"Major!" shouted Astro. "Look! The _Polaris_! The _Polaris_ is blasting
off!"
The five Earthmen stared up at the silvery spaceship that was rapidly
disappearing into the clear blue void of space. Without hesitation,
Connel raced for the nearest jet boat and roared into the communicator.
"Corbett! Corbett! Come in, Tom!"
He waited, the silence of the loud-speaker more menacing than anything
the spaceman had ever encountered before. Again and again, the Solar
Guard officer tried to raise the cadet on the _Polaris_. Finally he
turned back to the four crewmen who hovered around the jet boat, hoping
against hope.
"Whatever it is," he said, "I'm sure Tom is doing the right thing. We
came down here to do a job and we're going to do it! Get moving! We
still have to set up the rest of these reactor units."
Without a word, the five men returned to their small ships and followed
their commanding officer.
The sun grew larger and the heat more intense with each minute, since
each minute brought them almost thirteen hundred miles closer to the
sun's blazing surface. With the humidity-control and air-cooling
mechanisms in the space suits working at top capacity but affording
little relief, Alfie, Roger, Shinny, and Astro buried the fourth reactor
unit and headed for the fifth and last emplacement. Occasionally one of
them would turn and cast a swift glance at the clear blue space
overhead, secretly hoping to find the rocket cruiser had returned. Or,
they would strain their ears for Tom's voice counting off the minutes so
carefully for them. But they saw nothing and they heard nothing. They
concentrated on their jobs, working like demons to complete the
installations as planned. They could not stop now and wonder what had
happened to the _Polaris_, or even hope for its speedy return. They had
a job to do, and they went about it silently, efficiently, and surely.
Astro stood up, the small spade in his hand hanging loosely at his side.
He watched Roger and Alfie bring the last of the reactor units from
Major Connel's jet boat. They gently lowered it into the hole and
stepped back while Shinny, under the watchful eyes of Major Connel, set
the fuse. Shinny stepped back, and Astro began covering up the lead box.
"That's it," said Connel. "We're finished!"
What Connel meant was that they were finished with the placement of the
reactor units, but he knew immediately that his words had been taken to
mean something each felt but had not dared to put into words.
Connel started to correct this misunderstanding but caught himself in
time. It would not do, he thought, for him to make excuses for what they
knew to be the truth.
"All right, everyone in my jet boat," he snapped. "Astro, you and Roger
take all the fuel out of the other boats and pour it into mine. It'll be
a tight squeeze, but we can all fit into one craft. No use expending
fuel wastefully."
Astro and Roger bent to the task of draining the fuel from their jet
boats and loading it into Connel's.
Alfie came over to join them, while Shinny and Connel scanned the sky
overhead for some sign of the _Polaris_.
"This is really a desperate situation to be in, isn't it, Roger?" asked
Alfie.
"Offhand, I'd say yes," drawled Roger, "but since we've got two big
huskies like Astro and Major Connel along, I don't think we'll have much
trouble."
"Why not?" asked Alfie.
"We'll just let them get out and help push!"
"And if that doesn't work," snorted Astro, "we'll stick Manning outside
and let him talk about himself. That oughta give us enough gas to get us
away from this hunk of copper."
"I believe," said Alfie emphatically, "that you're joshing me, Manning."
"Now, whatever gave you that idea?" asked Roger in a hurt tone.
"This _is_ a serious situation, isn't it?" asked Alfie, looking at
Astro.
"It sure is, Alfie," said Astro soberly, "and I'm the first one to say
I'm a little scared!"
Alfie smiled. "I'm very glad you said that, Astro," he said, "because I
feel exactly the same way!" He turned and walked back to Major Connel.
"What was the idea of telling him that?" hissed Roger at Astro. "What
are you trying to do? Get the little guy space happy, or something?"
"Look at him!" said Astro. "I'm twice his size. He figures if a big guy
like me is scared, then he's got a right to be scared too!"
Roger grunted in appreciation of the way Astro had treated Alfie's
fears and turned back to the loading of the fuel.
Major Connel walked over and watched them transfer the last of the fuel
into the tanks.
"How much have you got there, Astro?" he asked.
"I'd say enough to sustain flight for about three hours, sir.
Considering we'll have such a big load."
"Ummmmh," mused Connel. "You know we're up against big odds, don't you?"
Roger and Astro nodded.
"If Tom doesn't come back soon, we'll be so far into the pull of the
sun, even a ship the size of the _Polaris_ wouldn't be able to break
out."
"How much time have we got, sir?" asked Roger.
"Not too much, Manning," said Connel. "Of course we can blast off in the
jet boat and get up a few hundred miles, in case Tom does come back.
Then he won't have to bring the _Polaris_ down here. But if time runs
out on us up there, we'll have to come back and take our chance on
Junior being blasted out of the sun's grip."
There was a pause while Astro and Roger considered this.
"That would mean," asked Roger, "that we'd be here when the reactor
units go off, wouldn't it, sir?"
"That's right, Manning," said Connel, admitting to the danger. "Even if
Junior were blasted out of the pull of the sun, we couldn't survive the
explosions."
"Couldn't we blast off in the jet boat and then land after the
explosions, sir?" asked Astro.
"Yes," admitted Connel, "we could do that. But the radioactivity would
be so powerful we couldn't last more than a few days. We have no
antiradiation gear. Not even food or water." He paused and scanned the
sky. "No," he said in a surprisingly casual voice, "the only way we can
get out of this is for Tom to come back and get us."
Shinny and Alfie came over and joined the group around the jet boat. No
one said anything. There wasn't anything to say. Each of them felt the
heat burning through his space suit. Each felt the same fear tugging at
his throat. There was nothing to say. The _Polaris_ was not to be seen;
the sky was empty of everything except Alpha Centauri, the great burning
mass of gases that once they had all seen only as a quiet twinkling star
in the heavens, never dreaming that someday it would be pulling them
relentlessly into its molten self.
Tom Corbett had a plan.
He sat at the control board of the great rocket cruiser, apparently
watching the needles and gauges on the panel, but his mind was racing
desperately. The two-hour deadline had just passed. The great solar
clock had swung its red hand past the last second. Only a miracle could
save the five men on Junior now. But Tom was not counting on miracles.
He was counting on his plan.
"Keep this space wagon driving, Corbett!" ordered Loring from behind
him. "Keep them rockets wide open!"
"Listen, Loring," pleaded Tom. "How about giving those fellows a break?
If I don't pick them up, they'll all be killed."
"Ain't that too bad," snarled Mason.
"Look," said Tom desperately, "I'll promise you nothing will happen to
you. We'll let you go free. We'll--"
Loring cut him off. "Shut your trap and concentrate on them controls!
You and Major Connel and them other punks are the only guys between me
staying free or going back to a prison asteroid. So you don't think I'm
going to let them stay alive, do you?" He grinned crookedly.
"You dirty space crawler!" growled Tom and suddenly leaped up from the
control seat.
Loring raised the paralo-ray gun threateningly. "One more move outta you
and I'll freeze you so solid you'll think you're a chunk of ice!" he
yelled.
Mason stepped to the other side of the control deck. They had Tom
blocked on either side.
"Now get back to them controls, Corbett," snarled Loring, "or I'll give
it to you right now."
"O.K., Loring, you win," said Tom. He sat down and faced the control
panel. He tried hard not to smile. They had fallen for it. Now they were
separated. Mason remained on the opposite side of the room. Tom took a
deep breath, crossed his fingers, and put the next step of his plan into
action. He reached out and pulled the master acceleration switch all the
way back. The _Polaris_ jumped ahead as if shot out of a cannon.
"Hey," growled Mason, "what're you doing?"
"You want more speed, don't you?" demanded Tom.
"O.K.," said Mason, "but don't try any funny stuff!"
"I don't see how I can. You've got me nailed with that paralo-ray," Tom
replied.
He got up leisurely, so as not to excite the nervous trigger finger of
Loring, and turned slowly.
"What is it this time?" demanded Loring.
"I just gave you an extra burst of speed. All the _Polaris_ will take.
Now I've got to adjust the mixture of the fuel, otherwise she'll kick
out on you and we'll have to clean out the tubes."
"Yeah," sneered Loring. "Well, I happen to know you do that right on the
control board." He motioned with the paralo-ray gun. "Get back down!"
"On regular space drive, you do," agreed Tom. "But we're on hyperdrive
now. It has to be done there"--he pointed to a cluster of valves and
wheels at one side of the control deck--"one of those valve wheels."
"Stay where you are," said Mason. "I'll do it!" He moved to the corner.
"Which one is it?" he asked.
Tom gulped and struggled hard to keep the terrible nervousness out of
his voice. He had to sound as casual as possible. "The red one. Turn it
to the right, hard!" he said.
Loring sat down and Mason bent over the valve wheel. He gave the wheel a
vicious twist. Suddenly there was the sound of a motor slowing down
somewhere inside the great ship. Tom gripped the edge of the control
board and waited. Slowly at first, but surely, Tom felt himself
beginning to float off his chair.
"Hey!" yelled Mason. "I'm--I'm floating!"
"It's the gravity generators," yelled Loring. "Corbett's pulled a fast
one. We're in free fall!"
Tom lifted his feet and pushed as hard as he could against the control
panel. He shot out of the chair and across the control room just as
Loring fired his ray gun. There was a loud hiss as the gun was fired,
and then the thud of a body against the wall, as Loring was suddenly
shoved by the recoil of the charge.
Tom huddled in the upper corner of the control deck like a spider, his
legs drawn up underneath him waiting for Mason to fire. But the smaller
spaceman was tumbling head over heels in the center of the room. The
more he exerted himself, the more helpless he became. His arms and legs
splayed out in an effort to level himself, as he kept trying to fire the
ray gun.
Tom saw his chance and lunged through the air again, straight at the
floating spaceman. He passed him in mid-air. Mason made an attempt to
grab him, but Tom wrenched his body to one side and pulled the ray gun
out of the other's hand.
He flipped over and turned his attention to Loring who was more
dangerous, since he was now backed up against a bulkhead waiting for Tom
to present a steady target. Loring started to fire, but Tom saw him in
time and shot away from the wall toward the hatch. He twisted his body
completely around, and with his shoulder hunched over, fired at Loring
with his ray gun. The charge hit the target and Loring became rigid, his
body slowly floating above the deck. His back to the wall, braced for
the recoil, Tom brought his arm around slowly and aimed at Mason. He
fired, and the spaceman stiffened.
Tom smiled. Neither of the spacemen would give him any more trouble now.
He pushed slightly to the left and shot over to the valve that Mason had
unwittingly turned off. Tom turned it on and clung to an overhead pipe
until he felt the reassuring grip of the synthetic gravity pull him to
the deck. Loring and Mason, in the same positions they had been in when
Tom fired, settled slowly to the deck. Tom walked over and looked at
both of them. He knew they could hear him.
"For smart spacemen like you two," said Tom, "you sure forgot your basic
physics. Newton's laws of motion, remember? Everything in motion tends
to keep going at the same speed, unless influenced by an outside force.
Firing the ray gun was the outside force that will land you right on a
prison asteroid! And you'd better start praying that I can pull those
fellows off that satellite, because if I don't, you'll wind up frying in
the sun with us!"
He started to drag them to a locker and release them from the effects of
the ray blast, but, remembering their cold-blooded condemnation of
Connel and the others to death on the satellite, he decided to let them
remain where they were.
He turned to the control board and flipped on the microphone. He was too
far away to pick up an image on the teleceiver, but the others could
hear him on the audio, if, thought Tom, they were still alive.
"Attention! Attention! _Polaris_ to Major Connel! Major Connel, can you
hear me? Come in, Major Connel--Astro--Roger--somebody--come in!"
He turned away from the mike and fired the starboard jets full blast,
making a sweeping curve in space and heading the _Polaris_ back to
Junior.
[Illustration]