“Beyond my reach! Why, Penger, you grow senile. I noted and wondered at your erratic maneuver. I noted what you did in our televisor. You threw the box into the gravitational field of the asteroid. Your box lies on it by now. The rock is very small, you planned to rid yourself of me and return for it. So you’ve rendered my task easy. We descend. After I have recovered the map, I shall deal further with you.”
“He’s outguessed me, Britt!” There was exasperation, despair in Penger’s tone. But the staring youngster noted, and wondered at the smile that played around his tight-lipped mouth. A warning gesture stayed the question foreshadowed in the lad’s eager eyes.
The Satona, with the Wanderer held tight against her sphere, had hung motionless in space during this interchange. Now the captured Terrestrials could see the blue flare from the tube exhausts of the Martian space-sphere and feel the vibration of their blast.
Slowly at first, then faster and faster, the coupled ships began to circle the whirling asteroid. Rapidly the speed of the artificial satellite increased till, to an observer far off in space, the course of the coupled fliers must have been a gray blurred circle, whose centre was the planetoid, itself a blur because of the tremendous rate at which it turned.
To Arnim and Britt, watching their visoscreen, the effect of the circling was otherwise. Across the black sky was drawn a dazzling white arc that was the sun. The stars were darting golden lines. But the little planet became distinct as their speed neared that of its rotation.
Now they could see it as a jagged mass of bare rock. It was not ball-shaped, for this was not a world that had been formed while molten, but a bit torn from some ancient planet in an unimaginable cataclysm. It was a great jagged boulder, roughly oblate, ten earth miles through at its widest diameter, perhaps six miles at its narrowest.
Rutnom spiraled lower as the speed increased. The asteroid covered the screen, a bare, rocky shelf split and rent by its birth throes.
“Hello, we’re drifting backward!” Britt broke the silence.
Penger laughed shortly.
“Looks like it. But it’s simply that we haven’t quite reached the speed at which the Asteroid is turning.”
At last the landing was made.
“Whoever is handling that boat is a pilot!” was Arnim’s tribute to the smooth halt. Then his face grew suddenly grim. “Some rocket tubes are still on. Quick, lad, how are they inclined?”
“Straight up, sir!”
Penger nodded.
“Then he hasn’t thought of it,” he muttered, in tones scarcely audible to Britt. “Keep quiet and follow my lead. We’ll lick these birds yet, with a bit of luck.” He slid open the beryllium-steel shield that covered the glass side ports.
An airlock door in the side of the Satona had opened. Grotesque in their goggled, billowing space suits three Martians were coming down a swinging ladder. The weight of the Wanderer, still clamped against her shell, was holding the larger craft askew. Not great, this weight, it is true, for the gravity of the miniature world was exceedingly minute, but the Martian captain had evidently thought it not worth while to correct the canting by use of his power-exhausts.
Arnim and Britt watched the ten-foot-tall aliens stride across the short stretch of deck to the entrance back of their own vessel. Around the waist of each a studded belt was clamped, its excrescences showing where the individual gravity coils were inserted. Were it not for these the Martians would have been rising a hundred feet with each step, so small was the asteroid’s attraction.
As their captors reached the Wanderer, Rutnom’s voice sounded again.
“Open your airlock for my men, Earthlings, and admit them.”
“And suppose I refuse?”
“Then we shall burn our way through, and it will be the worse for you. I warn you again, Penger, I am in no mood to be trifled with.”
The veteran shrugged his shoulders and swung over the switch that actuated the outer door of the lock. To Britt’s astonishment, his left eye closed in an unmistakable wink as he did so. The veteran had some plan, some strategy. Haldane racked his brain in an effort to guess it, but could evolve nothing.
The giant invaders were within the ship. The Terrestrials’ hands shot upward as they noted the squat infra-red heat guns clutched ready in their hands. From one of the Martians, apparently the leader, came a guttural sentence in his own language. The others advanced warily. In a trice Penger and Haldane had been seized, searched none too gently, their weapons extracted and their wrists bound with tough cords.
“Here, not so rough!” Britt had protested as his arms were twisted down behind his back. But his exclamation brought no response save a particularly vicious tightening of his bonds. Arnim was silent, though his eyes were glowing like live coals.
The two prisoners were thrust unceremoniously against the wall of their vessel. The apparent leader remained at guard over them, the wicked snout of his weapon never moving from its threatening posture, while the two others commenced a hurried but thorough search of the cabin.
Every nook or cranny was invaded, the door of the food closet was ripped from its hinges, the plates of the flooring torn up as a heat gun melted its rivets. Even the metal walls of the vessel were scrutinized inch by inch for evidences of a concealed hiding place.
Suddenly there was a grunt from one of the Martians, signalizing his finding of the badinite sample flask.
At last, apparently satisfied that the location map was not on board, the chief of the Mitco men spoke aloud, in the curious concatenation of consonantal sounds that was the Martian language. From the speaker came a crisp rejoinder, then, in his precise English, Rutnom’s admonition to the Earthlings.
“You will be brought to this ship, you two. Set your gravity pads at full Earth setting. The attraction of this world is negligible.”
Silently the “Venus, Inc.” men permitted themselves to be invested in their space suits after having made the indicator adjustment on the padded attraction plates. Once again, Britt started to protest at the unnecessary harshness with which he was being handled.
However, he again caught a warning look on Penger’s face.
As the little group crossed to the Satona, the empty sleeves of the Terrestrial’s space suits stuck out queerly, straight before them, as if a high wind were blowing. Britt noted this and wondered. There could be no wind, for the asteroid was utterly devoid of atmosphere.
Then he forgot the matter and gave himself up utterly to the black mood of despair that flooded him.
Divested once more of their encumbering garments within the shelter of the Martian spacesphere’s hull, Penger and Haldane stood at bay, facing the gigantic figure of Mitco’s Venusian representative, and the bulking forms of a dozen others, ranged behind him. The Martians were counterparts of the Earthmen, save for their size and the curious greenish tint of their skins.
Even as he bravely met Rutnom’s sneering stare, Britt was conscious of a strange lightness, a feeling of power that comported oddly with his situation. Then he realized that the gravity coils of the Satona were adjusted to Mars’ conditions; that the weight, the internal pressure of every part of his body was one-third what it would be on Earth or Venus.
Rutnom was speaking, a threat in every syllable he uttered.
“Penger, I am growing tired of this. Tell me where that deposit lies.”
Arnim returned the Martian’s stare.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, but luckily I know as much about it as you.”
The green tinge of Rutnom’s face deepened.
His tiny red eyes shot fire.
“You lie, Penger.”
The veteran made no reply.
“I said you lie.” Rutnom raised his gun, ominously. “I’ll burn ever bit of skin from your body, inch by inch, till you tell me what I want to know.”
Penger’s gaze was level.
“Bell had no time to tell me before he died. And he had already sealed the chart in the dispatch box.”
> The eyes of the two ancient enemies met and clung. Veins stood out on Rutnom’s forehead as he strove to read the Earthman’s thought. But his gaze was the first to waver and fall.
“Very well. Since you are so stubborn, and I am in haste, I shall search for the box. It should not be hard to find on this bare terrain. But, mark you, if I fail I’ll wring that location from you if I have to smash you into a quivering pulp.”
In staccato sentences the Martian issued swift orders to his men.
Fresh thongs were strapped about the Earthlings’ ankles, and those about their wrists tightened.
All but one of the Martians slid into space suits.
Then the great hull emptied, and Britt and Arnim were left alone, with one huge guard watching their prone bodies. One guard, but his eyes never wavered from them, as they lay sprawled on the floor where they had been thrown, and the terrible heat-gun of Mars was ready in his hand.
Britt twisted till he could look out through a porthole. Outside, on the tumbled, rocky plain, he could see the Martians clustered about their leader. Then they scattered, and Rutnom’s plan was quickly evident Back and forth, back and forth the hunters quartered, each with his own small portion of the asteroid’s surface to search.
Not a square inch of the territory would be left uncovered by this scheme. He groaned aloud. There was no hope that the precious box would escape scrutiny. What could Penger have been thinking of? Better to have pulled at the lid and thus destroyed the map.
CHAPTER V
Strategy
Perhaps he hoped that a patrol ship would rescue them in time. But the whirling asteroid and all its surface was a blur to a space wanderer. They were as effectually concealed as though they were a hundred feet below the surface. He became aware that the trader was talking.
But what was he saying? Despair clutched the lad’s heart. Coldly, dispassionately, he was reviling the personal appearance, the ancestry; the habits of the guard.
“Britt, did you ever see anything like him? He’s got the face of one of those little pigs that have just had a ring pushed through their snouts. And his body—if I were shaped like that I would have drowned myself long ago. Look at those eyes. Why, you can see the fear staring out of them. He’s a coward, boy, that’s why Rutnom left him behind. He’s afraid of us, tied up as we are.”
Now Haldane understood Penger’s peculiar behavior, the strange air of amusement that had hovered about him through all this catastrophe, his inexplicable action. His mind had given away. The long years of loneliness, the death of his best friend, the capture by Rutnom, had smashed a brain that long had been famed as the keenest of all “Venus, Inc.’s” force.
“That ugly-looking Martian must be the misbegotten offspring of the foulest scum of his putrid planet.” The quiet voice went on with its taunting. The Martian was standing well, his watchful expression unchanged, but sooner or later Penger would get under his skin—and then—Britt hoped that the heat gun killed quickly.
“No, Britt, I’m not crazy.” The youth was startled by his remark. “Just warned to find out if the brute understood English. He doesn’t. I’ve been using some of the worse insults you can apply to a Martian. Even if he had self-control enough not to do anything, his expression would have shown that he understood.
“If Z had started whispering to you he would have been suspicious. But he thinks I’m simply cussing out our capture. Now listen.”
In the lame calm dispassionate tones Penger continued. And as he talked, Britt’s despair was forgotten, and hope carne to him again.
“You’re near enough to the wall to get your feet against it,” Arnim concluded. “So I guess the most dangerous part of the job will be yours. You know what to do. I’ll follow your lead, but don’t take too long to get set. Rutnom may tumble at any moment, and then we’ll be through.”
He fell silent, and both men closed their eyes and seemed to sleep. After a bit, Britt moved, restlessly, swung himself so that the soles of his feet were flat against the wall, and he was lying curled on his side.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, the merest slit. The Martian guard was still seated, ten feet away, still watchful. Then, with an explosion of energy, Britt drove his feet hard against the wall. His lithe body rose, catapulted across the ten-foot space, driven by muscles attuned to Earth’s gravity.
Before the startled Martian realized what was happening, Britt’s head struck his soft stomach with terrific force. Over he went with a grunt, as his weapon flew out of his hand and he instinctively threw his arms wide, clutching for support.
Meantime Arnim was whirling, over and over, across the floor. As he heard the crash of the Martian’s collapse behind he brought up with a thump against the legs of the control desk. Above he saw the lever that controlled the ship. Straining upward, his teeth closed over the handle.
The corded muscles of his neck stood out as he wrenched backward with all the strength that was in him. For a moment the lever remained motionless. Then, as he drove his knees into the floor and jerked backward once again, the lever gave. Searing flames flared across his face, burned and blinded him, at the sudden cutting off of the current Britt, tumbling in unequal combat with the Martian giant, heard the roar of the rocket tubes stop. Then he felt the floor drop away beneath him, felt himself lifted, smashed against something. Blackness enveloped him. But even as he lost consciousness he heard a great shout of triumph from his leader.
A dash of icy water in his face brought Haldane to. His head throbbed with pain, needle pricks stung his arms and legs. He raised a hand to his aching brow. Why, he was free! Arnim was bending over him.
“All right, lad? Are you all right?” he was asking anxiously.
“Yes. I guess so. A little dizzy, but that’s all.” He forced himself to a sitting position. “But you’re burned!” Across Penger’s face were three livid burns. One eye was closed by a white blister, half his scalp was a blackened patch of singed hair.
“A little.” Penger grinned. “They had plenty of juice going through that control. Might have been worse. I got off lucky. So did you. Take a look at your late antagonist.” Crumpled against the wall was the body of the guard. The queer angle at which his head lolled told the story of a broken neck.
“He was on top, luckily, when the smash came. You both flew through the air, but he hit the wall first, and made a cushion for you. I held onto the lever with my teeth, so I didn’t get any of it. I’d like to see Rutnom’s face now, down there, stuck on that asteroid with no way to get off.” He gestured to the visoscreen.
The blackness of interstellar space was mirrored there, the far-off, glowing worlds, the nearer sun. And, tiny in the distance, a whirling, blurred ball that Britt recognized.
“Gosh; Mr. Penger, you’ve tricked him nicely. I never thought of the fact that the gravity of that little planet would not be sufficient to counteract the centrifugal force set up by its rapid rotation.”
“No, and what is more important, neither did Rutnom. I was sure of that when you told me that he only had his top-rockets on when he landed, though I was almost certain when he talked about the box being down there. All he thought of was the lack of attraction, that’s why he kept his tubes pressing the Satona down, since otherwise, he figured, an unguarded shove would send her careening off. He forgot that the asteroid itself was pushing away at her with a far stronger power.”
“The box,” a sudden thought struck Britt, “We’ve lost that. We’ll have to go back to Venus and hunt for Mr. Bell’s mine again.”
Penger grinned.
“Nope. We’ll get that back too.”
“What do you mean? It must be hundreds of thousands of miles away by now, shooting through space. We can never find it.”
“Wrong again, my lad. I know just where she is. And that was the most ticklish part of the whole scheme. Why do you think I kept my eye glued to that telescope while you were swearing at Rutnom?”
The youngster looked at him blankly. The other went on, ha
ppily.
“I didn’t swing around the asteroid the way I did in order to hide what I was doing from the Martians. In fact, I hoped that he would see. What I did was to throw the dispatch box out at just the moment and speed that would bring it sufficiently within the attraction of the little planet to make it a satellite, to keep it swinging around through space in an orbit of its own. Naturally, I didn’t have time to calculate the exact conditions, but I took the chance and it worked.”
“Great! Then all we have to do is to swing back there, spot it in the telescope, and scoop it up.”
“Well,” the other drawled in reply, “It’s not going to be as easy as all that. You see, I pretty much burned out the works here on the Satona. About the only thing that’s still in order is the artificial gravity device. I managed to get that hooked up again, but the rest is gone.”
“Then we’ll have to get across to the Wanderer, and use that.”
“Right. Get into your space suit and we’ll make a go for it.”
They worked rapidly. Arnim felt for their flashes. They were intact in the outer pockets.
“Switch off your gravity control,” he advised Britt. “We’ll be able to maneuver better.”
They were ready now. Penger led the way, threw open the outer lock. They stepped, curiously light, into outer space. The vacuum suits ballooned immediately.
For awhile they floated, while Arnim got his bearings. Directly ahead, not over fifty yards away, lay the glittering ball of the Wanderer. Below spun a jagged fragment of rock, the tiny asteroid they had just quitted.
Arnim chuckled grimly. He thought of Rutnom and the Martians marooned on that tiny desolation, helplessly watching the space ships drifting not more than five miles overhead.
Then he pulled out a little propulsion gun and, pointing it away from the Wanderer, pulled the trigger. He transformed himself into a very inefficient rocket-like projectile. Britt saw and wondered and did likewise.
But finally Penger flashed his beam over the smooth shining skin of the Wanderer. They were home.
The Arthur Leo Zagat Science Fiction Megapack Page 19
