Authors: Mike Jurist
"There, Mr. Dale," Sparks said finally, as he mopped a sweaty brow with a grimy hand. "She's working again. She really was a mess."
Kerry looked singularly unenthusiastic. "Is she?" he said rather absently. "That's good." Then he added: "By the way, Sparks. Don't answer any signals, calls or messages until you bring them first to me."
"Not even from the Space Patrol?"
"Especially
not from the Space Patrol."
Spark's dried countenance took on a stubborn look. "But look here, Mr. Dale," he argued, "the regulations say—"
"I know what they say." Kerry sighed. Sparks was a valuable man, but he could be very trying. "Article 28, Subdivision B-3 of the Code declares that all craft in space
must
reply to the hail of an official Space Patrol cruiser, and heave to when so required for identification and examination."
"Ain’t that just what I'm telling you?" said Sparks triumphantly.
"But note the word official," continued Kerry imperturbably. "In the year 2247, Mr. Justice L'Hommedieu, sitting in the Court of Appeals, wrote a decision in a case where a ship had failed to answer the signal, had been fired on and smashed. He decreed full damages against the Commission. `There have been recorded instances,' he said, 'in which space pirates have used the Patrol hail as a means for decoying victims within their grasp. Therefore it is necessary for a Patrol ship to identify itself properly as such after the failure to return its signal. It must proceed within visual distance, so that the signalee may have ample opportunity to detect visually the identification markings of the Patrol on its hull. Then it must repeat its demand for a response. Only
then,
after such second failure, may the Space Patrol use proper means to enforce its authority.' "
Kerry smiled persuasively. "Now do you think, Sparks, that all this could happen in the time it takes you to bring me a message?"
Jem,
who had been listening attentively, burst into a loud chuckle at the radio operator's discomfiture. "By this time," he grinned, "you oughta know better than to argue with Mr. Dale. Why, he's Mr. Law hisself!"
But Sparks, left to himself, kept grumbling. "Sometimes," he muttered, "it ain’t so good to know so damn much."
He fiddled idly with the controls. There was nothing showing, of course. One might go for days on the direct Ganymede run without raising a whisper. He leaned back to grumble sonic more. "On other ships," he said to himself, "the captain 'd let
me
handle communications. He
knew
I
had the savvy and he didn't. But this fellow—"
He pricked up his ears suddenly. There was a faint
beep
from the transmitter.
Beep—be-eep—beep—be-eep—be-eep.
Sparks stared at the visor screen. It was blank. He rubbed his ears vigorously. Perhaps he had only imagined it. There it came again—the short, long, short, long, long. The distress call! But fainter even than before.
"Damn!" he swore, set the radar pickup to get position. The automatic calculator whirred. The call came from directly in back—the way they had come. But how far? The next set of calculations would show that.
But the machine stopped suddenly; the signal had died out. Sparks frantically pushed his power to the limit. No go! The signal was dead.
With an oath be pushed back his seat, hurried forward. "Mr. Dale," he said, "I've just picked up a signal."
"And came to me with it," approved Kerry. "Good! I see you know how to take orders."
“This was a call for help."
"Eh? Where from? What ship?"
Sparks mopped a fevered brow. "I dunno. It came in very faint; then, just as I set the radar, it died. I couldn't raise it again."
Kerry strode back to the screen. It was blank. "Didn't anything show at all?"
"Not a thing. I told you it sounded very faint. Must be too far away to come within our visual radius."
"Then damn it, man, how could we find it, even if it was a call." He looked hopefully at the radio man. "Perhaps it was space static. You know, meteors, bits of flotsam will sometimes echo an electrical emission from the sun."
Sparks drew himself up. "Sir, I know my business."
"I suppose you do," sighed Kerry. Going on a wild-goose search for a possible ship in distress would play hell with his time schedule. "But if we don't know where—"
"The radar made the first calculation. I got the vector of direction. It's in back of us."
"But how far?"
"I dunno."
This time Kerry mopped his brow. He saw both Sparks and Jem staring hard at him. What should be do? They were thirty-five million miles out from Earth. His receiving set bad a range of ten million miles. Suppose the ship—if it
was
a ship—was that far back. That meant it would be near the Earth-Mars lane, and could get help much faster than from him. To retrace his steps the entire distance would mean that he had lost his chance at the comet. Certainly Foote would then beat him to it. And there was that Commission pronouncement he had so rashly broken off. It might very well have been a stop-order on any expedition to the celestial visitor. That would mean that the Space Patrol would be swarming to query all craft bound for distant points. He could in that event no longer claim that he had not received the order—which was the prime reason for breaking his screen—and he would be amenable to its provisions.
A little worried frown wrinkled Jem's forehead, brought a look of puzzlement into his eyes.
But then, thought Kerry, not noticing the frown in his preoccupation, suppose it
is
someone in trouble. If it were only a ship alone, or its freight, no matter how valuable. But men's lives!
He lifted his head. "All right, Jem," he said quietly. "Get the vector elements from Sparks and swing course around full speed ahead."
A delighted look replaced the worry on the face of the mate. "I
knowed
you'd be doin' just that," he exclaimed. 'Then, as Kerry did not smile back as he ordinarily would, Jem understood. "You mean this is goin' to play the devil with whatever you had in mind?" he said softly.
Kerry said only: "Yes, Jem." Then he turned away.
For two hours the
Flash
drove steadily back, while Kerry paced restlessly up and down. Like hunting a needle in a haystack, he thought bitterly. He would stop every so often to query Sparks. "See anything yet?"
Sparks, glued to the screen, would shake his head. "Nothing yet, sir." And Kerry would resume his pacing.
Then Sparks suddenly whooped. "I've got it, sir. It must of drifted. It's off nine degrees on Plane Gamma."
There was a rush to the screen. A tiny dot, a mere speck, moved slightly across the glowing expanse.
"No wonder I couldn't see it!" exclaimed Sparks. "It's way too small for a ship."
"Ah!" said Kerry. "Then it's a meteor."
Sparks turned a miserable countenance toward him. "It could be," he admitted.
Kerry shrugged. "Well, as long as we're here, we might as we1l waste another half hour and investigate closer."
Within fifteen minutes the thing out in space took on a certain shape and form, though still too far away and too small to be definitely identifiable.
"Why," exploded Jem, straining his eyes. "You know what it looks like, Kerry?"
"What?"
"Like one of them little local one-seater jobs the fancy pants use to scoot to the moon."
"You're crazy. What would one of those be doing all the way out here?"
But in another five minutes, as the drifting object grew on the sight, there was no question about it.
Kerry blinked, stared, stared again. He grasped Jem's arm fiercely. "I
must
be going crazy," he said. "But doesn't—doesn't that look like Sally's—I mean Miss Kenton's flier?"
Jem looked steadily, gave vent to a prolonged whistle. "It could be," he admitted. "But then," he added quickly, "someone else might have a boat just like hers."
But Kerry was already shouting orders. "Break out the space suits. Turn on the magnetic plates. Get boarding tools ready."
The crew scurried to comply, while the
Flash
maneuvered alongside; always a delicate operation that took time and much handling.
The veins were pumping in Kerry's head. The crew worked fast; but he raged on them to move faster, to perform the impossible. He was certain by now that this was Sally's flier. It had been a special job; unique of its kind. What it—she—was doing out in space, was another matter.
He tried hard not to think as he poured himself into a space suit; ripped feverishly at the controls as the ungainly
Flash
latched on to the tiny flier with a little jar; flung into the airlock and pounded on the shiny port.
There was no answer from the interior. He groaned. Her radio might have gone dead; but when there came no manual response
"The boarding tools!" he shouted in an awful voice. They handed them to him without a word. The perspiration trickled inside his suit as he swung, and swung again. Without interior juice to work the outer slide mechanism, it was necessary to hack one's way into the craft.
There was a dull crash as the mechanism splintered and a jagged hole was made sufficient to get at the interior lever. With a creak of shattered parts the port creaked ajar; then stuck half way. But it was sufficient for entrance.
Kerry plunged inside into total darkness, cried into his speech unit. "Sally! Sally!"
The sound echoed hollowly around. He opened the search-beam in his helmet. The clean white ray flooded the narrow interior.
With a great cry he lunged forward. In the pilot seat slumped a figure. Sally! Waxen pale, eyes shut, body and head at strange angles.
He caught her up feverishly in his arms, staggered back to the airlock. There other hands took her from him, carried her inside the
Flash.
As he ripped off his suit, Jem was already setting up the oxygen tent.
"She's dead!" cried Kerry.
Jem averted his face. "We'll try the tent anyway."
They placed the poor slim body with its waxen face—beautiful even in its ghastly pallor—inside the tent, attached the artificial resuscitator to her arms, neck, bosom, mouth. The gas pumped in; the mechanical arms forced her arms up and down; pressure alternated on thorax and throat muscles; lungs were contracted and expanded.
Jem peered intently through the glassite panel. "There's no sign," he croaked. "She's—"
"Keep it up, man," cried Kerry fiercely. "Keep it up!"
Jem let out a yell. "I see a flicker; there's a patch o' color."
The mechanism pumped on; the life-giving gas surged in.
"Glory be!" shouted Jem. "She's opened her eyes."
Kerry felt suddenly limp. "Shut off the resuscitator," he ordered
in a flat, inhuman voice. "Get her into a berth. Wrap her in well."
As they took Sally out of the tent, unstrapped the bands, she opened her eyes. She saw Kerry leaning over her. She shut them again. "Oh!" she wailed, "the dreams are back."
Then a little smile tugged wanly at her lips. "But what a nice dream!" she whispered. And fell into a deep, regular sleep.
CHAPTER 11
SIMEON KENTON was in an excellent mood. All day long, at his office, he smiled, beamed, chuckled and spoke genially to his employees and to visitors until they became honestly concerned over the state of his mind, if not of his body.
"Old Fireball's not himself," said the second assistant secretary with a shake of his head to the third assistant freight manager. "I left out a
not
in a contract, and it'll cost the firm five thousand dollars. I expected to have my scalp lifted; but the old man just beamed—
beamed,
mind you—patted me on the shoulder, and said everyone makes mistakes. Do you think," he asked anxiously, "that he's getting soft in the head?"
"He did the same to me," nodded the third assistant freight manager. "I got two important shipments mixed up, and the old codger just laughed it off. It must be senility setting in."
They both contemplated the situation with expressions of gloom. "Who'd have thought it!" they sighed simultaneously.
But Simeon, in his private sanctum, was completely unaware of the deleterious effects his revolutionary good nature had on the morale of his subordinates. He continued to chuckle and rub his hands gleefully. He had put in a good day's work—or rather, a night's work. For he hadn't yet gone to bed.
"Ha! Har-rumph!" he kept chuckling and snorting to himself. "That'll fix those blitherskites. They thought they'd steal a march on me, did they—
me,
Simeon Kenton! That'll teach 'em. I wish I could see their faces. That leohippus Foote I could always lick with one hand tied. But that young scalawig, Kerry Dale, was getting too big for his boots. He tricked me twice and tried to do it again. Jumped the gun at the space port, did he? Well, he'll have to come back dragging his tail in a sling. An' wait till they both find out I sewed up every racing ship on Earth and Mars early this morning
before
the Commission announced its ruling. Ha! Ha! That there comet is as good as in my lap right now."
His unwonted good humor lasted all through the day. An unimportant caller dropped in at five o'clock without an appointment just as he was preparing to depart for home. Instead of sounding off in no uncertain terms and throwing the unfortunate visitor out of the office, he actually invited him to dine with him at a nearby restaurant, and listened patiently to his rambling tale of woe over the steak and liqueurs. So that it was after seven when his private flier deposited him on the palatial grounds of his estate outside Megalon.
"Wait'll Sally hears what I've done," he thought gleefully as the butler ceremoniously ushered him in. "Ask Miss Sally to come to my room, Kibbers," he said to the butler. "Miss Kenton isn't at home," returned the man. "Eh? Where is she?"
"We don't know, sir."
Now Sally was a pretty independent young lady, and fairly free in her comings and goings. So old Simeon thought nothing of it at the moment. "All right, Kibbers," he said. "Tell her I want to see her as soon as she comes in."