Limits by Larry Niven Page B

shuttle go off without me.
    The next one would be for keeps.
     
    When you have a moral dilemma, get drunk. It’s not the world’s best rule, but it is an old one: the Persians used the technique in classical times. I tried it.
    Presently I found myself at McLeve’s home. He was alone. I invited myself in.
    “Murdering bastard,” I said.
    “How?”
    “Jill. That crazy plan won’t work. Halfey isn’t even going. You know it and I know it. He’s putting Jill on so she won’t cut him off. And without him there’s not even a prayer.”
    “Your second part’s true,” McLeve said. “But not the first. Halfey is going.”
    “Why would he?”
    McLeve smirked. “He’s going.”
    “What happens if he doesn’t?” I demanded. “What then?”
    “I stay,” McLeve said. “I’d rather die here than in a ship.”
    “Alone?”
    He nodded. “Without Halfey it is a mad scheme. I wouldn’t sacrifice the others for my heart condition. But Halfey isn’t leaving, Corky. He’s with us all the way. I wish you’d give it a try too. We need you.”
    “Not me.”
     
    How was Halfey convincing them? Not Jill: she wanted to believe in him. But McLeve, and Dot—Dot had to know. She had to calculate the shuttle flight plan, and for that she had to know the masses, and the total payload mass for that shuttle had to equal all the personnel except McLeve but including the others.
    Something didn’t make any sense.
    I waited until I saw eagle wings and blue wool stockings fly away from the administration area, and went into her computer room. It took a while to bring up the system, but the files directory was self-explanatory. I tried to find the shuttle flight plan, but I couldn’t. What I got, through sheer fu m bling, was the updated flight plan for the Skylark.
    Even with my hangover I could see what she’d done: it was figured for thirty-one people, plus a mass that had to be the shuttle. Skylark would be carrying a captain’s gig…
    The shuttle was coming in five days.
    Halfey had to know that shuttle wouldn’t be taking anyone back. If he wasn’t doing anything about it, there was only one conclusion. He was going to the Belt.
    A mad scheme. It doomed all of us. Jill, myself, Halfey, myself—
    But if Halfey didn’t go, no one would. We’d all go home in that shuttle. Jill would be saved. So would I.
    There was only one conclusion to that. I had to kill Jack Halfey.
     
    How? I couldn’t just shoot him. There wasn’t anything to shoot him with. I thought of ways. Put a projectile into a reaction pistol. But what then? Space murder would delight the lawyers, and I might even get off; but I’d lose Jill forever, and without Halfey…
    Gimmick his suit. He went outside regularly. Accidents happen. Ty wasn’t the only one whose ashes we’d scattered into the soil of the colony.
    Stethoscope and wrench: stethoscope to listen outside the walls of Halfey’s bed chamber, a thoroughly frustrating and demeaning experience; but presently I knew they’d both be asleep for an hour or more.
    It took ten minutes to disassemble Jack’s hose connector and substitute a new one I’d made up. My replacement looked just like the old one, but it wouldn’t hold much pressure. Defective part. Metal fatigue. I’d be the one they’d have examine the connector if there was any inquiry at all. And I had no obvious motive for killing Jack; just the opposite, except for Jill and McLeve I was regarded as Jack’s only friend.
    Once that was done I had only to wait.
     
    The shuttle arrived empty. Halfey went outside, all right, but in a sealed cherry picker; he wasn’t exposed to vacuum for more than a few moments, and apparently I’d made my substitute just strong enough to hold.
    They docked the shuttle, but not in the usual place, and they braced it in.
    It was time for a mutiny. I wasn’t the only one being Shanghaied on this trip. I went looking for Halfey. First, though, I’d need a reaction pistol. And a projectile. A