“Sure,” said Gary. “It just slipped out of your fingers. Right smack-dab
onto a steel plate and busted all to hell. After this, I handle the liquor.
When you want a drink, you ask me.”
“Maybe Kingsley will have some liquor,” Herb said hopefully. “Maybe he’ll
lend us a bottle.”
“If he does,” declared Gary, “you keep your paws off of it. Between you
sucking away at it and dropping it, I don’t get more than a drink or two
out of each bottle. We still got Uranus and Neptune to do after Pluto and
it looks like a long dry spell.”
He got up and walked to the fore part of the ship, gazing out through the
vision plate.
“Only Neptune and Uranus ahead,” he said. “And that’s enough. If the Old
Man ever thinks up any more screwball stunts, he can find someone else to
do them. When I get back I’m going to ask him to give me back my old beat
at the space terminal and I’m going to settle down there for the rest of my
natural life. I’m going to watch the ships come in and take off and I’m
going to get down on my hands and knees and kiss the ground each time and
be thankful I’m not on them.”
“He’s paying us good dough,” said Herb. “We got bank accounts piling up
back home.”
Gary pretended not to hear him.
“Know Your Solar System,” he said. “Special articles run every Sunday in
the Evening Rocket. Story by Leary Nelson. Pictures by Herbert Harper.
Intrepid newsmen brave perils of space to bring back true picture of the
solar system’s planets. One year alone in a spaceship, bringing to the
readers of the Rocket a detailed account of life in space, of life on the
planets. Remember how the promotion gang busted a gut advertising us. Full
page ads and everything.”
He spat.
“Stuff for kids,” he said.
“The kids probably think we’re heroes,” said Herb. “Probably they read our
stuff and then pester the folks to buy them a spaceship. Want to go out and
see Saturn for themselves.”
“The Old Man said it would boost circulation,” declared Gary. “Hell, he’d
commit suicide if he thought it would boost circulation. Remember what he
told us. Says he:
‘Go out and visit all the planets. Get first-hand information and pictures.
Shoot them back to us. We’ll run them every Sunday in the magazine
section.’ Just like he was sending us around the corner to cover a fire.
That’s all there was to it. Just a little over a year out in space. Living
in a spaceship and a spacesuit. Hurry through Jupiter’s moons to get out to
Saturn and then take it on the lam for Pluto. Soft job. Nice vacation for
you. That’s what the Old Man said. Nice soft vacation, he said.”
His pipe gurgled threateningly and he knocked it out viciously against the
heel of his hand.
“Well,” said Herb, “we’re almost to Pluto. A few days more and we’ll be
there. They got a fueling station and a radio and Doc Kingsley’s
laboratories out there. Maybe we can promote us a poker game.”
Gary walked to the telescopic screen and switched it on.
“Let’s take a look at her,” he said.
The great circular screen glowed softly. Within it swam the image of Pluto,
still almost half a billion miles away. A dead planet that shone dully in
the faint light of the far distant Sun. A planet locked in the frigid grip
of naked space, a planet that had been dead long before the first stirring
of life had taken place on Earth.
The vision was blurred and Gary manipulated dials to bring it more sharply
into focus.
“Wait a second,” snapped Herb. His lingers reached out and grasped Gary’s
wrist.
“Turn it back a ways,” he said. “I saw something out there. Something that
looked like a ship. Maybe it’s Evans coming back.”
Slowly Gary twisted the dial back. A tiny spot of light danced indistinctly
on the screen.
“That’s it,” breathed Herb. “Easy now. Just a little more.”
The spot of light leaped into sharper focus. But it was merely a spot of
light, nothing more, a tiny, shining thing in space. Some metallic body
that was catching and reflecting the light of the Sun.
“Give it more power,” said Herb.
Swiftly the spot of light grew, assumed definite shape. Gary stepped the
magnification up until the thing filled the entire screen.
It was a ship – and yet it couldn’t be a ship.
“It has no rocket tubes,” said Herb in amazement. “Without tubes how could
it get off the ground? You can’t use geosectors in taking off. They twist
space all to hell and gone. They’d turn a planet inside out.”
Gary studied it. “It doesn’t seem to be moving,” he said. “Maybe some
motion, but not enough to detect.”
“A derelict,” suggested Herb.
Gary shook his head. “Still doesn’t explain the lack of tubes,” he said.
The two men lifted their eyes from the screen and looked at one another.
“The Old Man said we were to hurry to Pluto,” Herb reminded Gary.
Gary wheeled about and strode back to the controls. He lowered his gangling
frame into the pilot’s chair and disconnected the robot control. His
lingers reached out, switched off the geosectors, pumped fuel into the
rocket chambers.
“Find something to hang onto,” be said, grimly. “We’re stopping to see what
this is all about.”
Chapter Two
The mysterious space-shell was only a few miles distant. With Herb at the
controls, the Space Pup cruised in an ever-tightening circle around the
glinting thing that hung there just off Pluto’s orbit.
It was a spaceship. Of that there could be no doubt despite the fact that
it had no rocket tubes. It was hanging motionless. There was no throb of
power within it, no apparent life, although dim light glowed through the
vision ports in what probably were the living quarters just back of the
control room.
Gary crouched in the airlock of the Space Pup, with the outer valve swung
back. He made sure that his pistols were securely in their holsters and
cautiously tested the spacesuit’s miniature propulsion units.
He spoke into his helmet mike.
“All right, Herb,” he said, “I’m going. Try to tighten up the circle a bit.
Keep a close watch. That thing out there may be dynamite.”
“Keep your nose clean,” said Herb’s voice in the phones. Gary straightened
and pushed himself out from the lock.
He floated smoothly in space, in a gulf of nothing, a place without
direction, without an up or down, an unsubstantial place with the fiery
eyes of distant stars ringing him around.
His steel-gloved hand dropped to the propulsion mechanism that encircled
his waist. Midget rocket tubes flared with tiny flashes of blue power and
he was jerked forward, heading for the mystery ship. Veering too far to the
right, he gave the right tube a little more fuel and straightened out.
Steadily, under the surging power of the spacesuit tubes, he forged ahead
through space toward the ship. He saw the gleaming lights of the Space Pup
slowly circle in front of him and then pass out of sight.
A quarter of a mile away, he shut off the tubes and glided slowly in to the
drifting shell. He struck its pitted side with the soles of his magnetic
boots and stood upright.
Cautiously he worked his way toward one of the ports from which came the
faint gleam of light. Lying at full length, he peered through the
foot-thick quartz. The light was feeble and he could see but little. There
was no movement of life, no indication that the shell was tenanted. In the
center of what at one time had been the living quarters, he saw a large
rectangular shape, like a huge box. Aside from this, however, be could make
out nothing.
Working his way back to the lock, he saw that it was tightly closed. He had
expected that. He stamped against the plates with his heavy boots, hoping
to attract attention. But if any living thing were inside, it either did
not hear or disregarded the clangor that he made.
Slowly he moved away from the lock, heading for the control-room vision
plate, hoping from there to get a better view into the shell’s interior. As
he moved, his eyes caught a curious irregularity just to the right of the
lock, as if faint lines had been etched into the steel of the hull.
He dropped to one knee and saw that a single line of crude lettering had
been etched into the metal. Brushing at it with his gloved hand, he tried
to make it out. Laboriously, he struggled with it. It was simple, direct,
to the point, a single declaration. When one writes with steel and acid,
one is necessarily brief.
The line read: