“Hah!” grunted the skipper. “Taine was a mistake. He shouldn’t ever have left ground. When a man’s potty in one fashion, there’ll be cracks in him all over. What’s this?”
The Plumie in the golden armor very soberly offered the skipper the object Taine had meant to introduce into the Plumie’s ship. Baird said desperately that he’d fought against it, because he believed it a booby trap to kill the Plumies so men could take their ship and fill it with air and cut it free, and then make a landing somewhere.
“Damned foolishness!” rumbled the skipper. “Their ship’d begin to crumble with our air in it! If it held to a landing—”
Then he considered the object he’d accepted from the Plumie. It could have been a rocket war head, enclosed in some container that would detonate it if opened. Or there might be a timing device. The skipper grunted. He heaved it skyward.
The misshapen object went floating away toward emptiness. Sunlight smote harshly upon it.
“Don’t want it back in the Niccola,” growled the skipper, “but just to make sure—”
He fumbled a hand weapon out of his belt. He raised it, and it spurted flame—very tiny blue-white sparks, each one indicating a pellet of metal flung away at high velocity.
One of them struck the shining, retreating container. It exploded with a monstrous, soundless, violence. It had been a rocket’s war head. There could have been only one reason for it to be introduced into a Plumie ship. Baird ceased to be shaky. Instead, he was ashamed.
The skipper growled inarticulately. He looked at the Plumie, again standing in the golden ship’s air lock.
“We’ll go back, Mr. Baird. What you’ve done won’t save our lives, and nobody will ever know you did it. But I think well of you. Come along!”
This was at 11 hours 5 minutes ship time.
* * * *
A good half hour later the skipper’s voice bellowed from the speakers all over the Niccola. His heavy-jowled features stared doggedly out of screens wherever men were on duty or at ease.
“Hear this!” he said forbiddingly. “We have checked our course and speed. We have verified that there is no possible jury-rig for our engines that could get us into any sort of orbit, let alone land us on the only planet in this system with air we could breathe. It is officially certain that in thirteen days nine hours from now, the Niccolawill be so close to the sun that her hull will melt down. Which will be no loss to us because we’ll be dead then, still going on into the sun to be vaporized with the ship. There is nothing to be done about it. We can do nothing to save our own lives!”
He glared out of each and every one of the screens, wherever there were men to see him.
“But,” he rumbled, “the Plumies can get away if we help them. They have no cutting torches. We have. We can cut their ship free. They can repair their drive—but it’s most likely that it’ll operate perfectly when they’re a mile from the Niccola’s magnetic field. They can’t help us. But we can help them. And sooner or later some Plumie ship is going to encounter some other human ship. If we cut these Plumies loose, they’ll report what we did. When they meet other men, they’ll be cagey because they’ll remember Taine. But they’ll know they can make friends, because we did them a favor when we’d nothing to gain by it. I can offer no reward. But I ask for volunteers to go outside and cut the Plumie ship loose, so the Plumies can go home in safety instead of on into the sun with us!”
He glared, and cut off the image.
Diane held tightly to Baird’s hand, in the radar room. He said evenly:
“There’ll be volunteers. The Plumies are pretty sporting characters—putting up a fight with an unarmed ship, and so on. If there aren’t enough other volunteers, the skipper and I will cut them free by ourselves.”
Diane said, dry-throated:
“I’ll help. So I can be with you. We’ve got—so little time.”
“I’ll ask the skipper as soon as the Plumie ship’s free.”
“Y-yes,” said Diane. And she pressed her face against his shoulder, and wept.
This was at 01 hours, 20 minutes ship time. At 03 hours even, there was peculiar activity in the valley between the welded ships. There were men in space armor working cutting-torches where for twenty feet the two ships were solidly attached. Blue-white flames bored savagely into solid metal, and melted copper gave off strangely colored clouds of vapor—which emptiness whisked away to nothing—and molten iron and cobalt made equally lurid clouds of other colors.
There were Plumies in the air lock, watching.
At 03 hours 40 minutes ship time, all the men but one drew back. They went inside the Niccola. Only one man remained, cutting at the last sliver of metal that held the two ships together.
It parted. The Plumie ship swept swiftly away, moved by the centrifugal force of the rotary motion the joined vessels had possessed. It dwindled and dwindled. It was a half mile away. A mile. The last man on the outside of the Niccola’s hull thriftily brought his torch to the air lock and came in.
Suddenly, the distant golden hull came to life. It steadied. It ceased to spin, however slowly. It darted ahead. It checked. It swung to the right and left and up and down. It was alive again.
* * * *
In the radar room, Diane walked into Baird’s arms and said shakily:
“Now we…we have almost fourteen days.”
“Wait,” he commanded. “When the Plumies understood what we were doing, and why, they drew diagrams. They hadn’t thought of cutting free, out in space, without the spinning saws they use to cut bronze with. But they asked for a scanner and a screen. They checked on its use. I want to see—”
He flipped on the screen. And there was instantly a Plumie looking eagerly out of it, for some sign of communication established. There were soprano sounds, and he waved a hand for attention. Then he zestfully held up one diagram after another.
Baird drew a deep breath. A very deep breath. He pressed the navigation-room call. The skipper looked dourly at him.
“Well?” said the skipper forbiddingly.
“Sir,” said Baird, very quietly indeed, “the Plumies are talking by diagram over the communicator set we gave them. Their drive works. They’re as well off as they ever were. And they’ve been modifying their tractor beams—stepping them up to higher power.”
“What of it?” demanded the skipper, rumbling.
“They believe,” said Baird, “that they can handle the Niccola with their beefed-up tractor beams.” He wetted his lips. “They’re going to tow us to the oxygen planet ahead, sir. They’re going to set us down on it. They’ll help us find the metals we need to build the tools to repair theNiccola, sir. You see the reasoning, sir. We turned them loose to improve the chance of friendly contact when another human ship runs into them. They want us to carry back—to be proof that Plumies and men can be friends. It seems that—they like us, sir.”
He stopped for a moment. Then he went on reasonably;
“And besides that, it’ll be one hell of a fine business proposition. We never bother with hydrogen-methane planets. They’ve minerals and chemicals we haven’t got, but even the stones of a methane-hydrogen planet are ready to combine with the oxygen we need to breathe! We can’t carry or keep enough oxygen for real work. The same thing’s true with them on an oxygen planet. We can’t work on each other’s planets, but we can do fine business in each other’s minerals and chemicals from those planets. I’ve got a feeling, sir, that the Plumie cairns are location-notices; markers set up over ore deposits they can find but can’t hope to work, yet they claim against the day when their scientists find a way to make them worth owning. I’d be willing to bet, sir, that if we explored hydrogen planets as thoroughly as oxygen ones, we’d find cairns on their-type planets that they haven’t colonized yet.”
The skipper stared. His mouth dropped open.
“And I think, sir,” said Baird, “that until they detected us they thought they were the only intelligent race in the galaxy. They were upse
t to discover suddenly that they were not, and at first they’d no idea what we’d be like. But I’m guessing now, sir, that they’re figuring on what chemicals and ores to start swapping with us.” Then he added, “When you think of it, sir, probably the first metal they ever used was aluminum—where our ancestors used copper—and they had a beryllium age next, instead of iron. And right now, sir it’s probably as expensive for them to refine iron as it is for us to handle titanium and beryllium and osmium—which are duck soup for them! Our two cultures ought to thrive as long as we’re friends, sir. They know it already—and we’ll find it out in a hurry!”
The skipper’s mouth moved. It closed, and then dropped open again. The search for the Plumies had been made because it looked like they had to be fought. But Baird had just pointed out some extremely commonsense items which changed the situation entirely. And there was evidence that the Plumies saw the situation the new way. The skipper felt such enormous relief that his manner changed. He displayed what was almost effusive cordiality—for the skipper. He cleared his throat.
“Hm-m-m. Hah! Very good, Mr. Baird,” he said formidably. “And of course with time and air and metals we can rebuild our drive. For that matter, we could rebuild the Niccola! I’ll notify the ship’s company, Mr. Baird. Very good!” He moved to use another microphone. Then he checked himself. “Your expression is odd, Mr. Baird. Did you wish to say something more?”
“Y-yes, sir,” said Baird. He held Diane’s hand fast. “It’ll be months before we get back to port, sir. And it’s normally against regulations, but under the circumstances…would you mind…as skipper…marrying Lieutenant Holt and me?”
The skipper snorted. Then he said almost—almost—amiably;
“Hm-m-m. You’ve both done very well, Mr. Baird. Yes. Come to the navigation room and we’ll get it over with. Say—ten minutes from now.”
Baird grinned at Diane. Her eyes shone a little.
This was at 04 hours 10 minutes ship time. It was exactly twelve hours since the alarm-bell rang.
A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE (1959)
Nobody ever saw the message-torp. It wasn’t to be expected. It came in on a course that extended backward to somewhere near the Rift—where there used to be Huks—and for a very, very long way it had traveled as only message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive, and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion.
Eventually, moving as it did in the straightest of straight lines, its photocells reported that it neared a star which had achieved first-magnitude brightness. It paused a little longer than usual while its action-circuits shifted. Then it swung to aim for the bright star, which was the sol-type sun Varenga. The torp sped toward it on a new schedule. Its overdrive hops dropped to light-month length. Its pauses in normality were longer. They lasted almost the fiftieth of a second.
When Varenga had reached a suitably greater brightness in the message-torp’s estimation, it paused long enough to blast out its recorded message. It had been designed for this purpose and no other. Its overdrive hops shortened to one light-hour of distance covered. Regularly, its transmitter flung out a repetition of what it had been sent so far to say. In time it arrived within the limits of the Varenga system. Its hops diminished to light-minutes of distance only. It ceased to correct its course. It hurtled through the orbits of all the planets, uttering silently screamed duplicates of the broadcasts now left behind, to arrive later.
It did not fall into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitely against such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news, and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was still squealing when it went out of human knowledge forever.
* * * *
The state of things was routine. Sergeant Madden had the traffic desk that morning. He would reach retirement age in two more years, and it was a nagging reminder that he grew old. He didn’t like it. There was another matter. His son Timmy had a girl, and she was on the way to Varenga IV on the Cerberus, and when she arrived Timmy would become a married man. Sergeant Madden contemplated this prospect. By the time his retirement came up, in the ordinary course of events he could very well be a grandfather. He was unable to imagine it. He rumbled to himself.
The telefax hummed and ejected a sheet of paper on top of other sheets in the desk’s “In” cubicle. Sergeant Madden glanced absently at it. It was an operations-report sheet, to be referred to if necessary, but otherwise simply to be filed at the end of the day.
A voice crackled overhead.
“Attention Traffic,” said the voice. “The following report has been received and verified as off-planet. Message follows.” That voice ceased and was replaced by another, which wavered and wabbled from the electron-spurts normal to solar systems and which make for auroras on planets. “Mayday mayday mayday,” said the second voice. “Call for help. Call for help. Ship Cerberus major breakdown overdrive heading Procyron III for refuge. Help urgently needed.” There was a pause. “Mayday mayday mayday. Call for help—”
Sergeant Madden’s face went blank. Timmy’s girl was on the Cerberus. Then he growled and riffled swiftly through the operations-report sheets that had come in since his tour of duty began. He found the one he looked for. Yes. Patrolman Timothy Madden was now in overdrive in squad ship 740, delivering the monthly precinct report to Headquarters. He would be back in eight days. Maybe a trifle less, with his girl due to arrive on the Cerberus in nine and him to be married in ten. But—
Sergeant Madden swore. As a prospective bridegroom, Timmy’s place was on this call for help to the Cerberus. But he wasn’t available. It was in his line, because it was specifically a traffic job. The cops handled traffic, naturally, as they handled sanitary-code enforcement and delinks and mercantile offenses and murderers and swindlers and missing persons. Everything was dumped on the cops. They’d even handled the Huks in time gone by—which in still earlier times would have been called a space war and put down in all the history books. It was routine for the cops to handle the disabled or partly disabled Cerberus.
* * * *
Sergeant Madden pushed a button marked “Traffic Emergency” and held it down until it lighted.
“You got that Cerberus report?” he demanded of the air about him.
“Just,” said a voice overhead.
“What’ve you got on hand?” demanded Sergeant Madden.
“The Aldeb’s here,” said the voice. “There’s a minor overhaul going on, but we can get her going in six hours. She’s slow, but you know her.”
“Hm-m-m. Yeah,” said Sergeant Madden. He added vexedly: “My son Timmy’s girl is on board the Cerberus. He’ll be wild he wasn’t here. I’m going to take the ready squad ship and go on out. Passengers always fret when there’s trouble and no cop around. Too bad Timmy’s off on assignment.”
“Yeah,” said the Traffic Emergency voice. “Too bad. But we’ll get the Aldeb off in six hours.”
Sergeant Madden pushed another button. It lighted.
“Madden,” he rumbled. “Desk. The Cerberus’ had a breakdown. She’s limpin’ over to Procyron III for refuge to wait for help. The Aldeb’ll do the job on her, but I’m going to ride the squad ship out and make up the report. Who’s next on call-duty?”
“Willis,” said a crisp voice. “Squad ship 390. He’s up for next call. Playing squint-eye in the squad room now.”
“Pull him loose,” Sergeant Madden ordered, “and send somebody to take the desk. Tell Willis I’ll be on the tarmac in five minutes.”
“Check,” said the crisp voice.
Sergeant Madden lifted his thumb. All this was standard operational procedure. A man had the desk. An emergency call came in. That man took it and somebody else took the desk. Eminently fair. No favoritism; no throwing weight around; no glory-grabbing. Not that there was much glory in being a cop. But as long as a
man was a cop, he was good. Sergeant Madden reflected with satisfaction that even if he was getting on to retirement age, he was still a cop.
He made two more calls. One was to Records for the customary full information on the Cerberus and on the Procyron system. The other was to the flat where Timmy lived with him. It was going to be lonely when Timmy got married and had a home of his own. Sergeant Madden dialed for message-recording and gruffly left word for Timmy. He, Timmy’s father, was going on ahead to make the report on the Cerberus. Timmy wasn’t to worry. The ship might be a few days late, but Timmy’d better make the most of them. He’d be married a long time!
Sergeant Madden got up, grunting, from his chair. Somebody came in to take over the desk. Sergeant Madden nodded and waved his hand. He went out and took the slide-stair down to the tarmac where squad ship 390 waited in standard police readiness. Patrolman Willis arrived at the stubby little craft seconds after the sergeant.
“Procyron III,” said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. “I figure three days. You told your wife?”
“I called,” said Patrolman Willis resignedly.
They climbed into the squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them to space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for emergency landing, but the main thing was that they had a profitable pay load. Squad ships didn’t carry anything but two men and their equipment.
Sergeant Madden dogged the door shut. The ship fell up toward the sky. The heavens became that blackness-studded-with-jewels which is space. A great yellow sun flared astern. A half-bright, half-dark globe lay below-the planet Varenga IV, on which the precinct police station for this part of the galaxy had its location.
The Murray Leinster Megapack Page 167