"Done!"
"Don't try to collect too soon," snapped Brenner. "You're not leading
your squadron of spacebombers yet."
Farradyne picked up his throat-whistle and put it in his mouth. He
worked it back with his tongue and said, "The hell you say, Brenner."
The result was a humming, whining, groaning travesty.
21
"We'll not repeat," said Farradyne. "Norma, hike below and see that
our visitors stay taped to their chairs. I'm going to land this crate
without interference."
Norma nodded and went down to the salon. "They're still secure," she
reported over the intercom.
Farradyne replied, "Aye-firm," and then made his first ranging-radar
contact with Terra. He set his deceleration drive accordingly and
the integrator-needle crept over to the center-scale zero, informing
Farradyne that zero separation from the surface of the spaceport would
result in zero velocity of the Lancaster.
Then Farradyne fired up the radio and called: "Washington Tower. This
is a Lancaster Eighty-One requesting landing instructions. Registry
Six-Eight-Three. Farradyne piloting."
"Tower to Six-Eight-Three. Take Beacon Nine at one twenty thousand,
Landing Area Five. Traffic is zero-zero, but eight repeat eight
Spaceguard cutters are in formation at sixty thousand." The voice
changed in tone slightly. "Spaceguard, Code Watchung. Calling Watchung."
"Watchung to Tower, go ahead."
"Tower. Watchung, we are away from Beacon Nine. Lancaster Eighty-One
coming in. Give position and course."
"Watchung to Tower. Position azimuth six seven zero, altitude sixty
thousand, distance nine miles. Course twenty-seven North azimuth. Will
miss Beacon Nine by thirty-three miles. Recheck?"
"Recheck and aye-firm, Watchung. Tower to Six-Eight-Three: Did you
follow that?"
"Aye-firm!" called Farradyne.
"Watchung to Six-Eight-Three: Pilot identify yourself."
"Pilot Farradyne here, Watchung."
"Aye-firm. Watchung Five, assume command of Six, Seven and Eight. Take
alert pattern at two hundred thousand feet and stand by. Watchung Two,
Three and Four compute and take closing course on Six-Eight-Three and
convey to Landing Area Five. Farradyne, prepare to accept convoy."
"Deny, Watchung. Request reasons."
"Prepare to accept inspection, Six-Eight-Three."
Farradyne growled angrily and dropped the radio formalities. "Why?" he
snapped.
"You are suspected of hauling a cargo of hellflowers. Prepare to stand
inspection upon landing."
From down in the salon came the sound of cynical laughter. Brenner
said, "We'll let your own people punish you, Farradyne. Hellblossom
running, resisting arrest, kidnapping, operating with a forged license,
operating a ship with a questionable registry. I'll bet that life you
offered."
Farradyne knew what Brenner meant. Taped tight in his ship were
Carolyn Niles, daughter of one of Mercury's leading citizens, and a
schoolteacher supposedly named Hughes. There would no doubt be a lot
of other witnesses prepared to perjure him into three hundred years of
hard labor on Titan. He wondered how they had managed this; certainly
they had not been prepared for losing their captured spacecraft
so quickly. Yet the counter-preparation looked as though such an
eventuality had been expected.
"Six-Eight-Three, respond!"
Farradyne snapped his mike-switch and said, "I resent the accusation
and demand an explanation!"
"There is no accusation. We have an anonymous tip-off. You are
not accused of illegal operations, only suspect. Will you permit
inspection?"
"No!" snapped Farradyne. "Deny!"
"Code Watchung: Intercept Six-Eight-Three. Prepare to fire."
"Fire and be damned," said Farradyne in a growl. His hand reached for
the toggle and shoved it home for ten seconds. When he turned the
ultradrive off, they were far a-space and the radio was silent.
"Give it up, Charles," said Carolyn from below.
"Go to hell!"
Brenner said, "You might as well, Farradyne. No matter how you figure
it, you'll either be grabbed by your own people or get picked up by
ours. We can't lose."
Farradyne went below and faced them. "And what happens if I dump you
out of the spacelock and your cargo with you?"
"You could do that to Cahill," said Carolyn, "because Cahill was not
registered as a paying passenger. I am, and when the authorities find
me missing--as they will very soon if they haven't been so informed
already--you'll be called to account for me."
"Just what sort of act do you suggest?" Farradyne asked cynically.
"Surrender and turn this ship over to us. You will be detained as a
prisoner of war and imprisoned among your own kind."
"Doing what kind of prison labor? Growing hellflowers?"
"Not at all. We wouldn't consider that ethical."
"What a cockeyed code of ethics you have!"
"Let's not discuss ethics now. Surrender and you'll be placed on a
Terra-conformed planet with every freedom among your own kind except
the right to space flight."
"No, thanks," said Farradyne drily. "I had four years of slogging in a
fungus marsh because of your kind. I'm disinclined to give up after one
miss. It--"
"Charles!" cried Norma through the squawk-box. "Come up here! Radar
trace!"
Farradyne raced up the stairs just in time to see the long green line
of the radar settling down to a solid signal pip at the extreme end. He
flipped the switch that coupled the telescope to the radar and looked
through the eyepiece. At the extreme range of the radar beam was a
spacecraft, either the same starship that had chased him before or its
sister ship. It was closing the range fast.
Farradyne dropped into his chair and snapped the belt. He turned the
Lancaster by ninety degrees and grasped the toggle on the ultradrive.
Ten seconds later he resumed normal flight for a few seconds and then,
at another angle, he used the ultradrive some more.
He paused here long enough to take his space bearing, then plunged the
ship down between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, far to the south of
the ecliptic with a flick of the enemy switch.
"Norma," he asked quietly, after he had inspected the sky to be certain
of their freedom, "who is Howard Clevis' boss?"
"Howard reports to Solon Forrester directly."
"Oh fine," groaned Farradyne. "Getting to the Solon is no picnic. How
do we go about it?"
From the intercom came a suggestion: "Walk into his fourth
under-assistant sub-secretary's office wearing a hellflower and ask for
an audience."
A flick of color caught Farradyne's eye and he turned to look at
the radar. The line had wiggled slightly and, as he watched, its
extreme end formed into a signal pip. He looked through the telescope
and saw the starship again. Whether they had one with supervelocity
tracking methods or several hundred covering the solar system like an
interception net, it made no difference. They were on his trail.
Farradyne played with the high-space drive again, cutting some more
didoes back and forth across space, ending up this time not too far
from Mercury.
"Having fun?" asked Brenner.
"Shut up!" snapped Farradyne.
From below there came a rapid conversation in multitones, like someone
dusting off the keys on a pipe organ played in mute.
Farradyne swore as he sat there looking at the big chronometer on
the wall, counting off the seconds. Seventy of them went under the
sweep hand before the radar trace hiked up into the same, familiar
extreme-range warning.
Deliberately, Farradyne turned his ship toward Terra and hit the
ultradrive. "They called me a hot-pants pilot," he gritted. "Now I'll
really be one!"
Yellow-green Terra raced up and up and up through the spectrum and
burst in size from an unwinking pin-point of light to a shockingly
large disc that zoomed toward them frighteningly. They saw its
roundness come out of the sky in a myriad colors until it filled the
dome above them. Norma screamed, but by the time her voice had stopped
echoing through the control room, Terra was past them by a good many
miles of clean miss and Farradyne had cut the ultradrive. He grunted
unhappily because he was now as far from Terra on the other side as
he had been before he took the chance. This mad use of the enemy
ultradrive in ducking around the solar system was something similar
to trying to make a fifty-ton clam-shell digger split a cigarette
paper; at two light years per hour, their speed was enough to take them
from Sol to Pluto in one second flat. He could not control it finely
enough to do more than zoom off out of sight. Without a doubt the big
starship could maneuver at ultra-velocity with their drive cut in at
microsecond intervals mechanico-electrically, of course, which was a
setup that Farradyne did not have.
He shrugged, and then he patted Norma on the shoulder. "I don't think
that my aim is good enough to hit the thing," he said. He turned the
Lancaster end for end abruptly and tried a quick flick of the toggle.
Once more Terra leaped at them, a swirling kaleidoscope of color,
looming into monster size, flicking past.
When they came out of it Terra was again behind them by a few million
miles. Farradyne thought for a moment, started to say, "Maybe we--"
when he reached out and pressed the red button on the auxiliary panel,
"--are being traced by the generator doodad they put below."
"But what are we going to do now?"
"Hit for Terra!"
Farradyne set the drive for Terra and then sat there, tense and
waiting. He had not long to wait. The radar wiggled its warning trace
almost dead ahead.
They moved to intercept him, but Farradyne raised the drive to four
gravities and plunged on. The starship grew and behind it Terra grew,
but slower. The radio burst into sound and Farradyne grabbed the
microphone and said, "Come and get me, fellows!"
"Stop," came the demand, "or we fire!"
"Start a shooting match here and you'll have all of Terra wondering why
the fireworks," Farradyne said.
"Stop!"
"No!"
"One last warning. Stop!"