by Anthology
Rip scratched his head. He was as puzzled as Santos. Why supply fighting equipment for a crew on an asteroid that couldn't possibly have any living thing on it?
He left the puzzle for the future and called for more cases. The next two yielded projectile-type handguns for ten men, with ammunition, and standard Planeteer space knives. The space knives had hidden blades, which were driven forth violently when the operator pushed a thumb lever, releasing the gas in a cartridge contained in the handle. The blades snapped forth with enough force to break a bubble or to cut through a space suit. They were designed for the sole purpose of space hand-to-hand combat.
The Planeteers looked at each other. What were they up against, that such equipment was needed on a barren asteroid?
Private Dowst opened a box that contained a complete tool kit, the tools designed to be handled by men in space suits. Yards of wire, for several purposes, were wound on reels. Two hand-driven dynamos capable of developing great power were included.
Corporal Pederson found a small case which contained books, the latest astronomical data sheets, and a space computer and scratch board. These were obviously for Rip's personal use. He examined them. There were all the references he would need for computing orbit, speed, and just about anything else that might be required. He had to admire the thoroughness of whoever had written the order. The unknown Planeteer had assumed that the space cruiser would not have all the astrophysics references necessary and had included a copy of each.
Several large cases remained. Koa ripped the side from one and let out an exclamation. Rip hurried over and looked in. His stomach did a quick orbital reverse. Great Cosmos! The thing was an atomic bomb!
Commander O'Brine leaned over his shoulder and peered at the lettering on the cylinder: EQUIVALENT TEN KT.
In other words, the explosion the harmless-looking cylinder could produce was equivalent to ten thousand tons of TNT, a chemical explosive no longer in actual use but still used for comparison.
Rip asked huskily, "Any more of those things?" The importance of the job was becoming increasingly clear to him. Nuclear explosives were not used without good reason. The fissionable material was too valuable for other purposes.
The sides came off the remaining cases. Some of them held fat tubes of conventional rocket fuel in solid form, the igniters carefully packed separately.
There were three other atomic bombs, making four in all. There were two bombs each of five KT and ten KT.
Commander O'Brine looked at the amazing assortment of stuff. "Does that check, clerk?"
The spaceman nodded. "Yes, sir. I found another notation that says food supplies and personal equipment to be supplied by the Scorpius."
"Well, vack me for a Venusian rabbit!" O'Brine muttered. He tugged at his ear. "You could dump me on that asteroid with this assortment of junk, and I'd spend the rest of my life there. I don't see how you can use this stuff to move an asteroid!"
"Maybe that's why the Federation sent Planeteers," Rip said--and was sorry the moment the words were out.
O'Brine's jaw muscles bulged, but he held his temper. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, Foster. We have to get along until the asteroid is safely in an orbit around Earth. After that, I'm going to take a great deal of pleasure in feeding you to the space fish, piece by piece."
It was Rip's turn to get red. "I'm sorry, Commander. Accept my apologies." He certainly had a lot to learn about space etiquette. There was a time for spacemen and Planeteers to fight each other and a time for them to cooperate.
"I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what to do with this stuff," O'Brine said. "If you need help, let me know."
And Rip knew his apology was accepted.
The deputy commander arrived, drew O'Brine aside, and whispered in his ear. The commander let out an exclamation and started out of the room. At the door he turned. "Better come along, Foster."
Rip followed as the commander led the way to his own quarters. At the door two space officers were waiting, their faces grave.
O'Brine motioned them to chairs. "All right, let's have it."
The senior space officer held out a sheet of flimsy. It was pale blue, the color used for highly confidential documents. "Sir, this came in Space Council special cipher."
"Read it aloud," O'Brine ordered.
"Yes, sir. It's addressed to you, this ship. From Planeteer Intelligence, Marsport. 'Consops cruiser departed general direction your area. Agents report crew Altair may have leaked data re asteroid. Take appropriate action.' It's signed 'Williams, SOS, Commanding.'"
Rip saw the meaning of the message instantly. The Consolidation of People's Governments, of Earth, traditional enemies and rivals of the Federation of Free Governments, needed radioactive minerals as badly as, or worse than, the Federation. In space it was first come, first take. They had to find the asteroid quickly. It was to prevent Consops from knowing of the asteroid that security measures had been taken. They hadn't worked, because of loose space chatter at Marsport.
O'Brine issued quick orders. "Now, get this. We have to work fast. Accelerate fifty percent, same course. I want two men on each screen. If anything of the right size shows up, decelerate until we can get mass and albedo measurements. Snap to it."
The space officers started out, but O'Brine stopped them. "Use one long-range screen for scanning high space toward Mars. Let me know the minute you get a blip, because it probably will be that Consops cruiser. Have the missile ports cleared for action."
Rip's eyes opened. Clear the missile ports? That meant getting the cruiser in fighting shape, ready for instant action. "You wouldn't fire on that Consops cruiser, would you, sir?"
O'Brine gave him a grim smile. "Certainly not, Foster. It's against orders to start anything with Consops cruisers. You know why. The situation is so tense that a fight between two spaceships might plunge Earth into war." His smile got even grimmer. "But you never know. The Consops ship might fire first. Or an accident might happen."
The commander leaned forward. "We'll find that asteroid for you, Mr. Planeteer. We'll put you on it and see you on your way. Then we'll ride space along with you, and if any Consops thieves try to take over and collect that thorium for themselves, they'll find Kevin O'Brine waiting. That's a promise."
Rip felt a lot better. He sat back in his chair and regarded the commander with mixed respect and something else. Against his will, he was beginning to like the man. No doubt of it, the Scorpius was well named. And the sting in the scorpion's tail was O'Brine himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Gray World
Rip rejoined his Planeteers in the supply room and motioned for them to gather around him. "I know why Terra base sent us the fighting equipment," he announced. "They were afraid word of this thorium asteroid would leak out to Consops--and it has. A Connie cruiser blasted off from Marsport and it's headed this way."
He watched the faces of his men carefully, to see how they would take the news. They merely looked at each other and shrugged. Conflict with Consops was nothing new to them.
"The freighter that found the asteroid landed at Marsport, didn't it?" Koa asked. Getting a nod from Rip, he went on, "Then I know what probably happened. The two things spacemen can't do are breathe high vack and keep their mouths shut. Some of the crew blabbed about the asteroid, probably at the Space Club. That's where they hang out. The Connies hang out there, too. Result, we get a Connie cruiser after the asteroid."
"You hit it," Rip acknowledged.
Corporal Santos shrugged. "If the Connies try to take the asteroid away, they'll have a real warm time. We have ten racks of rockets, twenty-four to a rack. That's a lot of snapper-boats we can pick off if they try to make a landing."
The Planeteers stopped talking as the voice horn sounded. "Get it! We are going into no-weight. Prepare to stay in no-weight indefinitely. Rotation stops in two minutes."
Rip realized why the order was given. The Scorpius could not maneuver while in a gravity spin, and O'
Brine wanted to be free to take action if necessary.
The voice horn came on again. "Now get it again. The ship may maneuver suddenly. Prepare for acceleration or deceleration without warning. One minute to no-weight."
Rip gave quick orders. "Get lines around the equipment and prepare to haul it. I'll get landing boats assigned, and we can load. Then prepare space packs. Lay out suits and bubbles. We want to be ready to go the moment we get the word."
Lines were taken from a locker and secured to the equipment. As the Planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. They were in no-weight. Rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. The deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. Rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "I need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "One stays on the asteroid with us."
"Take numbers five and six. I'll assign a pilot to bring number five back to the ship after you've landed."
"Thank you." Rip would have been surprised at the deputy's quick assent if Commander O'Brine hadn't shown him that the spacemen were ready to do anything possible to aid the Planeteers. He went back to the supply room and told Koa which boats were to be used, instructed him to get the supplies aboard, then made his way to Commander O'Brine's office.
O'Brine was not in. Rip searched and found him in the astroplot room, watching a 'scope. Green streaks called "blips" marked the panel, each one indicating an asteroid.
"All too small," O'Brine said. "We've only seen two large ones, and they were too large."
"Space is certainly full of junk," Rip commented. "At least this corner of it is pretty full."
A junior space officer overheard him. "This is nothing. We're on the edge of the asteroid belt. Closer to the middle, there's so much stuff a ship has to crawl through it."
Rip wandered over to the main control desk. A senior space officer was seated before a simple panel on which there were only a dozen small levers, a visiphone, and a radar screen. The screen was circular, with numbers around the rim like those on an Earth clock. In the center of the screen was a tiny circle. The central circle represented the Scorpius. The rest of the screen was the area dead ahead. Rip watched and saw several blips on it that indicated asteroids. They were all small. He watched, interested, as the Scorpius overtook them. Once, according to the screen, the cruiser passed under an asteroid, with a clearance of only a few hundred feet.
"You didn't miss that one by much," Rip told the space officer.
"Don't have to miss by much," he retorted. "A few feet are as good as a mile in space. Our blast might kick them around a little, and maybe there's a little mutual mass attraction, but we don't worry about it."
He pointed to a blip that was just swimming into view, a sharp green point against the screen. "We do have to worry about that one." He selected a lever and pulled it toward him.
Rip felt sudden weight against his feet. The green point on the screen moved downward, below center. The feeling of weight ceased. He knew what had happened, of course. Around the hull of the ship, set in evenly spaced lines, were a series of blast holes through which steam was fired. The steam was produced instantly by running water through the heat coils of the nuclear engine. By using groups or combinations of steam tubes, the control officer could move the ship in any direction, set it rolling, spin it end over end, or whirl it in an eccentric pattern.
"How do you decide which tubes to use?" Rip asked.
"Depends on what's happening. If we were ducking missiles from an enemy, I'd get orders from the commander. But to duck asteroids, there's no problem. I go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the ship. That way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. If I fired the top tubes, the ship would drop out from under those who were standing. They'd all end up on the overhead."
Rip watched for a while longer, then wandered back to Commander O'Brine. He was getting anxious. At first the task of capturing an asteroid and moving it back to Earth had been rather unreal, like some of the problems he had worked out while training on the space platform. Now he was no longer calm about it. He had faith in the Terra base Planeteer specialists, but they couldn't figure out everything for him. Most of the problems of getting the asteroid back to Earth would have to be solved by Lt. Richard Ingalls Peter Foster.
A junior space officer suddenly called, "Sir, I have a reading at two-seventy degrees, twenty-three degrees eight minutes high."
Commander O'Brine jumped up so fast that the action shot him to the ceiling. He kicked down again and leaned over the officer's 'scope. Rip got there by pulling himself right across the top of the chart table.
The green point of light on the 'scope was bigger than any other he had seen.
"It's about the right size," O'Brine said. There was excitement in his voice. "Correct course. Let's take a look at it."
All hands gripped something with which to steady themselves as the cruiser spun swiftly onto the new course. The control officer called, "I have it centered, sir. We'll reach it in about an hour at this speed."
"Jack it up," O'Brine ordered. "Heave some neutrons into it. Double speed, then decelerate to reach it in thirty minutes."
The control officer issued orders to the engine control room. In a moment acceleration plucked at them. O'Brine motioned to Rip. "Come on, Foster. Let's see what Analysis makes of this rock."
Rip followed the commander to the deck below, where the technical analysts were located. His heart was pounding a little faster than usual, and not from acceleration, either. He found himself wetting his lips frequently and thought, Get hold of it, boy. You've got nothing to worry about but high vacuum.
He didn't really believe it. There would be plenty to worry about. Like detonating nuclear bombs and trying to figure their blast reaction. Like figuring out the course that would take them closest to the sun without pulling them into it. Like a thousand things--all of them up to him.
The chief analyst greeted them. "We got the orders to change course, Commander. That gave us the location of the asteroid. We're already working on it."
"Anything yet?"
"No, sir. We'll have the albedo measurement in a few minutes. It'll take longer to figure the mass."
The asteroid's efficiency in reflecting sunlight was its albedo. The efficiency depended on the material of which it was made. The albedo of pure metallic thorium was known. If the asteroid's albedo matched it, that would be one piece of evidence.
In the same way, the mass of thorium was known. The measurements of the asteroid were being taken. They would be compared with a chunk of thorium of the same size. If it worked out, that would be evidence enough.
Commander O'Brine motioned to chairs. "Might as well sit down while we're waiting, Foster." He took one of the chairs and looked closely at Rip. Suddenly he grinned. "I thought Planeteers never got nervous."
"Who's nervous?" Rip retorted, then answered his own question truthfully. "I am. You're right, sir. The closer we get, the more scared I get."
"That's a good sign," O'Brine replied. "It means you'll be careful. Got any real doubts about the job?"
Rip thought it over and didn't think so. "Not any real ones. I think we can do it. But I'm nervous just the same. Great Cosmos, Commander! This is my first assignment, and they give me a whole world to myself and tell me to bring it home. Maybe it isn't a very big world, but that doesn't change things much."
O'Brine chuckled. "I never expected to get an admission like that from a Planeteer."
"And I," Rip retorted, "never expected to make one like that to a spaceman."
The chief analyst returned, a sheet of computations in his hand. "Report, sir. The albedo measurement is correct. This may be it."
"How long before we get the measurements and comparisons?"
"Ten minutes, perhaps."
Rip spoke up. "Sir, there's some data I'll need."
"What, Lieutenant?" The analyst got out a notebook.
"I'll need all possible data on the asteroid's speed, orbit, and physical measurements. I will have to figure a new orbit and what it will take to blast the mass into it."
"We'll get those. The orbit will not be exact, of course. We have only two reference points. But I think we'll come pretty close."
O'Brine nodded. "Do what you can, Chief. And when Foster gets down to doing his calculations, have your men run them through the electronic computer for him."
Rip thanked them both, then stood up. "Sir, I'm going back to my men. I want to be sure everything is ready. If there's a Connie cruiser headed this way, we don't want to lose any time."
"Good idea. I think we'll dump you on the asteroid, Foster, and then blast off. Not too far, of course. Just enough to lead the Connie away from you if its screen picks us up."