The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  Back at ground level, he turned up his communicator. "Koa, is everything ready at the boat?"

  "Ready, sir."

  The Planeteers had already carried away the torch and its fuel and oxygen supplies. The area was clear of pieces of thorium.

  Rip announced, "We're setting the explosion for ten minutes." He leaned over the timer, which rested near the lip of the hole, took the dial control in his glove, and turned it to position ten. He held it long enough to glance at his chronometer and say, "Starting now!" Then he let it go.

  Wasting no time, but not hurrying, he and Dominico returned to the landing boat. The Planeteers were already aboard, except for Koa, who stood by to cast off the remaining tie line. Rip stepped inside and counted the men. All present. He ordered, "Cast off." As Koa did so and stepped aboard, Rip added, "Pilot, take off. Straight up."

  The landing boat rose from the asteroid. Rip counted the men again, just to be sure. The boat seemed a little crowded, but that was because the rear compartment took up quite a bit of room.

  Rip watched his chronometer. They had plenty of time. When the boat reached a point about ten miles above the asteroid, he ordered, "Stern tube." The boat moved at an angle. He let it go until a sight at the stars showed they were in about the right position, ninety degrees from the line of blast and where they would be behind the asteroid as it moved toward the new course.

  He looked at his chronometer again. "Two minutes. Line up at the side if you want to watch, but darken your helmets to full protection. This thing will light up like nothing you've ever seen before."

  It was a good thing space cruisers depended on their radar and not on sight, he thought. Usually spacemen opened up visual ports only when landing or taking a star sight for an astroplot. The clear plastic of the domes had to be shielded from chance meteors. Besides, radar screens were more dependable than eyes, even though they could pick up only solid objects. If the Consops cruiser happened to be searching visually, it would see this blast. But the chance had to be taken. It wasn't really much of a chance.

  "One minute," he said. He faced the asteroid, then darkened his helmet, counting to himself.

  The minute ticked off rapidly, though his count was a little slow. When he reached five, brilliant, incandescent light lit up the interior of the boat. Rip saw it even though his helmet was dark. The light faded slowly, and as it did, he gradually put his helmet back on full transparent.

  A mighty column of fire now reached out from the asteroid into space. Rip held his breath until he saw that the little planet was sheering off its course under the great blast. Then he sighed with relief. All was well so far.

  Someone muttered, "By Gemini! I'm glad we're out here instead of down there!"

  The column of fire lengthened, thinned out, grew fainter, until there was only a glow behind the asteroid. Rip took his astrogation instruments and made a number of sights. They looked good. The first blast had worked about as predicted, although he wouldn't be able to tell how much correction was needed until he had taken star sights over a period of five or six days.

  "Let's go home," he ordered.

  Back on the asteroid, a pit that glowed with radioactivity marked the site of the first blast. Rip ordered the men to stay as far from it as possible, to avoid increasing their radiation doses. He plotted the lines for the second blast, found the spot, and put Kemp back to work on a new hole.

  Two hours later the second blast threw fire into space. In another three hours, with the asteroid now speeding on its new course, Rip set off the explosion that blasted straight back and gave extra speed.

  Three radioactive craters marked the asteroid. Rip checked the radiation level and didn't like it a bit. He decided to set up the landing boat and their supplies as far away from the craters as possible, which was on the sun side. They could move to the dark side as they approached the orbit of Earth. By then the radioactivity from the blasts would have died down considerably.

  He was selecting the location for a base when Dowst suddenly called, "Lieutenant Foster!"

  There was urgency in the Planeteer's voice. "What is it, Dowst?"

  "Sir, take a look, about two degrees south of Rigel!"

  Rip found the constellation Orion and looked at bright Rigel. For a moment he saw nothing; then, south of the star, he saw a thin, orange line.

  Nuclear drive cruisers didn't have exhausts of that color, and there was only one rocket-drive ship around, so far as they knew.

  Rip said softly, "Let's get our house in order, gang. Looks as if we're going to get a visit from the Connies!"

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Duck--or Die!

  Sergeant Major Koa's great frame loomed in front of Rip. "Think they've spotted us, sir?"

  Rip hated to say it. "Probably. Koa, can you estimate from the exhaust how far away they are?"

  "Not very well, Lieutenant. From the position of the streak, I'd say they're decelerating."

  The Planeteers looked at Rip. He was in command, and they expected him to do something about the situation. Rip didn't know what to do. The rocket launcher, their only weapon, wasn't designed for fighting spaceships. It was useful against snapper-boats and people, but firing at a cruiser would be like sending mosquitoes to fight elephants.

  He sized up their position. For one thing, they were right out in the open, exposed to anything the Connie cruiser might throw at them. If they could get under cover, there might be a chance. At least it would take the Connies a while to find them.

  For a moment he thought of hurrying into the landing boat and sending out a call for help to the Scorpius, but he thought better of it. They weren't certain that Connie had spotted them. He would wait until there was no doubt. Meanwhile, they had to find cover.

  His searching eyes fell on the cutting torch. If they could use that to cut themselves right into the asteroid.... Suddenly he knew how it could be done. On the sun side he remembered a series of high-piled, giant crystals of thorium. They could cut into the side of one of those. And with Kemp's skill, they might be able to do it in time.

  He called, "Kemp, Koa, bring the torch and fuel and follow me."

  In his haste he took a misstep and flew headlong a few feet above the metal surface. Koa, gliding along behind him, turned him upright again. He saw that the sergeant major was grinning. Rip grinned back. It was the second time he had lost his footing.

  They reached the peaks of thorium, and Rip looked them over. The tallest was perhaps forty feet high. It was roughly pyramidal, with a base about sixty feet thick. It would do.

  "Kemp." The private hurried to his side. "Take the torch and make us a cave. Make it big enough for the entire crew and the equipment."

  Kemp was a good Planeteer. He didn't stop to ask questions. He said, "I'll make a small entrance and open the cave out inside." He picked up the torch and got busy.

  Rip smiled. The Planeteer was right. He should have thought of it himself, but it was good to see increasing proof that his men were smart as well as tough and disciplined.

  "Bring up all supplies," he told Koa. "Move the boat over here, too. We won't be able to bury that, but we want it close by." He had an idea for their boat. It was able to maneuver infinitely faster than the big cruiser. They could put the supplies in the cave, then take to the boat, depending on its ability to turn quickly and on Dowst's skill at piloting to play hide and seek. Dowst certainly could keep the asteroid between them and the cruiser.

  The plan would fail when the cruiser sent a landing party. They would certainly come in snapper-boats, and those deadly little fighting craft could blast rings around the landing boat. The snapper-boats had gotten their name because fast acceleration and quick changes of position could snap a man right out of his seat if he forgot to buckle his harness tightly.

  The solution would be to keep the landing boat close to the asteroid. At the first sign of a landing party, they would take to the cave, using the rocket launcher as a defense.

  The supplies began to
arrive. The Planeteers towed them two crates at a time in a steady line of hurrying men.

  Kemp's torch sent an incandescent knife three feet into the metal at each cut. He was rapidly slicing out a cave. He cut the metal out in great triangular bars, angling the torch from first one side, then the other.

  Koa came and stood beside Rip. "I haven't seen the Connie's exhaust for a while, sir. They've probably stopped decelerating. We can't see them at all."

  "Meaning what?" Rip asked. He thought he knew, but he wanted Koa's opinion.

  "They're in free fall now, sir. That could mean they're just hunting in the area. Or it could mean that they've stopped somewhere close by. They could be looking us over right now, for all we know."

  Rip surveyed the stars. "If that's so, they're not too close, Koa. Otherwise they'd block out a patch of stars."

  "Well, sir--" Koa hesitated. "I mean, if you were looking over this asteroid, and you weren't sure whether the enemy had it or not, how close would you get?"

  "Probably about one AU," Rip said jokingly. That was one astronomical unit, equal to about ninety-three million miles, the distance from Earth to the sun.

  "That's a safe distance, sir," Koa agreed with a grin.

  "But let's suppose the Connie isn't as timid as I am," Rip went on. "He might be only a few miles out. The question is, would he wait to get closer before launching his snapper-boats?"

  The tall officer answered frankly, "I've never been in a space grab like this. I don't know the answer."

  "We'll soon know," Rip replied grimly. A thought had just struck him. The Scorpius had trouble finding the asteroid because it was just one of many sailing along through the belt. But now the asteroid was the only one traveling across the belt. It would make an outstanding blip on any radarscope. It wasn't possible that the Connie cruiser had missed the blip and its significance.

  "The Connie may be looking us over," Rip added, "but I'll tell you one thing. He knows we've taken the asteroid."

  Koa looked wistfully at the atomic bomb which remained. "If we had a way to throw that thing at them...."

  "But we haven't. And the thing wouldn't explode, anyway. We don't have the outside casing with an exploder mechanism, so it has to be turned on electrically." Rip could see no way to use the atomic bomb against the Connies. It was too big for use against a landing party. Besides, it would put the Planeteers themselves in danger.

  "Ever have trouble with the Connies before?" he asked Koa.

  "More'n once, sir. Sometimes it seems like I'll never get a job where I don't have to fight Connies."

  Rip was trained in science and Planeteer techniques, and he didn't pretend to know the ins and outs of interplanetary politics. Just the same, he couldn't help wondering about the strange relationship between the Consolidation of People's Governments and the Federation of Free Nations.

  Connies and Feds, mostly Planeteers but sometimes spacemen, were constantly skirmishing. They fought over property, over control of ports on distant planets and moons, and over space salvage. Often there was bloodshed. Sometimes there were pitched battles between groups of platoon size.

  But at that point the struggle ended. The law of the Federation said that no spaceship could fire on a Connie spaceship or on Connie land bases, except with special permission of the Space Council. The theory was that brief struggles between men, or even between small fighting craft like the snapper-boats, was not war. But firing on a spaceship was considered an act of war, and the first such act could mean the beginning of a war throughout the entire solar system.

  It made a sort of sense to Rip when he thought about it. Little fights here and there were better than a full war among the planets.

  Koa suddenly gripped his arm. "Sir! Look up!"

  The short hairs on the back of Rip's neck prickled. Far above, blackness in the shape of a spaceship blotted out stars. The Connie had arrived!

  Rip ordered urgently, "Kemp! Stop cutting! The rest of you get the stuff under cover. Ram it!" He hurried to lend a hand himself, hustling crates into the cave.

  Kemp had made astonishing progress. There was room for the crates, if stacked properly, and for the men, besides. Rip supervised the stacking and then the placement of the rocket launcher at the entrance.

  "All hands inside the boat," he ordered. "Dowst, be ready to take off at a moment's notice. You'll have to buck this box around as never before." He explained to the pilot his plan to dodge, keeping the asteroid between the boat and the cruiser.

  "We'll make it, sir," Dowst said.

  "I'm not worried," Rip replied--and wished it were true. He looked up at the Connie again. It was getting larger. The cruiser was within a few miles of the asteroid.

  As Rip watched, fire spurted from the cruiser, and it moved with gathering speed toward the asteroid's horizon. He watched the exhaust trail, wondering why the Connie had blasted off.

  "He has something up his sleeve," Koa muttered. "Wish we knew what."

  "Let's take no chances," Rip stated. "Come on."

  The men were already in the boat. He and Koa joined them. They stood at a window, watching the Connie's trail.

  The trail dwindled. Koa said, "Something's up!" Suddenly new fire shot from one side of the cruiser, and it spun. Balancing fire came from the other side, and for an instant the three exhausts formed a cross, with the darkness of the Connie's hull in the center. Then they could see only the exhausts from the sides. The stern flame was out of sight. "He's made a full turn to come back this way," Rip stated tensely. "Dowst, get ready."

  The Connie was perhaps twenty miles away. It grew larger, and the side jets winked out. A few seconds later, fire spurted from the nose.

  Rip figured rapidly. The cruiser had gone far enough away to make a turn. It had straightened out, heading right for them. Now the nose tube was blasting, slowing the cruiser down.

  He sighted, holding out one glove, and gauging the Connie's distance above the horizon, and his heart speeded. The Connie was right on the horizon!

  "Ram it!" Rip called. "Around the asteroid. Quick!"

  Acceleration jammed him back against his men as Dowst blasted. No sooner had he recovered than acceleration in a different direction shoved him up to the ceiling so hard that his bubble rang. He clawed his way to the window as the Connie cruiser flashed by, bathing the asteroid in glowing flame.

  There was a chorus of gasps from the men as they saw the thing Rip had realized a moment before. The Consops cruiser was playing it safe, using its rocket exhaust as a great blowtorch to burn the surface of the asteroid clean of any possible life!

  The sheer inhumanity of the thing made Rip's stomach tighten into a knot. No asking for surrender, no taking of prisoners, not even a clean fight. The Connie was doing its arguing with fire, knowing that the exhaust would char every man on the asteroid's surface.

  The Planeteers watched as the Connie sped away, blasted with side jets, and turned to come back. Dowst tensed over the controls, trying to anticipate the next move. He delicately touched the firing levers, letting out just enough flame to maneuver. He slid the craft across the asteroid's surface to the side away from the Connie, going slowly enough that they could watch the enemy's every move.

  "Here he comes," Rip snapped, and braced for acceleration. The landing craft shot to safety as the cruiser's nose jet flamed. Dowst was just in time. Tiny sparks from the edge of the fiery column brushed past the boat.

  Rip realized that the Connie couldn't know the Federation men were in a boat, dodging. The cruiser would make about two more runs, just enough to allow for hitting every bit of the asteroid. Then it would assume that anything on it was finished and send a landing party.

  "He'll be back," he stated. "About twice more. Three at most." He suddenly remembered the landing boat's radio. "Dowst, where is the radio connection?"

  The pilot handed him a wire with a jack plug on the end of it. Rip plugged it into his belt. Now his voice would be heard on the Scorpius.

  "Calling Sco
rpius! Calling Scorpius! Foster reporting. We are under attack. Repeat, we are under attack. Over to you."

  The answer rang in his helmet. "Scorpius to Foster. Hold 'em, Planeteers. We're on our way!"

  "Here comes the Connie," Koa yelled.

  Rip braced. The landing boat shot forward, then piled the Planeteers in a heap on the bottom as Dowst accelerated upward.

  There was a sudden wrenching crash that sent the Planeteers in a jumbled mass into the front of the boat. It whirled crazily, then stopped.

  Rip was not hurt. He shoved at someone whose bubble was in his stomach and cleared the way. "Turn on belt lights," he called. "Quick!"