The Rock Rats gt-11

by Ben Bova

  Mopping his forehead, Fuchs resisted the temptation to call Ceres and ask if they had any fresh data on George’s ship. No! he scolded himself. You must remain silent.

  Maybe that’s what George is doing, he thought. Gone silent, so no one can find him. Obviously he left in a big hurry. Most likely he was attacked, perhaps killed. But if he got away, now he’s staying silent to keep his attacker from finding him again.

  But what do I do now? Fuchs wondered.

  He left the bridge and went to the galley. The brain needs nourishment, he said to himself. I can’t think well on an empty stomach. He realized that his coverall shirt was sticky with perspiration. Honest work, he told himself. But it doesn’t smell good.

  But by the time he washed up and ate a packaged meal, he still had no clear idea of what he should do next.

  Find George, he thought. Yes, but how?

  Back to the bridge he went and called up the search and rescue program from the computer files. “Aha!” he said aloud. Expanding spiral.

  Standard operational procedure for a search mission was to fly an expanding spiral out from the last known position of the lost spacecraft. The one thing that worried Fuchs, though, was that George might have gone batting off at a high angle from the ecliptic. While the major planets orbited within a few degrees of the ecliptic path, plenty of asteroids roamed twenty or thirty degrees above or below that plane. Suppose George had gone angling away at high thrust? Fuchs knew he’d never find him then.

  As it was, the Belt was so huge that even if George stuck close to the ecliptic, he could be halfway to hell by now. A few days at high thrust could push a ship all the way back to Earth. Or out past Jupiter.

  Still, there was nothing more that Fuchs could do but fly his expanding spiral, and sweep with his radar at high angles above and below his position while he moved away from the asteroid.

  He set the course, then got into his spacesuit to slither down the long buckyball cable that connected Starpower’s habitation unit with the equipment module. The hollow cable was big enough for a person to squeeze through, but it was not pressurized. You had to wear a suit, and that made crawling along the kilometer-long cable a long, arduous chore. Still, Fuchs had nothing else to do, and he wanted to see the laser that George had left behind.

  Dorik Harbin was searching, too.

  He had picked up Starpower’s telemetry signals within hours of Fuchs’s leaving Ceres and tracked the departing ship from a safe distance.

  Before the day was out, however, the telemetry signal had abruptly cut off. Harbin debated moving close enough to the ship to sight it visually, but before he could make up his mind to do that, the telemetry came back on and showed that Starpower was moving again, cutting diagonally across the Belt at high thrust.

  Where could he be going? Harbin asked himself. He must have a specific destination in mind, going at that velocity.

  He matched Starpower’s course and speed, staying far enough behind the departing spacecraft that he wouldn’t be spotted. Even if Fuchs was cautious enough to probe behind him with radar, the beam would be so scattered by his own engine’s exhaust that he’d never see me, Harbin knew. He stayed within the shadow of Fuchs’s exhaust cloud and trailed Starpower—he thought. Actually he was following Fuchs’s escape pod.

  Again he thought of Grigor’s comment: destroy Starpower and all this hunting and killing might be finished. I’ll get my money and a considerable bonus, Harbin thought. I can go back to Earth and find a safe area and live like an emir for the rest of my life.

  Where would the best place be, on Earth? I want a warm climate, safe from the rising sea levels, no earthquakes, stable government. A wealthy country, not one where half the population is starving and the other half plotting revolution. Canada, perhaps. Or Australia. They have very tight restrictions of immigration, but with enough money a man can go wherever he wants. Maybe Spain, he thought. Barcelona is still livable, and Madrid hasn’t had a food riot in years.

  CHAPTER 26

  Hiring reliable people was Amanda’s biggest headache. She worried about her husband sailing all alone out into the Belt, trying like so many others to strike it rich. Or was he? Her greatest fear was that Lars was out seeking revenge on Humphries by attacking HSS ships. Even if he didn’t get killed he’d become an outlaw, a pariah. She tried to force such thoughts out of her mind as she worked at restarting their supply business on the insurance money from the fire.

  Labor was at a premium on Ceres. Most of the people who came out to the Belt went prospecting, intent on finding a rich asteroid and becoming wealthy from its ores. Even the experienced hands who had learned from bitter experience that most prospectors barely broke even, while the big corporations raked in the profits from selling ores, still went out time and again, always seeking the “big one” that would make their fortunes. Or they worked as miners, taking the ores from asteroids either as corporate employees or under contract to one of the big corporations. Miners didn’t get rich, but they didn’t starve, either.

  Amanda had taken courses in economics at college. She understood that the more asteroids were mined, the more plentiful their metals and minerals, the lower their value. A corporation like Astro or HSS could afford to work on a slim profit margin, because they handled such an enormous volume of ores. A lone prospector had to sell at market prices, and the price was always far below their starry-eyed dreams.

  She frowned as she dressed for another day of work. Then why is Lars out there, prospecting? He knows the odds as well as anyone does. And why hasn’t he sent any messages to me? He warned me that he wouldn’t, but I thought that after a few days he’d at least tell me he’s all right.

  The answer was clear to her, but she didn’t want to believe it. He’s not prospecting. He’s out there on some insane kind of mission to get even with Martin. He wants to fight back—one man against the most powerful corporation in the solar system. He’ll get himself killed, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  That was what hurt her the most, that feeling of utter impotence, the knowledge that there was no way she could protect, or even help, the man she loved. He’s gone away from me, she realized. Not merely physically; Lars has moved away from me, away from our marriage, away from our relationship. He’s let his anger override our love. He’s after vengeance now, no matter what it costs.

  Fighting back the tears in her eyes, she booted up her computer and took up where she’d left off the previous night, searching for people willing to work in the warehouse. In her desperation she had even sent a call to Pancho, back Earthside. Now, as the wallscreen sprang to life, she saw that Pancho had replied.

  “Show Pancho Lane’s message,” she commanded the computer.

  Pancho’s angular, mocha-skinned face grinned at her. She appeared to be in an office somewhere in the tropics. Probably Astro’s corporate headquarters in Venezuela.

  “Got your sad story, Mandy. I can ’preciate how tough it is to get reliable people to work in your warehouse. Wish I could ship you a couple of my folks, but nobody with a decent job here is gonna go peacefully out to Ceres unless they got asteroid fever and think they’re gonna become zillionaires in six weeks.”

  Hunching closer to the camera, Pancho went on, “Lemme warn you about one thing, though: some of the people who might agree to work for you could be HSS plants. Screen ever’body real careful, kid. There’s skunks in the woodworks, I bet.”

  Amanda shook her head wearily. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, she thought.

  Pancho leaned back again and said, “I’m off to Lawrence, Kansas. Got a meeting with an international consortium of universities to work out a deal to build a research station in Jupiter orbit. Might be some college kids looking for jobs. Lord knows there’s enough unemployment around. I’ll see what I can find for you. In the meantime, watch your butt. That ol’ Humper still wants to take over Astro, and you’n’Lars are standing in his way.”

  With a cheerful wave, Pancho signed o
ff. Amanda felt like crawling back into bed and staying there until Lars returned.

  If he returned at all.

  How long should I search? Fuchs asked himself. It’s been three days now, and no sign of George. No sign of anything.

  He had known, intellectually, that the Belt was almost entirely empty space. Even in his freshman astronomy course he remembered it being compared to a big, empty theater that contained only a few specks of dust floating in its vast volume. Now he felt the reality of it. Staring out the windows in the bridge of Starpower, studying the screens that displayed the radar scans and telescopic views, he saw that there was nothing out there, nothing but empty space, darkness and eternal silence.

  He thought of how Columbus’s crew must have felt, alone out in the middle of the Atlantic without even a bird in sight; nothing but empty sea and emptier sky.

  Then the comm unit chirped.

  Fuchs was startled by the unexpected noise. He turned in the command chair and saw that the communications display showed an incoming message had been received on the optical comm system.

  An optical signal? Puzzled, he commanded the comm computer to display the message.

  The screen flashed into a harsh jumble of colors while the speakers rasped with hisses and squeaks. Only random noise, Fuchs thought. Probably a solar flare or a gamma burster.

  But the other sensors showed no evidence of a solar flare and, once he though about it, Fuchs wondered if a gamma-ray burst would not have registered on the optical receiver.

  He ordered the navigation program to move Starpower back to the area where the optical signal had been detected. Turning a ship of Starpower’s mass was no simple matter. It took time and energy. But at last the nav computer reported it was done.

  Nothing. The comm system remained silent.

  It was a fluke, Fuchs told himself. An anomaly. Still, something must have caused it, and he felt certain that it wasn’t an internal glitch in the communications equipment. Nonsense, snapped the reasoning part of his brain. You’re convinced because you want it to be a signal. You’re letting your hopes overbalance your good sense.

  Yes, that’s true, Fuchs admitted to himself. But he ordered the nav system to move Starpower along the vector that the spurious signal had come from.

  Hoping that his gut feeling was closer to the mark than his rational mind, Fuchs followed that course for an hour, then two, then—

  The comm screen lit up with a weak, grainy picture of what looked to Fuchs like a bald, emaciated Asian.

  “This is the Waltzing Matilda. We are disabled and unable to control our course. We need help urgently.”

  Fuchs stared at the streaky, weak image for several slack-jawed moments, then flew into a flurry of activity, trying to pin down Matilda’s location and move his own ship to her as quickly as possible while getting off a signal to her on every channel his comm system could transmit on.

  Dorik Harbin was furious.

  It’s a decoy! he raged. A stupid, sneaking decoy! And you fell for it. You followed it like an obedient puppy halfway to hell!

  He had maneuvered Shanidar slightly away from the exhaust wake of what he’d thought was Starpower more out of boredom than any intelligent reason. He’d been following the ship’s telemetry signals for several days, intent on finding where it was heading. His standing orders from Grigor were to wait until a ship takes up orbit around a particular asteroid, then destroy it. Harbin knew without Grigor telling him that HSS then claimed the asteroid for itself.

  But after several days his quarry showed no indication of searching for an asteroid. It simply puttered along at low thrust, like a tourist boat showing off the local sights. Except there were no tourists out here and no sights to show; the Belt was cold and empty.

  Now Harbin could see clearly in his screens that what he’d been following was not Starpower at all but a crew emergency vehicle, a miserable escape pod.

  This was no accident. Fuchs had deliberately set him up while he went off in some other direction. Where? Grigor would not be happy to learn that he’d failed. Harbin swore to himself that he would find Fuchs and destroy the cunning dog.

  If he reversed his course it would cost so much of his propellant that he’d need another topping off within a few days. And the nearest HSS ship was at least three days off. Harbin searched his sensor screens. What he needed was a fair-sized rock close enough…

  He found one, an asteroid that had enough mass for the maneuver he had in mind. Too small for a slingshot move, but Harbin eased close to the twelve-kilometer-long rock and put Shanidar into a tight orbit around it. He checked his nav computer twice before setting up the program. At precisely the proper instant he fired his thrusters, and Shanidar shot away from the unnamed asteroid in the direction Harbin wanted, at a fraction of the propellant loss that a powered turnaround would have cost.

  Now he sped back toward the region where Starpower had fired off its decoy. That was easy to calculate: it had to be where Starpower’s telemetry signals went off for a few hours. That’s when the clever dog transferred his transmitter to the escape pod. He’s been running silent ever since.

  Or maybe not, Harbin reasoned. He might be communicating with Ceres on another channel. Or perhaps signaling some other ship.

  So Harbin kept all his communications receivers open as he raced back to the area where Fuchs had fooled him into following the decoy.

  Chance favors the prepared mind. After two days of running at full thrust, Harbin picked up the distant, weak signal of Fuchs answering Waltzing Matilda’s distress call.

  So that’s where he’s going. Harbin nodded to himself, satisfied that now he could destroy Starpower and finish the job on Waltzing Matilda.

  WALTZING MATILDA

  George had drifted to sleep in the copilot’s chair, leaving Nodon to monitor the control console. There wasn’t much to monitor. They were still drifting helplessly, alone, slowly starving.

  “I have a signal!” Nodon exulted. His shout roused George from a dream about dining with a beautiful woman in the Earthview restaurant back in Selene. Groggy with sleep, George knuckled his eyes, wondering which was more important in his dream, the woman or the tucker. “What signal?” he mumbled.

  Nodon was quivering with excitement. “Look!” He pointed a bony, shaking finger at the comm screen. “Look!”

  George blinked several times. By crikes, there was Lars Fuchs’s dour, dead-serious face on the screen. George had never seen anyone more beautiful.

  “I have received your distress call and am proceeding at full thrust to your position. Please home on my beacon and keep repeating your signal so my nav system can maintain an accurate track on you.”

  Nodon’s fingers were already dancing across the keyboard on the control console.

  “Ask ’im how long it’ll take him to reach us,” George said. “I have already fed the data into the computer.” Nodon tapped a few more keystrokes. “Ah. Here is the answer. Fifty-two hours.”

  “A little more’n two days.” George broke into a shaggy smile. “We can hold up for two more days, can’t we mate?”

  “Yes! Certainly!”

  CHAPTER 27

  Harbin listened intently to the messages that Fuchs was beaming out. Coldly, he thought, If the fool kept himself restricted to laser signals I wouldn’t have been able to detect him. Radio signals expand through space like a swelling balloon. Like a flower opening up to the sun. A blossom of death, he realized. He knew that he had to conserve his propellant supply; it was already low enough to be of concern. Not a danger, not yet, but he couldn’t roar out to his prey at full thrust, not if he wanted to have enough propellant to get back to an HSS tanker. But there was no rush. Let Fuchs rescue whoever is left alive on Matilda. I’ll simply cruise toward them and intercept Starpower on its way back to Ceres.

  He kept his communications receivers open, and soon heard Fuchs reporting excitedly back to Ceres that he had located Waltzing Matilda and its two crewmen were still ali
ve. Not for long, Harbin thought.

  Then a new thought struck him. It was not all that unusual for a prospector’s ship to disappear out in the lonely vastness of the Belt. He had destroyed several of them; others had failed without his help. A single ship like Waltzing Matilda could wink out of contact, never to be heard from again, and no one would know the cause. Of course, there were grumbles about piracy here and there, but no one really took that seriously.

  On the other hand, if Matilda’s crew is alive, they will be able to tell what actually happened to them. They’ll inform the IAA that they were deliberately attacked and left for dead. I can’t allow them to survive.

  But on the other other hand, Harbin mused on, how will it look if the ship that rescues Matilda’s crew also disappears? That will raise the rumbles of piracy to the level of a major investigation.

  He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. I’m out here alone; I can’t call back to Grigor or anyone else for instructions. I’ve got to make the decision here and now.

  It took him less than a minute to decide. Let Starpower rescue Matilda’s crew and then destroy the lot of them. Perhaps I can kill them before they can blab their whole story to Ceres or the IAA.

  Amanda’s heart clutched in her chest when she answered the incoming message signal on her computer and Lars’s image took shape on her wallscreen.

  He looked tense; there were dark circles under his eyes. But his normally severe, gloomy face was smiling widely.

  “I’ve found them! George and his crewman. They’re alive and I’m going to pick them up.”

  “What happened to them?” Amanda asked, forgetting that her husband was too far away for interactive conversation.

  “Their ship is disabled,” Fuchs was saying, “but they are both uninjured. That’s all I know at the moment. I’ll send more information after I’ve taken them aboard my ship.”