by Various
The Captain laughed oddly. "And you wondered how they lived on this naked rock. They ate the raw ore, of course. No wonder they hung around Durval's machines sucking up what free energy they could. They broke through the air feeder system here. No wonder. With cells of 80% pure uranium waiting for them." His voice broke.
"So we're finished," he continued. "The Kastil will be loaded before we can even clean the cats out. We're done."
He swayed back against the bulkhead. Scott took his arm.
"Get away from me." Elderburg wrenched away, his loathing clear even behind the bulky suit. "If what the men say is true. If you sold us out--" His voice trailed off. "Call your men out of the pits, Jerill. We're blasting off tonight."
"No." Scott leaned forward, his eyes mere slits behind the lense of his helmet. "Is there any uranium left?"
"We saved two cells."
"It's enough," Scott snapped. His lean jaw lifted proudly. "It's a little late, Captain. But I can promise to get rid of the cats in two hours. With the ore deposits Vaugn and I have collected, we can still load a good cargo and beat the Kastil out by at least a day."
Elderburg eyed him sharply. "How can you handle the cats?"
"Get me a lead-lined box about eight feet by...."
Static blasted shrilly in their ears. The voice of the ship's lookout, strained with excitement, shouted. "Captain Elderburg. This is Main Control. Get here fast. An explosion at Lieutenant Jerill's mine."
As Elderburg leaped for the door with a muffled roar, the lookout's voice tautened. "No. No. Not an explosion. It's the Kastil. They're attacking the mine. They're attacking the mine."
* * * * *
They crammed into the observation blister on the Bertha's nose. Scanners swept smoothly over the wilderness of stone jutting up between the ship and the mine.
"There's a fire fight going out there." Elderburg's square face knotted with anger. "Scott, take a party. Blow that livid scum crew off this rock."
"Right, sir!" Scott bolted from the observation port. The emergency alarm howled through the ship. He buckled on a pair of blasters with unsteady hands, a black fury sweeping him. He stabbed one long finger down on the intercom.
"Masters," he yelled. "Get the cargo jet ready. With full battle equipment."
"Right, lieutenant. What's up?"
"Piracy." He spun toward the door. Then jolted to a halt, hands balling at his sides.
A picture was forming on the Master Communication Screen.
Elderburg pounded to his side. "Who is it?"
The picture on the screen was very definite now--a swarthy giant of a man, cynically grinning down at them. "Gentlemen," the figure on the screen said, and Scott needed no further introduction.
It was Randell, master of the ship Kastil.
"We've had a very entertaining two days," Randell said. His thick hands rubbed easily together. "It's been a real pleasure watching you work. But I'm afraid the pleasure is over. We're leaving you now. Oh, that disturbance at your mine pit?" He laughed, but only with his mouth; the close-set eyes remained unchanging, watchful. "It seemed so unnecessary to bother mining ore when so much of it was stacked near our pit."
"You bloody murdering bandit," Elderburg thundered. "We'll blast you...."
"You'll blast nobody. Any party approaching the Kastil will get blasted. Any party near the claim--our claim--will get burned down. By the way, I'm afraid your men at the mine contracted space-sickness, or something. They seem to be dead. You needn't bother coming after them."
He began to chuckle. "I think the ore my men are bringing in now will just complete our cargo. See you back on Earth."
The screen went gray. The sound shut off with a loud click.
Elderburg swung on Scott. "Take your men. Clean out that nest of thieves before they remove any more ore. Order out full battle gear. We'll blast the Kastil apart if it takes every man on board this ship."
"No!" Scott caught Elderburg's shoulder, gripped him. "There isn't time for an armed attack. I have a better idea."
"Scott, I order you to...."
"Get me a box," Scott cried desperately. "Made of lead and six feet deep."
Elderburg jerked his shoulder free. His face contorted. "Get to your cabin, Jerill. You're under arrest."
"Captain Elderburg, listen to me. We can...."
"That's a direct order. Go to your cabin." He whirled away from Scott, slammed down the intercom lever. "Attention all hands. Prepare full battle equipment...."
Scott slashed his blaster hard across the back of the Captain's head. Elderburg staggered, clutched the back of the seat. Scott hit him again. Elderburg's legs went loose. He toppled face forward, struck the intercom and sagged to the floor.
Scott stepped to the intercom. "Attention. All men, prepare full battle equipment and stand by. Stand by. Durval, get the largest lead-lined box you have and set it outside the entrance of the main cargo hatch. Shake it up. We have half an hour till the Kastil jets off."
He cut off the intercom, lugged Elderburg to the chart room and locked him inside.
* * * * *
The hold was beastly hot. Standing inside the hatchway, holding suspended over his head a three-foot long cell of uranium ore, Scott felt a moment of shuddering panic. Over the storage cells along the wall, over the tumbling bodies of the cats, an eerie glow quivered--the menacing flare of radio-activity.
Scott glanced nervously at the forward screen. Chief Durval waved toward him. "Your men ready, Durval?"
The Chief nodded. "Don't go getting yourself hurt now, Scott."
Scott grinned although he did not feel much like grinning.
He shuffled forward under the light gravity of the hold. The uranium cell balanced easily in his hands. Too easily. He could scarcely feel it press against his gloves. The heat control in his suit was jammed again. His hands streamed sweat.
He inched past the cats. A quick cold thrill passed through his stomach. With the energy of the ore almost gone, the scarlet beasts were growing increasingly uneasy. They were casting about for a new supply. It would be easy enough for a foot to slip, he thought. To spill the ore across the floor. New food for the cats--and the loss of the Bertha's last chance as strange space beasts sucked away the last purified ore.
He slipped cautiously past the last row of cells. A quick dash now for the open hatchway beyond....
Half a dozen of the bounding red beasts surged about his feet. Their weight drove his right leg forward. He staggered, caught at his balance. The lead cell above his head began to slip.
"Watch it, Scott!" Durval's voice cracked in his ears.
Straining every muscle against the queer weightlessness of no gravity, Scott struggled to regain his balance. He expected another blow at his legs as the cats leaped for the ore. It was hard to breathe the over-heated air of his suit.
But the cats had spun away. As he caught his balance, he stared after them, uncomprehending for an instant. The cats ran twisting in a somehow sinister dance. The bodies were queerly bloated. Down the upper portion of their bodies ran a heavy indentation. As they leaped and twisted, the indentation became a fissure, a crevice.
Then two of the beasts leaped, slammed together in mid-air. But more than two cats fell to the floor.
Their sharply angled bodies whisking back toward the depleted uranium cells, four cats appeared with shocking suddenness.
Reproduction. Elemental fission.
Scott had to clean them out, and fast. Soon the ship would be overrun with the energy-hungry felines.
He dashed toward the open hatch. Outside the opening, a great lead box, eight feet by eight feet, gaped upward. Beyond, four men tensely supported a vast lead cover.
"Is the uranium poured into the box?" he barked sharply.
"Yes, sir. All ready, Mister Jerill."
"Good." Turning from the hatch, he inverted his cell, poured out the uranium ore in a thick stream from the open hatch back across the hold toward the scrambling mass of cats upon the now
empty rows of cells.
But he never reached the beasts.
A brawling torrent of animals leaped toward him. Hurling the container into their mass, he leaped to one side. They lunged into the trail of ore. Rolled, leaped, darted along the line. At the hatch edge, a pyramiding mass of cats paused a moment. Then plummeted over. Scott fell back against the bulkhead, his eyes fixed on the cats still scavenging among the empty cells.
Then these too were darting for the trail of ore. The uranium was scattered now. Cats plunged toward the new radiation in the box beyond the hold entrance.
The inarticulate cheers of Durval and his men rang in Scott's helmet. But his mind was already working at the next step of the problem.
"Durval," he ordered. "Get a decontamination unit in here. Clean this place out." Cats poured in a frenzied stream from the ship. "Call Mister Vaugn. Start purification of his ore as soon as it arrives."
Past the hatch, he saw the swift flash of the lead top dropping over the box. Excitement pounded hotly in his throat.
"I'm going to get rid of these cats once and for all," he called. "Be back in an hour."
"But what about the Kastil?"
"We'll worry about the Kastil later. Get that ore purified. We're blasting out of here in forty hours."
He swung from the cargo entrance to the top of the lead box. Under his feet, the lid trembled with the frantic struggling of the cats. "Load this crate in the cargo jet," he cried. "And hurry. We only have half an hour left."
* * * * *
The pounding of the jets matched the pounding of the blood in Scott's temples. "When we land," he instructed, "get this crate out fast. Everything depends on how fast you can take the cats down to the pit. I want you to bury it as fast as you can. Understand?"
He glanced sharply about the group, feeling their eyes clinging to him.
"Get as much rubbish on the crate as possible. And then obey every order I give you as fast as possible no matter how foolish the order may seem."
The jet thundered down over the landing strip, rasped to a halt. "Out," roared Scott. "Fast. Make it fast."
The loading compartment swung open. But as the men lifted the crate toward the door, the jet's intercom burst into life. "Jerill. Jerill, this is Captain Elderburg. I order you to return at once."
Elderburg had freed himself too quickly.
"This is a criminal offense, Jerill. Come back at once."
"Get that crate out," Scott roared. "Hurry. Hurry!"
"Mister Jerill," blared the intercom. "You are under arrest, according to the Articles of Space, for conspiracy, armed assault...." Scott cut the voice off in mid-sentence. He leaped into the hold, threw his weight behind the box. "Quick. Get it to the pit."
The men lumbered off into the darkness. Even with the light gravity of the asteroid, it was difficult to handle the crate as the scrambling cats pitched it from side to side.
Scott scaled a boulder. The hulk of the Kastil loomed just beyond, dark and threatening. A thin square of light showed at their cargo entrance. They were still completing loading.
"Hurry," Scott muttered feverishly. "Hurry."
The men reached the pit. Carefully, slowly, they lowered the crate into the shadows.
Sweat streaming down his face, Scott tore his eyes from the Kastil hatch, grimly watched as his men scooped rubbish into the pit.
A motion in the darkness. Out where no motion should be. Movement among the sunless stones.
Scott's breathing stopped.
A group of men closing in toward the cargo jet. Men racing out of the shadows. Men of the Kastil.
"Stop," Scott shouted frantically into his radio. "Get that crate back to the jet. Get it out of the pit. Back to the jet. It's too late. Hurry. Hurry!"
For a single astounded moment the men paused. Then, sweeping the rubble from the crate, they fumbled it toward the surface of the pit.
Scott leaped down among them. Pushed. "They're going to trap us." The crate struck on the pit's edge. Scott seized one end, forced it up over. "Grab that other end, Masters. Move, man. Don't argue. Move!"
Staggering over the uneven ground, they lurched toward the jet.
"I think you ought to rest for a moment." It was the cool voice of Randell, who stepped from the darkness with a blaster turned full on them.
Crewmen from the Kastil poured from among the rocks. Their blasters swung a menacing ring about Scott and his men.
"Step back away from the crate." Randell stepped forward, tapped his blaster against the side of the box. "Now what do we have here."
"Keep away from that," Scott snarled. "That's property of the Bertha."
"Is it?" Randell turned carelessly to his men. "Property of the Bertha," he drawled. "Well, we'd better have a look at it now. To make sure you haven't accidentally salvaged some of the Kastil's equipment. Oh, quite by accident, I understand."
He began to loosen the screw-clamps of the lid.
"Stop!" Scott leaped forward, no longer conscious of the weapons swinging on him. He dropped his hand upon the box.
"This is mine," he said. "I forbid you to touch it."
"Have you ever seen a man die of a blaster bolt?" Randell asked. "Step back."
The men of the Bertha fell back. Their shoulders touched the toothed rim of stone about the pit.
Randell chuckled. "Perhaps it's just as well we didn't blast off when we were loaded. There was always a chance you'd found something else of value here."
He flicked the muzzle of the blaster about. "If you don't mind, we'll inspect this crate in a better light. Back at the Kastil."
Triumph leaped through Scott. "This is piracy," he said, and sounded sincere.
"Piracy is what is proven," Randell laughed. "Do you really think you have a case in our courts?" He sighed softly. "Now, thank you for this unexpected pleasure. And good-bye. We'll see each other again on Earth, perhaps."
Then they were gone and immediately afterward, the Kastil, balancing on a white line of flame, leaped away from the asteroid and flashed out past the stars.
Scott stared after it, a faint smile touching his lips. About him rang the triumphant laughter of the crew.
Someone gripped Scott's shoulder. "Captain Elderburg on the intercom, Mister Scott. I just told him. And--congratulations, sir."
Scott grinned. Entering the jet, he faced the intercom, said: "It's over now, Captain."
"Good work, Mister Scott." Elderburg's voice was unsteady. "How did you do it?"
"Pretended to be taking something of value," Scott said. He relaxed back against the seat. "I knew Randell couldn't resist making a clean sweep of everything we had. So I gave him the chance."
Elderburg's laugh filled the cabin. "And when they open the crate...."
"Good-bye uranium." Pale eyes smiling, Scott waved a knotted fist. "And now, sir, we're going to start mining ore. This is our claim now. And we'll be blasting out of here in forty hours with the biggest load of uranium ore Earth ever got its hands on."
* * *
Contents
ZERO DATA
By Charles Saphro
All the intricate, electronic witchery of the 21st century could not pin guilt on fabulous Lonnie Raichi, the irreproachable philanthropist. But Jason, the cop, was sweating it out ... searching for that fourth and final and all-knowing rule that would knock Lonnie's "triple ethic" for a gala loop.
Lonnie Raichi was small, heavily built, wet-eyed, dapper and successful. His success he attributed entirely to his philosophy.
Not knowing about Lonnie's philosophy, the whole twenty-odd years of Lonnie's success was the abiding crux of Jason's disgust. And this, in spite of the more and more men Jason came to control and the fitful stream of new techniques and equipment Gov-Pol and Gov-Mil Labs put at his disposal.
Jason was a cop. In fact, by this Friday the thirteenth in the fall of 2009, squirming on what had come to be his pet Gov-Park bench right across from the Tiara of Wold in the Fane, he was only one step short of be
ing the Head Cop of Government City. He was good. Gathering in a lot of criminals was what had brought him up the steps.
But he hadn't gathered in Lonnie.
It wasn't for lack for trying. Way back, when Lonnie was known simply as "Lonnie," Jason managed to get a little help from his associates and superiors. Sometimes.
But as Lonnie came to be known as Lon Raichi, then Mr. Raichi, and finally as "THE Launcelot Raichi" (to Everyone Who Mattered), and as Jason's promotions kept pace with his widening experience and painstakingly acquired knowledge; peculiarly, there seemed to be fewer and fewer persons around who could be made interested in "Lonnie."
Inside Government and Gov-Pol-Anx as well as among the general Two-Worlds public.
So Jason got less and less help, or even passive cooperation, from his superiors. As a matter of fact, the more men he could command, the fewer he could use on anything that could be construed as concerning Lonnie.
Equipment, though, was a little different matter. There was usually enough so that one unit of a kind could be unobtrusively trained on Mr. Raichi under the care of Jason's own desk sergeant. In 1999, for example, Moglaut, that erratic and secretive genius in Physlab Nine, came out with a quantum analyzer and probability reproducer. The machine installed in Pol-Anx, reconstructed crimes and identified the probable criminals by their modus operandi and the physical traces they couldn't avoid leaving at the un-mercy of any of its portable data accumulators.
On Jason's first attempt it almost came close to Lonnie. It did gather in the hidden, dead, still twitching, completely uncommunicative carcasses of the five men who actually relieved the vault of the Citizen's Bank of Berlin of its clutch of millions. It even identified the body of the rocopilot found floating in the Potomac a few days later as being one of the group, and the killer. It did not locate the arsonized remnants of the plane, though, nor the currency; and only achieved the casting of a slight, or subsidiary, third-hand aspersion in the direction of THE Launcelot Raichi.
But Lonnie came up with an irrefutable alibi, somehow, and the hassle that followed made Jason's luck run out. And on Jason's stubborn, secret, subsequent tries, all the analyzer could produce was a report of zero data whenever Jason, reasonably or unreasonably, believed that Lonnie was involved.
