Rocket Jumper

by John Blaine

  “Not long,” Rick assured him. “Someone would have come out to get a car and seen you. What happened to you?”

  “Bad judgment, I guess. I was suspicious of the Jones Boys, and I thought maybe a look into one of their trucks would tell me something. So I followed them into Vegas. When they went into the hotel I figured I had a few minutes. I was trying to break in when they came up behind me. The bad judgment was in working alone. I should have told the captain.”

  “He will next time,” Aster assured Rick.

  “Anyway, you were right,” Rick told the redhead. “If you hadn’t been unlucky, we’d have had the goods on the Joneses before they had a chance to trap the girls.”

  “The blackjack dealer broke down last night and agreed to turn state’s evidence,” Aster said. “That’s about all we needed to convict the whole ring. I guess we can consider the case closed.”

  That was good news to Rick. With the Joneses in custody, the intelligence officers had called in the FBI and picked up the blackjack-dealer radio-operator and several others Rick hadn’t even known about. It was a well-established, free-lance espionage operation, headed by the Joneses. They had specialized in collecting military intelligence and selling it to Iron Curtain countries. By sheer good luck, the information they had collected and sold about Ramshorn had been of interest to their customers, but not particularly damaging to American security. But had they been able to continue operations, sooner or later the long-distance microphone pickups and other devices would have gotten something really important.

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  After a day of practice on the crutches, Rick was told he could return to the lodge until time came to remove the cast. Jimmy came with medics and a Stokes stretcher. They loaded Rick into an ambulance, with Barby, Jan, and Scotty in watchful attendance, transferred him to the helicopter, and flew to the saddle below the lodge. The medics carried him in the stretcher to his cabin. They left the pair of crutches with him, cautioning him not to try to use them the first few times without help.

  Rick didn’t want to wait. He wanted to get out of doors where the sun was shining and the air fresh.

  “Let’s go up by the pool,” he requested. “I can get some sun while the rest of you swim. I’ll bet you haven’t been swimming for weeks.”

  “Not since the fire,” Mrs. Winston told him. “Are you sure you’re strong enough, Rick?”

  “I’m sure.”

  The girls ran to get into swimsuits, while Rick, supported by Scotty, began the journey to the pool. The few steps seemed like a mile, and Rick was glad to sink into a chair at the pool’s edge and let Scotty prop the damaged leg on another chair.

  Jan and Barby emerged in swimsuits, only Barby’s whiteness and thinness of arm showing that her cast had been removed the day before. But Jan had a huge bruise on her left side between the two parts of her suit. The bruise had faded to light purple, shading to green and yellow. Rick winced when he saw it.

  That must have hurt!

  “What did you hit?” he asked.

  Jan smiled at him.“Nothing. You did that.”

  “I did?” Rick was horrified.

  “Yes. I guess you grabbed for my belt to throw me out of the way, but you missed and got a handful of me instead.”

  Rick swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  Jan laughed at him. “I’m not. I didn’t even notice until long afterward. If you hadn’t thrown us upward like that, we’d have crashed into the rock with you and that heavy belt on top of us. I still don’t know how you did it. I’d never believe you could throw one hundred and fifteen pounds of me and one hundred and ten pounds of Barby, each with one arm.”

  “I can’t,” Rick said with a grin, and he meant it. “I’m just not capable of lifting that much weight with one arm.”

  Jan adjusted her bathing cap and poised to dive.

  Barby wrinkled her nose at Rick and Scotty. “I guess,”she said, “that these two are capable of doing whatever needs to be done, even if it’s impossible.”

  Rick watched the two slim figures cut the water surface almost without splash. He knew his limitations, but he was glad he had exceeded them just once, even if it was under the stress of sheer terror.

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  CHAPTER XX

  The Society of Fleas

  Barby soared gracefully into the air, executed a flawless figure eight, dropped to within two feet of ground level, jumped over Jimmy’s helicopter like Super-girl soaring over an obstacle, and sped like a blond bullet toward her brother. She came to a stop a foot in the air just in front of him, then settled to the ground like down.

  Rick, Scotty, Jan, and Jimmy applauded.

  “That was great, Barb,” Rick said. His friends were now much more adept than he in handling the rocket belt. The cast on his leg had given way to an elastic bandage, but the colonel-surgeon had been absolutely firm. He could walk-slowly, on level ground-but he could not yet put any stress on the leg.

  That meant he couldn’t fly the belt, because there was always the danger of a hard landing, all right for normal bones, but not for one newly knit.

  Captain Aster had repaired the belt, putting new pipes in place and repairing the other slight damage.

  Rick’s body had cushioned all but the control pipes. Aster himself had taken Rick’s place on Team Five, too, working with Scotty on the dry runs, and then on the first flight of Ramshorn.

  From a comfortable chair outside Building Ten, Rick had seen Ramshorn fly. After lift-off, it had made its runs, including one pass over Indian Springs. If Rick had blinked at the wrong moment, he would have missed it entirely, so fast was the speed of its passage.

  It was Jan’s turn to fly the belt. Fueling had been reduced to routine, and Jimmy and Scotty had reloaded the tanks with hydrazine and nitrogen in a few minutes.

  Rick thought the belt was all right for men, but it looked too bulky and unwieldy on the girls. He began to figure out how to create a less cumbersome model that the girls could havefor their own . With their lesser weight, it could be a bit smaller. The tanks could be lighter, maybe of fiberglass.

  Captain Aster pulled up in his jeep just as Jan took to the air. He watched with the others as she went up in a spiral, came to a stop about fifty feet in the air, then let herself drop halfway to the ground before she put on thrust and stopped the fall.

  Rick’s heart leaped into his throat as he watched Jan fall, and he shook his head as she soared upward again. He would have to scold her for taking chances. No, he decided, he wouldn’t. Jan knew exactly what she was doing every second. Just the same, he was relieved when she landed in front of him, her dark hair tousled from the wind.

  When Scotty and Jimmy had helped her out of the belt, Aster called, “Gather ‘round.”

  The group assembled at Rick’s chair and waited expectantly.

  Aster ticked off his news.“Item. The Jones Boys and company were indicted this morning by the Federal Page 82

  grand jury. Seven counts of violating the Espionage Act and the Atomic Energy Act, destruction of Federal property-the forest above the lodge is a national park-and attempted murder. The girls will have to testify at the trial, although their depositions were enough for the indictment.”

  “We’ll be there,” Barby promised.

  “Item.Ramshorn flies again tomorrow morning.At dawn.”

  Scotty whistled. “That means we’ll have to get to the peak by dark tonight and spend the night on the mountain.”

  Aster nodded.“Right. While Rick reclines like a rajah on his downy couch at the lodge, we’ll be freezing on top of the peak.”

  Jimmy glanced at his watch. “Time enough for another few flights, then we can fly Rick and the girls back to the lodge. They might even invite us to stay for dinner. We’ll only need an hour to load the gear and fly to position.”

  Jan smiled at Rick. “And to think you told me Jimmy couldn’t fly us in the helicopter.”

  Rick returned the smile. “I didn’t know it would turn out lik
e this. And I don’t ever want to buy another ticket for the same price.” He had been right about the regulations, but the fire and accident were considered an emergency, and no one had declared the emergency formally at an end. So Jimmy continued to carry the girls when he carried Rick, on the grounds that a properly qualified civilian employee rated nursing care. It wasn’t strictly according to the book, but the girls had become favorites atScarletLake and no one was apt to raise an objection.

  “Consideryourselves invited to dinner,” Barby told Aster and Jimmy.“Anything else, Captain?”

  “Oneitem more.A question. What animal is the world’s best jumper for its size?”

  “A kangaroo,” Jan offered.

  “Frog?”Barby asked.

  “Nope.It’s the lowly flea. I decided we need to form a society for those who can compete with fleas.In other words, a society for rocket jumpers. I had some membership cards drawn up.”

  Aster reached into his pocket and produced a stack of cards, which he passed out.

  Rick examined his with a grin. On the front was the outline of a flea with a flaming rocket strapped to its back. Superimposed on the outline was the legend:

  SOCIETY OF ROCKETING FLEAS

  In small print was: “This certifies that __________ is a qualified rocket jumper and a member of this Society.”

  Rick’s name had been hand printed in the blank.

  He turned the card over. On the back was the address of the society, given as Building Ten,Indian Page 83

  Springs,Nevada . Below was a list of officers: Chief Flea Richard Brant

  Flea in Charge of Operations Donald Scott She-Fleas in Charge of Morale Janice Miller Barbara Brant

  Flea in Charge of Logistics James Taylor

  Flea in Charge of Repairs Robert Aster

  At the very bottom of the card was the Society’s motto: all oh nothing

  “That’s the way it was,” Jan said softly.

  Rick looked at the grinning faces around him. “Was and is.”

  “As Flea in Charge of Operations, I suggest we scratch up a demonstration,” Scotty announced. “I will be glad to oblige if the Flea in Charge of Repairs will help refuel the belt.”

  “As one She-Flea for Morale, I will applaud while you fly,” Barby said.

  Jan smiled at Rick. “Does my new title mean I have to let you beat me at chess every time?”

  “Don’t you dare. At the moment it means you have to cheer me up with a Coke from the cooler in the back of the jeep.”

  The girl bowed gracefully.“Your servant, O Chief Flea!”

  Rick grinned happily. Ever since arriving back in the world of consciousness, he had gotten service not even a monarch could afford. Jan and Barby had hovered over him, anticipating his every wish, as though they considered it their life’s work. Rick sighed. He was enjoying it, and he couldn’t have asked for two better handmaidens, but he knew it was too good to last. Besides, he was impatient at being a semi-invalid. He wanted to become active once more.

  He watched as Scotty shot into the air at full thrust. He wanted to use the belt himself. Perhaps he could, in a couple more weeks.

  Jan brought him the Coke and her eyes followed his as he watched Scotty. “Never mind,” she said.

  “You’ll be as good as new very soon.”

  Jan was as good as Scotty in knowing what went on in his mind, Rick thought. “I’m not really upset about being forced to sit on the sidelines for a while,” he told her. “If the belt never flew again, it wouldn’t really matter. It operated the one time we really needed it.”

  Scotty landed in time to hear the last remark. “Yes,” he said definitely, “and if we ever need it again, I’m going to be ready.” He soared into the air once more.

  Rick watched, and tohimself he vowed that there wouldn’t be a second time. From now on, he and Scotty would travel without the girls. It was safer that way.

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  THE END

  ROCKET JUMPER

  A RICK BRANT SCIENCE-ADVENTURE STORY, No. 21

  BY JOHN BLAINE

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