_Out of the far reaches of the universe sped
the meteor swarm, cosmic question marks destined
for annihilation in the sun. But one, approximately
half a pound of frozen destruction, had a
rendezvous near Japetus with Spaceboat 6._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was comfortably cool in the functional, little control room, but
Morley was sweating, gently and steadily. His palms were wet, and the
thin thoughtful face, shining in the glow of the instrument panel
light, was wrinkled in an agony of concentration and doubt. He was
trying to choose between the Scylla of waking Madsen with a corollary
of biting contempt involved, and the Charybdis of attempting to land
single handed on Japetus, less than five hundred miles below. Neither
course was appealing.
For the hundredth time he pondered miserably over the sad condition
of what had been a reasonably well ordered existence. The worst of
it was that he had only himself to blame, and he knew it. No one had
forced him to leave a comfortable, if poorly paid position with General
Plastics, and fill out an employment card at Satellites, Inc.
He could not explain the obscure compulsion that sparked his little
personal rebellion.
He didn't know, or need to know that other generations of Morleys had
fought in revolutions, or sailed in square riggers, or clawed gold from
mountainsides. When he went to the spaceline, the puzzlement of his few
friends was profound, but hardly more so than his own. And now, after
almost a year of upheaval and change, he was piloting a spaceboat along
an involute curve ending on the surface of Saturn's eighth moon. And he
was still puzzled.
Satellites, Inc., had done as well as possible with the raw material
known as Morley, Vincent, No. 4628. His psychograph indicated a born
subordinate, with a normal I.Q., reasonably stable and trustworthy
though below average in initiative. They didn't inform him of this,
or the fact that they had analyzed the neurosis which had driven
him to the spaceline, and which had created by that very action the
therapeutic aid he needed. Many spacemen had similar case histories.
It was those who fought the compulsion who sometimes turned down dark
pathways of the mind.
For six months he attended cadet school, and graduated in due time,
fourteenth in a class of fifty. The next day he was assigned as fourth
engineman to the space freighter _Solarian_, bound to Port Ulysses,
Titan, Saturn system, with a cargo of mining machinery and supplies.
* * * * *
They blasted off from Chicago Spaceport on a raw March midnight. Just
another rocket take-off, routine stuff, now. But have you ever seen it?
The night, the wind, the distant city glow in the sky? On the strip
squats the massive bulk of the rocket, loading hatches closed, sealed
port holes gleaming through the gusts of rain that sweep the field. In
the sound proofed spaceport control tower the officials are relaxed
over coffee and cigarettes; their part is over; they sit watching.
Somewhere in the mighty shell on the field, chronometer hands reach the
calculated second, a circuit closes, relays chatter briefly. The rocket
igniters are firing, flame billows over the field, a low rumble from
the tubes builds to a throbbing roar. Twenty miles away a housewife
looks up, a question on her face. Her husband listens and smiles. "It's
the Saturn rocket. It's here in the paper, under Departures."
On the field the roar rises to an insane bellow of sound. Under the
mighty jets, the ten feet of concrete and the solid earth beneath it
are shaking. In the insulated control tower a water glass dances in its
holder. The watchers are not relaxed now; they lean forward.
It's old stuff, routine, precalculated to a fraction of a second,
but--watch. There--a stir--movement. Slowly at first, with a deliberate
and awful majesty, then faster and faster.
Straight toward the zenith the ship rises, trailing fire. Faster yet,
hurling herself upward, under full power, through the last threads of
atmosphere. Upward and onward, out past Roches limit, out where gravity
dwindles toward zero, into the empyrean where the shades of dead
spacemen cruise the cosmos in their phantom craft, spaceborne in the
night.
After he had recovered from the pangs of his initial attack of space
nausea, Morley enjoyed himself. He had one minor social asset, a
retentive mind, well stocked with general information. If the two
apprentices got involved in an argument over the identity of the
highest peak in America, Morley was the inevitable arbiter. He could
with equal facility name the author of a recent best seller, or inform
you that a young seal was a cub, a young hare, a leveret, and a young
swan, a cygnet.
He was fairly popular with the crew, except for a big Norwegian from
New York, named Olaf Madsen. Madsen was a chunky, hard bitten veteran
of the spaceways. Round faced, deceptively soft spoken, he had a
penchant for practical jokes, and a flair for biting sarcasm which
found full expression in the presence of any first tripper. He made
the life of any apprentice miserable, and finished the last two weeks
of one trip in the brig for panicking an entire crew by painting his
face to resemble the onset of Martian blue fever. Morley considered him
an oaf, and he considered Morley a human filing cabinet with a weak
stomach.
A little notice on the bulletin board was Morley's first inkling that
his safe, secure routine was on the verge of mutating into something
frighteningly unpredictable.
"All personnel not on duty will report to the recreation room at 1900
hours, Solar time, to draw for side trip partners and destinations,"
it read.
He buttonholed the crew messman. "What's all this about side trips,
Oscar?"
Roly poly Oscar looked at him incredulously. "The lay over trips. The
time killer. On the level, don't you know?"
Morley shook his head.
"Well," Oscar told him, "We leave Earth shortly before Saturn is in
opposition. They figure on the shortest possible run, which takes three
months. If we discharge and start right back, the round trip would take
about six months. That's fine, except that the synodic period for Earth
and Saturn--Hey, you know what I'm talking about?"
Morley admitted his ignorance, vaguely annoyed at the fact that for
once he was the humble seeker for information, and someone else was
being professorial.
Oscar grinned. "And you studied astrogation! Well, when Saturn and
Earth line up with the Sun, it takes three hundred and seventy eight
days before they get in the same position again. So if we got back to
Earth's orbit in six months, we'd still have about a hundred and eighty
millions of miles to go, because Earth would be on Sol's other side at
that time, in superior conjunction to Uranus."
Morley digested this, while Oscar basked in the light of his own
knowledge, enjoying himself hugely.
"And the trips, Oscar?"
"We lay over three or four months, 'til opposition time isn't too
far away, and we pick partners and destinations by lot, and go out
to Saturn's other moons on prospecting trips--ore deposits, jewels,
botanical specimens, etc.--half for us, and half for the Company. It's
a good deal, a regular vacation, and those two-men craft are sweet
stuff. And if you're lucky--"
He went on, but Morley heard no more. The prospect unnerved him. He
was terrified at the idea of changing a safe subordinate position for
that of an active partner, however temporary the arrangement might be.
At the drawing, his hunch of impending misery proved all too real. He
wound up facing the prospect of a stay on the frozen hell of Phoebe,
scouring the miniature mountains for Japori crystals, with Madsen,
MADSEN! for his only companion.
* * * * *
A week later the Solarian teetered down to a landing at Port Ulysses.
With various expressions of profane and unbounded delight from her
crew, she was turned over to the stevedores and the maintenance gang.
Thereafter, at intervals, the thirty foot space boats took off for
Mimas, Tethys, Dione, or whatever waystop the lottery had decreed.
Madsen and Morley left on the fourth 'night,' with Phoebe hardly a
week's run from them at ten miles a second.
Madsen was at the controls. Without a single spoken word on the
subject, he was automatically the captain, and Morley, the crew. The
situation crystallized twenty-four hours out of Port Ulysses. Morley
was poring over the Ephemeris prior to taking his watch at the controls
when he became aware that Madsen, red faced and breathing heavily, was
peering over his shoulder.
Morley stiffened in alarm. "Is anything--" He quailed under Madsen's
glare.
"Not yet, but there's liable to be if you don't smarten up." The
Norwegian's blunt forefinger stabbed at the page Morley had been
studying. "Phoebe, Mister, happens to be Saturn's NINTH moon. Get it?
You can count, can't you?"
Morley flushed, and fumbled miserably for a reasonable excuse. There
was a gleam of contempt in Madsen's eyes, but he spoke again more
quietly. "I'm going to eat and catch up on some sack time. We'll be
right on top of Japetus in short order. It's a known fact that the moon
won't move over if you fly at it, so you better wake me up to handle
the compensating!" He disappeared into the tiny galley, but his words
were still audible. "It's an awful long walk back, chum, if anybody
pulls a bull."
Morley swung himself into the pilot's seat, too numb with humiliation
to answer. Almost an hour passed before he started the regulation
checkup required by the Space Code of any ship passing within one
hundred thousand miles of a planet or major satellite. Every guardian
needle stood in its normal place with one exception. The craft had been
running on the port fuel tanks, depleting them to the point where it
seemed wise to trim ship. Morley opened the valve, touched the fuel
pump switch and waited, nothing happened. He watched the needles
incredulously. The pump--? He jabbed the switch, once, twice. Nothing.
He leaned forward and rapped the starboard gauge with his knuckles,
sharply. The needle swung from Full to Empty. Morley felt faint as
realization hit him. The starboard gauge had stuck at Full, and had
been unreported. The tank had not been serviced in port, owing to
the faulty reading and a mechanic's carelessness. They had about two
hours fuel. Even to Morley, it was obvious that there was one thing
only to do--land on Japetus, looming up larger in the view-plate with
each passing moment. He checked the distance rapidly, punched the
calculator, and put the ship in the designated orbit. He wanted to
handle the landing himself, but the thought of the final few ticklish
moments chilled him. So did the thought of waking Madsen, and asking
him to take over.
And it was then, at the intersection of two courses formed by an
infinity of variables, that two objects arrived in the same millisecond
of time. Eight ounces of nickel iron smashed into the stern of
Spaceboat 6, ripped a path of ruin through her entire length, and went
out through the two inch glass of her bow, before Morley could turn
his head. He was aware, in a strange dream-like way, of actuating
the midships airtight door, of the hiss of air as the little aneroid
automatically opened valves to compensate for the drop in pressure, and
of Madsen leaping into the control room and slapping a Johnson patch
over the hole in the bow.
Madsen was white but composed. "We can slow her down but we can't land
her. Get suits while I take over. We'll ride as far as we can, and
walk the rest of the way." He fought with the controls, as Morley,
still bemused, obeyed. At twenty-five hundred feet they bailed out,
and floating down seconds later, watched Spaceboat 6 crash into a low
wooded hill. And when they landed, and inspected the wreckage, it was
some minutes before either spoke.
It was obvious at a glance that Spaceboat 6 was ready for the boneyard,
had there been one around. The ship, under the few automatic controls
that were still functioning, had sliced in at a thirty degree angle,
ploughed a short distance through a growth of slim, poplar-like trees,
and then crumpled completely against an outcropping granite ledge.
Finally Morley gulped audibly, and Madsen laughed.
"Well, Mastermind, any suggestions that might help us? Any little
pearls of wisdom from the great brain?"
"Just one," Morley answered. "Head for the Equator, and--"
"And try to find a D.D. Correct. If we last that long. Let's salvage
what we can out of this junk and shove off."
Morley cleared his throat diffidently. "There are a few pieces of
equipment we should take along, for--er--emergencies--" His voice
trailed off miserably under Madsen's basilisk stare.
"Listen, Morley, once and for all. We're lugging essentials and that's
all. Any extra weight is out."
"But, listen--"
Madsen ignored the interruption, and cut loose with one last broadside.
"Save your breath. It's bad enough being saddled with a useless little
squirt like you, without being made into a pack mule unnecessarily."