Rocket from Infinity

by Lester Del Rey

But the comedy episode ended swiftly when, from somewhere in the surrounding cluster, Pete heard a rifle crack. The sound was transmitted through the near-vacuum from a radio near its source, and Pete picked up the crack and then the spat of lead against the hull on his receiver.

  Reacting instantly, he snatched up the cat and ran. His progress was slow and clumsy and, when a second slug was fired, he began to zigzag.

  Three more shots were fired, proving beyond doubt the murderous intent behind them. But luck, lack of skill on the part of the rifleman, or Pete’s zigzagging retreat, saved him from death or injury.

  Safe inside the outer chamber, Pete leaned his weight against the seal. It opened with maddening slowness, and he leaped inside. There, he waited while the chamber filled, each second dragging by like an age.

  When the inner seal released, Pete heard Jane speaking to her mother: “We don’t dare radio for help. It would guide them straight to us.”

  Obviously, Jane had told her the truth about Homer Deeds and what had happened on the planetoid. But, with exasperating loyalty, Rachel Barry was still defending Homer: “It’s impossible! Homer may be weak and maybe a little sharp in his dealings, but he isn’t a murderer!”

  “Well, if he isn’t,” Pete snapped, “he’s got two killers with him, and they’ve tracked us here. I dodged four slugs on the way back.”

  “I’ll talk to Homer.”

  “You do that,” Pete said grimly. “In the meantime, I’m going topside and try to locate them.”

  As Pete headed toward the long companionway, he noted that the two younger girls had disappeared, that Rachel Barry had been rooted to the floor by the developments Jane had passed on to her, and that Omaha was yowling for somebody to take his suit off and relieve him of his magnets so he could walk around.

  Great, Pete thought grimly. A war with salvage pirates and a family on my hands!

  Jane was close behind him as he entered the first empty storage hold, the best place they’d found for outside observation.

  “Are you hoping what I’m hoping?” Jane asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. Can you spot them?”

  Jane went to the center of the hold and looked straight up. “I don’t see anything but rocks.” She began moving, her window automatically following along overhead.

  “I think they’re somewhere on this side,” Pete said as he walked along the bulkhead. “The shots angled in.”

  Jane joined him and had moved some few feet ahead when she pointed. “There they are! There’s a ship in that pocket.”

  Pete stepped behind her and looked over her shoulder. “Sure! I can see the nose in the shadows. They’re a little timid about coming out.”

  “They know we’re in here. Maybe they’re afraid we’re not alone.”

  “They’re too smart for that. They’ve sized this tub up as a derelict. But they could figure that we’ve found some guns.”

  “I’d think they’d move in fast. They must know we’ll call for help. You’d better contact your father.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t have to go back to the car. Your mobile unit will—”

  “Do you think they haven’t got a scrambler on us? Snap on your unit and see what happens.”

  Jane complied, and her face twisted as from a blow. In a sense it was a blow—an angry, snarling shaft of sound that knifed into her ears. It obviously came from a portable scrambler aboard the pirate’s scout-car. Jane cut the howling racket out.

  “It’s against the law to scramble!” she cried.

  “It’s against the law to shoot people, too, but those boys are playing for keeps.”

  “Why can’t the authorities make a fix on the sound of a scrambler?”

  “This is no time for a lesson in radiotronics. Just accept my word that they can’t.”

  Jane was shaping a reply when Pete touched her arm. “They’re coming out!”

  Jane’s eyes brightened. She smiled. “Goody!”

  “We’ll see what happens.”

  They watched as the scout nosed out of its cave. Jane’s fingernails dug into Pete’s arm as the nose pointed toward the ship and the jet power was advanced.

  “It’s coming straight in,” she breathed.

  “I thought maybe they’d wonder why our ships are grappled to the asteroid, but I guess they weren’t that smart.”

  The hit was perfect. They were close enough to see the looks of amazement and fear of the three faces as the hull of the derelict came around and smashed the scout squarely on the nose. The bubble collapsed and the scoutcar went hurtling backward to smash in turn against the wall of an asteroid and drop down to a shelf wide enough to hold it.

  “That finishes them,” Jane murmured. She had buried her face in Pete’s shoulder, and he knew she was thinking of Homer Deeds. She realized he deserved his fate, but she still couldn’t contemplate it without tears.

  “Like Mother said, he was weak.”

  “Don’t be too sure they’re finished,” Pete warned. “There’s heavy shielding in the back of a scoutcar and the bubble didn’t smash into them.”

  Even as he spoke, there was movement in the smashed car and two figures emerged. A third one could be seen lying motionless in the car.

  “His two friends made it. They’re moving around. They don’t seem to be too badly hurt.”

  “But they’re probably plenty scared. Maybe they’ll take one of the monocars and leave.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Pete said. “They’ll be slowed down for a few minutes, though, and we’d better use the time in hunting for something to defend ourselves with.”

  “Even if we do find weapons, we may not know how to use them.”

  “We can always try,” Pete said. He peered around the huge empty hold. “If my sense of proportions are right, we haven’t covered half of this ship yet. It has odd construction. There doesn’t seem to be any entrance to the lower section.”

  “There has to be. And we’ve got to find it. If we don’t find some way to protect ourselves, they’ll steal our salvage.”

  “That’s not the worst. They were ready to kill me when they met me, but they wouldn’t have killed you Barrys as long as Homer Deeds was with them. If he’s dead and with a prize like this at stake, I don’t think they’d hesitate to kill all of us.”

  “Do you think they really tried to kill you? Maybe they were only trying to scare—”

  “Stop dreaming! This is for real. Those men would kill their own mothers for the money tied up in this derelict.”

  Pete stopped and suddenly snapped his fingers. “I’ve got to go back to the cars!”

  “What for?”

  “The water supply. The vapor tanks in this ship have to be bone-dry after hundreds of years. Maybe the food is still edible but we’ve got to have water to hold out any length of time.”

  “Pete! They’ll be watching!”

  “If I go now, while they’re still groggy, I can probably make it. I’ll go around the far side and they won’t see me, even if they’re looking, until I reach the cars.”

  “There might be water aboard.”

  “A million-to-one shot, and we can’t use up the time in hunting.”

  He started aft and Jane ran to catch up with him.

  Her hand stayed on his arm. “Pete, if anything happens to you…”

  “Nothing will. Let’s hurry. There’s something I want to show you before I go out.”

  When they got to the top of the stairway that led into the air lock readyroom, Pete seized a hook and pulled it, and a heavy panel came out of the wall.

  “I noticed this earlier. It’s a door you can pull across the head of the stairs to block off the companionway. When I come back, I’ll knock on the outer seal three times. If anyone comes in without knocking, see that everyone�
��s out of the ready-room and close this door. It locks automatically right there. It will hold them off at least for a while.”

  “Pete—be careful.”

  “Oh, I’ll be back all right. It’s just that in a situation like this, we have to prepare for every possibility.”

  Pete went into the air lock, and the door closed behind them. Outside, he crouched and listened. He heard only the eternal grinding of the rocks in the ever-restless clusters, impressive even though muted because of the lack of atmosphere to carry the sound.

  Rising, he moved down the hull to the blind side.

  And met one of the two active pirates on an exploratory mission!

  But the meeting was not face to face, a break for which Pete was instantly thankful. The man, the larger of the two, stood tight to the hull with his back to Pete. He seemed to be debating which way to go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A SHIP OF THE DEAD

  Faced with this situation in his imagination, Pete would have seen himself as panicking. But confronted with it in reality, he was surprisingly cool even as fear tightened his stomach, and found himself estimating his chances even as he laid eyes on the pirate.

  They weren’t very good.

  The man outweighed him and, while he did not carry a rifle, he no doubt had a weapon of some kind. Pete could not possibly get back to the air lock without being seen because the man was slowly turning in his direction and would soon notice him.

  Now Pete saw his weapon, a lethal tool made of unbreakable trihelium used for prying stubborn barriers. Its point and part of its blade were razor-sharp.

  Once he’d set eyes on Pete, he could overtake and kill him before he could possibly get through the other air seal.

  Without further thought, Pete lunged at the man. Thus, when he saw Pete coming at him in such a foolhardy fashion, he assumed the boy wasn’t coming unarmed.

  So he spent some crucial moments looking for the gun he was sure Pete must be carrying. Pete used that time to get close to the pirate. Then, as the deadly blade automatically lashed out, Pete dropped under it, seized the pirate’s ankles, and heaved upward.

  Had he failed, he would have been dead in a matter of seconds. But his desperation gave him added strength. He broke the magnetic grip that held the pirate to the hull and heaved him up and outward into space.

  It was an old fighting maneuver of the asteroids; so old, the pirate hadn’t thought Pete foolish enough to try it.

  But the pirate had plenty of time to ponder Pete’s stupidity as he shot helplessly up into space and began flailing the void with his prying tool.

  Becoming instantly quite unfoolhardy, Pete turned and fled toward the air lock. The pirate wasn’t going anywhere. At the worst, he would drift until he touched the surrounding cluster and then orientate himself. But if he had any measure of space skill, he would slowly work his way back down to the hull of the derelict.

  As Pete disappeared into the outer chamber of the ship, a quick glance told him the pirate had skill. He had righted himself and was coming slowly down, like a man in a dream swimming through thick water.

  Pete hit the door three times and then put his weight against it. The wait in the air lock—which he could do nothing about—did not bother him greatly. Unless the pirate’s partner appeared from nowhere, Pete was safe.

  When the door opened, he found Jane and Rachel Barry waiting for him. He answered the question in their eyes. “I didn’t make it. Get down the stairs. We’ll lock the safety door and hope they don’t get through it for a while.”

  Safe in the companionway, Pete sat down on the steps and wiped his brow. “I met one of our friends right outside. I was lucky he didn’t have a rifle.”

  Rachel Barry’s face bore an expression of exasperation rather than fear. “This nonsense has got to stop. I’m going to call Homer and—”

  “Mother! You can’t. In the first place, there’s a scrambler fouling the channels out there. And I told you—Uncle Homer may be dead.”

  “That’s nonsense too. I know what you told me, but God in his justice wouldn’t let Homer die while those two devils escape unharmed!”

  “Let’s go forward,” Pete said. “We’ve got to find our way into the other section of the ship.”

  As he spoke, Ellen Barry slid down the railing of the far stairway and came running toward them. She skidded to a halt, her face bright with excitement at this new and wonderful place, her breath coming in gasps.

  “Ellen,” her mother scolded. “I told you to stay with me. Where have you been?”

  Pete, his nerves in less than a serene state, waved a quick hand. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got those killers on the outside and no water.”

  “I know where there’s water,” Ellen announced.

  Pete stopped and grabbed the dancing juvenile by the arm “Where? Where have you been, Ellen?”

  “Down a hole I found. It was awfully cold. There are big blocks of ice down there.”

  Pete looked a trifle foolish as he stared at Jane. “Of course! Ice would last for ages. That was probably how they carried their water.”

  Jane was skeptical. “But the method is outmoded. It’s used only on the old tramp freighters.”

  “This is no time to discuss abstracts,” Pete said.

  Jane’s eyes flashed with a little of the old fire. “What’s abstract about a block of ice?”

  Pete raised his hands in total frustration. “Ye gods! We’re in danger of our lives, and I’m saddled with a bunch of infants!”

  “Now, now, children,” Rachel Barry chided. “Let’s not be unpleasant to each other.”

  “Ellen,” Pete said with exaggerated clarity and patience, “will you show us where that hole is?”

  “It’s right down there by the other stairway.”

  The four of them hurried forward, Rachel and her second youngest going on ahead.

  Jane fell into step beside Pete. “If you can hold your temper for a few minutes, I’ve got some good news for you.”

  “I’m extremely even-tempered at all times,” he replied frostily. “And I can certainly use some good news.”

  “That door at the head of the stairway. I examined it when you were outside. It’s made of the same material as the hull, and the only possibility they have of getting through it is by using a light-ray unit. And maybe even not then.”

  “That helps.”

  “And I’ll bet they haven’t got a light-ray with them.”

  “I’m sure they haven’t. But they might find another hatch somewhere. We didn’t check the whole ship.”

  “That’s possible. Pete, I think we ought to have a talk about—about things.”

  “I agree. If things would stop happening so fast.”

  “We’ve got to compare notes and work out a plan. If we just sit here—”

  “—we’re through,” Pete finished grimly. “Given a little time, those two have enough experience and determination to get to us.”

  “If we don’t find any weapons.”

  “Maybe we will.”

  They’d reached the hole Ellen had told them about. It was in the floor of the companionway close to the far stairway. Her sharp eyes had discovered a circular plate set flush to the metal surface surrounding it. In the wall beside it was a small handle that could have controlled an inside valve. She had turned it, and the lid had uncovered another stairway that spiraled down.

  Ellen had already vanished into the lower depths. Pete followed. Above, Rachel Barry called down, “Ellen, have you seen Colleen? I don’t want that child running wild over this ship. I told her to stay with me!”

  Ellen didn’t answer. When Pete got to the lower companionway, she’d already gone aft and was tugging at a door.

  “It’s in here.”

  There were no light panels in the hold beyond, but some l
ight sifted in and Pete saw the stacks of ice blocks. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. “So far as we’re concerned right now, that ice is the most valuable thing on this ship. Mrs. Barry, there must be a converter unit around somewhere. Why don’t you and Ellen look for it? Jane and I will go on ahead and see what we can find farther back.

  Rachel Barry’s smile was a little drawn, but placid and without apprehension. “That sounds wise. But don’t you children get into any trouble.”

  As they walked away, Pete whispered, “Your mother is—well, fantastic.”

  “She’s had to be—to raise us without a father. Maybe she does refuse to face reality at times…”

  “Maybe she’s the one that does face it. We might be the ones who are off the beam.”

  “It’s difficult for Mother to believe anything bad about anyone. It’s her great weakness.”

  “Weakness? I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t a virtue?”

  Jane didn’t answer because Pete had pulled a door open and they were both peering inside.

  “An engine room,” Jane said.

  “This stuff isn’t the same as the memory bank cases, but it still must be under control of the cybernetic brain.”

  “Of course. The brain controls the ship. But there aren’t any moving parts here.”

  Nor were there any in the next engine room or the next. After they’d looked behind four mysterious doors, Pete stopped and leaned thoughtfully against the wall. “The questions are beginning to pile up,” he said.

  “A lot faster than the answers.”

  “Do you remember when we were at the window trying to warn your mother away from the ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “When the ship swung at the monocar, I noticed something. I think you noticed it too.”

  “I did. Another of those weird, impossible phenomena. The ship moved, but it didn’t.”

  “That’s right. I was wondering if our impressions were the same. I got the feeling nothing was moving even when the ship was whipping through space. And I don’t care how big or solid this tub is. We should have been thrown off our feet.”

  “It was as though we were standing still and the rocks were hurtling toward us.”