The long hours passed, and only Rip's chronometer told him when the end
of a day was reached. The Planeteers alternately worked on the surface
and rested in the air of the landing boat compartment, while the asteroid
sped steadily on its way.
When a series of sightings over several days gave Rip enough exact data
to work on, he recalculated the orbit, found the amount that the course
had to be corrected, and supervised the cutting of new holes in the
metal.
Tubes of ordinary rocket fuel were placed in these and fired, and the
thrust moved the asteroid slightly, just enough to make the corrections
Rip needed. It was not necessary to take to the landing boat for these
blasts. The Planeteers retired to their cave, which was now lined with
nuclite as a protection against radiation.
Rip watched his dosimeter climb steadily as the radiation dosage mounted.
Then he took the landing boat to the Scorpius, talked the problem over
with the ship's medical department, and arranged for his men to take
injections that would keep them from getting radiation sickness.
They left the asteroid belt far behind and passed within ten thousand
miles of Mars. The _Scorpius_ sent its entire complement of snapper-boats
to the asteroid for protection, in case Consops made another try, then
flamed off to Marsport to put in new supplies to replace those damaged
when Rip had forced sudden and disastrous acceleration.
The asteroid had reached Earth's solar orbit before the cruiser returned,
though Earth itself was on the other side of the sun. Rip ordered a
survey and found the best place on the dark side to make a new base. The
Planeteers cut out a cave with the torch, lined it with nuclite, and
moved in the supplies. It would be their base to the end of the trip.
The sun was very hot now. On the sunny side of the asteroid the
temperature had soared far past the boiling point of water. But on the
dark side, Rip measured temperatures close to absolute zero.
When the _Scorpius_ returned, he arranged with Commander O'Brine for the
Planeteers to take turns going to the cruiser for showers and decent
meals.
The asteroid approached the orbit of Venus, but the bright planet was
some distance away, at its greatest elongation to the east of the sun.
Mercury, however, loomed larger and larger. They would pass close to the
hot planet.
O'Brine recalled Rip to the _Scorpius_ and handed him a message.
Asteroid now within protection reach of Mercury and Terra bases. Your
escort no longer required. Proceed immediately Titan, take on cargo and
personnel.
The commander sighed. "Looks like I'll never get to Earth long enough to
see my family."
Rip sympathized. "Tough, sir. Perhaps the cargo from Titan will be
scheduled for Terra."
"That's what I hope," O'Brine agreed. "Well, here's where we part. Is
there anything you need?"
Rip made a mental check on supplies. He had more than enough. "The only
thing we need is a long-range communicator, sir. We'll need one to
contact the planet bases."
"I'll see that you get one." The Irishman thrust out his hand. "Stay
out of high vack, Foster. Too bad you didn't join us instead of the
Planeteers. I might have made a decent officer out of you."
Rip grinned. "That's a real compliment, sir. I might return it by saying
that you have the makings of a Planeteer officer yourself."
O'Brine chuckled. "All right. Let's declare a truce, Planeteer. We'll
meet again. Space isn't very big."
A short time later Rip stood in front of his asteroid base and watched
the great cruiser drive into space. A short distance away a snapper-boat
was lashed to the landing boat. O'Brine had left it, with a word of
warning.
"These Connies are plenty smart. I don't like leaving you unprotected,
even within reach of Mercury and Terra, but orders are orders. Keep the
snapper-boat, and you'll at least be able to put up a fight if you bump
into trouble."
The asteroid sped on its lonely way for two days, and then a cruiser came
out of space, its nuclear drive glowing. The Planeteers manned the rocket
launcher, and Rip and Santos stood by the snapper-boat, just in case, but
the cruiser was the _Sagittarius_, out of Mercury.
Capt. Go Sian-tek, a Chinese Planeteer officer, arrived in one of the
cruiser's boats with three enlisted men.
Captain Go greeted Rip and his men, then handed over a plastic stylus
plate ordering Rip to deliver six cubic meters of thorium for use on
Mercury. While Koa supervised the cutting of the block, Rip and the
captain chatted.
The Mercurian Planeteer base was in the twilight zone, but the Planeteers
always worked on the sun side, wearing special alloy suits to mine the
precious nuclite that only the hot planet provided.
At some time during its first years, Mercury had been so close to the
sun that its temperature was driven high enough to permit a subatomic
thermonuclear reaction. The reaction had shorn some elements of their
electrons and left a thin coating of material composed almost entirely
of neutrons. The nuclite was incredibly dense. It could be handled only
in low gravity because of its weight. But nothing else provided the
shielding against radiation and meteors half so well, and it was in great
demand.
"Things aren't so bad," Go told Rip. "The base is comfortable, and we
only work a two-hour shift out of each ten. We've had a plague of silly
dillies recently. They got into one man's suit while we were working, but
mostly they're just a nuisance."
Rip had heard of the creatures. They were like Earth armadillos, except
that they were silicon animals and not carbon like those of Earth. They
were drawn to oxygen like iron to a magnet, and their diamond-hard
tongues, used for drilling rock in order to get the minerals on which
they lived, could drive right through a space suit. Or, if these animals
worked undetected for a while, they could drill through the shell of a
space station.
_Scralabus primus_ was the scientific name of the creature, but the fact
that it looked like a silicon armadillo had given it the popular name of
"silly dilly." Apart from its desire for oxygen, it was harmless.
Koa reported, "Sir, the block of thorium is ready. We've hung it on a
line behind the landing-boat. The blast won't hurt it, and it's too big
to get inside the boat."
"Fine, Koa. Well, Captain, that does it."
The Mercurian Planeteers got into their craft and blasted off, trailing
the block of thorium in their exhaust. Rip watched the cruiser take the
craft and thorium aboard, then drive toward Mercury, brilliant sunlight
reflecting from its sleek sides. The planet was only a short distance
away by spaceship. It was the largest thing in space, except for the sun,
as seen from the asteroid.
Past the orbit of Mercury, the sun side of the asteroid grew dangerously
hot for men in space suits. Rip and the Planeteers stayed in the bitter
cold of the dark side, which ceased to be entirely dark. The temperature
rose somewhat. They were close enough to the sun that the prominences,
great flaming tongues of hydrogen that sped many thousands of miles into
space, gave them light and enough heat to register on Rip's instruments.
Mercury was left far behind, and Earth could not be seen because of the
sun. There was nothing to do now but ride out the rest of the trip as
comfortably as possible, until it was time to throw the asteroid into
a series of ever-tightening elliptical orbits around Earth, known as
braking ellipses. The method would use Earth's gravity to slow them down
to the proper speed. A single atomic bomb and a half dozen tubes of
rocket fuel remained.
Then, as Rip was enjoying the comfort of air during his off-watch hour in
the boat compartment, Koa beat an alarm on the door.
Rip and the Planeteers got into suits and opened up.
"It's Terra base calling on the communicator, sir," Koa reported. "Urgent
message, they said, and they want to talk to you personally."
Rip hurried to the cave. The communicator indicator light was glowing
bright red. He plugged in his helmet circuit and said, "This is
Lieutenant Foster. Go ahead."
A voice crackled across space from Earth. "This is Terra base. Foster,
a Consops cruiser has apparently been hiding behind the sun waiting for
you. Our screens just picked it up, heading your way. We've sent orders
to the _Sagittarius_ on Mercury to give you cover, and the _Aquila_ has
taken off from here. But get this, Foster. The Consops cruiser will reach
you first. You have about one hour. Do you understand?"
Rip understood all right. He understood too well. "Got you," he said
shortly. "Now what?"
The communicator buzzed. "Take any appropriate action. You're on your
own. Sorry. Sending the cruisers is all we can do. We'll stand by for
word from you. If you think of any way we can help, let us know."