He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they
hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid
qualifications Burnside had set down.
"Wait a minute," Bob Parker begged nervously. "I want to make some
conversation, lady. I'm sure you don't understand the conditions--"
The girl turned and drew a gun from a holster. It was a spasticizer,
and it was three times as big as her gloved hand.
"I understand conditions better than you do," she said. "You want
to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth.
Unfortunately, this is my home, by common law. Come back in a month. I
don't expect to be here then."
"A month!" Parker burst the word out. He started to sweat, then his
face became grim. He took two slow steps toward the girl. She blinked
and lost her composure and unconsciously backed up two steps. About
twenty steps away was her small dumbbell-shaped ship, so shiny and
unscarred that it reflected starlight in highlights from its curved
surface. A rich girl's ship, Bob Parker thought angrily. A month would
be too late!
He said grimly, "Don't worry. I don't intend to pull any rough stuff.
I just want you to listen to reason. You've taken a whim to stay on
an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But
to us--to me and Queazy here--it means our business. We got an order
for this asteroid. Some screwball millionaire wants it for a backyard
wedding see? We get five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it!
If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to
Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories.
Don't we, Queazy?"
Queazy said simply, "That's right, miss. We're in a spot. I assure you
we didn't expect to find someone living here."
The girl holstered her spasticizer, but her completely inhospitable
expression did not change. She put her hands on the bulging hips of her
space-suit. "Okay," she said. "Now I understand the conditions. Now we
both understand each other. G'bye again. I'm staying here and--" she
smiled sweetly "--it may interest you to know that if I let you have
the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than
death! So that's that."
Bob recognized finality when he saw it. "Come on, Queazy," he said
fuming. "Let this brat have her way. But if I ever run across her
without a space-suit on I'm going to give her the licking of her life,
right where it'll do the most good!"
He turned angrily, but Queazy grabbed his arm, his mouth falling open.
He pointed off into space, beyond the girl.
"What's that?" he whispered.
"What's wha--_Oh!_"
Bob Parker's stomach caved in. A few hundred feet away, floating
gently toward the asteroid, came another ship--a ship a trifle bigger
than their own. The girl turned, too. They heard her gasp. In another
second, Bob was standing next to her. He turned the audio-switch to his
headset off, and spoke to the girl by putting his helmet against hers.
"Listen to me, miss," he snapped earnestly, when she tried to draw
away. "Don't talk by radio. That ship belongs to the Saylor brothers!
Oh, Lord, that this should happen! Somewhere along the line, we've been
double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't
hesitate to pull any rough stuff. We're in this together, understand?
We got to back each other up."
The girl nodded dumbly. Suddenly she seemed to be frightened.
"It's--it's very important that this--this asteroid stay right where it
is," she said huskily. "What--what will they do?"
* * * * *
Bob Parker didn't answer. The big ship had landed, and little blue
sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic
clamps took hold. A few seconds later, the airlocks swung down, and
five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood
surveying the three who faced them.
The two men in the lead stood with their hands on their hips; their
darkish, twin faces were grinning broadly.
"A pleasure," drawled Wally Saylor, looking at the girl. "What do you
think of this situation Billy?"
"It's obvious," drawled Billy Saylor, rocking back and forth on his
heels, "that Bob Parker and company have double-crossed us. We'll have
to take steps."
The three men behind the Saylor twins broke into rough, chuckling
laughter.
Bob Parker's gorge rose. "Scram," he said coldly. "We've got an
ethergram direct from Andrew S. Burnside ordering this asteroid."
"So have we," Wally Saylor smiled--and his smile remained fixed,
dangerous. He started moving forward, and the three men in back came
abreast, forming a semi-circle which slowly closed in. Bob Parker gave
back a step, as he saw their intentions.
"We got here first," he snapped harshly. "Try any funny stuff and we'll
report you to the Interplanetary Commission!"
It was Bob Parker's misfortune that he didn't carry a weapon. Each of
these men carried one or more, plainly visible. But he was thinking of
the girl's spasticizer--a paralyzing weapon. He took a hair-brained
chance, jerked the spasticizer from the girl's holster and yelled at
Queazy. Queazy got the idea, urged his immense body into motion. He
hurled straight at Billy Saylor, lifted him straight off the asteroid
and threw him away, into space. He yelled with triumph.
At the same time, the spasticizer Bob held was shot cleanly out of his
hand by Wally Saylor. Bob roared, started toward Wally Saylor, knocked
the smoking gun from his hand with a sweeping arm. Then something
crushing seemed to hit him in the stomach, grabbing at his solar
plexus. He doubled up, gurgling with agony. He fell over on his back,
and his boots were wrenched loose from their magnetic grip. Vaguely,
before the flickering points of light in his brain subsided to complete
darkness, he heard the girl's scream of rage--then a scream of pain.
What had happened to Queazy he didn't know. He felt so horribly sick,
he didn't care. Then--lights out.
* * * * *
Bob Parker came to, the emptiness of remote starlight in his face. He
opened his eyes. He was slowly revolving on an axis. Sometimes the Sun
swept across his line of vision. A cold hammering began at the base of
his skull, a sensation similar to that of being buried alive. There was
no asteroid, no girl, no Queazy. He was alone in the vastness of space.
Alone in a space-suit.
"Queazy!" he whispered. "Queazy! I'm running out of air!"
There was no answer from Queazy. With sick eyes, Bob studied the
oxygen indicator. There was only five pounds pressure. Five pounds!
That meant he had been floating around out here--how long? Days at
least--maybe weeks! It was evident that somebody had given him a dose
of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the
snapping point, putting him in such a condition of suspended animation
that his oxygen needs were small. He closed his eyes, trying to fight
against panic. He was glad he couldn't see any part of his body. He was
probably scrawny. And he was hungry!
"I'll starve," he thought. "Or suffocate to death first!"
He couldn't keep himself from taking in great gulps of air. Minutes,
then hours passed. He was breathing abnormally, and there wasn't enough
air in the first place. He pleaded continually for Queazy, hoping
that somehow Queazy could help, when probably Queazy was in the same
condition. He ripped out wild curses directed at the Saylor brothers.
Murderers, both of them! Up until this time, he had merely thought of
them as business rivals. If he ever got out of this--
He groaned. He never would get out of it! After another hour, he was
gasping weakly, and yellow spots danced in his eyes. He called Queazy's
name once more, knowing that was the last time he would have strength
to call it.
And this time the headset spoke back!
Bob Parker made a gurgling sound. A voice came again, washed with
static, far away, burbling, but excited. Bob made a rattling sound in
his throat. Then his eyes started to close, but he imagined that he saw
a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against
the backdrop of the Milky Way. He relapsed, a terrific buzzing in his
ears.
He did not lose consciousness. He heard voices, Queazy's and the
girl's, whoever she was. Somebody grabbed hold of his foot. His
"aquarium" was unbuckled and good air washed over his streaming face.
The sudden rush of oxygen to his brain dizzied him. Then he was lying
on a bunk, and gradually the world beyond his sick body focussed in his
clearing eyes and he knew he was alive--and going to stay that way, for
awhile anyway.
"Thanks, Queazy," he said huskily.
Queazy was bending over him, his anxiety clearing away from his
suddenly brightening face.
"Don't thank me," he whispered. "We'd have both been goners if it
hadn't been for her. The Saylor brothers left her paralyzed like
us, and when she woke up she was on a slow orbit around her ship.
She unstrapped her holster and threw it away from her and it gave
her enough reaction to reach the ship. She got inside and used the
direction-finder on the telaudio and located me first. The Saylors
scattered us far and wide." Queazy's broad, normally good-humored face
twisted blackly. "The so and so's didn't care if we lived or died."
Bob saw the girl now, standing a little behind Queazy, looking down at
him curiously, but unhappily. Her space-suit was off. She was wearing
lightly striped blue slacks and blue silk blouse and she had a paper
flower in her hair. Something in Bob's stomach caved in as his eyes
widened on her.
The girl said glumly, "I guess you men won't much care for me when you
find out who I am and what I've done. I'm Starre Lowenthal--Andrew S.
Burnside's granddaughter!"
* * * * *
Bob came slowly to his feet, and matched Queazy's slowly growing anger.
"Say that again?" he snapped. "This is some kind of dirty trick you and
your grandfather cooked up?"
"No!" she exclaimed. "No. My grandfather didn't even know there was an
asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you--or
from the Saylor brothers. You see--well, my granddad's about the
stubbornest old hoot-owl in this universe! He's always had his way, and
when people stand in his way, that's just a challenge to him. He's been
badgering me for years to marry Mac, and so has Mac--"
"Who's Mac?" Queazy demanded.
"My fiancé, I guess," she said helplessly. "He's one of my granddad's
protégés. Granddad's always financing some likely young man and giving
him a start in life. Mac has become pretty famous for his Mercurian
water-colors--he's an artist. Well, I couldn't hold out any longer.
If you knew my grandfather, you'd know how absolutely _impossible_ it
is to go against him when he's got his mind set! I was just a mass of
nerves. So I decided to trick him and I came out to the asteroid belt
and picked out an asteroid that was shaped so a wedding could take
place on it. I took the measurements and the composition, then I told
my grandfather I'd marry Mac if the wedding was in the back yard on top
of an asteroid with those measurements and made of iron ore, tungsten,
and so forth. He agreed so fast he scared me, and just to make sure
that if somebody _did_ find the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able
to get it back to Earth, I came out here and decided to live here.
Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them,
by common law.... So I had everything figured out--except," she added
bitterly, "the Saylor brothers! I guess Granddad wanted to make sure
the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies."
Bob swore under his breath. He went reeling across to a port, and was
gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating
only a few hundred feet away. He swung around, looked at Queazy.
"How long were we floating around out there?"
"Three weeks, according to the chronometer. The Saylor boys gave us a
stiff shot."
"_Ouch!_" Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with
determination. "Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your
granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm
going to put this to you plainly. We can catch up with the Saylor
brothers even if they are three weeks ahead of us. The Saylor ship and
ours both travel on the HH drive--inertia-less. But the asteroid has
plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a
long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them
a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a
fling at getting the asteroid back!"
Her eyes sparkled. "You mean--" she cried. Then her attractive face
fell. "Oh," she said. "_Oh!_ And when you get it back, you'll land it."
"That's right," Bob said grimly. "We're in business. For us, it's a
matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is
your marriage--sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three
can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out
later. Okay?"