Fiction Complete, page 75
He found the ship’s officers gathered about a desk in the engineer’s section of the rocket room, where Captain Stower had set up headquarters after evacuating Section Three.
“For a while, I thought we’d be driven right into the tubes,” he told Lanston. “The two forward sections are so much junk by now. We’ll just have time to abandon—with luck!”
“You picked up the Saphire?” asked Lanston eagerly.
“Mr. Kurian spotted her just as we were about to give up.”
Newman moved aside as Stower spoke, and Lanston saw Kurian slumped on a stool beside a panel of rocket room gauges. They were all tired and unshaven, but the pilot seemed exhausted. Lanston squirmed inside as he noted the swelling about Kurian’s eye. Then the other looked up at him and grinned, teeth very white against his tanned face.
“You’re coming with me in the first rocket,” he told Lanston. “We’ll need you to save groping around when we get inside. She’ll be about three miles away by the time we’re ready.”
The party was organized with a minimum of confusion. Higgins and the tow-headed Newman, who had volunteered to rig a collapsible airtube on the Saphire’s entrance port, and Lanston were issued spacesuits. Kurian settled himself in the little control bay of the rocket, and the nearest dozen passengers were jammed in behind. Julie Knapp sat wide-eyed behind the pilot, occasionally throwing a smile to Lanston at his post by the tiny airlock.
IT seemed to take hours, during which they were once more weightless, to reach the old ship. Lanston sweated inside his suit and fidgeted nervously when Kurian began an endless series of petty, jiggling blips on his steering rocket.
“What did he do, get lost?” he whispered to Newman.
“Not him!” murmured the other. “Better get your helmet screwed on; we must be there and he’s trying to lay us in close to her airlock. Here—check mine, will you?”
Lanston checked him and Higgins, and was checked. Newman tapped him on the shoulder and they entered the airlock one at a time.
Lanston was the first one through. He stared at the looming hull only a few yards away, and seconded Newman’s faith in Kurian’s skill. A magnetic grapple shot across and clung.
Never thought I’d be so glad to see YOU again, he thought.
Higgins erupted from the airlock with a bulky package. When Newman joined them, the three of them fitted together the metal attachments that would clamp to the airlock ports and extended the plastic tube.
“Your honor, Captain,” said Newman over his suit radio.
He pointed to the Saphire and thrust the end of the tube toward Lanston as Higgins finished clamping the opposite end down.
Looks awfully thin, the trader thought. Glad I’m going over in a suit!
With a boost from Newman, he floated across to the old rocket’s airlock, which opened without difficulty. The others leaped and relieved him of the tube. They began to clamp it to the port from the outside as soon as Lanston got in.
The first thing he did was to turn on more lights. He regretted the power wasted because of the ones he had left burning when he abandoned, but the darkness of space had made him appreciative of such luxuries. Glancing about before making the jump, he had been utterly unable to spot the Nova. The two or three flashes from other emergency rockets on the way had merely intensified the lonely feeling.
He shucked out of his spacesuit after a quick check of the air pressure, and ran for the ladder to the storage decks. After the grav system of the Nova, it felt queer to experience the shift of weight every time he passed a deck on his way down toward the jets.
The passengers were already coming through by the time Lanston had thrown open two of the holds. He buttonholed a capable-looking youth to put in charge and told him where he might tap the water supply.
“You’ll have to make yourselves comfortable the best you can,” he concluded. “Julie! You come with me to the control room. I want to make radio contact with the others.”
He led the way up two ladders to the deck just under the control room.
“This is about the best cabin,” he said, showing her the entrance. “Make yourself at home!”
“Is this your spaceship?” asked Julie, eyeing the rust spots on the bulkheads with distaste.
“Well . . . she’s not fancy, but she goes—I hope!”
By the time he made radio contact, Kurian had already pulled away and headed back for the Nova. Until the completion of the complex operation, Lanston remained a sort of traffic director. All the Nova pilots were hard at work. He grew hoarse from talking them into position, but was too busy to worry about where the people were going.
“You mean it’s the last?” he cried as Monteforte reported he had Captain Stower with him.
They let him off for long enough to shave and wash up while there was still water to spare, but insisted that he be in the control room when they spun the ship to brake and get up speed toward Corsha.
“Frankly,” Stower put it, “I’d be afraid to touch anything in this spare parts bin!”
Someone found a blanket to fold in a corner of the deck, and Lanston lay on it when they let him. Every so often, one of the pilots would inquire why this gauge indicated zero temperature in the rocket room, or whether it was safe to trust the automatic air-analyzer. Lanston did the best he could, but sensed that they doubted the sanity of anyone who blasted into space in a rattletrap like the Saphire.
But she’s still in better shape than their fancy tub, he consoled himself. She might even make it back to Corsha.
As the hours wore on, he kept hoping but had to admit that things were getting uncomfortable. Alter one quick visit to his old cabin, which he found occupied by six men and women, he avoided asking how the passengers and crewmen were making out. Like sardines, he could see for himself. He wondered where Julie had taken herself and worried about her disappointment at the condition of the Saphire.
Can’t blame her, he reflected. I was glad enough to leave when I thought the Nova was safer.
“The air’s getting a little thick, isn’t it?” he asked Kurian as the Nova pilots changed “watches” much later.
“We’re trying to stretch it,” muttered the pilot. “Do you realize we’ve been aboard nearly a day?”
Lanston raised an eyebrow and glanced about the dingy control room.
“Holding up pretty well, isn’t she?” he inquired smugly.
Kurian groaned. “Whatever made you think you could take this antique into space and get away with it?” he demanded.
“Had no choice,” Lanston shrugged. “My last credit went for this hull. If she doesn’t last back to Corsha, I’m bankrupt as well as dead!”
“Ummm,” murmured Kurian. “Well, we might get out alive. The Old Man is going to radio Corsha for ships to meet us.”
Lanston considered this. It occurred to him that there was now leisure to worry about his plight in case he did not die. He would land upon Corsha under a cloud, to put it charitably.
I’d better see Stower before he radios, he. thought.
The planet swelled from a bright point to a crescent to a half-lighted globe. They were lucky in that their approach was from north of the system plane.
“I’d hate to have to dodge a meteorite group in this,” was the way Stower put it.
He agreed good-naturedly to Lanston’s request, however; and when they at long last approached Corsha’s atmosphere, he called the trader to listen in as he contacted the ships hastily sent up to take off the passengers.
“No, we’ll have to use your emergency craft. We abandoned ours. . . . Yes, we still have the air-tube connected . . . Who—Lanston? They agree to drop all possible charges? Good! It’s the least we could do for him; there would have been a major tragedy if he hadn’t . . . er . . . offered the use of his ship . . .”
There was more, about the order in which the rescuing ships would approach, but Lanston was satisfied.
That should hold Axelrod a while, he gloated, and went down to the next deck to search out Julie.
“The little eyeful with the bosom and the long hair?” a male passenger answered his query. “I saw her down on the next deck with old Moneybags Boley.”
The entrance to the main airlock, Lanston thought. Can’t she wait to get off?
He found them sitting on the deck near the airlock, with a score of others. Boley’s back was against the bulkhead and Julie rested coyly on his shoulder.
“In a hurry to leave?” he asked Julie, but he stared Boley in the eye.
The man took it upon himself to answer.
“You surely don’t expect Miss Knapp to remain on this rusty contraption a moment longer than necessary!”
Evidently irked at having to look up to Lanston, he rose. Julie also got to her feet. A moment later, several others did the same when two spacemen, completely suited, pushed their way to the airlock and entered it.
“The ships are here,” murmured several voices.
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood Miss Knapp’s concern for your safety—” Boley began once more.
“Let her tell me about that!” said Lanston brusquely.
“All right,” snapped the girl. “I will I Just because I brought you a sandwich once, you needn’t get ideas! I don’t like the way you put on airs, pretending you were captain of a spaceship when all you owned was this smelly wreck!”
“But, Julie! How about when you—?”
“How about never!”
“See here, Lanston!” blustered Boley. “I can’t permit you to annoy Miss Knapp any further. She needs the protection of someone like myself, with resources sufficient to take care of her properly.”
“Take an eclipse!” Lanston told him impatiently. “Julie, listen to me! I—”
“You penniless, planet-hopping tramp!” she shrilled at him. “Willy, get this redheaded gawk away from me before we miss the rescue rocket!”
Lanston gaped, experiencing a hollow sensation amidships. As he stared, forgetting Boley, a fist swished out of nowhere to thud on his left cheekbone.
He staggered, more in surprise than in hurt, and Julie completed his overthrow by kicking him heartily in the shin. Lanston’s feet went from under him. His skull rang against the bulkhead on the way down. He remembered thinking vaguely how much healthier that bulkhead sounded than the one on the Nova.
The airlock was opened and a stranger in a fresh uniform stepped out.
“All right, folks!” he called.
“Who’s for the first trip? Don’t rush, lady—there are four other ships waiting!”
Lanston shook his head and hauled himself to his feet. He attracted a few curious glances, but most of the interest was directed to lining up for the departure. Captain Stower pushed his way forward from the foot of the ladder to confer with the Corshan officer, and remained to spread words of calm and confidence among those who crowded around the airlock.
Boley and Julie were among the first to leave. Lanston felt his eye tenderly and slunk up the ladder to his old room, where he sat upon the now-empty bunk to add up the score.
You bonehead! he reproached himself. When you think back, can you remember one kind word out of her except when she thought she needed you?
Kurian found him studying the mouse under his eye about half an hour later. Lanston listened to the jubilant report that everyone had been gotten off, but did not turn from his sour contemplation of the mirror.
“What happened to you?” asked Kurian.
Lanston told him.
“I don’t hold it against the fat slob,” he said. “He just doesn’t know any better. But it kind of hurts to find out you’re a nit-witted ass!”
“Oh, come on, now!” laughed Kurian. “With that little girl, there’s been many another shorn lamb, I’ll bet, and there’ll be more in the future. You ready to go?”
“I think I’ll try to land her,” said Lanston.
“What?”
“Got nothing to lose. If I can sell her for scrap, maybe I can eat for a while.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Captain Stower appeared.
“What’s the hold-up, Kurian?” he demanded. “Let’s go!”
“He’s going to ride her down,” said the pilot.
Behind Stower, Lanston saw the equally surprised faces of Newman and Monteforte. Stower flushed.
“He’s crazy!” he exploded. “Does he know how much fuel is left.”
“There’s just enough,” said Kurian slowly. “If it’s used carefully.”
“But he isn’t an experienced pilot!”
“I am, though. And I believe I’ll bear a hand here. The ship’s all he has in the world, sir. We owe him something.”
Lanston thought for a moment that they would drag Kurian off by force and return for him. Then he saw their expressions change before Kurian’s level stare. Stower shook his head sadly.
“They all soften between the ears in the end,” he muttered. “Well, good luck, Bill!”
Newman nodded wordlessly and Monteforte shook hands with both of them.
“I’d like to stay and help out,” he said, “but I’d rather live!”
They marched to the ladder. In a few brief moments, their voices died away and the door of the airlock changed.
“Let’s get up to the control room,” said Kurian soberly.
“Maybe we’d better not,” said Lanston, feeling guilty at having dragged the other into a wild scheme. “Can you really handle her?”
“Don’t worry, Bill! I haven’t been piloting for ten years without learning some tricks they don’t need on those luxury rockets. We’ll get her down or I’ll owe you for another ship!”
He began to work the tail around to hit the atmosphere first.
“Of course,” he admitted, “I don’t guarantee to pick the spot more than ten seconds ahead of time! I’ll try for the Capital City spaceport, though.”
“Any acre of jungle will suit me fine!” Lanston breathed.
Two hundred miles up, they reached noticeable air and Kurian sent Lanston down to the rocket room to watch for danger signs. The Saphire went into a braking orbit.
Fifty miles more of drop, and Lanston began to be bothered by the slant of the deck despite the gravity plates. He also became conscious of strange groans and vibrations about him.
One hundred miles up, something outside gave way. The old Saphire went into a noticeable wobble as the thunder of the main rocket battery turned slightly ragged.
“A tube blew, I think!” Lanston screamed over the intercom.
“Better get up here,” answered Kurian.
“What’s the trouble?”
“Nothing—yet! But it’s the best place to watch the landing from. Not so much, weight to fall on your head if . . . if we come down a trifle fast.” Lanston gave up watching the inaccurate gauges and ran for the ladder. He was nearly shaken loose by the Increasing wobble and, on the next level, by a blast of air funneled in through some rent in the hull; but he fought upward, clawing for handholds on the rungs and trying to remember how to pray. . . .
OVER the capital city of the planet Corsha the shadows were lengthening as the colonial world placidly spun its other face to its yellowish primary.
Consul Axelrod pursed his lips as he sat behind his painfully trim desk and stared casually at the spinning hand on the face of the electric wall clock. A casual observer might have thought him engrossed in some weighty diplomatic problem. As a matter of fact, he was considering two of them.
He had just solved one by deciding that he might with a good chance of success invite his blonde receptionist to dinner that night at his private residence. It did not seem like time yet for another trinket or one of the Corshan pearls he had been presenting her.
Then, there was the matter of the Nova.
Naturally, the consulate must do something for Stower and his people, he pondered. A dinner, or some such welcome to celebrate escaping a catastrophe that would have seriously injured the reputation of—
He struggled briefly with the mask of his inner self, but failed to prevent its slipping a trifle. Was it the reputation of Terra that gave, him concern? Or that of the spaceline in which he happened to have a modest investment?
“Well, of course, the reputation of every Terran organization affects that of the mother planet,” he murmured smugly.
Which brings up the problem of that young puppy, Lanston, he recalled. There’s that agreement, yes; but it will never do for me to appear to condone his skipping out. I wish I knew how he got on the right side of Stower—
His intercom buzzed, and he heard steps outside his door. Hastily, Axelrod straightened primly in his chair and slipped on what he considered an expression of dignified competence. He believed firmly in keeping up appearances at the office.
The door swung back abruptly, but the tramp of feet was low-heeled and anything but petite. The recipient of the inquiring, fishy stare that had resulted from Axelrod’s being alerted was Bill Lanston.
“Hello, Mr. Axelrod!” he greeted the consul challengingly.
Axelrod’s other eyebrow crept upward as he viewed Lanston’s disheveled air and the yellow-green swelling under his left eye. His lips twisted coldly before he realized that another man had followed Lanston into the office.
“See here, Lanston!” he said. “It will do you no good to . . . uh . . . influence the spaceline officials to bring you over here in another attempt to worm you passage money out of the consulate funds.”
He paused as he got a better look at the second man. A sudden doubt rose in his mind.
“Er . . . that is why you are here, I presume?”-he queried.
He felt a vague twinge of anxiety, seeing that the fellow looked almost as disreputable as Lanston. His brown hair was rumpled and the neck of his sweaty shirt hung open to expose a. brawny chest. This second man also seemed to have a puffy discoloration around his eye.
“That is why we’re here,” Lanston agreed firmly.
“We?” asked Axelrod weakly, turning back to the lanky redhead.
“We. Both of us. Allow me to introduce John Kurian.”
