Space Lawyer

by Mike Jurist

  "Horn," he barked, "what's Section 4, Article 6 of the Space Code say?"

  "Well . . . uh . . . offhand I don't know, but—"

  "Oh, you don't, don't you? You have to look it up, do you? I bet that ding-the-ding-ding Dale didn't have to look it up. He had it at his fingertips. Go on, look it up! Don't stand there like a bleating doodlebug."

  Horn swallowed hard. Within a minute he was back on the screen.

  "It reads, sir, as follows:

  `In the event that a freely moving body in space, not artificially produced or manufactured by man or machine, shall fall on or in anywise impinge upon the surface of a planet, satellite or asteroid, the said body so falling or impinging shall forthwith become the property of the record owner of title to the surface of such planet, satellite or asteroid upon which the same has fallen or impinged as aforesaid.' "

  Kenton broke into a delighted chuckle. "Ha! Got that blasted skalawoggle on the hip. Thought he was smart, huh! I've got an asteroid, too. I can claim his fell on mine." He rubbed his hands. "I'll take him all the way up to the highest courts; I'll spend thousands to—"

  Horn scowled down at the book in his hands. "If I might venture to suggest, sir—"

  "Go on and suggest, Horn." Old Simeon was in high good humor. He even smiled benevolently

  "There's a definition here of a falling body, sir. You didn't give me a chance—"

  "Hah! What's that?"

  "It says:

  `A falling body is defined as the lesser in mass of two bodies when two freely moving bodies in space

  collide or impinge on each other in any manner or form.'

  "I took the trouble to look up the respective masses, sir. Planetoid No. 891, the one that . . . ahem . . . used to belong to us, has a gross of seven hundred ninety-two thousand, three hundred and eighty-one tons. Planetoid 640, sir, has a gross of twelve million, five hundred eighty-eight thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven tons."

  Sally said: "This Kerry Dale seems to have you there, dad."

  "Why . . . why," he gasped, "it's outrageous; I won't have it. Six millions of my hard-earned money going to that snipperwhopper! Can't you do something, Horn?"

  "I'm afraid not. The law is clear. I'd suggest a settlement."

  "Settlement be darned!" he stormed. "I'll—"

  "You'd better, dad," Sally advised. "After all, six million—" He groaned, sputtered and gave in. He composed a space-gram that he thought was a crafty masterpiece.

  Dale,

  Planets, Ceres

  You're a space robber and a scoundrel. Will start suit at once and win. To avoid suit I'll permit you to settle. Offer you fifty thousand cash in return for general release. Will pay expenses of removing my property. Answer at once or suit goes on file.

  KENTON

  In due time came the answer:

  O. K. Give me hundred thousand and we both sign releases.

  DALE

  "Ha!" chuckled Simeon. "I thought that would scare the pants off him. For a measly hundred thousand he gives up clear title to six millions. Quick, Horn, draw the releases and shoot them on to Ceres with a draft for the money before the young fool recovers from his fright."

  The releases were signed and exchanged; and the draft was cashed.

  Simeon told his daughter happily: "There, you see, my dear, no one can get the best of your father. That young—"

  A most agitated expert burst into the office; in his excitement he even forgot to announce his coming. He was Bellamy, chief expert of the Kenton Scientific Staff.

  "A . . . a most terrible mistake has been made," he stammered, "a-about th-that asteroid."

  "Ah!" murmured Sally to herself. "Maybe Kerry Dale wasn't so foolish as darling dad thought."

  "What about it?" snapped Kenton.

  "We miscalculated the orbits. We were so . . . rushed for time, we weren't able to send to Ceres for a copy of the Mammoth chart. I . . . I thought of it only yesterday. With the new factors on hand, I re-calculated the elements."

  A terrible suspicion grew on Simeon.

  "They . . . they wouldn't have met," Bellamy went on unhappily. "They would have cleared by three miles if the Flying Meteor hadn't pushed them together."

  Sally ran to her father. For once she was seriously alarmed. He seemed to be having a stroke. His face went a deep purple and his breath wheezed. "I'll sue him," he gasped. "I'll get my money back. I'll bankrupt him for fraud and conspiracy, for—"

  "Wait a minute, dad," said Sally. "You can't."

  "Why can't I?"

  "You gave him a general release."

  For a long moment old Simeon glared at her. Then he fell weakly into a chair and a certain awed admiration came into his eyes. "The dingdasted good-for-nothing! No wonder he sold out so fast and so cheap. He outsmarted me . . . me, Simeon Kenton."

  He rose from his chair. "Daughter," he said impressively, "mark my words, that young man will go far!"

  But Sally wasn't there anymore. She bad quietly slipped out. She wanted to send a private spacegram of her own. It read:

  Kerry Dale,

  Planets, Ceres

  Congratulations! Keep up the good work!

  SALLY KENTON

  CHAPTER 4

  SIMEON KENTON was in a terrific temper. He paced up and down the confines of his office with short, rapid steps that tossed his deceptive halo of white hair into utter confusion. His mildly whiskered saint's visage was screwed up into unutterable knots. In his tight-clutched fingers was a blue spacegram which he shook violently at his daughter at each choking pause in his peroration.

  "Dadblast that dingfoodled young scalawag of a Kerry Dale," he exploded. "Look at this, will you? Of all the impudent, soncarned—I mean condarned—damn it, you know what I mean!"

  "I think I know what you mean," his daughter, Sally, admitted demurely. Her eyes danced and secreted understanding, albeit slightly wicked, humor. She loved her irascible father; they might tilt at each other and parry deft strokes for the sheer intellectual joy of the thing, but underneath her slim, proud beauty there functioned a brain as keen and hard as his own.

  "You mean that Kerry Dale has turned down your proposition."

  Old Simeon glared at her and waved the offending spacegram so violently it ripped in his fingers. "I offered to take him back into my service as a lawyer," he shouted. "I offered to forget that dirty trick he pulled on me about the colliding asteroids that cost me over a hundred thousand dollars. I even hinted that within a year or so he might succeed that dithering ass, Roger Horn, as Chief of my Legal Department. I mentioned delicately I'd tear up that contract he signed when drunk obligating him to eight more months of cargo-toting on my ships."

  "Which was very sweet of you," murmured Sally, "considering that the said Mr. Dale bad already wangled a general release out of you."

  "Don't interrupt, child," snapped her father. He returned to his grievance—the torn, fluttering spacegram in his hand. "Yet what do you think he had the didgosted effrontery to reply?"

  "I have a faint idea; but tell me, anyway."

  "He says—confound him—he doesn't want a job. With me, or with anyone else. He's doing quite well on his own; and he expects to do even better. However, if I'd be willing to associate with him as an equal partner in some ventures be has in mind, he might consider me."

  Old Simeon paused for breath. His blue eyes glared with baleful incongruity in the mild-mannered frame of his visage. "Me!" he choked. "Me, Simeon Kenton, being offered an equal partnership by a babe in arms, a puling young whelp!" His very beard seemed to quiver and grow electric at the enormity of the thought.

  Then suddenly he stopped and grinned. It was an impish, waggish grin. "Not at least," he amended, "until I've licked him and taken him down a peg or two."

  "That might take a long time," Sally pointed out. "He won the first round over you, and he might just as well take the second and the third. I think, dad, his proposition isn't such a bad idea at that."

  "Not a bad idea?"
yelled Simeon. "It's a superlatively atrocious idea! Har-rumph! I grant you he knows law, but he's still a young snipperwhipper. Just because he took advantage of some obscure sections of a coff-eaten mode—I mean a mode-eaten coff—oh, ding it, you know what I mean—to steal my hard-earned money from me is no reason for this new fond-counded impudence of his. Partner! Bah! And bah again!"

  "And triple bah!" agreed Sally. "Nevertheless, suppose this same impudent young man decides to take his proposition, whatever it is, to Jericho Foote? You know Jericho. He'll very likely take him up on it, just to annoy you."

  "That rubbled-dyed Venusian swamp snake!" said Simeon incredulously. "He take up with Kerry Dale? Impossible! Dale is too—"

  "Sensible?" Sally finished for him. "That's what I've been saying right along. But if you turned him down—"

  Her father calmed suddenly. "You love him, don't you?"

  "Yes," she said. Being her father's daughter she never evaded an issue. "And I expect to marry him some day, whether he knows it now or not."

  Looking at her, old Simeon could well believe it. No young man could long resist his slim, calm-eyed young daughter. He went to her and kissed her. His voice softened. "He's got the right stuff in him, Sally, in spite of his whangdoodled brashness. But his head's liable to grow too big for him if he gets what he wants too easily. Let him fight the hard way for success; the way I did. Let him fight me, if necessary; it will do him good. And I'll fight him back, tooth and nail. If he wins through, I want him to win on his own, and not because his future father-in-law made the way easy."

  Sally nodded thoughtfully. Then a gay smile made a sunburst of her countenance. "All right, dad. Go ahead and get in your dirtiest licks. But don't mind if I root for the other side."

  "I won't." He flicked the telecaster into life. He scowled at the communications operator. "Take a spacegram," he roared. "Addressed to Kerry Dale, Planets, Ceres. 'Your impudent proposition doesn't even merit turning down. My own proposition withdrawn. Sent merely out of pity. Wash my hands of you. Expect presently to wash my hands with you. Kenton.'

  "There, that will hold him. Now we'll see what stuff he's made of." He turned grinning toward his daughter. But Sally was no longer there. She had slipped silently out of his office.

  A frown replaced the grin. The bluster died. No longer was he master of men; only an anxious parent. He shook his head; screwed up his face in thought.

  He returned to the telecaster, and connected with the Earth-Mars Navigation offices. The clerk recognized him. "Good morning, Mr. Kenton," he said obsequiously. "What may we do for you?"

  "When's the next ship leaving for Planets?"

  "This evening, sir, at 9:45. The Erebus blasts off from Cradle No. 4, sir."

  "Good. Make one reservation for me. Under the name of John Carter. I don't want my presence on board known." "Of course. We'll be most happy to take care of it for you.

  You wish Suite A, naturally, sir. It's the very best—"

  But he was talking to a blank screen.

  The Erebus was the luxury liner of the spaceways. One thousand feet long it was, its hardened dural hull gleaming like silver in the powerful floodlights. Its equipment was the last word and its appointments luxurious. It carried first-class passengers only and express packages of small bulk but high value.

  The usual crowd of loungers, friends and relatives gathered on the brightly illuminated rocket field to see the Erebus off. The last warning signal had been given. The visitors trooped down the gangplank over the open struts of the cradle in which the mighty ship pointed its nose slantingly toward the stars.

  People waved outside. The passengers stood within the observation deck, securely quartzed in, waving back.

  Then the protective shields whirred into place, cutting off sight for the blast-off. The field crew moved toward the gangplank, ready to swing it away.

  A small aerocab shot like a bat out of hell across the field, thrust out landing gear and scattered the crowd headlong before its slithering stop. The car hadn't come to a halt before the cabby had flung to the ground, snatched at a single lightweight bag with one hand and swung at the door with the other. But his passenger, a girl with wind-blown locks and hasty traveling costume, had already sprung lightly out.

  "Yell for them to hold it," she cried impatiently. "Don't worry about me."

  The crowd growled, resentful of the narrow escape. "Who the hell does she think she is?" squeaked a burly roustabout. "Almost running us down like we were—"

  "Hold the ship!" bellowed the cabby. "Miss Kenton's coming on board."

  The ground crew had the gangplank swinging wide. The foreman jumped at the name as if he had been blasted. He bellowed in turn. The long steel slant jerked, moved back into place. The growls of the crowd gave way to straining of necks, excited comments. The roustabout stopped in midflight, gulped and retreated hastily into the protective anonymity of his fellows.

  But Sally was too used to gapings and respectful murmurs to pay any attention. She was running with lithe swiftness toward the ship; the cabby puffing behind her.

  "We didn't know," apologized the foreman.

  She favored him with a quick smile. "Neither did I," she told him and vanished into the reopened port.

  The foreman was dazzled. The girl had gone, but the smile remained with him, to be treasured and brought out again and again for inspection. He even foolishly boasted of it to his stout, work-roughened wife that night while swallowing a midnight meal. And regretted it for days thereafter. For his wife had a jealous heart and a blistering tongue; and she brooked no rivals.

  The harried and obsequious purser was having a rough time of it.

  "If we had only known you were taking passage," lie wailed, "I would without question have reserved Suite A for you, Miss Kenton. But you see—"

  Sally stamped a trim, determined foot. She pretended indignation. "I don't see. Why, pray, may I not have Suite A?"

  "It's already occupied. It was reserved only this morning. By a Mr. John Carter."

  "And who the devil is this Mr. Carter that he rates the only decent suite on board this ship?"

  The purser thought unhappily of the really luxurious quarters he had shown this imperious young lady and which she had turned down. He didn't realize that under her indignant-seeming exterior she was enjoying herself hugely. Unknown to old Simeon, she had returned to his private office while he was packing, and found the telautotyped plate of her father's reservation under the name of Carter. It took her ten seconds then to make up her mind to board the same ship to Ceres; it took her rather more time to throw a sufficiency of clothes together in a bag.

  "I don't know who he is," confessed the purser, "but he seems a most irascible old man. Almost blasted me out of the room when I stopped in very courteously to ask him if he required anything."

  Sally smiled at this unflattering description of her father; hastily shifted the smile to a frozen stare.

  "Then get him out. Give him another room—five other rooms, for all I care. I want Suite A."

  The purser was desolate. "I'd be glad to do anything in my power; but you haven't seen this man. He'd bite my head off if I asked him anything like that. And, after all, the Space Code says specifically—"

  "Bother the Space Code! If you're so frightened of this fellow, I'll speak to him myself. Take me to him."

  The automatic elevator dropped them to Deck 3; the moving catwalk sped them toward Suite A. The purser surreptitiously mopped his brow. These rich dames, who thought they owned the Universe!

  His discreet buzz was answered by a blast from the annunciator.

  "Come in!"

  The annunciator distorted the voice; but it couldn't mask the impatient rasp to it. The purser shut his eyes and muttered a hasty prayer. There'd be sparks flying when these two met. He wished himself anywhere else but at this particular spot.

  The door whirred open; and they stepped in.

  It was a beautiful suite; there was no question of that. The
walls were photomuraled on receptive metal to give the effect of smiling fields back dropped by snow-capped mountains. The ceiling appeared an open sky in which glowed innumerable worlds. Couches nestled around a central bath of artificial flame. Open doors disclosed twin bedrooms and a bathing pool filled with activated waters.

  A man's back bent away from them. He was seeking a book in the recessed shelves.

  "Can't I get peace and quiet even out in space?" he grumbled. "What the devil do you want now?"

  "I want this suite," said Sally in a throaty, altered voice. "And I want it in a hurry. I'll give you exactly five minutes to pack and get out."

  The purser was horrified. "Now please—" he started in protest.

  But the man had jerked erect and pivoted on them. He was furious. His wispy white hair bristled with electric anger. "Give me five minutes! Why, you impertinent—"

  His jaw dropped ludicrously. "Sally!" he shouted. "In the name of all the blink-eyed comets, what are you doing here?"

  She kissed him. "Suppose I ask you the same question? You know you're subject to vertigo."

  The purser's eyes goggled. Simeon Kenton! Old Fireball himself! Father and daughter. He fled before this strange, incomprehensible pair could turn on him.

  "Don't be silly," old Simeon said indignantly. "You can't have vertigo in space. Everything's up."

  Sally shook her finger at him. "No evasions, please."

  He cleared his throat. "Har-rumph! I'm going to Planets. A business deal, my dear. Something that came up suddenly."

  "A business deal?" she echoed meaningly. "Now confess!"

  "Yes, a business deal!" he returned heatedly. "And furthermore—" He stopped short. He glared. "Never mind about me.

  What the ding-ding about you?"

  She patted his cheek. "I'm on the same business deal that you are, most reverend parent. Only I bet I thought of it first."

  Then the humor of it struck them simultaneously, and they laughed until the tears came and their voices were weak.