Part 8

"You'd get the course of the treasure ship from the spaceport, fine and good, by resorting to spies and such. You'd lie in wait out there in the blackness of space, fixing your position by the stars and hoping that your error in fix was less than a couple of hundred thousand miles. The time comes. You look to your musket, sharpen your cutlass, and see to the priming of your derringers that are thrust into the red sash at your waist. You are right on the course, due to your brilliant though lawless navigator who was tossed out of astrogator's school for filching the teacher's whiskey. Then the treasure ship zoops past at a healthy hundred miles per second and you decide that since she is hitting it up at two G, you'd have had to start from scratch at a heck of a lot better to catch her within the next couple of light years."

"But suppose you took the course as laid and applied the same acceleration? Suppose you followed on the heels of your quarry until you were both in space? You could do it then, couldn't you?"

"Gosh," said Channing, "I never thought of that. That's the only way a guy could pirate a ship--unless he planted his men on board and they mutinied."

"Then it might be pirates?"

"It might be," admitted Channing. "It'd have to occur near beginning or end, of course, though. I can't think of anything safer than being shot at out of a gun of any kind while both crates are hitting it up at a couple of hundred miles per second and at a distance of a few miles apart. It would be all right if you were both running free, but at two G acceleration, you'd have to do quite a bit of ballistic gymnastics to score a hit."

"Or run in front of your quarry and sow a bouquet of mines."

"Except that the meteor detector would show the position of the pirate craft in the celestial globe and the interconnecting circuits would cause the treasure ship to veer off at a sharp angle. Shucks, Doug, this thing has got too many angles to it. I can't begin to run it off either way. No matter how difficult it may sound, there are still ways and means to do it. The one thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the fact that the _Solar Queen_ has turned up missing. Since no inanimate agency could cause failure, piracy is the answer."

"You're sure of that?"

"Not positive. There are things that might cause the ship to founder. But what they are depends on too many coincidences. It's like hitting a royal flush on the deal, or filling a full house from two pairs."

"Well, thanks, Channing. I'm heading back to Canalopsis right now. Want to come along?"

Channing looked at Arden, who was coming from the dressing room carrying her coat and he nodded. "The gal says yes," he grinned. "Annoy her until I find my shoes, will you?"

Arden wrinkled her nose at Don. "I'll like that," she said to Doug.

* * * * *

The trip from Lincoln Head to Canalopsis was a fast one. Doug drove the little flier through the thin air of Mars at a breakneck speed and covered the twelve hundred miles in just shy of an hour. At the spaceport, Channing found that he was not denied the entrance as the reporter had been. He was ushered into the office of Keg Johnson, and he and the manager of the Canalopsis Spaceport greeted Don with a worried expression on his face.

"Still gone," said Johnson cryptically. "Like the job of locating her?"

Don shook his head with a sympathetic smile. "Like trying to find a grain of sand on a beach--a specified grain, I mean. Wouldn't know how to go about it."

Keg nodded. "I thought as much. That leaves her out of the picture. Well, up to now space travel has been about as safe as spending the evening in your easy-chair. Hello, Arden, how's married life?"

"Can't tell yet," she said with a twinkle. "I've got to find out whether I can break him of a dozen bad habits before I'll commit myself."

"I wish you luck, Arden, although from that statement, it's Don that needs the luck."

"We came to see if there was anything we could do about the _Solar Queen_," offered Channing.

"What can anybody do?" asked Keg with spread hands. "About all we can do is to put it down in our remembrances and turn to tomorrow. Life goes on, you know," said Keg in a resigned tone, "and either we keep up or we begin to live in the past. Are you going to stay here for a day or two?"

"Was thinking about it," said Don.

"Well, suppose you register at the Terraland and meet me back here for lunch. If anything occurs, I'll shoot you a quickie." Keg looked at his watch and whistled. "Lordy," he said ruefully. "I didn't know how late it was. Look, kids, I'll run you downtown myself, and we'll all have lunch at the Terraland. How's that?"

"Sounds better," admitted Channing. "My appetite, you know."

"I know," laughed Arden. "Come on, meat-eater, and we'll peel a calf."

It was during lunch that a messenger raced into the dining room and handed Keg a letter. Keg read, and then swore roundly. He tossed the letter across the table to Don and Arden.

TO THE OPERATORS OF ALL SPACELINES:

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOUR SHIPS NEED PROTECTION. THE ABSENCE OF THE SOLAR QUEEN IS PROOF ENOUGH THAT YOUR EFFORTS ARE INSUFFICIENT TO INSURE THE ARRIVAL OF A SPACESHIP AT ITS DESTINATION.

I AM CAPABLE OF OFFERING PROTECTION AT THE REASONABLE RATE OF ONE DOLLAR SOLARIAN FOR EVERY GROSS TON, WITH THE RETURN OF TEN DOLLARS SOLARIAN IF ANY SHIP FAILS TO COME THROUGH SAFELY. I THINK THAT YOU MAY FIND IT NECESSARY TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY INSURANCE, SINCE WITHOUT MY PROTECTION I CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURES.

ALLISON (HELLION) MURDOCH.

"Why the dirty racketeer," stormed Arden. "Who is he, anyway?"

"Hellion Murdoch is a man of considerable ability as a surgeon and a theoretical physicist," explained Don. "He was sentenced to the gas chamber ten years ago for trying some of his theories out on human beings without their consent. He escaped with the aid of fifteen or twenty of his cohorts who had stolen the _Hippocrates_ right out of the private spaceport of the Solarian Medical Research Institute."

"And they headed for the unknown," offered Keg. "Wonder where they've been for the last ten years?"

"I'll bet a hat that they've been in the Melapalan Jungle, using the machine shop of the _Hippocrates_ to fashion guns. That machine shop was a dilly, if I remember correctly."

"It was. The whole ship was just made to be as self-sustaining as it could be. They used to run all over the System in it, you know, chasing bugs. But look, Don, if I were you, I'd begin worrying about Venus Equilateral. That's where he'll hit next."

"You're right. But what are you going to do?"

"Something that will drive him right out to the relay station," said Keg in a sorrowful tone. "Sorry, Don, but when I put an end to all space shipping for a period of six weeks, Hellion Murdoch will be sitting in your lap."

"He sure will," said Channing nervously. "Arden, are you willing to run a gantlet?"

"Sure," she answered quickly. "Are you sure that there will be no danger?"

"Reasonably sure, or I wouldn't take you with me. Unless Murdoch has managed to build himself a couple of extra ships, we've got a chance in three that he'll be near one of the other two big spaceports. So we'll slide out of here unannounced and at a peculiar time of day. We'll load up with gravanol and take it all the way to the station at six G."

"He may have two or three ships," said Keg. "A man could cover all the standard space shipping in three, and he might not have too bad a time with two, especially if he were only out looking for those which weren't paid for. But, look, I wouldn't check out of the Terraland if I were you. Keep this under cover. Your heap is all ready to take sky from Canalopsis Spaceport and you can leave directly."

"Hold off on your announcement as long as possible," Don asked Keg.

Johnson smiled and nodded. "I'll give you time to get there anyway. But I've no control over what will be done at Northern Landing or Mojave. They may kick over the traces."

"Arden, we're moving again," laughed Don. "Keg, ship us our duds as soon as this affair clears up." Channing scribbled a message on the back of Murdoch's letter. "Shoot this off to Walt Franks, will you? I won't wait for an answer, that'll take about fifty minutes, and by that time I'll have been in space for twenty."

They paused long enough to stop at the nurse's office at the spaceport for a heavy shot of gravanol and a thorough bracing with wide adhesive tape. Then they made their way to the storage space of the spaceport where they entered their small ship. Channing was about to send the power lever home when the figure of Keg Johnson waved him to stop.

Keg ran up to the space lock and handed in a paper.

"You're it," he said. "Good luck, Channings."

It was another message from Hellion Murdoch. It said, bluntly:

TO DONALD A. CHANNING, PH.D.: DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS:

CONSIDERABLE DIFFICULTY HAS BEEN EXPERIENCED IN TRANSMITTING MESSAGES TO THE INTERESTED PARTIES. I DESIRE A FREE HAND IN TELLING ALL WHO CARE THE PARTICULARS OF MY INSURANCE.

SINCE YOUR RELAY STATION IS IN A POSITION TO CONTROL ALL COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE WORLDS, I AM OFFERING YOU THE OPTION OF EITHER SURRENDERING THE STATION TO ME, OR OF FIGHTING ME FOR ITS POSSESSION. I AM CONFIDENT THAT YOU WILL SEE THE INTELLIGENT COURSE; AN UNARMED STATION IN SPACE IS NO MATCH FOR A FULLY ARMED AND EXCELLENTLY MANNED CRUISER.

YOUR ANSWER WILL BE EXPECTED IN FIVE DAYS.

ALLISON (HELLION) MURDOCH.

Channing snarled and thrust the power lever down to the last notch. The little ship leaped upward at five G, and was gone from sight in less than a minute.

Arden shook her head. "What was that message you sent to Franks?" she asked.

"I told him that there was a wild-eyed pirate on the loose, and that he might take a stab at the station. We are coming in as soon as we can get there and to be on the lookout for us on the landing communications radio, and also for anything untoward in the nature of space vessels."

"Then this is not exactly a shock," said Arden, waving the message from Murdoch.

"Not exactly," said Channing dryly. "Now look, Arden, you go to sleep. This'll take hours and hours, and gabbing about it will only lay you out cold."

"I feel fine," objected Arden.

"I know, but that's the gravanol, not you. The tape will keep you intact, and the gravanol will keep you awake without nausea. But you can't get something for nothing, Arden, and when that gravanol wears off, you'll spend ten times as long with one-tenth of the trouble you might have had. So take it easy for yourself now and later you'll be glad that you aren't worse."

The sky blackened, and Channing knew that they were free in space. Give them another fifteen minutes and the devil himself couldn't find them. With no flight plan scheduled and no course posted, they might as well have been in the seventeenth dimension. As they emerged from the thin atmosphere, there was a fleeting flash of fire from several miles to the east, but Channing did not pay particular attention to it. Arden looked through a telescope and thought she saw a spaceship circling, but she could not be sure.

Whatever it was, nothing came of it.

The trip out to the station was a monotonous series of uneventful hours, proceeding along one after the other. They dozed and slept most of the time, eating sparingly and doing nothing that was not absolutely necessary.

Turnabout was accomplished and then the deceleration began, equally long and equally monotonous. It was equally inactive. Channing tried to plan, but it failed because he could not plan without talking and discussing the affair with his men. Too much depended upon their co-operation. He fell into a morose, futile feeling that made itself evident in grousing; Arden tried to cheer him, but Don's usually bubbling spirit was doused too deep. Also, Arden herself was none too happy, which is necessary before one can cheer another.

Then they sighted the station and Channing's ill spirit left. A man of action, what he hated most was the no-action business of just sitting in a little capsule waiting for the relay station to come up out of the sky below. Once it was sighted, Channing foresaw action, and his grousing stopped.

They zipped past the station at a distance of ten miles, and Channing opened the radio.

"Walt Franks! Wake up, you slumberhead."

The answer came inside of half a minute. "Hello, Don. Who's asleep?"

"Where are you? In Joe's?"

"Joe has declared a drought for the duration," said Franks with a laugh. "He thinks we can't think on Scotch."

"We can't. Have you seen the boys?"

"Murdoch's crew? Sure, they're circling at about five miles, running around in the plane of the ecliptic. Keep running on the colure and the chances are that you won't even see 'em. But, Don, they can hear us!"

"How about the landing stage at the south end?"

"There are two of them running around the station at different heights from north to south. The third is circling in a four-mile circle on a plane five miles south of the station. We've picked up a few HE shells, and I guess that, if you try to make a landing there, you'll be shot to bits. That devil is using the meteor detector for a gun pointer."

"Walt, remember the visual loran?"

"Y'mean the one we used to find the _Empress_?"

"Uh-huh. Rig it without the mirrors? Get me? D'you know what I want to do?"

"Yop. All we have to do is clear away some of the saw grass again. Not too much, though, because it hasn't been too long since we cut it before. I get you all right."

"Fine. How soon?"

"I'm in the beam control north, I've got a portable mike, and I walk over to the mirror and begin to tinker with the screws. _Ouch!_ I've skun me a knuckle. Now look, Don, I'm going inside and crack the passage end. I've broadcast throughout the station that it is to be cracked, and the men are swarming all over the axis of the station doing just that. Come--a-running!"

Channing circled the little ship high to the north and came down toward the axis of the station. He accelerated fiercely for a portion of the time, and then made a slambang turnabout. A pilot light on the instrument panel gleamed, indicating that some of the plates were strained and that the ship was leaking air. Another light lit, indicating that the automatic pressure control was functioning, and that the pressure was maintained, though it might not long be.

Then in deceleration, Channing fought the ship on to a die-straight line with the open door at the north end. He fixed the long, long passageway in the center of his sights, and prayed.

The ship hit the opening squarely, and only then did their terrific speed become apparent. Past bulkhead after bulkhead they drove, and a thin scream came to their ears as the atmosphere down in the bowels of the station was compressed by the tiny ship's passage.

Doors slammed behind the ship as it passed, and air locks were opened, permitting the station's center to fill to its normal pressure once more.

Then the rocketing ship slowed. Channing saw a flash of green and knew that the Martian saw grass was halfway down the three-mile length of the station. He zipped past storerooms and rooms filled with machinery, and then the ship scraped lightly against one of the bulkheads.

It caromed from this bulkhead against the next, hitting it in a quartering slice. From side to side the ship bounced, crushing the bulkheads and tearing great slices from the flanks of the ship.

It slowed, and came to rest against a large room full of packing cases, and was immediately swarmed over by the men of Venus Equilateral.

They found Channing partly conscious. His nose was bleeding but otherwise he seemed all right. Arden was completely out, though a quick check by the station's medical staff assured Don that she would be all right as soon as they gave her a workout. He was leaving the center of the station when Franks came puffing up the stairway from the next lowest level.

"Gosh," he said. "It's a real job trying to guess where you stopped. I've been hitting every hundred feet and asking. Well, that was one for the book."

"Yeah," groaned Don. "Come along, Walt. I want a shower. You can give the resumé of the activities while I'm showering and trying to soak this adhesive off. Arden, lucky girl, will be unconscious when Doc rips it off; I never liked the way they remove tape."

"There isn't much to tell," said Franks. "But what there is, I'll tell you."

* * * * *

Channing was finishing the shower when Walt mentioned that it was too bad that they hadn't started his electron gun a few weeks sooner.

Don shut off the water, fumbled for a towel, and said: "What?"

Franks repeated.

Again Channing said: "What? Are you nuts?"

"No. I've been tinkering with an idea of mine. If we had another month to work on it, I think we might be able to clip Murdoch's ears."

"Just what are you using in this super weapon, chum?"

Franks explained.

"Mind if I put in an oar?" asked Channing.

"Not at all. So far we might be able to fry a smelt at twenty feet, or we could cook us a steak. But I haven't been able to do a thing yet. We had it working once, and I think we heated a meteor somewhat, but the whole thing went blooey before we finished the test. I've spent the last week and a half fixing the thing up again, and would have tried it out on the next meteor, but your message brought a halt to everything but cleaning up the mess and making ready just in case we might think of something practical."

"I'll put in my first oar by seeing the gadget. Wait till I find my pants, and I'll go right along."

Don inspected the installation and whistled. "Not half bad, sonny, not half bad."

"Except that we haven't been able to make it work."

"Well, for one thing, you've been running on the wrong track. You need more power."

"Sure," grinned Walt. "More power, he says. I don't see how we can cram any more soup into this can. She'll melt."

"Walt, what happens in a big gun?"

"Powder burns; expanding products of combustion push--"

"Functionally, what are you trying to accomplish? Take it on the basis of a solid shot, like they used to use back in the sailing ship days."

"Well," said Walt thoughtfully, "I'd say they were trying to heave something large enough to do damage."

"Precisely. Qualifying that statement a little, you might say that the projectile transmits the energy of the powder charge to its objective."

"Right," agreed Walt.

"And it is possible to transmit that energy mechanically. I think if we reason this idea out in analogy, we might be able to do it electrically. First, there is the method. There is nothing wrong with your idea, functionally. Electron guns are as old as radio. They--"

The door opened and Arden entered. "Hi, fellows," she said, "What's cooking?"

"Hi, Arden. Like marriage?" Walt asked.

"How long do people have to be married before people stop asking that darn fool question?" asked Arden.

"O.K., how about your question?"

"I meant that. I ran into Warren, who told me that the brains were down here tinkering on something that was either a brilliant idea or an equally brilliant flop--he didn't know which. What goes?"

"Walt has turned Buck Rogers and is now about to invent a ray gun."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Here's where we open a psychopathic ward," said Arden sadly. "So far, Venus Equilateral is the only community that hasn't had a village idiot. But no longer are we unique. Seriously, Walt?"

"Sure enough," said Channing. "He's got an idea here that may work with a little tinkering."

"Brother Edison, we salute you," said Arden. "How does it work?"

"Poorly. Punk. Lousy."

"Well, sound recording has come a long way from the tinfoil cylinder that scratched out: 'Mary had a little lamb!' And transportation has come along swell from the days of sliding sledges. You may have the nucleus of an idea, Walt. But I meant its operation instead of its efficiency."

"We have an electron gun of super size," explained Walt. "The cathode is a big affair six feet in diameter and capable of emitting a veritable storm of electrons. We accelerate them by means of properly spaced anodes of the proper voltage level, and we focus them into a nice bundle by means of electrostatic lenses--"

"Whoah, Tillie, you're talking like the venerable Buck Rogers himself. Say that in words of one cylinder, please," chuckled Arden.

"Well, any voltage gradient between electrodes of different voltage acts as a prism, sort of. When you have annular electrodes of the proper size, shape, and voltage difference, they act as a lens."

"In other words, the ring-shaped electrodes are electrostatic lenses?"

"Nope. It is the space between them. With light or electrons a convex lens will converge the light no matter which direction the light is coming from."

"Uh-huh. I see in a sort of vague manner. Now, fellows, go on from there. What's necessary to make this dingbat tick?"

"I want to think out loud," said Channing.

"That's nothing unusual," said Arden. "Can't we go into Joe's? You can't think without a tablecloth, either."

"What I'm thinking is this, Walt. You've been trying to squirt electrons like a fireman runs a hose. Walt, how long do you suppose a sixteen-inch rifle would last if the explosives were constantly replaced and the fire burned constantly?"

"Not long," admitted Walt.

"A gun is an overloaded machine," said Don. "Even a little one. The life of a gun barrel is measured in seconds; totalling up the time of transit of all the rounds from new gun to worn barrel gives a figure expressed in seconds. Your electron gun, Walt, whether it be fish, flesh, or fowl, must be overloaded for an instant."

"Is overload a necessary requirement?" asked Arden. "It seems to me that you might be able to bore a sixteen-inch gun for a twenty-two. What now, little man?"

"By the time we get something big enough to do more than knock paint off, we'll have something bigger than a twenty-two," grinned Channing. "I was speaking in terms of available strength versus required punch. In the way that a girder will hold tremendous overloads for brief instants, a gun is overloaded for milliseconds. We'll have a problem--"

"O.K., aside from that, have you figured out why I haven't been able to do more than warm anything larger than a house brick?"

"Sure," laughed Channing. "What happens in a multi-grid radio tube when the suppressor grid is hanging free?"

"Charges negative and blocks the electron stream ... hey! That's it!"

"What?" asked Arden.

"Sure," said Walt. "We fire off a batch of electrons, and the first contingent that arrives charges the affair so that the rest of the beam sort of wriggles out of line."

"Your meteor is going to take on a charge of phenomenal negative value, and the rest of your beam is going to be deflected away, just as your electron lenses deflect the original beam," said Channing. "And now another thing, old turnip. You're squirting out a lot of electrons. That's much amperage. Your voltage--velocity--is nothing to rave about even though it sounds high. Watts is what you want, to corn a phrase."

"_Phew_," said Walt. "Corn, he says. Go on, prodigy, and make with the explanations. I agree, we should have more voltage and less quantity. But we're running the stuff at plenty of voltage now. Nothing short of a Van Der Graf generator would work--and while we've got one up on the forty-ninth level, we couldn't run a supply line down here without reaming a fifty-foot hole through the station, and then I don't know how we'd get that kind of voltage down here without ... that kind of stuff staggers the imagination. You can't juggle a hundred million volts on a wire. She'd squirt off in all directions."