Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury Read Online Free PDF Page A

"Sands of Mars, they've got everything here for us, all set and waiting. Bed. Bath. Food. Suits."
    "And something else too," said Lucky gravely. "Death is waiting in this room. See here."
    Lucky lifted one arm of the larger suit. The ball joint at the shoulder moved easily, but where it joined the shaft of the shoulder there was a tiny, all but unnoticeable gap. It would have been completely un-noticeable if Lucky's fingers had not spread it apart.
    It was a slash! Man-made, obviously! Insulation showed.
    "On the inner surface," said Lucky, "There's a similar slash. This suit would have lasted just long enough to get me out on the Sun-side, and then it would have killed me neatly."

4. Over the Banquet Table
    "Urteil!" cried Bigman at once, with a ferocity that stiffened every muscle of his small body. "That dirty cobber… "
    "Why Urteil?" asked Lucky softly.
    "He warned us to watch our suits, Lucky. Remember?"
    "Of course. And it's exactly what I did."
    "Sure. He set it up for us. We find a slashed suit and we think he's a great guy. Then we're cold meat for him next time around. Don't fall for that, Lucky. He's a… "
    "Now wait, Bigman, wait! Don't make your mind up so fast. Look at it this way. Urteil said Mindes had tried to kill him, too. Suppose we believe him. Suppose Mindes had tried to gimmick Urteil's suit and Urteil had spotted it in time. Urteil would warn us to watch out for the same trick. Maybe Mindes did this."
    "Sands of Mars, Lucky, that can't be. This guy, Mindes, is ladled full of sleeping pills, and before that he wasn't out of our sight from the minute we got onto this miserable rock."
    "All right. How do we know Mindes is asleep and under medication?" asked Lucky.
    "Gardoma says… " began Bigman, and fell silent.
    "Exactly. Gardoma says! We haven't seen Mindes, though. We only know what Dr. Gardoma said, and Dr. Gardoma is a great friend of Mindes's."
    "The two of them are in it together," said Bigman, with instant conviction. "Jumping comets-- "
    "Wait, wait, don't
you
jump so. Great Galaxy, Big-man, I'm just trying to straighten out my thoughts, and you take me up on everything." His tone was as disapproving as it could ever be with respect to his small friend. He went on, "Now you've complained a dozen times that I don't tell you everything on my mind until everything's done with. This is why, you blaster-happy nitwit. As soon as I advance a theory, you're off on a charge, all your weapons cocked and ready."
    "I'm sorry, Lucky," said Bigman. "Go ahead."
    "All right. Now Urteil is easy to suspect. Nobody likes him. Even Dr. Peverale doesn't. You saw how he reacted just to the mention of his name. We've met him only once and you dislike him-- "
    ''I'll say," muttered Bigman.
    "-while I don't exactly like him, either. Anyone can slash this suit and hope that suspicion will fall on Urteil if it should happen to be discovered, and it would be surely discovered after it's killed someone, if not before."
    "I see all that, Lucky."
    "On the other hand," went on Lucky smoothly, "Mindes has already tried to get rid of me with a blaster. If that were a serious attempt, he doesn't seem the type to do anything as indirect as suit-slashing. As for Dr. Gardoma, I don't see him involving himself in the murder of a Councilman just out of friendship for Mindes."
    "Then what's the decision?" cried Bigman impatiently.
    "There isn't any so far," said Lucky, "except maybe that we go to sleep." He turned down the bed sheets and stepped into the washroom.
    Bigman looked after him and shrugged his shoulders.
    Scott Mindes was sitting up in bed when Lucky and Bigman entered his quarters the next morning. He was pale and looked tired.
    "Hello," he said. "Karl Gardoma told me what happened. You don't know how sorry I am."
    Lucky passed it off with a shrug. "How do you feel?"
    "Wrung out but all right, if you know what I mean. I'll be at the dinner party old Peverale is giving tonight."
    "Is that wise?"
    "I won't leave Urteil