Part 2

It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech.

"You--you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?"

The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively.

"Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands."

"But--but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?"

"A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta."

"And the _Leo_?"

"Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command."

"That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!"

A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score.

The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...."

I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

* * * * *

There are soldiers and soldiers. Fighting men, as a rule, are pretty decent guys at the core. Having experienced danger, violence and the crawling horror of death themselves, they know the meaning of mercy. They respect their foes, and extend a fine magnanimity in the moment of victory.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ras Thuul, commander of the Third Outer Planets' Alliance Flotilla, was not this type of enemy. Half-breed spawn of a Jovian tribal priestess and a renegade Earthman, he retained the worst characteristics bequeathed by each of his parents.

From his father he had inherited height--he towered a full head above the squat, gnarled Jovian "runts" he led--and a festering hatred of the planet Earth. From his priestess mother he had suckled the milk of sadistic savagery which typified Jovian civilization before space-spanning Earthlings carried enlightenment to the far-flung sisterhood of the Sun.

His first words demonstrated clearly how slender was the mercy we might expect at his hands. To Captain O'Hara he said coldly, bluntly, rudely, "Your sidearms, Captain!" Then as the Old Man silently proffered his personal weapons: "You will walk before me, sir, on a tour of inspection. You might advise your men I hold you as hostage. One hostile move from any source means your death."

The skipper's reply was richly disdainful.

"I have surrendered myself to you under the Rules of War, Colonel. This play-acting is childish and altogether unnecessary."

Ras Thuul's swarthy cheeks sallowed; he took a swift step forward and, before one could guess his intention, slapped the Old Man viciously across the mouth with his gauntlet. The heavy, asbestos-lined space-glove cut and bruised; a thin trickle of blood split the skipper's lips.

"One in your position," snarled the invader, "should learn not to insult his betters! Now, lead the way, Captain. There is much to be done, and no time to waste."

Thus began our painful journey through the conquered _Leo_. As Ras Thuul had said, there was much to be done by his forces--nor had they delayed in getting about their task. A laboring crew was busily engaged in stripping the food-stuffs from our supply bins, other workmen were dismantling all hypo and radio equipment, verifying our belief that the O.P.A. was desperately in need of such material. Grim-faced Jovians had herded our marksmen from the gun embrasures, and were quickly dismantling every piece of ordnance the _Leo_ boasted.

From room to room we went, from passage to sector to cabin. Nothing escaped the eagle eye of our foeman. By word and sign he designated to his henchmen those items which were to be removed, those which were to be destroyed. Only in the control-room was everything left untouched. It was here that Ras Thuul volunteered the explanation which proved the depths of his infamy. With a grin of sheer savagery he explained:

"I find it needless to waste energy in smashing this equipment, Captain. I am sure the rocky fragments of the Bog will do that most efficiently."

The Old Man stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"You--you mean you're going to wreck the _Leo_ in the Bog? Just turn it loose and let the grindstone smash it?"

Ras Thuul shrugged. "It is the easiest way."

"But--" puzzled the skipper confusedly--"how about us? I mean, are you going to take us aboard your ship, or do we get camped on one of the asteroids, or--"

The half-breed shrugged negligently. "Why, Captain, you wouldn't want to desert your ship? I've always heard you Earthmen made it a point of honor to stand by your decks. Of course I would not think of forbidding you this signal honor."

The skipper's face turned white, but it was not fear that drained his cheeks of color; it was righteous rage. His words exploded like a fused hypatomic.

"_What!_ You _dare_ do a thing like this, Colonel! You accepted my surrender under military covenant--"

"That will do, Captain!" rapped Ras Thuul. "It will do you no good to prate of technicalities. I acknowledge but one rule of war--destroy your enemy! When this vessel has been stripped of its fuel and supplies, I shall turn it loose in the Bog. What happens then to it--or you--is none of my concern. Your pleas are vain, sir!

"And now, have we seen the entire ship?"

It was his selection of the word "pleas" that ended the Old Man's protestations. O'Hara needed no microscope to read our adversary's character; he knew that Ras Thuul would enjoy nothing more than listening to pleas for mercy. If we had to die, we could at least die like men. His jaw clamped forever on argument.

"We have," he said. "We are now where we started."

* * * * *

And so we were, back in the Officers' Mess. A half hour ago our troubles had begun here; now they threatened to end abruptly and, for us, horribly.

But the half-breed's eyes had narrowed. A liar and dastard himself, he had a liar's distrust for everyone else. He nodded toward the closed door on the farther wall.

"We haven't been in there. Where does that lead?"

I said caustically, "No, and there's one mouse-trap you haven't crawled into yet, too. What's the matter? Got a tapeworm? That's just the kitchen."

It sounds right daring now that I see it in writing, but it was pure braggadocio. I figured my number was up, and a few healthy insults wouldn't make me die any deader. But our captor paid no attention. Prodding Captain O'Hara before him, he pushed into the galley.

Of course Captain Slops was on duty. The little guy was a study in technicolor; sort of pink around the eyebrows, white around the lips, and green around the gills. But I had to hand it to him, he was a game little fighting cock. Never a cringe for the Jovian commander, who brushed by him to peer about the cookhouse, and though the runt warriors had taken his massive old Haemholtz when they stripped us all, I saw he had a very large, and a very sharp, cleaver hanging not too far from his grasp.

Naturally, there wasn't anything for our foe to find in the galley. But he went through all the motions, just the same. Squinted in the stove, the refrigerator, the vegetable bins. And finally--

"Ah, ha!" rasped he. "What have we here? A cannon! So, Captain O'Hara--a concealed weapon, eh? Sergeant--"

He wheeled to one of his subalterns. But Andy Laney stepped forward awkwardly.

"It--er--it's not really a cannon, sir," he piped. "If you'll just open the breech, sir, you'll see--Oh! _Do_ be careful, sir! Oh, my goodness!"

Because Lieutenant-Colonel Ras Thuul had hurled open the breech, and the incinerator-cannon was full--or had been a moment before. Now it was half empty, and the accumulation of slops and refuse as yet unincinerated had dumped backwards all over him!

It was the one bright spot in an otherwise dull day. Thuul howled and bellowed, and that was a mistake because his mouth opened. Then he spluttered. And gagged. And coughed. And backed, slipping and sliding on cold gravy, away from the incinerator. He wasn't the impressive figure he had been ten minutes ago. Coffee-grounds mottled his gold tunic, and lima beans tangled coyly with his once-gleaming epaulets. Potato-peelings draped gracefully from his ears, and the exotic odor of a slightly antique egg exuded from his shirt-front.

Well, what would _you_ do? Even if you knew your life was in danger, what would you do at such a moment?

The same as we did, of course. We laughed. The Old Man and I, we burst out in a guffaw and rocked till we almost split our surcingles. And Slops laughed, too, in that piping little squeal of his, though even through his laughter he was gasping spasmodically, "I--I tried to warn you, sir. I'm _so_ sorry! But you see it's only a garbage incinerator."

But he who laughs last, laughs last. And if our foe had been despicable before, he was a raging fury now. He did not even stop to scrape the last clinging turnip-top from his jacket. He spun to his subordinates and screamed, "Come! We are finished here! Back to our ship! I'll show these Earthmen one does not insult a Jovian commander with impunity!"

And his face a thundercloud of wrath, he dashed from the galley. We heard him calling his men, heard them exiting through the airlock, and then--silence again.

* * * * *

It was then, his paroxysms of mirth stifled by sober recollection, that the Old Man turned and said, "Well, it was fun while it lasted. But it's all over now, Dugan. Call the men together. This is the last act, and we might as well all face it together."

But before I could leave the room, Slops clutched my arm with fingers tense and hot as live wires.

"No, Joey! Don't go! I need your help. And yours, Skipper! Hurry! We haven't a minute to lose!"

I stared at the Old Man and he at me. "H-huh?" said the two of us. "Help? Help for what?"

"Oh, don't _talk_ so much!" bleated Andy. "_Work!_ Get this garbage out of here--like this!"

And recklessly he plunged both arms into the channel of the incinerator, recklessly hurled it about the previously immaculate floor of the galley. As he worked, he panted: "An incinerator, yes ... but ... it was a good cannon ... in its ... day. It will still work. I cleaned ... and oiled it ... and connected it to the charger. _It still shoots!_"

_Shoots!_ That was all we had to hear. We fell all over ourselves trying to get an armload of that goo. I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd go fond and blissful over a gallon of boiled noodles, but that's just what happened. I dug in, and so did the skipper. In less time than I've taken to tell it, we had that incinerator-cannon empty, swabbed out and ready for use as a cannon-incinerator.

Then the captain clapped a hand to his forehead.

"Omigawd--I clean forgot! The firing-plate! There ain't no vision-field for this gun!"

"Oh, yes there is!" cried Captain Slops. "Over your head, there--the galley-vent. I--I removed the atmosphere-duct and installed a vision-field. Use the crossed wires for a target centering device."

I flung open the vent. As he had said, the vent had been converted into a perfect firing-plate. There before me, a fat and gladsome target, was the largest of the enemy ships which had captured us, the flagship of Ras Thuul's fleet. As I watched, I saw the commander and his boarding party re-enter their own craft.

I said grimly, "Well, it's six against one. They'll blast us out of space, but by the purple gods of Pluto, we'll take at least one of them with us. This thing is connected?"

And I reached for the trigger. But once again Slops held my hand.

"No, Joey! There's a fighting chance we can get _all_ of them. Wait till they cut the tractor beams and we're free of them. Then turn the cannon _upward_ toward the Belt--"

"Upward?" I repeated dazedly. It didn't make sense. I glanced outside to make sure. Here was the situation. The planetoid Vesta lay about a mile or so below us. Larger than most of the meteoric and planetesimal fragments that comprise the Belt, its orbit was irregular. The smaller hunks of rock--and of course when you talk about "smaller" asteroids that means shards ranging anywhere from a yard to several miles in diameter, with weights ranging from a hundred pounds to twice that many thousands of tons--were whirling and swirling _above_ our ships in a tight, lethal little huddle. That, of course, was the _melee_ into which Ras Thuul planned to plunge us after he cut his tractor beams.

* * * * *

Surprisingly, it was O'Hara who seconded Andy Laney.

"Do what he says, Joe. I don't know exactly what he has in mind, but it's his pigeon. He's steered us right this far; we might as well go whole-hog."

"Thank you, Captain!" said Slops gratefully. And as he spoke the words, the _Leo_ rocked violently. With gathering speed we began to move away from our erstwhile captors, their tractor beams now released. Upward we surged toward the web-work of flailing missiles that spelled pure destruction.

"Now, Joey!" almost screamed Slops. "Aim the cannon at the rubble. Hold it firm. Full strength!"

And I did. I yanked the controls over to full power and aimed the heat gun straight into the heart of the rubble. The radiation was invisible, of course. Our enemies couldn't know we had an operative weapon. I held it for seconds which dragged like centuries. Nearer we were hurtling toward doom, nearer and nearer.

I cried, "Nothing's happening, Skipper! We're going to crash in a minute. I might as well turn the gun on one of their ships--"

"_Hold it!_" shrieked Captain Slops. "It's working as I hoped. Hold it steady, Joey!"

And now, returning my gaze to the target, I saw what he meant. Something strange and weird was happening--not to us or to the enemy spacecraft, but to the Bog itself! Like a huge, churning kettle it was seething, rolling, boiling! And even as I cried aloud my astonishment, one of the tinier bits of matter plummeted _down_ from the overhanging canopy of death to rattle against the hull of Ras Thuul's flagship.

Then another ... and another ... and then a large piece. A hunk of rock which must have weighed half a ton. It struck one of the Jovian vessels like a sledgehammer, and a huge gap split in the spaceship's seams. There came signs of frenzied activity from aboard the enemy boat; fire spurted from stern-jets as engineers hurriedly warmed their rockets.

We saw two warships, desperately trying to get under way, ram each other head on. Three more were crushed, beaten shapeless, by the tons of stony metal that smashed their very girders. The last, Ras Thuul's flagship, met its doom most horribly. It was caught as in a vise between two mountainous boulders which rolled tangentially over it. When they separated, all that remained of a once proud ship was a flattened, lacerated shred of tortured steel.

It was then, and then only, that Slops said to me:

"That's all, Joey. You can turn it off now." There was something akin to sadness in his voice. I understood. I didn't feel any too good myself, watching those Jovians, foes though they were, die so frightfully. "Captain O'Hara, if we can repair the damage done by the marauders, we can now go on to Callisto and complete our mission. I--What's the matter, Captain?"

Cap O'Hara was glaring at his little finger irately.

"Matter? Why, confound it, I cut myself on that tin can. Look at this!"

He thrust before our noses a pudgy paw, the pinky of which was leaking very feebly. I chuckled. Not so Slops; he loosed one horrified gasp, and--

"Blood!" he screamed. "Oh, gracious, I simply can't _stand_ the sight of blood! _Oooooohh!_"

His face went suddenly white. And--just like that!--Captain Slops fainted dead away!

The skipper said, "Well, I'll be damned!" Dazed, he knelt beside the little fellow, fumbled at his jacket collar. "Ain't that the funniest you ever saw, Dugan? Sees six ships scuttled without batting an eye-lash, and passes out at seeing a pinprick! Aw, well, it's probably shock more than anything else. I'll unloose his shirt, give him a little air--"

I said, "He's the queerest guy I ever met. But he's a _man_, Skipper."

Then a funny thing happened. The Skipper, strangely scarlet of face, rose suddenly from Andy's side. He croaked, "You--you wouldn't like to lay a little bet on that, Dugan?"

"Huh?" I said. "On what? I don't understand--"

The Old Man moaned softly.

"Neither do I, Dugan. But you were wrong! Slops, here, ain't no man at all, and never was! He--_he's a girl!_"

* * * * *

Well, looking back on it now I can see how we should have realized it from the beginning. Sure, Captain Slops was a girl! That high, mellow voice ... the oversized uniform coat ... that prudishness which was not prudishness at all, but understandable modesty.

Later, as we were streaking the spaceways toward our Callisto rendezvous, the _Leo_ completely repaired, we demanded and received an explanation. I might add that in female togs the pint-sized chef looked just the right size, and a hundred percent O.Q.

"I didn't exactly lie about my name," she explained. "It _is_ 'Andy Laney'--only you spell it a bit differently. I am really 'Ann Delaney.' My father was a spaceman, so was my grandfather and my great-grandfather. Daddy was always sorry he had a daughter instead of a son. He wanted to see the old tradition of a 'Delaney in space' go on. But you thick-headed males have rules against allowing women to take to the spaceways except as passengers, so there was nothing I could do."

"You," I told her admiringly, "did all right."

"More than all right!" acknowledged the Skipper. "If it hadn't been for you--Don't worry, Miss Delaney. I'll see that the proper authorities hear all about this. Only--" A crease puckered his forehead--"There's something I ain't yet puzzled out. How come you ordered Mr. Dugan to shoot not at, but above the ships? At the Bog? And how come the rocks came tumbling down thataway?"

"Why," smiled Ann Delaney shyly, "it was really very simple. Heat, Captain."

"Heat?"

"Of course. As any student of thermodynamics knows, heat has a definite attractive force, varying directly as the difference in temperature. Space, being a vacuum, lacks heat entirely. Its temperature is that of Absolute Zero. Our gun emitted a heat-force equivalent to that of ten solar degrees. Thus the radiation we discharged at the bitter cold fragments of rock and ore comprising the Bog created a sort of passageway, an attractive channel down which the detritus was drawn. To state the problem more simply: have you ever watched a pot of beans boil? A seething whirlpool is created; the beans seek the heat."

"By golly!" said O'Hara. "I think you got something there, Miss Delaney. Why--why, that's terrific! That gives us a brand-new combat technique for locations where there are small cosmic bodies. Wait till the War Department hears it!"

But Ann Delaney just sniffed.

"New?" she repeated disdainfully. "New? Why, every woman cook knows that, Captain!"

You'll find the rest in the history books. Callisto _did_ sign a pact with us ... the Federation _did_ open a new front almost within spitting distance of Jupiter....

We've got a better universe to live in now. For one thing, there's peace throughout the Solar System. Because of Ann Delaney, the government changed its ruling about women in space; you'll find 'em everywhere, nowadays, doing everything and anything men do.

But I'm glad to say Ann isn't one of those void-vampires any more. She and I--oh, sure! We're married now. I couldn't let a swell cook like her get away, could I?