Part 2

"This means that I intend to stand for no more foolishness," he said harshly when he had told the others what he had done. "If you prefer, you may draw lots to decide which two I shall kill and which one shall have the pleasure of my company for the rest of the trip. The continued existence of all three of you will depend strictly on your good behavior."

Migl, lolling on a bunk, curled a sardonic lip at him.

"You seem to have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble, _ladron_," he said. "It is still worth the risk of at least one of our lives to destroy or capture you."

"You're wrong, Migl," said Carrel soberly. "Now we have no fuel, we have no radio. The ship is in orbit, and we're helpless to change it. No matter what we do aboard, the Flanjo ship will intercept us. The Flanjos will destroy us then if they don't find Albrekt alive and safe."

"An accurate analysis," agreed Albrekt briskly. "You're showing good sense now, Carrel."

Carrel shrugged and spread his hands. Albrekt felt a little sorry for him in defeat. He admired Carrel's bravery and resourcefulness.

Albrekt's sleep that night was more carefree than it had been since the _By Jove!_ pulled free from its satellite orbit around Mars. There was still danger, of course. He had to be on the alert for a desperate attempt to disarm him, or an effort to overcome him in the control room by tampering with the ship's machinery, despite Carrel's surrender. But it was less likely now.

* * * * *

Relations were on a much more cordial basis from then on. Their conversation returned, almost, to the friendly terms of the earlier portion of the trip.

"Ever been to the outer planets before, Albrekt?" Carrel asked casually one day, munching a beef sandwich.

"I spent ten years at the base, before they sent me back to work on Mars and Earth," Albrekt replied. "I was born on Earth. My father took me out to the base when I was a boy."

"The base?" repeated Carrel, even more casually.

"On Rhea," said Albrekt deliberately. His faint smile recognized the attempt to elicit information. "Now, figure some way to tell them back on Mars!"

He thought Carrel flushed slightly, but could not be sure.

"Ever been to Venus?" asked Carrel.

"Never that far in, I'm afraid," answered Albrekt.

"I don't suppose you passed quite this close to Jupiter on your other trips?" said Carrel.

"How should I know?" demanded Albrekt. "I'm no spaceman. I don't know how close to Jupiter we're going now. I don't remember anything said about Jupiter on my trips."

"They'd have opened the ports and let all of you see, if you were going within several million miles of it," said Carrel. "Qoqol's figured it out. We're going pretty close this time."

"You want me to open the ports and let you see Jupiter?" asked Albrekt sarcastically.

"Something more serious than that," answered Carrel gravely. "It's the radiation."

Albrekt pushed himself back from the table and stared quizzically at Carrel.

"You wouldn't take advantage of my ignorance to rib me a little, would you now, Carrel?" he chided gently. "I studied elementary astronomy, you know."

"You're proving right now that you didn't study astrogation," retorted Carrel sharply. "Any spaceman can tell you the reaction of cosmic rays on Jupiter's atmosphere is fatal at the distance we'll pass in this orbit. If our convoy had been passing so close, every ship would have been shielded."

"Carrel, I can't see your object in lying, but I think you are. Some damned good spacemen plotted this orbit."

"And what do they care about your life or ours?" demanded Carrel hotly. "You know your Flanjo buddies as well as I do. We'll live long enough for them to get all the information they want out of us."

Albrekt studied him closely. Carrel returned his gaze with serious eyes.

"Maybe you're telling the truth," said Albrekt slowly. "If you're lying, I can't see your reason. You know I won't panic, and we can't change orbit."

"I'm trying to impress you with the seriousness of this thing, because there's something we can do about it if you'll let us," said Carrel patiently. "All it takes is a thin metal shield at a proper distance from the ship, and we can build that out of the cargo we're carrying."

"The only metal aboard is lithium," demurred Albrekt sternly. "That lithium's slated for nuclear reactors and weapons and it's going to reach Rhea intact!"

"We're not going to burn up any of your precious lithium!" exploded Carrel. "All I ask is to use half of it to build a shield. They can use the damn stuff out of the shield as easy as out of cargo bars. It'll all be there, just the same."

Albrekt hesitated. It was quite conceivable that his superiors had not bothered about such a trifle as his slow death from radiation. They would have plotted the most effective orbit for their purposes, and if the _By Jove!_ didn't happen to be shielded--well, casualties had to be expected in any military operation.

"You have my permission to build the shield," he said stiffly at last, "under my strict supervision, of course."

"That's all right with me," consented Carrel with a sigh of relief. "And I give you my word as a space captain, Albrekt, nobody aboard the _By Jove!_ will lift a hand against you while it's being built."

Despite Carrel's reassurance, Albrekt, wary of some stratagem, held to his determination to oversee every step of the shield construction, with gun handy.

Fifty tons of such a light metal as lithium is a pretty large volume of the stuff. Albrekt assumed that Carrel's shield was to be a square or disc of the metal, rather thick to absorb the radiation, which would be interposed between the _By Jove!_ and Jupiter. When work began, after several days of planning, it became apparent that the construction task was something more than cutting out and fastening together chunks of lithium.

Instead of working inside the ship, the crew moved a furnace to the outside of the cargo hull and anchored it down. The Earthmen wore spacesuits, of course, but Qoqol did not, as Martians do not breathe, but extract oxygen from solid matter and store enough of it to last several hours at a time.

To Albrekt's surprise, they next hauled out some of the big packages which were plastic domes for use on Titan. At extra-terrestrial bases, these hemispherical domes were inflated to form huge air bubbles in which humans could live.

"Plastic?" said Albrekt through his helmet radio. "I thought you were going to use lithium."

"We are," replied Carrel's voice. "We'll fasten some of these domes together to form an airtight sphere, then inflate it from the oxygen supply. It won't take much pressure, and we can recover the oxygen later with the ship's compressor.

"Before we recover the oxygen, we'll charge the plastic sphere electrically, so it'll stay rigid. Then we'll vaporize the lithium in the boiler and spray it over half the plastic sphere. We'll blacken the plastic and melt it with solar heat, returning it to the boiler by charging the boiler. I'm afraid we're going to ruin a few of the plastic domes, but that's not important now."

"Spray the lithium? Fifty tons of it?"

"Wait and see," Carrel said. "This will be a bigger shield than you expected."

Later, at mealtime, Carrel brought a worry to the surface of Albrekt's mind which the Flanjo agent had been trying to keep suppressed.

"That was a pretty rash business, jetting all the fuel," said Carrel. "What do we do if we're off orbit?"

"It seems to me I've mentioned before that some very good spacemen plotted this orbit," replied Albrekt.

"The best orbits sometimes require minor corrections, when they're this long," said Carrel.

"I couldn't make them, anyhow, and I certainly wouldn't trust any of you at the controls," said Albrekt. "Don't you think my superiors thought of that when they planned this?"

"Maybe," said Carrel.

Albrekt was amazed at the size of the shield Carrel was building. The inflated plastic sphere was bigger than a small asteroid, some six to eight miles in diameter. Carrel had spliced together several of the biggest plastic domes available. Nowhere but in free space, could the sphere have been inflated with so little gas pressure.

The ship could have floated around in Carrel's sphere like a cork in a water bucket.

"It has to be big, because the shield is going to be about 20 miles away from the ship, attached to it by lithium wires," explained Carrel. "So the diameter of the shield has to be this big, to eclipse the disc of Jupiter at the distance we'll pass the planet."

"I don't understand the principle of this at all," said Albrekt irritably. "It seems to me a smaller, heavier shield closer to the ship would be just as effective."

"That's because you don't understand this type of radiation," replied Carrel.

When the shield was completed and the plastic framework removed, it was a tissue-thin metal hemisphere, attached to the ship like a parachute. Migl used up several oxygen cylinders as makeshift rockets to push the shield out to the proper distance from the ship, while the attaching wires were unreeled from the cargo winches.

"We leave the wires on the winches, because we'll have to shift the position of the shield from time to time by shortening some wires and lengthening others," Carrel said.

When the task was complete and the shield glimmered in the sunlight like a nearby moon, they all returned to the living quarters.

"Qoqol, you'll be in charge of keeping the shield at the proper angle," said Carrel. "And, Albrekt, the truce is over."

"What do you mean by that?" growled Albrekt, his hand dropping to his heat gun.

"I've kept my promise while the shield was being built," answered Carrel. "Now, if we can catch you off guard, and do it without being burned down, I warn you we're going to try to disarm and capture you."

Albrekt relaxed.

"You won't get the chance," he promised. "If you did, what good would it do you? We rendezvous with my ship in less than four months now."

* * * * *

Despite Carrel's threat, Albrekt was still in control of the situation when the hour of rendezvous approached. The necessity for keeping alert against possible attack was a considerable strain on him, but he had been under strain many times before in his life. Neither Carrel nor either of the others had made any overt move.

Assured in his own mind that the risk became less and less as the trysting place neared, Albrekt had permitted the crew into the control room except when he slept above a locked hatch. Half an hour before the scheduled time of meeting with the Flanjo ship, Carrel, Migl and Qoqol filed up through the hatch. Albrekt offered no objection, and they floated across the control room to seats.

"Looks like your ship would be on the screens by now, doesn't it, Albrekt?" suggested Carrel quietly.

"They don't have to make the rendezvous exactly on time," replied Albrekt, a little uneasily. "They know the orbit. They can pick us up anywhere along it."

"We're not in the orbit," said Carrel flatly.

Albrekt scowled at him, but his eyes were drawn back irresistibly to the screens, empty except for the silvery lithium shield and, perched just above its edge, the small but baleful disc of Jupiter.

"Qoqol checked the blast tapes you used, and we're not in the orbit they're suppose to put us in," insisted Carrel. "Qoqol's been making sightings for the last six weeks. Jupiter's pulled us off orbit, Albrekt."

"Is true," boomed Qoqol. "We long way off."

"This sort of thing's doing you no good," snapped Albrekt. "I'm not a spaceman and I can't check your figures, but I don't think we're off orbit."

"And if your ship doesn't make the rendezvous?" asked Carrel.

"If it doesn't now, it will later on. And, by Saturn, we're going to sit tight in this kettle till it does, Carrel! Last minute propaganda won't work."

There was silence for a few minutes, as the chronometer hand ticked on toward the hour of meeting.

The radio buzzed. Leaning forward, Albrekt turned up the volume, eagerly.

"Captain Albrekt Vebrug," called the radio. "Flanjo patrol ship _Bavaria_ to Captain Albrekt Vebrug."

Albrekt turned a triumphant face to Carrel. But Carrel gestured at the screens. They were still empty. And the radio voice was not coming in strongly.

"Vebrug, we don't find the _By Jove!_ on our screens," said the radio, fading a little, then getting louder. "If you get this call, Vebrug, break radio silence and reply. Do you hear this, Vebrug? Break radio silence and reply!"

Perspiration broke out on Albrekt's forehead. He could not reply. The ship's transmitter was a pile of junk.

"Vebrug, Vebrug," intoned the radio insistently. "We don't find you in orbit. If you hear this, break radio silence and reply."

Carrel rose from his seat, floating slightly upward. Albrekt, sweating, dropped his hand to his heat gun.

"We can't stay in this sector, Vebrug," whispered the radio. "Blasting back to base now. Will call every five minutes for the next two hours. If you hear this, break radio silence and reply."

The radio squawked. Then there was nothing but stellar static.

"Well, Albrekt?" said Carrel.

Albrekt felt his iron nerve cracking. He felt that he was breaking apart physically.

"Keep your distance, all of you!" he croaked, drawing the gun. "They'll be back. They'll search all space for us!"

Carrel floated a little closer and Albrekt levelled the gun at him. Migl and Qoqol moved in slightly. Albrekt swung the gun in an arc.

"I'll blast all three of you," he warned desperately. "Carrel...."

"Why?" asked Carrel. "We're all in the same boat, Albrekt. We're spiralling into Jupiter."

"You lie!" shouted Albrekt. "I don't believe you, Carrel!"

Carrel laughed shortly.

"Where's your nerve, Albrekt?" he asked. "You've done pretty well up to now. Does the immediate prospect of dying frighten you so much?"

Albrekt lowered the gun slightly.

"If I were afraid to die I wouldn't be here," he replied. "You're not baiting me for nothing, Carrel. What are you after?"

"I don't think you realize how many millions of miles your Flanjo ship had to come to the rendezvous point," said Carrel. "As much as your friends want this cargo, they won't stay around long. Solar Council ships probably heard that broadcast."

"What makes you think they can find us?" sneered Albrekt. "We can't call them either."

"They can't find us," replied Carrel calmly. "The chances are a million to one against it, and we don't have enough time for chances like that."

Ice seemed to enter Albrekt's veins. He glared at them from angry eyes. They were inching closer to him. Already they were halfway across the control room.

"Stand back!" he said, his voice trembling. "I'll burn all of you!"

"And die alone, Albrekt?" Carrel's brittle voice was like the blow of a hammer against rock.

On the screen behind Carrel, the orb of Jupiter floated off the port bow, red and ominous. Giant of the heavens, its tremendous mass could snatch them from the sky, crush and break them like moths.

All the vast loneliness of space swept over Albrekt on wings of fear. It was too much for a planet-bound mind to face. The last companionship even of enemies was better than solitary death.

"No," he muttered, beaten, and the heat gun drooped in his hand. Qoqol's eight-foot arm reached in like a striking snake to lift it from his nerveless grasp.

"Good work, Qoqol," said Carrel heartily. "I had an idea the Flanjo tradition of superiority would break in the face of the inevitable. It was worth risking, now that we know we're safe."

"Safe?" said Albrekt bitterly. "Safe for what? To fall into Jupiter?"

"Well, now," said Carrel drolly, "I believe I neglected to say that our spiral toward Jupiter will intercept the Solar Council base on Callisto, didn't I? Yes sir, it's one of the neatest orbits Qoqol has ever plotted."

"What?" demanded Albrekt, stunned. "You mean we're in a controlled orbit?"

"Why, yes, my Flanjo friend. We started pulling out of the orbits your blast tapes set about four months ago. If we hadn't, we wouldn't have come anywhere near Jupiter."

"You lie!" shouted Albrekt. "You lie, Carrel! You couldn't! There's no fuel!"

"I'm afraid we're going to have to keep you tied up to one of the bunks for the next few weeks, Albrekt," said Carrel. "You're too valuable a prisoner to take a chance on your doing away with yourself."

"There's no fuel," repeated Albrekt. He was almost whimpering.

"I'll relieve your mind on that score," said Carrel. "Have you ever seen a sailing ship on Earth?"

Albrekt stared at him, uncomprehending.

"A sailing ship doesn't need fuel because it gets its power from the wind," said Carrel. "Neither do we, now. I'm afraid that story I told you about dangerous radiation from Jupiter was made up of whole cloth, Albrekt. There isn't any.

"That lithium hemisphere we built isn't a shield. It's a sail."

"But there's no wind--there's no air--"

"The wind that blows between the worlds," said Carrel solemnly. "Solar radiation. Its pressure will move a ship if you provide a sail that's big enough and light enough--and that's what we did."

"It's impossible," muttered Albrekt, crouching back against the automatic pilot.

"Not impossible, just extremely unusual this far out," said Carrel. "If they ever let you out of prison, Albrekt, I think a trip to Venus would be worth your while. I think you'd find the annual space regatta particularly interesting."

End of Project Gutenberg's Blow the Man Down, by Charles L. Fontenay