nobody will ever know you did it. But I think well of you. Come along!_"
This was at 11 hours 5 minutes ship time.
* * * * *
A good half hour later the skipper's voice bellowed from the speakers all
over the _Niccola_. His heavy-jowled features stared doggedly out of
screens wherever men were on duty or at ease.
"_Hear this!_" he said forbiddingly. "_We have checked our course and
speed. We have verified that there is no possible jury-rig for our
engines that could get us into any sort of orbit, let alone land us on
the only planet in this system with air we could breathe. It is
officially certain that in thirteen days nine hours from now, the _Niccola_
will be so close to the sun that her hull will melt down. Which will be
no loss to us because we'll be dead then, still going on into the sun to
be vaporized with the ship. There is nothing to be done about it. We can
do nothing to save our own lives!_"
He glared out of each and every one of the screens, wherever there were
men to see him.
"_But_," he rumbled, "_the Plumies can get away if we help them. They
have no cutting torches. We have. We can cut their ship free. They can
repair their drive--but it's most likely that it'll operate perfectly
when they're a mile from the _Niccola's_ magnetic field. They can't help
us. But we can help them. And sooner or later some Plumie ship is going
to encounter some other human ship. If we cut these Plumies loose,
they'll report what we did. When they meet other men, they'll be cagey
because they'll remember Taine. But they'll know they can make friends,
because we did them a favor when we'd nothing to gain by it. I can offer
no reward. But I ask for volunteers to go outside and cut the Plumie ship
loose, so the Plumies can go home in safety instead of on into the sun
with us!_"
He glared, and cut off the image.
Diane held tightly to Baird's hand, in the radar room. He said evenly:
"There'll be volunteers. The Plumies are pretty sporting
characters--putting up a fight with an unarmed ship, and so on. If there
aren't enough other volunteers, the skipper and I will cut them free by
ourselves."
Diane said, dry-throated:
"I'll help. So I can be with you. We've got--so little time."
"I'll ask the skipper as soon as the Plumie ship's free."
"Y-yes," said Diane. And she pressed her face against his shoulder, and
wept.
This was at 01 hours, 20 minutes ship time. At 03 hours even, there was
peculiar activity in the valley between the welded ships. There were men
in space armor working cutting-torches where for twenty feet the two
ships were solidly attached. Blue-white flames bored savagely into solid
metal, and melted copper gave off strangely colored clouds of
vapor--which emptiness whisked away to nothing--and molten iron and
cobalt made equally lurid clouds of other colors.
There were Plumies in the air lock, watching.
At 03 hours 40 minutes ship time, all the men but one drew back. They
went inside the _Niccola_. Only one man remained, cutting at the last
sliver of metal that held the two ships together.
It parted. The Plumie ship swept swiftly away, moved by the centrifugal
force of the rotary motion the joined vessels had possessed. It dwindled
and dwindled. It was a half mile away. A mile. The last man on the
outside of the _Niccola's_ hull thriftily brought his torch to the air
lock and came in.
Suddenly, the distant golden hull came to life. It steadied. It ceased to
spin, however slowly. It darted ahead. It checked. It swung to the right
and left and up and down. It was alive again.
* * * * *
In the radar room, Diane walked into Baird's arms and said shakily:
"Now we ... we have almost fourteen days."
"Wait," he commanded. "When the Plumies understood what we were doing,
and why, they drew diagrams. They hadn't thought of cutting free, out in
space, without the spinning saws they use to cut bronze with. But they
asked for a scanner and a screen. They checked on its use. I want to
see--"
He flipped on the screen. And there was instantly a Plumie looking
eagerly out of it, for some sign of communication established. There were
soprano sounds, and he waved a hand for attention. Then he zestfully held
up one diagram after another.
Baird drew a deep breath. A very deep breath. He pressed the
navigation-room call. The skipper looked dourly at him.
"_Well?_" said the skipper forbiddingly.
"Sir," said Baird, very quietly indeed, "the Plumies are talking by
diagram over the communicator set we gave them. Their drive works.
They're as well off as they ever were. And they've been modifying their
tractor beams--stepping them up to higher power."
"_What of it?_" demanded the skipper, rumbling.
"They believe," said Baird, "that they can handle the _Niccola_ with
their beefed-up tractor beams." He wetted his lips. "They're going to tow
us to the oxygen planet ahead, sir. They're going to set us down on it.
They'll help us find the metals we need to build the tools to repair the
_Niccola_, sir. You see the reasoning, sir. We turned them loose to
improve the chance of friendly contact when another human ship runs into
them. They want us to carry back--to be proof that Plumies and men can be
friends. It seems that--they like us, sir."
He stopped for a moment. Then he went on reasonably;
"And besides that, it'll be one hell of a fine business proposition. We
never bother with hydrogen-methane planets. They've minerals and
chemicals we haven't got, but even the stones of a methane-hydrogen
planet are ready to combine with the oxygen we need to breathe! We can't
carry or keep enough oxygen for real work. The same thing's true with
them on an oxygen planet. We can't work on each other's planets, but we
can do fine business in each other's minerals and chemicals from those
planets. I've got a feeling, sir, that the Plumie cairns are
location-notices; markers set up over ore deposits they can find but
can't hope to work, yet they claim against the day when their scientists
find a way to make them worth owning. I'd be willing to bet, sir, that
if we explored hydrogen planets as thoroughly as oxygen ones, we'd find
cairns on their-type planets that they haven't colonized yet."
The skipper stared. His mouth dropped open.
"And I think, sir," said Baird, "that until they detected us they thought
they were the only intelligent race in the galaxy. They were upset to
discover suddenly that they were not, and at first they'd no idea what
we'd be like. But I'm guessing now, sir, that they're figuring on what
chemicals and ores to start swapping with us." Then he added, "When you
think of it, sir, probably the first metal they ever used was
aluminum--where our ancestors used copper--and they had a beryllium age
next, instead of iron. And right now, sir it's probably as expensive for
them to refine iron as it is for us to handle titanium and beryllium and
osmium--which are duck soup for them! Our two cultures ought to thrive as
long as we're friends, sir. They know it already--and we'll find it out
in a hurry!"
The skipper's mouth moved. It closed, and then dropped open again. The
search for the Plumies had been made because it looked like they had to
be fought. But Baird had just pointed out some extremely commonsense
items which changed the situation entirely. And there was evidence that
the Plumies saw the situation the new way. The skipper felt such enormous
relief that his manner changed. He displayed what was almost effusive
cordiality--for the skipper. He cleared his throat.
"_Hm-m-m. Hah! Very good, Mr. Baird_," he said formidably. "_And of
course with time and air and metals we can rebuild our drive. For that
matter, we could rebuild the _Niccola_! I'll notify the ship's company, Mr.
Baird. Very good!_" He moved to use another microphone. Then he checked
himself. "_Your expression is odd, Mr. Baird. Did you wish to say
something more?_"
"Y-yes, sir," said Baird. He held Diane's hand fast. "It'll be months
before we get back to port, sir. And it's normally against regulations,
but under the circumstances ... would you mind ... as skipper ...
marrying Lieutenant Holt and me?"
The skipper snorted. Then he said almost--almost--amiably;
"Hm-m-m. You've both done very well, Mr. Baird. Yes. Come to the
navigation room and we'll get it over with. Say--ten minutes from now."
Baird grinned at Diane. Her eyes shone a little.
This was at 04 hours 10 minutes ship time. It was exactly twelve hours
since the alarm-bell rang.
THE END
[Transcriber's note:
The following typographical errors have been corrected:
"congenial" to "congenital"
"Mircowaves" to "Microwaves"
"undoutbedly" to "undoubtedly" (twice)
"seemd" to "seemed"
"Lieutenant Hold" to "Lieutenant Holt"
]