by Anthology
His voice was so loud that Rip heard him even through the bubble. He stepped out of the boat and faced the irate commander.
O'Brine ordered, "Get him out of that suit."
Two spacemen jumped forward. One twisted Rip's bubble free and lifted it off. The heavy air of the ship hit him with physical force.
O'Brine grated, "You're under arrest, Foster, for firing on the Scorpius, for insubordination, and for conduct unbecoming an officer. Get out of that suit and get flaming. It's the space pot for you."
Rip had to grin. He couldn't help it. He started to reply, but the heavy air of the cruiser, so much richer and denser than that of the suits, was too much. He fell, unconscious.
There was no gravity to pull him to the floor, but the action of his relaxing muscles swung him slowly until he lay facedown in the air a few feet above the floor.
Commander O'Brine stared for a moment, then took the unconscious Planeteer and swung him upright. His quick eyes took in the patch on the arm, the safety line tied tightly. He roared, "Quick! Get him to the wound ward!"
* * * * *
Rip came back to consciousness on the operating table. The wound in his arm had been neatly repaired, and below the wound, where his arm had frozen, a plastic temperature bag was slowly bringing the cold flesh back to normal. On his other side, a pulsing pressure pump forced new blood from the ship's supplies into his veins.
A senior space officer, with the golden lancet of the medical service on his tunic, bent over him. "How do you feel?"
Rip's voice surprised him. It was as full and strong as ever. "I feel wonderful. Can I get up?"
"When we get enough blood into you, and your arm is fully restored."
Commander O'Brine appeared in the door frame. "Can he talk?"
"Yes. He's fine, sir."
O'Brine glared down at Rip. "Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn't have you treated for space madness and then toss you in the space pot until we reach Earth?"
"Best reason in the galaxy," Rip said cheerfully. "But before we talk about it, I want to know how my men are. One got cut, and another had his bubble cracked. Also, one of the Connies got badly cut, another had some broken bones, and a third one bled into high vack when Koa cracked his bubble."
The doctor answered Rip's question. "Your men are all right. We put the one with the cracked bubble into high compression for a while, just to relieve his pain a little. The other one didn't bleed much. He's back in the squad room right now. Two of the prisoners are patched up, but the third one is in the other operating room. I don't know whether we can save him or not. We're trying."
O'Brine nodded. "Thanks, Doctor. Now, Foster, start talking. You fired on this ship, scored a hit, and broke the air seal. No casualties, fortunately. But by forcing us to accelerate at optimum speed, you caused so much breakage of ship's stores that we'll have to put into Marsport for new stocks. And on top of all that, you insulted me within the hearing of every man on the ship. I don't mind being insulted by Planeteers. I'm used to it. But when it's done over the communications system, it's bad for discipline."
Rip tried to keep a straight face. He said mildly, "Sir, I'm surprised you even give me a chance to explain."
"I wouldn't have," O'Brine said frankly. "I would have shot off a special message to Earth, relieving you of command and asking for Discipline Board action. But when I saw those Connie prisoners, I knew there was more to this than just a young space pup going vack-wacky."
"There was, Commander." Rip recited the events of the past few hours while the Irishman listened with growing amazement. "I had to convince you in a hurry that we still held the asteroid, so I used some insulting phrases that would let you know, without any doubt, who was talking. And you did know, didn't you, sir?"
O'Brine flushed. For a long moment his glance locked with Rip's, then he roared with laughter.
Rip grinned his relief. "My apologies, sir."
"Accepted," O'Brine chuckled. "I'm rather sorry I don't have an excuse for dumping you in the space pot, though, Foster. Your explanation is acceptable, but I have a suspicion that you enjoyed calling me names."
"I might have," Rip admitted, "but I wasn't in very good shape. The only thing I could think of was getting into air so I could have my arm treated. Commander, we've moved the asteroid. Now we have to correct course. And we have to get some new equipment, including nuclite shielding. Also, sir, I'd appreciate it if you'd let my men clean up and eat. They haven't been in air since we left the cruiser."
For answer, O'Brine strode to the operating-room communicator. "Get it," he called. "The deputy commander will prepare landing boat one and issue new space suits and helmets for all Planeteers with damaged equipment. Put in two rolls of nuclite. Sergeant Major Koa will see that all Planeteers have an opportunity to clean up and eat. They will return to the asteroid in one hour."
Rip asked, "Will I be able to go into space by then?"
The doctor replied, "Your arm will be normal in about twenty minutes. It will ache some, but you'll have full use of it. We'll bring you back to the ship in about twenty-four hours for another look at it, just to be sure."
Sixty minutes later, clean, fed, and contented, the Planeteers were again on the thorium planet, while the Scorpius, riding the same orbit, stood by a few miles out in space.
The asteroid and the great cruiser arched high above the belt of tiny worlds in the orbit Rip had set, traveling together toward distant Mars.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mercury Transit
The long hours passed, and only Rip's chronometer told him when the end of a day was reached. The Planeteers alternately worked on the surface and rested in the air of the landing boat compartment, while the asteroid sped steadily on its way.
When a series of sightings over several days gave Rip enough exact data to work on, he recalculated the orbit, found the amount that the course had to be corrected, and supervised the cutting of new holes in the metal.
Tubes of ordinary rocket fuel were placed in these and fired, and the thrust moved the asteroid slightly, just enough to make the corrections Rip needed. It was not necessary to take to the landing boat for these blasts. The Planeteers retired to their cave, which was now lined with nuclite as a protection against radiation.
Rip watched his dosimeter climb steadily as the radiation dosage mounted. Then he took the landing boat to the Scorpius, talked the problem over with the ship's medical department, and arranged for his men to take injections that would keep them from getting radiation sickness.
They left the asteroid belt far behind and passed within ten thousand miles of Mars. The Scorpius sent its entire complement of snapper-boats to the asteroid for protection, in case Consops made another try, then flamed off to Marsport to put in new supplies to replace those damaged when Rip had forced sudden and disastrous acceleration.
The asteroid had reached Earth's solar orbit before the cruiser returned, though Earth itself was on the other side of the sun. Rip ordered a survey and found the best place on the dark side to make a new base. The Planeteers cut out a cave with the torch, lined it with nuclite, and moved in the supplies. It would be their base to the end of the trip.
The sun was very hot now. On the sunny side of the asteroid the temperature had soared far past the boiling point of water. But on the dark side, Rip measured temperatures close to absolute zero.
When the Scorpius returned, he arranged with Commander O'Brine for the Planeteers to take turns going to the cruiser for showers and decent meals.
The asteroid approached the orbit of Venus, but the bright planet was some distance away, at its greatest elongation to the east of the sun. Mercury, however, loomed larger and larger. They would pass close to the hot planet.
O'Brine recalled Rip to the Scorpius and handed him a message.
Asteroid now within protection reach of Mercury and Terra bases. Your escort no longer required. Proceed immediately Titan, take on cargo and personnel.
The co
mmander sighed. "Looks like I'll never get to Earth long enough to see my family."
Rip sympathized. "Tough, sir. Perhaps the cargo from Titan will be scheduled for Terra."
"That's what I hope," O'Brine agreed. "Well, here's where we part. Is there anything you need?"
Rip made a mental check on supplies. He had more than enough. "The only thing we need is a long-range communicator, sir. We'll need one to contact the planet bases."
"I'll see that you get one." The Irishman thrust out his hand. "Stay out of high vack, Foster. Too bad you didn't join us instead of the Planeteers. I might have made a decent officer out of you."
Rip grinned. "That's a real compliment, sir. I might return it by saying that you have the makings of a Planeteer officer yourself."
O'Brine chuckled. "All right. Let's declare a truce, Planeteer. We'll meet again. Space isn't very big."
A short time later Rip stood in front of his asteroid base and watched the great cruiser drive into space. A short distance away a snapper-boat was lashed to the landing boat. O'Brine had left it, with a word of warning.
"These Connies are plenty smart. I don't like leaving you unprotected, even within reach of Mercury and Terra, but orders are orders. Keep the snapper-boat, and you'll at least be able to put up a fight if you bump into trouble."
The asteroid sped on its lonely way for two days, and then a cruiser came out of space, its nuclear drive glowing. The Planeteers manned the rocket launcher, and Rip and Santos stood by the snapper-boat, just in case, but the cruiser was the Sagittarius, out of Mercury.
Capt. Go Sian-tek, a Chinese Planeteer officer, arrived in one of the cruiser's boats with three enlisted men.
Captain Go greeted Rip and his men, then handed over a plastic stylus plate ordering Rip to deliver six cubic meters of thorium for use on Mercury. While Koa supervised the cutting of the block, Rip and the captain chatted.
The Mercurian Planeteer base was in the twilight zone, but the Planeteers always worked on the sun side, wearing special alloy suits to mine the precious nuclite that only the hot planet provided.
At some time during its first years, Mercury had been so close to the sun that its temperature was driven high enough to permit a subatomic thermonuclear reaction. The reaction had shorn some elements of their electrons and left a thin coating of material composed almost entirely of neutrons. The nuclite was incredibly dense. It could be handled only in low gravity because of its weight. But nothing else provided the shielding against radiation and meteors half so well, and it was in great demand.
"Things aren't so bad," Go told Rip. "The base is comfortable, and we only work a two-hour shift out of each ten. We've had a plague of silly dillies recently. They got into one man's suit while we were working, but mostly they're just a nuisance."
Rip had heard of the creatures. They were like Earth armadillos, except that they were silicon animals and not carbon like those of Earth. They were drawn to oxygen like iron to a magnet, and their diamond-hard tongues, used for drilling rock in order to get the minerals on which they lived, could drive right through a space suit. Or, if these animals worked undetected for a while, they could drill through the shell of a space station.
Scralabus primus was the scientific name of the creature, but the fact that it looked like a silicon armadillo had given it the popular name of "silly dilly." Apart from its desire for oxygen, it was harmless.
Koa reported, "Sir, the block of thorium is ready. We've hung it on a line behind the landing-boat. The blast won't hurt it, and it's too big to get inside the boat."
"Fine, Koa. Well, Captain, that does it."
The Mercurian Planeteers got into their craft and blasted off, trailing the block of thorium in their exhaust. Rip watched the cruiser take the craft and thorium aboard, then drive toward Mercury, brilliant sunlight reflecting from its sleek sides. The planet was only a short distance away by spaceship. It was the largest thing in space, except for the sun, as seen from the asteroid.
Past the orbit of Mercury, the sun side of the asteroid grew dangerously hot for men in space suits. Rip and the Planeteers stayed in the bitter cold of the dark side, which ceased to be entirely dark. The temperature rose somewhat. They were close enough to the sun that the prominences, great flaming tongues of hydrogen that sped many thousands of miles into space, gave them light and enough heat to register on Rip's instruments.
Mercury was left far behind, and Earth could not be seen because of the sun. There was nothing to do now but ride out the rest of the trip as comfortably as possible, until it was time to throw the asteroid into a series of ever-tightening elliptical orbits around Earth, known as braking ellipses. The method would use Earth's gravity to slow them down to the proper speed. A single atomic bomb and a half dozen tubes of rocket fuel remained.
Then, as Rip was enjoying the comfort of air during his off-watch hour in the boat compartment, Koa beat an alarm on the door.
Rip and the Planeteers got into suits and opened up.
"It's Terra base calling on the communicator, sir," Koa reported. "Urgent message, they said, and they want to talk to you personally."
Rip hurried to the cave. The communicator indicator light was glowing bright red. He plugged in his helmet circuit and said, "This is Lieutenant Foster. Go ahead."
A voice crackled across space from Earth. "This is Terra base. Foster, a Consops cruiser has apparently been hiding behind the sun waiting for you. Our screens just picked it up, heading your way. We've sent orders to the Sagittarius on Mercury to give you cover, and the Aquila has taken off from here. But get this, Foster. The Consops cruiser will reach you first. You have about one hour. Do you understand?"
Rip understood all right. He understood too well. "Got you," he said shortly. "Now what?"
The communicator buzzed. "Take any appropriate action. You're on your own. Sorry. Sending the cruisers is all we can do. We'll stand by for word from you. If you think of any way we can help, let us know."
Rip asked, "How long before the cruisers arrive?"
"You're too close to us for them to move fast. They'll have to use time accelerating and decelerating. The Sagittarius should arrive in something less than two hours and the Aquila a few minutes later."
The communicator paused, then continued. "One thing more, Foster. The Connies know how badly we want that asteroid, but they also know we don't want it enough to start a war. Got that?"
"Got it," Rip stated wryly. "I got it good. Thanks for the warning, Terra base. Foster off."
"Terra base off. Stay out of high vack."
Fine advice, if it could be taken. Rip stared up at the brilliant stars, thinking fast. The Connie would have almost an hour's lead on the space-patrol cruisers. In that hour, if the Connie were willing to pay the price in blasted snapper-boats, Consops would have the asteroid. And Terra base had made it clear that the space patrol would not try to blast the Connie cruiser, because that would mean war.
Added together, the facts said just one thing: They had one hour in which to think of some way to hold off the Connies for an additional hour.
The Planeteers were clustered around him. Rip asked grimly, "Any of you ever study the ancient art of magic?"
The Planeteers remained silent and tense.
"Magic is what we need," Rip told them. "We have to make the whole asteroid disappear, or else we have to conjure up a space cruiser out of the thorium. Otherwise, we have barely an hour till we're either prisoners or dead!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Peril!
Sergeant major Koa asked thoughtfully, "Sir, would it do the Connie much good to launch boats this close to the sun? They'd have to use too much fuel just keeping position."
"You could be right," Rip said slowly. Koa had a point! To counter gravitational attraction took velocity, which meant consumption of fuel. Maneuvering boats meant rapid velocity changes. Against the sun's terrific gravity at this distance, it also meant maximum thrust and maximum fuel flow most of the time. The as
teroid, in a planned orbit with the correct velocity, was safe enough, and the Connie cruiser would simply match the asteroid's orbit. But boats, which had to maneuver, were another matter.
Rip figured quickly. In accordance with Newton's Law, gravitational attraction increased rapidly on approaching a body. If he could put the asteroid even closer to the sun, the boat problem would become worse, until even a small velocity change in the wrong direction could leave a boat in the terrible position of not having enough thrust for a long enough time to keep from being drawn into the sun.
But to change the asteroid's orbit was dangerous! It meant losing just enough velocity to be drawn closer to the sun, and then picking up a much higher velocity to get free again!