Mystery of the Third Mine

by Robert Lowndes

  On a sudden thought, Peter asked, “Say, have you ever heard of Ama?”

  “Ama? Nope—not unless it’s a new asteroid, and folks come in with those so fast you can’t remember ’em unless you have a claim or something.”

  "Aren’t going to pick up a copper cargo, are you?” Clay asked.

  “Nope again; haven't unloaded any copper this week, only zinc, iron, nickel, silver, and manganese. Expecting a friend in?”

  “Yeah. Thought we might have missed him.”

  “Sorry I can't help you there—but maybe someone else took it I’ll ask Dick and Jerry, and have them scout around if you like.”

  "I'd appreciate that,” Alan put in. “The name's Clay, and this is my partner, Pete.” (Peter still got a thrill out of being referred to as “partner,” rather than “my kid,” when he was introduced to strangers.) “If you hear anything, could you call me? I m looking for Glen Abend.”

  “Sure, I'll do what I can.” The driver waved to the Clays as they climbed down off the tractor and shuffled away toward their rocket. “If you want to call me, I m Ben Black—and I sure felt funny when I first came here and they called me Whitey!” He waved and turned the tractor toward the other end of the field.

  The Claymore was a 50-foot cylinder of bronze copper, with a circle of tubes at either end and a row of single-holes around her circumference, fore and aft. Like all the rockets here she blasted with beryllium fluoride, an easily stored powder. Her hull could be magnetized by putting on a knock-down metal covering and running a powerful electric current through it. Iron, nickel, silver and other magnetic minerals were carried thus. A ship would come back to port looking like a huge ball of ore. Nonmagnetic cargoes had to be stored inside.

  She was as fully equipped for living as was possible, because miners had to allow for weeks—sometimes months—in space, even when they worked claims on asteroids not far from Ceres. There were frequent "storms”—passage of thick clouds of asteroids scarcely larger than meteorites—during which no rocket could hope to travel in safety. If you were aspace when the “storm warning” came through, you sought the nearest landing place. If you were on the surface of some lonely little world, you stayed there until the “all-dear” signal came,

  Clay nodded approvingly as Pete made a check of the instruments and stores. “Good, so far,” he said, “but you overlooked one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Pellets for the shortguns and longmen. It wouldn’t be wise to be low on ammunition if there were trouble.” He smiled faintly and picked up a shortgun—a small, long-barreled weapon with a powerful beryllium spring. The longmen were larger, more cumbersome versions of the same thing, and had to be mounted. The only difference was range. Both fired pellets which exploded on contact with enough force to crack the helmet of a suit, or knock out the heating unit, cut off the air supply, smash the communicator, and so forth. Any damage to a suit was dangerous, and a lucky hit could prove fatal. The explosion didn’t hurt the man too much, although it could knock him out. But he didn't count—his suit was life or death to him.

  “You haven't told me much about this ‘trouble' business,” Peter said.

  Clay smiled as he finished checking the ammunition. “Back on Earth, in my grandfather's time and before, they used to print books and magazines full of stories picturing what things might be like out here. Pretty fantastic, some of those stories were, too. They had Mars and all the other planets full of strange and hostile people—critters that weren't intelligent, but dangerous. Well, when men got to Mars, then came out here, they found that there was only one really dangerous critter around.”

  “What was that? I never heard of any.”

  “Yes, you have; the dangerous critter was man himself. That's why we have to have guns and ammunition. It's not as bad as it was back on Earth—as you’ve seen in historical films—but there're still some men whore dangerous to the majority.

  “Out here, partner, the law’s good, and your rights are good, as long as the other man recognizes it. Most do. But a few try to pay no attention. They get away with it if you can't prove your rights or your legality with explosive pellets. That's the way someone takes to question you. Back on Mars no one could get away with it. In Cerestown your rights are respected. But out here—who's going to see what you do and stop you from doing it, or prove you did it if you destroy the evidence? Some claim jumpers have been caught when they tried to pass off their stuff on Cerestown or Mars, but there are others who've gotten away with it—and as long as one succeeds, another is going to try sometime.”

  Clay pressed the kicker-stud, producing a rocket blast that was more like a “pop,” and the ship lifted off the surface of the iceworld. They'd wait until they were well clear of Ceres before starting to build acceleration on their course toward Asteroid 20-47. Already, the miniature world was a globe beneath them, and they seemed to be motionless on a dark field dotted with lights.

  They were alone in space now, in the soundless gulf between worlds, where the countless masses of rock and metal that made up the Asteroid Belt followed endless orbits around the sun. Sometimes tiny pebbles of rock and metal traveled in courses around the larger masses. Faint beeps of sound came from the “finder”—a vibration instrument miners used to assist in direction out here. Anything like a complete chart of the asteroids was a project for years to come. Vibrator units were sunk into a miner's claim and tuned to his finder set. The strength of the signal gave him some idea of the distance. It was still very much of a hit-or-miss matter, much like the way the ancient sailors had navigated by guesswork. A man had to leam by instinct and experience about how long acceleration should be built up, and to what strength.

  Clay started a series of directional blasts, none of them powerful. The trip to Asteroid 20-47 was a matter of hours at best, but in these short hops—short compared to the four-month, Marstime voyage from the red planet to Ceres—it wasn't hard to overshoot the mark.

  “You see, Pete, there are only two things that can slow a ship in space: counterblast or gravitational drag,” Clay said. “You can't stop her like a tractor, by cutting off the power, then turn around and go back. You're going in one direction at full speed, say, and you want to make a turn Jupiterwise. What'll happen if you just blast in the opposite direction to where you want to turn?”

  “Well, the ship will turn, won't it?” Peter asked.

  “Sure will. But you’ll still keep moving in the same direction, only sidewise instead of nose-on. Oh, if you've got enough distance, you'll notice a very small curve eventually, and the blast will cut your acceleration a little. But if you're actually going to change your course, you have to cut down the acceleration before you try turning. Many’s the miner who’s overshot himself and spent days getting back to where he wanted to be. That’s why we have to carry several times as much fuel as we figure we ought to need for each trip.” “What about something running into us?”

  “The detectors will do for most bodies. You see, nearly all the asteroids follow one general level. We get above it or below it. There’re some erratic ones, and they’re always a possible danger. We don’t turn the ship for them. We just shove it out of the way, then ease back onto course once it’s past.”

  Abruptly, the communicator on the general band, kept open at all times, burst into sound. “Miner’s aid! Miner’s aid!” That was the signal no honest miner ignored. It meant that a human being was in trouble somewhere out here, and no man knew when his own turn would come. “Dave Ogden calling from 34-91. Claim jumpers attacking me. I’m cut off from my ship without a gun!” This was followed by a series of coordinates, and Clay set to work.

  “Is he anywhere near us, Dad?” Peter asked excitedly.

  Clay looked up from his charts. “Not far, and on course.” He said, “Ogden, what kind of weapons do they have?”

  “Only shortguns; there’re six of ’em. I’ve got pellets in my suit pouch, and I’m holding them off. They’re taking time to creep up on me
—figure they’ll surround me and pick me off when they’re in perfect range, but short of the distance I can throw.”

  Explosive pellets could be thrown far enough on these little rocks, but not accurately, and not always with enough momentum to explode when they hit.

  Often as not they'd go up and never come down. Used this way, they were good only for very close range.

  “Okay, Ogden,” said Clay. “Hold 'em off as well as you can, and well be around. . . , Well, Pete, this is our party. There's no one else nearer than we are— no one else around, or we’d have heard someone else answer. This may be the kind of trouble Glen's been muttering about—large-scale claim jumping. We'll bum a lot of fuel getting there, but it can’t be helped. Strap yourself solid, partner; we’ll be in for a lot of jolting!”

  Chapter 2 The Miners' Guard

  Asteroid 34-91 looked pretty much like a tabletop, with a relief map of mountains and depressions set upon it, as the Claymore approached. Peter had heard of planetoids this shape, but he’d never seen one before. The trips out to 20-47 had been uneventful. There hadn’t been any side excursions, such as this, to break the routine. Still, as Ben Black had said, there was always something to see no matter how often you looked, if you just watched the sky.

  ‘‘We’re lucky hes in a lonely section,” said Clay. “Right now, 34-91 is the only body around, so it won’t be too difficult to land.”

  “They’ll know we’re coming, won’t they?” Pete wanted to know,

  “Ought to. What they were shooting for first, I’d say, was his suit radio. Since they couldn’t prevent him from calling for help, they’ll try to finish him off before we arrive.” He fixed his eyes on the gravity meters and started the careful deceleration blasts they needed to maneuver into the plateau-like asteroid's orbit.

  “The shape of that one means it hasn't much gravity —less than Ceres by far, and less than 20-47. That's in Ogden's favor. You have to move awful slow on a world like that unless you're anchored down—otherwise, you’ll find yourself falling off and out into space.” “Are people ever marooned aspace that way?’’ “They sure are!” Clay chuckled. “Happened to me once. There's no telling how many got lost completely that way, back in the early days, before miners realized how easy it was and how serious it could be. I’d have been in a bad fix if Glen hadn’t been around to rescue me. He let me float and drift quite a spell before coming out after me too—said I’d learn more if I sweated a bit, than if he dropped everything and came blasting after me right away.”

  “How did you get on his ship? Did he throw a line out to you?”

  Clay grinned again. “Nope. He took up an orbit around 20-47, then shot candles at me with his long-man. Told me to get down by myself. Like an idiot, I hadn't brought any candles with me.”

  Peter frowned and picked up one of the safety devices that a wise miner always carried with him. “Candles,” he said. “I thought those were things made from wax that people used to burn for light”

  “You're right. But they had toys they called ‘Roman Candles’ too. You lit the far end and pointed it away from you, then little flares of colored light shot out. Very pretty in the dark.”

  Peter looked at the long, slender plastic tube that was the “candle.” You loaded it with small flat discs of thin plastic filled with chemicals.

  “When you press that firing-stud,” Clay went on, “it punctures the front disc, so that the chemicals inside come together. They explode, and shoot the works out of the tube. It’s a very small explosion—not enough to break any of the discs behind. What you have is just a small-scale rocket. You can shoot off all the discs, one after another, if you want to, but the best way to use a candle is one charge at a time. You’ll be going so slowly that you can change your direction with a couple of shots.”

  Asteroid 34-91 no longer looked like a tabletop— now it was a sizable plain extending beyond their range of vision lengthwise, although they could still see the rim of space straight across. It was thicker in depth than Peter had imagined, and didn’t look quite so much like a piece out of a jigsaw puzzle. It would be odd, he thought, to have a mine around the borders, though; there you’d see the rim just about all the time.

  A brief flash of light caught their eyes. "That’s them!” Clay said.

  “Won’t they see us coming?”

  “Sure, if they look. Most of our lights are shielded. Only the nose spot is on—we keep that on so we can find the ship in a hurry if the need comes. Strap in for landing now.”

  The terrain was quite uneven here, Peter realized, as the Claymore came down in its slow landing-curve and Asteroid 34-91 rose up to meet it. An unobserved approach was possible, but they’d have to fire a few final pop-blasts for landing. Without these the ship would clear the surface and continue on into space. There was little chance of even small rocket blasts not being seen. Along the far rim of the planetoid, a faint haze outlined the rim. Otherwise, all was dark save for two faint spots of light that came from Ogden's ship and the claim-jumpers’ rocket. Now and then a pellet exploded. The explosions flared briefly like a match, outlining shapes and shadows boldly for a second, then died.

  “Saw a miner try to save fuel once by aiming his ship lower from a distance, then coming right in." Clay said. "He did—yep, he saved fuel. He also tore the hull out of his ship and got a broken leg in the bargain. He was still fuming when a rescue rocket came."

  To an outside observer the Claymore floated down to the surface of Asteroid 34-91 as light and easy as a feather. Inside, it wasn’t quite like that. They were cushioned against the violent thumps of landing, but a miner’s rocket couldn’t have all the fancy trimmings of a space liner. You strapped yourself into heavily padded and springed acceleration seats, but there was still a big jolt when the ship landed, at best.

  "Sweet as climbing into bed,” sang out Clay, as he started to unstrap himself. Peter gulped, but managed a grin. “Sure was, partner—didn’t even know we’d landed.” Well, after he’d made a few more trips he wouldn't notice it. And I wasn’t sore all over like the last time we came home, he thought.

  The spot at the Claymore’s nose shot out like a shaft, and everything within that area was outlined sharply in black and white. No atmosphere meant no diffraction of light, no soft, golden spilling of illumination or soft tones. The light extended until it struck surface, reflecting in a few places which indicated ice.

  "Into your suit, Pete,” Clay said. “Well open up longmen on them from the port.”

  Pete climbed into his spacesuit, attaching candles, hand-flash, and shortgun to the hooks around the belt. He checked his equipment: the battery that powered the blowers (for pressure), moistener, heating unit, and communicator; the oxygen tank and escape-valve mechanism. You’d suffocate quickly if that clogged— choke on your own dead air. All was in order. He picked up his helmet, and followed Clay into the air lock.

  Peter caught his father s eyes and blinked, “Now?” The elder Clay nodded, and the two put on their helmets, turning on their suit-communicators at the same time. Back on Mars, “blinking” usually meant signaling with a light in some sort of dot-dash code. Here in the Belt, it could mean blinking your eyelids in the same way or any other manner of making signs. There was a standard code, but small groups of people usually had their own personal codes too. After all, there were many times when there was no other way you could communicate secretly—either no one could hear you, or everyone could hear you.

  "Are you going to call Ogden?” he asked.

  "Soon's we open up on them. We don't know Ogden's private band, if he has one, so talking to him will be talking to them too."

  They set up the longmen on tripods, then Clay pressed the exit-button and the port swung open. There was no whoosh of escaping air; the air in the lock had been pumped out when they shut the inner door.

  “Guess you were wondering how there was any hope of our helping Ogden after all this time, eh?" Clay indicated the darkness outside. "There's your answe
r. This isn't a battle; it's a siege. They just fire at him every once in a while to let him know they’re waiting for him to run out of air. You can be sure they have ample supplies. With luck, a pellet might hit him.”

  Peter shook his head. “It doesn't seem to make much sense to me, our trying to get the jumpers. What do I shoot at?"

  Clay swung the barrel of his longman swiftly, as an explosion flared, and pressed the trigger. An instant later another flare showed as the pellet struck. He took the general speaker off the clip of his suit belt and spoke into it. “All right, you thugs, clear out before you’re the ones to be hurt! This is the ClaymoreThen to Ogden: “Are you okay, prospector?”

  “They ain’t got me yet, friend,” came back the reply.

  “Try for your ship then, while we snipe at them,” Clay answered.

  Pete could listen in either on the general band or his private communicator, but the latter was for personal conversation. Only Clay was tuned in.

  “Did you hit anything?” Peter asked his father.

  “I doubt it. See anything in those light-flashes?”

  “Nothing moving, but I thought I saw a suit.”

  “Good. Shoot in the direction you think you saw it, then watch for the flare and fire again if you see anything moving.”

  “Why don’t they try to spot Ogden with hand-flashes?”

  “Right now, that would be foolish. They’d be perfect targets for us—were out of their range, unless they work up close, and we can see anything moving so long as we keep making flares. Keep firing, partner, but let a second or two go by before each shot. That’ll keep them from trying to make a break for their ship, and won’t waste ammunition.” He sent another pellet out into the darkness.