A tremor jarred its way through the entire ship, making the deck throb
under Rip’s feet. He saw that the ship’s nose had swung away from the
Connie. What in space—
"Blast!"
The nose swung into the Connie again with a jar that sent Rip sliding into
the clear plastic of the astrodome. His nose jammed into the plastic but
he didn’t even wince, because he saw the Connie’s steering tubes buckle
under the _Aquila_’s sudden shove.
And suddenly the picture was clear. The two Federation cruisers hadn’t
cared about getting into the Connie ship. They had only wanted an excuse
to tie up to it so they could do what had just been done.
They had sheared off the enemy’s steering tubes, first at the stern, then
at the bow, leaving him helpless, able to go only forward or back in the
direction in which he happened to be pointing!
MacFife had a broad grin on his face. As Rip started to speak, he held up
his hand and pointed at a wall speaker.
The Connie commander came on the circuit. He screamed, "You planned that!
You—you—" He subsided into his own language.
Galliene’s voice spoke soothingly. "But my dear commander! How can I
apologize enough? Believe me, the man responsible will be reward—I mean,
the man responsible will be disciplined. You may rest assured of it. How
unfortunate! I am overcome with shame. A terrible accident! Terrible."
MacFife picked up a microphone. "Same here, Connie. A terrible accident.
Aye, the man who did it will hear from me."
"It was no accident," the Connie screamed.
"Ah," Galliene replied, "but you cannot prove otherwise. Commander, do you
realize what this means? You are helpless. Interplanetary law says that a
helpless spaceship must be salvaged and taken in tow by the nearest
cruiser, no matter what its nationality. We will do this jointly, the
_Aquila_ and the _Sagittarius_. We will take turns towing you, my friend.
We will haul you to Terra like any other piece of space junk."
MacFife could remain quiet no longer. "Yes, mister. And that’s no’ the end
o’ it. We will collect the salvage fee. One half the value of the salvaged
vessel. Aye! My men will like that, since we share and share alike on
salvage. Now put out a cable from your nose tube. I’ll take ye in tow
first."
He cut the communicator off, and met Rip’s grin.
The two spacemen had figured out the one way to repay the Connie for his
attempts on the asteroid. They couldn’t fire on him, but they could fake
an "accident" that would cripple him and cost Consops millions of dollars
in salvage fees.
Nor would Consops refuse to pay. Salvage law was clear. Whoever performed
the salvage was not required to turn the ship back to its owners until the
fee had been paid, in whatever currency he cared to specify.
And there was another angle. The cruisers would tow the Connie into the
Federation spaceport in New Mexico. If past experience was any indication,
the Connie would lose about half its crew—perhaps more. They would claim
sanctuary in the Federation.
Rip shook hands solemnly with the grinning Scotchman. It would be a long
time before Consops tried space piracy again.
"We’ll be back at our family fight again tomorrow," MacFife said, "but
today we celebrate together. Ah, lad, this is pure joy to me. I’ve had a
score to settle with yon Connies for years. Now I’ve done it."
He put an arm around Rip’s shoulders. "While I’m in a givin’ mood, which
is not the way of us Scots, is there anything ye’d like?"
Rip could think of only one thing. "A hot shower. For me and my men. And
will you take the prisoners off our hands?"
"Yes to both. Anything else?"
"We’ll need some rocket fuel. Terra says we have to correct course. Also,
we’ll need a nuclear charge to throw us into a braking ellipse. And we
need a new landing boat. The sun baked the equipment out of ours."
MacFife nodded. "So be it. I’ll send men to the asteroid to bring back the
prisoners and your Planeteers." He smiled. "We’ll let yon rock go by
itself while hot showers and a good meal are had by all. It’s the least of
what ye’ve earned."
Rip started to thank the Scot, but his stomach suddenly turned over and
black dizziness flooded in on him. He heard MacFife’s sudden exclamation,
felt hands on him.
White light blinded him. He shook his head and tried to keep his stomach
from acting up. A voice asked, "Were you shielded from those nuclear
blasts?"
"No," he said past a constricted throat. "Not from the last. We got some
prompt radiation. I don’t know how much."
"When was that? The exact time?"