"I had been a fool once, and that was enough, so I meant to do it the right way this time. You don't strike without warning if you want to be a success; you give plenty of warning through agents and policemen you've hired, and steer them just a bit the wrong way so that they suspect nothing and honestly believe that they'll get you the next time.
"I met a lot of friends I knew on Mars, and made some new ones when I'd disposed of the ship's cargo. The boys and I have been cruising around for some time now, doing nothing spectacular—it doesn't pay.
We've been knocking off a ship here and there, laying the blame square onto a rival or somebody. Our home is still Pluto—we don't like it, in a way, for what it did to us, but in a way we do because nobody else does, and it's so damn far away from anything half the time.
"I'm sorry that you didn't get the Carpathia. I thought that with a father like yours you could fly sideways and beat any other scow in the ether to a contract."
She stared at the madman. "What did you know about my father?"
"He was my instructor on Venus. He got me out of a piece of trouble when I killed a man that swore at me. He was a good instructor, and I'm pleased that I have the chance to do him a favor through you. You see, I wrecked that bullion ship for you. Then I was going to pick you up and the junk, but I see I've only got you. Well—perhaps that's enough. You can't return to Mars even if you want to. I suppose the police have their cruisers out looking for you and your crew. I buttered the crime onto you for both our advantages. I hope you don't mind?"
"No," she said, "and you wanted to do my father a favor by permitting me to join your—band?"
"Exactly," came from the muffled features. "And you will?"
The girl sobbed, "Never! Space is clean and cold; why must you make it a thing of Terror? Isn't that pain enough without you and your kind?"
The pirate laughed. "The whimsical butcher is not displeased," he said.
"You will have your uses anyhow. It will be a long time before a soul suspects King Cole—the late King Cole—of the atrocities perpetrated by Miss Alice Adams and her cutthroat crew. I know how the police mind works. That's my business, now. Good day—you may ring for food." He left, and the door closed behind him.
Vainly the girl sprang to the door and tried the knob. It was locked firm.
She returned to the bed and shut her eyes, trying to blot out the memory of that grey, horribly seamed face.
In Marsport Jerry had not been idle. He had been to see the major again, and tried to convince him of the truth so self-evident to the younger man's mind, but the placid old idiot listened blandly and blankly. When Jerry was finished he said, "Through an accident, I believe, we were cut off in our telephone conversation a while ago. I was about to describe the position in which Ironface and I found ourselves—"
But Jerry was gone with great curses on his lips. Patiently Skeane sighed. It had been six years since he had been able to finish that story; the last man to hear it complete had been a convict extradited to Venus from Jupiter. Skeane had strapped him down in the little two-man rocket and whiled away the long hours of space travel with the tale in its gruesome entirety. He thought, now, that it would be nice if he could find somebody else to strap down and tell the story to. He was even a bit afraid that he was forgetting the details himself …
A taxi was driving through the muddy streets of Marsport; Jerry snapped a bill under the hackie's nose. "This for you if you step on it,"
he said. They pulled up, brakes squealing horribly, before a battered, weatherbeaten tenement. Jerry took four stairs at a time and burst into the close, dirty room. He shook the sleeping figure. "Sven! Sven, dammit! Wake up, you loose-brained lump of soggy Norwegian caviar!
We have the biggest job we've tackled yet!"
The helmsman rolled over, and dizzily asked, "We tow, Captain?"
"Yeah, we tow—a full-armed battleship that doesn't want to be towed.
Get the men to the field in twenty minutes—fare is on Leigh Salvage, Incorporated."
As the big man struggled into his clothes Jerry was down the stairs and into a taxi. "Salvage Field," he snapped, "in a helluva rush."
He had often boasted that the engines of scow Leigh were the most powerful things in the ether. Well—he would see how powerful they could be—shifting feed lines and adjusting nozzles to move the traction power, terrific as it was, into a different channel. The scow was to haul nothing but her own weight this trip, but it was essential, to put it mildly, that she haul it fast. The men lined up before her as the job neared completion. Briefly but clearly Jerry outlined the dangers and invited men to drop out.
"Wylie," he said, "since I shipped you we've been getting complaints from your quarter about work. This is going to be work the like of which you never dreamed. You can take out that pistol of yours; sure as leather you're going to us it this trip, unless somebody gets you first.
"Anybody leaving? No? Then pile in and strap tight. In ninety seconds we take off under fifteen Mars gravities acceleration."
There was a little glow in his chest. These were men—his men!
Comrades of flight and wreck, he'd stood by them and they were making good this day. And for a crazy woman? That was the part that baffled him—why? He had had practically no respect for her father; his ethics, or lack of ethics was notorious on the field. But she couldn't fly a ship! That, he said to himself, was what had convinced him of her innocence of the highly technical charge of piracy.
"Strapped in?
"Eighty-nine
"Fire!"
With a roar they took off. Such acceleration was unheard of, even on this field, where rules of astronavigation were scrapped daily and the laws of the space-lanes broken as a matter of course.
In a moment they had vanished from the sight of observers on the field; a moment more and they were into space, beyond air and warmth.
"All hands," rang out over the Leigh Salvage annunciator. "These will be battle stations when so ordered. Sven, be ready to take the tiller if anything happens to me; Wylie, choose and arm eight men to form a boarding party. Two others stand by with repair-paste in the event that our periphery is punctured. One man stand by the manual controls in case the electric board is blown by anything they have in their bag of tricks. That is all—flight stations!"
A long silence followed, Sven's hand white on the helm. "Deflect into first for particle in third," said Jerry, at length. "Meteorite." The ship shifted. "Good God, Sven—did you see that thing?" cried Jerry.
The helmsman said, puzzled, "Yes, Captain."
"But Sven—we passed it—going in the same direction! The first time I've known that to happen. Swede, we're traveling plenty fast."
5 Contact Off Pluto
Out in space time depends most of all on the man concerned, but for all those on the speeding little scow, the days flashed past. They saw Jupiter pale behind them, and Saturn, and Neptune; then, one day—
"Helmsman," said Jerry tensely, "turn control to master's board. I think I see them." Uneasily the big man surrendered the guiding of the vessel; he was the sort who likes to know what is going to happen next. Jerry's fingers touched the panel, his eyes never leaving the glinting speck far ahead of him; the speck that grew as he overhauled it with dizzying speed. His own exhausts glared less bright; he was slowing down that there might be no mistake. A telescope brought to bear on the point screened out the rocket's dazzle and enlarged the features of the vessel.
And there was something about it—he was almost sure.
He was sure. That tube astern was a chaser, meant for him and his scow. He turned on the annunciator, his jaw clenched. "Attention all hands," he said. "To battle stations. Check on your paste, repair crew; check on your weapons, boarding party. Pirate ship—" he squinted through the telescope—"Pirate Ship King Cole in sight. That is all."
He snapped on a beam of communication to the pirate ship, closing up the distance between them, and sent a call along it.
"
Scow Leigh Salvage calling unregistered King Cole. Scow Leigh Salvage calling unregistered King Cole. Answer if you hear me, unregistered Cole. Scow Leigh to unregistered Cole."
There were etheric cracklings, then a dry voice. "Answering, scow Leigh Salvage. If you know who we are, what do you want with us?"
Jerry was close enough to see their chaser turn into his quarter and extend for firing.
"Heave to, King Cole," he said. "We're commissioned as a converted warship of the Interplanetary Police." This was neither strictly true nor untrue. As a matter of fact Skeane had said, "Go on and make a fool of yourself if you plan to. You and your ship have my full permission."
"Captain," said the voice from the pirate ship, "your letter of marque won't take us. I advise you to turn your garbage can back to where it and you belong before we rake you just once."
"Second of three warnings," said Jerry, wetting his lips. "Heave to in the name of the Interplanetary Police."
There was a long chuckle from the beam-grid.
"Third and last warning: heave to!" With the words Jerry tore the ship up and over into a great, ragged loop as the pirate gun belched pellets of destruction. He had thought he would be well outside the scattering pattern, but the scow trembled as a fragment exploded against its side.
"Repair crew to larboard!" he shouted into the annunciator plate, his eye on the air-pressure gage. Its needle dipped once; then rose to normal. "Plate blown in and patched, sir," came Hiller's voice. "All clear."
"Stand by, all," said Jerry. "We're going to attack." This ship rose, under his sensitive fingers, above its foe. "Prepare to swing grapples," Jerry warned. "Check magnetic plates. OK?" "Magnetic plates OK" answered Wylie.
"Then hold on!" The ship swooped and fluttered, at times seemingly inviting the fire of the pirates, at times seeming disabled, and darting away as the killer vessel swung itself to deliver a coup de grace.
The scow's grapples swung free—ponderous curved plates at the end of long osmiridium chains. Then down she darted, the grapples clanging against the sides of the pirate and sticking like plaster, and magnetized plates in the ship herself adhering to the other.
Jerry turned to the annunciator. "Wylie, cut through take over the board, Sven. I'm going down for the fun."
"Yes, Captain," said the big man.
Again in Wylie's skilled hands the burning paste oozed from his tool and ate through the metal of the pirate's hull as the crew bolted on their space helmets. Guns clicked in readiness; the oval of weakened metal was closed. The salvagers stood back as Jerry kicked down the section.
Gun ready, he and his men stepped through. They were in an empty storage room, it seemed—one that would never again be crammed with loot.
Through his head-set Jerry ordered, "All out of the scow. Come through and bring sealing material." The rest of the crew filed through the ragged opening, stepping cautiously. "Seal that," said Jerry. "Either we fly the pirates' ship to Marsport or we don't fly at all."
The breech was sealed, and the crew stripped off their spacesuits.
Grimly, weapons poised, they moved in a solid line for the bulkhead that sealed them off from the rest of the ship. They heard running feet through the wall. There would be a corridor on the other side. Jerry flung open the bulkhead and stepped through, guns blazing. Before him was a mass of men, their faces grey, horribly seamed things. Three fell under his fire; others struggled vainly to raise a semi-portable gun against him and the men who came trooping through, their weapons hammering madly in their hands.
Tactics were discarded, and the two groups sprang together, locking in combat. Muffled groans and the thud of fists were heard; gunbutts rose and fell on skulls and faces. Finally the salvagers stood above their foes, bloody and victorious.
"Neat work," said Jerry, wiping blood from his face. "Now let's get up this cannon of theirs. That wasn't a quarter of their crew." Wylie spread the tripod of the gun and locked its barrel into place. "I think," he said,
"it's in working order. Shall I try a squirt?"
Jerry nodded and the gun cut loose, hammering shells down the corridor, battering through the steel door.
"Enough," he said. "The plan from now on is to stay in a lump and keep moving systematically. If we begin at one end and work towards the other we may get there. Otherwise" He left the words unsaid. "Wylie, go ahead of us, carrying the barrel. Collins, carry the stand."
6 Return From Battle
Slowly they advanced through the shattered door. They were in an engine room. "Wait," said Jerry. He turned to the complicated maze of pipelines and tore one loose; he twisted valves and shut-offs. The trembling drone of the exhaust died slowly. The pirate ship was free in space.
"We go on from here," he said. "Give me the gun-barrel." Wylie surrendered it and his captain fired a short burst at the lock of the door. It sprung open and silently the men stepped through. It led to an ambush; a score of the grey-faced horrors sprang to the attack as his gun cut loose with violent, stuttering squirts of destruction. Men fell on both sides, and Jerry dropped the clumsy weapon to use his fists and pistol-butt.
He was grappling with a huge man, smashing blows into his middle, twisted over his back. He struggled vainly as he felt his tendons about to give, then—a club rose and fell on the head of his foe, and he slid to the floor saved by Sven. "Thanks," he said hastily, scrambling to his feet and sailing into another pirate. A kick to the groin disposed of the man; this was small season for the niceties of combat. He turned as an arm snaked about his neck, and jerked out his pistol, pressing it into the belly of the strangler. He pulled the trigger, his jaw set, and the pressure relaxed suddenly.
From knot of men to struggling knot he swung, firing till his gun was empty, and not daring to stop for a reload. In a few short minutes all was silent save for the panting of the bloody victors—Jerry's men. Two had fallen forever. Gently Jerry straightened their twisted bodies and turned his back on them.
Gruffly he said, "I believe that we are in a position to make an attack on their main forces, which would be concentrated in the control room.
Follow me."
And grimly, without a backward glance at the carnage behind them, they followed stealthily down a corridor to pause before a door triply sealed against them. Jerry pounded on it with a pistol. "This is the fourth call to surrender," he shouted through the steel.
There was a mocking laugh. "Come and get us, garbage man," answered a voice dry as dust. "We're ready for you."
Jerry's face hardened. "Give me the torch," he said. They passed the tube to him, and primed it.
He braced himself and touched it to the door, opening the torch to its widest capacity. The arc sprung out; he swung it in a great oval over the steel. The door glowed a fiery white; then the slab of metal fell inward with a clang. Through the opening they saw a score of men, guns poised. There was a pause, then their own semi-portable cut loose and tore through a half dozen of the pirates before Dehring, who was feeding ammunition, fell twisting to the floor.
Guns blazing, then the battle-mad crew of the scow leaped to the attack. Men paired off and swung fists and boots; only Jerry stood aside—Jerry and one other. His face a grey ruin, one of the pirates stood aside and watched, taking no hand and seeking none in the destruction. Jerry walked up to him. Again the strange, knightly drama of conflict in space was to be enacted.
"You, sir," said Jerry, "are the captain?"
The dry, bleak voice that he knew answered from the head without features. "Captain Cole, at your disposal, Captain Leigh. Shall we withdraw?" No insults now—the archaic code of the space-pirates demanded this rigidly formal procedure on the meeting of the two enemy captains in battle. Jerry nodded, and the pirate chief led the way into a luxurious room.
Alice sat up. "Jerry!" she cried. "Has he taken your ship?" He smiled.
"No—just the opposite. Our men are fighting it out in the control room; Captain Cole has been so kind as to offer me individual combat."
The pirate chuckled richly, "Pray speak no more of it. I thought you would be pleased to see your Alice again—she is an extraordinarily high-principled young lady. She has refused to join my little band. Well; perhaps she was right—we shall soon see.
"I believe the choice of weapon is mine?"
"Certainly, Captain," answered Jerry according to formula. "And they will be—?"
"Boarding pikes," said the pirate succinctly. "There is a pair here, if you will excuse me." He opened a locker in a corner of the room and withdrew two of the vicious five-foot pole-arms from it. Jerry accepted his weapon with a murmur of thanks and examined it briefly. He struck its shaft over his knee and smiled at its satisfactory weight. "Shall we fight free or formal?" he asked Cole.
"Formal, if Miss Adams will be good enough to referee." The girl nodded, her face white. "The line of combat is not to be departed from,"
she began in the traditional phrasing, "and will extend along the center of the room from the door to the bed.
"The first figure will be low-crossed; challenger, Captain Leigh, attacking. The defender, Captain Cole, will attempt to disarm the challenger within three disengagements." She poised her handkerchief.
"At the drop of the scarf," she said, "the challenger will attack."
It fell to the floor, and Jerry hooked a tine of his weapon into the pirate's guard and swung upward, then darted at the chest of his enemy. There was a clash of steel, and—his hands were stinging and empty. He had been disarmed. Cole stood smiling, his pike held easily, waiting for the next figure, as Jerry's mind raced furiously back to the days of his school training. He remembered another such disarming at the hands of an old, quick instructor. He had been padded then, and the blades of the pike could not, dulled, penetrate his quartz practice helmet.
Faintly he heard or seemed to hear the instructor's voice say, "Counter once conventionally; then engage, and rocking from the heels twist and thrust at once to disarm." Grimly Jerry smiled. He would not forget again.
"Second figure," said Alice faintly. "The defender will attack high,-
His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction Page 90
