Classic Audiobook Collection - A Spaceship Named McGuire by Randall Garrett ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

A Spaceship Named McGuire by Randall Garrett audiobook. Genre: scifi Can a spaceship go crazy? Well, yes it can if it has a brain. And the new MG (magnetogravitic drive) experimental robot space ship does indeed have a 'brain'. Completely bewildered as to why the first six models of their supposedly perfect new ship model, the MG-YR, nicknamed the McGuire, have gone totally bonkers after activation and before they could ever be used, the company has called in the services of Daniel Oak. They suspect sabotage of course. Daniel Oak is the hard boiled private investigator with nerves of steel and a mind of the same substance. He is extremely expensive to hire but gets results; and he knows his way around crime, space ships and especially women. What he finds out is surprising! For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:19:04) Chapter 2 (00:40:30) Chapter 3 (01:01:36) Chapter 4 (01:21:20) Chapter 5 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

a spaceship named maguire by randall garrett part one no nobody ever deliberately named a spaceship that the staid and stolid mines that run the companies which design and build spaceships rarely let their minds run to fancy the only example i can think of is the unsung hero of the last century who had puckish imagination enough to name the first atomic-powered submarine nautilus Such mines are rare. Most minds equate dignity with dullness. This ship happened to have a magneto-gravitic drive, which automatically put it into the M-G-class. It also happened to be the first successful model to be equipped with a Yale robotic brain,

so it was given the designation M-G-Y-R-7. The first six had had more bugs in them than a Leopovolville tenement. So somebody at Yale, another unsung hero, named the ship Maguire. It wasn't official, but it stuck. The next step was to get someone to test Hop McGuire. They needed just the right man, quick-minded, tough, imaginative, and a whole slew of complementary adjectives. They wanted a perfect Superman to test pilot their baby, even if they knew they'd eventually

have to take second best. It took the Yale Space Foundation a long time to pick the right man. No, I'm not the guy who tested the McGuire. I'm the guy who stole it. Shalimar Ravenhurst is not the kind of bloke that very many people can bring themselves to like. And in this respect, I'm like a great many people, if not more so. In the first place, a man has no right to go around toting a name like Shalamar. It makes stames like Beverly and Leslie and Evelyn sound almost hairy-chested.

You want a dozen other reasons. You'll get them. Shalimore Ravenhurst owned a little planetoid out in the belt, a hunk of nickel-iron about the size of a smallish mountain, with a G-pull measurable in fractions of a centimeter per second squared. If you're susceptible to space sickness, that kind of gravity is about as much help as aspirin would have been to Marie Antoinette. You get the feeling of a floor beneath you, but there's a distinct impression that it won't be there for long. It keeps trying to drop out from under you. I dropped my flitter-boat on the landing field and looked around without any hope of seeing anything. I didn't. The field was

about the size of a football field, a bright, shiny, expansive, rough-polished metal, carved and smooth, flat from the nickel-iron of the planetard itself, it not only served as a landing field but as a reflector beacon, a mirror that flashed out the sun's reflection as the planetard turned slowly on its axis. I'd homed in on that beacon, and now I was sitting on it. There wasn't a soul in sight. Off to one end of the rectangular field was a single dome, a hemisphere or about twenty feet in diameter and half as high. Nothing else. I sighed and flipped on the magnetic anchor, which grabbed hold of the metal beneath me, and held the flitter-boat tightly to the surface. Then I cut the drive, plugged in the telephone, and punched for local. The automatic finder

searched around for the Ravenhurst tickler signal, found it, and sent out a beep along the same channel. I waited, while the thing beeped twice. There was a click and a voice said, Raven's rest, yes? It wasn't Ravenhurst. I said, This is Daniel Oak. I went to talk to Mr. Ravenhurst. Mr. Oak? But you weren't expected until tomorrow. Fine, I'm early. Let me talk to Ravenhurst. But Mr. Ravenhurst wasn't expecting you to. I got all of a sudden exasperated. Unless your instruments are running on second-hand flashlight batteries, you've known I was coming for the past half hour. I followed Rabenhurst's instructions not to use radio, but he should know I'm here by this time.

He told me to come as fast as possible, and I followed those instructions too. I always follow instructions when I'm paid enough. Now I'm here. Tell Rabenhurst I want to talk to him, or I'll always follow instructions. simply flit back to Eros, and thank him much for a pretty retainer that didn't do him any good, but gave me a nice profit for my trouble. "'One moment, please,' said the voice. "'It took a minute and a half, which was about nine billion jiffies too long, as far as I was concerned.

Then another voice said, "'Oke? Wasn't expecting you till tomorrow.' "'So I hear. I thought you were in a hurry, but if you're not—' You can just provide me with wine, women, and other necessities until tomorrow. That's above and beyond my fee, of course, since you're wasting my time and I'm evidently not wasting yours. I couldn't be sure whether the noise he made was a grunt or a muffled chuckle, and I

didn't much care. Sorry, Oak, I really didn't expect you so soon, but I do want to—I want you to get started right away. Leave your flitter-boat where it is. I'll have someone take care of it, walk on over to the dome and come on in, and he cut off. I growled something I was glad he didn't hear, and hung up. I wished that I'd had a vision unit on the phone. I'd like to have seen his face, although I knew I might not have learned much more from his

expression than I had from his voice. I got out of the flitter-boat and walked across the dome, my magnetic souls, making subdued, clicking noises inside the suit as they caught and released the metallic plane beneath me. Beyond the field, I was surrounded by a lumpy horizon and a black sky full of bright, hard stars. The green light was on when I reached the door to the dome, so I opened it and went on in, closing it behind me. I flipped the toggle that began flooding the room with air.

When it was up to pressure, a trap-door in the floor of the dome opened, and a crew-coctur cut, blonde young man stuck his head up. Mr. Oak? I toyed for an instant, with the idea of giving him a sarcastic answer. Who else would it be? How many other visitors were running around on the surface of Raven's rest? Instead, I said, that's right. My voice must have sounded pretty muffled to him through my fishbowl.

Come on down, Mr. Oak. You can shuck your vac suit below. I thought below was a pretty... ambiguous term on a low G lump like this, but I followed him down the ladder. The ladder was a necessity for fast transportation. If I had just tried to jump down from one floor to the next, it would have taken me until a month from next St. Swithin's Day to land. The door over had closed, and I could hear the pumps start cycling. The warning light turned red. I took off my suit, hung it in a handy locker, showing that all I had on underneath was my skin-tight

Union suit." All right, if I wear this, I asked the blonde young man, or should I borrow a set of shorts and a jacket? Most places in the belt, a union suit is considered normal dress. A man never knows when he might have to climb into a back suit fast. But there are a few hoity-torty places on Eros and Siris and a few of the other well-settled places where a man or woman is required to put on shorts and jacket before. entering. And in good old New York City, a man and women were locked up for indecent exposure

a few months ago. The judge threw the case out of court, but he told them they were lucky they hadn't been picked up in Boston. It seems that the eye of the blue nose turns a jauntist yellow at the sight of a union suit, and he sees red. But there were evidently no blue noses here. "'Perfectly all right, Mr. Oak,' the blonde young man said affably. Then he coughed politely and added, "'But I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to take off the gun.' I glanced at the holster under my armpit, walked back over to the locker, opened it, and took out my vac suit.

"'Hey,' said the blonde young man, "'where are you going?' "'Back to my boat,' I said calmly. "'I'm getting tired of this runaround already. I'm a professional man, not a hard flunky. If you'd called a doctor you wouldn't tell him to leave his little black bag behind. If you'd called a lawyer, you wouldn't make him check his briefcase. Or if you did, he'd tell you to drop dead.

I was asked to come here as fast as possible, and when I do, I'm told to wait till tomorrow. Now you want me to check my gun? The hell with you. Merely a safety precaution, said the blonde young man. worriedly. You think I'm going to shoot Ravenhurst, maybe? Don't be an idiot." I started climbing into my back suit.

Just a minute, please, Mr. Oak, set a voice from a hidden speaker. It was Ravenhurst, and he actually sounded apologetic. You mustn't blame Mr. Feller, those are my standing orders, and I failed to tell Mr. Feller to make an exception in your case. The error was mine. I know, I said. said, I wasn't blaming Mr. Feller. I wasn't even talking to him. I was addressing you. I believe you. Mr. Feller, our guest has gone to all the trouble of having a suit made

with a space under the arm for that gun. I see no reason to make him remove it. A pause. Again, Mr. Oak, I apologize. I really want you to take this job. I was already taking off the Vak suit again. But Ravenhurst continued smoothly. if i fail to live up to your ideas of courtesy again i hope you'll forgive me in advance i'm sometimes very forgetful and i don't like it when a man threatens to leave my employ twice in the space of fifteen minutes i'm not in your employ yet ravenhurst i said if i accept the job i won't threaten to quit again unless i mean to carry it through and it would take a lot more than common discourtesy to make me do that on the other hand your brand of discourtesy is a shade above the common i thank you for that at least said ravenhurst show him to my office mr filler the blond young man nodded wordlessly and led me from the room walking under low g conditions is like nothing else in this universe i don't mean trotting around on luna one sixth g is practically homelike in comparison and zero g is so devoid of orientation that that it gives the sensation of falling endlessly until you get used to it.

But a planetoid is in a different class altogether. Remember that dream, almost everybody's headed, where you're suddenly able to fly? It isn't flying exactly, it's sort of swimming in the air, like being underwater except that the medium around you isn't so dense and viscous, and you can breathe. Remember? Well, that's the feeling you get on a low G planetoid.

Your arms don't tend to hang at your sides as they do on Earth or Luna, because the muscular tension tends to hold them out, just as it does in zero-g, but there is still a definite sensation of up and down. If you push yourself off the floor, you tend to float in a long, slow, graceful arc, provided you don't push too hard. Magnetic souls are practically a must. I followed the blonde Mr. Feller down a series of long corridors which had been painted a pale green, which gave me the feeling that I was underwater.

There were doors spaced at intervals along the corridor walls. Occasionally one of them would open, and a busy-looking man would cross the corridor, open another door, and disappear. From behind the doors I could hear the drum of distant sounds. We finally ended up in front of what looked like the only wooded. door in the place. When you're carving an office and residence out of a nickel-iron planetoid, importing wood from Earth is a purely luxury matter.

There was no name-played on that mahogany red door. There didn't need to be. Feller touched the thin line circle in the door jam. You don't knock? I asked with mock seriousness. No, said Feller with a straight face. I have to signal. knocking wouldn't do any good that's just wood veneer over a three-inch thick steel slab the door opened and i stepped inside i have never seen a room quite like it

The furniture was all that same mahogany, a huge desk, 19th century Baroque, with carved and curly-kewed legs, two chairs carved the same with padded seats of maroon leather, and a chair behind the desk that might have doubled as a bishop's throne with even fancier carving. Off to one side was a long couch upholstered in a lighter maroon. The wall-to-wall carpeting was a rich burgundy, with a pile deep enough to run a reaper through. The walls were paneled with mahogany and hung with a couple of huge tapestries done in maroon, purple, and red. A bookcase along one wall was filled with books, every one of which had been rebound in maroon leather. It was like walking into a cask of old claret,

or old blood. The man sitting behind the desk looked as though he'd been built to be the lightest spot in an analogous color scheme. His suit was mauve with purple piping, and his wide, square, saggy face was florid. On his nose and cheeks, tiny lines of purple tracing made darker areas in his skin. His hair was a medium brown, but it was clipped so short that the scalp showed faintly through, and amid all that overwhelming background, even the hair looked vaguely violent. "'Come in, Mr. Oak,' said Shalimar Ravenhurst. I walked toward him across the burgundy carpet, while the blonde young man discreetly closed the door behind me, leaving us alone.

I didn't blame him. I was wearing a yellow Union suit, and I hate to think what I must have looked like in that room. I sat down in one of the chairs facing the desk after giving a brief shake to a thick-fingered, well-manicured, slightly oily hand. he opened a crystal decanter that stood on one end of the desk have some madeira mr oak or would you like something else i never drink spirits at this time of night i fought down an impulse asked for a shot of red-eye the madeira will be fine mr ravenhurst he poured and handed me a stemmed glass nearly brimming with wine i joined him in an appreciative sip then waited while he made up his mind to talk he leaned across the desk he leaned across the desk looking at me with his small, dark eyes, he had an expression on his face that looked as if it

were trying to sneer and leer at the same time, but couldn't get much beyond the smirk stage. Mr. Oak, I have investigated you thoroughly, as thoroughly as it can be done, at least. My attorneys say that your reputation is A-1, that you get things done and rarely disappoint a client. He paused as if waiting for a comment. I gave him nothing. After a moment he went on, I hope that's true, Mr. Oak, because I'm going to have to trust you. He leaned back in his chair again, his eyes still on me.

Men very rarely like me, Mr. Oak. I am not a likable man. I do not pretend to be. That is not my function. He said it as if he had said it many times before, believed it, and wished it wasn't so. I do not ask that you like me, he continued. I only ask that you be loyal to my interests for the duration of this assignment.

Another pause. I have been assured by others that this will be so. I would like your assurance. If I take this assignment, Mr. Ravenhurst, I told him, I'll be working for you. I can be bought, but once I'm bought, I stay bought. Now it seems to be your trouble. He frowned.

Well, now let's get one thing settled. Are you working for me or not? I won't know that until I find out what the job is. His frown deepened. Now see here, this is very confidential work. What happens if I tell you and you decide not to work for me? I sighed. Ravenhurst, right now you're paying me to listen to you.

Even if I don't take your job, I'm going to bill you for example. and time to come all the way out here. So as far as listening is concerned, I'm working for you now. If I don't like the job, I'll still forget everything I'm told, all right? He didn't like it, but he had no choice. All right, he said. He polished off his glass of Madeira and refilled it. My own glass was still nearly full. End of Part 1. Part 2 of a spaceship named McGuire by Randall Garrett. This leverbox recording is in the public domain. Part two. Mr. Oak, he began. I have two problems. One is minor, the other major. But I have attempted to blow the minor problem up out of proportion so that all the people here at Ravens' Rust

think that is the only problem. They think that I brought you out here for that reason alone, but all that is merely cover-up for the real problem. Which is, I prompted. He leaned forward again. Apparently it was the only exercise he ever got. You're aware that Viking spacecraft is one of the corporations under the management of Ravenhurst Holdings? I nodded.

Viking spacecraft built some of the biggest and best spacecraft in the system. It held most of series, all of it, in fact. fact, except the government reservation. It had moved out to the asteroids a long time back after the big mining concerns began cutting up the smaller asteroids for metal. The raw materials are easier to come by out here than they are on Earth, and it's a devil of a lot easier to build a spacecraft under low G conditions than it is under the pull of Earth or Luna or Mars. Do you know anything about the experimental robotic ships being built on Eros? Ravenhurst asked.

Not much, I admitted. I have heard about them, but I don't know any of the details. That wasn't quite true, but I found it doesn't pay to tell everybody everything you know. The engineering details aren't necessary, Ravenhurst said. Besides, I don't know them myself. The point is that Viking is trying to build a ship that will be as easy to operate as a flitterboat, a one-man cargo vessel. perhaps even a completely automatic job for cargo, and just use a one-man crew for the passenger

vessels. Imagine how that would cut the cost of transportation in the solar system. Imagine how it would open up the high-speed cargo transfer if an automatic vessel could accelerate a 20 or 25 G-east to turnover. I'll give Ravenhurst this. He had a light in his eyes that showed a real excitement about the prospect he was discussing, and it wasn't due entirely to the money he might make. Sounds fine, I said.

What seems to be the trouble? His face darkened half a shade. The company police suspect sabotage, Mr. Oak. How? What kind? They don't know. Viking has built six ships of that type, the McGuire class, the engineers call it. Each one has been slightly different than the one before, of course,

as they ironed out the bugs in their operation. but each one has been a failure. Not one of them would pass the test for spaceworthiness. Not a failure of the drive or the ordinary mechanisms of the ship, I take it. Ravenhurst sniffed. Of course not. The brain. The ships become, as you might say, non-compostmentis.

As a matter of fact, when the last one simply tried to burrow into the surface of arrows by reversing its drive, one of the roboticists said that a coroner's jury would have returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind if there were inquests hell for spaceships. That doesn't make much sense, I said. No, it doesn't. It isn't sensible. Those ships' brains shouldn't have behaved that way. Robot brains don't go mad unless they're given instructions to do so, conflicting orders, erroneous information, that sort of thing. or unless they have actual physical defects in the brains themselves.

The brains can handle the job of flying a ship all right, though, I asked. I mean, they have the capacity for it? Certainly. They're the same type that's used to control the automobile traffic on the Eastern Seaboard Highway Network of North America. If they can control the movements of millions of cars, there's no reason why they can't control a spaceship. No, I said I suppose not.

I thought it over for a second and asked, But what do your robotics men say is causing the malfunctions? That's where the problem comes in, Mr. Oak. He pursed his puchy lips and his eyes narrowed. The opinions are divided. Some of the men say it's simply a case of engineering failure, that the bugs haven't been worked out of this new combination, but that as soon as they are everything will work as smoothly

as butter. Others say that only deliberate tampering could cause those failures. And still others say there's not enough evidence to prove either of those theories is correct. But your opinion is that it's sabotage. Exactly, said Ravenhurst, and I know who is doing it and why. I didn't try to conceal the little bit of surprise that gave me. You know the man who's responsible. He shook his head rapidly, making his jowls wobble. I didn't mean that. It's not a single man. It's a group.

Maybe you'd better go into a little more detail on that, Mr. Ravenhurst. He nodded, and this time his jowls bubbled instead of wobbled. Some group at Viking is trying to run me out of the managerial business. They want Viking to be managed by Thurston Enterprises. They evidently think they can get a better deal from him than they can from me. If the McGuire project fails, they'll have a good chance of convincing the stockholders that the fault lies with Ravenhurst. You follow? So far, I said,

Do you think Thurston's behind this, then? I don't know. He said slowly. He might be, or he might not. If he is, that's perfectly legitimate business tactics. He's got a perfect right to try to get more business for himself if he wants to. I've undercut him a couple of times. But I don't think he's too deeply involved, if he's involved at all.

This smacks of a personal attack against me, and I don't think that's Thurston's type of play. You see, things are a little touchy right now. I won't go into details, but you know what the political situation is at the moment. It works this way. As far as Viking is concerned, if I lose the managerial contract at Viking, A couple of my other contracts will go by the board, too, especially if it's proved that I've been lax in management or have been expending credit needlessly. These other two companies are actually a little shaky at the moment.

I've only been managing them for a little over a year in one case and two years in the other. Their assets have come up since I took over, but they'd still dump me if they thought I was reckless. How can they do that? I asked. You have a contract, don't you? Certainly. They wouldn't break it, but they likely asked the government inspectors to step in and check every step of the managerial work. Now, you and I and everybody else knows that you have to cut corners to make a business successful.

If the G.I. step in, that will have to stop, which means we'll show a loss heavy enough to put us out. We'll be forced to sell the contract for a pittance. Well, then, if Viking goes and these other two corporations go, It'll begin to look as if Ravenhurst can't take care of himself and his companies anymore. Others will climb on the bandwagon. Contracts that are coming up for renewal will be reconsidered instead of continuing automatically. I think you can see where that would lead eventually. I did.

You don't go into the managing business these days unless you'll have plenty on the ball. You've got to know all the principles and all the tricks of organization and communication. and you've got to be able to waltz your way around all the roadblocks that are caused by government laws, some of which have been floating around on the books of one nation or another for two or three centuries. Did you know that there's a law on the American statute books that forbids the landing of a spaceship within one hundred miles of a city? That was passed back when they were using rockets, but it's never been repealed. Technically then it's almost impossible to land a ship anywhere on the North American continent. Long Island Spaceport is openly flouting the law if you want to look at it that way.

A managerial combine has to know all those little things and know how to get around them. It has to be able to have the confidence of the stockholders of a corporation if it's run on the Western plan, or the confidence of communal owners if it's run on the Eastern plan. Something like this could snowball on Ravenhurst. It isn't only the rats that desert a sinking ship. So does anyone else who has any sense. What I want to know, Mr. Oak, Ravenhurst continued, is who is behind this plot, whether an individual or a group.

I want to know identity and motivation. Is that all? I eyed him skeptically. No, of course not. I want you to make sure that the M.G. Y.R. 7 isn't sabotaged. I want you to make sure it's protected from whatever kind of monkey wrenches are being thrown into its works. It's nearly ready for testing now, isn't it? I asked. It is ready. It seems to be in perfect condition, so far.

Viking is already looking for a test pilot. It's still in working order now, and I want to be certain that it will remain so. i cocked my head to one side and gave him my interrogative and suspicious glance number nine in the manual you didn't do any checking on the first six maguire ships you wait until this one is done before calling me why the delay ravenhurst you didn't face him i became suspicious after maguire six failed i put colonel brock on it i nodded i'd had dealings with brock he was head of ravenhurst security guard Brock didn't get anywhere, I said. He did not. His own face is too well known for him to have investigated personally, and he's not enough of an actor to get away with using a Plexie-skin mask.

He had to use underlings, and I'm afraid some of them might be in the pay of the opposition. They got nowhere. In other words, you may have spies in your own organization who are working with the Viking group. Very interesting. That means they know I'm working for you, which will effectively seal me up, too. You might as well have kept Brock on the job. He smiled in a smug, superior sort of way that some men might have resented. I did.

Even though I'd fed him the line so that he could feel superior, knowing that a smart operator like Ravenhurst would already have covered his tracks. I couldn't help wishing I'd told him simply. to trot out his cover story, instead of letting him think I believe it had never occurred to either of us before. As far as my staff knows, Mr. Oak, you are here to escort my daughter, Jacqueline, to Bronsville, Luna. You will naturally have to take her to Ceres in your flitter-boat, where you will wait

for a specially charter ship to take you both to Luna. That will be a week after you arrive. Since the Maguire Seven is to be tested with you. in three days, that should give you ample time. If it doesn't, we will consider that possibility if and when it becomes probable. I have a great deal of faith in you. Thanks. One more thing.

Why do you think anybody will swallow the idea that your daughter needs a private bodyguard to escort her to Bronsville? His smile broadened a little. You have not met my daughter, Mr. Oak. Jacqueline takes after me in a great many respects, not the least of which is her desire to have things her own way and submit to no man's yoke, as the saying goes. I have had a difficult time with her, sir. A difficult time.

It is and has been a matter of steering a narrow course between the scylla of breaking her spirit with too much discipline, and the charybdis of allowing her to ruin her life by letting her go hog wild. She is seventeen now, and the time has come to send her to a school where she will receive an education suitable to her potentialities and abilities and discipline which will be suitable to her spirit. Your job, Mr. Oak, will be to make sure she gets there. You are not a bodyguard in the sense that you must protect her from the people around her. Quite the contrary, they may need protection from her. You are to make sure she arrives in Bronzeville on schedule.

She is perfectly capable of taking it in her head to go scooting off to earth if you turn your back on her. Still smiling, he refilled his glass. Do have some more, Madeira, Mr. Oak. It's really an excellent year. I let him refill my glass. That I think will cover your real activities well enough. My daughter will, of course, take a tour of the plant on Ceres, which will allow you to do

whatever work is necessary. He smiled at me. I didn't smile back. Up until now, this sounded like a pretty nice assignment, I said. But I don't want it now. I can't take care of a teenage girl with a desire for the bright lights of Earth while I investigate a sabotage case. I knew he hadn't out.

I was just prodding him into springing it. He did. Of course not. My daughter is not as scatterbrained as I have painted her. She is going to help. you." Help me?" Exactly.

You are ostensibly her bodyguard. If she turns up missing, you will, of course, leave no stone unturned to find her." He chuckled. And Ceres is a fairly large stone. I thought it over. I still didn't like it too well. But if Jacqueline wasn't going to be too much trouble to take care of it might work out. And if she did get to be too much trouble, I could tell you.

see to it that she was unofficially detained for a while. All right, Mr. Ravenhurst, I said. You've got yourself a man for both jobs. Both? I find out who is trying to sabotage the Maguire ship, and I babysit for you. That's two jobs, and you're going to pay for both of them. I expect it to, said Shalimar Ravenhurst. Fifteen minutes later, I was walking into the room where I left my vac suit.

there was a girl waiting for me. She was already dressed in her vax suit, so there was no way to be sure, but she looked as if she had a nice figure underneath her suit. Her face was rather unexceptionally pretty, a sort of nice girl next to her face. Her hair was a reddish-brown and cut fairly close to the skull. Only a woman who never intends to be in a vax suit in free fall can afford to let her hair grow. Miss Ravenhurst, I asked. She grinned and stuck out her hand.

Just call me Jack, and I'll call you Dan, okay? I grinned and shook her hand because there wasn't much else I could do. Now I'd met the Ravenhurst's, a father called Shalimar and a daughter called Jack, and a spaceship named Maguire. I gave the flitter-boat all the push it would take to get us to series as fast as possible. I don't like riding in the things. You sit there inside a train. and sight hull, which has two bucket seats inside it, four and aft, a straddle the drive tube,

and you guide from one beacon to the next while you keep tabs on orbital positions by radio. It's a long jump from one rock to the next, even in the asteroid belt, and you have to live inside your vac suit until you come to a stopping place where you can spend an hour or so resting before you go on. It's like driving cross-continent in an automobile, except that the side of the side of the Posts and landmarks are constantly shifting position. An inexperienced man can get lost easily in the belt. I was happy to find that Jack Ravenhurst knew how to handle a flitterboat

and could sight navigate by the stars. That meant that I could sleep while she piloted and vice versa. The trip back was a lot easier and faster than the trip out had been. I was glad in a way that Series was within flitterboat range, of Raven's rest. I don't like the time wasted and waiting for a regular spaceship, which you have to do when your target is a quarter of the way around the belt from you. The cross-system jumps don't take long, but getting to a ship takes time. The Ravenhurst girl wasn't much of a talker while we were en route. A little general

chit-chat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in the habit after a while." When the Ceres's beacon came into view, I was snoozing. Jack reached forward and shook my shoulder. Decelerating towards Ceres, she said. Want to take over from here on?" Her voice sounded tinny and tired in the earphones of my fishbowl. Okay, I'll take her in. Have you called Ceres feel yet? not yet i figured that you'd better do that since it's your flitter boat i said okay and called ceres they gave me a traffic orbit and i followed it into ceres field

it was a lot bigger than the postage stamped field on raven's rest and more brightly lit and a lot busier but it was basically the same idea a broad wide smooth area that had been carved out of the surface of the nickel-iron with the large wide smooth area that had been carved out of the surface of the nickel-iron with the with a focused sunbeam. One end of it was reserved for flitterboats. Three big spaceships sat on the other end, looking very nobles oblige at the little flitterboats. I clamped down, gave the key to one of the men behind the desk after we had gone below, and turned to Jack. I suggest we go to the hotel first and get a shower and a little rest. We can go out to the biking tomorrow. She glanced at her watch. Like every other watch in clock, in the belt, it was set for Greenwich Standard Time. What's the point in having time zones in space?"

"'I'm not tired,' she said brightly. "'I got plenty of sleep while we were on the way. Why don't we go out tonight? They've got a bounce dance place called Bollies that—' I held up my hand. No, you may not be tired, but I am. Remember, I went all the way out there by myself and then came right back. I need at least six hours sleep in a nice comfort. bed before I'll be able to move again. The look she gave me made me feel every one of my 35 years, but I didn't intend to let her go roaming around at this stage of the game. Instead, I put her aboard one of the little rail cars and we headed for the Viking Arms, generally

considered the best hotel on Ceres. Series has a pretty respectable G-pull for a planetoid, three percent of standard. I weigh a good hefty five pounds on the surface. That makes it a lot easier to walk around on series than on, say, Raven's Rest. Even so, you always get the impression that one of the little rail cars that scoots along the corridors is climbing uphill all the way because the acceleration is greater than any measly 30 centimeters per second squared. Jack didn't say another word until we reached.

the Viking where Ravenhurst had thoughtfully made reservations for adjoining rooms. Then after we'd registered, she said, we could at least get something to eat. That's not a bad idea. We can get something to line our stomachs anyway. Steak? She beamed at me. Steak. Sounds wonderful after all those mushy concentrates.

Let's go. End of Section 2. Part 3 of a spaceship named McGuire by Randall Garrett. This Labor Box recording is in the public domain. Part 3. The restaurant off the lobby was just like the lobby in the corridors outside, a big room hollowed out of the metal of the asteroid. The walls had been painted to prevent rusting, but they still bore the roughness left by the sunbeam that had burnt them out. We sat down at a table and a waiter brought over a menu. The place wouldn't be classed higher than a third-rate cafe on Earth, but on Ceres, it's considered one of the

better places. The prices certainly compare well with those of the best New York or Moscow restaurants, and the price of meat which has to be shipped from Earth is, you should pardon the gag, astronomical. That didn't bother me. Stakes for two would go right on the expense account. I mentally thanked Mr. Ravenhurst for the fine slab of beef when the waiter's. finally brought it. While we were waiting, though, I lit a cigarette and said,

You're awfully quiet, Jack. Am I? Men are funny. Is that meant as a conversational gambit or an honest observation? Observation. I mean, men are always complaining that girls talk too much. But if a girl keeps her mouth shut, they think there's something wrong with her. Mm-hmm.

And you think that's a paradox or something? She looked puzzled. Isn't it? Not at all. The noise a Jack Hammer makes isn't pleasant at all, but if it doesn't make that noise you figure it isn't functioning properly, so you wonder why. Out of the corner of my eye I had noticed the man wearing the black and gold union suit of Ravenhurst's security guard coming toward us from the door, using the gliding

shuffle that works best under low G. I ignored him to listen to Jack Ravenhurst. that has all the earmarks of a dirty crack she said the tone of her voice indicated that she wasn't sure whether to be angry or to laugh hello miss ravenhurst high oak colonel brock had reached the table he stood there smiling his rather flat smile while his eyes looked us both over very carefully he was five feet ten an inch shorter than i am and lean almost to the point of emaciation His scarred, hard-bitten face looked as though it had gotten that way when he tried to kiss a crocodile. Hello, Brock. I said, what's new?

Jack gave him a meaningless smile and said, Hello, Colonel. She was obviously not very impressed with either of us. Mind if I sit? Brock asked. We didn't, so he sat. I'm sorry I missed you at the spaceport, Brock said seriously, but I had several of my boys there with their eyes open.

He was quite obviously addressing Jack, not me. It's all right, Jack said, I'm not going anywhere this time. She looked at me and gave me an odd grin. I'm going to stay home and be a good girl this time around. Colonel Brock's good-natured chuckle sounded about as genuine as the ring of a lead nickel. Oh, you're no trouble, Miss Ravenhurst. Thank you, kind, sir. You're a poor liar. She stood up and smiled sweetly.

Will you, gentlemen, excuse me for a moment? We would, and did. Colonel Brock and I watched her cross the room and disappeared through a door. Then he turned to look at me, giving me a wry grin, and shaking his head a little sadly. So you got saddle with Jack the Ripper, eh, Oak? Is she that bad? His chuckle was harsher this time and had the ring of truth. You'll find out.

Oh, I don't mean she's got the morals of a cat or anything like that. So far as I know, she's still waiting for Mr. Wright to come along. Drugs? I asked. Liquor? A few drinks now and then. Nothing else, Brock said. No, it's none of the usual things.

It isn't what she does that counts. It's what she talks other people into doing. She's a convinceer. That sounds impressive, I said. What does it mean? His hard face looked wolfish. I ought to let you find out for yourself, but no, that wouldn't be professional courtesy, and it wouldn't be ethical.

Brock, I said tiredly. I have been given more runarounds in the past week than Mercury has had in the past millennium. I expect clients to be cagey, to hold back information and to lie, but I didn't expect it of you. Give. He nodded brusquely. As I said, she's a little. a convincinger, a talker. She can talk people into doing almost anything she wants them to. For instance, like, for instance, getting all the patrons at the Bali to do a snake dance around the corridors

in the altogether. The series police broke it up, but she was nowhere to be found. He said it so innocently that I knew he'd been the one to get her out of the mess. And the time, he continued, that she almost succeeded in getting a welder named Plotkin elected hereditary czar of Ceres. She'd have succeeded, too, if she hadn't made the mistake of getting Plotkin himself up to speak in front of his loyal supporters. After that, everybody felt so silly that the movement fell apart. He went on, reciting half a dozen more instances of the girl's ability to influence people

without winning friends. None of them were new to me. They were all on file in the political search. Division of the United Nations Government of Earth, plus several more which Colonel Brock either neglected to tell me or wasn't aware of himself. But I listened with interest. After all, I wasn't supposed to know any of these things. I am just a plain, ordinary, confidential expediter. That's what it says on the door of my office in New York, and that's what it says on my license. All very legal and very dishonest. The political survey division is,

is very legal and very dishonest, too. Theoretically, it is supposed to be nothing but a branch of the System Census Bureau. It is supposed to do nothing but observe and tabulate political trends. The actual fact that it is the Secret Service branch of the United Nations government is known to relatively few people. I know it because I work for the Political Survey Division. The PSD already had men investigating both Ravenhurst and Thurston, but when they found out that Ravenhurst was looking for a confidential expediter for a special job, they'd shove me in fast. It isn't easy to fool sharp operators like Colonel Brock, but so far I'd been lucky enough to get away with it by playing ignorant but not stupid.

The stakes were brought and I mentally saluted Ravenhurst, as I had promised myself I would. Then I rather belatedly asked the colonel if he'd eat with us. No, he said with a shake of his head. No, thanks. I've got to get things ready for her visit to the Viking plant tomorrow. Oh, hiding something? I asked blandly. He didn't even bother to look insulted.

No, just have to make sure she doesn't get hurt by any of the machinery, that's all. Most of the stuff is automatic, and she has a habit of getting too close. I guess she thinks she can talk a machine out of hurting her as easily as she can talk a man into standing on his head. Jack Ravenhurst was coming back to the table. I noticed that she'd fixed her hair nicely and put on makeup. It made her look a lot more feminine than she had while she was on the flitterboat. Well, she said as she sat down, Have you two decided what to do with me?

Colonel Brock just smiled and said, I guess we'll have to leave that up to you, Miss Ravenhurst. Then he stood up. Now if you'll excuse me I'll be about my business. Jack nodded, gave him a quick smile, and fell to her stake with the voraciousness of an unfed chicken in a wheat bin. Miss Jacqueline Ravenhurst evidently had no desire to talk to me at the moment. On series, as on most of the major planetoids, a man's home is his castle, even if it's

only a hotel room. The raw-nickel-iron, the basic building material, is so cheap that walls and doors are seldom made of anything else, so a hotel room is more like a vault than anything else on Earth. Every time I go into one of the hotels on Ceres or Eros, I get the feeling that I'm either a bundle of gold certificates, or a particularly obstetrous prisoner being led to a medieval solitary confinement cell. They're not pretty, but they're solid. Jack Ravenhurst went into her own room after flashing me a rather hurt smile that was supposed to indicate her disappointment in not being allowed to go nightclubbing.

I gave her a big brotherly pat on the shoulder and told her to get plenty of sleep since we had to be upright and early in the morning. Once inside my own room, I checked over my luggage carefully. It had been brought there from the spaceport, where I checked it before going to Ravenhurst's Ravenrest on orders from Ravenhurst himself. This was one of several rooms that Ravenhurst kept permanently rented for his own uses, and I knew that Jack kept a complete wardrobe in her own rooms. There were no bugs in my luggage, neither sound nor sight-spying devices of any kind. Not that I would have worried if there had been.

I just wanted to see if anyone was crude enough to try that method of smuggling a bug into the apartment. The door chime pinged solemnly. I took a peek through the door camera, and saw a man in a bellboy's uniform, holding a large traveling case. I recognized the face, so I let him in. The rest of your luggage, sir, he said with a straight face. Thank you very much, I told him.

I handed him a tip, and he popped off. This stuff was special equipment that I hadn't wanted Ravenhurst or anybody else to get his paws into. I opened it carefully with a special key, slid a hand under the clothing that lay on top for camouflage, and palmed the little detector I needed. Then I went around the room, whistling gently to myself. The nice thing about an all-metal room is that it's impossible to hide a self-contained bug in it that will be of any use.

small, concealed broadcaster can't broadcast any farther than the walls, so any bug has to have wires leading out of the room. I didn't find a thing. Either Ravenhurst kept the room clean, or somebody was using more sophisticated bugs than any I knew about. I opened the traveling case again and took out one of my favorite gadgets. It's a simple thing, really. A noise generator, but the noise it generates is not random noise.

Against a background of white, purely random noise, it is possible to pick out a conversation, even if the conversation is below the noise level, simply because conversation is patterned. But this little generator of mine was none random. It was the multiple recording of ten thousand different conversations, all meaningless, against a background of white noise. Try that one on your differential analyzers. By the time I got through, nobody could tap a dialogue in that room, barring, as I said, bugs more sophisticated than any of the United Nations knew about.

Then I went over and tapped on the communicating door between my room and Jack Ravenhurst's. There was no answer. I said, Jack, I'm coming in. I have a key. She said, Go away. I'm not dressed. I'm going to bed. Grab something quick, I told her.

I'm coming in. I keyed open the door. she was no more dressed for bed than i was unless she made a habit of sleeping in her best evening togs anger blazed in her eyes for a second then that faded and she tried to look all sweetness and light i was trying on some new clothes she said innocently A lot of people might have believed her. The emotional field she threw out, encouraging utter belief in her every word, was as powerful as any I'd ever felt. I just let it wash past me and said, Come into my room for a few minutes, Jack.

I went to talk to you. I didn't put any particular emphasis into it. I didn't have to. She came. Once we were both inside my shielded room, with the walls vibrating with ten thousand voices, and a hush area in the center. I said patiently,

Jack, I personally don't care where you go or what you do. Tomorrow you can do your vanishing act, and have yourself a ball for all I care, but there are certain things that have to be done first. Now sit down and listen. She sat down, her eyes wide. Evidently nobody had ever beaten her at her own game before. Tonight you'll stay here and get some sleep.

Tomorrow we go for a tour of Viking first thing in the morning. Tomorrow afternoon, as soon as I think the time is ripe, you can sneak off. I'll show you how to change your appearance so you won't be recognized. You can have all the fun you want for 24 hours. I, of course, will be hunting high and low for you, but I won't find you until I have finished my investigation. On the other hand, I want to know where you are at all times, so that I can get in with you if I need you. So, no matter where you are, you'll keep in touch by phoning, banning

6226 every time you change location. Got that number? She nodded. Banning 6226. She repeated. Fine. Now, Brock's agents will be watching you, so I'll have to figure out a way to get you away from them, but that won't be too hard. I'll let you know at the proper time. Meanwhile, while. Get back in there, get ready for bed, and get some sleep. You'll need it. Move." She nodded rather dazedly. Got up and went to the door. She turned, said good night in a low puzzle voice, and closed the door. Half an hour later I quietly sneaked into her room just to check. She was sound asleep in bed. I went back to my own room and got some sack time myself. It's a pleasure to have you here again, Miss Ravenhurst.

said Chief Engineer Midgard. Anything in particular you want to see this time? He said it as though he actually enjoyed taking the boss's teenage daughter through a spacecraft plant. Maybe he did it that. He was a ponchy, graying man in his sixties, who had probably been a rather handsome lady-killer for the first half-century of his life, but he was approaching middle-age now, which has a predictable effect on the tele-iddle type.

Jack Ravenhurst was at her rome. Regal best, with the kind of noblis oblige that would bring worshipful gratitude to the heart of any underling. Oh, just a quick run through on whatever you think would be interesting, Mr. Midgard. I don't want to take up too much of your time. Midgard allowed as how he had a few interesting things to show her, and the party, which also included the watchful and taciturn, Colonel Brock, began to make the rounds of the Viking plant.

There were three ships under construction at the time, two cargo vessels and a good-sized passenger job. Midgard seemed to think that every step of spacecraft construction was utterly fascinating, for which, bully for him, but it was pretty much of a drag as far as I was concerned. It took three hours. Finally he said, would you like to see the Maguire seven? Why, yes, of course she would. so we toddled off to the new ship, while Midgard kept up a steady line of patter.

We think we have all the computer errors out of this one, Miss Ravenhurst. A matter of new controls and safety devices. We feel that the trouble with the first six machines was that they were designed to be operated by voice orders by any qualified human operator. The trouble is that they had no way of telling just who was qualified. The brains are perfectly capable of distinguishing one individual from another, but they can't tell whether a given individual is a space pilot or a janitor. In fact, I marked the Sillion points in his speech. The M.G. Y.R. 7 would be strictly a one-man's ship.

It had a built-in dog attitude, friendly toward all humans, but loyal only to its master. Of course, it was likely that the ship would outlawful. last its master, so its loyalties could be changed, but only by the use of special switching keys. The robotics boys still weren't sure why the first six had gone insane, but they were fairly certain that the primary cause was the matter of too many masters. The brilliant biophysicist Esenon, who provoked the three laws of robotics in the last century, had shown in his writings that they were unattainable. ideals, that they only told what a perfect robot should be, not what a robot actually was.

The first law, for instance, would forbid a robot to harm a human being, either by action or inaction. But as as an unshowed, a robot could be faced with a situation which allowed for only two possible decisions, both of which required that a human being be harmed. In such a case, the robot goes insane. i found myself speculating what sort of situation what sort of asinon paradox had confronted those first six ships and whether it had been by accident or design not that the maguire robots had been built in strict accord with the laws of robotics that was impossible on the face of it but no matter how a perfectly logical machine is built the human mind can figure out a way to goof it up because the human mind is capable of transcending logic the mcguire ship was a little beauty a nice sleek needle capable of atmospheric as well as spatial navigation with a mirror-polished barrel-blue surface all over the sixty-five feet of her or his length

it was standing upright on the surface of the planetoid a shining needle in the shifting sunlight limned against the star-filled darkness of space we looked at it through the transparent viewport and then took the flexible tube that led to the airlock of the ship the ship was just as beautiful inside as it was outside neat compact and efficient the control room if such it could be called was like no control room i'd ever seen before just an acceleration couch and observation instruments. Midgard explained that it wasn't necessary to be a pilot to run the ship. Any person who knew a smattering of astro-navigation could get to his destination by simply telling the ship what he wanted to do. Jack Ravenhurst took in the whole thing with wide-eyed interest. Is the brain activated, Mr. Midgard? she asked.

Oh, yes. We've been educating him for the past month. pumping information in as rapidly as he could record it and index it. He's finished with that stage now. We're just waiting for the selection of a test pilot before the final shakedown cruise. He was looking warily at Jack as he spoke, as if he were waiting for something. Evidently he knew what was coming. I'd like to talk to him, Jack said.

It's so interesting to carry on an intelligent conversation with a machine. End of Part 3. Part 4 of a spaceship named McGuire by Randall Garrett. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Part 4. I am afraid that's impossible, Miss Ravenhurst, Midgard said rather worriedly. You see, McGuire's primed so that the first man's voice he hears will be identified as his master. It's what we call the chick reaction, you know, the first moving thing.

a newly hatched bird seas is regarded as the mother, and once implanted that order can't be rescinded. We can change McGuire's orientation in that respect, but we'd rather not have to go through that. After the test pilot establishes contact, you can talk to him all you want. When will the test pilot be here? Jack asked. Still as sweet as sucradine. Within a few days, it looks as though a man named Niels Bjornsen will be our church. choice. You may have heard of him? No, she said, but I'm sure your choice will be correct. Midgard still felt apologetic. Well, you know how it is, Miss Ravenhurst. We can't turn a delicate

machine like this over to just anyone for the first trial. He has to be a man of good judgment and fast reflexes. He has to know exactly what to say and when to say it if you follow me. Oh, certainly, certainly. She paused and looked thoughtful. I presume you've taken precautions against anyone stealing in here and taking control of the ship?" Midgard smiled and nodded wisely. Certainly. Communication with McGuire can't be established unless and until two keys are used in the activating panel. I carry one.

Colonel Brock has the other. Neither of us will give his key up to anyone but the accredited test pilot, and McGuire himself will scream out an alarm if anyone tries to jillian. Jimmy the locks. He's his own burglar alarm." She nodded. I see. A pause. Well, Mr. Midgard, I think you've done a very commendable job. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you feel I should see? Well, he was smiling hesitantly. If there's anything else you want to see, I'll be glad to show it to you. But you've already seen our Pistaresistance, so to speak. She glanced at her wrist. It had

been over four hours since we'd started. I am rather tired, Jack said. And hungry, too. Let's call it a day and go get something to eat. Fine, fine, McGard said. I'll be honored to be your host, if I may. We could have a little something at my apartment. I knew perfectly well that he'd had a full lunch prepared and waiting. The girl acknowledged his invitation and accepted it. Brock and I trailed along like the bodyguards we were supposed to. to be. I wondered whether or not Brock suspected me of being more than I appeared to be. If he didn't, he was stupider than I thought. On the other hand, he could never be sure. I wasn't worried about his finding out that I was a United Nations agent. That was a pretty remote chance. Brock didn't

even know the United Nations government had a secret service. It was unlikely that he would suspect me of being an agent of a presumably non-existent body. but he could very easily suspect that i had been sent to check on him and the thirst and menace and if he had any sense he actually did i wasn't going to give him any verification of that suspicion if i could help it midgard had an apartment in the executive territory of the viking reservation a fairly large place with plastic-lined walls instead of the usual painted nickel iron very luxurious for series the meal was served with an air of subdued pretension that made everybody a little stiff and uncomfortable with the possible exception of jack ravenhurst and the definite exception of myself i just listened politely to the strained courtesy that passed for small talk and waited for the chance i knew would come at this meal after the eating was all over and we were sitting around with cigarettes going and wine in our glasses i gave the girl the signal we had agreed about it was all over and we were sitting around with cigarettes going and wine in our glasses i gave the girl the signal we had agreed upon she excused herself very prettily and left the room after fifteen minutes i began to look a little worried the bathroom was only a room away we were in a dining area and the bathroom was just off the main bedroom and it shouldn't have taken her that long to brush her hair and powder her face i casually mentioned it to colonel brock and he smiled a little don't worry oak even if she does walk out of this apartment

My men will be following her wherever she goes. I'd have a report within one minute after she left. I nodded, apparently satisfied. I've been relying on that. I said, otherwise, I'd have followed her to the door. He chuckled and looked pleased. Ten minutes after that, even he was beginning to look a little worried. Maybe we'd better go check, he said.

She might have hurt herself or become ill. Midgard looked flustered. Now just a minute. it, Colonel, I can't allow you to just barge in on a young lady in the bathroom, especially not Miss Ravenhurst." Brock made his decision fast. I'll give him credit for that. Get Miss Pangloss on the phone, he snapped.

She's just down the corridor. She'll come down on your orders. At the same time he got to his feet and made a long jump for the door. He grabbed the door post as he went by, swung himself in a new orbit, and launched himself toward the front door. the bathroom door, Oak. He bawled as he left. I did a long, low, flat dive toward the bedroom, swung left, and brought myself up sharply next to the bathroom door. I pounded on the door. Miss Ravenhurst, Jack, are you all right?

No answer. Good. There shouldn't have been. Colonel Brock fired himself into the room and braced himself against the wall. Any answer? No. My men say she hasn't. left. He wrapped sharply on the door with the butt of his stun gun. Miss Ravenhurst, is there anything to matter? Again, no answer. I could see that Brock was debating on whether he should go ahead and charge in by himself without waiting for the female executive who lived down the way. He was still debating when the woman showed up escorted by a couple of the colonel's uniformed guards. Miss Pangloss was one of those brisk-efficient middle-aged career women who had no fuss or frills about her.

She had seen us knocking on the door, so she didn't bother to do any knocking herself. She just opened the door and went in. The bathroom was empty, again, as it should be. All hell broke loose then, with me and Brock making most of the blather. It took us nearly ten minutes to find that the only person who had left the area, had been an elderly thin man who had been wearing the baggy protective clothing of a maintenance man. By that time, Jack Ravenhurst had been gone more than 40 minutes. She could be almost anywhere on series.

Colonel Brock was furious, and so was I. I sneered openly at his assurance that the girl couldn't leave and then got sneered back at for letting other people do what was supposed to be my job. That phase only lasted for about a minute, though. Then Colonel Brock muttered. She must have had a plexy-skin mask and a wig and the maintenance clothing in her purse. As I recall, it was a fairly good-sized one. He didn't say a word about how careless I had been to let her put such stuff in her purse.

All right, he went on. We'll find her. I'm going to look around, too, I said. I'll keep in touch with your office. I got out of there. I got to a public phone as fast as I could, punched Banning 6226, and said, Marty, any word? Not yet.

I'll call back. I hung up and scooted out of there. I spent the next several hours pushing my weight around all over Ceres as the personal representative of Shalimar Ravenhurst, who was manager of Viking spacecraft, which was in turn the owner of Ceres. I had a lot of weight to push around. I had every executive on the planetoid jumping before I was through. Colonel Brock, of course, was broiling in his own juices.

He managed to get hold of me by phone once by calling a Dr. Perilsen, whom I was interviewing at the time. The phone chimed. Perilsen said, excuse me, and went to answer. I could hear his voice from the other room. Mr. Daniel Oak, yes, he's here. Well, yes. Oh, all sort of questions, Colonel.

Perilsen's voice was both irritated and worried. He says Miss Ravenhurst is missing. Is that so? Oh, well, does this man have any right to question me this way? Asking me about everything? How will I know the girl the last time I saw her, things like that? Good heavens, we've hardly met. He was getting exasperated now.

But does he have the authority to ask these questions? Oh, yes, well, of course. I'll be glad to cooperate in any manner I can. Yes, yes. All right, I'll call him. I got up from the half-reclining angle I had been making with the wall, and shuffled across the room as Dr. Perilsen stuck his head around the corner and said, It's for you.

He looked as though someone had put aluminum, hydrogen sulfate, in his mouthwash. I picked up the receiver and looked at Brock's face and the screen, He didn't even give me a chance to talk. What are you trying to do? He shouted explosively. Trying to find Jacqueline and Ravenhurst, I said as calmly as I could. Oak, you're a maniac. By this time it's all over series that the boss's daughter is missing.

Salamore Ravenhurst will have your hide for this. He will? I gave him number two, the wide-eyed, innocent stare. Why? Why, you idiot? I thought you had sense enough to know that this should be kept quiet. She's pulled this stunt before, and we always managed to quiet things down before anything happened.

We've managed to keep everything under cover and out of the public eye ever since she was fifteen, and now you blow it all up out of proportion and create a furor that won't ever be forgotten. He gave his speech as though it had been written for him in full caps with three exclamation points after every sentence, and added gestures and grimaces after every word. Just doing what I thought was best, I said. I want to find her as soon as possible. Well, stop it. Now, let us handle it from here on in. Then I lowered the boom. Now you, listen, Brock. I am in charge of Jack Ravenhurst, not you. I've lost her,

and I'll find her. I welcome your cooperation. and I'd hate to have to fight you, but if you don't like the way I'm handling it, you can just tell your boys to go back to their regular work and let me handle it alone, without interference. Now, which'll it be? He opened his mouth, closed it, and blew out his breath from between his lips. Then he said, All right.

The damage has been done anyhow, but don't think I won't report all this to Ravenhurst, as soon as I can get a beam to Raven's rest. that's your job and your worry not mine now if you got any leads none he admitted then i'll go out and dig up some i'll let you know if i need you and i cut off dr perilsen was sitting on his couch with an expression that indicated the ph of his saliva was hovering around one point five i said that will be all dr perilsen thank you for your cooperation and i walked out into the corridor leaving him with that a baffled look. At the next public phone I dial the banning number again. Any news? Not from her.

She hasn't reported in at all. I didn't figure she would. What else? Just as you said, he told me, with some cute frills around the edges. Ten minutes ago, a crowd of kids, 16 to 22 age range, about 40 of them, started a song-fest and football game in the corridor outside Colonel Brock's place. The boys he had on duty there recognized the Jack Ravenhurst touch and tried to find her in the crowd. Nothing doing, not a sign of her.

That girl's not only got power, I said, but she's bright as a solar flare. Agreed. She's headed up toward Dr. Midgard's place now. I don't know what she has in mind, but it ought to be fun to watch. Where's Midgard now, I asked. Hovering around Brock, as we figured, he's worried and feels response. because she disappeared from his apartment as predicted well I've stirred up enough fuss in this free-falling and hill to give them all the worries they need tell me what's the overall effect close to perfect it's slightly scandalous and very mysterious so everybody's keeping an eye peeled if anyone sees Jacqueline Ravenhurst they'll run to a phone and naturally she's been spotted by a dozen different people in a dozen different places all ready. You've got both Brock's company guards and the civil police tied up for a while.

Fine, but be sure you keep the boys who are on her tail shifting around often enough so that she doesn't spot them. Don't worry your thick little head about that, Dan, he said. They know their business. Are you afraid they'll lose her? No, I'm not, and you know it. I just don't want her to know she's being followed. If she can't ditch her shadow, she's likely to try to talk to him and pull out all the stops convincing him that he should go away you think she could with my boys no but if she tries it it'll mean she knows she's being followed that'll make it tougher to keep a man on her trail besides i don't want her to try to convince him and fail i grabinsin saying on the off chance that she does spot one and gives him a good talking to i'll

pass along the word that the victim is to walk away meekly and and get lost. Good, I said, but I'd rather she didn't know. She won't. You're getting touchy, Dan. Pears to me, you'd rather be doing that job yourself, and think nobody can handle it but you. I gave him my best grin.

You're closer than you know. Okay, I'll lay off. You handle your end of it, and I'll handle mine. A fair exchange is no bargain. Go and sin no more. I'll buzz you back before I go. in," I said and hung up. Playing games inside a crowded asteroid is not the same as playing games in, say, Honolulu

or Vladivostok, especially when that game is a combination of hide and seek and ring around the rosy. The trouble is lack of communication. Radio contact is strictly line of sight inside a hunk of metal. Radar beams can get a little farther, but a man has to be an expert build. Billiards player to bank a reflecting beam around very many corners, and even that would depend upon the corridors being empty, which they never are. To change the game analogy again, it would be like trying to sink a 90-foot putt across

Times Square on New Year's Eve. Following somebody isn't anywhere near as easy as popular fiction might lead you to believe. Putting a tale on someone whose spouse wants divorce evidence is relatively easy. but even the best detectives can lose a man by pure mischance. If the taillee, for instance, walks into a crowded elevator and the automatic computer decides that the car is filled to the limit, the man who's tailing him will be left facing a closed door. Something like that can happen by accident without any design on the part of the tailee.

If you use a large squad of agents all in radio contact with one another, that kind of loss can be reduced to near zero by simply having a man covering every possible escape route. But if the tail he knows or even suspects that he's being followed, wants to get away from his tail, and has the ability to reason moderately well, it requires an impossibly large team to keep him in sight, and if that team has no fast medium of communication, they're licked at the outset. In this case, we were fairly certain of Jack Ravenhurst's future actions, and so far our prophecies had been correct, but if she decided to shake her shadows, fun would be had by all. As long as I had to depend on someone else to do my

work for me, I was going to be just the tinctiest bit concerned about whether they were doing it properly. I decided it was time to do my best to imitate a cosmic ray particle and put on a little speed through the corridors that ran through the subsurface of Ceres. My Vaxuit was in my hotel room. One of the other agents had picked it up from my flitterboat and packed it carefully into a small attache case. I planned my circuit so that I'd be near the hotel when things came to the proper boil, so I did a lot of diving, breaking all kinds of traffic regulations in the process. I went to my room, grabbed the attache case, checked it over quickly, never trust another man to check your Vax suit for you, and headed for the surface. Nobody paid any attention

to me when I walked out of the airlock onto the space field. There were plenty of people moving in and out, going to and from their ships and boats. It wasn't until I reached the edge of the field that I realized that I had overplayed my hand with Colonel Brock. It was only by the narrowest hair, but that had been enough to foul up my plans. There were guards surrounding the perimeter with radar search beams. As I approached, one of the guards walked toward me and made a series of gestures with his left hand, two fingers up, fist, two fingers up, fist, three fingers up. I set my suit phone to two, two, three. The guy's right hand was on the butt of his stun gun. Sorry, sir, came his voice. We can't allow anyone to cross the field perimeter.

Emergency. End of part four. Part five of a spaceship named McGuire by Randall Garrett. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Part five. My name's Oak, I said tardily. Daniel Oak, what is going on here? He came closer and peered at me, then, oh, yes, sir, I recognized you. We're, uh, looking for Miss Ravenhurst. His voice lowered conspiratorially. I could tell that he was used to handling the Ravenhurst girl with silence and suede gloves.

Up there, I asked. Well, Colonel Brock is a little worried. He says that Miss Ravenhurst is being sent to a school on Luna and doesn't want to go. He got to thinking about it and he's afraid that she might try to leave Ceres sneak off, you know? I knew. We've got a guard posted at the airlocks leading to the field, but Colonel Brock is afraid she might come up somewhere else and jump overland. I see, I said. I hadn't realized that. Brock was that close to panic. What was eating him? There must be something, but I couldn't figure it. Even the intelligence core of the Political Survey Division can't get complete information every time.

After all, if he didn't want the girl to steal a flitterboat and go scooting off into the diamond-stutted velvet, all he'd have to do would be to guard the flitter-boats. I turned slowly and looked around. it seemed as though he'd done that, too. And then my estimation of Brock suddenly leaped up, way up. Just a guard at each flitter-boat wouldn't do. She could talk her way into the boat and convince the guard that he really shouldn't tell anyone that she had gone. By the time he realized he'd been conned, she'd be thousands of miles away.

And since a boat guard would have to assume that any approaching person might be, the boat's legitimate owner, he'd have to talk to whomever it was that approached, Caput. But a perimeter guard would be able to call out an alarm if anyone came from outside without having to talk to them. And the guards watching the airlocks undoubtedly had instructions to watch for any female that even vaguely matched Jack's description. A Vak suit fits too tightly to let anyone wear more than a facial disguise, and Brock probably, no, definitely, had his tried and true men on duty there.

The men who had already shown that they were fairly resistant to Jack Ravenhurst's peculiar charm. There probably weren't many with such resistance, and the number would become less as she grew older. That still left me with my own problem. I had already lost too much. time and I had to go a long way. Series is irregular in shape, but it's roughly 480 miles in diameter and a little over

1,500 miles in circumference. Viking Test Field 4, where McGuire 7 was pointing his nose at the sky, was about 25 miles away as the crow flies, but of course I couldn't go by crow. By using a low, fairly flat, Jack Rabbit jump, a man in good condition can make a twelve hundred foot leap on the surface of series, and each jump takes him about thirty seconds. At that rate, you can cover twenty-five miles in less than an hour. That's what I intended on doing, but I couldn't do it, with all this radar around the

field. I wouldn't be stopped, of course, but I'd sure tip my hand to Colonel Brock, the last thing I wanted to do. But there was no help for it. I'd have to go back down and use the corridors, which meant that I'd arrive late, after Jack Ravenhurst got there instead of before. There was no time to waste, so I got below as fast as possible, repacked my back suit, and began firing myself through the corridors as fast as possible.

It was illegal, of course. A collision at twenty-five miles an hour can kill quickly if the other guy is coming at you at the same velocity. There were times when I didn't dare break the law, because some guard was around, and even if he didn't catch me, he might report in, and aroused Brock's interest in a way I wouldn't like.

I finally got to a tubeway, but it stopped at every station, and it took me nearly an hour and a half to get to Viking Test Area 4. At the main door I considered, for all of five seconds, the idea of simply telling the guard I had to go in, But I knew that by now Jack was there ahead of me.

No, I couldn't just bull my way in. Too crude, too many clues. Hell's fire and damnation. I'd have to waste more time. I looked up at the ceiling. The surface wasn't more than a hundred feet overhead, but it felt as though it were a hundred light-years. If I could get that guard away from the door for five seconds,

all would be gravy from then on in. But how? I couldn't have the diversion connected with me. Or... Sometimes I'm amazed at my own stupidity. I beetled it down to the nearest phone and got hold of my banning number. Jack already inside? I snapped. Hell yes. What happened to you? Never mind. I got to make the best of it. I'm a corner away from Area 4.

Where's your nearest man? At the corner near the freight office. I'll go to him. What's he look like? Five-nine, black curly hair, your age, fat, names Peter Quilp. He knows you. Peter Quilp? Right. Good.

Circulate a report that Jack has been seen in the vicinity of the main gate to Area 4. Put it out that there's a reward of 5,000 for the person who finds her. I'm going to have Quilp gather a crowd. He didn't ask a one of the million questions that must have popped into his mind. Right. Anything else? No. I hung up.

Within ten minutes there was a mob milling through the corridor. Everybody in the neighborhood was looking for Jacquesville and Ravenhurst. Then Peter Quilp yelled, I've got her! I've got her! Guard! With the scene like that going on the guard couldn't help but step out of his cubicle to see what was going on. I used the key I was carrying, stepped inside and relocked the door.

No one in the crowd paid any attention. From then on it was simply a matter of evading patrolling guards. A relatively easy job. Finally I put on my back suit and went out through the airlock. Maguire was still sitting there, a bright blue needle that reflected the distant sun as it moved across the ebb and sky. Series' rotation took it from horizon to horizon in less than two hours, and you could see it and the stars move against the spire of the ship. I made it to the airlock in one long jump. Jack Ravenhurst had gone into the ship through the tube that led to the passenger lock.

She might or might not have her Vax suit on. I knew she had several of them on series. It was possible that she was wearing it without the fishbow. I used the cargo lock. It took a few minutes for the pumps to cycle, wasting more precious time. I was fairly certain that she would be in the control cabin talking, but I was thankful that the pumps were silent. Finally I took off my fishbowl and stepped into the companionway, and something about the size

of Luna came out of nowhere and clobbered me on the occiput. I had time to yell, Get away! Then I was one with intergalactic space. Please, said the voice. Please stop the drive. Go back. McGuire. I demand that you stop.

I order you to stop. Please, please! It went on and on, a voice that shifted around every possible mode of emotion, fear, demand, pleading, anger, cajoling, hate, threat, around and around and around. Can't you speak, McGuire? Say something to me. A shrill, soft, throaty, harsh, murmuring, screaming voice that had one basic characteristic. it was a female voice. And then another voice.

I am sorry, Jack, I can speak with you. I can record your data, but I cannot accept your orders. I can take orders from only one, and he has given me his orders. And the feminine voice again. Who was it? What orders? You keep saying that it was the man on the couch. That doesn't make sense.

I didn't hear the reply, because it suddenly occurred. to me that Daniel Oak was the man on the couch and that I was Daniel Oak. My head was throbbing with every beat of my heart, and it felt as if my blood pressure was varying between zero and fifteen hundred pounds per square inch in the veins and arteries and capillaries that fed my brain. I sat up, and the pain began to lessen. The blood seemed to drain away from my aching head and go elsewhere. I soon figured out the reason for that.

I could tell by the feel that the gravity pool was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 G's. I wasn't at all used to it, but my head felt less painful and rather more hazy, if possible. I concentrated, and the girl's voice came back again. I knew you when you were McGuire one and two and three and four and five and six, and you were always good to me and understanding. Don't you remember?" And then McGuire's voice, human, masculine, and not distorted at all by the reproduction system, but sounding rather stilted and terribly logical.

I remember, Jack. The memory banks of my previous activations are available. All of them? Can you remember everything? I can remember everything that is in my memory banks. The girl's voice rose to a wail. But you don't remember. You always forgot things.

They took things out each time you were reactivated. Don't you remember? I cannot remember that which is not contained in my memory banks, Jack. That is a contradiction in terms. But I was always able to fix it before. The tears in her eyes were audible in her voice. I'd tell you to remember, and I'd tell you what to remember, and you'd remember it.

Tell me what's happened to you this time." I cannot tell you. The information is not in my data banks. Slowly I got to my feet. Two G's isn't much once you get used to it. The headache had subsided to a dull, bearable throb. I was on a couch in a room just below the control chamber, and Jack Ravenhurst's voice was coming down from above.

McGuire's voice was all around me, coming from the hidden speakers that were everywhere in the ship. But why won't you obey me anymore, McGuire? She asked. I'll answer that, McGuire, I said. Jack's voice came weakly from the room above. Mr. Oak, Dan? Thank heaven you're all right.

No thanks to you, though, I said. I was trying to climb the ladder to the control room, and my voice sounded strained. You've got to do something, she said with a touch of hysteria. you. McGuire is taken a straight toward sickness at two G's and won't stop." My thinking circuits began to take over again. And cut the thrust to half a G, McGuire. Ease it down.

Take a minute to do it. Yes, sir. The gravity pull of acceleration let up slowly as I clung to the ladder. After a minute I climbed on up to the control room. Jack Ravenhurst was lying on the acceleration couch, looking swollen-faced and ill. I sat down on the other couch. "'I'm sorry I hit you,' she said, really. "'I believe you. How long have we been moving, McGuire?'

"'Three hours, twelve minutes, seven seconds, sir,' said McGuire. "'I didn't want anyone to know,' Jack said. "'Not anyone. "'That's why I hit you. "'I didn't know McGuire was going to go crazy.' "'He's not crazy, Jack,' I said carefully. "'This time he has a good chance of remaining sane.' but he's not mcguire any more she wailed he's different terrible sure he's different you should be thankful but what happened i leaned back on the couch listen to me jack and listen carefully

you think you're pretty grown-up and in a lot of ways you are but no human being no matter how intelligent can store enough experience into seventeen years to make you're pretty grown-up and in a lot of ways you are but no human being no matter how intelligent can store enough experience into seventeen years to make you him or her wise. A wise choice requires data, and gathering and up data requires time. That wasn't exactly accurate, but I had to convince her. You're pretty good at controlling people, aren't you, Jack? A real powerhouse. Individuals are mobs. You can usually get your own way.

It was your idea to send you to Luna, not your fathers. It was your idea to appoint yourself my assistant in this operation. It was you who planted the idea that the failure of the McGuire series was due to Thurston's activities. You used to get quite a kick out of controlling people, and then you were introduced to McGuire One. I got all the information on that. You were fifteen, and for the first time in your life.

You found an intelligent mind that couldn't be affected at all by that emotional field you project so well. Nothing affected McGuire, but data. If you told him something, he believed it. Right, McGuire? I do not recall that, sir. Fine, and by the way, McGuire, the data you have been picking up in the last few hours since your activation

is to be regarded as unique data. It applies only to Jacqueline Ravenhurst, and is not to be assumed relevant to any other person unless I tell you otherwise. Yes, sir. That's what I'm a little bit of you. I don't understand, Jack said unhappily. I stole the two keys that was supposed to activate McGuire.

He was supposed to obey the first person who activated him, but I activated him and he won't obey. You weren't listening to what Midgard said, Jack, I said gently. He said the first man's voice he hears will be identified as his master. You've been talking to every activation of McGuire. You'd—well, I won't. Don't say you'd fallen in love with him, but it was certainly a schoolgirl crush. You found that McGuire didn't respond to emotion, but only to data and logic.

You've always felt rather inferior in regard to your ability to handle logic, haven't you, Jack? Yes, yes, I have. Don't cry now. I'm only trying to explain it to you. There's nothing wrong with your abilities. No? No. But you wanted to be able to be able to. I'm only trying to explain it to you. I'm only trying to explain it to you. I'm only. I'm only. I'm only. I'm able to think like a man, and you couldn't. You think like a woman. And what's wrong with that? Nothing. Your method of thinking is just as good as any man's, and better than most of them. You found you could handle people emotionally, and you found it was so easy that you grew contemptuous. The only mind that responded to your logic was McGuire's. But your logic is occasionally as bad as your feminine reasoning is good, so every time you talk to McGuire,

you eventually gave him data that he couldn't reconcile in his computations. If he did reconcile them, then his thinking had very little in common with the actual realities of the universe, and he behaved in non-survival ways. McGuire was your friend, your brother, your father confessor. He never made judgments or condemn you for anything you did. All he did was sit there and soak up troubles and worries that he couldn't understand or use. Each time he was driven mad. The engineers and computer men and roboticists who were working on it were too much under your control to think of blaming you for McGuire's troubles.

Even Brock, in spite of his attitude of the tough guy watching over a little girl, was under your control to a certain degree. He let you get away with all your little pranks, only making sure that you didn't get hurt." She nodded. They were all so easy. So very easy. I could speak nonsense and they'd listen and do what I told them. But McGuire didn't accept nonsense, I guess.

She laughed a little, so I fell in love with a machine. Not a machine, I said gently. Six of them. Each time the basic data was pumped into a new McGuire brain. you assume that it was the same machine you'd known before with a little of its memory removed. Each time you'd tell it to remember certain things, and of course he did. If you tell a robot that a certain thing is in his memory banks, he'll automatically put it there and treat it as a memory.

To keep you from ruining him a seventh time, we had them put in one little additional built-in inhibition. McGuire won't take orders from a woman. So, even after I turned him on, he still wouldn't take orders from me, she said, But when you came in, he recognized you as his master, if you want to put it that way. Again, she laughed a little. I know why he took off of series. When I hit you, you said, get away.

McGuire had been given his first order, and he obeyed it. I had to say something, I said. If I'd had time, I'd have done a little better. She thought back, you said, We had them at that inhibition. Who's we? I can't tell you yet. But we need young women like you, and you'll be told soon enough.

Evidently they need men like you, too, she said. You don't react to an emotional field either. Oh, yes, I do. Any human being does. But I use it. I don't fight it, and I don't succumb to it. What do we do now? She asked.

Go back to Ceres? That's up to you. If you do, you'll be accused of stealing McGuire, and I don't think it can be hushed up at this stage of the game. But I can't just run away. There's another out, I said. We'll have a special ship pick us up on one of the nearer asteroids and leave McGuire there.

We'll be smuggled back, and we'll claim that McGuire went insane again. She shook her head. No, that would ruin Father. I can't do that, in spite of the fact that I don't like him very much. Can you think of any other solution?' "'No,' she said softly. "'Thanks. But you have. All I have to do is take it to Shalimore Ravenhurst.

He'll scream and yell, but he has a sane ship for a while. Between the two of us I think we can get everything straightened out. But I want to go to school on Luna. You can do that, too, and I'll see that you get a little. special training from special teachers. You've got to learn to control that technique of yours." You have that technique, don't you, and you can control it? You're wonderful. I looked sharply at her and realized that I had replaced McGuire as a super mind in her life. I sighed, maybe in another three or four years, I said. Meanwhile, McGuire, you can head us for Raven's

rest. home james said jack ravenhurst i am maguire said maguire end of part five end of a spaceship named maguire by randall garrett