Read Look Out For Space (Seven For Space) for Free Online Page B

all, he was working under instructions to break every bone in your body."
    "Now that things are clear between us," I said, "will you help me on the trace?"
    "Be happy to," he said.
    On the way back to Joe's cab I showed him the map the planet preach had given me. No, he didn't have any direct knowledge of this particular asteroid, but he could send me to someone who might be able to finger it for me.
    As we flamed away from his ruined world he blinked his sad eyes and sighed. "I'll have it all done over," he said. "Import some thick green custom made wilderness. Robosnakes. Automated rhinos. Plastoelephants. Vines to swing on. I'll even design my own loincloth!"
    "What about your wife?" I wanted to know.
    "She can be the frustrated ape mother who adopts me," he said. "I just know that playing a gorilla will sexually ignite her."
    "Yeah, jungle incest ought to do the trick," I said. McKabe relaxed into his webbing.
    "If you want to know the truth," said Joe Hopper, "I'm glad I ain't married."

Seven
     
    I'd hit pay dirt with McKabe. Thanks to him, I had a strong lead. In fact, with a pinch of luck, I could break this case early.
    He told me that the gray market bought a lot of their bootleg asteroids from a roving gang of young rustlers of mixed body types who ranged through various systems picking up "stray rocks" (as they termed them) which were then herded into areas, or space corrals, well off the beaten paths of the planetary patrol cruisers.
    "These babes are always one step ahead of the law," McKabe had told me. "They're sharp and tough and they know their way around the universe. Their leader is the one you want to see. They call him 'Halfcat' — and he's usually on High-L when he can get it. Ten to one he can show you where to find your asteroid. If he can't, nobody can."
    McKabe had told me how to reach the gang's headquarters on the planet Bailey and what pass-poem to use in order to identify myself as a friend. He also gave me a warning. "Don't get Halfcat sore at you. I saw him chew up an Earthcop once and swallow him, bones and all. He can be kind of mean."
    I said that I'd try real hard not to get Halfcat sore at me.
    * * *
     
    Bailey was on a commercial dropline, so I didn't have any problem in getting there. The planet was one of the larger bodies in the Wilton System, and was extremely rugged and mountainous. A prime source of ionite ore, it was honeycombed with mines. According to McKabe, Halfcat's gang had appropriated one of the small domed mining towns as headquarters. Once they'd killed every miner in the area, no one objected to their being there.
    Antigrav transport was impossible over the mountains due to sucking downdrafts, which would crush an aircab like an Earthegg between canyon walls. Which was one of the major reasons the gang had picked this location: a sneak attack was out of the question. You came in by fuggback or you didn't come in at all — and a posted lookout could spot any moving thing within a mile of the town.
    Now a fugg is one sour son of a bitch. In Earth terms, it looks like a cross between a camel with six legs and a giraffe with two heads. Except that one head is in front and one is in back, each attached to a long furry neck. You're supposed to hang on to the front neck and keep yelling "Fugg! Hup. Hup. Fugg!" to get the bastard moving. Plus punching it with your fist whenever it slows down.
    The rented fugg I rode kept trying to bite me from behind with its big square teeth whenever I punched it, and this put me in a lousy moody the time I finally reached the outlaw mining town.
    "Hop off that fugg, mister! And no funny moves while you're doin' it."
    I glared down at the raw young space rustler who faced me with an upraised .40-76 Koppler-Babish double-lock side-load stun rifle.
    "Listen, kid," I said coolly. "I'm hungry, saddle sore and fugg bit. I suggest you say 'please' when you ask me anything."
    "What you doin' here?" he demanded. "This town's closed to