Space For Hire (Seven For Space) by William F Nolan Read Free Book Online Page A

before I paused in mid-swallow. I felt like a chump.
    When Nicole noticed me staring at the half-eaten sandwich she let out a girlish giggle.
    "Funny, huh?" I said.
    "You think maybe I doctored the cheese," she said. "You're furious because you didn't make me take the first bite. Correct?"
    "Correct," I admitted sourly.
    "Hunger before suspicion," she giggled.
    I thrust the cheese-on-wheat at her. "Here, you finish the thing. If it's lethal we'll both end up stiffed."
    She took a nip, chewed, swallowed and handed the rest back. "Goon, you're the starving man. I wouldn't be dumb enough to try a double-cross two times running. You'll get indigestion worrying over nothing, Sam."
    I snarled, still feeling like a chump, but finished the sandwich. All I could do was believe her; she seemed to be all through with her phony act and ready to spill what she knew. I told her I was waiting to hear about F. "Who is he? Describe him."
    "Can't. I've never seen him, never talked directly to him." She flushed, sipped at her bourbon. "He had something on me dug up by one of his sneaky subworld contacts and he used it to make me work for him. He's ruthless. I knew he'd turn what he had over to Sergeant O'Malley if I didn't cooperate in decoying you."
    I let that sink in.
    "What's the F. stand for?"
    "I don't know that either. I'm just a small pawn in whatever cosmic game he's playing." She tossed her red hair and gave me a long, level stare. "I've told you everything I know, Sam."
    "Not quite," I said. "What does F. hold against you? What dirt did his goons dig up?"
    "It has nothing to do with this case," she declared with some heat."It's personal and I don't intend to reveal it to anyone." Her sea-green eyes flashed. "If you'd like to slap me around some more then go ahead. But I've told you all I'm going to. Period."
    I knew she wasn't bluffing. And I like my chickens spirited. I'd leave her pride alone.
    "Okay, then, forget it," I said, dumping the last of the Scotch down my craw. "There's just one more thing I want from you."
    "What's that?"
    "Can't you guess?" This time I was leering. The cheese-on-wheat and the Scotch had put me back in a mood to dally.
    And Nicole knew how to dally.
    She peeled off the glosex blouse and joined me on the couch.
    I peeled off everything else.
    * * *
     
    Before I left her, Nicole did remember one more thing to tell me — that F. had another branch office on Jupiter, in Whisker Town. She recalled the address on a faxcard he'd sent her.
    This info made me change my plans about going directly back to Mars. It might be well worth my while to take a shot at seeing what I could find on Jupiter.
    I vidfaxed Umani and told him to hold the fort until he heard from me. Warned him not to leave his unit. With Esma there I was gambling he'd be okay until I could run down this new lead.
    "Be careful, Sammie," Nicole cautioned in a husky after-bed voice. She tickled my nose with one of her exposed nipples. "F. plays for keeps."
    "I can handle anything he can throw at me," I said. "Trouble is my middle name."
    "I don't believe you," she said.
    "Okay, take a look," I showed her my license. She giggled. Then I kissed her and left.
    I didn't tell her what the T really stood for. My mother had exercised a wild sense of humor in naming me. Samuel T Space.
    T for Temperance.

Nine
     
    I was heading for the Fat Marble. That's what I call Jupiter, and that's the way the planet looks to me, coming in toward it: like a giant fat agate in the black sky. I never liked going there for a lot of reasons. For one, I figure that nobody needs twenty-five billion square miles of anything; the damned planet is just too big for comfort. For another, they haven't yet licked the gravity problem on Jupiter inside the domes, and I hate wearing a contra-gravbelt. But a guy like me, at about 190Earthpounds, would weigh close to 450 on the surface without one. And you can't hop around much at 450.
    We were nearly there, so I put my belt on,