Authors: Mike Jurist
"Is that true what he said?" she interrupted Simeon's premeditated flow of language hastily.
Her father almost choked on an epithet; glared at her. "What's true?" he howled.
"That he prepared that Mammoth brief for you and cooked up that deal in which you hornswoggled the Martian Council?"
Sally had learned a thing or two associating with her obstreperous parent.
"How do I know?" he yelled. "That's Horn's business; that's what I pay him for. Do you think I bother my head—"
"You ought to," she told him severely. "It's the business of the head of an organization to know exactly what's going on, down to the last space sweeper," she quoted.
He recognized the quotation. In an off-moment he had permitted himself to be interviewed by the telecaster for the Interplanetary News Service. "Har-r-rumph! I don't know—well, maybe—" He pressed a button.
The florid features of Roger Horn looked startled on the visiscreen. He was a portly, dignified-looking person. His strong, aquiline nose and bushy, beetling brows overawed judges, and his weighty throat-clearings gave the impression of considered thought.
"Ah—yes, Mr. Kenton?"
"There's a young whelp in your department, Horn. Name of Kerry Dale."
"Why . . . ah . . . that is—"
"Save the frills for the Interplanetary Commission. Did he, or did lie not write the Mammoth brief?"
Horn looked unhappy. "Why . . . ah . . . in a manner of speaking—"
"Did he, or did he not punch that legal knothole into the Martian claim on Vesta?" old Simeon pursued relentlessly. The lawyer squirmed. "Well—in a sense—"
Kenton's glare was baleful. Sally chirruped: "There, what did I tell you?" though she hadn't said a thing.
"Quiet!" yelled her esteemed ancestor. His glare deepened on his lawyer in chief. "So that young snipperwhopper was right! I pay you, and he does all the work."
Horn assembled the rags and tatters of his dignity. "Now look here, Mr. Kenton—`
"Quiet!" Simeon thundered him down. "What do you mean by refusing a raise to such a valuable . . . er . . . young man? Do you want that planetoidal scoundrel Foote to get his slimy tentacles on him and show you up for the pompous dincumsnoop you really are? Raise him twenty-five; raise him fifty; but don't let him get away."
Horn looked as though something he ate hadn't quite agreed with him. "I can't," he said feebly. "Young Dale just left here. He said he had resigned."
"Then get him back. Comb the whole ding dratted town for him. Offer him a hundred."
"He said," Horn swallowed hard, "he wouldn't work for Kenton Space Enterprises again if it was the last outfit in the Universe. He said—"
"I don't care what he said. Get him; or else—"
"Y-yes, sir," the lawyer gulped. "I'll do my best."
Old Simeon switched him off, still protesting. "He'll come back," he said complacently, pulling on his chin whiskers. "Just a bit hot-headed, like all youth."
Sally smiled perkily. "Heavy-handed, I'd say rather," she murmured.
Her father winced, rubbed his shoulder.
"About my allowance," she continued. "Do I, or don't I?" "Not another cent!" he spluttered. Then he caught her eye. "It's blackmail," he howled.
"Of course it is," she agreed sweetly. "I learned that from you, darling. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to mention this little scene I just witnessed. Think how Jericho Foote would love to hear—"
"You wouldn't dare! What's your price?"
"One thousand per month."
"Trying to ruin me? I won't do it—"
"Mr. Foote's such a sweet old thing," she murmured. "I'm sure—"
Simeon groaned. "To think I've nurtured a thingumajig of a Jovian dik-dik in my bosom. I surrender, child; but beware—" She kissed him on the forehead. "Darling, when you find that young man, will you let me know?"
He stared hard at her. "So-oh! I'm to get a son-in-law who uses force and violence on me?"
"Don't be horrid, dad!" she flashed indignantly. "You're just trying to get back at me. It's utterly ridiculous!"
CHAPTER 2
WHOLLY UNAWARE of the complicated series of wheels he had just set in motion, Kerry Dale walked disconsolately along the back streets of Megalon, the great new metropolis that had sprung up in the central prairie lands. His hotheadedness had gotten him into trouble again. It wasn't enough he had lost his job, but maltreating the great Simeon Kenton the way he did meant he would be blacklisted in every law office from Earth to distant Ganymede. He was through; washed up! His career was over before it had well begun.
His wandering feet brought him unawares into the suburban district, close to the great spaceport, where every narrow alley held three saloons and half a dozen dives for the benefit of hard-bitten spacemen looking for a spree and a chance to dump the earnings of an entire voyage in a single mad release.
That was what he needed now—a drink!
The light cell scanned him, approved his lack of weapons and police disk, and swung the panel open to admit him.
There were five or six men drinking at the bar. Burly, tough-looking eggs, with that peculiar, deep-etched tan upon their faces that came only from long exposure to the penetrating rays of space. Kerry shoved up alongside, said: "A double
pulla,
bartender. And start another one going on its heels."
The bartender looked at him curiously, whipped the drink into shape and set it before him. Kerry eyed the pale, watery liquid grimly, downed it neat. "Hurry that second one," he commanded.
The nearer man leaned toward him. "That's powerful stuff to handle, son. You're liable to go out like a meteor." "What's the difference!" Kerry said bitterly.
"Um-I see. Troubles, eh?"
"Just that I lost my job. And there won't be any other." The man's eyes brightened. He scanned Kerry up and down with manifest approval.
Kerry downed his second drink morosely. "Thanks for your interest," he said shortly. "But I didn't ask—"
The man came confidentially closer. "Lost your job, eh? Too bad! You wouldn't by any chance be looking for another?"
"There aren't any others," Kerry retorted gloomily.
"Tsk! Tsk!
How you go on! Here I'm making you a proper offer and you as much as tell me I'm lying."
Kerry stiffened. The
pullas
were taking effect. They made him curiously springy and lightheaded. "What kind of job?"
"A nice job; a lovely job. Join a spaceship and see the Solar System."
"Oh!"
"What's the matter with a space job?" the man demanded belligerently.
"Nothing; except I'm—"
"This here one I'm offering don't require no experience. Cargo handler. Just a couple o' hours work loading and unloading—the rest of the trip you're practically the ship's guest."
"Well. I—"
"Look, matey. The ship's due to blast off in an hour. She's all loaded and battened down. Jem here's top kicker of the handlers. One o' his men just busted a rib; that's why he needs another man pronto. What d'ya say?"
Kerry considered. And the
pulla
considered with him. It was quite a comedown—from legal light to cargo wrestler. But what the hell! It was a job; and his funds were out.
A flicker of wariness came to him. "What's the name of the ship?"
The first man turned to the man he had called Jem. "I offer him a job an' he goes technical on me," he complained. He turned back to Kerry. "What's the dif, matey, if she's the
Mary Ann
or
Flying Dutchman?"
Kerry wobbled a little and considered that gravely. The more he thought of it, the more it sounded like brilliant sense. "Done!" he said suddenly.
The man slapped him on the back. "That's the spirit. Bartender, three
pullas
and make one double-strength."
Twenty minutes later Kerry's guides and mentors helped his weaving feet out toward the spaceport, shoved him halfway up the gangplank that led into the bowels of a space-scarred freighter. Its squat flanks were all battened down except for this single bow port, and the cradle on which it rested had swung slowly into the blasting-off position.
Jem, the cargo boss, helped him along. "In you go, son. Gotta hurry now."
Kerry blinked owlishly at the faded lettering along the bow.
"Flying Meteor,"
he read. "A very good name," he approved with drunken gravity. "A most—"
"Come along," Jem said impatiently.
"Flying—Hey!"
Kerry was cold sober now.
"What's biting you?"
"Flying Meteor.
Holy cats! That's a Kenton freighter." "Sure it is. And why not? Kenton ships 're the best damn ships in space. Now will you come—"
"Not me. I don't ship on a Kenton boat. Not if it's the last job on Earth. Here's where I get off."
"Oh, you do, do you?" growled Jem. He shoved suddenly; and Kerry, off balance, went flying into the hold. The gangplank hauled away, the port slid shut; and the rockets went off with a roar and a splash. "You signed up for the voyage, son; and that's that."
The
Flying Meteor
was bound for Ceres, largest of the asteroids, with a cargo of power drills, atom-explosives, detonators and miscellaneous mining equipment. Ceres was the port of entry for the entire asteroidal belt. Through its polyglot, roofed-in town of Planets streamed all the commerce of that newly exploited sector of space.
For many years since the first exploratory flights no one had paid much attention to the swarms of jagged, rocky little planetoids that filled the gap between Mars and distant Jupiter. They held no air, no vegetation and their bleak stone surfaces looked uninviting to pioneers in a hurry to get out to the more hospitable ground of the Jovian satellites. The Martian Council took formal possession of the four largest—Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno—more for astronomical outposts than for purposes of exploitation. The others were left contemptuously alone.
That is, until a particularly inquisitive adventurer smashed head-on into an eccentrically rotating bit of flotsam not ten miles in diameter. If he hadn't been carrying a cargo of atomite at the time, it wouldn't have proved anything except that he was a bad navigator and that no funeral expenses were required.
But when the space patrols reached the spot they found no hide or hair of adventurer or ship, and about a million meteoric fragments in place of the asteroid. And every fragment was a chunk of solid nickel steel, generously interspersed with glittering rainbow flashes of diamonds, emeralds and rubies.
The nickel steel on assay proved immediately workable—a find of the greatest importance in view of the depleted mines of Earth. Mars, curiously enough, had plenty of copper, but no iron. As for the precious gems, they could be used in barter with the web-footed natives of Venus. Those childlike primitives took an immense delight in glittering baubles of that sort.
Thereupon there was an immediate rush to the Belt from all over the System. It was the kind of rush that harked back to the first gold stampedes on Earth to California and the Klondike, and to the initial space-hurtling to the Moon when rocket flight became a reality. And, as in all rushes, the pioneers, insufficiently prepared against the rigors of space and the dangers of the Belt, starved and suffered and fought among themselves, and found death instead of riches.
Not every rocky waste held within it the precious alloy. Not one in a hundred, in fact. And the lucky prospector, as often as not, had his claim jumped, his first load of metal—blasted out with infinite pains—high jacked, and his bloated body, stripped of space suit, tossed into the void.
Even if he survived the initial dangers, he discovered that it took capital to work his find and transport the metal back to Mars and Earth.
Lots
of capital. And the men of wealth, like similar men of wealth throughout the ages, demanded so huge a slice of the take and their contracts were so cleverly complicated that the unfortunate prospector invariably rather bewilderedly retired with a condescending pat on the back to the
joy palaces
that had mushroomed on Planets, there to rid himself of a modest pension as fast as he could.
Simeon Kenton hadn't come in with the first predatory rush of the men of wealth. He disapproved of their tactics and his disapproval, at first violent with expletives against such slimy snakes as Jericho Foote of Mammoth Exploitations, finally took the cannier form of preying on
them.
By means of superior resources and brainier lawyers he formed holding companies, took assignments of seemingly worthless rights from disgruntled miners and then fought the men of wealth through every court in the System until they were bankrupt or glad to sell out for a song. He merged and bludgeoned and purchased until more than a third of the wandering planetoids came under his control by outright ownership or option.
Mammoth Exploitations, his closest competitor and special
bete noire,
held no more than a fifth. Scattered smaller companies and individuals accounted for another fifth; the remainder were still in the public domain, subject to proper filing claims.
Kerry Dale soon found that life as a cargo wrestler was not all beer and skittles. Jem and his very suave companion—who proved to have been a space crimp and who discreetly disappeared to continue his trade after snaring Kerry—had been a trifle reckless with the truth. To call him practically the ship's guest during the trip itself required a peculiar idea of what constituted hospitality.
No sooner had the ship blasted off than they set him to work. And what work! Scrubbing and scouring and restacking bales and cases every time the freighter took a steep curve— which was often—and the loose-packed cargo obeyed the law of inertia and tried to keep head-on in a straight line; running errands for the officers and opening tins of food for the cook;
yes siring
even the rocket monkeys and hunting for non-existent ether-wrenches while the dimwitted spacemen snickered and grinned all over their idiotic faces.