Destiny's Orbit

by Donald A. Wollheim (as David Grinnell)

  The wheel was rolling along and Ajax, clinging to his bar, was watching the unreeling narrow roadway over the shoulder of the spider-type driving the omniwheel, when suddenly he saw another large wheel rolling swiftly towards them on a crosswise track.

  He stared at it, and thought, Surely we will crash! Then he thought, Surely the driver must know. Then he yelled suddenly, "Look out!"

  The spider at the controls jammed on something. There was a grating, jarring noise, and the two vehicles slid together, bounced off each other. The omniwheel with Ajax in it skittered off the road; bounced onto the tops of the flat houses bordering the path; caromed off a mushroom-topped tower, and plopped into the street alongside the elevated roadway. It whirled around, the flopped on its side, amid the screams and yowls of the assorted riders.

  "Sabotage!" muttered Ajax, climbing off the rounded side of the carriage. "It was planned." He had no grounds for such thoughts, but surely it had to be so. The inside was a scramble of bodies trying to get out of the rounded portal which had opened in the side. Ajax was about to shove his own way into the mass of hairy, shelly, slimy, and spiny bodies when he noticed the driver hunched up over his seat, unmoving.

  He made his way back, got hold of the Martian's rounded middle part, and heaved. The driver came up—he was surprisingly light—and as he came to the ground, the Martian's two big compound eyes popped open.

  "Hurt?" Ajax queried anxiously, feeling somehow that, as his presence was probably responsible for the accident, he ought to take care of the injured.

  The Martian got to his feet, all eight of them, and limped to the door, with Ajax steadying him by a hand on his round furry central body, slung on the eight legs. "Easy, boy," said Ajax and the two of them were the last ones out.

  There was a scurrying and worrying around the wrecked vehicle; but with surprisingly little time, the thing was righted, worked back on the road by a series of cranelike machines. The passengers piled back with a different driver and the omniwheel rolled off, leaving Ajax and the ex-driver alone in the street.

  "Come in and get something to sustain yourself," said Ajax and led the spidery Martian into a food-dispensary. There Ajax squatted on one of the mushroom-like stools that dotted the floor while the spider took a grasp of an overhead bar and hung head down from that, in the manner of his kind.

  "Thank you for saving me," said the spider, "but you might just as well have scrapped me. I have failed in my first profession. I shall be disowned and my eggs will be addled."

  "Oh, no," protested Ajax. "Don't say that. It wasn't your

  fault. I saw that other wheel coming into us. It was then-

  fault." s

  "It may be," replied the ex-driver, "but I have lost my web and cannot show my face again in my family spinnery. There is nothing left for me. And I was so willing to work and to make my way in the world.",

  "Never mind," said Ajax, "perhaps you can come along with me and assist me. I can use a good adjutant, and I feel sure that you couldn't be a spy—you are the least. . ."

  "Me a spy? What is that? If you really want such an outcast as I shall be, I will go with you." The spider's curious face, which resembled that of a Pekinese dog, with unusually large greenish eyes, set on a rather furry reddish basketball, in turn perched upon eight long many-jointed legs—he used the front two for hands when not walking-wrinkled in pleasure. "I have found a new web!"

  "Yes," Ajax nodded. "I can use a faithful follower. Do you have a name?"

  "I am the Third Least Wuj, of the Spinnery of the Northern Panel, and the Eggery of the Silvery Downs," said the spider-being.

  "And I am Ajax Calkins, who has a place in destiny," remarked the young man modestly.

  "Good," said the Wuj. "I do not know the town, but perhaps we should be on our way. I am curious to see it."

  Ajax smiled, rose to his feet, wrapped his electronically

  warmed Mars cloak about him, adjusted his oxygen blower

  closer to his face, and strode out, followed by the Wuj on

  skittering legs.

  "We must be close now to my address," he said, and read it off to the Wuj.

  The Martian's nose wrinkled. "We can walk it easily," was his advice. "Let me show you."

  The odd pair walked off down the narrow street. Martians of assorted types and sizes went about their business; and such is the courtesy of the United Beings, none stared rudely after the odd couple.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Aeneas had his Achates; Sherlock Holmes had his Watson; and Ajax Calkins now had his own faithful follower, he thought, as he and the Third Least Wuj proceeded along the Martian street. Was it not fitting, he thought, that a man destined to accomplish deeds beyond the imagining of the greatest conquerors and explorers of olden times should have a follower unlike that given to any pioneer before?

  Yes, destiny was opening the way for him. If ever he had had any doubts—and he remembered some unpleasant moments with his tutors during college courses—this sign surely put them to rest, once and for all. The universe was his oyster, and he would find a way now to open it. Their destination proved to be a rather third-rate roost in one of those indefinite comer districts where the indefinable elements of the population tend to accumulate, like the fuzz in a pocket. On the edge of one of the spider-folk residential districts, over the line from a centipede factory area, with a branch of squidge collective housing penetrating nearby, the roost housed many types, and among them were a scattering of down-and-out Earthmen, hangers on, the poorer class of asteroid miners.

  Anton Smallways, among these people was no odder and no stranger than any of them. Possibly had Ajax met him on Earth he would have turned up his nose. But here, the little man—he was under five feet tall and rather stocky-seemed just another oddball amid oddballs.

  Smallways wore a typical asteroid miner's coverall—metallic, airtight, self-heating, and dirty. His eyes were dark and red-rimmed; his hair was rather long in the manner of one who hasn't time to keep up appearances, and it was of a

  rather unusual color. As was also the short beard that covered the lower part of his face.

  Specifically they were of a blackish green coloring. To a man of the Twentieth Century this might have been amusing or strange, but Ajax recalled the fad of women of his time for dyeing their hair odd colors and remembered that occasionally their beaux would go along with the show and escort their lady friends with beards and mustache or hair dyed the latest fashionable chartreuse or rose-violet. So to Ajax a man with a greenish tint in his hair wasn't strange-even though on close inspection it appeared that the green was the true color and the black was—just the result of a space miner's usually unkempt appearance.

  Smallways looked at the Wuj without expression, and Ajax explained, "This Martian is a loyal follower and personal attendant. You can talk freely with him.''

  The Wuj jumped up, seized an overhanging bar, and clung to it, listening to their talk upside down. It seemed to disconcert Smallways but Ajax carried it off with the aplomb due to one to the manner born.

  Smallways, after satisfying himself as to Ajax's identity— though one could hardly doubt it, seeing the purple cloak and the expensive space captain's uniform he wore, even though his ship the Destiny was crewless, began to explain his situation.

  "You want to lay claim to a country not under the rule of any planet or regime? You seek a place never put beneath another's flag? You want a real guarantee of independence? Then listen to me."

  Ajax leaned forward, eyes agleam, waiting. The little man looked at him, reaching into his shoulder bag, and withdrew a few papers, which he spread out.

  "The Earth-Mars Space Administration,'' he began, "lays claim to sovereignty over all the planets from Mercury to Mars, and also the asteroids. They do not lay claim to Jupiter or its satellites, because these have never been colonized and because they remain a buffer between the inner planets and the rest of the universe so far mainly unexplored. However the Administration bars the rais
ing of banners there or any colonization.

  "The official EMSA definition of an asteroid is a small planetary mass whose orbit lies between that of Mars and Jupiter. No matter how lopsided or elongated the orbits of these thousands of bodies, they all come inside the orbit of Jupiter and outside that of Mars at some point. That is their reasoning.

  "Now ... it so happens that the planetoids that I and my friends represent are exceptions to this definition. True, absolute, indisputable exceptions—by definition outside of the bounds of the asteroids."

  He stopped, and Ajax Calkins sucked in his breath. The Wuj, hanging overhead, said nothing.

  Smallways spread out a sheet of paper marked with orbital lines. "My friends have staked out mining claims in the orbit of Jupiter. Our asteroids never depart from that orbit, remain permanently and undeviatingly in the exact track of Jupiter. They are known in the astronomy books as the Fore-Trojan Asteroids."

  Ajax frowned. "I do not know them, but go on."

  "Jupiter, besides being the largest planet," Smallways continued, "has the largest family of bodies attracted to it; but two groups of asteroids are unique in their relation to it. Following Jupiter in its orbit, exactly a third of its orbital distance behind it, is a group of several asteroid-sized worlds. They revolve around a common point in the orbit of Jupiter. Traveling ahead of Jupiter, also a third of the distance ahead, and at the same velocity, is the other group of asteroids, similarly revolving around a central point in the orbit. Together, these two sets of asteroids and Jupiter form a practical application of the famous gravitational problem of the three bodies.

  "I represent a group of miners who have established our base on the group of asteroids which precede Jupiter. There are valuable mining claims there. The two sets of asteroids are named after the heroes and warriors of the Trojan War epics. The names of the worlds I offer to you for your kingdom, are Achilles, Hector, Nestor, Agamemnon, Odysseus," here the green bearded man paused dramatically, "and Ajax!"

  Ajax Calkins stood up, eyes gleaming, and pounded the table in excitement. "That's it! I knew destiny was waiting for me! You're right. Ajax is it!"

  Anton Smallways sat back, nodding. The Wuj looked down at them, and said suddenly, "But what does the man of little ways want of you? Why does he need Ajax, and what is the price of the crown?"

  Ajax glanced up at him and sat down. "Yes, my faithful follower has put the matter. What will: this cost me, and why do you make me this offer?"

  Smallways folded his hands. "We need money and aid in building up our claims. We are very short of supplies; you can obtain them for us. We need the opportunity to buy space freighters and blasters for mining. In exchange for your financial assistance and your connections, we offer to make you our king, to supply you with a throne, and to stand behind you in establishing your own independence."

  "Fair enough," stated Ajax firmly, striking the table dramatically. "It's a deal!"

  They discussed the details of their bargain for an hour; then Ajax and the Wuj took their leave. They returned together to Ajax's suite in the best Earth hotel in the city. The Wuj suspended himself from the chandelier and went quietly to sleep, while Ajax got busy on the communi-channels and began placing the orders which Smallways had turned over to him. A huge load of food in Calkans; a small mountain of blasting equipment; a series of housing bubbles, neatly folded and compressed; several crates of the latest atomiguns and handbomb tossers, and a number of space scooters.

  It was two Mars days later when the Destiny took off for the next lap of its course. Ajax Calkins stood at the helm of his space yacht, setting the orbital directions on the panel (although they had previously been impressed on the robot tapes which actually ran the automatic space yacht, Ajax liked to play captain in the old-fashioned way), watching the sleek, streamlined, glistening yacht leave the ruddy globe of Mars behind in the black sky to venture on the long jump over the mass of the asteroids.

  It would be a twelve-day flight at fast acceleration, made a little clumsy by the long train of space barges which they had picked up in orbit. The cargo to be taken to the Fore-Trojans was packed in tanklike containers, attached one to the other like a string of sausages, sent into orbit, and then attached to the Destiny to be pulled like a tug towing barges. It might not have looked elegant from space, but it was certainly practical.

  Anton Smallways was a strange man, not at all talkative. He spent most of his time in his cabin, apparently reading or sleeping. As for the Third Least Wuj, after a momentary spell of space sickness, he made himself at home aboard the yacht.

  Of all the Martian races, it is only the spider-like one that is able to take to space flight with any equanimity. The other species all seem to suffer from acute spacesick-ness. None of the Martian races ever fly or ever had developed flying, and it is quite an un-Martian thing. Still, Ajax had managed to buy a space suit made for the Wuj's type, and the Wuj had tried it on with glee.

  The Wuj spent most of his time in the control room, watching the stars; watching the tiny dots of the asteroids move slowly past; seeing the disc of his native planet diminish in size; reading space manuals, and listening to Ajax declaim on glory, honor and the grandeur of fame.

  They had been out three days when the space radio began to beep the Destiny's call signal.

  Ajax tripped open the general heeding signal but kept the viewer off. As soon as he had indicated the open transmitter, the general message came in:

  "Calling Destiny. Calling space-yacht Destiny, Calkins captain. You are requested to return at once to port on

  Mars. This is a general broadcast. If the Destiny hears this, please call in at once and confirm."

  Ajax stood a moment in thought. At that instant, the sounds of the transmitter must have reached Smallways for he came padding into the room. "I wouldn't answer that," he said to Ajax. "They only want to make trouble."

  "I suspect as much," said Ajax. "I can't see any legitimate reason."

  "Of course," said Smallways. "You must first establish yourself with us, then speak to them. Until then, silence is wisdom."

  - They ignored the call. After a day, the automatic transmission from Mars faded out.

  On the seventh day, the Wuj was perched as usual in the control room, this time on one of the walls. He saw a blinking light on the otherwise unchanging control board. "Ajax," he called. "What's that?"

  Calkins, who had been reading a book about Alexander the Great, put the volume down and went over. "It's another ship," he said, and hastily punched the tracer board analog.

  In a few seconds, a series of lights blinked on. Ajax pursed his lips. "We're apparently being followed," he said at last.

  "No," said Smallways again appearing on the scene. "I think we're being overtaken." He pointed to the signals on the board. "That ship is coming up along our orbit and coming faster than us. It's a pursuit."

  "But who?" said Ajax, "and why?"

  Anton Smallways stroked his green beard. "I greatly fear it is not good," he said slowly. "I believe it must be a Saturnian raider."

  CHAPTER SIX

  "Saturnians!"' exclaimed Ajax, springing to attention and leaning over the rearward viewer plate. "Coming from that direction? From inward?"

  "Why not?" asked Anton slowly. "It is probably a scouting raider returning from an espionage expedition. If it overtakes us . . ."

  "And why are we worried about Saturnians?" inquired the Wuj, reaching up with his sixth leg and scratching his flat pugdog nose thoughtfully.

  "Don't you read the papers? Don't you know the situation in space?" asked Ajax. Then he answered himself, "But of course you don't. You Martians are most unworldly people—and as a young apprentice bus driver, I suppose you didn't bother with such great affairs."

  "I leave that to such leadership types as yourself, dear leader," said the Wuj.

  Ajax threw him a glance, but could detect no evidence of sarcasm in the comment. "Let's get this ship moving, first, and 111 explain."

 
He threw in the full power switches; and while he was rapidly directing the powerful space yacht by hand, Anton Smallways worked the computers and redrafted their higher speed orbit to their goal.

  Anxiously, Ajax watched the viewplates and the radar indicator. The spot which revealed their pursuer was definitely being outdistanced now. Anton finished his calculations, and they fed the result into the robot controls. The ship swerved a bit, altered its angle to the stars, roared a bit closer to the ecliptic, and shot ahead. "More risky," said Ajax, "but necessary."

  "This is a good ship," said Anton slowly. ""I am amazed at the speed."

  "The best money could buy," said Ajax modestly. "I had it secretly fitted out with extras only the EMSA Navy could afford and a few they couldn't."

  He reached over, threw on the radio switch. Instantly a faint voice could be heard; it was too faint to be audible, but every now and then they could hear the call signals of their ship, the Destiny, and a word or two strongly hinting at a demand for them to stop.

  "Not on your life," said Ajax, watching the board with one hand in his chest like a certain conqueror he had read about in European history.

  A half hour later, the pursuer was off the board and they were flashing on through space, a trim, neady purring luxury yacht, followed by a long train of container sausages.

  "What's wrong with the Saturnians?" asked the Wuj. "I am just ignorant, but I have a curiosity . . ."

  Ajax seated himself in the padded form-fitting pilot's chair— a conceit for this land of automatic ship—but it looked good. Anton Smallways grunted, then left the control room and slammed the door of his own cabin. He evidently wasn't interested.

  "When the first manned expedition from Earth reached Saturn, some thirty years ago, they found that the surface of that planet harbored a form of life entirely different from those of the inner planets. Saturn was cold, its gravity greater—though not as much as you might think when you realize that the solid surface of Saturn is actually only a small hard core within a huge gaseous globe—and is altogether inimical to the protoplasmic life as we know it on Earth and Mars and in the jungles of Venus.