Walt & Leigh Richmond

by Phoenix Ship

  A smile crept over his features. "Your uncle wanted you to see to it personally that these projects were properly carried out?"

  Stan nodded.

  "And you recognize that the first two have been implemented in the proper manner?" Again Stan nodded.

  "Then why don't I assign you as, say, a vice president of AT, to take the Phoenix and carry out the project of the Jupiter moon?"

  Stan kept his voice dead with effort. "Yes, sir."

  "Do you know what the Phoenix is?"

  "She's a ramjet scoop ship, sir, that was readied to pirate air from Jupiter and to ferry personnel to Io to prepare the colony site, sir."

  "Very well. We will make you vice president in charge of the Jupiter project, and commander of the Phoenix. And for your part, you will sign over those shares to me."

  "No, sir."

  Weed's face fell and his voice showed the short leash on which his obviously childish temper would be held.

  "What now?" he asked with restrained fury.

  "The Phoenix will have to be rehabilitated. I will have to have a crew, and they must be trained. Then I can give you the proxies of which I spoke."

  Weed sat back grimly. But it was a perfect plan; and obviously, except for this evidently strong loyalty and compulsion, the boy was under control. Well, he could have an "accident" any time that he went out of control, once it was publicly established that he was enthusiastically with AT. The expense would be justified. They would actually save money by buying the loyalty of the Belters at the price of refurbishing the old hulk. And the boy might even get the project far enough underway so that it became commercially feasible as a corporate project, in the long run, after the coming war was over.

  "Very well," he said. "You will announce your loyalty to the AT Corporation as now set up, and will proclaim it widely and frequently." He watched the boy closely for reaction, but the glassy stare and the solemn nod were his only answer. "We will refurbish the Phoenix. It may take several months, and I shall demand your complete cooperation during that time."

  Stan nodded again, and again in the flat voice said, "I will pick my crew immediately, and set up quarters for training them. I will announce my loyalty to AT as now set up. You will see to it that the Phoenix is properly refurbished, and I will inspect it occasionally. When we are ready to take off, I will sign proxies for my shares to cover the time in which I shall be absent."

  Weed nodded to himself. Not a bad bargain at that, he decided. And, that "accident" could occur....

  Tobey Olsen had started work at the Ace Sector Shipyards of AT the day that the hunk of ungainly nickel-steel asteroid that was to become the Phoenix was towed into the yards.

  He'd been cable jumper during the laser-milling of the asteroid, when they put her into a free fall spin and milled her just as though she were in a lathe. He'd listened to the jokes about Trail Duster's Folly, and he'd laughed with the crews, but he'd believed in the hulk, and it had been pure magic to him, seeing the rounded, wad-cutter bullet form take shape.

  They couldn't do this on Earth, he had exulted to himself, watching the jutting crags and the jagged irregularities cut smooth by the knifing of the huge laser beams as the hulk rolled gently and smoothly in the "jaws" of its inernal lathe, and the steel-strong, smooth squat form of the hulk that was to be a scoop ship began to seem strangely akin to his own squat form. Squat but powerful. The changing G's that his mother had met while she carried him had formed his own body, smooth, blunt and powerful, as the lasers were forming the shining irregular chunk of nickel steel before him. The squashing he had undergone had not squandered the strength inherent in his structure, any more than the lasers were squandering the strength of the asteroid they milled so delicately. We both came out better for the treatment, he told himself, and to him the Phoenix became the symbol of all that was powerful, though misshapen by Earth standards, in the Belt.

  By the time the Phoenix hull was formed and the milling began that would make nests for 144 K-class ships at her back—the power structure for the bullet—Tobey had been made foreman of a small crew, doing part of that nulling. The waffle-like structure that would nest the K-classers was to him the epitome of beauty; a powerful nesting that would give the Phoenix a 144-ship boost into high acceleration. The ships would cut loose just before they hit Jupiter's atmosphere, would cut around, and would catch her on the far side, nesting in again to take the scoop ship on to Io.

  The tanks that went into the otherwise solid steel of the nose area, and the plugs that would open or close those tanks, were the work of other men; but the tanks were small in diameter and deep in length, and the delicate job of milling the interconnecting tubing from tank to tank was Tobey's; for by then he was one of the most skilled of the laser-lathemen of the Belt. During the building of the long corridors, cabins, common rooms and life support systems that filled the Phoenix backsides, Tobey was crewmaster.

  It was when the Phoenix was almost finished that Trail Duster had made him supervisor of the project It had been a proud day; but it had been less than a week later that he and the crew had been called off.

  "The Phoenix has got to wait," the red-headed director of AT had told him. "Earth is interdicting the rest of the system to Belters; we've got us a war to fight."

  Instead, he'd been supervising the reworking of every K-class that could be called in—the 144 scheduled to power the Phoenix, along with most of the privately owned ships of the Belt. There'd been little time and great fervor, and he'd worked the crews until they dropped, given them a bit of rest, and started them back on the job again.

  It was when he said "ready" that Trevor had said "go," and the Belter War of Independence had been underway.

  Things had changed then, with Trevor Dustin dead. Things had changed and stayed changed; and the old Phoenix had drifted there in the yards, fifteen miles from the nearest ship, a sort of stationary anchor point that defined one back comer of the yard—too big to move and too tied up in corporate policy to use; a vast, monumental junk pile, according to the new powers-that-be at the Ace Shipyards of Astro Technology.

  Now Tobey stared from the orders in his hand to the man who had brought the orders to him.

  "You're Star Duster," he said fiercely. "I heard you'd gone all-out for the new AT setup."

  "Yep," said Stan. "I reckoned you'd heard."

  "And you're going to refurbish the Phoenix? Finish her?"

  "Yep," said Stan. "I reckoned you might have heard that too."

  "Okay." Tobey's voice was far from friendly. "I'll get a foreman and a crew together. How fast a job you planning?" "A couple of months. Maybe three."

  Tobey whistled. "WelL" he said slowly, "she was nigh onto finished when we dropped her. We might could. Where you going to get the K-classP One hundred forty-four of them?" he asked, his voice soft, not dangerous, just soft

  "Don't reckon well get more than fourteen," Stan said, and waited.

  "Humph," said Tobey, and stayed silent Then, "You won't boost her very fast with fourteen," he said cruelly. "Ill get on her, Mr. Dustin." He turned to the door of his small office, opened it, then flung back over his shoulder, "You sure are trying on big britches for an Earthie."

  "I sure am trying on big britches for the son of a Belter," Stan said softly.

  Tobey stood with his hand on the door for a long minute, then turned slowly back into the office and closed the door softly behind him. He came to stand beside the slender, red-haired figure seated in the chair beside his desk; his powerful hands hanging limp at his sides.

  "I haven't given you a fair, have I?" he asked.

  "No," said Stan. "I didn't really expect you to; but I was hoping." Then he added, "I guess you're giving me a fair now. WHl you talk a minute?"

  Tobey nodded and seated himself at his desk. "Trail Duster," he said, "was . . . well, he was Mr. Belt. And I guess I didn't like it when they called you Star Duster."

  "That was the propaganda machine at AT," said Stan. "I gotta let the
m keep it up, too."

  "Gotta?"

  "Gotta.If we want. . . Tobey, let's start out by scotching some of the rumors you've heard. Not the propaganda. You can scotch that or not as you like. It's a machine product and most buy it, but some don't I don't think you buy it. But the rumors—that's something else again.

  "All right Rumor number one: The Phoenix is a rich boy's play toy. That one's true. If I weren't rich, I certainly couldn't have it Trevor made me rich by giving me his shares in AT. But the Phoenix is going to be used. Not just as a base here, or for scooting around the Belt having fun, but to go out and do the job she was intended to do. As soon as you can get her outfitted, well be taking off for Jupiter; and well be taking a complement of science personnel with us. If you find that you can go along with an idea like that, I'd be glad to have you aboard."

  "Not with fourteen K-class for power, you're not going to do the job. Takes a hundred forty-four-K-class to boost the Phoenix at three-G, and you'll not be safe around Jupiter with less than a three-G drive. Fourteen K-class would give you about a point-three-G drive."

  "Couldn't do it with that hunhP Yes, I know we couldn't However, we could run a scoop operation that way if we took our bloody time about it It's velocity that counts a-round Jupiter, not necessarily drive thrust. If we wanted to take, say, a hundred and thirteen to slow her down, and take a chance that our aiming was just right, we could do a dive with fourteen K-class." He watched the other narrowly.

  Tobey nodded, his expression still hard. "You could," he said coldly. "That what you're planning?" Then he went on without waiting for an answer: "You're right that speed's the important thing. And you figured that time just like out of an Earthie textbook. But you got to do better'n that There are a few other vectors to add in. Like original velocity, old Jupe's orbital speed, and whether or not you want to come to a complete stop relative to whatever you pick out to come to a complete stop relative to."

  Stan grinned to himself while he kept his face stem. The guy was hopping mad now, but at least he was listening. "And if I planned to do it that way, then that's how I'd figure," he said. "However, I was only pointing out that it would be possible, so I made the figures more or less arbitrary. From the pragmatic point of view I don't think that's a possible method, because I'm quite sure that AT won't play ball. I figure on getting fourteen K-class all right—and that's all I figure on. But I don't figure on keeping even those fourteen, because I expect that the powers at AT plan to let those K's boost me into a Hohmann orbit, and then they plan to yank them back. All of them. On that schedule, if they figure a true Hohmann orbit, I should get to Jupiter in about six years and, if I do, I could consider that I was a lucky son of a ... a Belter. One way or another, though, that would serve ATs purpose and get me out of their hair quite effectively for a bit, wouldn't you think?"

  Stan eyed the other speculatively for a moment. "And now," he continued coldly, "I have just put my life in your hands."

  Tobey's face was slowly losing its hard lines as he chewed the problem over before answering. Then, slowly, a grin crept out and his eyes began to twinkle. "Yep", he said, "I guess you have at that—if the story reads the way you're telling it. If AT is using the Phoenix to get you out of their hair, and you're on to it, then if I tell 'em you're on to it. .

  Stan grinned back at the square-set yard supervisor. "Now let's try rumor number two," he said quietly. "The one that says I'm happy with AT. That one's true too. I'm happier than hell with AT. I'm not very happy with how it's being run, or where it's going under present management—but AT isn't going that way much longer, nor will it be run by those boobs much longer."

  Tobey slid down into his desk chair and leaned back happily. "Hell," he said, "I could get killed in an accident just for listening to you. I hear you good, Star. What's the plan?"

  "Well." Stan picked up pencil and pad. "Obviously the Phoenix has got to have her own power system, independent of the K-class. And obviously it will have to be installed without AT knowing she's got it."

  Tobey raised one eyebrow. "She's a one hundred twelve gigaton mass. Star. If you've got a drive for her, you've got what they know to be impossible You could install it in front of their noses and they wouldn't believe it Don't know as I would either," he added.

  "Then take a look and see what you think." Stan began sketching rapidly. "While you're refitting the Phoenix, could you whomp up a Tesla coil system like this"—he continued to sketch—"that reacts with the first nuclear resonance level of a lithium hydrogen reaction?" Swiftly he drew lines on a skeletalized outline of the Phoenix. "We could feed hydrogen in here . . . and hthium through . . . here. The plasma reaction center will be contained by an alternating field effect. And we sweep the reaction products out by supplying the hydrogen under pressure. We should wind up with a tight little fusion reactor which would put out plenty of power, I'd think. Plenty. Even for a gigaton mass like the Phoenix."

  Tobey was staring at the sketch. "Ill be damned," he said, slowly. "Well, I'll be damned." He looked up at Stan with respect. "Now why couldn't I have thought of that one? A Tesla drive." Then his face clouded. "But look, a drive like that will sure push the Phoenix around the system. But, Star, it sure will be lethal to anything that gets in its wash And the yards—they'll be the first things in that wash."

  Stan nodded. "That's why we've got to get those K-class aboard. We've got to hold this—well, you're right; it's a Tesla drive—until we've got distance. Use the K's to boost us away from the Belt."

  "But, look, Star. With that drive, you ought to be able to pick up your own fuel on the way, if you had a magnetic pickup system. There's plenty of fuel in the solar wind to be picked up with a proper focusing mechanism. You could use this drive as a matchstick, say, to light a little hydrogen fusion candle at some distance behind your tail, which would be held in place by the focusing coils that collected the protons. It would make a real good ram-jet."

  Stan frowned, then his face cleared and brightened. "By damn, you're right. And you could, make a magnetic lens, set up external field coils like this. . . ." He sketched rapidly, pulled more paper to him, sketched some more, Tobey following his outline and sketching in details of his own. Finally, "That" he said, "should set us up a magnetic effect that would trap all the hydrogen a drive could use, and funnel it into a nice little hydrogen reaction sun at about twenty-five miles off the stern. Right?"

  Tobey went over the sketch again, drawing out the fields with his finger, seeming awed even at the touch of the sketch. Then, "It works," he said. "With that nickel-steel hull for a core, I expect we can get plenty of magnetic field for that system. Why, you could drive anything with that. Not just the Phoenix. You could . . . you could drive a small planet with that, and keep its sun right handy behind it. . .**

  Stan leaned back, staring at Tobey. "A planet," he said softly. "A small planet. With its own sun. Tobey, that's the answer to the quasars. Some people said they might be planets with their own drives, going space-hopping. And they were right. Tobey, we're going to the stars. Not just the system. The stars."

  "With the Phoenix?" Tobey seemed nonplussed.

  "Hell, no, not with the Phoenix. There's one little point in the Einstein equations that makes it pretty damned important to take a good-sized ship load when you go, you know; and to take along conditions under which a man can lead a fairly normal life. With a drive designed like this, we could get to Galaxy Center in twenty-one years. Take a year to build up to light speeds, then we cross the galaxy in no time. But that's nothing, shipboard time. If you go out one hundred thousand light-years in a ship and then come back . . . Well, there's two hundred thousand years of history has happened between you and the time you left. It's fun to think about. But without enough people along that speak your language, and without a home base that you can tolerate to stay on, it might get pretty damned upsetting.

  "No, Tobey. This makes it possible, and we're going to the stars. But not on the Phoenix. We were going to set up Io as a
colony—shucks, well set her up as a good-sized Galactic Scoutship. With what you might call a Tesla Tesseract drive. Call it a Teslaract drive for short. . ."

  Tobey considered this quietly for a long time. Then his face creased back into a huge grin. "A Teslaract drive—and a planet for a ship. Yep. I buy that."

  Then he leaned forward. "Now," he said brusquely, "I reckon that takes care of the long-range planning. But before we get to Jupiter to get to Io to build our Scoutship, we need the Phoenix. And we need to get her ready before AT gets hep or changes its mind. So we can .. ."

  It was several hours before the two of them drew back from pages of sketches, satisfied that the preliminary work for the immediate project was well underway.

  Leaning back in his chair, Tobey nodded to himself, watched the satisfied expression on Stan's face. "I'll start getting that crew together tonight," he said.

  "Picked crew, Tobey.All of them information-tight. But just in case there's a spy .. ."

  "There won't be any spies, Star."

  Stan looked at the other, realized he meant it, nodded. "Okay. But, Tobey, take my word for one thing: no gold belts. Not on your crew. Don't trust a gold belt unless I give you the word to trust him. Okay?"

  "I know about gold belts, Star. What I don't know is why you're wearing a gold belt"

  Stan looked down at it ruefully. "Yeah," he said. "I'm wearing one. And it's going to be a proud thing to wear one of these days. I think I've got some answers. But until I'm sure I'm right don't trust a gold belt I guess that's got to include me, too, doesn't it?"