Authors: Mike Jurist
Foote was saying ingratiatingly to the Patrolman: "Excuse me. I want to go out."
"And," the Commander's voice rose inexorably. "They confessed everything they knew."
"I must get out," gasped Foote frantically. "A message I must send—something urgent."
"Hold that man!" thundered the Commander suddenly. "In the name of the Interplanetary Commission, Jericho Foote, you are under arrest. You are charged with conspiracy to subvert the ends of justice, piracy on the spaceways, grand larceny, assault and battery with deadly weapons and—murder."
Foote, struggling in the grip of the burly Patrolman, screamed: "It ain’t true. It's all a lie. It's a frame-up."
"That remains for a court of justice to decide," the Commander said contemptuously. "Lock him up and—," he added grimly, "there'll be no bail."
The newsmen almost knocked over the Patrolman and his squirming captive in their wild rush to get out and over to the Communications office. This would set the whole System on its collective ear. There had never been a story like this since—since— Only one man was able to finish the analogy properly; and that was only after he had transmitted his story.
The brilliant thought came to him with the third glass of
pulla
he was imbibing in a neighboring saloon. He shook the empty container at his admiring fellows, swayed a trifle and said somewhat thickly, but with the deepest solemnity: "Yesshir-ree, boys! Thish is th-the greatest story shince—
Hector was a pup!"
Back in the now deserted office of the Space Patrol, the Commander said sympathetically to old Simeon: "They
must
be all right, Mr. Kenton." But there was no conviction in his voice. "I've already ordered a fast Patrol to go out."
Simeon had appeared old and shrunken. Now he started, and the old fire snapped back into him. "Drat your Patrol ships!" he yelled. "I've got the
Deimos
here. It'll get me there in half the time of one of your space-scows."
"The
Deimos?
Very well, Mr. Kenton, I'll commandeer it."
Kenton whirled. "You'll do nothing of the sort," he snapped. "If you think you're goin' to keep me from going—l-lar-rumph! But you kin come as my guest," he ended abruptly.
"All right." The Commander didn't want to tangle too hard with Old Fireball. And besides—he himself was a father.
CHAPTER 15
KERRY DALE lifted himself with an effort. Sally was lying down, eyes closed, breathing heavily. Jem and the two crewmen were panting. They had their helmets off. It was easier that way; and, as Kerry had remarked quietly, it didn't matter much now whether the radiations were cumulatively deadly or not.
For the hundredth time they stared up at the maddeningly beautiful spectrum of colors that made up the enveloping cloud envelope. For the hundredth time they saw nothing.
"He won't come back!" groaned Jem hopelessly. "He's headin' straight fer Ganymede."
"If'n only we hadda radio set ta contact Sparks," whimpered one of the crewmen.
"Well, we ain’t, Bob," Jem reproved him. "An' there ain’t no use ta keep on harping about it."
Kerry jerked erect. "By God!" he cried. "Bob, you've given me an idea."
They looked at him tiredly. "What idea?" asked Jem. "How to contact Sparks."
"Huh!" grunted Jem. "The thirst's getting you."
But Kerry was already on his feet, rummaging among the equipment which the pirates had abandoned. He came back triumphantly with some lengths of wire. His voice was stronger; his eyes glowed.
"Look!" he said. "Each of us has a communication unit in our helmets, haven't we?"
"Yeah!" growled Jem. "With a sending radius of twenty miles."
"I'm going to step it up."
"How?"
Kerry pointed to the glowing blocks of energy. "There's our
power. Use these wires to hook the block into the circuit." Jem shook his head skeptically. "And blow the whole works
t' smithereens."
"Maybe so; and then again maybe not. We can't lose anything by trying. After all, our power pack emits sub-electron energy. It's of the same order, though on an almost infinitely reduced scale."
Kerry swiftly inserted the ends of two of the wires into his own head set, placed the other ends cautiously on top of the cube of energy.
The wires quivered; the set made sputtering noises; then it exploded.
The men had risen up in their eagerness. Now they subsided with a collective groan.
But Kerry only said: "It lasted for ten seconds or so. Let's try another set."
One after the other, the sets of the four men quivered, made strange noises; and then, after varying intervals, puffed out. "That's that!" said Jem with gloomy finality.
"Oh no it isn't," retorted Kerry. "There's still Sally's set." "Our last one!" protested Jem.
"What good is it otherwise?" asked Kerry with irrefutable logic. He shook the sleeping girl gently. "Sally!"
She woke with a start. "We'll need your helmet, dear," said Kerry.
Without a word she took it off, handed it to him.
The men watched lackadaisically as he tried again. Once more the wires started their little dance; once again the set throbbed and sputtered. But it didn't explode!
A minute passed; then another. Gradually the sputter gave way to a steady hum.
"Eureka!" grinned Kerry, "as some ancient chap by the name of Archimedes was once supposed to have remarked. Now let's see if it's got sufficient radius."
As the others crowded eagerly around, their clogging thirst momentarily forgotten, Kerry spoke into the communicator disk. "Kerry Dale, calling the
Flash.
Kerry Dale, calling the
Flash."
Over and over again, monotonously.
The minutes fled. His voice grew hoarse and thick. No answer.
The light died in their eyes. "Ain’t enough radius," groaned Jem.
"Or maybe," added Bob gloomily, "them pirates caught up wi' Sparks."
But Kerry kept up doggedly until his voice gave out. "You try it now, Jem!" he husked.
Jem obeyed without any enthusiasm. A half hour. Forty-five minutes. Then
his
voice cracked.
Sally took the disk. On and on—until—
Faint but clear came an incredulous voice through the receptor. The voice of Sparks!
"Miss Kenton! For God's sake, is it really you?"
She started to answer—and broke. Kerry grabbed the receptor. "Sparks! This is Kerry Dale. What's your position?" "Glory be! I thought you were all dead. I'm two hours out." "Two hours!" Kerry jumped. "But it's ten hours since you started."
"I've turned back. I won't be able to come too close; the space cannon's still jammed. And those pirates—"
"They've gone, Sparks. Come down at the lake of energy. We're there."
"They're gone? Gee! Then I'm sorry I raised a Patrol ship with a call for help. They said they'd start for the comet right away."
"That's bad!" commented Kerry. Now that help seemed miraculously near he didn't want any Patrol ship on Comet X. "How far away were they?"
"About a million miles 'tother side of Jupiter."
"Which we're approaching at an accelerating clip," thought Kerry. He did some rapid calculations in his head. "It'll take them at least twelve to fourteen hours," he said aloud. "Okay, Sparks, put on maximum speed. We—we're a little thirsty."
"I'm pushing her for all she's got!" cried Sparks jubilantly.
The five castaways did a little solemn dance of joy. "Kerry Dale!" cried Sally, her eyes shining. "You've saved all our lives!"
He grinned at her. "I wouldn't have had the chance if you hadn't pulled that trick on the pirates a while back. But let's get to work."
"Work?" Jem looked blank.
Kerry's voice vibrated as though some of the streaming energy had been absorbed into his system. "I want at least another block of that stuff mined before the Space Patrol gets here. They're likely to arrest us for breaking the Commission order."
"Aha!" ejaculated Jem. "So ye
didn't
have a legal doodad, Kerry." He shook his head mournfully, as though all his illusions were shattered. "How much time d'ye think they'll give us?"
"I
have
a 'doodad,' Jem; and I promise you, you won't land in jail. But they'll take us to Ganymede before it can be
straightened out. By that time Comet X will be on its merry
way out of our universe again."
"And no one will have any benefit," exclaimed Sally.
"Right! So let's take out as much as we can." Kerry carefully examined the edges of the boiling pool. "Ah! here's where
Pyotra was mining. The energy coagulated into a thick crust. Jem, you and your men assemble one of the blast cutters; bring it over here. Quick! We have little enough time!"
It was hard, difficult labor; made still harder by the thirst
that clogged their throats and swelled their tongues. But they worked on doggedly, fiercely. Even Sally gave what hand she could.
The blaster was geared to sheer through the heaviest and most resistant metals as though they were yielding cheese. But this stuff was of a hardness and density never before found in the System. They sweated and gritted, and the blaster poured its cutting plane of energy in a steady roar. Yet by the end of two hours they had only penetrated a bare three inches.
They were groggy now. They had to wear their helmets in order to use the glassite windows with their polarized filters. Otherwise the glare would have blinded them. But the communication sets were smashed—except for Sally's—and they lead to work in an eerie silence.
Bob finally staggered away, ripped off his helmet, and sank to the ground. "Sorry, Mr. Dale," he croaked. "I—I can't take it anymore."
Kerry took off his own helmet, said remorsefully: "All right. We'll have to wait until Sparks comes down. He's about due now."
He had barely spoken when a roaring was heard overhead, and the ungainly bulk of the
Flash
pierced the colorful haze with front rockets blasting to check the ship's flight.
To the castaways, half dead with thirst and exhaustion, the System held no more beautiful sight than the squat, serviceable salvage ship, with its Hobby appendage of Sally's
Iris.
They set up a feeble cheer as the ship settled with a shuddering bump on the flat metallic surface of the strange little planet; and they staggered toward it as the port slid open.
But Bill and Alf were already running toward them, with containers full of drink pellets and concentrated tablets of food. Not a word was passed until they bad greedily swallowed several of the pellets. As the concentrated balls melted in their mouths and released their bull, of life-giving fluid, a simultaneous sigh of satisfaction rose into the glowing air. Then the tablets followed, as the two men watched with sympathetic eyes.
Kerry took a deep breath. He felt refreshed, restored. Everything was all right now. The nightmare was passed. Sparks came out; a broad grin on his withered face. It was the first time anyone had ever seen his dour countenance relaxed in a smile. They shook bands all around, solemnly, as people released from the shadow of death.
Then Kerry got down to business again. "Tell me exactly what passed between you and the Patrol," he asked.
The grin wiped from Spark's face. He relapsed into his wonted mournful expression. "I didn't tell 'em much," he said gloomily. "Only that you were stranded here, and trying to fight off a gang of outlaws. They said they'd send help. Then they fired more questions at me, but I shut off communication, turned tail and came scooting right back. Thought we'd have the cannon fixed by that time; but the damned thing is still jammed."
Kerry clapped him cordially on the shoulder. "You did swell, Sparks," be approved. "I won't forget."
But the man refused to be comforted. "They'll take my license away," he prognosticated mournfully. "I've done everything in the book a Class A operator hadn't oughta."
"We'll fix everything up all right," promised Kerry. "That Patrol will be here in about ten hours. I want to get away before they come. I have some . . . um . . . business to attend to in Ganymede; and I don't want to go there under arrest. That means we'll have to work fast. Alf, Bill—you're still fresh. We've started to get out another block of the stuff. It's slow, tedious work, but I want you to carry on. There are the blasters. Jem, swing out the derrick tractors from the
Flash
and load those two cubes in the hull. Encase them in heavy lead plates, to make sure that the radiation doesn't knock our instruments haywire. Bob and Migs (this was the other member of the crew) will help you. Sparks, get back to your screens and watch out for the Patrol. In the meantime, I'll see what's wrong with the cannon. Now get going."
A pert voice piped up: "And what do
I
do, Mister Dale?"
He paused in mid-stride. Then be grinned at the girl. Yes, there
was
something more beautiful than the
Flash.
"Sally, you're going to bed. You've done enough."
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" she stormed. "I'm not made of egg shells. I'm staying—"
But be had swept her up into his arms, was carrying her into the port. He dumped her down on a cot, stood over her. "Now you stay there, young lady," be snapped, "until I give you orders to get up." He smiled. "No, Sally, you're not made of egg shells. To quote an ancient rhyme—you're made of sugar and spice, and all things that're nice."
Then he was gone. Sally looked after him a moment; then, with a blissful sigh fell back on the cushion. In seconds she was fast asleep.
The men worked hard and furiously. The two precious cubes were lifted into the ship; so was the effigy which Sally bad insisted on taking. Some hours later a third cube finally yielded unwillingly to the incessant blast, and was similarly deposited.
Jem asked anxiously: "D'ye think we'll have time to try for still another, Kerry?"
Dale looked at his chronograph and shook his head. "If my calculations were correct, the Patrol is due to show up in about two or three hours. No; we'll have to get off. Once I've settled our claim of title on Ganymede—and I may have to take the matter back to Earth—we'll try again. By that time, Comet X will have swung around the sun, and be scooting out to space again. I hope," he added, "the Commission will see the light quickly. This stuff is too vital—"