“It won’t do any good,” Pete advised him. “I’ve had enough of all this.”
“He says that periodically!” Ganymede Gus chortled.
“But each time I’ve come up with something else which has changed his mind.”
“This time,” Mr. Fairchild predicted, “we are in a position to change his mind permanently. Consider, Peter, do you like your family? Are you proud of the name your father has made?”
“Of course — but you can forget about that. Sam threatened me with that a while ago, but the police can take care of it.”
Mr. Fairchild nodded. “At least you’re honest. But no, that isn’t what I had in mind. I’ve referred to your father’s name. You are proud of it, and that’s both understandable and commendable. Thus you felt bad when you couldn’t take that name back into space, and now you certainly wouldn’t want to do anything else to hurt it, isn’t that so? Fine, fine. And this time I don’t mean an error of omission; I mean one of commission.”
“I don’t understand.” Pete frowned.
“Recently you gave Gus some information concerning the orbit of the Spaceship Crape Ring, did you not?”
“Yes, I did. But Gus . . .”
“Why you did it does not matter. Let’s confine ourselves to what is relevant. Still more recently, the Crape Ring was boarded in deep space, a fortune in jewelry stolen. Right?”
“Y-yes.” Doubtfully.
“That was made possible by the intelligence you passed along to Ganymede Gus. You are, therefore, in the eyes of the law, as much responsible for the looting of the Crape Ring as any of the men who actually boarded the ship. Can you see the logic in that?”
“Sure,” Pete said. “Of course I can see it. But . . .”
“But nothing. You are guilty. Thoroughly guilty. Very well. Were the police to discover that, were they to bring you to trial for your crime, that would bring a smear to your family name. Consider, Peter. From what I hear, your father is now an unhappy man. One son was killed in space, the other is earthbound. On top of that, if you were to be sentenced to a prison term . . .”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Pete cried. “You’d implicate yourself as well! I’ll admit it, I’m in a mess. But I don’t intend to hide it forever. Someday soon I’ll have to tell the police. I mean that. And when I do, all of you will — but that’s beside the point. You wouldn’t dare to turn me in, because you’d be admitting your own guilt if you did.”
“Good!”‘ Mr. Fairchild chuckled. “You have a fine head on your shoulders. I like that, despite the fact that what you say isn’t quite true. There are certain men in our organization, Peter, who are expendable. Along with you, I can implicate them, and nothing will ever lead to me. I’m a respectable business man with a good record. No one will believe any ridiculous accusations about me. Rest assured I can do precisely what I say — and will, too, if you force my hand.”
Ganymede Gus stood up, paced back and forth nervously. “When you say some men are expendable, do you mean anyone in this room?”
“Figure it out for yourself,” Mr. Fairchild told him, laughing. “Remember, Gus: you brought Peter into this in the first place.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair. . .”
“No one pays you to determine what is and what is not fair! You’re wanted by the police too, Gus. So is Sam, and so is Clarence. And don’t you forget it. Now, Peter —”
It was all very logical, Pete realized. It made good sense, and it made it with finality. Mr. Fairchild was the puppet-master, dangling his men on strings which he could cut at any time. They had a set of simple alternatives: they could obey him or they could suffer the consequences. And, Pete knew, the same applied to a young ex-Cadet named Peter Hodges. He did not care about himself any longer; he knew he would have to settle this in his own way, and quietly. If he had committed any crime, then he was prepared to pay for it, but only if he could do that without bringing shame to Big Pete.
“Now, Peter,” Mr. Fairchild was saying, “I’m waiting for your answer. Will you work for us? Or, to put it in your own language, are you ready to become a pirate?”
Pete wondered what it would be like to spend several years in prison.
“I’ll work for you,” he said.
Chapter 9 — Red-Handed
“I wish you could tell me what’s bothering you, Pete. I know it’s a trite thing to say, but that’s what fathers are for.”
“Nothing, Pop. It’s nothing.”
“You know I can’t believe that! You haven’t been yourself for a couple of weeks, ever since, um-m-m-m, it was about the time that spaceship was looted, I think.”
“I said it was nothing!”
“Don’t snap at me, Pete. I’m trying to help. And your mother has noticed it, too. You’ve been nervous, fidgety. Your nerves are on hairsprings, you haven’t eaten well; your mother says she’s heard you moaning in your sleep.
“We had a little talk a while ago, remember? That night you came in late? You told me to forget about it, to let you handle it. But you admitted something was wrong.”
“It was then, but it’s all cleared up. Please, Pop!”
Big Pete shrugged wearily. “Well, I can only try. There’s mail for you, Pete.”
“Who from?”
“I’ll let you see that for yourself,” Big Pete smiled, handing his son an envelope.
“Holy rockets!” Pete cried. “It’s from Garr! But how did he get out to Ceres so fast?”
“That’s this modern age for you,” Big Pete told him. “Actually, it’s been two weeks since Garr left. All right, figure he got to Ceres four or five days ago. He wrote you a letter, deposited it with Spacemail. The contents were radioed from Ceres to Earth, the letter was typed automatically from the radioed message. So — two weeks to travel out to Ceres and write home about it!”
Pete ripped open the bright blue Spacemail envelope, got a glimpse of the stamp canceled out with the bold black letters, “Radio-post.”
Then his heart was pounding furiously as he read Garr’s first letter from space, “Ceres Base, September 18 —
“Dear Pete: Hiya, boy! Spaceflight is everything they ever told us, and more! Sure, acceleration is a little rough on the anatomy, but so is football. The only one who really seemed to be bothered by it was — you guessed it — Roger Gorham!
“Besides, it only lasted for a couple of hours. After that, we got our first view of Earth — from space! I won’t attempt to describe it, I don’t think anyone could. But it makes you forget all about what you’ve gone through in acceleration. As you probably know, we used most of our fuel pulling out of the Earth’s gravitational field. We landed on the moon for refueling, and because the speed of escape there is less than a third what it is on Earth, acceleration was comparatively easy. Also, we didn’t use up much fuel, and we went straight on to Ceres.
“You feel a little funny in space for the first time. You read about it, sure, and you study the theory. But it’s not the same thing. You’re weightless. You weigh exactly nothing, because there’s no gravity. You don’t walk inside the ship, Pete. You float. You have to learn how to swim through air, and at first it isn’t easy. But it’s good for gags, and we had a lot of fun with guys who learned slow, like Roger.
“Picture it if you can. We had to drink liquids out of closed containers, through straws. The stuff would just float away if we didn’t. All our motions had to be slow and exaggerated, for one wrong move could send us floating off to the ceiling and I’ve got a couple of good-sized bumps on my head to prove it!
“And the stars, Pete, you should see them. There’s no atmosphere to hide them, so they’re bright, every color in the rainbow and maybe a few we’ve never thought of. All against a deep black background like velvet, and you get a pretty good idea of how big everything is and how small we are.
“About the only thing that scared me a little was the sun. You can see much more of it than you can from Earth — again, because there’s no atmosphere. T
here’s the corona and the solar prominences, licking out like long tongues of flame. Also, we were on the solar run, which means we cut across the orbits of Venus and Mercury, and cut right on ahead of the sun, too. That baby is big, Pete, more than eight hundred thousand miles in diameter, and you could almost feel it pulling. If our rockets missed fire just once, we’d have been fried — but good.
“Actually, though, some of the seasoned veterans out here tell me that the asteroids are a lot more dangerous. Reason? We’ve only been out in the swarm about thirty years, and most of the smaller rocks are still uncharted. That means you really have to keep on your toes, and they generally won’t let a ship through the swarm until an orbit’s been plotted carefully in advance. Even then, we cut rockets and slipped through real slow, no more than two or three miles a second. I was on radar duty at the time, and the little warning pips were bouncing on and off the screen constantly. Pretty hectic, because each one stood for a slab of rock which could crush our ship to a pulp.
“So, it’ll be several weeks at least before any of the Cadets take their own ships up. Meanwhile, they’ll be giving us intensive training here at Ceres Base. And I can tell you this, pal — I love it. . . .
“We’re even learning some interesting history, if you can call it history. They tell us that the asteroids once were part of a planet out here beyond Mars, a planet which for some unknown reason exploded. They don’t know why, and they don’t know what happened to the rest of the planet (if you make an estimate of the mass of all the material in the asteroid belt,, it would be a heck of a lot smaller than little Mercury), but that’s the theory.
“So far, then, it’s been wonderful. About the only thing which bothers all the boys out here is a report of piracy near the moon. How any people can resort to something like that! Well, I guess it takes all kinds to make a world. Say hello to your folks for me, Pete, and to Captain Saunders. I’ll write again after something interesting has happened.
“Good luck, fellah, and let me know what you’re doing.
Garr”
It was a fine letter, Pete thought as he tucked it away. But why did Garr have to mention that business about pirates? Garr did not mean any harm, naturally; he didn’t know a thing about Pete’s trouble. And everything Garr had said was true. It would take a mighty low kind of person to get involved in something like that.
Like me, Pete thought bitterly....
It was forty-eight hours later when Pete learned about the Vulcan. The Vulcan was a big ship, a first-class freighter, carrying expensive furs for the more well-to-do colonists on Mars. Scheduled for take-off the following morning at sunrise, it would travel the economy run, since there was no urgent need for the cargo. That meant a path through space that would touch the Martian orbit but not cross it. It also meant that Pete had to send the information to Sam Smith, care of General Delivery.
He balked at first. He couldn’t do that! The cargo was one thing, and that was bad enough, but there was always the chance that the Vulcan’s space-hardened crew might resist, and Pete would be responsible for any casualties.
Yet the alternative was shame for Big Pete and a black mark against the name he had made so famous.
Hating himself for it, Pete posted the letter.
Later, Captain Saunders met him at the tower, a broad grin on his face. “Well,” he said, “they’ve got him.”
“Who’s got who?”
“Didn’t you know? Um-m-m-m, no, you couldn’t have, since the news was just released. Remember that ship, the Crape Ring?”
Pete said that he remembered.
“And remember that a man named Turner with the Patrol thought it was an inside job?”
Pete nodded glumly.
“Well, it was! The pirates damaged the Crape Ring’s tubes so it couldn’t follow them. But a temporary repair job made it possible to bring the ship in, and when it landed a member of the crew confessed!”
“What?”
“I said, a member of the crew confessed. So far, he hasn’t implicated anyone. He just says he was paid for the information, but the Patrol thinks they’ll be able to get it out of him in time.”
Pete could hardly talk. “You — you m-mean someone confessed to revealing the Crape Ring’s orbit? Really?”
“Of course. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. It looks like they’ll be able to nip, those pirates in the bud. A good thing, too, because once space-pirates start operating on a big scale it’s mighty hard to stop them.”
Pete excused himself, went outside. He stood for a long time staring across the bright expanse of the spacefield. I’ve been a fool, he thought. They never had anything on me, because I’ve never given them any information they didn’t already know. Someone else was paid to tell them about the Crape Ring. But why did they want me to double check it? Of course! So they could make me believe I was implicated, so they could hold that as a threat over my head and force me to work for them from here on out.
And now that he knew, he could report them to the police and end the whole sordid affair. He could — no! They had him again, this time with the Vulcan. He could report them to the authorities now, but they had his letter, and he’d be right back where he started from.
Then, somehow, he must change the Vulcan’s orbit, sometime between now and sunrise tomorrow. He’d tried that once, and ran into a brick wall when Captain Saunders refused to consider it. This time his one chance lay in stealth. He must get into the tower during the early morning hours, alter the orbit secretly, and get away again. And above all, he must not be caught doing it. No one would believe he was trying to save the Vulcan.
A dark, moonless night. Overhead, the great span of the Milky Way arched across the sky. Here and there on the broad expanse of the spacefield, bright yellow lights dotted the inky blackness. It was silent, utterly silent, except for the occasional clanking of machinery as ground crews worked over the dark hulks of spaceships.
The tower loomed as a darker shadow in the night, a gaunt finger pointing up at the stars. A sentry would pass in about thirty seconds, precisely at 3:00 A.M.
On schedule, Pete heard his boots crunching across the gravel. From the far end of the field, the blue-white signal light swept its bright swath toward them. Closer —
Pete fell flat on his stomach, breathing hard. He thought he heard the guard utter a startled oath, but he couldn’t be sure. The beam of light seemed a long time in passing, and now he could hear the guard’s footsteps shuffling in his direction.
A voice hissed, “Is anyone out there?”
Silence.
Again the footsteps advanced. Pete still lay flat, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. The light had swept away beyond the tower, but it would return in two minutes. Meanwhile, the guard came closer.
Pete stirred in the blackness, rose to hands and knees. He picked -up a handful of pebbles and hurled them far-off to the left. He heard them clatter on one of the paved runways which led out to the blasting pits, heard a surprised grunt from the guard.
Then the man was trotting away across the gravel, toward the sound. Pete got to his feet and darted toward the tower. His own feet disturbed the gravel and the sound they made was almost like thunder to his ears. He could not tell if the guard was still running.
“Hold it! Who are you?”
The guard had stopped, had heard Pete’s footsteps. But by then, he’d reached the paved area which surrounded the tower, reached the blue night lights which hung suspended from an archway. He slipped into the shadows and waited.
“I heard you running! Who are you?” Footsteps again, firm, heading straight for the tower.
Pete ran. He darted in a zigzag, path and out across the spacefield. Footsteps pounded after him. The guard, he realized, would have a marauder at a great disadvantage, but Pete probably knew the terrain as well as anyone. Still, he sought a place to hide, while the guard simply tore after him.
The guard gained.
Pete stopped dead in his tra
cks, heard the guard thunder closer. Silent as the night itself, Pete slipped off to one side, ducked down the steep embankment of a blasting pit, rolled over and over across the hard-packed earth until he had reached the bottom.
He heard the guard’s footsteps disappearing in the other direction. He was tired; he was breathing hard. He had wrenched his right shoulder while sliding down the embankment, but he could not wait. Grimly, he climbed to his feet, used his hands as well, to struggle up the deep slope.
A cool wind fanned his cheeks when he reached the level of the field itself, and then he was running once again, charging pell-mell for the tower. No unauthorized persons were permitted in the vicinity after hours, and that included junior orbiteers.
Breathless, Pete reached the door, inserted his key in the lock. He took the stairs three at a time, reached the tower room high up at the top of the structure.
He could switch on the lights, but they would attract attention. He had to work fast, for the guard might return at any moment. Probably would, if he used his head —
Pete thrust a hand into the pocket of his jumper, came up with a small flashlight. He found the Vulcan’s orbit chart, did some quick calculating and even quicker erasing. Rapidly, he sketched the new orbit in. The Vulcan would use more fuel this way, but it should pass at least a million miles solar-north of any rendezvous with the pirates.
From far-off, Pete thought he heard the faint wail of sirens. Quickly, he sketched in the final changes, then checked his work. In his haste he might have made a mistake — no, it seemed perfect.
Suddenly, bright lights flashed on overhead!
Earthbound (Winston Science Fiction Book 1) Page 7
