Retief at Large by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online Page A

schedule of soundings. I've got the
reports back aboard Gertie —that's our lighter."
     
                "And
you've already loaded a cargo here?"
     
                "Yep.
We're running out of capital fast. I need to get that cargo to port in a
hurry—before the outfit goes into involuntary bankruptcy. With this, that'd be
a crime."
     
                "What
do you know about General Minerals, Sam?"
     
                "You
thinking of hiring on with them? Better read the fine print in your contract
before you sign. Sneakiest bunch this side of a burglar's convention."
     
                "They
own a chunk of rock known as 2645-P. Do you suppose we could find it?"
     
                "Oh,
you're buying it, hey? Sure, we can find it.
     
                You
damn sure want to look it over good if General Minerals is selling."
     
                Back
aboard the skiff, Mancziewicz flipped the pages of the chart book, consulted a
table. "Yep, she's not too far off. Let's go see what GM's trying to
unload."
     
    -
     
                The
skiff hovered two miles from the giant boulder known as 2645-P. Retief and
Mancziewicz looked it over at high magnification. "It don't look like
much, Retief," Sam said. "Let's go down and take a closer look."
     
                The
boat dropped rapidly toward the scarred surface of the tiny world, a floating
mountain, glaring black and white in the spotlight of the sun. Sam frowned at
his instrument panel.
     
                "That's
funny. My ion counter is revving up. Looks like a drive trail, not more than an
hour or two old. Somebody's been here."
     
                The
boat grounded. Retief and Sam got out. The stony surface was littered with rock
fragments varying in size from pebbles to great slabs twenty feet long, tumbled
in a loose bed of dust and sand. Retief pushed off gently, drifted up to a
vantage point atop an upended wedge of rock. Sam joined him.
     
                "This
is all igneous stuff," he said. "Not likely we'll find much here that
would pay the freight to Syrtis—unless maybe you lucked onto some Bodean
artifacts. They bring plenty."
     
                He
flipped a binocular in place as he talked, scanned the riven landscape.
"Hey!" he said. "Over there!"
     
                Retief
followed Sam's pointing glove. He studied the dark patch against a smooth
expanse of eroded rock.
     
                "A
friend of mine came across a chunk of the old planetary surface two years
ago," Sam said thoughtfully. "Had a tunnel in it that'd been used as
a storage depot by the Bodeans. Took out over two ton of hardware. Course,
nobody's discovered how the stuff works yet, but it brings top prices."
     
                "Looks
like water erosion," Retief said.
     
                "Yep.
This could be another piece of surface, all right. Could be a cave over there.
The Bodeans liked caves, too. Must have been some war—but then, if it hadn't
been, they wouldn't have tucked so much stuff away underground where it could
weather the planetary breakup."
     
                They
descended, crossed the jumbled rocks with light, thirty-foot leaps.
     
                "It's
a cave, all right," Sam said, stooping to peer into the five-foot bore.
Retief followed him inside.
     
                "Let's
get some light in here." Mancziewicz flipped on a beam. It glinted back
from dull polished surfaces of Bodean synthetic. Sam's low whistle sounded in
Retief's headset.
     
                "That's
funny," Retief said.
     
                "Funny,
hell! It's hilarious. General Minerals trying to sell off a worthless rock to a
tenderfoot—and it's loaded with Bodean artifacts. No telling how much is here:
the tunnel seems to go quite a ways back."
     
                "That's
not what I mean. Do you notice