Read Space For Hire (Seven For Space) for Free Online Page B

swore. I ground my teeth.
    It wasn't F.
    It was a beefy guy in a cheap gray pseudsuit with black hair, thick eyebrows and a cruel mouth.
    I knew him.
    His name was Samuel Space.
    * * *
     
    When he came to I had the wallglows on. Sam sat up, blinking, and I grinned at the shock and confusion chasing each other across his ugly mug.
    He squinted, trying to get me into clear focus.
    "Who — who the hell are you?"
    I kept grinning. "I'm you, Sam, and you're me. Or, to put it another way, I'm me and you're you but we're both us."
    "I must be going off my nog," he said, rubbing his sore jaw. "I tagged you for F."
    "Same here," I said. "I guess we both got a surprise. Uh … sorry about the jaw." I helped him up.
    "Forget it," he grunted. "I'll take a lot worse before I cash in."
    He still looked plenty bewildered so I tried to spell it out. "An addlepated fatty named Nathan Oliver sent me here by mistake," I told him.
    "I know Oliver," said Sam. "He tinkers with alternate universes."
    "Right. He was supposed to send me home from the one I'd been dumped into by some of F.'s boys. But apparently he slotted me here instead."
    "Which means," Sam added, "that we're both on the same case, but in different time tracks."
    "More or less," I said. "You know, they killed you in the one I just got out of. Us, I mean."
    "When?"
    "When Esma was attempting to hire us for this job. The three Loonies nailed us. I saw our body. And they cooled Esma and the doc along with us."
    Sam slumped against the edge of the desk, cracked some Headrights, and let two of them go to work on his skull. "I got me a whopping headache," he said.
    "Yeah, I know. Woke up with one myself after I got sapped. Did that happen to you in this universe? Did they sap you?"
    "Sure," he said. "Clipped me from behind. I wasn't out long, though. I woke up when they were trying to clamp some kind of weird metal hat on me. Two hoods. Low-grade gun goonies. We mixed it up and they killed Nicole accidentally. The laser charge was meant for me. I ducked and it got Nicole in the back. That threw them off-stride and they lammed. I found the faxletter from F. and traced him here."
    "You didn't call Dr. Umani?"
    "MarsLine told me the coldpacs arrived safely so I figured he was okay. I didn't want F. to skip Saturn before I could get to him."
    I shook my head. "That was dumb, Sam. The coldpacs are rigged. Think about it. They've gotta be rigged. I warned Umani to stay clear of them. He was just getting ready to pop himself into a Scottish highlander but he listened to me. Thought I was you, naturally. Which I am."
    Sam clapped me on the shoulder. "I always said that if I could ever split myself in half I'd be twice as effective. Thanks, ole buddy. You saved Umani for me."
    "Do you know anything about F. that I don't?"
    He shrugged. "Depends on what you know."
    "Just that he uses the initial F. — and that this office may be his. I'm not even sure of that."
    Sam pursed his lips. "Sorry, but that's the full extent of my own info."
    "Well," I said, "let's check out the joint and see if we come up with anything."
    We combed the unit together top to bottom. Nothing in the flow-drawers. Nothing in the wallcabs. A blank.
    We did find a bottle of starhooch. Expensive stuff from Sirius. Sitting on the couch, swapping the bottle back and forth, we both began to relax.
    "Did O'Malley give you a tough hustle over Nicole's body?" Sam wanted to know.
    I shook my head. "Didn't report it. I just left her there in the unit, same as you. Why ask for trouble I don't need? Let Sergeant O'Malley find his own stiffs."
    Sam arched a heavy black eyebrow. "That bastard is Captain O'Malley in this universe. Got a promotion last year for busting agreeb-slave racket in the horsehead nebula."
    I snorted. "Must have had a fix in. He couldn't find snow in December."
    We both chuckled over how dumb O'Malley was. Then I asked about the weird metal hat Sam had mentioned. "What happened to it?"
    He shrugged. "I didn't know