by Mike Jurist
" 'Nevertheless,' " he continued quoting, " 'consider the facts. The appellee's ship was in distress on the Earth-Moon run. A leak had developed. It was losing air fast. The ship operator sent out a signal of distress. In his excitement, he sent it on the private length assigned to the appellee, instead of on the standard wave. The defendant-appellant, also on the Earth- Moon run, noted through his telescope the erratic course of the appellee's ship. He heard the faint buzz of the private message. Assuming that an emergency had arisen, and acting in good faith, he tuned in on the private length. He heard the call for help and hurried to the rescue. He saved the ship and saved its crew from death by asphyxiation.
" 'Now the plaintiff, in defiance of all gratitude, sues the defendant for infringement of Section 348. Judicial notice may be taken by this Court that the purpose of the plaintiff is to offset and preclude a pending claim for salvage on the part of the defendant. The plaintiff does not come into court with clean hands. The Legislative never intended this section to cover such a manifest perversion of justice. It is plain that the question of good faith must be involved. The defendant acted in good faith. The judgment of the lower Court in favor of the plaintiff-appellee must accordingly be reversed, and judgment rendered for the defendant-appellant, and costs assessed in his favor in the lower Court and on appeal.' "
Kerry took another breath. "You will find the decision reported in the Interplanetary Reporter, Volume 991, Pages 462 to 478 inclusive."
Sparks gulped. "You ain't ribbing me, sir?"
"If Mr. Dale tells it to you," Jem said severely, "it's so, down to the last dotting of the i's."
"But . . . but I ain't ever heard o' that," Sparks still protested. "And according to what you say, that there judge wrote that more'n a hundred years ago."
"Sure it's an old case, and of course you never heard of it. Even among lawyers very few have. The precise matter just never happened to come up again. But it's there, and it's law. It's never been overruled."
Sparks shook his head. "I still don't see—"
"The whole point is one of good faith. We hear a call out in the veritable wilds of space. There shouldn't even be a ship out here. Suppose, say we, that ship's in trouble. Suppose the operator lost his head, the same as the fellow did in that old case of Berry versus Opp. We listen in, just to make sure. All in good faith. After we've heard enough to know we've made a mistake, that he's not in trouble, we cut off."
A wide grin split Jem's face. "And meanwhile we can't help it if we heard things. Kerry Dale, you've got a head on your shoulders."
"We-ell!" said Sparks, half-convinced.
"Hurry up!" Kerry was getting impatient. "They'll be off the waves before you get around to it."
Five minutes later Sparks was wiping his brow. "Damned if it ain't a distress call," he said huskily. "That's the Flying Meteor, Captain Ball commanding."
"Holy cats!" exclaimed Jem. "My old ship! What's Ball doing all the way out here?"
"Our old ship," corrected Kerry. His face wore a thoughtful frown. "Iron Pants Ball doesn't lose his head so easily. He's trying to raise Planets or some other Kenton ship instead of sending out a general call. Why?"
"He ain't even sending on his regular equipment," said Sparks. "He's using an assembled rig. I can tell from the power. Something happened to his sending outfit. Smashed. And he's drifting. Fuel tanks clean. He ain't saying what's happened. Funny!"
"Damn funny!" nodded Kerry. "Well, boys, this is obviously a job for Space Salvage, Inc.; even though Ball isn't asking. Have you got his position?"
"Yeah. Shall I contact him and tell him we're coming?"
"No. I want to surprise him."
Jem chuckled. "And what a surprise! He'll be fit to bust when he sees us two."
But Kerry's frown had deepened.
"Get the engineer to shove on full speed ahead, Jem," was
all he said.
CHAPTER 6
IT TOOK the better part of a day, Earth time, to make the run. The Flash was no speed demon, and she complained and whined and groaned vociferously at the treatment she was being accorded. But Kerry kept pushing her grimly. His thoughts he kept to himself.
The Flying Meteor had stopped sending. "Used up their emergency batteries," Sparks explained.
Space was quiet, except for the roar of their own tubes. The detectors picked up a small asteroid, too small and too distant as yet for sight in the electro-scanners. It seemed about equidistant from the crippled ship and their own. The rest of space was swept clean. Nothing for a hundred million miles.
The Flying Meteor, when it hove into sight, was drifting helplessly. Slowly, at less than a mile a second; silent, its hull dim in the faint reflection from a far-off sun.
The Flash came up fast. Kerry opened the screen, put through a call.
No answer.
Sparks whistled. "They haven't a drop of juice left. Not even for local reception. I never heard of that happening before. There's something screwy."
But Kerry was already pouring his long legs into a space suit. "Hurry, Jem," he said. "Get into yours. You and I are going visiting."
More than thirty precious minutes were consumed in maneuvering into position and cutting down speed to get alongside. The magnetic tractors went into action. The two ships drifted together. There was a slight bump, and the plates gripped.
Kerry and Jem clumped into the air chamber, closed the lock behind them, slid open the outer port. Jem tapped out the Space Code signal on the hull of the Flying Meteor. For a moment there was no answer.
"I hope they're not dead," he said with sudden anxiety. "They used to be my shipmates. There was—"
Then the taps came. "Stand by! We're opening. Manual power. No juice left."
Helmeted, rubber-sheathed men met other space suited individuals. Air whooshed in between. They were in Captain Ball's quarters, shrugging out of unwieldy outfits, shutting out with swift door-closing the staring, haggard crew.
"I thought my number was up this time," came Ball's muffled voice as he lifted his helmet. "If your ship hadn't providentially come up—" He clicked, stared.
"You, Jem! Kerry Dale, you!"
Jem's fingers touched his forehead from long habit. "Yes, Sir." Then he grinned. "Sort of a surprise, ain't it, Captain Ball?"
Kerry said: "It's a small Universe, isn't it? You used to be on the Earth-Belt run; and we were fooling around Planets. Yet here we meet almost beyond Jupiter. Luckily for you, as it turns out. We're in the salvage business, you know. Jem and I"
Ball's eyes narrowed. "The coincidence is too damn pat. I've been running into too many coincidences as it is."
"This one happens to be a lucky coincidence, captain," Kerry pointed out. "You do need salvage, don't you?"
Ball grimaced. "Can't help myself. My fuel tanks are bone dry, my radio's twisted junk. My emergency batteries are smashed. If I hadn't bad one stowed away unnoticed among the medical supplies, I couldn't even have—" He stopped suddenly.
"You were saying?" Kerry murmured.
"Nothing." Ball's face tightened. "If you could let me have four drums of fuel and half a dozen spare batteries, so I can get started toward Planets and raise headquarters there, Kenton Space Enterprises will pay you well."
"You forget," Kerry said softly, "we're in the salvage business; not a refueling station."
"Damn it, man! You'll get your salvage fees. One third of the ship's value, isn't it? Mr. Kenton will pay, and gladly. I'll sign papers. Only give me the stuff—"
"One third of the cargo, too."
"All right. All right. But hurry and—"
So there's nothing of value in the cargo, thought Kerry. Then why this all-fired hurry? He shook his head.
"Sorry, captain. The laws of salvage are funny that way. No towing; no salvage. Read Section 21, Subdivision 6—"
"You're too damn technical. You know as well as I that if I say so, Kenton will back me up, law or no law."
"Still no sale."
Ball scowled. "Blast you, Dale, have it your way then. Haul me all the way to Planets. Only let me use your radio. I want to notify my base as to what's happened."
"Do you intend to use code, by any chance?" inquired Kerry. The captain stared. "Naturally."
"Then still no sale. I have a strict rule on board my ship. No private wave lengths or private codes may be used on my instruments." fie winked surreptitiously to Jem. "Haven't I, Jem?"
That worthy looked bewildered. "Huh? Oh, sure . . . sure! Uh . . . our Sparks, he's a funny guy that away."
Ball said coldly: "You fellows aren't talking to a blasted landsman. Stop the nonsense and get down to brass tacks. What's your game?"
Kerry was equally cold and crisp. "That works both ways. What's your game, Captain Ball?"
"This is ridiculous!"
"Oh, it is, is it? Let me run over a few things with you. The Flying Meteor was taken from its regular run and blasted off under sealed orders. I find it adrift in a sector of space where no one ever goes."
"So you followed me, eh?"
Kerry ignored that. He ticked off his points like relentless hammer blows. "I repeat, I find you adrift. Your fuel is gone; your radio smashed. You might possibly have run out of fuel, though you're too good an officer to have permitted that. But you didn't smash your own radio or lose your spares. Someone else did that for you. If it was a highjacker, you'd have made no bones about telling us. Yet you're holding out. Why?"
Ball's face did not change so much as a muscle. It was a well-schooled face. "You're crazy!" he said.
Kerry shrugged. "All right, if that's the way you want it." He turned to Jem. "Come on, Jem. Captain Ball obviously doesn't wish for our assistance. Let's get back to the Flash. I want to investigate that asteroid which showed up on our detectors, anyway. Since we don't have to tow this tub—"
Ball lost his impassivity. "You mean you're going to let us drift out here like trapped animals?"
Kerry pretended astonishment. "Isn't that what you wanted? I thought it was, since you refuse to co-operate."
"You win, and be damned to you!" the captain said bitterly. "If there was any chance of getting through, I'd see you in hell first. But I can't let my men die like rats; and furthermore, it doesn't matter, anyway. They've got a good three-day start and they've got a fast ship. Faster than mine; and certainly faster than yours."
"Ah!" said Kerry. "That's better. Now start from the beginning."
Ball took a deep breath. "Well, we were hunting for something. On a tip."
"Skip that part," Kerry advised. "I know about it. Did you find it; and what happened then?"
The captain stared. "Damn!" he said with feeling. "And we thought we were very secret about it. That makes two at least who knew."
"The other being—"
"Jericho Foote, the louse! You know—Mammoth Exploitations."
"Ah!" said Kerry again. "I know. The pot's beginning to boil. He followed you, too?"
"Not that swamp snake! He's too cunning to get tangled up directly. He hired an outfit; one of those that's always hanging around the Belt looking for trouble. I didn't know they were following until I located the asteroid. They kept out of range, using their detectors. They had extra-powerful ones."
"That asteroid you were hunting," said Kerry, "wouldn't by the merest chance be the one I just picked up in my detectors?"
Ball glowered. "I suppose so. There isn't another one around this side of Jupiter."
"And there you found what you were after?"
The captain hesitated.
"You might as well tell me. I'm going to take a look-see anyway."
Ball shrugged. "The whole Universe might as well know now. That poor, crazed prospector was right. It isn't a big one —not over five miles across. But she's just loaded with thermatite."
"Thermatite!" Kerry and Jem looked swiftly at each other. "What percentage alloy?"
"No percentage. It's the pure thing. And a vein as thick as a spaceship. There's been nothing like it found in the System. I think this asteroid must have come from outside. The head of a comet, possibly, caught by Jupiter."
Kerry whistled softly. Thermatite was almost pure energy. It would undergo atomic disintegration without giving off gamma rays—hence it could be used in very cheap, very light portable atomic engines that required no shielding. But what thermatite had so far been discovered was so alloyed with inert materials that the expense of extraction practically made up the difference. A vein of pure thermatite therefore meant a sizable fortune to the discoverer.
"What happened then?"
Dark anger lowered on the captain's face. "We had just staked out our claim when that damned pirate came up. We didn't have a chance. Practically my whole crew was out on the asteroid, unarmed; and they had a torpedo gun trained on us. There wasn't a thing we could do but curse and watch. They erased our monuments and raised their own; they took over whatever thermatite we had already mined, emptied our fuel tanks, smashed our radio and set us adrift."
"The dirty highjackers!" growled Jem. "They might as well have murdered you all and been done with it."
"Oh, no!" Ball said sarcastically. "They said as soon as they'd filed the claim properly in their own names they'd report us adrift and have Kenton send a rescue ship out for us."
"By which time you'd be dead, if they reported you at all," Kerry said grimly. "This Foote is a rat!"
"That's the layout. That's why I want to use your radio. I
want to raise Planets and have them arrested before they file."
Kerry shook his head. "It would be your word against theirs.
They would claim you tried to highjack them. Besides, my radio has only a fifty-million-mile radius. By the time we'd get that close they'd already have filed."
The captain swore. He managed to concentrate a good deal into a few words. Jem just glowered.
Kerry thought a moment.
"You took enough observations to calculate the asteroid's orbital elements?"
"Naturally. Otherwise how would we be able to find her again; or file on her? It's quite an eccentric orbit, as you'd suspect from finding her all the way out here. I've never run into any quite like it before."
Kerry's eyes gleamed suddenly. "H-m-m! Mind if I look at your figures?"
"Damned if I know why you want to waste your time. We ought to get started for Planets right away." Ball's fists clenched. "I want to lay hands on a few people."
"There'll be no delay. Jem, get the tractors hitched up properly for towing. I'll be with you in a few minutes."
It was with reluctance that Ball brought out his charts. But there was nothing he could do about it. Kerry had the whip hand.
Kerry studied the charts in silence, made some rapid calculations. When he finally looked up his face was wiped clean of all emotion.
"I'm going to make you a proposition, Ball."
"What is it?"
"About the salvage. The Flying Meteor is a heavy boat as well as an expensive one. Towing her won't do my tractors or my hull any good. It's worth every bit of the salvage money. And that's going to run high. One third of your ship's value, and you know what that amounts to."
The captain grimaced. "What can I do? I'm in a tight spot."
Kerry stared up at the ceiling. "You've lost out on the asteroid. Foote's gang will file, and then assign to him. He'll show a check in payment and claim his rights as an innocent purchaser for value. Whatever proceedings you might have against the highjackers would be lost against him. You couldn't prove in a court of law that they were his men."
"N-no," Ball admitted. "I suppose not. I damn well know it, but I couldn't prove it."
"Exactly. And by the time we get back, they'll have vanished. There're plenty of hide-outs among the asteroids where they can hole up until the storm blows over."
"What are you driving at?"
Kerry met his gaze. "This. I'm going to do you a favor; and Old Fireball, your boss, a favor. Though God knows I have no reason t
o waste favors on him. I'm going to tow you to port gratis, free, and waive the salvage charges."
Ball came halfway out of his chair. "What?"
"In return for something, naturally. There's got to be consideration for a bargain, you know; otherwise the law holds it to be of no effect."
Ball sank back. "Ha! I see!"
"You don't. All I want is a proper assignment from you, as initial discoverer and authorized agent of Kenton Space Enterprises, Unlimited, of all your right, title and interest in and to the said asteroid, duly described, and of all the appurtenances thereto attached."
Suspicion flared in the captain's eye. "You mean you want to take an assignment of something that is valueless?"
"I don't say it's wholly valueless," Kerry said carefully. "I don't want to misrepresent. I think I can get a nuisance value out of the claim. I'm a lawyer, you know."
"And a good one, captain," Jem chimed in heartily.
The suspicion died in Ball. He even grinned. This Kerry Dale, smart as he thought he was, was a fool. Giving up substantial salvage for a remote possibility. The law of filing on newly discovered asteroids was definite. Two steps were required. First, setting up the proper monuments on the asteroid. Second, filing the requisite affidavits in the Claims Office having jurisdiction. In this case, Planets. One step alone was not sufficient. Prior monuments meant nothing; the date of filing controlled. Well, if Kerry Dale wanted to take a chance, who was lie to stop him! In his mind's eye, Ball could hear old Kenton's approving chuckle. The old man was pretty sore over that last trick Dale had pulled on him.
"O. K.," he said. "Prepare the papers, and I'll sign them." "After I take a look-see at the asteroid. I want to make sure
your . .. uh . . . eyes didn't deceive you about that thermatite."
The captain grunted. "Suspicious, hey? Well, I suppose you're entitled to see for yourself."
There was no question about the thermatite. The quivering glow of it was visible a thousand miles away. It sparkled and danced with lambent flame along a wide streak in the dull, stony jaggedness of the tiny space wanderer.
