Chapter 10

With appalling swiftness, where apparently nothing had been before, a military force stepped forth in full armor to grind man's hopes for freedom under an iron heel while waving its fist at the stars.

At first there had been voices crying out against this monstrous action, this unbelievable birth, in the U.N. Assembly. But the voices had become fewer and fewer, weaker and weaker, and in a matter of hours had been drowned out.

Amazingly, even now, there were one or two who stood up in an attempt to stem the tide; but they were ignored, and a ninety-eight per cent favorable vote was cast.

The U.N. Security Forces had been granted dictatorial powers.

For the "duration of the emergency."

The die was cast, and the yoke fitted, ever so snugly but firmly, across mankind's back, while he cheered the fitting.

Captain Nails Andersen sat stunned at his console.

The communications officer sat back, paying little attention to the board before him, a light smirk on his face.

But the smirk dropped from his face suddenly. Rising over the background chatter of the radio announcements from U.N. Headquarters, came loudly over the ship general intercom the voice of Major Steve Elbertson, counting down through the list of Security personnel.

He, too, sat stunned until, as the voice ended "This is war," he came to, stood up needle gun in hand, pointed at the captain.

"I don't know how your slipstick boys cracked our code and picked that message up," he said, "and I don't really care. As you heard, the major has ordered me to take command of the bridge. I hereby do so."

Coming through the bulkhead were two more Security men, each with a needle gun. His gun unwaveringly pointed at the captain, Com Officer Clark reached down and flipped the red switch that turned off the power to all of the ship intercoms.

* * * * *

On board Hot Rod, the Security crew was working against an accelerated time-schedule now. The aiming controls of Hot Rod's big mirror were infinitely precise--and correspondingly slow. As soon as the storage power supply had been wired into the big weapon--a precise operation, requiring both skill and time--the factors had been keyed in that would bring the mirror in an arc, turning it to bear precisely on that area of space through which the passenger spokes of the wheel turned; but the motion of the mirror was infinitesimally slow.

As the crew of Hot Rod strove to get it into position to fire; and the computer on the wheel strove to precess the wheel to a position where firing would be fatal to the firer, it became a race between giant snails.

But already the rim of the big wheel had inched slightly ahead in the race; and the main part of the hub was disappearing behind it. In spite of Elbertson's orders, the big wheel continued to turn its rim directly towards the giant balloon with its bulbous nose.

It was a curious sensation, seeing the big wheel from this angle. Much the same sensation as that of an ant, staring at the oncoming wheel of a huge truck.

* * * * *

In the machine shop, Mike was rummaging around in one of the tool lockers. "Any sort of a small telescope," he muttered, almost to himself. Then "Paul, is there a theodolite or anything like that left lying around in here?"

"Yes," said Paul, moving off to a cabinet in another part of the room. "We needed them when we were putting the wheel together."

"O.K." Mike turned back to the laser milling machine. "Now can we take the focusing lens off of this, and rig something to give me a focus at about 4.5 miles? Or would it need focusing at all? Shooting at that distance?"

"Depends on what you shoot, Mike. The unfocused beam can make a black surface very hot very quick. But from a mirror surface, it would just bounce, unless it's carefully focused."

"It ought to take care of the plastic at least, then."

"Go right through it. You gonna laser Hot Rod?"

"No. Just the anchor tubes that hold the mirror; and maybe a slash through the nitrogen tank at the back. Here, make me a bracket to fit these two things together, so I can see what I'm aiming at." He handed the theodolite telescope and the laser milling-head to Paul.

"How much of the machine do I have to take to power that milling-head?" he asked Tombu.

"Oh, most of it's just control circuits. This box on the back is the power supply. Plugs right in to ship's power."

"Hey!" Mike called over to Paul now busy constructing a bracket. "Make that bracket to hold this power supply, too. Oh, and round me up about sixty feet of extension cord, Tombu."

"But, Mike, how are you going to get out there?" Millie's voice was concerned. "They've probably got men all over the place out here on the rim. If you try to go through the corridor towards an emergency lock, they'll have you sure with their needle guns. You heard Elbertson delegate three men to kill you!"

"I expect I can find a place where they aren't." And picking up the Security radio from the intercom bench, he turned it on and spoke into it.

"Elbertson, this is Mike Blackhawk. You now have twenty minutes to surrender," and he cut off.

Mike turned to Tombu. "Get me some plastic wrapping material. Preferably a plastic bag. I've got to make this stuff waterproof."

When the power supply, telescope, milling head and extension cord were rigged and carefully wrapped in plastic to make a waterproof package, he attached them with a shoulder rope.

"Too bad we didn't make a lock in the wall right here," he muttered. "But I don't suppose the Security guards will be guarding those empty labs over in the R-12 sector. Guess I'm going for a swim now." And with that, Mike reached down and carefully removed the inspection plate from one of the floor tanks, and lowered himself over the edge into the racing waters.

Hanging there with one hand, he carefully pulled his plastic bag into position beside and slightly behind his body, and let go. Instantly he was sucked away into the subdued blue fluorescent-lighted glow of the waters of the rim.

"Glad they figured these planktons need light," he thought to himself. "I'd have a time finding where I'm going in the dark."

Forty-five seconds later, he reached up and snatched at a passing hand-hold, next to a plate marked with the numbers of the lab he sought.

Wrenching the handle of the inspection plate and pushing it free, he climbed out into the deserted lab; made his way out into the corridor, his unwieldy package hanging to his shoulder and runlets of water making a trail behind him--and stepped into the nearby emergency lock.

In the lock he quickly donned one of the emergency spacesuits that hung there, gathered up his bundle again, and stepped out on the catwalk of the inner part of the rim, under the brilliant night sky at the moment, but turning towards its "sunrise." He opened his plastic package.

"Major Elbertson," he said, turning on the Security radio, "you now have five minutes to surrender."

Attaching his suit to the guideline nearby, part of the rim's "hairnet," he crept out over the inside edge of the rim. From this position he had a full view of the glowing bubble that was Hot Rod for the few seconds until the movement of the rim took him past the "sunrise" point and turned him sunwards.

Last time Mike had been out on the rim, the wheel had not been turning. There'd been no reference of up and down, other than the rim itself as an oddly curved floor. Now he felt disoriented. The wheel was spinning, the hub, therefore, seemed "up." And from the edge of the rim where he clung to its hairnet, all directions were down.

* * * * *

The stars seemed to sweep beneath his feet and over his head; and though it was a slow pattern, only twice as fast as the crawl of a second hand around the face of a clock, it was, nevertheless, disorienting.

Bracing himself carefully into the net, with his back wedged firmly against the rim, he adjusted his bizarre "gun" to rest on his knees so that he could sight in the direction that was, to his body's senses, straight down.

Not at all, he thought, like trying to shoot fish in a barrel. More like being the fish and trying to shoot the people outside the barrel.

Back in the shadow again. Not really shadow where he sat, but the rim around him, below him, and curving away from him, had disappeared in its brief nightside, and there came Hot Rod again. Carefully he tracked it; then putting his eye to the scope he focused briefly on one of the high-pressure supporting tubes that formed the rigid structure from which the aiming mirror was held in place.

And fired.

The tube burst, noiselessly but quite spectacularly. And the mirror itself shuddered shook, as the tube's gases escaped.

Now he was in bright sunlight again, quickly closing his eyes as the sun itself looked full into his vision, and slowly passed to be following by Earth, to be followed by a blank stretch of starry space, and here again was Hot Rod.

Carefully he tracked another of the supporting tubes.

And fired.

And again a spectacular, writhing collapse--and this time, the mirror fell free, supported by only two tubes, and permanently out of focus, incapable of aiming the monster beam.

This time, Hot Rod was definitely secure from the misapplication of Security.

"Three minutes," he spoke into the radio. "Your weapon is dead. My next shot will be through the nitrogen tank at your air-lock. I wouldn't advise you to be there."

The wheel turned once more, as the radio came alive from the other end.

"Mr. Blackhawk, do you realize that what you are doing constitutes mutiny in space and will be dealt with accordingly on Earth? I have officially taken control of Hot Rod at the command of my superiors in the new U.N. Security Control Command."

Mike didn't bother to answer. As the wheel turned him towards Hot Rod again, he said into the radio, "Two minutes."

Elbertson's voice came again. "With this new weapon we control Earth. Don't you realize that you can't stand up against the new people's government of Earth?"

The wheel came around. Mike replied: "One minute."

The lock on the Hot Rod control room opened. Frantic tiny figures burst forth, activated scuttlebugs, and started on the five-mile trek back towards the big wheel.

Mike worked his way back through the clinging net to the catwalk, failing completely to see the tiny figure that dodged beneath the rim as he approached.

Glancing around he carefully scanned over the entire inner rim before stepping out into the sunlight of the catwalk itself. Nothing.

Then a blink caught his eye, and he glanced up toward the observatory. There. In the observatory.

He thought for a minute it was someone signaling, but it was only a touch of sunlight on the shiny surface of the automatic tracking telescope, which was poked out of the open shutters of the airless observatory, still doing its automatic job of recording solar phenomena in the absence of the astronomers.

* * * * *

Instead of re-entering the lock as he had intended, Mike linked his safety line to one of the service lines that lay along the nearest spoke, and kicked up it.

On Earth, he could have jumped maybe four feet with that motion. But here, it carried him the full distance to the outer wall of the hub-shielding tank, where he grasped another line, quickly transferred his safety line, and began working his way toward the observatory.

As the intersection of the rim where Mike had been passed into darkness, another figure moved and jumped up the same line he had taken. But this Mike did not notice.

Reaching the bulge at the end of the shielding tank and crawling up over it, Mike made his way up, at an odd reversed angle, through the netting; and into the observatory dome through its open shutter.

Making his way about in the open vacuum in free-fall conditions of the observatory, Mike carefully checked the lock at the main axis to make sure that he could get into it without arousing an alarm for any guards that might be nearby.

The lock showed vacant, and empty. Just as he was about to enter it, he saw another figure in a spacesuit come drifting through the open shutter where he had entered.

Mike stepped into the lock, closed the door behind him as though he had not noticed, and cycled the lock. But he did not remove his suit and did not leave.

As the lock showed clear, the observatory door opened again, and the two spacesuited figures stood face to face. Mike with needle gun raised checked himself in surprise. Then he motioned the other figure into the lock.

"And just what are you doing here?" he inquired as the air around them became sufficient to carry his voice.

"You might have needed help," answered Dr. Millie Williams in a small, scared voice as she took off her helmet and shook out her long hair.

"And just _what_," Mike inquired, "were you planning to do about it besides having me shoot you by mistake?"

Millie held up an oversize pair of calipers. "The Security people," she said, "are not the only ones with weapons. I borrowed this from the machine shop."

Mike stared down at the odd-looking "weapon."

"It's hard," Millie continued, "to look at more than one thing at a time through a spacesuit helmet. I could've got 'em in the air hose while you held their attention."

Mike's chuckle was just a trifle ragged, and his mutter about blood-thirsty panthers didn't really go unheard as he began shucking his spacesuit.

This was the most dangerous point, Mike knew. The axis tube went from the observatory straight through to the south polar lock, with nothing to block sight or sound from traveling its length. They'd have to simply chance it. The spacesuits shucked, he opened the lock.

Their luck held. No Security man was stationed opposite the mouth of the axis tube at the south polar lock.

Halfway to the engineering quarters, Mike stopped, used a special key to open an inspection plate, and they dropped lightly into the huge shielding tank that now held only air. From there the pair back-tracked Mike's original path to the inspection plate in the engineering quarters, and so into his own bailiwick, where they found Ishie standing on catlike guard, a wrench in one hand, waiting for whatever might come up.

"Confusion say," the grinning Chinese physicist declared, "two for one is good luck."

* * * * *

General Steve Elbertson made his way wearily in through the south lock and on to the bridge where he found the communications officer in complete charge with two Security men for assistants. The captain and Bessie were effectively bound, and placed in spare console seats.

General Elbertson made his way to the captain's console and seated himself.

Hot Rod was dead, but their control was by no means lessened.

That he himself had not been shot dead on the way from Hot Rod was, to him, a confirmation of the weakness of his enemies.

The satellite was under his control. The scientists would repair Hot Rod--and well he knew how to see to it that they did so.

U.N. Security Forces were in complete, dictatorial command of Earth.

He had only to eliminate the renegade Indian, and long before the Security scuttlebug, now on its way from Earth loaded with crack troops, should arrive, Security would be in complete command not only of the Space Lab, but of the weapon, which would by then be in repair.

As a final test of its operation, it would be amusing to use the Indian, Blackhawk, as a target; and perhaps the captain as well, though he might have to use them as examples sooner--the captain and some others.

The fortuitous accident that had put Hot Rod in operation ahead of schedule had also stepped many plans months ahead. No violence had actually been planned until the weapon had been thoroughly tested; but now things looked to be working in orderly fashion; working with the well-oiled precision of a master-plan, properly designed and properly executed in the proper military manner.

Only one small difficulty marred the current smoothness of the operation. The Security men were attempting to instruct the computer to precess the wheel back to its original position.

In reply, for every figure of any type sent over the keyboard, the Cow sent back a half-yard of confused, rambling figures and would do nothing else.

General Elbertson snapped a single command. "Turn the thing off. We'll get to that later."

Busily the men switched the keys to the "off" position. Just as busily the Cow continued to pour out figures, interspersed with rambling pages of physics covering such odd subjects as the yak population of the Andes, the number of buffalo that were purported to be able to dance on the rim of the Grand Canyon--a fantastic figure--some confused statement about the birth rate in Indo-China, and an equally confused statement about the learning rate in schools in Haddock.

Eventually, if one cared to sort it out, the Cow might produce the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for the year 1911; and then again, possibly for the year 33,310. Actually, it only depended on what you wished to select. It was a vast mass of material that was being happily upchucked into the lap of the confused communications officer and his two, unhelpful assistants.

Not a single one of the view panels, either those at the computer's console or the ones at the captain's console, were presenting a readable picture. Hodgepodges and flickerings, yes. Scraps of star-lit sky--perhaps. Or vaguely wavy electronic patterns that would have been familiar to anyone who ever looked at a broken TV set.

The Cow was really wild.

Leaning back in the captain's chair, watching the screen casually, General Elbertson chuckled.

He didn't, he noticed, feel nearly so weary.

The position actually was good, even if those idiots didn't know what they were doing with the computer. That could be straightened out.

Somewhere, he was sure, there was cause for great pride in his actions.

The peaceful glow of victory seemed to settle about him.

He HAD won. He was in the captain's chair of the only space station that man had ever put in orbit.

His worst enemy was tied to a chair only a few feet away.

At times like this a man could glow, could feel expansive even towards his enemies.

Naylor wasn't such a bad chap. If he hadn't thrown in with the scientists he might even now be a fellow officer, entitled to full respect and honor.

General Elbertson did not consider it odd that his face was suddenly flushed with triumph. There was a glow of energy. Why, he could even get up and dance a jig--and this he proceeded to do.

Around him, the two Security men joined in, followed by the communications officer--and then, realizing that their friends couldn't dance with them, they undid the ropes and invited the captain and Bessie to join them.

Soon they were all whirling giddily, though there was hardly the space for it. Maybe they should go next door, into the large clear area that was the ship's gymnasium when not being used as a morgue.

Surprisingly, amidst these dancing figures, a head emerged from the floor. All of them leaned over to laugh at it; and even the needle gun failed to frighten them.

* * * * *

Bessie had a hangover. She groaned and stretched. There certainly must have been lots of vodka at that party last night.

Party? What party?

It was difficult to separate various concepts and orient herself to a present where and when.

Slowly the soft susurrus background song of the big wheel penetrated consciousness, and another, closer roar. Millie taking a shower, she realized.

Suddenly she came out of the vagueness wide awake, the hangover cleared magically, evaporating much too quickly to have been caused by alcohol.

But she had been tied up to a chair on the bridge beside Nails, prisoner of the Security men, only minutes ago.

WHAT was going on?

Millie stepped out of the shower into the compartment the two girls occupied, and smiled.

"How're you doing? About to come out of it?"

"Da, Da eta--" with an effort Bessie switched to English. "Explosion? What happened?"

"Oh, Mike just had to get the Security men off guard. Something to do with the air supply. He asked me to apologize to you if you don't feel so good. But after all, we got the Lab back and that's the main thing."

"Security. Oh! I've got to get to Nails right away. They've taken over Earth, too, you know. We've got to make sure they don't get control of the projects. We'll be shot of course. But their ambitions rest on having control of Hot Rod and the wheel. Probably secret control--"

"But--"

"Nails has got to figure out how to destroy the project without too many casualties. Maybe he can get some of our men back to Earth, though of course we're all expendable. We can't let these monsters have the wheel and Hot Rod! That's what they need for power--"

"Bessie--"

"Of course, we can stand and fight for as long as possible, but we're sitting ducks, and even with Hot Rod there's not much we can do--we can't fire on Earth, we'd hit friend as well as enemy. So I think we've just got to stand and fight a bit, and then destroy both Hot Rod and the wheel. Anyhow, that's Nails' decision, and I've got to get to Nails--"

"Whoa!" Millie finally managed to stem the flow. "We're not stuck--not just stuck here in orbit any longer, waiting to see what's going on on Earth," she said softly, "or what they're going to do about us 'mad scientists.' Mike and Ishie started this whole thing when one of their experiments turned out to be a space drive, and the boys are working real hard on getting a drive unit set up capable of taking our whole complex out into space. But they need somebody to tell the captain ... uh ... properly ... as soon as he's awake that is ... uh ... you know what I mean."

"Whoa, yourself, girl. What's this--space drive?"

"Well, they didn't find out themselves until after it had wiped out Thule Base--nearly ten hours after that, in fact. That magneto-ionic thing the Sacred Cow's been talking about--they invented that real quick to cover up. You see ... oh, it's too complicated.

"Look, we've got a real _space_ drive. We can go to the moon or Mars--or Pluto if we want to. And we've got to let Nails know real quick that he can get us out of here--and without making him mad that we wrecked Thule Base. But really, after the way those Security goons acted, maybe he won't be mad if you handle it right. How about it?"

The hangover was disappearing magically. But this flow of information was nearly as bad.

A space drive? Bessie knew she couldn't evaluate one way or the other on that. That would be Nails' problem.

But they were in a pickle, and it would be up to her to see that Nails didn't waste too much time evaluating things. Those Security men had been prepared to play real rough, and more of them were on their way up.

"Where is Nails?"

"The boys put him to bed. In his quarters. He got a dose of the same stuff that put you out. He ought to be coming to almost any time now. And probably mad about the whole thing."

Instantly, Bessie was on her feet, flinging on clothes, and out down the corridor toward Nails' private stateroom.

* * * * *

It had been thirty-two hours since Major--General--whatever it was Elbertson--had been defeated on the bridge for the final time.

He and his men were now securely locked in one of the empty labs. The paralysis effect of the needle gun had probably worn off. Mike hadn't checked to find out.

Bessie and her relief operators were watching the prisoners through a video display on the Sacred Cow's console, and would report anything unusual that went on to Captain Andersen.

Mike, Ishie, Millie, Paul and Tombu had completed the new Confusor drive units, and they were nearly installed.