Travis sighed. That seemed to put the cap on it, all right. After all, when you start pushing people’s moons around, where will it end? He brooded, his appetite gone. But he made a last effort.
“Did you discover anything at all we could use?”
“Nope. Not a thing. I finally figured the only thing to do was work on the astrology end of it, you know, maybe we could argue about interpretations. These people love to argue about interpretations. But no soap. It’s too complicated. To learn enough even to argue would take a couple of years. And besides Unico is here, and also Randall, and they all have the same idea. Anyway, I don’t think it would work. The eclipse is too definite. You can’t argue the eclipse.”
“Well,” Travis said with approval, “you were on the right track. You did what you could. At least we got something out of the deal.” He indicated Lappy, who was at that moment fervidly examining the interior of the viewscreen.
Trippe nodded, but his eyes were on Navel.
“By jing,” he said suddenly, “your luck holds good, no matter what. I never saw the beat of it—”
“Luck?” Travis fumed, “what luck?”
“Look, Trav, what else could you call it? You fall in a sewer, you come up with Isaac Newton and a gorgeous doll. It’s uncanny, that’s what it is, uncanny.”
Travis lapsed into wordless musing on Navel, planets, people.
Come to think of it, he thought, it is uncanny.
At that moment there was a pounding on the lock. Travis quickly shooed Navel and Lappy into hiding, then cautiously went to the door. He relaxed. It was Ed Horton.
“I saw you come back, Trav. Mighty glad. But I knew you’d make it. Old Pat Travis always comes through. Aint that right, Pat?”
He tottered in the doorway. Travis caught the sweet scent of strong brew. He stepped forward to help him but Horton stood up grandly, waving him away. His mouth creased in an amiable grin.
“Diomed,” he announced proudly, “is a nine planet system.”
After which he fell backwards out of the door.
Trav ran to the door, stared down into the dark. Horton sat upright at the foot of the ladder.
“Sall right ole buddy. Dint mean to stay. Only thought you’d like to know natural sci-yen-tiffy fack. Diomed is nine plan’ system.”
He rose on wobbly but cheerful legs.
“No favoritism there, hey? Science. I just tell you a fack, you take it from there. No favoritism tall.”
He lurched away mumbling cheerily, his obligation fulfilled.
Travis stared after him, wheels turning in his brain. Fack? A nine planet system. It jelled slowly, then broke.
Nine planets.
The key.
He turned slowly on Trippe, his eyes swivelling like twin dark cannon.
“What’s he say?” Trippe said, half-smiling. “Boy, he was sure—”
“Did you know this was a nine planet system?”
“Why . . . sure, Trav. But what—”
“And did you take the trouble to examine their astrology?”
“Certainly. What the heck—”
“And you call it luck.” Travis sighed, then broke into a radiant grin. “Why there’s your bloomin’ answer, you sad silly dreamin’—there’s your bloomin’ answer!” He sailed over to a drawer, grabbed a batch of fresh contracts, then flashed toward the door.
“Hold the fort,” he bawled over his shoulder, “break out a big bottle and small glasses! We got a contract, lad, we got a contract!”
He vanished triumphantly into the night.
*
Old 29 was homing. Travis felt the great soft peace of deep space close over him. All was right with the world. A clean and sparkling Navel, well-bathed now and almost frighteningly beautiful, sat worshipfully at his feet dressed in a pair of Dahlinger’s pajamas. Both Trippe and Dahlinger were regarding him with wonder and delight, and as he sat gazing down at them fondly he recalled with pleasure the outraged faces of the men from Unico, that robber outfit.
“Pat Travis,” he chuckled, patting the fat contract in his pocket, “the luckless Pat Travis rides again.” He turned an eye on the staring Trippe.
“My boy,” he said paternally, “speaks me no speaks about luck, from this day forth. All the material was in your hands, there was no luck involved. All you had to do was use it.”
“But Trav, I still don’t get it. I’ve been thinkin’ all night, all the while you were gone . . . .”
“The planet Pluto,” Travis said evenly, “was discovered by Earthmen, finally, in the year 1930. At that time we were approximately 300 years ahead, technologically, of the people of Mert. A similar case exists for Neptune, which was not discovered, although adequate telescopes had long been in use, until 1846.” He paused and gazed happily around. “Does the light dawn?”
“Holy cow!”
“Exactly. Diomed is a nine planet system. For which ‘fack’ thank old Ed Horton, who returned a favor done many years ago. Luck? Only if doing favors for people is lucky. Which I suppose you could make a case for. But in the astrology of Diomed III—an astrology I took great pains to understand—how many planets are considered? Let us examine. Rym, Fors, Lyndal, Bonken, Huck, Weepen, and Sharb. And then there are also the two ‘lights,’ that is, the sun and the moon. But how many planets are there? Counting Mert as one, add them up. It comes out eight. Not nine. Eight. But Diomed is a nine planet system. Bless Ed Horton. What happened to the missing planet?”
Dahlinger whooped. “They didn’t know they had one!”
Travis grinned. “With surety. They didn’t know it existed. If they had their astrology would certainly have shown it. So it had obviously, like our own Pluto at a similar time, never been discovered.”
He paused once again while Dahlinger and Trippe regarded him with delight.
“And you,” Trippe said, “you showed them where it was.”
Travis clucked. “I did not. For one thing, I didn’t know where it was. I simply told him, very regretfully, that there was one, but the situation being what it was, I couldn’t allow him to use our telescopes to plot its orbit. Unless, you see, there existed a concrete agreement between us.
“I added that I had heard that Earthmen would shortly be leaving his planet. Very unhappily I told him he could not expect to produce a telescope of the necessary power within at least the next hundred years. And even then, it would be many more years before they actually found it. I was very sorry about the whole business, so I just thought I’d drop by to offer my regrets.”
“And he leaped at the chance.”
“No. You rush to conclusions. He did not leap at the chance. He sat very quietly thinking about it. It was a gruesome sight. I could sympathize with him. On the one hand he had us, the unknown, moon-moving Us, with which he wanted no traffic whatever. But on the other side there was the knowledge of that planet moving all unwatched out in the black, casting down its radiations, be they harmful or good, and no way to know in what sign the thing was, or what house, or what effect it would have on him,was having on him, even as he sat there. Oh he struggled, but I knew I had him. He signed the contract.