by John Burke
“And after Mercury,” crooned Hubbard seductively, “Jupiter’s moons, naturally. And Uranus... Neptune... And when it’s over, I’ll need good men to be governors of those places. Pick your planet, Mr. Kemp.” He waved graciously at Clem and Dmitri. “Pick your board of directors.”
It stank. Clem and Dmitri were watching me, and both of them were willing me to make the right decision. But somehow I knew in my bones that they differed about what was right.
I said, in a matter-of-fact way that even old frigid Whitsun ought to have envied: “I wouldn’t help you put your dirty little fingers on a lump of coal, let alone a new planet.”
The seductiveness was gone. He was livid. His voice shook and shivered. “I’m sorry you said that, Mr. Kemp. I think you will be, too. Mr. Whitsun...”
We stopped eating and stopped making polite conversation. Whitsun played a dainty piece on his computer and waited for its resolutions as deferentially as he waited for Hubbard’s orders.
Two lights gleamed on the orbitograph. One was us, moving in along a shallow arc. The other was still—a pinpoint of treasure in the heavens.
“Relative speed and angle, please,” said Whitsun.
Dmitri set the scales. When he spoke, it was with a surly reluctance, as though he was already ashamed of his brief alliance with the Hubbard clan. “Speed plus seven hundred, angle about Zeta ten, Ypsilon... oh, say twenty-five.”
Hubbard said flatly: “Miss Taplin is not essential to the running of this ship. Please remember that.”
From the comer of my eye I caught the glint of Harry’s gun. He would love to use it—on any of us, on any excuse.
I said: “Get it right, Dima.”
Three minutes later we fired the engines, and the whole ship resonated again. Gradually we slowed, and once again there was a neat finish: we parked twenty yards from the asteroid.
Below, far below, Wally Taplin lay in his hard grave waiting for the tremor he would never feel as this huge gem impacted into the surface of the Moon.
10
ONE BY ONE we went down the line to the asteroid and clipped our safety lines to the network which still stretched over the surface: Hubbard, Whitsun, Harry, and myself. Dmitri had made a move to follow, but Hubbard wasn’t having that. Maybe he thought we’d chip his precious asteroid into two separate bits and make off with them.
“Karminski stays on board,” he ordered. “Tied up—away from the controls.”
He left the Supervisor in the ship with Dmitri, Clem... and a gun.
Followed by a watchful Harry, I went from one K-5 to another, checking that the engines were still in order.
In my suit radio I heard the Supervisor, cocky now and playing the great big braggart.
“Up where the boyfriend can see you, love. Sort of encourage him in his work.”
I glanced across the gap between the asteroid and Zero Two. Clem was standing in the hatchway, with the little rat right beside her.
Harry edged closer to me, showing me that he still had his gun and that it was ready—eager, even.
“Number Three,” I said, “all okay. Fuel for twenty minutes at full thrust.”
Whitsun had his theodolite out again. Hubbard watched him for a minute or two, then grew bored and wandered off, picking at the surface of his new possession. He pried a chunk of sapphire loose and marveled at it.
Whitsun turned to his computer and tapped buttons.
Hubbard took an unwary step and found himself floating some inches above the surface. He muttered something, and at the same time the Supervisor said something to Clem. Voices blurred in together; and then Whitsun’s acid tones cut through. “We need a slight tilt before we can fire for full retro. That can be arranged by firing two engines early, I presume?”
“One of them’ll have to be Number Four again,” I said. “Remember that.”
“Same system as before,” he agreed. “Number Four controls the firing of all the rest.”
I stepped over a cable close to Number Two, and had a look; then had another look. Here we had trouble. The cable was burned half through. I indicated this.
Whitsun said: “You’ve got spare cable aboard?”
“Top right-hand locker on the passenger deck,” I said. “I’ll go up and—”
“No,” said Hubbard. He was some way off across the asteroid, but he seemed to be breathing right down my ear. “No, you won’t. Miss Taplin can get it.”
The Supervisor heard this and waved his gun at Clem. I straightened up and watched as she vanished from the open hatchway, and I visualized her floating up into the passenger section.
There was a pause.
Hubbard had his back turned. A good job he couldn’t read my mind. I was calculating the distance, working out how I could snap his safety line loose and kick him far, far out into space.
And get a blast in the back from Harry.
No, it was no use: I couldn’t cope with three of them. Not on my own.
Up there in the ship... did Dmitri stand any chance of wriggling loose?
The Supervisor had turned and was peering upward, getting impatient. After another minute he, too, disappeared into the interior. I heard him—we all heard him—growl: “Haven’t you found it yet?”
“I’m looking,” said Clem out of nowhere. “There’s a lot of junk here...”
The Supervisor returned, this time with a loop of cable over his shoulder. He balanced in the hatchway, and threw it out toward us. It came drifting slowly down.
I set to work to fit it into position. Whitsun was making the final corrections to the dial on the firing box.
“We have a margin for error here,” he commented. “If we fire in between four minutes and seven minutes, it will land on the claim.”
"Fine,” said Hubbard. He stamped back toward us. He was impatient to be off. “Anything more?”
“If I’m staying down to thump Number Four again,” I said, “I need a long line.”
“Miss Taplin!” said Hubbard.
That meant she’d be up on the control deck for a few seconds, fetching it. If she got the chance... But that was just another useless “if.” We were stuck with the Hubbard clan. Until we were safely down, there was no way of evading them. And then...
Harry loomed up beside me. I had an idea that somehow, soon, he was going to find an excuse for using that gun on me. There’d come a moment when Hubbard would tell him to tidy up—when Hubbard no longer needed me, or Dmitri... or Clem.
“Come on,” snarled the Supervisor.
Whitsun packed up his theodolite and reverently drew the cover across his computer keyboard. “I think that’s everything, sir. It should land sixteen minutes after firing.”
“Excellent timing, Mr. Whitsun. Taplin’s claim expired just”—he glanced at his watch—“half an hour ago. No legal problems.”
I wondered when my long line was coming down.
“Ready, sir?” said Whitsun. He touched Hubbard’s arm and turned him toward the ship. “Your reaction pistol— just a burst of about a second, sir, and you’ll float up the line. You up there—ready for Mr. Hubbard?”
The Supervisor waved, and braced his feet against the edge of the hatchway. He held his arm out, ready to catch Hubbard and slow him and steer his fat little bulk through the opening.
Hubbard tensed.
And at that moment the ship’s engines blazed into life. Zero Two spurted forward. There was a shout in our radios, and suddenly it was a scream and then silence. The Supervisor, thrown out of the hatchway, had drifted into the blast of the starboard engine. It charred through his suit and sliced him in two, and then he was gone.
So was Zero Two—going slowly but steadily away from the asteroid. The line between ship and sapphire went taut, flicked up before our eyes, and snapped.
Hubbard raged: “That engineer must have got free.”
“He can’t have, sir,” said Whitsun shakily. “I can assure you that I—”
“D’you think the girl’s flyin
g that thing, then?”
There was no answer. But I wondered. I wondered what the hell they were going to do, either of them. Because even Dmitri couldn’t do more than keep the ship on the move in space: he was an engineer, not a pilot, and he wasn’t qualified to land it.
Which meant that he needed me just as much as Hubbard and his lads needed the ship. He had to come back.
Hubbard was growling and cursing. He bellowed at me, for all the good it would do him. He snarled at Whitsun, who said “Yes sir” and “No, Mr. Hubbard” and “We’ll deal with them, sir, don’t you worry.”
We watched the ship go off in a long curve; and then it turned and headed back.
I could just make out a tiny figure in the open hatchway. It was Dmitri all right, in his suit, reaching out. He hauled the remnants of the Supervisor closer, and took something from the cindery remains. A gun, I guessed. From the way Harry’s gun came up at that moment, I reckoned that he had made the same guess.
The ship swung closer to us, and there was the faint puff of a steering burst from the port engine. So it had to be Clem at the controls. I hoped she wasn’t going to come head on into us before she learned how to stop the thing.
“Now,” said Hubbard loudly. “Mr. Karminski, if you can hear me... we’re ready to go home now. Your little game’s over.”
Zero Two loomed larger and larger. It was gliding straight at us, not more than ten feet above the surface. One little miscalculation now, and that would be the end of all of us.
Whitsun ducked, as though hoping to avoid having his head knocked off.
The ship came over. Suddenly Dmitri’s voice crackled metallically in my ears.
“Bill—grab hold!”
A line snaked slowly down toward me. But too slowly. I made a grab, but the ship kept moving, and the line was flicked away.
Harry’s gun spat flame. The explosive slug struck a spark from the side of the ship, close to Dmitri as he leaned out Dmitri took aim and fired. Chips of sapphire flew.
Then he shouted again. “Bill—get it! We’ll be back!”
I realized before the others did what was coming down. Dmitri had tossed me his gun. It spiraled over their heads, and I threw myself seven or eight yards through the air to grasp it. Then I twisted, and came down behind Number Four engine.
Hubbard said: “One has to admire their teamwork, Mr. Whitsun. Still... Harry! Bring in Mr. Kemp—alive.”
Harry mumbled something, but not very clearly. I got the impression he wasn’t too happy. He went into a crouch, and began to creep across the asteroid.
I checked the pistol, and just to encourage him I said: “Come on, Harry. Bring me in.”
Harry raised his helmet to get a better view. I fired a shot. It sizzled past him, almost close enough to singe his pretty suit
“He’s got a pistol,” he complained.
“Of course he has,” Hubbard snorted. “Now start earning your pay for once.”
In the distance I glimpsed Zero Two turning with a brief burst of engines, and heading back.
Whitsun said: “Mr. Hubbard, sir, I submit we are in serious trouble.”
“No trouble’s serious until it’s cost a million over the estimate.”
“Well, sir, couldn’t we try a million rather than Harry?”
“Let’s see how Harry does first.”
Harry wasn’t doing so well. I could hear him panting as he crawled over the knobby surface, trying to pull himself along by the network of lines. The trouble was, when he tried to keep himself down so as to avoid presenting me with too hefty a target, his legs had a tendency to float up behind him, and he was swimming rather than crawling half the time.
I bided my time. Don’t fire till you see the zipper around the helmet—that’s always been my motto.
Harry got closer. He also got slower. I heard him gulp breath, and then he said: “Now look, Mr. Kemp—”
“Captain Kemp to you.”
“Captain Kemp... we just want to get back to the Moon, same as you. So what say we don’t have no more trouble, hey?”
He raised his head. I fired. He got his head sharply down again.
The ship was zooming in on its return run. I saw Dmitri framed in the hatchway again, stooping, ready with a line.
Harry swung around as the ship came in. He fired, and Dmitri ducked. Again the line flicked and lashed around in space, out of my reach.
Harry was aiming again. I fired a blast, and then another, to keep him down.
Zero Two was far away again.
And my gun clicked twice, and I knew it was empty.
Harry edged cautiously forward. I kept down, and pulled myself right under the shelter of the engine. Good old Number Four, always right in the middle of trouble.
I looked at the empty pistol. Then, on impulse, I lifted it and cracked it against the engine’s light-up valves.
A few inches away from my head, the engine blazed into life.
Slowly the asteroid began to revolve.
“It’s started!” I heard Whitsun cry. “The whole sequence—it’s off! They’ll all fire in a second.”
“Well, stop them,” rasped Hubbard.
The farther engine fired suddenly. The asteroid lurched and began to pick up speed. I gripped one of the safety lines and peered under the belching breath of Number Four. Hubbard and Whitsun were holding on like grim death, leaning backward, their safety lines as stiff and straight as steel rods.
Whitsun doggedly began to haul himself along the line to get at the firing box.
I carefully unfastened my own safety line, keeping an eye out for Harry.
Whitsun was almost at the box when the other two engines blazed. The asteroid took another spring forward, and once more Whitsun and Hubbard were thrown out at the end of their lines, being towed behind the sapphire express.
I shoved hard with my feet and sailed clear, out into space.
Harry’s reaction pistol jetted downward, and he came floating up behind me. Another short burst, and he had settled into position a few feet away.
“You won’t find much cover up here, Mister Kemp. And you won’t move faster’n one of these.” His gun jutted at me. “Now, bring your pal and his ship back. Tell ’em to get moving.”
“Come for me first, Karminski!” It was Hubbard shouting. And there was a splinter of terror right through his voice. He was really scared, out there on the end of that line.
Whitsun was hauling himself painfully down the line in another attempt to get back to the asteroid.
Harry shouted—-though there was no need to shout into the radio—“Karminski! I’ve got your boss on the end of a gun out here. You pick us up first.”
“Harry, I’m warning you...” Hubbard waved a fist in impotent fury.
Zero Two pivoted, fired, and made another run-in.
“He’s coming back,” I said. “I wonder who he’ll choose?” We floated free in space, waiting. And then I said: “Here we come. Here... no, I think Mr. Hubbard gets it first.”
It was too much for Harry. He turned his head.
I jerked out my reaction pistol, twisted my arm around to fire it backward, and was thrust hard into Harry. We bounced, and turned two slow somersaults in the void. I groped for his gun hand, and spun us into another crazy loop. Harry fought to free himself, and battered on my helmet with his other hand. Then, swinging tortuously around me, he groped for my left shoulder.
I vaguely felt the snap of a switch, but it didn’t mean anything. Until I took a deep breath and found there was precious little left to breathe. He had turned off my airbottle.
The ship swam down toward us.
Below, clinging to the asteroid, Whitsun was hauling himself between two engines toward the firing box.
There was a red haze coming up before my eyes. I gasped, and felt death gagging in my throat. With one desperate heave I fought clear of Harry and kicked out at his gun hand. The gun was knocked away and went floating off. He swore, fumbled for his reaction pistol, a
nd sent himself off in pursuit.
All at once the glitter of the stars was blotted out. The shape of Zero Two was on top of us. I shouted a warning, but Harry didn’t hear; and maybe it was too late anyway. His gun went drifting on, but Harry himself sailed smack into the side of the ship. There was a wisp of vapor from his faceplate, and I heard his dying gasp. His body bounced back and rolled away into infinity.
Zero Two’s engines fired a retro burst, and now I was only a few feet away, still hanging free. Dmitri leaned out and tossed a line toward me. This time I got a good grip on it.
“Always thought you were a good pilot,” said Dmitri, “but not good enough to go space traveling without a ship.”
I pulled myself in through the hatchway.
“Yes. Now let’s pick those two up.”
“What’s the hurry? They’d’ve killed us once we’d got ’em back down again.”
“I know. Now let’s pick ’em up.”
“Look, I used a helluva lot of fuel on this low-flying bit. If Whitsun gets those engines stopped in the next minute, we might catch them. If not... well, they’ll be home before we are.”
From this angle, trying to match the asteroid’s velocity and maintain steady distance, it was hard to see what was going on down there. Whitsun was a dark blob on the surface, blurred by the haze of the engine exhausts.
“Come on, come on,” Hubbard was screeching. “All you have to do is—”
“Shut up, you fat fool!”
Abruptly, as he tried to stand up, perhaps groping for a line or steadying himself against the scorching shell of an engine, he was tugged to one side. We saw the dark blob move and dissolve suddenly into the blast of an engine. We heard his scream.
And we heard Hubbard ranting on, hysterical, lost and terrified. “Whitsun—what did you say to me? What... eh? You’re fired, Whitsun. Do you get that? Fired.” There was a pause. “Whitsun... answer me. Whitsun, are you dead, man?”
Then a shocked silence.
I said: “Seal her up. We’ll follow as far as we can.”
“Idiot!” Hubbard was wailing. “I’m surrounded by idiots. Always getting themselves killed. I have to do everything myself.”
