crookcould be!"
Brinker's laugh was sharp, but his eyes held real apology. "Want to helpme ready and load the ship?" he said almost mildly. "No--I guess not;you aren't quite in a cooperative frame of mind, yet. I'll need youlater. Sorry, but you're the only guy around, Cope."
Brinker blasted queer bulkheads out of the ship, in order to make ithabitable for humans. The exit of the cavern had been masked withdebris, but now he cleared it. He tossed Copeland aboard and took offinto the lunar night.
* * * * *
The vast journey lasted for months. Once Brinker said to his sullen, andagain partially-drugged, captive: "Maybe in two years, if we're verylucky, we'll be back."
Hurtling outward, they passed the orbits of Mars, the asteroids,Jupiter, and Saturn. There, with Earth-made instruments, Brinker locatedwhat he sought: Brulow's Comet.
So far from the sun, where the fluorescence-inducing radiations werethinned almost to nothing, it glowed hardly at all. And it had almost notail; it was only a gigantic, tenuous ghost, with a core of stone andmagnetic iron fragments.
Still dazed, Copeland thought about comets. Wanderers, followingelongated orbits that loop tight around the sun at one end and plumb thedepths of space at the other. Of all large forms moving through thevoid, they were the least dense. In coma and tail, they were onlyintensely rarefied and electrified gas. The great enigma about them wasthat things so deficient in mass and gravity could hold onto even thatmuch atmosphere for long. Perhaps new gases were baked out of themeteoric core, each time a comet was close to the sun; maybe some ofthem even renewed their atmosphere periodically, by capturing a littleof the tenuous substance of the solar corona, during their very nearapproaches to it.
Brulow's Comet was on the sunward swing, now, gaining speed under solargravitation; but it still had a long ways to go. Brinker guided the shipdown through its coma and toward its lazily-rotating nucleus, wherethousands of fragments of iron and rock swirled around their commoncenter of gravity.
The chunks clattered against the craft's metal hull, but did no damageat their low speed. Brinker brought the ship to rest at the center ofthe nucleus, where there was one solid mass of material a hundred yardsin diameter.
"Well, we're here, Cope," Brinker said grimly. "We don't have to workright away--if you don't want to. We've got too much time."
Those two years looming ahead were the worst. If the Moon had beenharsh, it was nothing to this eerie place. The heart of this small cometwas illumined by faint, shifting phosphorescence, ranging from blue andtarnished silver to delicate if poisonous pink. Perhaps the cause wasthe same as that of the terrestrial aurora. The silence here was that ofspace; but the swirling motion of the nucleus suggested a continuousmaddening rustle to Copeland.
He had to yield to Brinker's wishes. Toil might divert him some, keephim from feeling the tension of time and strangeness so much.
"Okay, Brinker," he said. "You win. Brulow's Comet is headed for a closeapproach to the Earth-Moon system. So you want to be spectacular, andshift it a little from its orbit--so that it will hit the Moon and maybebreak its crust. Was that so hard to figure? That sounds pretty big,doesn't it? But I'll humor you. Let's see how far we get ... Since we'rehere." His sarcasm was tired.
* * * * *
As a preliminary, they cut a cavern in the central mass of the nucleuswith Martian blasters, and fitted it with a crude airlock. The cavernwould be better to live in than the interior of a ship meant for alienbeings. They moved Martian apparatus and supplies into it:Air-rejuvenators, moisture-reclaimers, cylinders of oxygen and water,and containers of nourishment--all millions of years old.
Their remaining supply of Earthly food in their packs was now veryshort. It was weird--eating what had been preserved so long ago, onanother world, for beings just barely close enough to human for theirfood to be edible. Gelatins, sectional fragments of vegetation, and whatmight have been muscle-tissue. Copeland and Brinker both gagged often.It wasn't the bland, oily taste so much, but the idea....
Some of it, Copeland decided, was not native Martian. It was more liketerrestrial fish. And slabs of coarse meat might have been flesh of thelast dinosaurs! Martians surely must have visited Earth briefly, thoughevidence there had long since weathered away.
* * * * *
While the still-distant sun sent thin light into the comet, Brinker andCopeland removed the propulsion-tubes from the ship and welded them tothe central chunk of the nucleus. They had a number of other sparejet-tubes. These they fastened to lesser masses.
Whenever, in the slow swirling of the nucleus, tubes pointed in thecalculated proper direction at right angles to the comet's course, theywere fired in long bursts. Thus, slowly, like a perfectly-balanced bankvault door moved by a finger, the mass of the comet--slight by volume,but still measuring many thousands of tons--was deflected in theopposite direction. Astrogation-instruments showed the shift. Copelandhad expected such coarse deflection to be possible; still, it startledhim--this was the moving of a celestial body!
"Just a little--for now, Cope," Brinker said. "We'll leave the fineaiming for later. Meanwhile we've got to pass the time, stay as well aswe can, and keep our heads on straight."
Sure--straight! If Brinker hadn't turned foolish before they had come,they wouldn't be out here at all. In a month they were already thinningdown from malnutrition and strain. At first, thinking coldly, Copelandwas sure they'd wilt and die long before they got near the Moon.
Then, as they managed to steady themselves some by the diversions ofplaying cards, and studying the intricacies of Martian equipment, hebegan to fear once more that Brinker might succeed in his efforts--butfail terribly in result.
Many times Copeland went over the same arguments, struggling to speakcalmly, and without anger: "I wonder if you realize it, Brinker--withenough velocity one large meteor carries more energy than a fissionbomb. A whole comet would affect thousands of square miles of the lunarsurface, at least. Smash equipment, kill men. And if the comet happenedto miss the Moon and hit Earth--"
Sometimes Brinker's expression became almost fearful, as at an enormity.But then he'd turn stubborn and grin. "There's plenty of room to avoidhitting the Earth," he'd say. "On the Moon, astronomers will warn of theshifted orbit of Brulow's Comet in plenty of time for everybody to getout of danger. Most of what we've got to worry about now, is our lives,or jail ..."
A moment later, as like as not, they'd be slamming at each other withfists. Copeland found it hard to contain his fury for the man who hadbrought him such trouble, and--without intent--was so determined toextend it to many others.
Brinker kept winning the scraps. But Copeland's ten-year age-advantagemeant something when it came to enduring hardship and partial-starvationover a long period. They didn't weaken equally.
This levelling of forces was one thing that Copeland waited for. Anotherwas that when Brulow's Comet was found to be off course, a ship might besent to investigate. He never mentioned it, certainly; but once Brinkersaid: "I'm ready for what you're thinking, Cope. I've got weapons."
By then they spent much of their time in torpid sleep.
Another difficulty was that it was getting harder to keep one's mindconsistently on the same track. Space, tribulation, and the months, werehaving their blurring effect.
Often, Copeland spent many hours in wistful reverie about his girl,Frances, in Iowa. Sometimes he hated all people--on Earth, Moon, andeveryhere, and didn't care what happened to them. On other occasionsBrinker's basic desire to lessen the desolation of the lunar scenelooked supremely good to him--as of course it always had, in principle.Then, briefly and perhaps madly, he was Brinker's pal, instead ofyearning to beat him to a pulp.
* * * * *
Somehow, twenty months crept by, and the first spaceship hoveinquisitively close to Brulow's Comet. A shadow of his former self,Brinker crept out of the cavern to man his weapons. But like a fami
shedbeast seeking prey, Copeland followed him.
His victory, now, was almost easy. Then all he had to do was wait to bepicked up; the ship was coming nearer. Through the now much-brightenedglow of the comet, it had ceased to be a planetlike speck reflectingsunlight; and showed its actual form.
Confusion whirled in Copeland's head; hunger gnawed in him. Yet helooked down at Brinker--poor Brinker, beaten unconscious inside hisspacesuit. Brinker had tried to fight lifeless dreariness. Copeland,weak of body and fogged of mind, was now close to maudlin tears.Dreariness was the enemy--here as elsewhere. He tried to think; hisstubborn nature mixed itself with splinters of reason, and seemed tomake sense.
His twenty months of suffering out here had to be used--meansomething--didn't it? It
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