It took three months to make the Aspera spaceworthy again, and when I
had bought the shielded tele-camera, vitanalyzer, and the other little
toys I would need to prove that there was a pirate hideout in Callisto,
my bank account was within saluting distance of absolute zero. This was
space-ratting for fair, without even a chance for paydirt at the end of
the orbit. And Translunar, or any other outfit, wouldn't have me even
as a swamp hog after this. I was the smart Joe who was going to have me
a Career.
You never know.
I stopped at Phobos to fill up on reactant. I didn't mean to land on
Callisto. I didn't even mean to be seen if I could help it, but still
I might have some dodging to do, and full tanks could be nice to have.
For the same reason I put in a new power slug, because the emission
had begun to go a little soft on the way out from Luna City. With
the salvage of the old one, that left me just enough for a couple of
highballs at the port canteen. I thought I needed them more than two
loose coins. I left the slug monkey grumbling about having to root
around among the obsolete parts to find a Group VI slug, and headed for
the bar. Let him grumble. The Aspera was still a good ship, even if she
didn't have the tungsil tubes it takes to handle Group IV fissionables.
Wait a minute! Maybe he got tired of rooting and put in a Group IV slug
just out of laziness and ignorance. I made my way back to the power
shack, cracked the case, and took a look through the periscope. The IV
on the can was as big as a house. Well, when I got back I would be able
to prove to Betty that I was right about trained personnel not being
wasted in the engineering department. If I got back.
Seven and a half years in a space can is a horrible thought, but to
do it in free fall is out of the question. I swung a pair of steering
rockets to tangent position and cranked up enough rotation to give me
a few pounds of weight. That made a mess out of the visual screens,
but the radek would still let me know if anything came close enough to
worry about, and this way a cup of coffee would at least stay in the
cup. I brewed a pot of it, stuffed a pipe full of tobacco, and started
to settle down to do my time.
I don't know how many days later it was that the radek began to groan.
I quit counting days after the first week--if I needed the date I could
get it off the chronograph. The signal was feeble, but I took the
twist off her to get a fix on what it was. The radek gave the range as
extreme--nearly a million miles--and anything that would trip the relay
at that range must be big. After a few sweeps I found it in the scope,
and it showed a perceptible disk. That meant an asteroid. I didn't
know which one--the General Emphemeris of the asteroids hasn't been
published yet.
* * * * *
During the next day or two I spent a good deal of my time at the scope,
and most of the rest figuring orbits. It was pleasant to have something
to do to keep my mind off my predicament. I hardly minded even when
it became obvious that I would come so close to the asteroid as to be
perturbed out of all possibility of making the contact with Mars that
I had projected. I hadn't really believed in that anyway. And, when I
discovered that I was in a collision orbit, it was more of a relief
than otherwise. Get it over with in a hurry. Starvation is a slow and
tedious way to blast off. A short life and a merry one, Denby, that's
what you always said. Or did you? Well, it doesn't matter, you're going
to get it anyway.
It was a fine sight. I don't know anything more impressive to watch
than a planet, even a little two-hundred-mile chunk of rock like this
one, swinging up out of empty space and taking on size and form. White
and round as a snowball, and spinning lazily like a snowball thrown
through the air. This one was going to hit me right on the knob.
The twelve-hour rotation of the asteroid must have swung the spot past
me three or four times before I paid any attention to it. A black
smudge it was, round, but with ragged edges like a starfish. A jet
scorch if I ever saw one. I swallowed my stomach on the third gulp, and
as soon as I stopped being dizzy I looked again. A jet scorch it was,
and a few hundred yards away the sunlight glittered on a round lump
that couldn't be anything but a Mitchell blister. Of all the rocks in
the Belt, I would bump into one with a station on it. Nice catch, Denby!
I crawled into the bulger again in case I might set her down a little
heavy, and got at the controls. Landing on the steering jets is tricky,
especially when there is no atmosphere to help you brake down. I never
would have made it if it had been a full-sized planet.
I set her down heavy, all right, but I'm not ashamed of it. Try it
yourself some time. We crashed in a gully some sixty feet deep, about
a mile from the station. The shock broke my belt and threw me against
the control panel, and I felt a couple of ribs crack. That was cheap.
When my head cleared a little I could hear rocks rattling on the hull
and air whistling out through a hole in her somewhere. I made a dash
for the lock and kicked the emergency hatch release and blew outside
with the rest of the air.
* * * * *
Just in time. Looking up, I could see the whole side of the cliff
coming loose and toppling toward me like the crest of a breaker. I
gritted my teeth and jumped. When I looked back there was nothing to
see but a heap of rock.
Under this light gravity, the leap took me well above the cliffs. I
could see a glint of sunlight on the Mitchell in the distance, and a
spacesuit-clad figure coming over the surface in long leaps. One jump
had been enough for me--I hung onto my ribs and did my best to walk.
That isn't easy with a gravity a couple of hundredths Earth normal, but
at least when you fall you don't hit very hard.
In a minute or two I came up with my rescuer, and we touched helmets to
talk. I stared through the faceplate of the other suit. "Hello, Betty,"
I said. Then I passed out.
* * * * *
When I woke up someone was swabbing my face with a damp cloth. It was
very pleasant. I opened my eyes, and it was Betty, all right.
"Hello yourself," she said, and smiled. It was the old smile, crinkled
nose and all. I took back what I had told myself about being a fool. I
sat up and reached out my arms, but the ribs got in the way.
"Tom!" she cried. "What's the matter?"
"I bent a couple of ribs a little too far," I answered. "Nothing vital."
"Here, let me help!"
Between us we pulled the bulger off me and got rid of my packet and
shirt. Betty crossed the room and began to rummage in a locker. I
looked around. I was on a folding cot in one of the sleeping cubicles
of a Mitchell. Apparently Betty had carried me in after I collapsed.
That was not as had as it sounds--I only weighed three or four pounds
here, and I was light-headed besides. The old girls with the spinning
wheel seemed to have changed their minds after they blew my jet for
me. They send me an asteroid, and it comes near enough to land on more
or less and there is a party on it, and it is the Day expedition,
including Betty. Thanks, girls! I would have bowed to them, but on
account of my ribs I only nodded.
Betty came back with a pair of scissors and a roll of plaster, cut
loose my undershirt, and began building a straightjacket. I averted my
attention from the fact that it would have to come off some time.
"Where's your uncle and the rest of the crew?" I asked.
"Everyone but me is off on a field trip to Thule. Opposition was a week
or two ago, and they're due back any time. Thule seems to be our last
chance. We haven't found out a thing so far. But Thule is half-way to
Jupiter from here and right on the edge of the Warp, or where the Warp
ought to be. If they don't bring back some significant data from there
we may begin to think you are right after all and there isn't any such
thing."
"I knew it all along," I informed her. "Not that I'm likely to have a
chance to prove it, with the Aspera dead and buried."
"Be still a minute--how am I going to tape you up if you keep on
talking? Blow out your breath." She ripped off half a meter of tape and
slapped it onto my side.
Presently she stepped back to inspect the job. "It'll do, I guess," she
said, frowning critically. "For the time being, anyway. Uncle Ed will
be back in a couple of days, and he can fix it right."
"Oh no he can't. When this comes off it stays off."
"Why Tom! Are you afraid of a little tape?"
"You bet I am. Give me a ray-burn any day."
"All right then." She picked up my shirt and began helping me into it.
"But if you grow up lopsided or chicken-breasted, don't blame me!"
I didn't pay any attention. I tried my arms again, and they reached out
all right. It was a good job of taping.
She pushed me away and stood up. "Careful of your ribs, mister," she
warned. "Come on, you don't belong in here anyway--this is the women's
side."
I hunched myself into my jacket and followed her through the door and
down a short passage which led into a sort of utility room in the
midsection of the blister. One end was taken up with shelves and cases
of food and other supplies, a diatherm cooker, distillation unit, mess
table and the like; at the other, to the sides of the air lock, were
two or three desks with books and papers. One of the desks held a
periscreen which reflected the star-speckled black of space and a small
bright ball which was the distant sun. A row of thick glass portholes
at each end of the room let in a fair amount of light.
* * * * *
Out in the center of the floor were several chairs which looked almost
comfortable, and a large table with a ping-pong net on it. The thought
of trying to predict the behavior of a ping-pong ball under gravity of
point-o-two or thereabouts made me dizzy again.
I sat down in the easiest-looking chair and Betty took a seat opposite
me. The solemn look was on her face again.
"I should have mentioned it before," she apologized, "but I am glad
to see you, Tom. And amazed, of course. What happened to your job at
Translunar?"
"Translunar doesn't like me any more. I took the prize money to fit out
the Aspera and sneered at the job."
"Oh, Tom!" I liked the way she said it this time. "Then you are
free-lancing?"
"Free is the word for it. The list they put me on is black as the night
side of Pluto. No outfit in space would hire me for a swamper after
this. And you can't space-rat without a ship to rat in. As a matter of
fact, I have a great future behind me. All because I had a great idea."
"What was the idea, Tom? I know you didn't come all the way out here
just to talk to me."
"Well, it would have been worth it, but that wasn't it. I was on my
way to Jupiter to prove once and for all that there isn't any Warp and
that there are pirates on Callisto. Then I broke down a few hours out
of Mars, with too much velocity to get back on the chemicals. After a
while you came along, and I saw the camp, and managed to set her down.
I didn't know this was your rock."
"You have the craziest ideas, Tom!"
"All right, let it go. I'm done with crazy ideas. The wildest one I
have at the moment is to talk your uncle into thinking that I can earn
my keep here and a passage back to Earth."
"Good--and I'll talk him into not sending you back with the Patrol."
"The Patrol?"
"Yes--our time here is half gone, and they are due any day to pick up
our data and preliminary report. They're overdue right now, as a matter
of fact. I thought you were the Patrol cruiser at first. Our figures
are hardly worth coming after, unless they've got some good readings on
Thule."
I had stopped listening. Patrol regulations make the rescue of
distressed spacemen mandatory. They would take me to Earth and turn me
loose with a hundred credits bonus, and I could look for a job as a
shoe salesman. Or write my memoirs. The Tale of a Disappointed Space
Hound. That ought to sell. Back to Earth. I wasn't happy about it. I
had crossed four hundred million miles of space to find Betty and I
wanted to stay.
I looked at her. She crinkled her nose at me and stood up. "Come on,
Tom, don't look so glum. How about something to eat? If you're not
hungry I am."
She crossed to the galley end of the room and I followed. Cooking was
simple--stick a couple of cans in the diatherm and wait until the
signal beeped. It tasted better than what I had had on the Aspera,
though. I told her so, and Betty laughed. Then suddenly she jumped to
her feet.
"Look, on the screen, Tom!" She pointed. There was a bright streak half
filling the field of the periscope. Betty hurried across the room and I
got up as quickly as I could and followed her.
"It must be the Patrol ship!" she cried. "They will have letters
aboard, and newspapers!" She was practically dancing with excitement. I
wasn't so happy.
We watched her come in. She was a small ship, not much larger than the
Aspera, but it was a spectacular sight at that. An atom-jet blast in
space is quite a blaze of glory.
They had a sharp lad at the controls. He had to be--I could tell from
the shape and color of the blast that the emission was soft as a raw
egg. He must have had twenty percent fluctuation. That was queer--you'd
think the Patrol would have brains and money enough to put in a new
power slug when it was needed. That one could go dead any time. But the
pilot was good. He set down easy, right in the center of the scorch.
As soon as she was down the hatch swung open and half a dozen men in
bulgers stepped out and floated to the ground. Betty had the outer air
lock door open for them already. They crossed the ground quickly, in
the long leaps of men accustomed to low gravity.
I noticed suddenly that the palms of my hands were damp. That made
me wonder. It wasn't so much that I was scared by the idea of going
back to Earth with the Patrol. Something was wrong with the set-up
somewhere, and I couldn't place it. Then it hit me. That ship out there
was no Patrol cruiser--she was the Astra! My father's ship! It had been
years ago and I was just a kid at the time, but there was no chance of
a mistake--I had practically lived aboard that wagon all the while she
was on the ways. That meant my father had found the hideout on Callisto
again, and hadn't got away this time. The Astra had been captured and
converted to a pirate ship. As for my father, there was no doubt now
about what had happened to him. Lance Denby would never have been taken
alive.
These six men crossing the ground toward us were a bunch of Hassley's
cutthroats.
"Betty!" I yelled. "Shut the lock quick!"
She threw me a startled look, but sprang to obey. It was too late.
[Illustration: _"Shut the lock!" I yelled--but it was too late._]