Men Against the Stars - [Adventures in Science Fiction 01]

by Edited By Martin Grrenburg

  The man wilted. “You can’t ground on Rhea. Not for your life you can’t, guv’nor. It’s suicide, that’s what.”

  “Mr. Matthews! We’ll have this man in irons after all.”

  “Aye,” grunted the engine man.

  “And tend your engines. We’ve twelve hours to Rhea.”

  “Aye, sir. Come along, you.”

  The man stood, terror-rooted. “It was only sugar, s’help me. Just sugar, like he told me. I even tasted it. Ain’t no harm in sugar, is there?”

  “SUGAR!” The word came from Matthews enormous as an oath. “Ye didn’t ... ye didn’t—”

  “He doped the tanks with it, of course,” said Rodgers. “Didn’t you?”

  The man nodded dumbly.

  “Best take him aft, Mr. Matthews, and find just what tanks were doped. Though I think we can guess.”

  With one enormous hand clamping the smaller man’s shoulder like a vise, Matthews propelled him back into the engine compartment. Alone, Rodgers listened to the muted click of the astrogator and found it a mockery. The Stardust, if she held course, was a doomed ship.

  Five minutes later the bulkhead door slid open again. If Matthews had been angry before, it was as nothing to the fury that now possessed him. He literally dragged the stowaway after him.

  “ ‘Twas the auxiliaries. Our take-off jets will be that crusted she’d never lift off Rhea with them. Fool that I was, I noticed the throat pressure going up when we left Titan, and never thought nothin’ of it!”

  “You couldn’t have helped it if you had,” said Rodgers. “Get this man in irons and haul a tube inboard for inspection.”

  “He never told me what it would do,” groaned the stowaway. “Said it would just slow you down, so another ship could beat you to Japetus. Not nothing about Rhea.”

  “Who was he?” growled Matthews. “You’ll tell or I’ll break your back, you sniveling scum of a—”

  “He doesn’t know,” interrupted Rodgers. “Trust Ames to work through three or four agents. This man probably saw only the last of them. You remember he said he’s new to Titan. It’s a cold trail.”

  Matthews strode off with his prisoner, the man still pleading that course be changed. While Saturn wheeled in the ebony heavens and the astrogator continued to click out its computations, Rodgers bitterly reviewed the situation.

  What the report on the high-emission take-off tubes would be he was only too sure. These jets, burning special fuel with a high exhaust velocity, were vital at take-offs and landings. Sugar in that fuel would have deposited inch-thick layers of stone-hard carbon in the refractory throat linings during the take-off run from Titan. Such deposits cut the efficiency of the jets by ninety percent.

  Seizing pad and stylus, he made hasty calculations. They could land on Rhea by reversing the artificial gravity screens so as to reinforce the few jets the engine crew could scrape clear in the time remaining. To use the clogged tubes was to risk an explosion that would split the ship open from bow to stern. A landing with twenty clear jets and the screens was feasible—but deadly. The landing blasts could foul the cleared tubes anew, and in the six hours men could endure on Rhea they could clean no more than ten or twelve jets at most—far too few to lift the ship again. They would be marooned twelve hours or more on Rhea—where seven meant death.

  It was checkmate, and Ames had won.

  One look at Matthews’ face, when the engine man returned, was enough to confirm all forebodings.

  “Clogged to the gills,” he growled. “There’s forty hours’ work ahead of us to clean the lot. But the crew’s started and we can land on twenty tubes with the screens helpin’.”

  “He’s got us,” said Rodgers bitterly. “It’s what he planned —all foolproof from his end. If he grounds first, we’ve no call to land at all and can be expected to put back for Titan. Even if we complain of sabotage there, he can afford to laugh it off. All we’ll have to offer in evidence is our word—well have to clean the tubes again before landing. The fellow you caught can’t testify against Ames because he doesn’t even know him.”

  Matthews shook his grizzled head.

  “I ain’t much on logic, son, and ye make it sound tough. Only thing for us, as I see it, is to make groundfall ahead of Ames and beat him to the beacon and the bismullah.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

  “Afraid? What kind of talk is that, son? Where’s your fighting spirit? We’ve got to. Them Rheans don’t know a good ship from a bad one—those your dad first traded with aren’t alive now, and the critters just swap like they been taught. One time when the Stardust was docked for repairs, your dad chartered an old scow. The Rheans loaded it and took off their trade goods happy as you please. They’ll trade with Ames as easy. We’ve got to get down first. Fellow who wins the beacon contract gets the cargo too. And we can do it.”

  “Maybe,” said Rodgers soberly. “But we’ll never leave Rhea alive if we do. We can land on twenty tubes and the screens in a pinch. But we can’t take off on the few your crew can clean while we’re grounded.”

  “We’ll have six hours,” Matthews pointed out gruffly. “I’ll have twelve tubes ready for you by then—thirteen maybe.”

  “It’s not enough. Even with the gravities and the cruising jets helping, we’d need at least twenty tubes to lift. Here are the figures.”

  “Figures! Pah!” spat Matthews. “We don’t run ships by the book out here, son. It’s by blood and sweat, by the last drop of sky juice and the last microvolt in our capacitors and the last thump of our engines. That’s how your dad did it and that’s how I navigate. We have to try, don’t we? Didn’t ye just tell me what happens if we turn back to Titan like licked pups?”

  “And what happens if we beat Ames to the beacon?” asked Rodgers. “He’ll turn back to Titan without grounding, of course—why should he, when we’ve won? Back in port he’ll pretend to be a good loser—and to be surprised, in a sportsmanlike way, when we never reach Titan again. After that he’ll naturally take over the run anyway. We’ve got to face the fact that, once we make Rhea, we’ve a dead ship.”

  At that Matthews swore, roundly and vividly. “The Stardust’s no dead ship and never will be so long as I’ve a pint in her tanks. Sure, and what d’ye plan to do if not to lick Ames?”

  Rodgers hesitated, a slow flush creeping up his cheeks. “The first thing any master’s supposed to do—restore his ship to spaceworthy condition.”

  The engine man smacked the chart table with his palm so that the instruments shook in their racks. “Ye can’t do that, son. ‘Tis a time to take a risk. Once Ames lands, he gets cargo. Won’t be another batch of cargo for at least fifty hours after that, because your dad learned it takes the critters that long to collect and cure the stuff. If ye land an hour after Ames, ye’ll take off empty handed. No contract and no bismullah, and the Stardust lost to ye when we get back.”

  The old man paused to look at Rodgers shrewdly.

  “Course, maybe you’re figurin’ on landin’ sixty, seventy hours after Ames. Maybe the Rheans would have cargo—and maybe not. We don’t know how soon they start collectin’ a new batch after a trade visit. All we know is they’ve got a new batch every trip—always have had, at least. Ye might get cargo that way now and then, but it wouldn’t do ye no good. Supposin’ even we’re lucky enough to get half the bismullah while Ames gets the other half—a cargo every other trip, maybe. Then what?

  “Why,” the engine man continued, “Ames would have the beacon contract, and that’s eighty percent of his expenses. He’d only need to make twenty percent on the bismullah to break even. All ye’d have would be the same amount of bismullah —if ye’re lucky—to pay all your expenses.”

  “Hold on, now. A full cargo of bismullah’s enough to pay a profit on any trip, even without the contract,” interposed Rodgers.

  “Won’t be with Ames in the picture,” grunted the engine man. “Bismullah’s a luxury trade right enough—a radioactive rare earth that�
�s used in a lot of fancy beauty creams ought to fetch a fancy price. But Ames’ll undersell you as long as he has to, and the beacon contract will let him do it easy. He’ll break ye, son. That’s why it’s all or nothin’,”

  ~ * ~

  Rodgers stared thoughtfully before him. A new clicking of the astrogator broke in on his reverie. He stepped to the machine and fingered its keys. The Stardust responded with a new kick of directional tubes.

  “Now you’re blastin’ on all jets, son,” said Matthews with a grin. “Set her down and let the old girl get you off when the time comes. She always has.”

  “Not this time,” said Rodgers quietly. “I’ve altered course.”

  Under his space tan the blood seemed to recede from Matthews’ face. His breathing was suddenly loud in the tiny navigation cubby, and his broad figure seemed to take on a stoop. He strode to the bulkhead door, but even as he touched it he turned.

  “It ain’t what your dad would have done. But maybe you’re different. Guess you play things the safe way, like Ames figured you would.”

  The other flushed. “Master’s regulations forbid endangering crew or ship by landing on Rhea unless all take-off tubes are in order.”

  Deliberately the engine man spat on the deck. “Think we’re a blasted bunch of passengers? We’d have took our chances—with any skipper willing to take his.”

  He swung back to the door.

  “Mr. Matthews.”

  The engine man looked back, scowling.

  “Regulations also require that inoperative tubes be repaired at once against possible emergencies. You’ll keep your men at that detail.”

  “Aye. But I never dreamed Ben Rodgers’ son would turn out to be a rule-book polisher,” said Matthews bitterly. “Shows how wrong a man can be.”

  He surveyed Rodgers critically.

  “Or maybe I’ve been even wronger. Blood don’t always tell. It takes guts to pilot the Rhea run, to ground trip after trip on a moon where you’re as good as dead after six hours. Maybe you never had that kind of guts. Maybe, Ames or no Ames, jets or no jets, you never would have set keel on Rhea anyway—because you ain’t got what it takes.”

  He slammed the bulkhead door behind him so that the clang of it echoed funereally through the now silent ship.

  ~ * ~

  Following the end of the second oiler’s story, the hiss of the Medusa’s circulation system resumed its omnipresent sway. The oiler himself seemed lost in contemplation of the lumin-tubes.

  “You gotta feel sorry for the kid,” the subthird said of a sudden. “So he was yellow, maybe, but with the cards stacked that way, who wouldn’t be?”

  “Takes more guts to go back and take your lickin’ sometimes,” put in an engine hand, “than to toss in your chips for keeps.”

  The first oiler spat accurately into the refuse well. “Yellow he was, for my money.” He eyed the second oiler speculatively.

  It was the subthird who saw how things stood and tried to smooth them. “You talk too much, Jennings. So that’s your opinion and ours is ours. Don’t forget the kid would have been risking every man aboard, not just his own neck. Take your heroes. I’ll stick to a skipper who gets me back alive to spend my port money.”

  The engine man was bound to hear the whole story. “It couldn’t have been that Ames had a bit of trouble and never got off Rhea himself after all?”

  “No,” said the second oiler curtly, and made a long business of lighting his pipe again. “He grounded nice as you please, while the Stardust swung around ten hours off, and put his signal on the beacon, and changed the batteries. The Rheans had been without salt and sodium a time, and the bismullah was waiting—a full cargo. When he took off and passed the Stardust, she was still drifting idle while her engine crew scraped jets. What could you expect? But I wouldn’t call Rodgers yellow at all.”

  A gleam of understanding grew in the first oiler’s gray eyes. “You know an almighty lot about this Rodgers,” he said softly. “Almost as if you’d been aboard the Stardust that trip.”

  The subthird caught his eye, but the oiler wouldn’t stop. “Almost as if, it seems. Maybe you were. Sure you were. You’re Rodgers, ain’t you?”

  The subthird got up and placed himself between the two men. “Course not. What’s got into you, Hodges? Better forget the whole thing. Time we turned in.”

  “Sit down, Peters,” urged the second oiler. “Nobody’s calling me yellow.”

  “Now hold on,” urged the subthird. “Just a mistake, that’s all. Hodges didn’t mean nothing.”

  “No matter if he did,” grunted the second. “I’m not Rodgers. I’m Ames.”

  ~ * ~

  General silence followed this announcement, its essence finally voiced by the engine hand.

  “Now you ain’t makin’ sense, mister.”

  The second oiler swore softly. “Ain’t I? You ought to read the articles you sign. Who’s chairman of the fleet that owns this ship and twenty more? Not anybody called Ames. James Rodgers. Bismullah’s a dead trade now, but it laid the keels of half this fleet.”

  “That don’t make sense either. Ames got the beacon contract and the bismullah—and now he’s second oiler on a Rodgers ship.” The subthird shook his head. “ ‘Tain’t reasonable.”

  “Served me right,” said Ames. “I was young and tough and played it dirty. Got what was coming to me.” He sucked hugely on the pipe and grinned. “Often think I was a fool not to see Rodgers’ game. Then I tell the whole yarn to somebody else and when they don’t see it either, I feel better.”

  “But you did get the contract and the bismullah.”

  “First trip, sure,” nodded Ames. “But that was the last time. I never got another cargo—just made one trip after another servicing that blasted beacon. Like having a tiger by the tail, that was. I couldn’t let go, because the government contract called for big cash penalties if I was a day late any trip. Couldn’t change my schedule. Couldn’t call off the contract without losing my shirt. Couldn’t get another ship because my credit dropped soon as I started coming back to port with empty holds. I lost just enough each trip, over and above the eighty percent of expenses the contract paid, to get in the red deeper and deeper. Rodgers wrapped my own schedule around my neck and strung me up by it.”

  The subthird suddenly swore, like a man tormented beyond endurance.

  “What in the name of seventeen blasted space devils did he do?” he roared.

  Ames took a deep draw, enjoying the moment. “He wasn’t yellow, lying off Rhea like that. Just smart. He cleaned all the tubes so he’d be able to take-off without any risk. Then he landed on Rhea—exactly two hundred thirty hours after I had.”

  “I was still five hours out from Rhea on my second trip then, never dreaming what he was up to. He landed nice as you please, swapped his cargo for all the bismullah the Rheans had worked up since I’d been there, and took off. Wasn’t a scrap of bismullah for me when I landed a couple of hours later. The Rheans just looked kind of funny at us and crawled off. All we could do was service the beacon. Then we couldn’t ground on Rhea again for two hundred thirty hours, and anyway the contract called for us to come two hundred forty hours later. Rodgers made his second landing two hundred thirty hours later and loaded bismullah again. We came—and serviced the beacon.”

  “Mean to say you never got cargo after that?” asked the subthird.

  “Not once. That was the story from then on. I serviced the beacon, lost twenty percent of my expenses each trip, and Rodgers got the bismullah. The government wouldn’t touch him—said the bismullah was none of their business and they couldn’t interfere with free trade. But they wouldn’t let me change schedule. Told me to work it out with Rodgers. Finally I went and offered him the contract for free. He wouldn’t take it without my Comet “

  Ames frowned at his pipe. “It still burns me up. He gave me a fair price, and I might still have a small ship if I hadn’t run into bad luck in a hot spot on Luna. All’s fair, as I’ll admit, an
d I’d have done just what he did.

  “But it burns me up all the same. Because why, of all the jobs he could have found for her, did he have to put my Comet on the Japetus run—hauling fertilizer?”

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  ~ * ~

  A. E. Van Vogt

  FAR CENTAURUS

  The next great stride—to the distant stars, five centuries through space across the span of light years.

  ~ * ~

  I

  wakened with a start, and thought: How was Renfrew taking it?

  I must have moved physically, for blackness edged with pain closed over me. How long I lay in that agonized faint, I have no means of knowing. My next awareness was of the thrusting of the engines that drove the spaceship.