The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Xii Part 44

"In ten," confirmed Jonner, pulling a lever on the calibrated gauge of the radio control.

"Pile Two, in fifteen."

"In fifteen."

"Check. I'll have the length of burst figured for you in a jiffy."

A faint glow appeared around the atomic tug far ahead, and there was the faintest s.h.i.+ver in the s.h.i.+p. But after a moment, Qoqol said in a puzzled tone: "No Gs, Jonner. Engine not work?"

"Sure, she's working," said Jonner with a grin. "You'll never get any more G than we've got now, Qoqol, all the way to Mars. Our maximum acceleration will be 1/3,000th-G."

"One three-thousandth?" exclaimed T'an, shaken out of his Oriental calm. "Jonner, the Marsward will blast away at one or two Gs. How do you expect to beat that at 1/3,000th?"

"Because they have to cut off and coast most of the way in an elliptic orbit, like any other rocket," answered Jonner calmly. "We drive straight across the system, under power all the time. We accelerate half way, decelerate the other half."

"But 1/3,000th!"

"You'll be surprised at what constant power can do. I know Baat, and I know the trick he's going to use. It's obvious from the blastoff time they arranged. He's going to tack off the Moon and use his power right to cut 20 days off that regular 237-day schedule. But this tug-boat will make it in 154 days!"

They took aboard the 200-ton landing boat. By the time they got it secured, the radio already was sounding warnings for blastoff.

Zero hour arrived. Again Jonner pulled levers and again the faint glow appeared around the tail of their distant tug. Across s.p.a.ce the exhaust of the Marsward XVIII flared into blinding flame. In a moment, it began to pull ahead visibly and soon was receding like a meteor.

Near the Radiant Hope, the s.p.a.ce station seemed not to have changed position at all.

"The race is not always to the swift," remarked Jonner philosophically.

"And we're the tortoise," said T'an. "How about filling us in on this jaunt, Jonner?"

"Is should, Jonner," agreed Qoqol. "T'an know all about crazy new engine, I know all about crazy new orbit. Both not know all. You tell."

"I planned to, anyway," said Jonner. "I had figured on having Serj in on it, but he wouldn't understand much of it anyhow. There's no use in waking him up."

Serj was the s.h.i.+p's doctor-psychologist and fourth member of the crew. He was asleep below on the centerdeck.

"For your information, Qoqol," said Jonner, "the atomic engine produces electrical energy, which accelerates reaction ma.s.s. Actually, it's a crude ion engine. T'an can explain the details to you later, but the important thing is that the fuel is cheap, the fuel-to-cargo ratio is low and constant acceleration is practical.

"As for you, Tan, I was surprised at your not understanding why we'll use low acceleration. To boost the engine power and give us more Gs, we'd either have to carry more fuel or coast part of the way on momentum, like an ordinary rocket. This way's more efficient, and our 63-day margin over the Marsward each way is more than enough for unloading and loading more cargo and fuel."

"With those figures, I can't see how Marscorp expects to win this compet.i.tion," said T'an.

"We've got them, flat, on the basis of performance," agreed Jonner. "So we'll have to watch for tricks. I know Marscorp. That's why I arranged to take aboard that G-boat at the last minute. Marscorp controls all the G-boats at Marsport, and they're smart enough to keep us from using them, in spite of the s.p.a.ce Control Commission. As for refueling for the return trip, we can knock a chunk off of Phobos for reaction ma.s.s."

The meteor alarm bells clanged suddenly, and the screen lit up once with a fast-moving red line that traced the path of the approaching object.

"Miss us about half a mile," said Jonner after a glance at the screen. "Must be pretty big ... and it's coming up!"

He and T'an floated to one of the ports, and in a few moments saw the object speed by.

"That's no meteor!" exclaimed Jonner with a puzzled frown. "That's man-made. But it's too small for a G-boat."

The radio blared: "All craft in orbit near s.p.a.ce Station 2! Warning! All craft near s.p.a.ce Station 2! Experimental missile misfired from White Sands! Repeat: experimental missile misfired from White Sands! Coordinates...."

"Fine time to tell us," remarked T'an drily.

"Experimental missile, h.e.l.l!" snorted Jonner, comprehension dawning. "Qoqol, what would have happened if we hadn't s.h.i.+fted orbit to take aboard that G-boat?"

Qoqol calculated a moment.

"Hit our engines," he announced. "Dead center."

Jonner's blue eyes clouded ominously. "Looks like they're playing for keeps this time, boys."

The brotherhood of s.p.a.cemen is an exclusive club. Any captain, astrogator or engineer is likely to be well known to his colleagues, either personally or by reputation.

The s.h.i.+p's doctor-psychologist is in a different category. Most of them sign on for a few runs for the adventure of it, as a means of getting back and forth between planets without paying the high cost of pa.s.sage or to pick up even more money than they can get from lucrative planetbound practice.

Jonner did not know Serj, the Radiant Hope's doctor. Neither T'an nor Qoqol ever had heard of him. But Serj appeared to know his business well enough, and was friendly enough.

It was Serj's first trip and he was very interested in the way the s.h.i.+p operated. He nosed into every corner of it and asked a hundred questions a day.

"You're as inquisitive as a cadet s.p.a.ceman, Serj," Jonner told him on the twenty-fifth day out. Everybody knew everyone else well by then, which meant that Jonner and Qoqol, who had served together before, had become acquainted with T'an and Serj.

"There's a lot to see and learn about s.p.a.ce, Captain," said Serj. He was a young fellow, with fair hair and an easy grin. "Think I could go outside?"

"If you keep a lifeline hooked on. The suits have magnetic shoes to hold you to the hull of the s.h.i.+p, but you can lose your footing."

"Thanks," said Serj. He touched his hand to his forehead and left the control deck.

Jonner, near the end of his eight-hour duty s.h.i.+ft, watched the dials.

The red light showing the inner airlock door was open blinked on. It blinked off, then the outer airlock indicator went on, and off.

A shadow fell across Jonner briefly. He glanced at the port and reached for the microphone.

"Careful and don't step on any of the ports," he warned Serj. "The magnetic soles won't hold on them."

"I'll be careful, sir," answered Serj.

No one but a veteran s.p.a.ceman would have noticed the faint quiver that ran through the s.h.i.+p, but Jonner felt it. Automatically, he swung his control chair and his eyes swept the bank of dials.

At first he saw nothing. The outer lock light blinked on and off, then the inner lock indicator. That was Serj coming back inside.

Then Jonner noted that the hand on one dial rested on zero. Above the dial was the word: "ACCELERATION."

His eyes snapped to the radio controls. The atomic pile levers were still at their proper calibration. The dials above them said the engines were working properly.

The atomic tug was still accelerating, but pa.s.sengers and cargo were in free fall.

Swearing Jonner jerked at the levers to pull out the piles aboard the tug.

A blue flash flared across the control board, momentarily blinding him. Jonner recoiled, only his webbed safety belt preventing him from plummeting from the control chair.

He swung back anxiously to the dials, brus.h.i.+ng futilely at the spots that swam before his eyes. He breathed a sigh of relief. The radio controls had operated. The atomic engines had ceased firing.

Tentatively, cautiously, he reversed the lever. There was no blue flash this time, but neither did the dials quiver. He swore. Something had burned out in the radio controls. He couldn't reverse the tug.

He punched the general alarm b.u.t.ton viciously, and the raucous clangor of the bell sounded through the confines of the s.h.i.+p. One by one, the other crew members popped up to the control deck from below.

He turned the controls over to Qoqol.

"Take readings on that d.a.m.n tug," Jonner ordered. "I think our cable broke. T'an, let's go take a look."

When they got outside, they found about a foot of the one-inch cable still attached to the s.h.i.+p. The rest of it, drawn away by the tug before Jonner could cut acceleration, was out of sight.

"Can it be welded, T'an?"

"It can, but it'll take a while," replied the engineer slowly. "First, we'll have to reverse that tug and get the other end of that break."

"d.a.m.n, and the radio control's burned out. I tried to reverse it before I sounded the alarm. T'an, how fast can you get those controls repaired?"

"Great s.p.a.ce!" exclaimed T'an softly. "Without seeing it, I'd say at least two days, Jonner. Those controls are complicated as h.e.l.l."

They re-entered the s.h.i.+p. Qoqol was working at his diagrams, and Serj was looking over his shoulder. Jonner took a heat-gun quietly from the rack and pointed it at Serj.

"You'll get below, mister," he commanded grimly. "You'll be handcuffed to your bunk from here on out."

"Sir?... I don't understand," stammered Serj.

"Like h.e.l.l you don't. You cut that cable," Jonner accused.

Serj started to shrug, but he dropped his eyes.

"They paid me," he said in a low tone. "They paid me a thousand solars."

"What good would a thousand solars do you when you're dead, Serj ... dead of suffocation and drifting forever in s.p.a.ce?"

Serj looked up in astonishment.

"Why, you can still reach Earth by radio, easy," he said. "It wouldn't take long for a rescue s.h.i.+p to reach us."

"Chemical rockets have their limitations," said Jonner coldly.

"And you don't realize what speed we've built up with steady acceleration. We'd head straight out of the system, and nothing could intercept us, if that tug had gotten too far before we noticed it was gone."

He jabbed the white-faced doctor with the muzzle of the heat-gun.

"Get below," he ordered. "I'll turn you over to s.p.a.ce Control at Mars."

When Serj had left the control deck, Jonner turned to the others. His face was grave.

"That tug picked up speed before I could shut off the engines, after the cable was cut," he said. "It's moving away from us slowly, and at a tangent. And solar gravity's acting on both bodies now. By the time we get those controls repaired, the drift may be such that we'll waste weeks maneuvering the tug back."

"I could jet out to the tug in a s.p.a.cesuit, before it gets too far away," said T'an thoughtfully. "But that wouldn't do any good. There's no way of controlling the engines, at the tug. It has to be done by radio."

"If we get out of this, remind me to recommend that atomic s.h.i.+ps always carry a spare cable," said Jonner gloomily. "If we had one, we could splice them and hold the s.h.i.+p to the tug until the controls are repaired."

"Is cable in cargo strong enough, Jonner?" asked Qoqol.

"That's right!" exclaimed Jonner, brightening. "Most of our cargo's cable! That 4,000-ton spool we're hauling back there is 6,000 miles of cable to lay a television network between the Martian cities."

"Television cable?" repeated T'an doubtfully. "Will that be strong enough?"

"It's bound in flonite, that new fluorine compound. It's strong enough to tow this whole cargo at a couple of Gs. There's nothing aboard this s.h.i.+p that would cut off a length of it--a heat-gun at full power wouldn't even scorch it--but we can unwind enough of it, and block the spool. It'll hold the s.h.i.+p to the tug until the controls can be repaired, then we can reverse the tug and weld the cable."

"You mean the whole 6,000 miles of it's in one piece?" demanded T'an in astonishment.

"That's not so much. The cable-laying steamer Dominia carried 3,000 miles in one piece to lay Atlantic cables in the early 20th century."

"But how'll we ever get 4,000 tons in one piece down to Mars?" asked T'an. "No G-boat can carry that load."

Jonner chuckled.

"Same way they got it up from Earth to the s.h.i.+p," he answered. "They attached one end of it to a G-boat and sent it up to orbit, then wound it up on a fast winch. Since the G-boat will be decelerating to Mars, the unwinding will have to be slowed or the cable would tangle itself all over Syrtis."

"Sounds like it's made to order," said T'an, grinning. "I'll get into my s.p.a.cesuit."

"You'll get to work on the radio controls," contradicted Jonner, getting up. "That's something I can't do, and I can get into a s.p.a.cesuit and haul a length of cable out to the tug. Qoqol can handle the winch."

Deveet, the Atom-Star Company's representative at Mars City, and Kruger of the s.p.a.ce Control Commission were waiting when the Radiant Hope's G-boat dropped down from the Phobos station and came to rest in a wash of jets. They rode out to the G-boat together in a Commission groundcar. Jonner emerged from the G-boat, following the handcuffed Serj.

"He's all yours," Jonner told Kruger, gesturing at Serj. "You have my radio reports on the cable-cutting, and I'll make my log available to you."

Kruger put his prisoner in the front seat of the groundcar beside him, and Jonner climbed in the back seat with Deveet.

"I brought the crates of dies for the groundcar factory down this time," Jonner told Deveet. "We'll bring down all the loose cargo before shooting the television cable down. While they're unloading the G-boat, I wish you'd get the tanks refilled with hydrazine and nitric acid. I've got enough to get back up, but not enough for a round trip."

"What do you plan to do?" asked Deveet. He was a dark-skinned, long-faced man with a sardonic twist to his mouth.

"I've got to sign on a new s.h.i.+p's doctor to replace Serj. When the Marsward comes in, Marscorp will have a dozen G-boats working round the clock to unload and reload her. With only one G-boat, we've got to make every hour count. We still have reaction ma.s.s to pick up on Phobos."

"Right," agreed Deveet. "You can take the return cargo up in one load, though. It's just twenty tons of Martian relics for the Solar Museum. Mars-to-Earth cargos run light."

At the administration building, Jonner took his leave of Deveet and went up to the s.p.a.ce Control Commission's personnel office on the second floor. He was in luck. On the board as applying for a Mars-Earth run as s.h.i.+p's doctor-psychologist was one name: Lana Elden.