"Read it aloud," O'Brine ordered.
"Yes, sir. It's addressed to you, this ship. From Planeteer Intelligence, Marsport. 'Consops cruiser departed general direction your area. Agents report crewAltairmay have leaked data re asteroid. Take appropriate action.' It's signed 'Williams, SOS, Commanding.'"
Rip saw the meaning of the message instantly. The Consolidation of People's Governments, of Earth, traditional enemies and rivals of the Federation of Free Governments, needed radioactive minerals as badly as, or worse than, the Federation. In space it was first come, first take. They had to find the asteroid quickly. It was to prevent Consops from knowing of the asteroid that security measures had been taken. They hadn't worked, because of loose space chatter at Marsport.
O'Brine issued quick orders. "Now, get this. We have to work fast. Accelerate fifty percent, same course. I want two men on each screen. If anything of the right size shows up, decelerate until we can get mass and albedo measurements. Snap to it."
The space officers started out, but O'Brine stopped them. "Use one long-range screen for scanning high space toward Mars. Let me know the minute you get a blip, because it probably will be that Consops cruiser. Have the missile ports cleared for action."
Rip's eyes opened. Clear the missile ports? That meant getting the cruiser in fighting shape, ready for instant action. "You wouldn't fire on that Consops cruiser, would you, sir?"
O'Brine gave him a grim smile. "Certainly not, Foster. It's against orders to start anything with Consops cruisers. You know why. The situation is so tense that a fight between two spaceships might plunge Earth into war." His smile got even grimmer. "But you never know. The Consops ship might fire first. Or an accident might happen."
The commander leaned forward. "We'll find that asteroid for you, Mr. Planeteer. We'll put you on it and see you on your way. Then we'll ride space along with you, and if any Consops thieves try to take over and collect that thorium for themselves, they'll find Kevin O'Brine waiting. That's a promise."
Rip felt a lot better. He sat back in his chair and regarded the commander with mixed respect and something else. Against his will, he was beginning to like the man. No doubt of it, theScorpiuswas well named. And the sting in the scorpion's tail was O'Brine himself.
Rip rejoined his Planeteers in the supply room and motioned for them to gather around him. "I know why Terra base sent us the fighting equipment," he announced. "They were afraid word of this thorium asteroid would leak out to Consops—and it has. A Connie cruiser blasted off from Marsport and it's headed this way."
He watched the faces of his men carefully, to see how they would take the news. They merely looked at each other and shrugged. Conflict with Consops was nothing new to them.
"The freighter that found the asteroid landed at Marsport, didn't it?" Koa asked. Getting a nod from Rip, he went on, "Then I know what probably happened. The two things spacemen can't do are breathe high vack and keep their mouths shut. Some of the crew blabbed about the asteroid, probably at the Space Club. That's where they hang out. The Connies hang out there, too. Result, we get a Connie cruiser after the asteroid."
"You hit it," Rip acknowledged.
Corporal Santos shrugged. "If the Connies try to take the asteroid away, they'll have a real warm time. We have ten racks of rockets, twenty-four to a rack. That's a lot of snapper-boats we can pick off if they try to make a landing."
The Planeteers stopped talking as the voice horn sounded. "Get it! We are going into no-weight. Prepare to stay in no-weight indefinitely. Rotation stops in two minutes."
Rip realized why the order was given. TheScorpiuscould not maneuver while in a gravity spin, and O'Brine wanted to be free to take action if necessary.
The voice horn came on again. "Now get it again. The ship may maneuver suddenly. Prepare for acceleration or deceleration without warning. One minute to no-weight."
Rip gave quick orders. "Get lines around the equipment and prepare to haul it. I'll get landing boats assigned, and we can load. Then prepare space packs. Lay out suits and bubbles. We want to be ready to go the moment we get the word."
Lines were taken from a locker and secured to the equipment. As the Planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. They were in no-weight. Rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. The deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. Rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "I need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "One stays on the asteroid with us."
"Take numbers five and six. I'll assign a pilot to bring number five back to the ship after you've landed."
"Thank you." Rip would have been surprised at the deputy's quick assent if Commander O'Brine hadn't shown him that the spacemen were ready to do anything possible to aid the Planeteers. He went back to the supply room and told Koa which boats were to be used, instructed him to get the supplies aboard, then made his way to Commander O'Brine's office.
O'Brine was not in. Rip searched and found him in the astroplot room, watching a 'scope. Green streaks called "blips" marked the panel, each one indicating an asteroid.
"All too small," O'Brine said. "We've only seen two large ones, and they were too large."
"Space is certainly full of junk," Rip commented. "At least this corner of it is pretty full."
A junior space officer overheard him. "This is nothing. We're on the edge of the asteroid belt. Closer to the middle, there's so much stuff a ship has to crawl through it."
Rip wandered over to the main control desk. A senior space officer was seated before a simple panel on which there were only a dozen small levers, a visiphone, and a radar screen. The screen was circular, with numbers around the rim like those on an Earth clock. In the center of the screen was a tiny circle. The central circle represented theScorpius. The rest of the screen was the area dead ahead. Rip watched and saw several blips on it that indicated asteroids. They were all small. He watched, interested, as theScorpiusovertook them. Once, according to the screen, the cruiser passed under an asteroid, with a clearance of only a few hundred feet.
"You didn't miss that one by much," Rip told the space officer.
"Don't have to miss by much," he retorted. "A few feet are as good as a mile in space. Our blast might kick them around a little, and maybe there's a little mutual mass attraction, but we don't worry about it."
He pointed to a blip that was just swimming into view, a sharp green point against the screen. "We do have to worry about that one." He selected a lever and pulled it toward him.
Rip felt sudden weight against his feet. The green point on the screen moved downward, below center. The feeling of weight ceased. He knew what had happened, of course. Around the hull of the ship, set in evenly spaced lines, were a series of blast holes through which steam was fired. The steam was produced instantly by running water through the heat coils of the nuclear engine. By using groups or combinations of steam tubes, the control officer could move the ship in any direction, set it rolling, spin it end over end, or whirl it in an eccentric pattern.
"How do you decide which tubes to use?" Rip asked.
"Depends on what's happening. If we were ducking missiles from an enemy, I'd get orders from the commander. But to duck asteroids, there's no problem. I go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the ship. That way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. If I fired the top tubes, the ship would drop out from under those who were standing. They'd all end up on the overhead."
Rip watched for a while longer, then wandered back to Commander O'Brine. He was getting anxious. At first the task of capturing an asteroid and moving it back to Earth had been rather unreal, like some of the problems he had worked out while training on the space platform. Now he was no longer calm about it. He had faith in the Terra base Planeteer specialists, but they couldn't figure out everything for him. Most of the problems of getting the asteroid back to Earth would have to be solved by Lt. Richard Ingalls Peter Foster.
A junior space officer suddenly called, "Sir, I have a reading at two-seventy degrees, twenty-three degrees eight minutes high."
Commander O'Brine jumped up so fast that the action shot him to the ceiling. He kicked down again and leaned over the officer's 'scope. Rip got there by pulling himself right across the top of the chart table.
The green point of light on the 'scope was bigger than any other he had seen.
"It's about the right size," O'Brine said. There was excitement in his voice. "Correct course. Let's take a look at it."
All hands gripped something with which to steady themselves as the cruiser spun swiftly onto the new course. The control officer called, "I have it centered, sir. We'll reach it in about an hour at this speed."
"Jack it up," O'Brine ordered. "Heave some neutrons into it. Double speed, then decelerate to reach it in thirty minutes."
The control officer issued orders to the engine control room. In a moment acceleration plucked at them. O'Brine motioned to Rip. "Come on, Foster. Let's see what Analysis makes of this rock."
Rip followed the commander to the deck below, where the technical analysts were located. His heart was pounding a little faster than usual, and not from acceleration, either. He found himself wetting his lips frequently and thought,Get hold of it, boy. You've got nothing to worry about but high vacuum.
He didn't really believe it. There would be plenty to worry about. Like detonating nuclear bombs and trying to figure their blast reaction. Like figuring out the course that would take them closest to the sun without pulling them into it. Like a thousand things—all of them up to him.
The chief analyst greeted them. "We got the orders to change course, Commander. That gave us the location of the asteroid. We're already working on it."
"Anything yet?"
"No, sir. We'll have the albedo measurement in a few minutes. It'll take longer to figure the mass."
The asteroid's efficiency in reflecting sunlight was its albedo. The efficiency depended on the material of which it was made. The albedo of pure metallic thorium was known. If the asteroid's albedo matched it, that would be one piece of evidence.
In the same way, the mass of thorium was known. The measurements of the asteroid were being taken. They would be compared with a chunk of thorium of the same size. If it worked out, that would be evidence enough.
Commander O'Brine motioned to chairs. "Might as well sit down while we're waiting, Foster." He took one of the chairs and looked closely at Rip. Suddenly he grinned. "I thought Planeteers never got nervous."
"Who's nervous?" Rip retorted, then answered his own question truthfully. "I am. You're right, sir. The closer we get, the more scared I get."
"That's a good sign," O'Brine replied. "It means you'll be careful. Got any real doubts about the job?"
Rip thought it over and didn't think so. "Not any real ones. I think we can do it. But I'm nervous just the same. Great Cosmos, Commander! This is my first assignment, and they give me a whole world to myself and tell me to bring it home. Maybe it isn't a very big world, but that doesn't change things much."
O'Brine chuckled. "I never expected to get an admission like that from a Planeteer."
"And I," Rip retorted, "never expected to make one like that to a spaceman."
The chief analyst returned, a sheet of computations in his hand. "Report, sir. The albedo measurement is correct. This may be it."
"How long before we get the measurements and comparisons?"
"Ten minutes, perhaps."
Rip spoke up. "Sir, there's some data I'll need."
"What, Lieutenant?" The analyst got out a notebook.
"I'll need all possible data on the asteroid's speed, orbit, and physical measurements. I will have to figure a new orbit and what it will take to blast the mass into it."
"We'll get those. The orbit will not be exact, of course. We have only two reference points. But I think we'll come pretty close."
O'Brine nodded. "Do what you can, Chief. And when Foster gets down to doing his calculations, have your men run them through the electronic computer for him."
Rip thanked them both, then stood up. "Sir, I'm going back to my men. I want to be sure everything is ready. If there's a Connie cruiser headed this way, we don't want to lose any time."
"Good idea. I think we'll dump you on the asteroid, Foster, and then blast off. Not too far, of course. Just enough to lead the Connie away from you if its screen picks us up."
That sounded good to Rip. "We'll be ready when you are, sir."
The chief analyst took less than the estimated ten minutes for his next set of figures. Commander O'Brine called personally while Rip was still searching for the right landing-boat ports. The voice horn bellowed, "Get it, Lieutenant Foster! The mass measurements are correct. This is your asteroid. Estimated twelve minutes before we reach it. Your data will be ready by the time you get back here. Show an exhaust!"
Rip found Koa and the men and asked the sergeant major for a report.
"We're ready, sir," Koa told him. "We can get out in three minutes. It will take us that long to get into space gear. Your stuff is laid out, sir."
"Get me the books and charts from the supplies," Rip directed. "Have Santos take them to the chief analyst. I'm going back and figure our course. No use doing it the hard way on the asteroid, when I can do it in a few minutes here with the ship's computer."
He turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. The ship had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. As he neared the analysis section, it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too bad. He made his way against it easily.
The chief analyst was waiting for him. "We have everything you need, Lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. We'll do the best we can on that and have an estimate in a few minutes. Meanwhile you can mark up your figures. Incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the asteroid?"
"Nuclear explosions," Rip said, and saw the chief's eyes pop. He added, "With conventional chemical fuel for corrections."
He felt rising excitement. The whole ship seemed to have come to life. There was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the chief. Spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. As the chief led him to a table, they gathered around him.
Rip took command. "Here's what we're after. I need to plot an orbit that will get us out of the asteroid belt without collisions, take us as close to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in space about ten thousand miles from Earth. From then on I'll throw the asteroid into a braking ellipse around the earth, and I'll be able to make any small corrections necessary."
He spread out a solar system chart and marked in the positions of the planets as of that moment, using the daily almanac. Then he put down the position of the asteroid, taking it from the paper the chief analyst handed him.
"Will you make assignments, Chief?"
The chief shook his head. "Make them yourself, Lieutenant. We're at your service."
Rip felt a little ashamed of some of the unkind things he had said about spacemen. "Thank you." He pointed to a spaceman. "Will you calculate the inertia of the asteroid, please?" The spaceman hurried off. "First thing to do is plot the orbit as though there were no other bodies in the system," Rip said. "Where's Santos?"
"Here, sir." The corporal had come in unnoticed with Rip's reference books.
Rip had plotted orbits before, but never one for actual use. His palms were wet as he laid it out, using prepared tables. When he had finished he pointed to a spaceman. "That's it. Will you translate it into analogue figures for the computer, please?" He assigned to others the task of figuring out the effect Mercury, the sun, and Earth would have on the orbit, using an assumed speed for the asteroid.
To the chief analyst he gave the job of putting all the data together in proper form for feeding to the electronic brain.
It would have taken all spacemen present about ten days to complete the job by regular methods, but the electronic computer produced the answer in three minutes.
"Thanks a million, Chief," Rip said. "I'll be calling on you again before this is over." He tucked the sheets into his pocket.
"Anytime, Lieutenant. We'll keep rechecking the figures as we go along. If there are any corrections, we'll send them to you. That will give you a check on your own figures."
"Don't worry," Rip assured him, "we're going to have plenty of corrections before we're through."
Deceleration had been dropping steadily. It ceased altogether, leaving them weightless. O'Brine's voice came over the speaker. "Get it! Valve crews take stations at landing boats five and six. The Planeteers will depart in five minutes. Lieutenant Foster will report to central control if he cannot be ready in that time."
Santos grinned at Rip. "Here we go, Lieutenant."
Rip's heart would have dropped into his shoes if there had been any gravity. Only a little excitement showed on his face, though. He waved his thanks at the analysts and grinned back at Santos.
"Show an exhaust, Corporal. High vack is waiting!"
Rip rechecked his space suit before putting on his helmet. The air seal was intact, and his heating and ventilating units worked. He slapped his knee pouches to make sure the space knife was handy to his left hand, the pistol to his right.
Koa was already fully dressed. He handed Rip the shoulder case that contained the plotting board. Santos had taken charge of Rip's astrogation instruments.
A spaceman was waiting with Rip's bubble. At a nod, the spaceman slipped it on his head. Rip reached up and gave it a quarter turn. The locking mechanism clamped into place. He turned his belt ventilator control on full, and the space suit puffed out. When it was fully inflated, he watched the pressure gauge. It was steady. No leaks in suit or helmet. He let the pressure go down to normal.
Koa's voice buzzed in his ears. "Hear me, sir?"
Rip adjusted the volume of his communicator and replied, "I hear you. Am I clear?"
"Yessir. All men dressed and ready."
Rip made a final check. He counted his men, then personally inspected their suits. The boats were next. They were typical landing craft, shaped like rectangular boxes. There was no need for streamlining in the vacuum of space. They were not pressurized. Only men in space suits rode in the ungainly boxes.
He checked all blast tubes to make sure they were clear. There were small single tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode and blow the boat up.
Koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility was his. In space, no officer took anyone's word for anything that might mean lives. Each checked every detail personally.
Rip looked around and saw the Planeteers watching him. There was approval on the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfied with his thoroughness.
At last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly, "Pilots, man your boats."
Dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. Dowst's boat would stay with them on the asteroid. The spaceman would bring the other back to the ship.
Commander O'Brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. A spaceman handed him a hand communicator. He spoke into it. Rip couldn't have heard him through the helmet otherwise. "All set, Foster?"
"Ready, sir."
"Good. The long-range screen picked up a blip a few minutes ago. It's probably that Connie cruiser."
Rip swallowed. The Planeteers froze, waiting for the commander's next words.
"Our screens are a little better than theirs, so there's a slim chance they haven't picked us up yet. We'll drop you and get out of here. But don't worry. We have your orbit fixed, and we'll find you when the screens are clear."
"Suppose they find us while you're gone?" Rip said.
"It's a chance," O'Brine admitted. "You'll have to take spaceman's luck on that one. But we won't be far away. We'll duck behind Vesta, or another of the big asteroids, and hide so their screens won't pick up our motion. Every now and then we'll sneak out for a look, if the screen seems clear. If those high-vack vermin do find you, get on the landing-boat radio and yell for help. We'll come blasting."
He waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbol for "everything right," then ordered, "Get flaming." He stepped through the valve.
"Clear the lock," Rip ordered. "Open outer valve when ready."
He took a quick, final look around. The pilots were in the boats. His Planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats and their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own line to a ring on Dowst's boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve, and the massive door slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out. Rip now snapped on his belt light, and the others followed suit.
In front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open, and air from the lock rushed out. Rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt as though all the heat from his suit was radiating into space, chilling him to near absolute zero. Beyond the lights from their belts, he saw stars and recognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. A superstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. Rip admitted that it was nice to see.
"Float 'em," he ordered.
The Planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand and launching rails on the boats with the other, then heaved. The boats slid into space. As the safety lines tightened, the Planeteers were pulled after the boat.
Rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. Directly below him, the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. His first reaction was "Great Cosmos! What a little chunk of rock!" But that was because he was used to looking from the space platform at the great curve of Terra or at the big ball of the moon. Actually the asteroid was fair-sized, when compared with most of its kind.
The Planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. Rip waited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to the black square of the door. Koa was waiting to give him a hand into the craft.
The Planeteers were standing, except for Dowst. Rip had never seen an old-type railroad, or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroad boxcar. It was about the same size and shape, but had huge "windows" on both sides and in front of the pilot—windows that were not enclosed. The space-suited men needed no protection.
"Blast," Rip ordered.
A pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving them bottom first toward the asteroid.
"Land at will," Rip said.
The asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. It was rocky, but there were plenty of smooth places.
Dowst picked one. He was an expert pilot, and Rip watched him with pleasure. The exhaust from the top lessened, and fire spurted soundlessly from the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom blasts with the delicacy of a woman threading a needle. In a few moments the boat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. Dowst cut the exhausts, and Rip stepped out onto the tiny planet.
The Planeteers knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered every moment.
Rip watched, interested in how his man would tackle the problem. He didn't know the answer himself, because he had never driven a spike on an airless world with almost no gravity, and no one had ever mentioned it to him.
Pederson searched the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spur of thorium, perhaps two feet high, a short distance from the boat. "Here's a hold," he said. "Come on, Frenchy. You too, Bradshaw."
Trudeau, carrying the sledge, walked up to the spur of rock and stood with his heels against it. Pederson sat down on the ground with his legs on either side of the spur. He stretched, hooking his heels around Trudeau's ankles, anchoring him. With his gloves, he grabbed the seat of the Frenchman's space suit.
Bradshaw took a spike and held it against the gray metal ground. The Frenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike. A few inches into the metal was enough. Bradshaw took a wrench from his belt, put it on the head of the spike, and turned it. Below the surface, teeth on the spike bit into the metal. It would hold.
The rest was easy. The spike was used to anchor Trudeau while he drove another, at his longest reach. Then the second spike became his anchor, and so on, until enough spikes had been set to lace the boat down against any sudden shock.
The boat piloted by the spaceman was tied to the one that would remain, and the Planeteers floated its supplies through a window. It took only a few moments, with Planeteers forming a chain from inside the boat to a spot a little distance away. The crates weighed almost nothing, but still retained their mass. Once their inertia was overcome, they moved from one man to the next like ungainly balloons.
"All clear, sir," Koa called.
Rip stepped inside and made a quick inspection. The box was empty except for the spaceman pilot. He put a hand on the pilot's shoulder. "On your way, Rocky. Thanks."
"You're welcome, sir." The pilot added, "Watch out for high vack."
Rip and Koa stepped out and walked a little distance away. Santos and Pederson cast the landing boat adrift and shoved it away from the anchored boat. In a moment fire spurted from the bottom tube, spreading over the dull metal and licking at the feet of the Planeteers.
Rip watched the boat rise upward to the great, sleek, dark bulk of theScorpius. The landing boat maneuvered into the air lock with brief flares from its exhausts. In a few moments the sparkling blast of auxiliary rocket tubes moved the spaceship away. O'Brine was putting a little distance between his ship and the asteroid before turning on the nuclear drive. The ship decreased in size until Rip saw it only as a dark, oval silhouette against the Milky Way. Then the exhaust of the nuclear drive grew into a mighty column of glowing blue, and the ship flamed into space.
For a moment Rip had a wild impulse to yell for the ship to come back. He had been in vacuum before, but only as a cadet, with an officer in charge. Now, suddenly, he was the one responsible. The job was his. He stiffened. Planeteer officers didn't worry about things like that. He forced his mind to the job at hand.
The next step was to establish a base. The base would have to be on the dark side of the asteroid, once it was in its new orbit. That meant a temporary base now and a better one later, when they had blasted the little planet into its new course. He estimated roughly the approximate positions where he would place his charges, using the sun and the star Canopus as visual guides.
"This will do for a temporary base," he announced. "Rig the boat compartment. While two of you are doing that, you others break out the rocket launcher and rocket racks and assemble the cutting torch. Koa will make assignments."
While the sergeant major translated Rip's general instructions into specific orders for each man, the young lieutenant walked to the edge of the sun belt. There was no atmosphere, so the edge was a sharp line between dark and light. There wasn't much light, either. They were too far from the sun for that. But as they neared the sun, the darkness would be their protection. They would get so close to Sol that the metal on the sun side would get soft as butter.
He bent close to the uneven surface. It was clean metal, not oxidized at all. The thorium had never been exposed to oxygen. Here and there, pyramids of metal thrust up from the asteroid, sometimes singly, sometimes in clusters. They were metal crystal formations. He guessed that once, long ages ago, the asteroid had been a part of something much bigger, perhaps a planet. One theory said the asteroids were formed when a planet exploded. This asteroid might have been a pocket of pure thorium in the planet.
There would be plenty to do in a short while, but meanwhile he enjoyed the sensation of being on a tiny world in space with only a handful of Planeteers for company. He smiled. "King Foster," he said to himself. "Monarch of a thorium space speck." It was a rather nice feeling, even though he laughed at himself for thinking it. Since he was in command of the detachment, he could in all truth say that this was his own personal planet. It would be a good bit of space humor to spring on the folks back on Terra.
"Yep, once I was boss of a whole world. Made myself king. Emperor of all the metal molecules and king of the thorium spurs. And my subjects obeyed my every command." He added, "Thanks to Planeteer discipline. The detachment commander is boss."
He reminded himself that he had better stop gathering space dust and start acting like a detachment commander. He walked back to the landing boat, stepping with care. With such low gravity, a false step could send him high above the asteroid. Of course, that would not be dangerous, since space suits were equipped with six small compressed-air bottles for emergency propulsion. But it would be embarrassing.
Inside the boat, Dowst and Nunez were setting up the compartment. Sections of the rear wall swung out and locked into place against airtight seals, forming a box at the rear end of the boat. Equipment sealed in the stern, next to the rocket tube, supplied light, heat, and air. It was a simple but necessary arrangement. Without it, the Planeteers could not have eaten.
There was no air lock for the compartment. The half of the detachment not on duty would walk in, seal it up, turn on the equipment, wait until the gauges registered sufficient air and heat, and then remove their space suits. When it was time to leave, they would don suits, open the door, and walk out, and the next shift would enter and repeat the process. Earlier models had permanent compartments, but they took up too much room in craft designed for carrying as many men and as much equipment as possible. They were strictly work boats, and hard experience had dictated the best design.
The rocket launcher was already set up near the boat. It was a simple affair, with three adjustable legs bolted to ground spikes. The legs held a movable cradle in which the rocket racks were placed. High-geared hand controls enabled the gunner to swing the cradle at high speed in any direction except straight down. A simple, illuminated optical sight was all the gunner needed. Since there were neither gravity nor atmosphere in space, the missiles flashed out in a straight line, continuing on into infinity if they missed their targets. Proximity fuses made this a remote possibility. If the rocket got anywhere near the target, the shell would explode.
Rip found his astrogation instruments set carefully to one side. He removed the data sheets from his case and examined them. Now came the work of finding the spots in which to place his atomic charges. Since the computer aboard ship had done all the mathematics necessary, he needed only to take sights to determine the precise positions.
He took a transit-like instrument from the case, pulled out the legs of its self-contained tripod, then carried it to a spot near where he had estimated the first charge would be placed. The instrument was equipped with three movable rings to be set for the celestial equator, for the zero meridian, and for the right ascension of any convenient star. Using a regular level would have been much simpler. The instrument had one, but with so little gravity to activate it, the thing was useless.
The sights were specially designed for use in space, and his bubble was no obstacle in taking observations. He merely put the clear plastic against the curved sight and looked into it much as he would have looked through a telescope on Earth.
As he did so, a hint of pale pink light caught the corner of his eye. He backed away from the instrument and turned his head quickly, looking at the colorimeter-type radiation detector at the side of his helmet. It was glowing.
An icy chill sent a shiver through him. Great, gorgeous galaxies! He had forgotten ... had Koa and the others? He turned so fast that he lost his balance and floated above the surface like a captive balloon. Santos, who had been standing nearby to help if requested, hooked a toe on the ground spike, caught him, and set him upright on the ground again.
"Get me the radiation detection instruments," he ordered.
Koa sensed the urgency in his voice and got the instruments himself. Rip switched them on and read the illuminated dial on the alpha counter. Plenty high, as was natural. But no danger there—alpha particles couldn't penetrate the space suits. Then, his hand clammy inside the space glove, he switched on the other meter. The gamma count was far below the alpha, but there were too many of the rays around for comfort. Inside the helmet his face turned pale.
There was no immediate danger. It would take many days to build up a dose of gamma that could hurt them. But gamma was not the only radiation. They were in space, fully exposed to equally dangerous cosmic radiation.
The Planeteers had gathered while he read the instruments. Now they stood watching him.
They knew the significance of what he had found.
"I ought to be busted to recruit," he told them. "I knew this asteroid was thorium and that thorium is radioactive. If I had used my head, I would have added nuclite shielding to the list of supplies theScorpiusprovided. We could have had enough of it to protect us while around our base, even if we couldn't be protected while working on the charges. That would at least have kept our dosage down enough for safety."
"No one else thought of it, either, sir," Koa reminded him.
"It was my job to think of it, and I didn't. So I've put us in a time squeeze. If theScorpiusgets back soon, we can get the shielding before our radiation dosage has built up very high. If the ship doesn't come back, the dosage will mount."
He looked at them grimly. "It won't kill us, and it won't even make us very sick. I'll have the ship take us off before we build up that much dosage."
Santos started. "But, sir! That means—"
"I know what it means," Rip stated bitterly. "It means the ship has got to return in time to give us some nuclite shielding, or we'll be the laughingstock of the Special Order Squadrons—the detachment that started a job the spacemen had to finish!"
There was something else that Rip didn't add, although he knew the Planeteers would realize it in a few minutes. Probably some of them already had thought of it.
To move the asteroid into a new orbit, they were going to fire nuclear bombs. Most of the highly radioactive fission products would be blown into space, but some would be drawn back by the asteroid's slight gravity. The craters would be highly radioactive, and some radioactive debris was certain to be scattered around, too. Every particle would add to the problem.
"Is there anything we can do, sir?" Koa asked.
Rip shook his head inside the transparent bubble. "If you have a good luck charm in your pocket, you might talk to it. That's about all."
Nuclear physics had been part of his training. He read the gamma meter again and did some quick calculations. They would be exposed for the entire trip, at a daily dosage of—
Koa interrupted his train of thought. Evidently the sergeant major had been doing some calculations of his own. "How long will we be on this rock, sir? You've never told us just how long the trip will take."
Rip said quietly, "With luck, it will take us a little more than three weeks."
He could see their faces faintly in the dim sunlight. They were shocked. Spaceships blasted through space between the inner planets in a matter of hours. The nuclear drive cruisers, which could approach almost half the speed of light, had brought even distant Pluto within easy reach. The inner planets could be covered in a matter of minutes on a straight speed run, although to take off from one and land on the other meant considerable time used in acceleration and deceleration.
The Planeteers were used to such speed. Hearing that it would take over three weeks to reach Earth had jarred them.
"This piece of metal isn't a spaceship," Rip reminded them. "At the moment, our speed around the sun is just slightly more than ten miles a second. If we just shifted orbits and kept the same speed, it would take us months to reach Terra. But we'll use one bomb for retrothrust, then fire two to increase speed. The estimate is that we'll push up to about forty miles a second."
Koa spoke up. "That's not bad when you think that Mercury is the fastest planet, and it only makes about thirty miles a second."
"Right," Rip agreed. "After the asteroid is kicked out of orbit, it will fall toward the sun. At our closest approach to the sun, we'll have enough velocity to carry us past safely. Then we'll lose speed constantly until we come into Earth's gravitational field and have to brake."
It was just space luck that Terra was on the other side of the sun from the asteroid's present position. By the time they approached, it would be in a good place, just far enough from the line to the sun to avoid changing course. Of course, Rip's planned orbit was not aiming the asteroid at Earth, but at where Earth would be at the end of the trip.
"That means more than three weeks of radiation, then," Corporal Santos observed. "Can we take it, sir?"
Rip shrugged, but the gesture couldn't be seen inside his space suit. "At the rate we're getting radiation now, plus what I estimate we'll get from the nuclear explosions, we'll get the maximum safety limit in just three weeks. That leaves us no margin, even if we risk getting radiation sickness. So we have to get shielding pretty soon. If we do, we can last the trip."
Private Dominico saluted and moved forward. "Sir, may I ask a question?"
Rip turned to face the Planeteer, still worrying over the problem. He nodded and said, "What is it, Dominico?"
"Sir, I think we can't worry too much about this radiation, eh? You will think of some way to take care of it. What I want to ask, sir, is when do we let go the bombs? I do not know much about radiation, but I can set those bombs like you want them."
Rip was touched by the Planeteer's faith in his ability to solve the radiation problem. That was why being an officer in the Special Order Squadrons was so challenging. The men knew the kind of training their officers had, and they expected them to come up with technical solutions as the situation required.
"You'll have a chance to set the bombs in just a short while," he said crisply. "Let's get busy. Koa, load all bombs but one ten KT on the landing boat. Stake the rest of the equipment down. While you're doing that, I'll find the spots where we plant the charges. I'll need two men now and more later."
He went back to his instrument, putting the radiation problem out of his mind—a rather hard thing to do with the colorimeter glowing pink next to his shoulder. Koa detailed men to load the nuclear bombs into the landing craft, left Pederson to supervise, and then brought Santos with him to help Rip.
"The bombs are being put on the boat, sir," Koa reported.
"Fine. There isn't too much chance of the blasts setting them off, but we'll take no chances at all. Koa, I'm going to shoot a line straight out toward Alpha Centauri. You walk that way and turn on your belt light. I'll tell you which way to move."
He adjusted his sighting rings while the sergeant major glided away. Moving around on a no-weight world was more like skating than walking. A regular walk would have lifted Koa into space with every step. Of course, the asteroid had some gravity, but so little that it hardly mattered.
Rip centered the top of the instrument's vertical hairline on Alpha Centauri, then waited until Koa was almost out of sight over the asteroid's horizon, which was only a few hundred yards away.
He turned up the volume on his helmet communicator. "Koa, move about ten feet to your left."
Koa did so. Rip sighted past the vertical hairline at the belt light. "That's a little too far. Take a small step to the right. That's good ... just a few inches more ... hold it. You're right in position. Stand where you are."
"Yessir."
Rip turned to Santos. "Stand here, Corporal. Take a sight at Koa to get your bearings, then hold position."
Santos did so. Now the two lights gave Rip one of the lines he needed. He called for two more men, and Trudeau and Nunez joined him. "Follow me," he directed.
Rip picked up the instrument and carried it to a point ninety degrees from the line represented by Koa and Santos. He put the instrument down and zeroed it on Messier 44, the Beehive star cluster in the constellation Cancer. For the second sighting star he chose Beta Pyxis as being closest to the line he wanted, made the slight adjustments necessary to set the line of sight, since Pyxis wasn't exactly on it, then directed Trudeau into position as he had Koa. Nunez took position behind the instrument, and Rip had his cross fix.
He called for Dowst, then carried the instrument to the center of the cross formed by the four men. Using the instrument, he rechecked the lines from the center out. They were within a hair or two of being exactly on, and a slight error wouldn't hurt, anyway. He knew he would have to correct with rocket blasts once the asteroid was in the new orbit.
"X marks the spot," he told Dowst. He put his toe on the place where the crosslines met.
Dowst used a spike to make an X in the metal ground.
"All set," Rip announced. "You four men can move now. Let's have the cutting equipment over here, Koa."
The Planeteers were all waiting for instructions now. In a few moments the equipment was ready, fuel and oxygen bottles attached.
"Who's the champion torchman?" Rip asked.
Koa replied, "Kemp is, sir."
Kemp, one of the two American privates, took the torch and waited for orders. "We need a hole six feet across and twenty feet deep," Rip told him. "Go to it."
"How about direction, sir?" Kemp asked.
"Straight down. We'll take a bearing on an overhead star when you're in a few feet."
Dowst inscribed a circle around the X he had made and stood back. Kemp pushed the striker button and the torch flared. "Watch your eyes," he warned. The Planeteers reached for belt controls and turned the rheostats that darkened the clear bubbles electronically. Kemp adjusted his flame until it was blue-white, a knife of fire brighter by far than the light of the sun at this distance.
Koa stepped behind Kemp and leaned against his back, because the flame of the torch was like an exhaust, driving Kemp backward. Kemp bent down, and the torch sliced into the metal of the asteroid like a hot knife into ice. The metal splintered a little as the heat raised it instantly from almost absolute zero to many thousands of degrees.
When the circle was completed, Kemp adjusted his torch again, and the flame lengthened. He moved inside the circle and cut at an angle toward the perimeter. His control was quick and certain. In a moment he stood aside, and Koa lifted out a perfect ring of thorium. It varied from a knife edge on the inner side to eighteen inches on the outer side.
In the middle of the circle there was now a cone of metal. Kemp cut around it, the torch angling toward the center. A piece shaped like two cones set base to base came free. Since the metal cooled in the bitter chill of space almost as fast as Kemp could cut it, there was no heat to worry about.
Alternately cutting from the outside and the center of the hole, Kemp worked his way downward until his head was below ground level. Rip called a halt. Kemp gave a little jump and floated straight upward. Koa caught him and swung him to one side. Rip stepped into the hole, and Santos gave him a slight push to send him to the bottom. Rip knelt and sighted upward. Kemp had done a good job. The star Rip had chosen as a guide was straight overhead.
He bounced out of the hole, and, as Koa caught him, he told Kemp to go ahead. "Dominico, here's your chance. Get tools and wire. Find a timer and connect up the ten-kiloton bomb. Nunez, bring it here while Dominico gets what he needs."
Kemp was burning his way into the asteroid at a good rate. Every few moments he pushed another circle or spindle of thorium out of the hole. Rip directed some of the men to carry them away, to the other side of the asteroid. He didn't want chunks of thorium flying around from the blast.
The sergeant major had a sudden thought. He cut off his communicator, motioned to Rip to do the same, then put his helmet against Rip's for direct communication. He didn't want the others to hear what he had to say. His voice came like a roar from the bottom of a well. "Lieutenant, do you suppose there's any chance the blast might break up the asteroid? Maybe split it in two?"
The same thought had occurred to Rip on theScorpius. His calculations had showed that the metal would do little more than compress, except where it melted from the terrific heat of the bomb. That would be only in and around the shaft. He was sure the men at Terra base had figured it out before they decided that A-bombs would be necessary to throw the asteroid into a new orbit. He wasn't worried. Cracks in the asteroid would be dangerous, but he hadn't seen any.
"This rock will take more nuclear blasts than we have," he assured Koa. He turned his communicator back on and went to the edge of the hole for a look at Kemp's progress. He was far down now. Pederson was holding one end of a measuring tape. The other end was fastened to Kemp's shoulder strap.
The Swedish corporal showed Rip that he had only about eight feet of tape left. Kemp was almost down. Rip called, "Kemp, when you reach bottom, cut toward the center. Leave an inverted cone."
"Got it, sir. Be up in two more cuts."
Dominico had connected cable to the bomb terminals and was attaching a timer to the other end. Without the wooden case, the bomb was like a fat, oversized can. It had been shipped without a combat casing.
"Koa, make a final check. You can untie the landing boat, except for one line. We'll be taking off in a few minutes."
"Right, sir." Koa glided toward the landing boat, which was moored out of sight beyond the horizon.
It was nearly time. Rip had a moment's misgiving. Had his figures or his sightings been off? His scalp prickled at the thought. But the ship's computer had done the work, and it was not capable of making a mistake.
Kemp tossed up the last section of thorium and then came out of the hole himself, carrying his torch.
Rip inspected the hole, saw with satisfaction that it was in almost perfect alignment, and ordered the bomb placed. He bent over the edge of the hole and watched Trudeau pay out wire while Dominico pushed the bomb to the bottom. The Italian made a last-minute check, then called to Rip. "Ready, sir."
Rip dropped into the hole and inspected the connections himself, then personally pulled the safety lever. The bomb was armed. When the timer acted, it would go off.
Back at ground level, he turned up his communicator. "Koa, is everything ready at the boat?"
"Ready, sir."
The Planeteers had already carried away the torch and its fuel and oxygen supplies. The area was clear of pieces of thorium.
Rip announced, "We're setting the explosion for ten minutes." He leaned over the timer, which rested near the lip of the hole, took the dial control in his glove, and turned it to position ten. He held it long enough to glance at his chronometer and say, "Starting now!" Then he let it go.
Wasting no time, but not hurrying, he and Dominico returned to the landing boat. The Planeteers were already aboard, except for Koa, who stood by to cast off the remaining tie line. Rip stepped inside and counted the men. All present. He ordered, "Cast off." As Koa did so and stepped aboard, Rip added, "Pilot, take off. Straight up."
The landing boat rose from the asteroid. Rip counted the men again, just to be sure. The boat seemed a little crowded, but that was because the rear compartment took up quite a bit of room.
Rip watched his chronometer. They had plenty of time. When the boat reached a point about ten miles above the asteroid, he ordered, "Stern tube." The boat moved at an angle. He let it go until a sight at the stars showed they were in about the right position, ninety degrees from the line of blast and where they would be behind the asteroid as it moved toward the new course.
He looked at his chronometer again. "Two minutes. Line up at the side if you want to watch, but darken your helmets to full protection. This thing will light up like nothing you've ever seen before."
It was a good thing space cruisers depended on their radar and not on sight, he thought. Usually spacemen opened up visual ports only when landing or taking a star sight for an astroplot. The clear plastic of the domes had to be shielded from chance meteors. Besides, radar screens were more dependable than eyes, even though they could pick up only solid objects. If the Consops cruiser happened to be searching visually, it would see this blast. But the chance had to be taken. It wasn't really much of a chance.
"One minute," he said. He faced the asteroid, then darkened his helmet, counting to himself.
The minute ticked off rapidly, though his count was a little slow. When he reached five, brilliant, incandescent light lit up the interior of the boat. Rip saw it even though his helmet was dark. The light faded slowly, and as it did, he gradually put his helmet back on full transparent.
A mighty column of fire now reached out from the asteroid into space. Rip held his breath until he saw that the little planet was sheering off its course under the great blast. Then he sighed with relief. All was well so far.
Someone muttered, "By Gemini! I'm glad we're out here instead of down there!"
The column of fire lengthened, thinned out, grew fainter, until there was only a glow behind the asteroid. Rip took his astrogation instruments and made a number of sights. They looked good. The first blast had worked about as predicted, although he wouldn't be able to tell how much correction was needed until he had taken star sights over a period of five or six days.
"Let's go home," he ordered.
Back on the asteroid, a pit that glowed with radioactivity marked the site of the first blast. Rip ordered the men to stay as far from it as possible, to avoid increasing their radiation doses. He plotted the lines for the second blast, found the spot, and put Kemp back to work on a new hole.
Two hours later the second blast threw fire into space. In another three hours, with the asteroid now speeding on its new course, Rip set off the explosion that blasted straight back and gave extra speed.
Three radioactive craters marked the asteroid. Rip checked the radiation level and didn't like it a bit. He decided to set up the landing boat and their supplies as far away from the craters as possible, which was on the sun side. They could move to the dark side as they approached the orbit of Earth. By then the radioactivity from the blasts would have died down considerably.
He was selecting the location for a base when Dowst suddenly called, "Lieutenant Foster!"
There was urgency in the Planeteer's voice. "What is it, Dowst?"
"Sir, take a look, about two degrees south of Rigel!"
Rip found the constellation Orion and looked at bright Rigel. For a moment he saw nothing; then, south of the star, he saw a thin, orange line.
Nuclear drive cruisers didn't have exhausts of that color, and there was only one rocket-drive ship around, so far as they knew.
Rip said softly, "Let's get our house in order, gang. Looks as if we're going to get a visit from the Connies!"
Sergeant Major Koa's great frame loomed in front of Rip. "Think they've spotted us, sir?"
Rip hated to say it. "Probably. Koa, can you estimate from the exhaust how far away they are?"
"Not very well, Lieutenant. From the position of the streak, I'd say they're decelerating."
The Planeteers looked at Rip. He was in command, and they expected him to do something about the situation. Rip didn't know what to do. The rocket launcher, their only weapon, wasn't designed for fighting spaceships. It was useful against snapper-boats and people, but firing at a cruiser would be like sending mosquitoes to fight elephants.
He sized up their position. For one thing, they were right out in the open, exposed to anything the Connie cruiser might throw at them. If they could get under cover, there might be a chance. At least it would take the Connies a while to find them.
For a moment he thought of hurrying into the landing boat and sending out a call for help to theScorpius, but he thought better of it. They weren't certain that Connie had spotted them. He would wait until there was no doubt. Meanwhile, they had to find cover.
His searching eyes fell on the cutting torch. If they could use that to cut themselves right into the asteroid.... Suddenly he knew how it could be done. On the sun side he remembered a series of high-piled, giant crystals of thorium. They could cut into the side of one of those. And with Kemp's skill, they might be able to do it in time.
He called, "Kemp, Koa, bring the torch and fuel and follow me."
In his haste he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time he had lost his footing.
They reached the peaks of thorium, and Rip looked them over. The tallest was perhaps forty feet high. It was roughly pyramidal, with a base about sixty feet thick. It would do.
"Kemp." The private hurried to his side. "Take the torch and make us a cave. Make it big enough for the entire crew and the equipment."
Kemp was a good Planeteer. He didn't stop to ask questions. He said, "I'll make a small entrance and open the cave out inside." He picked up the torch and got busy.
Rip smiled. The Planeteer was right. He should have thought of it himself, but it was good to see increasing proof that his men were smart as well as tough and disciplined.
"Bring up all supplies," he told Koa. "Move the boat over here, too. We won't be able to bury that, but we want it close by." He had an idea for their boat. It was able to maneuver infinitely faster than the big cruiser. They could put the supplies in the cave, then take to the boat, depending on its ability to turn quickly and on Dowst's skill at piloting to play hide and seek. Dowst certainly could keep the asteroid between them and the cruiser.
The plan would fail when the cruiser sent a landing party. They would certainly come in snapper-boats, and those deadly little fighting craft could blast rings around the landing boat. The snapper-boats had gotten their name because fast acceleration and quick changes of position could snap a man right out of his seat if he forgot to buckle his harness tightly.
The solution would be to keep the landing boat close to the asteroid. At the first sign of a landing party, they would take to the cave, using the rocket launcher as a defense.
The supplies began to arrive. The Planeteers towed them two crates at a time in a steady line of hurrying men.
Kemp's torch sent an incandescent knife three feet into the metal at each cut. He was rapidly slicing out a cave. He cut the metal out in great triangular bars, angling the torch from first one side, then the other.
Koa came and stood beside Rip. "I haven't seen the Connie's exhaust for a while, sir. They've probably stopped decelerating. We can't see them at all."
"Meaning what?" Rip asked. He thought he knew, but he wanted Koa's opinion.
"They're in free fall now, sir. That could mean they're just hunting in the area. Or it could mean that they've stopped somewhere close by. They could be looking us over right now, for all we know."
Rip surveyed the stars. "If that's so, they're not too close, Koa. Otherwise they'd block out a patch of stars."
"Well, sir—" Koa hesitated. "I mean, if you were looking over this asteroid, and you weren't sure whether the enemy had it or not, how close would you get?"
"Probably about one AU," Rip said jokingly. That was one astronomical unit, equal to about ninety-three million miles, the distance from Earth to the sun.
"That's a safe distance, sir," Koa agreed with a grin.
"But let's suppose the Connie isn't as timid as I am," Rip went on. "He might be only a few miles out. The question is, would he wait to get closer before launching his snapper-boats?"
The tall officer answered frankly, "I've never been in a space grab like this. I don't know the answer."
"We'll soon know," Rip replied grimly. A thought had just struck him. TheScorpiushad trouble finding the asteroid because it was just one of many sailing along through the belt. But now the asteroid was the only one travelingacrossthe belt. It would make an outstanding blip on any radarscope. It wasn't possible that the Connie cruiser had missed the blip and its significance.
"The Connie may be looking us over," Rip added, "but I'll tell you one thing. He knows we've taken the asteroid."
Koa looked wistfully at the atomic bomb which remained. "If we had a way to throw that thing at them...."
"But we haven't. And the thing wouldn't explode, anyway. We don't have the outside casing with an exploder mechanism, so it has to be turned on electrically." Rip could see no way to use the atomic bomb against the Connies. It was too big for use against a landing party. Besides, it would put the Planeteers themselves in danger.
"Ever have trouble with the Connies before?" he asked Koa.
"More'n once, sir. Sometimes it seems like I'll never get a job where I don't have to fight Connies."
Rip was trained in science and Planeteer techniques, and he didn't pretend to know the ins and outs of interplanetary politics. Just the same, he couldn't help wondering about the strange relationship between the Consolidation of People's Governments and the Federation of Free Nations.
Connies and Feds, mostly Planeteers but sometimes spacemen, were constantly skirmishing. They fought over property, over control of ports on distant planets and moons, and over space salvage. Often there was bloodshed. Sometimes there were pitched battles between groups of platoon size.
But at that point the struggle ended. The law of the Federation said that no spaceship could fire on a Connie spaceship or on Connie land bases, except with special permission of the Space Council. The theory was that brief struggles between men, or even between small fighting craft like the snapper-boats, was not war. But firing on a spaceship was considered an act of war, and the first such act could mean the beginning of a war throughout the entire solar system.
It made a sort of sense to Rip when he thought about it. Little fights here and there were better than a full war among the planets.
Koa suddenly gripped his arm. "Sir! Look up!"
The short hairs on the back of Rip's neck prickled. Far above, blackness in the shape of a spaceship blotted out stars. The Connie had arrived!
Rip ordered urgently, "Kemp! Stop cutting! The rest of you get the stuff under cover. Ram it!" He hurried to lend a hand himself, hustling crates into the cave.
Kemp had made astonishing progress. There was room for the crates, if stacked properly, and for the men, besides. Rip supervised the stacking and then the placement of the rocket launcher at the entrance.
"All hands inside the boat," he ordered. "Dowst, be ready to take off at a moment's notice. You'll have to buck this box around as never before." He explained to the pilot his plan to dodge, keeping the asteroid between the boat and the cruiser.
"We'll make it, sir," Dowst said.
"I'm not worried," Rip replied—and wished it were true. He looked up at the Connie again. It was getting larger. The cruiser was within a few miles of the asteroid.
As Rip watched, fire spurted from the cruiser, and it moved with gathering speed toward the asteroid's horizon. He watched the exhaust trail, wondering why the Connie had blasted off.
"He has something up his sleeve," Koa muttered. "Wish we knew what."
"Let's take no chances," Rip stated. "Come on."
The men were already in the boat. He and Koa joined them. They stood at a window, watching the Connie's trail.
The trail dwindled. Koa said, "Something's up!" Suddenly new fire shot from one side of the cruiser, and it spun. Balancing fire came from the other side, and for an instant the three exhausts formed a cross, with the darkness of the Connie's hull in the center. Then they could see only the exhausts from the sides. The stern flame was out of sight. "He's made a full turn to come back this way," Rip stated tensely. "Dowst, get ready."
The Connie was perhaps twenty miles away. It grew larger, and the side jets winked out. A few seconds later, fire spurted from the nose.
Rip figured rapidly. The cruiser had gone far enough away to make a turn. It had straightened out, heading right for them. Now the nose tube was blasting, slowing the cruiser down.
He sighted, holding out one glove, and gauging the Connie's distance above the horizon, and his heart speeded. The Connie was right on the horizon!
"Ram it!" Rip called. "Around the asteroid. Quick!"
Acceleration jammed him back against his men as Dowst blasted. No sooner had he recovered than acceleration in a different direction shoved him up to the ceiling so hard that his bubble rang. He clawed his way to the window as the Connie cruiser flashed by, bathing the asteroid in glowing flame.
There was a chorus of gasps from the men as they saw the thing Rip had realized a moment before. The Consops cruiser was playing it safe, using its rocket exhaust as a great blowtorch to burn the surface of the asteroid clean of any possible life!
The sheer inhumanity of the thing made Rip's stomach tighten into a knot. No asking for surrender, no taking of prisoners, not even a clean fight. The Connie was doing its arguing with fire, knowing that the exhaust would char every man on the asteroid's surface.
The Planeteers watched as the Connie sped away, blasted with side jets, and turned to come back. Dowst tensed over the controls, trying to anticipate the next move. He delicately touched the firing levers, letting out just enough flame to maneuver. He slid the craft across the asteroid's surface to the side away from the Connie, going slowly enough that they could watch the enemy's every move.
"Here he comes," Rip snapped, and braced for acceleration. The landing craft shot to safety as the cruiser's nose jet flamed. Dowst was just in time. Tiny sparks from the edge of the fiery column brushed past the boat.
Rip realized that the Connie couldn't know the Federation men were in a boat, dodging. The cruiser would make about two more runs, just enough to allow for hitting every bit of the asteroid. Then it would assume that anything on it was finished and send a landing party.
"He'll be back," he stated. "About twice more. Three at most." He suddenly remembered the landing boat's radio. "Dowst, where is the radio connection?"
The pilot handed him a wire with a jack plug on the end of it. Rip plugged it into his belt. Now his voice would be heard on theScorpius.
"CallingScorpius! CallingScorpius! Foster reporting. We are under attack. Repeat, we are under attack. Over to you."
The answer rang in his helmet. "Scorpiusto Foster. Hold 'em, Planeteers. We're on our way!"
"Here comes the Connie," Koa yelled.
Rip braced. The landing boat shot forward, then piled the Planeteers in a heap on the bottom as Dowst accelerated upward.
There was a sudden wrenching crash that sent the Planeteers in a jumbled mass into the front of the boat. It whirled crazily, then stopped.
Rip was not hurt. He shoved at someone whose bubble was in his stomach and cleared the way. "Turn on belt lights," he called. "Quick!"
Lights flared on. He searched quickly, swinging his light. The Planeteers were getting to their feet. His light focused on Private Bradshaw, and he gasped.
Bradshaw's face was scarlet, and his skin was flecked with drops of blood. His eyes were closed and bulging horribly.
Rip jumped forward, but Koa was even faster. The Hawaiian jerked a repair strip from a belt pouch and slapped it on the crack in Bradshaw's bubble. Rip wasted no time, either. By the time Koa had the strip in place he had pulled the connection from his belt light. He ran the tips of the wires over the edges of the strip. The current sealed the patch in place instantly.
Koa grabbed the atmosphere control on Bradshaw's belt and turned it. The suit puffed up. Rip watched the repair anxiously in the light from Koa's belt. It held.
Rip reconnected his light as he asked swiftly, "Anyone else hurt? Answer by name."
There were quick replies. No one else had been injured.
"Run for the cave," Rip commanded. "Follow Koa. Santos and Pederson, drag Bradshaw."
The Englishman's voice sounded bubbly. "I can make it."
"Good for you!" Rip exclaimed. "Call if you need help."
Koa was already out of the craft and leading the way. Rip went out through a window and saw the cause of the trouble. Dowst had been a hair too close to the asteroid. A particularly high crystal of thorium had snagged the landing craft.
Rip looked for the Connie and saw it make another turn. They had only a moment or two before the next run. "Show an exhaust!" he called. The Connie must have blasted the opposite side of the asteroid while they were hung up.
The cave was a quarter of the asteroid away. Rip stayed in the rear, watching for stragglers, but even Bradshaw was moving rapidly. Koa reached the cave well ahead of the rest, reached for a rack of rockets, and slapped it into the launcher.