Vectors by Charles Sheffield Page A

exchanged glances and I could sense an awkwardness and reluctance to speak.
    "His very first words," said one of them in a whisper. "They must have been very close."
    Finally the Space Rescue man spoke. "We wish we had better news for you, Mr. Carver. The ship Mr. Mattin was on had a power unit failure and he went into the shielded compartment. For some reason we don't understand, the shielding material was completely missing. Your friend died when the power unit blew."
    I sank back on the pillow and closed my eyes again. Serves the bastard right. At least I knew now why the price I got from my discount spaceship friends had been so low for the last cargo hull we bought. Radiation shielding was expensive stuff and somebody no doubt had got a good price for it. Mattin had fried and there was no doubt he had earned it.
    Before there was any chance for my satisfaction to show on my face, I had another thought. Mattin was dead! The Link must have operated successfully before Mattin died, or I would have fried too when the power unit failed. That meant his document at Central Bank took over. The Government owned all rights to the Mattin Link and I—and our backers—were out in the cold. They couldn't take their revenge on Mattin, but I was still around without two credits to spend on self-protection—the last test had taken every asset I'd owned. Suddenly the aches and pains of the present were insignificant compared to the ones I could imagine in my future.
    I wondered if there were any way I could get onto the Venus terra-forming project, without having to go back to Earth.
    My anguish must have shown clearly on my face. When I opened my eyes again I found that the young nurse had tears on her cheeks. The doctor leaned over me and patted me consolingly.
    "It's a very hard thing to lose a close friend and colleague, Mr. Carver," he said. "But you must try and be strong. Think about your own future."
    I did. Everyone was conscious of my strong emotion. There was a hint of moisture in many eyes. But of all the people in the room, Professor Benson, you may be assured that there was not one who was anything like as sad as—
    Yours truly,Henry Carver.
      Afterword.
    If comedians long to play Hamlet, just as many science fiction writers would like to write humorous stories. It's a dangerous desire. Funny stories don't win Nebulas and Hugos, and no humor appeals to everyone. Besides which, writing humor is hard —there is less latitude than in the serious forms, and a miss tends to be a total miss.
    I knew all that before I began this story. It was supposed to be a simple tale of a new transportation system, but somewhere in the middle it took an odd turn. I let it go where it wanted to, then went back and rewrote the beginning. You have just read the result.
    Worse than that, I find that when my mind is idle other stories germinate about Henry Carver and his business partner (Waldo Burmeister—you'll meet him later). I now have seven stories in what I think of as my "sewage series." The only thing I can say in my defense is that my children like them.
    This story has one other claim to fame. Jim Baen, when he was editor of Galaxy, only once encountered something in a story that he felt was too gross to offer his readers. It was a comment that my narrator made about the eponymous Mattin.
    Now I'll bet you're eager to know what it was. It's a quote from Catullus, and it runs as follows:
    "quem siqua attingit, non illam posse putemus aegroti culum lingere carnificis?"
    No, of course I'm not going to translate it. If there is an increase in the sale of Latin dictionaries in the 1980's, I'll know part of the reason.

POWER FAILURE
    The window had been wedged open at the bottom, about six inches. Outside, a great bed of lupins was attracting every bee in the area. Summer bird-songs and the smell of new-mown hay, slipping in through the open window, were an irresistible distraction, and the dark-haired ten-year old sitting at the desk