Authors: Mike Jurist
"Let him." Kerry was quite placid.
"I'm
in no hurry."
Jem shook his head. He was in over his depth. There would be plenty of grief waiting for them on Ceres. Ball was hopping mad; Kenton would be hopping mad; and what Kerry had got out of it, he couldn't for the life of him see.
Planets rocked with excitement. There hadn't been so much excitement in that usually turbulent town since a section of the roofed enclosure had broken half a century before and exposed the population to the vacuum of space.
First a rakish craft had come into port, bearing all the marks of a long, fast journey. Tough-looking eggs had disembarked and hurried straight to the Claims Office. Filings were supposed to be confidential; but a clerk told a friend, who in turn told another, and in six hours the whole town buzzed with the discovery of a wandering asteroid worth a couple of dozen millions.
Twelve hours later there was more news. Jericho Foote had filed an assignment of the claim to himself; and the strangers had blasted off hurriedly without bothering to attend to the necessary formalities attending ship departures. The same clerk started this bit of information rolling also.
Jericho Foote met reporters with a modest air. Yes, he
had
purchased the rights to an asteroid. Well, of course, there was supposed to be thermatite on it. How much? Maybe a couple of millions; it was hard to say. Did he know the strangers who had discovered it? No; never saw them before. But they had come to him with papers authenticating their find, and some samples. The assay showed 97.24 percent purity. They needed money in a hurry, and they offered the asteroid for sale. Why hadn't they gone to Simeon Kenton as well? A twisted smirk gloated on Foote's face. He didn't know; maybe it was because his reputation was better.
The reporters took this down and whistled under their breaths. When Old Fireball heard of this, there would be fireworks. Would Mr. Foote care to tell for publication what he had paid? Why, of course, boys. He showed them a canceled check, made payable to bearer. The check was for one hundred thousand dollars. He didn't tell them, naturally, that this was the price for highjacking Captain Ball.
When the news hit old Simeon, he was stunned. So stunned that for an unprecedented five minutes he lost all flow of language. Sally couldn't understand his reaction. He hadn't told her about the
Flying Meteor's
secret mission; nor that part of his reasons for coming to Planets had been to be on the spot for first news of the venture. She herself bad wandered around the roaring town, feeling curiously empty and unsatisfied. Several weeks had passed and there had been no report from the salvage ship,
Flash,
nor from its owner-captain. Why she was staying on she didn't know. Yet every time she determined to take ship back to Earth her will gave way and she weakly remained.
"Why, what's the matter, dad?" she exclaimed anxiously. She was alarmed over her father's sudden choked, empurpled silence. "Just because that man, Foote, hints his reputation is better than yours is no reason for you to risk apoplexy. Everyone knows—"
Simeon found part of his voice. "It isn't that, Sally," he said hoarsely. "It's about Ball and the
Flying Meteor."
"What about them?"
He told her then; of the dying prospector and his half-delirious story, of the secret expedition of the
Flying Meteor.
"That there asteroid to which that swamp snake, Foote, got an assignment is the very same one that Ball went after. And Ball should 've been back by now. There's funny work afoot, and I mean Foote."
How funny the work was, showed up three days later in the form of a long spacegram from Ball on Ganymede City, relayed from Earth. There were two portions to the spacegram, and both of them unsealed all of the explosive possibilities that dwelt under Simeon's mild-seeming exterior.
Even Sally had never heard him go on like this. For a solid half-hour he coruscated and sizzled. His epithets were triumphs of twisted word compounding’s. For five minutes he'd devote himself to the slimy, subterranean, hell-spawned Foote. Then, for five minutes more he'd devote himself with equal expertness to a certain ding-dinged, balloon-headed, smart-alecky young feller by the name of Kerry Dale. Then he'd return to his characterizations of Foote.
Sally knew her father; knew it was no use to try and stop him when he was in this vein. Instead, she read the code spacegram that had touched him off. It spoke for itself. Hot fury assailed her at the first part; puzzlement at the second. It wasn't like Kerry. From what she had seen of the young man he didn't do things out of sheer nastiness. Always he had gained by his tricks.
His was a hard, realistic code of ethics; but so was her father's. They each recognized in the other an antagonist worthy of his steel; and secretly, she had no doubt, they admired and respected each other.
But this stunt of hauling the
Flying Meteor
to Ganymede instead of to Planets and thereby ruining whatever slim chance there might have been of bringing the highjackers to justice didn't make sense. Neither did his waiver of the substantial salvage fees to take up an assignment of a claim that he surely must have known wasn't worth a cent.
Old Simeon finished with a resounding burst of oratory that started curls of smoke in the cushioned sofa. He picked up his walking stick—a flexible, ornamented piece of duraluminum shouted to his daughter: "Send a spacegram to Roger Horn to come here right away. Tell him to charter a boat; a whole fleet of boats, if necessary. It's about time that stuffed windbag starts to earn the fees I'm paying him." Then he was gone.
He met Jericho Foote in the hotel lobby, surrounded by reporters, still hot on the scent of the story.
"Oh, oh!" murmured one of them to his fellows. "Here comes Old Fireball and there's that certain look in his eyes. Watch this. It's going to be good."
How good it was going to be even the hardened reporters did not know.
Old Simeon moved swiftly through them, paying no attention as they scattered from his path. Jericho Foote rose to meet him. A slight alarm assailed him, but it passed. After all, there were plenty of witnesses around.
"Well, if it isn't Kenton!" he exclaimed. "You're looking—"
Simeon said nothing. He lashed out swiftly with his cane. It caught Foote on the shoulder. lie staggered back, crying out. Simeon followed relentlessly.
Thwack! Swish! Crack!
The cane whistled and sang about Foote's ears, slashed his body, cut down his up flung arm, thumped across his back as he turned to flee. Foote screamed for help, yelled for mercy. But still the cane sang and danced. It was whispered later that the reporters did not interfere until Foote had been soundly and thoroughly beaten, and then only because, after all, they didn't want actual murder committed. They didn't like Foote.
Foote was carried to bed and Kenton sallied triumphantly into the street. Foote commenced action against Kenton for fifty thousand dollars for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and intent of mayhem. Kenton counterclaimed for one hundred thousand dollars for slander and innuendo that his, Kenton's reputation wasn't all that it might be.
Planets rubbed its collective hands and looked forward with glee to a fine summer.
Roger Horn and Captain Ball arrived almost simultaneously; Horn puffing and gasping from the urgency of his call, the captain burning with desire for revenge against all and sundry.
Horn listened and hemmed and hawed. When the captain was through he looked worried. "Of course . . . hem . . . we have a good cause of action against these . . . haw . . . highjackers; if they can be found."
"To hell with them!" yelled Simeon. "I want you to get that asteroid back and get that Venusian swamp snake, Foote, in the bargain."
Horn cleared his throat. "Well, in the first place," he said judicially, "Captain Ball admits he can't prove in a court of law that these . . . hem . . . scoundrels were hired by Foote."
"I can't," growled Ball.
"Therefore, Foote is an . . . ahem . . . innocent purchaser for value, and whatever claim of forcible entry and detainer may be alleged against his . . . haw . . . sellers cannot be imputed to him."
"Dadfoozle it!" shouted Simeon. "I didn't need you to tell me that. Any law apprentice could 've told me the same thing. I’m paying you disgusting sums to tell me
how
to get things done, not why they
can't
be done. I'll bet that scaddlewagged Dale would've—"
Horn winced. Damn Dale! He was sick and tired of hearing his name thrown in his false teeth every time. Then he brightened. He put on an air of dignity. "Speaking . . . ahem . . . Of
this . . . ah . . . young Dale, you lost whatever claim you might have had on the asteroid by assigning your rights to him. I have examined the document, Mr. Kenton, and I assure you it was properly drawn."
Simeon deflated. "Huh? Yeah—I suppose so." Then he, too, brightened. "Anyway, dadburn him! He outsmarted himself this time. Salvage would have amounted to over a hundred thousand. Instead, all he's got is a worthless assignment." He turned suddenly on Horn. "You're sure, though, it
is
worthless?"
"As sure as I am of anything. I'm willing to stake my reputation—"
"Huh!" Old Simeon's snort was plainer than words. "Then how about getting after him for towing Ball to Ganymede?"
"Well . . . hem . . . I'll have to consult my books—"
"You won't have to," Ball said bitterly. "Dale consulted them before he started. He found a decision which permitted him to head for the nearest port, which was Ganymede City. You'll find it, my dear Mr. Horn," he added with biting sarcasm, "in the Decisions of the Interplanetary Commission, Volume 53, Page 209."
"But why did he take you there?" demanded Sally. "He lost by it as well as you. Didn't you say he's on his way here now?"
"Yes; and I don't know, Miss Sally."
Old Simeon regained his elastic good humor. "Just pure spite, my dear," he chuckled. "He found out he'd made a foolish bargain, and he took it out on the captain. After all, losing a hundred thousand in salvage would—"
A new voice sounded in the room.
"By this time, Mr. Kenton, you ought to realize I do nothing out of spite."
They all whirled. The door had opened silently.
"Kerry . . . Mr. Dale!" gasped Sally, surprised at the way her heart thumped. "When . . . when did you arrive?"
He looked leaner and fitter even than that single time she had seen him before. Space life agreed with him. He carried himself easily and there was a sureness about his movements and speech.
"About five minutes ago. I took an aerocab to beat the news. And just stick to Kerry. I like that better from your lips . . . Sally."
Simeon glared at him. "Har-rumph! You have a nerve coming to me after the dirty trick you played."
Kerry became curiously humble. "That's why I came, Mr. Kenton. I felt . . . uh . . . under the circumstances it was no more than right that I make you a proposition."
"I'm not interested in your propositions, dingblast you!"
"Wait till you hear it. I'm willing to give you half of my assigned rights in the asteroid provided you pay me the full salvage on the
Flying Meteor."
Old Simeon chuckled. He was in high good humor. "You're slipping, son. I'm really disappointed in you. I thought you were a young man who knew his way about." He shook his head sadly.
Kerry pretended surprise. "I don't understand, sir. Half of that assignment is worth—"
"Exactly nothing. No, son. You were too smart for your own good. You dropped the salvage money and I'm going to hold you to it. A contract is a contract."
"That's your final word?"
"Absolutely. Business is business."
"Good!" Kerry's countenance cleared. "I confess I did feel a I little conscience-stricken, but you yourself tell me business is business."
"What do you mean?"
Kerry grinned. "Captain Ball may remember I checked the elements of that little asteroid before I offered to waive the salvage."
"Come to the point."
"The point is simple. Asteroid X is not, as everyone hastily assumed, a member of the Asteroid Belt. It's really a Trojan asteroid, though an unusual one. For, while it fulfills the classic conditions of the Trojan group in that it moves along a stable orbit which is equidistant from both Jupiter and the sun, it lies apart from the ones we have hitherto known—such as Hector,
Nestor, Achilles, Agamemnon and the rest. In fact, it swings altogether on the opposite apex of the given equilateral triangle."
"What the ding-ding difference does it make what group it belongs to?" said Simeon impatiently. "An asteroid is an asteroid."
"In one sense, yes; in another, no. The regular asteroids make up an independent system. The Trojans depend wholly on Jupiter. The Trojans, Jupiter and the sun all together give one of the known special solutions of the three-body problem. The Trojans, in effect, are satellites of Jupiter. Their orbits would go haywire if Jupiter's influence were ever removed. And that means, my dear sir, that the regional office having jurisdiction over Asteroid X is
not
Planets, on Ceres, as all of you thought—including Foote and his pirates—but Ganymede City, which assumes charge of the Jovian System."
They all spoke at once. Sally cried: "I see it all now." Horn puffed like an ancient engine. Ball said
"Damn!"
with concentrated intensity. And Simeon roared:
"That's
why you dragged my ship all the way to Ganymede, you young snapperwhipper! So you could file that claim you swornhoggled me out of."
"I offered to split with you at bargain rates," Kerry said calmly. "You refused the offer."
"He's right," exclaimed Sally. "You did yourself out of a good thing by being too suspicious."
Simeon glared at her; glared at Kerry. Then he threw back his head and laughed until the tears trickled down his wispy beard.
"What's so funny, sir?" snapped Ball.