Rocket from Infinity

by Lester Del Rey

  A larger, more jagged remnant drew alongside and turned itself over for Pete’s inspection. It showed clear traces of silver, but unless Pete could discover a larger chunk—the mother asteroid off which it had been broken in collision—it was not worth bothering with.

  He was approaching a cluster up ahead, so he nosed left to avoid it and came back on his arbitrary course at the cluster’s forward end.

  He cruised on. In the temporary lethargy of his low spirits brought on by worry over his father, he ignored the surrounding stream other than to avoid collision, and snapped on his radio. He checked the emergency band as every Beltman automatically did when signaling in, and then switched to the free wave length.

  A Federation ship was broadcasting news. There had been an election on Earth for a seat in the World Congress, and a man named Shakari had won. His opponent had immediately cried fraud and demanded a recount.

  Such strange goings on, Pete thought. That was how it was on Earth so far as he could see. Everybody fighting tooth and nail for things that didn’t seem worth having; at least not to a boy born and raised in the Asteroid Belt. He wondered why the affairs of Earth were of such vital interest to everyone in the System. No, he didn’t have to wonder that. It was logical. Earth was the magic center of the System. Everything originated there and everything went back. The ore he was hunting, if he found it, would without doubt find its way to Earth and the money paid for it would come from the big bank vaults down there to buy the supplies the Masons needed to support their existence. Just another circle in the millions of circles, tangible and otherwise, that went to make up the infinite universe.

  His mind wandering thus, Pete became aware of a large planetoid above him on the sunside of the Belt. He tilted the monocar’s nose and moved in that direction and in a short time he was cruising close, inspecting the planetoid’s surface from ten feet.

  The planetoid was cone-shaped, its diameter at the top approximately half a mile. That gave a good flat surface for mining operations, and when he set the monocar down and got out, he found enough iron in the rock to hold magnetic boots and grapples. That made everything ideal. Now there was the little matter of enough rich ore to make the operation worthwhile.

  Pete was not a pessimist, but he still didn’t expect to find anything of value on the planetoid. He based this on experience. There was fabulous wealth still untouched in the Belt, but one man was like an ant searching many acres of desert all alone. Thus, while the wealth was there, it took time to find it, and only sheerest luck would put a prospector on a rich planetoid so quickly.

  But it appeared Pete had that luck. Fifteen minutes with a testing kit proved out a copper content in the rock that—against the longest of odds was the strike his father had requested.

  Satisfied as to the planetoid’s mineral wealth, Pete made the first move toward staking his claim—the plotting of the orbit. This amounted to marketing the location of the asteroid, a simple operation on a major planet, but a complicated one where everything was in bits and pieces and moving in constant stream around the sun. The orbit had to be extremely accurate, a precise notation of the asteroid’s movements both within the stream and as a part of it.

  Getting his kit from the monocar, he first determined that his rich find was tilted fourteen degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. Using this as the basis of additional calculations, he went on with his work. Time passed because plotting an orbit was not something dashed off in five minutes.

  In fact, it was three hours later that Pete put down his final figures, checked them, repacked his kit, and returned to the monocar. Inside, he automatically-checked the emergency band on his radio and put down the formula that would enable him to again locate his claim. This was based on the orbital calculations and, if it became practical, the formula could be fed into the radar finder and thus become a part of the monocar’s directional equipment, translated as a blip on the screen.

  The whole job completed, he rewarded himself by getting out the provender he’d brought with him. This was a dubious reward because the food consisted of some of Betcha Jones’s less successful biscuits. Betcha’s successful biscuits were nothing to write home about, so the rock-hard consistency of the ones Pete feasted on was easily imagined. But with the tube of jam he’d brought along the biscuits were edible, and he was lifted in spirit by the thought of the good news he would carry to his father. A strike the first time out! You couldn’t do any better than that.

  He finished his meal, folded the claim data he’d listed on an official blank, and put it in his wallet where it would be safe until filing time.

  Then, almost as though it had waited until he was quite ready, a scream came over the emergency band still open on his radio.

  “Help! Help! Please—somebody!”

  It was a completely “unprofessional” call for assistance by a hysterical female who had reacted in quick terror to some menace—an appalling menace, obviously.

  Pete’s responses came automatically. “Keep on yelling,” he advised, and channeled the screams into his finder. There was a pause with no further screams coming over the wave.

  “Are you all right?” Pete asked. “Who are you? State your name and keep repeating it. Give my finder something to work on.”

  Then the screams came again. “Help! Help! Help!” repeated three times.

  This was enough. The finder clicked through its electronic pattern, located the voice, and the beeper began sounding. Ready to move, Pete lifted the car and circled. He checked the beep at two points and found that it led back along the stream and at a thirty-degree tilt from the ecliptic. This pointed him toward what the miners called the Badlands, an area of the Belt where the asteroid pack was thick and jagged—a place generally avoided because it had never yielded much in the way of valuable ore.

  The Badlands was a dangerous area to head into recklessly, and Pete would have preferred to stay out of it altogether. But, faced by an emergency, he raced toward the area and began taking risks, any one of which could have smashed his car like the shell of an egg.

  Plunging into the dangerous section of the Belt, he noted that the target of the beam was not stationary. That meant the girl was moving; probably fleeing whatever danger menaced her. He wondered if any other cars or ships had gotten the signal.

  Then the cry came again. “Help! Please help me!”

  “I’m on the way,” Pete muttered, and dodged a jagged asteroid just ahead.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GHOST SHIP

  The beep, steady and persistent in its electronic perfection, led Pete clear through the dangerous rock stream into comparatively open space beyond. Seemingly annoyed at the imperfection of humans and their strange antics, the beep angled him several degrees to the left of his previous line of travel and delivered him to a position from which he caught sight of another monocar.

  It was in trouble, its course carelessly erratic. Several times as Pete approached, it turned end-over-end, lazily, as though no one was at the controls.

  The screams had stopped while Pete was still in the rock stream, but he’d been so busy avoiding death that he would have ignored them regardless. But now he called out, “Ahoy! Monocar! I’m overhead! What’s your problem?”

  The voice that came back was no longer in panic. It was now charged with irritation and hostility. “Well, it took you long enough to get here!”

  Pete’s mouth dropped open. “Well, for… Look! I came as fast as I could. I had to come through the Badlands. Who are you? What happened?”

  Who was she! As though Pete didn’t know! He hadn’t been too sure when he’d picked up the call, but there was no doubt now. He’d again been brought into the orbit of the spitfire from the Snapdragon. Jane Barry was in his hair again.

  “Well, don’t just sit there,” she snapped. “Come and help me. I’m losing my air.”

  “I’ll pull alongside and
grapple on,” Pete said. “Use your belt if you have to.”

  “What do you think I’m using now—vacuum?”

  It was in Pete’s mind to ask her if she’d ever spoken a civil word in her life, but he was in the process of easing in to grapple, so he saved the question for later.

  Brushing close, he activated the magnetic shoes behind the shell of his car on the right side and the two cars were jerked together.

  “You could be a little more careful,” Jane complained. “You almost sprained my neck.”

  I should have broken it, Pete thought. “Sorry,” he said. “What did you do—hit a rock?”

  “It was a ship. An immense thing. It tried to run me down.” Echoes of the original fright sounded in Jane’s voice.

  “You’re crazy. There aren’t any ships around here.”

  “It was back there in the Badlands.”

  “That’s even crazier. A ship would have smashed up—even one out of control—before it reached the Badlands. An off-course ship might approach the Belt, but…well you just blundered into an asteroid and…”

  “Don’t tell me what I did. Do you think I’m blind?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was wondering. You hit a rock and call it a ship—”

  “Oh, you’re impossible! Release your grapples. I’ll make it home myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. The way you were staggering, there must be something wrong with your steering vents. How is your heat?”

  “It’s gone. I’m using my belt.”

  “The shell of your car is broken then.”

  “It’s cracked.”

  “Then we’ll stay as we are. I’ll tow you back to the Snapdragon.”

  There was no reply. Pete set his directionals on Pallas, and the coupled monocars began to move.

  There was a time of silence that Jane finally broke. “I tell you it was a ship.”

  Pete looked out through his plastic shield and into the crippled monocar from which Jane had thrown the angry words into his radio. In no mood to placate or sympathize with her, he snapped, “Oh, be reasonable. So you hit a rock. It’s been done before.”

  “All right. Don’t believe me!”

  “Granted it was, which is ridiculous, you still got very careless. A big ship?”

  “Yes. A space liner of some kind. But it was—”

  Pete cut in to make his point. “A monocar being put into danger by a space liner is like saying—”

  “I know. Maybe I was a little careless. But who would expect a monster like that to come out of nowhere? I just looked up and there is was—filling the whole sky. I jerked my nose down and it banged my tail and almost wrecked me.”

  “The way you screamed it must have chased you, too.”

  “I was trapped. The rock stream was thick there. I was blocked in every direction I turned. Then there was that huge hulk grinding down on me. Like—like a live thing.”

  “Take it easy. You’re safe now.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “I think you believe yourself.”

  “In other words, I’m feeble-minded.”

  “You’re twisting my words. When people panic—”

  “I didn’t panic!”

  “You should have heard yourself over that emergency band.”

  “Oh, you’re impossible.”

  Nothing was said for a few moments. Then Pete asked his question. “Tell me something—why are you so hostile?”

  “I’m not hostile! I—”

  “Oh, cut it out. You haven’t said a friendly word since we met.”

  All Pete really expected was more of the same, but Jane didn’t flare back at him. He glanced across at her. She sat with her head back on the rest and looked to be tired. Ghost ship or not, she’d had a harrowing experience of some sort and her hostility was at least partially shattered. There was weariness in her face. Pete could see it even behind the headpiece of her oxygen unit.

  “You have to be hostile in this world,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s how it is. My father worked hard all his life and had nothing but bad luck. This is a cold, hostile world out here.”

  “It isn’t so bad.”

  “No? Just open your shield and step outside and see what happens to you.”

  “That’s silly. It’s a dangerous world, sure. But we have safeguards.”

  “The whole Belt is built to kill you. You’ve got to be on your toes every minute.”

  “I think you’re just tired. Things will look different in the morning.”

  “Will they be any better for my mother? It wasn’t my father’s fault, but what was he able to leave Mother? An old beaten-up ship, a family to raise, no money—”

  “It’s your younger sisters you’re worried about then? And your mother?”

  “Wouldn’t you worry? Every miner in the Brotherhood hates us.”

  “That’s not true. They just don’t like the way your mother does things.”

  “Well, they can go to blazes!”

  “Hold it. Let’s not start fighting again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Pete was amazed. I’m sorry coming from Jane Barry was a big concession. For a moment, Pete questioned its sincerity. But it did sound genuine.

  “What about your Uncle Homer?”

  “What about him?”

  “Doesn’t he help you? He’s part of the family.”

  “In the first place, he isn’t my uncle. He was a very good friend of my father’s and so we call him uncle. He can’t help much. He has a great deal of bad luck.” Pete was inclined to call it something else. He had a more critical term in mind but, again, he didn’t want to ruffle Jane’s feathers.

  “What were you doing out in the Belt?”

  “I was prospecting.”

  “That’s no job for a girl.”

  “I’ve got as much right as anybody else to.”

  “No, take it easy. Of course you have. But you didn’t expect to find anything in the Badlands, did you?”

  “Who knows where rich ore lies in the Belt? It could be there just as easily as any place else.”

  “Except that it’s generally agreed that it isn’t. All those rocks came from the same source. It’s a smashed-up planet that drifted into the stream.”

  Jane didn’t choose to argue the point. She was silent for awhile. Her eyes were closed, and Pete thought she was taking a nap. Then she proved herself to be awake by saying, “I’ve got to get this car fixed and then go back and find that crazy ship.”

  She’d certainly seen something, Pete realized. But what had it really been? A ship blundering around in the Badlands would get into trouble immediately and radio for help. A call from a space liner would have brought every miner in the sector, hoping for salvage money.

  Seeking to change the subject and take Jane’s mind off her near-fatal accident, Pete said, “I struck it rich today. I found an asteroid dripping with copper.”

  “Congratulations. I hope my call didn’t pull you away from your work.”

  “I was finished when it came in. I’d already chartered the orbit and made out the claim form. It’s here in my pocket.”

  “Now all you have to do is file.”

  Pete suddenly wished he hadn’t mentioned the claim. He didn’t like the wistful note in Jane’s voice. But then he quickly told himself he was being unfair. Jane wasn’t a thief. Neither was her mother. Then he suddenly wondered if Rachel and her brood were not unjustly suffering from Homer’s reputation.

  “You say that Uncle Homer, as you call him, was a good friend of your father’s.”

  “Yes. When Father was alive, he depended on Uncle Homer a great deal. They worked together—mined together.”

  “I wonder if it wasn’t the other way arou
nd.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe Uncle Homer depended a lot on your father.”

  “You’re not making sense. Father was wonderful. But he was…well, very impractical.”

  “Yes, but from what I’ve heard he was also one of the best mining engineers in the Belt. He had both the knowledge and the instinct.”

  “That was true,” Jane said proudly.

  “And yet he never came away with much wealth.”

  Jane frowned and turned her eyes to look through the two glass panels that separated them. “What are you driving at?”

  “I’ve also heard that your father was so honest he couldn’t cheat anybody if he’d wanted to, and sometimes people like that think everybody is as honest, too.”

  Jane’s eyes sparked dangerously. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying…”

  “I’m only pointing out a possibility based on things I’ve heard. The stories I’ve heard about things going wrong for your father every time he was on the verge of a real bonanza. Of course, it’s none of my business, but—”

  “That’s exactly right, Mister Mason. It’s none of your business!”

  Pete raised a quick hand. “All right—all right. I apologize. I was out of line.”

  “You certainly were! Release your grapples. I’ll get home by myself!”

  “Oh, not that again. Why don’t you grow up and start controlling those childish tantrums? If I let go you’d start wallowing all over the Belt.”

  The truth of this had a dampening effect on Jane. She hesitated and Pete followed up his advantage.

  “Truce?”

  “All right—truce.”

  Pete felt that he had the picture. Jane had adored her father. In her eyes he could have done no wrong of any description and now that he was gone she accepted as absolute truth all the explanations for failure he had ever given his family. Thus, her father’s belief that Uncle Homer was a loyal friend had become Jane’s belief also.

  In a strange, twisted way, Uncle Homer had become Jane’s father image.