hunting all over space to find one. Your vessel was selected, Mr. Matthews, for three
reasons, and in spite of the attempts you have been making to obtain special privileges,
not because of them. First, because there is no necessary or semi-necessary freight
waiting for clearance into that region. Second, because we do not want your firm to fail.
We do not know of any other large shipping line in such a shaky position as yours, nor
of any firm anywhere to which one single cargo would make such an immense financial
difference.”
“You are certainly right there, Lensman!” Matthews agreed, whole-heartedly. “It
means bankruptcy on the one hand and a fortune on the other.”
“Here’s what is to happen. The ship and the mauler blast off on schedule,
fourteen minutes from now. They get about to Valeria, when they are both recalled-
urgent orders for the mauler to go on rescue work. The mauler comes back, but your
captain will, in all probability, keep on going, saying that he started out for Alsakan and
that’s where he’s going . . . . .”
“But he wouldn’t-he wouldn’t dare !” gasped the shipowner.
“Sure he would,” Kinnison insisted, cheerfully enough. “That is the third good
reason your vessel is being allowed to set out, because it certainly will be attacked. You
didn’t know it until now, but your captain and over half of your crew are pirates
themselves, and are going to . . . . .”
“What? Pirates!” Matthews bellowed. “I’ll go down there and. . . .”
“You’ll do nothing whatever, Mr. Matthews, except watch things, and you will do
that from here. The situation is under control.”
“But my ship! My cargo!” the shipper wailed. “We’ll be ruined if they . . . . .”
“Let me finish, please,” the Lensman interrupted. “As soon as the mauler turns
back it is practically certain that your captain will send out a message, letting the pirates
know that he is easy prey. Within a minute after sending that message, he dies. So
does every other pirate aboard. Your ship lands on Valeria and takes on a crew of
space fighting wildcats, headed by Peter vanBuskirk. Then it goes on toward Alsakan,
and when the pirates board that ship, after its pre-arranged half-hearted resistance and
easy surrender, they are going to think that all hell’s out for noon. Especially since the
mauler, back from her `rescue work, will be tagging along, not too far away.”
“Then my ship will really go to Alsakan, and back, safely?” Matthews was almost
dazed. Matters were entirely out of his hands, and things had moved so rapidly that he
hardly knew what to think. “But if my own crews are pirates, some of them may . . . . .
but I can of course get police protection if necessary.”
“Unless something entirely unforeseen happens, the Prometheus will make the
round trip in safety, cargoes and all-under mauler escort all the way. You will of course
have to take the other matter up with your local police.”
“When is the attack to take place, sir?” asked the base commander.
“That’s what the mauler skipper wanted to know when I told him what was ahead
of him,” Kinnison grinned. “He wanted to sneak up a little closer about that time. I’d like
to know, myself, but unfortunately that will have to be decided by the pirates after they
get the signal. It will be on the way out, though, because the cargo she has aboard now
is a lot more valuable to Boskone than a load of Alsakanite cigarettes would be.”
“But do you think you can take the pirate ship that way?” asked the commander,
dubiously.
“No, but we will cut down his personnel to such an extent that he will have to
head back for his base.”
“And that’s what you want-the base. I see.”
He did not see-quite-but the Lensman did not enlighten him further.
There was a brilliant double flare as freighter and mauler lifted into the air, and
Kinnison showed the ship-owner out.
“Hadn’t I better be going, too?” asked the commander. “Those orders, you
know.”
“A couple of minutes yet. I have another message for you-official. Matthews
won’t need a police escort long – if any. When that ship is attacked it is to be the signal
for cleaning out every pirate in Greater New York-the worst pirate hot-bed on Tellus.
Neither you nor your force will be in on it directly, but you might pass the word around,
so that our own men will be informed ahead of the Telenews outfits.”
“Good ! That has needed doing for a long time.”
“Yes, but you know it takes a long time to line up every man in such a big
organization. They want to get them all, without getting any innocent bystanders.”
“Who’s doing it-Prime Base?”
“Yes. Enough men will be thrown in here to do the whole job in an hour.”
“That is good news-clear ether, Lensman!” and the base commander went back
to his post.
As the air-lock .toggles rammed home, sealing the exit behind the departing
visitor, Kinnison eased his speedster into the air and headed for Valeria. Since the two
vessels ahead of him had left atmosphere inertialess as would he, and since several
hundred seconds had elapsed since their take-off, he was of course some ten thousand
miles off their line as well as being uncounted millions of miles behind them. But the
larger distance meant no more than the smaller, and neither of them meant anything at
all to the Patrol’s finest speedster. Kinnison, on easy touring blast, caught up with them
in minutes. Closing up to less than one light-year, he slowed his pace to match theirs
and held his distance.
Any ordinary ship would have been detected long since, but Kinnison rode no
ordinary ship. His speedster was immune to all detection save electromagnetic or
visual, and therefore, even at that close range-the travel of half a minute for even a
slow space-ship in open space-he was safe. For electromagnetics are useless at that
distance, and visual apparatus, even with subether converters, is reliable only up to a
few mere thousands of miles, unless the observer knows exactly what to look for and
where to look for it.
Kinnison, then, closed up and followed the Prometheus and her mauler escort,
and as they approached the Valerian solar ‘system the recall message came booming
in. Also, as had been expected, the renegade captain of the freighter sent his defiant
answer and his message to the pirate high command. The mauler turned back, the
merchantman kept on. Suddenly, however, she stopped, inert, and from her ports were
ejected discrete bits of matter-probably the bodies of the Boskonian members of her
crew. Then the Prometheus, again inertialess, flashed directly toward the planet
Valeria.
An inertialess landing is, of course, highly irregular, and is made only when the
ship is to take off again immediately. It saves all the time ordinarily lost in spiraling and
deceleration, and saves the computation of a landing orbit, which is no task for an
amateur computer. It is, however, dangerous. It takes power, plenty of it, to maintain
the force which neutralizes the inertia of mass, and if that force fails even for an instant
while a ship is upon a planet’s surface, the consequences are usually highly disastrous.
For in the neutralization of inertia there is no magic, no getting of something for nothing,
no violation of Nature’s law of the conservation of matter and energy. The instant that
force becomes inoperative the ship possesses exactly the same velocity, momentum,
and inertia that it possessed at the instant the force took effect. Thus, if a space-ship
takes off from Earth, with its orbital velocity of about eighteen and one-half miles per
second relative to the sun, goes free, dashes to Mars, lands free, and then goes inert,
its original velocity, both in speed and in direction, is instantly restored, with
consequences better imagined than described. Such a velocity of course might take the
ship harmlessly into the sir, but it probably would not.
Inertialess vessels do not ordinarily load freight. They do, however, take on
passengers, especially military personnel accustomed to open-space maneuvers in
powered space-suits. Men and ship must go inert-separately, of course-immediately
after leaving the planet, so that the men can match their intrinsic velocity to the ship’s,
but that takes only a very small fraction of the time required for an inert landing.
Hence the Prometheus landed free, and so did Kinnison. He stepped out, fully
armored against Valeria’s extremely heavy atmosphere, and laboring a trifle under its
terrific gravitation, to be greeted cordially by Lieutenant vanBuskirk, whose fighting men
were already streaming aboard the freighter.
“Hi, Kim!” the Dutchman called, gaily. “Everything went off like clockwork. Won’t
hold you up long-be blasting off in ten minutes.”
“Ho, Lefty !” the Lensman acknowledged, as cordially, but saluting the newly