A Thunder Of Stars

by Dan Morgan;John Kippax

  "We'll make a politician of you yet, Joe," Persoons said with a slant-eyed grin. "You handled them just fine."

  "What are you doing, Persoons?" demanded Kolukwe. "The controls...!"

  "Useless—there's nothing more I can do," Persoons said. "The master circuit has blown."

  "Nothing you can do?"

  Persoons shrugged. "Without a skilled maintenance crew, not a chance. The engines are building up into a runaway reaction; they'll just go on until they burn out."

  "And then what?" Kolukwe asked.

  "It could be worse," Persoons said. "At least we're on course for Earth."

  "But we can't make a landing without engines," Kolukwe said. He thought about the crew, imprisoned down there in the holds.

  "Bright, real bright," said Persoons as he approached the communications panel.

  "So what are you going to do?" Kolukwe asked.

  Persoons said confidently: "I’m going to call System Patrols and dump the baby in their lap. It's time these fancy-uniformed bastards got to earning their keep."

  "I don't see ..."

  "Right, cloddie—you don't see," Persoons said contemptuously. "So I'll explain. Like we might not be able to land with our engines out, but we're headed in the right direction, and a couple of Patrol ships latched onto us with magnetic grapples could easily manoeuvre us into orbit From there it would be a simple matter to ferry our people down to Earth."

  Joe Kolukwe felt a surge of relief. They were going to get back after all. But following close on the relief was the nagging certainty that, even when they got back to Earth, their troubles were a long way from being over.

  Beyond the orbit of Jupiter, and heading outward fast, Bruce sat in the control seat of the command scout and listened to the gutturally accented voice that was coming through the small loudspeaker over his head. Beside him, Lindstrom too listened, her face pale and strained beneath her helmet as she began to understand the enormity of the situation, as she thought of the women and children on board the hurtling Athena.

  "Record everything," Bruce said. "And try for a picture as soon as possible."

  "Yes, sir." She busied herself with the communications controls. Reception was bad, blurred intermittently by splashes of static caused by solar activity.

  Bruce used his microphone, cutting in on the voice from the loudspeaker. "Now, Persoons, I want you to tell me, as clearly as you can, just what has happened aboard the Athena and what your part in it has been. Do you understand?"

  There was a pause, then Persoons* voice came through again.

  "Yes, Commander," he said. "I'll do what I can to explain, but it's been rough here, and an awful lot has happened. Main thing I want you to understand is that we were forced into this; there was nothing else we could -do. If we'd gone on to Hegenis Three, there wouldn't have been any kind of life for us there—the colony was doomed from the start."

  "From the beginning, Persoons," Bruce said firmly. "We can't possibly understand if you don't tell us the whole story. And can you send us a picture? Link in your internal cameras, and let me see, as you explain, eh?"

  "... in the Corps myself, Commander, and you and I, we know about these things . . . Yes, sure, I'll send you a picture ..."

  Lindstrom said softly, "Was he really in the Corps do you think?"

  "We've had our rotten apples, too, you know," Bruce said, giving her a brief glance. "Just make sure you get everything on tape." Then into the microphone: "Carry on, Persoons; I'm listening."

  "What we've done is to bring the ship back to the solar system for justice," Persoons said. "If we'd allowed those bastards to carry on to Hegenis Three ..."

  Alger Morton was a slim, hard-featured man, taut as a wire. His brain was a razor-sharp instrument aimed at the soft underbelly of a commercial empire that ruled a hundred colonial worlds. It was already evaluating this new situation, relating it to stored information and computing what course of action would best serve the interests of Alger Morton. To be head of the Excelsior Corporations Legal Department at the age of thirty-one might have satisfied the ambition of most young men, at least temporarily; but for Alger Morton it was not enough. Nothing was enough.

  To Morton, Elkan Niebohr with his benevolent "uncle" image and his folksy humour was the personification of that soft underbelly. He didn't hate Niebohr; his relationship with the human race had long since ceased to include such emotional evaluations. He merely watched the old man, grown soft with easy living,7 and awaited his opportunity.

  "Look, Elkan, one thing for sure," Morton said, leaning forward, with both hands on the President's massive desk as he talked. "With the patrol involved, when that ship gets back to Earth, there's going to be an inquiry."

  "We have nothing to hide," Niebohr said. "This is a routine colonization operation."

  Morton shrugged. "Things happen, Elkan—little irregularities here, a small omission there. Look, why don't I get my department onto it right away and make sure we've got a clean house, huh?"

  "I don't see the necessity for that," Niebohr said cautiously.

  "So what's the harm in being prepared?" Morton argued. "If there is anything irregular, those clowns on the CSC are going to take the greatest delight in roasting us over a slow fire."

  Niebohr sighed. "All right, Morton, maybe there's something in what you say. Go ahead with your investigation, and if you do turn up any irregularities, I want to know immediately; understand?"

  "Yes, sir." Alger Morton walked out of the President's office, a new spring in his step. The corporation as a whole might be rocked by CSC inquiry, the harder the rocking the better, as long as it was recognized that the man who saved the day was Alger Morton. He began to hum quietly to himself. He had a feeling that he was on his way.

  It had been a fantastic performance. The story of the takeover of Athena was told. It had been an involved narrative that was at the same time a round trip of the unbelievable convolutions in the mind of Hendrik Persoons. Passing as he talked into a kind of abreaction, there had been times when Persoons screamed, others when he wept, passing from emotion to emotion, as he relived what had happened. There were diatribes of self-justification, whole passages where he screamed his hatred of the oppressive "they" who conspired constantly to rob him of his rights.

  But the main burden of his discourse was his rejoicing in the courage and resourcefulness of Hendrik Persoons, the hero who had delivered his people out of the hands of those who intended to maroon them to die on the hellish planet of Hegenis Three. Persoons the orator addressed Bruce, and at the same time the whole solar system, in a manner of such arrogance that he condemned himself out of his own mouth for what he was.

  "My God!" Lindstrom said quietly. "The man's completely mad. The way he refused to release the crew—"

  Bruce nodded. "He is. You got everything taped?"

  "Every inch," Lindstrom said with a shiver.

  "How did a potential psychopath like Persoons pass the corporation's exam?" Bruce asked.

  Helen said: "Sometimes corporation standards are flexible."

  "Then they damned well shouldn't be!" growled Bruce. "Persoons' madness has infected the whole ship."

  "But we've got to negotiate with him if we're to save the lives of those people."

  "You don't negotiate with a maniac like that; you do as he tells you, or else," Bruce said.

  "You're going to save them?"

  "I've got to try."

  She looked at him sharply. "Is there any doubt? We've handled rescue operations like this before."

  Bruce was studying the instruments on the panel ahead of him. "Not quite like this one. In the normal rescue we've been dealing with an already disabled ship; but the Athena is still accelerating, and she'll go on doing so until those engines blow out. Matching velocity is going to be quite a problem."

  "But we should be able to do it."

  "If there's time," Bruce said. "Call control again and see what -progress they've made in predicting her course."
<
br />   Chan came to the door of the President's ward, slid it open and glanced inside at Hurwitz. The surgeon- general looked at him with heavy eyes, and Chan thought, for a moment, that someone ought to order Hurwitz to take some rest. But who?

  "The same?" he asked.

  "Gradually coming out," said Hurwitz, and kept his eyes on the thin, lightly breathing old figure enveloped in the white of the bed.

  Chan came forward. "You do think this is wise?" he asked.

  Hurwitz' reply was an aggressive whisper. "The old man is a Christian. Once, when he was young, he wrote hymns, religious songs. This means something to him." He jerked a finger at the door. "Is the priest there?"

  "He's outside," Chan said, and his Eastern superiority showed for a second. "Doesn't look a lot like a priest to me."

  "Nobody's asking you," Hurwitz said with weary asperity. He walked to the door, and looked out. "Lieutenant Kibbee? Come in, will you?"

  A lanky, thin-faced, untidy man, dressed in ill-fitting hospital white, stepped nervously into the room. His red hair was bright as a wreck beacon.

  "We're bringing him out of his—sleep—Lieutenant. I understand you know his favourite prayer, don't you?"

  Kibbee's voice was quiet and very deep. "Sure, 'God of our world, and of all the other worlds of all time, we call to You . . .' " Kibbee looked anxious. "Is he going to die?"

  Hurwitz avoided the question; he kept his eyes on the President, who stirred very faintly. The surgeon- general said: "Die? I don't know. But we can't do him any harm, and you might do him some good."

  *10*

  In this kind of life,

  All things considered,

  A spaceman's poor wife

  Will tend to get widdered.

  (TRADITIONAL JINGLE.)

  "Well, that's one relief, at any rate," Helen Lindstrom said, as the matter-of-fact Cockney voice of PO Dockridge concluded the message. "As far as they can tell, Athena isn't likely to hit anything."

  Tom Bruce grunted as he visualised Athena, like some wild ball, skittering through the already crowded cosmic pool table of the solar system. "Better give 'Clear Space' alert all the same."

  "Yes, sir." She called control and gave the message. Then she turned to look at her chief again and found that he was regarding her with a curious half-smile on his lean face.

  "You're going to be late on report Friday, Lieutenant Commander," he said. "Maybe I'd better call Admiral Carter and make your apologies, huh?"

  "Late?"

  Bruce jabbed his finger at the screen, where a blurred blip showed the progress of Athena, "The speed she's travelling, we're not going to be able to slow her enough to pull into an orbit round Earth on this swing; maybe not even on the next one."

  "Just so long as we do get her in eventually," Helen said. His meaning was obvious to her now. When Scout Ships Two and Three arrived the operation would still only be in its initial stages. Next would come the tricky task of bringing them sufficiently close to Athena so that their magnetic grapples could be engaged onto her hull. Only then, when they were completely secure, would the two scout ships be able to begin using their drives to counteract the tremendous velocity that the colonization ship had built up; and to do so, furthermore, without interfering with her course sufficiently to place her in collision orbit with any other body in the system. Encompassing billions of miles of space, the operation was nevertheless one which was going to demand total accuracy if it were to prove successful.

  Admiral Carter and the other members of the Commissioning Board were walking under the great curving underside of Venturer Twelve. The monstrous egg was supported by a vast underground system of hydraulic props to accommodate the structural stresses of the ship until the job was finally taken over by her own internal grav system. On the outside skin, red- coveralled welders, using safety harness and magnetic boots, crawled about like flies. At the base, in a great vent where the engine would be fitted, another row of welders, twenty-five meters from the ground, were sealing the engine seatings, being supplied by anti-grav lifts which took up a supply of the arched metal sections. The bright morning air hummed and rattled and sizzled with work.

  Carter was just ducking under a safety net when his personal communicator beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket.

  "Carter. What is it now?"

  Pringle's voice managed to sound soothing, even in the buzzy distortion of the little communicator. "Clear space has been ordered, sir."

  Her voice was loud enough to be heard by Suvorov, Yow, Mariano and Ericson. The statement brought instant attention.

  "What? Who ordered?"

  "Lieutenant Commander Bruce sir."

  "Bruce—where is he?"

  "Command scout—sector RQ364, somewhere out beyond Saturn."

  "The hell he is!" exclaimed Carter. "Get onto patrol right away and see what you can find out. I'm coming in."

  Trailing the other members of the Commissioning Board like minor satellites, Junius Carter charged across the shipyard to the car park.

  Henrik Persoons faced the deputation and roared his contempt. "What the hell did you expect? That it was going to be easy? Maybe you'd rather have gone on to Hegenis Three and rotted there instead of getting back to Earth?"

  A small, thin man stepped forward. Ghastly strain was visible on his lined face, his hands shook as he spoke. "We know you've done your best, Hendrik. But this vibration, the screaming of the engines ... out of phase. Half the children are hysterical and quite a few of the women are beginning to crack up. If they don't get some positive reassurance soon, we're going to have a panic on our hands. There's the crew—engineers—if you—if you release them—"

  "They have a right, Hendrik," Kolukwe said nervously as he watched Persoons from close by and recognized the expression. The lips were drawn back from his teeth, the eyes glazed with fury; Persoons had looked like this once before, when he had gone berserk during the battle with the crew. He was deadly dangerous in this state, outside all reason, a man who would stop at nothing.

  "Persoons—listen to us!" called a man.

  "Listen]" hissed Persoons. "You gutless, bloody fools!" Moving with the speed of madness, he lunged across and grabbed at a needle gun that had been lying on a nearby chair. Raising the weapon, he swung it slowly along the line of men who faced him.

  "Now you listen to me," he snarled. "Get off this bridge before I stitch the whole damned lot of you!"

  Persoons was not watching Kolukwe, taking it for granted that Joe would support any move he made. But there had already been too many deaths. Joe launched himself forward, bringing the edge of his big hand down in a chop to the side of Persoons' neck. The Eurasian slumped to the deck, the needle gun dropping with a clatter from his nerveless fingers.

  Joe Kolukwe, kneeling beside Persoons, looked up at them. He said: "Hendrik Persoons is dead." Then he shouted: "The crew—down there! If we let them out—"

  At that moment the deck beneath their feet lurched and heaved, as a massive, rumbling explosion coursed through the Athena. For about thirty seconds it was as though the big ship had been grasped in the jaws of some gigantic animal which was intent on shaking the life out of it.

  And then the sound and the fury were gone; the angry roaring of the opposing engines was silenced at last, and men began to struggle to their feet. The only noises now were the humming of the air conditioning and the electronic equipment—and something else; it was a nothing, a negation of sound, and Joe Kolukwe finally recognized it as the silence between the stars.

  He shivered. "That's it," he said. "The Grenbachs have blown. I'd better talk to Commander Bruce. The rest of you, get Persoons out of here, then go back and do what you can for the others. Tell them everything is under control, that all we have to do is wait, and keep calm. Now, the engineers! We'll let them out!"

  Tom Bruce nodded as he spoke to the dark, solemn face in the vidscreen. "Scouts Two and Three should join us within the next hour. After that, it's just a matter of getting them into
position, then we can begin to do something about slowing you down."

  "Thank you, Commander," Joe Kolukwe said. "We're all mighty grateful for what you're doing."

  "Well, don't be," Bruce said harshly. "When we get you back to Earth, my guess is that you're going to wish we'd just let you go on into interstellar space. They'll crucify you, and anyone who took part in this mutiny."

  "I realize that, sir," Joe Kolukwe said humbly. "But at least the women and the kiddies will be saved. Maybe that will make it all worthwhile. And if the radiation leaks hadn't killed the crewmen, we . . ."

  Tom Bruce fought back the sympathy that welled into his mind for this gentle, unassuming man. This was no time for pity. Coupling mutiny with murder, they had now placed themselves in a position where the valuable lives of loyal members of the Space Corps would have to be risked in order to save them from the consequences of their criminal folly.

  "Yes—Persoons' death?"

  "It was necessary sir. There are eight witnesses." Kolukwe's eyes lowered.

  "I'm not blaming you, man," Bruce said. "Pity someone didn't do the job sooner; Persoons was a maniac. Then the crew would have been saved."

  "He was doing what he believed in," Kolukwe said.

  Bruce grunted and changed the subject. "Kolukwe, I’m going to be quite frank with you. Your main job is going to be that of keeping your people aboard there from panicking. They'll be in free-fall conditions for quite a long time, and there may be some rough moments."

  "We understand that, sir," said Joe Kolukwe.

  "Good!" Bruce said. "Link your transmitter with the internal scanners aboard the ship so that we can get some idea of what's going on there."

  "I'll do what I can, Commander," Kolukwe said.

  "We don't expect miracles." Bruce switched off his microphone and turned to his second in command. "Well?"

  Helen Lindstrom's face was very pale. "Moon and Mars operators agree with me," she said. "When the drive exploded it changed Athene's course—slightly."