Authors: Mike Jurist
The young man pivoted, a grave smile on his square-jawed face. "There are certain things," he said, "I could discuss only with—my wife." He waved, turned and glided rapidly toward the outer rim.
Sally stamped her shapely foot. "Ohhh!" she stormed. "He's really impossible! Dad was right!" Then a little quirking smile played about the corners of her mouth. "It's tit for tat, I suppose. But you just wait and see, Mr. Kerry Dale!"
Blissfully ignorant of the implied threat, Kerry took an elevator to the apex of the Dome where the main observatory made a smaller nodule on the outer curve.
He went swiftly through the maze of instruments, the great electronic telescopes that thrust like probing fingers toward the distant stars.
The working scientists looked curiously at the intruder in their midst; but Kerry walked directly toward the office of the astronomer-in-chief—the famous Peter Wilson himself. As he approached, the slide mechanism whirred noiselessly open and a man came out.
Kerry stopped short in surprise. "Jericho Foote!" he exclaimed. "What the devil are you doing on the Pleasure Dome? I didn't think you'd go in for this sort of thing."
Foote scowled with his peculiar sidelong blink at the young man, while the long scar that ran raggedly from ear to chin turned a dull red against the unhealthy pallor of his face.
"You just keep out of my way, Dale," he snarled. "I've had enough of you and your tricks." His hand went involuntarily to his face; then, with a sidelong motion, he hurried away.
Kerry grinned as he stared after the president of Mammoth Exploitations. The last time they had met had been on the asteroid Ceres, when Foote was just recovering from a caning old Simeon Kenton had administered to him, of which that scar was the visible evidence. But he had never recovered from the loss of the thermatite planet which Kerry had deftly snatched from both Foote and Kenton.
Then the grin faded to a thoughtful look. Foote never did anything without a purpose. Why was he on the Pleasure Dome? And why, especially, had he been to see Wilson?
The famous astronomer greeted Kerry warmly. The young man had been his star pupil in astrophysics back in Megalon University; and he bad always bemoaned the fact that Kerry had gone into law instead of scientific research.
They shook hands. Wilson was thin and lanky, stooped over with thought and much peering into instruments.
"It's good to see you again," he said. "I've been hearing strange tales about you, Kerry."
The young man smiled. "Which no doubt have lost nothing in the telling," he retorted.
"Hmm! Perhaps not. But is it true that you . . . er . . . made monkeys out of Mr. Kenton's scientific experts, so that they actually helped you cause his asteroid to fall on yours?"
"That wasn't their fault, Professor Wilson. They didn't happen to have a certain chart before them."
"Hmm, yes. And I suppose Mr. Foote didn't happen to have another chart before him when you filed that chunk of thermatite as a Trojan asteroid while he was filing it as a member of the Belt?"
Kerry laughed. "You see, I didn't forget what you taught me back at college."
The astronomer shook his head. "I suppose you've been doing better financially this way than if you had joined my staff; but—"
"Not too bad," Kerry broke in hurriedly. He knew the other's rigorous standards and saw a lecture coming. "But speaking of Foote, I saw him leave your office just now. I didn't know he was a friend of yours."
Wilson grimaced. "Friend? Oh no! It's really the first time we've met. He merely expressed an interest in what we've been doing on Comet X."
Kerry held his breath a moment; then exhaled slowly. "Aha!" he thought. "So Foote's got ideas too. That complicates matters."
Aloud he said: "Old Foote's been asking you questions about the new comet, eh?"
"Yes; quite a lot of them, too. I really hadn't expected to find a . . . hum . . . business man so interested in pure scientific speculation. After all, you can't make money out of a comet, ha, ha!"
"Ha! ha!" echoed Kerry. "No indeed! There's nothing emptier than a comet. A mere dust storm in space, so to speak. A head composed of tiny meteors; and a tail whose density is not much greater than that of our best vacuum."
But his laughter sounded hollow in his own ears. Foote had beaten him to it; and with the resources of Mammoth Exploitations at his command—
Wilson's face had lit up with intellectual excitement. "What you say is true enough, Kerry, of all the comets we have previously known. But Comet X seems different."
Kerry stiffened. He held his face impassive, and kept his voice to a flat calm.
"In what way, Professor Wilson?"
"In the first place, it's moving in an orbit so close to a parabola that it's difficult for even our most sensitive measuring instruments to determine from the elements so far taken whether it's an extremely long ellipse or actually a hyperbola. You know, of course, that a true parabolic orbit is an almost impossible affair. The slightest gravitational pull either way shifts it
to an enclosed ellipse or an open hyperbola."
"Of course," Kerry agreed. "But your published calculations show it to be an ellipse, don't they?"
"An
apparent
one, my boy. It's too soon to be certain. The comet is still considerably beyond Saturn. We'll have to wait until it swings around the sun and returns on its other branch before we'll know definitely."
"Then all this talk about Comet X being the Star of Bethlehem is untrue?"
"It's still speculation." Wilson shook his head. "You Know how the telecasters blow up everything. When we made our first calculations, we figured a tentative orbit of about 2430 years. Some keen reporter noted that if this were so, the comet must have made a previous appearance at the very beginning of the Christian Era. He came to me quite breathless. Then the comet was really the Star of Bethlehem? It
might
have been, I agreed; but pointed out how wholly tentative our results were as yet." The astronomer grinned ruefully. "But I was talking to empty air. That fellow was out of here, and rocketing to Earth so fast I understand he made a crash landing and almost lost his life."
"You said this comet was different—" hinted Kerry.
"Oh, yes. It's not, so to speak, a dust storm. The head is actually solid; a planetoid approximately one hundred and fifty miles in diameter."
Kerry perked up his ears. "Then it's really not a comet at all. It's an asteroid with an immensely eccentric orbit."
"No-o! The other indicia are wholly cometary. It shines by its own light, and gives off the emanations which constitute its tail. Yet it isn't hot. There's a huge envelope of atmosphere that seemingly defies the laws of gravity; and the spectroscopic observations we've just taken show lines we've never observed anywhere in the universe before. Comet X," said Wilson impressively, "is something new. I can't wait until it gets close enough for an expedition to take off."
"You haven't published your findings yet?" Kerry asked carefully.
"I'm working on my report now. I expect to get it to the Interplanetary Commission in a few days."
"It might be wise not to mention these uh . . . facts to the newscasters," said Kerry with an easy laugh. "You remember what they did on that Star of Bethlehem business."
"You're quite right, my boy," agreed the astronomer. "I haven't told a soul so far, except you—"
"And Mr. Foote."
Wilson dismissed the president of Mammoth Exploitations with a wave of his hand. "Oh, he's a business man; not a telecaster chap. Come to think of it, Kerry, he said exactly what you did—to keep the whole thing secret until all the findings were in."
"He would," said Kerry grimly.
"Eh, what's that?"
"I said, Professor, you could rely on Foote not to tell another living soul."
"Dear me, I'm glad to hear it. For the moment I thought he might talk to the gentlemen of the press. I must learn to keep my mouth shut. I also talk too much. You understand, Kerry, what I've just told you is . . . er . . . confidential?"
"I won't breathe a word of it even in my sleep."
"Good! And—" the astronomer looked at the young man wistfully, "I couldn't induce you to join my staff?"
"Thank you, sir. Someday, perhaps—"
They shook bands warmly and Kerry departed, trying hard not to break into a run.
Wilson stared after him; then turned to an associate. "There goes a young man who has the makings of a top scientist in him. But he prefers to make money. What a pity!"
Shaking his head sadly, he returned to the laborious drafting of his report.
Kerry Dale found a most impatient young lady seated at the table where he had abruptly left her half an hour ago.
"Well!" she exclaimed, "I have never been so cavalierly treated in my life. If this is your idea of taking revenge—"
"Perish the thought!" he said almost gaily. "I had to—ah—meet an old friend. Look, Sally, I have to return to Megalon at once. You don't mind, do you?"
"Oh no, not at all! We might as well make a clean break of it now as later."
He was hustling the angry girl into her wraps and they were half way on the moving platform toward the exit port before he was able to reply. "This is no break, Sally, clean or otherwise. You're still going to marry me, in spite of your father, in spite of yourself."
"Oh, I am, am I? I'm beginning to think father was right, after all. What are these mysterious goings-on?"
By this time Kerry had almost pushed her into a space-taxi, snapped at the pilot: "A hundred extra if you make Megalon in fifteen minutes flat."
It was only after he had slid the curved door hermetically into position, and sank back into the seat that he said with considerable earnestness, "Sorry, my dear. This is something that I wouldn't even discuss with my
wife."
Sally did not deign to answer, and the rest of the trip down to Earth was completed in silence. Fortunately, Megalon was almost directly underneath at the time, and the pilot cradled his craft at the space port in fourteen minutes, twenty seconds. He was grinning widely as he opened the door. "Made it, Mr. Dale." Then with a meaning look at the girl, he added with a wink: "Though what your hurry was—"
Kerry cut him short; thrust the fare and an extra hundred in his hand. "Thanks!" he said, and jumped out.
He turned to the girl: "I'm sorry, Sally, but this is an emergency. I'll put you on an aerocab to your home."
She stared at him incredulously. "You mean you're dumping me.
That,
I must say, is an unprecedented experience for yours truly, Sally Kenton."
"No! No!" he protested unhappily. "It's just that it's an . . . er . . . unprecedented situation. Someday I'll explain to you."
"You needn't," she retorted frigidly. "And I am well able to find a cab myself. Good bye, Mr. Kerry Dale."
Her gloved finger bad scarcely lifted when a cab rolled up. The driver stared eagerly. "Ah yes, Miss Kenton." Everyone knew her.
"My home, please," she said. She got in with a twinkle of shapely ankles. "Close the door, please, and get started."
The driver stared at Kerry; then at her. "Alone?" he asked. "Alone."
As the cab rose into the air and darted off, a most unhappy young man flung toward the nearest ground cab. "Quick!" he ordered, "to the field office."
It was only a mile and thirty seconds away; but he had time for a sinking sensation. Was he making a fool of himself? Had he lost Sally in order to try for another coup? Then he gritted his teeth. She was her father's daughter, all right. And Old Fireball thought his head was getting too big for his breeches, did he? Just like the irascible old man to make an Irish bull like that! And he was going to take him down a peg, was he? Won't he be surprised! Kerry began to chuckle. Then he stopped short; frowned. But there was Foote, that Venusian swamp snake, as Old Fireball contemptuously called him. He had a head start, and his ships were faster.
The cab braked to a stop. Kerry got out, paid his bill, dashed into the great field office and to the nearest view-phone. The first call he put through was to Jem, his second in command and loyal assistant. Jem was the chap who had originally shanghaied him on board a Kenton freighter; and then switched bosses to follow the man he had kidnapped.
Jem's face looked startled and sleepy on the viewscreen. "What the hell," he grunted, with eyes still stuck together. "Waking a guy at one ack-emma." Then his eyes unstuck. "Hey, it's Kerry! What's wrong?"
Kerry spoke rapidly. "Listen to me carefully, Jem, and don't ask questions. The
Flash
is taking off tomorrow noon on a long trip, destination unknown. Round up Sparks and the crew at once. They
must
be at the space port with full kits at seven this morning, ready to blast off. Understand?"
Jem used his fingers to probe his sleep-filled eyes still further up. "But—Kerry!" he yelled wildly; "you just can't—"
He was staring at a blank screen. Kerry had switched off. Jem groaned; doused his head in cold water, sprayed untoweled drops all over the screen as he began his own calls.
"The son-of-a-space-cook's gone ray-crazy!" he moaned to himself. Then, as Sparks's equally sleepy visage appeared, Jem roared at him: "Orders from Mr. Dale. The
Flash
takes off tomorrow at noon. Report by seven A. M. on board with kit."
Sparks looked flabbergasted. "But I can't—" he commenced.
"The hell you can't," yelled Jem. "Them's orders!"
Meanwhile, Kerry was putting in a busy night. Supplies; equipment; food; full fuel tanks; charts; ray guns; then, as an afterthought, a special order of half a dozen space-suits, guaranteed impervious to radiations of every kind and to temperatures up to 500° Centigrade. "Wilson may be wrong about the temperature of the comet's core," he reasoned. "He said it was self-luminescent, didn't he?"
By seven in the morning, Kerry was tired but content. He hadn't slept a wink all night, but everything was rolling. Supply purveyors, at first furious at being awakened at dead of night, had been soothed by the offer of double payment, and had promised to make deliveries no later than ten. At seven, a disgruntled and bewildered crew rolled on board the
Flash.
But in the few short months they had learned to follow orders unquestioningly. No matter how many times their boss had sounded screwy, in the end he had proved brilliantly right. And lie paid wages triple the regular scale!