"Yes, sir," said Tom. His eyes bright, he turned to the intercom. "All right, you space babies," he announced, "this is it. Stand by to blast Junior. Here we come!"
CHAPTER 18
Dawn broke over the tangled jungles of Tara, followed by the bright sun of Alpha Centauri rising out of the eastern sea and slowly climbing higher and higher. In the dense unexplored wilderness, living things, terrible things, opened their eyes and resumed their never-ending quest for food. Once again Alpha Centauri had summoned one hemisphere of its satellite planet to life.
Meanwhile, high in the heavens above Tara, six Earthmen blasted into the flaming brilliance of the sun star. Using delicate instruments instead of claws, and their intelligence instead of blind hunger, they prepared to do battle with the sun star and force it to release the precious copper satellite from its deadly, consuming grasp.
The crew of the Polaris assembled on the control deck of the great spaceship, and facing their commanding officer, waited patiently for the word that would send them hurtling out to their target.
"The jet boats are all ready, sir," reported Tom. "We're dead ship in orbit around Junior at an altitude of about three hundred miles."
"Does that mean we're falling into the sun too?" gasped Shinny.
"It sure does, Mr. Shinny," said Alfie, "at more than twenty miles per second."
"The jet boats have enough power to get back from Junior to the Polaris, Mr. Shinny," reassured Tom. "And then the Polaris can blast off from here. The jet boats wouldn't go much higher off Junior this close to the sun."
"But if we go beyond the two-hour limit, the Polaris can't blast off either," commented Roger dryly.
"All right. Is everything set?" asked Connel. "Astro, is the reactant loaded?"
"No, sir," said Astro, "but it's all ready to go in."
"Good!" said Connel. "Now we all know how important—and how dangerous—this operation is. I don't have to tell you again. You stay here on the control deck, Tom, and keep in touch with us on Junior at all times. You know what to do?"
"Yes, sir," replied Tom. "I'm to stand by and give you a minute-by-minute warning check until final blast-off time."
"Right," said Connel. "And remember, we're counting on you to tell us when to blast off. We'll be too busy down there to pay any attention."
"I understand, sir," replied Tom. His face was passive. He was well aware of the responsibility.
"Very well," said Connel finally, "the rest of you board your jet boats! This is going to be the hottest ride we'll ever take, and I don't want it to get any hotter!"
Silently, their faces grim masks, the five spacemen filed out of the control room, leaving Tom alone. Presently he heard the cough of the rockets in the jet boats as one by one the small space craft blasted out of the Polaris. Suddenly Tom began to shake as he realized the importance of his task—the responsibility of counting time for five men, time that could cost them their lives. If he made a single mistake, miscounted by a minute, the expedition to Junior would end not only in failure, but in tragedy.
As quickly as the thought came, Tom pushed it aside and turned to the control board. No time now for fear. Now, more than any other time in his life, he had to keep himself alert and ready for every emergency. As a child he had often dreamed of the day when, as a spaceman, he would be faced with an emergency only he could handle. And in the dreams he had come through with flying colors. But now that it was a reality, Tom felt nothing but cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
He turned his whole attention to the great solar clock overhead. Time had already begun slipping away. Ten minutes of the two hours had swept past. They must be on Junior by now, he thought, and flipped on the teleceiver. He focused on the satellite's surface. There in front of him were the three jet boats. Major Connel, Roger, Astro, Alfie, and Mr. Shinny were so close that Tom felt as though he could touch them. They were unloading the first reactor unit, with Astro and Shinny digging the hole. Tom glanced at the clock, turned to the microphone, and announced clearly:
"Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and forty-eight minutes until blast-off time—one hour and forty-eight minutes to blast-off."
He flipped the switch and watched the screen with rising excitement. The crew on the satellite had completed the installation of the first reactor unit. He saw them blasting off in their jet boats for the second spot. He adjusted the teleceiver and tried to follow them, but they disappeared. He glanced at the clock.
"Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and forty-seven minutes to blast-off—one hour and forty-seven minutes to blast-off."
On the satellite, in the deep shadow of a protecting cliff, each of the five Earthmen paused involuntarily when they heard Tom's warning.
"Forget about the time!" snapped Connel. "By the blessed rings of Saturn, we'll finish this job if it's the last thing we do!"
Connel went to each of the working figures and adjusted the valve, regulating the air-cooling humidity control on their space suits. "Getting pretty hot, eh, boys?" he joked, as he stopped one and then the other to make the delicate adjustment counteracting the heat that was increasing each second they remained on the satellite.
"How hot do you think it is, sir?" asked Roger.
"Never mind the heat," said Connel. "These suits were designed to withstand the temperature of the light side of Mercury! It gets boiling there, so I guess we can stand it here for a while."
One by one, Alfie, Shinny, Roger, and Astro completed their assigned roles, digging the holes, placing the reactors inside, setting the fuse, covering it up, then quickly gathering the equipment, piling back into the three jet boats, and heading for the next point. Landing, they would tumble out of the small space craft almost before the rocket had stopped firing and begin their frantic digging in the hard surface.
Landing, they would tumble out of the jet boat and begin their frantic digging
Over and over, they heard Tom's crisp clear count of time. Five minutes passed, then ten, and before they knew it, a full half-hour of the precious time had vanished. They completed the installation of the second unit and climbed back into the jet boats. The first two units had been buried at points protected from the sun by cliffs, and they had been sheltered from the burning rays.
But, approaching the position for the third reactor unit, Connel searched in vain for some shade. He wasted five precious minutes, scouting an area of several miles, but he could find nothing to protect them on the flat plain.
"Better put in the ultraviolet glass shields in our helmets, boys," he called into the jet-boat communicator. "It's going to be mighty hot, and dangerous."
"Aye, aye, sir," came the replies from the other two jet boats soaring close by.
Roger began refitting their space helmets with the dark glass that would shield them from the strong rays of the enlarging sun.
"Ever been outside in the direct path of the sun with no protection, Roger?" asked Astro.
"No," replied Roger. "Have you?"
"Once," said Astro softly. "On the second moon of Mars, Phobos. I was bucking rockets on the old chemical burners. I was on a freighter called the Happy Spaceman. A tube blew on us. Luckily we were close enough to Phobos to make a touchdown, or the leak would have reached the main fuel tanks and blown us clean out to another galaxy."
"What happened?" asked Roger.
"I had to go outside," said Astro. "I was junior rocketman in the crew, so naturally I had to do all the dirty work."
Tom's warning call from the Polaris control deck, tuned to the open communicators of all the jet boats, broke through the loud-speaker.
"Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and twenty minutes to blast-off time. One hour and twenty minutes to blast-off time."
The two cadets looked at each other as they heard Tom's voice, but neither spoke. Finally Roger asked, "What happened on Phobos?"
"No one bothered to tell me," continued Astro, "that I had to protect myself from the ultraviolet rays of t
he sun, since Phobos didn't have an atmosphere. It was one of my first hops into space and I didn't know too much. I went outside and began working on the tube. I did the job all right, but for three weeks after, my face was swollen and I couldn't open my eyes. I almost went blind."
Roger grunted and continued to line the clear plastic fish-bowl helmets with the darker protective shields.
Connel's voice rang through the cabin over the communicator: "I guess we'd better go down and get it over with. I don't see anything that will give us any protection down there. Be sure your humidity control is turned up all the way. As soon as you step outside the jet boat, you're going to be hit by a temperature of four hundred degrees!"
"Aye, aye, sir," came Shinny's reply over the intercom. Roger flipped the communicator on and acknowledged the order.
Astro and Shinny followed Connel's jet boat in a long sweeping dive to the surface of the satellite. Stepping out of the air-cooled jet boat onto the torrid unprotected surface of the flat plain was like stepping into a furnace. Even with space suits as protection, the five Earthmen were forced to work in relays in the digging of the hole for the reactor unit.
"Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour exactly to blast-off time! One hour—sixty minutes—to blast-off time."
Tom flicked the teleceiver microphone off, and on the teleceiver screen, watched his spacemates work under the broiling sun. They were ahead of time. One hour to complete two more units. Tom allowed himself a sigh of hope and relief. They could still snatch the copper satellite from the powerful pull of the sun.
Suddenly Tom heard a sound behind him and whirled around. His eyes bulged in horror.
"Loring!" he gasped.
"Take your hand off that microphone, Corbett," snarled Loring, "or I'll freeze you!"
"How—how did you get out?" Tom stammered.
"Your buddy, Manning," sneered Loring with a short laugh, "decided he wanted to paste my ears back. So I let him. He was so anxious to make me lose a few teeth that he didn't notice the spoon I kept!"
"Spoon?" asked Tom incredulously.
"Yeah," said Mason, stepping through the door, a paralo-ray gun leveled at Tom. "A few teeth for a spoon. A good trade. We waited for your pals to leave the ship, and then I short-circuited the electronic lock on the brig."
Tom stared at the two men unbelievingly.
"All right, Corbett, get over there to that control board," growled Loring, waving the paralo-ray gun at Tom. "We're going back to Tara."
"Tara?" exclaimed Tom. "But Major Connel and the others—they're—they're down on the satellite. If I don't pick them up, they'll fall into the sun!"
"Well, ain't that too bad," sneered Loring. "Listen to that, Mason. If we don't hang around and pick them up, they'll fall into the sun!"
Mason laughed harshly and advanced toward Tom. "I only got one regret, Corbett. That I can't stay around to see Connel and the Manning punk fry! Now get this wagon outta here, and get it out quick!"
CHAPTER 19
"Major!" shouted Astro. "Look! The Polaris! The Polaris is blasting off!"
The five Earthmen stared up at the silvery spaceship that was rapidly disappearing into the clear blue void of space. Without hesitation, Connel raced for the nearest jet boat and roared into the communicator.
"Corbett! Corbett! Come in, Tom!"
He waited, the silence of the loud-speaker more menacing than anything the spaceman had ever encountered before. Again and again, the Solar Guard officer tried to raise the cadet on the Polaris. Finally he turned back to the four crewmen who hovered around the jet boat, hoping against hope.
"Whatever it is," he said, "I'm sure Tom is doing the right thing. We came down here to do a job and we're going to do it! Get moving! We still have to set up the rest of these reactor units."
Without a word, the five men returned to their small ships and followed their commanding officer.
The sun grew larger and the heat more intense with each minute, since each minute brought them almost thirteen hundred miles closer to the sun's blazing surface. With the humidity-control and air-cooling mechanisms in the space suits working at top capacity but affording little relief, Alfie, Roger, Shinny, and Astro buried the fourth reactor unit and headed for the fifth and last emplacement. Occasionally one of them would turn and cast a swift glance at the clear blue space overhead, secretly hoping to find the rocket cruiser had returned. Or, they would strain their ears for Tom's voice counting off the minutes so carefully for them. But they saw nothing and they heard nothing. They concentrated on their jobs, working like demons to complete the installations as planned. They could not stop now and wonder what had happened to the Polaris, or even hope for its speedy return. They had a job to do, and they went about it silently, efficiently, and surely.
Astro stood up, the small spade in his hand hanging loosely at his side. He watched Roger and Alfie bring the last of the reactor units from Major Connel's jet boat. They gently lowered it into the hole and stepped back while Shinny, under the watchful eyes of Major Connel, set the fuse. Shinny stepped back, and Astro began covering up the lead box.
"That's it," said Connel. "We're finished!"
What Connel meant was that they were finished with the placement of the reactor units, but he knew immediately that his words had been taken to mean something each felt but had not dared to put into words.
Connel started to correct this misunderstanding but caught himself in time. It would not do, he thought, for him to make excuses for what they knew to be the truth.
"All right, everyone in my jet boat," he snapped. "Astro, you and Roger take all the fuel out of the other boats and pour it into mine. It'll be a tight squeeze, but we can all fit into one craft. No use expending fuel wastefully."
Astro and Roger bent to the task of draining the fuel from their jet boats and loading it into Connel's.
Alfie came over to join them, while Shinny and Connel scanned the sky overhead for some sign of the Polaris.
"This is really a desperate situation to be in, isn't it, Roger?" asked Alfie.
"Offhand, I'd say yes," drawled Roger, "but since we've got two big huskies like Astro and Major Connel along, I don't think we'll have much trouble."
"Why not?" asked Alfie.
"We'll just let them get out and help push!"
"And if that doesn't work," snorted Astro, "we'll stick Manning outside and let him talk about himself. That oughta give us enough gas to get us away from this hunk of copper."
"I believe," said Alfie emphatically, "that you're joshing me, Manning."
"Now, whatever gave you that idea?" asked Roger in a hurt tone.
"This is a serious situation, isn't it?" asked Alfie, looking at Astro.
"It sure is, Alfie," said Astro soberly, "and I'm the first one to say I'm a little scared!"
Alfie smiled. "I'm very glad you said that, Astro," he said, "because I feel exactly the same way!" He turned and walked back to Major Connel.
"What was the idea of telling him that?" hissed Roger at Astro. "What are you trying to do? Get the little guy space happy, or something?"
"Look at him!" said Astro. "I'm twice his size. He figures if a big guy like me is scared, then he's got a right to be scared too!"
Roger grunted in appreciation of the way Astro had treated Alfie's fears and turned back to the loading of the fuel.
Major Connel walked over and watched them transfer the last of the fuel into the tanks.
"How much have you got there, Astro?" he asked.
"I'd say enough to sustain flight for about three hours, sir. Considering we'll have such a big load."
"Ummmmh," mused Connel. "You know we're up against big odds, don't you?"
Roger and Astro nodded.
"If Tom doesn't come back soon, we'll be so far into the pull of the sun, even a ship the size of the Polaris wouldn't be able to break out."
"How much time have we got, sir?" asked Roger.
"Not too much, Manning," said
Connel. "Of course we can blast off in the jet boat and get up a few hundred miles, in case Tom does come back. Then he won't have to bring the Polaris down here. But if time runs out on us up there, we'll have to come back and take our chance on Junior being blasted out of the sun's grip."
There was a pause while Astro and Roger considered this.
"That would mean," asked Roger, "that we'd be here when the reactor units go off, wouldn't it, sir?"
"That's right, Manning," said Connel, admitting to the danger. "Even if Junior were blasted out of the pull of the sun, we couldn't survive the explosions."
"Couldn't we blast off in the jet boat and then land after the explosions, sir?" asked Astro.
"Yes," admitted Connel, "we could do that. But the radioactivity would be so powerful we couldn't last more than a few days. We have no antiradiation gear. Not even food or water." He paused and scanned the sky. "No," he said in a surprisingly casual voice, "the only way we can get out of this is for Tom to come back and get us."
Shinny and Alfie came over and joined the group around the jet boat. No one said anything. There wasn't anything to say. Each of them felt the heat burning through his space suit. Each felt the same fear tugging at his throat. There was nothing to say. The Polaris was not to be seen; the sky was empty of everything except Alpha Centauri, the great burning mass of gases that once they had all seen only as a quiet twinkling star in the heavens, never dreaming that someday it would be pulling them relentlessly into its molten self.
* * * * *
Tom Corbett had a plan.
He sat at the control board of the great rocket cruiser, apparently watching the needles and gauges on the panel, but his mind was racing desperately. The two-hour deadline had just passed. The great solar clock had swung its red hand past the last second. Only a miracle could save the five men on Junior now. But Tom was not counting on miracles. He was counting on his plan.
"Keep this space wagon driving, Corbett!" ordered Loring from behind him. "Keep them rockets wide open!"
Tom Corbett Space Cadet Page 32