by Phoenix Ship
From the comer of his eye Stan saw Tobey jerk forward, Jarl draw himself up, but he gestured to them both.
"Never mind," he said. "It doesn't work on me." Then, to the general: "Remember? I'm the robot who refused to robe."
The general smiled, twisting the ring on his finger. "It always did seem a little too pat to me, Dustin. Very well. For the present at least, it seems to be your move." He looked up, the smile gently twisting his lips.
Stan found himself admiring the man. A professional to the fingertips. "What do you mean, 'for the present at least'?" he asked.
The general relaxed into his seat, but the motion in no way decreased the basic military exactness of his bearing. "I could, of course," he said genially, "stand on my right to give my name, rank and serial number and to refuse other information. But that seems hardly justified in"—he stared slowly around him, at Tobey, at the small cabin—"congenial circumstances. Instead I should prefer simply to tell you that I am authorized to give you clearance to Jupiter to continue your mission."
Stan nodded to himself. "That's why you brought two hundred and eighty men to board me—fully aimed?" he asked.
"Oh, we didn't plan to let you take the go]''-belters along. But I think we might have spared you fourteen pilots to K-boost you to orbit. Then you and Dr. Lang and the young lady could have remained aboard. Paulsen was to be allowed to remain as well."
"Thanks," said Stan. "Kindly of you, I suppose."
"You'd have had the Sassy Lassie. You could possibly have made something of the trip."
Stan laughed. The general looked at him thoudhtfnlly.
"I think, however, that under present ciT"rnct',nces . . .*" He allowed his voice to drop, then continued. "Since things have taken a different turn from that which we, ah, expected, I have sufficient authority to allow you to proceed with your gold-belters, and to keep the K's, once you have put my men"—he paused, and sketched a glance at Tobey, over his shoulder at the guard—"and Olsen's, down at the docks."
Stan smiled gently. "General," he said, "I must admit that you have gained my sincere admiration. It takes real guts, sir, to sit here in my office, my prisoner, and try to make terms that will set you safely back in the Belt. Earthies in the Belt," he said softly. "Earthie soldiers in the Belt You took off from Belt City," he added.
The general looked at him speculatively. "A small garrison," he said nonchalandy. "Available. So we used them."
"We?"
The general shrugged. Stan's face grew hard. "Weed," he said at last. "He took over AT so easily. I should have guessed. A tool of Earth?" The general's face remained bland, and Stan went on, "And he is the one who has been beating the drums for war with Earth—a war that the Belt was scheduled to lose. A fleet war that would be backed up by a fifth column in the Belt."
He waited, but the general remained silent.
"A small garrison, you say. Then you'd have been depending on a certain number of gold-belters in key points of control . . . hmm. I did upset your plans by kidnapping this particular forty, didn't I?"
He stared at the general, who had fixed his attention on the ceiling.
"Well," said Stan. "Well." Then he leaned forward and keyed the intercom to the bridge. When the screen lighted, he said, "Get the Belt News Service on the wire and ask where Earth Fleet is currently maneuvering." Then he leaned back and waited. The general's face had gone from red to white and was now coloring again.
It was several minutes before the word came through. "Last reports, sir, believed correct to about twenty-four hours ago: Earth in Gemini Sector and the fleet is reported maneuvering Beltward of Earth."
Stan switched off and turned to Tobey. "That puts Earth Fleet a bit over two weeks from Belt City at top acceleration. We should have at least that long before Weed is convinced that the general and his forces are irretrievably gone. He'll think that the general is using the K's to boost us to a Hohmann orbit as planned before coming back. It won't occur to him that we cduld knock out a force of two hundred and eighty Earth soldiers, especially when he thinks our goldies are under hypnotic control of the general, and that you're just aboard, Tobey.
"So I'd think we have at least two weeks before Weed can be convinced and can convince Earth that their schedule is shot to pieces, their cover is blown, and that they'd better scrap their timetable and attack on a crash priority basis; plus two weeks to get to the Belt. That gives us, say, twenty-eight days, phis or minus a few to go to Jupiter, and get back to intercept Earth Fleet."
Suddenly the general's voice rose to a bellow: "Surely you don't think this"—his voice choked off and his arm waved around to indicate the ship—"this ramscoop hunk could take on Earth Fleet? What do you think you are, a one-ship Goliath protecting the entire Belt orbit with a nickel-steel canister that doesn't even mount a cannon?"
Instead of answering, Stan turned to the guard in the doorway. "Jarl," he said, "quarter the general in one of the officer's suites under constant guard, one outside the suite, one inside with him. Take even the door to the fresher down. He is not to be by himself for one rninute. It'll tie up some men," he added, "but I think it's a good idea."
As the guard left with the general, Stan turned to the plug-heavy figure in the chair by the wall. 'Tobey," he said, "well get going as fast as you can assign your men to jobs. The Phoenix is a ramscoop . . . uh, canister," he added grimly, "and it's time she started cannoning."
Tobey nodded, grinning. "It's a picked crew, Star. They can handle."
The banded face of Jupiter was glaring in the control cabin screen, its fluorescence like a varicolored neon sign, with not one whit of surface detail visible from whatever might he below the neon glow of the upper atmosphere.
The hoot that sounded action stations went out over the intercom, dulled to a distant murmur in the control cabin.
"Main drives off. Relative velocity to be monitored continuously. Inertial guidance ..."
The ship was now on its own. Without drive, it was falling like a rock toward the huge planet below, aimed nearly directly for the equatorial belt and just toward the edge of the disk in a plotted flight that would take it around the curve to the east The chunk of nickel-steel that was the Phoenix would penetrate the atmosphere with a fantastic velocity, until the craft was gradually slowed in the thick friction of the hydrogen gas.
The G-needle climbed and climbed, and the droning voice that had been counting the seconds and the relative velocity had now switched over to reading G's.
Without moving his attention a hair's breadth from the control panel before him, Stan ordered, "Close the valves and activate the repulsion field."
"Aye, sir."
In the nose of the ship the huge tank plug was snapped into place by a magnetic field; and the gases forced through the radiator surface of the first compression tank began trickling out as liquids into the subsidiary tanks.
Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, the G-force dropped, the control room swung slowly on its gimbals to take up a new position oriented toward the planet they had passed. The lightest of tidal forces, less than a tenth of a G, was still tugging them back; but they were clear of the atmosphere and back in space.
Another G-force appeared as the drive tubes went into action and the control cabin swung once again on its gimbals, oriented now stem-drive in the normal manner of drive acceleration.
Stan smiled grimly. "And now we have a tight ship with a proved crew and full tanks of compressed liquid gas. We can go hunting."
X
STAN COULD only guess at Earth Fleet's course. It was purely a guess, and like a game of chess, the number of other moves that Earth Fleet might make formed an astronomical figure. Yet, like chess, those moves were limited to the area of the board, as long as the goal was Belt City and a war to destroy the independence of the Belt.
Arid it had to be Belt City, for the Belt would be won or lost there; and Belt City was where the Earth garrison of troops would be hidden.
Yet searching s
pace by guesswork to locate the blinkers that would identify a fleet in motion was playing tag blindfolded in the dark, Stan knew. The search would have to be narrowed to a comparatively minute sector for there to be any hope of success.
When he took the problem to Tobey, the answer was immediate.
"Hell," said Tobey, "me and the crew, we know almost every skipper in the Belt . . . and Belt ships are all over the place. Til send out word we want to know where Earth Fleet is. Well get it."
"But Tobey! The fleet will be on radio silence and deep secret maneuvers."
"Won't make a nevermind," Tobey snorted. "There's no fleet made that can keep its whereabouts secret if you've got enough eyes watching from enough places."
But as the Phoenix sped on its swift flight sunward, the queries that sped ahead of it brought no satisfactory results. Rumors came back by the dozen; rumors that placed Earth Fleet all over the system. But no hard facts. Nothing on which to focus a camera.
Yet as the reports came in, the cameras went into action; and each sector named was filmed. After the twentieth report, Stan gave up sitting personally and looking at the blinking pattern of stars. Blinkers they spotted time after time, but blinkers that were normal Belt debris, either asteroids or ships, but no fleet.
And velocity and vectors, the basic factors of space flight, were drawing the deadline closer for any course change that would intersect—if the fleet was actually readying to attack Belt City.
Stan held himself calm on the bridge, but off duty he paced his office. Suppose Earth Fleet was refusing to react to the factors that dictated immediate action? he asked himself. No. They had to react now, or sacrifice the buildup of their garrison in Belt City. They had to react before the Phoenix returned to alert the Belt to the entire plot. They had to react. And the only sensible reaction was immediate attack. . . .
Then came an almost laconic message from a Belt prospector: "Bogies on my screen. Too far to be more than bogies. Could be a whish of asteroids out of orbit. But could be your fleet." The message was addressed to Tobey, who brought it instantly to Stan.
"Reckon that's them, Star?"
Stan stared at the message. "Who's your man, Tobey?"
"Prospector.A good one. He doesn't spook easy. When he says bogies, there are bogies. When he says they could be our fleet, he means there are enough of them and the characteristics are there. But he has no info on why they should be there; and they could be something else. So he's not about to commit himself."
"You think it's them?"
Tobey grinned. "I know damned well," he said. "Jim knows asteroids don't go out of orbit."
Hope surged through Stan as he and Tobey set up the computer for a view of the prospector's sector. As Tobey manipulated the computer, Stan manipulated the camera, swung it onto the target area and matched the stars on the videoscreen as projected by the camera against the stars on the videoscreen projected by the computer.
Blink, blink. For a few moments they were all blinking. And then with the fine controls of the camera, they phased gradually in until the stars bumed steady and clear.
There were many blinkers left after the background steadied out, and then those began to disappear as the computer picked off and identified the normal orbits of asteroids, leaving only the non-standard orbits of ships.
Many of the ones that were left, Stan could disregard. They were obviously K-class, identifiable as much by their winking patterns as by their size. But there was one group left, unidentified; and these he magnified up to the very limits of the camera's ability, and then again up to the very limits of the ability of the electron screen to magnify the camera's image. The ghosdy shapes were still mere pinpoints, but it was a group of at least twenty traveling in unison, and that, for Stan, was enough information.
For the next two hours, the Phoenix shifted back and forth across a line drawn from itself to the moving targets. The range was found, and the velocity; and it was very definite that its velocity would bring Earth Fleet to Belt City in fourteen days.
"We can just make it," Stan said, "with maybe two days to spare."
"Now hear this. Now hear this. All hands secure for high-G. Fifteen minutes."
Stan's eyes roved across the bridge as Paulsen's voice continued over the all-channel intercom, and his chin set slowly. He would have preferred to have Paulsen at the control officer's console. But not yet, he told himself. The hypnosis had been yanked; he was sure of it, and Lang had reassured him. Yet, not until there is absolute certainty, he told himself.
The other gold-belters thought themselves free now of confinement; but he had given orders to Jarl that once they had secured for high-G the bulkheads were to be secured without their knowledge, and the action reported to him.
"Area B secured, sir." It was Jarl's voice on his personal intercom.
"Thank you. Best you secure yourself for high-G now," he answered. Then to Paulsen, "Turn on screens and speakers throughout the ship so that every man, prisoner or crew, can watch and hear the action."
"Yes, sir," said Paulsen.
The minutes passed slowly, and the Phoenix hung directly in the course of the oncoming Earth Fleet with an orbital velocity that matched her fairly well to the Belt, though she was inside it.
Stan now addressed his first mate: "Mr. Barnes. Are they closing satisfactorily?"
"Yes, sir. They were all bunched up, but now they're beginning to spread out as though they plan to pass us in a ring partem."
"Are they still decelerating?"
"No, sir. When they smoothed out into a ring, they began to let 'em drift."
"And we're still nose-on?" "Yes, sir."
"Very well, Mr. Barnes. Operate the external proton beams to bring us up to ten KV negative charge." That would make the Phoenix negative in respect to Earth Fleet. Any metallic vapor discharged would be attracted to the fleet. Turning to the navigator's console where Tobey sat, relaxed, Stan saw him smiling, a grim smile with a fierceness tugging at the comers of his mouth, but a smile. Stan nodded quietly to himself and put his full attention on the screen before him. "Laser range?"
"Five minutes to laser." The voice became taut as Earth Fleet seemed to leap toward them.
"Count down to their range of firing, Mr. Barnes."
"Estimated countdown, sir, is four minutes; three; two; one. In seconds . . . thirty. Twenty. Ten. Nine, eight seven six. ..."
The countdown passed zero and went to minus one, then minus two. . . .
There was a swirling glare that covered the forward viewscreens, but Barnes held the controls steady and Stan watched the second hand of the chronometer. Three seconds. Then a slight jar.
"Damage control, sir. They all bracketed the same center of the bow and penetrated number one tank. We've lost approximately fifteen hundred cubic feet of hull from that area, and tank pressure is falling over toward zero."
On the screen the cloud of roiling metallic vapor that had been solid nickel-steel was drifting away from the Phoenix, racing ahead of them. Then, at first mistily and then more solidly, Earth's fleet appeared, pulling through the cloud of vapor, but scattering wildly as though they had attempted to miss its outer edges.
But there had been no misses. Each ship emerged from the cloud as shiny as a newborn nickel. The viewscreen showed no damage, only a bright, shiny mirror-surface which had been plated on the normal dull-white of the Earth ships by the metal vapor in vacuum.
"Mr. Bames. Put us on a braking course and maneuver as necessary to match velocities with the Earth Fleet. Set the course to maintain this distance."
"No ladar signals, sir." Paulsen's voice was strained as he handled the console above his couch.
On the screen, the circle of ships was drifting past them, and then seemed to rotate as Bames brought the Phoenix around in a match-course maneuver.
Stan flipped his microphone onto another channel. "K-class pilots. Get your ships warmed up. You will be dropped as soon as we match orbits with Earth Fleet, and you will each guar
d a section of that fleet. Take no action unless an attempt is made to remove the mirror plating on those ships. If such an attempt is made, sting 'em till they blow."
"They don't seem to be operating very well, Star, those Earthies." Even Tobey's heavy-muscled throat seemed to be having trouble with the now constant four-G maneuvering thrust.
"Few ships operate well with all viewscreens, navigation equipment, and aiming devices out of service," Stan answered in what he had intended to be a dry tone, but what came out as a croak.
"That was the damnedest suckering move anybody ever pulled on them, Star." There was a satisfied note in the croaking voice. "I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even seal their air locks."
"How about common old radio, Boss?" Paulsen asked. "Does it bother that, too?"
"It'll have plated out over the antenna insulators too, and grounded them to the ships." Stan frowned in concentration. "They do have a system which uses the whole ship as a half-wave dipole. They might still be able to get through on that. Mr. Paulsen, see if you can pick up Earth Fleet on the four-ninety to four-ninety-five kilohertz band."
Paulsen began twiddling the dials and snapping over switches, and after a few moments was rewarded with a thin, scratchy voice. ". . . peat. S.O.S. Flagship Aurora. We have been hit by a mirror bomb. Our circuits are . . ." The voice scratched and grew fainter, then came in more strongly. ". . . screens blank. We cannot maneuver...."
"Very well, Mr. Paulsen. Break in on them."
"Phoenix to Earth Fleet. Phoenix to Earth Fleet." Paulsen's voice had reassumed the crisp duty-tone of the bridge.
There was silence elsewhere as Paulsen's voice intoned the call, a little louder, than necessary, Stan realized, for the benefit of the intercom. Listen good, you guys aft, he thought. Listen real good, all of you.
Abruptly the speaker on Paulsen's console came to life. It was a weak life, and the voice was scratchy. "Commodore Rimes to Phoenix. We read you." Stan pulled a microphone to him, nodded to Pauslen to switch the call over. Then said, "Commodore Rimes, this is Star Dustin, Belt Commander. You are now blinded, and therefore I must warn you: you and your ships are safe only as long as you make no attempt whatsoever to send men onto the surface of any ship. Any ship on which figures appear will be blasted out of space. Otherwise, you will not be harmed."