He knew he had no choice. "Tell my folks I’ll make the next rocket," he
called, and ran. He leaped through the valve, jumped for the high speed
track and was whisked around the rim of the space platform.
He ran a hand through his short red hair, a gesture of bewilderment. His
records had cleared. So far as he knew, all his papers were in order, and
he had his next assignment. He couldn’t figure why the platform commander
would want to see him. But the horn had called "show an exhaust," which
meant to get there in a hurry.
He jumped off the track at the main crossrun and hurried toward the center
of the platform. In a moment he stood before the platform commander’s
door, waiting to be identified.
The door swung open and a junior officer in the blue tunic and trousers of
a spaceman motioned him to the inner room. "Go in, Lieutenant."
"Thank you." He hurried into the commander’s room and stood at attention.
Commander Jennsen, the Norwegian spaceman who had commanded the platform
since before Rip’s arrival as a raw cadet, was dictating into his command
relay circuit. As he spoke, printed copies were being received in the
platform personnel office, Special Order Squadron headquarters on earth,
aboard the cruiser _Bolide_ in high space, and aboard the newly landed
cruiser _Scorpius_.
Rip listened, spellbound.
"Foster, R.I.P., Lieutenant, SOS. Serial seven-nine-four-three. Assigned
SOS Four. Change orders, effective this date-time. Cancel earth-leave.
Subject officer will report to commander, SCN _Scorpius_ with detachment
of nine men. Senior non-commissioned officer and second in command, Koa,
A.P., Sergeant-major, SOS. Serial two-nine-four-one. Commander _Scorpius_
will transport detachment to coordinates given in basic cruiser
astrocourse, delivering orders to detachment enroute. Take full steps for
maximum security. This is Federation priority A, Space Council security
procedures."
Rip swallowed hard. The highest possible priority, given by the Federation
itself, had cancelled his leave. Not only that, but the cruiser to which
he was assigned was instructed to follow Space Council security
procedures, which meant the job, whatever it was, was rated even more
urgent than secret!
Commander Jennsen looked up and saw Rip. He snapped, "Did you get all of
that?"
"Y-Yessir."
"You’ll get written copies on the cruiser. Now flame out of here. Collect
your men and get aboard. The _Scorpius_ leaves in five minutes."
Rip ran. The realization hit him that the big nuclear cruiser had stopped
at the platform for the sole purpose of collecting him and nine enlisted
Planeteers.
The low gravity helped him cover the hundred yards to the personnel office
in five leaps. He swung to a stop by grabbing the push bar of the office
door. He yelled at the enlisted spaceman on duty, "Where do I find nine
men?"
The spaceman looked at him vacantly. "What for? You got a requisition,
Lieutenant?"
"Never mind requisitions," Rip snapped. "I’ve got to find nine Planeteers
and get them on the _Scorpius_ before it flames off."
The spaceman’s face cleared. "Oh. You mean Koa’s detachment. They left a
few minutes ago."
"Where? Where did they go?"
The spaceman shrugged. The doings of Planeteers were no concern of his.
His shrug said so.
Rip realized there was no use talking further. He ran down the long
corridor toward the outer edge of the platform. The enlisted men’s
squadrooms were near Valve Ten. So was the supply department. His gear had
departed on the Terra rocket, and he couldn’t go to space with only the
tunic on his back. He swung to the high speed track and braced himself as
it sped him along the platform’s rim.
There was no moving track inward to the enlisted Planeteers’ squadrooms.
He legged it down the corridor in long leaps, muttering apologies as
blue-clad spacemen and cadets moved to the wall to let him pass.
The squadrooms were on two levels. He looked in the upper ones and found
them deserted. The squads were on duty somewhere. He ran for the ladder to
the lower level, took the wrong one, and ended up in a snapper-boat port.
He had trained in the deadly little fighting rockets, and they never
failed to interest him. But there wasn’t time to admire them now. He went
back up the ladder with two strong heaves, found the right ladder, and
dropped down without touching. His knees flexed to take up the shock. He
came out of the crouch facing a black-clad Planeteer sergeant who snapped
to rigid attention.
"Koa," Rip barked. "Where can I find him?"
"He’s not here, sir. He and eight men left fifteen minutes ago. I don’t
know where they went, sir."
Rip shot a worried glance at his wrist chronometer. He had two minutes
left, before the cruiser departed. No more time now to search for his men.
He hoped the sergeant-major had sense enough to be waiting at some
sensible place. He went up the ladder hand over hand and sped down the
corridor to the supply room.
The spaceman first class in charge of supplies was turning an audio-mag
through a hand viewer, chuckling at the cartoons. At the sight of Rip’s
flushed, anxious face he dropped the machine. "Yessir?"
"I need a spack. Full gear including bubble."
"Yessir." The spaceman looked him over with a practiced eye. "One full
space pack. That would be medium-large, right, sir?"
"Correct." Rip took the counter stylus and inscribed his name, serial
number, and signature on the blank plastic sheet. Gears whirred as the
data was recorded.
The spaceman vanished into an inner room and reappeared in a moment
lugging a plastic case called a space pack, or "spack" for short. It
contained complete personal equipment for space travel. Rip grabbed it.
"Fast service. Thanks, Rocky." All spacemen were called "Rocky" if you
didn’t know their names. It was an abbreviation for rocketeer, a title all
of them had once carried.
Valve Eight was some distance away. Rip decided a cross ramp would be
faster than the moving track. He swung the spack to his shoulder and made
his legs go. Seconds were ticking off, and he had an idea the _Scorpius_
would make space on time, whether or not he arrived. He lengthened his
stride and rounded a turn by going right up on the wall, using a powerful
leg thrust against a ventilator tube for momentum.
He passed an observation port as he reached the platform rim and caught a
glimpse of ruddy rocket exhaust flames outlined against the dark curve of
earth. That would be the Terra rocket making its controlled fall to home
with Flip aboard. Without slowing, he leaped across the high speed track,
narrowly missing a senior space officer. He shouted his apologies, and
gained the entrance to Valve Eight just as the high buzz of the radiation
warning sounded, signaling a nuclear drive cruiser preparing to take off.
Nine faces of assorted colors and expressions turned to him. He had a
quick impression of black tunics and trousers. He had found his
detachment! Without slowing, he called, "Follow me!"
The cruiser’s safety officer had been keeping an eye on the clock, his
forehead creased in a frown as he saw that only a few seconds remained to
departure time. He walked to the valve opening and looked out. If his
passengers were not in sight, he would have to reset the clock.
Rip went through the valve opening at top speed. He crashed head-on into
the safety officer.
The safety officer was driven across the deck, his arms pumping for
balance. He grabbed at the nearest thing, which happened to be the deputy
cruiser commander.
The pre-set control clock reached firing time. The valve slid shut and the
take-off bell reverberated through the ship.
And so it happened that the spacemen of the SCN _Scorpius_ turned their
valves, threw their controls and disengaged their boron control rods, and
the great cruiser flashed into space, while the deputy commander and the
safety officer were completely tangled with a very flustered and unhappy
new Planeteer lieutenant.
Sergeant-major Koa and his men had made it before the valve closed. Koa, a
seven-foot Hawaiian, took in the situation and said crisply in a voice all
could hear, "I’ll bust the bubble of any son of a space sausage who
laughs!"