The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  Rip joined Flip Villa, and they jumped on the high-speed track that would whisk them to Valve Two on the other side of the platform. Their gear was already loaded. They had only to take seats on the rocket, and their six years on the space platform would be at an end.

  "I wonder what it will be like to get back to high gravity," Rip mused. The centrifugal force of the spinning platform acted as artificial gravity, but it was considerably less than Earth's.

  "We probably won't be able to walk straight until we get our Earth legs back," Flip answered. "I wish I could stay in Colorado with you instead of going back to Mexico City, Rip. We could have a lot of fun in eight weeks."

  Rip nodded. "Tough luck, Flip. But anyway, we have the same assignment."

  Both Planeteers had been assigned to Special Order Squadron Four, which was attached to the cruiser Bolide. The cruiser was in high space, beyond the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, doing comet research.

  They got off the track at Valve Two and stepped through into the rocket's interior. Two seats just ahead of the fins were vacant, and they slid into them. Rip looked through the thick port beside him and saw the distinctive blue glow of a nuclear drive cruiser sliding toward the platform.

  "Wave your eye stalks at that job," Flip said admiringly. "Wonder what it's doing here."

  The space platform was a refueling depot, where conventional chemical fuel rockets topped off their tanks before flaming for space. The newer nuclear drive cruisers had no need to stop. Their atomic piles needed new neutron sources only once every few years, and they carried thousands of tons of methane, compressed into solid form, for their reaction mass.

  The voice horn in the rocket cabin sounded. "The SCN Scorpius is passing Valve Two, landing at Valve Eight."

  "I thought that ship was with Squadron One on Mercury," Rip recalled. "Wonder why they pulled it back here."

  Flip had no chance to reply, because the chief rocket officer took up his station at the valve and began to call the roll. Rip answered to his name.

  The rocket officer finished the roll, then announced: "Buttoning up in twenty seconds. Blast off in forty-five. Don't bother with acceleration harness. We'll fall free, with just enough flame going for control, after ten seconds of retrothrust to de-orbit."

  The ten-second-warning bell sounded, and, before the bell had ceased, the voice horn blasted. "Get it! Foster, R.I.P., Lieutenant. Report to the platform commander. Show an exhaust!"

  Rip leaped to his feet. "Hold on, Flip. I'll see what the old man wants and be right back."

  "Get flaming," the rocket officer called. "Show an exhaust, like the man said. This bucket leaves on time, and we're sealing the port."

  Rip hesitated. The rocket would leave without him!

  Flip said urgently, "You better ram it, Rip."

  He knew he had no choice. "Tell my folks I'll make the next rocket," he called, and ran. He leaped through the valve, jumped for the high-speed track, and was whisked around the rim of the space platform.

  He ran a hand through his short red hair, a gesture of bewilderment. His records had cleared. So far as he knew, all his papers were in order, and he had his next assignment. He couldn't figure why the platform commander would want to see him. But the horn had called, "Show an exhaust!" which meant to get there in a hurry.

  He jumped off the track at the main crossrun and hurried toward the center of the platform. In a moment he was at the commander's door, waiting to be identified.

  The door swung open, and a junior officer in the blue tunic and trousers of a spaceman motioned him to the inner room. "Go in, Lieutenant."

  "Thank you." He hurried into the commander's room and stood at attention.

  Commander Jennsen, the Norwegian spaceman who had commanded the platform since before Rip's arrival as a raw cadet, was dictating into his command relay circuit. As he spoke, printed copies were being received in the platform personnel office, at Special Order Squadron headquarters on Earth, aboard the cruiser Bolide in high space, and aboard the newly landed cruiser Scorpius.

  Rip listened, spellbound.

  "Foster, R.I.P., Lieutenant, SOS. Serial seven-nine-four-three. Assigned SOS Four. Change orders, effective this date-time. Cancel Earth leave. Subject officer will report to commander, SCN Scorpius, with detachment of nine men. Senior noncommissioned officer and second in command, Koa, A.P., Sergeant Major, SOS. Serial two-nine-four-one. Commander of Scorpius will transport detachment to coordinates given in basic cruiser astro-course; deliver orders to detachment en route. Take required steps for maximum security. This is Federation priority A, Space Council security procedures."

  Rip swallowed hard. The highest possible priority, given by the Federation itself, had canceled his leave. Not only that, but the cruiser to which he was assigned was instructed to follow Space Council security procedures, which meant that the job, whatever it was, was more urgent than secret!

  Commander Jennsen looked up and saw Rip waiting. He snapped, "Did you get all of that?"

  "Y-Yes, sir."

  "You'll get written copies on the cruiser. Now flame out of here. Collect your men and get aboard. The Scorpius leaves in five minutes."

  Rip ran. The realization hit him that the big nuclear cruiser had stopped at the platform for the sole purpose of collecting him and nine enlisted Planeteers.

  The low gravity helped him cover the hundred yards to the personnel office in five leaps. He swung to a stop by grabbing the push bar of the office door. He yelled at the enlisted spaceman on duty. "Where do I find nine men?"

  The spaceman looked at him vacantly. "What for? You got a requisition, Lieutenant?"

  "Never mind requisitions," Rip snapped. "I've got to find nine Planeteers and get them on the Scorpius before it flames off."

  The spaceman's face cleared. "Oh. You mean Koa's detachment. They left a few minutes ago."

  "Where. Where did they go?"

  The spaceman shrugged. The doings of Planeteers were no concern of his. His shrug said so.

  Rip realized there was no use talking further. He ran down the long corridor toward the outer edge of the platform. The enlisted men's squad rooms were near Valve Ten. So was the supply department. His gear had departed on the Terra rocket, and he couldn't go into space with only the tunic on his back. He swung to the high-speed track and braced himself as he sped along the platform's rim.

  There was no moving track inward to the enlisted Planeteers' squad rooms. He legged it down the corridor in long leaps, muttering apologies as blue-clad spacemen and cadets moved to the wall to let him pass.

  The squad rooms were on two levels. He looked in the upper ones and found them deserted. The squads were on duty somewhere. He ran for the ladder to the lower level, took the wrong one, and ended up in a snapper-boat port. He had trained in the deadly little fighting rockets, and they never failed to interest him. But there wasn't time to admire them now. He went back up the ladder with two strong heaves, found the right ladder, and dropped down without touching. His knees flexed to take up the shock. He came out of the crouch facing a black-clad Planeteer sergeant who snapped to rigid attention.

  "Koa," Rip barked. "Where can I find him?"

  "He's not here, sir. He and eight men left fifteen minutes ago. I don't know where they went, sir."

  Rip shot a worried glance at his wrist chronometer. He had two minutes left before the cruiser departed. No more time now to search for his men. He hoped the sergeant major had sense enough to be waiting at some reasonable place. He went up the ladder hand over hand and sped down the corridor to the supply room. The spaceman first class in charge of supplies was turning an audio-mag through a hand viewer, chuckling at the cartoons. At the sight of Rip's flushed, anxious face he dropped the machine. "Yessir?"

  "I need a spack. Full gear, including bubble."

  "Yessir." The spaceman looked him over with a practiced eye. "One full space pack. Medium-large, right, sir?"

  "Correct." Rip took the counter stylus and inscribed his
name, serial number, and signature on the blank plastic sheet. Gears whirred as the data was recorded.

  The spaceman vanished into an inner room and reappeared in a moment lugging a plastic case called a space pack, or "spack" for short. It contained complete personal equipment for space travel. Rip grabbed it. "Fast service. Thanks, Rocky." All spacemen were called "Rocky" if you didn't know their names. It was an abbreviation for rocketeer, a title all of them had once carried.

  Valve Eight was some distance away. Rip decided a cross ramp would be faster than the moving track. He swung the spack to his shoulder and made his legs go. Seconds were ticking off, and he had an idea that the SCN Scorpius would make space on time, whether or not he arrived. He lengthened his stride and rounded a turn by going right up on the wall, using a powerful leg thrust against a ventilator tube for momentum.

  He passed an observation port as he reached the platform rim, and caught a glimpse of ruddy rocket exhaust flames outlined against the dark curve of Earth. That would be the Terra rocket making its controlled fall to home, with Flip aboard. Without slowing, he leaped across the high-speed track, narrowly missing a senior space officer. He shouted his apologies, and gained the entrance to Valve Eight just as the high buzz of the radiation warning sounded, signaling a nuclear drive cruiser preparing to take off.

  Nine faces of assorted colors and expressions turned to him. He had a quick impression of black tunics and trousers. He had found his detachment! Without slowing, he called, "Follow me!"

  The cruiser's safety officer had been keeping an eye on the clock, his forehead creased in a frown as he saw that only a few seconds remained to departure time. He walked to the valve opening and looked out. If his passengers were not in sight, he would have to reset the clock.

  Rip went through the valve opening at top speed. He crashed head on into the safety officer.

  The safety officer was driven across the deck, his arms pumping for balance. He grabbed at the nearest thing, which happened to be the deputy cruiser commander.

  The preset clock reached firing time. The valve slid shut and the takeoff bell reverberated through the ship.

  And so it happened that the spacemen of the SCN Scorpius turned their valves, threw their controls and disengaged their boron control rods, and the great cruiser flashed into space--while the deputy commander and the safety officer were completely tangled with a very flustered and unhappy new Planeteer lieutenant.

  Sergeant Major Koa and his men had made it before the valve closed. Koa, a seven-foot Hawaiian, took in the situation and said crisply in a voice all could hear, "I'll bust the bubble of any son of a space sausage who laughs!"

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rake That Radiation!

  The deputy commander and the safety officer got untangled and hurried to their post, with no more than black looks at Rip. He got to his feet, his face crimson with embarrassment. A fine entrance for a Planeteer officer, especially one on his first orders!

  Around him the spacemen were settling in their acceleration seats or snapping belts to safety hooks. From the direction of the stern came a rising roar as methane, heated to a liquid, dropped into the blast tubes, flaming into pure carbon and hydrogen under the terrible heat of the atomic drive.

  Rip had to lean against the acceleration. Fighting for balance, he picked up his spack and made his way to the nine enlisted Planeteers. They had braced against the ship's drive by sitting with backs against bulkheads or by lying flat on the magnesium deck. Sergeant Major Koa was seated against a vertical brace, his brown face wreathed in a grin.

  Rip looked him over carefully. There was a saying among the Planeteers that an officer was only as good as his senior sergeant. Koa's looks were reassuring. His face was good-humored, but he had a solid jaw and a mouth that could get tough when necessary. Rip wondered a little at his size. Big men usually didn't go to space; they were too subject to space sickness. Koa must be a special case.

  Rip slid to the floor next to the sergeant major and stuck out his hand. He sensed the strength in Koa's big fist as it closed over his.

  Koa said, "Sir, that was the best fleedle I've ever seen an earthling make. You been on Venus?"

  Rip eyed him suspiciously, wondering if the big Planeteer was laughing at him. Koa was grinning, but it was a friendly grin. "What is a fleedle?" Rip demanded. "I've never been on Venus."

  "It's the way the water hole people fight," Koa explained. "They're like a bunch of rubber balls when they get to fighting. They ram each other with their heads."

  Rip searched his memory for data on Venus. He couldn't recall any mention of fleedling. Venusians, if his memory was right, had a sort of blowgun as a main weapon. He told Koa so.

  The sergeant major nodded. "That's when they mean business, Lieutenant. Fleedling is more like us fighting with our fists. Sort of a sport. Great Cosmos! The way they dive at each other is something to see."

  Rip grinned. "I didn't know I was going to fleedle those officers. It isn't the way I usually enter a cruiser." He hadn't entered many. He added, "I suppose I ought to report to someone."

  Koa shook his head. "No use, sir. You can't walk around very well until the ship reaches Brennschluss. Besides, you won't find any space officers who'll talk to you."

  Rip stared. "Why not?"

  "Because we're Planeteers. They'll give us the treatment. They always do. When the commander of this bucket gets good and ready, he'll send for you. Until then, we might as well take it easy." He pulled a bar of Venusian chru from his pocket. "Have some. It'll make breathing easier."

  The terrific acceleration made breathing a little uncomfortable, but it was not too bad. The chief effect was to make Rip feel as though a ton of invisible feathers were crushing him against the vertical brace. He accepted a bite of the bittersweet vegetable candy and munched thoughtfully. Koa seemed to take it for granted that the spacemen would give them a rough time.

  He asked, "Aren't there any spacemen who get along with the Special Order Squadrons?"

  "Never met one." Koa chewed chru. "And I was on the Icarus when the whole thing started."

  Rip looked at him in surprise. Koa didn't seem that old. The bad feeling between spacemen and the Special Order Squadrons had started about eighteen years ago, when the cruiser Icarus had taken the first Planeteers to Mercury.

  He reviewed the history of the expedition. The spacemen's job had been to land the newly created Special Order Squadron on the hot planet. The job of the squadron was to explore it. Somehow confusion developed, and the spacemen, including the officers, later reported that the squadron had instructed them to land on the sun side of Mercury, which would have destroyed the spaceship and its crew, or so they believed at the time.

  The commanding officer of the squadron denied issuing such an order. He said his instructions were to land as close as possible to the sun side, but not on it. Whatever the truth--and Rip believed the SOS version, of course--the crew of the Icarus mutinied, or tried to. They made the landing on Mercury with squadron guns pointed at their heads. Of course, they found that a sun-side landing wouldn't have hurt the ship. The whole affair was pretty well hushed up, but it produced bad feeling between the Special Order Squadrons and the spacemen. "Trigger-happy space bums," the spacemen called them, and much worse, besides.

  The men of the Special Order Squadrons, searching for a handy nickname, had called themselves Planeteers, because most of their work was on the planets. As Maj. Joe Barris had told the officers of Rip's class, "You might say the spacemen own space, but we Planeteers own everything solid that's found in it."

  The Planeteers were the specialists--in science, exploration, colonization, and fighting. The spacemen carried them back and forth, kept them supplied, and handled their message traffic. The Planeteers did the hard work and the important work--or so they believed.

  To become a Planeteer, a recruit had to pass rigid intelligence, physical, aptitude, and psychological tests. Fewer than fifteen out of each one hundred who applied we
re chosen. Then there were two years of hard training on the space platform and the moon before a recruit was finally accepted as a Planeteer private. Out of each fifteen who started training, an average of five fell by the wayside.

  For Planeteer officers, the requirements were even tougher. Only one out of each five hundred applicants finally received a commission. Six years of training made them proficient in the techniques of exploration, fighting, rocketeering, and both navigation and astrogation. In addition, each became a full-fledged specialist in one field of science. Rip's specialty was astrophysics.

  Sergeant Major Koa continued, "That business on the Icarus started the war, but both sides have been feeding it ever since. I have to admit that we Planeteers lord it over the spacemen like we were old man Cosmos himself. So they get back at us with dirty little tricks while we're on their ships. We command on the planets, but they command in space. And they sure get a great big nuclear charge out of commanding us to do the dirty work!"