Destiny's Orbit

by Donald A. Wollheim (as David Grinnell)

  "Among the beings on Saturn there was one that was intelligent, clever, and organized on highly evolved social lines. This life was highly flexible, rubbery in nature, able to adjust itself to many shapes and sizes, using temporary pseudopodal limbs when necessary.

  "The Saturnians at first were friendly to us, very curious about us, and bent themselves to learn all they could from us. We did our best to teach them, hoping to make them an ally in the exploration of the rest of our system. But they proved to be too good as students.

  "They built spaceships on our models; they studied our histories; they set up a synthetic culture based on the worst elements of Terrestrial history—in short after thirty years of careful imitation, they then announced a Saturnian Empire, claimed it extended to and included the asteroids, and began to interfere with our shipping.

  "The EMSA has tried to avoid open warfare, while reasoning with these creatures, but such efforts only increased their cockiness and self-assurance. There have been increasing clashes with the Saturnians. Raiders, calling themselves Saturn police ships, have attacked asteroid shipping.

  "It looks as if war might break out at any moment."

  The Wuj listened to all this with interest. "Very strange," he commented. "I don't understand all you say, and this sort of thing is all very un-Martian. However, I guess it is a happy thing we did not wait to meet that raider."

  He put three legs over his head and proceeded to go to sleep. Ajax sat staring out at the black starscape, thinking of glory.

  Several days later, with pursuit a forgotten thing, the Destiny and her cargo circled over the little group of asteroids which were the Fore-Trojans. Far off in the sky, Jupiter was a glowing ball accompanied by four of his larger visible moons. Saturn was a yellowish ringed disc, tiny in the black heavens. The sun was small, but still brightly glaring, and the six little worldlets were varied discs of gray and white in the sky about them.

  Carefully Ajax Calkins brought the Destiny and its awkward cargo closer and closer to the rocky airless surface of the asteroid Ajax. Fixing an orbit close to it, he cut loose the cargo containers to continue the orbit until the miners could go out and unload them. Then, with a graceful swoop, he brought the Destiny down to the surface of the asteroid.

  Ajax was a surprisingly level little world. Covered by a layer of rock and cosmic dust, it had virtually no out-thrusts or precipitous clefts such as usually marked asteroids. "A fine world for a space colony," said Ajax to the Wuj who was awake and watching. "Unusually good surface for spaceships. Someday it shall be a mighty and busy trading center, the hub of the middle system."

  "If you say so, dear leader," commented the spider.

  "And I do," said Ajax, and the ship touched the surface, glided along, and came to a gentle stop. Whatever Calkins' pretensions, there was no doubt he was a fine pilot.

  "And now . . ." said Ajax, stepping to a closet and taking from it a furled banner. "Now I shall plant my flag."

  "First you better put on a spacesuit," said Anton Small-ways dryly, emerging from his compartment already dressed in his space clothes.

  Ajax nodded, and without wasting more time, he and the Martian got into their space equipment. While Ajax wore the familiar spacesuit like a cumbersome suit of clothes, with impervious skin, and self-contained temperature, humidity, and air-renewal apparatus, the Wuj's outfit was rather different.

  The Wuj's outfit was more in the nature of a robot Martian, a metal globe into which the Wuj fitted himself, folding his many legs under him, and sealing it from inside. The globe was mounted on eight artificial metal limbs, and looked simply like a huge metal spider. The Wuj, seated inside, worked the legs from buttons, and drove it as if he were driving a monowheel on his native world.

  Then the three of them disembarked. The main portal of the Destiny was thrown open, and Ajax descended carrying his banner, limply unwaving in the airless surface of the tiny world. Anton followed, and the Wuj waddled down after him.

  A small group of spacesuited miners stood silently watching, a safe distance away from the ship. They waved their hands as Ajax stopped, planted his banner, and announced on his helmet radio:

  "I, Ajax the First, proclaim this planet independent and a

  kingdom under my protection, as the sovereign capital of the worlds of the Fore-Trojan Union!"

  He stuck the flag limply into the surface. It hit a rock and twisted, but he agilely rescued it, poked around until he found a layer of dust and shoved it in.

  "And now to work," he said. Whereupon the miners simply scattered and walked off again.

  "This way," said Anton Smallways, and led the two others off to a small raised ridge. "Our headquarters is over here, underground."

  And thus Ajax entered into his kingdom.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ajax Calkins had entered his kingdom, small though it was, and it now seemed to him that destiny had arranged for this moment. He was not entirely cut off from his fellow men; he had seen that other young men of fortune had different ideals than he and was tolerant enough to allow them their opinions so long as they did not try to interfere with him.

  For what else could it be but destiny? Wealthy men often married young women when they were well along in years, and it often happened that such unions were unfortunate, to say the least. He was aware that his own father had been much gibed at when he married Miss Margaret O'Neill. But destiny had decreed that the elder Calkins should choose a young woman with just the right mixture of charm and romantic idealism to appeal to a wealthy man who would gratify her every desire about the manner in which their only son should be raised.

  When he compared his mother to Emily Hackenschmidt, Ajax Calkins shuddered. It is true that Emily did resemble, however faintly, photographs of Margaret O'Neill—but temperamentally, she couldn't have been more different. A thoroughly unpleasant young woman, and Ajax wondered why he kept on thinking about her at odd moments. He had far better things to do. . . .

  A low ridge housed the largest of the underground shelters on Ajax. It had been hollowed out, its sides airproofed, sealed with voidall fluid, and fitted out with airtemp controls. Once you passed through the double airlock, it managed to be fairly comfortable—a low-ceilinged series of chambers.

  Ajax declared it his headquarters, and took over the largest of the vacant living quarters. Smallways had his bunk

  in another chamber, the Wuj appropriated one, and besides them there were several other miners who stayed there, though they were absent at work the greater part of the time.

  The bulk of the miners—there were about thirty of them all told, though Ajax never did get to count them all-stayed in a set of bubble-camp tents spread out for half a mile beyond the central ridge. And at half a mile, they already dipped below the horizon of this tiny airless world, where the stars shone perpetually in a black sky and the other five worldlets moved steadily across the firmament like constant moons.

  For the next two Earth-length days—as time was measured on Ajax—the miners unloaded the cargo Ajax had brought. They scooted up into the orbit of the satelliting containers in their small mining rocketships, and brought the contents back to the surface. There they transported them into supply depots carved out of the rocky surface.

  The miners apparently were pleased at the deal their leader Smallways had made, for Ajax heard no sign of disapproval. In fact, as he remarked to the Wuj a day later, it was rather remarkable that he heard no sign of anything from them. They seemed to ignore him, to take their orders from Smallways—in Ajax's name of course—and Ajax virtually never saw the greater part of the miners at alt outside of their spacesuits.

  The pile of Calkanned food was most welcome, and Ajax personally supervised the setting up of a dekanning system. This was a rather compact complex atomic device into which the can of compacted food was inserted. By adjusting a vibratory note to the proper note of the can, and then feeding in great quantities of nuclear energy along that note, the cans would slowly swell and exp
and, so that in about an hour's time, they would be sometimes as much as fifty or a hundred times their compacted size. Their contents would thus resume their normal appearance and density.

  There were many other items in the cargo—improved atomic diggers, smelters, cargo rocket motors, several stubby but powerful atomic artillery pieces, a crate of handcannon, more bubble-houses and the apparatus for a very powerful space radio station.

  Ajax and the Wuj were sorting out the crates containing their radio -station parts when Anton Smallways appeared on the scene in his space suit. Waving violently to Ajax, he called: "Return at once to the palace, your majesty. There is a strange ship approaching. It may be the raider that was pursuing us!"

  Ajax and the Martian raced back in the very slight gravity to the ridge, pushed through the airlock as fast as possible, and gathered around the regional radar and radio detector in their main living room. Smallways was seated before it, and as they came in, he pointed to a spot on their radar.

  It was the shape of a small spacecraft, a swift little scout-type ship, and Ajax judged it to be already within their system and heading for a comedown orbit on Ajax. He tripped the radio switch:

  "Calling intruder! Calling intruding ship! Ajax port requests identification. You are forbidden to land without permission. Identify please!"

  They waited. The little ship continued its orbit, coming in closer; there was no reply. Ajax twisted in his seat, Smallways watching him intensely. He repeated his message, adding, "Reply at once or we fire!" He switched his sender off, turned to Smallways.

  "Is any of our-artillery set up?" The green-bearded man slowly shook his head. "It's still in crates," he replied.

  "Have any miners who are in the vicinity stand by with hand weapons," he ordered. "I will meet this ship myself."

  Smallways turned on the general area signal, sent a general order command. Ajax, buckling a hand gun around his suit, fixed his helmet again, and with the Wuj carrying the flag, left the palace.

  The small intruder ship was now visible, coming in for a landing near the place where the Destiny was resting on the dusty surface.

  As they watched, it swooped lower, then slid along the ground in a cloud of meteoric dust, and came to a halt next to the Destiny. It was a great many times smaller— plainly a single passenger craft—and it was not Saturnian. It bore the red and green circle insignia of EMSA and its code numbers in large letters on its glistening yellow-painted sides.

  "You are under arrest, intruder," called Ajax sternly on his helmet radio. "This is not EMSA territory. This is the Fore-Trojan Union, Kingdom of Ajax. Throw down your weapons and emerge I"

  The lock door opened and a figure emerged in a yellow EMSA official space suit. It came towards Ajax with a light bouncy stride. As it came, the figure spoke:

  "Oh, come off it, Ajax Calkins. You've given me quite a chase and I'm good and fed up with it. Now you listen to me . . ."

  "Oh, what in the name of muddy meteors have I done to deserve this!" blurted Ajax. "It's that wild woman from EMSA, that Emily Hackensack or something!"

  "I heard that, Calkins. Hackenschmidt is the name, special investigator Emily Hackenschmidt, and the wild one is you," snapped back the approaching person.

  "Who is she?" asked Smallways in a petulant voice. "Shall I beam her down?"

  "No, I'm afraid not," sighed Ajax. "It wouldn't be gentlemanly. But have one of our men occupy her ship and seal its control board. She is our prisoner."

  "Hmmpf," called the young lady's voice. "Prisoner or not, you'd better come with me and have a talk. Besides," she added, "if you're a gentleman, you'll offer- a lady some refreshments. I've come a long way on ship's rations."

  Ajax led their uninvited guest back to his headquarters in silence, gritting his teeth. The Wuj ambled along behind and Smallways strode last, perturbed and sullen.

  Back in the "palace," divested of their bulky space suits, Emily plopped herself down in one of the comfortable chairs Ajax had taken from the Destiny and stared angrily about her. She was wearing the maroon service uniform of EMSA's woman's division, with the knee-length culottes of the latest regulation fashion with slit outer seams displaying tantalizing glimpses of lace-edged satinelle pettipants whenever she crossed her booted legs. Her waist was cinched tight with a wide belt; whose attached holster was now empty; Ajax had snatched the handcannon from it the moment he had spotted it.

  She pulled a pouch from her belt, and taking out a mirror and comb, began to brush her tangled hair and arrange her black bangs. This was a woman's way of regaining her confidence and breath; and of course it helped, as ' the EMSA regulations had indicated, to keep your prey distracted.

  Ajax had dumped himself angrily in the seat by the radio. Smallways stood quietly against the wall, and the Wuj curled up in a comer, folding his eight legs under him like a collapsible chair.

  They sat in silence for a while, and then one of the other miners wheeled in a cart with steaming hot coffee and food on it. The girl took a cup, Ajax another, but the other two declined.

  After she had taken her own good time, Emily looked at Ajax. "I ordered you not to leave Mars. Why did you disobey?"

  "I heard no such orders," Ajax snapped back, "and I know of no reason why I should heed them in any event."

  "I then went after you and tried to call you by space radio, and you only got away from me on the disguised cruiser you pretend is a space yacht. Why?"

  "The Destiny is not a cruiser, but is a private yacht, madame," Ajax replied haughtily. "And we pay no attention to pirates, interlopers, nuisances, or Saturnian raiders."

  "I, sir," she snapped back, pausing to bit a chunk from a piece of cake, "am none of these. I am the representative of the law of the mother planets. As a Canadian citizen, you are a member of the United Nations of Earth and a subject to the Earth-Mars Administration. When I order you-back, you are required by law to heed."

  "I, Miss Hackenwhacken, am the king of a sovereign world outside the spheres of the EMSA or any other planet. You have no business here and you will remain a prisoner here until I have determined the proper diplomatic exchange for you. And that will be after the signing of a treaty between my Fore-Trojan Union and your government," Ajax replied calmly, fingering the embroidered crown and emblem on his purple uniform jacket.

  "My name is Hackenschmidt," the girl replied, her blue eyes sparkling, "and will you stop this pretense! This is an asteroid and it is part of the asteroid belt and under EMSA!"

  Ajax leaned back, smiling. There was something about this girl that he found highly teasable. "My dear young lady, whatever your name is, you are in error. You are outside the asteroid belt and this is not within your province. Let me explain."

  Twirling her handcannon, which he had been holding since he had taken it, he carefully explained the astronomical status of the Fore-Trojans using a manner one would use to explain to a very backward child.

  As he talked, Emily gritted her teeth, grimaced, shook her head, tried to butt in. Finally, when he stopped, she jumped up and advanced on him, with her finger shaking. Negligently he righted the handcannon, having adjusted it to its slightest level of blast, and pointed it at her.

  She stopped short, and waving her finger under his nose,

  she said: ■ ' '

  "Now, you listen to me, Ajax Calkins. Don't try to split legal hairs with the whole of two great planets while the solar system is in danger. Do you understand that the Saturnians are trying to undermine our whole system and that your high-jinks are aiding and abetting them? Do you know that you are diverting important elements of our defense to your nonsense? With Saturn about to launch a full scale war, you will be snuffed out like a wink, legalisms or not! Now will you stop this, or will you wait until you become mincemeat to the Saturnian monsters?"

  Ajax frowned. He sat up straight. "We will set-up our

  radio station and announce our independence. Then let us see which side of space respects law and order."

  Emil
y turned, glanced at Smallways and the Wuj, and waved her hands angrily in the air. But they merely returned her unspoken appeal with blank expressions. Wearily, she sank back into her seat.

  Ajax stood up. "Young lady, will you give me your word of honor not to try to escape, or shall we have to lock you up in one of our rooms?"

  "Lock me up? Ajax Calkins, just you dare put a hand on me! I have no intention of escaping. My business is you— and after having come all this distance, if you think you can get rid of me that easily, you have another think coming. I am here to stay!"

  "Very well, madame," said Ajax grimacing. "In that case you can assist us in assembling Radio Ajax. The crates are outside. I hope you are handy with a screwdriver and crowbar. Hard work, I am told, is good for the soul."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Putting together Radio Ajax proved a task of hours out on the airless surface of the worldlet. While the extremely low gravity made moving the crates light work, there was still the matter of density and judgment of motion to overcome. There was a good deal of delicate equipment which must not be tipped too easily nor allowed to float unimpeded into a rock.

  Further, working in a spacesuit is not something that one can simply take to without training. Despite controls of air and humidity, it still gives a feeling of being encumbered and encased—and work requires constant breaks if it is not to leave one with muscles achingfrom unexpected overstrains and misjudgments.

  So the work which might have taken an hour or so on Earth or Mars took several times as long. Add to that the fact that it was being done by amateurs—one of them a prisoner, and none too willing—and it was a wonder that the station was set up at all.