"What the hell do you mean 'Quien sabe!' Are you trying to tell me
you're thinking he can do it?"
The Latin smiled, showing animal white teeth. "I understand he's done
a lot of things that people said weren't possible. Personally, I should
be very glad if he did what he says so we could all get back to Ley
City. Amigo, I have a little friend back on Luna that is." He smiled
dreamily and kissed his fingertips.
"I think you're all going crazy. It's just having that man aboard."
"Ah, Ah!" cautioned Chavez, "Remember all those beautiful silver
stripes."
"Well, damn the lot of you. I just hope we get the _Darkside_ back to
Luna Base and your little...." He made an angry parody of Chavez's
romantic gesture.
"We'll get back, I think, Mr. Scott," said a casual voice from the
Valve. The Commodore was standing in the arch, outlined against the
ramp light. He stepped into Control and took a seat beside Chavez at
the panels.
Scott and Chavez maintained an embarrassed silence. Hartnett looked up
to study the now receding solar disk through the tinted visiplate. The
Flotilla was now heading once again for deep space.
It was a few moments before Hartnett spoke. When he did, it was a
command directed at Scott.
"Mr. Scott, the Flotilla will land for certain necessary readjustments
on Hyperion. See that the other vessels are properly notified." Then he
rose and left the Control.
Scott dropped unhappily into a chair. He looked at Chavez. "Well, Mr.
Chavez. How do you think you will enjoy command of the _Darkside_?"
Chavez laid a friendly hand on his commander's sleeve. "I don't think
he'd take your ship from you just because...."
"Skip it, Chav!" snapped Scott and he left the Control in peevish
silence.
* * * * *
Sixty hours later Blue Three lay grounded in a jagged little valley
on airless Hyperion. Spacesuited figures swarmed about the clustered
ships transferring personnel from the _Artemis_ to the other ships, and
rigging special television, remote control, and other apparatus in the
_Artemis_.
Hartnett stood beneath the _Darkside's_ ventral valve on the metallic
soil of the little moon with Chavez and Orsov watching the progress
of the work. Lieutenant Morrow of the _Lysander_ and Lieutenant Griggs
of the _Argus_ joined them and stood in silence while the last of the
_Artemis'_ personnel was transferred into the _Darkside_. Tom Drew, the
commander of the _Artemis_ stood sadly apart watching the spacemen make
a ghost ship of his command.
On the eastern horizon, Saturn was rising into a black sky studded with
points of fiery brilliance. Quickly the ringed planet climbed into the
sky and flooded the tortured landscape of Hyperion with light. The men
at the _Darkside's_ valve stood watching the show of celestial grandeur
in awe. Orsov, for all his deep-space experience, could not help but
feel a twinge of vertigo as he looked up into the haloed face of the
heavenly giant that filled a quarter of the inverted bowl of ebony that
the heavens had become.
Everyone was relieved to lift ship, however, for the thought of being
caught grounded by any roving Martian spaceship was not pleasant to
contemplate. Atomic bombs had long been obsolete, but one such would
certainly suffice to exterminate four grounded spacecraft. Then too,
they were all glad to get away from the glaring spectre that so eerily
filled too much of the sky ... the ringed Saturn had a hypnotic effect
that left a man shaken.
In the Control of the _Darkside_ Chavez whispered to Scott: "We were
thinking that you were going to lose the _Darky_ ... and it turns out
that poor old Drew is the one who lost his command."
"He should be glad to get rid of it."
"But what," asked Chavez, "is the old man going to do with her?"
Scott shrugged and spoke succinctly. "Bait." His spirits had risen
considerably when Hartnett had left him in command of the _Darkside_,
contrary to his expectations. He reflected somewhat ruefully that it
did a man good to have a scare thrown into him from time to time. Even
now, rapidly approaching a quadrant heavy with Cat warships, he could
feel contented in merely feeling his beloved tin can responding under
his hands on the control panels.
A thousand yards behind and astern, the unmanned _Artemis_ followed
the _Darkside_ like a dog on a leash, its myriad functions controlled
by an invisible chain of subetheric impulses from jerry-rigged remote
controls on the _Darkside's_ gun-deck.
In the faint light of the faraway sun, where the irrepressible Blake
had sloshed paint on her flank, gleamed the legend: BOOBY TRAP.
Like shadows, the four ships of Flotilla Blue Three slipped through the
patrol cordons of the Martian Space Force. In the infinite vastnesses
of the interplanetary deeps they were unnoticed. Blast tubes silent,
guided only by the ever increasing gravitational attraction of mammoth
Uranus, and the reaction of whining gyroscopes.
Beneath them, its greenish disk ever increasing, lay Uranus ... cold,
harsh, forbidding. The thick atmosphere of methane and ammonia lay in
great turbulent belts, whipped to maniacal fury by the eternal storms
that swept the unguessable surface of the ghastly planet.
* * * * *
Blake shivered slightly as the skeeter-valve of the _Darkside_ closed
soundlessly behind him and the blackness of the void closed in about
the tiny boat. For just an instant, the familiar shape of the destroyer
loomed comfortingly in the faint light of the dwarfed sun, and then it
was gone, and he was falling away towards the mystery shrouded world
that lay beneath him. The very size of the disk was frightening. A huge
swirling mass 30,000 miles across seemed to be drawing him inexorably
into its gassy body.
With an effort he settled himself down in the control chair and patted
the tattered pin-up picture on the panel before him. It was a bit of
Terra far from home, and the simple act gave him courage. This was
certainly different from the Terra-Luna flights he had so often made
alone ... this was different. He grinned to himself and spoke aloud the
phrase made famous by ten thousand generations of actors and hacks.
This, he declaimed, is _it_!
Quickly now, he set up the constants for Oberon and pressed the firing
stud. There was a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach as the
skeeter came alive and the vast disk of Uranus vanished from the
forward vision ports. Speed was essential now. His trail would not mark
the place of the Flotilla, but it surely would arouse the sharp eyes
of the Cats who must be nearby. He pressed the second stud and the
skeeter leaped ahead. The accelerometer stood at 7 Terran Gs. By long
practice he could stand 11 ... and the skeeter ... stripped and souped
up ... could produce 20. Far too many.
He set the seat to prone position. Maybe he could squeeze an extra
one out of it now. 12 G! He gave the skeeter more power and the stars
seemed to go into a crazy dance as his vision started to fail. Enough.
Thirty minutes of terrific speed and still no sign of the Cats. The
tiny, dark disc of Oberon grew with alarming rapidity in the port. He
began to decelerate so fast that he nearly blacked out again. Damn!
Below him the tiny moon lay barren and bizarre in the greenish glow of
its huge primary.
The mushroom shaped huts of the metallurgical station were directly
below him and he swung the skeeter into a wild approach that would
have given his rocket instructor heart failure, but the boat held
together and settled to the surface of the tiny spaceport with a
crunch. Without waiting even for the surrounding soil to cool, Blake
was out of the ship and clumping clumsily toward the distant huts. The
terrific density of Oberon made the gravity almost normal. Three suited
figures appeared from the valves and began to run grotesquely toward
him. He waved them back and began shouting instructions at them on
the photophone. The infrared lamps on the top of the helmets blinked
eagerly in answer. Then quickly the four men vanished into the storage
hut and set feverishly to work.
* * * * *
Control was lit only by the red battle lamps. Lines were strung
along the walls and through the valves, and Scott, Chavez, and the
Quartermaster sat strapped at the panels. The ship was in a free
falling orbit around Uranus, its sister ships and the ghost ship,
_Artemis_, following her lead like huge beads on an invisible string.
The orbit could not be broken until Blake returned with the Station
technicians. All hands sat in nervous silence at GQ while the Flotilla
hung dead in space.
Commodore Hartnett came through the valve from the gun-deck. There was
a flimsy in his hand and he pulled himself along the guide-line with
some difficulty.
"Mr. Scott," he rapped out. The waiting was taking its toll of his
nerves as well as the other's. "Mr. Scott. You will break radio silence
and transmit this message immediately. Unscrambled and in Code Two."
The men at the panels stiffened in surprise. So far they had managed to
avoid arousing the prowling Cats ... but now this!
"Sir," protested Scott, "You surely can't mean to break radio silence
with young Blake down there!"
It was hard for a man to look dignified floating in midair ... but
somehow Hartnett managed it. "It's an order, Mr. Scott."
Scott flushed angrily. A gambler! Damn you, he thought! But he bit his
lip and reached for the message. "Yes, sir."
Hartnett remained behind him as he rang for communications.
"Communications here!"
"Stand by to transmit."
"Spread beam," ordered Hartnett.