You were bored--keeping the endless, dull
space-lanes clear. You wanted excitement,
danger, to see the weird planets of the System.
You wanted--And then it happened, all the
swift, blazing danger of the void--and you
found yourself being blasted out of existence.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1946.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Asteroid fishing" was no job for men who joined the Inter-Planetary
Patrol with the lure of distant space frontiers in their heart, Nord
Holber told himself bitterly.
Your two-man Patrol ship hung less than twenty degrees off the
ecliptic, with sharp, hard starlight from the spangled jet mantle of
space glinting against the top and sides of its maroon plastic hull.
Below, the asteroids rushed through their mad orbits like the vengeful
ghosts of shattered planets and satellites.
Smaller fragments danced through weird paths above the main body.
They were the hazard that forced space liners to arc far above the
impassable Belt on the run between Jupiter's moons and the inner
planets: and, since you were a fledgeling Patrol Officer, fresh from
Federation University, you wasted the energy that boiled in your blood
hunting these fragments, yanking them out of space!
"It's fun," Mike Doren admitted, as though reading his partner's
thought. "Like shark fishing. But it's not what I joined the Patrol to
do."
Nord Holber's answering smile softened the strength a firm chin and
thin, straight nose gave to his long oval face. "More like mine
sweeping in ancient times, Mike," he said quietly--as though the
dispassionate menace of the inanimate chunks of matter they hunted
could answer the call for high adventure! "One of those things could
make a wreck of this ship--as easily as it could a liner."
Against that possibility, they wore space suits, and, under his
transparent helmet, Nord's grey eyes swept the side view screens for
any fragments they'd missed on the way down. Mike was at the drive
controls, his gaze on the lower screen, watching their prey, an ugly,
angular mass, hardly larger than a man's head, two hundred feet below.
"O.K.," Mike said, his big mouth curving in a wry smile. "Let go with
the hook."
Nord pressed two control studs before him. Their ship was standard
except for the little bay that now opened aft, the heavy electro-magnet
that shot downward under tiny automatic jets, and the power-driven
winch that paid out flexible, heavily insulated cable to hold the
magnet captive and carry the current.
"Sunspot!" Nord said, as the magnet struck the little asteroid fragment
squarely and clung.
"There's always enough para-magnetic stuff in them," his partner
commented bitterly. "That's what makes this blasted assignment
possible!" His blue eyes brightened. "That's one more toward a full
cargo--a trip back to Mars Base, and some planet leave. Hope I don't
dream about these dirty rocks!" The brightness hardened in his eyes, as
they dropped to the Asteroid Belt below.
"I'll start hunting another one," Nord said wearily. "You haul this
one in!" He took Mike's chair before the drive controls, and his long
fingers made deft, swift adjustments. Their little ship nosed upward
toward a safer cruising area.
The other jabbed the winch control studs. The winch began to turn
again, drawing the cable taut. Their ship lurched momentarily, as the
cable tugged against the orbital inertia of the little mass at the end
of the magnet; but winch and ship were built for the struggle, and the
asteroid fragment swung from its course, starting upward on the magnet.
* * * * *
Now Mike stores it away in the outer hull with the rest, Nord thought
glumly, and the whole weary routine starts over again. Three days it
took to find this last one--three days of monotonous search just above
the Belt!
He forced his slim, wiry body erect, and straightened his shoulders.
"They're getting scarcer, Mike. Before long, the System Federation can
lower the safe traffic lanes down to here--that's the closest to the
Belt that'll ever be practical. Maybe the next batch of Patrol College
grads will get a different initiation."
"Sure," grumbled Mike, watching the ascending magnet. "Maybe the
Federation'll have the Patrol go all out after that pirate, Kadine.
He's got the only ship in space that can navigate the Asteroid Belt!
Get his secret--and liners can go right through the Belt without
bothering about asteroids or fragments!
"If they'd tried that before, Nord, we wouldn't waste our Patrol career
with this blasted 'asteroid fishing'."
"The secret's in the steel hull of his ship," Holber agreed, firm jaw
tightening. Dhain Kadine, he remembered, had been a brilliant physicist
before he turned to space piracy. Now his ship, the only steel-hulled
vessel in an age of plastics, operated from a base deep within the
Asteroid Belt itself--sailing untouched where other daring craft had
been battered to wreckage!
"We can't go in after him," Nord added, "and he picks his own time and
place to come out. But--"
The visaphone on the instrument panel before him jangled a sudden
warning. His grey eyes widened. A glowing disk indicated general
communications wavelength, but the jangling meant a rider that stamped
the communication; _urgent!_
He snapped the instrument on, and tuned in the length. The screen
glowed, and blurred, vague images appeared. Broken, unintelligible
words poured out.
Mike Doren glared at the instrument savagely, and glanced quickly to
the lower view screen. The asteroid fragment was still a few feet
below. "Static from the cable," he growled. "Wait! We don't want to
lose this thing."
"That's a Patrol Officer on the screen," Holber said doubtfully, and
smiled. "But I can't make out enough to tell his rank, so it's not
insubordination if we wait."
The current flowing through the cable to the magnet was the same high
frequency used in the ship itself--there was no space in a compact
Patrol vessel for unnecessary converters. But, inside, the current was
screened against interference with visaphone reception; while outside,
pulsing through the cable, it set up an interference field.
In a matter of seconds, the magnet and its captive were inside the
hull, and the bay doors closed. Mike jabbed off the magnetizing
current, and the two heard the heartening thump of the asteroid
fragment against the outer hull.
They heard, too, the voice from the visaphone, suddenly clear and
imperative against the still jangling alarm: "... Kadine. Repeating:..."