Read Miners in the Sky for Free Online Page B

can’t get back there! If you know where Keyes is, all you have to do is stop me from getting to him and you’ll have the rock we’re working!”
    The pickup ship would hear all this, of course. The helmet-phones carried for miles.
    “Say it,” snapped Dunne. “If you know where to take her—if you know where her brother is—say it!”
    His belt-weapon bore upon Haney’s middle. It was a weapon of ancient design, because there was no need for anything more deadly than a missile-weapon in space. A space-suit puncture anywhere was a mortal wound. Blasters suitable for use in atmosphere could do no more than kill. And the blasters were bulky and leaked their charges. In a fire-fight over a source of abyssal crystals, an automatic pistol firing lead bullets was actually to be preferred to a blaster. It was always charged and it fired faster and it could be recharged without a return to a source of power.
    Dunne thrust his weapon deeper into Haney’s middle.
    . “Where’ll you take her?” he raged. “Where!”
    Haney’s voice went shrill.
    “I was—I was going to look for him,” he panted. “I—I tried to get you to go along to show the way. But y’wouldn’t go, so I was goin’ to look for him as best I could.”
    “With her aboard. But you’re not going to do it now, Haney!” Dunne’s voice was thick with fury. “Are you? You’re not going to take her off into the Rings and come back next pickup-ship time and say she died. Are you? You’re not going to take her.”
    “No!” panted Haney, more shrilly than before. “No! I ain’t! I give it up! I wouldn’t do nothing like that.”
    “Then move!” rasped Dunne. He was acutely aware that he could pull the trigger and kill Haney, and that absolutely nothing would be done to him as punishment, because these were the Rings. “Get to your ship and away! I’ll take care of getting to Keyes and picking him up. You—move!”
    He stood shaking with fury as Haney stumbled to his ship. Haney wasn’t swaggering now. Once his partner moved as if to lift his bazooka. Dunne’s weapon came up. As a missile-gun it could be deadly accurate, because there was no gravity. Haney’s partner lowered his weapon with exemplary haste.
    Haney climbed into his ship. The airlock door closed. It locked. The donkeyship floated free. It suddenly drove, accelerating swiftly. In seconds it bad vanished in the mist.
    Dunne practically drove the girl up the companion-ladder and into the pickup ship. She was affrightedly silent. He didn’t speak until the inner lock-door opened and they were both inside the ship.
    Then the girl said desperately, “But—there’s my brother! What are you going to do about him? Somebody has to go for him!”
    Dunne nodded, his eyes still hot and angry.
    “Somebody will. In fact, I will. You can come back next pickup ship and talk to him.”
    “But how—what—I have to—”
    Dunne was gone, tramping in his space-suit through the open space where the donkeymen had feasted. They were all gone now. It looked very much as if a hurricane had struck it. Dunne went through, looking for the skipper’s cabin.
    He found it, and the skipper inside, with all the small bags of abyssal crystals neatly ticketed with their masses and owners. He looked up sharply when Dunne came in the door.
    “I thought you might be interested,” said Dunne, “to hear how I’m going to get to my partner with oxygen and food so we can wait for the next pickup ship’s arrival.”
    The skipper looked definitely skeptical. He swept the bags of crystal into a drawer, out of sight. As he did so, Dunne plucked a bazooka-shell from his belt and began to toss it thoughtfully from one hand to the other. The skipper jumped.
    “Put that thing away!” he snapped.
    “Presently,” said Dunne. “Let me explain. I had a donkeyship. It’s been blown up. That leaves my partner marooned. I haven’t any way to get back to him and keep him alive until you or another pickup ship