by Ben Bova
I don’t even feel scared. I’m just kind of numb. Dumbstruck. Like being paralyzed.
Erik is the one. Smiling, blond, slow-witted Erik is the mastermind that Rockledge planted on the Argo. It’s like one of those damned mystery novels where the murderer turns out to be the stupid butler. Who would have suspected Erik? Not me, that’s for sure.
Lonz, Will and I had put in a long, tough day finishing up our operations on Pittsburgh. All the mining and smelting equipment we had put onto the asteroid was finally shut down. That cluster of steel grapes bulked very nicely on one side of the ship. The sheets of platinum and the ingots of gold and silver were all neatly tucked into our cargo bays. Our identification beacon was on the asteroid, beeping satisfactorily.
I scrolled through the checklist on the main console’s screen one final time. We had done everything we had to do. The partners were all asleep—at least they were all in their beds. Or somebody’s beds.
“Okay,” I said to Lonz. “That’s it. Let’s see the nav program and set up the trajectory for home.”
“Um, there’s been a change in the mission plan, Sam,” Erik said.
I turned around from the console to look at him. I hadn’t even realized he’d entered the control center. His usual station was down by the galley, next to the lounge. He stood in the middle of the floor, smiling that slow, genial smile of his, like always.
“Whattaya mean?” I asked.
“We can’t start the homeward trip just yet,” he said.
“Why not?”
His smile didn’t change one iota as he explained, “We’ve got to put you and your partners off the ship first.”
“Put me and ... ?”
“You’re staying on Pittsburgh, Sam,” Erik told me. “You’re not coming back.” And he pulled a slim little automatic pistol from his belt. It looked big enough to me, probably because he pointed it straight at my eyes.
“What the hell are you talking about?” But the sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach told me that I knew the answer to my own question.
I spun around toward Lonz and Will. They both looked unhappy, but neither one of them made a move to help me.
“You guys, too?” All of a sudden I felt like Julius Caesar.
“You wouldn’t believe how much money we’ll be getting,” Will muttered.
“For chrissakes, didn’t I treat you guys fair and square?” I yelped.
“You didn’t make us partners, Sam,” said Lonz.
“Holy shit. Why didn’t you tell me you were unhappy? I could’ve ...”
“Never mind,” Erik said, suddenly forceful, in charge. “Sam, you’ll have to stay in your quarters until we get everything arranged. Don’t try anything. I don’t want to make this messy.”
Three against one would have made a mess all right, and the mess would be me. So I huffed and puffed and slinked to my quarters like a good, obedient prisoner. My mind was spinning, looking for an out, but I didn’t know what they planned to do. That made it tough to figure out my next move. I heard them attach some kind of a lock to the outside of the door as soon as I closed it after me. And then all my lights went off; not even the emergency lamps lit. They had cut off all electrical power to my quarters. No lights, no computer access, no communications with anybody, nothing but darkness.
And waiting.
After a few hours they bundled us all into space suits and—one by one—had each of us jet from the Argos main airlock to the surface of Pittsburgh, where we had left the mining and smelting equipment. I was the last one to be pushed out.
“We’ve set up an inflated dome for the eight of you,” Erik said, with that maddening slow grin of his, “and stocked with enough food to last a few months.”
“Thanks a bunch!” I snapped.
“We could have killed you all outright,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to after I made that slip about Liechtenstein in the lounge one of the first nights out.”
I felt like a complete idiot. It never occurred to me that one of the guys I hired might be the Rockwell plant.
The sonofabitch knew what he was doing; I have to hand him that. If he had tried anything violent all eight of us would have fought for our lives. As far as I could tell the only weapon they had was Erik’s one pistol. He might have killed several of us, but we might have swarmed him under. Lonz and Will, too. Eight against three. We might have carried it off.
But Erik worked it like an expert. He isolated us into individuals and, instead of killing us outright, merely forced us to go from the ship to the asteroid. Merely. It was a slow way of killing us. Food and shelter notwithstanding, nobody will return to Pittsburgh in less than a couple of years. Nobody can, even if Erik would leave us a radio and we screamed our lungs out for help.
“This is piracy,” I said as the three of them nudged me toward the airlock. “To say nothing of murder.”
“It’s business, Sam,” Erik said. “Nothing personal.”
I turned to Lonz. “Do you think he’s going to let you live?” Then to Will. “Or you? Neither one of you is going to make it back to Earth.”
Lonz looked grim. “They’re giving us enough money to set us up for life. There’s no reason for us to talk, and no reason for Erik to worry about us.”
I huffed at him from inside my helmet. “Dead men tell no tales, pals.” Then I snapped the visor shut and stepped into the airlock.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” I heard Will’s voice say, muffled by my helmet.
“Sorry don’t get the job done,” I answered in my bravest John Wayne imitation.
Then the hatch closed and the pumps started sucking the air out of the lock.
The outer hatch slid open. There was Pittsburgh, hanging big and black and ugly against the even blacker background of space. Through the heavy tinting of my visor I could only see a few of the brighter stars. They looked awfully cold, awfully far away.
“Get going Sam,” Erik’s voice sounded genially in my earphones, “or we’ll have to open your suit with a laser torch.”
Like walking the goddamned plank. I jetted over to the asteroid. Sure enough, there was an inflated dome next to the equipment we had left. And seven space-suited figures standing outside it. Even in the bulky suits they looked scared shitless, huddled together, clinging to one another.
I planted my feet on the asteroid and turned back toward the Argo, spinning lazily against the backdrop of stars.
Raising one clenched fist over my head I yelled into my suit radio’s microphone, “I’ll see you—all of you—hanging from the highest yardarm in the British fleet!”
It was the only damned thing I could think of. About five minutes later a blazing flare of light bellowed from the Argo’s rocket nozzles and the ship—my ship—suddenly leaped away and dwindled in the dark sky until I couldn’t see it any more.
TO SAY THAT my partners are upset is putting it so mildly that it’s like saying that Custer’s Seventh Cavalry was not terribly friendly with the Sioux Nation.
They’re terrified. They’re weeping. They’re cursing and swearing and calling down the wrath of the gods. Who (as usual) remain totally aloof and unconcerned about our plight. It took me nearly half an hour to get them to stop babbling, and by that time I finally got it through my thick skull that they’re mad at me!
“This is all your fault!” Rick Darling screamed at me. “I begged them to let me stay on the ship. I promised them I’d never inform on them. I even told them that I was glad they wanted to get rid of you! But they wouldn’t listen! Now I’m going to die and it’s all your fault!”
Funny thing is, each and every one of them is yelling some variation of the same story. Each one of them begged Erik to let them stay aboard, promised to go along with killing me—and all the others—providing they were allowed to get home safely.
Erik didn’t take any of them up on their offers. Not even Sheena, who had a helluva lot to offer. The sonofabitch must be made of very strong stuff. Either that or he’s gay
, which I doubt, because Darling would’ve probably bent over backwards for him if that’s what he wanted.
They’re being so goddamned rotten that they’ve almost made me forget who our real enemy is. I let them babble and gabble and just clumped across the rough, pitted surface of Pittsburgh and went inside the dome Erik had so thoughtfully left for us. I ought to mention that the asteroid’s too small to have any noticeable gravity. We’re all outfitted with small magnets on our boots, which work very nicely on a body made predominantly of iron. But even though walking is as easy as stepping across a newly painted floor that’s still slightly tacky, my body’s feeling all the old sensations of nearly zero gravity.
I’m smiling to myself. As soon as my partners calm down enough to take stock of their situation, they’re going to get good and sick. I’m certain that Erik hasn’t included space-sickness medications in the pile of supplies he’s left us.
Good! Serves the whining little pricks right.
SURE ENOUGH, THEY’VE all been sick as dogs for the past two days. I felt kind of queasy myself for the first few hours, but I got over it quickly enough.
I’ve spent the time checking out just how much Erik left us, in his less then-infinite kindness. It’s not much. Eight crates of food briquettes; about enough to last six months. No medical supplies, not even aspirin.
The dome’s got air and water recyclers, offloaded from Argo’s spares. But no backup equipment and no spare parts. If anything goes wrong with the machinery, we die pretty quickly.
So our prospects are: (1) we starve to death in six months; (2) we die from lack of water or air if either of the recyclers craps out on us; or (3) we start murdering each other because there’s nothing else for us to do but get on each other’s nerves.
At least inside the dome we can get out of the space suits. There’s no furniture in here; nothing to sit on but the crates of food briquettes, eight inflatable sleeping rolls, and a zero-gee bathroom facility. The toilet seems to work okay, although there’s only the one of them. The women bitch about that constantly. Me, I worry about how much radiation we’re absorbing; the metallized plastic of this dome doesn’t stop cosmic ray primaries, and if there’s a solar flare we’ll probably get cooked inside of an hour or two.
There’s also the possibility that a smaller asteroid might puncture our dome. That would be absolutely poetic: killed by an asteroid striking another asteroid.
REALITY IS SETTING IN.
My seven keen-minded partners are mostly recovering from their zero-gee puking and starting to realize that we are well and truly marooned on this chunk of nickel-iron. With only six months worth of food.
They’ve even stopped hollering at me. They’re getting morose, just sitting around this cramped little dome like a bunch of prisoners waiting for dawn and the firing squad.
“Would’ve been kinder of Erik to kill us outright and get it over with,” said Bo Williams.
The others are sad-faced as basset hounds with toothaches. Trying to sleep on a three-centimeter-thick inflatable bag laid over a rough floor of solid nickel-iron does nothing to improve anybody’s disposition.
“If that’s the way you feel about,” Lowell Hubble said to Bo, from behind his inevitable pipe, “why don’t you just commit suicide and save us the self-pity? That would leave an extra ration of food to the survivors.”
Williams’ shoulder muscles bunched underneath his grimy shirt. “And why don’t you try sucking on something else than that damned pacifier?”
“Why don’t you both shut up?” Marj snapped.
“I think this entire line of conversation is disgraceful,” said Jean. “If we
can’t behave like polite adults we should leave the dome until we’ve learned how to act properly.”
We all stared at her. I started to laugh. In her own prissy way, Jean was right. We need some discipline. Something to keep our minds off our predicament.
“Maybe we ought to draw lots,” Grace suggested with mock cheerfulness. “Short straw goes outside without a suit. Maybe we could stretch the food long enough ...”
“And even add to our food supply,” Williams said, eying Darling grimly. “Like the Donner party.”
Sheena’s eyes went like saucers. “Eat... ? Oh, I could never do that!”
“People do strange things when they’re starving,” Hubble said. He looked over at our overfed Mr. Darling, too.
If Rick understood what was going through their minds, he didn’t show it. “If only there was some hope of rescue,” he mewled. “Some slightest shred of hope.”
It hit me right then.
“Rescue, my ass!” I said. And before Jean could even frown at me, I added, “We’re gonna save ourselves, by damn!”
THEY LAUGHED AT Columbus. They laughed at Edison and the Wright brothers and Marconi.
None of my beloved partners laughed at me when I said we’d save ourselves. They just kind of gaped for a moment, and then ignored me, as if I had farted or done something else stupid or vulgar.
But what the hell, there isn’t anything else we can do. And we need some discipline, some goal, some objective to keep our brains busy and our minds off starvation and death. Instead of breaking down into an octet of would-be murderers and cannibals, I dangled the prospect of salvation in front of their unbelieving eyes.
“We can do it!” I insisted. “We can save ourselves. We can turn this little worldlet of ours into a lifeboat.”
“And pigs can fly,” Bo Williams growled.
“They can if they build wings for themselves,” I shot back.
Darling started, “How on earth do you propose ...”
“We’re not on Earth, oh corpulent critic of the arts. Erik thinks he’s got us marooned here on Pittsburgh. But we’re gonna ride this rock back to the Earth/Moon system.”
Jean Margaux: “That’s impossible!”
Marj Dupray: “It beats sitting around and watching the food supplies dwindle.”
Grace Harcourt: “Can you really do it, Sam?”
Sheena Chang: “What do you think, Lowell?”
Hubble, our resident astronomer, took the pipe out of his mouth and squinted at me as if he had never seen me before. His mustache was getting ragged and grayer than usual. He needed a shave. All us men looked pretty shaggy, except for Darling, whose cheeks were still as smooth as a baby’s backside. Is he permanently depilated, or doesn’t he have enough testosterone in him to raise a beard?
Hubble said, “To move this asteroid out of its present orbit we’d need a propulsion system and navigational equipment.”
“We’ve got ‘em,” I said. “Or at least, we can make ‘em.”
I know the mining and smelting facilities inside out. We had left the equipment here on Pittsburgh. My idea had been, why drag them all the way back home when you’ll want them at the asteroid on the next trip out? The equipment’s nuclear powered, of course: you’d need solar-cell panels as big as cities to generate enough electricity at this distance from the Sun.
When Sheena found out we had two (count ‘em, two) nukes on Pittsburgh, she gasped with alarm. “But nuclear power is bad, Sam. It’s got radiation.”
“Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” I told her. “They’re shielded real well.” I didn’t bother to inform her that her gorgeous body was getting more radiation from cosmic primaries than all the nuclear power plants on Earth gave off.
My idea was to use the mining lasers to slice off chunks of the asteroid, then use the smelting facility to vaporize the metal instead of just melting it down. If we could direct the vapor properly it’d push us like a rocket exhaust. I figured we could scoop out a pit in the asteroid’s surface and use it as a rough-and-ready rocket nozzle. Or maybe one of the existing craters that’ve put the pit in ol’ Pittsburgh would do.
We wouldn’t need pinpoint navigation. All I’d need was to get us moving at a good clip toward the Earth-Moon system. Once we crossed the orbit of Mars the automated meteor-watch radars’d’ pick us up. He
ll, Pittsburgh’s big enough to scare the bejeezuz out of the IAA. An asteroid this big, heading for the Earth-Moon system? They’d at least send a robot probe to check us out; maybe a manned spacecraft with enough extra propulsion aboard to nudge us away from the inhabited region. Either way, there’d be a radio aboard and we could yell for help.
DAMN! HUBBLE’S DONE some calculations on his wrist computer and given me the bad news. Oh, my scheme will work all right, but it’ll take seventy or eighty years before Pittsburgh gets past the orbit of Mars.
“She’s just too massive,” Hubble said. “If we want to accelerate this asteroid that quickly we need a lot more energy than we can get by burning off mass at the rate the smelting facility can produce.”
Gloom. All seven of them became even more morose than ever. I felt down, too. For a while. Then Sheena saved the day.
(Not that we can tell day from night on Pittsburgh. The only way we can keep track of time is by the clocks built into our wrist computers. Even though the asteroid’s slowly tumbling as it swings through space, inside the dome we get no sensation of daylight or nighttime. The sky’s always dark, even when the Sun is visible outside. Our mood matched our environment: cold, dark, dreary.)
Sheena came up to me while I was trying to decide whether I’d make dinner out of a green briquette or a red one. They both looked kind of brown to me, but that may have been just the lighting inside the dome, which was pretty low and murky.
“Sam,” she said. “Can I ask you a favor?”
We were all so glum and melancholy that I had forgotten how beautiful Sheena was. Whether it was natural or surgically enhanced, even in the shabby unwashed blouse and slacks she’d been wearing for days on end she looked incredibly lovely. I forgot about food, temporarily.
“A favor?” I said. “Sure. What is it?”
“Well...” she hesitated, as if she had to put her thoughts together. “Since we won’t be using the mining equipment and all that other stuff, can’t we toss those ugly old nuclear generators out? I mean, they can’t be doing us any good sitting out there making radiation....”