I didn't doubt him. There are always plenty of spare parts in the Quackery. That's because people are always getting themselves killed, one way and another, and their heirs do their best to fatten up the estate by selling off the innards. I dated one of the quacks once or twice. When we'd been drinking she took me down to the Cold Cuts department and showed me all the frozen hearts and lungs and bowels and bladders, each one already dosed with antiallergens so it wouldn't be rejected, all tagged and packed away, ready for a paying customer. It was a pity I wasn't in that class, because then Dr. Morius could have pulled one out, warmed it up in the
microwave, and slapped it in. When I joked-I told her I was joking-about swiping just one little liver for me, the date went sour, and not long after that she packed it in and went back to Earth.
I made up my mind.
"Make the reservation," I said. "Three weeks from today." And I left him looking mildly pleased, like a Burmese hydro-rice planter watching the machines warm up to bring in another crop. Dear Daddy. Why hadn't he sent me through medical school instead of giving me an education?
It would have been nice if the Heechee had been the same size as human beings, instead of being just that little bit shorter. It was reflected in their tunnels. In the smaller ones, like the one that led to the Local 88 union office, I had to half crouch all the way.
The deputy organizer was waiting for me. He had one of the very few good jobs on Venus that didn't depend on tourism-or at least not directly. He said, "Subhash Vastra's been on the line. He says you agreed to thirty percent, and besides you took off without paying your bar bill to the Third of his house."
"Admitted, both ways."
He made a note. "And you owe me a little too, Audee. Three hundred for the powder-fax copy of my report on your pigeon. A hundred for validating your contract with Vastra. And you're going to need a new guide's license; sixteen hundred for that."
I gave him my currency card, and he checked the total out of my account into the local's. Then I signed and card-stamped the contract he'd drawn up. Vastra's thirty percent would not be on the whole million dollars, but on my net. Even so, he was likely to make as much out of it as I would, at least in liquid cash, because I was going to have to pay off the outstanding balances on equipment. The banks would carry a man until he scored, but then they wanted to get paid in full. .. because they knew how long it might be until he scored again.
The deputy verified the signed contract. "That's that, then. Anything else I can do for you?"
"Not at your prices," I told him.
He gave me a sharp look, with a touch of envy in it. "Ah, you're putting me on, Audee. 'Boyce Cochenour and Dorotha Keefer, traveling S.S. Yuri Gagarin, Odessa registry, carrying no other passengers,' " he quoted from the report he'd intercepted for us. "No other passengers! Why, you can be a rich man, Audee, if you work this customer right."
"Rich man is more than I ask," I told him. "All I want is to be a living one."
It wasn't entirely true. I did have some little hope-not much, not enough to talk about, and in fact I'd never said a word about it to anyone-that I might be coming out of this rather better than just alive.
There was, however, a problem.
The problem was that if we did find anything, Boyce Cochenour would get most of it. If a tourist like Cochenour goes on a guided hunt for new Heechee tunnels, and he happens to find something valuable-tourists have, you know; not often, but enough to keep them hopeful-then it's the charterer who gets the lion's share. Guides get a taste, but that's all. We just work for the man who pays the bills.
Of course, I could have gone out by myself at any time and prospected on my own. Then anything I found would be all mine. But in my case, that was a really bad idea. If I staked myself to a trip and lost I wouldn't just be wasting my time and fifty or a hundred K on used-up supplies and wear and tear on the airbody. If I lost, I would be dead shortly thereafter, when that beat-up old liver finally gave out.
I needed every penny Cochenour would pay me just to stay alive. Whether we struck it rich or not, my fee from him would take care of that.
Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I had a notion that I knew
where something very interesting might be found; and my problem was that, as long as I had the standard charterer'srights contract with Cochenour, I really couldn't afford to find it.
The last stop I made was in my sleeping room. Under my bed, keystoned into the rock, was a guaranteed break-proof safe that held some papers I wanted to have in my pocket from then on.
See, when I first came to Venus it wasn't scenery that interested me. I wanted to make my fortune.
