobody would recognize Ab Karpin or Jafe McCann, rather than toAtronics City where you were well-known."

  "You don't want to make too many wild accusations," he shouted, hisvoice shaking. "You don't want to go around accusing people of thingsyou can't prove."

  "I can prove it," I told him. "I can prove everything I've said. As towho you are, there's no problem. All I have to do is bring you back toAtronics City. There'll be plenty of people there to identify you. Andas to proving you murdered Ab Karpin, I think his body will be proofenough, don't you?"

  McCann watched me as I backed slowly around the room to the mound ofgear. The partners had had no extra equipment, no extra equipment atall. I looked down at the two atmosphere suits lying side by side on themetallic rock floor.

  _Two_ atmosphere suits. The dead man was supposed to be in one of those,floating out in space somewhere. He was in the suit, right enough, I wassure of that, but he wasn't floating anywhere.

  A space suit is a perfect place to hide a body, for as long as it has tobe hid. The silvered faceplate keeps you from seeing inside, and thesuit is, naturally, a sealed atmosphere. A body can rot away to ashesinside a space suit, and you'll never notice a thing on the outside.

  * * *

  I'd had the right idea after all. McCann had planned to get rid ofKarpin's body by attaching a rocket to it, slowing it down, and lettingit fall into the sun. But he hadn't had an opportunity yet to go buy arocket. He couldn't go to Atronics City, where he could have bought therocket on credit, and he couldn't go to Chemisant City until the claimsale went through and he had some money to spend. And in the meantime,Karpin's body was perfectly safe, sealed away inside his atmospheresuit.

  And it would have been safe, too, if McCann hadn't been just a littlebit too greedy. He could kill his partner and get away with it;policemen on the Belt are even farther apart than the asteroids. Hecould swindle his creditors and get away with it; they had no way ofchecking up and no reason to suspect a switch in identities. But when hetried to get his own money back from Tangiers Mutual Insurance; _that's_when he made his mistake.

  I studied the two atmosphere suits, at the same time managing to keep awary eye on Jafe McCann, standing rigid and silent across the room.Which one of those suits contained the body of Ab Karpin?

  The one with the new patch on the chest, of course. As I'd guessed,McCann had shot him, and that's why he had the problem of disposing ofthe body in the first place.

  I prodded that suit with my toe. "He's in there, isn't he?"

  "You're crazy."

  "Think I should open it up and check? It's been almost a month, youknow. I imagine he's pretty ripe by now."

  I reached down to the neck-fastenings on the fishbowl, and McCannfinally moved. His arms jerked up, and he cried, "Don't! He's in there,he's in there! For God's sake, don't open it up!"

  I relaxed. Mission accomplished. "Crawl into your suit, little man," Isaid. "We've got ourselves a trip to make, the three of us."

  * * * * *

  Henderson, as usual, was jovial but stern. "You did a fine job up there,Ged," he said, with false familiarity. "Really brilliant work."

  "Thank you very much," I said. I was holding the last piece of news fora minute or two, relishing it.

  "But you brought McCann in over a week ago. I don't see why you had tostay up at Atronics City at all after that, much less ten days."

  I sat back in the chair and negligently crossed my legs. "I just thoughtI'd take a little vacation," I said carelessly, and lit a cigarette. Iflicked ashes in the general direction of the ashtray on Henderson'sdesk. Some of them made it.

  "A vacation?" he echoed, eyes widening. Henderson was a company man, a_real_ company man. A vacation for him was purgatory, it was separationfrom a loved one. "I don't believe you have a vacation coming," he saidfrostily, "for at least six months."

  "That's what you think, Henny," I said.

  All he could do at that was blink.

  I went on, enjoying myself hugely. "I don't like this company," I said."And I don't like this job. And I don't like you. And from now on, I'vedecided, it's going to be vacation all the time."

  "Ged," he said, his voice faint, "what's the matter with you? Don't youfeel well?"

  "I feel well," I told him. "I feel fine. Now, I'll tell you why I spentan extra ten days at Atronics City. McCann made and registered the bigstrike, right?"

  Henderson nodded blankly, apparently not trusting himself to speak.

  "Wrong," I said cheerfully. "McCann went to Chemisant City and filledout all the forms required for registering a claim. But every place hewas supposed to sign his name he wrote _Ab Karpin_ instead. Jafe McCann_never did make a legal registration of his claim_."

  Henderson just looked fish-eyed.

  "So," I went on, "as soon as I turned McCann over to the law at AtronicsCity, I went and registered that claim myself. And then I waited aroundfor ten days until the company finished the paperwork involved in buyingthat claim from me. And then I came straight back here, just to saygoodbye to you. Wasn't that nice?"

  He didn't move.

  "Goodbye," I said.

  THE END

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.