Chapter 2

"Get me a box," Scott cried desperately. "Made of lead and six feet deep."

Elderburg jerked his shoulder free. His face contorted. "Get to your cabin, Jerill. You're under arrest."

"Captain Elderburg, listen to me. We can...."

"That's a direct order. Go to your cabin." He whirled away from Scott, slammed down the intercom lever. "Attention all hands. Prepare full battle equipment...."

Scott slashed his blaster hard across the back of the Captain's head. Elderburg staggered, clutched the back of the seat. Scott hit him again. Elderburg's legs went loose. He toppled face forward, struck the intercom and sagged to the floor.

Scott stepped to the intercom. "Attention. All men, prepare full battle equipment and stand by. Stand by. Durval, get the largest lead-lined box you have and set it outside the entrance of the main cargo hatch. Shake it up. We have half an hour till the _Kastil_ jets off."

He cut off the intercom, lugged Elderburg to the chart room and locked him inside.

* * * * *

The hold was beastly hot. Standing inside the hatchway, holding suspended over his head a three-foot long cell of uranium ore, Scott felt a moment of shuddering panic. Over the storage cells along the wall, over the tumbling bodies of the cats, an eerie glow quivered--the menacing flare of radio-activity.

Scott glanced nervously at the forward screen. Chief Durval waved toward him. "Your men ready, Durval?"

The Chief nodded. "Don't go getting yourself hurt now, Scott."

Scott grinned although he did not feel much like grinning.

He shuffled forward under the light gravity of the hold. The uranium cell balanced easily in his hands. Too easily. He could scarcely feel it press against his gloves. The heat control in his suit was jammed again. His hands streamed sweat.

He inched past the cats. A quick cold thrill passed through his stomach. With the energy of the ore almost gone, the scarlet beasts were growing increasingly uneasy. They were casting about for a new supply. It would be easy enough for a foot to slip, he thought. To spill the ore across the floor. New food for the cats--and the loss of the _Bertha's_ last chance as strange space beasts sucked away the last purified ore.

He slipped cautiously past the last row of cells. A quick dash now for the open hatchway beyond....

Half a dozen of the bounding red beasts surged about his feet. Their weight drove his right leg forward. He staggered, caught at his balance. The lead cell above his head began to slip.

"Watch it, Scott!" Durval's voice cracked in his ears.

Straining every muscle against the queer weightlessness of no gravity, Scott struggled to regain his balance. He expected another blow at his legs as the cats leaped for the ore. It was hard to breathe the over-heated air of his suit.

But the cats had spun away. As he caught his balance, he stared after them, uncomprehending for an instant. The cats ran twisting in a somehow sinister dance. The bodies were queerly bloated. Down the upper portion of their bodies ran a heavy indentation. As they leaped and twisted, the indentation became a fissure, a crevice.

Then two of the beasts leaped, slammed together in mid-air. But more than two cats fell to the floor.

Their sharply angled bodies whisking back toward the depleted uranium cells, four cats appeared with shocking suddenness.

Reproduction. Elemental fission.

Scott had to clean them out, and fast. Soon the ship would be overrun with the energy-hungry felines.

He dashed toward the open hatch. Outside the opening, a great lead box, eight feet by eight feet, gaped upward. Beyond, four men tensely supported a vast lead cover.

"Is the uranium poured into the box?" he barked sharply.

"Yes, sir. All ready, Mister Jerill."

"Good." Turning from the hatch, he inverted his cell, poured out the uranium ore in a thick stream from the open hatch back across the hold toward the scrambling mass of cats upon the now empty rows of cells.

But he never reached the beasts.

A brawling torrent of animals leaped toward him. Hurling the container into their mass, he leaped to one side. They lunged into the trail of ore. Rolled, leaped, darted along the line. At the hatch edge, a pyramiding mass of cats paused a moment. Then plummeted over. Scott fell back against the bulkhead, his eyes fixed on the cats still scavenging among the empty cells.

Then these too were darting for the trail of ore. The uranium was scattered now. Cats plunged toward the new radiation in the box beyond the hold entrance.

The inarticulate cheers of Durval and his men rang in Scott's helmet. But his mind was already working at the next step of the problem.

"Durval," he ordered. "Get a decontamination unit in here. Clean this place out." Cats poured in a frenzied stream from the ship. "Call Mister Vaugn. Start purification of his ore as soon as it arrives."

Past the hatch, he saw the swift flash of the lead top dropping over the box. Excitement pounded hotly in his throat.

"I'm going to get rid of these cats once and for all," he called. "Be back in an hour."

"But what about the _Kastil_?"

"We'll worry about the _Kastil_ later. Get that ore purified. We're blasting out of here in forty hours."

He swung from the cargo entrance to the top of the lead box. Under his feet, the lid trembled with the frantic struggling of the cats. "Load this crate in the cargo jet," he cried. "And hurry. We only have half an hour left."

* * * * *

The pounding of the jets matched the pounding of the blood in Scott's temples. "When we land," he instructed, "get this crate out fast. Everything depends on how fast you can take the cats down to the pit. I want you to bury it as fast as you can. Understand?"

He glanced sharply about the group, feeling their eyes clinging to him.

"Get as much rubbish on the crate as possible. And then obey every order I give you as fast as possible no matter how foolish the order may seem."

The jet thundered down over the landing strip, rasped to a halt. "Out," roared Scott. "Fast. Make it fast."

The loading compartment swung open. But as the men lifted the crate toward the door, the jet's intercom burst into life. "Jerill. Jerill, this is Captain Elderburg. I order you to return at once."

Elderburg had freed himself too quickly.

"This is a criminal offense, Jerill. Come back at once."

"Get that crate out," Scott roared. "Hurry. Hurry!"

"Mister Jerill," blared the intercom. "You are under arrest, according to the Articles of Space, for conspiracy, armed assault...." Scott cut the voice off in mid-sentence. He leaped into the hold, threw his weight behind the box. "Quick. Get it to the pit."

The men lumbered off into the darkness. Even with the light gravity of the asteroid, it was difficult to handle the crate as the scrambling cats pitched it from side to side.

Scott scaled a boulder. The hulk of the _Kastil_ loomed just beyond, dark and threatening. A thin square of light showed at their cargo entrance. They were still completing loading.

"Hurry," Scott muttered feverishly. "Hurry."

The men reached the pit. Carefully, slowly, they lowered the crate into the shadows.

Sweat streaming down his face, Scott tore his eyes from the _Kastil_ hatch, grimly watched as his men scooped rubbish into the pit.

A motion in the darkness. Out where no motion should be. Movement among the sunless stones.

Scott's breathing stopped.

A group of men closing in toward the cargo jet. Men racing out of the shadows. Men of the _Kastil_.

"Stop," Scott shouted frantically into his radio. "Get that crate back to the jet. Get it out of the pit. Back to the jet. It's too late. Hurry. Hurry!"

For a single astounded moment the men paused. Then, sweeping the rubble from the crate, they fumbled it toward the surface of the pit.

Scott leaped down among them. Pushed. "They're going to trap us." The crate struck on the pit's edge. Scott seized one end, forced it up over. "Grab that other end, Masters. Move, man. Don't argue. Move!"

Staggering over the uneven ground, they lurched toward the jet.

"I think you ought to rest for a moment." It was the cool voice of Randell, who stepped from the darkness with a blaster turned full on them.

Crewmen from the _Kastil_ poured from among the rocks. Their blasters swung a menacing ring about Scott and his men.

"Step back away from the crate." Randell stepped forward, tapped his blaster against the side of the box. "Now what do we have here."

"Keep away from that," Scott snarled. "That's property of the _Bertha_."

"Is it?" Randell turned carelessly to his men. "Property of the _Bertha_," he drawled. "Well, we'd better have a look at it now. To make sure you haven't accidentally salvaged some of the _Kastil's_ equipment. Oh, quite by accident, I understand."

He began to loosen the screw-clamps of the lid.

"Stop!" Scott leaped forward, no longer conscious of the weapons swinging on him. He dropped his hand upon the box.

"This is mine," he said. "I forbid you to touch it."

"Have you ever seen a man die of a blaster bolt?" Randell asked. "Step back."

The men of the _Bertha_ fell back. Their shoulders touched the toothed rim of stone about the pit.

Randell chuckled. "Perhaps it's just as well we didn't blast off when we were loaded. There was always a chance you'd found something else of value here."

He flicked the muzzle of the blaster about. "If you don't mind, we'll inspect this crate in a better light. Back at the _Kastil_."

Triumph leaped through Scott. "This is piracy," he said, and sounded sincere.

"Piracy is what is proven," Randell laughed. "Do you really think you have a case in our courts?" He sighed softly. "Now, thank you for this unexpected pleasure. And good-bye. We'll see each other again on Earth, perhaps."

Then they were gone and immediately afterward, the _Kastil_, balancing on a white line of flame, leaped away from the asteroid and flashed out past the stars.

Scott stared after it, a faint smile touching his lips. About him rang the triumphant laughter of the crew.

Someone gripped Scott's shoulder. "Captain Elderburg on the intercom, Mister Scott. I just told him. And--congratulations, sir."

Scott grinned. Entering the jet, he faced the intercom, said: "It's over now, Captain."

"Good work, Mister Scott." Elderburg's voice was unsteady. "How did you do it?"

"Pretended to be taking something of value," Scott said. He relaxed back against the seat. "I knew Randell couldn't resist making a clean sweep of everything we had. So I gave him the chance."

Elderburg's laugh filled the cabin. "And when they open the crate...."

"Good-bye uranium." Pale eyes smiling, Scott waved a knotted fist. "And now, sir, we're going to start mining ore. This is our claim now. And we'll be blasting out of here in forty hours with the biggest load of uranium ore Earth ever got its hands on."