Chapter I: Front Matter

The Head Hunters

by William Morrison and Frederik Pohl

_When such a superlatively gifted storyteller as William
Morrison--remember his_ HOLLYWOOD HABIT, _and_ DATE OF PUBLICATION,
2083 A. D._?--joins quills with Frederik Pohl of Ballantine pocket
book fame an entertainment special is virtually assured. Here’s a
documentary-type saga of interplanetary engineering and space hazards
incalculable that starts brilliantly, gathers momentum with every
breathtaking development on the frontiers of tomorrow, and ends with
a smash climax that will set you to pondering for a long, long time._

=The best “man” for a really tough engineering job in space may be a
headless robot. But human courage rates a few shining medals too!=

It was dull work, changing circuits in a vacuum, where every current-carrying atom had to be insulated against the spark-over of space. John Tinker stood up, yawned, and glanced through the tangle of equipment at the robots walking about outside.

He said into his helmet radio: “Chop, chop, chop.”

He couldn’t see the girl’s face, but her voice was disconcerted. “Chop--what are you talking about?”

“Them.” He waved at the robots. “Carrying their heads like old Anne Boleyn.” He sang: “With ’er ’ead tooked underneath ’er arm, she walks the bleddy Tower--”

The girl said: “They aren’t heads. They’re apex-mounted sense receptors. They aren’t arms. They’re powered torsional manipulators. They aren’t ‘tucked.’ The heads are plug-in. I mean--the receptors are plug-in, bayonet-mounted, and they fit at the apex while in use or in a dummy female base under the manipulator for carrying.”

Tinker said simply, “S. Cottrell, I love you.”

He thought he heard a snort over the radio, and he sighed. All the same, it gave him a queer feeling to see the headless creatures with the steel skulls clasped casually under their arms.

He had tried to tell his partner, Drake, about it once; but Drake was not a sensitive man. He had pointed out very quickly that there was nothing feminine or fragile about the robots, and had elaborated on the remark with a long obscene outburst about the lack of females on the asteroids.

Tinker, listening, had marveled; some of the words he had never heard before. No doubt a man had to go through Drake’s special training--in six jails--to learn them.

The girl said resentfully, “Are you going to help me or not?”

“It’s time to take a break,” Tinker objected. “Let’s watch the robots.” He waved at them as he spoke.

She hesitated, but she stood up and joined him. He wished he could see her face through the helmet of the space suit. She said: “I’d think you’d be used to them by now.”

“I don’t spend much time here,” he reminded her. “As you know, Drake and I have our quarters on Asteroid B, and we only come over here for trouble-shooting or checkups--half an hour or an hour at a time. It isn’t safe to stay long.”

“You’ve been here five hours already.”

“I won’t be here for six, though. Not if Drake will get off his back and show up.” He added: “Anyway, this is a special occasion. It’s worth taking on a little extra radioactivity to be with somebody like you.”

“Sure, somebody female,” the girl agreed. “_Anybody_ female.”

He shrugged. It was true, in a way. It had been three months since he had seen a woman, any woman--or any man or child, for that matter, except himself and his partner. And Drake didn’t count. Tinker, striving to be just, had to face the fact that Drake wasn’t a man. He was a rat, with the fierce and treacherous disposition of a rat. In effect, Tinker lived alone and he didn’t like it.

But on the other hand, he liked this girl, even though he had never seen her face. Her voice alone made her seem maddeningly desirable--it was so warm and friendly.

He stared at her, trying to see through the faceplate, and quickly realizing that it was flatly impossible, unless he focused his headlamp directly in her eyes. There was no refracted light to illuminate the inside of her helmet, since refraction cannot take place in the absence of air. He could only determine with certainty, under the helmet and the protective armor, that she did have a face--and that she could stand on her own two legs. Whether the face was pretty, whether the legs would get a second look from him on Earth, he couldn’t tell--and it was posing a threat to his sanity.

She said, half-laughing, “I thought you were watching the robots.”

“I’d rather watch you.” Her laughter became wholly unconstrained. “You’re space happy,” she warned. “I could easily be three times your age. You don’t even know what I look like.”

“You sound incredibly young,” he told her. “Anyway, you aren’t too old to be charming. They don’t send hundred-year-old women to the asteroids.”

“No,” she admitted. “But the retirement age is sixty.”

“You aren’t sixty either,” he said positively. “You might even be under thirty.”

There really was some danger on Asteroid A. The automatic isotope plants, robot-run and remotely located in space, were a vital cog in the wheel of isotope manufacture. If anything went wrong on A, it could explode and destroy everything on its surface. But even if it took its nearest planetary neighbor--Asteroid Y-335 B--with it, the only lives at stake would be Tinker’s and his partner’s. And his partner, he was convinced, would be no great loss.

Of course, an explosion was unlikely. But there _had_ been a disastrous blowup on Venus which had caused the Main Office hastily to set about locating new plantsites in the asteroid belt. So it was possible, theoretically--and even without a blowup, there was constant radiation seepage on A.

The healthiest man was better off if he stayed a maximum of six hours at a stretch--twenty-four would certainly have been fatal--and sick and decrepit individuals weren’t supposed to be there at all. Sixty? No, Tinker told himself, she couldn’t be a day over thirty. Well, forty, maybe....

“What’s your first name?” he demanded suddenly.

“My what?”

“Your first name. You said it was S. Cottrell. What does the ‘S.’ stand for?”

She said dubiously, “Siria. My father was--”

“I know,” he said exultantly. “You’re twenty-five! Your father named you in honor of the Sirius Expedition--you and possibly ten thousand other unfortunates. So it follows, as a mathematical corollary, that you can’t be a day over twenty-five.”

She said stiffly, “I happen to be twenty-three.”

“Even better,” said Tinker. “Siria, will you marry me?”

“No. Now, do we get back to work? Or do I get back to work and you go home?”