The Ranger Boys in Space

by Hal Clement

  While the others watched in bewilderment, he opened its door, which he and Dart had dogged shut again after the inside search; then, instead of going into the machine, he leaped up to the sill, jumped again and gripped the top of the door, and by bracing himself between it and the frame managed to get up to its top. This brought his eyes well above the level of the top of the machine; and as he reached this point he called out.

  "This one! He's jumping off the other side!" The three watchers instantly started around the mock-up.

  The spy had not attempted to jump all the way to the floor. As Bart came around the big cylinder, he was just recovering from a landing on an engine block standing near the mock-up. He saw pursuit coming, and made another leap before he had fully regained his balance.

  That was his mistake. Agile as he was, he left the block a trifle sideways, and landed on the far side too greatly off balance to keep on his feet. Everyone in the room heard the crash as he struck the floor, for a loading dolly was standing at the spot where he touched. It was mounted on casters, and its brakes were off. It rolled as he touched it, depriving him of any small chance he might have had of recovering his balance; his feet went with it, and he landed on the flat of his back. Before he could recover, Bart was on him from one direction and Dart from the other. He wrenched once in an attempt to get out from under them, but stopped with a grunt of pain; one of his ankles had been hurt in the fall. The boys had their spy.

  8

  UNCLE JIM TALKS STRAIGHT

  THEY didn't really believe it. They expected that he would vanish from between them as he had before, but after the first attempt that had betrayed the twisted ankle, he made no effort to get away. Three minutes after his fall, he was seated in a chair in one of the offices in the building where he had been captured. Bowen, the Ranger boys, and Peter were there, and several company officials were on the way.

  Little was being said; Bowen and the boys were getting their first really good look at the spy, and the redhead was returning the compliment. He was small, as they already knew, about five feet, two inches tall; he could not have weighed much over a hundred pounds. He was certainly younger than Dart. He was wearing a plain T-shirt, corduroy slacks, and sneakers.

  The clothes were clean and neat, but obviously had been chosen to let him run, climb, or jump as might be needed. His face was a little pale, but no one could tell whether that was his natural complexion or arose from fear at his present situation or pain from his damaged ankle. Bowen had asked whether it hurt the moment he saw the boy limping between Peter and Bart, but had received no answer. Seeing that the youngster was determined to say nothing, Bowen was glad enough to wait for the arrival of the company officers who had been summoned by telephone. It gave him a chance to plan his questions.

  They arrived at the same time: Walter Ledder, manager of the plant, and Ray Deschenes, the engineer who had been in charge of the satellite construction.

  "Good afternoon, Dr. Bowen," Ledder greeted him as the two entered the office. "Hello, boys. I see this is the young fellow Dr. Bowen mentioned to me some time ago. Have you learned anything about him yet?"

  "Only that he doesn't intend that we shall learn anything," replied Bowen. "We hadn't really started to question him; we were waiting for you."

  "I see. Well, we have not yet called the police, since you thought it would be better not to, but if he is doing us no good, there seems little point in keeping him on our hands."

  "Who do you think you're scaring?" The young prisoner seemed suddenly to change his mind about silence. "You wouldn't bring the police, and it wouldn't bother me if you did. You didn't dare the other time you caught me." Bowen raised his eyebrows at this.

  "That's an interesting viewpoint," he said. "I seem to recall saying that the police would be inconvenient, but I don't remember saying anything to suggest that I was afraid of them. What gives you the idea that we should be?"

  "You know as well as I do. You're trying to be the first to get to the moon, so you can have it for yourselves."

  "What gave you that idea?"

  "I knew it when I was first told to watch you, and see if you had any ideas for letting people stand space flight."

  "You seem to have a rather thoughtful boss. I don't suppose he let you listen to that tape you managed to get from the listening device at my house."

  "Sure he did. I wondered why you let me get away so easy, but when I heard that, we knew you wanted us to hear it. You found the mike and then made up that talk so we'd think you were O.K. You must have known it was there, or you wouldn't have had these fellows waiting for me with cameras."

  "Very good. Very good indeed. I take it, then, that your employer has told you that he is interested in preventing anyone from laying claim to the moon or any of the planets, and feels that the best way for him to do it is to get there first himself........ "

  "No! He's not going himself; he just wants to know how you plan to do it, so he can report to the government and they can beat you to it."

  "He's more foresighted than I thought—to tell you that. I suppose it has occurred to you that he might have put things backward; that we are really the ones trying to prevent private seizure of other worlds, and that he........ "

  "He isn't! I believe him; he's been pretty good to me all along when no one else was, and no one's going to talk like that about him while I'm listening!" The little spy leaped to his feet in rage as he practically shrieked this, but his ankle gave under him, and he fell back in the seat, breathless but still furious.

  "I'm sorry," Bowen said gently. "If you are personally loyal to him, I hate to spoil your trust, and I certainly won't ask you to go back on him or betray him while you feel that way. Nevertheless, it is true that our plan is exactly what you say his is; we have been asked not only by our own government but several others to do just that, so as to prevent what could become an embarrassing situation from developing."

  "I don't believe you!"

  "Naturally not. There are a couple of points, however, which your argument has not made clear; perhaps you could explain them more fully. First of all, if it's your friend's idea that we made up that conversation whose record you took, why did we make any attempt at all to catch you and thereby show we knew your listening machine was there?"

  For a moment the redhead made no answer.

  "I suppose it was just so you could use this argument," he said at last, a trifle lamely. Then he brightened. "Besides, you were mad at the boys for trying to catch me; you said you just wanted them to get my picture."

  "You're quibbling, and you know it. Even taking your picture would show we knew about the listener —you must be able to see that. That's just one point, though.

  "I'm a little curious about this claim that we made up and acted out the conversation on the tape you got. If this friend of yours knows that we're trying to get the moon for ourselves, whom were we supposed to be fooling? If he is a government agent, as you imply, what good would sending him a record like that do us?"

  "Well—I guess—you might have been trying to fool me, to get me on your side instead of his."

  "We didn't even know you existed until we caught you getting the tape. We couldn't have, and if you had stopped to think for a moment you'd have realized it. If you'll give me just one sensible reason why we should have faked that conversation, I'll give you five dollars."

  "You could afford more than that if you owned the moon."

  "All right. All right. You're loyal, and I can't very well hold that against you. I still think, though, that a few minutes' clear thought about this matter will at least show you that you have no more real evidence against us than there is against your friend." The boys suspected that their uncle was getting a trifle impatient. "Just what would it take to convince you that I was speaking the truth, and that your friend was either lying or mistaken?"

  "You couldn't do it!"

  "Not even if it happens to be true?" It isn't!

  "That poses an interestin
g question." Bowen pondered for a minute or two. "It's a matter of just what we're to do with you. If we let you go, you'll trot right back to your nameless friend with whatever you've learned here, and there's one thing which I very much don't want made public yet. We can't, apparently, convince you of our honesty. We can't legally keep you........"

  "We can have him kept," cut in Ledder. "He was trespassing, and if he doesn't tell the police more than he's told us, they'd want to hold him for investigation —find his parents or guardians, and so on. If he did tell them more, the information might be quite helpful to us.

  "That's a point," admitted Bowen. "How about it, young fellow; do you want us to turn you over to the police?"

  "You can try that bluff all you want," the boy replied. "I know you won't dare do it. I've seen too much in this very building. I could prove you're trying to get into space."

  "Of course we are! We've told you that already, and we aren't worried about who knows it!"

  "Then why didn't you want to turn me over to the police earlier? I'll call your bluff, Mister; go right ahead."

  Bowen realized that he had talked himself into a corner. He did not want it known that he was using teen-age boys as test pilots until the experiments were over, at least; it might be legal, but would certainly be unpopular with some people. He did not want to explain that fact to the captive, since it was possible that that was not one of the things the youngster had learned from his day's spying. He hesitated, and the redhead saw that he did.

  "Got you, haven't I?" he crowed, and grinned around the company in a way that showed how completely he felt in charge of the situation.

  Peter spoke up for the first time.

  "Maybe this would help," he began. Everyone looked at him with surprise; it had been taken for granted by everyone present that the boys would not try to take part in this discussion. Ledder looked as though he were about to say something; then he glanced at Bowen and left matters up to him.

  "Let's have it, Pete." Bowen was glad of the interruption, even if Ashburn's idea should turn out to be worthless.

  "Our friend here, who dives over people's heads and doesn't seem to care whether he's right side up or upside down, thinks we're trying to get to the moon to claim it for ourselves. We think he and his friend are trying the same thing. He's been spying on us to see how we propose to go about it, since I suppose he's read the papers and knows that people can't stand weightlessness. Why don't we make everyone happy by taking him along and showing him?"

  This suggestion had a mixed reaction. The Rangers and their uncle saw what was in Peter's mind, since he had referred to the redhead's tumbling skill; Ledder and Deschenes thought he was crazy, and the captive appeared to share their opinion.

  "I see a couple of difficulties........" began Bowen.

  "I know," Peter cut in. "But look. We don't care who knows all the details once the tests are done— right? We're going to the satellite station first for the tests, so our friend—I wish he'd give us a name, so I could be more polite—won't have to worry about our jumping the gun with a moon flight. If we haven't convinced him when we come back here after the tests, we're at least no worse off than we are now as regards his spilling the beans; in fact we're better off—either the plans work, and we're ahead of the others by however long it will take to train pilots, or they don't and it doesn't matter what is told to whom. He's better off because he knows more than he does now. If we do convince him that we're playing straight, of course, the problem is solved; he either forgets his 'friend' or induces him to help us, depending on whether that unknown gentleman has been lying to him or is honestly mistaken."

  "You seem to have........" began Bowen, when the

  captive cut in with his favorite question.

  "Who do you think you're fooling? You won't go anywhere near that satellite station; it's the Geographic project. If I take off with you, you'd dump me out somewhere."

  "That would be pretty hard on us, if your friend knows where you are," pointed out Bowen. "What you think we're doing is not criminal, but murdering you most certainly is. In any case........"

  "In any case, he's read in the papers about what happens to people in space, and doesn't want to go," cut in Peter. The redhead's face turned white, then almost as red as his hair.

  "You walking dictionary! I want to go more than you ever wanted to read a new book! I've wanted to see the moon and Mars and Venus since I knew what they were. To you it's just something to own when you get there; I bet you don't even know there's a part of the moon we've never seen! I bet you don't know there's a place on the moon where the sun never sets! Oh, no! To you it's just a big ball of rock with maybe some uranium or thorium mines in it that you can make money from. You gawky talking machine, I'll go anywhere you go and do anything you do except read Einstein, and I'll get there faster and do it better. Why do you talk so much?"

  "Even though you believe we'll throw you out on the way?" queried Bowen. He was not convinced of the worth of Peter's idea, but was delighted that a weak spot in the captive's personality had been found.

  "I'll go, and if you can throw me out it will be the first time I haven't been able to take care of myself! Bring on your rocket."

  "All right." Bowen's voice was quiet. "I'll take you for one reason only. Since we are going to the satellite, you will certainly realize that we've been telling the truth when we get there; when that happens we can settle matters more definitely. How about a name for you? I agree with Peter; calling you 'Hey-you' isn't very polite."

  The youngster grinned, though the grin was a trifle shaky. It seemed to be dawning on him that, like Bowen a few minutes earlier, he had talked himself into a spot.

  "My name's Michael," he admitted. "We'll skip the other one for now. Most people call me Tumble, though." Bowen looked at him and nodded slowly.

  "After that dive over the heads of two boys, both several inches taller than you, I'll go right along with that name," he said. "All right, let's get you measured for a space suit, Tumble."

  9

  THE PROBLEM OF TUMBLE

  THERE was one thing that was very carefully not told to Tumble: the sort of tests which were to be made in space. It was possible, of course, that he had already figured out why boys as young as Peter and the Rangers were going along, but it was also possible that he had not, and Bowen did not intend to take chances on having that point leak out. The boys, therefore, were cautioned to say nothing whatever about the possibility that they would be the only space pilots on Earth if things turned out as was hoped.

  Peter had added another reason for this. He suggested that if Tumble had no idea of the possibilities being tested, then his reaction to what actually happened might mean more than that of the boys who were all looking for one particular result. Even Ledder and Deschenes had joined Bowen in admitting that this was a good point, and Tumble was therefore given the same physical checkup as the other boys without being told that this was anything but the usual prelude to a rocket flight.

  Some of the tests on Tumble bothered the Ranger boys almost as much as they interested the doctors who gave them. The Barany chair did not bother him at all; after sixty seconds of spinning nearly twice as rapidly as any of the other boys had, he stood up, wavered once, then fixed his eyes on the wall at the opposite end of the painted line and walked straight along it. Peter nodded as he saw this.

  "Tell me, Tumble, did you feel dizzy when you got up, and just made up your mind to trust your eyes alone, or didn't you even feel dizzy?"

  "Well—" Tumble seemed about to claim that he had not been bothered in the least, but remembered his first stagger in time—"it felt pretty bad in the stomach. Like you say, though, all you have to do is trust your eyes and forget the other feelings."

  "That's what you do when you're tumbling, isn't it? I mean, when it's some stunt that has you spinning or tipped upside down? I've done some diving, but there you have everything set up before you leave the board, and it's over so fast that the balanc
e question never seems to come up."

  "It's mostly on trapezes that you have to depend on eyes and timing," replied Tumble. "The rest of the time there's no trouble with dizziness, unless maybe you're just showing off—doing cartwheels or flips down the whole length of a room, say." Peter nodded.

  "Thanks. I'm not asking where you learned, but you certainly are pretty good at this business. Uncle Jim was right when he said you had a good name."

  "He's not really your uncle, is he?"

  "No, but I've known Dart and Bart for a while and don't have any real family of my own; I guess I've sort of inherited him. He's quite a fellow. You must have read about some of his mountain climbing."

  "I don't remember. I don't read much, except books about the planets. We never........ " He stopped, realizing that what he had been about to say might have contained more information than he meant to give.

  Peter noticed the pause, but ignored it. He had ideas of his own concerning the best way to learn about Tumble, and direct prying into the other boy's affairs was not one of them; so Peter changed the subject the moment the redhead chopped off his sentence.

  One of the things Peter liked about Tumble was his taste in reading. Somewhere in the past his imagination had been fired by something—a lecture, magazine article, television program, or perhaps just conversation —dealing with the other worlds of the solar system. From then on he had picked up every grain of information on the subject which fell his way, and gradually developed hopes which Peter understood perfectly, since he shared them. Tumble had not been acting when he burst out his feelings about visiting the moon; he had meant every word of it, and Peter had known it as he listened. At the moment, therefore, Peter Ashburn came closer than anyone else at the Niagara plant to trusting their prisoner.