"She's tough," went on Tiny. "Only the tough ones survive. The
authorities don't recognize their existence. They send men and women
here, with all the fences down, then close their eyes. Maybe nobody
told them about the birds and bees. Amyth is my sister's child. She
grew up here, knows nothing but this prison life."
"She grew up all over," commented Wilding.
Tiny's eyes bubbled, like sunlight dancing in a glass of beer. "She's
vicious as a blaster discharge, but as clean. Don't get any wrong
ideas. I taught her to take care of herself. But she's still woman
enough to think and feel. She likes you, made that dress specially for
you to see her in it."
Wilding grunted unhappily. Even in Hell--complications.
"I can still see most of her in it. What's she trying to sell? I don't
need a seamstress or dress designer, or a wife."
"You need something," rumbled Tiny. "Give her a break, man. Amyth's
a flower growing in a trash heap. She deserves something better than
this. Maybe you don't want her, and maybe you never will. But if you
break out of here, take her along."
Wilding nodded. "If she wants to go along, I'll take her. I can't
promise any more than that. Can I trust you, Tiny?"
The Amazon smiled grimly. "You can--now. Some of us can't go, I know
that. Even if your plans work out, there won't be room for all. For me
it doesn't matter too much. Sure, I'd like to get drunk once more on
good stuff. I'd like to walk crowded streets and push people off the
sidewalks. But that doesn't count, really."
Wilding smiled, then sobered. "None of us are going back to that
kind of life, Tiny. Sure, we could mix for a while and get away with
it. Some might disappear for good. But we haven't changed. We're the
same people, and under the same conditions, we'd just go wrong again
and end in the same pot. I want something else. I want conditions so
different that we can't go on being the same warped and misfit people.
We're heading out, away from the solar system. I want a brand new,
uninhabited planet to colonize. A world so new and different that we'll
all have to change to survive. My plan is to give all of us a fresh
start."
"You have more faith in people than I do. They won't change."
"They'll have to ... or die."
Tiny whistled and swallowed hard. "It sounds wonderful and a little
crazy, too. Where do you expect to find such a planet?"
Wilding answered slowly. "I don't know. It's a calculated risk. I was a
successful criminal, Tiny. I made a lot of money in plunder, and most
of it I used to buy and equip a spaceship. It's the biggest and best
ever made, and it has a new kind of drive not released yet. That ship
can reach the nearer stars in weeks, rather than years. The ship is
hidden among the asteroids. That's the reason I'm in such a nightmare
hurry. Right now, the asteroids are within cruising range; later on,
the supply ship would never reach that orbit."
"Do you know that the nearer stars have such planets? Even if they have
planets at all?"
"Nobody knows. But I'm gambling on it. I needed a tough crew, and women
used to hardships for colonists. There's a big gamble to start, then
the rest is savage battle for survival--even if we're lucky. I knew
I'd be caught and sent here eventually, so I gambled on that, too. Now
I'll have my crew, and--"
"Counting me, there are twenty-nine women. All but Amyth and five
others like her who were born here are pretty hard cases. I'm too old
for childbearing, Wilding, so you can say twenty-eight. If you're
restricting your colonists to useful citizens...."
"There'll be other needs, Tiny. You're a nurse. If you'll go, there'll
be a place for you."
"I'll go," growled Tiny. "And so will any of us. But you'd better not
tell anyone else where we'll be headed. Not till you're on your way.
They might get other ideas...."
"Would that be fair?"
"Fair or not--don't tell them. You took over the authority here. Don't
start trying to squirm out of the responsibility now. Voting and fancy
principles are fine for soft people in a safe and comfortably idyllic
civilization. You're dealing with scared and desperate rats. They need
help and strong leadership. You can give it to them, but if you show
the least weakness or indecision, they'll tear you to pieces."
"You may be right, Tiny. But I still don't agree with you. This is
too big a decision for one man. And I don't want any along who come
unwillingly. I'll think about it, but I'm sure I'll give them a choice
when the time comes."
"What kind of choice?"
"Come with me to the stars, or stay in some prison and rot. Hobson's
choice."
"Think and be damned, then," said Tiny. The Amazon started to maneuver
a drink to her mouth, then thoughtfully and deliberately broke the last
flask of her mushroom beer on a rock.
The lighter was ready.
* * * * *
Wilding led his picked crew of twenty cut-throats aboard. He was not
especially surprised to find the control cabin occupied.
Tichron sat easily in the pilot's chair, his blaster gun aimed steadily
at Amyth who curled up like a sullen cat in the navigator's seat.
"I go, or the girl doesn't," said Tichron.
Wilding laughed at him. "You're a little previous. This is just a dry
run. We're seizing the supply ship and coming back for the rest."
"So I've heard. Well, I'm going with you to make sure that you do come
back."
"Amyth is not going this trip. None of the women. So you might hold
your gun on me and let the girl get outside. We're wasting time, and I
want to be sure of intercepting the supply ship long before it sights
the beacon."
Tichron obliged by shifting his aim to Wilding. Amyth slipped silently
through the airlock and dropped to the ground.
"Shall I take him now?" Grouth asked, edging toward Tichron who seemed
unembarrassed by two possible targets instead of one.
"Don't move," ordered Wilding. To Tichron he said, "You can put the gun
down now, or go on holding it. But your arm will be pretty numb by the
time we hit the supply ship."
"Do I go with you?" demanded Tichron.
"You're wasting melodrama, big boy. I wouldn't think of leaving you
behind. Ask Concor, we were wondering what had happened to you."
"Concor could lie, and so could you," growled Tichron. But he carefully
reclipped the gun to his belt. "Perhaps you'll be killed trying to take
the supply ship."
"Perhaps you will...."
Wilding barked orders. The lighter was closed up and sealed.
Atom-converters purred with steady vibrations. With a grunt and heave,
the lighter moved into the airlock shaft. Lights dimmed and the jarring
increased in tempo. Movement steadied into a smooth glide. Automatic
door-flaps opened ahead and closed behind. Blast-off ritual began.
Suddenly the tiny ship shot from the surface like a cork from a bottle.
Acceleration pangs became nagging nausea.
Wilding licked his lips. "Perhaps we'll all be killed. It will save a
lot of trouble...."
From the shadow-cone of the planetoid, the lighter moved out to
anticipate the orbit of the expected supply ship....
In space, frontal attack is impossible. Ships approach and pass each
other at terrific relative velocities. Limited human senses cannot
function rapidly enough, and even the automatic mechanisms which
control a ship in spaceflight can react only according to the impulses
built into them.
Surprise is almost equally impossible, since combat requires that
both ships be moving at approximately equal speeds on courses nearly
parallel.
Though Wilding had planned carefully, he knew that there is a vast
difference between plans and execution. Anything, or any number of
things, could go wrong. For one thing, if it came to an actual running
fight, his craft was practically unarmed. Aboard the supply ship would
be robot brains for mass detection, target-course computation, and the
automatic aiming and firing of atomic warhead torpedoes. There had been
neither time nor material to build such complicated machines. Even the
control of the lighter was accomplished manually.
Moving out from the asteroid, the lighter described a wide curve. It
came upon the supply ship from behind, striking a speed only slightly
greater than that of its quarry. Rapidly overhauling the larger
spacecraft, it sent no recognition signal and was prepared to answer
none.
Already the supply ship had begun tedious deceleration preparatory to
sighting the flare beacon and dumping the stores for the prisoners on
Asteroid 297. It was a dull, routine maneuver. In the control cabin,
pilot-captain and astrogator crouched over chart-screens and fed order
tapes into the electronic devices which ran the ship. Men may be
careless and overconfident. Machines are not--
* * * * *
Alarms whined and clamored. Red lights blinked on the control panels,
reporting intrusion. Instruments went into automatic action to
determine the sector and nature of possible menace. Data tapes spewed
from the battery of electronic brains. Electric typewriters clattered
like machine-guns.
The strange object was man-made, too regular in form to be of meteoric
origin. Metallic, but not a meteor. Its mirror-polished skin was
analyzed spectroscopically and classified as an industrial alloy.
Details of structure were noted and filed. By its speed and the
phantom glow in its wake, the stranger was obviously powered by some
secondary use of atomics.
But the officers of the supply ship had scant time to digest this array
of facts. With a burst of speed, the strange craft angled suddenly
toward them. Distance closed rapidly, and collision seemed imminent.
Alarms screamed in mechanical panic. Robot piloting devices operated
instantaneously, attempted ticklish maneuvering to avoid contact. It
was too late.
The pilot-captain's brain was working almost as rapidly as the relays
of his cybernetic helpers. But not as surely. For a desperate moment,
he considered the possibility of piracy, but he rejected the thought
at once. All known desperadoes had been hunted from the spaceways.
And if communications were to be trusted, no other spaceship could be
within many days run of his present position. Mentally, the officer
reviewed Procedure Regulations, and wondered what space novelty he was
encountering this time.
He had little time to wonder, and less for indecision. If he had acted
at once, the ponderous meteor repellor tubes could have been shifted
from the nose of the ship. Even the token armament of robot-aimed
torpedo tubes could have been ordered into action.
In the confusion of the moment, he took no action at all.
There was shock. Although the strange ship had barely nudged the hull
plates, brains writhed and circulatory systems labored to readjust to
an abrupt change in direction of movement. Then the stranger was firmly
alongside, secured by magnetic grapples, and the airlock doors were
opening automatically as pressure on both sides equalized.
Men poured through the airlock. They were a desperate, savage crew from
the prison lighter. Their weapons were crude but effective. The battle
was brief, a momentary huddled violence, then officers and crew of the
supply ship were overwhelmed. Oddly enough, casualties were few on
either side.
It is easier to unleash wolves than to restrain them once they have
tasted blood. Wilding hated senseless slaughter, and he held back the
vindictive impulses of his ugly horde with the hand of a master.
"Did any message get through?" he asked Concor.
The Martian shook his head unhappily. "Part of one. We tried to blanket
their transmitter, but--"
"That shortens our time. Don't harm our prisoners. We may need them for
hostages."
Convicts went through the ship and routed out everyone in hiding.
The captives were lined up and Wilding went down the line inspecting
his catch. The crewmen were both angry and frightened. The officers
blustered.
One of the last captives, turned out of hiding in the crew's quarters,
was a girl. She limped into the straggled line-up and faced the new
masters of the ship.
Wilding stared at her in astonishment. "Elshar!" he gasped. "What are
you doing here?"
The girl did not answer at once. She shrugged, smiling curiously.
Racial strangeness was in the angles of her face-structure. Large,
luminous eyes, of deep blue, rode high on tilted cheekbones. She looked
very young, with her face still pale from shock. In her dark hair
and fair skin were the curious blendings of mixed blood, which often
produces rare beauty. But for the twisted leg, she was perfect as one
of those incredibly delicate and minute figurines carved of Martian
ivory, but more human. All too human.
"I bought my freedom with the money you left for me," she explained
slowly. "There was enough left to bribe the guards of the supply ship."
Caught between confusion and anger, Wilding stormed at her.
"You must have lost your mind. What could you want--"
The girl stopped him with a gesture. "Perhaps. And perhaps more than
my mind. I convinced them that all I wanted was to see the place you
had been taken. I did not try to convince myself. All the time I hoped
something would happen. Some miracle. I ask nothing from you. Just let
me stay near you--"
Tichron's laugh was a knife-thrust in the heavy stillness of the ship.
"Friend," he said enviously. "You have one woman too many."
"One is sometimes too many," Wilding said irritably. He told Elshar,
"I'll decide later what to do with you. Now I'm too busy."
* * * * *
The girl studied him gravely. "Don't think about me. I'll be no trouble
to you."
Wilding nodded and turned his attention to Concor, who already bent
over the calculators.
"With a little trimming, this present orbit will take us fairly close
to the asteroid," was the Martian's verdict.
"That's your department. Get us there, and don't waste any time you
can help. The patrols will be converging if any message at all went
through. Our margin is small enough at best."
Tichron's broad face showed astonishment. "You mean you're actually
going back for the others?"
"I never had any other intention. I'll need all who want to go with
me ... where I'm going."