Rock Merrill looked interestedly at the man who had introduced himself
as Tony Kalmus. He had told the young former cadet that he had come all
the way from Earth to see him.
“You flatter me,” Rock said.
“There’s more to it than that,” the man assured him. He was still fairly
young, although his blond hair was balding on top. He shifted his
heavyweight frame, that filled the chair snugly, but with deliberate
slowness dug through the inner pockets of his blue jacket and brought
out a folded piece of paper.
At that moment Shep Dubois came into the dormitory aboard the space
service station that was 25,000 miles above Earth. Centrifugal force,
provided by the rotation of the station, gave an artificial gravity so
that its occupants could walk about normally.
“What’s up, Rock?” Shep asked.
“I don’t know,” Rock answered. “I just got a message over the wall
speaker that this Mr. Kalmus had come to the station to see me.”
Rock introduced the two formally. Then Kalmus gave Rock the piece of
folded paper. Rock opened it up. It was a photostatic copy of a torn
blank scrap of paper. Rock studied it for a moment, his heart gradually
increasing its beat as he unconsciously felt that he was on the verge of
a big discovery. The ragged edges of the photographed scraps looked
strangely familiar. Then suddenly the answer came to him in a rush that
sent his blood throbbing hard through his temples.
“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “It’s the missing scrap from the
_Sagittarius_!”
“You mean that after twenty years it’s turned up?” Shep said in
amazement. “Now you may be able to find the _Northern Cross_, Rock!”
“That’s the reason I’m here,” Kalmus said. “I’ll leave you the photostat
to compare with your own scraps, Merrill, and then you’ll know I have
the missing piece for certain.”
“If you do have it, Mr. Kalmus, I’ll be indebted to you forever,” Rock
said enthusiastically. “Ever since I first wanted to be a spaceman it’s
been my ambition to look for my dad’s lost ship. But how did you know
where to find me?”
“I asked around. Your mother told me over the phone back on Earth that
she was pretty sure you had the scraps with you and that you treasured
them as if they were gold.”
“I do,” Rock admitted, staring out one of the oblong ports of the dorm
at the salt-and-pepper background of interstellar space. “They’re the
last link I have with my father. I never saw him.”
Kalmus got up. “When you’re convinced I’ve got what you want and you’re
ready to listen to a proposition about locating your dad’s lost ship,
just let me know. I’m in Room 38, Deck B, overhead.”
When Kalmus had gone, Rock went to his dresser and began searching a
drawer. “The box with the scraps is in one of these.”
“I still find all this hard to believe!” Shep said. “And I don’t see how
Kalmus could have gotten hold of the missing scraps. They were supposed
to have been destroyed with the _Sagittarius_ except for the ones they
salvaged for you.”
“I’m not worried about that now, Shep!” Rock told him. “The main thing
is to fit the puzzle together and find the answer that I’ve wanted to
know all my life—the location of the _Northern Cross_ and its treasure
ore.”
Rock’s father, Victor Merrill, had been a space surgeon accompanying a
research expedition to Venus before Rock was born. Mineralogy was Dr.
Merrill’s hobby, and while on the planet he had come across a curious
mineral in a cave. Returning to Earth, he’d had the sample analyzed. The
mineral was alconite, a very scarce and valuable component of an alloy
used in the construction of radioactivity shields. Told that a
space-ship load of the light mineral could bring him a fortune, Dr.
Merrill set out again for Venus with his own expedition, financed from
his life savings, planning to build a satellite hospital with the
proceeds of the venture.
Dr. Merrill’s ship, the _Northern Cross_, had landed on Venus, and a
load of the mineral was stocked aboard the ship. But then disaster
overtook the party, the first of many tragic events that were to follow.
A landslide sealed off the mine, burying most of Dr. Merrill’s crew. The
four remaining, including Dr. Merrill himself, blasted off for Earth,
but not having enough experienced men to adequately run the vessel, the
ship was wrecked by an explosion. An SOS was radioed to a freighter
bound for Venus, the _Sagittarius_. The radio operator made a note of
the _Northern Cross_’s position, but shortly afterward, the
_Sagittarius_ itself, in a hurry to reach the stricken _Northern Cross_
and with a faulty radar set, collided with an emergency fuel buoy
floating in space.
When later ships salvaged the wreck of the _Sagittarius_, scraps of the
radio operator’s note were found, but not enough of it to establish the
“fix” of the still missing _Northern Cross_. These scraps had later been
turned over to Rock and held by him ever since. He had stubbornly clung
to the fragments in the wild hope that some day he might obtain some
other clue to the location of his father’s ship.
The last message from the radio operator of the _Northern Cross_ had
reported that the ship had lost its power of navigation after falling
into a perpetual orbit about Venus. Therefore Rock and his mother had
known for years that Victor Merrill’s ghost ship had become a satellite
of the planet Venus.
“Here it is, Shep!” Rock exclaimed, pulling a flat tin box out of his
dresser drawer.
They eagerly took the box and the photostat over to a table. Rock
unlocked the container and gently removed the scorched and yellowed
fragment that had been pieced together with transparent tape. He fitted
the section against the ragged edges of the full-size pattern.
“It fits!” Rock said.
Swiftly the coming events passed hopefully before his mind’s eye. He
visualized a search for the _Northern Cross_, a search that might yet
bring a fulfillment of Dr. Merrill’s unselfish dream.
“I wonder what Mr. Kalmus wants out of this?” Rock mused.
“A share of the treasure, I’d guess,” Shep replied.
“Of course we can’t be absolutely sure of finding the _Northern Cross_,
even with the exact ‘fix,’” Rock said. “If it changed its flight path
after sending the SOS, there’s not much hope. But if it held its same
orbit, as Dad’s radio operator reported, we should be able to locate
it.”
“What do you say we listen to Kalmus’ proposition?” Shep suggested.
“The sooner the better!” Rock agreed.
As they went down the corridor, they met Johnny Colfax.
“One of these days I’m going to tell those guys what they can do with
their old job, especially that little worm, Mugger!” Johnny complained.
“I’m tired of all this backbreaking stuff and his fussing at us all the
time!”
“I think we’re all tired of it, Johnny,” Rock sympathized.
Johnny was one of seven of them who had accepted work on the servicing
station after their washout from school. Since they knew they could
never go into space in the smart livery of the Space Command, this
seemed to be the next best thing. But the boys had soon tired of the
glamour of being out in the deeps and the hard work, and most of them
were ready to go meekly back home to Earth.
“Maybe before long,” Rock told his discouraged friend, “all of us will
be able to tell the big boys where to head in.”
“What do you mean?” Johnny asked.
“Come along and see,” Shep invited.
Johnny made a wry face. “I’m not in the mood to see anything now. It’s
the sack for me and ten solid hours of sleep!”
Rock and Shep looked for Kalmus’ room on Deck B. As they passed a long
corridor port, they saw the busy outside activity of the servicing
station. They saw big clumsy-looking astroliners and streamlined,
needle-prowed “atmosphere” ships approaching and leaving the docks of
the octagon satellite after repairs or refueling. Smaller ferry craft
darted back and forth between the vessels like pilot fish in the company
of great sharks.
The boys located Kalmus’ room and found him waiting for them as though
he had known they would be along. There was another man present. He
looked like a walking skeleton, with thick black brows and hands like
hairy tarantulas. Kalmus said his name was Jack Judas and that he was a
close friend.
“My scraps match your photostat, Mr. Kalmus,” Rock said. “What is your
proposition?”
“I’ll get right to the point. We go on an expedition to look for the
_Northern Cross_ and split the value of the cargo if we find it.”
Rock nodded. “That’s reasonable enough.”
“I can rent an old ship cheaply,” Kalmus went on. “Got a friend in the
business over on Satellite 7, a space supply moon. He showed me just the
thing for us, atomic drive and all, equipped to carry eleven men. I can
dig up a crew too. How much money can you get to pay for your share?”
“That will take some figuring,” Rock said, “and I’ll have to talk over
the proposition with the other fellows.”
“I told you I’d furnish the crew,” Kalmus said, with a trace of
annoyance. “However, if you want to bring some of your buddies along, I
guess that’s your business.”
“We’ve been together all through Academy training,” Rock told him, “and
that’s too long a time to split up now.”
Rock was able to get all his six friends together to talk over the plan,
even rousing a complaining Johnny Colfax out of his brief sleep. All
were in favor of making the voyage.
“I’ll split my share equally among us,” Rock said.
“Nix on that, Rock,” tall, wiry Hugh Blankenship objected. “It’s your
dad’s ship and we know about his dream to build a satellite hospital.
Besides, you’re the one who’s been holding the clue to its location all
these years.”
All of them nodded.
“We can talk that over later,” Rock answered. “Now we’ve got to decide
how we’re going to split expenses with Kalmus.”
The boys had accumulated tidy sums while working at the space station.
Even Rock had a fair amount of savings despite the fact that he sent
much of his monthly check home to his mother. Space pay was high, and
the boys had had no place to spend their money. But of course it cost a
lot of money to take a ship out into space. The boys figured that the
best they could do would not be quite enough. Rock told them that he had
an idea Kalmus would advance them some on their share. It was likely
that he wouldn’t have come this far without being sure the trip could be
financed.
Rock next told them about Kalmus wanting to furnish most of the crew.
“If all of us go,” said little Sparky Finn, with the bristly hair, “then
Kalmus will have to limit the men he wants to take. It’s a simple matter
of arithmetic—seven of us and four of them.”
“I’ll tell him that,” Rock agreed. “We all go or none of us goes. I’ll
insist on it.”
“Do you reckon we can trust Kalmus?” Ed Somerton asked.
“He looks all right to me,” Shep said, “although of course you can’t
trust first impressions sometimes.”
“He looks all right to me too,” Rock agreed. “But just the same, while
we’re waiting to get the ship outfitted, I think I’ll check his
references at central identification headquarters on Earth.”
Just as they were going to break up, there came a sharp rap on the
dormitory door. Before the visitor could be invited in, he flung the
door open and strode inside.
Rock flared at this invasion of their privacy, especially when the
newcomer proved to be a person disliked by all of them. He was Carl
Mugger, their immediate supervisor. Behind his back he was known as
“Yap” because of his shrewish tongue.
“What have we got here—a tea party?” he blurted.
“No, a private discussion,” Rock answered evenly, trying to control his
temper.
“Three of you are supposed to be on duty,” Mugger went on. “You fellows
think you’re on a vacation or something?”
“We were only doing routine work in the solar mirror relay.” Hugh spoke
for Ed, Leo Avery, and himself, who were the three Mugger had been
talking about. “We’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“What do you think would happen to the station if I took off any time I
wanted to?” he demanded, drawing his short body up to its full height.
Getting no reply, Mugger ranted on. “I’ve stood just about all I’m going
to from you guys! The next time one of you goofs off I’m going to have
you sent back so fast Earthward your heads will buzz!”
He glared at each of them in turn.
Shep stepped forward, a full half head taller than the little man, his
face reddening from the fury mounting in him. “I don’t know about the
others, Mr. Mugger, but I’m fed up with this station and you too!”
Mugger’s jaw muscles twitched and his eyes flashed. “Do all of you feel
this way?” he snapped.
The others hesitated. It wouldn’t be the smartest thing to cut oneself
off from his job 25,000 miles above Earth and with no other work in
sight, but neither could a fellow let his buddy stand alone in something
on which all of them were in sympathy. Rock made the first move.
“I feel that way,” he said boldly, and the others backed him up.
“You fellows are through!” Mugger said coldly. “You may as well get your
things together and be ready to take the next ferry ship going
Earthward!” He turned and went out.
Shep’s natural color was beginning to return. A look of penitence came
over his thoughtful face. “I’m sorry, fellows. I—I just couldn’t help
it.”
“It was bound to happen, Shep,” Rock consoled him. “But it does sort of
throw us in with Kalmus in a hurry, and it means we can’t afford to talk
up to him quite as strongly as we might have otherwise.”
“He doesn’t have to know we’ve been fired,” Leo said.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t,” Rock answered with some concern. “Otherwise
he’ll set his own terms, and we’ll just have to take them. Remember, we
don’t even have enough money to pay our share of the expenses, either.”
Rock and Shep went to see Kalmus immediately. Jack Judas was present, as
well as another man. He was squatty and sturdily built, with hair as
black as the Coalsack. Kalmus introduced him as Ben Spooner.
Rock outlined the terms he and his friends had drawn up. Kalmus listened
to them thoughtfully and impassively.
“I could bring some experienced men if you’d let me have my way,” Kalmus
said when Rock was through. “You fellows are pretty young, and on top of
that you are washouts.”
“We didn’t wash out until the finals,” Ed told him. “We still learned a
lot about piloting and navigation in our training.”
“Yeah,” Leo agreed, “you don’t have to worry about us getting the ship
there and back.”
When Kalmus saw how determined all the fellows were to go, he shrugged.
“I guess you know what you can do,” he said. “You’ll have to take care
of most of the running of the ship. I’ll have with me Ben, Jack, and
Mumbly. That will make a crew of eleven, the ship’s capacity.”
“Then we’re agreed on that,” Rock said.
“Judas knows a little about piloting and can help out if necessary,”
Kalmus went on. “He’s got a brother who’s first mate on a space
freighter and has flighted with him a few times. Pegg and Spooner and I
were steward’s helpers on a few space flights some years back. When can
you fellows be ready to go?”
“The sooner the better,” Rock answered.
“In a few hours?”
Rock straightened in surprise. They could hardly make their plans in
that short time.
“I’m in a hurry to get started,” Kalmus said. “You fellows turn over to
me all the money you can get together, and we can settle for the rest
when we get back. I wouldn’t even hold you up for this but the dock fee
and license have to be paid in cash before we leave.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Rock protested, with a laugh. “I think you’re
underestimating the work we’ve got to do. We’ll have to make a trip back
to Earth and get the ship and supplies lined up first. That alone will
take much more than a few hours! It’s twenty-five million miles to Venus
at the closest approach.”
“I’ve checked on Venus with the chief astronomer on the observatory
satellite,” Kalmus declared, “and we’re in the best position if we start
as soon as possible. I’ve also taken care of everything else, and I’m
still ready to leave in a few hours.”
Rock shook his head as if he still could not believe this. “You realize
there’s a chance we might not find the _Northern Cross_, don’t you?”
Rock warned.
Kalmus’ face grew taut. “I guess that’s the chance that all of us will
have to take.”
He headed for the door. “Come with me, please.”
He led them down the long companionways to Hangar 7 on the outer rim of
the station. Supplies were being loaded here through the station air
lock into a globular nonatmospheric ship that was anchored by its
magnetic grapples to the side of the station.
Tony Kalmus waved his hand at the activity and smiled at the surprised
faces of Rock and Shep. “There’s our ship,” he told them. “Meet the _Dog
Star_, fellows. She’s all ready to go treasure hunting!”
The little space ship _Dog Star_ was on its way into deep space with its
crew of eleven. The ex-cadets had sent messages home telling of their
departure. But Kalmus had been in such a hurry to leave that they did
not even have time to wait for replies. Nor had Rock had time to check
on Kalmus’ references back on Earth.
Rock could appreciate the need for haste, however. Unless they left when
they did, Venus would have moved out of its most favorable position, and
it would have required much more expenditure of fuel to overtake her
later.
It would be several weeks before the _Dog Star_ approached the misty
planet and—it was hoped—the twenty-year orbit of the ghost ship
_Northern Cross_.
“Well, we’re on our way, fellows,” Rock remarked to his young friends
who were gathered with him in the navigation room looking out one of the
ports. “I wonder what the stars have in store for us?”
“Maybe we should have brought along an astrologer,” Hugh said with a
chuckle.
“I have more faith in our own abilities, Hugh,” Rock said. “The Cadet
Board doesn’t think we’ve got what it takes to be spacemen. We can prove
them either right or wrong. It’s strictly up to us.”
Now that the detailed task of getting the ship underway was over, the
time seemed ripe for the pooling of information that would give the
travelers the exact location of the _Northern Cross_.
Kalmus and his three companions joined Rock’s party in the navigation
room, Kalmus having brought along his own precious scrap from the record
of the _Sagittarius_.
With the ship on autopilot, its course having been computed on the
electronic brain, the eleven gathered around the navigator’s table on
which were laid out sky charts and the important bits of paper.
The men and youths were able to stand about in this manner because of
magnetically charged shoes which clung to the floor. Without them, the
travelers would have hung weightless in the zero-gravity. The atomic
power rockets had already cut their thrust after reaching required
velocity, and the ship was now in free flight.
Rock fitted the torn fragments together on a white sheet of paper as
Kalmus, breathing hard, leaned over his shoulder. Rock tore off some
transparent tape and carefully stuck the whole together.
The radio operator’s record listed certain numbers and letters that had
their counterpart on the sky map. Rock traced the “fix” on a large
detailed map of Venus and its environs, his finger finally stopping on
one significant spot.
“This is where the _Sagittarius_ had last contact with the _Northern
Cross_,” Rock said with suppressed excitement. “The radio man said the
_N.C._ was already in free fall around Venus.” He traced an imaginary
path around the planet with his finger. “This orbit is our destination.”
“The ship will be somewhere along there, providing it didn’t slow down
afterward and fall into Venus,” Shep pointed out.
“True enough,” Rock agreed. “We’ll know the answer in a few weeks.”
Kalmus told the boys how he had come into possession of his scrap with
the priceless information. He said that his friend in the space salvage
business who had rented them the _Dog Star_ had had on hand some of the
things from the destroyed _Sagittarius_. One day he had found the
yellowed bits in with some bulkhead parts. He mentioned this to Kalmus,
who looked up the old newspaper accounts of the double disaster and
prevailed upon his friend to give him the valuable scraps. Then he had
made his plans for recovering the _Northern Cross_.
Rock was elected chief navigator and leader of his group. Kalmus, of
course, was already head of his own group.
The _Dog Star_’s direction known now, Rock sat at the keyboard of the
electronic brain and “typed” out the corrected ship’s path. The
complicated math problem was solved quickly, and the answer tape was
then fed into the automatic pilot. Only minor corrections of the
controls for direction would have to be made by hand until the ship
reached its destination.
In the space days that followed, the two groups kept pretty much to
themselves. Even eating and sleeping were carried on in separate
quarters. Since this was a voyage for mutual gain only, all preferred
such an arrangement. Kalmus and his friends prepared their meals in the
galley at a set time, and the boys took a later meal hour.
One day when the boys were reading and playing quiet games in the lounge
to pass the long hours, they heard a commotion from Kalmus’ part of the
ship. Rock got up from the game of chess he was playing with Shep and
went to the door. Kalmus was approaching briskly down the corridor, his
big frame making his hard-soled shoes thump loudly against the floor.
“What’s wrong?” Rock asked him.
“A meteor tore through the ship just a few feet from Mumbly,” Kalmus
replied. “Mumbly was so scared when he heard it that he nearly jumped
out of his skin! He left the floor and floated clear up to the ceiling!
We had to pull him down!”
Rock and some of the other fellows went to investigate.
The room pressure was still up, but Mumbly Pegg, the near-victim, was
pale clear up to his disordered shock of red hair. Kalmus’
stoop-shouldered friend kept mumbling how close he had come to being
killed, a mannerism that had gained him his nickname. He talked
incessantly to himself, neither getting a reply from anyone nor
expecting any.
Rock found holes in opposite sides of the room where the meteorite had
hurtled through. The holes were only about pea-sized and were scorched
around the edges. The automatic sealing compound would keep the air in
the ship from leaking out temporarily, but a permanent repair would have
to be made.
“The hull’s got to be soldered from the outside,” Rock told Kalmus.
“Some of the boys and I will go outside and take care of it.”
Shep and Johnny offered to go with Rock, and the three put on pressure
suits. Then they took up their firing equipment and prepared to enter
the air-lock tunnel leading outside.
Before unscrewing the hatch, Rock took in hand one of the safety mooring
lines that was fastened to the edge of the hatch.
“These safety lines aren’t the best I’ve ever seen,” Rock commented, as
he observed some worn places in the nylon. “Kalmus must have had these
given to him.”
“Maybe he wants to get rid of us,” Shep said, half-seriously.
The boys hooked the safety lines to their suits, then climbed out the
circular hatch into raw space itself. They still wore magnetic shoes to
counteract their weightlessness and enable them to walk.
The boys took one moment to feast their eyes on the brilliant fields of
star dust that surrounded them like a great dome.
Spellbound by all the vastness, Rock was comforted by the solid feel of
the big round globe beneath their feet. He looked at the long narrow
stem that jutted out the back of the sphere and held the smaller
shielded ball of the screened-off atomic power plant. The engines were
still idle; they would be until it was time to spin the ship around and
blast away forward to slow the ship down a few weeks from now.
“Look at Earth over there at ‘7 o’clock,’” Shep said. “It’s just like a
fuzzy, unripe peach!”
“Kind of makes you homesick, doesn’t it?” Rock said a little wistfully.
They went over to one of the meteorite holes and knelt down.
The bright fire leaped like a hot bar from Rock’s cutting torch,
reddening the metal of the hull almost immediately.
“How long is this going to take?” Johnny asked worriedly. “I want to get
back inside. I don’t trust these dilapidated safety lines!”
“I’m beginning to regret I brought you fellows along on this thing,”
Rock said thoughtfully. “Kalmus got me so excited about the expedition
that I guess I didn’t really consider the risk we were taking by
venturing into space on our own. There are so many things that could go
wrong.”
“We didn’t have to come,” Shep encouraged him. “Frankly, I’d have gone
anywhere just to get away from the station. I’ve been miserable ever
since we flunked out. Just a few trick questions and—WHAM—there were
three years gone to waste!”
“Maybe they won’t be wasted if our reward is the finding of the
_Northern Cross_,” Rock pointed out.
He found that he could work better by taking his feet off the hull and
“hanging” face down over it, with Shep holding on to his safety line to
prevent the blast of the torch from driving him outward. Johnny was busy
holding the flux in position.
Suddenly the force of the blast caused Rock’s worn safety line to snap
and sent him hurtling outward from the hull of the _Dog Star_!
Rock heard his own name blasting into his ears as the anguished voice of
Shep called to him. Then he saw his friend leap upward with clutching
futile hands. Shep’s body jerked to the end of his own line, and then
the reaction sent him slamming back onto the hull.
As Rock, still numb with shock, sped farther outward, he heard the
frantic calls of Shep and Johnny trail off as their radio power faded.
Finally no sound reached his ears, and the oppressive silence of lonely
space closed in on him. It had all happened with such suddenness that he
could scarcely realize it had happened at all.
Hopelessness had already begun to get a hold on him before he began to
think of how he might save himself. Perhaps it was something he had
learned in cadet training that made him calm himself and think
reasonably.
His stiff fingers still clutched the cutting torch that had rocketed him
from the _Dog Star_. Why not use it the same way to get back? Although
still streaking out laterally from the ship, he was under influence of
the ship’s motion and was traveling just as fast beside it.
Rock carefully judged his direction and blasted with the tool in the
opposite direction. He felt the deceleration of his outbound speed as
the firestream braked him. Presently the rocket reaction stopped him and
he began going back toward the ship.
Rock used the cutting torch for a brake to slow his return onto the skin
of the hull. Shep and Johnny clattered over to him and pulled him in to
safety. Rock could see relief spreading over their faces.
“Thank goodness you’re safe, Rock!” Shep said. “You nearly gave us heart
failure! You sure kept your head!”
If he hadn’t, Rock told himself grimly, he would not be here this
minute. A spaceman had to keep his head at all times. His cadet training
had impressed that on him.
The days and weeks that followed passed uneventfully, if not exactly
excitingly. There was so little to do, such a monotony of scene.
A few thousand miles from the Venus orbit, Rock fed directions for a
gyroscope turn into the automatic pilot, and the rockets began spouting
bursts of flame to check the _Dog Star_’s headlong rush. All aboard were
forced to take to shock couches for the first time to lessen the pain on
their bodies.
Had time not been a factor, Rock could have decelerated slowly with no
strain. This had been the manner of their acceleration from the station.
But Rock had realized that Kalmus would become impatient later and so
had figured the flight for rapid deceleration and consequently much
saving of time.
Kalmus and his men took the deceleration shock in different ways. Since
all the couches were in the same room, Rock could study their reactions.
Jack Judas and Kalmus made no outward signs of discomfort, but Spooner
and Pegg groaned continually.
Although not exactly enjoying himself either, Rock, like his young
friends, had been taught to take this, and through a certain pride would
give no outcries. The lessening speed constricted the blood vessels in
his eyes, blurring his vision, but Rock kept studying the reflecting
prism over his cot to take his mind off the strain. And his hand did not
drift far from the emergency controls should something go wrong.
The prism brought the outside view right into the ship. Venus dominated
the scene, like a giant snowball glittering with a light of its own.
Rock could see the impenetrable clouds, chiefly of carbon dioxide,
swirling and crawling over the surface of the planet like a tide. The
invisible lands below were a hothouse of wind-swept desert and barren
stretches. There were only a few isolated research settlements down
there where brave scientists probed the hot soil for strange new things.
When the _Dog Star_ slowed, the travelers were able to leave their
couches.
Rock consulted the charts and got a reading of their position from Ed,
who was at the navigation instruments.
“Here we are,” Rock said, indicating a spot on one of the maps. “At
Point X we’ll match orbits with the _Northern Cross_, then we’ll
accelerate a little so that we’re bound to overtake her eventually—that
is, if she’s still in her original flight orbit.”
“She’s _got_ to be there!” Kalmus cried a little frantically. “I’ve
poured a fortune into this thing.”
“I’ve got as much interest in this as you have, Tony,” Rock told him
evenly. “We’re no expert Spacemen, but I’m pretty sure we’re going right
so far.”
The travelers began watching the radarscope for first signs of the ghost
ship. But no “blips” showed on the screen. Later, every crewman was
assigned a watch at the ’scope. This was intended to keep a man
continually on duty.
When the ship moved in exposure to the sun, the ports had to be shielded
with filter screens. An outside movable reflector blind, highly polished
and operated automatically by a thermostat, reflected away much of the
heat and light.
Despite its dangerous aspects, the sun was a magnificent object. Its
white-hot surface was eye-searing bright and showed dark islands of
sunspot activity, any one of which could swallow Earth. Its edges threw
out mountainous red tides that lapped outward many thousands of miles
into the black deeps. It was a sight that brought a lump of awe into
one’s throat.
When he was on duty at the ’scope, Rock used the ship’s small refracting
telescope to see the little yellow disc of Mercury, dwarfed like a
pinhead beside a grapefruit, against the sun. It reminded Rock of a
small dog taunting a larger one, daring it to attack, yet forever
skipping nimbly out of the way with its agile speed.
The hours of search drew into a full space day, then another, with no
sign of the ghost ship. Even if the _Dog Star_ had been off course a few
hundred miles, a ship as large as the _Northern Cross_ could not have
slipped by unnoticed.
Finally Rock had to make a gloomy announcement. “In another hour we’ll
have made a complete revolution of Venus,” he told all ten of them who
were gathered around. “If we don’t come across the _Northern Cross_ by
then, it means she’s not in her orbit. She’s either crashed on Venus or
has gone out into space. We’ve been accelerating faster than an object
in free fall around Venus. She couldn’t have outrun us.”
Kalmus’ big palm slapped the table. “I won’t stand for being licked,
Rock! I’ve built my hopes so high on this thing!” His pale eyes glared
restlessly and there was a red suffusion over his face.
Rock reminded him, “The matter isn’t in our hands. We’ve done all we can
do.”
Kalmus lapsed into nervous silence as the minutes ticked off. He haunted
the radarscope most of the time and even tried to look for the ship with
the refractor, a tedious job. He was in a constant fidget, alternately
pacing and putting his eye to the instrument.
Now only fifteen minutes remained. There was still no sign of the ghost
ship. Rock also was beginning to feel a growing despondency. Up until
now he had not considered the consequences of failure. Now it shocked
him to do so. He and his friends would be indebted to Kalmus for years
to come for their share in the venture. They would either have to slave
at the space station again, and eat humble crow, or try to find other
jobs back on Earth.
But this wasn’t all of the story. A failure would close off for all time
the hope that had lived in him ever since he had known of his father’s
disappearance. He would have to resign himself to the thought that his
father and his ship would speed along with its lifeless cargo to the
ends of the universe seemingly, never to be recovered. And worse,
Merrill Memorial Hospital would remain only a shattered dream that might
have been.
Then there was the reaction of the unpredictable Kalmus to be
considered. Would he turn on them?
Five minutes to go. No ship in sight. Nothing but star dust and more
star dust and the smoldering light of Sol, like a mocking beacon.
Finally Rock had to say bitterly, “Time’s up. I’m afraid we’re licked.
There’s no sign of the _Northern Cross_.”
“We’ve got to find that ship!” Kalmus cried. “I’ll search for it if it
takes a hundred years!”
“It won’t do any good to search without knowing where to look,” Rock
reminded him.
“It won’t hurt to try anyhow,” Kalmus proposed. “We might be lucky. I’ve
sunk too much in this expedition to turn back now!”
“We still intend to pay up our share of the costs, Tony,” Rock assured
him. “You needn’t worry about that part of it.”
“Finding the ship means as much to you as it does to me—or so you said,
Rock,” Kalmus went on stubbornly. “Why are you giving up so easily?”
“Of course it means a lot to me, but I’m not going against terrific
odds. It would be crazy.” Suddenly Rock thought of something and turned
to Sparky Finn. “Sparky, are you absolutely certain you figured out that
navigational problem correctly? Yours was the trickiest of all.”
“I went over it twice, Rock,” Sparky replied solemnly.
“Better look at it again,” Rock proposed. “There’s a possibility we
might have botched up our figures somehow. If your calculation is right,
we’ll all recheck ours.”
Sparky’s math proved to be correct. Then each of the boys went over his
own figures again. Halfway through his, Hugh caught an error in his
work.
“Take me for a numbskull!” he burst out. “Look what I did! No wonder I
flunked out in cadet school!”
“We are too far out from Venus,” Rock told Kalmus. “We’ve got to go in
closer to the planet.”
The _Dog Star_ swung into its new orbit. Kalmus became enthusiastic
again, and Rock felt that they would meet with success this time, but if
they didn’t, there was nothing more to do but admit defeat.
It was Johnny Colfax who first spotted an interesting “blip” on the
radarscope screen two space days later. Half the eleven-man crew was
asleep, but Johnny’s shouts brought everyone running into the main
control room.
“Look, Rock, I think I’ve found it!”
Rock set the telescope in synchronization with the radar set. Then he
put his eye to the telescope eyepiece and turned the hairline focus
adjustment. Yes, it was really a cigar-shaped craft, man-made, just
about the general shape the _Northern Cross_ was supposed to be. It was
a streamlined ship built to slide through the atmosphere of Venus.
Rock judged it to be a few hundred miles away. “It seems to be the
_Northern Cross_,” he announced.
“Let me see that thing!” Kalmus blurted and pushed up to the telescope.
“There’s our dream ship!” he purred, like a miser over his gold sacks.
“I can almost see a dollar sign on that baby!”
A few gentle manual corrections later brought the _Dog Star_ alongside
the ghost ship. The smaller ship’s crew clustered at the broad port.
Only a few thousand yards away, the ship was a giant thing, gray and
meteor-scarred from the years that it had wheeled about in space,
alternately feeling the torrid heat of the naked sun and the bitter cold
when the sun was eclipsed behind the big planet.
As Rock stared, his heart beat faster. Here was the graveyard of his
valiant father and his crew who had battled nature for a share of her
wealth and had lost. Rock felt a mixture of feelings—of repulsion and of
being drawn to the scene. He was attracted by thoughts of the treasure
ore that might fulfill his father’s dream of a satellite hospital, but
he was repelled by thoughts of what he might find in that space tomb.
Although circling the planet Venus at high velocity, both ships were as
if stationary in space and in relation to each other. Rock, Shep, Hugh,
Kalmus, and Judas suited up in preparation to going outside and across
to the other ship.
With an extended safety line securing himself to the exit door of the
_Dog Star_, Rock was the first to launch himself into the gulf between
the ships. He carried a length of electrical cable which he would attach
by magnetic force to the side of the _Northern Cross_. Then his
companions could hook onto the cable with their own safety lines and
cross the gulf without risk of drifting off. They had done some repair
work on the unsafe lines that had given them trouble before. They felt
more secure with them now.
After the cable was set up, Shep pushed off from the doorstep of the
_Dog Star_, and his momentum carried him through the vacuum toward Rock
on the other side, his safety line slipping along the cable for
security. Behind Shep, the others followed.
Shep had brought two cutting torches for opening the door seams of the
_Northern Cross_. He handed one to Rock and they both set to work, the
brilliant flare of their tools lighting the blackness like twin novae.
The sun was on the other side of the space ship, leaving this shadow
side in absolute darkness.
Finally the door was cut all around. All that it appeared to need now
was a good strong push. Rock and Shep tried it together, a little
gingerly perhaps as they realized their weightlessness, and hence,
helplessness. The door hung stubbornly in place. When Kalmus saw their
ineffective efforts, he lifted his big booted feet and boldly slammed
them hard against the door. The door section caved inward, but the
reaction sent Kalmus scooting backward.
Kalmus gave a terrified yell as he went drifting all the way back to the
other ship. Not knowing how to navigate in weightlessness, he barged
into the wall of the _Dog Star_ with such force that it caused him to
bounce back across the gulf again. His safety line kept him from being
in any danger of caroming off into space.
Hugh, holding on to the ship, caught Kalmus’ body as it came back to
them. The big fellow was moaning from fright, and the boys got secret
enjoyment out of Kalmus’ comical and harmless experience.
Then Rock sobered quickly as he faced the grim task that was to follow.
He sighed heavily and stepped through the opening into the air-lock
tunnel of the ghost ship, followed by the others. His shoes clung to the
floor, indicating that the magnetic floor current was still going after
twenty years. Leaving the air lock, Rock and his companions found
themselves in a lounge. Everything was in neat order, just as if it had
been set to rights only today.
“It’s in excellent preservation!” Rock marveled. “The reflector blinds
must have kept the temperature in here pretty even through all the
years.”
They found other parts of the ship also in neat order. Rock had been
told by his mother that his father had been a very orderly man. As yet
there was no sign of what had made the vessel a ghost ship.
Rock dreaded every new room they entered. Which one would reveal to him
the skeletons of the ghost crew—one of them his father’s, a father he
had never seen?
The searchers carried Geiger counters as a check on stray radioactivity
from the atomic engines. But so far the only clicks the meters gave off
were apparently from the ever-present cosmic rays out in space.
Since no bodies had yet been found, it was supposed that the four
crewmen were together in one place. The searchers had entered the
_Northern Cross_ near the rear and had been working their way forward.
Rock guessed that the bodies must be in the main control room.
In the galley, remains of a meal were still inside sealed plates. The
bits were rock hard. An examination of wall pressure gauges showed that
the entire ship was open to the vacuum of space.
“Where is the ore?” Kalmus growled. “I don’t like the looks of this!”
The search party moved down ghostly corridors that hadn’t felt the thump
of space boots for two decades. Just before reaching the main control
room, Rock came to a door-marked, “Stores.”
“This may be it!” he said hopefully and opened the door.
No one needed to tell anyone else that this was the goal they had been
looking for. It was a vast, oblong cell, its metal bins piled nearly to
the ceiling with gray lumps of rock. The rest of the room was crowded
with mining equipment. However, the bigger stuff had evidently been left
on Venus.
Kalmus gave a shout and flung himself into one of the bins. He fondled
the stones, bathing himself in the wealth. “I’m rich! I’m rich!” he kept
saying.
Rock turned away disgustedly, his young friends following. For some
reason he almost wished their mission had been a failure. Sharing this
treasure that his father had died to accumulate for unselfish motives
made Rock feel sick for a moment.
“Want to go into the pilot’s room, Rock,” Shep asked in gentle
consideration, “or shall we just pass it up?”
“No, Shep, I’ve got to see if Dad is in there,” Rock answered.
Leaving Kalmus and Judas to play in their wealth, the three youths left
the room and moved farther down the corridor to the main control room,
the door to which bulged outward. It took considerable ramming to force
it open.
The disorder of the compartment was in shocking contrast to the neatness
of the rest of the _Northern Cross_. Plastic seats were warped, and it
looked as if a giant with a padded sledge hammer had gone about
recklessly putting dents in the lightweight metal of the walls. An
emergency air lock stood wide open, revealing the stars, its door
hanging by one hinge. It was on the side away from the _Dog Star_. The
huge console that housed the instruments and gauges also showed great
depressions, and nearly all the glass dial covers were shattered.
“What do you think happened in here, Rock?” Shep asked.
“It looks like a high-pressure build-up of gas,” Rock answered.
“Probably in the ventilating system. When the pressure got too high,
either the air lock was the first to give way or somebody opened it in
desperation. I imagine all the men were trapped in here and couldn’t get
the door open.”
There were no bodies in the room. All four had evidently been swept
through the air lock by the rapidly escaping gas. Rock’s companions
could read the truth as easily as he had done himself, and they were
considerate enough to remain silent. Rock stared about him for several
moments. This was so unexpected, not finding his father. He didn’t quite
know how to take it.
The boys went out to join the others. Kalmus and Judas were chattering
over their success, already making plans for the future.
Kalmus was not concerned whether Rock had found his father or not.
“Let’s hurry up and get this stuff loaded on the _Dog Star_,” was the
first thing he said.
“Sure,” Rock said absently.
As they went aft again, Rock’s mind was full of what they had seen. He
was rather disappointed in the way he felt. He had thought he would be
jumping in elation when they found the alconite ore. Instead, he was
almost sorry. It seemed like a violation of his father’s honor to share
his property with these men of greed.
The shock of not finding his father’s body continued to disturb him. He
had hoped to take it back and give it a decent burial. Yet, as he
thought further, perhaps this was the way his dad would have wanted it,
because he was first and last a spaceman. Also, his widow would not have
to relive the pain of his loss again. Yes, it probably was best this
way.
The five of them crossed over on the cable again and made preparations
for transferring the ore to the _Dog Star_. They would carry it over in
regular space transfer crates secured to the cable. An empty crate would
be shoved across the gulf, filled up in the _Northern Cross_, and then
sent back over to be emptied of its contents.
The crew was split into two parties, five remaining aboard the _Dog
Star_ to unload and the other six going over to the _Northern Cross_ to
load the treasure aboard the crates.
The work began and moved along smoothly, but it was going to be a
drawn-out operation, if not a rigorous one. Carrying the containers of
ore down the corridors of the _Northern Cross_ was a simple matter since
they were perfectly weightless and so had only to be guided along by the
touch of a hand.
The hours dragged along slowly as load after load was drifted down the
corridors of the ghost ship and pushed across the vacuum to the _Dog
Star_. The storage bins of the smaller ship bulged higher and higher
with the valuable mineral.
As the transference neared completion, Rock took Shep aside, near one of
the ports of the _Northern Cross_. Then he began speaking very softly so
that none of Kalmus’ men working in the ship could pick up the
conversation by helmet radio.
“We’re nearly through, Shep,” he whispered, “and you know what that
means for Kalmus.”
“It means he’s got what he came for and that he should be satisfied,”
Shep finished.
“To me it’s more than that,” Rock continued. “It means that he doesn’t
need any ex-cadets anymore. You heard him say that Judas could run the
ship.”
Rock could barely see the frown on Shep’s face through the filtered
facepiece of his helmet. “What are you getting at, Rock?”
“The fewer men who return to port with the treasure ore, the fewer there
will be to share the profits,” Rock said, his radio-altered voice
carrying a sinister inflection.
“You mean you think that Kalmus is going to ditch us?” Shep asked in a
fierce whisper. “Right out here in the middle of space?”
“I’m not saying I believe that definitely,” Rock corrected, “but I do
think we should start being on our guard for any funny moves Kalmus
might make. You’ve seen yourself how greedy he is.”
“What, exactly, do you think we should do?” Shep asked.
“I think that you, Johnny, Hugh, and myself should go on over to the
_Dog Star_ right now and tell Kalmus that we believe the ship has got as
much ore as she should carry. That will prevent his stranding us over
here. If he wants to, let him come over and get the rest of the ore
himself.”
“Since we’re making wild guesses,” Shep said, “maybe Kalmus has other
plans for dealing with us, such as making us prisoners on the _Dog Star_
as we head back.”
“That’s possible too,” Rock agreed, “but he would need weapons for that,
since we outnumber them. I took a quick look through their things before
we left port to make sure he and his men had no weapons, and I don’t
think they brought any along.”
“Maybe we’re being unfair with the guy, suspecting him at all,” Shep
said.
As the words left his lips, he happened to glance out the port and saw
Ben Spooner, who had been working on the _Northern Cross_, thrust out
across the gulf empty-handed.
“Hey, look!” Shep cried. “Ben’s in a big hurry and he’s not carrying a
crate across!” He seized Rock’s space suit. “Now there goes Judas right
behind him and he’s empty-handed too!”
Rock felt his heart take a dive. “Shep, they must be going to do exactly
what I feared!” He sprang into action. “Come on, we’ve got to get Hugh
and Johnny!”
“They can’t maroon us in space!” Shep said, furious, as he tagged along
behind Rock down the corridor. “It’s the same as murder!”
“They’re not even waiting to carry the rest of the ore across!” Rock
said. “As soon as we find the fellows, we’ll get over to the _Dog Star_
right away!”
Sparky, Ed, and Leo were already in the other ship. Rock and Shep
quickly rounded up Johnny and Hugh and the four of them hustled toward
the air lock, bumping into crates in their hurry. As they reached it,
Johnny pointed out the open doorway.
“Look, Sparky’s coming over!” he said.
“Maybe he’s found out what’s going on,” Hugh spoke.
They gave Sparky a hand into the ship.
“What’s up, Sparky?” Rock asked.
“Jack Judas told me you wanted help in finishing up over here and for me
to come over,” Sparky replied.
“We didn’t send for you,” Rock told Sparky. “It must be a trick to get
the most of us over here. Come on, you guys! We’ll go over and have a
show-down with Kalmus right away!”
But before they could launch themselves, Kalmus had already begun his
act of treachery.
“Look what those crooks are doing!” Shep exclaimed.
The boys could hardly believe what they saw. It was more like a bad
dream. The cable had jerked away from the side of the _Northern Cross_
as its magnetic attraction was broken. Then the five saw Kalmus lean out
and pull it into the _Dog Star_.
“We’re too late!” Rock groaned.
The ex-cadets shouted in frustration and anger at the cold-blooded act.
Over their suit radios, they warned their former partners of the
consequences of abandoning men in space. But even as they yelled
themselves hoarse, Rock knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Kalmus had
simply gotten the jump on them, something that had probably been planned
at the very beginning of the voyage.
The outer door of the _Dog Star_ closed. A feeling of utter desperation
took possession of Rock. Here they were, five of them, marooned on a
ghost ship in space, without any foreseeable chance of returning alive
to Earth.
An hour had passed since the five ex-cadets had been cut off from the
mother ship. The _Dog Star_ had blasted off and was now out of sight.
Rock guessed that Kalmus and his rebel crew had compelled Leo and Ed to
assist Jack Judas in running the ship.
During this time, the castaways had been taking stock of their
situation. Any hopes of sending an SOS were virtually gone. The radio
antenna had been badly damaged at its base when loosened by the bulging
wall. The radio’s present range could not be over a few thousand miles.
However, things did not look nearly so dark now as they had earlier. The
boys found air tanks that would sustain them for quite a while, if not
indefinitely. Upon refilling their suits with the aged gas, they found
it breathable but carrying a metallic odor.
There was a fair abundance of irradiated food such as all space craft
carried. By receiving special treatment in an electronic oven, such food
could be preserved for years. Although hard and rather tasteless, the
present supply would at least keep them alive. The water-making machine
was still in good order, and a drink from it was as fresh as if just
drawn from a spring.
However satisfactory these three main essentials were, though, they
would all run out some day. That meant that the _Northern Cross_ would
have to move out of her stagnant orbit if there was any chance for
survival.
Rock was hopefully expectant that the ship would run again. Save for
temperature changes, there had been no weather erosion to damage the
craft and its fittings. Since the ship’s electrical power came from
sunlight and the big solar mirror had continued to gather light over all
these years, the electric system worked, and the batteries were still
charged. A long-range inspection of the atomic-engine unit showed no
radiation leakage. The unit had been shut down ever since the accident
to the _Northern Cross_; the boys found the hafnium safety rods plunged
well home into the atomic pile to prevent chain reaction. The automatic
oil and grease feeds in the ship’s motors had given out by now, and many
bearings were squeaky dry, so they replenished these.
The boys were now in the pilot’s room ready to try out the ship under
its own power. The console had pretty well resisted the crush of air
pressure that had caused the explosion, for the gauges were working. But
of course working gauges did not necessarily mean working jets. The boys
had made minor repairs in the main control room. They had reconciled
themselves to living inside space suits for the rest of the way home
since the _Northern Cross_ was open to the vacuum of space, and the air
lock was too badly damaged to close again.
When everything was in readiness for a test blast, Rock sat at the
console with the others crowding around him to keep their eyes on the
many dials. The electronic brain and autopilot were in satisfactory
order and would be called upon later if the ship were able to move under
its own thrust.
Rock pressed colored buttons and shoved knife switches and floor levers.
“Jet chamber pressures are up!” Johnny said happily.
“The fuel flow gauge is right!” Sparky called.
“The coolant is circulating!” Hugh reported.
The boys felt a vibration and heard a muted hum. Then they felt a slight
tug. They had already been traveling at substantial speed under orbital
velocity, but the slight increase was unmistakable. A check of the
dynamometer, that recorded thrust, indicated that the jets were
operating properly. Rock cut off so that they could make plans.
“We could reduce speed and try for landing on Venus,” Rock proposed,
looking out the port at the big planet that was buried within its dense
veil, “but we’d have to be awfully lucky to land within radio range of
any of the research settlements. Besides our radio being weak, there’s a
lot of static on Venus from sunspots.”
“I’m in favor of trying to get back home,” Shep declared. “Even if we
get off course we may be close enough to radio Luna or some of the space
stations for help.”
“As a matter of fact, Luna will be right in our path on the way back,”
Rock said.
Shep’s suggestion seemed to be the best idea and was voted for
unanimously. After all had helped in figuring out the mathematics of
their course, Rock fed the tape into the autopilot. Next everyone took
to shock couches.
The _Northern Cross_ was in the fortunate position of being headed
Earthward, meaning that its orbital speed could be added to their
required velocity. In a manner of speaking, it was as if Venus were a
slingshot hurling the pebble of the _Northern Cross_ into space.
Under the crushing pressure of their mounting acceleration, Rock watched
the rising space speed in his overhead prism with concern. Would the
engines of the ship, inactive for so long, respond at maximum
efficiency? If they did, would the old vessel hold together under the
strain?
The jets responded, at any rate. Rock’s body seemed to be squeezed flat,
his eyeballs pressed deeply into their sockets, his vision blurred.
Then the ship began leveling off, and the pressure lifted from Rock’s
body. Before long it was gone entirely, and he knew they could unstrap.
The first thing the boys did when they were up was to check the dials on
the console. Everything appeared to be satisfactory enough; the
_Northern Cross_ should be able to carry them all the way. The radio was
set on automatic SOS. Although extremely remote, there was the distant
possibility that some ship might be within range.
Later the same day, when Rock had a moment of relaxation, he located his
father’s private cabin. Being among his father’s things was almost like
being in his presence and seeing him for the first time. There were the
few neat clothes still hanging in the closet and the polished black
boots in an orderly row.
On a wall desk he saw a picture of his mother and a fountain pen lying
with the cap off. On the floor he found a sheet of radiogram paper on
which his father had evidently been writing before the disaster.
Rock read the letter that his father had intended to radio to his wife
on Earth. The boy’s eyes grew misty and there was a thickening in his
throat.
The twenty-year-old message carried a tone of foreboding. It was as
though Dr. Merrill felt that the four remaining less-experienced men of
his original crew of nineteen could not successfully bring the ship back
to port. “So close to my dream of a satellite hospital and yet so far,”
were his unhappy words. “And yet we shall try with all our might, my
dear, to come home. This treasure of ours _must_ not go to waste. There
is so much good that it can do.”
The letter ended abruptly as Dr. Merrill wrote, “Fox has just called me
forward. I think they may be having trouble. I’ll tell you all about it
when I get back.”
But of course neither Dr. Merrill nor anyone else ever told what had
happened.
Rock tenderly folded the brittle paper and tucked it away safely. His
mother would cherish this last word from her husband.
Rock knew now why his mother had scrimped and saved, working at the
algae canning plant, to make him eligible for cadet school. But he
didn’t know how hurt she must have been when he washed out. She hadn’t
told him that.
The days dragged by slowly. With only a backdrop of star smudges to look
at and unpalatable meals of hard, ancient food to eat, it was not
exactly an enjoyable trip. Added to this of course were the youths’
additional worries about the welfare of their two buddies and whether
the _Northern Cross_ would hold together until the beloved sphere of
Earth swam into view.
When the ship moved into the environs of Luna, the weary five knew that
Earth could not be far off. Ninety-nine per cent of their journey was
already over.
Rock studied the enlarging globe of Earth’s satellite. Its wrinkled,
gray face shone dazzlingly bright under the full glare of the sun. The
filtering glass was lowered over the forward port to cut down the
brilliance.
It was on the space day following that there occurred an incident that
filled the boys with exuberant hope. They were almost at their closest
approach to Luna. The gray desolate lands were right “below.”
A crackling was heard over the automatically set radio.
“Somebody must have picked up our signal and is trying to make contact!”
Shep cried out.
Rock moved to the console to begin cutting speed. Then all gathered
around the radio.
Hugh was the radio expert. He scooped up the mike and slid into the
chair in front of the bank of knobs.
“_SS Northern Cross_,” he said eagerly. “_SS Northern Cross._ Come in,
whoever you are! Please come in!”
The crackling continued. Then there was a fragment of voice that was
quickly lost in a babble of sound.
Hugh kept talking into the mike.
“It’s that faulty antenna!” Rock groaned.
The crackling continued. Just as Hugh was about to give up, a voice came
in weakly again. It was a voice the boys had to strain to hear, but they
caught the vital message: “Hugh—Rock!” it said. “We picked up your SOS.
We’ve had to make an emergency landing on Luna.”
“Leo!” Shep said. “It’s Leo!”
“Ask him quickly if Ed is all right and what their position is,” Rock
said to Hugh.
“Yeah, we’re both all right,” came Leo’s reply. “Our position—”
A rattle of static cut him off. The boys groaned. It would be impossible
to search the moon for a space ship. They had to get the exact location
from Leo.
They listened hopefully. Hugh kept talking, saying that they weren’t
getting clear reception.
Then Leo’s distorted voice came through again briefly. This time he got
out the latitude and longitude of the _Dog Star_. Rock eagerly wrote it
down.
“Here comes Kalmus!” they heard Leo say next in a frenzied voice.
That was the last they heard. There followed a garbled sound and then
complete silence.
“Kalmus must have destroyed the set,” Rock said gravely.
“We know where to find them now, though,” Shep said with satisfaction.
Rock went to the chart files and dug through the celestial maps for one
of Luna. He checked the position as given them by Leo.
“The place is near Archimedes in Mare Nubium,” Rock pointed out. “Get
out your pencils and take a seat at the calculators, boys; we’ve got
some navigation figuring to do!”
The velocity and orbital figures were worked out. Then the directions
were computed in the mechanical brain and fed into the autopilot. The
chemical braking rockets were switched in after the ship had turned
about-face. No terrestrial landing was ever made with atomic rockets
because of radioactive contamination of the ground.
The boys strapped down and braced for the agony of deceleration. It was
a cumbersome job, clad as they were in space gear.
As the ship decelerated, Rock focused his hurting eyes on the prism
overhead. The filter cut out the over-all glare of reflected sunlight
from Luna’s boiling-hot surface, but the harsh blacks of dead shadow and
the whites of naked sunlight were still painfully vivid. He watched the
shimmering heat vapors, the miles and miles of gray pumice, heaped in
waves in some places so that it resembled a gigantic sea whose motion
has been suddenly stilled. Finally the great curving mouth of Archimedes
began to enlarge and grow in prominence. The crater’s high, rugged walls
filled the square of Rock’s prism.
Later he felt that easy, reassuring bump of the tripod fins that told
him they had landed safely.
“Everybody O.K.?” Rock asked, looking around.
Johnny was pale and the others were a little groggy (they’d had to hit a
deceleration of 7 G’s in order to stop the ship in time), but all
attested to being alive, if shaky. Rock went over to the port to study
their surroundings.
“We didn’t get off course very much,” he announced. “I can make out the
_Dog Star_ about a quarter of a mile away.”
In their elevated position, the boys had an extensive view of the
landscape. For miles around, the ground was dead black. Only in the
distance did the razor-sharp line of sunlight begin. The _Northern
Cross_ was in the broad shadow of Archimedes and the distant _Dog Star_
was also. Between the ships lay irregular rock shapes and uneven ground.
A rift sliced across the area, appearing to make contact between the
ships impossible.
“I wonder if Kalmus knows we’ve landed?” Shep said.
“Even if they don’t know we’re here,” Johnny put in, “they are protected
by that big ditch. Not to mention being safely inside the ship.”
“I’ll admit we’ve got our job cut out for us,” Rock said, “but I don’t
think we should try going back to Earth for help and count on the _Dog
Star_ remaining here to be captured. We might never see Ed and Leo
again.”
“Rock is right,” Hugh said. “We’ll have to figure out how to get over to
the _Dog Star_ and free the boys from those crooks as soon as possible.”
Rock got out the pair of binoculars he had found among the things
belonging to the ill-fated crewmen before them. Then he looked through
them at the distant globe of the _Dog Star_. The ship had barely missed
a high wall of dark-colored lunabase rock. The wall was jagged and
spongy, like most formations on Luna, which had so little atmospheric
erosion to wear them down. As he examined the wall, a sudden idea came
to him.
“Why don’t a couple of us try to get over to that rock wall next to the
_Dog Star_?” he proposed. “We can climb it and look through some of the
ports. That way we may be able to see what the others are up to and make
our plans accordingly.”
“Why just two?” Sparky wanted to know.
“Less chance of being seen by Kalmus,” Rock answered. “Also, if the two
get caught, that still leaves three to think of something to do.”
“We haven’t yet figured how to cross that big ditch,” Hugh pointed out.
“I’ve thought of that too,” Rock said. “We can carry along a bunk ladder
out of one of the dorms. From here it looks as if the ladder will span
the ditch.”
“It sounds risky,” Johnny remarked.
“We’ve got to do something,” Shep countered. “I agree with Rock. How
about you and me trying it, Rock?”
The matter was settled. But before anyone could go outside, the area had
to be given time to clear of residual radioactivity around the atomic
rocket nozzles. After waiting an hour, Rock and Shep got the ladder and
carried it downstairs several flights to the air lock.
The ladder was tossed through the air lock to the ground. It floated
feather-light. The former cadets descended by way of the ship’s ladder.
They carried a Geiger counter for checking contamination. Besides the
portable ladder, they had with them binoculars, a safety rope, and a
walkie-talkie radio for communicating with the _Northern Cross_.
The area was free of contamination. The boys found walking quite awkward
at first and laughed at their own clumsy efforts as they fairly danced
along through the volcanic and meteoric dust. There was quite a
difference between being absolutely weightless in magnetic-soled shoes
and being of one-sixth Earth weight without such shoes. They finally got
the hang of it and found they could take gliding steps of about five
feet at a time.
They kept behind rocks and ground rises to minimize the chance of their
being seen. They still could not be certain Kalmus had not seen the
_Northern Cross_ come down.
The rocks and ground were covered with a down of hoarfrost. This was due
to Luna’s scant moisture content condensing in the exceedingly rare
atmosphere which was made up principally of carbon dioxide. As they
moved along, Rock saw that Shep was beginning to grow a whitish fuzz of
dry ice on his suit.
It was hard for Rock to realize that the temperature around them was
several hundred degrees below zero, while only a scant mile or two
farther out it was hotter than boiling water under the full rays of the
sun. This was only one of Luna’s many strange features that fascinated
him. He wished this had been a trip of exploration and fun instead of
the grim battle that it was.
As they approached the great rift in the ground, Rock began to get a
queasy feeling.
“Wide, isn’t it?” he asked Shep over his suit radio.
“And deep,” Shep replied, after a look over the brink that had showed no
bottom.
They brought the ladder over to the edge and carefully spanned the gulf
with it.
“It just does make it!” Rock gasped. “There’s only about a foot to spare
on each end.”
They found a wedge of rock like a dinosaur’s tooth deeply embedded in
the ground not far from the crack. Around this they tied one end of
their safety rope. Then Rock tied the other end around his waist.
“Hold on to the ladder to make sure it doesn’t slip,” Rock told his
friend, and slowly he started out over the plunging abyss.
Rock looked down through the rungs at the black emptiness below.
Although he wore the safety line, a fall could be dangerous. He looked
ahead as he kept moving forward. The other end of the ladder was
wobbling back and forth. When he reached the opposite side of the brink
and climbed onto firm ground, he was aware only of the perspiration
trickling down his face. It made him turn down his suit heat a couple of
degrees.
He untied the safety line and threw it back to Shep. Then his friend
started over the perilous bridge, with Rock holding his side of the
ladder as firm as he was able. Shep made it safely too, so they were
both vastly relieved.
“We’ll just leave the ladder in place,” Rock suggested, then added
gravely, “That’s in case we have to cross it in a hurry.”
Without the ladder to hamper them they could be more furtive in their
movements. They dodged lithely around towering chunks of light-colored
lunarite and darker lunabase. The rock formations looked like petrified
sponges jutting up out of a dried-up sea bottom. When the two had to go
out in the open, they sprinted toward the next place of cover. Since
hoarfrost continued to gather on their suits, they constantly brushed it
off. A moving white figure even in the deep shadows might be noticed by
anyone in the _Dog Star_.
Now only a few hundred feet separated Rock and Shep from the space ship.
They began swinging inward nearer the _glacis_ or outer slope of the
crater, heading toward the wall of lunabase.
“If they’ve seen us, they haven’t given any sign,” Rock said with some
measure of satisfaction when they had reached the foot of the wall and
were watching the dumbbell shape of the _Dog Star_ just a short distance
away. Standing on its tripod base, it looked like a huge kettle.
Rock and Shep started up the rugged slope. Although precipitous and
craggy, it did not look to be too difficult to climb since there were
natural footholds at almost every step. Nevertheless a slip would be
perilous, if not fatal. The boys had been well drilled in the dire
effects of having one’s space suit ripped open. In such case the suit
collapsed like a burst balloon, admitting the killing cold or heat,
whichever it might be, causing death.
When Rock and Shep were at a height level with the ports of the _Dog
Star_, they began crawling laterally toward the ship. Rime covered the
corallike edges, making them slippery as the comparative warmth of their
space suits melted the ice particles. They were about fifty feet from
the ship at this point. Rock checked the counter. There was no gamma-ray
contamination from the _Dog Star_. It was safe to approach closer.
They got as close as they dared to the port that looked in on the main
control room. They could see Leo and Ed working intently on an opened
gear-box beside the instrument console. Across the room sat Jack Judas,
a grim look on his beetle-browed face. And in his hand the boys could
see a blaster.
“They did smuggle weapons aboard, Rock!” Shep said. “They must have
hidden them carefully.”
“That proves they planned the scheme from the very beginning,” Rock
said.
“And it’s going to make it harder for us, because we’re unarmed,” Shep
remarked.
“I believe the boys are stalling them,” Rock said. “They probably
doctored the controls and brought the ship down just to give us time to
catch up with them.”
“I wish there were some way to let them know we’ve landed,” Shep said.
“That is, if Kalmus hasn’t found out already.”
Shep started to move into a better position to see when suddenly his
foothold gave away beneath him. His cry blasted loudly over Rock’s
receiver. Rock made an instinctive grab for his friend. He barely caught
hold of an anchor ring on the other’s space belt in time to keep him
from tumbling all the way to the ground. Rock steadied him as Shep
thrust about with his feet for a new foothold.
“I thought I was a goner!” Shep said tremulously.
During the boys’ struggles they had evidently released loose material,
for they saw a quantity of the porous stone cascade down the wall and
strike the side of the ship.
“We’ve got to scram!” Rock said urgently. “They’re bound to have heard
that inside! Now they’ll know we’re on Luna!”
They scrambled downward as fast as possible, without being reckless. It
seemed as if the lunabase were more slippery than ever. Twice the boys’
feet slipped, and only timely bracing by the other prevented disaster.
When they were about halfway down, Shep’s foot wedged into a crevice.
“Look what I had to do with my big feet!” Shep groaned.
“Don’t worry,” Rock said. “It’ll take them a few minutes to get space
suits on if they have decided to come out and investigate.”
Rock gently but firmly began working on his friend’s imprisoned foot. He
moved it back and forth, tugging and pushing. But it held fast. Even
after several minutes, Shep was still a prisoner.
Then suddenly the thing that the boys had feared happened. The air lock
of the _Dog Star_ opened and a ladder was thrust out until it reached
the ground. Kalmus and two of his companions began descending. They all
carried blasters.
“Now we’re done—” Shep blurted, only to be shushed abruptly by his
friend. Shep had forgotten that all the suit radios were on the same
wave length.
“I think we’re barking up the wrong tree!” the boys heard Ben Spooner
say when they were on the ground. “That wasn’t anything but some loose
rock that fell off that hill up there.”
“Rocks don’t just fall on Luna!” Kalmus retorted. “Something has to move
them! I still believe those guys have traced us here! Leo must have been
able to contact them by radio before I could break up the set!”
“I don’t see anybody around,” Mumbly Pegg remarked.
“’Course you don’t see ’em!” Kalmus growled. “You dead brain! You don’t
think they’re standing around waiting to be caught, do you? Start
climbing up that hill, both of you!”
Rock eased down as flat as he could get and motioned Shep to do the
same. Through his helmet, Rock could see the grimace of pain on Shep’s
face as his movement put pressure on the trapped foot. Rock cautioned
him not to groan or speak a word.
Over his radio Rock heard Spooner and Pegg breathing hard as they began
scrambling up the formation, followed by Kalmus. Rock kept perfectly
still, hoping with all his might that the men would not discover them.
“I still think we’re barking up the wrong tree!” stocky Ben Spooner
repeated as his breathing grew harder at every upward step.
“Shut up and keep climbing!” came Kalmus’ voice. “They’re bound to be up
there!”
Shep was trying manfully to be silent, but every now and then an
involuntary sob of pain escaped his lips. They could hear Mumbly Pegg
murmuring to himself, in his own peculiar incessant manner.
Now Spooner was getting closer. He was only about fifteen feet away,
and, as if following some telepathic message, he continued approaching
the youths.
“We’re done for,” Rock thought, with despair. “There’s nothing to keep
him from finding us.”
Rock lowered himself still flatter, until the sharp edges of lunar stone
pressed dangerously into his inflated suit. Spooner still climbed.
Another couple of feet and he would be looking right down on them. They
heard the sucking of his tired breath and choking wheezes as if he
couldn’t take another step.
“Tony!” Rock heard him call weakly. “I can’t go any higher! Besides, I
can see the top and nobody’s up here! I’ve got to come down!”
“Come on down then, you weakling!” Kalmus grated. “What a bunch of saps
I brought along with me!”
“I can see the top too,” came Pegg’s voice from another part of the
formation. “There’s nobody up here, Tony.”
“I guess you guys were right after all,” Kalmus finally conceded.
It seemed a terribly long time before the men got to the ground and
disappeared into the ship. Rock gave them time to remove their space
gear before daring to speak over his radio.
“Boy, that’s the closest call we’ll ever have!” Shep said.
“We’re still not out of the woods,” Rock reminded him. “We’ve got to get
you free.”
He went after the trapped foot with a more determined vengeance. Shep
howled, but Rock finally jerked it free of the stubborn crevice.
When they reached the bottom, Shep was limping and said his ankle hurt.
Rock supported him and they headed back toward the _Northern Cross_.
They continued with caution, keeping out of the open as much as
possible.
“I don’t see that we accomplished much,” Shep said wearily.
“It’s given me another plan, at least,” Rock replied, brushing at a new
growth of ice crystals.
“Oh, oh, here we go again!” Shep sighed, then winced as his ankle hurt
him again.
“All of us,” Rock began, “except you—if you’re not up to it—will come
back over here. We’ve already proved that the trip can be made without
their seeing us. We’ll station ourselves around the air lock, except for
one who will climb the formation and kick rocks down again on the ship.
This time Kalmus will be sure it’s us, and they’ll come out to
investigate again. When they come out, our bunch will slip inside. If
Judas has been left to watch Leo and Ed, he shouldn’t give us much
trouble by himself if we slip up on him and catch him unawares. Once
we’ve locked out the other three they’ll give in willingly just to get
back inside.”
“That’s pretty daring,” Shep said doubtfully, “but I guess we’ve got to
be daring if we’re going to save the boys.”
As they walked, Rock radioed the _Northern Cross_ with the walkie-talkie
he’d been carrying on his back, telling the boys of their close call.
When the two reached the ladder bridge across the rift, Shep had
difficulty crossing with his injured foot. He went first, and as Rock
steadied the frail bridge, he held his breath tensely for fear Shep
would slip. They had used the safety rope again, but, if one of them
should fall, he could easily rip open his suit as he thudded against the
jagged side of the chasm.
Once more, however, they got across without mishap and were soon back at
the ship. The boys helped them in eagerly.
“Are you fellows ready to go back with me?” Rock asked them.
They looked at him in amazement. He explained his new plan to them. All
considered it taking a big chance, but, not being able to think of
anything better, they agreed that they might as well try it.
“Kalmus is getting mean and nasty,” Shep told them. “This thing seems to
be getting on his nerves. There’s no telling what he’ll do to the boys
before this is all over. He and his men have blasters, and they mean
business.”
The boys prepared a snack for themselves, then began to dress, trying to
choose the best of the antiquated suits.
Shep did not suit up. He said that he wouldn’t be able to help any
because of his ankle, which was noticeably swollen now. He wouldn’t let
any of the others stay behind with him, however.
When all were dressed and ready to go, they said good-by to their
crippled buddy.
“What’ll I do if you don’t come back?” Shep asked Rock.
“I guess you’ll just have to come over and join us,” Rock replied,
half-jokingly. “Two could possibly get the ship back to port in a pinch
but not one man alone.”
“I think I’ll prefer your coming back,” Shep said, with a broad grin.
“Good luck, you guys.”
The four of them started out. Rock showed his friends the route he and
Shep had taken before, one that appeared safe from possible inquiring
eyes aboard the _Dog Star_. It took them some time to cross the chasm,
since each fellow had to tie on the safety rope as he went over.
“I’ll climb the lunabase formation,” Rock told them, “because I was up
there before and know the way. The rest of you keep away from the ports
and sneak up to the air lock over there. When I see that you’re ready,
I’ll kick some stone down onto the ship. That should bring them outside
in a few minutes. We’ve already made our plans from then on.”
Rock watched Hugh, Sparky, and Johnny slip agilely into the open and
bound like gazelles over to the air lock. Then he started to climb the
wall as he and Shep had done before.
It was then that the shocking collapse of Rock’s bold plan came about.
Kalmus and all three of his men darted swiftly from behind the ship, two
on each side. They leveled their blasters at the boys, warning them to
stay in their tracks.
“Keep them covered, Ben,” Kalmus ordered. “Come on, Jack and Mumbly.
There’s another one around here somewhere. I saw four of them.”
The shocking suddenness of the countermove had left Rock numb and
immobile for a few seconds. But he quickly regained his composure and
sprang into action. He leaped to the ground and scrambled madly to
safety behind the lunabase formation.
He had barely ducked behind a monolith before two helmeted heads loomed
some twenty feet away. A glance in the other direction showed him the
third. He had to get out of there quickly.
He dashed into the open and with great leaps tried to put as much
distance between himself and his pursuers as he could. He got a good
start on them before they caught sight of him and gave chase.
“Stop!” Kalmus roared. “We’ll shoot if you don’t!”
Rock kept running, heading for the chasm. If the three were shooting at
him, he had no way of telling in the near airlessness of the planet. He
wouldn’t know unless he felt the hot stab of a heat ray and the
explosive loss of air from his suit.
Reaching the rift, he cast a hurried glance behind and saw the three
still following. Not having time to tie on the safety rope, Rock started
across the chasm.
Over his radio he continued to hear Kalmus’ threats. The voice grew
louder as the pursuers drew close. Being able to move ten feet or so at
a jump, it wouldn’t take them many seconds to reach the chasm.
Rock clutched at the far bank and hauled himself onto safe ground. As he
exhaustedly pulled the ladder across out of reach of the others, he
looked up to see them almost at the edge. But without the ladder, they
were helpless to advance any farther.
Fearing a well-placed shot, Rock scrambled for cover behind a protective
clump of boulders not far off. Only then did he feel that he could dare
take a deep breath since the terrible ordeal had begun. Kalmus and his
two companions seemed reluctant to attempt a jump of the chasm and
headed back to the _Dog Star_.
[Illustration: _Almost exhausted, he pulled the ladder across and out of
their reach._]
Rock continued on to the _Northern Cross_.
When Shep admitted him into the ship, Rock related the unhappy story
with bitter tears in his eyes.
“You guys should have set me adrift long ago!” Rock burst out. “I’ve
been giving orders ever since we started, and every plan has backfired!
Now there are only the two of us left!”
“We had to have a leader,” Shep said more calmly. “We chose you because
we thought you were the best. We still do. Now quit feeling sorry for
yourself!”
“I don’t know what could have happened!” Rock sighed, shaking his head.
“_I_ know,” Shep said. “Kalmus just happened to see you fellows coming,
that’s all.”
Rock sat down wearily. “You take over from here, Shep. I’m licked.”
Shep could see that his friend was genuinely distressed. He concealed
the harrowing pain he felt in his ankle and tried to think of their next
move. Minutes passed without Rock speaking. He merely stared out the
port at the star-jeweled sky and the shimmering ball of Earth that could
look so close to a person in space and yet be so far away.
“You said that two could run this ship in a pinch,” Shep spoke to break
the silence. “We’ll just have to take the _Northern Cross_ back to port
ourselves and get help from the Space Guard. The boys will probably try
to stall longer and keep the _Dog Star_ on the ground.”
“I guess that is the only way,” Rock admitted, then added dismally, “If
the ship isn’t here when the Guard comes back, we probably won’t see the
fellows anymore, that’s all.”
“What you need is a good rest, Rock,” Shep told him. “None of us has had
one since we came here. Let’s get a few hours of sleep, one at a time,
and then get back to the problem when we’re more refreshed. I’ll stand
first watch to see if the _Dog Star_ takes off.”
“I am pretty tired,” Rock said. “This time we’ll do what you say, Shep,”
he smiled feebly. “You be sure to wake me to relieve you.”
Rock stretched out in a chair and fell asleep almost immediately.
The next thing he remembered was his friend shaking him. Rock stirred
sleepily.
“I guess I’ll be shot for going to sleep on guard duty,” Shep confessed.
“I just couldn’t help it, though.”
Rock had no reason to doubt that the _Dog Star_ would not still be in
its same spot, but some impulse prompted him to look out the port just
the same. His heart suddenly seemed to go dead inside of him.
“The ship is gone, Shep!”
“Oh, no!”
The glasses revealed indisputably that the ship had blasted off. There
was only a blackened ring and a depression where the _Dog Star_ had been
before.
“They’ve gotten the jump on us again!” Rock said brokenly.
“Kalmus must have threatened the boys, or else Judas got the ship off,”
Shep said.
“Whatever it was, they’re gone now,” Rock said hopelessly. “They can be
heading for almost any place in the solar system.”
“What do you think we should do now?” Shep asked.
“Go ahead with our same plan to notify the Guard, I guess,” Rock replied
tonelessly. “They’ll probably send out some cruisers to look for the
_Dog Star_.”
Rock stared solemnly out the port. “It’s my fault all this has happened.
My fault that we ever started out on this crazy treasure hunt and my
fault that the boys are in the hands of these space pirates!”
“Don’t blame yourself, Rock. The fellows knew very well what they were
getting into. It’s not your fault that things haven’t worked out.”
Rock tried to shake off the pall of despair that had dogged him for the
past few hours and got busily to work. “Well, no use just sitting here
on Luna talking about it,” he murmured. “Let’s get that ankle of yours
bandaged and then we’ll start up the engines.”
It was going to be a tricky undertaking to manage all the complicated
controls between the two of them. Shep was further hindered by his ankle
that had stiffened while he had slept. Rock had remembered seeing a
first-aid kit and he went for it. He wrapped the ankle tightly so that
Shep would be able to get about with a minimum of pain. They had to cut
the sides of Shep’s magnetic-soled shoe so that there would be as little
discomfort as possible. Shep could have done without magnetic shoes
altogether, being content to float about weightlessly in the ship when
they were beyond Luna’s gravity pull, but this would have interfered
with running the ship, which required a certain amount of body leverage.
The two got their individual duties synchronized so that there would be
no hitch, Rock taking the bulk of the work.
They calculated their figures and prepared the tape for the autopilot.
Then they strapped down in the couch room for the take-off. Rock still
did not trust the _Northern Cross_ too far, and at this moment he was
concerned lest the old ship might not respond to the lift of her jets.
The next few moments would tell the story.
Rock felt the vibration of the ship as the fuel pumps went to work. The
overhead prism showed the flow meter registering properly, but the big
question was still whether the ship would be able to lift itself into
the heights. Then a sudden movement seemed to cut Rock’s breath off in
his throat. His body pressed deeply into his couch, aching, but Rock was
glad. The ship was rising from the soil of Luna.
They pushed the _Northern Cross_ along at the top speed they believed
was reasonably safe. The ship creaked and groaned under the burden of
maximum thrust. As yet she had given no indication of suffering worse
than this, but it was clear that the space vessel had seen her best
days.
When the _Northern Cross_ was about two-thirds of the way home, a
suspicious dot was seen on the radarscope, moving too slowly for a
meteor.
“Shep!” Rock called. “Take a look at this, will you?”
Shep limped over as Rock got out his binoculars.
“I can’t believe it!” Rock blurted. “It’s the _Dog Star_!”
“What!” Shep cried, and grabbed the binoculars from Rock. “It _is_ the
_Dog Star_!”
“Kalmus has got more nerve than I thought he had!” Rock said. “I didn’t
think he’d risk heading straight for Earth!”
“Whatever the reason, we’ve got him in our sights,” Shep said. “What’ll
we do?”
“Follow him in, I guess,” Rock answered. “Whatever station he heads for,
we’ll put the Guard right on him and his cronies.”
“I’d advise our keeping our distance so we won’t scare him off,” Shep
suggested.
Rock nodded. “When we get closer in, we may be able to radio a warning
to the stations to be on the lookout for him.”
They followed the _Dog Star_ for an entire space day, keeping the same
distance between the ships. The craft was undoubtedly still heading for
Earth and its company of artificial satellites. If her occupants had
spotted the other ship, they did not seem alarmed. Kalmus appeared to be
walking right into capture at a time when victory seemed to be
completely his. It didn’t make sense.
Hours later, Rock was interrupted from study of a sky chart when Shep
cried out in an anguished voice. Rock dashed over to the port where his
friend was looking out.
“There’s been an explosion aboard the _Dog Star_!” Shep blurted. “A big
burst of flame poured out of it!”
“We’ve got to get to her right away!” Rock said hoarsely.
It took some time to change course and swing around in pursuit of the
_Dog Star_’s new glide path. Rock fretted impatiently. He had nightmare
visions of what might have happened or might now be happening to his
buddies aboard the stricken vessel.
As soon as the _Northern Cross_ had matched flight paths with the other
craft, Rock reduced their velocity so they could creep up on the _Dog
Star_ “overhead.” The maneuver was accomplished as quickly as possible.
The _Northern Cross_ now lay “above” the _Dog Star_, with a space of
about a hundred feet between.
Rock set the controls on hold positions as Shep procured a long towline.
The boys dressed hurriedly in space gear, then opened the air lock
closest to the ragged topside hole they had seen in the other ship. They
secured the safety line to an outside anchor ring, then Rock fastened
the line to his own suit.
“Maybe you’d better stay out of this with that bad ankle of yours,” Rock
told Shep.
“And let you go across on your own?” Shep retorted. “No, I’m sticking
with you this time.”
Rock shoved off briskly from the ship’s hull and floated across the gulf
of vacuum toward the _Dog Star_. He landed on the hull not far from the
explosion hole that was amidships near a rocket-tube cluster. Shep
pulled in the line and then launched himself across the emptiness. Rock
steadied him as he landed.
The two scrambled immediately down through the gaping cavity, careful
not to snag their suits on the sharp edges. The boys climbed down along
the bulkheads of the corridor where smoke swirled like fog.
Reaching the floor, they were met by four running figures in space
suits. The boys recognized Kalmus and his three companions in a
desperate hurry.
Rock lashed out boldly at Kalmus who was rushing at him. He heard the
big fellow groan over his suit radio as the blow landed. But then Rock
was charged by Jack Judas. He was lifted off the floor and, because of
his helplessness when not in contact with it, was sent crashing heavily
against the wall of the corridor.
Rock scrambled down off the wall to resume the battle. Shep was
courageously taking on all four of their attackers. Rock leaped into the
middle of it all, swinging fiercely. Another blow sent him careening
into the wall. Shep was flat on the floor now.
Expecting no mercy from the victors, Rock was amazed to see the four
withdraw from the fight and run off down the corridor in the direction
they had been heading in before. Rock and Shep tiredly climbed to their
feet.
“They weren’t after us!” Shep gasped. “They were just trying to get
away!”
“They’re heading for the lifeboat rockets, I guess,” Rock panted. “They
looked scared to death!”
“Let’s get to the fellows!” Shep said.
They hurried along to the main control room. It was empty, so they moved
farther along to the navigation room. The door was locked and from
inside there came the sound of beating fists. With their heavy space
boots Rock and Shep began kicking the light metal door with passionate
vigor. Finally they tore the lock loose and the twisted door swung
inward.
Sparky, Ed, and Johnny were sagging against the far wall, their eyelids
half-closed. Leo was giggling strangely and chattering as if enjoying
himself. Sparky kept crying out, “I can’t hear!”
Only Hugh appeared normal. It was he who had been beating on the door.
His face was red with fright and shiny with sweat.
“The air pressure is down!” Hugh gasped to Rock and Shep. “Give us air!”
Rock and Shep slammed the door to save as much remaining air as possible
and hurried to the supply room. They gathered up all the oxygen bottles
that they could carry and rushed back with them. They opened the
petcocks on all, and the life-giving precious gas began flooding the
room.
But the gauge on the wall still showed a subnormal air pressure. Shep
and Rock found space suits in the supply room and began helping their
companions into them. The victims could help a little, but, except for
Hugh, they were still in such a state of anoxia that their rescuers had
to do most of the work.
Finally the five were safely encased in suits, with clean pressurized
air filling their lungs.
When the others felt like it, they began to talk.
“Kalmus had us locked up in the navigation room while they went to eat,”
Hugh explained. “Then when the explosion came, Kalmus and his men must
have been in such a hurry that they forgot all about us.”
“You might know that the only thing that would have made Kalmus abandon
the treasure would be the saving of his own neck,” Rock said
contemptuously. “You fellows had better get a physical as soon as we get
to port.”
Shep asked the fellows what had happened since their capture.
“Kalmus made us blast off soon after he caught us,” Hugh was the first
to reply.
“Whatever made Kalmus head for Earth?” Rock asked. “We thought that
would be the last place he’d want to carry all of you since you’d be
able to incriminate him.”
“Kalmus didn’t intend to land at a space station!” Ed cut in. “He was
going straight for Earth and touch down in the Arizona desert where he
could unload the ore without being noticed. Then he and the others were
going to sell it a little at a time over a long period.”
“Carry the _Dog Star_ directly to Earth!” Shep exclaimed. “This ship
isn’t made for atmospheric travel! It would have been turned into a
meteor by skin friction!”
“That’s what we tried to tell that crazy man!” Sparky said. “But he
thought we were trying to fool him and get him to dock at one of the
space stations. Judas knew the danger too, but Kalmus wouldn’t listen to
him either.”
“How did you keep the _Dog Star_ at such slow velocity?” Rock asked.
“We shorted out the circuit to a couple of jets,” Johnny replied. “Told
Kalmus it was an accident. We had Judas fooled too. We were trying to
stall reaching Earth as long as possible.”
“We hoped we’d get a chance to jump the fellows,” Hugh put in. “We even
had an outside hope that you might catch up with us.”
Rock went back to the earlier capture of Leo and Ed. Kalmus wanted only
two of the boys to run the ship, Leo explained, so that they could be
easily watched by the four. That was why they had sent Sparky back over
after the transfer of the ore.
Ed said that he and Leo had made such an unsatisfactory job
(intentionally) of running the ship that Kalmus had made Judas take
over. But Judas was so rusty with his piloting that he botched up the
controls, making a forced landing on Luna necessary. The boys then got
the idea of trying to contact the _Northern Cross_ by radio, which they
had done in one of Kalmus’ unguarded moments. Kalmus had been so
infuriated to discover this that he had destroyed the radio. He
mistakenly thought he had done it before a message had been sent.
“Let’s hope we’ve seen the last of that Kalmus bunch,” Shep declared.
“If everything turns out all right for us, I don’t care whether they are
ever caught or not.”
“Do you suppose they got off in the lifeboats?” Hugh suddenly asked.
During their discussion of past events, they had almost forgotten about
the present whereabouts of Kalmus and his men. They went to check the
escape hatches and found one of four lifeboat rockets gone.
“I don’t see how they expect to reach any of the space stations with
their limited knowledge of navigation,” Sparky said.
“Even Judas can find his way home from here,” Rock told him. “We’re only
a few thousand miles from the outer radio relay satellite. The lifeboats
have simple instructions printed on the walls that practically anybody
can follow.”
Shep changed the subject. “Anybody know what caused the explosion?”
“Probably a valve lock somewhere in the chemical fuel system,” Hugh
answered. “That’s what all of us think, judging from the sound of the
blast. Our tinkering with the jets might have caused it.”
“The thing to do now,” Rock said, “is to get these ships back to port,
that is, if the _Dog Star_ has still got its power. I suggest we split
into two groups, four on the _Northern Cross_ and three on the _Dog
Star_.”
It was discovered that the damage from the explosion would prevent the
_Dog Star_ from traveling at its best speed because one entire rocket
section was out of order. But it would run.
They drew lots to see who would ride in which vessel. Rock, Hugh, Ed,
and Shep drew the _Northern Cross_ and Leo, Sparky, and Johnny the _Dog
Star_.
Rock and his three companions who would return to the _Northern Cross_
went back to the ship by way of the towline. The ghost ship still
hovered overhead in the same position it had occupied before, even
though the two craft were traveling at a good pace through the deeps.
The space ships were brought back into their original Earthward paths,
and in a few hours’ time the braking rockets were ready to cut in.
Several futile attempts had been made to contact a space station by
radio, and it wasn’t until this point that the _Northern Cross_ was able
to establish its first contact over the crippled set. This was by way of
a continuous signal beamed out through space by a rotating antenna atop
the outermost artificial satellite, the radio relay station, 50,000
miles from Earth.
Hugh signaled for an operator and when he came in, Hugh gave the name of
the ship and its position.
“Who did you say you were?” Rock heard the operator ask in amazement.
“The _Northern Cross_,” Hugh answered, “serial number A45-J, World
Spacecraft, manufacturer.”
There was silence on the other end for several moments. Hugh winked at
Rock. “We’ll have some fun with them,” he said.
“When did the ship go out?” the operator asked.
“Twenty years ago,” Hugh replied.
“Is this a joke?” the other retorted.
“Not at all,” Hugh assured him.
The radioman chose not to argue any further. “I’ll give you approach
instructions,” he said.
“There are two ships,” Hugh told him. “We’re together.”
The operator sputtered again when Hugh told him that the _Dog Star’s_
radio was completely out. “How do you expect me to bring a ship in
without a radio?” he complained.
“If you give us both instructions,” Hugh answered, “we’ll relay those
for the other ship to them by suit radio. We’re close enough for that.”
“I guess you know this is highly irregular,” the operator replied. “I
still think you’re pulling my leg!”
As the approach instructions were given, Rock relayed them to the _Dog
Star_. The connection was rather feeble because of the low power of
Rock’s suit radio transmitter, but by hooking up his own suit radio to
the ship’s antenna, damaged though it was, Leo, acting as radioman,
could hear well enough.
As the ships moved in parallel to the spinning station, a final
adjustment by the forward jets synchronized the ships’ motion with that
of the rotating station.
“Pretty good approach,” the operator admitted grudgingly. “You two will
come into adjoining Docks 5 and 6. Stand by.”
Presently two sets of long, flexible metal arms reached out from the
space station like the arms of an octopus and attached themselves
magnetically to the sides of the ships. Then slowly the _Northern Cross_
and _Dog Star_ were pulled into their docks.
Word of arrival of the derelict space ship had been spreading all over
the station apparently, for Rock and his friends found the entire high
brass there to meet them as they crossed through the coupling tubes into
the satellite.
The boys were conducted to the official quarters of the commanding
officer where he was gathered with the other members of his staff. There
Rock related the entire story of their trip. At first mention of Kalmus’
name, Colonel George had spoken to one of his officers and sent him out.
When Rock was through with his story, Colonel George shook his balding
gray head, although it was a gesture not without humor.
“It sounds like a fiction piece, Merrill,” the officer said, his eyes
glowing with an excitement that suggested he might have enjoyed sharing
such an adventure himself.
“Not that I disbelieve you! I don’t mean that. It’s just so incredible
what a group of young fellows have done!” He looked at his spellbound
officers and they nodded approvingly.
“I’ve sent one of my men to see if Kalmus had docked here,” Colonel
George went on. “He’s probably a scoundrel with a bad record. That must
have been why he was in such a hurry to get started from the servicing
station, before his references could be checked at central
identification on Earth. You mentioned, Merrill, that he appeared very
generous in extending credit to you. I suppose you realize now that he
must have planned to take over the ship from the very beginning and
therefore his original so-called credit would be only a fraction of the
wealth he expected to bring back.”
“Yes, we finally guessed that, sir,” Rock said.
There was a wait until the officer returned with the facts on Kalmus. He
handed a yellow sheet to the commanding officer who read it with a show
of regret.
“Kalmus and his men docked here about two hours ago,” Colonel George
said. “As soon as they docked, they immediately jumped on a ferry going
Earthward. The ferry landed some time ago and they can be anywhere on
Earth. I’m afraid Kalmus and party have given us the slip. We’ve already
notified the authorities to initiate a search for them. Too bad you men
were unable to get in touch with us by radio so that we could have been
ready for them.”
“He may have escaped, sir,” Rock reminded him, “but not with the ore
treasure, not even his own half.”
Colonel George chuckled. “That’s right. And if he should turn up to
claim it, we’ll charge him with a crime that is quite serious.”
“If he and his men are ever captured, sir,” Rock said, “we’ll make a
settlement with him then. He may need the money for some good lawyers.”
The colonel smiled. “I see you fellows want to do the right thing even
if he hasn’t. Let me say here that I consider what you men have done,
bringing into port two crippled ships, the most remarkable space
performance I have ever heard about in my career. I’d have given
anything to be thirty years younger and one of you!” He sighed
regretfully. “In view of all this, I believe it would be embarrassing to
the Space Academy not to reconsider you seven for cadet school. I’ll
personally make a strong recommendation for you.”
The boys, except for their leader, were profuse in their thanks. Rock
was quietly grateful and filled with a heart-warming satisfaction. For
all these long weeks since their blast-off, he had suffered remorse for
having brought his friends into such perils as they faced. Now it had
all worked out for a purpose. Where they might never have come back, now
they had not only returned without harm, but they would reclaim the
opportunity for a space career that had appeared to end for them with
their washout from the Space Academy.
As Rock happily thought over these things, an officer wearing the
insigne of a metallurgist came into the room.
“I’ve made an assay of the ore cargo on the _Northern Cross_, Colonel,”
the man said. “It’s good alconite ore and is worth a fortune, and of
course the ship is quite valuable too. It’ll tell us a lot about
long-period effects of space conditions.”
“Now my success is complete,” Rock thought. “Dad did not lose his life
for nothing. The satellite hospital will be a living memorial to his
unselfish ambition. Even with all the things that happened to us, I’m
glad we took the chance.”
He was sure his friends felt the same way.