Space Trap

by Juanita Coulson

  Space Trap

  Juanita Coulson

  © Juanita Coulson 1976

  Juanita Coulson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1976 by Laser Books.

  This edition published in 2015 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 1

  “Ken! Ken Farrell! So they finally let you come back from the boonies, huh?”

  The boisterous greeting startled Ken out of his reverie. He blinked, recognizing the man approaching him. Reflexively, Ken braced for the familiar punch on his bicep and held out his hand to be shaken. The clock seemed to turn backward as he exchanged the usual meaningless insults with Dave Saunders.

  As a matter of fact, Ken had last seen his former classmate in this very hallway, shortly after they’d been pronounced spacemen by the Academy, slightly over a year ago. They’d shaken hands then, too, saying goodbye and wishing each other good luck. They’d both been eager and a bit apprehensive at the prospect ahead of them: their apprenticeships. Appropriately enough, this place was the traditional jumping-off point for newly-commissioned graduates. Decorated with a series of plaques and solidopic portrayals of Space Service’s most illustrious grads, Pioneer Hall’s centerpiece was a mock-heroic statue christened “Outward Bound.”

  “You look great,” Dave commented as the two of them leaned carelessly against the statue’s pedestal.

  “You too. Bio-Sciences treating you okay?” Ken asked politely.

  “No complaints. Hey, I see Survey trimmed you down, huh?” The tall redhead winked and prodded Ken’s beltline. Ken took the ribbing good-naturedly; his own big-boned frame didn’t fit the public image of a spaceman, while Saunders’ lean and lanky physique did. But public images didn’t count for much in Survey Service.

  Ken gossiped idly with Saunders, but his attention drifted down the hall to the door of the Dispatcher’s office. What was keeping Captain Zachary so long? Ken had reported back from leave in plenty of time and the captain had filed their lift-off schedule with Control Central. Just a few final details, Zachary had said. If they didn’t meet that schedule they’d have to abort launch and refile for tomorrow.

  “Well, sometimes we get too wrapped up in our work to eat,” Ken said, keeping the conversation going despite his worries about the deadline. “Sometimes it can be strenuous. But there’s not a lot of exercise except on final planet checkouts. Survey’s a soft assignment.”

  His classmate lifted an eyebrow skeptically. “Soft? Not the way I heard it. You’re clearing ground for the pioneers out there on the farthest frontier — just like they advertise in the recruitment tapes.”

  Ken laughed and said, “So that’s why you chickened out and transferred to Bio-Sciences? You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Survey’s been a good deal.”

  “Even if it means working for Iron Man Zachary? I’ll give you points, Ken; you sure had guts, signing apprentice with him.” Saunders lowered his voice and inquired confidentially, “Is he really as tough as they say?”

  One of the nearby solidopic cubes drew Ken’s eye. The display was a three-dimensional portrait of Survey’s first graduating class — all the famous names, many of them now legends: Chao Li, Greschovski, Noland Eads, R.C. Zachary …

  He was tempted to build on the myth, but honesty won out. “Most of R.C.’s temper is bluff, Dave. A lot more bark than bite. Oh, he demands top performance. But I appreciate that. In Survey we’re in the survival business; there’s no margin for mistakes. And R.C. Zachary’s the best damned pilot in Survey.”

  “At least since Eads quit and dropped out of sight,” Saunders reminded him.

  “Maybe.” Unwilling to concede the point, Ken argued, “I’ve watched R.C. touch down on planets you’d think nobody could approach. He doesn’t jostle the most delicate mapping gear. That kind of skill is crucial out there in the Deep.”

  “I’ll say,” Saunders murmured, envious. “Must be fantastic — spacing out on the fringes.”

  “We’re a long, long way from home,” Ken said. “If we get into trouble it’s months before anyone spots the signal for help. That’s why I’m glad to be Zachary’s second.”

  “Mmm, but I remember him from the training sessions when he guest-lectured,” Saunders whistled and shook his head. “Can’t be fun cooped up with a hermit like that, and for months on end.”

  “We get along fine,” Ken replied offhandedly. He checked the Dispatcher’s door again, his impatience growing. R.C. should have finished his briefing by now. He explained to Saunders? “We use sleep-suspend getting out to the frontier so it doesn’t seem so long between planetfalls.”

  “Great invention!” and Saunders launched into an enthusiastic endorsement of the suspended animation technique.

  Ken listened with half an ear. The latest technology wasn’t much use if your captain couldn’t even meet the lift-ship deadline. Where the hell was Zachary, the paragon Ken had just praised so highly? Surely R.C. wouldn’t be wasting time in casual conversation with the Dispatcher.

  R.C. was a “stickler” for routine. Ken mentally reviewed his just-completed assignment — twelve planets second-surveyed and certified ready for colonization. There had been no problem at all; it had been a textbook tour. In those months Ken had learned a lot, including affectionate respect for his superior officer.

  “… once they get the transcender perfected we can make our space warp jumps in one hundredth the time,” Saunders was saying. “Imagine! People used to travel at less than light-speed!”

  “Time marches on,” Ken clichéd, then brightened. The door to the Dispatcher’s office finally slid open. Warily, Saunders followed Ken’s gaze. Ken’s disclaimers apparently hadn’t convinced his former classmate that R.C. Zachary wasn’t an ogre. As Captain Zachary strode out into the corridor, Ken tugged his uniform tunic into a neater line and said, “Captain, you remember Dave Saunders, from the cadet tour …”

  Zachary’s acknowledgment was barely civil. His brow was drawn in an ominous frown and his lips thinned. “Glad to meet you, Saunders,” he said, sounding quite the reverse. “Let’s move, Farrell.” Without breaking stride, he swept past the two younger men, arms swinging and jaw thrust forward.

  Under his breath Saunders muttered. “Yeah, you sure have got a creampuff of a commander, Farrell.”

  “He isn’t usually like that,” Ken said, chagrined.

  Captain Zachary halted at the corridor junction and glared back at Ken. “You coming, Farrell? We’ve got a ship to launch.”

  Ken bit off a retort. Zachary hadn’t spoken to him in that tone for months, not since early in Ken’s first duty-tour. He wasn’t a raw recruit any more, and he thought he had earned Zachary’s friendship on that assignment. Furthermore, it was Zachary who had caused the delay.

  But he was the captain.

  Ken threw Saunders a rueful parting glance and hurried in Zachary’s wake. By the time they’d reached the shuttle ramp, Ken was walking alongside Zachary. He tugged at his blond thatch impatiently, trying to achieve last minute neatness, then asked, “Was there some trouble with the new assignment, Captain?” Zachary eyed him narrowly. Ken risked elaborating. “I mean, it seemed to take quite a while.”

  They stepped onto the slide belt that would carry them out to the ship’s berth. R.C. studied the backs of his hands for several long minutes and Ken was a
fraid the man would ignore the question. But at last Zachary’s mood eased and he said casually, “Just talking over old times.”

  “I see.” Ken wanted to take the explanation at face value. It would explain Zachary’s snappishness; the man hated idle chit-chat. If the Dispatcher had cornered Zachary for a rehash of past history, it would have left R.C. in a very bad mood.

  *

  The slide belt bumped them off at Berth Ten. Suddenly, there was no time for further questions. There were hatches to close, a hundred and one last minute checks to make and finally, clearance from the Terminal to code.

  Any friction with Captain Zachary seemed unimportant now. Ken’s pulse quickened. This was where the real living began; those months in space on his first assignment had proved heady, addictive. He had felt out of place and somewhat bored here on Earth, marking time until he could lift ship for the deep again.

  In a few moments they would receive permission to launch. After rocketing out of Earth’s orbit, out of the solar system, the ship would head for the stars. A distant sector of space, visited only once before by a ship from Initial Survey, was their destination.

  Out there, Ken felt he belonged. In the unknown.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ken shook his head and tried to refocus. The ghostly vision had faded from his console. An instant before, large, black eyes filled with silent pleading were superimposed on Ken’s mapping screen.

  Was he hallucinating? A pair of disembodied eyes on board a two-man Survey ship? It didn’t make any sense. Bewildered, Ken tried to clear his head of unwelcome fantasies. This wasn’t the time or the place for wool-gathering.

  “I said, do you have an update on that surface feature?” He realized R.C. had been speaking to him, becoming irritable when there was no reply.

  Sheepishly, Ken punched a readout from his mapping computer. Ever since they had come out of sleep-suspend and started approach to this solar system, the captain had been tense. But now Zachary had a real cause to be annoyed. If he learned his apprentice had been neglecting duty staring at a pair of imaginary eyes …!

  An electronic stream of data flowed toward the pilot’s board. As R.C. studied the information, Ken attempted to make amends for his lapse. “The scanners read it as a constant, Captain. It’s strictly a surface effect, not a weather pattern. Some permanent detail, but I can’t tell exactly what it is, yet. We’re still too far out from the planet. The features are blurred.”

  “You’re supposed to unblur them,” R.C. reminded him.

  Ken stared at the back of the captain’s helmet, concerned. R.C. was living up to his reputation. Until recently, Ken hadn’t regretted the choice to serve under Zachary. He had been brusque but scrupulously fair — quite different from the image he was presenting now.

  Ken cued his mapping computer once more, ordering the circuits to investigate the problem of the blurred area below. Orbital entry was coming up; there was no time for nasty surprises. If that surface anomaly presented any risk, they had better discover it now. Survival in Survey Service depended on caution and efficiency, and following the rules had saved Ken’s life several times during the previous duty assignment. He intended to keep that score perfect.

  He stared in amazement at R.C., whose burly hands were flying across the pilot’s board, programming a retrofire. This early? Furthermore, this planetfall wasn’t on the schedule, at least not on Ken’s tape. He hadn’t argued when Zachary had inserted planet NE 592 into the navigational computers: an extra survey stop was the captain’s privilege. But R.C. was such a demon for regulations; this unplanned diversion to a world far off their route just didn’t “scan.”

  The formation on Ken’s mapper didn’t scan either.

  “Got anything new?” R.C. demanded abruptly.

  “No. Not really. A dimension — fifty kilometers circumference at the widest point on that blurred area. It’s peculiar — the computer says it should be coming into sharp focus by now.” Ken projected the Initial Survey map beside the present view of the planet’s surface on his mapping screen. “See, it doesn’t tally with the old chart. That’s a permanent feature down there, but it wasn’t here twenty years ago when Eads made the first flyby.”

  R.C. turned to look intently at Ken. Behind the pilot’s faceplate dust-colored eyebrows rose.

  “See for yourself, Captain,” Ken argued. He fed the new data to R.C.’s boards. Let the old man draw his own conclusions.

  Ken admired that original map. Noland Eads had done some precise work two decades ago, and with crude, now obsolete equipment. Eads was the A-One frontiersman of Survey. He and Zachary were the only members of that original graduating class still living, and Ken had ample proof of Zachary’s skill. It must have been exciting, back in those days when Survey was a reckless, seat-of-the-pants operation. Ken nursed his own dreams. Someday he hoped to walk in the same boots Noland Eads had worn — not a mere apprentice for Secondary Survey, but piloting the first ship to touch down on unexplored planets.

  Ken leaned forward, peering closely at Eads’ Initial Survey map. He did some hasty computation. Eads had made the first map approximately nineteen point eight years ago. That meant planet NE 592 wasn’t due for Secondary Survey for at least another ten years. So R.C. really had bent the rules, shooting them off-schedule to this planetary system. Why? Ken had always trusted R.C. implicitly, but vague nagging doubts began to assail him.

  That planet down there was bending rules, too. A blurred surface feature loomed up where none had existed when Eads made the first survey. What were those illusionary eyes that had danced across Ken’s mapping screen?

  He stared at a critical reading on his second-pilot’s board. Gravity fluctuation.

  A chill snaked up Ken’s spine. R.C. was punching a retrofire program in fast, and early in the sequence. Something was going wrong.

  Nervously, Ken pounded a gloved fist into his thigh, then flexed his fingers. He told himself to relax. He’d ridden through some tight landings before. Iron Man Zachary never damaged a ship or lost a man.

  But was the R.C. Zachary now piloting the ship the same pioneer who had built the perfect record? Normally Zachary wouldn’t schedule a planetfall ten years ahead of due-date. The Survey ship didn’t belong here, just as that blurred area didn’t belong there.

  Was there any connection between the two facts? Startled at the possibility, Ken sat up straight, scrutinizing the mapping screen. Planet NE 592, Typical Class M: A melange of blues and greens and browns. It was a world of drifting clouds and polar ice caps. Except for that blurred spot marring its surface, there was nothing out of the ordinary. This operation should be routine. R.C. would put them in orbit and Ken’s mapper cameras would chart the planet for a complete Secondary Survey. They would land and collect biota samples, check atmospheric readings. If everything fitted, the planet would be classified for Terran colonization. Ken had performed these same chores a dozen times, and Zachary must have catalogued hundreds of planets throughout his lengthy career.

  An insistent sound nagged at Ken. It was an unfamiliar sensation, as those imaginary eyes had been. He traced the source of the buzzing. Alarms!

  He gaped disbelievingly. The second-pilot’s monitors were screaming at him, and in the lower left hand comer of the small screen, a red dot winked on and off rapidly. A rasping blip accompanied each flash.

  “Tie in,” R.C. ordered tersely. The pilot’s words rattled in Ken’s helmet headphones.

  Ken tripped the automatic belting switch. Bands of safety webbing closed snugly about his survival suit. Suddenly he was very grateful that R.C. played things by the book. After long service, some pilots grew careless, not insisting on all precautions when they made orbital entries.

  One of R.C.’s admonitions rang in Ken’s memory: “The most dangerous time in space is when you’re coming out of it — into orbit or planetfall. Too many things can go wrong then. Always suit up. That’s your insurance.”

  “Three … two … one.” Captain Zachary coun
ted in unison with the computer;

  A long burst crushed Ken back into his couch. Usually a miser with fuel, R.C. now spent it lavishly. His apprentice squinted at the monitor. That red light was still flashing, unappeased by the attempted deceleration.

  They were in trouble. The reality of the danger twisted at Ken. Amid dreams of being a space pioneer, a new Columbus or Magellan, it was too easy to forget that every frontiersman faced death more often then he reaped fame and glory.

  Ken had never expected to see that warning light. The ship’s orbital plotting system screamed “Error!” Their vector was wrong, their acceleration much too rapid: a quick ticket to oblivion.

  If they hit atmosphere without correcting their course and rate of descent, the two-man ship and her crew would be burned to cinders. Gravity took charge, dragging the craft down into its deadly embrace.

  The retros finally cut out, easing the painful pressure on Ken’s lungs. He forced out a breath, gulped in a fresh one. Glancing toward R.C., he wondered how he could best assist the pilot in this emergency.

  The ship had adequate fuel reserves and there were no computer malfunctions. Why was this happening? Why were they falling inexorably toward planet NE 592, a man-made meteor about to take its death-dive?

  “Captain?” Ken hadn’t intended to speak. It had slipped out, the start of a request for orders.

  Zachary grunted and looked around, smiling wanly. “We’ll make it. You buckled in tight?”

  “Yessir.” That social form hadn’t been used for a century, but Ken felt like calling Zachary “sir,” more than willing to nourish any and all respect for the man’s skill.

  “Here we go again,” R.C. muttered. Ken read the ominous figures rippling up on the second-pilot’s monitor and braced himself. The retros kicked back in another long burst.

  R.C. was on the manual override, prodigal with fuel, burning it off in great reverse comet-tails. The g-forces reddened Ken’s vision for a few seconds.