Chapter 11
More time would be taken arranging the engineering quarters so that the installation of her control panel and the units themselves would be completed.
This part, Mike didn't like too well. It meant re-arranging his already carefully arranged units, and considerable re-wiring without interfering with any of the basic functions of the wheel.
The new units had turned out to look very little like the original. Fourteen feet long by eighteen inches outside diameter, they looked very much like a group of stove-pipes arranged in a circular pattern around the engineering quarters, braced from wall to wall.
The control console itself, even though made rapidly, had the look of a carefully planned and well-made unit; something that might have turned up in one of Earth's better R&D labs, as part of a multi-million dollar project.
All together, the drive rods would provide something better than a tenth of a gee thrust for the combined mass of the wheel, Hot Rod, the pile and the other subsidiary units around them.
A tenth of a gee. Not enough to land on Earth; but with things down there the way they were now, who wanted to?
With these units, the whole storehouse of the solar system was at their disposal.
With these units they could reach the asteroids.
With these units, they could range as far out as Pluto without fear of consequences--without, Mike added to himself, even the fear of radiation that was a constant threat to them here, for the farther from the sun they went, the less radiation they would have to endure. The three months would be extended. For those who needed it, better shielding could be found.
The system was theirs.
Possibly, also the stars beyond.
That, he reminded himself, if they could get these units installed before the scuttlebug arrived.
Undoubtedly, Earth Security had sent arms as well as men.
Where they were, not strictly on course, but still in a satellite-type orbit, they remained sitting ducks for any number of countermeasures that Earth might throw against them.
Once gone from this orbit, there was not sufficient rocket-power on Earth to track them down.
If they took Hot Rod with them, there was no single weapon at man's command that could stop them. And take Hot Rod with them they would.
In his address to the ship's personnel this morning, Captain Nails had made it quite clear that they wanted no part of the plots and counterplots of Earth; that theirs was the job of scientists, not soldiers; that a path was open to them that they would follow.
Later, they could return. Later, with the supplies that were free to be taken from space, they could build strength.
They could return quietly, one by one, two by two, at times and places of their own choosing.
Then, and only then, they could lend aid to those on Earth who would always fight for freedom.
But not now.
They were yet weak; the path of escape and the path of promise lay before them.
The only help they could be would be to follow that path.
It might not be that the path led where they wanted to go--or where they thought they were going--but nevertheless the path was there, and follow it they must.
* * * * *
Quite a speech, Mike thought. There had been much more, but that, and the Declaration of the Freedom of Space, were the parts that had stayed with him.
That last they had broadcast back to Earth, thrown, as it were, into the screaming teeth of the new dictatorial leaders.
Mike leaned back from what he was doing and caught Ishie's eye.
He chuckled, and said "That was quite a mass of stuff that the Cow upchucked on your command. Why didn't you just freeze her like I thought you were going to do?"
"Confusion say," quoth Ishie blandly, "he who would play poker with dishonest men should never put all cards on table too soon. Or in other words, Confusion is the better part of valor. The garbage made them think that the Cow had sprung a cog somewhere, without ever guessing that we had control.
"And by the way, Mike, that was quite a trick you pulled with the air supply. Having the Cow boost up the oxygen on the bridge until those idiots got so drunk they were climbing the walls."
"You don't happen to have any education as a psychologist, do you Ishie? Or perhaps a brain surgeon?" Mike inquired. "It seems a shame to drag those Security apes along with us. We can't just dump them overboard, but it would be nice if we could just confuse them or something."
"Sorry, Mike. Techniques of brainwashing are a bit out of my line. Beside, Confusion say those who run from wolf pack have better chance if they leave some meat behind for the wolves to fight over. I've already spoken to Captain Nails about it. We _intend_ to dump them overboard--just twenty minutes before the scuttlebug arrives. In suits, of course," he added. "Then we'll take off and see whether Security takes care of its own."
There was a possibility, Mike felt grimly, that perhaps Security wouldn't take care of its own. But then, he asked himself, did he really care? And found it very difficult to come up with an answer. But he realized with vast respect that the master of Confusion was not himself confused as to the issues involved before them.
"It's lucky for us," Mike said, "that you happened to pick this time to be aboard. Your work would have gone more smoothly if you'd waited until the next go-round."
Ishie grinned, for once slightly embarrassed. "Confusion say," he said, "luck is for those who make it. I expected that with Hot Rod coming into operation, some such play would be attempted. I've met Security before."
Millie laid down her soldering iron, and disappeared through the bulkhead, returning shortly with a tray of sandwiches and coffee.
Coffee in real cups, for there was spin on the satellite, things were working well, and those bottles--ugh.
"Relax, boys, we've still got three hours," she told them. "Radar hasn't spotted the scuttlebug yet. But our new communications officer, Lal, has them on the line. He's apparently convinced them of his honorable intentions and gotten an exact prediction of arrival time. They think Major ... uh, General Elbertson has the situation well in hand. They even think Hot Rod's operational!"
The crew relaxed around the circular room, squatting wherever convenient, and sipping luxuriously at the cups of coffee, munching sandwiches, and for the moment content.
Hot Rod had been secured to the ship with extra acceleration cables, and as soon as practicable a remote-controlled Confusor would be placed aboard to assist in any fast maneuvers that they might have to make; but for now there was no acceleration, and the group composed of the wheel, the big laser, the dump and the pile moved peacefully in orbit under free-fall conditions.
Millie began to hum a soft tune. Someone else brought forth a harmonica that had been smuggled aboard, and suddenly Paul Chernov burst into song, his deep baritone, perhaps inspired by the captain's speech earlier in the day, lending the wailing "The Spaceman's Lament," an extra folk beat:
_"The captain spoke of stars and bars Of far-off places like maybe Mars But the slipsticks slip on this ship of ours-- And we'll get where I wasn't going!"_
Mike looked over at Millie as she drank her coffee, a slender, dark figure--able with a soldering iron; able as a defending panther; able as a spaceman's mate. He was glad the captain of the ship was a proper marrying officer, for he had an idea the feeling he felt was mutual, as he joined with the crew in the chorus:
_"There's a sky-trail leading from here to there And another yonder showing-- But when we get to the end of the run It'll be where I wasn't going...."_
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