Chapter 1

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Amazing Stories August 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Jack Of No Trades

By CHARLES COTTRELL

_First we discovered the Willy Maloon category. Then we discovered Willy himself. Then we data-researched, and postulated a theory. Everything was easy, until it came to the question of proof._

* * * * *

This thing really started before the time I had Willy Maloon under observation when he gunned the small runabout well past cruising speed in order to reach the little asteroid as soon as he could. At times like that he showed undue impatience. I was following at a discreet distance behind him, homing in on the rock, too. I had to find out what he was up to.

Archie Crosby, the obliging scoundrel, had "lent" Willy the homer unit out of supply. But, of course, he (Willy) had requested it in words to the effect that it was to replace a defective one in the cache. And Archie didn't doubt Willy for a moment, Willy being the kind of fellow he is.

Willy had worked a couple of hours on the homer unit, which is nothing more than a small radio transmitter. He tuned it to a frequency on the high side of the band used by the homer units in the cache. This was so no one would be likely to inadvertently tune the frequency and get curious. Tuning any of the vehicle receivers to that particular transmitter frequency was a simple matter. Then he had taken the transmitter out among the asteroids and hunted around until he had found one about two miles or thereabouts in diameter, only it couldn't be said to have a diameter because it was quite irregular in shape. But to Willy it must have been as fascinating as a jewel. So he planted the homer on it so that he could find it again when he wanted to. Of course, he hadn't yet thought of a reason for wanting an asteroid, but he would. He usually found reasons for the strange things he did.

And he did. It must have been just after Ollie Hadaway lost control of his tug. It had been headed in the direction of a rather large asteroid. Ollie had tried to unjumble the steering jets, but he couldn't, so he bailed out and was picked up a little later. The tug went on and shattered on the surface of the asteroid. Then later, Willy, at my directions, investigated the accident, examined the tug, and wrote up an accident report on it. And the inspection part of it must have gone something like this:

When Willy arrived to examine the shattered tug on the surface of the asteroid, he must have been pleasantly surprised to note that the hull was a battered mess, but miraculously some of the innards were intact. He must have looked closer and saw that the drive unit had escaped destruction. The drive unit of a tug is a super-heavy duty workhorse of a unit chock full of more power than would ever be packed or needed in a conventional ship of the same size. But as I said before, this was a propulsion unit from a tug, and tugs like ones we use need plenty of power.

And that must have been when Willy decided on a reason for having his own private asteroid. He would add the drive unit to it and make it mobile. He must have sparkled with the idea for the rest of the day. I recall his accident report saying the tug was a total loss. Of course, no one checked Willy's decision on that.

* * * * *

I also had Willy under observation the time he retrieved the drive unit and took it to his newly acquired privately owned (now) asteroid. The peculiar shape of the asteroid would lend itself to adaptation to mobility. So Willy blasted off the tip of the elongated end with some explosives he had diverted from some other project, drilled it out with some small charges, and fitted the drive unit in it, and anchored it down. It had taken quite a while to do all that, but Willy had interminable patience once he started a project. The entire procedure would seem impossible for one man, but bulk and weight were no problems in space. And Willy constantly worked miracles.

The question of what value a mobile asteroid would be among swarms of non-mobile asteroids way out in space where there was no place to go never seemed to have entered Willy's mind.

(Now when I speak of "night" and "day," I speak of those periods of the twenty-four hour clock set forth as working and non-working periods. The working part was the "day" part of the twenty-four hours, during which we all engaged in our contracted occupations. The rest of the time until the twenty-four hour period ended was considered "night." Naturally, among the asteroids there was no rising and setting of the sun to help designate the passage of time. The reference to night and day is a habit which persists with space men no matter which part of the system they happen to be in.)

A few days after Willy had finished installing the drive unit in his asteroid, a small company speedster came to a near-halt at the outer fringes of our section of the asteroid belt. For the next eighty hours it felt its way by radar through the belt, dodging and going around the larger bodies, and slowing its speed whenever it became necessary to shoulder its way through masses of smaller debris and dust.

Finally it had our station in sight visually, and in a matter of hours later, it was edging its sleek sixty feet of length into a side gantry attached to the station.

Mr. Garfield Goil disembarked from the speedster with a small retinue. He was greeted on the inside of the lock by Mr. Orrin, our station manager. As operations engineer-foreman, I was there with Orrin to greet Mr. Goil.

Mr. Goil's presence had been expected for the past several days, but not especially looked forward to. His status and stature with the Extraterrestrial Mining Company was well known to all of us, and certainly respected. His volatile temperament was well known also; it commanded our concern. And if ever Mr. Goil's temperament was to be put to a test, it was during one of his inspection visits. And that was what he had come for--his first to this station.

As I remember, there had always been conjecture on whether Mr. Goil's temperament was the result of his physical topography, or whether his physical topography had been altered by his temperament. In either case, Mr. Garfield Goil was representative of that only appellation inevitable to him because of his facial features and his name. And Mr. Goil was perpetually bitter and approached the world--any world--with a chip welded to his shoulder.

* * * * *

I tagged along as Orrin escorted Goil to his quarters and broke the seal on a bottle of bourbon he had been saving for this particular occasion.

It had been the wrong thing to do. Goil promptly informed Orrin that not only was he (Goil) a teetotaler, but also that he was opposed to drinking by anyone else, especially by company employees during duty hours, and in a place other than an authorized area such as the recreation room or the station bar. He told him further that he would not condone such practices while he was around; his immediate job was to inspect operations personally. His accompanying teams would dig deeply into other matters such as personnel, supplies, overall operations efficiency, and so on. Work would begin as soon as possible.

Goil then excused himself coldly and left for the VIP quarters.

Point number one for the opposition, I thought. Why hadn't someone warned us about the peculiarities of the man?

I hoped nothing would go wrong with the inspection. If things went well, Goil and his cohorts could get their business over with and get away from here that much faster. I was more than a little concerned about Willy and what he was doing.

Willy had spent two days, mostly off-duty time, visiting and working on the asteroid he had adopted, his two miles of irregular monstrosity. In his spurt of activity to install the drive unit, he had over-calculated a charge of explosives and blown out too much of the end section of the asteroid. That caused him some concern for a little while. In a flash of what he probably considered to be pure genius, he solved that minor problem by deciding to fill in the hole by installing a sub-space energizer. This first flash of genius was apparently followed by another inspirational flash. He could, with both installations, and some additional work, send the thing back to Earth. He must have been proud of the thought, for private satellites around Earth were all the rage now; no one who was Anyone was without one. Besides that, it would make a wonderful birthday present for his wife. Her birthday was only a matter of days away.

* * * * *

Goil's first request was to observe a day's operation. I had made what few arrangements were necessary, and Goil and I started out early so we could get into position and see the operations from the start.

We had one of the observation flitters. I took it about twenty thousand miles out from the area of operations and parked with the forward port facing the area. I said:

"We'll watch from here, Mr. Goil. You can see the debris floating down there." I pointed, and Goil looked at the little pin points of light reflecting from a great volume of dust, nebula-like in its dim luminosity. "When the crew starts actual operation, we will turn on the magnification screens and get some close-up views of the process."

"Please explain this to me," said Goil. "I've never seen an asteroid's operation before."

"Of course, Mr. Goil. I didn't know. This asteroid patch, or vein, as we like to call it, has a better than average content of metal ores and compounds. As you can see, we have swept the loose ends, so to speak, together. And there you see the result. In the center of that nebulous sort of mass is a large asteroid. There is at least one in almost every patch. We use that as the core, and by planting a large gravity generator on it and feeding it a great deal of power, it and the asteroid attracts most of the nearby debris. The gravity generator has been souped up tremendously. It burns out rather quickly, but it operates long enough for our purposes. There is a respectable layer of assorted sizes of asteroids hugging the core. And there are several miles of dust surrounding everything. After the gravity generator has burned out, the big attraction dies out, of course. But the proximity of the debris is still enough to hold them together for some time."

"What is that stray body off to one side?"

"That is the trigger asteroid," I answered.

A couple of minutes before triggering time, I reached over and punched the channel button on operations frequency. Immediately the usual operations chatter came rushing out at us from the speaker. Suddenly a voice blasted out saying, "Ready, Sam? Clear, everybody! Eyes off! Ten to go!" A countdown was started.

I had switched on four screens, each a different magnification. I pointed to a spheroid on one of the screens and said, "There's the trigger body. It's equipped with a sub-space energizer big enough to get it into sub-space and return it to normal. Then there is a small propulsor unit with just enough energy to send it to the center of that mess. Then it returns to normal space smack dab in the center of the core asteroid. And when the asteroid matter and the trigger body matter try to occupy the same space at the same time.... Watch it go out."

It did. Just disappeared.

The debris-encrusted mass vaporized. It seemed to do it slowly, lazily. Much of the debris was flung out from the mass, but raw energy of boiling vapors chased it, overtook it, and then it too was vapor. The light emitted from the vaporizing collection of bodies would have been optic nerve searing if Goil and I had not been looking at it through the screens. The vapor continued to expand and spread until it looked like a miniature nebula.

I said, "The triggering body is about half the size of the core body. The heat that results from the explosion vaporizes nearly a hundred per cent of the material. What little solid matter that escapes is of little consequence."

Goil watched in fascination. The spectrum of colors displayed were unbelievably, indescribably beautiful. The brilliant cloud masses that boiled and leaped around were like things alive trying to escape the terrible inner torment.

* * * * *

A long time passed, but the sight was so hypnotizing that Goil seemed to be unaware of just how long he had been watching. Finally I broke the silence.

"Watch the specks on the far left screen. They are the gravitor tugs. They are ready to move in."

I stepped up the magnification on the screen. Goil watched a number of great, ugly ships line abreast, head for the glowing clouds, enter, and disappear from sight.

"Those tugs are modifications of the scientific ships that sweep close to the sun to observe solar phenomena first hand. They are impervious to the relatively low heat of the vapor. They will do the fringes first. The center is still too turbulent. By the time they complete the fringes, the center will be calm enough to sweep. They work their way inward all the time."

"How long will it take to complete the operation?" Goil asked.

"With a cloud this size, about a week. It's best to get on it right away. The tougher metals come out sooner than the softer and lighter metals with lower vaporizing points. Recovery has to be made while the metals are in the vapor state or the gravitors won't work efficiently."

"Exactly how does it work?" asked Goil.

"Well, I guess you might remotely compare it to fractional distillation," I said. "Only we gather metals instead of fluids. The reason for vaporizing the solids is to make the ships accessible to the metals. It spreads the matter out thin. The gravitors work very well in the hot vapor. Behind each ship is towed a gravitor. Each gravitor is set to attract a particular metal, somewhat the way a magnet attracts iron, again loosely comparing. A magnet, as you know, attracts by magnetic force. The gravitors are adjusted to attract a metal by selecting its gravitic attraction. As the gravitor ships pass through the vapor, the gravitors behind them attract the metal they are set for. When load size has been reached, they are taken to the cache near the station."

* * * * *

We watched the operation for three more hours. Goil wanted to see the first of the gravitor tugs emerge with its load. Finally a ship emerged from the cloud mass and headed for the station.

"What is it carrying?" Goil asked, looking at the tremendous mass of incandescent material being towed a mile behind the tug.

"Tungsten," I said. "Would you like to see our cache?"

I steered the little observation ship past the station. When we arrived at the cache area I eased the speed of the ship until it was barely moving around among tremendous masses of various metals. Goil recognized small spheroids of gold and silver. I pointed out other metals, some in greater quantities than others, all floating in space, with thick cables connecting them. I saw Goil looking at the cables curiously.

"Keeps them from drifting apart," I said.

For another twenty minutes we cruised around the cache. Goil said only a word now and then. He was visibly impressed by the mountains of metal all around, all representing untold potential wealth. I think he better understood how such an expensive operation so far from Earth could be quite profitable.

"You may wonder," I said, "just how I located this cache. There are several little transmitters among the piles. I just home in on any one of them. Each metal cache has its own frequency. Gold, silver, tungsten, beryllium...."

Goil nodded. "Let's go back to the station."

* * * * *

Goil called for Orrin and me. We entered his temporary quarters.

"Sit down," he said. He suggestively waved smoke away from his face, and Orrin stubbed out his cigar.

"Mr. Orrin," Goil started, "you may have one of the top asteroid mining stations, but in spite of your fine production record, there seem to be some discrepancies we don't understand.

"For example, certain supply items are being used in greater quantities than the size of your operations require. This seems to have been going on for some time according to your records--and what your records do not show. Your expendable supplies items accounting seems to be lax, if not outright careless. Furthermore, there seems to be some non-expendable items that can't be accounted for, a couple of major items among them. This doesn't make much sense out here in the middle of nowhere, unless careless loss is the answer. Such losses could hardly be attributed to theft. Needless to say, theft out here would serve a thief absolutely no purpose."

"What major items are not accounted for?" asked Orrin, with a puzzled look on his face, as if he didn't believe Goil.

"The only thing I can recall offhand," said Goil, "is a tug. And that's pretty major."

I gave an inner sigh of relief. "I can account for that," I said. "And Mr. Orrin can back me up. The tug lost steering control the other day and crashed into one of the larger asteroids. It was demolished. The accident report and destruction data are a little slow getting into the records section."

"That's right," said Orrin. "Willy Maloon made the inspection and I certified it. Total loss. The tug was going mighty fast when it hit."

"Where are the remains?" asked Goil.

"Whenever anything big enough is destroyed," I answered, "it is placed with the next batch of asteroids to be vaporized. The metals are recovered that way, so the thing is not quite a total loss. That tug was vaporized during the operation we watched yesterday."

"I see," said Goil. "And this man, ah--Maloon--can he be trusted on such an inspection?"

"One of the best," I answered.

"Anyway," continued Goil, "there seems to be something peculiar going on here. I've instructed my teams to go into this as deeply as they can."

Orrin nodded. I nodded too, but I felt a bit apprehensive. This was an awkward time for Goil to have arrived. And it might prove even more awkward for him to take sudden interest in Willy.

* * * * *

The next day, Goil summoned Orrin and me to his quarters once again. It was about an hour after the end of a normal work-day. Orrin and I were both available, and we met at the door of Goil's quarters at about the same time.

Goil had thunderclouds ready to burst hanging around his head. I could see that as soon as we entered the room. Orrin's spirits visibly dropped. So did mine.

The black cloud over Goil burst. For five minutes without letup he stormed. When Orrin and I recovered a little from the deluge, Goil was saying:

"... complete indications of careless management. And management, Mr. Orrin, starts at the top." He looked hard at Orrin. Then he turned to me adding, "And goes on down. _How_ can you account for a missing sub-space energizer, especially one as large and powerful as the ones we use? And one gravity generator?"

"Huh?" said Orrin, seeming to come out of a daze. "What's missing?"

Goil slowed down a bit. "One gravity generator and one sub-space energizer, Mr. Orrin. One each of these items is used for each vaporizing process. And you have one too few vaporizing projects on record. And one each gravity generator and energizer unsigned for, completely unaccounted for--so far."

"What do you mean, 'so far'?" I asked. "Have you any idea how we can account for these two items?"

"I have indeed," said Goil.

"I don't understand," said Orrin in a helpless tone. "How could anyone lose or misplace anything as big as those? It doesn't make sense."

I was glad Orrin had put the question that way.

"Precisely," said Goil. "I don't believe someone did misplace or lose those items. I believe someone took them for a purpose."

"That's ridiculous!" snapped Orrin. "Out here in space? For what?"

"Maybe we'll learn soon," said Goil. "One William Maloon should be on his way here right now to do some explaining."

I turned cold all over. What had Willy done to expose himself so? I wondered. Aloud I said:

"What has Willy to do with this, Mr. Goil? Willy is one of our best men, completely trustworthy."

"A hard worker and really ambitious," added Orrin.

"No doubt," Goil said acidly. "Ambitious to his own ends. I've checked Mr. Maloon's personnel records and I found some interesting things. Mr. Maloon is not any sort of qualified engineer. Or even an expert technician. Why, he's not even a good journeyman of any trade. His only approach to some sort of claim to formal training is a single correspondence course!"

"He's a good hard-working technician!" defended Orrin.

"Sure," said Goil. "He learned the hard way. Through experience," he added sarcastically. "Can you tell me, Mr. Orrin, exactly what is Mr. Maloon's job here?"

"He's an engineer fill-in," said Orrin with a trace of doubt in his voice. "He's on call and handy for just about any job around here."

"In a limited capacity, no doubt," Goil said dryly. "And he apparently does a lot of jobs around here he's not expected to do. A check of your tool cribs and equipment storage shows that Maloon has had his hands on just about everything you have available at one time or another since he has been here. Mr. Maloon is a very busy man during his off-duty hours, it seems."

"What has this to do with calling Willy in about the missing energizer and generator?" I ventured to ask.

"Part of a suspicion," Goil said. "Maloon's use of company tools and equipment increased just before the disappearance of those two pieces of equipment. It may be significant or it may not. What is significant is this: everybody having access to supply and equipment was out participating in one way or another in the operation the other day. It seems that everybody can be accounted for but Maloon. He could easily have had time to get unauthorized items out of supply."

"This is fantastic!" snorted Orrin.

* * * * *

They don't know the half of it! I thought to myself.

I didn't want Willy to have to face Goil. Willy was weak in some ways.... Aloud I said:

"I know Willy quite well, Mr. Goil. If you will let me talk to him...."

"I'm sure you do," said Goil icily. "You and he came here together. Even applied and were accepted for this job together," he added significantly.

* * * * *

There was a mild knock on the door. It opened slowly and Willy stood in the doorway, hesitating before entering, looking around the room. He said:

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Goil?"

Mr. Garfield Goil, in spite of his somewhat unstable temperament, had made rapid strides in his career to his present staff position. He was no nincompoop. He was well educated and trained, and had apparently learned to measure a man accurately and quickly. He so seemed to measure Willy at a glance, drawing, no doubt, also from his recent examination of Willy's records, and the personality profile he had gleaned from it. Willy (he probably reasoned) for all his foibles would be basically truthful, especially if confronted by Authority. And he apparently was timid and obviously worried. Therefore, he must have some cause to worry. Therefore, the impact of direct action should produce quick results. Mr. Goil asked:

"Willy, we'd like to know what happened to the gravity generator and the sub-space energizer."

Be it noted that it was a statement question and not an accusation. But Goil said it in such a tone and manner that it implied that Willy and only Willy could give an answer.