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The Martian Crown Jewels

Poul Anderson

THE SIGNAL was picked up when the ship was still a quarter million miles away, and recorded voices summoned the technicians. There was no haste, for the ZX28749, otherwise called the Jane Brackney, was right on schedule; but landing an unmanned spaceship is always a delicate operation. Men and machines prepared to receive her as she came down, but the control crew had the first order of business.

Yamagata, Steinmann, and Ramanowitz were in the GCA tower, with Hollyday standing by for an emergency. If the circuits should fail - they never had, but a thousand tons of cargo and nuclear -

powered vessel, crashing into the port, could empty Phobos of human life. So Hollyday watched over a set of spare assemblies, ready to plug in whatever might be required.

Yamagata’s thin fingers danced over the radar dials. His eyes were intent on the screen. “Got her,” he said. Steinmann made a distance reading and Ramanowitz took the velocity off the Dopplerscope. A brief session with a computer showed the figures to be almost as predicted.

“Might as well relax,” said Yamagata, taking out a cigarette. “She won’t be in control range for a while yet.”

His eyes roved over the crowded room and out its window. From the tower he had a view of the spaceport: unimpressive, most of its shops and sheds and living quarters being underground. The smooth concrete field was chopped off by the curvature of the tiny satellite. It always faced Mars, and the station was on the far side, but he could remember how the planet hung enormous over the opposite hemisphere, soft ruddy disc blurred with thin air, hazy greenish - brown mottlings of heath and farmland.

Though Phobos was clothed in vacuum, you couldn’t see the hard stars of space: the sun and the floodlamps were too bright.

There was a knock on the door. Hollyday went over, almost drifting in the ghostly gravity, and opened it. “Nobody allowed in here during a landing,” he said. Hollyday was a stocky blond man with a pleasant, open countenance, and his tone was less peremptory than his words.

“Police.” The newcomer, muscular, round - faced, and earnest, was in plain clothes, tunic and pajama pants, which was expected; everyone in the tiny settlement knew Inspector Gregg. But he was packing a gun, which was not usual, and looked harried.

Yamagata peered out again and saw the port’s four constables down on the field in official spacesuits, Page 1

watching the ground crew. They carried weapons. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing … I hope.” Gregg came in and tried to smile. “But the Jane has a very unusual cargo this trip.”

“Hm?” Ramanowitz’s eyes lit up in his broad plump visage. “Why weren’t we told?”

“That was deliberate. Secrecy. The Martian crown jewels are aboard.” Gregg fumbled a cigarette from his tunic.

Hollyday and Steinmann nodded at each other. Yamagata whistled. “On a robot ship?” he asked.

“Uh - huh. A robot ship is the one form of transportation from which they could not be stolen. There were three attempts made when they went to Earth on a regular liner, and I hate to think how many while they were at the British Museum. One guard lost his life. Now my boys are going to remove them before anyone else touches that ship and scoot ‘em right down to Sabaeus.”

“How much are they worth?” wondered Ramanowitz.

“Oh . . they could be fenced on Earth for maybe half a billion UN dollars,” said Gregg. “But the thief would do better to make the Martians pay to get them back . . no, Earth would have to, I suppose, since it’s our responsibility.” He blew nervous clouds. “The jewels were secretly put on the Jane, last thing before she left on her regular run. I wasn’t even told till a special messenger on this week’s liner gave me the word. Not a chance for any thief to know they’re here, till they’re safely back on Mars. And that’ll be safe !”

Ramanowitz shuddered. All the planets knew what guarded the vaults at Sabaeus.

“Some people did know, all along,” said Yamagata thoughtfully. “I mean the loading crew back at Earth.”

“Uh - huh, there is that.” Gregg smiled. “Several of them have quit since then, the messenger said, but of course, there’s always a big turnover among spacejacks - they’re a restless bunch.” His gaze drifted across Steinmann and Holly day, both of whom had last worked at Earth Station and come to Mars a few ships back. The liners went on a hyperbolic path and arrived in a couple of weeks; the robot ships followed the more leisurely and economical Hohmann A orbit and needed 258 days. A man who knew what ship was carrying the jewels could leave Earth, get to Mars well ahead of the cargo, and snap up a job here - Phobos was always shorthanded.

“Don’t look at me!” said Steinmann, laughing. “Chuck and I knew about this - of course - but we were under security restrictions. Haven’t told a soul.”

“Yeah. I’d have known it if you had,” nodded Gregg. “Gossip travels fast here. Don’t resent this, please, but I’m here to see that none of you boys leaves this tower till the jewels are aboard our own boat.”

“Oh, well. It’ll mean overtime pay.”

“If I want to get rich fast, I’ll stick to prospecting,” added Hollyday.

“When are you going to quit running around with that Geiger in your free time?” asked Yamagata.

“Phobos is nothing but iron and granite.”

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“I have my own ideas about that,” said Hollyday stoutly.

“Hell, everybody needs a hobby on this God - forsaken clod,” declared Ramanowitz. “I might try for those sparklers myself, just for the excitement-” He stopped abruptly, aware of Gregg’s eyes.

“All right,” snapped Yamagata “Here we go. Inspector, please stand back out of the way, and for your life’s sake don’t interrupt us.”

The Jane was drifting in, her velocity on the carefully pre - calculated orbit almost identical with that of Phobos. Almost, but not quite - there had been the inevitable small disturbing factors, which the remote -

controlled jets had to compensate, and then there was the business of landing her. The team got a fix and were frantically busy.

In free fall, the Jane approached within a thousand miles of Phobos - a spheroid 500 feet in radius, big and massive, but lost against the incredible bulk of the satellite. And yet Phobos is an insignificant airless pill, negligible even beside its seventh - rate planet. Astronomical magnitudes are simply and literally incomprehensible.

When the ship was close enough, the radio directed her gyros to rotate her, very, very gently, until her pickup antenna was pointing directly at the field. Then her jets were cut in, a mere whisper of thrust. She was nearly above the spaceport, her path tangential to the moon’s curvature. After a moment Yamagata slapped the keys hard, and the rockets blasted furiously, a visible red streak up in the sky. He cut them again, checked his data, and gave a milder blast.

“Okay,” he grunted. “Let’s bring her in.”

Her velocity relative to Phobos’s orbit and rotation was now zero, and she was falling. Yamagata slewed her around till the jets were pointing vertically down. Then he sat back and mopped his face while Ramanowitz took over; the job was too nerve - stretching for one man to perform in its entirety.

Ramanowitz sweated the awkward mass to within a few yards of the cradle. Steinmann finished the task, easing her into the berth like an egg into a cup. He cut the jets and there was silence.

“Whew! Chuck, how about a drink?” Yamagata held out unsteady fingers and regarded them with an impersonal stare.

Hollyday smiled and fetched a bottle. It went happily around. Gregg declined. His eyes were locked to the field, where a technician was checking for radioactivity. The verdict was clean, and he saw his constables come soaring over the concrete, to surround the great ship with guns. One of them went up, opened the manhatch, and slipped inside.

It seemed a very long while before he emerged. Then he came running. Gregg cursed and thumbed the tower’s radio board. “Hey, there! Ybarra! What’s the matter?”

The helmet set shuddered a reply: “Señor . . Señor Inspector … the crown jewels are gone.”

Sabaeus is, of course, a purely human name for the old city nestled in the Martian tropics, at the juncture of the “canals” Phison and Euphrates. Terrestrial mouths simply cannot form the syllables of High Chlannach, though rough approximations are possible. Nor did humans ever build a town exclusively of towers broader at the top than the base, or inhabit one for twenty thousand years. If they had, though, Page 3

they would have encouraged an eager tourist influx; but Martians prefer more dignified ways of making a dollar, even if their parsimonious fame has long replaced that of Scotchmen. The result is that though interplanetary trade is brisk and Phobos a treaty port, a human is still a rare sight in Sabaeus.

Hurrying down the avenues between the stone mushrooms, Gregg felt conspicuous. He was glad the airsuit muffled him. Not that the grave Martians stared; they varkled, which is worse.

The Street of Those Who Prepare Nourishment in Ovens is a quiet one, given over to handicrafters, philosophers, and residential apartments. You won’t see a courtship dance or a parade of the Lesser Halberdiers on it: nothing more exciting than a continuous four - day argument on the relativistic nature of the null class or an occasional gunfight. The latter are due to the planet’s most renowned private detective, who nests here.

Gregg always found it eerie to be on Mars, under the cold deep - blue sky and shrunken sun, among noises muffled by the thin oxygen - deficient air. But for Syaloch he had a good deal of affection, and when he had gone up the ladder and shaken the rattle outside the second - floor apartment and had been admitted, it was like escaping from nightmare.

“Ah, Krech!” The investigator laid down the stringed instrument on which he had been playing and towered gauntly over his visitor. “An unexbectet bleassure to see hyou. Come in, my tear chab, to come in.” He was proud of his English - but simple misspellings will not convey the whistling, clicking Martian accent. Gregg had long ago fallen into the habit of translating it into a human pronunciation as he listened.

The Inspector felt a cautious way into the high, narrow room. The glowsnakes which illuminated it after dark were coiled asleep on the stone floor, in a litter of papers, specimens, and weapons; rusty sand covered the sills of the Gothic windows. Syaloch was not neat except in his own person. In one corner was a small chemical laboratory. The rest of the walls were taken up with shelves, the criminological literature of three planets - Martian books. Terrestrial micros, Venusian talking stones. At one place, patriotically, the glyphs representing the reigning Nest - mother had been punched out with bullets. An Earthling could not sit on the trapezelike native furniture, but Syaloch had courteously provided chairs and tubs as well; his clientele was also triplanetary. Gregg found a scarred Duncan Phyfe and lowered himself, breathing heavily into his oxygen tubes.

“I take it you are here on official but confidential business.” Syaloch got out a big - bowled pipe.

Martians have happily adopted tobacco, though in their atmosphere it must include potassium permanganate. Gregg was thankful he didn’t have to breathe the blue fog.

He started. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Elementary, my dear fellow. Your manner is most agitated, and I know nothing but a crisis in your profession would cause that in a good stolid bachelor. Yet you come to me rather than the Homeostatic Corps . . so it must be a delicate affair.”

Gregg laughed wryly. He himself could not read any Martian’s expression - what corresponds to a smile or a snarl on a totally non - human face? But this overgrown stork -

No. To compare the species of different planets is merely to betray the limitations of language. Syaloch was a seven - foot biped of vaguely storklike appearance. But the lean, crested, red - beaked head at the end of the sinuous neck was too large, the yellow eyes too deep; the white feathers were more like a penguin’s than a flying bird’s, save at the blue - plumed tail; instead of wings there were skinny red arms ending in four - fingered hands. And the overall posture was too erect for a bird.

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Gregg jerked back to awareness. God in Heaven! The city lay gray and quiet; the sun was slipping westward over the farmlands of Sinus Sabaeus and the desert of the Aeria; he could just make out the rumble of a treadmill cart passing beneath the windows - and he sat here with a story which could blow the Solar System apart!

His hands, gloved against the chill, twisted together. “Yes, it’s confidential, all right. If you can solve this case, you can just about name your own fee.” The gleam in Syaloch’s eyes made him regret that, but he stumbled on: “One thing, though. Just how do you feel about us Earthlings?”

“I have no prejudices. It is the brain that counts, not whether it is covered by feathers or hair or bony plates.”

“No, I realize that. But some Martians resent us. We do disrupt an old way of life - we can’t help it, if we’re to trade with you -“

” K’teh. The trade is on the whole beneficial. Your fuel and machinery - and tobacco, yesss - for our kantz and snull. Also, we were getting too . . stale. And of course space travel has added a whole new dimension to criminology. Yes, I favor Earth.”

“Then you’ll help us? And keep quiet about something which could provoke your planetary federation into kicking us off Phobos?”

The third eyelids closed, making the long - beaked face a mask. “I give no promises yet, Gregg.”

“Well . . damn it, all right, I’ll have to take the chance.” The policeman swallowed hard. “You know about your crown jewels, of course.”

“They were lent to Earth for exhibit and scientific study.”

“After years of negotiation. There’s no more priceless relic on all Mars - and you were an old civilization when we were hunting mammoths. All right. They’ve been stolen.”

Syaloch opened his eyes, but his only other movement was to nod.

“They were put on a robot ship at Earth Station. They were gone when that ship reached Phobos.

We’ve damn near ripped the boat apart trying to find them - we did take the other cargo to pieces, bit by bit - and they aren’t there!”

Syaloch rekindled his pipe, an elaborate flint - and - steel process on a world where matches won’t burn. Only when it was drawing well did he suggest: “Is it possible the ship was boarded en route?”

“No. It isn’t possible. Every spacecraft in the System is registered, and its whereabouts are known at any time. Furthermore, imagine trying to find a speck in hundreds of millions of cubic miles, and match velocities with it .. no vessel ever built could carry that much fuel. And mind you, it was never announced that the jewels were going back this way. Only the UN police and the Earth Station crew could know till the ship had actually left - by which time it’d be too late to catch her.”

“Most interesting.” Syaloch puffed hard.

“If word of this gets out,” said Gregg miserably, “you can guess the results. I suppose we’d still have a Page 5

few friends left in your Parliament -“

“In the House of Actives, yesss .. a few. Not in the House of Philosophers, which is of course the upper chamber.”

“It could mean a twenty - year hiatus in Earth - Mars traffic - maybe a permanent breaking off of relations. Damn it, Syaloch, you’ve got to find those stones!”

“Hm-m-m. I pray your pardon. This requires thought.” The Martian picked up his crooked instrument and plucked a few tentative chords. Gregg sighed and attempted to relax. He knew the Chlannach temperament; he’d have to listen to an hour of minor-key caterwauling.

The colorless sunset was past, night had fallen with the unnerving Martian swiftness, and the glowsnakes were emitting blue radiance when Syaloch put down the demifiddle.

“I fear I shall have to visit Phobos in person,” he said. “There are too many unknowns for analysis, and it is never well to theorize before all the data have been gathered.” A bony hand clapped Gregg’s shoulder.

“Come, come, old chap. I am really most grateful to you. Life was becoming infernally dull. Now, as my famous Terrestrial predecessor would say, the game’s afoot . . and a very big game indeed!”

A Martian in an Earthlike atmosphere is not much hampered, needing only an hour in a compression chamber and a filter on his beak to eliminate excess oxygen and moisture. Syaloch walked freely about the port clad in filter, pipe, and tirstokr cap, grumbling to himself at the heat and humidity. He noticed that all the humans but Gregg were reserved, almost fearful, as they watched him - they were sitting on a secret which could unleash red murder.

He donned a spacesuit and went out to inspect the Jane Brackney . The vessel had been shunted aside to make room for later arrivals, and stood by a raw crag at the edge of the field, glimmering in the hard spatial sunlight. Gregg and Yamagata were with him.

“I say, you have been thorough,” remarked the detective. “The outer skin is quite stripped off.”

The spheroid resembled an egg which had tangled with a waffle iron: an intersecting grid of girders and braces above a thin aluminum hide. The jets, hatches, and radio mast were the only breaks in the checkerboard pattern, whose depth was about a foot and whose squares were a yard across at the

“equator.”

Yamagata laughed in a strained fashion. “No. The cops fluoroscoped every inch of her, but that’s the way these cargo ships always look. They never land on Earth, you know, or any place where there’s air, so streamlining would be unnecessary. And since nobody is aboard in transit, we don’t have to worry about insulation or air - tightness. Perishables are stowed in sealed compartments.”

“I see. Now where were the crown jewels kept?”

“They were supposed to be in a cupboard near the gyros,” said Gregg. “They were in a locked box, about six inches high, six inches wide, and a foot long.” He shook his head, finding it hard to believe that so small a box could contain so much potential death.

“Ah .. but were they placed there?”

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“I radioed Earth and got a full account,” said Gregg. “The ship was loaded as usual at the satellite station, then shoved a quarter mile away till it was time for her to leave - to get her out of the way, you understand. She was still in the same free - fall orbit, attached by a light cable - perfectly standard practice. At the last minute, without anyone being told beforehand, the crown jewels were brought up from Earth and stashed aboard.”

“By a special policeman, I presume?”

“No. Only licensed technicians are allowed to board a ship in orbit, unless there’s a life - and - death emergency. One of the regular station crew - fellow named Carter - was told where to put them. He was watched by the cops as he pulled himself along the cable and in through the manhatch.” Gregg pointed to a small door near the radio mast. “He came out, closed it, and returned on the cable. The police immediately searched him and his spacesuit, just in case, and he positively did not have the jewels. There was no reason to suspect him of anything - good steady worker - though I’ll admit he’s disappeared since then. The Jane blasted a few minutes late and her jets were watched till they cut off and she went into free fall. And that’s the last anyone saw of her till she got here - without the jewels.”

“And right on orbit,” added Yamagata. “If by some freak she had been boarded, it would have thrown her off enough for us to notice as she came in. Transference of momentum between her and the other ship.”

“I see.” Behind his faceplate, Syaloch’s beak cut a sharp black curve across heaven. “Now then, Gregg, were the jewels actually in the box when it was delivered?”

“At Earth Station, you mean? Oh, yes. There are four UN Chief Inspectors involved, and HQ says they’re absolutely above suspicion. When I sent back word of the theft, they insisted on having their own quarters and so on searched, and went under scop voluntarily.”

“And your own constables on Phobos?”

“Same thing,” said the policeman grimly. “I’ve slapped on an embargo - nobody but me has left this settlement since the loss was discovered. I’ve had every room and tunnel and warehouse searched.” He tried to scratch his head, a frustrating attempt when one is in a spacesuit. “I can’t maintain those restrictions much longer. Ships are coming in and the consignees want their freight.”

” Hnachla. That puts us under a time limit, then.” Syaloch nodded to himself. “Do you know, this is a fascinating variation of the old locked room problem. A robot ship in transit is a locked room in the most classic sense.” He drifted off into a reverie.

Gregg stared bleakly across the savage horizon, naked rock tumbling away under his feet, and then back over the field. Odd how tricky your vision became in airlessness, even when you had bright lights. That fellow crossing the field there, under the full glare of sun and floodlamps, was merely a stipple of shadow and luminance . . what the devil was he doing, tying a shoe of all things? No, he was walking quite normally -

“I’d like to put everyone on Phobos under scop,” said Gregg with a violent note, “but the law won’t allow it unless the suspect volunteers - and only my own men have volunteered.”

“Quite rightly, my dear fellow,” said Syaloch. “One should at least have the privilege of privacy in his own skull. And it would make the investigation unbearably crude.”

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“I don’t give a fertilizing damn how crude it is,” snapped Gregg. “I just want that box with the crown jewels safe inside.”

“Tut - tut! Impatience has been the ruin of many a promising young police officer, as I seem to recall my spiritual ancestor of Earth pointing out to a Scotland Yard man who - hm - may even have been a physical ancestor of yours, Gregg. It seems we must try another approach. Are there any people on Phobos who might have known the jewels were aboard this ship?”

“Yes. Two men only. I’ve pretty well established that they never broke security and told anyone else till the secret was out.”

“And who are they?”

“Technicians, Hollyday and Steinmann. They were working at Earth Station when the Jane was loaded.

They quit soon after - not at the same time - and came here by liner and got jobs. You can bet that their quarters have been searched!”

“Perhaps,” murmured Syaloch, “it would be worthwhile to interview the gentlemen in question.”

Steinmann, a thin redhead, wore truculence like a mantle; Hollyday merely looked worried. It was no evidence of guilt - everyone had been rubbed raw of late. They sat in the police office, with Gregg behind the desk and Syaloch leaning against the wall, smoking and regarding them with unreadable yellow eyes.

“Damn it, I’ve told this over and over till I’m sick of it!’ Steinmann knotted his fists and gave the Martian a bloodshot stare. “I never touched the things and I don’t know who did. Hasn’t any man a right to change jobs?”

“Please,” said the detective mildly. “The better you help the sooner we can finish this work. I take it you were acquainted with the man who actually put the box aboard the ship?”

“Sure. Everybody knew John Carter. Everybody knows everybody else on a satellite station.” The Earthman stuck out his jaw. “That’s why none of us’ll take scop. We won’t blab out all our thoughts to guys we see fifty times a day.

We’d go nuts!”

“I never made such a request,” said Syaloch.

“Carter was quite a good friend of mine,” volunteered Hollyday.

“Uh - huh,” grunted Gregg. “And he quit too, about the same time you fellows did, and went Earthside and hasn’t been seen since. HQ told me you and he were thick. What’d you talk about?”

“The usual.” Hollyday shrugged. “Wine, women, and song. I haven’t heard from him since I left Earth.”

“Who says Carter stole the box?” demanded Steinmann. “He just got tired of living in space and quit his job. He couldn’t have stolen the jewels - he was searched, remember?”

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“Could he have hidden it somewhere for a friend to get at this end?” inquired Syaloch.

“Hidden it? Where? Those ships don’t have secret compartments.” Steinmann spoke wearily. “And he was only aboard the Jane a few minutes, just long enough to put the box where he was supposed to.” His eyes smoldered at Gregg. “Let’s face it: the only people anywhere along the line who ever had a chance to lift it were our own dear cops.” The Inspector reddened and half rose. “Look here, you -“

“We’ve got your word that you’re innocent,” growled Steinmann. “Why should it be any better than mine?” Syaloch waved both men back. “If you please. Brawls are unphilosophic.” His beak opened and clattered, the Martian equivalent of a smile. “Has either of you, perhaps, a theory? I am open to all ideas.” There was a stillness. Then Hollyday mumbled: “Yes. I have one.”

Syaloch hooded his eyes and puffed quietly, waiting.

Hollyday’s grin was shaky. “Only if I’m right, you’ll never see those jewels again.”

Gregg sputtered.

“I’ve been around the Solar System a lot,” said Hollyday. “It gets lonesome out in space. You never know how big and lonesome it is till you’ve been there, all by yourself. And I’ve done just that - I’m an amateur uranium prospector, not a lucky one so far. I can’t believe we know everything about the universe, or that there’s only vacuum between the planets.” “Are you talking about the cobblies?” snorted Gregg.

“Go ahead and call it superstition. But if you’re in space long enough . . well, somehow, you know.

There are beings out there - gas beings, radiation beings, whatever you want to imagine, there’s something living in space.” “And what use would a box of jewels be to a cobbly?”

Hollyday spread his hands. “How can I tell? Maybe we bother them, scooting through their own dark kingdom with our little rockets. Stealing the crown jewels would be a good way to disrupt the Mars trade, wouldn’t it?” Only Syaloch’s pipe broke the inward - pressing silence. But its burbling seemed quite irreverent.

“Well -” Gregg fumbled helplessly with a meteoric paperweight. “Well, Mr. Syaloch, do you want to ask any more questions?” “Only one.” The third lids rolled back, and coldness looked out at Steinmann. “If you please, my good man, what is your hobby?” “Huh? Chess. I play chess. What’s it to you?” Steinmann lowered his head and glared sullenly.

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“Nothing else?”

“What else is there?”

Syaloch glanced at the Inspector, who nodded confirmation, and then replied gently:

“I see. Thank you. Perhaps we can have a game sometime. I have some small skill of my own. That is all for now, gentlemen.” They left, moving like things of dream through the low gravity.

“Well?” Gregg’s eyes pleaded with Syaloch. “What next?”

“Very little. I think . . yesss, while I am here I should like to watch the technicians at work. In my profession, one needs a broad knowledge of all occupations.”

Gregg sighed.

Ramanowitz showed the guest around. The Kim Brackney was in and being unloaded. They threaded through a hive of spacesuited men.

“The cops are going to have to raise that embargo soon,” said Ramanowitz. “Either that or admit why they’ve clamped it on. Our warehouses are busting.”

“It would be politic to do so,” nodded Syaloch. “Ah, tell me . . is this equipment standard for all stations?”

“Oh, you mean what the boys are wearing and carrying around? Sure. Same issue everywhere.”

“May I inspect it more closely?”

“Hm?” Lord, deliver me from visiting firemen! thought Ramanowitz. He waved a mechanic over to him. “Mr. Syaloch would like you to explain your outfit,” he said with ponderous sarcasm.

“Sure. Regular spacesuit here, reinforced at the seams.” The gauntleted hands moved about, pointing.

“Heating coils powered from this capacitance battery. Ten - hour air supply in the tanks. These buckles, you snap your tools into them, so they won’t drift around in free fall. This little can at my belt holds paint that I spray out through this nozzle.”

“Why must spaceships be painted?” asked Syaloch. “There is nothing to corrode the metal.”

“Well, sir, we just call it paint. It’s really gunk, to seal any leaks in the hull till we can install a new plate, or to mark any other kind of damage. Meteor punctures and so on.” The mechanic pressed a trigger and a thin, almost invisible stream jetted out, solidifying as it hit the ground.

“But it cannot readily be seen, can it?” objected the Martian. “I, at least, find it difficult to see clearly in airlessness.”

“That’s right. Light doesn’t diffuse, so .. well, anyhow, the stuff is radioactive - not enough to be dangerous, just enough so that the repair crew can spot the place with a Geiger counter.”

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“I understand. What is the half - life?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. Six months, maybe? It’s supposed to remain detectable for a year.”

“Thank you.” Syaloch stalked off. Ramanowitz had to jump to keep up with those long legs.

“Do you think Carter may have hid the box in his paint can?” suggested the human.

“No, hardly. The can is too small, and I assume he was searched thoroughly.” Syaloch stopped and bowed. “You have been very kind and patient, Mr. Ramanowitz. I am finished now, and can find the Inspector myself.”

“What for?”

“To tell him he can lift the embargo, of course.” Syaloch made a harsh sibilance. “And then I must get the next boat to Mars. If I hurry, I can attend the concert in Sabaeus tonight.” His voice grew dreamy. “They will be premiering Hanyech’s Variations on a Theme by Mendelssohn , transcribed to the Royal Chlannach scale. It should be most unusual.”

It was three days afterward that the letter came. Syaloch excused himself and kept an illustrious client squatting while he read it. Then he nodded to the other Martian. “You will be interested to know, sir, that the Estimable Diadems have arrived at Phobos and are being returned at this moment.”

The client, a Cabinet Minister from the House of Actives, blinked. “Pardon, Freehatched Syaloch, but what have you to do with that?”

“Oh … I am a friend of the Featherless police chief. He thought I might like to know.”

” Hraa. Were you not on Phobos recently?”

“A minor case.” The detective folded the letter carefully, sprinkled it with salt, and ate it. Martians are fond of paper, especially official Earth stationary with high rag content. “Now, sir, you were saying -?”

The parliamentarian responded absently. He would not dream of violating privacy - no, never - but if he had X - ray vision he would have read:

“Dear Syaloch,

“You were absolutely right. Your locked room problem is solved. We’ve got the jewels back, everything is in fine shape, and the same boat which brings you this letter will deliver them to the vaults. It’s too bad the public can never know the facts - two planets ought to be grateful to you - but I’ll supply that much thanks all by myself, and insist that any bill you care to send be paid in full. Even if the Assembly had to make a special appropriation, which I’m afraid it will.”

“I admit your idea of lifting the embargo at once looked pretty wild to me, but it worked. I had our boys out, of course, scouring Phobos with Geigers, but Hollyday found the box before we did. Which saved us a lot of trouble, to be sure. I arrested him as he came back into the settlement, and he had the box among his ore samples. He has confessed, and you were right all along the line.

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“What was that thing you quoted at me, the saying of that Earthman you admire so much? ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.’ Something like that. It certainly applies to this case.

“As you decided, the box must have been taken to the ship at Earth Station and left there - no other possibility existed. Carter figured it out in half a minute when he was ordered to take the thing out and put it aboard the Jane . He went inside, all right, but still had the box when he emerged. In that uncertain light nobody saw him put it ‘down’ between four girders right next to the hatch. Or as you remarked, if the jewels are not in the ship, and yet not away from the ship, they must be on the ship. Gravitation would hold them in place. When the Jane blasted off, acceleration pressure slid the box back, but of course the waffle - iron pattern kept it from being lost; it fetched up against the after rib and stayed there. All the way to Mars! But the ship’s gravity held it securely enough even in free fall, since both were on the same orbit.

“Hollyday says that Carter told him all about it. Carter couldn’t go to Mars himself without being suspected and watched every minute once the jewels were discovered missing. He needed a confederate. Hollyday went to Phobos and took up prospecting as a cover for the search he’d later be making for the jewels.

“As you showed me, when the ship was within a thousand miles of this dock, Phobos gravity would be stronger than her own. Every spacejack knows that the robot ships don’t start decelerating till they’re quite close; that they are then almost straight above the surface; and that the side with the radio mast and manhatch - the side on which Carter had placed the box - is rotated around to face the station. The centrifugal force of rotation threw the box away from the ship, and was in a direction toward Phobos rather than away from it. Carter knew that this rotation is slow and easy, so the force wasn’t enough to accelerate the box to escape velocity and lose it in space. It would have to fall down toward the satellite.

Phobos Station being on the side opposite Mars, there was no danger that the loot would keep going till it hit the planet.

“So the crown jewels tumbled onto Phobos, just as you deduced. Of course Carter had given the box a quick radio - active spray as he laid it in place, and Hollyday used that to track it down among all those rocks and crevices. In point of fact, its path curved clear around this moon, so it landed about five miles from the station.

“Steinmann has been after me to know why you quizzed him about his hobby. You forgot to tell me that, but I figured it out for myself and told him. He or Hollyday had to be involved, since nobody else knew about the cargo, and the guilty person had to have some excuse to go out and look for the box. Chess playing doesn’t furnish that kind of alibi. Am I right? At least, my deduction proves I’ve been studying the same canon you go by. Incidentally, Steinmann asks if you’d care to take him on the next time he has planet leave.

“Hollyday knows where Carter is hiding, and we’ve radioed the information back to Earth. Trouble is, we can’t prosecute either of them without admitting the facts. Oh, well, there are such things as blacklists.

“Will have to close this now to make the boat. I’ll be seeing you soon - not professionally, I hope!

Admiring regards,

Inspector Gregg.”

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But as it happened, the Cabinet minister did not possess X - ray eyes. He dismissed unprofitable speculation and outlined his problem. Somebody, somewhere in Sabaeus, was famiking the krats, and there was an alarming zaksnautry among the hyukus. It sounded to Syaloch like an interesting case.

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