David Grinnell

by Destiny's Orbit

  "There may be something in that," replied Ajax thoughtfully. "History does indeed show that war and the clash of interests are always accompanied by one-sided viewpoints."

  "I tell you it isn't so." Emily Hackenschmidt jumped up, and walked back and forth. "I tell you that I studied the

  accounts of our experiences with the Saturnians back at training school, and the conclusion is indisputable. They're out for no good. We tried everything to win their confidence and we were dealt with viciously and dishonestly. You can't trust them. Besides, the Earth people are your own people!"

  "Maybe they are—and maybe I'd be doing them a service by blocking this war with determined neutrality. Perhaps we can show both sides the folly of their ways," said Calkins. "Then Ajax the First will have fairly won the regard of all."

  The Wuj nodded slowly, and Anton Smallways also signified his approval. Emily found herself a shrill and helplessly indignant minority.

  Gravely Ajax sat down to the transmitter, opened the beam, and called Radio Juno. Carefully he composed and transmitted a message, repeating his demand for recognition of independence. In return he would offer to act as a neutral meeting ground for the Saturnians, whose delegation he said he would welcome only when a similar delegation from EMSA arrived.

  Emily sat disconsolate, watching while he was transmitting. They sat back, awaiting a reply. But the rest of that day there was only an ominous radio silence.

  They went to bed ill at ease, uncertain. Once more a transmission came in from Saturn, just before they retired. It was a' short message saying their ambassador and his escort had set out, and would arrive in seven days' time. Ajax slept uneasily, lying awake for stretches in his .little cubby hole, staring up at the plastitight ceiling, thinking. He dozed a bit, then came awake in the darkness suddenly; he sat up and listened.

  Somewhere there was a faint humming which was not the sound of the air-conditioners. He got up, opened the door of his cubicle, and heard a whispering in the main hall, his "throne room-radio room."

  He grabbed a handcannon, dashed the short distance and rushed in.

  Hunched over the transmitter, whispering, was the figure of Emily Hackenschmidt, black hair down, in nightgown and slippers, sending a message. She turned as he came in, stuck her tongue out, and switched off. "I told Radio Juno to hurry up and get here," she said triumphantly. "Earth isn't going to take this lying down!"

  "You . . ." Ajax was tongue-tied with rage. He sputtered, trying to remember he was a gentleman and, a king, then sat down, holding the gun. "From now on we're going to have to lock you up at night."

  "It won't do you a bit of good," she snapped back. "The dirty work is done; now you've got to be saved in spite of yourself. Just wait for the acknowledgment." She switched on the receiver and they waited, glaring at each other.

  In a few minutes, the whistling call came in, and a crisp voice said, "Radio Juno to Agent Hackenschmidt. Very well done. We are preparing an expeditionary force immediately. Please urge the immediate evacuation of all personnel on these worlds. We cannot be responsible for them if a battle follows."

  Emily stood, brushed a hand over her hair, a fine figure of a young girl in a pink nightie, and swayed, head held high, back to her room. "Don't forget the key, Ajax Calkins. It's on the inside of the door now. I'll throw it out to you. Or would you prefer a padlock and chain?"

  She slammed the door, and left Calkins staring after her, his mind seething with furious thoughts.

  "She ought to be tied up and whipped!" he muttered, going back to his own room for a thoroughly restless night.

  When Ajax informed Anton Smallways, at the next breakfast period, of what the girl had done, the bearded miner was greatly disturbed. "This is very serious," he said. "We must take steps to foil both sides, to prevent any landings by either side until we can secure our position."

  Ajax nodded. "And I have an idea," Smallways continued. "Come outside."

  The two donned spacesuits, emerged from the ridge, and stood under the black sky of airless space, on the surface of the close-horizoned little world, and Smallways pointed up at the stars. "Do you see," he said, "where now moves our companion worlds? You can see Nestor and Achilles now, two half moons, moving swiftly across our sky. In a moment another of our worlds will appear.

  "These six worlds are forever swinging back and forth from a central point. They perform an eternal dance, complex and wonderful to chart, as they swing back and forth, twining in and out of each other's paths. To land a space fleet here is not easy. But if we can make it even harder, then it might be impossible for either fleet to ever land."

  "And how do we do this?" asked Ajax.

  "If we have enough explosives, or atomic rocket engines, to mount on each world a source of energy, so that at our command, each worldlet would speed up on its swings outward, then we will radically change the pattern of their rotations. They will swing wider and farther, perform more complex routines, until no fleet can chart them without endless delay and endless risk."

  Ajax narrowed his eyes; yes, he could see it. "But how do we do this? Surely we do not have enough such sources of power, nor supplies to keep such blasts going?"

  Anton Smallways did not reply. Instead he spread his hands in a negative gesture. This was it. Ajax pondered it, watching the parade of the stars as he did so. His eyes fell on a stack of concentrated food and water, in Calkans. For a moment, he looked at the storage depot, then gave a start.

  "I have it," he said. "I have it. The secret of the Calkans! We can use them for explosives, for rocket fuels!"

  The green-bearded man looked at him through the glas-sine of his helmet. "How? These things do not explode."

  Ajax shook his head violently. "It's a secret of my grandfather. When he first managed to compress elements molecu-larly, his problem was how to decompress them. We do this by means of slow injection of energy. But there was an alternate way my grandfather discovered, the knowledge of which he immediately made a top secret. By an adjustment of the decompressor machines, these cans can be made to reestablish their normal molecular space instantaneously! The result is a terrific explosion, of nearly atomic magnitude. I can adjust the decompressor for that—using it on the cans and setting a time for the sudden rapid transition."

  "You mean," said Anton Smallways, "that if we dig a pit on each worldlet, set up our pile of treated Calkans, and await the time, that they will go off, one after another, in a chain atomic reaction, that will act as a powerful rocket jet capable of moving an asteroid?"

  - "Precisely!" said Ajax. "And we have seven days to do it!"

  Anton Smallways pressed a stud on his suit. Immediately an emergency call was sent out to all the miners of his group. Men came from everywhere, and hastily the work was started.

  Ajax, his purple cloak swinging limply from the shoulders of his spacesuit, was directing the process of energizing the Calkans. Speedy rocket sleds went out to the other Fore-Trojans, and under Smallways' direction, the launching pits were being dug.

  Day after day went by, the radio continuing to carry ominous news of the oncoming fleets of ultimatums, and "greetings from your friends of Saturn."

  The Wuj was delegated to guard Emily, who was released from her room, but not allowed to go anywhere without the spidery Martian accompanying her. She was chastened now, seeing the wild activity, realizing that her words had gone unheeded. She and die Wuj spent their time wandering the surface of Ajax, looking for artifacts.

  Ajax had ordered her small yellow EMSA scout ship to be taken into the Destiny's cargo hold, so that she could not steal it for a getaway.

  Then came the final day. They gathered once more in the "palace" and there Ajax gave the command to fire the Calkans.

  They listened, while from Achilles and Nestor, Hector and Agamemnon, Odysseus and the north pole of Ajax itself, came the toneless voices of the miners announcing the blasting of the first of the long chain of Calkans.

  They felt the shock as the ones on Aj
ax started off. The room shook and quivered in the repeated hammerblows, and the stars as seen through the thick transparent windows reeled and swirled.

  "We are taking a bad pounding," said Ajax, "but we shall win."

  The Wuj and Emily sat silent. They clung to their posts as the tiny world vibrated to a series of tremendous earthquakes.

  "Where is Smallways?" asked Emily. The little man was missing. She got up, started down ihe long hallway that ran down beneath the ridge; the Wuj silently followed her.

  She looked into their rooms, but Smallways was not there. She went on, past the kitchen, past the conditioner room, through a storage chamber, and into the long darkish hallway beyond, where other miners had their quarters. She stopped; there was a clicking and whispering sound somewhere in the deserted ridge.

  The Wuj listened, pointed to a closed door marked "Storage." Emily ran quickly to it and threw it open.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Anton Smallways was seated at a narrow table in the small room, hunched over a radio transmitter, speaking rapidly in a curious series of squeaks, grunts, and whistling sounds. He threw them a quick glance, and then slammed a hand down on his switch, and twisted his directional dials wildly. Curiously, his face retained its usual impassivity.

  Emily shouted excitedly, "He's the one tipping off the Sarumiansl That's the transmitter he's been using!"

  Smallways wheeled around, jumped up, but the room was narrow and Emily blocked it. He hit her, pushed her outside, and turned toward the long dark hallways leading into the farther end of the ridge. But he found the Wuj blocking his way and before he could push by the huge creature's waving legs, Emily got a grip on his arm and twisted.

  Smallways gave an odd yelp, twisted around and tried to push past her. "Oh no, you don't," she gasped. "You're dealing with a trained judo expert, bud!" Still grasping his arm she swung sharply in a twist that should have brought the little man headlong into the wall. But there was a click, and somehow he was not carried with her; instead, he was still on his feet, running madly down the hall now in the direction of the throne-radio room.

  Emily stood there a second, still holding Anton's arm. She looked at it; she looked at the fleeing little man, running armless down the hall, and she shook her head in bewilderment. The Wuj peered over her shoulder, arched his eyes, and said, "How curious. I didn't know you Earth types came apart so easily."

  "We . . . don't . . Emily gasped, looked at the

  arm, turning it and looking at the tom-off shoulder end. "He's . . . he's a fake! The thing's a hollow shell!"

  The arm she was holding was a synthetic creation, a carefully simulated shell of plastic, inside of which could be seen neat little mechanisms for working the surface muscles. With a gasp of disgust, she dropped it, and then gasped, "Hurry, Wuj; get him before he gets to Ajax!"

  Together the two raced after the figure of Smallways, charging as fast as they could to catch up with him. Emily ran and the Wuj scooted even faster, passed her, by rising to the ceiling and running along it. He closed in on Small-ways just as the little man entered the main radio room.

  Ajax was rising to his feet, wondering at the sudden clamor, when the Wuj shot in overhead, dropped on the little prime minister and bore him to the floor, imprisoning him with his eight strong lets.

  Ajax was peering down at Smallways when Emily came running in. "He's a fake!" she cried. "He's a Saturnian!" And poising herself over the recumbent little man, she demanded, "Come out of there, you, and let's see your real self!"

  Ajax stepped back, drew his handcannon and pointed it at the staring face of Anton Smallways. "Go ahead," he said. "Come out or 111 shoot."

  Now the body of the little man split down the middle and out of the hollow shell emerged a curious thing not quite like anything seen on the inner worlds. It was like a snail removed from its shell, something like an oyster, and also like a rather pulpy caterpillar.

  It was slippery and it was grayish-white; it was cold, and it had two oily eyes and a sucking mouthlike vent in one end of its not quite substantial body. The thing stood up, on a short set of pseudopod masses and out of its sucking mouth came the voice of Smallways. "You're too late my friends. The Saturnian fleet will arrive here tomorrow, but by that time your asteroids will have gone their separate ways. Operation Swing is a success, but not for you."

  "What do you mean?" Ajax asked, an unpleasant suspicion in his mind. "Operation Swing will prevent landings."

  Another earthquake series rocked the room for a moment. The thing from Saturn went on, "Operation Swing will shatter the Fore-Trojans totally. Most of the asteroids will swing off, will fly away from their old orbits, fly away from their old balancing points

  outward where the Saturnians

  can use them for advanced bases. Thank you for giving us the means of doing this."

  Several sharp jolts rocked the room then. The humans grabbed at things to hold their balance, and in the confusion the Saturnian slithered quickly toward the door. Ajax shouted; and as it was going out in a desperate effort to escape, he brought up his weapon and fired.

  There was a blast and where the thing had been there was a splash of grayish juices and a chunk torn out of the wall. They felt a rush of air about them, and a whistling sound penetrated their ears.

  "Spacesuits!" shouted Ajax and the three ran to the lock and hastily dressed for outer space, even as the air was escaping through the hole in the wall, widening now as cracks radiated from it, from the weakened structure of the quake-racked ridge.

  The three got out of the space lock in time. Outside they faced a scene of chaos. There there had been structures, the vibrations had collapsed them. There were several of the miners in sight, heading for the ridge and when these saw the three emerge they started to run toward them.

  "They must all be Saturnian agents!" cried Emily. "We've got to escape." ,

  "To the Destiny shouted Ajax and the three ran across the landscape to where his trim space yacht was berthed.

  The miners seemed at first directionless, for there was no pursuit as their spacesuited figures poked into the ridge. The three had almost reached the Destiny when the miners began to boil our of the ridge and charge after them. By that time, Ajax had opened the outer lock and the three pushed in.

  The lock slammed shut, and the inner lock activated by the time the miners had reached the Destiny. They could hear pounding on the door.

  Ajax ran into the control room, hastily punched the buttons. Emily slid to a stop, found herself sitting on the floor suddenly as the beautifully automatic spacecraft lifted swiftly arid shot upwards into the airless sky. The Wuj had hold of a bar and wasn't disturbed.

  The ship shot on, and Ajax staggered over to a viewing port. "Look," he gasped and Emily got to her feet, rubbing her posterior, and got over to look too.

  Below them the planetoid Ajax was breaking up. Its surface of dried mud and rock was cracking wide; huge crevices and gaping wounds were appearing from pole to pole.

  "It's leaving its orbit; it's falling apart from the strain," murmured Ajax tearfully. "It was mine, all mine, and now it's gone. I'm Ajax the First and Last."

  Even Emily felt constrained to silence as they watched the tiny world begin to disintegrate. A glance showed that the other six worldlets had already vanished, presumably hurtling off on outward trails that would take them eventually into new orbits farther out between Saturn and Jupiter. But Ajax was the one destined to go the other way; it was heading sunward, shedding huge megaton blocks of rock and dirt as it was going.

  They followed it, trailing it through space, Ajax watching, wondering where among the asteroids it would now establish a new orbit—if any part of it survived.

  "There may be a hard core," said the Wuj suddenly. "If so, there will still be a world for you."

  Emily grunted. "A world among the asteroids inside the orbit of Jupiter definitely. Even legally you'll have no case now."

  The little world was a shining disc in the distance
of the star strewn depths of space, a disc marked by a thin tail like •that of a comet as it shredded apart. And just then there was a burst of blazing light like a tiny sun off to another part of the sky.

  "What's that?" said Emily, pointing. Ajax followed her finger, stared at it.

  "We're under fire!" he yelled. "It's the Saturnians! Their escort fleet is here!"

  He jumped back to the controls, while Emily and the Wuj watched tensely at the viewplates. Another little sun flared, seemingly closer.

  Then the Destiny darted forward, a sharp acceleration that had the two viewers grasping for aid. Again Emily Hackenschmidt came down on the floor with a thump. "Oww!" she gasped. "Oh, I'm going to be black and blue."

  "Serves you right," said Ajax. "Only got what was coming to you for butting in." He sat at the board, manually directing the speedy yacht.

  The Wuj scrambled to his feet, looked again outside. "They're not firing at us any longer," he said. "There seems to be a battle going on."

  Emily got to her feet, limped over for a look. "Yes," she said, "EMSA has arrived and they're taking on the Saturnians."

  "Good," muttered Ajax. "Gives us a chance to get away and follow the destiny of my kingdom."

  He took the space yacht out of the vicinity in a flash and set out to follow the last charted orbit of the dislocated worldlet. In seconds they had left the scene of the battle behind.

  "You know, this is the first actual battle in what is likely to prove a terrible war," said Emily. "And in a way it's all your fault."

  "Nonsense," said Ajax, peering through the front port. "It would have started some other way, anyway. Besides, I'm a neutral."

  Emily threw him a look of scorn, then winced again as she reached for a seat. "See the silly world yet? What's left of it, that is?"

  Ajax was silent for a while, then uttered a whistle. "I've got it back on course, and I see Ajax again. It's different; it's strange."