Part 3

When we pulled up at the scene of the wreck and I pointed to the pile of boulders and gravel that hid the remains of the ship, I thought Stony was going to share me out among his men without stopping to argue. I managed to show him a corner of bent hull plate sticking out of the rubble just in time. He put the boys to work tossing rocks.

It took a long time. I had counted on that. By the time the air lock was clear the sun was half-way down the sky again. Jockeying the slug out of the reaction chamber and getting it into its lead case was slow work, too. While it was going on Stony and I waited in the cabin, along with Karns. It seemed the boss fancied him as a gun-pointer.

I had a hard time to manage to retrieve my hand sextant from the corner where it had fallen without attracting their attention, but I made it. I stuffed it into my possum pouch and nobody made any objection.

Except for that, Stony had played it smart all along. The only other mistake he made was at the end, when his gang came back into the cabin with the slug all snugged down in its shield. He let me crawl out first. It was black dark outside by now, and I jumped without even waiting to get to my feet. And this time I kept on jumping.

* * * * *

They didn't spend much time trying to find me. I was out of range of their headlights in two leaps, and why would Stony think it made any difference to have me floating in the dark, with no weapons? Of course he would have blasted me down before he took off if I had been on hand--I wasn't fooling myself about that--but he had too good a head for the main chance to waste time on such a minor pleasure. The way he had it figured, Betty and I would both be dead long before another ship touched Vesta, and even if we weren't, we would say we were raided by Venusian pirates, and he would be long gone.

They headed straight back to the ship, and Stony put as many of his crew as weren't needed for changing slugs to looting the blister. I could see their lights going back and forth for an hour, and then they all crawled into the ship and buttoned down.

I figured they wouldn't leave the blister standing, and I was right. One HE shell took care of that. Then they blasted off. I had my sextant and watch on them, and was writing down data on my knee-pad as fast as I could take them. I was using Altair and Vega for a fix, and throwing in Polaris every now and then for good measure. I kept it up most of the night. Their jet-flare winked out suddenly just before I lost them over the horizon.

After that there was nothing to do but go back to where the blister used to be and wait.

Betty came in just after the sun lifted over the horizon. She wouldn't let me get close enough to touch helmets so that I could explain. I gave up after a few attempts and we just sat.

It was a long wait. I rummaged around in the debris and rigged up some fair-sized sheets of dural to keep off the sun--one for me and one for Betty. At least she was willing to use it. After a while I poked around some more and found a copy of Spatial Navigation Tables that wasn't completely reduced to confetti, and started trying to work up my figures.

About noon the next day, Vesta time, we picked up the jet-flare of a ship breaking in. She came in fast, under about three G's of acceleration. That looked like Patrol style to me, and sure enough, as soon as the dust settled I could see the blue star on her nose. That was good. I was afraid it might be the expedition ship coming back, and guns were indicated for the next hand in this game.

We didn't even wait for them to get out the ladder. Betty leaped for the port as soon as they cracked the hatch, and I was right after her. I slammed the hatch shut and motioned the landing party back inside. The shavetail in charge wasn't happy about it, but I didn't give him a chance to object. In a minute he got the idea that I meant business, and opened the inner door.

I peeled back my helmet. "Where's the CO?"

"Right here!" said a voice at my elbow. I turned and looked. He was only medium-sized, but he had a hard jaw and a hard eye. "What's going on here?"

"Plenty is going on!" This was Betty. "Pirates took over the expedition base, and this man gave them a power slug to make their getaway."

"Shut up!" I told her. "Let me tell this so it makes sense."

"Makes sense! Does it make sense to let those thugs off scot-free, with eighteen hours head start? We'll never catch them!"

"Yes we will. And besides, if I'd let them stay, they would have blasted this ship out of the sky. And besides that, I had to give them something to let you loose--"

"Suppose you both shut up," the CO suggested, "and come up to the bridge and let me have the straight of this."

The three of us went into the control cabin which was unoccupied at the moment. The CO motioned us to chairs. We peeled off our bulgers and sat down.

"Now--Miss Day, I believe? I'm Allison, Commander, in charge. Let's have your version."

* * * * *

Betty gave him the story of all that had happened since I landed on Vesta, and enough of the background to make the story clear as far as she knew it. Allison buzzed for the medical officer when she got to the part about my ribs, and I was untaped and taped again. I was glad enough by now to have someone else worrying about them for awhile besides me.

Aside from that he made no comment until Betty had finished. Then he turned on me, and his eye was harder than ever.

"Well, Denby? I realize that you're not sworn in as a Patrolman, and I suppose you thought you were acting chivalrously. But it's rather a tradition that all spacemen consider themselves unofficial deputies of the Patrol when the occasion arises, and it seems to me that even a civilian might have kept his mouth shut about that slug. As for their shooting us out of the sky, we would have something to say about that. We know how to operate against land batteries."

"I don't doubt that," I assured him. "But I think you'll agree that a ship in space with no drive is an easier set-up."

"No drive? What do you mean?"

"Just that. Stony and his boys are sitting out in space with a blown tube waiting for you to come along and pick them up. If you want to know exactly where, give these figures to your navigator and let him finish them on the computer. I've got a fix on them for every ten minutes from blastoff to the time their main drive tube blew four hours and forty-three minutes later."

"How do you know their tube blew? I never heard of such a thing."

"Brother, I did! And if you don't know how fast a Group IV slug can chew the guts out of a graphite liner, just ask me. But those lads didn't know. When they left Earth at the end of the Polar War, Group IV fissionables weren't heard of, nor tungsil. When I gave them the Group IV slug that the ground crew gave me by mistake on Phobos, they didn't know the difference."

I looked at Betty, and so help me, she was crying again.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I couldn't tell you what the score was before without tipping them off."

She came over and took hold of my hand. She didn't say anything, but then she didn't need to.

Allison was pushing buttons like mad, and the bridge began to look like a sub-sea train at rush hour. When the navigator came in the CO handed him my notes.

"Figure an interception orbit from these observations. Blastoff in twenty minutes.

"Here, sergeant, take a detail and lay out a signal panel for the Day Expedition when they return, and this message to tell them what happened and where we've gone. Quigley! (this was the exec, I gathered) all hands to space stations--blastoff at once.

"Denby, I think you and Miss Day had better come along with us. I imagine you've both had enough of bulgers for a while, and I think you might like to be in on the end of this. Right?"

I pushed some of Betty's hair out of my eyes and looked up.

"Right!" I said. "I have a personal matter to settle with Stoneface. And anyway, I want to be along to see you don't shoot up Astra too bad. She was Lance Denby's ship, you know, and she's mine now, and I'm going to need her if I'm going to be the first space-rat on the ground in the moons of Jupiter."

Allison goggled at this, but made a quick recovery. "Okay, Denby. And you know there's a reward out for Hassley or any of his group. I think that will take care of any repairs."

The navigator came back from the computer and handed Allison a sheet of paper. "Here's your course, sir. Quickest interception in thirty-three hours. They were headed for Jupiter, all right."

"There goes your Warp," I gloated.

"Looks like it," Allison agreed. "Here, have a cigarette."

I took it and lit up. It was quabba, and it tasted great.